Protect and Serve (16 page)

He leaned her against the wall halfway down the long hallway. Or did it just seem long because she could no longer wait to feel him?

“We can clean up the kitchen together afterward, and I can let you know all about what I found out about Clyde Markum while we clean. Two birds with one stone, and everyone will be satisfied.”

Satisfied. Yes
.

She tugged at his shirt and lifted it up. It had to go. It was interrupting her view. He lifted his arms and helped her remove the offending object, and she smiled. Her hands lightly brushed over the many hills and ripples, and as she traced his masculine outline, she felt as if she could go on touching him forever.

And she could have, too, if only Jason wasn’t ready to do a little stroking of his own. He knelt down and lifted the hem of her dress. His movements were so slow and so focused, she could feel her legs start to shake just from the anticipation of his touch, just from the hint of his breath on her skin. Once he had her dress up to her waist, she instinctively spread her legs and was rewarded with the press of his tongue licking its way up her thigh. When he reached her thong, he seemed content to trail over the material with his caresses for a moment.

The feel of his lips and tongue almost on her sex caused more dampness than she’d ever thought possible. And when he finally got tired of the barrier and ripped it away, Penny could only rejoice, no matter how much the lace thong had cost. It was getting in the way. It had to go.

“I promise, one day we are going to make it to the bedroom,” Jason said as he stood, removed his pants and sheathed himself for their protection. “But not right now.”

He lifted her up against the wall and entered her as his mouth claimed hers again. She arched her back and tilted her hips to give him greater access. Each stroke of his sex in hers, along with his tongue in her mouth, felt like a mark of ownership, a move in reclamation. She could hardly wrap her mind around what it meant to be making love to her first love against the wall, not when her heart felt as if it were about to explode.

The only thing she could do was open herself. Open to the sensations. Open to the building explosions bubbling under every single one of her cells. And open to the love…

She pulled her mouth away from his probing tongue, turned her head and panted. The palpitations in her chest made it almost impossible to breathe. And the steady, strong, steadfast piston movement of his hips didn’t bring any calm. If anything, it stirred the storm inside her to a pitch so high she couldn’t imagine bringing it back down. She just rolled her hips and let her pelvis connect with his and gripped his firm, muscular behind with her feet, which were still clad in her strappy sandals.

“Give me those lips back, Penny.” Jason licked from the V of her cleavage to her chin and continued to move his hips in and out, faster and deeper.

There was nothing she could do to stop the release of the slowly building tension traveling from her stomach to her heated sex. The explosion splashed forth and continued all the way down to her toes. She still couldn’t turn her head as she tightened around him. But she could shake her head, even as her hands gripped his shoulders the way her sex gripped his shaft.

Once her body settled from the most intense orgasm she had ever experienced, she decided to take a chance that her voice might actually work. But when she turned her head and looked at Jason, the thudding in her heart picked up double time.

No…You cannot fall in love with him
, she pleaded with herself.

Silly girl, you never fell out of love with him
, she mentally chided herself in response.

“Open your mouth, baby. Let me taste that luscious mouth of yours.” He had the most seductive look in his eyes, and he seemed so content to just stand there stroking away and bringing her to mind-shattering orgasm after mind-shattering orgasm.

“I could do this all night. I need those lips to finish me off, baby. Give me a kiss. Come on, open for me, baby.”

She closed her eyes and tried to block out the feelings stirring in her heart as she pressed her mouth against his. She felt him smile against her lips as he began to mimic stroke for stroke between his mouth and his hips. The kiss became more intense as his hips moved from side to side in all kinds of angles. Her bottom bounced up and down and round and round on his firm thighs.

It felt like the wildest ride she had ever been on, and just like on a roller coaster, she began to get that tingling feeling in her stomach on each trip down. Except this feeling wasn’t content to just hang out in her belly. It wanted to put each and every nerve ending in her body on alert, and she let it. Soon she was screaming out his name around his tongue in a muffled and mumbled voice.

She felt him smile again, and heard him groan as he moved in for the kill and sent her bouncing even higher and back down again on his slick, soulful shaft. She grabbed the back of his head and clutched him as her sex wrapped itself around him as if it never wanted to let go. He let out a long and low moan and leaned into her, pressing her against the wall with his hands, firmly holding on to her behind.

“Penny…Penny…Penny…”

Her name sounded like a prayer coming from his lips.

