Smashwords version Sweet Surrender (5 page)

Rafe fell back in shock. “What the hell? Poppy, are you all
right?”  At the top of the stairwell, she heard the door of her apartment bang
open again. She and Rafe both spun around to look. Looming in the doorway was a
tall, thin man in a hooded jacket, with the hood pulled so low she couldn’t see
his face; when he caught a glimpse of Rafe, he turned and ran back into the
apartment.
“Stay here!” Rafe yelled at her, and then took off  up the stairs
and through her apartment, after the intruder.
“No worries,” Poppy muttered, crossing her arms over the front of
her body in a useless attempt to cover herself, suddenly thankful for the fact
that she had no neighbors.
Rafe came through the front door several minutes later, breathing hard,
and talking into his cell phone. “Thanks, Richard, just have the guys keep an
eye out for him.  He was wearing gloves, so I don’t think you’re going to
get any prints.”
“Who are you talking to?”  Poppy asked, baffled.
“The night sergeant at the Port Rollins Police Department. I used
to be a cop there. The police will be here in a few minutes. What happened? Did
he hurt you?” His brown eyes gleamed fiercely and he spoke  in a low
growl. Poppy imagined that being on Rafe’s bad side would be a very dangerous
place to be.
She shivered, hugging herself.
“I heard him opening the kitchen window while I was changing to
get in the shower.  I ran out of the apartment in my underwear.” She
glanced down at herself ruefully. “I should have moved faster. I should have
grabbed a blanket. I should have –“
“Don’t, Poppy. Don’t blame yourself. You’re the victim here.
You’ve done nothing wrong.”

He gathered her in his muscular arms, and she melted against him.
He was warm, and strong, and tall, and she felt enveloped in his protective
embrace. She leaned her head against his shoulder and sighed.
His arms tightened around her, and she felt his fingers caressing
her hair, tangling in her golden curls.  The world vanished, and there was
only the two of them, and his warmth enfolding her, and the thudding of her
heart reverberated against the broad, muscular wall of his chest.
Then he slowly pulled away, his big hands resting on her
shoulders. “I hear the cops pulling up out front. Let’s get you back inside and
get some clothes on.”
“Oh, my God!” Poppy cried out, panicked. “I’m standing on the
stairway nearly butt naked!”

“Hey, I’m not complaining about the view.” He slid a finger under
her chin and tipped her head up to look him in the eyes, and she nearly melted
into a puddle of lust at his feet. She stifled a moan and pressed her legs
together tightly.  “But we can save that for later.”
And he grabbed her by the hand and led her back up the stairs to
her apartment, staying in front of her the whole way, protectively.
Save that for later? What did he mean by that? What did he want
from her?

She didn’t have time to think about it right now.  Inside the
apartment, she rummaged through the suitcase she hadn’t unpacked yet, and
frantically threw on a flowered pink blouse and pink harem pants right before
two uniformed officers came in the door.
They greeted Rafe by name, and then took Poppy’s report, which was
unfortunately all too brief. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the man; she
couldn’t even tell them what race he was.

“You need
better security on that window,” one of them told her. “I could jimmy that open
with a butter knife. I’d put an alarm system in here too.  Maybe have a
friend come sleep with you until you can make this place a little safer.”
“Hey, Ben,” Rafe said. “Could you just confirm to my friend Poppy
here that I used to work with Port Rollins finest?”
“Of course,” Ben said, grinning at Poppy. “He was a moderately
talented sergeant in the detective divi-ouch! Very talented!” He rubbed his arm
ruefully where Rafe had just punched him, gave Rafe a friendly wave, and
followed his partner out of her apartment, shutting the door behind him.
“What are you even doing here?” Poppy asked, puzzled, as Rafe
turned the deadbolt behind them.
“I figured I’d come here after work so I could talk to you without
your guard dog buddy running interference.  I tried to come to the shop
today to tell you – that woman who came in the store yelling at me is my
brother’s future wife.  Maybe. They’ve broken off the engagement half a
dozen times.  She’s a shrew, it’ll never last, I told him over and over
again, but he’s not thinking with his brain when it comes to her. And he likes
his women feisty.” Rafe shook his head, scowling.
“Ha. I should hook him up with Viola then.  Except he’s
already taken, and there’s a different between being feisty and being a bitch,
and Viola only likes rock and roll guys, so never mind.  Why did you want
me to know that you used to be a cop?”
“Because I’m going to be sleeping in your apartment until we get
this place more safe and secure, and I didn’t want you to think I’m just some
random pervert trying to take advantage of you. I mean, I am trying to take
advantage of you, but I’m actually a very respectable pervert.”

