Icing on the Cake (Close to Home) (13 page)

*

Dispatch had kept Curtis hopping from the moment his shift started. An endless string of calls, every one of them packing an emotional punch. The entire city seemed to be off its meds.

He’d like nothing more than to put his head down and plow through the rest of the day. Taking a break on days like this tended to make the remaining hours drag, and he wanted this hellish Monday behind him. Only a few hours to go before he could file it under “thank fuck that’s over.”

It wouldn’t be fair to make Zeus wait those extra hours though. His brother’s dog had free access to the backyard, but Curtis still checked on him partway through his shift. Conn and Nia tended to work opposite shifts, which meant Zeus was accustomed to having somebody around. Curtis had been staying at their house while they were honeymooning—aka, enjoying fourteen days of nonstop fucking—but his work schedule left Zeus alone a lot. The dog’s enthusiastic greetings proved the pooch appreciated Curtis’ pop-in visits.

He unlocked Conn and Nia’s front door and stepped into the hall. More accurately, the
empty
hall, because there wasn’t a hundred-and-forty-pound bloodhound-mastiff cross doing a four-legged tap dance in the center—the greeting Curtis had received every time he walked through the door for the past week. Strange. Zeus was always waiting. Even when muddy evidence showed the dog had abandoned “his” corner of the garden to run inside at the sound of a vehicle.

Curtis jingled his keys. Still nothing. He drew breath to whistle, then froze.

Somebody was upstairs. A human somebody, because dogs didn’t have the ability to open and close drawers.

Hand poised over his holstered gun, he ascended the stairs. No sign of forced entry at the front, but anybody who’d done simple surveillance would know about the doggy door at the back. A quick hop over the board fence, subdue the resident canine, and they could help themselves to the contents of the house.

Conn had several thousand dollars’ worth of high-end carpentry tools in his basement workshop. The dining room table hosted a heap of wedding presents. Curtis had no idea what valuables Conn and Nia kept in their bedroom, but since today’s intruder had decided to hit that room, that’s where shit would get real. In three, two, one…

“Police—freeze and get your hands where I can see them!”

Sara shot from her seat at Nia’s dressing table, jabbing the bridge of her nose with the mascara wand and losing the towel that’d been cinched above her boobs in the process.

“Sara. Shit, it’s only you.” Curtis, dressed to kill in more ways than one, stared at her from the bedroom doorway.

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

His eyes did a slow, thorough tour of her wholly naked body. “No disappointment here.”

She waggled her hands where she’d raised them, as commanded. “I’m putting these down now, since it’s pretty obvious I’m unarmed.”

“Not so fast,” he said as she reached for the towel. “I have to be sure you’re not concealing something.” His jaw ticked. Mr. Tall, dark and ultra-alpha male crossed the room to tower over her. “Turn around and put your hands on the desk.”

“What’re you going to do, frisk me? I’m naked.”

“Yes, you certainly are.”

Despite her protest, she complied. As if she could resist him right now—he was the hottest male specimen she’d ever laid eyes on. Utterly commanding. She’d never had a thing for men in uniform, but
this man
in uniform—oh hell yes. Suddenly all the hype made sense.

She looked over her shoulder at him. “What you see is what you get, lawman.”

“While I’m on duty and you’re trespassing on private property, I advise you to address me more respectfully.” His uniform gear pressed against her back as he leaned over her, his warm breath tickling her ear. “I haven’t forgotten how it sounded when you called me ‘sir.’” His booted foot knocked her legs wider apart. “I want to hear you say it again.”

Her eyelids fluttered closed at the first slide of his fingers between her legs. “Never going to happen.”

“You know what I think about the word ‘never.’”

Yes, she did. Which is exactly why she’d said it. “Well, get used to it, because
never
is when I’ll say that word again, not to an asshole who treated me like shit.”

“You’re right, I was and I did.” His second hand got in on the action, stroking in and out while his first hand played her clit with wicked precision. “And I regret it. I regretted it the minute I saw the hurt on your beautiful face. I should’ve apologized, but instead I was an asshole idiot and let you walk away.” His smallest finger nudged her anus. “You’re not getting away this time.”