She didn’t know when she had ever heard such reverence. But she did know her heart hadn’t calmed down one bit. If anything, the aftermath of his lovemaking, and him saying her name that way, sent her heart into overdrive.

How was she going to deal with what would surely only end in heartbreak?

Jason let Penny down from the wall and stepped back. His entire body felt invigorated, and he had a sense of purpose unlike anything he’d felt in years. It all should have been perfect. But as he looked at Penny and realized that he still had feelings for her—feelings deeper than anything he’d felt for her as a teenager, even—he didn’t feel the happiness that should have accompanied those feelings.

He’d just made love again to the woman he now knew without a doubt was the love of his life, and he didn’t feel an ounce of joy.

He didn’t have any regrets, but he wasn’t happy.

She pulled her dress down, and without even looking at him, she headed toward the kitchen. That action alone let Jason know she wasn’t going to willingly do what she needed to do in order to bring him to a place where he could possibly be happy about their union.

After he got rid of the protection, he found her in the kitchen, talking on her cell phone.

“Call me when you get this message, Carla, please. I don’t want to spend the night worried about you. Bye.” She hung up the phone, he assumed after turning the ringer back on.

He could tell she was very concerned about her mother, despite the argument they’d had earlier in the day. And he wished he had better news to give her. But after checking in with C-Money’s parole officer and doing some more digging on the cold case that had reopened the moment the DNA evidence cleared Gerald, Jason was more and more certain they were dealing with a clever and crafty sociopath. He wished Carla would file a complaint, but even then they’d have to find the man to make sure everyone was safe.

“Is she not picking up the phone?”

Penny gazed up, and once again he found himself almost lost in the copper pools of her eyes. He almost forgot that he was determined to find out once and for all if she had lied to him fifteen years ago. Everything in his cop’s instincts said yes, she had.

But what if she hadn’t? Would he be able to be with her and trust her again, knowing she’d cheated on him with their best friend? He didn’t know if he really could.

“She’s not answering. If she doesn’t call back—”

Her phone stared playing Tupac’s “Dear Mama,” and he had to laugh. She clearly had different ring tones for different people, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out it was Carla on the other end.

“Where are you? I called Big Mama’s line and then I called your cell and I got no answer. You know you need to be in the house until the police find that fool who hurt you. And even then, you need to come clean about who really did it. But that’s—”

She stopped talking for a moment, and her eyes narrowed before she rolled them. “I know you’re not a child, Carla. I was worried—” She took a deep breath and sighed. “Well, is Gerald still there with you?”

She looked at him, and he could only feel sorry for her. Between Big Mama’s death and Carla’s attack, she had a lot going on. And Carla being Carla didn’t make things any easier. He wished he could back off and not press Penny for the answers he needed.

But he needed them, and he intended to get them. Tonight.

“Fine, Carla. Just stay in the house, please. And think about—” Her left eye slanted, and she hissed before hanging up the phone. “She hung up on me. No, she
didn’t
just hang up on me!”

“She’ll probably call back. Come here. We can leave these for tomorrow. Let’s go to bed.”

“Ewwww. Now I
know
Mrs. Hightower didn’t raise you to leave a dirty kitchen. You relax. I’ll clean up the kitchen. It’ll take my mind off Carla, or at least it’ll let me think about what I’m going to do. I can’t leave her here, with C-Money on the loose. Crazy as she is, she’s the only mother I have. I’m going to have to take her to Los Angeles with me.” Her shoulders relaxed.

Jason arched his right eye in surprise.

Penny actually appeared to lighten with her statement. It seemed as if at least one weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

“I’ll tell you what. We can clean up the kitchen together, and I’ll tell you what I found out about C-Money today.”

“Okay. I’ll wash. You dry.”

He nodded, and they started working side by side. The way it was supposed to be, as far as he was concerned.

“Have I told you what my specialty is in the department?” Jason asked. He realized he hadn’t really shared a whole lot with Penny about his job, except for the fact he was a cop.

“I know you normally work on cold cases. So, I’m happy you’re taking the time to look into what happened to Carla.”

