Chapter Nine

 

I sat in the players’ lounge, Rick on one side, hugging me close and Carly on the other, encouraging me to have sips of water. Brick sat opposite looking grim and cracking his knuckles every so often.

Dale was quick to arrive and slipped in past two police officers guarding the lounge.

“How the fuck could this have happened?” Rick demanded as a way of greeting.

Dale shook his head and sat next to Brick, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward. Somewhere in the recess of my mind I thought how small he looked. I’d gotten used to big men, enormous men. They’d become the norm for me now.

“To tell you the truth, Mr. Lewis, and I hate to admit it, this was one hell of a screw-up on the force’s behalf. Miss Sharp was supposed to be held secure but some dumbass let her out on bail yesterday evening.”

Brick banged a clenched fist on his wide thigh. “Of all the goddamn fucks-ups. She had a gun, a gun pointed at Dana, Ramrod and Carly. If I hadn’t been talking to Carly as she walked into the restroom God knows what could have happened. Someone’s head will roll for this. I won’t let it rest until it does.”

“And neither will I, sir,” Dale said, gnawing the side of his cheek and eyeing Brick’s flushed face and clenched fists.

“But, but how did she get in here, into the rink?” I asked, remembering Rick having to punch in a security code.

It was the first time I’d spoken in a while and they all turned to me. Rick tightened his hold around my shoulders.

Dale frowned. “From what she’s just told my officers, she ducked in with the early morning cleaning staff. She must have been hanging around for hours, laying low and staying out of sight.”

“But how did she know I was going to be here?” I asked. “I didn’t even know I was going to be here until this morning.” My mind flitted back to Rick’s sweet way of persuading me. It felt like a lifetime ago, a beautiful but distant memory.

“I’m guessing she didn’t, Miss, but when she saw you she decided to make you her target rather than Mr. Lewis.”

A shudder ran up my spine and I touched behind my ear where the gun had brutally shoved into tender flesh.

“So how long do ya think she’ll get?” Rick asked. “Behind bars.”

 Dale shrugged. “Hopefully long enough for her to forget she’s in love with you.”

Rick snorted. “Strangest fucking love I’ve ever seen.”

“She’s crazy,” Dale said matter-of-factly. “She believes it all, every deluded word she’s ever said or written, she thinks it’s all true. But you can rest assured she’ll be institutionalized for many years to come. In fact, she may never be out if she doesn’t satisfy a board of psychiatrists that she’s mentally stable and not a risk to anyone.”

I sighed. “Well I for one hope she doesn’t get out anytime soon, because I couldn’t go through that again.”

“You won’t have to,” Rick said earnestly. “I promise, baby, you won’t have to.”

 

After completing statements, Rick and I went straight to his home. The thought of a big meal turned our stomachs and I think it did Carly and Brick’s, too. Plus I wanted to wash the plaster dust from my hair and the scent of Laurie’s hideous body odor and perfume from my skin.

Dropping my purse on the chaise, I waited while Rick silenced the alarm system.

“Do you mind if I go take a shower?” I asked.

“You want company?”

I shook my head. “No, I need a few minutes alone to get my thoughts back together.”

He nodded. “Yeah, you do that, take as long as you need. I’ll rustle something up to eat.”

I smiled my thanks, kicked off my shoes and went up the stairs, gripping the handrail as I went.

By the time I came back down, the smell of waffles was floating from the kitchen and my stomach gave a growl of approval. Suddenly I was hungry.

“Feeling better now?” Rick asked, looking up from pouring coffee.

I nodded. “Yes, thanks.”

“Come on, this is ready, let’s go sit and eat.”

I followed him into the lounge, adjusting the waist of my sweats and pulling the arms of my cream sweater over my hands. I’d tugged my hair into a low ponytail and wore no makeup, just sweetly scented face cream.

“Here you go,” he said, pointing to the huge squishy brown sofa. “Sit and I’ll find us something to watch on TV, give you some distraction.” He glanced at my hands bunched in my sweater. “You cold?”

“A little.”

He reached for a remote and flicked to life a gas fire full of artificial logs.

