Moving_Violations (7 page)

33

Lora Leigh and Veronica Chadwick

His luck sucked. He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about sucking. But he couldn’t help imagining that hot little mouth wrapped around him, her breathy moans vibrating against his cock. He didn’t think he could stand it. The whole time she had stood before him, her expression stiff and unyielding, he had wanted to throw her across his desk and rip those damned clothes off her body.

He groaned. He was miserable. He had been looking forward to leaving work later in the day, swinging by her house, seeing if there wasn’t more to be found than just the hot sex they’d discovered last night.

His eyes widened. He hadn’t used a condom. Son of a bitch. He sat up straight, his hands gripping the armrests of the large padded chair as he swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat. The threat of STD’s didn’t bother him. He had the printout of her latest blood tests, her overall health check, lying on his desk. She was clean. He was clean. But protection; he had pumped his seed into her body more than once. He breathed out hard. Damn, he hadn’t even thought to use a condom.

He ran his hands through his hair, his lips pursing at the thought. She hadn’t said anything, but that didn’t mean squat. That little spitfire would have kept her mouth shut if it was killing her. Plain fury, unadulterated, had washed through her the whole time she stood in his office. Not that he blamed her. Hell, he hadn’t gone easy on her.

“Hey, boss,” Bryan Matthews called through the door, knocking sharply at the frosted glass.

“Yeah.” Jackson sat back in his chair, wondering at the hesitancy in the kid’s voice.

Bryan was twenty-one, fresh out of the academy, and still a little wet behind the ears, but a good kid.

Jackson watched as the younger man shifted nervously, his blue eyes looking at everything but Jackson.

“Umm, no one will ride with her.” Bryan closed the door behind him.

It took a minute for Jackson to assure himself that he had heard correctly.

“What?” Jackson asked him, his voice controlled. Dammit.

Bryan’s blue eyes met his nervously.

“They won’t ride with her, Jackson. Roby and Martin headed out, sayin’ no woman was ridin’ with them. That just leaves me. I don’t care if she rides with me.”

Bryan shifted, nervous, on the edge of excitement at the thought. Great. Miss Ree-Becca Taylor had another conquest. Damn, if she wasn’t sure picky about that name.

But that didn’t alleviate his concern where Roby and Martin were concerned. Their refusal to ride with her smacked of discrimination. If there was one thing the department didn’t need, it was a discrimination suit.

“Okay. Let her ride with you, but don’t let her take over, Bryan,” he warned the boy. “That’s one woman, if you give her a chance, that’ll run right over you.”

Bryan’s eyes widened. “Aw, Jack, she’s a sweet little thing.” He laughed at the thought. “Just because she’s a Yankee doesn’t mean you have to watch her. Course, watching her will be fun.” The male look of approval could get the boy decked, Jackson thought.

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Moving Violations

“We’ve had Yankees here before, Bryan. You’re starting to sound like your grandfather. They’re not a different species from us, you know?” Jackson reminded him.

“Besides, Becca was born and raised here. She’s not really a Yankee.”

“I know. But Officer Taylor is sure an improvement to the force.” He smiled, his too innocent blue eyes reflecting his growing awareness of Becca’s female qualities.

Jackson frowned.

“Don’t start, Bryan. She’s a fellow officer. Remember the sexual harassment classes we all had to take?” Pain in the ass. Like they didn’t know they weren’t supposed to grope an employee’s ass.

Jackson frowned. Damned if Officer Becca didn’t have an ass well worth groping.

“Yeah, I know.” Bryan grinned. “I promise, I won’t sexually harass her. But that sure don’t mean I can’t look. I’ll go let her know. Hell, maybe I’ll even let her drive my cruiser. That oughta make her feel good.”

Jackson lowered his brows as the young officer left the room. Let her drive his cruiser? Bryan was severely underestimating Officer Ree-Becca Taylor. She would most likely insist on it. Determination and stubbornness sat on her shoulders like mantles of pride. Damn, getting back into her pants wasn’t going to be easy. It was going to be damned hard if he didn’t do something fast. He needed information. One sure way to find your opponent’s weakness was to arm yourself with knowledge.

Grinning at that, he picked up the phone and punched in a familiar number. Ted Mason, an officer with the Illinois State Police Force could get the answers he needed.

And he owed Jackson. Owed him big.

