Kerry

I’m not sure what time it is when I wake up and find myself alone in bed. Judging by the bright light coming in, I’d say a fair guess would be sometime after eight. I lift my head to glance at my alarm clock but find it facedown on my nightstand. Instinctively, I reach out to set it straight, but my hand stills somewhere midair, only to retreat back under the covers with the rest of me. I quickly dismiss the nagging pang of guilt and snuggle deeper in the warmth and scent Damian’s body left behind.

I’m slowly sinking back to sleep when angry voices shoot me wide-awake again. Two men’s voices. Throwing my covers back, I quickly swing my legs out of bed, only to catch myself with a hand on the nightstand before I fall face-first on the floor. Dizzy. I take a few deep breaths to clear my head and this time proceed to move through the room a little more cautiously. By the sound of it, things are quickly escalating as I pad down the hallway.

“Fuck you, Gomez. Don’t you talk to me about not following protocol. You’re standing half-naked in the house of a damn suspect in this investigation. At the very least a witness. Get off your high horse.” I recognize the voice of Detective Blackfoot, and the moment I round the corner, I see him; toe-to-toe with indeed a half-naked Damian. Gee gawds...somewhere along the line, he donned his jeans but lost his shirt. I’m not sure which view I enjoy more, the muscular legs and high, tight rear end or the broad, solid-looking back. Mesmerized by the sight of a tattoo curving along his spine before spreading wide to span his shoulders, I slowly walk up behind him.

“Nothing’s going on here, man.” I watch as Damian runs his hand through his hair, still sounding tired. Obviously not buying into it, Blackfoot rolls his eyes, catching sight of me standing behind Damian. But before he can say anything, Damian speaks again, “I’m just looking after her. As a friend.”

I’m not sure what the heck is going on, or why he is saying that, but I can’t hold back the incredulous snort at his blatant lie. I mean, a friend doesn’t play tonsil hockey with his tongue down your throat or rub his cock against your ass as he cuddles in bed with you, right? Blackfoot sports a smirk as he lowers his eyes, but Damian looks downright miserable as he slowly turns to find me behind him.

I choose to ignore him and focus on the detective instead. “I’m a suspect? When the hell did that happen? When someone drove me off the road?” Blackfoot’s guilty eyes flit to Damian before meeting mine.

“For what it’s worth, I happen to think you’re an innocent bystander, but until we have evidence to clear you—”

“Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?” I cut him off sharply. “Innocent until proven guilty? Seems to me you’re doing the opposite.”

“In a court of law that stands,” Blackfoot explains patiently, only serving to piss me off more. “But in an investigation, it works the other way around.”

I wave his explanations away. “Whatever—I’ve done nothing wrong. Investigate away.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“Cut the crap, Keith,” Damian pipes up for the first time. “You’re full of shit. First of all, you’re pissed because I sent Luna to keep an eye on you, and secondly, you came here to try and draw her into playing your game. Play all you want, but leave her out of it.”

“Hold on a minute. First of all, as my friend...” I emphasize the word with air quotation marks as I throw a dirty look Damian’s way, “...you have absolutely no right to speak for me. What game?” I demand to know. Blackfoot quickly looks to Damian—who glares back with a barely perceptible shake of his head—before apologetically shrugging his shoulders.

“Talk to the man,” Keith says, before backing out of the door. “I’m sure he’ll explain.”

“So explain.” I turn to Damian, who is shutting the door, my hands planted on my hips. His face, when he looks at me, is lined with worry and fatigue. Without saying a word, he walks past me to the kitchen. When I follow him in, he’s pouring coffee in two mugs, handing one to me and taking a sip from the other.

“The box is gone,” he finally says, taking me completely by surprise. I had obviously mentioned the box Kim had put in my trunk when Keith Blackfoot came to the hospital to get my statement. Now it was gone? “As soon as Keith left the hospital, he radioed the officer left at the scene to stay put until the flatbed truck arrived. Apparently, it took them half the night to haul the wreckage up and tow it off to the lab for the forensics team to go over. He got hung up on another case, and by the time he managed to get to your car last night, the box was missing.”

