HotTango (8 page)

The way her voice quavered, notes of need threaded through
it, nearly broke his control. But this was about her pleasure. Not what he
wanted.

“Stay there,” he ordered.

Cole sank to his knees. They’d been in the shower so long
the tile floor was warm. He grasped her hips, holding her flush against the
wall. His Tanya wasn’t very good at following rules. She kept swaying forward,
as if he wouldn’t notice. He kissed a trail across her stomach to the little
green globe tattooed on her hip. A small indicator from years ago that she had
an inner badass. He traced the orb with his lips and remembered how she’d
squeezed his hand the whole time.

He grabbed her thigh and directed her leg up and over his
shoulder, opening her to him. He spread her folds and pushed the thin clitoral
hood back to expose a very erect nubbin.

How close was she? Would she come fast? Or would he push her
to the point of release?

Cole looked up her body. Her hands were flat against the
wall and her chest heaved, droplets of water falling from her breasts and
running down her stomach. She stared down at him, her pupils so large her eyes
seemed to be black, bottomless pools.

“I’m going to kiss you here and you’re going to come,” he
said.

“Ohmygod,” she chanted. Her hand came off the wall and she
worked his short cropped hair between her fingers, seeking something to hold on
to, her nails gently scoring his scalp.

He chuckled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Cole thrust two fingers deep in her channel, stretching her.
She rose up on the ball of her foot and the thigh around his shoulders tensed.
She was close. He focused on giving her the steady rhythm that was sure to send
her over the ledge, twisting his fingers as he went to hit all the sensitized
nerves. He closed his lips around her clit and flicked the nub with his tongue.
Tanya’s fingers twisted the short hairs until his scalp prickled in pain, but
still he didn’t stop. She would come.

Tanya’s hips moved with him and her spine bowed away from
the wall. She squealed and raked her nails down his neck. He thrust his finger
deeper and sucked her clit, rubbing the underside with his tongue. She moaned
and pulled him closer with her thigh.

Tanya came apart all at once, erupting in a near shriek of
ecstasy. Her body went taut, her spine bowed forward even farther and she
seemed to ripple with the intensity of the climax. It was the only word he
could use to describe the way she shook and shuddered. She slumped against the
wall, her face turned sideways and eyes closed. He lifted his face and gently
pulled out of her. She shivered and sucked in a breath. He stroked her thighs
and guided her foot to the ground.

Cole kept his hands on her, just in case her legs gave way.
He rose, sliding his hands up her body.

Tanya’s eyes flickered open, her gaze still a little
unfocused. A smile spread across her face.

“That was—wow.” She blinked at him, her cheeks pink and
rosy.

Cole took her by the hands and pulled her forward into the
direct spray of the water. Tanya’s smile widened into a grin and she wrapped
her arms around his neck. She kissed him with the shower washing away the day’s
troubles and leaving them in this perfect moment.

The way she looked at him, it made Cole feel as if he hung
the stars and made trees grow. He was ten feet tall and capable of anything.

It was how he used to feel.

Cole turned the water off and drew Tanya out of the shower.
He grabbed a towel and dried her off when she would have taken over the task
herself. She was his to love and cherish. Neither said a word, but they smiled
and chuckled for no reason. There wasn’t any reason to speak. They communicated
without words.

When he was finished he grabbed her robe from where it was
hanging on the back of the bathroom door, wrapped her in it and picked her up.
Tanya squealed and clung to him, putting her forehead against his. He carried
her to the bed and laid her down. After a quick towel off for him, he crawled
in next to her. She curled up against his side almost immediately and they both
sighed.

Tanya woke from her catnap feeling luxuriously warm and
pampered. She stretched slightly and found herself smooshed up against Cole’s
side, her husband softly snoring. She snuggled in closer and glanced over him
to the clock. It was much earlier than she’d suspected.

Only 9 p.m.

Way too early to go to bed.

She wiggled out from Cole’s hold and tiptoed toward the
bathroom, but stopped when she saw the stack of cards on the TV table.