Instantly heat radiated toward me. I sighed and rested back. The couch was so big that sitting right into the seat meant that my legs stuck out straight. It was like a Jack and the Beanstalk couch, made for a giant.

Rick looked at my legs and smiled, passed me my mug of coffee and a plate of warm waffles. “Eat,” he said. “It’ll do you good.”

He held his own plate of waffles, twice the amount of mine, and trawled the TV channels. I folded my legs under and looked around the room. It was the first time I’d been in there. Two bay windows held views across the immaculate lawn and were bordered by navy-and-cream-striped curtains complete with matching valance and tie-backs. An enormous glass cabinet full of hockey trophies stood between the windows. The flat-screen TV was supported by a sleek black stand and above the mantel was a huge oil painting depicting hockey players slashing over ice and angling sticks at a puck—their faces steely and determined, their bodies looming before a blurred crowd.

“You like Friends?” Rick asked.

I smiled. “Seen every episode more times than I care to admit, but yes, I do like Friends. It’s good vegging-out TV.”
He dropped the remote on the couch and sat back next to me, somehow managing to keep his feet planted on the floor.

We sat in companionable silence, eating, sipping coffee and watching the antics of Ross and Rachael in Vegas drawing on one another’s faces and Monica and Chandler gambling like lunatics. One episode finished and another began. Rick took my empty plate and mug, set them on the table and tugged me into his arms.

“I’m so sorry about today,” he murmured into my hair. “I wish I could rewind time and make it not happen.”

“You shouldn’t apologize.” I looked up and touched his soul patch with the tip of my index finger. “She’s the crazy one, she’s the guilty one, not you. You did nothing wrong.”

“But if you hadn’t got mixed up with me in the first place then it never would have happened. A regular guy doesn’t have crazed stalkers threatening the women in their lives.”

“Trust me, there’s crazy in all walks of life, not just yours.” I brushed my lips over his. “Besides I don’t want a regular guy. I want you, a man who puts himself between his friends and danger. A man who looks crazy in the eye and holds it together.” My fingers slid down to the hollow of his throat, slipped lower and pressed over his sternum. “A man who was willing to take a bullet in the chest…for me.”

He sucked in a breath, his mouth tightened and his eyebrows dropped low. “I’ve never felt so relieved as when she moved that gun from you to me.”

“I know. I could see it in your eyes.” My heart was swelling at the memory of his face when the weapon had turned on him. He’d been so brave, so fearless. He truly was my hero.

“You didn’t believe all that crap I was telling her, did you?” he asked, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth.

“No, of course not.”

“It was to distract her, make her think her plan was working. That she still had a chance with me.”

I smiled. “I know and it worked.”

“Yeah, she didn’t take much persuading, did she? Proves just insane she is to think we were about to get passionate while she had a gun pressed to my chest.”

I sighed and twisted so I could kneel beside him on the sofa. “Well, for all Laurie is crazy I can see why she was in love with you.” I slid both my hands over his shoulders and studied his eyes. They looked tired, he had slight rings beneath them and his thick, jet-black lashes hung low.

“Thought she was in love with me,” he corrected, slipping his hands into the small of my back and rubbing gently.

“Yes, of course, thought,” I said, dipping my head.

He lifted my chin with his thumb and his tired eyes suddenly sparkled. “Go on, what else were you going to say?”

I couldn’t deny my feelings any longer. I hadn’t planned on falling in love with Rick “Ramrod” Lewis, but every beat of my heart told me it was too late, I had. “Because…because, you’re a pretty easy guy to love.”

He frowned slightly. “Are you just guessing or are you speaking from experience?”

Cupping the sides of his neck, I felt his pulse beating strong and steady beneath the surface of his skin. “I’m not guessing, Rick, I know. I have firsthand experience with what it’s like to love you.”

His whole face softened and something in the depths of his eyes melted. He pulled me close and kissed me gently, tenderly, as if I might break. His tongue dipped into my mouth searching for mine and I gave myself up to him, held on to what was real and true and shifted crazy and evil from my mind.

