Officer in Pursuit (18 page)

Kerry shook her head. “See? I never
wanted to drag you into my mess, to risk you getting hurt. What I
did last night was impulsive and reckless. Selfish. I’m sorry, and
I wish I never did it.”

For a long time, Grey didn’t say
anything. It occurred to Kerry that she might’ve hurt him. That
hadn’t been her intention, but putting a little dent in his
feelings was nothing compared to putting him in Brad’s line of
fire.

Grey had no idea what a
raging, asshole nut job Brad was. There was no way he
could
know.

Kerry knew things about Brad – about
what it was like to be trapped in that kind of relationship – that
only those who’d lived it could. She wished she could wipe those
things from her memory, reboot her mind, but she
couldn’t.

Brad had changed her, and she didn’t
want him to change Grey.

“Do you wish we hadn’t done what we
did because it made you unhappy,” Grey eventually asked, “or
because you think you need to protect me from your
ex-husband?”

Her heart skipped a beat. “What we did
made me happy. And it was so good to be happy, even if it was just
for one night. It’s not that I didn’t like it, it’s that I’m afraid
of what us spending more time like that together might lead to.
Yes, I want to protect you. If you knew him like I do, you’d
understand.”

Another thought that’d been haunting
her all day struck her again now. “If he’s been snooping around my
house and spying on me, he might have already seen us together. And
if he did, believe me, he’s mad about it.”

Maybe that was why Grey could see
Elizabeth, all of a sudden – maybe Brad had seen her and Grey
together. Maybe that was why he’d slashed her tires. Kerry didn’t
dare mention the ghost to Grey; she knew he didn’t believe in stuff
like that. But she did, and her fear was legitimate,
regardless.

Grey still didn’t seem worried, and
Kerry began to feel hopeless. “Please listen to what I’m saying,
Grey. When I say I’m scared of him, I mean I’m scared for my life.
And I’m scared for yours too.”

Grey leaned back in his chair, rubbed
his temples with the tips of his fingers. “Obviously, you’ve
forgotten all that stuff I told you about me being a
badass.”

His mouth curled at one corner, and
Kerry breathed an exasperated sigh. She loved Grey’s easygoing
nature – the polar opposite of Brad’s – and sense of humor. But
this was no time for jokes.

“Come on, Kerry.” He leaned forward
and seemed to sober up. Before she knew it, he was holding her
hand. “Don’t try to push me away out of fear. You’ve been dealing
with this alone for so long – let me go through it with you. Let me
keep you safe.”

Her heart melted. There was no other
way to describe it. She wanted so badly to accept his offer, to
curl up in his strong arms. But the past summer had overdosed her
with reality, jaded her.

“I know you’re tough,” she said. “And
I know you’re the kind of person who’d save someone else from their
demons, just because. But look what happened this summer – look how
our friends barely made it out alive, all because some freak got
them in his crosshairs.

“Brad is a lot like the Levinson
brothers were: always angry about something and willing to do
anything to get revenge. His temper is on a hair trigger, and when
he gets mad, there’s no stopping him. There’s nothing he won’t do
if he feels he’s been wronged or slighted.

“In a way, he’s even worse than the
Levinson brothers were, because most people think he’s a normal
person. He’s charming when he wants to be, but it’s just a veneer.
He’s the worst person I’ve ever known.”

Grey placed a second hand on top of
the one he’d already taken one of Kerry’s in. “Kerry, listen to me:
I believe you. And I’m not backing off. I don’t care what the risks
are – they just make me want to stick even closer by your side. I
made up my mind about wanting you a long time ago, and I’m stubborn
– nothing’s going to change that.”

A thousand thoughts swirled through
her mind, many of them horrified, a few of them inappropriately
happy. What he was saying was so kind, so selfless – so utterly
loveable. But she knew the stakes better than he did, whatever he
said. And she realized now that she’d drawn him irrevocably into
her mess.

She felt bad. And good, at the same
time, even though she knew she had no right to. She’d taken the
best person she knew and placed him in the path of danger, all so
that she could indulge the selfish longing she’d felt for him for
so long.

And he wasn’t even mad at her for it.
The realization had her close to tears.

At that moment, she could hardly
believe how much he cared about her, what he was willing to risk.
But she didn’t want to surrender to doubt, didn’t want to examine
it too closely. Not right now.

All she wanted was to be close to him,
to recreate the high of the connection they’d had the night
before.

He wanted it too – they’d stopped at
the drug store on the way home from the wedding to buy a box of
condoms. They were sitting on the table in a little bag now,
tempting her, tempting both of them.

She knew he wanted her again,
physically. As if the night before hadn’t been proof enough, he’d
told her a dozen times throughout the day, whispering in her ear at
the reception, making her blush as their friends and dozens of
strangers stood nearby.

And her worries, as vast and consuming
as they were, weren’t enough to keep her physical desire at bay.
Everything inside her felt hot and tight, coiled and ready for
release. Remembering how good it had felt to forget about
everything with him the night before, she raised her head and
kissed him.

If he was going to insist on
endangering himself, she might as well try to make it worth
it.

CHAPTER 14

Grey’s response was immediate and
electric. He made a gift of his hot lips and delving tongue,
opening Kerry up and teasing her until her panties were damp. They
hadn’t moved from their seats at the kitchen table, but she was so
turned-on it was agony to sit still.

Shifting in her seat, she reached for
the box of condoms.

His hand was already there.

Their kiss disintegrated into tangling
fingers and limbs, hard breathing that had them moving toward
Grey’s bedroom.

