Harlequin Nocturne March 2016 Box Set (21 page)

CHAPTER 12

“A
pterodactyl,” Jase said. “Really.”

“Swear to God,” said the woman in front of her. Linda Rogers wore her teased blond hair like a helmet, her matching blue eye shadow like goggles. She was shaking.

Reg, to give him credit, did not laugh. Jase wanted to, but more at the inside decor of the woman's house than the fate of her dog. Four of the remaining pooches were huddled around her feet, all of them shaking, too.

He looked around the kitschy room before focusing on her. “Describe it again, please.”

“I told you both already. I'd let the kids out in the backyard to do their doodles, as you do...”

“As you do,” Reg murmured.

Jase shot him a look. “And?”

“And I heard them all barking, which they never do, and I looked out the back window, and there was this...giant... Well, it was a flying dinosaur. That's all!” She moaned, rocking, and one of the smaller dogs hopped onto her lap. “It carried off Pipsy!”

It wasn't funny at all. A third case, more of that glowing stuff and, this time, an actual death. Or presumed death anyway. They hadn't actually found the dog's body. Things were escalating, though. That was clear.

They got more information from Mrs. Rogers and left her with assurances that they'd be in touch. Out in the driveway, Reg avoided a few piles of dog crap, all glowing with the black-light wand, even in the late-afternoon sunshine. Jase looked across the gravel toward the house next door.

Chelle's house.

“Hey, go on and take the car,” he said, pressing his keys into Reg's hand. “I'm going to say hi.”

Reg grinned. “Uh-huh. I'll leave the light on for you.”

“It's not like that,” Jase said, though of course his protests did no good. Reg was already getting in the driver's seat and giving him two fingerguns of approval. Jase shook his head. “It's just part of the investigation. Maybe she saw something.”

“Maybe she'll see a giant anaconda,” Reg said with a straight face.

Jase didn't dignify that with an answer. He didn't wait for Reg to leave, either, before heading over to rap on Chelle's sliding-glass front door. He caught sight of her through the sheer curtains and hoped he wasn't overstepping.

Investigation, he told himself. That was all this was. It had nothing to do with that dark curly hair or the bright green-blue eyes or the lush body. It had nothing to do with how easily she'd laughed with him.

Nothing to do with the dream he'd had of being her guard, her champion. Her lover.

“Hi,” she said, surprised. “Jase! What a surprise.”

“I was next door.” He jerked a thumb in that direction. “Um...investigating.”

Too late, he realized he was going to have to backtrack to a lie, since he'd already told her he dealt with insurance stuff. What was he going to say now? That he was checking into tales about real-life flying dinosaurs making off with yappy little dogs?

“Linda and Fred? Are they in trouble?”

He wasn't imagining the swiftest glimmer of smug satisfaction rippling over her expression before neighborly concern replaced it. “No. I was just asking them some questions about something else going on.”

Shit, what if she asked the Rogers about it? Linda wasn't going to lie about losing her dog or about the two guys who'd come around asking about it. She might not admit to seeing a long-extinct reptile, but you never knew.

He was getting sloppy, which wasn't like him. And for what? A pretty face? Stupid, he told himself as she stepped aside to let him in.

“Can I get you a drink? Coffee, cola?” She'd pulled her hair on top of her head, but a few tendrils had escaped to frame her face. She looked down at her clinging yoga pants and T-shirt, then at him with a twist of a smile. “I was working. I'd apologize for being a mess, but hey, at least I'm not covered in coffee.”

“If it makes you feel better, you can dump it all over my head.”

She tilted hers to look at him. “There might be a certain satisfaction in it, I'll admit. But nah, I think I'm okay. Do you want to sit, or...?”

“Yeah, sure. I'll take some coffee.” He settled into one of the stools lined up along the bar separating the galley kitchen from the living-and-dining area. “Nice place.”

She handed him the mug along with a shaker of sugar and some creamers in plastic tubs. “Thanks. It's more of a cottage, really. It wasn't meant for year-round living. But I had it winterized and stuff, so it's all right. And it's just me, so I don't need a lot of room.”

He sipped. Perfect. “How long have you lived here?”

“Four years.” She leaned her hip on the counter and looked around the space. “I love it down here. How about you? Where are you from?”

“Kansas, originally. Now, wherever I need to go. So, have you seen anything strange around here lately?” Smooth, Jase, he thought. So smooth.

Chelle frowned. “Like what?”

“Just anything.”