He maneuvered me so I was on my back lengthwise on the couch and sinking into the cushions. His thighs slotted between my legs and he hovered over me, taking his weight on his elbows on either side of my head.

I tangled my fingers in his hair and tightened my grip on his head, pulling him closer. I sucked his bottom lip into my mouth and teased it with the tip of my tongue, sipping in his sweet waffle and coffee flavor as if it were fine wine. He mimicked each stroke with his own, his scratchy facial hair just catching on my chin and reminding me of the raw maleness that was uniquely Rick.

We were as one, so connected. I’d never felt like this before about anyone. Rick made me feel sexy, respected and safe. As if I was the most beautiful, perfect woman in the entire world, and to me he was the most perfect, beautiful man in the entire world.

I curled my fingers into his T-shirt and as we kissed slowly, his chest created a friction on my nipples with each indrawn breath I took. Through my clothes my breasts tightened and the horror of the morning faded, reduced in size until it was as distant as a far-away galaxy. I couldn’t let Laurie be here with us now. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

He pressed forward, tempting me with the steely bulge in his jeans as it rubbed against my inner thigh. An urgency to feel flesh on flesh grew within me. “Rick,” I whispered.

“Yeah, babe?”

“Make love to me.”

“That’s what I wanna do.” He kissed across my cheek and down my neck. “But I don’t think you’re up to it. You need to rest. I probably shouldn’t even be doing this to you.”

I twisted my head, giving him better access to the spot that was hot-wired to my pussy. “I’m okay, I feel so much better now. I just want to be as near to you as possible, I need us to be joined, be in your arms.”

“But you were so pale, so weak?” he whispered, his breaths warm and thick on my skin. “I was so worried about you.”

“I’m fine now, really. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

His big body resting over mine, the heat pouring from him into me and his smell, his taste—it was everything I ever needed. I was more than fine. “Yes.” I squirmed into him, my lower legs curling behind his knees and clamping him closer. “I’m sure.”

He groaned, a deep rumble of a sound that sent goose bumps of pleasure rippling over my skin. “It’s what I want to do, so badly. I need to prove to myself that you’re okay, that you’re here with me, alive, and that you’re mine.” He raised his head and looked down at me, his eyes stormy with desire. “Dana, tell me you’re mine.”

“Yes, yes, I’m yours,” I said, tugging his T-shirt upward. “Only yours, Rick, only yours.” I glided my palms over the rigid tendons and muscles of his lower back, delighting in the smooth acres of warm flesh. Dipping beneath the waistband of his jeans, I skimmed my fingertips over the first rise of his damn fine buttocks.

He suddenly sat back on his heels, forcing me to slip my fingers out of his jeans. He fisted his T-shirt behind his shoulder blades and dragged it off. It landed on the floor with a soft whump. I copied him, tugging at my sweater and arching my back. He helped me ease it over my head, then it too was discarded.

“We’re gonna do this real slow,” he said, his eyes roving to my breasts encased in a pale pink satin bra. “I’m not having your breathing go all funny again.”

“My breathing is just fine,” I said, although I got the feeling it wouldn’t be in another few minutes, not if he kept looking at me which such an expression of dark, carnal desire.

“I’m being serious,” he said gruffly, reaching his wallet from his back pocket. “No funny business, Dana, just real slow and calm.” He plucked out a purple wrapped condom.

“You’re the one who always starts the funny business,” I said with a cheeky twitch of my eyebrows.

One side of his mouth tilted in a warm, sexy smile then his heavy gaze trailed to my breasts again.

I’d flattened my palm over my sternum and was rubbing a slow circle. When I spotted his gaze I peeked the tips of my fingers under my bra, just far enough to rub over my nipple.

His jaw tensed.

I sucked in a breath that hitched my breasts upward and slipped my hand in farther so I was holding the entire breast. I squeezed gently, my nipple jabbed into my palm and I gave a small sigh and fluttered shut my eyes.

Aware of him twisting the front clasp of my bra, I continued to touch myself. The bra relaxed, releasing my breasts and I scooped the other up and began a combination of massage and nipple tweaking, thoroughly enjoying the act of touching myself while he watched.

