Fracture (3 page)

“So, you were in the Army while you were gone?”

“I was.”

“See any action?”

Chase stared out the window. “A bit.”

“Well, I’m married now. You remember Nicole Bardy. I
married her and keep her knocked up and barefoot.”

Grateful Harry dropped the topic of the military,
Chase asked questions about his family. At the recycling plant,
they dropped off and paid. On the way back to Cottonwood Falls,
they passed a car that had been pulled over by a cop. His heart
sped up a bit when he realized it was Vicki who had stopped them.
He watched surreptitiously in the side mirror after they went
by.

The way her uniform clung to her made him want to
peel it off one layer at a time. He couldn’t explain how shocked
he’d been to find she’d joined the fraternity.

“Can you believe it?” Harry asked.

“What?”

“Miss hoity-toity Victoria has donned a
uniform.”

“No. I hear her father disowned her for it.”

“Oh, he did more than that. Took her out of his
will, blackballed her from certain places. No one in her family
speaks to her. Unless she stops them. When that happens, pretty
much the entire town turns out for the court date.” He laughed.

“So, he doesn’t have Judge Harrolson in his pocket
anymore?”

“That old bastard died. Judge Wilder doesn’t care
how much money Mr. Boshay or his family have. If they broke the
law, he makes them pay.”

“That’s a change around here, then.”

“Sure is. All happened when the new sheriff took
over. He didn’t want anyone getting away with anything.”

“And, Vicki went along with the changes?”

“Oh, that was done before she returned. She had been
living in Atlanta and working on their force.”

Chase tried to imagine the princess working those
mean streets and even getting dirty.. “Atlanta?”

“I know, shocked all of us when she left to attend
the academy there. We actually had bets on how long before she’d
return to Cottonwood Falls. We were all wrong; she only came back
two years ago.”

“Do you know why she left?” Chase couldn’t explain
why he was so interested in the answer.

“I heard she’d been shot during some drug raid.”
Harry shrugged. “Then, I also heard she broke up with her boyfriend
and had to come home. I think she was also caught sleeping with her
captain, who was a married man.”

Small towns. “So, you don’t have a clue.”

“Not a one,” Harry said with a grin. He parked
before the trailer. “What’s next?”

They spent the rest of the afternoon working. After
thanking Harry for his help, showering, and eating with Mrs.
Candace, Chase rode to one of the bars, this one out on the
outskirts of town.

The music was loud and shook the area as he strode
to the door. He passed by two large men to enter the establishment
and sidled up to the bar.

The bartender caught his eye, and Chase said,
“Bottle of beer. Something dark.”

She gave him a thumbs up and finished her
conversation with the man she spoke with. Chase drummed his fingers
along the smooth top and waited.

“Sorry about that, handsome; here you go. Anything
else?”

“No, ma’am. Thanks.” He paid and sat on a stool.

A brush against his arm had him turning to see Vicki
sliding onto the seat next to him. She reached out and took a
handful of the peanut-pretzel mix on the bar.

She wasn’t in uniform, and he had no problems
admiring the way her jeans hugged her long legs. Her shirt had
crisscrossed lines in the back, showing off some skin. The vivid
blue of it blended well with the tan of her skin. He didn’t see any
paler lines.
I wonder if she sunbathes nude.

She didn’t look at him, just ordered her drink and
took a sip. When he put his bottle to his lips, she spoke.

“Did you mean what you said earlier or were you just
trying to annoy me?” She stirred her drink. “Because if you did
mean it, I want to know, as well.”

Well, fuck.

Chapter
Three

Vicki stepped back and let Chase enter her house
first. He brushed by her and paused in her entryway. She knew he
was expecting something more for a place where she slept. “Not what
you expected, is it?”

“Nope.” He turned and stared at her.

She gulped and closed the door behind her. He
pressed her back until she could go no farther. One hand on either
side of her, he leaned close and said, “What is this? A tumble with
the bad boy?”

She placed her hand on his chest. “This is about you
and me. Nothing else. Either you want it or you don’t.”

His eyes flared with heat, and her gut tensed.

