Chance of a Lifetime (4 page)

The tractor road came up suddenly, but she hit the brake, spinning out the back wheels for a fast ninety-degree turn. God, she’d missed this. When her dad had worked the pits of the dirt tracks, he’d taught her how to handle the cars like the young NASCAR wannabes. This car was as responsive as a hard and hungry man. Like the one she felt closing in behind her.

A fork came up and she veered right, shooting over a bump that flew her over a sizeable pothole, the tires almost leaving the ground. She landed as light as a unicorn on the other side of a road that was barely more than a deer track.

Get me out of these clothes.
She’d meant it and far more.
Get me out of this life, if just for
a night. I’ll be everything everyone needs me to be tomorrow. Tonight, let me just belong to
myself…and you, Jake Chance.

* * * * *

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Chance of a Lifetime

She was headed for Cutter’s Bridge. He cursed. This road was only used by farm equipment moving between the corn fields that whipped by them, green, gold and silver in the moonlight, the silk tassels waving like race pennants, their movement like the roaring crowd.

Damn, she could drive. But that didn’t alleviate the fear in his gut. If anything, it increased it. Because the road was unused by regular traffic, there was no reason to post warning signs that Cutter’s Bridge was unsafe. The support beams had rotted out some time ago. She’d approach it at the cool seventy she was doing now on the dirt road and wouldn’t notice it until she and that little car were in the middle of it. He’d been an idiot to get carried away by this.

Well, she’d started it—he’d finish it. Get her stopped, get her back to the highway with a pat on her head and a careless grin, try to make her believe nothing real had led to this moment, no undeniable connection that still had him hard thinking about it. He was a cop first and foremost. Human came second. Being horny had to be dead last.

He gunned the car as they took the curve into the straightaway to the bridge. Three hundred yards and no options. There was a slight incline on the right shoulder, a shallow gully on the left side. Her chances were better with the incline. Flooring it, he swung around her in the narrow space and swerved toward her driver’s door, wondering if six months of his salary would cover body work to a Porsche.

Be as good a driver as you seem to be, baby. Don’t flip it.

Her eyes snapped toward him and she yanked the wheel right, hard. She jumped into a sea of corn, the back end of the car careening as she fought to hold control.

Hold it, honey. Hold onto it.

The car spun, but the corn formed a good break and she straightened, rolled to a halt.

He’d already slammed on his own brakes and was out of the car headed toward her when she came out of the driver’s side unhurt, her eyes bright, face flushed with 25

Joey W. Hill

adrenaline. She was barefoot again. The significance of that registered just a moment before she shot him a reckless smile. And took off.

Here he was, having heart failure, and it hadn’t even fazed her.

“Catch me if you can,” she called out, backpedaling, waiting to see if he’d follow, if he’d play her game. The feverish look was gone. What he saw was careless abandon, a devil-may-care desperation he couldn’t help but answer when she had her bare toes gripping the earth, the strap falling back down her shoulder and her hair shiny and disheveled around her pixie face.

Hell with it. He would play her game and show her some rules of his own. He backed up one step, two steps, keeping his attention on her face, watching disappointment gather there, the apprehension that he was about to become an officer of the law, beyond the touch of her charm and desires.

Yeah, right. He didn’t think even his sergeant, a guy with forty years on the force and so by the book they joked that it was surgically implanted up his ass, could have resisted the magic of this precocious fairy.

Unlocking the trunk, he put his gun in there, re-locked it. Then he moved back toward his car door. Puzzlement chased its way behind her eyes, those tempting lips forming a luscious pouting shape that made him want to groan. Leaning into the open window of his car, he reached across the passenger seat, came back out with handcuffs.

A flush of heat spread across her cheeks. The game had just shifted, and he could tell she knew it. He’d accepted her gauntlet and his body was tense and ready to deliver on it.

“What’s it going to be, baby? You going to come quietly, or am I going to have to get rough?” He waited. While his voice was husky, he wanted to leave her an option.

