Officer in Pursuit (40 page)

She nodded before she could lose
courage. A pang of something like guilt shot through her, leaving
her feeling almost deceitful. Still, she couldn’t deny that his
unexpected request presented a much-needed opportunity for her to
see him again, to level with him. Now all she had to do was work
out how she’d tell him the truth when they met for what he probably
thought would be another night of tumbling carefree through the
sheets.

* * * * *

Stripped of his duty belt, gun,
bulletproof vest, boots and uniform, Sam felt strangely light.
Maybe the feeling had nothing to do with what he’d just taken off
and everything to do with the expectation that rushed through his
veins at the thought of talking to Abby again. Sinking onto the
edge of his bed, he disturbed the cool, unwrinkled sheets,
breathing a sigh.

It’d been a long day. During the
duller moments – whenever he’d been able to spare the presence of
mind – he’d thought of her. He thought of nothing else now; alone
in his empty house, there were no distractions.

She’d been on his mind for the past
two months and seeing her again had brought back a flood of
memories, intensifying the hopes he’d been harboring since July.
Her smile, her voice, her body – he remembered it all much more
vividly than he’d expected to after just one night.

Especially her touch.

Those particular memories made his
mind race, combining memory with fantasy and turning his cock into
a steel rod. Lowering a hand into his lap, he pulled down the
waistband of his boxer briefs and wrapped his fingers around his
shaft. With his fist closed tightly around his dick, he sighed
again.

It was a ragged sound, and simply
exhaling broke down the last barriers of his reserve. Hand
clenched, he pumped it up and down his shaft, seeing Abby naked in
his mind’s eye.

Naked but not bare – her skin was a
tapestry of ink, and he hadn’t forgotten the sinuous designs that
emphasized and decorated her tight curves. The patterns had been
burnt into his mind over the course of a few fleeting hours – he
couldn’t forget the way she’d looked, the way his dick had
practically jumped to attention at the sight of her stripped down
to just her tattoos.

His fantasy was jumbled and
half-frantic. There was so much to remember; it was hard to choose
what to focus on. His tongue tangled with hers, or a mouthful of
one of her breasts… It’d all been so good.

His balls ached, warning
him that he wouldn’t have enough time to revisit all the memories
that had been haunting him since July. He slowed a little, stroking
himself in a hard, measured rhythm. He should wait until he was in
the shower. Hell, he needed a shower
now
after sweating all day in his
uniform.

Still, he didn’t want to unclench his
fist any more than he wanted to let go of the image of Abby his
mind had conjured up – she was almost real inside his head, a
mental hologram with loose blonde locks and ink in all the right
places.

Almost real was almost enough, but not
quite. He’d had her once, but he wanted her again. For real – for
good. It almost hurt to think about, he wanted it so bad. What he
was doing wouldn’t quell that desire – he knew that – but he
couldn’t help it, couldn’t resist.

A flash, tiny and bright, caught his
eye and sent a crack racing through his thoughts, dividing his
one-track mind.

Tearing his hand away from his groin,
he pulled the waistband of his underwear back up onto his hips with
a groan of self-resentment. Bending forward at the waist, he
squinted at the place the flash had come from.

There, on the carpet, beneath the
bedside table, something was glittering.

He didn’t own things that
glittered.

He reached for the foreign object, his
fingers slipping against one of the table legs before closing
around something hard.

It was an earring – a small golden
stud. Was it hers?

His mind began to race again at the
thought of finding something of Abby’s in his bedroom, months after
she’d been inside it. Being pressed against the table leg had
obviously kept the earring from being vacuumed up, but how had he
never noticed it before?

Thinking back, he tried to picture the
golden stud shining from her ear. He’d kissed his way up her neck
and to her earlobe, teased her there with tongue and teeth. And
yeah, she’d been wearing earrings.

Purple earrings. He remembered now –
they’d matched her tattoos. Small but brilliant, the gemstones had
looked good on her.

That only left one other person the
gold earring could’ve belonged to. All traces of his arousal
suddenly gone, he rose and walked to the bathroom, where he dropped
the piece of jewelry into the trash. The damn thing really had been
lying there forever. Too bad it hadn’t been swept up or otherwise
lost – the discovery had left a bitter taste in his
mouth.

He didn’t get into the shower – not
yet. Instead, he returned to his bedroom and picked up his phone.
Would Abby be ready to set a date and time for the dinner she’d
agreed to have with him, or had he fucked up by showing up at Hot
Ink without revealing who he was beforehand?

He had to know. As a familiar ache
flared again in his groin, he dialed the number she’d given him in
the Hot Ink parking lot, the remembered taste of her making his
mouth water, a sweet phantom flavor.

* * * * *

Dedicated Ink
is available now as an ebook and in
paperback.