Bad Girl by Night (16 page)

They ate. Made small talk. He asked her about a few of the townspeople he’d met—he thought someone might have introduced him to her mother outside the bank yesterday, but he was losing track, meeting too many people too quickly. She asked him how he liked Turnbridge, how his new job was going. At one point, Oliver approached and curled up on the floor beneath the coffee table, as if listening to their conversation.

“So I know you built your bed,” Jake said, peering over at it. “What else up here have you made?”

She looked around. “Um, the kitchen table. Those bookshelves.” She pointed. “The coffee table and end tables. And the trunk at the foot of the bed.”

“Wow.” He sounded truly taken aback and said, “I admire that. Being able to make things that’ll last. I envy your skills.”

“Thanks,” she said after swallowing a sip of wine. “But it’s really all I’ve ever known. I started learning when I was little.”

“Maybe after we finish eating, you’ll show me some more of your work downstairs.”

She nodded, smiled. “Sure.”

He lifted a second slice of the pepperoni-and-sausage pizza from the box onto his plate, asking, “Where’d the name Winterberry’s come from? I mean, since it’s
like
Winters, but different.”

“When my dad opened the shop, my mom thought the name Winters sounded too harsh and cold to be appealing. So she came up with Winterberry’s to make it feel warmer and more quaint. And my mom loves winterberry, too, which grows in the wild here. We have some in the woods behind the house my mom still lives in.”

Jake tilted his head. “I don’t know much about plants,” he said. “What exactly
is
winterberry?”

“A common version of holly,” she explained. “But its leaves fall off the branches in winter, leaving only the red berries. It’s a tough plant, thrives through cold spells and stays just as bright and pretty.”

He nodded thoughtfully, saying, “It’s a nice name.”

And she was being reminded that
he
was nice. Just like that night in the bar in the hotel. And that they could talk about other things besides sex and her issues surrounding it.

“So what were you doing in Traverse City?” she asked, curious and trying to be bold by not letting memories of that night stop her from asking.

“I grew up there,” he replied between bites of pizza. “My family moved there from Ann Arbor when I was five. And I went to the police academy near there, too. That particular week, I was at an annual reunion with the guys I went to the academy with.”

She raised her eyebrows. “All of them?” Not that she knew how many guys attended the police academy each year, but it seemed like it would be a lot.

“Actually, it’s only about a dozen guys from the class—we were put in a special program together and we got close. And we’ve pretty much stayed that way, all this time. Friends come and go, but these are the guys I can call up in the middle of the night from anywhere, and if I need them, they’ll be there. And I’d do the same for them.”

“What kind of special program?”

“We all showed an aptitude for dealing with high-pressure situations, so we received special training for handling hostage situations. We were called the Hostage Ops Team, H.O.T. for short.”

“Wow,” she said, duly impressed. But she couldn’t resist pointing out, “Although . . . somehow I don’t feel they were training you to end up in a place like Turnbridge.”

“Nope,” he replied. “They were training me for a place more like Detroit, and that’s where I’ve been since I graduated . . . until now.”

She blinked. “And what on earth brought you
here
, Officer Lockhart?”

He stopped eating, let out a sigh. “I worked in the inner city. Lot of shootings there. And stabbings. And even the occasional hostage situation.”

She tilted her head. “Isn’t that your specialty?”

He lowered his gaze, then lifted it back to hers. “Yeah—but it wears on a guy after a while. So I decided to make a change, try someplace quieter—and here I am.” He sighed, took a drink of wine. “Though just between me and you, I’m already starting to get a little worried.”

Wow. Now
he
was confiding in
her
. Maybe it wasn’t the same as sharing your most personal problem, but it still made her feel a little more connected to him. “About?” she asked.

“I felt like I did some good in Detroit, helped people in rough situations who needed it.” He paused, shook his head. “Here . . . well, things are even quieter than I thought they’d be. So quiet that I’m not entirely sure I’m even . . . needed.”

