If Wishes Were Horses Read online

  “Open for me, Sarah,” he said, a soft command she could not deny.

  She parted her thighs and moaned as his hard cock pressed against her clit. Hishand worked under her skirt as he studied her face, his own intent and a little

  frightening in its determination. He caught the crotch of her panties in his fingers and Sarah gasped as he tore them with one yank, making her stumble forward into his body. He caught her by the waist and turned her so the controlled fall continued. He took her down to the soft patch of edged turf grass they had put in around the small

  garden.

  There, at last, she got what she had wanted to feel, his body covering hers, his hips between her legs, the weight of his chest on hers. He captured her face in both hands. “If you want me, Sarah, unfasten my trousers. Put my cock in you. Make us one.”

  Her fingers moved, and he lifted just enough so she could slide his belt free and make her fumbling fingers do as they both wanted. She opened his clothing and reached for him. He filled the curl of her hand with an impressive solidity that increased the reaction between her thighs, her pussy preparing for him.

  There he was, powerful and full in her hand, hot, pulsing, alive and rigid with wanting her. Her. Linda Egret's words flashed through her mind. Lovers are those who share heart, mind and soul, outside the circle as well as inside it. What she held in her hand was part of the evidence, but even stronger was what she saw in his eyes as she touched him, and felt in his heart, thundering against hers.

  “Now, Sarah,” he whispered, his teeth showing, his hands clutched hard in her hair. “Please. Take me in.”

  She lifted her thighs higher and guided him to her warm and slick gateway. Hepassed from the grip of her fingers into the grip of her pussy, that fist of muscle that he had to push through, heightening the sensations for them both at the tight fit. He thrust all the way home, seating himself deep inside her, two sacred elements of a temple joining to form something that might last thousands of years.

  She shuddered, moving her hands to his shoulders as he began to pump into her. Once, twice, and the images of the screen, the heat of his skin and the friction of his cock against her aroused flesh conflagrated and erupted. Unbelievably, she was climaxing, sinking her teeth into his shoulder, feeling his grip on her waist and hip as he pounded into her, moving them backward on the grass.

  He groaned against her temple, his fingers flexing on her in that way that told her he was getting close to his own release. She tightened her grip within and without,

  89

  Joey W. Hill

  stroking his cock with muscles she didn't know she had. The wonder of female power swept over her as she watched him lose control, grunt her name because he had no voice or mind for polish, and she held onto him, held him to her as he spilled into her, sending a flood of spasms along her channel that made her whimper softly in return and tighten her embrace around his shoulders. She reveled in the sensation of his hips pumping, sliding against the inside of her thighs, his slick buttocks bumping against her heels as he finished, emptying all of himself into her eager womb.

  Sarah closed her eyes and just held him a moment, listened to his breath against her ear and felt his fingers stroking her waist, the side of her neck as he propped his weight on one elbow, but left his cheek against her forehead.

  “I love the way you smell,” she murmured, knowing they should get up and get dressed, but not wanting to do so yet.

  “Oh,” his lips pressed the corner of her mouth, “and how's that?”

  “Male. The incense in your shop, the antiques in your house, the vanilla candles. The smell of you on my thighs.” She opened her eyes and gazed into his face, just above hers.

  “So, now that you're not all 'revved up', Chief,” he teased in a murmur, though his expression was serious, questioning, picking up the thread of tension that had begun this moment. “How do you feel about me?”

  “I want you to take me to dinner.”

  “After all those caramels?” His eyes crinkled with humor, underscoring what a handsome man he was. Her vagina contracted on him, and his eyes heated. He pressed a fervent kiss to the side of her lips, touching that corner with his tongue, a light flick.

  “Which melted in the bag, “ she retorted, nuzzling his jaw. “Uneaten, and left behind. No, that's not what I meant. Not now. I don’t…” She closed her eyes, shook her head to clear her sex-fuddled brain.

  “I need that week, Justin, as I said. And then—” She touched his lips before he could speak, “—I need you to take me to dinner. A normal date. No erotic films, no Tantra classes, just you and me.” It was awkward, but she was going to say it, partially because she trusted him enough with her feelings to say it. “I've never experienced anything, physically, like you. It’s overwhelming.”

  “My ego would be inflating, if I didn't hear a 'but' coming.” He propped his second elbow on the other side of her face so it was caged there and she could not hide from him.

  “But…” a smile crossed her face as he shot her an I-told-you-so glance. “…I need to know if there's more here than that. I'm not a fuck' em and leave' em kind of girl. I never have been. If this is going to keep going, I have to know it's real. Okay?”

  “What do you think the chances of that are?”

  She stared up into his dark eyes and felt nervous, vulnerable. “What do you think?”

  90

  If Wishes Were Horses

  He placed a kiss on the tip of her nose, then put his forehead against hers. “Chancesof that are very, very good. Now I think I better get up before the movie lets out and thepolice chief of Lilesville is seen with some bare-assed guy on top of her in an alleyway.”

  She shuddered. “It sounds so sordid when you put it that way.”

