Guilty Cravings (The Steamy South 1)

Guilty Cravings

Nicole North

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Guilty Cravings Copyright 2012
Nicole North

This book may not be reproduced
in whole or in part without written permission from the author. This book
cannot be sold, shared or given away because this is an infringement of the
copyright. This book is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents,
locations, and events are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental or from the writer's
imagination.

www.nicolenorth.com

Dedication

To my wonderful
husband. Thank you for always being there to support and encourage me. And
thank you for believing in me.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Carol E., Eliza
Knight, and my critique group.

Guilty
Cravings

Nicole
North

Chapter
One

“Damn you for getting
yourself killed,” Detective Nick Sullivan muttered into the silence of the
empty room. He stared out the second floor window at the view his brother, Jared,
must have gazed at hundreds of times—the narrow street in the historic district
of Savannah with its nineteenth-century homes and Spanish moss dangling from
ancient gnarled oaks.

Jared had flirted
with the dangerous edge of criminal activity too long, and now he’d paid the
ultimate price. The murderer had made the car crash into the river look like an
accident, but Nick knew the truth.

Because of everything
he’d learned up to this point, along with a healthy dose of gut instinct, he
believed he would find the most important piece of evidence—perhaps the stolen
art object itself—hidden here at Jared’s ex-wife’s home. They’d been divorced a
year and he doubted she knew anything about the object. But if she did, she
could be in danger too.

Illegal activity or
not, Jared was still his big brother, and Nick loved him. He would do whatever
it took to put the bastard who’d killed him behind bars. Since Jared’s death
three weeks ago, Nick kept remembering his freshman year of high school when the
senior jocks had tried to beat up on him. Jared, a senior, had stepped in and
defended him. How could he do any less for his older brother now that he was no
longer able to defend himself or tell what happened to him?

Nick knew part of it,
but he had to uncover the rest and see what kind of tangled mess Jared had
gotten himself into.

Nick had spent the
last hour searching through every closet, drawer and corner of the spotless
Victorian house where Jared and Emily lived during their marriage. Since their
divorce last year, when Emily received the house as part of the settlement,
she'd lived here alone. The only thing Nick had learned so far in his search
was that Emily was a neat freak.

Getting a whiff of a
faint but familiar fragrance, he glanced aside at the mahogany chest to his
right. She’d left the fancy lid off the bottle of spray perfume—the only thing
out of place in the room.

He picked up the
half-full bottle. The combination of lavender, vanilla and some other floral
scent wafted up his nose.

Damn.
The seemingly innocent fragrance
reminded him of the two times he’d been near Emily—when he’d kissed her cheek
and welcomed her to the family. The enticing scent also reminded him of the burning
guilt that had always tormented him for being strongly attracted to his
brother’s bride.

“Don’t think about
that,” Nick muttered to himself, setting the perfume down. He slipped across
the oriental carpet that covered the creaking wood floor and passed between the
small fireplace and a four-poster, mahogany bed to peer out the side window at
the empty off-street parking area below. The last thing he wanted was for Emily
to catch him snooping.

He felt guilty as
hell for rummaging through her personal things, but this was the best way to
find out if the object in question was hidden here. If Jared hid it well, she probably
didn’t even know of its existence.

Nick turned back to
scan the bedroom, all frills, designer purple silk and embroidery. He didn’t
suspect Emily of murder. She was one of the most in-demand wedding planners in
Savannah, and her whereabouts during the time of the murder were easily
verified. Besides, he knew the murderer was male.

Though the home had
obviously been remodeled recently, considering the updated kitchen and baths,
it still retained some distinctive features like a dumbwaiter and slightly
skewed doorframes. The house might also contain secret passages or hidden
compartments.

If he didn’t find
anything during this search, he’d have to ask for Emily’s help. His stomach
tightened at the thought of seeing her again, face to face. He hoped like hell
he wasn’t as drawn to her as he used to be. The last thing he wanted to do was
lust after his brother’s ex.

Nick crouched and
opened the nightstand drawer, filled with paperbacks. After removing them, he
searched the bottom of the drawer. Nothing. As he replaced the books, the
police badge, along with a man’s bare chest, on one of the covers caught his
eye. One of those sexy romance novels. He snorted, then scanned the others.
They were all about cops except one, which featured a man in a kilt.

And then he made the
connection.

“What the hell?”

A forbidden memory from
three years ago invaded to his mind. The men in Jared and Emily’s wedding
party, including Nick as best man, had worn Irish kilts for their formal dress.
During the reception at the hotel, after everyone was half-drunk on expensive
champagne or scotch, Nick had a quickie with one of the bridesmaids upstairs in
what was supposed to have been an empty suite.

