Needing Nita (2 page)

She picked up her wine, but instead of gulping it nervously, she forced herself to slow down and appreciate it. She swirled it in its glass, admiring its legginess a moment before inhaling its bouquet. Lovely. She’d bypassed the subtle sophistication of her usual French favorite and picked a lively Australian Shiraz. Lush and peppery, it was perfect for her mood. She took a sip, savoring the dominant blackberry flavor and the feel of the tannins in her mouth.

“Am I late?”

Dammit. She’d wanted to see his entrance, watch him cross the room. She glanced up and smiled. “Not at all.” Their gazes collided, and her pulse leapt like she’d touched a live wire. Oh, Christmas! What had she invited? He was so big, so raw, so masculine. “Have a seat.”

He did, and the hovering waiter moved in on him immediately. He glanced at her wine, then ordered a beer.

“You look beautiful,” he said when the waiter left. The frank appreciation in his ridiculously blue eyes echoed the sentiment.

“Thank you.” She inclined her head in acknowledgement. “You look pretty good yourself.”

That was the understatement of the year. Their previous encounters had pretty much been confined to the courtroom or the stationhouse, so she knew he cut an imposing, if slightly incongruous, figure in a suit. But tonight he wore a tan-colored ultra-suede sport coat over an oatmeal colored sweater with a very fine looking pair of denims in a shade of blue almost as piercing as his eyes. Her hands itched already for the tactile sensation of those fabrics. And as for what lay beneath….

She didn’t realize how hungrily she was staring until her eyes completed the journey up his chest, past his strong neck to the brutally hard planes of his face and met his gaze. Oh, yikes!

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

He lifted an eyebrow. “For what’s on the menu, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Depends. Is there something else on offer?”

She felt a blush climbing her neck, but held his gaze. “Most definitely.”

He stood abruptly, jarring the table and nearly toppling her wine. Flagging down a passing waiter, he said, “The lady’s not feeling well.” He pulled out his wallet and pressed some bills into the waiter’s hand. “For the drinks.”

She stood and he was at her side instantly with a solicitous hand at her back. As they wended their way among the tables to the exit, she felt the burn of that touch through her clothes. Come to that, she felt his body heat reaching out to her. God, he was a blast furnace. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on him.

“Your car or mine?” he asked when they hit the street.

“My place is just a few blocks away. Why don’t we walk it?”

“Okay, but first I have to do this.” He pulled her into the alley between the restaurant and the art gallery next door, pushed her up against the cool brick of the building and kissed her.

It was not a searching, tentative kiss. It was urgent and fiercely demanding, as were the hands that skimmed down her shoulders to her hips. Her blood leapt in response, and she met his mouth with demands of her own. Her hands found their way under this jacket, then under his sweater. His skin was just as hot as she knew it would be, but the muscle beneath was so much more solid than she imagined. Like no man she’d ever touched.

She slid her arms around him, and he made an approving sound against her mouth. And when she slid her hands down to test his butt through the denim of his jeans, he surged against her thrillingly, once. Then he pulled back, the cool of the August evening replacing his warmth.

“Baby, we gotta get this off the streets. C’mon.” He tugged her back onto the sidewalk and wrapped one arm around her shoulders. “Lead the way.”

Chapter 2

Craig had died and gone to heaven. That could be the only explanation. Nita Reynolds — the woman who’d turned him down cold on two occasions — had called him out of the blue for a dinner date. Then she’d taken one look at him and decided to jump straight to dessert. It was too good to be true.

Not that he couldn’t walk into plenty of bars and walk right back out with an attractive woman on his arm. But not a woman like Nita. She wasn’t into cops, uniformed or otherwise. Hell, if there was such a thing as an
anti
badge bunny, she was it. Nor would he have said she was into casual sex. She was way too discriminating. Way too self-contained.

So why him? And why now?

On his way to the restaurant, he’d begun to think she was planning to play him. He didn’t know how or why, but concluded that had to be it. She knew she turned his crank. She’d buy him dinner, flirt with him, maybe kiss him goodnight at the end of the evening and dangle the possibility of another date, all in aid of softening him up for some unknown purpose that would reveal itself in the fullness of time. But one look at her tonight, and those thoughts flew out the window.

That she was a natural actor, he had no doubt. She was a trial lawyer, after all. But she was no Meryl Streep. She flat out wanted him as much as he wanted her.

And he intended they both get what they wanted.

“This one.”

She directed him to the five-story brownstone he already recognized as hers, though she’d probably be freaked if she knew. Then he’d have to explain that he’d been on his way into Soloman’s one night just as she was leaving. She’d hurried off without seeing him, but as he watched, a man fell in step behind her. Unable to just shrug and go on in to enjoy the rare steak he’d earned after pulling a double shift, he wound up following the follower. As it turned out, she wasn’t being stalked. The man veered off, dashed up a walkway and entered a building. Craig had stopped tailing her, but he was still watching when she turned up her own walkway and entered the brownstone. In fact, he was still watching when he saw lights came on way up on the fifth floor. He’d be very surprised if the unit on the front left side wasn’t hers.

They climbed the steps together. Her hand trembled, he saw, as she entered the code to unlock the door. Moving close behind her, he slid an arm around her waist and pulled her luscious derriere into contact with his stiffening erection. She went limp, leaning back against him. Grinning, he closed his hand over hers, turned the knob and pushed the door open.

They all but fell inside.

“The elevator,” she said, pulling him to the other side of the small, empty foyer. The speed with which she moved was gratifying.

“No doorman?”

“No.”

They stepped into the elevator, which looked altogether too modern for the old building. “Fast elevator?”