“They're not supposed to have a shed,” she said quietly after a moment. “It's against the homeowners' association. Fred and Linda, I mean. Their shed. It doesn't bother me or anything, if that's what you want to know. Are they getting in trouble for it?”

“No. It's not that.”

She hesitated. “I'm pretty sure they have too many dogs.”

“You don't like dogs?” Jase asked.

“I like dogs,” Chelle answered after a second. “But theirs are very loud.”

He decided to come clean, at least a little. “Yeah. They are. And they have one less.”

“What?” She looked startled and put her mug down hard enough to splash coffee on the counter.

“Yeah. Something happened to one of their dogs.” He watched her carefully, noting her reaction. “Know anything about it?”

“No,” she said too quickly, with a cut of her gaze from his. “Did they have insurance for them or something?”

“Um...sure, homeowners' covers it,” he lied easily. “But there's been a few weird things happening around here lately, so. If you've seen anything strange...”

Chelle, biting her lower lip, shook her head, then looked at him with a small, strained smile. “I'll let you know.”

Something was off here, that was for sure, but he couldn't figure out what it was. Maybe, Jase thought, something had happened to her, something offbeat that she didn't want to share. That could be one of the hardest parts of his job, getting people to admit to something they didn't want to believe happened.

He drank more coffee. They made small talk. She relaxed visibly as the conversation steered away from the neighbors' dogs and weird things. It turned to her writing.

“My mom and dad aren't thrilled,” she admitted. She'd curled up on the couch with another mug of coffee and a plate of cookies on the coffee table between them. “They didn't love that I went to college for journalism, but at least I had a job and was making money. They don't like that I'm living in Bethany Beach, which isn't that far from them at all, but they think I'm... Well, they think I'm kind of destitute.”

She laughed, shaking her head, and gave him a slow smile that sent warmth all through him that had nothing to do with the fresh cup of coffee. Jase looked around the house. Small, cozy, but in prime real estate.

“Not many people would think that of someone who lives in this neighborhood. What are you, a mile from the ocean?”

“About that.” She shrugged. “They want to see me settled, that's all. And they don't think I'll be able to maintain myself writing fiction. Truth is, the only reason I...”

She stopped with another small shake of her head and looked away. Jase waited. One thing he'd learned from his work—sometimes the best question to get the answer you wanted was asked with silence.

“The only reason I could afford to buy this house and put this effort into writing this way, without a job, is because I inherited a decent sum of money. They thought I should put it away for the future. But they didn't realize he left it to me so I could make
writing
my future.” She cleared her throat, her gaze bright.

“He?” Shit, there was a he.

She nodded. “My boyfriend. We'd been together for eight years. They also thought he should've married me. It didn't matter in the end, though, except to them.”

“He...died?” Jase held his mug in both hands, then put it down to take a cookie he suddenly didn't really want to eat.

“Yeah. Sorry, this is a terrible conversation.” She put down her mug, too. “What a downer.”

Jase shook his head. “No. It's all right. In my line of work, I meet a lot of people who've lost someone special.”

“His name was Grant. What we had wasn't perfect, but really, what is? Unless it's in a story,” Chelle said with a laugh that broke a bit in the middle. “We'd been talking about moving to Arizona. We talked about a lot of things. And then, suddenly, he broke it off with me. Took his stuff, moved to Arizona without me. He broke my heart. I mean, he shattered it, Jase. Have you ever had your heart broken?”

“No,” he said without hesitation.

“Never been in love, huh?” Chelle laughed again, without much more humor than the first time.

He smiled, though the truth was he hadn't been, and that was pretty damned sad. “No. Not that lucky, I guess.”

“I don't know about luck. To be honest, I'm not sure what is worse, the fact he broke me apart when he left me, or the fact he did it because he wanted, somehow, to protect me.” She took up a cookie and put it on the small plate in her lap. She broke the treat into pieces, but she didn't eat any of them.

“Was he sick?”

“Yes. He had cancer. Fast acting, pancreatic. By the time he found out, I guess it had spread so far they told him he had only a few months.” She wiped her fingers free of crumbs and shrugged, then winced, rubbing her shoulder.

“Still hurts?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “One of those things, you think it's going to go away and then all of a sudden you're in agony again.”

“Kind of like a broken heart, I guess.”

He'd meant it lightly, but boy had he overstepped. He saw that as soon as her eyes welled with tears, and then he felt like shit, all right. He'd had his share of women who used tears to manipulate him, and often the easiest way to get him to turn and run was to start crying, but now at the sight of Chelle's crumpling expression, all he could think about was how he hated that he'd been the one to make that happen.

