If Wishes Were Horses Read online

  “Chief Sarah,” he said at last, a quirk to the corner of his mouth. “I like it.”

  “It's a liberty only afforded to senior citizens and people I like.”

  “Another reason to look forward to growing old. Would you like to come in, Chief? I admit, I'm surprised. You don't seem like the sex aid type.”

  “I thought one of those hopping penises would make a great stocking stuffer for my great-aunt.”

  “Sorry, none in stock. I've heard the local mall novelty store is selling them, along with velvet black light posters. Of course, you might be interested in the massages we offer on Tuesday nights for relaxation or stimulation.” His expression remained bland. “Pedicures on Thursdays. With or without restraints. Your choice.”

  “I'm armed, Herne. Don't provoke me.”

  She wondered if he'd taken the time to shower and flushed, remembering his husky voice against her ear, promising to enjoy the feel of her juices drying on his testicles as he drove home. She knew the convertible BMW in the lot was his, and so it made it impossible not to imagine him sitting in it just a few hours ago, her climax drying upon his genitals.

  He stepped aside and let her pass into the open foyer. It was filled with an exotic scent, masculine and arousing all at once, like him.

  Okay, so he'd created a classy façade. She didn't trust façades.

  “Hmmm. Maybe you should try this.” He picked up a frosted crystal atomizer and misted the base of her neck with it before she could duck away.

  “Hey.” She swiped at herself, and the light aroma of peaches and lilies wafted up to her nostrils. An expensive, haunting fragrance, no cheap chemical odor. She liked it, but she frowned at him. “What is that?”

  “Let me demonstrate how it works.” He leaned forward, his eyes daring her to retreat. She firmed her jaw and her resolve and was annoyed to feel her pulse rate increase exponentially as he blew on her neck, his lips only a few inches away, his hair brushing her temple.

  The skin beneath his breath grew pleasantly warm. “It has a delightful effect when used on nipples. Are you pierced, Chief? I can’t seem to recall.”

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  A pair of ladies stepped over the threshold, forestalling her retort.

  Sarah made a note to find out if Lilesville had a dentist, because she was certain she had just ground the enamel off her bottom row of teeth. With a look that should havesliced off his legs at groin level, she stepped aside into the lingerie room to give him time to handle his customers.

  The room was set up like an intimate boudoir. Silken sheer floor length gowns that would have turned any woman into a lush Jayne Mansfield were displayed in an antique armoire, samples hung on the open doors. Scattered across a brass bed with a white eyelet coverlet were offerings of various bras, panties, camisoles and garters. Sarah's attention went to the wall beside the bed. In a mounted series of small curio

  cabinets, on crushed velvet under lighting that made things sparkle and catch the eye, were scrolled ben-wei balls and several varieties of bullet-shaped clitoral stimulators in silver or bronze. All were showcased in heart-shaped carved mahogany boxes and carried a five-year guarantee on workmanship. In the middle mirrored cabinet there were handcuffs, from polished police issue to those with a soft inner lining, both kinds resting on folds of soft blue gauze material, a stark contrast from how she usually saw handcuffs. Until this morning, when she had seen them on her bedspread, garnished with wildflowers.

  Two privacy screens provided a changing area in a corner of the room, with a simple linen drape that would suggest the silhouette of the woman changing behind it.

  Justin and his clients were moving toward the lingerie room, so Sarah stepped into the next display area, an old-fashioned washroom possessing a clawfoot tub with brass fixtures, a washstand and pedestal sink. Here she found the aromatherapy candles,arranged as if in preparation for the bather, lavender soaps, skin smoother creams, and other items to pamper and prepare the body to be touched. Interestingly, this was where Herne chose to display his adult book offerings. Sarah paged through a couple of the selections stacked artfully in the nook shelves above the tub and found erotic romances, geared to a woman’s tastes. She read a few pages out of the middles, enough to tell her that Herne understood quite well that a woman’s mind was the key to stimulating her body. No cheap pulp porn selections. A basket containing fluffy,fragrant towels was placed next to the tub. There was also an arrangement of waterproof vibrators and elegant shower head fittings with multiple settings in the same basket.