There was one more sitting in the “used” pile.

She glanced at her sleeping husband and peeked at the latest
card, curious what his inspiration for the shower scene had been. The clue had
her smothering giggles. She could see the inspiration.

Tanya knelt and peered inside the red box.

It really was way too early for bed.

She selected the card at the bottom of the pile. What was
the fun in going for the card on top?

“Variety is the spice of life. Sometimes it pays to change
up the roles,” she whispered under her breath.

Tanya clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle the
giggles. Two weeks prior she’d read her very first female Dominant book and
while it had been hot, she couldn’t see either Cole or her fitting into those
roles.

She could, however, become the aggressor.

Tanya put her card in the pile with the others and removed
her robe. If she knew her husband at all, he preferred her naked to any fancy
lingerie. She tiptoed to his side of the bed and vaulted onto the mattress.

There was no surprising Cole. He jerked awake, halfway
sitting up until she pushed him back down. He blinked up at her, groggy and
confused.

“It’s my turn, okay?” she said in her best brook-no-argument
tone.

Cole didn’t consent, but neither did he tell her to let him
go back to sleep. He settled back down and she pulled the blankets back so she
could straddle his waist. Tanya braced herself with a hand on either side of
his shoulders and leaned forward, her breasts rubbing against his chest, and
kissed him. He slid his hands up and down her back.

Tanya didn’t linger, but scooted down to his thighs.

“I read one of the cards while you were sleeping.” She
grasped his cock and began slowly pumping his length. He grew harder and longer
with each pass. “It said to reverse the roles and the first thing I thought
about was in some of the books I’ve read, it’s the woman who ties up her guy.”

Cole opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off.

“I didn’t think that would fly, and really? You aren’t the
type to be tied up. But I didn’t think you would mind if I did dirty things to
you. Do you?”

Cole grunted something that might have been, “No.”

“Didn’t think so.” She grinned and scooted down farther.

Tanya took the head of his cock in her mouth and flicked her
tongue over the slit. He shuddered and she caressed the underside of the
mushroom cap. His hips came off the bed and he thrust into her mouth. She
opened her mouth to accommodate more of his length and pumped the base of his
cock.

She sucked in her cheeks and bobbed in time with his
thrusts. Cole’s hands dug into her hair, acting as a guide.

Yeah, her husband was no submissive. That was never going to
happen. Good thing she liked him alpha and tough.

Cole sat up and grabbed her around the waist. He practically
manhandled her, dragging her forward until she was almost on top of his dick.
It wasn’t hard to see where this was going, and Tanya was more than willing to
oblige.

She lifted up on her knees and guided his cock to her
entrance. Cole thrust up at the same time she sank down. They groaned, breath
catching, bodies adjusting. She rolled her hips and found a better angle.

“Oh,” she moaned, rocking back and forth. He rubbed the
perfect spot deep inside.

“I wish I knew what you were thinking,” Cole whispered. He
hadn’t moved again.

“It feels good,” she panted.

She shuddered and dug her nails into Cole’s shoulders. He
kneaded her ass, but let her continue at her own pace. She didn’t want to come
yet. Not this soon. She lifted her hips and thrust down.

Cole grasped her thighs and urged her onward. Tanya wrapped
her arms around his neck and stared into his glittering eyes. She felt his hand
on her breast, rolling her sensitive peak between his fingers. The
pleasure-pain of it had her gasping and blinking back spots.

“That’s it,” Cole growled against her neck. He switched his
grasp to pluck her other breast.

“Mm.” She let her head fall back, thrusting her chest up.

Prickling sensations began at the base of her spine, like
air bubbles under water on skin.

“Oh—Cole!”

The sensation rushed up her spine, through her body. Her
muscles constricted and fireworks went off in her vision. She struggled to keep
her eyes open. Cole’s jaw dropped and his face went taut. They froze as
pleasure rippled and echoed between them.

