Heart Craving (3 page)

The high school student who delivered his pizza an hour later scanned the room while Nick dug in his pockets for a tip. The kid snickered over the titles, boasting, “I know everything in these books.”

“Yeah! You wish!”

The teenaged Casanova picked up one paperback, exclaiming, “Hey, I read this one.
A
Thousand Ways to Kiss Your Lover
.”

“Go away,” Nick said, shoving the money in his hand. First, he got advice from Gypsy Rose Wacko, then a senior citizen, now a pimply-faced adolescent.

Walking away, the know-it-all called over his shoulder with a laugh, “You oughta try the slide kiss. The women melt every time.”

“You wouldn’t know melt if it hit you in the face.” Nick slammed the door shut. “Smart-ass,” he added to the closed door.

Then he couldn’t resist. He picked up the book in question, turned to the index, and moved his fingertip until he found “slide kiss.” He read the brief chapter.
Wow!
A few moments later, he added “slide kiss” to the list on his notepad.

It was midnight before Nick finished the last book. He studied the voluminous notes he’d taken and saw a common thread in many of the books. In fact, he’d written an exact quote from one of the texts:
In their hearts, many women crave sexual fantasy.

Hearts. Crave. Sexual Fantasy.

Hell, that was a definition for heart craving if he’d ever heard one.

Nick leaned back in his chair, crossed his hands behind his neck, and grinned. He had the solution to his problem.

Paula didn’t stand a chance.

Chapter Three

Day Two

She’s not missing him at all. Yeah, right! . . .

PAULA KEPT GLANCING toward the entrance of the diner, half expecting Nick to stroll in. She’d avoided him all last night and today, but she suspected he wouldn’t give up easily.

She took another sip of coffee and scrutinized the woman sitting across the table, her good friend, Kahlita Simmons. The short, energetic black woman had slicked-back hair and horn-rimmed glasses that said a lot about her no-nonsense attitude toward life. Paula needed some no-nonsense advice on how to handle Nick’s persistence.

Paula peeked at her watch anxiously. “I only have ten more minutes until my appointment with my lawyer.”

“You’re signing the papers today?”

Paula nodded. “Nick refuses to sign the ones that were served on him yesterday.”

“Skip says he’s acting crazy.” Kahlita was engaged to Skip Bratton, a Newark police officer and a good friend of his.

“I know. He called at least ten times last night and left the most touching messages on my answering machine. I can’t listen without crying.”

“Paula, the man clearly loves you. And you love him. Isn’t there any chance you can work this out?”

“No. I wish there was. Nick and I have been separated this past year, but you know, Kahlita, it’s not the first time we’ve split. And I can’t tell you how many times we’ve tried to work it out. Counseling. Separations. Arguments. Over and over. The man just can’t change. He wants to, I think. And he tries, but he just can’t change.”

“And you can’t live with him the way he is?”

“Could you? He’s obsessed.”

“There are a lot of women who would grab him in a nano-second. In fact, Skip fixed him up one night with . . .” Her words trailed off as she saw what must look like horror on Paula’s face. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. I didn’t think—I mean, I thought you knew.”

“Nick’s been dating?” she asked in a shaky voice. “Who?”

“Well, not exactly dating. See, Skip fixed him up with this stripper—”

“Nick went out with a stripper?”

“No, but Skip introduced him to one, and she’s only a stripper on the side. Actually, Laura Bishop—her stage name is Jezebel—attends Harvard Med School. Anyhow, before he even finished one drink, Nick went to the men’s room and never came back. He told Skip later that she was too mud-ugly for him.” Kahlita laughed softly at some memory. “Skip told me that Laura is a former runner-up for Miss New Jersey.”

Paula shouldn’t have been relieved, but she was.

“And Lizzie Phillips, that new police trainee, has had the hots for Nick for months. Guar-an-teed, the ink won’t be dry on the divorce papers before she launches a frontal attack. And believe me, she could do it with those bosoms of hers.” Kahlita put two cupped hands in front of her chest to demonstrate.

Paula had met Lizzie, and she was actually a very nice, very attractive young woman. Her heart ached to think that Nick would soon be free to date other women, even if he hadn’t already. Then she glanced up at Kahlita with suspicion. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to make me jealous so I’ll get back with Nick.”

Kahlita ducked her head sheepishly.

“If I thought there was even the remotest chance of Nick changing, I’d be back in his arms in a flash. It just isn’t going to happen.” She sighed deeply with resignation and stood. Shifting her shoulder bag into place, she laid some money on the table and added, “It’s time to get on with my life. And Nick, too. I’m sure that once we’re divorced, I’ll start to get over him. All the old cravings will go away, eventually.”

