The Switch (11 page)

CHAPTER 12

Shelby

Make love to me.

SOMETHING HAS SHIFTED
between us. We’ve broken through this dance we’ve been playing, caught somewhere between cop and crook.

Chase shifts closer to me and brings his nose back to my jaw. Slowly, he guides it up my cheek and moves to the right. His lips hover over mine
, and while he’s quiet and slow, I’m not nearly patient enough. I close the distance between us and press my lips to his.

This time he doesn’t hesitate to react. Our lips slide effortlessly against one another’s, causing a burning friction between my thighs. I don’t let myself do that thing where I imagine what it would be like for us to be in another situation, in another time where I’m not the bad guy and I’m not injured. I stop myself from going to that place where Chase and I have adopted a rescue Yorkie
, and he parades me around town as his girlfriend, and I even show my face in the department—and it’s not on a whiteboard as “Suspect #3.” No, our situation is way too screwed up to go there, so I just enjoy what we have right now.

Chase pulls away, his breaths come in short pants
, and his attention is focused on my swollen, tingling lips.

“Make love to me,” I say
, because I’ve always wanted to say those words aloud but have never had anyone I wanted to say them to.

In my head, Chase tells me he wants to make love to me
, but he’s worried about hurting me. I did get stabbed just yesterday—at least I think it was yesterday. He’s also concerned about my other hip that I landed on.

But in the real world, he says nothing. He doesn’t do that thing where he asks if I’m sure and then practically begs me to say yes. He doesn’t
say all of those things romance novels have convinced me he should say. Instead, he very carefully lifts me from the sofa and carries me to the bed, placing me as close to the center as he can without jostling me too much.

I lean back into the pillow beneath my head and unclench my arms from the top of the thick wool blanket. I rub my thighs together slightly and find little discomfort in my good leg. The bandaged one is still sore and covered in that obnoxious, noisy plastic bag. But I don’t care about that. I’ll figure out a way to make this work
, and somehow I know Chase will be gentle with me. Even though he’s said nothing, his light touch and deep, thoughtful eyes tell me everything I need to know—he is good, he is strong, and he’s going to take care of me.

Very slowly, like he’s unwrapping a present during the holidays, Chase slides the blanket down my naked frame. I suck in a sharp breath as the wool scratches at my nipples, sending waves of excitement down my spine. As the blanket slowly disappears and I’m exposed to Chase, his appreciative gaze heats up. At my hips, he rips the blanket away entirely, apparently tired of his own game. He ghosts the tips of his fingers along my healthy leg and up to my hip
, then back down to my knee. I squirm under his touch.

Without preamble
, he takes his shirt off and then slides down his pajama bottoms, exposing himself to me. Chase Guilliot’s towering frame is proportional—all the way around. I wet my lips in anticipation. This movement doesn’t escape his attention, and he sits on the bed beside me.

He begins by tracing the contours of my breasts, the outline of my ribs made prominent by my arched back, and past my bellybutton. His hands manipulate my swollen flesh in ways that send me into such a frenzy of heat and lust and absolute need that I find myself panting, practically begging him to make love to me.

He keeps one finger manipulating me and leans forward, bringing our lips together in an open-mouthed kiss. Gooseflesh appears on my skin from my ankles to my neck, and when he slides his tongue along mine, a moan escapes me that sounds feral at the very least.

As we explore one another’s mouths, he slips his finger inside of me in small circles. A delicious, rhythmic pounding between my legs has me on the brink of destruction. I stop breathing entirely for a split second when he hooks his finger inside me, but then he retracts it quickly and he’s back to playing with my sensitive flesh. I was so very close to falling off the cliff
, but then he dragged me right back.

My breaths are ragged, my lungs sore from trying in desperation to keep them operational. It’s not easy. This man might kill me.

Slowly, he parts my legs and crawls between them. His face is level with my hipbones. It’s been well over twenty-four hours since he shaved, and though I didn’t pay any mind to it before, now his scratchy chin is at the forefront of my mind as he runs it along my upper thigh. He has my wounded left leg lying flat, splayed out, and my healthy leg bent and tilted away from my body at the knee.