  If a woman had this room and all its accoutrements at her disposal, why would sheneed a man? Sarah chuckled at the thought, though she immediately and vividly remembered Herne's touch on her body. The ravaging insistence of his mouth, his scent, his hunger, and her body's response to them. She knew the answer to the question, one that would reassure men everywhere. When a man took a woman the way she hungered to be taken, no machine could ever replace him.

  She couldn't help but listen to the timbre of his voice, or notice from the corner ofher eye how he reached out and slid his hand down the older woman's arm in a waythat was entirely proper, and yet gentle and sensual at the same time. The woman

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  looked like she was the age of Sarah's mother, but she blushed like a girl. Her rueful chuckle at herself only a second later suggested she had reached the point in her life where she could be comfortably amused with her reaction to a handsome man. Sarah envied it. Herne’s knowing smile didn’t seem smug, but a gesture of affectionate communication.

  If it was an act on his part, it was one of the most well done she had seen. Herne looked genuinely attentive and focused on both women, pleased to have them there,not just to shop, but for the opportunity to meet them.

  Good Lord, did the man splash himself in pheremones before he went out in the morning? Over several moments she watched his mouth curve in a near smile, straighten in attentive silence, then part in an offering of wisdom that gave her a flash of tooth and tongue. Her senses drowned out translation with the memory of that mouth on her breasts, her pussy, her own lips, and the thrust of that tongue into her body. Themusic of his voice was the sensual soundtrack against which she replayed the memory

  and imagined even more. She imagined herself lying unrestrained, twining and tightening her legs and arms around his lean and elegant body, instead of thrashing against her cold and unrelenting headboard railings.

  She pushed away the fantasy and tuned in enough to listen to him encourage the bride to look at other options for her wedding night.

  “Your first night of intimacy as man and wife should be given the same attention to detail you’re giving to the more public aspects of the wedding,” he said. He smoothly led them from the discussion of their original goal, the purchase of a suitable bridal nightgown, into decorations her attendants could take to prepare the bridal chamber. Rose petals, pillar candles, the proper music. He asked quiet, thoughtful questions that addressed the groom’s as well as the bride's sexual likes and dislikes, the things they enjoyed in scents, music, intimacy. Sarah listened as an innocuous discussion of the bride’s husband-to-be and his favorite choice of sweets led to Justin’s recommendation of a smooth glitter body lotion that tasted like sugar cookies.

  Jesus, women were as frank with him as their own doctor, telling him about their lover's preferences and interests. Like a physician, he prompted them in a professional, caring and yet authoritative manner, as if he had every right to know such things. Sarah could not help but be amazed at how he skillfully gleaned as much about the young woman’s desires as her groom’s by asking the right questions, and making the right comments at the appropriate times.

  “Your likes are very important, Janet,” he said, touching the woman's knee as she and her aunt sat in a pair of chairs in the boudoir around a hope chest fanned with catalogs of special order items. “A man truly in love will be most aroused by what
ever arouses his lover. Men are voyeurs, and we love to watch a woman become aroused by the things we do to her.”

  “I told you he was marvelous.” Her aunt nudged her and grinned at Justin. “Coming here to shop is as much fun as a full bridal shower.”

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  Sarah decided she would just go ahead and move onto the next room to get a senseof the whole place before she found herself as mesmerized by the store’s proprietor ashis besotted clients. Her body tightened involuntarily as he chuckled at something the woman said, the sound stroking her like his fingers in her most sensitive areas.

  Possible. Murder. Suspect. Sarah ground the three words out in her mind, forced her uncooperative body to listen. Man who trespassed in her home. Arrogant son of a bitch. Guy who provided her the best sex she'd ever had in her life.