“I don’t want it; I want you.”

“You’ll have me.”

He lifted her in his arms and kissed her. Vicki
shuddered as his tongue slid into her mouth, his taste filling her.
She wound her arms around his neck and legs about his waist.
Submerging her hands into his hair, she yanked the stands and
tangled her tongue with his.

He palmed her ass with one hand and ground against
her, his cock hard and there. She nipped his tongue and muttered,
“Strip.”

The moment her feet hit the floor, she began tearing
at her clothing. It fell to the floor and mingled with his. When he
stood naked before her, her breath left her in a rush. Hard muscles
flowed along his limbs. His abdominals were decidedly cut, she
wanted to drop to her knees and run her tongue along the ridges. A
bit lower, his cock rose, hard and thick. The large mushroom head
shone with pearlescent drops of his precum. She flicked her tongue
along her lips, wanting him in her mouth.

She sank to her knees and grasped him. Tipping her
head, she fisted her hand up and down his shaft. The groan slipping
from his throat was music to her ears. She flicked out her tongue
and tasted him. Salty. Male. Hers. Opening wide, she drew him
in.

“No,” he rasped, lifting her up.

“Why?”

“I want to taste, as well. If you don’t want to do
this on the floor here, tell me where your room is.”

“Ain’t that many rooms in here. One’s my bedroom,
and one is the bathroom.”

“Come on,” he said.

Her place wasn’t that big, so it didn’t take him
long to get her to the bedroom. He kissed her again as he cupped
her pussy, slipping his finger deep inside her. She moaned and
bucked her hips.

He laid her back and placed his mouth over her
core.

“Shit,” she said, arching up, encouraging his
fingers in deeper. His tongue laved at her clit. She gripped the
blankets as he ate her out with extreme skill. A scream ripped from
her throat as she came, hips flexing. She struggled to sit up and
brought him up on the bed, as well. Soon, she was on top of him,
his cock deep in her mouth as he continued to eat her.

Up and down, she bobbed her head. He stretched her
mouth as she took as much of him as she could. Her pussy wept at
his assault of fingers and tongue. She ground on his face, loving
how he gripped her hips and kept her tight to him.

Her body quaked with another orgasm, and his cock
pulsed before filling her mouth with his seed. She didn’t release
him until nothing else came. Only then did she remove the warm
suction she had around him.

“Come here.”

His voice, a deep rasp, ratcheted up her pulse once
more. She turned and straddled him, closing her eyes tight in
rhapsody when his thickness pushed through her muscles. Fully
seated on him, she held still and gave herself a moment. He watched
her, his large hands with square nails resting on her thighs. His
stormy eyes blazed with barely contained passion.

He reached up and undid the loose ponytail her hair
was in. The tenderness he exhibited while doing it surprised her.
Although, she couldn’t exactly explain why.

She squealed when he rolled them over. He rose over
her and began driving home. His strokes were long and sure. Fast,
slow, deep, shallow. He changed it up and kept her on pins and
needles, guessing. She latched her legs around him and held on,
undulating and writhing beneath him.

Over and over, he took her to the edge, only to drag
her back and make her scramble to reach it once more. Her throat
burned for water and some relief from her cries, but she didn’t
slow nor did he.

Their sweaty skin slid along one another. No words
were passed between them other than her out-of-breath yells and his
grunts. This wasn’t a deep, soul-connecting, intimate exchange. It
was a fucking. Sex. Raw and gritty. Her hair, he’d wrapped in one
large hand and angled her head how he wanted it. He took, and she
gave all he asked for and more.

When he came hard inside her, her body, exhausted,
quivered and came once more. She hadn’t any energy to move. Time
had lost all meaning; all she knew was the man above her who
nuzzled her in the side of the neck.

He lay beside her, still fully buried inside her,
and held her tight. Twining her arms around him, she allowed the
cuddling. Normally, she wanted to leave immediately after, but even
if she
had
wanted to, she didn’t have any energy to do so.
Plus, this was kind of nice, him making her feel safe and
protected. Not many men could do that.