“Maybe someone took it after they towed it there?” I offer, wondering what might’ve happened.

“Not likely,” Damian answers immediately. “Twenty-four-hour camera surveillance, guard dogs, and a twelve-foot-high electric security fence make that doubtful. He thinks it fell out of the wreck. The back end is crumpled and the rear hatch was folded open.”

“So why didn’t they go look?” I point out, finding it rather obvious, but once again he counters me.

“It’s a fifty foot, or thereabouts, drop in total from the road to the valley below. Your car got hung up on an outcrop about thirty feet down, which means there’s at least another twenty below. It’s steep, you can’t just send a guy down there on a rope. It’ll take some preparation. I’m sure they’ll start searching at some point today. But that brings me to the next part,” he says, cupping my shoulders with his large hands. A shiver runs down my arms and back at his touch. “Keith wants you to act as if the box is recovered and back in your possession. He wants to have you bring in a dummy box and place it in your storage room.”

“He wants me to be bait. Or at least my store,” I recognize accurately, gathering from Damian’s nod.

“Exactly, which is why I told him to go to hell. His reasoning is that if somehow, whoever ran you off the road recovered the box, they would have no interest in the decoy in your storage room. But if they haven’t, they would more than likely make an attempt to reclaim it. That might put you and your girl, Marya, in danger...again,” he adds adamantly.

I see his point, I really do, but part of me just wants this mess to be over. Cowering in the shadows until these guys are caught is not sitting right with me. It’s not my style anymore. I’d rather actively make things happen.

“I guess we’ll have to hope the police find the box soon then,” I conclude. “It would save me from making a decision.”

Damian’s nostrils flare when I use the word me as the decision maker, but I want to get my point across.

“Yes, we will.”

DAMIAN

I’m counting on them finding the damn box. I don’t buy into the possibility the guy came back, slid his ass down the cliff in one piece, only to climb back up, a heavy box under one arm, and all that under the watchful eye of a police officer. And I don’t want to even consider Kerry putting herself out there, so I’m just pleased with the prospect of a slowly progressing search due to an interdepartmental tug-of-war. I don’t bother telling her about the political and jurisdictional positioning that only serves to slow down the investigation at this point. I prefer to give myself some time to deter her from letting Keith set her up as bait.

“Look,” I softly implore and wait for her to look at me before I continue. “I didn’t mean that.” What I say and what I do are usually well thought through and calculated, but this woman is getting me all twisted up. The knowledge I probably hurt her makes me feel bad. Guilty.

“Didn’t mean what?” Her look of feigned confusion is in stark contrast to the stiffening of her shoulders under my touch.

“What you heard me say to Keith. That you’re nothing more than a friend. It was a knee-jerk reaction and it’s not true. You know it’s not true.” I don’t stop her when she turns out of my grip and walks over to the sink, sets her cup down, and turns back to me.

“Truthfully?” she says, her chin lifted up and a deep blush high on her cheeks. “I believe you didn’t mean it, but it confused me. Just like everything else in my life is confusing right now. So if you don’t mind,” she drops her gaze and prepares to move past me, “I’m just going to have a shower and sort out my head.”

As she passes, I manage to grab her hand and pull her toward me, locking her in my arms. I ignore her stiff body and bend my head down to her shoulder, turning my face into her hair. “I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I’m confused myself. At odds. Between trying to get to the bottom of this investigation with my eyes wide-open and not able to think about anything but losing myself in you...Fuck, yeah, I feel completely conflicted.”

Kerry reacts by softening in my arms and slipping hers around my waist. “I understand,” I feel more than hear her say; her breath stroking the skin on my chest.

I understand.

