In the Teeth of the Wind (4 page)

ragged.

"And the Wellington was superb!" Trip put his fingers together and kissed the tips.
"Magnifique!
"

"But did you get any?" asked Brett Samuel. The black detective leaned over Trip's desk, his

expression avid.

Trip grinned. "I always get some with my Beef Wellington, my man! It's all that rich, salty juice flowing

out of the meat, you know?" He wagged his thick black brows.

"Which meat?" Samuel demanded.

Rhianna groaned with disgust and got up from her desk. She swiped up her coffee cup. "You men are

sick."

"Rhianna's embarrassed!" Samuel taunted in a singsong voice. He turned and yelled across the room to

Nolan. "Hey, Conor?" When the Irishman looked around, the black detective grinned. "You must not be

giving Marek what she needs, bro."

"Or not giving it to her often enough!" someone else joked.

The room burst into knowing hoots of laughter. Rhianna's face turned red and Nolan's brows drew

together in a fierce scowl. Annoyed, he let out a long breath. Rhianna got up and ducked into the break

room

"Why don't you assholes grow up!" said Nolan as he pushed up from his desk and followed Marek.

Rhianna jumped as Conor's hand fell on her shoulder and he bumped against her. "Hey, pretty lady,"

he whispered in her ear. She tilted her head to the side as he bent to put a quick kiss on her cheek.

"You'd think they'd get tired of harassing me, wouldn't you?" The moment he'd touched Marek,

Conor's arousal of the night before came rushing back. It stunned him, shocked him to the core of his

being with its visceral strength. Her perfume invaded his nostrils to send shivers of lust stabbing through

his lower abdomen and his hand tightened on her shoulder. Before he knew what he was doing, he had

pressed himself against her. "God, you do things to me, Rhianna," he breathed into her ear.

"Yeah, right." Rhianna laughed, thinking he was teasing. She half-turned in his embrace, stopped, her

eyes going wide as she felt the steel-like pressure of Nolan's erection hard against her thigh. A spasm of

longing jerked in her uterus and her gaze leaped to Nolan's face. Hot lust stared back at her and the

spasm jerked once more. "Irish?"

His nickname on her sigh was like a red-hot prod and he moved without conscious knowledge that he

did. His mouth came down on hers in a pressure that was not his usual friendly, almost brotherly, kiss.

His lips slanted across her mouth, claiming, not asking permission. His tongue darted between her lips to

ignite an answering fire within.

Rhianna dropped her coffee cup, oblivious to the splatter and the sound of shattering glass. Twining

her arms around his broad shoulders, she clung to him, pressing her lower body to the jutting evidence of

his passion. She whimpered as his tongue raped her mouth, going deeper, impaling her, branding her as

his own. His hands dipped to her buttocks and molded her to him as he ground his erection against her.

She felt something near physical agony as his mouth came away from hers, and with a groan of need, he

lifted her onto the counter.

"You drive me insane," he hissed, wedging between her thighs. "Why do you do that?"

"Conor, my God! What's gotten into you?"

Conor rocked his body against the core of her, spreading her legs wider as he dragged his hands from

beneath her rump, then ran his fingers up her body to mold her breasts. He kneaded the soft mounds,

cupped their weight, scraped his thumbs over erect, rock hard nipples before his mouth came down to

heat the fabric of her pink cotton blouse.

She gasped. "Conor! What the hell are you doing?"

"Ah, excuse me, folks." Trip said from behind them.

Nolan jerked away from Rhianna as though he were a marionette attached to a puppeteer's strings. He

stumbled, bumped into a table, and stood trembling, his chest heaving with emotion. His body still

betrayed him with an erection burning hot and throbbing between his legs. But the intense shame and

humiliation in Rhianna's eyes, as she slid down from the counter and turned away, was like a bucket of

cold water thrown in his face. The intense rigidity of his shaft left him, but the lust remained.

"If you two wanna go at each other like a couple of wild animals," said Neville Triplett, "at least have

the decency to go where no one can see it."