I
angle my head down, watching in anticipation as his mouth hovers above my delicate flesh. Something feral flashes in his eyes, and for a moment I think he’s going to wreck me. Always surprising me, Chase brings his mouth to my damp center and places a delicate kiss. I’ve let my guard down, let the anticipation melt into something so sweet that I don’t even see his tongue dart out. His mouth consumes me as one of his arms shoots out, narrowly avoiding my injured thigh, and tugs and rolls my protruding nipple.

My back
arches, my hands dig into the bed beneath me, and I’m panting so hard I can feel my face turning purple from the lack of blood flow. And again, just as I reach the heights of ecstasy, he slowly retracts, stopping my orgasm once again. I want to be annoyed with him, but I haven’t the energy, nor do I have the brainpower to even figure out why I would be annoyed with him in the first place.

Chase crawls up my body and pays attention to the other nipple with both his hands and mouth before he reclaims my
lips with his. I can taste myself on him, and though I always thought this would be gross, it’s surprisingly erotic. My mind travels from the taste of my own pussy to his throbbing erection that’s resting on my hipbone. I let my hand travel down his arm and then his side, returning his earlier favor and sending gooseflesh across his skin. When I reach his hip bone, I glide my hand beneath his hips and run my fingers along his hard shaft. A shiver runs down his spine, and he deepens the kiss. I direct his glistening cock to my entrance, and before I can beg for him to, he guides himself in.

A longwinded moan escapes his lips as he enters me, stretching my
core to accommodate his thick cock. I’m silent as we both wait a second, just basking in the feeling of being connected to another. I realize too late that we’re not using a condom. I’m still on the shot, so there’s that.

Chase pulls out halfway and slides back in, repeating the motion several times. I completely forget what I
was thinking about as he works my body over. With every retreat of his cock, my pussy tingles with excitement over its return. And with every return, my muscles clench around him. It’s almost too much to take. His eyes grow wide and he tenses, his jaw locked in place.

I open my mouth to ask him to come inside me.
I want to feel his orgasm, not just watch it. My vocal chords betray me, and a whimper escapes instead. I remove my hand from my position on his hip and grab his ass. His eyes roll back in his head, and his body fights to maintain control, though I can see his orgasm is taking hold. Just in time for him to shatter inside of me, Chase reaches down to my swollen nub and tweaks it slightly. Blinding euphoria takes over as my body feels like it fractures into a million pieces. And as intense as my orgasm is, it’s nothing compared to feeling his pulsating cock twitch as he empties himself inside me.

“Shit,” he rasps as he breathes heavily into my neck.

At first I think I’m just that good, that now he’s had a piece of me and he’s hooked, but then I remember we didn’t use a condom and he’s probably worried about the consequences.

“I’m on birth control,” I whisper, dragging a hand up his back and then down again. He leans in and kisses the corner of my mouth. As I drag my nails lightly
along his taut skin I say, “And I’m clean.”

He confirms that he’s also clean, not that I’m surprised. We stay, tangled in one another for a few more tender moments, pecking at each other’s lips.

CHAPTER 13

Chase

When we’re together, I won’t leave you for anything.

I SLIP OUT
of Shelby and carefully crawl off the bed.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

Her eyes are wide, and she’s chewing at her bottom lip again. It was probably a dick move, getting out of bed and not even considering what she’d make of it. I give her a reassuring smile and bend down so we’re eye to eye. Were so close that my breath washes over her face and hers slivers over mine.

“
Baby, I’m just going to get a rag so I can wash you up.”

I place a gentle kiss on her forehead and then retreat into the bathroom. I find clean washcloths hanging on a tall rack affixed to the wall, but I
’ve got no idea how long we might be here for, and I don’t want to waste our precious resources. Instead, I opt to snag some toilet paper off the role and dampen it.

Walking back to the bed, I give Shelby a wink. I don
’t think her eyes have left me since she exploded around my dick. Her face heats, turning red in the process and reminding me of how she turns this bright pink just before she shatters. It’s beautiful.

“
Oh, I wasn’t being paranoid or clingy or anything,” she says.

I reach down and clean up the mess I
’ve made at the apex of her thighs. The moment I touch her, she won’t look at me. Her eyes dart around the room like they’re searching for something worthy of her time.