Carly drew in her breath, let it back out. Then took a sip of wine for courage. Because she couldn’t attest to whether the Turnbridge Police Department could really put his skills to the best use, but . . . “Maybe you’ve already helped somebody here and you don’t even know it. Maybe there’s more than one way to help someone.”

When she shyly lifted her eyes to his, their gazes met, held, and she knew he was reading her loud and clear. Though he softly said, “I . . . can’t believe you think I’ve done anything to help you.”

She swallowed, feeling nervous again, but wanting so badly not to be. She wanted to tell him how she felt, regardless of how personal it was, of how sexual. “Last night was . . .
big
for me. Because it was . . . different. From usual. Because I was just me, not anybody else, like you pointed out. And because I didn’t freeze up or fall apart. I just . . .
wanted
it. In a way . . . in a way where I couldn’t stop. I’ve never had sex like that before, sex that . . . urgent.”

He kept his eyes on her the whole time, listening, watching her, and finally asked, “Then . . . why do you look scared right now?” Plates sat forgotten on their laps, wine abandoned on the table.

“Lots of reasons,” she told him. She wasn’t thrilled to hear she looked afraid, but she wanted to keep going, keep sharing this bold honesty she was learning to have with him. “Because I don’t even know how to go on a date with a guy. Because I don’t know how to have sex the normal way. I don’t know how to be me and how to be sexual at the same time.”
And because I don’t know much about caring for a man, either, not since Chuck, but I’m starting to fear I could care about you
—and to mix caring with sex, for her, somehow seemed like the ultimate risk.

Slowly, Jake set his near-empty plate on the coffee table, then reached to set hers aside as well. Then he slid his hand into hers where it rested on her knee, gently caressing her skin with his thumb. His voice came low, seductive. “I can help you figure all that out, honey. It’s not so hard, I promise.”

“
How
can you help?” she asked, his simple touch sending ripples of sensation up her arm, into her breasts.

“Like this,” he told her, leaning nearer.

She caught her breath. And then he kissed her. Gently. Sweetly. Deeply.

In the hotel room, they’d kissed hotly. Last night, they’d kissed urgently. But they’d never before kissed like this.

She kissed him back without thought, instantly intoxicated by him. His mouth was firm yet tender on hers, silently coaxing her to let go of her inhibitions and just follow her instincts. She tried, hard.
Turn off your thoughts. Your fears. Turn off every old feeling. You already know you can be with this man, and he’s pretty perfect, so just be with him.

She raised her palm to his cheek, felt the rough stubble there. Without quite intending to, her lips parted, inviting his tongue into her mouth, and the move saturated her whole body with warmth, especially when a low moan left him, letting her know that . . . mmm, he felt it just as much.

When finally they stopped kissing, their foreheads touched and she absorbed his very nearness, bit her lip, let out a sigh. Then his hand slid softly up her side, stopping at the swell of her breast, and she trembled.

“I want to touch you,” he whispered. “Like last night. But slower.”

It became difficult to breathe then, both from desire and nervousness. Yet she said, “I want that, too. I want . . . all of you.”

Lifting a hand, he gently brushed back her hair and spoke in a rasp. “I’m gonna give you everything you want, Carly. Everything you can take.”

She sucked in her breath. She wasn’t used to that, being called by her name during sex. But he clearly thought the response was just another heated reaction, and she was glad. She didn’t want to do anything to break this spell, this passion growing between them right now.

Especially when he laid her back on the couch and began kissing her again—just kissing, caressing. Lord, it reminded her of a very long time ago, with Chuck. But this was better. Because she wouldn’t say no to what was coming; she wouldn’t suddenly feel sick and scared and paralyzed by it all. So she kissed him back with sweet abandon, and when their legs intertwined, she let out a soft moan.

They began moving together, the friction thick and delicious as her body lifted against his almost of its own volition. He’d grown hard, and his erection pressed alluringly against her hip as his hands kneaded her waist and then began to ease up under her top.

“Can we take this off?” he whispered.

She managed a nod, working against her very “Carlyness” and trusting him, trusting him to make this so good that she’d forget everything bad that had ever come before it.

“Lift up your arms,” he told her, and she did, letting him smoothly remove the tank.

