Liberating Lacey (2 page)

Liberating Lacey

of propriety but supported her weight, using his body with a deft sense of balance and awareness that left her slick and soft. Ready.

“See? Just like riding a bike,” he said, his words a velvet rumble in her ear calling her back from some primitive place.

Forget about observation. She’d gone native.

“Something like that,” she agreed. It was actually sex standing up, but she had no interest in arguing the point with him when her mouth was dry, the ache consuming her. She slid her hands over his chest, along his ribs and into the back pockets of his jeans to press herself against him.

His gaze darkened, now possessively intent. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face and the palm on the small of her back pulled her firmly against him. He put his mouth to her ear. “Got an idea of what you want?” She looked around the bar, at the noise and commotion, felt Hunter’s breath on the curve of her neck, his broad, warm hand on her bare back and suddenly wanted nothing in the entire world than to find out exactly how good he could make her feel.

She slid her hand into the cropped hair on the back of his neck. “Let’s talk about that somewhere else.”

Again, the authoritative grip on her hand. Without a word he led her through the bar to the sultry heat of the parking lot, heading for the shadows created by an enormous black SUV arrogantly angled across three parking spaces in the back corner.

“Yours?” she asked as they rounded the truck’s hood.

“Nope, just a place for a private conversation.” He backed her into the passenger door. Hands braced on either side of her head, he fastened his teeth on the sensitive juncture of her neck and shoulder, sucking at her skin with just enough pressure to make her gasp.

Desire burst inside her. “Kiss me,” she said, the words floating breathy and feminine into the shocking quiet of the parking lot.

A small hitch in his even breathing, then he obliged with a maddening, seductive kiss that started with one corner of her mouth, light flicks of his tongue teasing her until she tried to brush her lips across his, desperate for more. To her surprise, he held back, giving her only the merest pressure on his way to the other corner of her mouth, then delivering several soft, tantalizing nips to her full lower lip before she hooked her arms around his neck and took what she had to have. Her mouth open, she swept her tongue over his, tasting, demanding.

It was the first time she’d kissed anyone other than her ex in over fifteen years. She would have sworn on her grandmother’s grave that the earth moved, tilting on its axis under her feet. Then he plastered his body against hers and the world disappeared, leaving only the seduction of his talented mouth, the pressure of his torso and the unyielding erection notched between her legs.

11

Anne Calhoun

Aroused beyond her normal caution, she arched against him. Once she’d done so, she couldn’t stop, grinding against him as their mouths danced and melded. He shuddered, the vibration rippling through her body before he tore his mouth from hers.

“Tell me what you want, Lacey.”

His low, commanding voice, the way he used her name, sent tremors racing one after the other through her body to coalesce in her wet, needy sex. “I want you in me,” she said, yanking his shirt up to slide her hands along his ribs, exploring the hot skin over heavy muscle and bone.

“You’re sure about this,” he said, his voice strained. One big hand slid under the loose edge of her top to cup her breast, the thumb and forefinger closing over her nipple with enough pressure to make her eyelids droop.

“Yes,” she gasped. “Now!”

“Jesus,” he said, but the word wasn’t uncertain. She’d shocked him, in a really good way. He looked through the SUV’s tinted windows, toward the bar. “Gotta be fast.” She nodded jerkily because her hands had found his ridged abdomen. Hunter looked around once more, ascertaining their relative privacy, then cupped her breasts under the silky halter top, palming their weight and plucking at her pebbled nipples.

The deft touch was hard enough to make her whimper but light enough to make her want more as she fumbled with his belt buckle and button fly.

“Fuck,” he said on a sharp inhale as her fingers brushed his hard length. He dug in his back pocket for his wallet and produced a condom. The package held between his teeth, he reached for the button and inch-long zipper of her jeans, working them down along with the scrap of lace functioning as her panties. She kicked off her wickedly high heel and stepped out of one leg of her jeans, breathing fast and shallow as she braced her bared foot on the SUV’s running board. His gaze roamed over her exposed body as he pushed his jeans just below the swell of his ass and rolled the condom down his shaft.

Then his mouth was back on hers, the kiss heated, demanding. His hands clamped down on her hips, holding her still for his short, urgent thrusts, his mouth muffling the little pleading noises rippling from her throat as he inexorably pushed into her. An hour of prolonged, public foreplay left her slippery for him but didn’t prepare her for his size, stretching her swollen, sensitive tissue. One more slick glide seated him to the hilt, his flat abdomen pressed against her belly, her backside to the hard metal of the SUV.

