Conflicting Interests (15 page)

He was ready before he even got her onto the bed. Now he was
just torturing himself with her—but what an amazing torture. She was stunning.
He let his eyes slowly travel up the cleft of her pussy to the smooth skin that
led to her anus. He wouldn’t mind touching her there too but given the tremble
of her legs, her own patience was wearing thin.

He leaned to her and when his tongue stroked the pink, sweet
skin of her sex, she cried out. He let his tongue find her entry and then he
pushed it into her. He could feel the quiver of her walls clenching, trembling
and begging for more and he was going to give it to her. Every inch she could
take. He’d fuck her as hard or gentle as she wanted, so long as she would take
all of him to her core. He wanted to be buried inside her with not an ounce of
space between them.

“Dillon.” She was whimpering his name as his tongue pushed
and pulled from her. “Please. Please.” She kept repeating it as he moved down
to her clit and as he stroked, sucked and pulled her into the throes of orgasm,
she kept begging. Her thighs were shaking and when the orgasm passed, she
collapsed to the bed. He crawled up her body, letting his erection trail over
the skin of her bottom as she lay twitching beneath him.

“You’re beautiful.” He whispered it against her ear and her
breath left her. “Can you lie on your back or are you too sore?” She rolled,
raising her hands above her head but one stopped, clutching his cheek and
pulling his mouth to hers.

She tasted exquisite, but then he was still savoring her
delicious pussy. His dick was on her stomach, pulsing against her skin and when
he reached between their bodies, the hand she’d placed on his cheek followed
his down between their bodies too. He used his cock head to tease the tight,
swollen nub of her clit and she used her fingers to part her lips, beckoning
him. He could feel her fingertips brushing against his own and he groaned at
nothing more than that.

She left her fingers in place when he lined himself up with
her entry and he pushed slow, feeling the shaft of his dick run between her
fingers before pushing past her lips and into the heat of her body.

She was slick with her need but she was also exceptionally
tight around him. He withdrew slightly, pushing in again, deeper this time. She
cried out at the invasion and he watched her eyes. He could see pain but her
need was undeniable. Her fingers remained, framing her pussy as he plunged,
retreated and then sank even deeper. He was slowly pushing his way to her
depths and when he finally thrust that final inch, letting his balls rest
against her bottom, she yelped and her eyes shot open wide.

He waited. He watched her face, patiently waiting for her
muscles to relax. She slipped her hand from between their bodies and he nudged
ever so marginally deeper as she groaned and cried out.

“Oh God, Dillon.” She was gasping and he ground his hips
between her legs as she clutched his shoulders. He could feel the wetness on
her fingers streaking across the back of one shoulder as she gripped him
through the intensity of his depth.

He was so ready to fuck but he wanted her to be ready too
and so he was patient. He enjoyed the sight of her expression as she slowly
accommodated his breadth and length. He knew he was large and he knew he was
pushing her limits but he so desperately wanted her to take all of him.

When she kissed him and her insides relaxed around him, he
eased back and then pushed to her core again. Her moan said she was ready and
he pulled nearly from her entirely before sliding deep in again. He set a pace,
pulling and pushing. He didn’t hold back and he hit her limit each and every
time he plunged. As his speed quickened she clutched at his shoulders, digging
her nails into his skin.

He held her eyes, becoming mesmerized in the crystal-blue
depths as he started pounding into her body. He was jolting her body forward
and her lips were parted as she watched him.

“God, you’re beautiful.” He didn’t even realize he’d said
the words until he heard them. He was just so lost in her that his mouth had
taken over without his permission. She whimpered at his words and he crushed
her mouth with his, thrusting his tongue between her lips. She was panting,
clawing at his shoulders in desperation and when she came, he could feel her
pussy gripping and clenching hard around his length. He paused deep inside her—it
was nearly impossible to stop the thrust of his hips but he forced it as her
orgasm pulsed around him.

He froze, letting himself savor the feel of her muscles
constricting on his length and when they finally relaxed, he pulled and then he
pounded hard. He fell apart quickly after that and with only a few deep
thrusts, he was spilling himself inside her as he cried out her name and buried
his face in her neck.

She hummed against his neck as their bodies started to
slowly relax and when he pulled from her body as the walls of her vagina
quivered around him, he tried to be gentle. She had to be sore and he moved
slowly. She hissed as he slipped from her body and he lay beside her, pulling
her into his arms.

“God was quite generous with you.” He chuckled at her as he
pulled her closer. Leave it to Katrina to say exactly what was on her mind.

“I’m sorry. Too generous?”

“No. Perfect.”

“I was thinking the same thing about you. Umm—please tell me
you’re on birth control.” He wasn’t nearly so brain-damaged now and the panic
had just set in when his brain slowed enough to realize what he’d done.

“Arm implant. I was actually stupid enough to think Jason
would be sticking around long enough to think a three-year birth control
commitment would be worth my time.”

He was suddenly tense at the sound of the man’s name but he
forced himself to smile at her. “I’m glad and I’m sorry. I just wasn’t thinking
about that.” He would have no problem finishing out that three-year birth
control commitment of hers and then some if she’d let him.

She was pure perfection. Milky-smooth skin, a tightness that
left him thinking he’d gone to heaven—everything about her was incredible. It
was almost easy to forget in the quietness of her bedroom that someone was
threatening it all. He couldn’t lose her. He was falling in love with her.

She had no business being at school. She knew that, but
Dillon had to go to work and she had no interest being alone just yet. She’d
parked in Imogen’s garage, making it fairly easy to get Dillon out of the house
without being seen. She’d driven him home that morning and when she pulled into
his driveway on her way to school and put the car in park, he’d pulled her
mouth to his and kissed her.