Rhianna quivered and her breath came in ragged little shudders. She was too embarrassed to turn

around and face her partner, still too aroused to meet Nolan's gaze.

"Get yourself together, Marek," Trip warned. "I'll keep everyone out of here until you do." With a last

resentful look toward the Irishmen, Neville Triplett slammed out of the break room.

Nolan's shoulders slumped. He hung his head for a moment, closed his eyes to still his racing pulse,

and opened them to find Rhianna standing by the counter with her face in her hands. He took a long,

calming breath, then went to her. "Rhianna," he said, stunned at the depth of longing he heard in his own

voice. He swallowed, put up a hand to touch her shoulder, but thought better of it. He wasn't so sure that

touching her again would be wise, so he jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans to take away the

temptation. "I apologize, baby."

"What happened?" He had never touched her like that before or ever kissed her like that before.

Nolan shrugged. "I don't know." His gaze moved over her sleek black hair, wandered helplessly down

the gentle slope of her back. "I really don't."

Rhianna turned around, her eyes wet, and she heard him groan with guilt, but before he could drag his

hands from his jeans to enfold her, she stepped back from him. "No," she begged. "I don't think you

should."

"Rhianna." His voice was the merest breath of sound as he stood there staring at her, wanting her with

every fiber of his being.

"I'm not one of your whores, Nolan," she said, as though the words were a rune of protection against

the naked hunger she saw emblazoned on his face.

"I know who the hell you are." He took a step toward her, but she moved back and he stilled. He

could feel his cock hardening again and knew if there was no chance of them being intruded upon again,

he'd take her right there on the floor of the precinct's break room.

She seemed to understand and her cheeks glowed with color. "Don't start something you have no

intention of finishing, Nolan."

"I want you," he whispered. "Right here." He pointed at the table beside them. "Right now."

"_Marek, get out here!_"

They stared at one another, ignoring Triplett's bellow of outrage and the accompanying laughter that

punctuated it, but they could not ignore the adolescent chants which began to thunder from the squad

room: "_Marek! Marek! Marek!_"

Rhianna's face flamed. She spun around and ran for the door, but his voice brought her to an abrupt

halt.

"Tonight," Nolan called out to her.

"What?" she managed to ask, looking back at him.

"At your place. Tonight." He fused his gaze with hers. "I'll be there at seven."

Her belly quivered again and she sucked in a quick breath before rushing from the room.

Nolan sagged against the table, staggered into one of the chairs, then crashed down onto the vinyl seat

with a nervous expulsion of breath. Reaching up a trembling hand, palm damp, he ran it through his hair

and gathered a handful, tugging painfully at his scalp.

"You don't have to pull your hair out over it, Irish," Cortesio drawled from the doorway. "It was

bound to happen sooner or later." He laughed at Irish's grunt of disbelief then pulled a chair out from the

nearest table, swung a leg over, and straddled it. Propping his chin on the edge of the high chrome back,

he studied Nolan's flushed face.

Conor Nolan still didn't understand what had happened to him. He was stunned by his actions, acutely

appalled at the way he had behaved, and yet he was still so aroused it was uncomfortable to sit. He

couldn't stand up because his erection was still throbbing in his jeans and Cortesio would hoot with

laughter.

"The woman loves you, you know," Cortesio commented softly and arched one thick dark brow when

Nolan's head snapped up and he looked at his partner in surprise. Cortesio nodded. "It's true. She does."

"What am I going to do, Joey?"

"If it were any other woman, I'd say lay her and forget it, but Marek ain't like other women, now, is

she?"

"No," came the quiet, heartfelt answer.

"Then, as I see it, you've got two choices." Cortesio held up his hand and ticked the choices off on his

fingers. "One, you can go over there, talk to her, see how it goes. Tell her things got a little out of hand

today and that you're sorry you humiliated her before the entire precinct." He clucked away another grunt

of despair from his partner. "Maybe things are starting to come to a head and you two can get together.