She felt deliciously stretched, her channel adjusting with slow, tingling ripples.

A few moments passed without movement. She opened her eyes to see concern in his.

“Okay?” he asked, restraint etched into his face. “You’re tight.”

“Yes…so good,” she whispered. Her hands skittered down his ribs to settle on the hot skin of his hips.

He withdrew and slid back in, his broad shaft chafing millions of newly awakened nerve endings inside her. The slow stroke brought him tight against her and forced a 12

Liberating Lacey

sound from her throat, one she’d never made before. He did it again, and again, then her senses contracted until all she knew was the rough thrusts into her, the pressure of his chest against her breasts and the ever-tightening spiral of dark, hot pleasure coiling in her pelvis.

As if from a distance, she heard light, desperate cries.

“Shhhh,” he said, his voice strained as he linked their hands and pressed them into the window on either side of her head. “Don’t want to draw attention back here.” She really didn’t mean to be making noises. She never had before, but she was going to fly apart. Her legs were shaking, her heart pounded painfully against her ribcage and her nipples and clit were swollen, throbbing bundles of aching nerves. She simply couldn’t stop the soft, pleading pants rippling out into the humid night air.

He took her mouth again, silencing her before the entire bar knew what they were doing in the parking lot. When he angled a big hand between their bodies and rolled her clit with his rough, knowing fingers, every nerve ending in her body burst into flames. She threw her head back in abandon, banging her head on the passenger window. Each urgent thrust thudded her bare bottom against the warm metal of the SUV. She fisted her hands in the black cotton covering his broad shoulders, desperate for any solid ground as the waves crested. A deep stroke coupled with a firm touch on her clit and she exploded, stifling her cry in his shoulder as release pulsed through her.

He kept the same steady, hard rhythm, one forearm braced against the SUV to grip the cargo rack over her head while with the other hand he hoisted her thigh to his hipbone. With her eyes closed, arms around his neck and her forehead on his shoulder, each ardent stroke triggered delicious aftershocks.

She’d never felt sexier in her life.

One last thrust buried him to the hilt, his cock throbbing within her. She opened her eyes to watch him grit his teeth and shudder, hard, as ecstasy took him. Trembling and panting, she felt an unexpected surge of emotion when he rested his damp forehead on hers. His hot, swollen lips brushed first her cheek, then her mouth as he slowly subsided against her.

After a moment he disengaged their bodies, pulled up his jeans and stepped away to toss the condom into a trashcan at the corner of the lot. Vulnerability swept through her without his big body sheltering hers so she hurriedly yanked her jeans back into place. If the SUV’s owner showed up she didn’t want to be caught with her pants down.

Now buttoned up, he stood just out of arms’ reach, his face in the shadows, muscular arms crossed over his chest. In the silence that followed, she waited for the recriminations, the regrets that should come on the heels of her first sexual encounter with someone other than Davis. But there were none and why should there be? This wild, insane, thrilling parking lot encounter brought her total number of lovers to two, a paltry number in the twenty-first century.

No regrets and no expectations. At any moment, he’d head back into the bar. The night was still young, after all, and she wasn’t.

13

Anne Calhoun

She gave him a weak smile as she smoothed down her top and ran her fingers through her hair to shake the layers back into place. The silence stretched out as he watched her with an unreadable expression on his face. She was on the verge of doing something really stupid, like extending her hand to make her goodbyes, when he spoke.

“You’re probably still prejudiced against the missionary position,” he offered, his voice gruff.

For the second time that night, he made her laugh. “That’s not what I thought you were going to say,” she said.

At her reply, some of the tension eased from his shoulders. He took two steps closer, out of the shadows at the back of the lot. “What did you think I was going to say?”

“Drive safely.”

“Ah,” he said and for the first time a smile spread across his face, now illuminated by the lights in the parking lot. Humor softened his hard-angled face and provided an intriguing glimpse into the man behind the player. Lacey felt her stomach flip-flop.

But he wasn’t asking her out. He was offering more sex, nothing else. That was all she wanted.

“Prejudices are usually pretty ingrained,” she said slowly, as if considering his ability to make her change her mind.

“Wait ’till I get you under me in a bed,” he said, bracing his shoulder against the SUV.

Better and better, but sex in a parking lot was one thing. Letting him into her house was another thing entirely. “You have a last name, Hunter?”

