Limbo (26 page)

All the air hissed out of Dash’s lungs as he stared at the very things that had been on his brain all day. Her slight breasts sat high and perky, the large nipples scrunched into tight little berries. Begging for a warm tongue.
Ho. Ly. Fuck
. If she’d reached for his zip and yanked it down, his dick couldn’t have come to life any faster.

She peered over the top of her shirt. ‘Better in real life?’

He dragged his gaze off her nipples to that knowing little smile on her face and his inner caveman roared to life.

‘You really ought to not tease a man so close to the edge.’

Her gaze locked with his. ‘Who says I’m teasing?’

Pregnant seconds passed as Dash’s common sense warred with his common erection, his gaze drifting back to her nipples, his mouth as dry as day-old toast.

‘
Jeez-us,
Dash. You want me to beg?’

The erection won.

Dash grabbed her closest ankle and yanked her unceremoniously down the couch, the folder hit the floor as her arms grabbed for purchase behind her head and her breasts bounced enticingly. Heat slammed into his groin, saliva flooded his mouth. He tucked her leg in behind him as the other one fell over the side, spreading wide to accommodate his hips invading her space.

Then, with his eyes fixed firmly on the prize, he bent at the waist and opened his mouth over her left nipple, sucking it in hard.

‘
Fuuuuck
,’ she groaned, her back arching clear off the couch, her hands pushing into his hair, holding him there.

The nipple hardened into a ripe peak in his mouth and Dash circled his tongue around and around it as his fingers stroked across the right one, drawing it into a tight hard peak.

She tasted good, smelled good — like Cuervo and lime — and sounded good under him, as she panted and bowed her back, offering more of herself to him. He switched sides then, swiping his tongue over the taut nub, drawing it in to the warm cavern of his mouth as his thumb caressed the moist peak he’d just abandoned.

She sucked in a breath. ‘Dash.
Jesus.
’

He’d been fantasising about this all day. About tasting those nipples that had stared back at him from the screen of his iPhone. Touching them. Teasing them. And he went back and forth between the two, lost in their sweetness, their softness, their hardness and the thrilling rush of heat surging through his system and the desperate, incomprehensible urgings that gurgled in the back of her throat.

‘Fuck…God…Jesus. Dash stop,’ she moaned, pulling at his shoulders. ‘You’re killing me.’

Dash stopped, but only for a second, lifting his head and lunging for her mouth, the force of it pushing her head back into the soft fabric of the couch as he devoured that too, his hands still firmly on her breasts, his thumbs brushing back and forth over the nipples in time with each incursion of his tongue deep into her mouth.

She pushed herself into his palms, whimpered against his lips, opening wide to him, letting him have his way with her. Surrendering completely.

***

Joy was lost in a haze of undiluted lust as Dash kissed her like it was his last time. It flooded her system with a deluge of sensations and all she could think was
more
. She wanted more. She wanted all of him. She wanted his hands and his mouth all over her.

And she wanted to be
all over him
.

She grabbed blindly for the back of his shirt, sliding her hands up the warm expanse of muscle and bone, rucking up the fabric, breaking the kiss and the nipple action momentarily as she pulled it up and over his head but seeking his mouth immediately, greedily, lifting her head, chasing it shamelessly.

She whimpered when he slammed his mouth back onto hers, pushing her head into the cushion, gasped when his chest hair tickled her breasts, muttered, ‘Yes,’ and arched her back when his thumbs found the tight peaks of her nipples again.

She shoved her hands into his hair, entwining her fingers, twisting her head back and forth as his mouth set the pace and his lips demanded she keep up.

She couldn’t think. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t hear above the thrumming of the blood in her ears and the harsh suck of their breathing.

All she could do was
feel
. And it felt so fucking hot she swore she could already feel the low pull of an approaching orgasm. It had been so damn long that an explosion was inevitable.

A sudden roaring blasted all around them and for a hazy suspended moment Joy thought maybe she
had
actually combusted all over Dash’s couch. Then he was pulling away abruptly and she realised it was music.

