When he didn’t let go, she found her mouth curving ruefully. She turned in his arms. “You’re a menace.”
He shrugged. “I was trained to press every advantage.”
Her mouth quirked, her grief lifting at the gleam in his eyes. His beautiful face was stern and his sinner’s mouth unyielding. Such a hard man in so many ways, yet he could be tender. She’d like to see him with the sister he spoke of with gruff fondness and the parents he clearly admired and loved deeply.
His hands cupped her face, his thumbs brushing at her cheeks. “I can’t imagine your pain.”
“Good. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
I’m still crying, she realized when the rough pads of his fingers stroked over her face again. “You know,” she said hoarsely, “I was trying to spare you a weepy woman.”
“Don’t. My job’s going to put enough between us as it is. We need to be brutal with the rest in order to make it.”
“For a guy who doesn’t do relationships, you seem to have a good handle on how they work.”
“I have a good handle on what I need.” His fierce blue gaze riveted her. “I expect that you’ll tell me what you need.”
Her hands slid down his damp back, caressing the hard slabs of muscle bracketing his spine. Steam billowed around them, but the warmth she felt came from inside her. “I don’t know what I need. It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about it.”
“So while I’m out tonight, think about it. Just make sure I’m in there somewhere.”
“I’ll be wishing you were in me.” She reached between them and fisted his erection. “You’re a deadly weapon all by yourself. Did you know that, Deputy?”
He snorted, his grip tightening on her hips.
“I bet there isn’t a woman alive who’s said no to you in your life. I’m just one of the many to fall under your irascible charm.”
“Look who’s talking. You’re a man-eater.”
With a two-handed grip, Darcy stroked him from root to tip. Her gaze lowered to the thick column of flesh in her hands, her heartbeat quickening at the impressive length and thick network of veins that coursed along it. It was a brutal-looking instrument of pleasure, as primal as Jared’s sexuality. That dichotomy—his powerfully elegant build and fallen-angel face paired with a curt temperament and raunchy sensuality—fascinated her.
“What a lovely idea,” she murmured.
Backing up a step, she sat on the tiled bench seat. It put her eye level with the object of her desire, which caused a hot flutter in her belly. She licked her lips, surprised at how turned on she was.
“What are you doing?” he asked gruffly. “You’re not sucking my dick.”
Her brows rose. “The hell I’m not.”
He slapped her hands away when she tried to tug him closer. “Christ, Darcy. You were just bawling your eyes out. The only reason I’m nak*d is because I haven’t got a change of clothes and the only way to get to you was to get wet.”
Her mouth twitched with the urge to grin. He looked so affronted. As sexual as their relationship was, it wasn’t all he wanted from her. That was good to know. Wonderful actually. Because as much as she wanted his body, she wanted more from him, too.
She pointed at his cock. “He’s ready to play.”
“What’s new? I’ve had a perpetual hard-on since I met you. Since I first laid eyes on you.”
“I cause the problem; let me take care of it.”
“It’s not a problem and I don’t want you to take care of it,” he snapped. “I want to take care of you.”
“I’m okay.” Darcy held his gaze, let him see the clarity of her eyes. The ache in her chest would never totally go away, she knew, but it was easier to bear than it had been just that morning. That she could feel differently was a miracle to her after living with it unchanged for so long, that her chronic pain could be alleviated at all. God…it had been so nice to lean on someone in the cemetery and have her grief accepted without reservation. “You wanted to make me feel better and I do.”
“Fuck that.” He scowled. “I’m a selfish bastard. I wanted to make myself feel better. Seeing you hurting was killing me. Watching you suck me off would make me feel worse. Hell…I’m not a douche.”
“When did I give you the impression that I was the type who went down on a guy without really wanting to?”
His scowl grew fiercer.
“Right.” Her gaze lowered. Her mouth watered. “You have the most perfect cock, Jared. Did you know that? It’s a thing of beauty.”
“You’re scrambled.”
“Actually, I’m ridiculously pleased with myself. I managed to snag exclusive access rights to your delicious body, which I’d like to exert now.”
His hand moved to grip the object of her desire. His fingers curled around it and stroked from root to tip. “I have work to do.”