Kerry had never been there before, but
he showed her the way, guiding her by the hand.

It was a typical-looking room with
white walls, a dresser and a bed that would’ve been too small for
the two of them, if they’d been any less close. As it was, they
were tangled too closely for the limited mattress space to
matter.

Their clothes came off more quickly
than they had the first time. There were a couple awkward moments
when her bra straps got caught on limbs, but Kerry couldn’t have
cared less, and she knew Grey felt the same way. In that moment,
she felt every ounce of the burning, overwhelming desire they’d had
to curb the night before.

Thank God they had the condoms now –
as fantastic as his mouth had felt on her body, she ached to
actually have him inside her.

By the time they were both naked, the
comforter was askew and the sheets were crumpled. A pillow had gone
overboard too, but Kerry hardly noticed these details, because she
couldn’t look away from Grey.

She’d known for ages that he had a
great body. You couldn’t so much as glance at him sideways without
noticing. His frame was tall and broad and every muscle had been
deliberately shaped. She’d been to the beach with him half a dozen
times over the past few months and had admired him every time from
behind the safety of her dark sunglass lenses.

But now she could see all of him –
every inch – including where his hips and thighs faded to a faint
shade of fawn, shielded from the light by his swim shorts, unlike
the rest of his suntanned skin. He was hard, and although she’d
seen him – touched him – the night before, the sight of his cock
still made her heart speed.

He was thick – really thick. That was
the first thing she’d noticed, before she’d even seen him naked,
when she’d pressed her hand against his jeans. Trying to imagine
how all that hardness would feel inside her made her pussy clench
up tight, already wet. The exhilaration, the longing, was a thrill
in and of itself.

She’d never ached to be with anyone
like this. She’d rarely ached to be with anyone at all.

Feeling this way about Grey
– wanting him so bad – was like stepping out of her own skin and
being someone else. The kind of person she’d secretly longed to be,
the kind she’d thought she never
could
be.

Now, she saw that she’d
been wrong, that her perceptions had been warped by fear and past
disappointments. She
could
have this kind of magic with someone, the kind
that turned desire into something so pure and palpable that it was
like the rest of the world didn’t even exist.

Right now, it was just her and Grey,
and she wanted it to stay that way, despite everything. Her chest
felt too tight, her heart too big. It almost seemed too good to be
true.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulled
her against his naked body. His lips skimmed her neck and his
erection pressed against her belly, making butterflies spring up
inside as another wave of agonizing longing hit her.

She vividly remembered the way
friction had warmed her palms when she’d wrapped her hands around
all that heat and thickness, and the way he looked when he came.
Seeing him with his head tipped back and his eyes squeezed shut,
hearing him moan as his come rushed hot over her fingers – it’d all
given her a thrill like she’d never felt before.

A sense of power. A sense of choice.
She wouldn’t have been able to explain it to anyone else, and she
hoped Grey had no idea that everything she did with him seemed like
a first.

She was no virgin, but she’d never
been able to enjoy sex like this before, had never been able to
revel in the details of giving and receiving pleasure without the
whole thing being overshadowed by some degree of fear or
shame.

It was liberating. It was like
stepping into the light after years spent in darkness.

All that, and so far, they’d only
fooled around on the couch. If one could call the mind-blowing
things Grey did with his mouth ‘fooling around’, that
was.

She knew that what they were about to
do would be even better, knew without having to even think that it
would be the best sex she’d ever had. And she couldn’t
wait.

When she whispered that into his ear,
he groaned and tensed against her, his hands skimming down her back
and settling on her hips.

He pulled her against him like that,
so that her hips were pressed to his and his fat shaft pressed
against her bare pussy, causing little stars to dance before her
eyes as her clit bore the brunt of the pressure. Rocking against
her for a few moments, he had her halfway to a climax, and then he
stopped, grabbing the condom box and tearing it savagely
open.

The sight of him tearing open a square
and rolling a condom over his dick, fingers gliding quickly against
the thin sleeve as it stretched over his stiff flesh, was
mesmerizing. He moved like he could hardly wait, could hardly stand
it.

When he was sheathed he pressed his
mouth hard over hers and eased her down that way, pressing her
against the mattress and the one remaining pillow. As he slipped
his tongue far past her lips and teeth he squeezed her breasts,
played with her nipples. Then he settled between her thighs and let
her bear just enough of his weight that she felt consumed, unable
to focus on anything but how achy her pussy was and how incredibly
close he was to being inside it.

When she felt the head of his cock
pressing against her clit she arched and gasped, ruining their
kiss.

He raised his head but kept his dick
where it was – she could see now that he had a hand on the shaft.
He used it to guide himself, not inside her but up a little, then
down, rubbing himself against her clit, taking her breath
away.

She couldn’t hold still. The delay was
unexpected, and while she wanted him inside her, she didn’t want
him to stop what he was doing, either. The friction generated by
the head of his cock against her clit was the ultimate tease, but
it’d also be enough to get her off if he kept going. She could
already feel pressure building low inside her, making her yearn for
it.

It was different than when he’d used
his mouth. The stroke of his tongue had felt good, and the way he’d
sucked… But this – the blunt force, the pressure and the maddening
fact that he was barely keeping from slipping inside her – was
something else entirely. Something that had her rocking her hips
too, without thinking.

He seemed to know when she was about
to come. He leaned down low, pressing his lips against her neck,
kissing and biting lightly as he kept massaging her with his dick.
The scrape and heat of his teeth and breath against her skin were
all she could take – she slipped over the edge, pulled under a
cresting wave of pleasure.