  Immaterial.

  A plaque over the next doorway announced she was entering the playroom. There were no child-sized tables and chairs, or murals on the wall featuring trains and crayons, but there was play equipment. Sarah's fingers trailed over the rich red upholstery on a spanking bench, and she examined the restraint system on a chair that came with the option of several fittings to insert pleasurable objects into the body of the person reclined in it.

  A double rack of costumes made up one whole wall. On an antique coffee table large books with glossy photos of role-playing suggested what costumes a client might choose. There were old style photos, like Rudolph Valentino with his harem girl, and modern day professional erotic art photography showing an impertinent maid over her Victorian master's knee. There was a female cop, well endowed, leaning in the car window of an appreciative though nervous male. Her fingertips wrapped around the head of her baton in a suggestive manner that made Sarah's lips curve up.

  The next room was a combination movie theater and art gallery. Movies had beengrouped on the open, deep cushions of display sections of movie seats. Other DVDs lay at the base or propped against an old fashioned projector. More were stacked in a pyramid on a counter that displayed candies beneath the glass that apparently were as much for sale as anything else in the room.

  The framed erotic art dominated every available space on the walls, sponge painted in a soft green as a non-distracting, tranquil background. The art came from all different historic periods, from the Renaissance to modern day. She studied the subject matter, intrigued with Renaissance nudes as much as she was the modern day artistic renditions of the erotic. She cruised through some of the movie titles and found Sondergard, Fellini, Zalman King, Candide Royale, all apparently reputable cinematographers intrigued with the erotic.

  There was another bathroom, laid out much like the first, and she was impressedthat he would have thought to provide two areas, since the offerings in the bathroom would be popular but cramped to look over if too many customers were in the store. A second bedroom focused on the décor choices for the room in which lovers could get lost in one another for hours. Incense, bed linen choices, pillows, art, musical selections and a quality audio system to try out the different CD's. Sarah gave herself a shake to keep from getting absorbed in ideas for her own still relatively sparse bedroom.

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  This bedroom had a second door that gave her a partial view back to the lingerieroom where he stood now, half turned away from her, talking to his two seatedcustomers. Despite herself, Sarah's gaze lingered over him from her relatively screenedposition. His lower body, outlined so well in the dark pleated slacks, the lean muscles ofhis arms defined by their casual crossed position. His long fingered, clever hands folded against him. That sculpted face and hair soft to her touch. He had a shadow on his jaw, giving her the intimate knowledge that he had not had time to shave since he left her. She wondered what time he had left her and realized the dual implication of thatimportant question.

  A true cop, she let the scent of coffee draw her back to reality. The last room beforeshe completed the circle back to the foyer was a kitchen and sunroom. As Eric had described, Herne had turned it into a cozy place to take a cup of coffee and a homemadesweet and look through other product catalogs or coffee table books. There was abulletin board here and she noted he was offering Tantra classes and sensual massage, a lingerie fashion show and a creative cooking class, all about using food to enhance sexual interaction. There was a basket of brownies and jar of biscotti next to the fullcoffee urn. The wicker furniture in this room was grouped together in a cozy fashion and had bright print patterns on the cushions. The arrangement invited clients to stay and converse. There were other sale items in here as well, a selection of artwork, a rotating rack of more erotic romances and videos. A hallway tree draped with silk scarves in deep, sensual colors subtly implied that the scarves could be bought in groupings of four to use as restraints, or individually to decorate a lover’s body.

  With the full sunlight of this room, she recognized that each room she had visited had used light to create a mood. There had been filtered colored light from windows with stained glass, candlelight in the bathrooms, and dim light from elegant buffetlamps to create a relaxing and yet stimulating mood in each area.

  Sarah suppressed a sigh. She was an astute cop, and she could not deny the obvious evidence. Everything here catered to a woman's desires. Eric was right. This wasn't a sex shop. It was a sensuality boutique.

