Good Girl Gone Bad (29 page)

Emotions skittered across his face, darkening his features. He looked like he was fighting a battle from within. For a moment, she thought he was going to concede. After all, there wasn’t anything he could do to stop her, short of using force. He wouldn’t do that.

When he spoke, his voice was calm, devoid of emotion. “Phil, I need you to trust me on this.”

“Trust you? How can I trust you when I know you aren’t trustworthy? Hell, you don’t even trust
me
!”

He stood stock-still.

“I’m not your mother, dammit. I have integrity, and while I may like being up on that stage for my own reasons, I did it for the sake of the case, to catch a kidnapper. To find those girls. If that puts me in the same class as your mother in your eyes, then you need some serious therapy.” She stepped closer. “Your mother was a troubled drug addict. I’m an inhibited woman trying to come to terms with her sexuality. There’s a huge difference.” As she spoke the words, the pieces fell into place. “There’s nothing wrong with a woman wanting a physical release, sexual fulfillment. It doesn’t make me wicked. It makes me human. The fact that you have your own demons to slay should have no bearing on this case, Ty. Right now, I’m the key to drawing out our man. Back off and let me do my job.”

“No,” he whispered.

The man was as stubborn as a stick. His eyes burned hot and the set of his jaw told her there was no compromising. She dug in deeper.

“So let me get this straight, Lieutenant Jamerson. You’re taking me off this case because we’re so close to the kidnapper, you’re afraid he might kidnap me and in doing so make you look like an ass?”

“Wrong.”

“Okay, then you want me off the case because you hate me so much you can’t stand to see me on a daily basis.”

“Wrong.”

“Then spell it out for me, sir.”

“I won’t jeopardize losing another man.”

“You won’t lose me! You guys can shadow me twenty-four/ seven. You can put a GPS chip in my scalp. Hell, you can sleep in my guest room!
I want to stay on this case
.”

Ty let out a long breath. She felt victory near and spoke again: “We’ve lost three women. We’re close, the kidnapper is communicating with us, for crying out loud. What more do you want? For him to walk up to us, introduce himself, then hold out his hands to be cuffed?”

Ty shook his head. “I can’t go into details. You’ll have to trust me on this. I’m pulling you.”

She moved in on him. “What do you mean, you can’t go into details? I have a right to know everything you do about this case. Are you holding out on me?”

“As commanding officer,
if
I was holding out, I have that right.”

He was holding out emotionally. Just like he was holding out info on her father.

She knew she shouldn’t say it, but the words came out of her mouth. “Just like you held out information on my father’s case?”

He didn’t blink.

“I won’t allow you to steamroll me like you did my father.”

His eyes widened. She laughed harshly. “I know you forced Margery to testify against Mac. You forced her to lie, you threatened to take her daughter away if she didn’t.”

Her wrath mushroomed. “You stand there like Mr. Righteous. You’re no better than a common criminal; hell, you’re worse. You turned on one of your own. You pulled that trigger, ending my father’s life.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The hell I don’t! I met with Mindy Flint. She told me all about you and the guy you worked for. Sal, another crooked cop. Who is he, Ty? And why is he still alive and my father dead?”

Ty remained silent.

“You’re StreetSmart, aren’t you?”

Silence.

She launched herself at him, her years of anger, frustration, and sadness spewing forth. “You killed my father! You killed him!”

She pummeled his chest, she kicked his shins, she gut punched him. And he stood as still as a stoic oak.

“Murderer!” she screamed. How could he do it? How could he live with himself? Her life, her mother’s life irrecoverably changed, her father’s life gone forever.

Tears streamed down her face. “It wasn’t time for him to die,” she screamed. “He thought I was a bad daughter. I never had the chance to prove to him I was worthy of his love.” She slammed into his chest with her fist. “Don’t you see? He killed himself because he thought I saw him the way he saw me. He couldn’t look me in the eye. He couldn’t deal with the shame of it.”

Her punches weakened. She hit him with her other fist. “He was a good man.” Her voice wavered as tears choked in her throat, her vision blurred, her eyes stinging from the salt of her tears. Her body slumped against his, her energy gone. “He didn’t deserve to die like that.”

