Bad to the Bone (Wicked Reads) (3 page)

She let out a long breath. It was as if the
last ten years did not exist. And she felt guilty about that, but
she knew, for her, cleaning out their house to make it hers had
been the right thing to do.

She needed to get on with her life and she
had thought just existing as if Tommy would walk through the front
door any minute was the way to do it. Instead, Vaden showed her
there was life after Tommy. And she felt more than a little guilt
because of it.

She unlocked the door and walked into her
house. She locked it behind her, turned on the hall light, dropped
her purse and keys on the small table there, and made her way into
the kitchen. She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and sat
down at the small table.

Vaden.

Her body thrummed just thinking of him. He
was—what
was
he? He was everything Tommy had been afraid to
be. Vaden broke the rules; Tommy had lived by them to the letter.
Vaden spoke his mind, not caring who he pissed off. He backed his
squad. It was why he was still a sergeant after fifteen years.
Tommy had made Captain in ten by kissing ass and being PC. Her ire
rose. He never took a chance or went out on a limb. Tommy had been
a “yes” man, and she— Olivia let out a long bitter sigh, she was a
“yes” woman. They’d been bookends. But it had worked for them. For
ten years.

And now? She stood and tossed the empty
bottle into the trash. Now, she wanted more, but she was
conditioned to accept less. To be good, safe, and predictable.

Except tonight.

Her entire body shuddered and a flash of heat
swept through her as she remembered the way Vaden had thrown her
across the hood of his squad car. Dear Lord, she hoped he
had
turned that camera off before he pulled her over. But a
secret part of her was titillated by the thought that he hadn’t.
Was
she a closet porn queen? Shame engulfed her. Tommy would
roll over in his grave if he knew what she had done tonight.

She hurried down the hall to her bedroom. As
if she could run away from herself, and the cravings she couldn’t
suppress. She stripped and, as she shimmied out of her skirt, sex
scents permeated the air around her. Vaden was virile, his scent as
dominant as he was. The smoky smell of him had her melting again.
She couldn’t help it. Her nipples tightened. She looked over her
shoulder toward the doorway to her bedroom, wishing she were a
Genie and could wish him here. She was hot for him again. And that
was the problem.

Vaden Holbrook was a player. Thirty-eight,
never been married, and no steady girlfriend that she knew of in
the past eight years she’d known him. He was the cop all the other
cops wished they had the balls to be.

She’d be a liar if she said she hadn’t
admired him from afar on the few occasions they bumped into each
other. She knew more about him from the wild stories the guys
gossiped about than actual encounters.

It was kind of ironic. He’d pulled her over
for running a red light two months ago to the day. When he’d
realized who she was, after he ran her plate, he handed her his
card, said he was sorry about Tommy, and to her surprise, told her
to slow down and to call him if she needed anything.

That’s when her restlessness began. She
hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind. A week later, after a
few glasses of liquid courage, she’d dared herself to respond to
his open invite to “anything.” She called him. He was Johnny On The
Spot, and well... she’d closed her eyes and dove in head first with
him, thinking it would be a simple fling. Her restlessness didn’t
go away. It blew up. And things got complicated. She’d realized
that tonight. She had feelings for him,
strong
feelings, and
quite simply, she didn’t want to get hurt.

His record was spotless. Vaden Holbrook
didn’t do relationships, and she wasn’t going to be one of his
conquests that got all possessive and whiny, wanting more from him
then he was willing to give.

And she wanted more than his dick.

Olivia opened her nightstand drawer, dug
under her panties, and pulled out a Vaden-sized dildo. She sat down
on the edge of her lonely bed and stroked it. Just as she had
Vaden. When she realized what she was doing, she hissed and tossed
it away from her.

Her need for him embarrassed her.

Was she lonely or just horny? Or both?

Liv flung herself back onto her bed,
frustrated with her agitation. Her fingers caught the head of the
vibrator. It was cold. Lifeless. Inanimate.

She wanted warm flesh and bones. Alive.
Vaden.

And she couldn’t have him. Not all of him. He
wouldn’t give it.

She traced her fingers down the shaft then
lower to the base and pushed the warming button. Artificial warmth.
She closed her eyes and ran a fingertip around the wide rubber
head. Pretend flesh and blood. She flicked the device on. It hummed
softly in her hand. Not Vaden. But it would have to suffice.