  He rose to his knees and rearranged his clothing, then gently slid the hem of her skirt back down to her knees, his hands caressing and strong. “It's not sordid in my mind. Nothing I've done with you has felt that way.” He fished in his pocket, came up with her scrap of underwear and a linen handkerchief. He offered her the kerchief to clean herself and studied the panties. “I believe I owe you some lingerie.”

  “No thongs.”

  “Spoilsport.” He chuckled. “I do have at least one pair in the shop with full coverage. He helped her up. “Of course, they are crotchless.”

  She reached to snatch her panties from him but he held them above her head, madeher jump for them until she stomped on his instep and recovered them neatly. He used the advantage to pull her into his embrace.

  Instead of the kiss she expected, she found herself drawn into a close warm hug, her face nestled against his chest. Her arms crept up his back and she held on, just held on in the moonlight as he laid his cheek on the top of her head and the fountain gurgledquietly behind them.

  91

  Joey W. Hill

  Chapter 13

  He hadn't taken her right home but to an ice cream shop, where they'd shared asundae and her knees fit between his beneath the small table. They talked about the movie, his aunt, how he got started in retail, her Academy training and family. It was a hint of what he knew she wanted with her request for a normal dinner, and he wanted to get a head start on it, give her something to think about other than the sex for the rest of their week apart.

  He liked talking to her, listening to her. She obviously felt the same, and he could tell those feelings weren’t surprising her as much as they had at first. It was verycomfortable and sweet to hold her hand on the table while they dipped into the same

  bowl of ice cream. While he knew it might be a mistake, he couldn’t help but ask about Chicago.

  “Eric told me you saw some pretty heavy things in your previous job. Is that why you're here?”

  “No.” She shrugged. “The job is the job. It gets bad, but you're there to stop the bad guys.” She put down her spoon. “It's when you're ambushed from the inside that it falls apart. That’s really why I needed a break. My divorce happened righ
t after the worst bust of my career, and the two fed off each other. I suppose Eric told you about the bust.”

  “No. I looked it up.”

  At her surprised look, he laid his other hand over her free one. “I told you, I'm interested in you, Sarah. Those two bullet wounds had a story to them. I got the paper version.”

  “Overly dramatic.” Her fleeting, haunted expression told him that, if anything, the article had understated it. He didn't dredge it up further for the woman who had lived it. One, because she had answered the question he had wanted answered, and two, because he remembered every word of the article.

  A drug bust strategized for months, nine cops going in, his Sarah one of them. Finding out their inside source had set them up, they faced down a gang of ten with AK47's and armor piercing bullets. When it was over, only one person was left standing to pull a trigger, and that was how they determined who had “won” the engagement.

  According to the article, that last officer, name withheld by request, had pulled herself to her feet, one bullet already lodged in her abdomen, no more than an inch away from her spine. She stumbled across fifty feet of a warehouse floor littered with bodies, calling out to the last conscious drug dealer to give up as he fumbled to reload a spare thirty-eight in the front seat of his shot-up car. She fell, dragged herself forward

  92

  If Wishes Were Horses

  on her hands and knees. He cocked the weapon at the same moment she reached the car door and pulled herself up. She put a bullet in his face, and he fired his weapon into her kidney. She only had one now. Four officers killed, six drug dealers dead, the rest critically wounded. She collapsed, still holding onto the door with one hand, and that’s how she was found, a scene that the papers had likened to something out of Baghdad.

  His fingers tightened over hers. “You're a warrior. A very brave woman. Whatever the reason is that brought you here, I’m glad for it. If I could have spared you a moment of fear or pain, I would. But I’ll gladly be here if you need me to soothe your dreams and give you better ones.”

  “You already are,” she murmured, a flush rising in her cheeks. “My turn. I want to ask you a question now.”

  “Anything.”

  “Did you ever…were you ever married, or did you live with someone?”

  “Just my little girl. There’s been the occasional woman, but they didn’t stick.”

  “Maybe it’s your approach, breaking into their houses and all.”

  “I actually went to seduce Chief Owens that night. I forgot he had retired and you had moved in.”

  “He didn't even live there.”

  “Ah. Must have forgotten that.”

  She struggled against the smile and lost. “If you're this much of a smart ass all the time, no wonder women don't want to hang around to cuddle.”

  “Despite my godlike status, Chief Sarah, I assure you I fall into a post-coital coma just like all men. I am oblivious to cuddling, or the lack thereof.”

  She knew he was lying. “Will you call me just by my name, please?”

  Her tone was soft and Justin looked up, surprise crossing his handsome face. “Sarah,” he murmured, his gaze holding hers across the table.

  So he had never known it, that intimacy of living with someone, but she sensed now that he longed for it. He longed to be consort to a woman in fact, as he was to the Goddess in his faith. Having a child, then losing her, would have taught him the value of intimate bonds. She knew losing the love of her husband had taught it to her.

  There was a jukebox in the ice cream shop, and Elvis crooned about the futileadvice of wise men not to rush into things. He knew he couldn’t stop himself from falling in love. Sarah felt the slide herself as Justin heard the music, and a warmth stoleinto his eyes. He rose, drew her to her feet.