God, his fingers felt so good. She wanted to push back to take them deeper, to push forward, for more pressure on her clit. She wanted all of it. Everything this man could—and would—give her, if she paid his price with one little word. “Curtis…”

“Yeah, you know I like it when you say that too, but I want more.” He breached her, just the tiniest bit, but enough to light up every wicked nerve ending. “You know all about more, don’t you?”

“More is good.”

He laughed, a husky sound that made her tingly inside and out—and gave her more. More torturous teasing. Enough to make her squirm and moan in his arms, but not enough to satisfy the building itch that so desperately needed scratching.

“I feel how much you want me. How much you need me to make you come. And I will. I’ll make you come so hard on my hands, and I’ll love every fucking second of it. You want that, princess?”

Princess.
The name she’d told him never to call her again. The word she’d dreamed of him using every night since then. “Yes.” She whispered her answer as the tingly beginning of orgasm sparked beneath his touch.

“You can do better than that.”

“Please.”

He
tsk
ed. Taunted her with harder pressure, faster friction, deeper penetration, pushing her to the edge without letting her tip over.

She needed it to end. Never wanted it to end. This feeling, this man… “Please—sir.”

His growl vibrated against her skin. Like magic, he hit all her spots at once, sending her cresting into wave after wave of climax. He pinned her to the dressing table, the edge of it digging into her abdomen, the sharp bite of pain adding to the heady sensation rippling through her body as she came down.

“I could listen to that, feel you come undone for me, eight times a day, every goddamn day, and it would never get old.”

She turned her head enough to meet his heavy-lidded gaze. “No need to butter me up—if you want a blowjob, just say so.”

“Babe, if I wanted my cock in your mouth right now, you’d already be on your knees.”

“Now I’m offended that you haven’t put me there.”

He groaned. Then straightened, grabbed her waist and turned her, pulling her tight to his chest. “Does that smart mouth of yours ever take a break?”

“Only when you give it something else to do.”

“Done,” he said, cupping the back of her head and shutting her up with a kiss that had her practically crawling up his body to get more.

“Get back here…” she said a bit too breathlessly when he pulled back. But seriously, what did he think he was doing, breaking a kiss like that?

“Can’t. I have to get back to work.”

“Now?”

A cocky grin broke across his devastatingly handsome face. “Five minutes ago, actually.” Between them, his very capable fingers found her nipples and gave the piercings a gentle tug. “But if you feel like breaking and entering again tonight, I promise to properly punish you for it.”

She swatted his hands from her body and scooped up the towel as she moved away. “I did not break and enter. I used the spare key Nia gave me months ago. The one I’m welcome to use whenever I want.” The oversized bath towel suddenly felt like a facecloth. “Which won’t be while you’re staying here. My apartment’s cold shower just got a lot more appealing.”

He cursed under his breath when she pushed past him to storm from the room. Heavy footsteps followed her down the hall. A powerful knock rattled the bathroom door.

She held the doorknob tightly in her fist. For all the renovations he’d done to this house, Conn hadn’t seen fit to install modern hardware
with locks
on the interior doors. Preserving the charm of the original architecture, or some bullshit like that. All well and good, except she had no true defense against Curtis, should he decide he wanted face-to-face contact.

“Open the door.”

“Fuck you.” She waited for a reply about how he’d do that later, but it didn’t come. Nothing did. Just still silence.

Maybe he’d had enough of her angry lashing out, issued a non-verbal
fuck you
of his own, and gone back to work. Another shitty goodbye. She let go of the doorknob and slid down the wall until her butt hit the tiled floor. This day—this week—couldn’t get much worse.

“The breaking and entering comment was a joke. It just came out. I should’ve thought about how it’d make you feel before I said it, but as we’ve already established, I’m an idiot on occasion.”

The door rattled in its place again. Not from a knock this time. Something softer, a subtler kind of contact…such as his palms or forehead pressing against the opposite side.