“So stop lagging and let me have it.”
Releasing himself, he stepped forward and cupped her face in his hands. He searched her features, his gaze softening. “Are you okay, Darcy? Really okay? Or are you feeling shaky?”
She caught him by the wrists. “I think you’re feeling shakier than I am. I’ve had three years to deal with this. You’re the one who’s been blindsided by a cold case.”
“And a hot woman.” His thumbs slid gently over her cheekbones. “You’re an occupational hazard.”
“Step a little closer and I’ll make it worth your while.”
One of his hands slid down, the pad of his thumb gliding across her parted lips. “You already have.”
He didn’t stop her when she reached for him again. He set one hand on the tile above her head and turned down the temperature of the water with the other. The spray beat down on his right side, running in rivulets down his muscular torso and washboard abs. She started there first, tracing the ridges with her tongue, her hands caressing his c*ck with soft, gentle pulls.
Jared’s palms pressed flat to the wall, his head hanging over her, his breath quickening. As his skin heated beneath her hands, his raw sexuality slipped its chain. She could almost see its smoky tendrils curl around her, intoxicating her. Primitive need burned in her blood, melting what few inhibitions she had. She was like a bitch in heat with him and she liked it, liked the wanton freedom his acceptance gave her.
Fisting him, she made him harder, made him shudder. She nuzzled his c*ck with one cheek and then the other, before moving lower to fondle his balls with her lips.
“Fuck,” he gasped, his c*ck jerking her grip.
Darcy took one full, heavy testicle into her mouth, sucking gently, rolling it around with her tongue. He was such a primal male. Big and hard and virile everywhere. There was a part of her that reveled in that, celebrating her claim on such a potently desirable masculine creature.
His thighs began to shake, his lungs heaving. “Payback’s a bitch, Darcy. Stop torturing me and suck it, sweetheart. Suck my c*ck in that hot little mouth.”
She purred and pumped him with a two-fisted grip. She wanted to eat him up, every mouthwatering inch of him.
One of his hands cupped the back of her head, his fingers flexing spastically in the soaked strands of her hair. “Wrap your lips around me, Darcy baby. Yes…just like that.”
Her mouth flowed over the thick crest, her eyes closing at the feel and taste of him. Warm satin over stone. Her tongue rubbed the sensitive underside of his c*ck head, every sense focused on his responses. His low groans. The tension gripping him. The sound of his teeth grinding.
“So good,” he bit out. “Your mouth is so damn good…hot…f**king perfect. You’re perfect.”
She sucked hard on the wide, sensitive crown, moaning as a hot wash of pr**um spilled over her tongue and made her ravenous for more. She stroked him with her hands, milking him, as his other hand tangled in her hair. His h*ps began to move, his grip holding her still. He f**ked her mouth at the depth and pace he needed, his h*ps lunging in a steady unfaltering tempo, his stomach clenching and releasing as his c*ck slid in and out.
Darcy looked up at him, their eyes meeting. Holding. As raw as the encounter was—her mouth filled with his thrusting cock, his abdomen sheened with water and sweat, the muscles flexing powerfully—it was intimate in deeper ways. His pleasure was hers, hot and sweet. Fierce.
He hissed when her cheeks hollowed. He swelled further, making her p**sy ache to feel him tunneling deep into her. “Shit. Just like that, sweetheart. Suck it just like that…I’m gonna come so hard for you.”
Her p**sy spasmed as his flavor sharpened. She moaned and squirmed, so turned on by an act that had never gotten her hot and bothered before. She liked it well enough, but it’d never aroused her to a fever pitch, never burned her with the stark eroticism of the act.
His fingers tightened in her hair. His face twisted in a grimace of agonized pleasure. “Fuck yeah…you’re making me come.”
Greedy, she sucked him like a woman possessed. Her head bobbing. Working the pulsing length with both lips and hands. Urging the furious spurts of sem*n to flood her mouth. Jared shouted a curse, his entire body wracked with violent spasms as he released stream after stream of hot, thick cum over her stroking tongue, his h*ps pumping his spending c*ck to the back of her throat.
