Unauthorized Return (Unauthorized Series Book 4) (10 page)

Aria lay on the bed, over the top of the covers, staring at the ceiling overhead. Coleton had kissed her. She had let him. She had even enjoyed it, and almost given herself to him completely. Even now, hours after it had ended, her body was crying out for him. Her lips still tingled from his touch and she could smell his strong, clean scent on her skin. Her entire body thrummed with desire and need.

How had this happened? Why had this happened? The ethical and moral implications were huge and she couldn't get past them, but oh how she wanted to. Her mind kept returning to three images of him - first, him a few mornings ago, doing push-ups on the living room floor. His hard, muscled body. Then, the evening before, him sprinting across the kitchen of the apartment next door to save a woman he barely knew. And finally, a few hours ago, kissing her solidly, desperately.

She'd been awake for the rest of the night and at that very moment, she felt like she would never sleep again.

She heard Coleton finally moving around in the bathroom and then in the kitchen. Why had he done it? Why had he kissed her? And what he had said? Where did that come from? She had it memorized.

In your light, I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems.

Poetry, that's what he was reciting. But what did it mean? Was he calling her beautiful? Was he saying he loved her?

She shook her head. Of course not. Her job now was to let him know what he could do with his kisses and his poems.

Aria stood up forcefully and stepped out into the hallway, intent on shutting Coleton down for good. She found him in the kitchen, making her a plate. He smiled at her, hope written across his face, and she faltered, almost believing that he was only what he seemed to be – a good guy. A sweet man. Someone she could open up to and be with and not be scared of his exit.

No! She pushed those thoughts away and went on with her agenda. "What the hell do you think you were doing last night?" she snarled.

The hopeful look on Coleton's face fell away and Aria felt her soul twinge with regret.

"What my heart wanted," he said softly.

"What your heart wanted?" she sneered back. "Bullshit. What your dick wanted, more likely."

Coleton pulled back like she'd physically struck him. She cried inside but pushed on anyway.

"You wanted my sister!" she screamed at him, unable to contain herself. Unable to keep her promise to herself. Unable to separate the man in front of her from the man two years behind her.

"Not in the same way I want you," Coleton said and Aria stopped short. Her mind spun. What could he mean by that?

Coleton took a step forward and pressed on. "I was lonely when I tried to help your sister. She was there. She's a beautiful girl, but she's nothing compared to you."

"We're identical," Aria sputtered, knowing now that everything he said was a line.

"You're not identical. You, Aria, are stronger. Your eyes have more determination, your mouth has a harder set to it when you want something. Your drive and your determination outstrip anything that Ava could ever offer." He paused and his eyes took on a look of coldness. "Plus, I could tell her no. I wouldn't tell you no if my life depended on it. If I could have your love and mingle with your soul for just one night, I would gladly walk to my death the next morning with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart."

Aria took a step backwards. She had gone to him, determined to destroy any notion he had that there could ever be something between them, but that speech! What did it mean?

She couldn't do it. She couldn't continue to talk to him, to be around him, to be in the same room with him.

She retreated, leaving him in the kitchen with his confusing words hanging in the air.

Aria woke up quickly, her eyes opening and taking in the familiar sight of the ceiling in the tiny bedroom of the tiny apartment that she was holed up in, with Coleton Savoy. It was dark. She'd slept lightly, fitfully, all day, twenty minutes here, forty-five minutes there, leaving the room only to use the bathroom and drink water straight out of the faucet. She had heard Coleton moving around in the apartment, so she knew he was still there, but what she didn't know was what she was going to do about him.

Her mind remembered her decision to go against her natural impulses and do the opposite, hoping that would lead her to happiness. But what about her job? What about what was right? What about the life she had here in Westwood Harbor? Would she be throwing that all away?

She stared at the ceiling and let her thoughts go where they wanted. She had a lot more thinking to do. Hours later, she drifted off one more time.

***

Aria woke again, decision made. She stood in the dark bedroom, then walked out into the living room, finding Coleton sleeping on the couch. She strode to the front door and peeked out into the darkness. The parking lot was quiet and still. The clock on the wall in the kitchen said it was 2:45 in the morning. She walked back to the couch and slowly
took off her gun holster, placing it gently on the ground. Her shirt followed, and then her bra, then her pants and underwear. She lifted up the blanket Coleton was using to cover himself with and slipped onto the couch next to him.

