Jacob pulls me flush against the long, hard lines of his body again and adrenaline surges through me at the idea that I’ve actually given up this much control. But then he kisses me, and I can’t think. This is not just any kiss. Not a kiss we’ve shared before. He kisses me like he owns me: possessive, intense, and yet somehow he’s savoring me, drinking me in. And once again I think, oh God, the man can kiss. Oh God, I’m so wet. My nipples ache. My body thrums and yet nervous energy radiates through me, and won’t let me just relax into him.
“Relax, Jewel,” he says softly, clearly reading my mind, his hands stroking my hair in what might actually be a gentle touch, if he was a gentle man. But he’s not gentle, he’s something else I cannot explain. Something that works for me in a way I didn’t want anyone to work for me.
“I’m relaxed,” I say. “Well, as relaxed as a control freak gets, cuffed, by the only man she’s ever let cuff her. Who she’s just met.”
He tilts my face to his. “You can break the cuffs. You just said that, but you don’t have to. You want free, you tell me. Okay?”
I like this question. I like the vehement way he’s asked it. Like he needs to know this is my choice. Instead of needing to know he’s in control. “Yes,” I say. “Okay.”
“The idea here is that next time you don’t let me cuff you. You want me to do it. Because this is about pleasure and escape. Blocking out Detective Carpenter and Major—”
“Robot?”
“Yes.” His lips quirk at the corners. “You don’t have to be tough. You don’t have to push back. The idea is to just let go.”
“I can’t just let go. It’s not—it’s just not who I am.”
“You can,” he says, reaching in his pocket and pulling out his phone.
My heart races. “What are you doing?”
“Easy, sweetheart. I’m just putting on some music.” He brushes his lips over mine. “I don’t want you to have room to think of anything but the music and me.”
“Right. Yes. I guess I am a little on edge.”
“Nervous?” he supplies.
“Or something.”
He responds by punching a few buttons on his phone, before setting it down on the night stand, while Imagine Dragons “Believer” starts to play, the words filling the air:
First things first
I'ma say all the words inside my head
He grips my wrists with one hand and pulls me to him, but he doesn’t kiss me. He watches me, his free hand stroking over my breast and then down my ribcage, over my backside, before he leans in, his cheek next to mine, lips at my ear. “The many ways I want to fuck you,” he says, “can’t even begin to start tonight.”
I breathe out with the intimacy of those words that are somehow naughtier because they came from him and I actually want him to do what he promises. His lips find my lips, a breath from touching, as he asks, “You sure you don’t want gentle?”
“If I wanted gentle, the fireman would be here right now.”
“You had to taunt me, didn’t you?”
“I like taunting you.”
“Probably not a smart choice when I decide when you come, not the nice guy fireman. Who I suspect would be happy with a fake orgasm because he can’t tell the real thing.”
He’s right. I have faked. A few times, but I don’t reply. I can’t. Jacob’s fingers find my nipple and he starts tugging and teasing it. My sex clenches and just when I would squeeze my thighs together, his leg wedges between them.
“Don’t do that,” he says, his hand sliding down my belly to my sex, where he caresses my nub. “Because then I can’t do this.” His fingers press along the wet, now aching, seam of my body, and I swear, I could come so very easily right now. As if he knows where my head is, and my body, yet again, his hand suddenly moves and settles on my hip and he kisses me again, turning my back to the bed at the same time.
We go down on the mattress and he’s on top of me, and he’s pressed my wrists over my head. “Keep them there,” he orders, his hands on my arms, slowly traveling downward, until one of them is on my breast, and he’s kissing me, tongue stroking against mine, lips then caressing a path over my cheek. Down my jaw, to my neck, and then lower. He cups both of my breasts and licks each nipple, sucking and repeating, left to right. I arch into his touch, his mouth, and he travels up my body and kisses me before returning to my puckered nipple. His fingers settle between my legs, stroking, teasing, driving me crazy, and just when his mouth has teased a path to join his fingers, he stops. His hand goes to my hips and he shifts us, and then me, turning me to my stomach, and I tuck my hands beneath me, ready to lift myself. He’s over me before I can, hands on either side of me. “Don’t move, or my mouth won’t go where we both want it to.”
“Next time you wear the cuffs,” I whisper.
He laughs, a low sexy sound that makes me smile at the same moment that he smacks my ass. I gasp and then laugh, and oh my God, I’m so aroused it hurts. He leans into me again, near my ear. “If you move, I might even spank you. And you’d like it.”