The reality might be more than she’d wanted, since she was obviously seeking a fantasy. But he wanted her with a pounding need that was raw and entirely real. So he would give her a choice only up to a point. “You start this, it may not end here. When I like what I see, I tend to hang on to it for a while.”

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Chance of a Lifetime

Stacie swallowed. Those handcuffs winked in the moonlight. She could imagine them holding her wrists, his mouth on her skin, his fingers driving her. With him, she suspected she’d
never
come quietly.

She knew what tomorrow would bring. Because of that, she also knew what she needed now, even though her body trembled at the thought. As his gaze registered it, the heat in his eyes increased.

She tossed back her hair. “Hope you didn’t eat too many donuts today, Lieutenant.

I don’t go down easy.”

Jake thought she’d go down on him real easy. Slick as butter. He bolted toward her.

With a squeal and a yelp, a snip of laughter, she took off, that little slip of a dress fluttering up her thighs as she tried to evade him.

She ran the way she drove. Full out, with unexpected nimble twists and turns, keeping an edge on him longer than he expected. But he was wearing sneakers, she was barefoot. He was in top shape and a lot taller. He feinted left with her, and when she spun, he moved right with her, making her retreat from him again. When he was closing the gap, she made the mistake of glancing over her shoulder at him, losing a stride, and that was all he needed. He put on a burst of speed. She made a dash to her left, then startled him by lunging back, knocking into him. When he stumbled around her, she twisted neatly under his arm, obviously intending to double back on him. He fell back, catching her around the waist, and tumbled them both to the ground, landing with an armful of gasping woman and silky fabric.

Damn if the little siren didn’t make good on her threat. She was down but not out.

She squirmed, she writhed, she threw elbows, but she was laughing so hard she was breathless. He found himself grinning ear to ear himself as he tussled with her across the ground. His hand encountered a thigh, the trim nip of her waist, the silk teasing his fingers. The spaghetti straps had both fallen, giving him tantalizing glimpses of the soft swells of her breasts. She snatched at his handcuffs and he fended her off. In a deft move, he rolled her shrieking to her stomach and caught one wrist above her head, 27

Joey W. Hill

pinning her with the gentle but inexorable pressure of his knee high on her back. When he locked one cuff on the wrist, he realized he had her. Realized what that meant.

She realized it too, for she was suddenly still. She laid her cheek on the ground.

Closed her eyes for a moment, making him wonder if he’d gone too far. Then, before he could ease off, her gaze lifted. Looking up at him, she slowly brought the other arm up above her head. Then she looked back down, her lashes sweeping her cheeks.

He swallowed. He liked his women submissive in the bedroom, enjoyed bondage play enough that it was almost a requirement. He guessed he was one of those Dominant personalities the S&M sites talked about. Regularly dealing with the seedy side of people’s sexual urges, he wasn’t really comfortable calling it that. Even though he knew his desire to bring a woman pleasure while she was restrained was not a criminal act, he never would have guessed such a sweet little thing would ask for that, want it like this. The idea of it was enough to make his cock larger and harder, pressing tight against his jeans. It made every part of him eager to take. But did she really understand what she was giving?
Be careful, Jake.

“You don’t know what you’re playing at, little girl,” he said roughly. It was as much slack as he could give her, because he wanted her too much to give her an easy out.

When he eased the pressure of his knee, moved it off her, she shifted her head and laid her cheek on it, pressing her lips to his leg. She caught the inseam of the jeans just above the knee with her teeth, a playful tug of the denim before she let it go. It put her head practically in his lap and he bit back a groan.

As she rolled over, she kept her arms stretched above her head, her body open to his, vulnerable. She was shaking, but her lips were parted and moist, her eyes hungry with things he knew she didn’t even know she wanted. As his gaze coursed over her breasts, the slope of her stomach, the expanse of her thighs revealed almost to the crotch by the hike of the dress, he could tell she was offering anyway.

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Chance of a Lifetime

Her blue eyes were full of the night’s mysteries, drawing him in. “A cop is supposed to be a guardian. A protector,” she said softly. “Every woman wants to believe that, Lieutenant Chance. I do. I need to. I need you to take over. I don’t want any other options tonight.”