Or…"

Nolan looked up. "Or what?"

"Or you call her at six-thirty and tell her it was all a big mistake, that you aren't interested, that you're a

class-act prick, and you'll see her around."

"I can't do that!"

"Of course you can't." Cortesio got up and put his chair under the table. "If I need you, I'll call you at

Marek's."

*Chapter Four*

He was stunned to find her waiting for him when he got off work. She was sitting in the deep shadows

on his porch, rocking gently in one of the two chairs as though the frigid air did not concern her.

"Where's your car?" he asked and glanced at the street.

"I took a taxi," she said on a breathless sigh that made his groin tighten painfully. The rocking chair

squeaked as she pushed out of it.

He was mesmerized by the way she moved toward him through the nocturnal glow of early evening.

Her body fairly undulated as she walked and the intoxicating aroma of her perfume reached him before

she did. He inhaled deeply, struck anew by how stimulating some smells could be to a man's libido.

"Aren't you happy to see me?" she whispered as she reached him. She brushed the sleek front of his

leather jacket then ran her hands over his shoulders to cup his neck.

"I've got a date," he protested, reaching up to remove her hands.

"Really?" Her hand dipped down to the front of his jeans. She rubbed him. "I don't care, Nolan."

Conor gasped in shock and started to move away, but her fingers flexed around him, cupping him

between his legs.

"I want you to fuck me, Nolan." She kneaded his flesh. "I want to feel this inside me." She tugged at

him.

Every instinctual sexual drive, lustful primal craving, and mindless, forbidden impulse he had ever

entertained crashed through his psyche with the speed of light and he reached for her, grabbed her to him

as though he were a drowning man after a life preserver.

"My, my, my," she breathed as his arms tightened like steel bands around her body. "I can see we are

of the same mind, my strong Celtic warrior."

He didn't care that it wasn't right.

He didn't care that he had told Rhianna he would see her in less than half an hour.

He didn't care if everyone on his street was watching him by the faint glow of the street light across

from his front door. He shoved Felicity Rogers up against the wall, rammed his thigh between her legs

and lifted her to straddle him. He tore feverishly at her clothing as he pinned her there, her legs dangling

to either side of his rigid thigh. Material ripped, buttons popped off her blouse so his rough hands could

thrust under the lacy cups of her bra to grasp silky-smooth mounds of flesh.

"Easy," he vaguely heard her caution as she threaded her long fingers through his hair and pressed his

head to her chest. "I won't break, but I can be bruised, lover."

"I need you," he growled deep in his throat. "I need…"

Felicity threw back her head as he slid her along his upraised thigh, jerking her away from the wall to

make her ride the hard length of him from knee to groin. She looked down at him, smiled at the complete

enthrallment in his tense face as he stared sightlessly up at her and reveled at the deadly lust that made his

eyes glitter with carnal hunger. She flicked out her tongue to drag the pink tip across her scarlet lips and

laughed with taunting delight at the animalistic grunt of intent that burst from his throat.

"I know what you need, Irish."

Conor spun around, fell with her, and crashed them both to the floor. His only thought was to mount

her, to thrust the feverish length of his pulsating shaft deeply inside her, to gain relief from the agony that

throbbed inside him.

"Not here," she told him, wiggling beneath his hard body until her own thigh was wedged intimately

against the hot, iron-hard junction of his legs. "Take me inside."

"I've got to have you." His hands squeezed savagely at her now-naked breasts. His head dipped down

to the soft valley between and his teeth closed around one turgid nipple.

"Inside" Her hands pushed at his shoulders even as she braced her leg on the floorboards of the porch

so their positions were now reversed and he rode her slender thigh. She felt his entire body shudder.

"Oh, God!" He moaned, his tongue flicking at the hard pebble of her nipple. "I've got to…"

Conor was on fire with a bestial need that superseded all else. He lunged after her, gripped her to him

with the mindless intention of raping her had she not pushed so quickly to her feet.