Primal Force (6 page)

Samantha, ahead of Jori in processing what was going on, had risen and come over to Battise. Immediately she pushed in close to him, wedging her heavy body behind him at knee level. Battise didn't seem to notice.

Wanting to help, too, Jori reached out and touched him just above the elbow. His biceps was more than warm. It was almost scalding.

“It's okay, Mr. Battise.”

She watched his whole presence change in the wake of her words. His attention snapped back to her. He looked first at her fingers curled lightly on his biceps and then up at her face. His blinking slowed.

“I don't need your help.” His voice was as hard as the muscles under her touch. His gaze seemed to repel her by force of will.

Determined not to lose him, she clamped her fingers tight on his arm. “I can see that you're very capable in many ways, Mr. Battise. But this isn't war. You don't have to gut it out alone.”

He didn't answer but he didn't pull away from her touch.

Maybe she just needed to change the subject. “Look, if you don't like Sam—”

“I never said I didn't like Sam.” He didn't move yet he suddenly seemed closer. “I said I don't want her.” The words came out as if each one were a whole sentence.

“Okay. Tell me what you do want.”

“What I want?” When his rough and ready gaze rose to tangle with hers, a surge of pure lust burst through Jori. Sexual heat radiated off him like waves from glowing coals. And his eyes. Direct, penetrating. Pure Alpha in search of every advantage against a perceived opponent. At the moment it was all aimed at her.

Self-protection was telling her to run like a scared little rabbit. Not that there was anywhere to go. She was cornered between the file cabinet and his rather impressive body. Another part of her wanted to lean in to him, to touch and taste that heat. Yet the biggest part was urging her to bark back at the Alpha invading her space.

She slapped a palm flat on his chest. “Back off, Mr. Battise. I'm not your enemy.”

Something glinted in his gaze. “Then why do I feel in jeopardy whenever you're around?”

As if. There was too much male presence in his stance to make her feel safe enough to enjoy his brand of humor. But that didn't mean she wasn't thinking, fast, about her next move.

She removed her hand. Her palm went cold from the loss of contact.

“Know what I think, Mr. Battise? You wouldn't recognize what you needed if it was standing in front of you.”

“You want to know what
I
think?” He lifted a finger and touched her two inches below the hollow of her throat where the skin was exposed above the vee of her T-shirt. “I think you're curious as hell about what we'd be like together.”

Jori couldn't lie. The raw heat surging through her was his doing. She was playing with fire. But, she reminded herself, there was only so much he would dare in a public place with a dozen people within the sound of her voice.

She straightened up, suddenly aware that a file cabinet handle had been poking hard into her back. “No thanks. I'm busy.”

“Boyfriend?” He said the word all snarky and dismissive of the imagined man.

She shrugged, trying to see past his shoulder. “I'm just not interested.”

“Liar.”

He leaned in until his beard tickled her left cheek and his voice was a deep dry gush of male temptation in her ear. “Let's get the hell out of here and go somewhere we can satisfy our … curiosity.”

“Not going to happen.” She again put up a hand to push him away. Yet when she encountered the contours of hard warm muscle beneath his shirt, instead of shoving him away, her fingers curled reflexively into the fabric.

One side of his beard hitched up in what could only be a smile. He leaned toward her, applying the pressure of his chest until her hand retreated and there was no space left between their bodies. His chest crushed her breasts.

He was watching her, no doubt trying to determine just how far he could go before she screamed. “Don't worry. I just want a taste of what I can't have. Call it a consolation prize.”

For about a tenth of a second Jori thought,
What if someone sees us?
Then she stopped thinking of anything else but the man locking lips with hers.

Law just meant to touch his lips to hers, to brand her with a taste of what she'd be missing if she didn't take him up on his offer. But then she surged in against him, her fingers grabbing fistfuls of the front of his tee as she opened her mouth under his.

It was like waving a red flag at one very touchy bull.