Jason wondered where she had heard about him, but decided to put that aside for now. “Yes, I normally work cold cases. Anyway, your father’s case opened up one pretty huge murder case, and I was already looking into it when I found out who your dad was. From what I can tell, there may be a link between the double murder he was falsely convicted of and Carla’s attack. The link is C-Money. If it all pans out, then we won’t need Carla to testify. There’s no statute of limitations on murder. But we need to find C-Money. He’s been a ghost. He does have DNA on file, since he was recently in the system, and I have ordered forensic tests that should be back in a week or so. The same DNA evidence that cleared your father should help us put the real killer behind bars, if my hunches are right.”

“That’s good news. Isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is, if I’m right and he’s the murderer. Then all we have to do is bring him in. But first we have to find him. His parole officer hasn’t seen him since his release. He’s been keeping a pretty low profile on the streets, too. I think the fact your father was released around the same time as him has him a little shook. That little bit of time he did for drug dealing won’t have anything on what he’ll do for a double murder.”

Penny shivered. “Carla sure knows how to pick them. Goodness gracious, I don’t know how Big Mama did it.” She dried her hands on the dish towel and smiled. “See, now we can sleep well, knowing the kitchen is clean.”

Jason smiled. He noticed that Penny seemed to be holding her breath.

She placed her hand on her chest and patted it.

He walked over to her and held out his hand. He hoped she was ready to finally come clean, because his good-cop gloves were about to come off.

W
hile Jason showered, Penny went out into the living room to call Terrill. She said she needed to wrap up some business calls, but what she really needed was a friendly sounding board.

Everything was happening so fast, and she needed some clarity. If she could talk things out with the one person in the world who knew her secret, the one person she trusted more than anyone besides Big Mama and—oddly enough—Jason, she felt like she might be able to gain the courage she was going to need.

Unfortunately, Terrill wasn’t answering his cell, and the three-hour time difference meant she probably wouldn’t be able to speak with him this evening. She left her ringer on, hoping that he’d call back before Jason was done in the shower. Unfortunately, he didn’t, so she left her phone in the living room and took her own shower.

After showering, Penny felt as if she’d cleared her head. Jason had gone above and beyond what he said he’d do, and not only had he found out who might have hurt her mother, he might have found the man responsible for her growing up without a father.

The way he looked at her made her think he wanted something big in return. How could she possibly deny him the truth, after all he had done for her and her family?

Entering his bedroom in the nude, she couldn’t help but remember the first time she’d taken her clothes off for him. She’d been so nervous about her first time, and he’d made everything special for her. She couldn’t think of anyone she would rather have shared the first time with. And she couldn’t think of anyone she wanted to be with more right now. If she could just have one more special night with him, she wouldn’t be greedy. She knew it wasn’t going to work out for them, but she wanted to take something back to Los Angeles with her.

Like the rest of his home, Jason’s bedroom showcased style and comfort. The California king-sized bed was made of the most gorgeous wood platform, with a mix of mahogany, redwood and pine crafted together splendidly in the headboard. The bed, like the man, personified strength, character and beauty. The rest of the furnishings played off the woods represented in the bed. The bedding offered a masculine pattern of bold stripes that seemed to echo the rich browns of the woods.

Jason was sitting on the bed, with his back up against the pillows and the headboard. He wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing, and he looked delectable. She ran her tongue over her lips and took him in. So many scandalous thoughts came into her mind as she took in his perfect form.

His calves and thighs offered just the right amount of bulk and strength. She got goose bumps just thinking about the way they’d just held her up against the wall and taken her on the ride of her life. As her eyes traveled up his chest and the length of the pipes of steel that made up his arms, she realized she wanted to ride again.

“Are you just going to stand in the doorway, or are you going to come in here and let me make love to you in this bed?”

“Oh, I’m going to come over there, all right.” She took slow steps and climbed onto the huge bed. She started from the foot of the bed and did a seductive crawl, wiggling her behind the entire time, until she was right smack dab between his legs.

“But I don’t know about letting you make love to me.” She took him in her mouth and tasted him. She wanted to remember each lick, each suck, each pull. She wanted to remember the salty masculine flavor for the rest of her life. So she twirled her tongue and savored him.

“Unhhhh…Penny…girl…if you don’t want me to make love to you, you better stop what you’re doing.”

Penny lifted her eyes and saw that Jason’s head had fallen back against the headboard as his hips slowly started to move up and down on the mattress. He caressed her face with his hand.

“Penny, let me make love to you, baby, please.”