She closed her eyes and listened to the rhythm of
his heart as it slowed over time, as did hers.

Three more times during the night, they had sex. As
with the first time, they kept comments to themselves. When she
stirred early in the morning, she cracked her eyes open and found
him shoving into his pants across the room.

“Leaving?”

He stared at her, that coldness back in his gaze.
“Figured you’d not want anyone to know you went slumming.”

Her eye twitched, and she climbed from the bed,
naked. His eyes darkened, and she watched the rapid uptick of his
pulse on the side of his neck. She strode to stand toe to toe with
him.

“You need to get over yourself. This isn’t high
school, anymore. We’re not kids.”

“Yet, at the end of the day, I’m still an Ellery and
you’re a Boshay.”

“You have a dick, and I have a pussy. What’s your
point?” She slapped her hands on his chest before pushing his hands
away and undoing the pants he’d just done. “I told you, I’ve been
disowned by my father.”

“So, now, I’m okay to be with?”

She cupped his cock, glad when it was in her hand
once more. She loved touching him and hadn’t had enough of it last
night. “You were back then, as well. I just was too full of myself
to know. I get it. I was a bitch in school. People change.”

She began stroking him, not really wanting to go
down that memory lane. She hadn’t been a nice person in school.
Toby had been one of her real friends because he had come from
money, as well. They’d been mean together. She’d hung out with a
group of girls, cheerleaders, who had run the school with spite and
evilness. “You really want to rehash this now?”

He bucked his length into her hand. “No.”

Neither did she.

☼

“So, what’s with the scowling I see you do?”

Chase lay on his back, one arm behind his head.
Vicki’s toned, naked body was pressed along his. They’d been
sleeping together for a month now.

He went to her place or they met out of town. Or had
quickies in and on her cop car. Something hot about having her in
uniform. Everything about her was the antithesis from the Victoria
Boshay he recalled from school years. She didn’t seem to miss the
opulence she’d grown up living with. Her place was small, a
one-bedroom. She’d said she didn’t need any more than what she now
had.

“Chase?” She nudged him.

“My scowling?”

“Yes. It seems the only woman who gets a genuine
reaction from you is Mrs. Mallery.”

“She’s always been like a mother to me.” He smoothed
a hand over her ass.

“So, Sarah would, as well?”

“Of course.”

“I remember you two were close in school.”

He grunted. Sarah was off limits for discussion,
like a lot of his past.

“She always impressed me,” Vicki continued.

“How so?”

She adjusted against him, one leg draping his
thicker, larger one. It was comforting having her like this with
him. The brush of her skin along his, her curves. Nothing between
them.

“She never let comments get to her. No matter what
was said. How is she doing?”

Not that she showed anyone.
He knew it had.
He’d held her while she cried. “Very well,” he said with pride.
“She loves her life with the Marine Corps.”

Vicki kissed his chest. “Good. And you?”

He stiffened. “You ran me; I’m sure you know it
all.”

“Never mind,” she snapped, rolling away.

He stared unabashedly as she went to her bedroom
door, uncaring of her nudity. “Want me to leave now?”

“Do what you want; you will, anyway.” Her tone held
no warmth in it as it had earlier. The click of the bathroom door
preceded the shower kicking on.

He dressed and left, confused by what emotions she
created in him. The way his gut churned when she settled those
blue-green eyes on him. On the bike, he became more alert when two
black cars pulled onto the road after him. In the side mirror, he
recognized the haughty look of a hired driver.

May as well get this over with.
He slowed and
stopped. Waiting, he leaned against the bike as it sat. Hooking his
glasses on the front of his shirt, he sighed. He spit on the ground
as he crossed his arms.

Out of the second car stepped two men he pegged as
the muscle. He didn’t move, the two goons unimpressive in his
estimation. At first glance, he pegged them for ex-alphabet company
members.

The first car’s driver stepped out, walked around,
and opened the back door.
Another ex-alphabet.
One leg, clad
in a dark suit came out, followed by the rest of the man. Victor
Boshay. The man had lost some weight, and his thin body had a few
more wrinkles.