It was all coming clear now. “That’s why you became a police officer.”
“Yup. That female officer protected us after that. She’d stop by with her dry cleaning and make sure we weren’t being harassed. She got free dry cleaning out of it, but that was a small price to pay compared to fifteen percent of our take.”
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and jumped to her feet. “Shower,” she announced.
She strode into the bathroom.
He sat, going over the details of her tale, picturing a tiny, fierce eight-year-old kicking a police officer in the shins. She hadn’t changed much, had she? He grinned to the empty room.
Just then, Tina poked her head around the bathroom door. “You don’t follow orders very well, do you?”
21
Tina knew she was in avoidance mode. She’d done this before, plunged into something physical to avoid the discomfort of her emotions. Coming out of that dream into the compassionate light of Jack’s gray-eyed gaze had done something completely unexpected to her.
It had made her open up.
Not something she normally did, or felt comfortable doing. Avoid avoid avoid. Maybe sex wasn’t the right way to do that, but she’d been thirsting after Jack Finnegan since she met him, and to be honest, long before. When would she ever get another chance to hop in a shower with Denver Black?
He sure was taking his sweet time about it, though. Maybe he was running for his life, putting plenty of distance between him and the crazy cop chick who couldn’t handle her liquor and chanted “I hate you” in her sleep.
When he finally stepped into the water with her, she was so relieved that she did something else she hadn’t planned.
She kissed him.
Which would be a natural first step toward sex, normally, but she still wasn’t thinking clearly. She’d pictured hot, deep penetration up against the shower wall. Instead, his warm lips were claiming hers in a slow, purposeful seduction that turned the tables on her.
He was in charge now, not her. She couldn’t be, because his kiss spread through her like honey and her body clung to his like a vine to a brick building. This was his show now, and she wordlessly accepted that fact by letting him set the pace.
Her mouth opened under his, and she lost track of time as they explored each other’s taste and feel. She picked up a trace of salt, a faint memory of tequila, but mostly she tasted him—the very male, very determined Jack Finnegan.
His hands slid down her back, helped along by the flow of water from the shower. They cupped the slick skin of her ass and nudged one leg up to wrap around him. She felt the hard press of his arousal against her mound. Excitement shot through her. They were doing this. Goddamn, they were actually doing this. Her nerves thrummed with live fire, her pulse rat-a-tat-ed like a late-night club beat.
“I know what you’re up to,” he murmured in her ear. “Naughty girl.”
“Hmm?” was all she could manage.
“You want to make this just about sex.” God, the way his mouth brushed her ear made her wild.
“You had me at ‘sex’.” At least she could summon a joke while her insides were turning somersaults.
“I’m going along with this because that’s how badly I want you. But let the record show this is not just about sex for me. This is about you and me.”
As he poured hot words into her ear, his hand found the place between her legs, his slick fingers zeroing in on the spot that ached for him. She arched hard against him, grabbing his back so she wouldn’t fall against the shower stall wall.
He caressed her with the finesse and firmness of a man who knew exactly what do with a woman’s body. She sighed from the bliss of it and opened her legs for him. Take, play, do what you want…
Then do it again…again…again…
They shifted into communication without words, just sounds. When she moaned, he stroked her even harder. When she sighed, he buried a finger inside her, found a sensitive spot, fingered it until her breath grew ragged.
Wanting to feel him too, she slid her hand to the erection straining from between his strong thighs. Note to self, she thought, explore his body the next chance you get. Firm and fit, but compact too, more like a runner than a boxer. He’d already sheathed himself with a condom before even stepping into the shower—a consideration she appreciated, since she hadn’t taken the time to think about such things.
She gripped him in her wet hand, already deliriously imagining the moment when he would come inside her. The thought of it sent heat streaking through her. She bucked against him, realizing with a shock that she was already right on the edge. It would take nothing to tip her over. Or maybe just the press of his thumb against her clit…
She came against him with a full-body series of tremors and shocks that might have knocked a less sturdy man on his ass. But Jack kept a tight hold on her, his warm flesh hard against her, and that support was everything.
While she was still trembling with orgasmic aftershocks, he lifted up her other leg and settled them both around his hips, his hands firm on her ass. She maneuvered her body so his erection, hot and bursting, could find its way inside her body. When it did, with some help from her hand—Jack’s were filled with her ass—the thrill traveled through her like a shockwave, head to toe and back up again.