Her body warmed in anticipation. She’d
ordered the dildo the day after her first encounter with Vaden. She
left the hotel room they’d spent four hours furiously fucking in,
and despite her multiple orgasms, she’d known as she drove home,
she would want more.

It was a poor substitute for the real thing,
but at least it offered some temporary succor.

Olivia slipped off her shirt, but left on her
heels, stockings and bra. She felt sexy and naughty and…
desperate.

She pushed the negative feelings aside and
told herself it was okay. She was allowed to want this. Allowed to
feel sexy and wanton. She laughed, the sound bitter. It might be
the only sex she’d get for a while.

She slid a pillow under her hips, laid back,
and closed her eyes. She bent her legs and parted her thighs, and
turned the leviathan up a notch. Its soft hum always embarrassed
her, until she slid it slowly down her belly, and her imagination
took over. She plucked a taut nipple with her free hand and moaned,
arching as the vibrating phallus skimmed slowly along her skin to
the soft rise of her smooth pussy. She allowed it to hum just above
her clit, the vibrations reaching out in intense waves, stimulating
it to hard.

She gasped as the sensation racked through
her.
Yes
, that was it. The tension built rapidly. Just as
she was about to come, she slid it down along her slick folds.

Her hips rose. Slowly, she worked it back and
forth along her sensitive labia, circling it around her clit,
working herself into a hot, creamy frenzy.

Sensation concentrated in her clitoris. She
could come in a second with the device, but she wanted something
deeper. Penetration. She turned the dildo up and slid it into her
slick opening. She arched, digging her heels into the comforter,
wanting full penetration. Her body strained against the vibrating
phallus as it hummed and slid in and out of her. God, she thought,
if only—

Big hands clasped her thighs and warm lips
pressed against her hard clit. Olivia screamed, terrified. Deep
green eyes stared at her from between her thighs. He slid a big
hand up to her belly and splayed his fingers, pressing her back
into the mattress.

Embarrassment scalded her to her marrow. She
squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. Mortified, Olivia pushed
away from him, wishing she could crawl into the wall.

“Relax,” he said. He wrapped his fingers
around her hand holding the humming dildo. When she made to remove
her hand, he tightened his around hers. Olivia fought the terrible
urge to tell him to go, but then he slowly moved the dildo in and
out of her while pressing his lips against her clitoris and licking
the stiff head. Her muscles liquefied.

God, that felt good. She bit her bottom lip,
stifling a moan of submission.

“Let go, Livia,” Vaden hotly whispered
against her.

“I— can’t—”

“Yessss, you can,” his hot breath fanned
across her molten pussy.

Olivia swallowed hard. His full lips slid
sensually across her swollen flesh as his tongue laved her
clitoris, and the dildo pulsed in and out of her in an achingly
slow rhythm.

“Surrender,” he commanded.

And surrender she did. Her body’s hunger for
carnal release overtook her mind’s inhibitions.

Vaden took his time. Painstakingly, he turned
up her fire. One incremental degree at a time. Her cries for
release went unheeded. Her wild undulations and desperate pleas did
nothing to encourage him to give her what she so desperately
wanted. As she hung on the precipice of utter insanity, he took her
clit into his mouth and suckled her until she shuddered in a hard
orgasm against him. Olivia screamed, the sensation so intense her
body bucked and writhed, pulling away, then rushing back to
him.

Vaden turned the vibrations down as she rode
the waves, as one after another overlapped, the final one not as
intense, but a slow warm wave of sensation that went on and on
endlessly. Her crooning moans of pleasure sounded foreign to her,
they were so deep and so self-satisfied.

When her body slowed to a long rolling wave,
he withdrew the dildo and set it beside her.

Olivia licked her dry lips and slowly opened
her eyes. Her damp body thrummed with the residual waves of her
orgasm. She smiled and licked her lips again, feeling extremely
naughty, and oddly empowered. Laconically, she stretched like a
sated kitten.

Vaden stood ramrod stiff at the foot of the
bed, still in uniform and hot as hell. A soft sheen of sweat glazed
his skin. His eyes blazed emerald. His nostrils flared
predatorily.

He bent over her and placed something on her
belly. “You left these behind.”