Penny lifted her head. “Nope. You can’t do that tonight. Because it’s my turn to make love to you.” She crawled forward and straddled him, bringing his head to her own for a kiss.

She kissed him hard before reaching for the protection. She stopped the kiss just long enough to cover him and then lower herself onto his shaft. He felt glorious, and she found it impossible not to cry out as he entered her.

“Oh, baby. Oh, Penny. That feels so good.” He took her nipple in his mouth and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her so close she could barely distinguish where he stopped and she started.

He alternated between her nipples and thrust his hips up to meet her downward strokes. The combination created a quick and almost debilitating climax that made her almost topple off her riding position on his lap. Luckily, he held her tight.

He lifted his head and smiled his disarming smile, and she felt her sex tighten around him again.

Did he just make me come by smiling at me? Surely not…

But she screamed out in release nonetheless, and covered his mouth with hers.

She let her tongue make love to his mouth and opened her own mouth to his probing. She bounced and rotated her hips until she thought she might pass out.

When Jason grabbed her and held her close to him, stilling her hips as he moved his like a hard-striking piston, in and out, harder and faster, she knew he was about to explode again. He called out her name, and his head fell back against the headboard. She kissed his face and trailed more kisses down his chest. Her body was shuddering, and her legs were shaking.

She rolled off him and stared at the ceiling in a daze. She felt the bed shift and figured that he must have gotten up to get rid of the protection, but she couldn’t spare the strength to look and see for sure. When the bed shifted again and he pulled her into his arms, she felt those chills that came with the feelings of love and desire mixed to a fever pitch.

His hand trailed down her arm and her back, and she savored the strength he exuded. How had she managed to let this man go all those years ago? And how would she manage to do it again now? Because it was only a matter of time before everything hit the fan.

Knowing Jason the way she did, she figured his “good cop” routine would be up soon, and he would be back to his tell-me-the-truth and give-me-answers self any moment now. She just hoped she got to spend one more night with him holding her tight before it came to that.

“Penny?”

“Hmm?”

“I know we agreed to a truce until we figured out what happened to Carla, and I know Markum hasn’t been arrested yet. But I feel like things are moving really fast between us. And I think we need to talk about the past and get it out in the open, so we aren’t taking it with us into the new area we are headed to.”

Penny sighed. “Do we have to do it now?”
Can’t we do it later? One more night, that’s all I ask. Please…

“Baby, can you turn around and look at me? Please?”

Against her better judgment, she turned and looked at him. His eyes held a sincerity that took her breath away. She placed her head on his chest.

He lifted her chin and stared at her. “Did you love me fifteen years ago? Were you as madly in love with me as I was with you? Was that real, Penny?”

She couldn’t look at him and lie. “Yes.”

“Do you still love me?”

Oh. God. Yes
.

How could he ask her that? How could he expect her to put her bare soul on the line like that? She took a deep breath and tried to turn away, but he held her chin and kept her facing him.

“Yes.” Her voice sounded breathless in her ears.

He exhaled. His eyes closed for a few seconds, and then he opened them. She saw so many raw emotions on his face that she didn’t dare try to name. She couldn’t allow herself to dream big. She couldn’t acknowledge she saw his heart in his eyes, love all over his face. She knew he was holding back, protecting himself. And she couldn’t blame him.

“You wanna know what I think happened, Penny?”

Did she want to know? Would it change anything?

“I think you lied to me fifteen years ago. I don’t think you cheated on me with Terrill. I don’t think you were pregnant with his child. I think
our
child died fifteen years ago. And for some crazy reason, you felt the need to hurt me because of it. What I don’t know is why. Was it because I was working too much?

“I know after we found out you were pregnant, I started working extra hours and took on a second night shift job to save for when we went off to college. But you were working long hours, too, even though I told you I would take care of things and you didn’t have to. Was it the jobs, and the fact that I wasn’t there when you lost the baby? What was it? What did I do to make you want to hurt me and lie to me like that?”

Penny took a deep breath. This was so wrong. He couldn’t possibly blame himself. It wasn’t his fault. It was all her fault.

She closed her eyes.

“Talk to me, baby. I want to know. I need to understand. I know you loved me. You just admitted that. And if you loved me, there was no way you could have slept with Terrill.”

“I did—” She stalled and swallowed.

This was the hardest thing she’d had to do since she told the big lie fifteen years ago.