“You have amazing breasts,” he murmured.

“Thanks.” I opened my eyes. His chest was rising and falling in long, deep breaths. His hands were balled into fists and rested on his thick thighs.

“Is that how you like to be touched?”

“Mmm, yes.”

“Does it feel nice?”

“Nicer when you do it,” I said, smiling gently up at him.

He shoved his hand through his hair and it flopped down messily as he reached for the waistband of my sweats. “Lose these,” he said.

I lifted and allowed him to tug them completely off.

“Pretty panties,” he said, sliding them down and looping them over my feet.

“Did you even see the color?” I asked with a smile. They’d disappeared pretty quickly.

He glanced at the floor. “Sure, they match your bra.”

I flicked the bra away and lay stretched out before him, on the couch, naked. It felt so right, so natural to be this way with Rick.

He stood, shucked out of his jeans but kept his white boxers on. “Let me in again,” he said, nudging my legs apart and kneeling back between them. But he didn’t lie down, he stayed on his heels, fists on his thighs, looking down at my spread pussy.

My heart rate picked up, anticipation a heady drug all its own. He was studying me so closely, as if he’d never seen a pussy before.

“Touch yourself,” he whispered. “Show me, Dana, show me how you like to be touched down there.”

Oh God. Why did he always take me just a little out of my comfort zone? It made me so damn horny.

I was resting my hands on my belly now so I ruffled my fingers through my pubic hair and sought my soft, damp folds. I was swelling with desire, moisture dampening the silky smooth skin. Not taking my gaze from his face, I parted the fleshy lips of my pussy, exposing the sweet skin beneath to the bright daylight of the room. I knew the dark rose-pink of my aroused feminine places would be startling against the blackness of my strip of hair. I also knew the musky scent of my need would be swirling up to his nostrils the same way it was mine.

“Touch your clit,” he said in a low growling voice, slipping his hand beneath the waistband of his boxers. “Show me how your clit likes to be touched.”

“Like this,” I murmured, excitement coursing through me. Despite my slow movements and his unnervingly still reaction, my heart was racing. I sought out the sensitive knot of my clit and swirled the tip of my finger over it, causing myself to gasp. I separated my first two fingers of my right hand, slid them on either side of my clit and began to rub, a small scissoring, rocking action that never failed to bring me to climax.

Instantly the pleasure was there. I was so turned-on, so eager to please Rick, to please myself, and my clit was desperate to take everything it could. My back arched, my pelvis tilted and I groaned, shutting my eyes and pressing my head to the cushion. My thighs tensed around his concrete, folded legs.

I tore open my eyes and looked up at him. His face was almost a grimace, the muscle in the side of his cheek was flexing, over and over.

“Fuck, yes,” he muttered. “That is so damn sexy you wouldn’t believe.”

“But I’m aching for you, Rick. I need you.” I had to fight with myself to stay looking up at him. Concentrate to get my gasping words out.

“In a minute, in a minute, baby, I told you we were going to take it slow.”

I whimpered and carried on teasing my clit. It was swelling with need, throbbing with want.

“Lower,” he ordered. “Touch yourself lower. Show me how you pleasured yourself when you went two years without a man.”

I did as he asked, dipping my fingers lower and pushing into my hot, wet channel. I was dripping and as I tunneled into the warm depths creamy moisture coated my finger and knuckle.

“Only one finger,” he said. “Come on, two at least, wild thing, two at least.”

I curled in another finger, clamped around myself and groaned as the heel of my hand caught on my clit. “But, Rick, I want you,” I panted, thrusting my fingers over and over into my pussy and writhing on the couch beneath him. “Rick, please, now I…”

“Keep it steady, baby.” He was suddenly over me. His fingers curled around my wrist and eased my hand away from my pussy. “Shh, I’m here, slow down.”

I stilled and stared up at him. Blood was raging through my pussy, clamping my womb and sending shudders up through my stomach to my chest. I’d been close, real close.

He pushed my hair back from my face and touched the tip of his sheathed cock to my sopping entrance.

I snatched in a lungful of air and fastened my bent knees to his hips, clung to his shoulders.