Ty scooped her up in his arms and she didn’t resist. Her limbs were like Jell-O and her strength was sapped. She rested her head against Ty’s shoulder and for a moment allowed herself to feel like a loved little girl, something she’d desperately wanted from her father, but had never received. Mindy, a stranger, had garnered more affection from Mac than had his own daughter.

Ty carried her back to her bedroom and gently laid her down on the bed. He smoothed her wet bangs from her face and sat down next to her. “I didn’t kill your father, Phil.”

With all the bitterness purged from her, Phil heard the truth in his simple words. She hiccoughed. “I never told him I loved him.”

“He knew you did.”

Ty stroked her damp cheek and ran his fingers through her long strands of hair. “You’re a good daughter and a good cop.” He bent down and whispered, “I’m proud of you.”

She opened her eyes and gasped. His face was only inches away. His warm breath caressed her cheeks. She wanted to slip her arms around his neck and bring his lips to hers. His eyes penetrated deep into her. As if he knew her thoughts, his lips lowered to hers. When they met, a shock wave went through her. His lips were soft yet firm, warm and inviting.

Gently, he tasted her, his tongue lingering on her lips before slipping between them and tasting more of her. Phil slid her arms around his neck and arched, pulling him closer. His scent engulfed her. His heat, his strength.

What began as tentative and exploring turned sure and demanding. Ty’s chest thrummed and Phil’s body responded.

For a man who had limited experience kissing, Ty took her breath away. He kissed her long, deeply, and wet and she wanted more of him.

It hit her that for him to kiss her as he did, so intimately, he must care for her. Had she penetrated his armor?

He lifted his lips.

“No, please, kiss me again,” she begged.

“Phil,” he whispered hoarsely, tracing her bottom lip with his finger.

“Don’t talk, Ty. Make love to me.”

His mouth swooped down on hers, taking what little breath she had away.

A moment later, he tore his lips from hers, his breath hot and fast against her own. His hands held her face and his eyes beseeched hers. “Baby, I can’t make you any promises.”

She kissed him hard. “No promises.”

She’d live only for this moment and how she felt in his arms. Special, protected, and her inhibitions be damned.

Ty’s fingers trailed up her arms. Disengaging them from around his neck, he pushed them up over her head, trailing his fingertips along the soft inner skin. Moving up on her, he couldn’t stop kissing her. It was like a faucet had been turned on in a barren desert. He wanted the kiss to go on forever.

When she bucked against him, the friction of her jeans against his hard-on reminded him of other parts of her body that needed attention.

Releasing her hands, he trailed his fingers to her breasts, the full mounds greeting him like long-lost lovers. It had only been a day and he was starved for her again.

He wanted inside of her, he craved it.

Their lips broke only for the split second it took to pull her T-shirt over her head. Phil ran her hands up under his shirt, then scraped her nails down his back. She tore her lips from his. “Ty,” she said, panting, “take my pants off, I can’t wait.”

Instantly, he had them off.

He smiled, brushing his fingers down the taut creaminess of her belly. “Naughty girl, where are your panties?”

She smiled seductively and scooted up on the bed, opening her knees just enough to give him a glimpse of her moist nether lips. “I like going commando.”

In a slow slide, he pulled one bra strap down over her shoulder, his finger trailing across her skin, then he kissed the hollow at the base of her throat and shoulder. Her skin warmed to him, her vanilla scent wreaking havoc with his senses. “You’re beautiful, Phil. Beautiful.”

She laughed low and husky. “You’re the first man to tell me that.”

“Then all the men before me were blind.”

His fingers trailed down her belly. Slowly, he circled her belly button. Her hips moved in a sensuous roll. His hand trailed lower, the heat of her pussy glancing his fingertips before he touched her there. When he slipped one long appendage into her hot depths, they moaned in unison. “I love the way you feel inside. So hot and wet for me.” She clamped her muscles around his finger.

His lips found hers again and the long slow slide of his finger mimicked his tongue. Emotion welled up inside her.

Her lithe body drew taut in tension. A slick sheen of perspiration dampened her skin. She felt wanton, wild, and—surprisingly—loved. While they’d had a meeting of bodies, the action just blowing off steam, scratching an itch, the way his slow hand moved against her and his lips tortured her, this time the act went deeper.