He stirred immediately and opened his eyes, looking at her in confusion. She didn't bother to explain, just covered his lips with her own, feeling her desire and her decision meld, and giving herself over to it.

As soon as she kissed him the feeling of sleepy surrealism fell away and she realized she really was doing this. And she really
wanted
to do this.

Coleton's arms crept around her greedily, and he groaned into her mouth when all he touched was warm, bare skin.

"Is this real?" he whispered to her, breaking the contact of their lips for an awful moment.

She pinched him on the arm, hard, to assure him he wasn't dreaming and he moaned into her mouth again, then shifted his body up onto his elbow, pulling her beneath him. The blanket slid to the floor. Coleton held himself up and looked at her body in the dim, silvery moonlight falling from the window.

"You're so beautiful," he sighed and crushed her deliciously into the couch with his body, his lips finding hers again. She opened herself to him eagerly, their kiss melding them together in a new way.

Coleton pulled away slightly and trailed kisses down her neck.

"Tell me a poem," Aria breathed as his touch sang through her body, stirring her passions, whipping her emotions into rough peaks. He didn't speak for a moment, just moved farther down her neck and collarbone until his lips were at her breast. His hot breath on her nipple caused it to harden instantly, and the throb of her body increased.

He spoke then, his voice a harsh, rasping whisper. "Let the lover be, disgraceful, crazy, absentminded. Someone sober will worry about things going badly. Let the lover be."

Aria thrust her hands into his hair and pulled gently, her body on fire, her mind ablaze. How did he do that? How did he always have a poem that perfectly fit the situation ready to let loose from his luscious, biteable lips. She tugged on his hair, wanting to pull him back up to her mouth so she could do just that, bite his lips.

Instead, he bore the tugging and fastened his mouth over first one nipple, then the other, swirling his tongue around in a way that made the sensations shoot straight through her tender core. She groaned aloud and breathed, "Tell me another one." She felt suddenly like his poems were similar to an endearing accent that she couldn't get enough of.

He released her nipple long enough to force out, "When love itself comes to kiss you, don't hold back! When the king goes hunting, the forest smiles," then dropped his head right back down again, teasing the other nipple with his hot and talented mouth.

Aria tried to think about that one. Tried to puzzle it out. But her brain wouldn't work, wouldn't fit the pieces together. It was too busy processing the heavenly sensations that were coming from her body. Her nipples tingled and throbbed as Coleton lavished attention on them.

One of Coleton's hands snuck down her body and grazed across her belly, making her gasp. It kept inching lower until it met with the very top of her most delicate softness. She looked down at him and realized he was still fully clothed, but with his next movement she lost all capability of thought, all desire to care about his clothes. He grazed a finger over her clitoris, so lightly she could scream, the blissful sensation spreading quickly and making her quiver.

Aria bit back a moan and tried to quiet her breathing. He knew what he was doing. It had been so long for her. Two years since she'd had a man touch her with any degree of intimacy. Two years since she'd even thought about sex. In all that time, she'd never even touched herself, never once having thought about it. Her sex spasmed in sudden, awakened response and she gasped, feeling like she was going to explode.

One more slight graze from his fingers and Aria was off like a rocket. She pressed her hands to her mouth, trying to stifle the high keening sounds escaping her throat. The orgasm rolled through her with little regard for anything but her release. The power and length of it floored her, and all she could do was press her mouth into her palm and try desperately to stay quiet while she rode out the blissful wave.

Finally, it was over, and Aria collapsed to the couch, aftershocks still spreading through her.

Coleton rolled off of the couch and met her gaze. "That was the hottest thing I've ever seen," he said.

Aria giggled helplessly in response.
Men
. One still very-fully clothed man who had made her detonate with two touches. Heat flooded her cheeks at the thought of what had just happened and she reached for the blanket.

Coleton pulled his shirt over his head in one fluid motion and the sight of his bare chest stopped her, instantly lighting her passion again.

