If Wishes Were Horses (19 page)

He groaned against  her temple, his fingers flexing on  her in that  way that told her he was getting close to his  own release. She tightened her grip  within  and without,

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stroking his cock with muscles she didn't  know she had. The wonder of female power  swept over her as she watched him lose control,  grunt her  name because he had  no voice or mind for polish, and she  held onto  him, held him to her as he spilled into her,  sending a flood of spasms along her channel  that made her whimper softly in return  and tighten her embrace around his shoulders.  She reveled in the sensation of his hips pumping, sliding against the inside of her thighs, his slick buttocks bumping against  her heels as he finished, emptying all of himself into her eager womb.

Sarah closed her eyes and just held him a  moment, listened to his breath against her  ear and felt his fingers  stroking her waist, the side of her neck as he propped his weight on one elbow, but left his cheek against her forehead.

“I love the way you smell,” she murmured, knowing they should get up and get  dressed, but not wanting to do so  yet.

“Oh,” his lips pressed the corner  of her mouth, “and how's that?”

“Male. The incense in your shop, the antiques in your  house, the vanilla  candles.  The smell of  you on my thighs.” She opened her eyes and gazed into his face, just above  hers.

“So, now that you're not all 'revved up', Chief,” he teased in a murmur, though his expression was serious, questioning, picking up the thread of tension that  had begun  this moment. “How do you feel about me?”

“I want you to take me to dinner.”

“After all those caramels?” His eyes crinkled with humor, underscoring what a  handsome man he was. Her vagina contracted on him, and his eyes  heated. He pressed  a fervent kiss to the side of her lips, touching  that corner with his tongue, a light flick.

“Which melted in the bag, “ she retorted, nuzzling his jaw. “Uneaten, and left  behind. No, that's not what I meant. Not now. I don’t…” She closed her eyes, shook her  head to clear her sex-fuddled brain.

“I need that week, Justin, as I said. And then—” She touched his lips before he  could speak, “—I need  you to take me to dinner. A normal date. No erotic films, no Tantra classes, just you and me.”  It was awkward, but  she was going to say it, partially  because she trusted him enough  with her feelings to  say  it. “I've never experienced  anything, physically, like you. It’s overwhelming.”

“My ego would be inflating, if I didn't hear  a 'but' coming.” He propped his second  elbow on the other side of her face so it was caged there and she could not hide from him.

“But…” a smile crossed her face as he shot  her an I-told-you-so glance. “…I need to  know if there's more here than that. I'm not a fuck' em and leave' em kind of girl. I  never have been. If this is going to keep  going, I have to know it's real. Okay?”

“What do you think the  chances of that are?”

She stared up into his dark eyes and felt  nervous, vulnerable. “What do you think?”

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He placed a kiss on the tip of her nose, then put his forehead against hers. “Chancesof that are very, very good. Now  I think I better get up before the movie lets out and thepolice chief of Lilesville is seen with some  bare-assed guy on top of her in an alleyway.”

She shuddered. “It sounds so sordid when you put it that way.”

He rose to his knees and rearranged his clothing, then  gently slid the hem of her skirt back down to her knees, his hands caressing and strong. “It's not sordid in my mind. Nothing I've done  with you has felt that way.” He fished in  his pocket, came up with her scrap of underwear and a linen  handkerchief. He offered her the kerchief to clean herself and studied the panties. “I believe I owe you some lingerie.”

“No thongs.”

“Spoilsport.” He chuckled. “I do have at  least one  pair in the shop with full coverage. He helped her up. “Of course, they
 
are
 
crotchless.”

She reached to snatch her panties from him but he held them above her head, madeher jump for them until she stomped on his  instep and recovered them neatly. He used the advantage to pull her into his  embrace.

Instead of the kiss she expected, she found  herself drawn into a close warm hug, her face nestled against his chest. Her arms crept  up his back and she held on, just held on in the moonlight as he laid his cheek on the top of her head and  the fountain gurgledquietly behind them.

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Chapter 13

He hadn't taken her right home but to  an ice cream shop, where they'd shared asundae and her knees fit between his beneath the small table.  They talked about the movie, his aunt, how he got started in retail,  her Academy training and family. It was a hint of what he knew she wanted with her  request for a normal dinner, and he wanted to get a head  start on it, give her something  to think about other than the sex for the rest of their week apart.

He liked talking to her, listening to her.  She obviously felt the same, and he could tell those feelings weren’t surprising her as  much as they had at first. It was verycomfortable and sweet to hold her hand on  the table while they dipped into the same

bowl  of  ice  cream.  While  he  knew  it  might  be  a  mistake,  he  couldn’t  help  but  ask  about Chicago.

“Eric told  me you saw some pretty heavy things  in your previous job. Is that why  you're here?”

“No.” She shrugged. “The job is  the job. It gets bad, but you're there to stop  the bad  guys.” She put down her spoon. “It's when you're ambushed from  the inside that it falls apart. That’s really why I needed a break.  My divorce happened right after the worst  bust of my  career, and the two fed off each  other. I suppose Eric told you about the  bust.”

“No. I looked it up.”

At her surprised look, he laid his other hand over her free one. “I told you, I'm interested in  you, Sarah. Those two bullet wounds had a story to them. I got the paper version.”

“Overly dramatic.” Her fleeting, haunted expression told him that, if anything, the  article had understated it. He didn't dredge  it up further for the woman who had lived it. One, because she had answered the question he had wanted answered, and two, because he remembered every word of the article.

A drug bust strategized for months, nine  cops going in, his  Sarah one  of them. Finding out their inside source had set them  up, they faced down a gang of ten with  AK47's and  armor piercing bullets. When it was over, only one person was left standing  to pull a trigger, and that was how they determined who had “won” the engagement.