“Smart woman. Anderson. Hunter Anderson.” He rattled off his badge number, precinct, address, email address and phone numbers with such speed she giggled.

“Don’t go back in that bar looking for someone else to take home.” It wasn’t a plea. She partnered with powerful men accustomed to having their orders obeyed and recognized a command when she heard one.

“I won’t,” she said. She laid her palm flat against the sweat-dampened t-shirt covering his chest. “I drive a cream BMW.”

He nodded toward an electric blue motorcycle that looked dangerously fast. “I’ll follow you,” he said.

Her hand drifted lower. “Of course,” she said absently, distracted by the ridges of his abdomen under her fingers.

The muscles tightened before he stopped her hand at his belt. “We’ll be lucky if I get you home before round two. Go.”

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Liberating Lacey

He didn’t belong here. Hunter knew that as well as he knew the procedures for making a traffic stop on a car driven by someone with priors and an outstanding arrest warrant for armed robbery.

Too late.

Releasing his too-tight grip on Lacey’s hip, he drew in a slow, shaky breath, lifted his weight onto his forearms and gently eased away from her limp body. She winced as he withdrew. He started to apologize, but she smiled at him, murmured “So good,” and turned on her side.

Okay, then. He went to the bathroom to toss the condom, the third of the night. For a long moment he took in his surroundings, standing in the door between the bathroom and bedroom. Moonlight lay in a gleaming smooth path on the oak plank floors then rippled with the twisted sheets draped gently over the curve of Lacey’s hip and upper thigh. Darkness obscured the rest of her body, centered in her enormous brass bed. Not a squeak, creak or groan from the metal frame, not even when things got athletic. That kind of silence cost money. Lots of it.

The night had gotten off to a bad start when his friend ditched him for a blonde he’d been pursuing for weeks. Already waiting at Buff, Hunter watched women stream into the bar and figured
fuck it
. Buff didn’t charge a cover and he was there. One beer and he’d go home. Sleep sounded almost as good as drinking and dancing.

Blocking his route to the bar was a fine, toned back held slim and straight above a nicely shaped ass. When the woman turned around at his “excuse me”, her wide brown eyes, pretty red hair and a shockingly innocent flare of visceral awareness hit him like a fist in his gut. He held off from touching her until the second time she stepped in front of him. More abrupt than he should have been, he put his thumbs in the dimples on either side of her spine, just to move her, but the nervous twitch that ran under her skin caught his attention. The faint wrinkles around her eyes when she smiled intrigued him as much as her open examination of the whole bar scene.

He braced his shoulder against the doorframe and considered his options. Based on her soft, even breathing she was asleep, or fast getting there. No reason to get back in bed, because even a set of blonde nympho triplets couldn’t coax another hard-on out of his flagging dick. He’d had a fine night, better than he expected. For damn sure he’d eradicated Lacey’s prejudices against the missionary position. He was free to go.

He didn’t. Drawn to soft cotton sheets and softer pale skin, against his better judgment he got back into bed. At least a dozen white eyelet pillows lay scattered on the wood floor, hurled off the bed when she so sweetly begged him to fuck her harder that he needed to grip the edge of the mattress for leverage.

15

Anne Calhoun

Three-thirty in the morning. The hour wasn’t unusual for him. Neither was the scent of sex, redolent with musk and sweat, hanging in the air of her bedroom.

The woman was. Small and slender, she lacked the gym-toned tautness he often saw on “women of a certain age” prowling at Buff. If she was an experienced cougar playing the innocent, she’d fooled him.

His finger, dark against her pale skin, trembled from hours of raw, hot exertion as he moved it up to gently smooth back a strand of hair stuck to her cheek. There was no purpose to this touch, just a simple caress of her cheek with the back of his finger for the simple pleasure of feeling her smooth, heated skin under his hand.

He drew back his hand and looked around again. The bedroom held an antique mahogany armoire, matching dressing table and a chaise lounge next to the small fireplace filled for the summer with fresh flowers. He’d followed her from Buff, on the city’s south side, to a white two-story Colonial with a professionally landscaped garden and a sun porch in the old-money Oak Grove neighborhood. Not his usual hookup, not with a big, old house filled with antiques, the BMW, the impeccably renovated sixty-thousand-dollar kitchen. He knew pretty well to the penny what Lacey’s fine kitchen cost, because he spent his days off helping his dad with his home renovation business.