Cole hugged her to him and slouched forward. She chuckled
into his short hair.

“What card was that again?” he asked against her neck.

“Changing up the roles. Figured I could be the aggressor.”

“Awesome. Let’s do more of that.”

Tanya snorted. “Okay.”

“Can we do the cuddling-sleeping thing now? Is there a card
for that?”

“If there isn’t a card, I think I have some cardboard around
here somewhere and we can make our own. How’s that?”

Cole lifted his head from her shoulder, the sleepy
expression lifting for a moment. “I like that idea.”

Oh crap.

What had she started?

* * * * *

Bad boys, bad boys whatcha gonna do?

Cole sat up and reached for the phone on his nightstand. He
answered it before he could form a coherent thought.

“Westling,” he whispered, already sliding his arm out from
under Tanya and slipping out of bed.

“Got a barricaded situation at Wade Drive and Lovelady
Street, near where we did the drug warrant.” The voice on the other end of the
line was Jake’s Southern-flavored drawl.

“Shit. Is this connected?” He was halfway dressed, shoving
his feet in shoes, shrugging into his shirt and picking up odds and ends so he
could creep out of the bedroom and not wake Tanya.

“Unconfirmed, but suspicion is affirmative.” Jake’s voice
was grim. A barricaded person with the potential for bombs sounded like a
recipe for a long night.

“Okay, it’s going to take me twenty, twenty-five minutes to
get to that part of town once I get going. Need me to call anyone?”

“If you could get Aaron and Erick, that would cover it.”

“I’m on it.”

They didn’t bother with goodbyes, just hung up.

Cole paused in the kitchen to get the rest of his gear on
and shirt tucked in. He stopped by the fridge and grabbed a go-bag, something
Tanya kept on hand for when he was called out at odd hours. It had a few
protein bars, bottles of water, packets of electrolytes and usually something
special. There was usually more in it than he would eat. The bags made him a
popular person on scene during the long hours.

He made it out of the house in less than ten minutes from
waking up, and was on the phone before he made it out of the drive.

Adrenaline coursed through his veins, but there was a bad
feeling in his gut. The bust from Saturday hadn’t sat right with any on the
team. They’d all been waiting for the next move.

Cole made it to the location in twenty-three minutes. The
staging area where he would meet up with his team was always several streets,
blocks or buildings away from their target to provide cover and a safe point to
regroup, prepare or deploy.

The command center trailer used for organizing and housing
the negotiators, brass and bomb squad equipment was in position, and the ballistic
engineered armored response, or B.E.A.R truck, sat nearby idling, the top
turret—where a sniper or lookout might be positioned
—
open.

They had to have a lookout in place. It was hard to tell
since all the streetlights had been shot out so as not to give anything away,
but if he peered closely, he could see a faint glow of the night vision screen
that gave away the lookout’s position.

He parked and jumped out of the SUV, heading straight for
the command post. Their captain, Thomas O’Neil, was sitting next to a
grim-faced hostage negotiator named Lily Slade. Cole had worked with her since
the beginning, and he knew she was the best. The woman had a black phone in
hand and was shaking her head.

“He’s not answering his phone anymore and the hostage’s cell
is going straight to voicemail,” the negotiator said. “And you’re certain
there’s no landline?”

Those words were cause for alarm. A hostage situation was a
different ballgame than just a barricaded person.

O’Neil shook his head. “No, the house is vacant.”

“Sir?” Cole said as quietly as he could.

O’Neil waved him into the trailer. “We have a perimeter
established. Get your entry team together when they get here. I want to hold
you guys in reserve for now. I think we’re going to have to go in, and I want
you on point. I might also get you to help me rotate people out. There are a
lot of SWAT guys out there who are on loan from other PD’s and if we go in I
want all our people in place.”

Cole nodded, completely in agreement. The ability of the
other officers wasn’t the issue, it was familiarity. Their team trained,
sweated and bled together. He knew what each would do before they did it. In a
pinch, he wanted someone who knew him as well as he knew himself to have his
back.

