Dangerous Lover: Take Me, Lover, Book 4 Page 4

  She gave up trying to control the engine and simply clung for balance, moving with Joe as he moved inside her. Filling her. Withdrawing almost completely. Surging forward again until she could feel the head of his cock at the entrance to her womb. Again. Again. His strokes pressed her clit harder against the source of those delicious vibrations. She could feel her orgasm building until it seemed like the blood was roaring in her ears and her entire body was straining for release.

  Joe reached under her shirt and cupped her breasts, his palms rasping against her nipples while he rocked his hips into hers, harder, faster.

  The increased tempo sent her hurtling over the edge, and she took him with her. Her inner muscles clamped around his shaft and milked his cock while he emptied his balls into her.

  Afterwards, she hung there, clinging to the handlebars and trembling. Joe reached around her to turn off the motor, and then his arms wrapped around her to hold her close, while he remained planted fully inside her.

  “Was that adequate consolation for your loss?”

  She turned her head, angling for a kiss. “Did I lose something besides my mind?”

  Joe’s lips covered hers. He increased the pressure, licked at the seam of her lips, and slid his tongue inside to glide along hers before he ended the kiss and pulled back. “Guess that means you won’t miss that scrap of lace you had on under your skirt.”

  Cherry let out a low laugh. “No. But if you find my mind, I’m going to need it in time for my CPA exam.”

  “While it’s missing, tell me if you’d consider repeating the experience with a variation.”

  She was pretty sure what he meant. But best to be clear about it. “You want to fuck me in the ass while your big motor vibrates me to orgasm?”

  He kissed the corner of her mouth. “Yes. In a bad, bad way.”

  “I’m open to the idea,” she admitted, mentally giving in to temptation. “But I think I need to work up to that.” Some bad girl shenanigans required a little practice.

  “Another time, then.” His arms squeezed her around the middle in a bear hug.

  “Is there going to be another time?” The question came out of her mouth, bypassing her brain.

  Joe rocked his hips against her, his cock still engorged inside her. “If I have anything to say about it, yes. What do you say?”

  She had no idea what this thing was between them, where it was going. With him hot and hard and in her as deep as he could go, there was only one answer. “Yes.”

  He held her tight for a breathless minute. Then he withdrew from her and stood, taking her hand to help her down.

  Cherry tugged her skirt down and looked around. “You really like motorcycles.”

  He tucked her against his side, securing her there with one arm. “I told you I’d show you what I did when I wasn’t at the station.”

  She frowned, trying to make sense of the jigsaw that was his garage. “Play with motorcycles?”

  “This is my business. I do restoration and customize them.”

  She grinned. “You play with motorcycles.” The idea of sexy Joe as an overgrown boy with a garage full of toys amused her. Even if he did legitimize it by making a business of it.

  “Yeah, I play with motorcycles.”

  And given the performance he’d just put on with her, she wasn’t the first woman he’d taken for a ride while the engine idled. The realization gave her a pang, and that horrified her.

  Oh, lord, was she jealous of the other flings he’d had? Maybe was having, alongside her? For all she knew, he’d been banging somebody else all morning. What was she doing here? What was he doing?

  She wasn’t ready for answers to those questions, so she pushed them away. “I need to get back home,” Cherry told Joe, the regret for the necessity audible in her voice. “I have to study.”

  He rubbed a thumb along her cheek. “You’re pretty close to finished, aren’t you?”

  Cherry nodded. “Now that I don’t have work, I can wrap things up pretty fast.” Hopefully before she ran out of money. There was no telling how long the diner would be closed, but if she pushed, she could get through the rest of her requirements, take the test, maybe even land a job before the cushion of her savings wore too thin.

  “How close?”

  She calculated silently. “A week, maybe.”

  “Okay.” He brushed his mouth across hers. “You study hard and we’ll celebrate when you’re done.”