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  Chapter 5

  Justin was not irritated to have Laura Crittenden and her niece interrupt hisinteraction with Sarah Wylde. It gave Sarah ample time to wander through his store, see what he was offering, form her impressions. He was certain she was carrying somefairly strong ones from last night, ranging from apprehensive to downright hostile. Ifshe had been wearing a suit of armor when she stepped over his threshold, she could not be more obviously guarded against him.

  He wondered if she knew how mesmerizing she was to watch. Like something magic discovered in a forest, and so she had been. Her face was reminiscent of a fairy creature, the skin stretched to almost transparency over her bones. Instead of making her look skeletal, the fineness of the bone structure was marvelous to study, invitingtouch like the smooth curves of a work of sculpted art.

  Her hair was a glorious tangle of white-gold, highlighting the soft mouse brown original color. It was full and fine at once, delicately wisping around her face and downher back when it wasn’t pulled back for work.

  Sometimes women in her line of work downplayed their femininity. While hers was so blatant he didn’t think she could do it even if she tried, she didn’t. Her nails were

  professionally manicured and painted a pale pink that matched her lipstick. Her jewelry was expensive and subtle. Small hoop earrings with a diamond and onyx inlay, and a slim gold bracelet watch. Her clothing folded against her shape and curves with the warm precision of a painting. Though the jeans and placket shirt were the casual uniform of the Lilesville police, he suspected all her clothes would have the simple, well-cut lines that neither added nor subtracted from the perfection of the female form.

  She hadn't bothered with eye makeup this morning, but eyes like hers were strong enough to bring a man to his knees without enhancement. Her thin, sharp face had been blessed and enhanced by the deep set of a pair of large blue-gray eyes. He’d seen her picture in the paper when she was hired. She had worn a small amount of makeup, and it made those eyes even more startling and potent.

  She wore one of those bras that made more of her bosom than was there, but he remembered her breasts quivering beneath his palms, and had been surprised at their fullness, given her build. He wondered how she would look in some of the nipple jewelry he had in the front foyer case. It brought an instant vision of her standing in the moonlight of her bay window, naked except for a silver serpentine chain and thesapphire beads strung on it to weight it, stimulating the nipples. Her breath wouldquicken as he drew the slack out of the chain, holding her still as he brought all that glorio
us hair tumbling over her pale, slender shoulders with his free hand.

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  He knew her to be more angular than curved, with a ridiculously tiny ass, and ribs he could feel under his palms. Despite that, everything about her screamed feminine,the way a willow tree did with its elegance and sweeping limbs.

  He liked imagining her having those highlights put in her hair, having her nailsdone, adjusting her bra as she put it on in the morning so her figure was curvy and attractive, even as she then holstered her gun and that worry line marked her forehead between her brows as she considered the business of the day. A warrior goddess.

  It wasn’t just the gun that told him her nature. He knew something of her background, and in the dim light of her bedroom, he had seen the two places, felt them, his fingers tracing the shiny worn round scars over her kidney and next to her spine. Two bullet entry wounds that could have killed or permanently crippled her. Hewondered if that was why she was here, then discarded the idea. If Sarah Wylde ranfrom anything, it wasn't physical danger, it was emotional pain. Even against that, he suspected she'd strike back as she had with him just now in his doorway, rather than

  retreat.

  Maybe she didn't retreat enough.

  She looked breakable, and yet there was strength in those eyes, the set of her jaw. She had a small mouth, and the way she held it closed and rigid reflected her stance to perform her job. Perhaps that was the way she was getting through this particular phase of her life.

  Oh, he had the strongest case of instant attraction in his life since he had been in third grade and fell in love with his English teacher. That had been a mixture of physical and emotional attraction, mother and lover both. There was some of that here, too. This was more than physical. She was so touchable, tastable. He wanted to suck on each finger, kiss the skin of every crease of her, press his nose hard against all her parts, just to inhale her.