Officer out of Uniform (Lock and Key Book 2) (22 page)

He said her name again, and she had just enough breath in her lungs to reply this time. “Henry…”

This was every fantasy she’d entertained since the first moment she’d laid eyes on him and more. Bodies tangled together, hearts beating hard and at the same time, as close as two people could get. Nothing between them, literally or figuratively. At least, not right now.

She was infinitely grateful for the moment, regardless of recent circumstances and future worries. She had him now – all of him – and that was more fulfillment than she ever could’ve hoped for. This must be what uninhibited love felt like.

It was something she’d never experienced before, a drug that was new to her system. It flooded her body and mind, heightening not just her emotions, but her senses.

It felt so good she came again, suddenly, after just a few moments of build-up. It took her by surprise, and tore his name right off the tip of her tongue.

He said what she couldn’t. “Fuck, yeah…” There was a scraping note in his voice that resonated with her, struck a chord somewhere deep inside her core, which was growing tighter by the second, aching as he pounded into her.

They were coming at the same time, and those few moments were the hottest of her life. By the time it ended, she was breathless and the muscles in her thighs were cramping. She let her legs slide from around his waist, but he stayed on top of her, inside her.

And despite what they’d been through, she’d never been – never felt – better than she did with his still-hard cock inside her, where she was hot and wet and bound to him in a way that felt more real than his cuffs around her wrists ever had.

“I’m so sorry mom,” Sasha said. “Things happened so fast, and have been so crazy that I just didn’t think to call you right away.”

“I about had a heart attack!” On the other end of the connection, Sasha’s mother sounded breathless. “You know me – I don’t watch a lot of TV. So this morning when I was at my watercolor club and Anna asked me if I’d seen the news… I had a terrible feeling as soon as I turned the TV on.

“And when I heard your name… The world stopped turning when the anchor said ‘Sasha Morrison’.”

“I didn’t even think about that. Things have been such a whirlwind ever since it happened. It’s only been a day and a half.” A whirlwind of Henry and bliss and fucking and Henry and…

And babying Wolf, who Henry had picked up from the vet that morning. He’d sustained a deep knife wound in his shoulder muscle, which would take time to heal. So far, he’d spent the day lying on the couch in Sasha’s living room with his head in her lap, harness-like bandages crisscrossing his back and chest. When she rubbed the soft fur between his ears, he thumped his tail against the couch cushion.

Henry had been left to sit in the recliner next to the couch, alone. Although Sasha felt a twinge of pity, neither of them was about to kick Wolf off the couch. If not for him, both Henry and Sasha might be dead. Henry had cooked Wolf an extra-rare steak for brunch after bringing him home.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Sasha’s mother said. “That’s the important thing.”

Her mother’s statement didn’t ease Sasha’s guilt. Of course she should’ve expected that the news story would make it outside Riley County, and she should’ve called her mother right away to let her know everything was all right. What was wrong with her?

The local news channels were covering little else besides Randy Levinson’s deranged antics, and some of Riley County’s residents were even protesting the prison. According to the last broadcast Sasha had seen, some brave – or maybe just foolhardy – picketers had gathered in downtown Cypress, near the municipal building and courthouse.

They thought the prison was endangering the entire population and wanted it gone. Even after what she’d been through, Sasha didn’t see the sense in that. The Riley Correctional Facility was the largest prison in the state. The inmates had to be kept somewhere, and there was a marked shortage of Alcatraz-like islands.

“Thanks, mom.”

“Now, I want to ask you something. I’d been planning to call and ask before any of this happened, but now that it has, it seems more important than ever.”

Sasha braced herself for the unexpected as curiosity overshadowed her other emotions. “What is it?”

“I’d like to come visit you. Spend a few days with you, if you have the time.”

“Of course I have the time. But … right now? With everything that’s going on in Riley County?”

“Yes. Actually, in light of what’s happened, I’m even more eager to visit. No matter how things turned out, Sasha, I could’ve lost you. You mean more to me than anyone else, and I want to see you for more than just an afternoon. Make some new memories instead of wallowing in the old, sad ones.”

Arguments leapt to the tip of Sasha’s tongue, but she couldn’t voice them. The part of her that wanted to suggest her mother wait until Randy Levinson was caught was superseded by the part of her that knew she’d have felt the same way, if she’d been in her mother’s shoes. She wasn’t about to push her away. Besides, arguing with her about this in front of Henry would be downright hypocritical.

“All right. I’ve been kicking myself for not coming to visit you more often anyway. When do you want to come down?”

“How about tomorrow?”

Sasha couldn’t argue, so she didn’t. “Call me when you leave, so I know what time to expect you. Faye insisted I take a few days off work – I won’t be going back until the day after tomorrow.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to you in the morning, then. I love you, Sasha.”

“Love you too, mom. See you soon.”

Henry locked Sasha in eye contact before she’d even ended the call. “You’re leaving town again?”

This time, she could hear the tension in his voice. Last time, he’d been eager for her to escape the county, but she had no doubts that his plan now was to try to keep her as close as possible. “No. My mom is coming to visit here for a few days.”

He frowned. “You didn’t get your personality from her, did you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’m having visions of you both charging into the woods in your bathing suits after Randy Levinson, and it’s terrifying.”

Sasha picked up a throw pillow from one end of the couch and slung it at him. “That’s not going to happen. The only person obsessed with catching him is
you
.”