  Celebrating with sex. Well, there was something to look forward to. Later, when she’d had time to pull herself together and could trust herself not to do something stupid like demand to know his intentions when she didn’t even know her own.

  “It’s a plan,” Cherry said.

  She rode sedately behind him on the return trip to her apartment, her long, loose skirt hiding the fact that her panties were now lace scraps on the concrete floor of Joe’s garage.

  Chapter Five

  The week flew past in a blur of late nights, endless cups of black coffee, and the final push to the finish. Her completed classes meant only one obstacle remained. The day of the exam, Cherry felt like a rubber band stretched to the snapping point. But once she got into it, the answers poured out and she relaxed. She knew the material. She was ready. She finished in a haze of exhilaration and an odd sort of letdown.

  The long-term goals of her degree and the all-important certification exam were suddenly behind her instead of in front of her. Only the hunt for a real job remained. And then what?

  “I don’t know,” Cherry admitted out loud to herself, back in her apartment. But whatever the future held, she was pretty sure she wanted it to include Joe. She wanted to see where things led.

  She was looking forward to seeing him again with an intensity that surprised her. He hadn’t called, giving her space to concentrate. She wanted to hear the sound of his voice. Wanted his hands on her. His mouth on hers. His body in hers.

  As if conjured by her thoughts, her cell phone rang and his number lit up the display.

  “Hello.”

  “Cherry.” Joe’s voice filled her ear.

  “That’s Ms. CPA,” she corrected with a grin.

  “That’s my girl.”

  It was ridiculous to thrill to the warm approval in his voice and the possessive my. But she did. She gave up trying to decide if she should take her reaction as a warning sign that she was too emotionally involved to carry on with a fling and just went with it. “Did your motorcycle miss me?”

  “Ask it yourself. I’ll bring it over.”

  Cherry looked around her apartment, noting the evidence of her neglected housekeeping. “What time?”

  “I’m finishing up a project and then I’ll need to clean up. I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

  That was long enough, if she hustled. “Okay. See you then.” She clicked her phone off and got to work.

  She’d finished dusting and running around with the vacuum, wiping down counters and stowing laundry neatly in baskets, ready to wash, when she heard the piercing shriek of her smoke alarm, echoed by others in the building.

  “Oh, no.” Cherry felt a knot of dread form in her stomach. She didn’t smell smoke in her apartment. One of the other units? She grabbed her bag and ran out. Joe had mentioned a fire extinguisher, and she remembered seeing it on one of her visits to Miss Lewis upstairs. She pulled it down and pounded up the steps to beat on her elderly neighbor’s door.

  Miss Lewis came out with Clara Belle secure in her arms. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe somebody in one of the other units had an accident with the stove or something.” Cherry took the older woman’s arm in a gentle grip, noting how fragile she seemed. “Come on, I’ll help you down.”

  “Thank you, dear.” Miss Lewis shuffled down with her at a fairly rapid pace. Cherry left her at a safe distance from the building, and looked around, trying to determine the source of the fire. Nobody else came out. Were they the only two tenants home? Worried, Cherry p
ounded on the remaining two doors, but nobody answered. So she retreated to safety and had her cell phone out, ready to call 911, when it rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Cherry,” Marla said, relief in her voice. “I’m glad I got a hold of you. Remember the man with the tattoo, the one you didn’t want to wait on?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, the fire at Sweet Delights wasn’t an accident. The investigation turned up a witness who saw a man with a tattoo like that behind the building, the side with the kitchen, right around the time of the fire.”

  Cherry felt her heart stop. “What?”

  “It’s pretty distinctive. I remembered it, and I thought you would too. I wondered if you saw him that day?”

  She’d seen him, all right. She’d let him rip her underwear off and fuck her brains out in his garage with the door wide open in the middle of the day. But she hadn’t seen him at work. He hadn’t been with the crew that responded, either, because it wasn’t one of his days on.

  “I didn’t see him around the restaurant,” Cherry said carefully.