I had no idea how powerful two simple words could be. And the kicker is, I believe she does. Emotions...feelings...they’ve always come second to me. Easily pushed aside by the job: logic, duty, and protocol. This is new territory—uncharted. The inability to control these feelings, to set them aside, is a completely alien experience.

And already I’m fucking up. I should have been at the office an hour ago, yet I’m standing here not wanting to let go of her. I’m about to tell her I have to go, when she steps back and I reluctantly let go, but she hangs onto my hand. “I’m going to have a shower,” she says again, slipping her fingers between mine. “Join me?”

My feet are already moving, picking up speed. Her soft giggle follows behind me as any thoughts about the office, about the case—about anything not related to getting my hands on a wet, naked Kerry—are washed out by the deafening, Hell yes! in my head. I don’t slow down until I pull her into the small bathroom, close the door, and have the water running. Only then do I release her hand and turn to face her.

The first thing I notice is the hint of panic in her eyes. Fuck me, if she changes her mind now, it’s going to kill me. Still, I have to ask. “Not too late to call a halt.” In the harsh light of the bathroom, the bruises and red swelling around her stitches stand out in stark contrast. Knowing what she narrowly walked away from two nights ago, I wouldn’t be surprised to find more of the same on different parts of her body. She drops her head down, and I reach over to lift her chin. “Hey, I mean it. You want me out of here, I’m walking.” I try to ignore my raging hard-on pressing against the fly of my jeans. “I might be walking funny for a while, but I—”  My words are cut short when I suddenly see her shoulders start shaking, and when she lifts her eyes, they’re dancing with humor. With a firm, steady hand, she cups my painfully hard package, drawing a sharp hiss from me. “Christ, woman.”

“Thought about it,” she teases. “But only for a minute. It’s been a while...I thought...” She shakes her head. “Never mind. The truth is, I want it. I want this. Even if I may have forgotten what to do with it.” The small, self-deprecating smile on her mouth gets to me.

“Gypsy,” I assure her, my voice coarse with need. “From where I’m standing, your memory is right on the money.”

She chuckles at that, and with her mouth still smiling, I tag her behind the neck and pull those luscious lips to mine. My tongue slips between to taste her deep, and my hands find their way to the edge of her top. She groans when I pull back to whip the ratty old thing off her before slamming my mouth back on hers. In seconds, I have her divested of the matching ugly pajama pants and slide my hands over all that glorious skin I now have full access to.

My eyes catch our reflection over her shoulder, in the bathroom mirror, and my breath hitches in my throat. The curve of her back to the spectacular swell of her ass is beautiful. With skin much paler than mine and the soft padding all over, she is the epitome of femininity.

Gently, I push her back by the shoulders. “Let me see all of you,” I mumble against her lips. She opens her eyes and despite a slight hesitation, there is determination in the way she looks at me. Slowly, she takes a single step back and rests her hands behind her on the counter. The pose both highly seductive and oddly innocent.

I take in all of her: her long neck and strong shoulders, her chest with prominent collarbones, and a light sprinkling of freckles, my fingers tracing the path my eyes take. My hands curve the weight of her full, sloping breasts, richly veined, and my thumbs brush over nipples colored a pale pink. The soft, round curve of her belly feels like silk under my touch, and the silvery stretch marks seem to lead down to the patch of tight, dark blonde curls at the apex of her thighs.

I can hear her shallow breaths and smell her arousal as my fingers play in those damp curls.

“Damn, Kerry. Just...damn,” I moan, suddenly ravenous. Moving both hands to her waist, I lift her on the edge of the sink and immediately drop to my knees, hoisting her legs up over my shoulders.

The first taste of her sears itself into my brain permanently.

Groaning deeply, I close my mouth over her core, trying to still the instant craving. She whimpers and clenches the muscles in her thighs against my head. With long strokes of my tongue and deep suction of my lips, I feed my hunger for her, digesting every quiver of her muscles and sound she expels. Somewhere along the line, her hands have found their way to my head, tangling and tugging at the strands. I glance up to see her eyes staring down at me, her mouth slack and her nostrils flaring. Holding her gaze, I graze my teeth lightly over her clit, and with a low, shuddering keen, she finds her climax, holding me trapped between her legs. Jesus, she’s magnificent.