She pressed her fingertips to her closed eyelids, visibly struggling. When she opened them, she shot him another stiff smile. “Sorry. God. So lame. But you know, this shoulder will heal. My heart did, too. Or it will. I have to think so, or else what's the use in going on?”

“Not sure I can do anything about the heart,” he told her, “but I could try a little something with the shoulder, if you want.”

Again he'd overstepped. The startled look she gave him was enough to make him curse himself. He stood.

“Sorry. That was... I'll just go.”

She shook her head. “No. Really, if you can get this knot worked out, I'll be so grateful. Honestly.”

“Sure. I know a few trigger points.” That was true, not just a line he used. That the trigger points were more often the sort to send someone into unconsciousness was a little fact he was going to keep to himself.

Chelle slid around the edge of the L-shaped couch to expose her neck to him, lifting away the weight of her hair to let it fall over the other shoulder. He stopped himself from touching the soft hair at the nape of her neck only because doing that would make him a world-class creep who took advantage of a grieving woman. Yet he couldn't stop himself from thinking about that dream or hallucination or whatever it was.

The one in which he'd been her protector.

He found the spot at once, the knot of muscles tight beneath his trained fingertips. He dug in a little, encouraged by her soft sigh and the way she relaxed under his touch even though it obviously hurt her. Just a massage, he told himself as her low groan of pleasure/pain sent a ripple of desire through him.

Nothing more than that.

CHAPTER 13

“H
ow's this?” Jase dug a little deeper.

Chelle moaned, softly at first. Then a little louder. He was finding all the right spots. “God. That's perfect.”

The soft hairs at the nape of her neck tingled under the gust of his breath as he leaned closer. He wasn't going to kiss her there, but her body responded as though he had. Tight nipples. Parted lips. She held back another moan by sheer force of will. The guy behind her was a real person, not something she'd made up in a story. And he had a partner.

Jase rubbed another minute or so, then let his big warm hands rest on her shoulders. “Better?”

She turned to give him a smile over her shoulder. “Much.”

They stared at each other for a long, long moment in silence. Chelle's smile faded, her brow furrowing. She tilted her head to look at him, curious about why he looked so awkward.

“Jase...?”

“So...when you write,” he said abruptly, “how do you do it?”

Surprised, Chelle scooted forward on the couch away from him and gestured toward the kitchen table. “I use my laptop. I don't have a desk, so I sit there or out on the deck if the weather's nice.”

“No pen and paper?”

She laughed. “Not usually. I have a program, actually. Grant wrote it for me. He was going to try to market it, but he never had the chance. It's called GOLEM.”

“Like the clay monster?”

More than surprised this time. Startled. “Yes! Usually people would say like from
Lord of the Rings
, but yes, like the clay monster. You put the words—”

“You put the words in his mouth and he does your bidding,” Jase said.

“Wow.” Chelle smiled at him. “I can't believe you know what a golem is. Are you Jewish?”

“No. Just full of trivia.”

“Do you want to see it?” she asked after another of those strange pauses. “The computer program.”

“Sure. Yeah. That would be cool. I barely know how to use a computer,” Jase said.

“You're kidding, right?” she asked as she got up and grabbed the laptop to bring over to the couch. She opened the lid and poised her fingers on the keys.

Jase laughed, leaning closer. “Nope. Reg is the one who handles all the computer stuff.”

Reg. Right. His partner. It was a good reminder about getting all fluttery about him, Chelle thought as she tapped to open GOLEM.

Too late she remembered that the program automatically opened up the last document she'd been working on. And that had been more of the science-fiction romance story. The sexy one.

The one that was kind of about Jase.

* * *

He has knelt before few, and even when protocol required it, the scout bent out of respect and not obeisance. In front of his regent, his woman, his heart, he kneels to serve her in all ways.

Right now he serves her with his tongue. Her sweet, hot flesh beneath his lips is better than anything he's ever dreamed. When he slides his hands beneath the softness of her rear to lift her to his mouth, she moans. His cock, thick already with wanting her, aches.

He has feasted on her forever and will continue until the suns turn to ash, if only to hear her make that sound again. He flicks his tongue along her folds, dipping inside to taste her honey. Then up to circle the tight knot of flesh that is the center of her pleasure. She bucks under that attention, her fingers finding his hair and tugging, hard, though not to pull him away. She rocks beneath him.