Brave words
, she thought, as she entered her lawyer’s building down the street,
but I’m deathly afraid Nick is the only man I’ll ever crave.

He gave new meaning to the word “frisking” . . .

TWO HOURS LATER, Paula was cruising down the highway, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. In the orange glow of the setting sun, she could see the final legal papers she’d picked up at her lawyer’s office sitting on the passenger seat. A reminder of everything wonderful she’d had in her life—and lost.

Oh, Nick! Why can’t you change?

Sighing with regret, Paula glanced idly in the rearview mirror. And saw the blinking red-and-blue light.

Immediately, she checked her speedometer and groaned. She was going fifteen miles over the speed limit.

“Great! That’s all I need today. My life is going down the toilet, and now I get a speeding ticket, besides. What next?”

The berm of the highway was too narrow, so she veered off at the next exit and drove a short distance down a rural road before she could find a large enough area to pull over. The marked police car followed close behind.

Muttering with self-disgust at her carelessness, she had her license, registration, and insurance papers ready before the uniformed cop walked up. Rolling down her window, she handed him the cards.

“Where’s the fire, lady?” a gruff voice asked.

“I wasn’t really going
that
fast, Officer. Only—”

“Step out of the car, ma’am,” he cut her off in a stern, muffled voice. Paula glanced up, but all she could see was a strong male jaw and a flash of suntanned skin, shaded by dark sunglasses and a hat. Before she could look closer, the tall, rangy figure turned his back on her and began examining her cards. Over his wide shoulders, he asked, in an extremely deep, gravelly voice, “Is that Miss or Mrs. DiCello?”

She swallowed hard. With the divorce pending, she suddenly realized . . . oh, Lord . . . in six more days, would she be Miss once again? She wasn’t sure, but for now, she replied, “Mrs.”

He nodded, as if pleased by her answer. “Any outstanding warrants?” His head was averted, looking down at the small clipboard in front of him as he wrote.

“No.”

“Last speeding ticket?”

“Two months ago, but I can explain. It was a reduced speed zone and—”

“Save it for the judge, sweetheart.”

She thought she heard a smile in his voice. He probably heard hundreds of excuses every day. In fact, Nick once told her about a lady who, when caught speeding, said she was ovulating and had to get home to make love with her husband before her body temperature changed. She smiled to herself as she recalled how she and Nick had spent that afternoon in bed as well, making slow, delicious love. And definitely raising some body temperatures.

There she went, thinking about Nick again. Paula forcibly brought her thoughts back to the present.

“Drug convictions?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Prostitution?”

“I resent this questioning. I just came from my lawyer’s office. I’m going to call him right now.” She turned, about to open the car door and get her cellular phone.

“Put your hands on the roof of the car and spread your legs,” the police officer snapped.

“Not on your life
—oompf!
”
The cop had put his palm on the center of her back and shoved her up against the car. Her breasts, covered by a silk tank top, pressed into the driver’s window. Her belly, under a long, gauzy skirt, flattened against the warm metal of the door. “Hey! Who do you think you are? You can’t do this.”

“Wanna bet?” With one deft movement, he forced her arms up and over the top of the car. A knee between the back of her legs quickly separated and spread her legs.

This can’t be happening to me. Not after all the years that Nick warned me about all the dangers out here and the precautions to take.
She prayed that another car would drive by soon, take in the situation, and stop. But she realized with dismay that not one car had approached the lonely spot thus far.

The officer’s large hands brushed over the filmy fabric covering her buttocks, and alarm bells went off in her head.

“Is this the kind of outfit a
lady
wears to her lawyer’s?”

“That’s none of your business.”

His hands continued on a slow, frisking path along her sides. Over her waist. The sides of her breasts. Her armpits. And higher, over her shoulders and along her arms.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she cried out in panic. She tried, futilely, to squirm free from his imprisoning arms and legs.

“Full body search.”

“For what?” Skepticism and outrage had turned her voice shrill.

He hesitated, then murmured, “Contraband.”

“I’m going to report you,” she warned.

“Go right ahead.”

“This is not standard operating procedure. Believe me, I know lots of cops.”

He chuckled. “I’ll bet you do, honey.”

Paula felt his breath against the back of her neck. The hard ridge between his legs pressed against her bottom. The fragrance of a woodsy aftershave drifted around her. Hauntingly familiar, yet different. Evocative of forbidden, secret delights.

The back of her neck prickled as an elusive memory tugged at the back of her mind.

Paula pressed her cheek against the roof of the car and spread the palms of her outstretched arms. Perhaps if she didn’t struggle, this whole sordid experience would be over in moments and she could just go home.

She watched, mesmerized, as the long fingers of his hands skimmed the surface of her bare skin from shoulders to elbows to wrists. For a second, the hands paused, then lay over hers, gently, dwarfing them with their size. Dark skin against light. A leather watchband. A gold wedding band.