“Very,” she said, hitting the button for the fifth floor.

“Too bad.” He crowded her up against a mirrored wall of the elevator, skimming the sides of her breasts with his hands. “These mirrors are great.” He nipped at her mouth. “I’d love to lift that sexy dress and go down on you right here while you watched us.”

She made a mewling noise against his lips, which made him smile. Then the elevator lurched to a stop. He lifted his head. They appeared to be between the fourth and fifth floors. “
You
did that?”

She smiled the most carnal smile he’d ever seen. “Whoops.”

Hot damn
. He’d intended that comment to heighten her excitement, never dreaming she’d call him on it. His own smile broadened. “No security camera?” he asked, looking over his shoulder.

“Just in the foyer.”

“No alarm downstairs when the elevator stops?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Better not waste time, then, huh?”

She touched her tongue to her upper lip. “Better not.”

He slid to his knees before her. She leaned back against the wall, bracing her backside on a wide wooden rail that he hoped was as functional as it was decorative. He skimmed his hands up her bare legs and under her skirt until he hooked her thong panties and drew them down. She lifted one booted foot obligingly and then the other. Sliding the scrap of black lace into his pocket, he pushed her dress up and urged her thighs apart.

And caught his breath.

God, she was lovely. And her scent…. He wished he could take all day. Some things just shouldn’t be rushed, and this most intimate of acts was one of them. But they’d stalled the elevator, so time was of the essence. It was a trade-off he could live with.

“Craig?”

Ah, there it was, his name on her lips at last. He’d thought she was still going to be calling him ‘Detective’ when he was inside her.

“Hold this,” he ordered, pushing the bunched up skirt against her belly. When she complied, he urged her legs further apart and used his hands to part the already swollen lips of her sex. “Beautiful.”

She shuddered at the mere tickle of his breath, making him smile again.

He leaned in and stroked her with the flat of his tongue, and she shuddered again. “Are you watching us?”

“God, yes!”

Then there were no more words — he because his mouth was otherwise occupied, and she because she seemed to have lost the power of intelligible speech. When he felt her reaching for release minutes later, he added his fingers to the mix, breaching her slick channel. She came almost immediately. A strangled sob escaped her even as her inner muscles contracted powerfully around his fingers.

When she stopped shaking, he climbed to his feet. “I really like your elevator.”

She laughed, brushing her dark hair back from her face. “Riding it will never be the same.”

“Good.” He pulled her too him and kissed her once, hard, then put her away. Any more contact than that, and this elevator would be stalled a helluva lot longer. “Let me see if I can get this contraption going again.”

* * *

Nita collected herself while he restarted the elevator. No small feat, standing pantiless in her elevator with the combined tastes of Craig Walker and her own fulfillment on her lips. Dear Lord, that was the wildest thing she’d ever done, and definitely the hottest! Why hadn’t she gotten him in bed six months ago?

Because you thought you had a career to protect. Men inevitably boasted of their conquests, and being a criminal defense lawyer, she’d be massively boast-worthy around the stationhouse. And if that happened, she’d lose face with these guys. And gals. Female cops would be even more brutal in their judgment.

And yes, maybe because she also had a heart to protect. She’d never met a man who could see into her like this one could. All he had to do was lock those eyes on her, and she felt like her deepest secrets were right there to be exposed.

And he was a big man in more ways than one. When he lost a round in court, which wasn’t often, he could let it go, unlike most of Fredericton’s finest. Instead of shooting her lethal looks, he’d just shrug, confident that if her client really was a bad guy, he’d have another chance to put him away.

No, he was altogether too attractive a package. But at the same time, he scared the hell out of her. He could swallow her up, if she gave him a chance. And no doubt he’d spit her back out when he was finished with her.

Of course, that was back when she thought she had a future to worry about.

She caught herself before she could slide further into self-pity. There’d be none of that tonight. Tonight was about seizing the moment and living it to the fullest. It was about completely filling her senses.

“Got it,” he announced.

The elevator lurched back into motion for a few seconds before stopping at the 5th floor. To Nita’s relief, the doors opened to an empty hallway, sparing them from facing Mr. Barnett with the unmistakable smell of sex wafting off them.

She dug out her key and led the way to her apartment. Again, she felt him close behind her as slotted her key in the door, but this time she managed to get it open under her own steam. He closed the door behind them and when she turned, he took her into his arms.

“Damn, I’m so ready for you,” he murmured against her ear.

Just like that, she was ready again, too. Her brain was full of signals transmitted by her breasts, by her belly, her skin. Every bit of her that came into contact with him screamed for more contact. For skin to skin contact. She pushed her hands beneath his jacket. “Get this off!”

He shrugged out of it. She heard it hit the floor and his arms came back around her.

“Better?”

“Much.” She slid her hands under his sweater, pushing it up. “But it would be better yet if you got this off, too.”

He stepped back and pulled the sweater over his head, tossing it to the floor.

Nita’s mouth went dry. She was no stranger to nicely toned chests, but they usually belonged to spare, compact men. The kind of safe men she dated. Aesthetes. Intellectuals. But Craig Walker’s chest…. She’d had a good idea he’d be heavily muscled; even the most civilized suit couldn’t hide that. But, oh God, he was so much more. And not gym-honed show muscles. These muscles meant business.

“You like?”

Maybe she should have been embarrassed to be caught feasting on him so openly, but after what just transpired in her elevator, and considering what was yet to come, maidenly vapors seemed pointless. “You’re not what I’m used to.”

“Too much brawn?”

“Too much everything.” She placed a hand in the center of his chest, where she felt his heart pounding as strongly as her own. “And the way I feel tonight, that might be just enough.”