She looked down at her belly, and picked up
her license and registration. He was gone when she looked up.

* * * * *

“Vaden!” Olivia called as he strode down the
hallway. He stopped, setting his jaw, not wanting to turn around.
Knowing what he wanted to do to her. And not sure if he could
control himself.

Their tryst earlier on the dark country road
had just about pushed him to his limit. She was so fucking sexy, he
wanted to fuck her twenty-four seven.

“Vaden.”

He froze. He knew she was standing at the
threshold of her room. And he knew what she looked like.

“Turn around.”

He did, slowly, bracing himself. His gut took
a mule kick. She stood there in those fuck-me heels, sexy
translucent hose, strappy garter belt, but it was that sweet shaved
pussy with just a wisp of soft glistening golden curls that he
couldn’t tear his gaze from. He didn’t know what he loved most
about it, eating it or fucking it. He dragged his eyes from her
sweet spot to her rounded hips, flat belly, tiny waist, then to her
creamy tits in that sexy lace bra. Her lips were full, and her
cheekbones high and defined. He’d lost himself more than once in
her big china-doll blue eyes. His fingers itched to dig into her
silky soft honey-colored hair. The first time he laid eyes on her
at a PD banquet almost ten years ago, he knew Olivia Connor was a
stunner who hid behind her stuffy clothes, tight bun and
wire-rimmed glasses. Once he’d peeled off the layers, he’d
discovered a smoldering tigress. And he couldn’t get enough of
her.

“Why are you leaving?” she asked.

“I have to get back to the station.”

“You’re off tonight.”

He scowled. He needed to get out of here or
he was going to— “I have paper to catch up on.”

She strutted toward him as if she was a
runway model. Her movement poetry in motion. His eyes raked her
from head to toe then back again. His dick thickened. If she
weren’t careful…

She stopped just two feet from him and leaned
against the wall. “I don’t believe you.”

He contemplated the defiant set of her chin
and narrowed eyes. She was a complete contradiction. Hot and cold,
sexy and prudish, wanton and reserved. Just when he thought he had
broken through the walls of her propriety, she ran from him. From
that first time in the hotel room, when he’d fucked her until his
dick hurt, to her fantasy fuck tonight, she’d been running from
him. What was she so afraid of? “What’s going on in that head of
yours, Liv? One minute you’re hot, the next cold, then hot
again.”

She straightened, crossing her arms across
her chest, and, with crystal clarity, he knew what was coming next.
It always did. But tonight, she’d mean it. “You’re right. Look, I—
um, I don’t know how to say this, but— I— We can’t do this
anymore.”

“Because?”

“Because it’s wrong.”

“What’s wrong about it?”

She shook her head, looking for a reasonable
answer, one she thought he would swallow.

“I feel— I— It’s dirty.” Her eyes stared at
the floor, but her entire body flushed rosy, just like it did when
she came.

He didn’t move. He wasn’t going to let her
off that easy. “Look me in the eye and tell me that.”

When she shook her head, he nudged her chin
up with his hand. Her dark pupils nearly eclipsed the clear blue of
her iris. He resisted the urge to slide his fingers into her hair
and cup the back of her head, then guide her lips to his. As he
envisioned the kiss, he realized that they had not kissed. Fucked
six ways to sundown, yes. But kiss? No.

He wasn’t big on make-out sessions. In many
ways, he felt that was more intimate than the actual sex act, so he
avoided them. But that she hadn’t demanded he kiss her bugged him.
Was he really just a fuck to her?

“Dirty is the wrong word, I just feel bad
after—”

Anger swept through him. If that’s how she
felt— He nodded and made to turn.

She grabbed his forearm. “Is that it? You
just walk away?” her voice raised several octaves.

Jesus Christ! What the hell did she want from
him? She wants sex, he gave her mind blowing sex. Then she tells
him it makes her feel dirty, so he tries to leave and she stops
him. Vaden let out a long breath. Her eyes beseeched his. He knew
what she wanted, even though she was doing her damn best to act
like she didn’t want it. It was what they all wanted. A commitment.
He didn’t do commitments. He didn’t know how. He let go of his
anger. But if he did, he would commit to Olivia Conner. She was the
kind of girl a guy could take home to his mother if he had one. A
good girl who simmered just below the surface. A woman who was
loyal, smart and a knockout.