“Mason.” The burly trooper answered on the first ring.

“Hey, Ted, it’s Jackson. How’s my sister doing?” Jackson didn’t even try to smother his laughter.

“Damn you, Jack, that woman’s driving me crazy. Do you know she painted the front room purple? Freaking purple. What drives that woman?”

Jackson held the phone away from his mouth. He couldn’t control his laughter on that one.

“Laugh it up. You’ll be laughing when I cart her ass back to Hicksville to you,” Ted threatened good-naturedly. “Now why the hell are you calling? If you wanted to check on Candy, you could have called her yourself.”

Jackson sighed.

“I need a check run on one of Chicago’s former finest,” he told him, liking the way Ted took care of business first. “Name’s Rebecca Taylor. Age twenty-six. She just transferred to Jericho, and I need to know why.”

There was silence across the line for a long moment.

“Fat ole Tommy Whittaker pulled in a female officer?” Ted asked suspiciously. “The same male chauvinist, no-female-on-my-force, Whittaker?”

“Yep, that’s the one.” Jackson leaned back in his chair. “I need to know what the hell’s up with this. It’s fishy.”

“Hell yeah.” Silence stretched again. When Ted came back he was all business.

“”You think this has anything to do with Porter’s death?”

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Lora Leigh and Veronica Chadwick

“I don’t, Ted, but something doesn’t feel right about it. Whittaker didn’t tell me who my new deputy was, or even when she was showing up. I was led to believe it was a male for weeks. I need to know what’s up with it.”

”You think she’s involved?”

Ted was one of the few people aware of Jackson’s investigation of the mayor.

Jackson frowned. “I don’t think she is. But hell if I know for sure. I knew her way back, Ted, when she was just a little thing. I’d hate to think she was involved with that bastard.”

“I’ll see what I can find. In the meantime, I heard an interesting rumor the other day that I wanted to run by you. We picked up an illegal a few days ago. Middle Eastern.

He’s suspected of being part of a terrorist cell operating in these parts. Says he spent a few days in Jericho back in the winter, hiding from the Feds. You have a Middle Eastern population I didn’t know about?”

Jackson frowned. Other than ole Doc Mustafa, there was no one.

“Not that I was aware of. Should I be checking for one?”

Ted sighed in disgust. “Naw. Guess not. The information just caught my attention as kind of odd. Just keep your eyes open, let me know if you see anyone odd.”

Jackson shook his head. He hadn’t seen or heard of Middle Eastern visitors to the area. Jericho was pretty laid back and off the beaten track, and since Nine-Eleven, pretty damned suspicious of everyone.

“I’ll see what I can find out,” Jackson nodded. “But I haven’t heard of anything through rumor. I’ll check it out though.”

“You do that, and I’ll hold Candy off from that visit she wants to make home.”

Jackson winced. He didn’t need Candy here right now.

“You do that thing there, Ted. Promise me for sure.” Jackson shook his head. Damn, Candy could throw a monkey wrench in his plan’s right fast. The last thing he needed was his baby sister finding out he was working with a woman, much less that he was attracted to her. Attracted…ha, that was a gross understatement.

“Good plan then. I’ll get back to you in a day or two,” Ted said decisively. “Later there, bro.”

Bro. Jackson swallowed his laughter. Ted only called him bro when he was put out with Candy, his little southern honey.

Jackson disconnected, frowning thoughtfully. He could put out a few feelers, check things out. He was pretty certain there was no place in Jericho to hide illegals without someone hearing about it. Newcomers stood out like a sore thumb and Arabics would definitely be noticed. Until then, he had a woman to woo. Damn, if he didn’t get back into that woman’s bed right soon, he would burst his jeans to hell and back with the hard-on throbbing between his thighs. He shifted in his chair, hoping to ease the pressure. He sighed in bleak acceptance long minutes later. No ease.

36

Moving Violations

Chapter Eight

Jackson made his round of Jericho the next afternoon, watching the traffic and the pedestrians thoughtfully. There was no such thing as coincidence, he thought. The knowledge that Ted’s illegal had spent time in Jericho worried at Jackson’s mind.

Whittaker was a crooked, dirty son of a bitch, but a smart one. Jackson had been investigating for over a year now, ever since the death of the former sheriff, Jackson’s uncle, Tobias Montgomery.