According to the article, that last  officer, name withheld by request, had pulled  herself to her feet, one bullet already lodged  in  her  abdomen,  no  more  than  an  inch away from her spine. She stumbled across fifty feet of a warehouse floor littered with  bodies, calling out to the last conscious drug dealer to give up as he fumbled to reload a spare thirty-eight in the front seat of his  shot-up car. She fell, dragged herself forward

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on her hands and knees. He cocked the weapon at the same moment she reached the car  door and pulled herself up. She put a bullet in  his face, and he fired his weapon into her  kidney. She only had  one now.  Four officers  killed, six drug dealers dead, the rest critically wounded. She collapsed, still holding onto the  door with one hand, and that’s how she was found, a scene that the papers  had likened  to something out of Baghdad.

His fingers  tightened over hers. “You're  a warrior. A very brave woman. Whatever  the reason is that brought you here, I’m glad  for it. If I could have spared you a moment  of  fear  or  pain,  I  would.  But  I’ll  gladly  be  here  if  you  need  me  to  soothe  your  dreams and give you better ones.”

“You already are,” she murmured, a flush rising in her cheeks. “My turn. I want to  ask you a question now.”

“Anything.”

“Did you ever…were you ever married, or did you live with someone?”

“Just my little girl. There’s been the occasional woman, but they didn’t stick.”

“Maybe it’s your approach, breaking into their houses and all.”

“I actually went to seduce Chief Owens that  night. I forgot he had retired and you  had moved in.”

“He didn't even live there.”

“Ah. Must have forgotten that.”

She struggled against the smile and lost. “If you're this  much of  a smart ass all the time, no wonder women don't want to hang around to cuddle.”

“Despite my godlike status, Chief Sarah, I  assure you I  fall into a post-coital coma  just like all men. I am oblivious to cuddling,  or the lack thereof.”

She knew he was lying. “Will you call me just by my name, please?”

Her tone was soft and Justin looked up,  surprise crossing his handsome  face. “Sarah,” he  murmured, his gaze holding hers across the table.

So he had never known it, that  intimacy  of living with someone, but she sensed now that  he longed  for it. He longed to  be  consort to  a  woman in fact, as he was to the  Goddess in his faith. Having a child, then losing her, would have taught him the value of intimate bonds. She knew losing the love of her husband had taught it to her.

There was a jukebox in the ice cream shop, and  Elvis crooned  about the futileadvice of wise men not to rush into things. He knew he couldn’t stop  himself from falling in love. Sarah felt the slide herself as  Justin heard the music, and a warmth stoleinto his eyes. He rose, drew her to her feet.

“Justin, this is an ice cream shop.”

“And there’s just you and me and one teenager writing an English paper. Come here.”

He brought her into the circle of his arms,  and she felt it again, that sense of hisstrength and protection, freely offered to her  as if it was something she could lean on,

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draw upon as needed.  She put her hand on  his shoulder, and his slid around her waist.  Sarah caught the teenager’s sidelong look at  them before she rested her temple against  Justin’s neck and closed her eyes, just letting  the music sink into her, that velvet golden  voice, the feel of Justin’s arms, the smell of ice cream.

As they danced, his hand eased down to  that shallow and delicate curve of back over the flare of her hips. He hooked into  the waistband of her skirt, his fingers spread over her hipbone, his thumb tracing her skin  just above where the swell of her buttock began. As they continued to sway and turn,  his thigh eased between hers and she foundherself leaning into his weight, so each shift of hips rubbed his thigh against  her mons and tissues that were starting to  throb with  the friction. His  arms held her close, and sheknew she should pull away. What  they were  doing was not visibly immodest, but still,if someone looked close, they would know.

“Relax,” he murmured, pressing his hand against her back. “Lean on me. We're just dancing.”

She was doing more than dancing. She was falling, tumbling, and he was there, waiting to catch her in open arms.

* * * * *

When she woke Monday morning, Sarah's  feelings about Justin Herne were not uneasy. He had left her at her door Friday  night with a  brain-numbing kiss, but he was giving her space and romance, and she was  starting to feel like she could relax and enjoy what was happening between them. They’d  scheduled their dinner date for tonight.

“Chief.” Dexter met her at her office door. His expression wiped the easy smile of greeting off of hers.

“What have  you got?” She opened  her office and tossed her key on her desk.

“They ran the search on Lorraine Messenger  through the Gainesville system for  Chief Wassler, like you said. She came from  Richmond, Virginia. She’s pretty much worked, hooked or did small dealer work to feed her habit through several states. She was caught a couple times, but the stuff was too minor to hold onto her. A social  services report was made on her when she was hospitalized once in North Carolina.”

“Why was social services involved in an OD?”

“It wasn't for that.” He paused. “This just sucks out  loud, Chief. Everyone likes Justin Herne.”

Sarah halted the process of hanging her gun harness on her chair and turned slowly, ice freezing her bagel and coffee breakfast in her gut. “What does Herne have to do with it?”

Dexter extended the copies in his  hand to her unhappily.

“She had a baby in the North Carolina hospital. Justin Matthias Herne is listed as the father. He took custody of the child with her written consent.  She hooked  her way

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back up to  New York, and I don't find any connection between their living arrangements until three months ago,  when she drifted into our area.”

“And wound up dead.” Sarah picked up her  keys, slid the gun belt back over her  shoulder.

“Chief Wassler’s in a  staff meeting this morning with Marion City Council, so they  haven’t acted yet, but Lieutenant  Ford thought you’d want to know.”

“Yeah. Call him, tell him I’ll go get Herne and bring him in to them, since he’s in  our jurisdiction.”