Divorced, Desperate and Delicious, Page 23

He pulled back to see her face. “Did . . . did I hurt you?”

  She hiccupped through her sobs and shook her head no. But her inability to speak took his fear to a new level. He cupped her face in his hands and studied her eyes. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

  She didn’t answer, just continued to cry. He brushed the tears away with the pads of his thumbs. “You’re scaring me, Lacy. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  She buried her head against his shoulder.

  He wrapped his arms back around her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry.” He gently rubbed his hand over her back and called himself a bastard.

  Several minutes passed. Her shaking lessened and so did the sniffles. He pulled back, brushed his hand over her cheek and forced her to look at him. “You okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No,” she said. “I . . . I don’t know what happened. I just lost it.”

  Then . . . that was a good cry? Happy tears?” he asked hesitantly.

  “I guess so,” she said, then hiccupped again.

  He ran a hand through her hair. “This is going to take some getting used to. You scared me to death, woman.”

  “Sorry.” She sniffled.

  “No. Don’t you dare apologize. I just thought . . . thought I’d done something wrong.” He kissed her chin, moving up her face until he’d kissed away her tears. Then he pulled her tighter. “That, my lady, was the most amazing sex.”

  She grinned, even as her eyes still held the remnants of tears. “Really?”

  “You don’t think so?” he asked, suddenly insecure.

  “Well, yeah, but I’m not as experienced in . . . in sex. I’m sure that with all the casual sex you’ve had, this was just—”

  Her words caught him off guard. “Casual sex?”

  “Isn’t that what you called sex without involvement?”

  He opened his mouth to inform her straight out that there had been nothing casual about what they’d shared. But damn, if something didn’t tell him that Lacy would balk about it having been something more. But, why? All sorts of possibilities ran though his head; then the answer he’d come to earlier stuck against his heart like hot bubble gum on the bottom of a tennis shoe. Peter. Was that why she’d cried? Because of guilt, because she wanted him to be her ex?

  Brushing her hair from her face, he told himself that possession was nine-tenths of the law. And right now he possessed. Her body still hummed from the two climaxes he’d given her. Her lips were still moist and swollen from his kisses, and the taste of her sex still flavored his tongue.

  He would make her see things differently. Lacy Maguire would have a change of heart. He wasn’t about to give her up without a fight. And Chase Kelly could fight damn hard when he wanted something this bad.

  • • •

  She fell asleep against him. He studied Lacy, wishing he knew everything about her. Yet even as his body sang with pleasure, his heart ached for Stokes. To think, he’d been making love while his fellow officer lay on an operating table fighting for his life: guilt knocked at his mind like an unwanted visitor. But even as guilt sought companionship, Chase knew nothing he’d done or not done could have helped Stokes.

  Taking a deep breath, he sent out a prayer that the man would pull through, that his boys wouldn’t have to live their lives without a daddy. Even though he’d been seventeen, Chase had felt like a small boy when he’d lost his parents. No kid deserved to feel that. Then he remembered Angie, Stokes’s wife, and the memory of losing Sarah crowded his mind. God, let the man live.

  • • •

  Zeke leaned back in the hospital chair and stared at the hospital’s white ceiling, ignoring the way his skin itched. A group of officers and detectives filled the waiting room, but no one talked. Silence hung in the room like death. Zeke hoped it was death. He prayed it was death. Perhaps he’d go to Hell for praying for bad things, but he’d worry about that after he got out of this Hell on earth.

  In the corner sat Stokes’s wife, silently crying, surrounded by her family. Zeke tried not to look at them, afraid they would look back, afraid of what they would see in his gaze. He no longer cared that they hurt. He just prayed that Stokes died. If the man died, it would be one less thing Zeke had to take care of to make sure he got out of this crap. And he had to get out. He deserved that gold watch, just as much as he deserved the two hundred thousand waiting for him in a Swiss bank account.

  He hadn’t planned on doing this. He and his old partner had been on a bust, and while the two other cops took after the runner, he and James had gone inside. Hundred-dollar bills littered the room, and James had looked at him and they both knew what the other was thinking. Before the other cops arrived, they’d had most of the money well hidden.

  After that, taking got easier, and they took the bankrolls from dealers that they arrested. Then his old partner turned him on to several other ways to clear some nontaxable income. Some of the bigger dealers would pay big to have a few guarantees. Zeke had gotten good at looking the other way.

  It was during one of those payoffs that Martinez had caught sight of him slipping a quick stack of bills into his pocket for letting some of the evidence of an overdose victim fall to the wayside. She’d just been a whore. As a matter of fact, Zeke had screwed her a time or two himself.

  • • •

  Fighting the intrusion of wakefulness, Lacy rolled over, her body extremely tender in places that hadn’t been tender in a very long time. It took her only a fraction of a second to understand the twinges of discomfort. Oh, goodness, they’d had sex three times during the night And she’d hit six home runs! Four of them in the bed, one on the sofa, and one on the floor.

  She opened one eye, trying to get her bearings, attempting to see if she was alone in bed or if Chase still rested beside her. She hadn’t gotten her eye open all the way when wonderful smells assaulted her senses and she knew Chase was cooking breakfast. She could get used to this.

  No, you can’t! a voice called from her good-girl conscience.

  Samantha moved closer, and Lacy sat up and stroked the cat. The feline looked up at her. Lacy could just imagine that, if the cat could talk, she would probably be giving her a good talking-to about trusting strangers.

  “Don’t worry,” she told Samantha, brushing her hand over the cat’s arched body. “This is only temporary. In a few days he’ll be . . . gone.” Her heart seized up. “It’s only casual sex.” She closed her eyes, remembering; it had been so amazing that she’d fallen apart. And then, unable to help herself, she’d tossed out those words casual sex, half trying to test her emotional strength after making love and half hoping he’d tell her she’d misunderstood.

  He hadn’t. And that was what she wanted. Right?

  In spite of the fact that her heart felt like it had a snag in it, as if it had a little loose thread that could lead to a full emotional unraveling, she had managed to survive. She hadn’t begged him to marry her; she hadn’t started deciding on the type of cake she’d have at the reception or envisioning what their children would look like.

  So what if after all three times that they’d made love, she’d lost control of her emotions and wept like a baby. Chase had begun to believe it was natural for her. Then again, maybe it was. Maybe this was just how she reacted to multiple orgasms. But what was important was that she’d survived. Not to mention she’d had sex unlike she’d ever had before.

  “And I’ll continue to survive,” she told the cat. “I’m a worldly, modern woman. One who just so happens to fancy white cake with cherry filling at her wedding receptions.

  “No!” She pressed a hand over her mouth and sent that thought backpacking into the black hole of her subconscious mind.

  Shaking her head, she crawled out of bed and went to her bathroom, where she pulled her short, blue terry cloth robe from the hook behind the door. She went to the mirror, squared her shoulders and studied her reflection. “You look fine. Yo
u feel fine. Well, the tush area is a little sore, but you had sex three times. Really good sex.”

  “We could make it four.” Chase’s voice boomed behind her. “If the . . . tush area isn’t too sore.”

  Chapter Twenty-two