The Set Up (37 page)

LAST WEEKEND TWENTY-TWO
people were shot in Detroit, four of them fatally. A month ago the Department of Highway Safety announced they were having a difficult time raising the funds to assemble a task force to tackle the long-standing problem of illegal street racing. Tonight, mobs of angry people came out to express their concern about my innocence.

What do they all have in common? The city’s lack of a fully staffed police force to handle the violence on the streets.

It’s the sort of thing that gives Detroit a fearful reputation of being a lawless place.

I draw in a breath. Let it out. Take another, a slow, easy pattern that nevertheless doesn’t help me relax.

Up until now, the shit that happened tonight was something I’d only watched on the news or read in the paper. Now it is my life.

I’m certain damage control is quickly moving to the top of Will’s to-do list. And rightfully so.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Breathe.

Thunder booms in the distance and lightning lights up the sky. Small pellets of rain start beating down and I look over toward the window. It’s open, but the wind doesn’t seem to be blowing it in.

Finally, I exhale in shallower bursts. Beneath me Charlotte makes a small snore-like noise. It’s fucking adorable. I look at her and even in the midst of the turmoil I can’t help but grin.

Our skin is sticky from the July heat. Charlotte shifts to lie beside me and entwines her legs with mine. And that’s all it takes. Soon, too soon, my breathing starts to pick up again for an entirely different reason.

I can’t stop myself from remembering how good it felt to be inside her. Bare. Never have I gone bareback with a woman before. Fuck, it felt like nothing I’d ever felt before. Like sex was just sex with all the others, but with her it was something more. Something I can’t put a name on. Was it just that I didn’t wear a condom? Because fuck, I shouldn’t do that again. Still, I want to. But really, I always have condoms. Always. Yet, with everything going on, I never restocked my wallet after last weekend. Sex just wasn’t on my radar. When you’re the circus act in town it’s hard to focus on much else. And let’s not forget that I was planning on keeping her out of this mess.

Fuck!

I run my hand through my hair. Was it the right decision to change my mind?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I just don’t know.

The summer heat wave is in full force and feeling it more tonight than ever, I carefully throw the covers off and stare at the overhead fan whirling above.

Risk and danger.

That’s what I’ve been about my whole life. And as I lie here at three in the morning with her fast asleep on my chest, I can’t help but wonder if that’s what Charlotte Lane is to me too.

More risk and danger.

If she is, the outcome might be more detrimental than any before, because this time I’ve allowed the one thing to happen that I haven’t allowed since I was eight years old—for my heart to open. Just a little. Not too much. But enough that she’s somehow seeped inside it.

Smooth skin is warm beneath my fingertips and although I shouldn’t, I can’t help but caress it.

The thing about Charlotte is that when I’m with her, I feel like I’m speeding on the highway and slowing down at the same time. I feel like it doesn’t matter if I go left or right. My internal meter can’t get a reading on how fast or slow I’m going, and the strangest thing is that I’m okay with it.

Tiny droplets of rain start splashing on the hardwood floor and carefully, very carefully, I untangle myself from Charlotte and cross the room to close her window. Her building is extremely long and through this window I can see the back of the Motor City Brewing Works. Although I hate that she lives here, at least her building backs up to a green alley. I pushed the council to complete this green alley project last year. The space was underutilized and over-vandalized. It was a hive for crime. Gone are the mosquitos, vagrants, thieves, garbage, and puddles of slime and dirt. In their place are wildflowers, a beautiful brick walkway, and a safe entrance to a garage and the brewery.

Stepping over my clothes, I pull my phone out. Thumbing through text after text, I stop at the one from Alex that reads, “Need to talk to you. Meet me at nine tomorrow morning at the Hudson Cafe, near your building.”

That can’t be good. I type a quick response, “I’ll be there,” and toss my phone on the dresser. I’ll answer the other messages in the morning.

Charlotte’s apartment is on the top floor and the patter of rain on the roof sounds louder than it had moments ago. Slowly, I pad back toward the bed. Slipping in, I try not to move too much so I don’t wake her.

The flash of lightning and almost instantaneous crash of thunder makes Charlotte jerk. The power goes out with a beep of her alarm clock but comes back on moments later. Another rumble follows another flash, and this time the alarm clocks beeps but the power remains off.

The storm is moving closer. The lightning cracks at pretty regular intervals and the thunder gets louder and louder.

An ear-piercing scream has me bolting upright. “Charlotte!” I call out, reaching blindly across the bed. My heart starts pounding out of my chest when her head isn’t on the pillow she was just sleeping on moments ago.

“I’m right here,” she says in a hushed whisper.

Pushing my way through the sheets, I crawl to the foot of the bed and find her there. If light and shadows could paint the picture, I already know what I would see. A girl curled up tightly with her arms around her knees, rocking back and forth to ease the fear. Coils of anxiety work their way into my muscles until I reach her. Gently but firmly, I wrap myself around her trembling body, not unlike I used to do when we were eight.

“I’m okay,” she tells me.

Sometimes darkness reveals as much as it hides. She’s still afraid of the dark. Afraid of the thunder and lightning. The years haven’t eased her fear in the least. “I know you are,” I whisper against her hair.

Her voice cracks a little when she speaks. “I have a flashlight in the drawer of the night table.”

“We don’t need that,” I whisper.

She clings to me like I’m her safety blanket and I wonder if this is what she considers needy.