  “Justin, this is an ice cream shop.”

  “And there’s just you and me and one teenager writing an English paper. Come here.”

  He brought her into the circle of his arms, and she felt it again, that sense of hisstrength and protection, freely offered to her as if it was something she could lean on,

  93

  Joey W. Hill

  draw upon as needed. She put her hand on his shoulder, and his slid around her waist. Sarah caught the teenager’s sidelong look at them before she rested her temple against Justin’s neck and closed her eyes, just letting the music sink into her, that velvet golden voice, the feel of Justin’s arms, the smell of ice cream.

  As they danced, his hand eased down to that shallow and delicate curve of back over the flare of her hips. He hooked into the waistband of her skirt, his fingers spread over her hipbone, his thumb tracing her skin just above where the swell of her buttock began. As they continued to sway and turn, his thigh eased between hers and she foundherself leaning into his weight, so each shift of hips rubbed his thigh against her mons and tissues that were starting to throb with the friction. His arms held her close, and sheknew she should pull away. What they were doing was not visibly immodest, but still,if someone looked close, they would know.

  “Relax,” he murmured, pressing his hand against her back. “Lean on me. We're just dancing.”

  She was doing more than dancing. She was falling, tumbling, and he was there, waiting to catch her in open arms.

  * * * * *

  When she woke Monday morning, Sarah's feelings about Justin Herne were not uneasy. He had left her at her door Friday night with a brain-numbing kiss, but he was giving her space and romance, and she was starting to feel like she could relax and enjoy what was happening between them. They’d scheduled their dinner date for tonight.

  “Chief.” Dexter met her at her office door. His expression wiped the easy smile of greeting off of hers.

  “What have you got?” She opened her office and tossed her key on her desk.

  “They ran the search on Lorraine Messenger through the Gainesville system for Chief Wassler, like you said. She came from Richmond, Virginia. She’s pretty much worked, hooked or did small dealer work to feed her habit through several states. She was caught a couple times, but the stuff was too minor to hold onto her. A social services report was made on her when she was hospitalized once in North Carolina.”

  “Why was social services involved in an OD?”

  “It wasn't for that.” He paused. “This just sucks out loud, Chief. Everyone likes Justin Herne.”

  Sarah halted the process of hanging her gun harness on her chair and turned slowly, ice freezing her bagel and coffee breakfast in her gut. “What does Herne have to do with it?”

  Dexter extended the copies in his hand to her unhappily.

  “She had a baby in the North Carolina hospital. Justin Matthias Herne is listed as the father. He took custody of the child with her written consent. She hooked her way

  94

  If Wishes Were Horses

  back up to New York, and I don't find any connection between their living arrangements until three months ago, when she drifted into our area.”

  “And wound up dead.” Sarah picked up her keys, slid the gun belt back over her shoulder.

  “Chief Wassler’s in a staff meeting this morning with Marion City Council, so they haven’t acted yet, but Lieutenant Ford thought you’d want to know.”

  “Yeah. Call him, tell him I’ll go get Herne and bring him in to them, since he’s in our jurisdiction.”

  “Are you sure, Chief? Maybe one of us…if he's dangerous…”

  “Trust me, Dexter. Compared to me at this moment, Justin Herne is as dangerous as the Easter bunny.”

  * * * * *

  She was enraged. She was shocked. She was hurt so deeply she couldn't face it. It felt as bad as her husband’s betrayal, but that didn’t make sense. There was no way Herne could have gotten to her heart quick enough to hurt her like that, so she had to conclude that the previous hurt had simply amplified this one beyond realistic proportions.

  Still, this betrayal had a unique, searing quality all its own. S
he turned away from the pain, focused on the rage, but then realized she couldn't lead with her emotions. She forced it away from her mind as she pulled into the driveway at his house, willed herheart and mind to become a single, automated unit, incapable of operating on any

  frequency but pure, hard objectivity.

  But it was not objectivity that made her try the door and enter without knocking when she found it open. The BMW was out front and he had told her the shop was closed on Mondays, so she knew he was there. The irony of it was not lost on her, considering their first meeting. The entranceway had an ornate hallway tree that was probably two hundred years old, and the cherry wood gleamed with care and attention, like all the things he possessed. She hung her coat on it, left her shoulder holster on.

  She didn't call his name. She wanted to find him wherever he was. She went up the

  hall, past pictures of a laughing little girl and his aunt, other family members she did

  not know.

  As she stepped into the sitting room, she didn’t allow herself to feel, just studied her surroundings in the light of day for the first time, painfully aware that thought might apply to their whole relationship.

  The couch, sitting chair and recliner clustered comfortably around theentertainment center. A pair of male shoes had been kicked off under the coffee table, and there was an afghan thrown over the arm of the sitting chair. Today’s newspaper rested on the side table next to the recliner. All the little details of his day-to-day life she

  95

  Joey W. Hill

  had wanted to learn about him, in the same way they had shared the sundae. Savoring