Slave to Love (9 page)

She gave in and bit her lower lip. His thumbs caressed small, patient circles in her palms. She peered up at him, at this giant, broad-shouldered, muscular, totally intimidating man who had her knees shaking and her insides doing things she'd never thought possible.

“And if you get scared,” she said from her place against the wall, “you can call me Officer.”

He blinked. And a wicked, wicked grin spread across his face. The grin of a sultan who'd just been handed the key to a roomful of innocent dancing maidens captured from the enemy.

Then he plunged into her and all thought ceased.

Chapter 5

Mick groaned, withdrew, and thrust deep into Caro's wet, blinding heat.

“Ah, baby, you feel incredible. This is where I want to be. Exactly where I want to be.” He tightened his grip on her hands and drove into her again.

Her lips parted on a gasp, and she looked up, her eyes half-lidded with pleasure. “Oh, God,” she moaned. “Oh, God, Mick.”

He let one hand go and stabbed his fingers through her hair, winding the silken flax around his palm to hold her in place. Then he covered her lush mouth and kissed her hard. His pulse raced at her sexy whimper and his cock thrilled to her legs lifting to wrap around his waist. She tasted like cool wine and hot woman. Damn, she was fine.

He hilted again in a single powerful stroke, sucking in her cry like succor. After a year of craving her like the very devil, he'd never felt such need to possess a woman, to claim her, every part of her, for his own. He wanted to surround Caro with his body, invade her, devour her, so all she felt, all she saw, all she tasted, was him.

She twined her free arm around his neck, clutching him close, not with helplessness but with fervor. Her eager mouth opened under his, allowing his tongue dazzling freedom to take and explore, rewarding his deep forays with ardent response. Their wet-slick tongues slid and hunted, probed and teased. No, not teased. This was too visceral for mere teasing.

He skimmed his hand down her neck, over her chest, grasping her breast. Squeezed her taut nipple between his fingers.

“I'm going to make you burn so hot we'll both be ashes in the morning,” he growled, stroking over the stiff bud with his thumb.

“Too late,” she whispered, her lashes quivering on cheeks the color of flame. And she came apart in his arms, trembling like a dove, crying out with timorous pleasure.

Surprise lanced through him, then pure male satisfaction.
He
had done this to her. With a few words and a single touch. Or maybe just by being inside her. Her response to him was like nothing he'd ever experienced. More than he'd dreamed of.

She melted into him with a shuddering gasp and he moved his hands to support her thighs, helping her to wring every last pleasure from his throbbing lance.

“You're mine now,” he said into her mouth as she moaned low and met his thrusts. “
Mine
.”

She gave herself up to him, to his kiss, to his possession. Her surrender inflamed him as nothing else could. He wanted her on her back, under him. In the age-old position of total submission. So there would be no doubt in her mind that she now belonged to him, completely.

He spun, and dropped to his knees, holding her tight. They crashed to the carpet, still joined, their mouths still fused in fluid consummation. Again she moaned, and clung, and he thought he'd burst for want of her. He stabbed deep, felt the barrier of her womb and still he wanted more.

“Give me everything,” he ordered roughly. “
Everything
.”

She whimpered, and her inner muscles lapped at his cock like hungry tongues, working up and down his shaft till he thought he'd explode. But not yet. First he'd have her body's surrender one more time.

He bent to her breasts and caressed them with his cheek and his tongue. Her back arched and she gasped in pleasure, and he recalled her sweet dissolution at the stroke of his thumb on her nipple. He dragged his stubbled jaw over both, testing the limits of their sensitivity. Her body quaked and shuddered, she screamed, and as he closed his mouth over one kernel-hard tip, feasting on the sweet flesh, he felt her nails sink into his shoulders.

His body detonated, lit by the fuse of her passion. Her passion for
him
. For he refused to believe this reaction would be gifted to just any man. He plunged into her, seeking his completion in the crush of her limbs and the husky sound of his own name as it tore from her throat.

Hours later, Mick rolled off Caro and collapsed next to her on the bed. He wiped the sweat from his face, but he couldn't wipe the smile from his lips. Or the creeping unease from his insides.

Jesus H. Christ,
she'd taken him on a wild ride. When they’d finished on the floor, he'd lifted her to the coffee table and taken her there, and then had carried her to her big, soft bed. They'd practically tied knots in the sheets with their impatient greed for each other. He'd come three times himself and had lost count of how many times he'd coaxed her to climax in one way or another. And yeah, the bedroom walls were still echoing with her scream from that last one.

Lord, how she'd screamed.

He turned and dragged her close, draped her warm body over his chest and wrapped his arms around her.

“You okay, baby?”

She only managed a small groan, but her lips curved against his shoulder and her body nestled into his. At the tender movement, his disquiet blossomed.

What had he done?

He could barely justify his actions of tonight—blatantly seducing her, practically threatening her with expulsion from the task force if she didn't submit. The fact that she'd wanted it as badly as he, had participated in her own seduction ardently and willingly, made no difference. That she had given him everything he'd demanded, had innocently opened her body, and had, at his insistence, conceded her very will, just made it worse.

She stirred, looked up into his face, reaching for a kiss. If he had a speck of honor, he'd toss her aside, roll off the bed, and walk out the door before they got any more involved. He, of all men, had no right to be in her bed. Aside from anything else, she was a cop!
And
his partner—however temporary. Hadn't he learned long ago that was a real bad mix?

But Mick McGraw had no honor. He’d lost that a long, long time ago. Besides, he couldn't help himself. She tasted so good. Felt so right.