Her heart thumped in her chest, but she ignored his quirky smile
and his attempts at flirtation.
“You can’t sleep here.  The couch is the only bed,” she
pointed out.
“So I’ll  make a mattress out of the couch cushions and sleep
on the floor.  I’ve roughed it before;  my dad used to take me and my
brothers camping all the time.”
“No way.  I can’t ask that of you.  Go back to your
apartment. I’ll – I’ll call you if anyone tries to break in again.” She glanced
towards the kitchen with trepidation.  She really did feel much safer with
Rafe here – physically, anyway. Emotionally, she wasn’t so sure.
“That would involve us exchanging phone numbers, which is going to
happen anyway, but no. I’m sleeping here. End of story.”
She sighed and held her hand up in a “stop it” gesture. “Don’t,
Rafe. You don’t have to do that. Flirt with me, I mean. Pretend to like me.”
He looked genuinely baffled. “Who’s pretending?”

Tears welled up in her eyes, and she blinked hard, humiliated. A
lifetime of memories of handsome men looking through her as if she were
invisible, and then lighting up when they spotted her beautiful, reed thin
half-sister, burned inside her and threatened to choke the words from her
throat.
“Really, Rafe. There’s got to be a million skinny, beautiful women
out there who’d love to jump you. Guys like you don’t go for girls like me. And
I’d like you to leave now;  I need to get some sleep.” As if she could
sleep.
She turned to walk away from him, headed towards the kitchen.
 She wasn’t hungry, but it was the only other room in the apartment aside
from the bathroom.
Suddenly, faster than she would have thought possible, he was on
her, blocking her, backing her into the wall, and his hands were on either side
of her face, tilting her head up again and forcing her to look at him. His eyes
burned with intensity, and a deep, carnal hunger.
“Stop it, Poppy. Stop doing this to yourself. Have you looked at
yourself in the mirror? You’ve got a beautiful face. You’ve got a beautiful
figure.  No, you’re not freakishly thin; you’ve got boobs and an ass and a
stomach that I want to kiss and nice round thighs that I want to run my tongue
along. You understand me? I want you. I know there’s plenty of women out there
that I could have, and I’m here with you.”
Poppy’s lips parted in shock, and before she could say a word,
he’d plunged his mouth onto hers, hot and hungry.  He sucked at her,
claiming her mouth with his probing tongue, and she found her trembling hands
on his shoulders, fingers sinking in and clutching him tightly.

Warmth spread slowly throughout her whole body until she was hot
and tingly all over, and her sex was throbbing with desire and need. She could
feel moisture seeping between her lips, soaking her panties. She ached for him
to fill her, to slide between her legs, to thrust inside her…
His hands on her face were gentle and strong, and his tongue swept
through her mouth, probing, conquering her. She responded by tilting her head
back, sucking on him hungrily, her tongue meeting his.
She imagined his mouth moving lower, lower…tracing kisses down her
body, suckling her breasts, trailing his lips over her stomach…
He pressed the length of his body against hers and she felt the
thickness of his hard cock, straining against the material of his jeans. She
felt as if she were being swept away, as if she’d drown…

The clock on the wall chimed, and she pulled away abruptly.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, struggling to clear her head. “I just
realized how late it is! Visiting hours at the hospital are already over. I won’t
make it there in time to see my sister tonight.”

“Your sister?”