“Like I’m going to beg for you to kill me?”
“How about I make you beg for that spanking?”
“That’s never going to happen,” I promise, my words denying the ache in my sex.
“No?” he challenges.
“No,” I say, and damn it, why am I this aroused by this conversation? I don’t do kink. I don’t do spankings. But then, I don’t do cuffs either and I’m in them now.
“Maybe not tonight,” he says. “But soon.”
With that promise, he moves away, and the ache in my sex is the only thing that keeps me laying there. Spanking? No. That will never happen. My ass tingles with the very thought, and I find myself pressing my arms against the sides of my aching breasts. Behind me, the sounds of Jacob undressing begin. The rustle of clothing. His boot thumping to the ground. His belt clinking. The music shifts and I laugh again because it’s gnash’s i hate u, i love u, that pretty much sums up how I feel about Jacob. Well, the hate part doesn’t feel much like hate at all.
The bed shifts and he is back over me, the hard length of his erection settling against my backside, while his hands settle by my shoulders. His lips are by my ear. “I’m back,” he says softly, as if I am not fully aware of his naked body pressed to my naked body. He nips my earlobe before his hands are dragging down my back and until he shackles my hip and lifts me to my knees, forcing me to hold my weight on my hands. He kisses my backside and scrapes his teeth across one delicate cheek. And right when he literally lays on his back, and pulls my sex to his mouth, my cellphone chooses to ring.
“Oh no,” I breathe out. “I’m on rotation. I have to get that. I can’t believe this, but I have to get that.”
“I’m getting it,” Jacob says, as if this is just fine, not a problem at all, when I’m eighty percent to orgasm and have no control of my hands.
Before I can even consider which way to move, Jacob turns off the music and hands me the phone. I settle on my elbows, my ass still in the air, and when I would roll over, Jacob is back between my legs, holding me in place, his breath hot on my clit. And I still have to answer. I hit answer, and without looking at the caller ID, say, “Detective Carpenter.”
“Detective,” my boss says, at the same moment, that Jacob licks me.
I hold back a pant. “Yes, Lieutenant?” I bite out, squeezing Jacob’s head only to have him laugh and lick me again.
“Why do you sound breathless?” he demands.
“I’m running,” I say. “You know I run when I’m,” Jacob licks me again, and I bite my lip, “when I’m thinking through cases.”
“You can’t find bodies on a run.”
I clench my fist at the way Jacob is now stroking my clit, looking down at him with a glare he can’t see because he’s facing in the other direction. “I’ll find the bodies,” I promise. “I’m working on leads.”
“There is pressure from all kinds of directions on this. We need a conviction and so does the DA’s office.”
“I know,” I say, my voice cracking. “I know. I—”
“Finish your damn run, and get back to work.” He hangs up. I drop the phone.
“Jacob, damn it,” I hiss. “I cannot believe I was doggy-style, in cuffs, talking to my boss about dead bodies when you were—”
He suckles me and I have no words left. I just give in to the pleasure. It’s here. It’s there. It’s everywhere. My entire body is charged and the minute his fingers slide inside me, I’m done. I tumble over into orgasm with such force that my body jerks. Jacob does this slow, perfect lick and eases me down, as if he reads exactly what I need when I need it, but the minute I come back to the present, I whisper, “I hate you right now.” He laughs again, and I scowl even though he can’t see it since I’m facedown on the blanket. “And you laugh at my torture.”
He turns me over and slides up my body, the sweet weight of him settling on top of me. “This would not be a good time to tell you that I’m pretty sure you didn’t disconnect the line, right?”
“What? No. Tell me no.” I grab my phone and it’s disconnected now. “I hope he hung right up.”
“Just tell him it was a really good run,” he says, his lips lowering to mine.
“I really do hate you right now.”
He kisses me, a long, salty, slide of his tongue, before he whispers. “Does it taste like I hate you?” He presses inside me, sliding deep, stroking all those sensitive nerves on the way, before he settles in and repeats, “Does it feel like I hate you?”
I grip his shoulders, my lashes lowering with the feel of him inside me. “You are—”
“I’m what?” he asks pulling back, doing a slow slide until he all but pulls out. “I’m what, Jewel?”
“Gentle,” I say, because I can’t help myself. “Too damn gentle.”
He thrusts into me, his lips lingering above mine. “Is that right?”
“Yes. Fuck me already, will you?”