Jackson had returned to Jericho after his release from active duty in the Marines.

Tobias had been distracted, worried, rather than jovial and outgoing as he usually was.

It had taken Jackson six months to find out that his uncle was investigating the mayor.

To that point, the county judge had drowned on a fishing trip, despite the fact that the lake was as calm as a pond and that Judge Morris had not been an old man. He had also been an excellent swimmer.

The sheriff’s office was staffed with Whittaker’s men, Tobias had informed him, men he had once counted as friends. And the mountains were getting damned dangerous to hike in. The amount of “hunting accidents” that had occurred over the months had whipped Tobias into a rage. Not two months later, Tobias was dead too.

Hunting accident, the coroner had said. Jackson wasn’t a fool, he knew better.

Jackson frowned as he drove through town. What connection did Whittaker and Ted’s suspected terrorist share? There had to be one. His fingers tapped at the steering wheel as his mind blazed with possibilities. Tobias had been certain Whittaker was hiding something. What could he have been hiding? Or could it have been who? The possibilities that came to mind terrified him.

He made a turn on Main Street and headed out of town, knowing that there were few places within the city limits to hide anyway. Too many gossips and nosy shopkeepers to spill the beans. The problem with small towns was that everyone knew your business, and where you took it. Made for interesting dinner conversation, but not secrecy. If someone was out to hide, or hide others, it would have to be farther into the mountains. That was most often considered no man’s land, the shadowed, mysterious world of Indian legends, illegal stills, and mountain folk.

Times had changed a lot though, Jackson told himself as he made the journey from the bustle of Jericho along the two lane road that led farther up the mountain. Even since he was a boy, civilization had begun to creep stealthily into the higher parts of the mountains. Electric lines, telephone cable, computers and cell phones were the norm now. Broken down shacks were replaced with modern frame houses, and pickups graced front yards and driveways of even the most uninhabitable reaches.

One such place was Jacob Riley’s cabin. It was a bitch and three quarters to get to, and if the cruiser Jackson had earmarked for the department wasn’t a four-wheel drive jeep, then he would have been making a hell of a long walk. But Jacob knew things. And 37

Lora Leigh and Veronica Chadwick

what he didn’t know, he could damned well find out. If there were terrorists hiding anywhere in those mountains, then he likely knew about it.

The jeep bounced over the long, pitted road up to Jacob’s cabin. The vehicle’s engine whined as it struggled over large rocks, eroded ditches and broken brush. He had told Jacob more than once that he needed the road graveled, perhaps even blacktopped, but it appeared he was still being ignored.

Finally, he pulled into a well kept driveway, grated, graveled and leveled, and shook his head in exasperation. The small log cabin sat on a slope above him, the windows dark, the door tightly closed.

Jackson got out of the jeep, moving quickly to the front door, when the first sounds penetrated. The hungry, gasping female moan was almost a shock. Hell, he thought Jacob was a monk of some kind. The sounds of pleasure rose as Jackson turned and walked to the back of the cabin.

He stopped at the side of the house, shaking his head as he pulled his glasses from his eyes and stared in shock at the scene before him. Jacob had a pretty little black-haired business type stretched over the picnic table, her narrow skirt around her waist, her white silk blouse opened. Hell, it looked like he’d cut her bra open rather than unhooking it from the back.

The woman’s deep black hair had escaped the knot that struggled to stay secure on the top of her head. Stray wisps clung in damp strands along her cheek and neck. A fine film of perspiration glazed the woman’s pale skin and Jacob’s broad naked back.

The woman’s legs were splayed wide, giving Jackson an unimpeded view of the soft flesh the mountain man was plowing vigorously into. The soft sounds of wet cunt and hard cock filled the air. Slapping flesh overlaid it, and adding to the arousing mix was the woman’s ever-increasing moans as Jacob drove her closer to climax.

Her hands were gripping Jacob’s arms, nails pressing into flesh. Her body arched, her full breasts, tipped with hard nipples and flushed with lust, were a damned tempting sight. Almost as pretty as Becca’s berry tipped breasts.

He felt a shade of discomfort at his voyeurism. But damn, it was just one of those sights you couldn’t look away from. He couldn’t believe that Jacob had allowed himself a second moment of vulnerability. The first had been near fatal. Jackson assured himself that he just wanted to be certain Jacob stayed safe while immersed in his pleasure.