“I did you wrong, Jason. And I don’t deserve your forgiveness. You shouldn’t feel any guilt or blame for anything that happened back then. It was all my fault. I was a horrible person. I’m still a horrible person. There’s no going back from what I did to you…from what I did to your friendship with Terrill. He was your best friend, too, and I was wrong.” Her words came out in a rush, and her eyes filled with tears. She looked at Jason and saw his face fill with horror as she spoke.

He pushed away from her and got up from the bed.

“You…I don’t…Damn…Penny…”

He backed away, and the expression on his face broke her heart. He looked as if someone had stolen his puppy and kicked him.

She had no idea why he was backing away from her as if she had the plague. But she figured it was only right. Maybe he finally saw what she’d known all along. She was no good for him, and she would only ruin his life. That was what his aunt Sophie had said when Penny lost their child. And if she finished telling him how awful she’d been back then, he’d probably take off running. But she needed to tell him the entire truth. She owed him that much.

“Jason, let me explain. Let me tell you why—”

“I don’t want to hear why, Penny! That you could do something like that and claim you loved me…I can’t even look at you right now!” Jason stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

The floodgates opened, and tears poured from her eyes. Her heart felt a hundred times worse than it had when she let him go the first time. Crying hadn’t made her feel any better then, and it probably wouldn’t help now. But that didn’t stop the waterworks.

Jason went into the living room and sat on the sofa.

How could he have been so wrong about Penny? He’d have bet his life that she hadn’t slept with Terrill. In fact, he’d spent a good part of his life post-Penny believing that if he ever got her face-to-face and looked her in the eye, she wouldn’t be able to lie to him about what had happened. He had felt so close to her when she admitted she loved him. She still loved him. And then she’d looked him in the eyes and said she did it.

She did it
.

Talk about a blow…

He ran his hand over his head and closed his eyes. He’d been kidding himself when he said he’d be able to forgive Penny for sleeping with Terrill. That would take more work than he was capable of.

How could he do it? Then he thought about how right she felt in his arms, how his love for her had never really gone away. And he thought, how could he not?

The sound of Run DMC’s “Together Forever” jolted him and he saw that Penny’s cell phone was sitting on the coffee table, ringing. He picked it up, curious to see who had that ring tone, and saw Terrill’s name on the caller ID. Even though he knew it was an invasion of privacy, he answered her phone.

“Hello, Terrill.”

“Hey…Jason…What’s up, man? Er…is Penny there? She called me a little while ago, and I’m returning her call.”

“She’s here. She’s not available at the moment. But I wanted to talk to you for a moment, if you don’t mind?”

“Sure. I guess. What’s up, man?” Terrill’s voice sounded hesitant, but there was no way he was going to let the man off the phone.

“I just got Penny to look me in the eye and tell me the truth about what happened all those years ago.”

Terrill’s sigh of relief was audible. “She did? Finally! That’s good, man. I hated lying to you back then. But she was so distraught after the miscarriage. And she seemed to get it in her head that it was her fault and she didn’t deserve you and she would only ruin your life. It was crazy, man. I was so afraid for her. Man, I never saw her cry like that. I kept hoping you would show up soon. And when you did and she dropped that big lie and told you to leave…I was so torn. I would have come clean. But you took it so hard you became unreachable. I mean…you said some pretty harsh things to us…Some stuff you just can’t come back from…”

There was a pause, and it gave Jason a moment to remember how harsh he’d been to Terrill and Penny back then. No one could have told him he’d ever have said some of those things to the two people who had been the closest to him. But then, no one could have told him he would have been so hurt by his two best friends.

“But I understood, Jason. The way you loved Penny. I know how you must have felt, and I know that’s why you said that stuff. So I backed off. But it killed me to lie to you. And for the record, Penny never really got over it. She must have cried for the first two years she was in Los Angeles. It wasn’t pretty, man. She never really got over you….” Terrill spoke at such a breakneck speed, it left Jason stunned.

“Whew! I’m glad you finally know the truth. I hope it’s not too late for you two, even if it might be too late for us to ever be friends again.” There was a hopefulness in Terrill’s voice that gave Jason pause.

Jason’s head felt as if it were about to explode. The information was coming at him too fast, and there was too much conflicting information for him to process, at least if he wanted sane and reasonable answers.