‘Oh shit.’ He sat up, shoved a hand through his hair as he groped for his phone. ‘That’s Katie’s ring tone.’

It took a moment for all the disconnected pieces of Joy’s body to drag themselves out of the molten pool of lust they’d been drowning in so she could connect the dots.

It was singing. ‘The Story of My Life’.

One
fucking
Direction.

He swiped his thumb across the screen and the dreadful racket stopped. ‘Hey sweet knees,’ he said, lifting the phone to his ear, standing up, his broad, bare, back to her as he walked into the kitchen.

For a moment Joy lay there looking at the ceiling too stunned, too sexually inebriated, to move.
What the fuck had just happened?

‘Ralph’s fine,’ she heard Dash say and she glanced at him. ‘Simone too,’ he said. ‘Yes, they’re being
very
friendly.’ And then, ‘Yes, I…saw Joy today.’

He turned and looked at her, his nostrils flaring, his gaze heating as it roved over her mouth and her exposed breasts and down to where her thigh was still spread wide.

‘She’s…’ his eyes took another slow turn of all her sexual hot spots, ‘fine,’ he said, his voice all low and growly, shoving a hand through his hair before turning his back on her again.

Joy sat up abruptly, finally receiving the frantic signals from her self-respect that she needed to make herself nice. Katie might not actually be in the room but she might as well have been. She yanked her top down and swung her leg around until both feet were flat on the ground.

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

She buried her face in her hands as Dash chattered in the background. What the hell had she done?

What the hell was she doing making out with Dash? With a divorced man who had a ten-year-old daughter. Screwing him and leaving the country was one thing. But screwing him and hanging around was another thing entirely.

Katie was a great kid but she wasn’t lining up to be her second mummy. She had
absolutely no intention
of being Katie’s daddy’s girlfriend and then crushing the poor kid into the ground when things went south or when either of them moved on.

Hell, she had no idea if she was even going to stay in Brisbane for the long term.

She realised she’d been staring blankly at the board of death and three of the ugliest men she’d ever had the displeasure of clapping eyes on.
And
she’d flashed her boobs at them.

Nice, Joy.
Real romantic.

‘Night sweetie. Have a good day at school. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’

Joy glanced at Dash as he threw his phone onto the kitchen bench then turned to face her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, leaning his hip against the bench and folding his arms across his chest. ‘She rings me every night before going to bed.’

Joy nodded. ‘Of course.’ She waved her hand dismissively. ‘It’s fine. It was…good timing really.’

His gaze wandered over her face and lingered on her mouth before pulling up to her eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Kids have
excellent
timing.’

Joy reached for her boots. ‘I should get going,’ she said as she slid her right foot into the right boot and zipped it up.

He nodded. ‘That’s probably for the best.’ He pushed off the bench and headed her way.

Joy looked up when she was zipped into her other boot and then immediately wished she hadn’t. It wasn’t a great angle for her sanity. A shirtless Dash was a sight to behold. And it wasn’t because he was perfectly ripped, with those fascinating little hip dips that really buff men could display, but because he wasn’t. His stomach was flat but not washboard, his chest was broad but not unnaturally wide, there was some meat on his ribs and hip bones.

And there was chest hair. A light salt and pepper mane covering his pecs and a broad slab down the middle of his abdomen. Joy had always preferred guys with smooth chests and Chris had always waxed but looking at Dash now she knew she’d been wrong about that.

He looked like a
man
.

This was how men were supposed to look. Not some waxed, plucked Ken Doll version. He wasn’t one of those lean, smooth, impossibly hot guys selling underwear in magazines or starring out of a Tumblr meme.

But he
was
an adult male in his prime and there was something so elemental, so Neanderthal, about him, that her nostrils flared just looking at the hair on his imperfect chest. Something about it spoke to the primitive woman in her and for a crazy moment she wanted to be clubbed and dragged off to his cave.

Jesus
. What the hell was
wrong
with her?

Joy realised she was staring and looked away embarrassed, suddenly fascinated with her boots. Her gaze fell on his nearby discarded shirt and she picked it up. The folder full of Dash’s research that had fallen to the floor earlier was beneath.