By the time she’d woken up this morning, Henry had been in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and his phone in front of him on the table. He’d called his supervisor and talked him into letting him come back to work the day after tomorrow, which meant that unless Randy was caught before then, he’d be rejoining the search as a PERT officer.

A massive manhunt had been started the day of the shootout, and Henry was chomping at the bit to get in on it.

“Have I mentioned how asinine it is that you were stabbed and suffered a concussion, yet you’re only taking off the same amount of time from work I was given over a sprained wrist?”

His gaze didn’t waver. “As a matter of fact, yeah, you’ve mentioned it. One or ten times.”

She longed to throw another pillow at him, but couldn’t reach one without disturbing Wolf. She settled for shooting Henry a
consider yourself lucky
look.

“I’m glad your mom is visiting,” he said.

That made her do a double-take.

“You are?” Hadn’t he considered that it would cut into their sex agenda? Which right now consisted of doing it whenever they wanted. Which was often.

“Yeah. Having someone to entertain will keep you from getting into trouble. Especially if that someone is your mom. Unless, of course, she’s anything like you.”

“So basically you’re saying you think I need a babysitter, and my mom is the perfect person for the job?”

He didn’t say anything, didn’t look away.

“In that case,” she continued, “I’ll have you know she’s
exactly
like me.”

The sight of Henry’s stricken expression made Sasha break out into a grin.

“I hope you’re kidding.”

“Ha! I wish I wasn’t. A babysitter… If that’s not freaking insulting, I don’t know what is! I’m 30 years old.”

“Yeah, well I’ve gotten attached to you pretty quick. I want you to be around for 30 more years, at least.”

“Oh, I plan to be. You saw what I can do to a man with a kitchen utensil. I wouldn’t be too flippant with me if I were you.”

“I’m more interested in what you can do to a man with your bare hands. Or that mouth. Or—”

She leaned as far as she could, stretching her arm until it hurt, just so she could get ahold of the remaining throw pillow. Then she launched it into his face.

By the time she’d eased Wolf out of her lap and stood up, he’d flung it back at her. It hit her squarely in the chest, and if his smirk was any indication, he’d done it intentionally. “You aimed there on purpose, didn’t you?”

“It – they – were the biggest target.”

“That’s it. You’re going to pay for that.”

She attacked him mercilessly – with the pillow, not her chest, though he seemed to keep finding ways to end up in suspiciously close quarters with her cleavage. Eventually he tore the pillow from her grip, pinned her arms to her sides and pulled her down onto the recliner, pressing his face into the V-neck of her t-shirt.

She made a show of resisting, but that was only for the sake of her wounded pillow-fighting pride. It felt good to be so close to him. She could feel herself slipping into that state of being where what they were doing at the moment was the only real thing.

At any rate, he was much stronger and bigger than her, despite what he’d said about her ‘targets’. He pulled her farther and farther down, until she was on top of him, between his thighs. He was hard and she could feel his heart beating against hers, faster than the pillow fighting accounted for.

Heat rippled through her when he bit down on one of her nipples, through her t-shirt and bra. She moaned, and the rest of the world – even the danger it harbored – faded away.

* * * * *

The heat and humidity were brutal. Henry could feel sweat running everywhere, even down the crack of his ass, and his skin was already chafing beneath the weight of his bulletproof vest.

The day was perfect.

“Hey.” Grey elbowed Henry in the side. “Don’t step in any gopher holes this time. If you hurt yourself again, they’ll have to keep a special room for you at the hospital.”

Henry ignored Grey’s shit talking as he walked through the open field, tall grass bending beneath his boots, still damp with the morning dew. God, it felt good to be back on the search. Even the mosquitos buzzing around his head didn’t bother him much.

As bad as it sounded, part of him was relieved that Liam, Grey and the rest of PERT hadn’t tracked down Randy Levinson without him. After what had happened three days ago, the hunt was personal.

The image of Sasha being knocked to the forest floor flashed in Henry’s mind, heightening his senses and fueling his determination to find Randy Levinson and pay him back a thousand fold for every hurt he’d caused Sasha, or anyone. Although Sasha’s injury had been minor, the fact that he’d assaulted her demonstrated how little regard he had for human life and innocence … and how close he’d come to forcing Henry to walk away from bloodstained ground alone again.

And then there was the pregnant woman, the three officers, and the other civilians Randy Levinson had murdered in cold blood. Just the day before, investigators had discovered that the two bodies found in shallow forest graves had belonged to a young local couple. One of them – the male – was the son of another local man who’d gone missing. The general consensus was that he’d probably been killed too and the body just hadn’t been found yet.

Randy Levinson would be lucky to get a bullet between the eyes or the shoulder blades. If Henry got the chance, he’d make him suffer. There were ways to do that and still kill someone quick, and Henry didn’t owe anything to someone who lived only to impact the lives of others in the easiest, most cowardly way possible. Someone who only wanted to leave scars and call them a legacy, or revenge.

At least, he didn’t owe him anything other than justice. Everyone deserved that.

* * * * *

15 Years Ago

Randy choked on the kerosene fumes that’d settled deep in his lungs. It didn’t stop him from running, or hollering with the excitement that was surging through his veins, pounding and roaring in his ears. The smell of wood and shingle going up in flames made his eyes water, but it was the smell of freedom.

“I think I burnt my foot!” Troy stumbled to a halt behind him, feet slipping on the dewy grass. It was the dead of night, almost morning. The orange light of their flaming home lit up the horizon right where the sun would rise in another hour or so.