She could picture him standing there—patient, despite needing to carry on with his day. This man, who radiated authority regardless of what he wore, humbly awaited her reply. And it brought her to her feet. Lured her hand back to the old metal doorknob. If she turned the handle, looked in his eyes again, she’d be done for. It’d be that much harder to purge him from her system.

She pulled the door open and there he stood, hands braced on either side of the doorframe. Unmoving, yet pushing past her defenses. Again.

“I wouldn’t use your past to hurt you on purpose, Sara. I’m not that much of an asshole.”

“It’d be easier if you were.”

A smile ticked at the corners of his mouth. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you either.”

“Start thinking about somebody else.”

“Don’t want to.”

Deep in her chest, imaginary butterflies fluttered their stupid little wings. “You and I…” She shook her head. “It’ll never work.”

“Seems to be working pretty well so far.” He crossed the threshold, tugged the knotted end of the towel and raked his eyes over her when the blue terrycloth fell to the floor. “Be waiting for me like this when I get back in a couple hours and we’ll work on it some more.”

“No can do. Late shift tonight.”

“Come by after. Since I’m going to spend the rest of the day and night thinking how hot you were when I had you bent over that dressing table, it’s safe to say I’ll still be up.”

It was tempting.
He
was tempting. Even if she wanted to give in, though, it wouldn’t be tonight. By the time she finished work, she’d be in the mood for a hot, cleansing shower, not a dirty-hot fuck. Random males hollering their way to prepaid happy endings played hell on her libido. Another reason she needed to find a new job, stat.

She cupped her hand over the fly of Curtis’ uniform pants. “You’ll have to manage this one on your own. But if you stop here tomorrow afternoon, you may find a naked intruder who’ll resist arrest and require restraining.”

“I told you, I don’t role-play.”

“Then we won’t play. I’ll give you my best resistance,” she squeezed the thick bulge beneath her palm, “and you can do whatever it takes to subdue me.”

His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. “You couldn’t handle what I’d give you.”

Holy shit, his voice. So deep, so…intense.

“I can take anything and everything you’ve got.”

Nostrils flaring, he gripped her wrists, spun her around and pressed her hard against the wall, bad-guy style. “You think so?”

“Yes.” Instinctively, she spread her legs. Arched her back so her ass connected squarely with his groin, eliciting a deep growl from the commanding officer.

“Prove it.” He released her wrists, slid his hands over her hips possessively. “Go out with me.”

“
What?
Out, like…a date?”

“You say it like it’s a death sentence. Yeah, a date. Dinner. Conversation.”

“Groping under the table and a blowjob in the restroom?”

“Yes to groping. No to the blowjob.”

“Boring.”

His gruff chuckle vibrated against her bare shoulder. “I don’t think ‘boring’ exists in your presence.”

“True, because I avoid dates where the guy would rather make
conversation
than get his dick sucked.”

“Chicken.”

She couldn’t see his face, but she knew it sported one of his big, sexy grins. Before she could protest his poultry accusation, the radio clipped to his uniform barked a bunch of numbers. He’d ignored all the previous garble—and it’d been chirping steadily since he walked in on her—but this time, he sighed and stepped out of the bathroom to answer the call.

She secured the towel around her torso once again, leaning on the doorframe while he communicated via codes and lingo that may as well have been a foreign language.

She’d never been a uniform-chaser. Cops were all about rules and order, first of all. Her Uncle Rick had been a prime example of that tediousness—until he died in the line of duty, responding to a domestic disturbance call. His training and body armor hadn’t protected him from the sharp edge of an enraged drunk’s broken tequila bottle. He’d bled out before paramedics could get to him, because his assailant had held them off by holding the same makeshift weapon to his battered wife’s throat.

Sara hadn’t attended Rick’s funeral. But she had read some of the tributes, all of which praised Rick for his dedication to public service. Kind words and heartfelt sentiments. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t fill the void for his widow and son in the years to come.

As darkly delicious as Curtis looked in his blues, she couldn’t go there. Fire, accidents, illnesses… So many uncontrollable circumstances plucked people from their loved ones. She couldn’t take that chance with anybody. Especially not Curtis. The danger factor of a cop’s job made him a walking target for the grim reaper.