He met her lips and melted into her mouth like a sucker. Their tongues tangled and danced, and pretty soon his cock was dancing right along.

“Don't even think about it,” he muttered when her fingers crept down his stomach. “Any more action tonight and it'll fall off, I guarantee.”

She giggled. A warm sound that lapped at the block of ice that passed for his heart.

“Wounded in the line of duty, eh?”

“I'll be limp for weeks.”

“Poor baby. Lick your wounds?”

He groaned. And rolled her under him. “Lady, you are just plain dangerous. I should get the cuffs and arrest you.”

She slanted him a coquettish smile. “For what?”

“Assault with a deadly weapon.”

Her body.

He loved the way it fit against him. Lush and curvy in all the right places. Soft. The way she eagerly spread her long legs for him, and gave a little wriggle of pleasure when he slid into her.

Fuck.

He gripped her jaw between his fingers and kissed her until he couldn't breathe. Just one more time wouldn't hurt. Much. Then he would leave and they could get back to just being partners. Neither of them wanted to get involved. This was just lust. That's all. Pure physical relief from the tension of the case and the weird sexual electricity that had zapped between them for the past year.

Her hips waggled under his and he caught himself just before he pushed into her unprotected.

“Shit, these things are a pain,” he cursed as he swiftly sheathed himself and sank into her sultry heat.

He expected it to sting like crazy after the raw, unbridled punishment he'd given them both for the past few hours. But it just felt good.

Not feverish good. But warm, satisfying, comfortable good.

He sighed, and something shifted deep in his soul. Suddenly, he found himself shuffling things in his mind. Would it be so wrong to get comfortable with Caro, just for a while? It had been a long time since he'd even thought about wanting something more from a woman than a few nights of mindless gratification.

And that scared the crap out of him.

The whole situation was impossible. Especially now. He couldn't get comfortable with Caro, or anyone else. Chances were he wouldn’t be around long enough to get comfortable, anyway.

So he withdrew, turned her, pulled her to her hands and knees, and mounted her from behind. He was still curved over her back when they both fell asleep from sheer exhaustion half an hour later.

***

The horizon was just beginning to show a sliver of blue underneath a black sky when Mick woke and quietly slid out of her bed. As always, he grabbed his Beretta from under the pillow, then carefully gathered up the ripped condom packets from around the apartment and stuffed them into the pocket of his jeans as he pulled them on. He made it a habit not to leave evidence lying around. It was the small details that usually got a man in trouble.

 Taking one last look at her moonlit, sleeping form, her tousled hair spread across the pillow they'd shared, he slipped from the bedroom and went straight out to the Z parked in the driveway. He needed to make a quick trip to his apartment.

After tossing the condom wrappers in the dumpster in the parking lot on his way to his building, he went upstairs and changed into gym shorts and sneaks. He did his stretching, then started on the five mile circuit he ran every morning at five a.m.. Today he had a new stop to add to the route. And he was late.

The old craftsman bungalows of the Connors' neighborhood were silent and dark as he loped along in the pre-dawn light. He paused by a large oak and jogged in place, examining the manicured lawn and yard of the Connors' house from a distance. A length of bright yellow crime scene tape had been missed by the clean-up crew. It fluttered incongruously against a magenta azalea bush, the only outward sign of the brutal crime which had taken place within the home's snug, comfy confines just two weeks before.

But Mick could still see the victim's blood in his mind, and the grotesque expression on the face of the man in the chair, echoing the pain and surprise which had overwhelmed him as he'd met his violent death.

Mick gave his head a sharp shake to clear it, then ran to the end of the block where an unmarked car kept vigil for the killer's possible reappearance on the scene. As he passed by, the plain clothes cop reclining in the passenger's seat lifted his chin in greeting, and gave him a thumb's down.

No suspicious sightings tonight.

Proceeding north and east, he made his way across the six-odd blocks that separated the two first crime scenes and ran past the Atkins' place. The officer on watch had gotten permission to park his small camper nights in the driveway of a neighboring house. In the murky cave of the interior, a silhouette waved and shook its head at him. Nothing here, either.

Unsurprised, Mick made the turn onto Elizabeth Street, leg muscles straining, and proceeded west toward the newest victims' house.

As he ran he slicked the sweat from his brow with a forearm, and was suddenly assailed by the perfume of Caro's body. His steps faltered and he put his hands to his nose and inhaled deeply. Remembered what it had felt like to hold her in his arms. To touch her intimately.

High on the adrenalin of a night of unrestrained sex and three miles of pounding pavement, his blood's reaction was instant and primal. He wanted to turn and sprint down the street that would take him back to her duplex, and claim her all over again. Cover her with his body and the scent of his hunger.

Wresting himself away from the powerful urge, he pointed his sneakers south, in the direction of yesterday's crime scene. Jogging slowly past the Tailor/Slocum house, he stopped next to an unmarked cruiser a few doors down.

“Anything?”

“Not a peep,” answered Brady Washington, who had been assigned stake-out duty for the first few nights, along with his partner, Denny. “Got four drive-by's. Called them in, so the reports should be on your desk when you get there.”

Mick glanced at his watch as he bent over his knees, catching his breath.
Already six a.m.
. “Good. I'll be in by seven.”

Taking the license plate numbers of everyone who drove by the scenes was a long-shot and everyone knew it. But you never could tell what would be the key to solving a case. And killers like this always came back, eventually, to help relive the crime in their fantasies. Oh, yeah. He’d be back.