He normally didn’t get a tour of a hookup’s house, but to settle her obvious nerves he asked for a beer when she shut the door behind him. She’d flicked on the light over the stove and got him a Corona he had no intention of finishing, but he drank part of it anyway and watched her look at him with those open, curious eyes. When her smile went from hesitant to aware he’d undone the ties on her top and kissed every inch of her fine back. Then he’d hoisted her up on the granite-topped island, worked off her jeans and thong and used his tongue to draw slow circles around her clit until she was quivering, then pleading, then sobbing in satisfaction, her hands clamped around the granite’s edge because they couldn’t get a grip in his regulation buzz cut.

She’d slipped on the way up the stairs and so he dropped to his knees on the runner and covered her body with his.

Right here on the stairs?

Right here on the stairs.

He’d shoved his jeans down just far enough to slide his cock into her from behind, using the last condom in his wallet in the process. Thank God she had a box by the bed.

An unopened box. He didn’t miss that detail. Lacey was prepared and choosy.

Goose bumps rippled across her skin as he watched, her body cooling without him over her, inside her. Moving carefully he pulled the sheet up to her shoulder and eased out of bed. He pulled on his jeans, then padded barefoot down the stairs in search of his shirt and some water. In the kitchen he opened solid maple cabinets until he found a glass, ran water from the fridge door and drank. He refilled the glass, drank again, then snagged his shirt from the floor by the fireplace and tugged it over his head. He was dressed, his bike outside, his boots and helmet by a mahogany table in her foyer that 16

Liberating Lacey

also held a notepad and a pen. He could leave a note and go. Hell, he didn’t even have to leave a note. Welcome to Hookup Alley, Lacey.

Home wasn’t far, maybe a mile closer to downtown, in a house of similar age but lesser quality, split into apartments in the seventies and not renovated since. He looked around the kitchen. He didn’t belong here any more than she belonged at Buff. His commitment to public service didn’t include guiding newly divorced thirty-something women through the pitfalls and traps of the meat market. Girls he went home with knew the rules of the game. Smart and self-assured, Lacey didn’t need his protection from the average player.

He’d followed her home. Showed her a few new tricks. He was free to go.

He wanted to make her lunch.

The urge made no sense, but it was there, slowly replacing the instinct to bounce.

He glanced in the fridge and found nine-grain bread and six different kinds of gourmet cheeses. Cheddar. Two kinds of Gouda. Havarti. Swiss. Asiago. Jarlsberg. Lacey had almost fifty dollars worth of cheese in her fridge and organic tomatoes in a ceramic bowl on the counter. His dad couldn’t cook for shit. Faced with the prospect of TV

dinners every night, Hunter learned the basics of meal prep as soon as he could handle the stove and he made fantastic grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches.

The exhaustion dogging him since before he walked into Buff helped him give up figuring out the urge to play chef or the hesitation to have her wake up alone. He put the glass in the dishwasher and climbed the stairs. The moonlight had shifted up Lacey’s body, now highlighting the curve of her cheek, her reddish-brown lashes dark against the pale skin. He shucked his jeans, jostling the mattress as little as possible as he lifted the sheet and slid in next to her.

Then the moonlight was sunlight, bright and hot even when filtered through the sheer curtains. He lay on his stomach, the sheet at his waist, Lacey still curled on her side, facing away from him. One elbow caught the sheet at her lower ribcage. In the full light of day the stubble burn on her breasts and collarbone stood out in reddish patches.

If she’d moved at all during the night, he couldn’t tell.

He scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, looked around for the clock, then rubbed his eyes again because the numbers must be wrong. They finally came into focus. It was almost noon, which explained the sun’s heat and intensity. He’d slept for almost nine hours in a strange bed and damn, he felt good.

His jeans lay in a jumble at the foot of the bed. He grabbed them and made a pit stop in the bathroom, also recently remodeled with two cobalt blue pottery bowls for sinks and thick white towels stacked in the mahogany cabinet. The big shower stall was a work of art, tiled in mosaic swirls of green and blue that started as dark as the ocean floor, lightening to sky and surface colors at around shoulder height. Six different showerheads could be positioned for massage spray and a seat ran the length of one wall.