Underneath she wore a pale pink bra—part mesh, part lacy flowers that lined the upper edges of each cup. She knew her nipples were visible through the sheer fabric, and Jake let out a low groan at the sight. Then he met her gaze, lids heavy with lust. “That’s so pretty, baby.”

She bit her lip, her cheeks filling with heat, and felt a little like Desiree but also a little like herself. “I’m glad you like it.”

“I’m in love with it,” he murmured, then let his hands curve around her outer breasts before he stroked both thumbs over her taut, beaded nipples.

“Unh,” she breathed as the sweet, hot pleasure echoed through her.

And then he lowered his mouth there, kissed the tip of one breast through her thin bra, making her shudder, making the crux of her thighs spasm. She wanted more of him, too, so she pulled at his T-shirt until he rose to strip it briskly off and toss it across the room, the move leaving him sitting up, straddling her hips now.

His chest, his stomach, were perfect—well-muscled yet lean, sprinkled with dark curling hair that narrowed into a line leading down into his blue jeans. And for the first time, she finally got to look at the tattoo on his arm: a badge with the words PROTECT, SERVE, and HONOR on it. She reached up to touch it with one fingertip, and he glanced down at it but said nothing.

Then she pressed both palms flat against his chest, exploring the firmness of his muscles as his hands closed back around her breasts, making her flood her panties with moisture. He squeezed and caressed, teased the stiffened peaks with his fingertips, pressed his erection against her mound, all while she slowly moved her hands downward over his stomach.

Her breath became labored as the heat built inside her. This wasn’t so hard. In fact, it was pretty damn easy at the moment. Even being under him, seeing him tower over her—just like when she became Desiree, as long as she felt in control of the situation, it was fine.

She wanted . . . oh God, she wanted to undo the button on his jeans, then the zipper. But she began to feel shy. Carly-shy. Damn it.

But Jake must have sensed her hesitation because that’s when he released her breasts and ever so gently took her hands, her fingers, and helped her undo the button, even as she trembled a little. Then the zipper, too.

And after that, he rose up, scooted back a little, and undid
her
jeans, the slide of her own zipper making her shiver. “Lift up,” he whispered, so she did, letting him tug the denim down to reveal yellow bikini panties dotted with pink flowers, a rim of pink lace edging the top. He released a hot sigh and ran one fingertip lightly along the lace border. “So fucking pretty,” he murmured, and the words moved all through her like warm liquid.

Fuck me.
If she were in Traverse City and he were a stranger, she would say it right now, demand it. It’s what she wanted, and those were the words that came to mind.

But it was still hard to reconcile that part of her with the woman everyone knew, so she simply sucked in her breath as she let Jake remove her jeans completely—and then he stood up next to the couch in order to push his down as well. Underneath, he wore gray boxer briefs that clung pleasantly to his thighs, and to the sturdy bulge in front.

“Take those off, too,” she told him, the words coming out unplanned. Easier than
fuck me
, she supposed, but still bold for Carly Winters.

“All right,” he said smoothly, then pushed them down.

When her eyes dropped to his erection, her heartbeat kicked up. Need lurched within her, hunger coming out.
Fuck me. Feed it to me. Fuck my tits.
These were things she might say if she was having sex with a stranger in Traverse City. And for some reason, she still couldn’t say those things any other way. Even with a man she’d already said them to once before. So she just bit her lip and ached wildly inside for his hard, lovely cock, her whole body craving it, craving more of him.

But that’s when he dropped to his knees and bent over the couch to lower a kiss right between her legs. “Oh God,” she whispered, taken aback, and her focus shifted from his body to hers.

“I want to kiss this sweet pussy,” he murmured against it, making her shudder for more reasons than one. Excitement. And . . . and . . . Lord, why should that word shock her? She’d heard it, said it herself, during sex, dozens of times. And yet it caught her off guard, made her clench her teeth lightly. Carly didn’t
do
dirty. That was Desiree’s department—and Desiree wasn’t here. And so she didn’t reply, but she still refused to let old, backward responses make her freeze up, inside or out.