Wedding band!

Paula blinked and looked again at the hand that rested intimately over hers, then moved to the side. Two gold wedding bands, side by side. Identical.

Tears filled her eyes as recognition hit her.

She struggled in earnest now. “Let me go.”

“Never.”

“You bastard!” Paula let loose with a number of expletives then, too furious to curb her tongue. She couldn’t stop looking at the two matching wedding rings.

The cop just laughed softly with appreciation. “I love it when you talk dirty, honey.”

“Is it worth losing your job?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation.

Paula’s heart skipped a beat at that one simple word. What did he mean?

Then she couldn’t think at all.

Outrageously, the policeman swept the long strands of her hair behind her ear, exposing her neck to the nuzzling of his warm lips. He bit the lobe of her ear, softly, and inserted the tip of his tongue in its crevices.

“Just what kind of search is this?” she choked out.

“Cavity search,” he growled—a hungry, masculine sound, both threatening and tantalizing—then traced the sensitive whorls with expert precision.

Paula groaned. Sweet, erotic tingles spread from the teasing movements of his tongue in her ear to her breasts, which swelled and peaked. A dull ache began to grow at the vee of her legs.

She was no longer frightened of a strange cop. She was frightened of herself and her unwilling surrender to the dangerous, erotic fantasy.

“You’re going to get arrested,” she gasped as his fingers found her nipples and played with them.

“Probably.” He didn’t sound at all concerned.

Impatiently, he tugged her shirt from the waistband of her skirt, and his hands moved up over her bare skin to her lace-covered breasts, molding them to fit his palms, tugging at the nipples, rolling them between his fingers. All the time, he whispered sexy, explicit words in her ears about what he would like to do to her, what he intended to do to her.

“O-o-oh!”

Paula’s thighs grew heavy and weak. She almost swooned with the sheer agonizing pleasure that rolled over her body in waves.

This was some wanton creature Paula did not recognize. It couldn’t be she, undulating her hips against his hardening erection, arching her back to give him greater access to her aching breasts, her flat stomach, and lower.

She’d been so lonely since Nick had left. Yesterday’s lovemaking in the shower had only whetted a hunger she’d thought long dead. That was the only excuse for her body’s betrayal.

Determined male hands bunched the fabric of her skirt in gathering fists, lifting the hem higher and higher, up to the sides of her bikini panties. Then, in one hard jerk, they ripped away both sides of her underpants. The silky fabric fell to the ground, exposing her still widespread legs to exploring fingers.

One hand moved back up to her breasts, fingering them lightly. The other hand found her wet heat.

“My God!” he exclaimed behind her, his lips pressed against the pulse beat in her neck. Then, “Sweet. Oh, baby, you are so sweet.”

She almost fainted. Then she bucked back against him, trying to break free, to no avail.

He nipped her shoulder with his teeth, asserting his controlled aggression.

She pressed her forehead against the car roof, barely able to stand as his expert fingers found her pleasure points and played a tortuous game of fluttery music.

Just then she heard a car motor approaching.

“Holy hell! Don’t move,” he ordered, shielding her body with his own as the pickup truck slowed, then continued down the highway past them.

Paula barely noticed. And yelling for help was the last thing on her mind.

She started to look back at him over her shoulder.

The rasp of a zipper stopped her.

Then her hips were being lifted and tilted backward into the cradle of a hard male body. Her sandaled feet barely touched the road.

In one long stroke, he entered her, and Paula couldn’t suppress the keen of pure ecstasy. Her body welcomed him with rippling convulsions that seemed to make him grow inside her, harder and thicker, filling her to excess. And more.

He moaned low in his throat. A raw, savage noise.

When her first climax passed, he lifted her hips higher, penetrating her even deeper. Then he began to move. Long, slow thrusts, accompanied by seductive murmurs. Forbidden words. Scandalous thoughts. Fantasies, imagined but never spoken aloud.

“Do you like that, sweetheart?”

“Oh . . . oh, yes!”

“And that?”

“Please . . .”

“Can I touch you there?”

She put a restraining hand on his wrist, shocked, then lifted it in sweet, reckless surrender.

“Would you like to be handcuffed?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You’re my prisoner.”

“Yes.”

“You can’t escape.”

“I know.”

“You have to do what I say. Everything.”

Hot, sensual images flashed through her mind. Wicked. Dark. Taboo. She licked her lips. “And if I don’t?”

“I’ll stop. Do you want me to stop?”

“Never.”

When his strokes turned short and hard, Paula became mindless, incapable of thought or talk. A hot tide of molten sensation engulfed her. She fought her orgasm, and raced toward it, out of control.