“
It's just. . .” The way she’s nervous, trailing off and not finishing her sentence, makes her sound so terribly insecure.

I can’t imagine what she
’s embarrassed about. I try to manufacture the perfect response, but she just keeps chattering away. Faintly, I hear something about boys and lockers, and then she moves on to talking about the boys at her community college, which was my community college as well—Delgado. I hear the words
immature
and
stupid
, but I’ve completely lost where she’s going with this. It isn’t until her chest heaves and her taut bosom bounces and she lets out an exaggerated sigh that I realize had I been listening I would know the answer. She’s opening up, explaining herself to me, and here I am barely able to focus. I’m really fucking this up.

When I
’m done cleaning her up, I toss the wet tissue into the wastebasket in the corner. Now that I’m no longer touching her, her eyes are back on mine. When I turn and walk around the bed, she follows my movements, and I’m acutely aware of her nervous energy. Whatever happened to her to make her so nervous after sex gnaws at me. I want to know who hurt her and how, and then I want to use my badge to fuck them up. Maybe I’ll use the nightstick, or perhaps I can inundate them with so many parking tickets it’ll make their head spin. Whatever it is I imagine doing isn’t enough to pay for the look on her face right now.

Deciding that words haven’t served me too well lately, I decide to show Shelby how I feel about her. Or am beginning to feel about her. It’s not like I have any fucking idea what’s going on or what’s going to happen. I don’t have a magic pill that will fix this situation. I’m just going to try my best to make her mine and ensure that she’s never in such a dangerous and scary situation again. I’m going to protect her.

I crawl into the bed on the other side and roll to my side. There, I gently pull her down to me and tuck her into my chest. I’m careful not to put much pressure on her wounded thigh as I use my free hand to trace lines up and down her arm.

“When we’re together, I won’t leave you for anything. I’m not going to have sex with you and then walk away. I’m here,” I say.

She says nothing, but she’s back to the avoiding my eyes thing again. Something about this level of vulnerability seems to be making her uncomfortable, and I want more than anything to know exactly what it is. “What are you thinking?”

“I could want you forever,” she blurts out
, and then her face turns pale. It’s like she’s revealed her deepest, darkest secret, and now she wants to disappear. Still, her eyes search the room for something else to focus on—anything but me. “I didn’t mean that,” she says.

“You could destroy me,” I tell her honestly. Because she could
—I just hope she doesn’t.

We’re both silent for a long moment
, and then she musters up the courage to look me in the eye. I hold her gaze, and to ensure she doesn’t duck her head away, I bring my hand up and cup her chin. When her eyes dip slightly, I lower my chin. She catches the movement and raises her eyes to mine. It’s just a moment, a single, infinitesimal piece of time, but I see it. Underneath her gun-wielding bravado, she’s really just scared of losing someone she loves. I barely know her, but I’m afraid that I know exactly how she feels. The idea of losing her, especially when I’ve barely had her, sends my stomach into a frenzy. I’m not ready to admit what that means just yet.

“Do you regret it?” Her voice is nothing but a whisper
, and I barely catch what she’s asking.

Do I regret it? Normally I’d have strapped one on before hooking up. But no, I don’t regret it. And this isn’t really hooking up, is it?

“No. Do you?” I respond. It seems the polite thing to ask her if she regrets it. I know she’s going to say she doesn’t, but I’m starting to worry. Her body is a tangle of nerves I didn’t expect. She was so confident before and during, but now it’s like she’s been replaced with someone else. I don’t like it.

“No.”

“So what’s going on?” I can see her brain working a mile a minute to come up with an answer she thinks I’ll find appropriate, but I don’t want an appropriate answer. I just want honesty. “The truth, Shelby.”

“Nothing,” she says. “It’s stupid.”

I take a moment to collect my thoughts before I say the wrong thing.

“Why don’t you trust me?” As I’m saying the words
, I realize we don’t know each other very well. I haven’t done much to prove to her that I’m trustworthy yet, but I thought we were operating under the same assumption—that we both have good intentions here. Then again, it is an assumption.

“It’s not you.” She practically spits the words at me. Her lower lip quivers
, and before I know it, tears are streaming down her face.

