Buried Secrets (20 page)

That she tried to say it with a Chicago accent drew a rueful grin from him. For once, he didn't argue just to argue. He stepped closer, between her splayed knees, just like he belonged there. He looped his arms loosely behind her back, so that his big hands rested on her hips—if anybody knew how to work around a holster, it was another cop. He leaned his forehead down to hers and let their noses touch while the next song started.

Jo wrapped her arms around his ribs, locking her grip with one hand on the opposite wrist. Then she wrapped her legs around his thick, solid thighs, pulling him even more firmly against her, and he belonged there, too. Just like she'd known he would.

They were no longer groping each other like teenagers at Make-Out Point, but oh, it felt good. Even before Zack ducked closer and gently covered her lips with his, in the softest, truest kiss she'd ever known, it felt good.

Alive.

Jo returned the kiss just as tentatively, nuzzling up into it a little more as his mouth opened, as his intensity climbed. Their hands weren't seeking. Their hips were barely moving, though the way she had him tucked between her legs, she thought she was sensing the return of his interest in more ways than one. They kept accidentally rubbing noses as they moved from one kiss to another, then another. Accidentally brushing lashes. It made them grin, until maybe it wasn't just accidental.

Even once they started swaying, to the drum from the Ferrari's stereo, it was somehow quieter. Deeper. More certain.

Jo recognized this song, too.
Take It to the Limit.

Since that's just what she meant to do, she laughed.

Zack leaned his forehead against hers again, grinning, curious. “What?”

“It's like we're dancing,” she admitted.

He kissed her again, and his voice rumbled in her. “Mmm-hmm.”

“You're coming to my place tonight, right?” she asked.

His dark, intense gaze found hers again— “Mmm-hmm.” And she shivered. Their intimacy might have taken on a quiet
maturity, here and now, but that Italian gaze of his promised a lot more passion, once they hit privacy.

As opposed to the deserted highway. But deserted highways were still public. And they were both sworn to uphold the law.

She loved that he kept his vows, even under pressure.

“Good,” she said, still swaying with him. His heat between her legs, through two pairs of blue jeans, was starting to unbalance her. He'd stirred an ache, deep inside her, that even his skilled hands couldn't relieve. She wanted
him.
All of him. Soon. “I'll warn you where Fred usually sets his speed traps.”

Okay, so there were laws, and there were
laws.

“Nuh-uh,” warned Zack—and this time, he kissed her like he meant business. His tongue probed deep, hot, hungry, and she let her head sink weakly back against the hard support of his bracing forearm, opened her mouth to his sensual assault, shivered under it. The ache inside her deepened—
and he was saying no?

“You, uh…” And he demonstrated, with a not-so-gentle movement of his hips, the challenge. “You'd better drive.”

 

One thing Jo would say for that fancy rental of his—it went fast better than any car she'd ever driven. Not that she was a connoisseur of fine automobiles, but she might just change her mind. She kept under the unofficial speed limit, which was ten miles over the posted signs, but just barely.

Zack made a quick phone call while they drove, letting Cecil and Ashley know not to expect them, telling them little else. Jo felt so right about doing this with him, she didn't even wonder about their friends' reaction.

Then, finally, they were home.

“So this is Casa James,” Zack said, following her to the door of her little ranch-style house. “You're going to give me the tour, right?”

But he said it with a lascivious grin.

Once she unlocked the door, and drew him into the foyer, Jo made him wait there while she went from room to room making sure the curtains were closed. She also stopped in the bedroom to use her bootjack, a forked piece of wood on the floor, to
wedge off her boots, and to leave her holster on the bedpost where it belonged. Then she padded back to where Zack still stood, studying family portraits while he waited—and since her top snaps were undone, she simply pulled her shirt up and over her head, then dropped it on the floor. “This is the entranceway,” she told him.

Zack stared at her for a long, unblinking moment—then stepped closer. He slid his big hands slowly, savoringly, up her naked back while her breasts pressed against the fabric of his own shirt, against the warm ridges of his ribs beneath the linen. “Great entranceway,” he said thickly. His thumbs found the sides of her breasts and began to massage them.