“Slow down,” he said. “I told you, keep it relaxed.”

“Easy for you to say,” I panted.

“There is nothing easy for me about not completely ravaging you, Dana. Nothing at all, you make me crazy for it.”

“Ravage me, please,” I begged. “Go crazy.”

He gave a low chuckle but I was unable to see the humor.

“I’m gonna,” he said. “I’m just gonna do it slow.” He pressed his palms to my cheeks and stared down at me, his eyes burning with lust and emotion.

“Rick,” I gasped, sucking in a breath, his breath. He was torturing me. “Get inside me.”

His gaze never leaving mine, he pushed into the opening of my pussy. He kept on going even as my vaginal muscles struggled to accommodate him.

Sweeping my hands down his body, I curled my fingers into the firm flesh of his buttocks and pulled him closer. The wide head of his cock smoothed over my G-spot and I moaned as I stretched taut around his thick girth.

On a long, glorious ride, he went as far as he could. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead and I focused on them as fire whipped through me and a burning heat filled my core. I was so close to coming already and he’d only just entered me. There was a tightening in my clit, a sizzling in my nerve endings.

“Not yet,” he said. “Hold it off.” He froze, filling me so deeply, so wonderfully but offering no movement whatsoever.

I panted, short little gasps, and touched his face the way he was touching mine. It was such an intimate embrace and, hovering on the edge of climax as I was, it had my mind floating and my heart tripping.

After several, long, deliciously agonizing seconds he began to rock his pelvis back and forth, rubbing over my clit and snaring my nipples in his chest hair, his hips playing a wickedly slow and sensual dance over mine.

“Ah…ah…I can’t…I can’t…” I was almost there, my breaths erratic, my pussy clenching.

He stilled again. “Wait,” he said, the heat of his breath fanning across my face. “Not yet.” He stared at me through heavy-lidded eyes. He was so near too. His cock was a spear of steel within me, as hard as it could get.

I tried to hold it off, really I did, but just the weight of him on my clit, the pressure on that sensitive bud and his huge cock buried within me rolled me over the edge. “Ah…oh…” I gasped. Staring into his eyes, I free-fell into pleasure. The pulsing sensation was overwhelming and I gave myself up to every beat and spasm, gorging on the fact that he was so still and I could clench around him, feed off his hardness. I cried out breathlessly, it was so intense, so concentrated.

As my body shook in a final explosion then jerked into his he kissed me gently, reverently.

I panted around his lips. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t wait. You just—”

“You’ll come again.”

His absolute certainty was so damn sexy my pussy instantly began twitching for more even though it was still riddled with aftershocks.

Finally, he moved. Not thrusting, barely pulling his cock out, just taking our joined bodies on an erotic ride full of exquisite pleasure—small, gentle movements of his flesh inside me that caressed and stroked my sweetest spots.

“You look so beautiful when you come,” he murmured onto my lips. “So damn beautiful.”

“It feels beautiful when you make me come,” I said, my voice breathy, and sliding my hands beneath his underarms to hook on to his shoulders. “However you make me come, it always feels beautiful.”

His mouth took possession of mine again, sweet and soft. Rocking over me, he built me up to a new, profoundly intense climax. There was something different about his kisses now, something hot and possessive, it filled my heart with hope for the future— our future.

“I’m coming,” he suddenly gasped into my mouth. “I can’t hold off anymore.” His body became rigid, his breath caught and held.

Then he was pulsing within me, spurting his climax into the condom. A harsh, animalistic grunt filled the room and I clung to him as he shook and shivered in my arms. Held him together as his huge, tough body split apart in ecstasy.

His orgasm tipped me into mine and the explosion that shook my pussy was cataclysmic. It went beyond pleasure, it penetrated my soul, claimed my mind, body and spirit. Brilliant bursts of light shot through my vision as release swept through my nerves, my senses and my heart.

He gave a final thrusting jerk, groaned low and guttural and buried his head in my neck.

I clung to him for a long time, feeling sated, replete and safe, and realized that within Rick’s arms I had finally found my place in the world.