When she says his name, he pauses in his worship of her to press a single soft kiss between her legs. He looks up at her to see her staring down at him. Her fingers loosen so she can pass a hand over his hair, then to cup his cheek.

“You are the true treasure,” she murmurs.

Everything inside him squeezes. He has loved the woman in front of him for as long as he's understood what love is supposed to be. The scout never dreamed he might have the chance to make her his, and he's not such a fool as to think that making love proclaims anything more than simple physical pleasure. She is promised to another. She is regent.

“I want you inside me,” his love whispers. “Again, again, again.”

It's everything he wants in that moment, especially if it's all he's meant to have. They are already naked, and all he needs to do is slide up her body and push himself into her heat. The regent moves upward on the bed, crooking a finger for him to follow. He does, as he always will, her servant, her slave.

But he does not push inside her. Instead, he teases her with the tip of his cock, using the slickness leaking from the head of him to lubricate her. She already glistens from the attentions of his tongue and her own sweetness. There's no resistance as he thrusts against her, only the most delicious friction of his throbbing cock against her swollen flesh.

When she arches, opening herself to him, the scout wants to slide into her so deep they will never be separated again. Yet he wants to tease her, too, until she writhes and cries his name and begs him to enter her. He gives her the tip, pressing just inside her. Not moving. His muscles tense and tighten, and he shakes from the effort of keeping himself from fucking into her fast and hard, pumping until they both shatter.

He gives her only this small part of him, because he wants to give her everything.

When her hands go above her head to clutch at the spindles of the headboard, he can no longer control himself. She is regent and he is meant to serve her, but the sight of her in such submission to him drives him mad with longing. They both cry out when he enters her.

Their eyes meet. She draws him to her, a hand at the nape of his neck to hold him close as she kisses him. She bites lightly at his lips and takes his tongue into her mouth to suck it gently. The pleasure of that intimacy echoes in his cock, equally embraced by her body.

They move together. Slow, slow, then faster. Harder. Deeper. His body slams against hers. They will break this bed with the force of their passion.

They will break the world with it.

* * *

Chelle let out a low, embarrassed cough and closed the laptop with a snap. She couldn't look him in the face, not after that. Bad enough to share her unpolished work with a near stranger, but that particular piece...

More than that, how easily she'd lost herself in reading it. Only a few minutes could've passed, but it had felt like hours. She was used to getting lost inside the world she created when she was writing, but this had been different. Almost as though it had been really happening to them.

“What the hell,” Jase said, “was that?”

“I'm sorry. It was inspiration. I don't know if you remember, but we passed each other at the Cottage Cafe, and I guess you got stuck in my brain—” she babbled, mortified, only to realize in a second or so that there was no way he could've known by reading that short section of her work in progress that she'd been imagining him as the hero and herself in the heroine's role.

He couldn't know that, but the way he was looking at her said he did.

“It's only a story,” Chelle whispered. “It's not real.”

“It felt real,” he said. “I felt every word.”

She swallowed against a strange tightness in her throat and shook her head. “No. That's not possible.”

“You felt it, too? It happened to us. That room. Those people,” he said. “They were us, weren't they? Tell me I'm not crazy.”

“That is crazy,” she said sharply. Beyond embarrassed. This was fucking with her head, and she was not about to go there.

Jase kissed her. Hard, deep, his fingers gripping her shoulders so she couldn't pull away. Not that she wanted to. At the first touch of his lips on hers, she was lost. Caught up in a whirlwind of lust and passion, exactly what she'd been imagining and writing about and hadn't found in any random make-out session in a dark corner of a dance club.

Breathless, Chelle pulled away and put a hand over her mouth. Her lips felt swollen. Bruised.

“Shit,” Jase said. “I'm sorry—”

She kissed him. Not as hard as he'd done. Hers was softer, exploring. She moved onto his lap, straddling, her knees pressing the couch's back cushions. She rocked against him. When he opened his mouth wider, she took his tongue and sucked gently. She'd written that but couldn't recall ever actually trying it.

Damn, that was hot.

Hotter was the way his hands gripped her hips, pulling her down against him. His moan in her ear when she broke the kiss to slide her mouth along his jaw. The way he thrust upward, grinding his hardness against her when she nibbled.

The rush of it left her trembling, but Chelle forced herself to pull away and cup his face in her hands. “Jase, this is crazy. What about Reg?”