Jo was too happy unbuttoning Zack's own shirt to answer. He joined in, unbuckling his shoulder holster and letting it dangle from one hand. As she finished his buttons, he yanked his corded arms out of the sleeves—one at a time, so he could swap out the holster—and dropped the shirt on top of hers. He wore a tank top under the shirt, but she could admire him even through that. Dark, springy hair escaped around the edges of the insufficient cotton with abandon, more fodder for his caveman image. The white of the undershirt emphasized the triangular narrowing of his body from his broad shoulders and chest toward his narrower waist. Relatively speaking. And his arms, thick and hard and swarthy…

Either Zack Lorenzo worked out, or monster-hunting was normally even more strenuous than she'd been led to believe.

He drew her back against him with his free hand for a long, teasing kiss, until Jo sank, nearly boneless, into him. Into the heat of his pulsing blood. Into the rise and fall of his cotton-covered chest, springy with more covered hair. Into his strong, solid arms. Into his life.

He was so male, and so very alive.

When he handed her the gun long enough to peel off his tank, revealing the hard abdomen he'd been hiding and the way his hair thickened toward the center of his chest, Jo began to lose that newfound breathing skill of hers. Just from looking at him. She wanted to touch him, explore him, follow that trail of hair downward into his jeans….

Not yet,
she told herself, as if they were in another of their stubborn contests. A whoever-touches-inappropriately-first-loses contest. But she could imagine him on top of her.

In her.

“Now this—” and she drew away long enough to lead him, by one hand, to where the foyer opened into the main living room “—is the den.”

“Nice,” Zack said on a heavy breath, swinging his holster, unbuckled, back over his naked shoulder to free his hands. But he hardly spared a glance at the living room, because Jo was already undoing her jeans, sliding them over her hips and down her legs, stepping out of them and her socks both and kicking the mess off toward the couch. Then she stood there in front of him, naked except for her white cotton briefs and her wristwatch. She had a few sexier panties than this—her cousins were eternal optimists—but she hadn't packed any of them for her sleepover at Ashley's. She relaxed considerably when Zack, his hot gaze sliding down the length of her legs and back up to her breasts, growled, “
Very
nice. Den.”

Belatedly, his hands went to his own jeans, and he proceeded to unbutton them and peel them slowly down his hard-muscled, hair-roughened legs. Everything about him was so
male,
Jo thought. Especially the incredible erection tenting against his briefs. And the way he'd left his socks on.

“And yourself,” she barely managed to whisper.

The mix of daring and just a little uncertainty—all tucked beneath breathless anticipation—reminded her of her first day at college or the academy, of riding amusement park rides or leaping off a high-dive at the YMCA pool. It reminded her of all those things, except that this time she was wet from that anticipation, needy, ready. She could feel her pulse between her legs….

She held out both her hands, and he took them, and she backed the rest of the way into the bedroom, him trailing her. “And then there's this part.”

“What part?” Zack challenged. Jo turned to look and felt suddenly embarrassed by the twin bed. Way to look like a nun. A guy like Zack would dwarf the thing….

Then he slid his arms around her waist, tugging her back against his chest. Back
to
chest. She could feel his erection, hard against the small of her back, through only two layers of cotton now. Cotton was a much more exhibitionist material than denim. She could feel his chest hair, thick and warm and snuggly, against her shoulder blades—and a strap of his leather holster. When he folded his arms around her, and slid one hand up to cup her breast, she definitely felt that.

“This part?” he whispered, nuzzling the back of her neck.

“Nuh-uh,” she managed to gulp. It came out less certain than his had, back on the deserted road, listening to the Eagles.

He repeated the maneuver with his other hand, her other breast. “This one?”

She was wrapped in him now, in his arms and his chest, his legs supporting her, his hardness….

Good thing he was holding her so firmly. Still, she wanted to see what he did next. “Nuh-uh.”