She reached out and grazed one finger down his pectoral muscles, then around to his back, fingering the exact spot where she'd seen the drop of sweat traverse it's way to the floor. She had wanted so badly to touch him, and now she was. It was better than she had thought it would be.

"That didn't take much," he said, wonder in his voice.

"Yeah well, it's been a couple of years."

"A couple of
years
? You haven't even ..."

"No," Aria responded forcefully. "I haven't."

"But why?" Coleton asked, leaning forward and brushing a lock of hair off of her forehead.

Aria felt a need to bluster her way out of answering. A desire to turn the question away from her. Instead, she answered simply. "Two years ago was when my husband left me. I've been kind of broken up over it since then. I didn't even think about sex or anything like sex because I didn't want to think about Jason."

"And now?" Coleton asked, running his fingers through her hair.

She shrugged, still touching his rippling muscles. "What do you mean?"

"Are you still broken up about it?"

Aria shook her head. "I don't think I am. I just needed some time, I guess."
And a gorgeous, amazing, fresh man to desire me.

Coleton looked at her knowingly and she waited, sure he was about to tell her a simple but profound poem that would change her views on life and loss and cheating husbands forever. Instead, he kissed her tenderly on the lips.

Aria pulled him on top of her again, wanting to feel the crush of his body. His jeans scraped against her thigh. "Can you lose the pants?" she whispered, startled by her own boldness.

"Whatever you want," he rasped back and stood for a moment, the pants and underwear falling on the ground. Aria sat up, flipping her feet to the floor and gazed at him openly, lustfully. His body pushed thoughts of recovery and time and ex-husbands completely out of her mind. His belly was flat and muscled and his legs lean and long, but between them, his cock jutted out at eye level, inviting her, calling to her. It was a thing of beauty, rigid and hard, showing her just how much he wanted her.

She reached her hand out to grasp it and he moaned at her touch. She delighted in the noise, wanting only to give him a bit of the pleasure he had given her. Wanting only to savor these stolen moments. Wanting only to rejoin the land of living, breathing people who had lives outside of work. Lives filled with love and longing, need and desire.

Aria licked her lips and glanced up at Coleton's face. The lust written there stirred her own passion and she couldn't help herself for one more moment. She leaned forward and took him in her mouth. She couldn't believe what she was doing, and at the same time she was thrilled at what she was doing. Her body throbbed with new desire while her mind made new connections.

She ran her tongue over the deceptively silky but incredibly hard ridge at the top of his cock. The salty taste and smooth sensation delighted her. Coleton leaned into her and made a deep growling noise in the very back of his throat. His fingers clutched in her hair.

Aria took him farther into her mouth, then grasped the base of him with her hand, listening hard to his responses, wanting to know what he liked, what he wanted. He let out another soft growl and bucked his hips towards her, then withdrew and thrust again, gently fucking her mouth. Aria felt her very core clench and moisten at the thought. She liked him fucking her mouth, but she really wanted his cock where it belonged.

It had been so long for her. And for some reason, he was so perfectly the one to tease her out of her shell. He was someone who knew what it was to be hurt. Someone who wouldn't hurt her, she knew it. He was caring and strong, thoughtful and intuitive. Someone that she could feel comfortable baring her soul to. Comfortable baring her body and her need and all of her vulnerability to. He had extended her a bridge back to the land of the living, and she was going to take it, consequences be damned.

She found a soft and sultry rhythm, meeting each of his thrusts with one of her own, his steely length stretching her mouth and sliding along her tongue. She felt him stiffen, then his hands wound harder in her hair, trying to pull her away from him. She reached up with her free hand and pushed on his wrists, hoping he would get the message. She wanted to stay right where she was. She wanted to experience everything he had to offer, and that included the taste of his cum.

Coleton's hips bucked forward, and the growl in his throat intensified, becoming a low groan as his pulsing release moved through him. Aria smiled around his rigid length in her mouth, trying to swallow his hot, salty seed at the same time. That one simple act had given her more satisfaction than any criminal she had caught or case she had worked in the last two years. She'd forgotten what it was like to be a sexual being. To own her sensuality. She'd forgotten the pleasure and expansiveness of it. The universe within it.

Well no more. Jason was still gone. But she didn't need him anymore. And she finally knew it.