Phil moaned, squeezing her eyes shut and arching against his sinful finger. The tension snapped, her hips jerked, her body unraveled. He caught her cry of ecstasy in his mouth as he pushed her through an orgasm.

Ty’s chest tightened. He loved the way her body responded to his touch, the way her skin glowed and her breasts drew taut and high when he touched them, the way she closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip.

He slipped his finger from her, trailing his fingers up her belly to circle one nipple then the other, spreading her juices. His lips trailed from her bruised lips to her nipple. Languidly, he lapped up her juices. Her breath hissed against his shoulder and she arched into him.

“Patience, baby,” he murmured against the heated skin of her swelling nipple.

Phil moaned and Ty lost patience. He shucked his clothes in record time, then slid his body against hers, reveling in the hot smoothness of her. Grasping her hands, he entwined his fingers through hers and pushed their hands up over her head. He looked deep into her stormy eyes and in one slow sensuous dive, he entered her.

“Oh God,” Phil moaned.

Pure ecstasy riveted her face. Instantaneously, he felt the rush of his seed and groaned, halting it. He wanted to make love to her slowly and completely.

“Don’t move, sweetheart,” he said, breathing against the hollow at the base of her neck.

Phil couldn’t help her body’s instinctive reaction to him. Her hips flinched, and the muscles deep within her constricted in sweet pain.

He thrust deeply, the action catching her off guard, and she responded, meeting his next thrust with her hips. Ty’s hands slid from hers and delved deep into her hair, holding her face immobile, his gaze burning hot. He kissed her hungrily, the tempo of his thrusts matching the beat of her heart.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she hung onto him and her chest tightened. She wanted to cry, so much emotion clouded her senses.

Her body acted on its own, thrashing wildly in abandon beneath his thrusts. With the power of a tsunami, one raging orgasm after another swept through her body, giving her no break between each wave, her cries silenced by his lips.

Ty’s hips battered into her, his thrusts deep and strong. When he began his climb to orgasm, Phil clutched his head hard to her and kissed him with every ounce of passion she possessed, silencing his cries of pleasure as he came deep inside of her.

Once their heart rates and breathing returned to normal, Phil snuggled into Ty’s warm embrace. She felt safe, content, whole, and unashamed of her body’s appetite and the measures she took to feed it.

“Thank you.”

He laughed low, smoothing damp strands of hair from her cheek. “For what?”

“For being the tool to help me lose my hang-ups.”

He hugged her close. “My pleasure.”

They were quiet for a long moment. Silence wrapped securely around them. As the sexual haze cleared, reality slowly infiltrated Phil’s brain. She’d just made love to the man who drove her father to suicide. She stiffened. He asked her to trust him, yet he crowed to the world he trusted no one.

She checked her emotions and her mood softened. Could she blame Ty for her father’s decision to take his own life?

Just as quickly, her anger turned toward her father. How could he take his own life? It was a sin of the highest order. Did he care so little for his wife and daughter? Suicide was a permanent end to so many things, and the beginning of a hell for those left to deal with it.

Ty kissed the tip of her nose, then trailed his lips to hers. He knew how to kiss, this man. Not that she had anyone to compare to, she just knew he was good at it.

“I like kissing you,” he murmured.

She didn’t return the kiss; her mind had shifted gears. His hadn’t, his resurging hard-on pressed against her thigh.

“What are you thinking, Phil?” His warm lips trailed a path between her breasts, her traitorous nipples hardening.

“I want you to tell me how it went down with my father.”

It was Ty’s turn to stiffen. “I told you, I can’t discuss it.” He took her face between his hands and gave her a pointed look. “There are things still in the works, Phil. I can’t tell you more than that.”

“You can’t tell me how my own father was set up and killed?”

Ty rolled over on his back, clamping his hand across his forehead. The muscles in his jaw twitched. “Sometimes, Phil, you have to trust people. Could you please, for once, trust me?”

She moved toward him, her hair hanging down around them like a dark veil. “Can you for once trust
me
? Tell me what happened.”