17

Anne Calhoun

He stepped lightly on the stairs, not wanting to wake her, and pushed through the swinging door that led to the kitchen. One deep drawer by the six-burner professional-grade range held a stash of well-seasoned cast iron frying pans. As he sliced the bread and shredded the Jarlsberg, he looked around the kitchen. White walls were decorated with sky-blue art. A large oak farmhouse table and six chairs stood just beyond the island in front of a fireplace that opened into both the kitchen and living room.

As the pan heated, he dumped out the coffee brewed by an automatic timer set for six a.m. and started fresh, then walked barefoot over the slate floors to the French doors at the opposite end of the kitchen. He found the sun porch running the width of the house’s south side. The space, full of white wicker furniture and plants, with books, board games and magazines stacked on side tables, was already warm but would be pleasantly cooled by the ceiling fans. Yet another white brick fireplace was filled with several dozen white long-stemmed roses. Real roses, he learned as he bent to touch one, not fake flowers that would last all summer.

“Jesus,” he said under his breath. He knew exactly jack about decorating, but even he could tell that everything Lacey owned was top-of-the-line, the kind of expensive things that looked deceptively affordable. Her divorce must have been extremely lucrative. In the light of day it was clear he could make himself as comfortable as he wanted, but he should have left last night. He did
not
belong here.

The soft rush of water through pipes caught his attention, so he went back into the kitchen and closed the French doors behind him. The pan was just the right temperature, the coffee ready when Lacey pushed open the kitchen door. Her red hair was half-dry and tousled around her face. She wore a short white robe made from the same kind of material as his t-shirt, except it looked about a hundred times softer and thinner as it clung to her skin. Her beautiful brown eyes widened when she saw him, then a small, pleased smile curved her lips.

In that moment he knew why he’d stayed. He didn’t want her to think he was the kind of asshole who picked up a woman at a bar, fucked her and left in the middle of the night. So what if this was the first time he hadn’t been that asshole? She didn’t need to know that.

“Oh,” she said as she put her hand to her hair. “Good morning.” The self-conscious move tugged at his heart. He looked pointedly at the clock, softening the gesture with what passed for a smile for him.

“Oh, well then. Good afternoon,” she said, her eyes twinkling.

He thought about kissing her, because even classy, rich and out of his league, she was prettier fresh out of the shower. There was no denying her age, although he doubted she spent much time in the sun, with her pale skin. Her eyes were slightly puffy from sleep, the beginnings of lines forming around her mouth when she smiled, but the humor and intelligence in her face captivated him, pure and simple.

He turned away from the urge to taste her soft, pink lips. “I made fresh coffee. I hope that’s okay.”

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Liberating Lacey

“Making coffee is a very, very good thing,” she said. “Have you had any?” When he shook his head she moved around the island to stand next to him. She reached for the cabinet above the coffeemaker, the robe riding up to expose firm, slender thighs. She took down a delicate floral cup and a thick ceramic mug, poured hot coffee into both, set the sugar bowl on the counter and found a matching creamer pot in the fridge. Hunter declined both with a shake of his head and drank the black hot brew.

Lacey added enough sugar to turn the coffee to sludge, a healthy dollop of cream and inhaled deeply before sipping.

“Wonderful,” she said, then looked at the pan, the bread and the shredded cheese heaped on the counter. “Grilled cheese sandwiches?” Shit, he should have made breakfast food, but he never ate breakfast so it didn’t occur to him. His regular shift was four-to-midnight. He didn’t get to bed until two or three in the morning and got up around lunchtime.

“I can do eggs,” he started.

“No, no. I love real grilled cheese. It’s just…my grandmother used to make them this way, except with Cheddar cheese and thick whole wheat bread she baked herself.

She’d fry bacon and mix that in with the cheese. After she died I made the sandwiches myself for a while, then got out of the habit.”

“Bacon? Never tried that,” he said, mentally constructing a meat-lovers grilled cheese sandwich.

“If the bacon’s hot it helps melt the cheese. I love the sandwiches, but my metabolism isn’t what it used to be.”

“Think you burned off plenty of calories last night,” he said as he buttered one slice of bread and dropped it in the pan.

She sipped at her coffee again, a blush staining her cheekbones until their color matched the scrapes on her collarbone. “True.”

Damn, he liked that blush. He carefully sprinkled the cheese over the toasting bread, added two thick tomato slices, buttered the top piece of bread and set it unbuttered side down on top of the even layer of cheese. He adjusted the heat under the pan because the trick with grilling real cheese was to slowly melt it, not burn the bread and leave the cheese cold through the center.