Bending the Rules (29 page)

“Aw, Jeez-us!” He gasped when she plopped herself directly atop his dick.

Grinning down at him, she wiggled around, and it didn’t matter that she knew exactly what she was doing to him—he was pretty sure his eyes were crossed. Then she shifted back onto his upper thighs and all that wondrous wet heat she’d been teasing him with disappeared. His cock sprang upright so fast it nearly slapped her in the stomach.

Her hand wrapped around it. “Lookie, he’s all suited up.” She shot him an ironic smile. “You’re such a Boy Scout.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he groaned even as his hips shot up when she squeezed him through her fist from tip to root. “Be prepared,” he wheezed. “Those are words to live by.”

She laughed and climbed onto her feet to crouch over him, holding him in place while she centered herself over his blindly seeking dick. Lowering herself a fraction, she rubbed its head along her slick, swollen furrow.

And her laughter died. “I wanted to tease you into insanity,” she whispered, gazing down at him. “And I really thought, since you took such good care of me, that I could hold out long enough to do it.” She made an adjustment and lowered another inch and Jase gritted his teeth as he felt the head of his cock start to push into her. “But I can’t,” she said. “I wanna know what you feel like inside me too much.”

Another inch and the head popped past the ring of muscle at her entrance. Then she just kept on going until her sweet round butt settled against his balls. And fuck, oh, fuck, she was so hot and slick and tight inside.

His hips shot up again. Bracing her feet, she rode him like a Saturday-night cowgirl on the mechanical bull. The resulting sensation had him nearly blind with need. But it was time he took charge.

So, clasping her hips in his hands he raised her up.

Almost, nearly, just about off him.

Then he slammed her back down. Raised her up and pulled her back down.

Her eyes closed and her white teeth clamped over her rosy lower lip and she crossed her arms in the air over her head as a soft moan escaped her.

He crunched up and took a fast hard pull on her nipple. She hissed, her eyes flying open.

“I want to be on top,” he growled around the tight little morsel between his teeth. He gave it another tug, then turned it loose and looked her in the eye. “I want to hold you down and fuck you—love you—till you scream.”

A helpless little mew sounded in her throat and, taking it as assent, he flipped them over. Lacing their fingers together, he pressed the backs of her hands into the quilt on either side of her head, spread his thighs until hers were wide-open and braced his toes in the mattress. And he sank into her, a long, slow push that ended with an emphatic up-tilted thrust at its apex.

He knew he was hitting her sweet spot when her eyes lost focus, and he pulled out so slowly he felt the drag of every single millimeter of those slippery tissues trying to retain their clasp on him.

Then he pushed back in.

Pulled back out.

Pushed—

“Omigawd, omigawd, omigawd,” she started to chant, her voice climbing with each imprecation. “Omiga—Jason? Oh, God, Jason!” Her legs wrapping tightly around his hips, her head rocked back into the pillow, she started coming all around him.

The look of her, wild hair, flushed cheeks and inward-looking dazed eyes, the feel of all those tight, sharp contractions squeezing and releasing, squeezing and releasing his cock broke his grip on the slow, controlled strokes he’d been employing. Mine, he thought savagely and thrust into her harder, faster, disengaging their fingers and pushing up onto his planted hands to gain more leverage. Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.

She kept coming all around him and his world went red. God, he was so close, so clo—Oh. Fuuuuuuck!

He shoved deep one last time and held, throwing back his head and growling long and low as the spasms milked him dry. When it was over, when she had wrung every last drop of sensation to be had out of him, his head flopped forward, too heavy to hold up.

Then he slid bonelessly atop her.

For the longest time he merely lay there feeling his heartbeat slowly descend out of the red zone. Eventually, however, his brain reengaged.

Okay. He didn’t know what the hell all that mine crap was about. Hell, he didn’t even have a clue what it was he felt when it came to her. It sure as shit wasn’t love, though. He was a de Sanges; what did he know from love?