He released a breast long enough to slide one big hand down her chest. Over her tummy. His fingers dipped beneath the waistband of her panties, and then he was sliding deeper, learning for himself just how ready she was for him.

If she hadn't been ready before, his fingers between her legs would have seen to it. Especially when one slid deeper yet.

“Zack!” She bucked against him at the explosion of pleasure, hot and shuddering, glad he was holding her so tight.

“Yeah.” He was still nuzzling. Teeth. Tongue. “Yeah, Jo.”

He tried two fingers, and her hips rocked to help him with the fit, rocked against the maleness of him, as tight behind her as he was tight inside her. That same hot ecstasy washed through her again. She'd thought breathing again was something? She'd thought everyday feelings were exhilarating? She'd woken up all the way, now—woken up to sensations she'd only dreamed of, sensations only Zack could give her, only because she—

Because I love him,
she thought. Sanity protested—
too fast, too soon, rushing in
—so she made herself stop thinking that for now. Sometimes magic disguised itself as craziness. Besides, he was doing it—oh yes, always, everything—again.

She thought she might be crying. She didn't care.

“Zack,” she repeated, because it was so important that it was him, only him, who made her feel like this. “Oh, please….”

He slid his fingers out of her, slid them wetly back up her tummy, her navel. “For you, Jo,” he whispered, and walked her to the edge of the bed, his legs instructing hers. “For you…”

She sank onto the mattress, and he unslung his shoulder holster long enough to hang it on the bedpost with hers.

Still trembling, but no longer afraid of falling, Jo attacked his briefs. Their particularly tight fit at this moment made the maneuver a bit tricky, but Zack helped.

Then she attacked his erection—tongue first. Lips second.

She did owe him, after all.

“Ah—” Zack closed his eyes, and his knees seemed to buckle. It took very little nudging on Jo's part to guide him down onto the mattress with her, then to slide between his now-splayed legs until she was kneeling on the floorboards, to take what portion of him she could fit into her mouth and draw more groans out of him. “Aw, Jo….”

She'd never done this before, but something about him made her feel…adventurous. Made her
enjoy
adventure, the way she was enjoying this. He tasted good, salty and primal, so big and hot and hard that she marveled at the cleverness of nature. From the way Zack dug his hands into her hair, almost holding her face against him, she guessed she was doing it right.

He also slid one shin between her legs, giving her something else to play against. And it
was
partially play, wasn't it? Like investigating together. Shooting together. Fighting together. They were testing themselves against each other….

And so far, passing every test.

She quickly began to wish they'd ditched her panties, but she was too busy with Zack to deal with them just yet.

“No,” he began to protest. “No, Jo. C'mere—”

And whether she'd wanted to stop or not, he was lifting her off of him, laying her out onto the bed, kissing her. Deeply. “It's got to be right,” he reminded her, stroking her side, her hip. “It's—
crap!
”

The exclamation, in the middle of all his husky murmurings, made her jump. “What?”

“Damned…jeans….” He wasn't making a lot of sense—not that he'd been wordy before—and she missed the petting.

“My jeans? Or yours? What about the jeans?”

“Condoms,” he managed. “Wallet.”

Oh. “Here.” And she rolled partly away from him to reach across the bed and open a chest on the bedside barrel—then rolled back with a handful of condoms. “Here.”

“Optimistic,” Zack said, looking at the handful, but he seemed encouraged by her expectations.

She laughed, pressed one packet into his hand and then opened her fingers to drop the rest onto the floor beside the bed. Way to
not
look like a nun! But she didn't want Zack thinking she did this a lot, with just anybody.

“I didn't buy them,” she explained, even as he tore open the little packet, took out the rimmed circle of rubber. “Ashley made me take them awhile back. Health-care worker….”

“Damned buttinskies,” he muttered—for some reason making it plural. But he also slid the condom onto himself. Jo shimmied out of her panties as quickly as she could, tossing them off past the foot of the bed.