I lean in and wipe away her tears as best I can, but they just keep falling. I hate it when chicks cry. I just never know what to do or how to make them feel better
, and there’s something about a woman when she cries, because it’s
all
I want to do—just make her feel better.

“I’m so scared. I screw up all the time. I’m either going to ruin your life or you’re going to ruin mine. I just know it.” Shelby’s eyes
are filled with tears as she looks at me pleadingly.

I want to protect her
, and I want her to feel better about the entire situation. I’m not sure how to do that, though. We only barely know each other, and despite the intense pull to be with her, I worry I’m making an epic mistake. The possibility for all the ways this can go wrong is huge.

I comfort her the only way I know how—by holding her and placing soft kisses along her jaw and up toward her eye. I consider for just a minute how wrong this could go and then abandon it quickly
, because the thought of not having Shelby in my life leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Is it so wrong to want her, to want this? I don’t know, but even if it is, I’m hanging on the edge of not giving a fuck.

“Hey, calm down. This might not work out. We might be a disaster, but I like this. I like being here with you. I don’t want to think about tomorrow or the day after
, and I really don’t want to think about the day after that. Let’s just enjoy this, whatever this is, and try to get you healed.”

Right about now I’m thinking I’m the dumbest fuck alive. I’ve never really been one for pep talks
, but I’m trying. I hope that counts for something. If Shelby were one of the guys, I’d tell her to suck it the fuck up, get the fuck over it, and shut the fuck up. But she’s not. And that would only send her into hysterics, I can tell. Looking over Shelby’s naked form, her smooth skin, and her soft gray eyes, my dick reminds me exactly how very masculine she is not. I try to redirect my thoughts. No, Shelby Brignac is all vulnerable and feminine in the most surprising of ways.

“You have a lot to lose. Can’t you get in trouble for aiding and abetting a criminal?” Her gray eyes are filled with fear and concern and not an ounce of distrust.

This is good
, I tell myself. I wanted her to trust me, and now that she does, I can focus on getting us out of this situation alive.

“I have a lot to gain,” I say.

“I pulled a gun on you.”

“Yeah, and you sucked at it. Don’t ever do that again unless you’re going to shoot.”

“I stole that diamond.”

“You did it for the right reasons.”

“I got Becca kidnapped.”

“Are you trying to scare me off?”

“Is it working?” She shifts and starts picking at the sheets, avoiding looking at me.

“Baby, if you wanted to scare me off you should have tried it before you got me naked. I’m afraid
—” I run my nose along her chin, and she shivers “—you’re stuck with me.”

Her eyes shoot up to mine
, and before I realize her mood’s shifted, she’s wrapped her arms around the back of my neck and pulls me in. I try to be careful as we move together, two bodies blending into one. I nip at and lick at her smooth flesh and watch, entranced, as the goose bumps rise up on her flesh. Her nails drag lightly against my skin, up my spine. I fight the shudder that escapes me. I want to affect her, to show her what I can do for her. Still, I don’t know how I feel about how much she affects
me
. Being with her, moving against her slick flesh, I’m consumed.

As our joined bodies create a friction that overtakes us, the intensity of the situation damn near kills me. Shelby’s light touch becomes a firm grip. The way she’s hanging on
to me has me half-believing she thinks I’ll disappear if she’s not careful. I wrap my hands around the top of her shoulders and use her delicate frame as leverage to drive into her again and again. Our eyes don’t drift, and our lungs frantically fight to keep up with the exertion we’re putting them under.

I’m moved to say something, to ask Shelby if she’s feeling the same thing I am. But I can’t say anything. I’m stuck in this limbo between being here as we create something I can’t define and getting completely lost inside my own head as I envision Shelby in every corner of my life, all the ways she’d fit. As I pour every ounce of myself into her, I let myself believe this is all going to work out. I let myself believe we can have an
“us” and it won’t end in a prison term for her and frying chicken for me. It just doesn’t matter.

Slowly, we come down
, but we don’t move. Shelby’s grip hasn’t lightened, and I can’t even imagine letting her go.

And as we drift off to sleep in the late afternoon, I don’t worry. I have my girl
, and I vow to myself that she won’t ever be alone again.