So this…whatever it was between them wasn’t the stuff of happily-ever-afters. But neither did he like what was going down around her all of a sudden. It would kill him if something happened to her. Serve and protect—that was what he knew, what he did. Who he was.

And what he intended to do—whether Poppy liked it or not.

Raising his head far enough to look down at her, he said in a voice that would have been a lot more impressive if it didn’t sound as if it had been run through a shredder, “Clear out some room in a drawer for me, Blondie. I’m moving in.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Okay. On behalf of independent women everywhere, I should have protested Jason’s big tell-don’t-ask policy much more strenuously. Or, okay—here’s a thought—at all.

I
T WAS ONE WEEK
today since Jason had moved in with her, lock, stock and barrel. Well, barrel anyhow. He’d brought several armloads of clothing over, but not much else—except for his ever-present gun. That, Poppy admitted as she stood in the parking lot beneath the kids’ mural, was taking a bit of getting used to.

“Hey, watch it!”

Glancing up from the paper plate where she was mixing yellow into Henry’s lizard-green paint for him to dot along his much-adored reptile’s legs and belly to give it texture and depth, she saw that Danny had dribbled some paint from his own piece of Chinet, just missing Henry by inches.

“Sorry, dude. I got sort of involved here and didn’t realize I was tipping my plate.”

“Palette,” Henry corrected him, taking a hit-and-miss swipe at the spill with one of the wet rags she’d given the kids. “Jeez, and you call yourself an artist? Show a little pride in your tools, man.”

No harm, no foul, obviously. After checking Cory to be sure she, too, was doing all right on her part of the wall, Poppy went back to her mindless mixing and her thoughts.

Because the truth was, the whole situation took some getting used to. She not only hadn’t talked to her best friends this week, but she’d also actively dodged two calls from Ava. She sure as hell hadn’t mentioned to her folks yet that Jason was living with her. With luck he’d be gone before she had to.

Ignoring the funny pang she got at the thought of him moving out when he had barely moved in, she concentrated on her parents’ probable reaction if…when…if they discovered it. Not that they’d have a problem with her living with a member of the XY species. They had raised her, after all, in an atmosphere of free love.

But free love with the Man, as she’d grown up hearing cops called? Not so sure they’d be happy about that. And she knew they wouldn’t love the fact that the guy whose suits were taking up more of her closet space than any man’s clothes ought to went around with a weapon snugged under his arm. Pretty much 24/7. No, as roommates went, he wouldn’t be her folks’ first choice.

She snorted softly as a blast of heat suffused her veins, her loins, her face. Because the way the two of them had been going at it, one, two and once three times in one night, the word roommate just seemed sort of a…weak, pallid—oh, my—definite misnomer.

Unable to help herself, she looked up again. Her brow furrowed when she didn’t spot Jason in the lot or working with the kids. Although come to think of it, she vaguely remembered him mentioning something about going to Marlene’s shop to talk about…well, she didn’t know what exactly, since she was pretty sure he hadn’t actually said.

Like a tongue to a loose tooth, her mind went back to the possibility—no, probability— of him moving out every bit as precipitously as he had moved in. This whole mysterious-madman-wanting-to-harm-her scenario was ludicrous and sooner or later Jason would realize it. And she already knew—the dilemma of explaining a gun-toting lover to her pacifist folks aside—that she’d miss him when he admitted she didn’t need protecting, threw his classy suits in his car and hit the road back to his own place. She’d miss him big-time.

She had come to enjoy not only the four-star, toe-curling sex he brought to the table, but all the day-today stuff they did together as well. It was mostly just little things like brushing their teeth together or making the bed. Left up to her, she would have just tossed the blankets up. But Jason was much neater than she was and she found she didn’t mind taking the time so much when he was across from her chipping in.

He made her feel…complete. Which was funny, considering she’d never judged her life lacking. But when they were together there was…hell, she didn’t know—a sort of airiness to her soul. At the same time she felt grounded, connected. Plugged in.