  “I’m sure you’d remember if you had.” Marla let out a sigh. “Well, it was worth asking. Anyway, keep your eyes open. Since that fire was set deliberately, the people investigating think there’ll be more.”

  “They said that?”

  “No, but you don’t spend as much time working with people as I have without learning to read them. They want the guy responsible.”

  An hour ago, she’d wanted him too. And he’d said he’d be arriving about now. Was he already here? What possible reason could he have for setting fire to her place of employment, her apartment building? Was Joe really capable of that kind of action?

  “I have to go,” Cherry mumbled and hung up with a promise to call if she remembered anything helpful. She heard the siren that signaled a fire engine on the way and went back around to the side door to try one more time to see if anybody was home, maybe trapped inside.

  This time her knock was answered. The door opened, and a man’s bare arm, with the distinctive fireman’s cross decorating the bicep, reached out, grabbed her, and yanked her in.

  Cherry blinked, trying to see in the darkened apartment. The man held her from behind, and he’d grabbed her so quickly she hadn’t seen anything but the tattoo. Was it Joe?

  No. The height was wrong. This man was too tall to be Joe. The arms were longer, more wiry than muscular. The chemical rush on body contact wasn’t there. But he had the same tattoo, and he was here, at the scene of another fire.

  “Are you a friend of Lucy’s?” Cherry asked, playing for time. “I heard the alarms, but I didn’t see her come out. I was worried about her. Is she out?”

  “Yeah, but I knew somebody would be home.” The man’s voice rasped in her ear, an unpleasant sound. “I was hoping it’d be you.”

  Cherry licked her lips in nervous reaction. “Why me?”

  “I saw you with him. He won’t be able to save you, and that’ll burn him the way he burned me.”

  Who was this man? A psychotic ex-firefighter with a grudge who wanted to roast her for some crazy version of revenge? “If you mean Joe, he’s not my boyfriend.”

  “I mean Joe, and I’m not blind. I saw the two of you together. He’s your boyfriend.”

  Fine. Maybe he was her boyfriend. She was kidding herself that she could keep having an uncommitted, undefined fling indefinitely. She didn’t want to be bad with anybody but Joe. But first, she had to get out of this.

  Cherry tried to pull free while stomping on his instep the way she’d been promised would cause an attacker to let go in self-defense class.

  But this man evidently hadn’t taken the class. He held her tighter, wrenching her arm painfully up behind her back. She dropped the fire extinguisher and heard it bounce once before it rolled away.

  “Oh, no. You’re not getting away.” He dragged her farther into the apartment, pushed her into the bedroom, and shut her in. She heard him drag something heavy in front of the closed door, but she pushed at it anyway, trying to get it open. The door wouldn’t budge.

  The smell of smoke grew stronger. Was she imagining it, or was it getting hotter?

  She tried to calm down and think. She couldn’t open the door, so that left the window. She whirled to it and tried to force it open, but it was stuck tight. A closer look revealed that it had been painted shut during some incompetent bout of maintenance. “Dammit!”

  Okay. It was stuck. She’d have to break it. She searched the room for something, anything heavy, and came up empty. So she grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around her hand and forearm, then made a fist and aimed at the pane. It broke, and she pulled her hand back, then grabbed a paperback from the nightstand and used it to clear the shards from the edges. Hopefully she could escape without cutting herself to pieces.

  She heard a masculine shout and running footsteps and froze. Oh, shit, was it him? Had he been watching, waiting to cut off her escape?

  Joe’s face appeared in the empty window frame and she almost sagged in relief. Until she saw another face behind his, one feral and twisted with hate. Fear for him clutched at her heart. “Joe, behind you!”

  He spun around and the two men grappled, exchanging blows and kicks. The taller man had the advantage of reach, but Joe was more heavily muscled. He absorbed the punches and kept plowing forward until he’d managed to topple his opponent and pin him to the ground.