His hands were shaking when he finished, when he tried to pull her off. She continued gently sucking, wanting everything he had. Every drop of his pleasure. Moaning in triumph when she pulled one last pulse of sem*n from his still-rigid flesh.
She was startled when he hauled her up and pushed her against the chilly tile, his hand dipping between her legs to thrust two long fingers into her. He took her mouth, his tongue delving into the depths that tasted of him, his moan of pleasure vibrating against her lips.
Hooking her leg over his, he set his foot on the bench, stealing her balance and opening her completely. His fingers began to rub inside her, sliding through the silky skeins of her desire, expertly finding all the tender spots and capturing her gasps of pleasure in his mouth.
Darcy clung to his shoulders, her nails digging in as he pressed his taut frame against her and pushed every thought from her head but him. “Jared—”
“You’re so f**king sexy,” he growled, his fingers sliding free of her p**sy to rub the pucker of her ass. “You make me so hard. I’ve never been this hot for a woman, never felt like I’d die if I didn’t touch her. Taste her. Make her come screaming my name.”
She cried out as one finger slid into her rear, only to retreat and come back with two fingers. Ferocious pleasure pumped through her with the maddened beat of her heart.
Watching her with that fierce blue gaze, he pushed deep, then withdrew. “Only you, Darcy. You’re the only one to make me want to crawl out of my skin and into yours.”
“Yes,” she gasped. “In me.”
His fingers were driving her mad, f**king her anally with a steady, wickedly knowledgeable tempo. Her h*ps circled without her volition, trying to get him deeper. Harder. As close as they were, it wasn’t close enough.
“Oh, I’ll be in you, sweetheart,” he promised darkly, his breath gusting fast and hard over her ear. “Bare and deep. I’m gonna pump you full of hot, thick cum while I’m riding your ass as hard as you can take it. Pounding into you until I can’t tell where I end and you begin. You turn me into an animal, Darcy. You make me want to invent new ways to f**k just so I can own every inch of you.”
Jared’s thumb slid into her p**sy and she cried out, so close to orgasm it was painful. Even the cool water couldn’t cool the fever for him in her blood, a need that grew with every hour she knew him.
He caught her breast in his free hand, squeezing with a tenderness so at odds with the ferocity of his passion. She gripped the back of his head with both hands and ate at his mouth, sucking his tongue and moaning as the orgasm hit her with the force of a hurricane. He choked out her name as she tightened around his thrusting fingers, her body trembling so violently she thought she might break apart into thousands of tiny pieces.
It was Jared who held her together as the pleasure raced across her nerve endings like an electrical charge. He sank onto the bench and pulled her into his lap, his arms banding around her as she shivered with sweet, fiery aftershocks.
Chapter ten
Jared finished his list of unusual package deliveries to investigate and began gathering up the items he needed to take with him to the motel. When Darcy’s doorbell rang, he straightened and moved toward it, waving her back when she headed for it, too.
“I’ve been perfectly safe for three years now,” she reminded dryly, but she backed off and let him get it.
Finding Jim Ralston on her doorstep with a six-pack of beer in his hands made Jared immediately irritable. He’d never been the possessive type, certainly had never cared who his lovers had f**ked before he’d come along. But the animalistic drive to claim Darcy as exclusively and irrevocably his extended beyond the bedroom. He fought it back with effort.
“Inspector,” he greeted the man.
“Deputy,” Ralston returned, his eyes lit with amusement. He was dressed casually in black jeans and a button-up shirt that was rolled up at the sleeves and open at the throat. His civilian clothes made him look younger and gave Jared his first inkling of what might’ve prompted Darcy to have a friends-with-benefits relationship with the man.
Darcy rounded Jared with a welcoming smile. “Come in, Jim. Ah, and you come bearing gifts. Deputy Cameron’s heading out for pizza with his partner, which has got me craving some. You up for that?”
Ralston stepped into the house, the storm door gliding closed behind him. “I’ll have to take a rain check. I’ve got a date with the insurance adjustor who’s looking over Nadine’s shop. She called after I’d already left the house to say she was running late, so instead of driving all the way back and waiting around, I figured I’d make a pit stop here until she calls again.”