“Penelope’s my sister. Half-sister. Wait just a minute, let me try
to call her.” She saw an odd look cross his face when she said that, but it
wasn’t the usual look of interest men got when she mentioned Penelope. It was
more like disappointment.
Puzzled, she went in to the kitchen to retrieve her cell phone,
called her sister, and again the phone went straight to voicemail.  Frustration
and worry swirled inside her, tying her stomach in knots.

Then she dialed the nurse’s station, and was reassured that her
sister was all right. But when she asked the nurse to tell her sister to call
her, the nurse returned a minute later, and said “She says that she’s in too
much pain to talk, right now.”
Poppy firmly tamped down on the instinctive swell of sympathy that
surged inside her; this was Penelope, after all. “Was she in pain all day, or
did it just suddenly start when I asked to talk to her?”
“Oh, no, ma’am, she had a couple of visitors, and she was just
fine when they were here. It just started when I asked her if she wanted to
talk to you. Sorry,” the nurse said, in a tone which said she knew all about
complicated family dynamics.
“No problem. Please give her a message for me. I will be there
tomorrow night at 7 p.m., and if she wants me to keep running the bakery for
her, she better be available to talk to me. Or I’m leaving town.”
She clicked the disconnect button and turned back to see Rafe
standing in the kitchen doorway, watching her with an expression she couldn’t
read.

“So, uh…that was…nice, earlier,” she attempted a smile. Nice? Hah!
She’d almost had an orgasm right there against the living room wall.

He grinned at her. “Nice?  I was thinking more…incredible.
Hot. Delicious.”

But he leaned in the doorway and didn’t make a move towards her.
She was baffled. What was he waiting for?

“And?” she said faintly, after an awkward pause.

“And, I want to take you out to dinner after I come back from my
business trip. I’m supposed to leave towards the end of the week.  I shouldn’t
have jumped on you like that. I want to take you out and get to know you.”

“Oh.” Poppy tried not to feel deflated and hurt. Was this a brush
off? Why the abrupt turnaround?

“Okay…dinner would be nice,” she said with what she hoped looked
like a casual shrug.

“I promise you, what I have in mind for you is far from nice.” He
flashed her a devilish grin and she felt herself warming up again. He didn’t
seem like the kind of man who’d lead a woman on for no reason. He’d come back
to talk to her twice already, even with Viola trying to chase him off. And now
that she thought about it, she did believe he’d been looking for her at
O’Malley’s.

So he was pursuing her. Maybe he really was a decent guy who
wanted to take his time and not rush things.

Rafe walked past her and began examining the kitchen window. “This
needs a new lock and you need an alarm system. So, what was that all about with
your sister, anyway?”
Poppy sighed, heavily. “She didn’t tell me what kind of bakery
this was when she asked me to run it for the summer. It’s kind of a big deal.
 I go to a very conservative law school, on full scholarship. I live on
campus.  I don’t think they’d be thrilled that I’m working here. And I’m
sure she knows that. Then again, I guess she didn’t know anyone else that she
trusted enough to run the bakery for her for the summer.”

“Law school, eh?”

“Hey, when I get my degree, I’ll save a fortune in legal fees from
bailing my sister out of trouble.” The sad thing is, she was only half joking.
“So you bail her out a lot?” He leaned on the counter, facing her,
a lock of brown hair falling on his forehead.
Little lightning bolts of heat shot through her body.  Stop
being so respectful, you idiot, she thought. Take me now, on the kitchen table.
She swallowed hard, and forced herself to concentrate.
“I know how that sounds, but she had it really, really rough
growing up.  Penelope’s my half-sister; I was four when she was born. My
mother was a widow when she married Penelope’s father, and then she had
Penelope and gained all this weight and never lost it, and he lost interest in
her and ran off with another woman. And she took it out on Penelope with a
vengeance.  She’d buy me pretty new clothes for school and buy Penelope ugly
old stuff from Goodwill.  On Christmas she’d give me a whole pile of new
toys and give Penelope a few beatup second-hand thrift store pieces of junk.
She’d literally forget Penelope’s birthdays. It was horrible.  And when I
stuck up for Penelope she’d give me this evil look, walk out of the room, and
not talk to me for days. Neither Penelope or I stayed in contact with her when
we grew up and moved out.”