He had long ago outgrown having a teenage omni-directional dick that any passing pretty girl could make painfully hard. Yet all it took was Jori's lips parting and her tongue sliding out over his lips to stretch his cock full-length. She wasn't supposed to kiss like this. Like she knew what he wanted, and how he wanted it, and was ready to provide it as long as he needed it.

Even so, he knew what she was doing. Teasing herself, and him, with possibilities she had no intention of making good on. That was her mistake. Because right now he wanted her.
Bad
. And he wasn't going to let her off easy.

He hadn't forgotten about the fact that anyone could walk in on them at any time. This was just his one and only chance to scratch, if only a bit, his itch for her. He was going for it for as long as the opportunity lasted.

A low male sound came from somewhere deep in his chest as he gathered her in his arms and slanted his mouth, hard, against hers.

One of his hands gripped her braid near her nape and pulled until her head was tilted back under the power of his kiss. His other hand hauled her in by the waist; then his fingers dived down the back of her pants, under the waistband of her panties, to grasp one full mound of womanly ass.

Under the assault of his mouth Jori felt every cell in her body react. Her nipples tightened. Her sex clenched, hard, seeking satisfaction that required the participation of a male body. In no time he had taken apart every scintilla of resistance, with only a kiss, and she was sagging in surrender.

Jori held on, fingers flexed on his chest like a climber trying to find a hold on the face of a sheer rock cliff. He kissed like he was on fire, all desperate need laced with the absolute control of a man who knew what he wanted and exactly how to get it.

Law felt her surrender. Her body went soft in his arms. His hands slid lower, one to embrace her shoulders while the other curved down deeper under her butt to lift and mold her body to fit his. She helped, rising up on tiptoe. He was home free.

The sudden burst of laughter from the main room was as startling as a gunshot.

Law jerked his mouth from hers and twisted his head back to check the doorway. No one stood there. But it was only a matter of time before someone noticed their absence and came looking for them. Not that he really gave a damn. He was hard enough to pound steel. Was ready to take her on the desk right in front of every bug-eyed veteran, volunteer, and dog in the place. But she wouldn't like that.

Law released her. Well, he tried. His hands weren't listening to his head. His fingers made it all the way out of her panties, only to grip her upper arms as if they knew that releasing her was the very last thing he wanted to do. If he couldn't let go of her, he needed to think of something else.

“Are you finished?”

Jori was staring at him with pupils so wide he could drown in them. Her mouth was wet. Finished? He hadn't even gotten started.

When she licked her upper lip his whole body jerked as if she had just slid that hot pink tongue up the underside of his cock. He glanced around, looking for a suitable surface. Desk. Floor. He wanted her now.

His gaze came back to her and his belly clenched. “You asked me what I want. What I want is you.”

The bluntness of his words left her blinking. Jori strained to think with her heart pumping double-time. “This is nuts. I don't know you.”

“Wrong answer.” His fingers opened free like bolts blown by explosive charges. He took a step back, but it was only enough to leave breathing room. “You want me. I want you. We know enough.”

She gave her head a tight shake as her gaze slid from his.

He glanced at the clock. There'd be other planes. There wouldn't be another time for this. He focused on the woman who had put a heartbeat in his dick. “Tell me three things.”

She gaped at him, caught between amusement and shock. “This is crazy.”

He leaned forward and covered her mouth again with his. When he broke contact, he was the one who sighed. “Three things.”

“I like being outside better than inside.”

“One.”

“I like to dance.”

He nodded. “Faster.”

Jori swallowed the hollowed-out feeling expanding in her chest as if she had stepped off a cliff into thin air. “I'm absolutely the last woman you should be with.”

His eyes widened. “Why?”

“Because you're—were a cop.” Jori was too surprised by the words that had come from her mouth to notice his reaction.

Law went very still. The itch that had been driving him crazy remained, but with a very different vibe. Why should she care that he'd been a cop? No. She'd said
because
he was a cop. Cause and effect. Who didn't like cops? People who'd been on the wrong side in an encounter with one.