“Perfect,” I whisper with my mouth pressed against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, as I allow her to come down gently from her high.

“Perfect,” she echoes, finally releasing her hold on me.

I get up from the floor, cup her flushed face in my hands, and lower my mouth to hers, letting her taste herself on me. Her hands start up where they left off earlier, picking at the buttons on my fly. Mine quickly reach down to cover hers. “Get in the shower, babe,” I instruct her, afraid that her ministrations so close to my cock will have me go off like a short-fused fireworks display on the Fourth of July.

I help her down from the counter and move aside the shower curtain so she can step in. I fish a condom from my wallet, drop my jeans and boxers, and quickly step in behind her, my dick happily snuggling in the crease of her butt as I set the foil packet on the little shelf. When she tries to turn in my arms, I stop her.

“Stay like this.”

“But you...” she starts, then I latch my lips onto a spot on her neck, just below her ear, and stop her protest. Arching her neck to give me better access, she moans as I slide one hand between her breasts and rest it at her throat. My other hand slips down to cup her between the legs.

“Can’t wait to sink into you,” I mutter against her skin. “I loved having you come in my mouth—I can only imagine what it’ll be like having you come on my cock.” My fingers test her folds, finding her soft and pliable and oh so ready for me. In a few swift moves, I have my dick sheathed and ready. With gentle pressure on her back, she leans forward, bracing her hands on the wall, and tilts her luscious ass up in invitation.

“Fuck me, Damian,” she says so softly, I can only just hear her.

With a sharp tug on her hips, I pull her back, line myself up, and slide forward, feeling the tight glove of her pussy taking in all of me. “Fu-uck...you feel so good,” I manage, desperately trying to control the urge to buck my hips against her ass. I won’t last long.

I slide a hand up over her slick skin to find that spot at her throat again, so I can feel her heartbeat under my touch, and with the other I keep her hips in place, as I slowly ease back out before I slam back home. Control becomes an illusion as my hips take on a frantic cadence, powering them as I continue to pound inside her, groaning in rhythm. As I feel my balls pull up at the ready, and a current spin up from the base of my spine, I find her swollen clit with the pads of my fingers and press down.

“Oh my God!” she screams, her body convulsing as she comes. With one more surge, I follow right behind her, grunting out my own release, with my face buried in her neck and my hips bucking wildly.

It’s when I’m catching my breath, Kerry caged in my arms in front of me, her head resting back against my shoulder, that I hear the buzzing coming from my jeans puddled on the bathroom floor. The call to duty. Before I even have a chance to make a grab for it, the sound stops.

“I’m guessing that’s the office wondering where I am,” I suggest carefully, feeling her back straightening against me. “But they can wait another few minutes. I’m not quite ready to take my hands off you yet.”

I use my time to familiarize myself with her body, carefully washing her hair, avoiding her injury as best I can, and using my hands to soap her skin from top to bottom. While she rinses off, I manage to accomplish the same for myself, in record time. All too soon, I step right behind her out of the tub, accepting the towel she holds out.

“Listen,” I say while I quickly rub myself dry. “I’ll probably have to go in, but I’d really like to have someone keep an eye on you while I’m gone.”

“I’ll be fine,” she dismisses me, wrapping the towel around her body as she pads into her bedroom. “I feel a lot better, as I’m sure you can tell.”

I smile at the coy reference, but I wasn’t talking about her health. Walking up behind her, as she runs a brush through her hair in front of her closet mirror, I slip my hands around her waist, resting them lightly on her stomach. “Yes, I discovered as much,” I admit with a smile at her reflection in the mirror. “But I would feel a lot better about leaving you if I knew you were safe.” 

The cold, harsh reality of what my words imply settle over her features.

“You’re not talking about my head, are you?”