  “Cherry, get out of there,” he yelled.

  She padded the window frame with the blanket and climbed carefully out. Then she ran past the two prone men to the front as the fire crew arrived. “Back that way,” she shouted, pointing. “He started the fire. He tried to trap me in it. Joe’s holding him, but he’s strong.”

  Two men ran past her to help, and Cherry staggered back to the patch of grass where she’d left Miss Lewis. She collapsed on the ground, breathing clean air in gasps.

  “Oh, dear, what happened?” Miss Lewis bent down and peered at her.

  “Lucy’s apartment,” Cherry managed. “She didn’t come out, but when I knocked, a man grabbed me and dragged me in. He started the fire.”

  Her neighbor’s eyes went wide. “What is this world coming to?”

  Cherry shook her head, wordless. She watched as the rangy stranger was handcuffed and bundled into the back of a police cruiser that had responded to the emergency call along with the fire truck. Joe waved his hands in descriptive patterns, answering questions. Then he started towards her with a rapid stride that had him in front of her a minute later.

  “Cherry. You breathed some smoke. I want you to get checked out.”

  She nodded and let him help her up for medical assessment. When her lungs were declared undamaged by her exposure, he pulled her away from everybody, towards his motorcycle. “Are you up to riding to my place?”

  “Yes.” The wind would blow away the smell of smoke that clung to her hair and clothes. And she could press close to Joe. There would be time enough to air out of her apartment later.

  The ride ended too quickly. This time, Joe parked in the garage and shut off the motor before he put down the kickstand and helped her off. No fooling around with stands and orgasms. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed.

  Joe wrapped an arm around her and walked with her close to his side as he led her to his back door and inside. She looked around the kitchen, taking in the expanse of gleaming chrome and white tile. “I see you restore more than motorcycles.”

  “Yes. I’ve been working on this project for a couple of years.”

  Forty-eight hours on duty each week, operating the motorcycle business, and remodeling an old house. That didn’t sound like it left a lot of time for banging strange women on his bike. “You stay busy.”

  “I like being busy.”

  Cherry turned to face him and slid her arms around his waist. She pressed her cheek to his chest and breathed him in. “I’m glad you weren’t too busy to rescue me today.”

&nb
sp; “You were rescuing yourself when I got there.” His arms closed around her in a solid grip.

  “Why was that man starting fires?” Cherry asked. “He had a tattoo like yours. He seemed to have a grudge against you.”

  Joe rubbed his chin against the top of her head. “His name’s Cal Wilson. I used to work with him. He got fired for negligence. I provided the testimony in addition to the physical evidence against him that got him fired. He was a danger to the crew and I was glad to see him canned. A crew has to have trust; we put our lives in each other’s hands.”

  Cherry nodded, her cheek rubbing against the soft cotton of his T-shirt.

  “When I got there and saw what was happening and couldn’t find you…” His arms tightened around her. “He was responsible for the fire at your restaurant too.”

  “I know.” Cherry shuddered. “What I don’t get is why.”

  “To get back at me.”

  Cherry lifted her chin, pulling her head back so she could look into Joe’s eyes. “He said you were my boyfriend and hurting me would burn you.”

  “He was right.” There was no teasing light of laughter in Joe’s eyes now. His mouth was solemn.

  “I thought we were having a fling.” Sex on the first date didn’t usually lead to anything lasting.

  “We can have a fling. As long as it’s exclusive and long-term.”

  “I think I’d like that.” Cherry shifted forward until her lips brushed his.

  Joe swept her up in his arms and carried her through the kitchen, down the hall to his bedroom.

  Chapter Six

  One year later, Cherry sat at her maple desk, admiring the way the sun glinted on the surface and brought out the grain in the wood. The printed balance sheet spread in front of her was squarely in the black. She admired that too, as she raised her arms over her head in a sinuous stretch.

  “Taking a break?”