She held out the shirt. ‘If I have to wear one, you do too,’ she said.

He took it and she watched as he threw it over his head and pulled it down, shutting off the very fine view.

‘So,’ she said, returning her attention to the folder again, stashing some of the papers that had escaped during its fall back inside and picking it up off the floor. She sat, hugging it to her as if it alone could stop her from launching herself at Dash again.

God knew there was a total disconnect between what her head told her and her body wanted. Especially with him towering over her like this, her head level with his fly. All kinds of dirty deeds were running through her head.

But she had to think of the bigger picture.

‘So?’ he prompted, his hands on his hips, his voice all gravelly again and she wondered if he could read her mind or whether he was just thinking the same dirty thoughts as she was.

Joy stood. Because she really had to get going. But mostly because she didn’t trust herself sitting for a second longer.

‘What now?’ she asked. Then she quickly added, ‘About the case,’ lest he thought she was talking about them. She knew the answer to what now for them. They were going to go back to their professional friendly relationship and she was going to spend a lot of her time for the duration of this case with her state-of-the-art American toyfriend. And then when it was done, she need never see him again.

She and Dash were a sexual fantasy. They were hanky-panky. A hot, sweaty one-night stand. And they’d already been there. As great as he was and as much as she craved, there were bigger things at work around them. Their lifestyles were not compatible.

‘What’s our next move?’

He cleared his throat. ‘I’ll take this to Baz tomorrow and see if I can get him interested enough in following some of this up.’

‘And if he’s not?’

‘Kimberley couldn’t give me any current addresses of course but I know a lot of parole officers around the place. I think we’ll start with them and see if we can’t track the two Brisbane-based suspects.’ He tapped on Gerry and Joel’s faces with the knuckle of his index finger.

‘And then what?’

‘Then we follow them around for a bit and see what we can find out about them.’

‘Why don’t we just ask them if they know anything about the abduction?’

‘Because if they do they’re not going to tell us and all we’ll do is panic them and that
could
put Isabella in danger. What we need now is surveillance.’

‘What are we hoping to find? Isabella Richardson
playing in the backyard?
’

Dash shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

‘Oh come on, it can’t be that simple can it?

He sighed. ‘No, of course it won’t be. It never is. But you never know your luck in a big city.’

‘I can’t believe they’d be stupid enough to keep her somewhere in suburbia where neighbours could get suspicious.’

‘You’d be surprised at what goes on in suburbia that neighbours have no idea about,’ he said grimly. ‘Plus, she’s a baby, right? They’re pretty easy to keep indoors.’

‘I guess. But you don’t really think they’ve kept her in plain sight do you?’

‘No. I don’t. Which is why we don’t want to tip anybody off.’

Joy nodded slowly. ‘Yep. Okay.’

She turned and looked at the board again. Three faces stared back at her. Did one of them abduct Hailey Richardson and her daughter six months ago?

And was Isabella
really
still out there somewhere?

Joy realised they’d both been silent for a long time and she was still here despite asserting many minutes ago that she should get going. She passed him the folder.

‘What time are you going to see Baz tomorrow?’

‘I’ll ring him first thing.’

She frowned. ‘You’re not going to go and see him, make our case in person?’

‘Nope.’ He shook his head very definitively. ‘If I can get him interested enough I’ll go and take him what we’ve got but…’

‘Yep.’ He didn’t need to finish. She knew what he was going to say. He wasn’t holding out much hope at being able to convince good ol’ Baz. Hailey’s husband was on remand, having been refused bail because he was considered to be too great a flight risk.

As far as the police were concerned, they had their man.

‘Parole offices open at nine if you want to come along,’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ Joy nodded. ‘I will. Meet you here at about quarter to?’

‘Yep. I’ll text you if anything changes after my chat with Baz.’

‘Thanks,’ she said automatically, the surrealness of their conversation not lost on her. It seemed very strange to be discussing their diaries with each other like they were work colleagues and hadn’t just been making out on his couch like horny fifteen-year-olds.