She shook her head, because could she be any less coherent? This was the main reason she’d avoided her friends this week. If she sounded this stupid to herself—who at least appreciated these never before felt emotions, even if she couldn’t intelligently define them—how was she supposed to describe the suckers to Ava and Jane? To her mother or her father?

Jason had made her laugh several times this week. She should no longer be caught by surprise by what a great sense of humor he had—and she wasn’t, really. Still, she did find herself tickled every time it manifested itself. As she realized she was grinning like an idiot but not caring, her mind drifted back a few days….

P
OPPY HEARD
the front door close and poked her head out the bathroom door to see Jason stripping off his suit coat in the living room. As she gathered her hair at the top of her head, she watched him sling the jacket over his shoulder. His free hand lifted to rub the furrow between his brows.

She went out to meet him, whipping a rubber band around the ponytail she’d gathered as she walked.

“Rough day?” she asked and saw some of the rigidity in his shoulders lessen.

“More frustrating than anything,” he replied. “I feel like I’m spinning my wheels on some cases I’ve got going.”

Wrapping both hands around his wrist, she backed toward the kitchen, tugging him along with her. “Come on,” she said. “You can fill me in while we get dinner ready. There’s a bottle of wine on the counter.” She pointed to it as they squeezed into the small space. “Why don’t you pour us a glass. Or there might still be a beer in the fridge, if you’d prefer that. I’m just going to throw together some eggs and Canadian bacon.”

She gathered her supplies from the fridge, then bumped it closed with a hip and looked over at him as she began cracking eggs over a bowl. “Tell me about the pain-in-the-patootie cases.”

His shoulders shifted. “There’s nothing concrete to tell. That’s the problem. Hohn and I have been working a series of burglaries. I know they’ve gotta have a common denominator—but aside from the fact that they’re jewelry stores, we haven’t discovered what that is.”

“Yet.” She stopped whisking eggs to look at him. “You haven’t found the common denominator yet.”

“Right.” The corner of his mouth ticked up. “I haven’t discovered it yet. Part of it’s because I haven’t got my rhythm yet living here, so I’m a little off my game. Usually I’d go home to an empty apartment and obsess all night.”

“And how’s that usually work out for you?” She poured the egg mixture into a hot pan and gestured toward the fridge. “Grab a couple slices of that sourdough bread from the loaf in the freezer and throw them in the toaster.”

He did as requested, pressed down the toaster button, then turned back to lean against the counter. And answered her question. “Most of the time? I don’t accomplish a lot. Occasionally, though, something shakes loose. Or sometimes I go up and talk it over with Murph.” As if he could read the question forming in her mind, he smiled wryly. “With, okay, pretty much the same results. So maybe I oughtta try setting it aside for the night. God knows it’ll still be there in the morning.”

Her spatula poised midturn beneath a Canadian bacon round, she beamed at him. Because, really, if she’d learned nothing else the past several days he’d been living here, she’d come to understand that the man would work himself into the ground left to his own devices. That made his willingness to set aside his concern over his cases a sacrifice on his part.

A sacrifice made to accommodate their living arrangement. “Maybe giving it a rest will enable you to look at it with fresh eyes.”

“Maybe it will.” He crossed the tiny kitchen in a single long step and hauled her in for a kiss. Then he set her back on her feet and brushed back a curl he had disarranged. “You’re one smart tomatah, aren’tcha.”

“Yes, I am.” She scrambled the eggs in the pan, sprinkled a pinch of kosher salt over them, then sent him a sidelong glance. “You’re one good kisser.”

“I am, aren’t I?” Leaning back against the counter again, he grinned at her and—bam!—her knees went weak.

The toast popped and she pulled herself together. “Butter that and we’ll eat.” She dished the eggs onto two hand-tossed pottery plates and added the Canadian bacon. “You want milk?”