I breathe in and breathe out, wondering how she coped all these years alone. Did the flashlight help? Did her aunt comfort her? Is this why the men in her life left her?

Assholes.

Questions I want to ask and will, just not now. Right now she needs to know she’s not alone. With a slight shift of our bodies, she’s beneath me, and I rise on my forearms so as not to crush her.

She lifts on her elbows. “I really am okay.”

“I know.”

“I want you,” she whispers into the dark, sitting up.

“I’m right here,” I tell her and sit up too.

In the dark she finds me. Finds my cock. Grips my cock and slides right onto my lap.

I let out a shuddering sigh. “Charlotte.”

Her moan is one I already feel I can never get enough of.

We’re chest to chest.

Mouth to mouth.

Breath to breath.

Her arms go around my neck and hold the back of my head. Our mouths meet. We kiss, hard but slow. Our tongues stroke each other’s like we both love the taste of each other. When my hands grip her hips, she wraps her legs around my waist. I fucking love it.

Slowly my hips thrust upward.

Charlotte starts rocking into me at a much faster pace.

“Fuck.”

Her fingers twist in my hair at the nape. “Please, Jasper,” she begs.

Because I can’t say no, because I would never say no to her, I give her what she wants. My hands slide down beneath her ass to lift her higher on my cock. She counters with a downward thrust and a roll of her hips that twists her on me in a way that makes me want to explode right now.

I hold back and move faster.

Faster.

Faster still.

I thrust into her over and over and before I know it, I’m fucking her in a way I hadn’t before.

And it feels so good. So fucking good. It felt good before, but this feels even better.

Better than sex has ever felt with anyone.

She feels it too. I know she does. Her hands slip out of my hair and she clutches my back. Her nails dig into my skin and although I’m certain I’ll feel it tomorrow, all I can do right now is moan into her mouth. Over and over. Our bodies slap and the bed shakes. She bites my shoulder and it spurs me on. I shout out and thrust so deep inside her. Deeper than I should be. Deep enough that I’m certain we might become one.

The thunder crashes in the distance, the rain falls, and the lights turn back on with a beep. The room is illuminated from the light in the hall and I stop kissing her so that I can look at her. At her wild hair, at her beautiful face, at her sexy body, at all of her, and I wonder how anyone could ever forget her.

Licking my lips, I taste sweat.

She’s moving fast. Keeping up with my pace.

I can’t hold on any longer. “Come with me,” I manage.

“I am!” she shouts, and I can feel her sweet pussy clench around my cock.

And then I let go. And I come. Come like I never have. I’m practically spasming. The incredible feeling builds and I come and come and come. “Oh fuck!” I shout as I cross that threshold to bliss over and over until I’m completely spent.

She collapses on my shoulder.

I hold onto her tight without moving for the longest time and then, completely wiped out, I fall back on the bed. I can’t speak. The only words I manage are, “Holy fuck.”

“Holy fuck is right,” she repeats.

I burst out in laughter because when we were kids she never swore, and in the few times we’ve been together I have yet to hear her say “damn,” let alone “fuck.”

She laughs too and collapses on my chest. Minutes later, her breathing slows and she’s fallen asleep.

Outdoors the storm is still ravaging the streets. But in here, in my chest, that storm is at bay. With her safe in my arms, I close my eyes. And before I know it, I’m out like a light too.

FUEL INJECTED

Charlotte

“IS THAT COFFEE
I smell?” Jasper, hair wet from the shower, tucks the towel tighter around his lean hips and slides onto the stool at the breakfast bar.

I’m wearing his T-shirt, which fits me perfectly. Well, not quite. It was a little large, so I tied a knot at the side. I’m wearing it because I can. Because I want to smell him. To wear what he was wearing. It’s crazy, I know, but I couldn’t help myself. I turn, coffee in hand, and set one of my aunt’s antique china cups in front of him. “French roast,” I say with a smile.

“I’m sorry I have to run out so early to meet Alex, but I’ll make it up to you tonight by ordering in dinner at my place.”

Not wanting to talk about tonight, tomorrow, or the day after that, I turn and pull the bread from the warmer. “I made some raisin toast. I know you have a breakfast meeting, but I think you should know I’m famous for my raisin bread.”

“Famous, huh?”

I nod and turn to face him. “It was my specialty at the bed-and-breakfast.”

He bites down on his fist. “You look sexy as fuck.”

I set the plate and my cup on the small counter separating us and then take a step back. “This ratty thing?” I joke. “It belongs to some guy I couldn’t keep my hands off last night.”

With a raised brow, Jasper plays along. “I hope he is deserving of that kind of attention.”

I circle the island. “Oh, he is.”

Jasper swivels on the stool and pulls me between his legs. “Last night was . . . amazing”

“It was,” I tell him, and then look for a reason not to kiss him like we’ve been lovers for years, but I can’t think of one. So I kiss him. I throw my arms around him and kiss him hard. Kiss him slow. Kiss him sweet. My shirt rises and exposes my frilly panties. The ones I wore for him. A simple black pair made entirely of lace. His hands are on them. In them. Ripping them down. And I’m still kissing him. Kissing him because although I don’t want to leave today, I have to. I have to leave . . . for now. Until he can clear his name. Me by his side will just make things worse. Harder. More difficult for him. And I can’t do that to him. I can’t.