“Yes sir.”

“Officer Lawrence has you a ready area by the B.E.A.R.”

Cole got out of the trailer as fast as he could. He didn’t
covet O’Neil’s responsibility. He was perfectly happy where he was on the team.
If he were lucky, it would be a very long time before he was promoted further.
Cole paused at his SUV to suit up in his heavy tactical gear before heading
over to the B.E.A.R.

Aaron, Jake, Erick and two other members of their team were
in a cluster at the back of the armored vehicle with their heads together.

“Hey, Sarge,” Aaron called.

“Morning, guys. Who brought the donuts?”

There were a few chuckles, but they were all riding the
adrenaline wave.

One of the worst things about SWAT was the relatively short
bursts of high-octane action, contrasted against long hours spent waiting for
new developments. They stood around the B.E.A.R. listening to their radios and
the next to no progress being made on the hostage situation.

“Anyone watching the Games?” Cole asked after a stretch of
five minutes with nothing more interesting than diverting a car down another
street.

“I watched water polo yesterday.” Jake squished his face up.
“I don’t get it. The announcer said it was polo meets hockey in the water. Just
looked like a bunch of guys dunking each other.”

Aaron shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Went out and
watched the qualifiers for white-water rafting. I hope they keep that course up
after the games. I’d like to go take it for a whirl.”

“Yeah, when are you going to take the rest of us white-water
rafting?” Cole asked. Aaron was always taking trips to put his kayak in the
water on some new bit of river. He’d mentioned taking the team more than a few
times.

“Whenever you get a life vest,” Aaron replied with a grin.

Each radio clipped to their shoulders chirped. “Entry team,
standby.”

As one, the team began their personal last-minute gear
checks.

“Sergeant Westling.”

The voice of Cole’s captain was like a spark to tinder. He
turned to face the man silhouetted against the command center lights. Cole met
O’Neil halfway between the trailer and armored truck.

“Yes sir?”

O’Neil put his hands on his hips and sighed, sounding tired.
“We’re rotating officers now. You stay with your team. We haven’t been able to
reestablish contact with the suspect. Because there might be explosives on the
property, we can’t use gas. We’re going to send in the robot through the back
to see if we can get some eyes on the inside. Depending on what the robot sees,
I want you in position. Brief your guys then report back to me. I want you to
see what we see if you’re going in.”

An electric charge shot through Cole. The world came into
sharper focus as he set off to brief his team. The hard part was that he was
ready to act. To do something. And here they were about to wait some more.

His men perked up when they saw him.

“Okay, team, listen up.” He shivered despite the heat and
humidity of the night. Fuck, he wanted to do something now. He quickly related
what O’Neil had said about the robot, but launched into strategizing their
entry.

They spent another five minutes covering the finer details
before Cole headed back to the trailer to meet up with the bomb squad, who
controlled the robots remotely. The interior of the trailer was a who’s who of
the Metro City PD. It was understandable they would want to have all the faces
on hand if the situation went nuclear and spilled over to impact the Olympics.

O’Neil saw Cole and waved him over to where the robot’s
operator, Officer Becca Jameson, was set up. Becca was one of SWAT’s three
female officers and a true marksman. Her primary role was as a sniper, but she
did double duty on the bomb squad.

He took up a position in the back where he could still see
the screen. Right now all he could make out was a dark, grainy shot of a
backyard.

“Teda is in position,” Jameson said. Teda was the name the
bomb team had given their robot. It was a combination of the original team’s
names and stood as an active memorial to the retired officers.

“Get her in there,” O’Neil replied.

They all held their breath as the robot shifted into drive,
bouncing and trucking across the yard to a deck. Jameson jabbed keys and the
robot reversed, then began to rise, going up, jostling, up and jostling some
more. The Teda unit was a large robot, nearly four feet in length and capable
of expanding five feet vertically, with an arm that worked much like a human’s
did.