Something clicked in his head. Something that had been staring him in the face all week yet hadn't registered. He turned and walked out of the office. Samantha, ever on the job, trailed after him dragging her leash.

Jori let him go. She'd seen the light go on behind his eyes and suspected where he was going, and why. She had hoped he already knew. That maybe someone had told him.

As her breathing slowed she realized her clothes were a mess. When had he pulled up her tee and freed a breast from her bra? And how had her panties become wadded in her crotch? He hadn't opened a snap or lowered a zipper but she was half undressed inside her clothes.

After a quick rearrangement, she followed him reluctantly into the main room.

She saw he had stopped before the Warriors Wolf Pack's Wall of Heroes, scanning the faces of the vets who had become WWP family. He moved quickly past them. Farther along there were framed pictures of staff and volunteers. She knew the second he found what he was looking for in the final set of photos. All the air seemed to leave her lungs.

He leaned in, his finger touching the glass of the picture as if he needed to verify with a touch what his eyes were showing him.

Jori knew the photo all too well. It was taken at the women's correctional center. The inmates, all in matching white jumpsuits, were part of the Warriors Wolf Pack rehabilitation program while serving their sentences. She was the third woman from the right, holding up her certificate as proof she had fulfilled the requirements to be a service dog trainer … once released.

She was an ex-con. Law hadn't known about that until this second.

Jori sucked in a breath, trying to steady her pride and absorb the hurt coming at her like a major-league fastball. No way to dodge it.

When he levered away from the framed portraits he didn't even glance her way. He walked straight across the room and out the main doors. Samantha hurried but the closing door halted her on the inside. Unhappy, she pawed the door and whimpered.

Jori glanced over at Maxine, who was gaping at her from behind the reception desk like a fish jerked out of water. She came rushing over. “What was that about?”

Jori thrust out her chin. “Nothing important.”

As she turned away the main doors flew open again, shoved by a powerful arm. Battise stood in the breach. He looked seriously pissed.

“I don't give fuck about your past. Are you coming or not?”

Jori folded her arms, staring daggers at him. “What about Samantha?”

His gaze flicked to Sam, who still stood by the door. “Bring the damn doodle with you.”

She turned to Maxine. “I'll be back. Lunch break.”

“Oh, somebody's hungry all right,” she heard Maxine say as she picked up Samantha's leash. “I just doubt curly fries are involved.”

 

CHAPTER FIVE

Law sat in his truck before Jori's apartment, thinking. He'd just learned that the woman he was about to screw was a convicted felon. He didn't know what she'd done, or why. And guess what? He didn't give a damn.

His interest in her had nothing to do with who she was, or what she'd done, or even whether or not she might be good in the sack, though preliminaries said she'd be great. He could have had sex every day of the week but had lost interest in recent months. Yet something about Jori brought every hair on his body to attention. He wanted her so bad his zipper had been making teeth marks in his rigid dick for three days straight. Jerking off in the shower didn't begin to satisfy his itch.

And here she was, sitting and waiting for him to make the first move.

So why had his conscience suddenly jumped up to bite him in the ass? Because every thought in his head so far was about himself. Jori was the goal, the objective, nothing more. And unaccountably, he felt bad about that.

He glanced over at her. She sat staring out the windshield, chewing a corner of her lower lip as she fiddled with the end of her braid. He could tell she was having a conversation in her head, too. And it probably wasn't as lust-driven as his was.

“This doesn't work if you think about it.”

Jori nodded, not looking at the man whose bones she wanted to jump right here in his truck. But if she kept thinking, she might just talk herself out of satisfying the hunger for him simmering beneath her full-body flush.

“Look at me.” He waited until her gaze shifted to him. “I don't do relationships.”

Jori watched him, drinking in the implication of his words.
Hard to handle. Impossible to hold on to.
That might just be the good news. She could barely keep up with herself. She didn't need strings or commitment, or even checking up on.