While Cassie was
going down on him, he’d seen movement from the corner of his eye, near a
closet. In the dimness, the person appeared to be wearing a white dress. It
must have been Emily. She hadn’t said a word from behind that closet door, and
neither had he. In fact, the knowledge that she watched had turned him on even
more.

A bolt of sexual
excitement burned through Nick now just as it had back then, along with guilt.
But not enough guilt to keep him from opening one of Emily’s erotic novels to a
dog-eared page. In the scene, a police officer had handcuffed a woman to the
bed and she loved every minute of the sensual torture. The descriptions were
vivid and the sex scene graphic. Was this the type of thing Emily fantasized
about?

“Hell.” That was
something he definitely didn’t need to know.

He closed the book
and shoved it into the drawer. But he couldn’t shove away his own arousal. The
sizzling image of Emily handcuffed naked to a bed taunted him. She’d be spread
out before him, at his mercy. She’d beg him to touch her, to lick her. He’d be
tempted to do that and more.

Cursing, he searched
the chest, then moved to the dresser. A jumble of lacy panties of every color
filled the top drawer. He stopped short, hesitant to touch them. This had to be
forbidden. Everything about Emily was forbidden. But he had a job to do, a very
personal job that had nothing to do with being an undercover narcotics officer
in Atlanta.

A red lace thong
lying on top caught Nick's eye and he held it aloft. “Damn,” he muttered. He
could easily imagine her in this. Not that he’d ever seen her anywhere close to
naked. But he knew she had a cute little ass. That was obvious even in the
dresses she usually wore. And this thong would look sexy as hell strung between
her round ass cheeks. His cock throbbed. Unable to resist, he brought the lace
to his nose and sniffed. Of course she’d laundered it, but he still smelled her
perfume on it.

Dropping the scrap of
lace and forcing himself to concentrate on the job, he dug beneath the frilly
lingerie and encountered a box. It could be the antiquarian object he’d been
suspicious about. He removed the box and flipped it open.

A vibrator?

“What the fuck?” he
muttered. Angelic Emily had been using a vibrator? It was bright pink and
shaped like a small penis. The image of her sliding the buzzing toy over her
slick clit popped into his mind. She’d be naked, lying on this bed, her slim
curvy legs thrown wide apart. She’d be moaning, her eyes closed. Need spiked
through him, making his dick rock hard.

Emily was beautiful,
with curly, honey-blond hair and big blue eyes. But she was also classy,
wholesome and innocent—at least he’d thought she was—and not his type at all.

So why did he get a
hard-on any time he thought of her? Why the hell did he have to force himself
to stay away the whole time Jared had been married to her, and after?

She was a female,
that’s why. He was attracted to almost any beautiful female. No big deal.

He slammed the box
closed and stuffed it back into the bottom of the drawer. Next to it, he found
a purple jelly dildo.

“Don’t even think
about it,” he muttered. No, he couldn’t fantasize about how he’d like to toss
this skinny five-inch dildo out the window and give her some real satisfaction.
His cock twitched in his jeans, eager and able.

He shoved the giggly
dildo aside, and found several more sex toys hidden in her drawer, including
purple anal beads made of one single piece of silicone. Popping these beads,
from tiny to about one inch in diameter, up her sweet little ass while she
begged for more would likely give him a coronary.

He couldn’t believe
what a stash she had. He was going to have to totally shift his concept of
Emily. She might look like innocence personified, but clearly she was a woman
with a healthy sexual appetite.

Perhaps an appetite
that matched his own.

Naughty Emily—that
was his new name for her.

A door slammed
downstairs.

Shit.

He hid her toys
beneath the lingerie and softly closed the drawer. Footsteps echoed up the
creaky old steps. He slid across the polished hardwood boards to hide underneath
the high, four-poster bed a few seconds before she strode into the room. He
watched her feet in those sensible beige heels.
Emily, you are such a
chameleon.

Now how was he going
to get out of here? He hadn’t expected her to come home at two in the afternoon.
He hadn’t heard a car in the driveway—then again, his attention had been on
other things.

Emily slipped off her
shoes, then removed her skirt, hose and other things he couldn’t see. Okay, she
was probably naked. His erection raged back to life. Yes, he felt guilty that Jared’s
wife had always made him horny, but he couldn’t help it. She was lickable.

She disappeared into
the connected bathroom and turned on the shower. Now was his chance. He
silently slid from beneath the bed.

* * * *

The shower took
forever to heat up in this old house. Emily Grant twisted her hair into a knot
on top of her head and clipped it. Walking to and from her bridal shop in the
Savannah heat, she sometimes had to shower twice a day. Thank goodness she was
done for the day and could spend the rest of it in bed with a book. But first,
she had a new, delicious smelling, pomegranate shower gel to try. She hurried
back to the bedroom to retrieve it.