He doesn’t immediately move, and I don’t know why, or what he’s thinking, but when his mouth crashes onto mine, it’s rough with demand, his tongue stroking deep, the taste of him raw, hot. Addictive. Arousing. Overwhelmingly right in every way. I arch into him and he thrusts into me and it’s a wild, crazy, intense rush of bodies grinding together, lips touching, tongues licking. Teeth scraping. There is nothing but him. Nothing but this and us and I can’t get enough of him, until finally, I can’t hold back. I can’t stop the rush of need that tumbles into another orgasm. I gasp and my sex clenches around him. He lets out a low, guttural groan that fills the room while he fills me with the heat of his release.
We melt into each other in utter sated completion, his weight resting on my and his arms. “Are you still afraid?” he teases near my ear.
“I was never afraid,” I scoff, when my phone rings again. “Not again,” I say, reaching for it and this time I look at the ID. “My boss again.” I answer. “Lieutenant.”
“One more thing,” he says, as Jacob pulls out of me and stuffs tissue between my legs. “You’re off rotation.”
“What?” I ask, sitting up, shocked at this new turn of events. “We’re short-staffed. Why would you do that?”
“Find me the bodies and deal with your stalker. Don’t argue. The decision is final.” He hangs up. “Damn it.” I look at Jacob. “I need these cuffs off.” I scoot to the edge of the bed and he grabs them and yanks them apart.
“What happened?” he asks, reaching for his pants.
I stand up and toss the tissues. “He’s pissed. That’s what happened.” I can’t find my underwear and I just grab my pants and pull them on. “He took me out of the rotation,” I add as Jacob pulls on his shirt, and hands me my bra.
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“Yes,” I say, taking my bra and putting it on. “I’m off rotation and I’m not allowed at the station and that’s your fault. That’s not where I’m going with this.”
“You’re a damn good detective,” he says, as we both pull on our shoes and holsters.
“Good or bad, I’m basically on leave. He said to find the mother and her unborn child, and get him a conviction before I come back. Oh and end this slayer threat.” I press my fingers to my forehead. “This is not good. This is what I do and it feels like this is the prelude to undoing what I do. I don’t know how to operate outside this box.” I pull on my jacket.
He steps in front of me, his hands settling on my waist beneath it. “Because this is how you cope with knowing how many monsters live in this world.”
“You see too much.”
“Because I understand. I know what you need and how you feel.”
“Because that’s what the army did for you.”
“Yes,” he confirms.
“But you got out.”
“And that story about me getting out, which you obviously want to hear, will require that trust I don’t have yet.”
“Because Jesse Marks is involved?”
“Jesse Marks isn’t why I got out.”
My cellphone rings again and I grab it from the bed where I’d left it. “Rodriquez,” I say, frowning.
“The guy that shared a workspace with you?” he asks.
“Yes. And he never calls me, so he must have gotten my rotation and wants to bitch me out.” I hit answer. “Rodriquez.”
“That guy I told you about. The one who does shit for people. He called me. Says he’s in danger. I’m headed that way. How about backing me up and then you can hit him up about your case, too?”
“Yes. Of course. Now?”
“Now. I’m almost there. You have the address?”
“Text it to me to be safe.”
“Will do.” He hangs up and I look at Jacob, my brow furrowing again.
“What is it?” he asks.
“We need to go out but—you see, Rodriquez told me about a guy that was ‘the guy’ to get rid of bodies. He wouldn’t tell me how he knew him, which was odd. Now he tells me that same guy called him in distress, in some kind of danger.”
“And he’s on his way there and wants you to back him up,” he assumes.
“Yes. And that feels—”
“Off,” he supplies. “Agreed.”
“Then Rodriquez could be walking into a trap,” I say. “We have to go.” I step around him and head for the living room. Jacob is right behind me and as soon as we’re on the stairs outside the apartment, he’s by my side, dialing his phone. “Yeah, Ash,” he says. “That call with Sierra is off for now. We’re headed to back up a detective Jewel works with.” I hand him the card Rodriquez gave me and he takes it. “Check out this guy,” he tells Asher, “and tell the team this is where we’re going.” He reads off the address and name and he’s off the phone by the time we reach the street.
“It’s clear across town,” I say. “The fastest way is going to be the subway.”
“Agreed,” he says again, and we hurry into a station.
Once we’re in the subway, on a car, sharing another pole, he says, “You do know that we could be headed into a trap, too, right?”
“Yes. But that’s okay. I have a big bad Green Beret with me.”