“What about him?” His hands roamed over her back, nudging her closer.

“Won't he care?”

Jase paused, looking confused. The way he ran his tongue along his lower lip drove her crazy. She wanted to kiss him again so much it was like fire, but she held herself back.

“Why would he care?”

“He's your partner,” she said.

“Yeah, but he doesn't usually get involved with my...erm...who I...” Jase blinked. “Oh. You think he's my ‘partner' partner?”

This was all going wrong. Really wrong. Embarrassed, she tried to pull away, but the way her body had bent in order to fit on his lap made it impossible for her to gracefully extricate herself, at least not without a lot of wriggling. With his erection still pushing against her, wriggling was the last thing she wanted to do. Well, it was everything she wanted to do, she thought with a small, helpless giggle. She was just going to have to stop herself from doing it.

“No,” Jase said in a low voice. His gaze burned into hers. He pulled her closer, inch by inch, until their mouths brushed with every word he said. “No, it's not like that at all.”

His kiss plundered her again, and she loved every second of it. This was better than anything she ever could've written. She let her head fall back so he could get at her throat, and that was perfect, the press of his teeth and the swipe of his tongue.

He pulled her T-shirt off over her head, exposing her breasts to the heat and wetness of his mouth. Jase tugged a nipple between his lips, and Chelle let out a long, low and grinding moan of pleasure. It had been so long. Too long.

“I want you,” she said.

* * *

Chelle slammed the laptop lid closed.

Jase blinked. His cock pressed uncomfortably at the front of his jeans. Heat had flooded him. He could still taste her mouth.

She stared at him. “I didn't... Did I write that...?”

He kissed her. She moved onto his lap, not straddling but twisted to half face him. She fell onto the cushions, but her arms were around his neck, pulling him down to her. He was on top of her, between her legs. He was so hard his dick ached, but he couldn't stop himself from pushing against her, dry-humping like teenagers—it didn't matter. He could only think about touching her. Tasting her.

He moved down her body, pushing up her T-shirt to get at her magnificent breasts. Her nipples were already hard, poking through the sheer lace of her bra. Jase covered one with his mouth, wetting the lace, nibbling her as he slid a hand beneath her ass to lift her against him.

Chelle moaned his name. She moved to let him get her shirt off over her head, then tugged at his to get him bare, too. Skin to skin, they moved on the couch until the cushions flew off. He was still on top of her. Moving. Thrusting.

She got a hand between them, cupping his cock through the denim, and fuck, it was not enough—he needed her to unzip and get inside there, to take him in her hand. Her mouth. Her pussy. He'd never wanted anything so much in his life.

“Fuck me,” Chelle said and looked surprised. “Yeah, that is what I want.”

He wanted it, too. But their clothes were still a barrier and he couldn't manage to get his pants unbuttoned, and she was moving, pushing at him, sitting up and letting him kiss and bite at her neck, but what he wanted was to dive between her thighs and eat her until she screamed.

“Yes, I want that,” Chelle told him, though he hadn't said a word out loud. “Get your mouth on me, Jase. Get your mouth on every part of me.”

* * *

Chelle closed the laptop, this time for real, and jumped up from the couch to take a few steps back from Jase, who was blinking, stunned. Not moving. She put a hand to her fast-beating heart, her pulse throbbing as though she'd run a marathon.

“What the hell is going on?” she cried.

Everything inside her was molten, melting, though she couldn't tell if it was from humiliation or arousal or some sickening combination of both. She drew in a breath and then another, waiting to see if he would stand up and kiss her again. Or if she'd kiss him. If they would end up half-naked or all-the-way bare, fucking on her couch like animals.

“Are you all right?” he asked her in a low voice.

She took a second to make sure she was answering honestly before nodding. Still wary, she took another step back until the L of the couch hit her behind the calves. She had no place to run. She didn't want to run. She wanted to tear off her clothes and have passionate sex with this guy.

“I have some things to tell you,” Jase said. “About things that have been going on around town. I think you might be part of them.”

“What kinds of things?” Her heartbeat had slowed, as had her breathing. When she shifted, she still felt tingly and slick between her legs, but she could see a bulge in his pants even from here, so she guessed he was feeling the same.

“We haven't been able to figure it out yet, but it's what we were sent here to do. Reg and I aren't insurance investigators,” Jase told her.

“Reg. Your partner. Who's not your ‘partner' partner.” Chelle let out a small, strangely gleeful laugh. “Oh my God. This is madness. What is this?”