This moment could be called many things. The wrong choice, something that either or both of them would call an attack of hormones in the morning. A bad career decision for him most certainly, a weak moment of shame for her. Time played those kinds of tricks on people. He paused, feeling the heated breeze on his face, hearing the rustling of the corn, seeing the low-riding moon out of the corner of his eye. Its light shone on the pale skin and lovely face of the woman on the ground. Everything about this moment felt right. So right it had to be wrong.

Lifting her uncuffed hand, she reached toward his face. When he caught her wrist just before she got to him, she managed to brush her fingertips along his jaw.

“It’s all right,” she promised. “I won’t hurt you either.”

Time could make a lie out of that as well, he knew, but he understood what she meant. This moment belonged to them, a magical space of time for something to happen that never could have happened otherwise. Perhaps that was the definition of magic. She was saying they would both try to remember that later, no matter what happened.

Leaning over her, he took her wrist back to the ground over her head. Her lips parted, eyes following him as he stretched over her, cuffed the other wrist. A look of peace—the only way he could describe it—warred with the leap of desire in her eyes.

“I guess you’re going to do whatever you want with me now, and I’ll have no say in it.” Her voice was a whisper.

Did the sweet thing realize her voice was quavering? That she was torn between desire at being at his mercy and fear at being there? Did she realize how that made him feel, how he might come at the look in her eyes alone?

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Joey W. Hill

He stared down at her. Stacie wondered if he knew he’d gone stern and unsmiling again, in that way that made her pussy so slippery.

He could have started a variety of ways, but Jake followed instinct. With deliberate roughness, he reached between her legs, pushing up the flimsy barrier of her skirt, and pressed the heel of his hand against her mound. When she arched up like a firecracker detonating, he swore. Fervently. She was soaking wet and wearing just a lacy thong beneath the garter belt. He let his fingers play with the thong’s back strap, teasing her buttocks, making them clench.

Hoping what she was wearing wasn’t some ridiculously priced scrap of fabric, he did what his gut told him to do. Make it real for her. It sure as hell felt real to him. He took hold of the front of the dress and ripped those straps loose, pulling the front down to her hips to display her to his avid gaze.

A demi-cup bra, just as he’d expected. Strapless so her breasts were barely in it. A flat belly, just a little rounded curve below the navel, with that smooth feel of peach fuzz.

Though he’d touched her first between her legs to underscore his desire for her, he didn’t want to rush this. Now he took his time, easing the hem of the dress up her thighs. He watched them tremble as he let his thumb graze her skin, revealing to his gaze what he’d already touched.

He pulled the thong to the side so he saw the lips of her pussy, damp like the tiny patch of silky curls there.

“You’re so delicate all over.” He stroked her there, watched her fingers flex and then curl into helpless fists as he stimulated her, made her wetter. “Such a pretty little thing. With a sassy mouth.”

She smiled a little, too dazed with desire to make it focused, and he loved it. “What are you going to do about that?” she managed to rasp out.

He wanted more. He wanted inside of her.

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Chance of a Lifetime

As he stroked her clit harder, her thigh muscles loosened, her body moving restlessly up toward him. “Let me…” She hesitated, a flush staining her cheeks.

“What, baby?” He kept up his manipulation, slid one finger into her. She whimpered and struggled, trying to take him deeper, her pussy bumping against his knuckles. “What should I let you do?”

“I want…” Stacie thought those two words summed it up. But the things moving inside of her were dark desires, things she’d never thought of wanting with John or any other man, let alone voicing.

“Please, I want…you. In my mouth. Make me…”

Those gray eyes could spark with fire. It rippled over her like flame on her exposed skin. His hand between her legs was stoking an ache that was spiraling high and wild already, igniting a chaos of reaction in her body.

“Suck my cock.” He said the words she couldn’t, but as he did, her muscles convulsed against him, giving him his answer. He swallowed, that sculpted jaw flexing with the motion. “That’s exactly what I’m going to make you do. Stretch that sassy mouth.”