He was exceptionally good at the sexy stuff and she couldn’t
seem to stop the pitter-patter of her heart every time he touched her. She also
couldn’t quite get over the barriers he’d allowed to crumble since the night
before.

He was risking his job. He had to be but he was also
refusing to talk about it. She’d asked once they were on the road, headed
toward his neighborhood and he’d reached for her hand, squeezing it gently and
then ignoring her.

She didn’t like the barriers any more than he did but she
wasn’t the one whose job would be jeopardized because of what they were doing
together. What did that even mean? Doing together? They’d made love. The man
whom she’d spent time yelling at the first time they’d met, whose penis she’d
grabbed in a lust-filled, emotionally exhausted stupor, who’d made it quite
clear they had no business being together—he was who she’d made love to.

He was incredible but now as he pulled from her mouth as
they sat in his driveway, she was nervous. That was nothing really new under
the circumstances but it was the why behind it.

“Um—are you going to tell me we can’t do that again?” The
question had come out totally wrong and totally lame.

He watched her for a moment and her nervousness ratcheted up
a notch. He was going to tell her exactly that. She couldn’t handle that. He
was something important to her. She could handle all of this with him but alone
she simply couldn’t do it. He gave her strength and calm and it was bad enough
he was no longer on her case.

“No. I’m not telling you that at all. And I don’t want you
to worry about this. This is my problem, not yours.”

“Problem?”

He just stared at her for a moment. He’d been honest. This
was a problem that could hurt him professionally and whether he wanted her
concern or not, he had it. “I want to see you tomorrow night. I want you here
in my home with me. I’m not leaving town with Molly and the boys for spring
break and I have the week off. I want to spend that time with you.”

“Are you staying in town because of me?”

He again stared. This conversation was becoming more
strained by the moment. Basically, he didn’t want to have the conversation and
she did. “Is your safety not a good enough reason?”

“I don’t know how to feel about that.”

“You mean you don’t know how to feel about me and my choice
to stay for you.” He shook his head in frustration and reached for the door
handle.

She clasped his arm quickly. “Please. I just don’t want to
be the reason your career is ruined. I don’t want to be the reason you’re
missing time away with Seth. I don’t want to be the reason you make these
decisions.”

“Then what do you want to be the reason for?” His voice was
harsh and his eyes were angry. “I just made love to you. I did that for a
reason—a very specific reason.” His eyes were searching hers. “I care about
you. What the hell is wrong with that reason?” And then his voice trailed off
and his eyes moved from hers to stare out the window.

She sat frozen beside him, her heart pounding as his words
echoed through her mind over and over again. She could hear her own voice
telling him she loved him. He may not have said it to her but she still knew
she did. At the very least she should tell him she cared about him too.

Saying nothing was the cruelest thing she could do but it
wasn’t for want of being cruel. She just couldn’t quite figure out what to say.
He gave up on her and pulled the door open, leaving her staring after him.

Now it was three hours later and she was sitting in her
classroom during her reading group, staring off into space as the students
read. The group sat in a circle and after reading a section of material, it was
something of a roundtable discussion about what they’d read. Seth was there and
she kept catching him looking up at her.

When it was time to discuss the section they’d just read,
his hand went up instantly. “Yes, Seth.”

“What happened to your neck, Ms. Page?”

“Oh…” Odd to think but she’d nearly forgotten about it. Her
entire body ached—her shoulders, her back, every last inch. The majority from
the attack and a few very personal places from Dillon’s most incredible
invasion on her body and yet, she’d not been thinking about the pain. “It’s
nothing.”

He stared at her with his father’s eyes. It was concern, it
was suspicion. He wasn’t fooled by her and she couldn’t help but wonder just
what Dillon had told him. She hadn’t thought he’d speak of her case at all but
Seth wasn’t doing a good job of hiding the fact he knew something. She steered
the conversation back to the reading but Seth continued to watch her.

“Are you okay, Ms. Page?” She peered up to Seth as the rest
of the group filed out of the room.

“I’m fine, Seth. How are you?”

“I know my dad’s investigating something that has to do with
you.”

“And did your dad tell you that?”

“No. My dad won’t talk to me about that stuff. I can just
tell. I know you were hurt a while back and I can just tell by the way he acts
around you. And you’re hurt again and he was gone last night. I can tell he’s
worried about you.”

“And how’s that?”

“Like he acts when I get hurt.” The tone of his voice
suggested she was insane not to understand this. “Just like when Molly and Jake
were in a car accident a few years ago. I know he’s not going on spring break
because he’s worried about you.”

“Seth…” What the hell could she say? “I don’t want that.”
She swallowed hard over a lump in her throat. She couldn’t have this
conversation with him but she also couldn’t not have this conversation with
him.

“I don’t care. Jake’s going and Molly will be there too. I
really don’t care.” Again, he sounded like a teenager but he really was trying
to reassure her as much his thirteen-year-old maturity level would allow. It
was sweet but she couldn’t say she felt any better about the situation. Seth
had no idea what his father meant to her. He also had no idea what she meant to
Dillon. Awkward was the understatement of the century.

“I was just saying it’s cool with me. And I’m sorry about—whatever
happened.”

“Thanks, Seth. I appreciate it.” And she did. It was the
sweetest thing a thirteen-year-old boy could say to a grownup. He might have
thought she was crazy for not understanding everything he was trying to say and
he might not have a clue just how serious the situation really was but it was
compassion usually not seen in a kid his age.

He turned from her to leave but then stopped and turned back
slowly to face her. “Do you have a crush on my dad?”

“What? No. No. That’s not…”
Lie lie lie.

“It’s cool if you do. I know he likes you. Just sayin’.” And
then he was gone.

* * * * *

When she got to Imogen’s home that evening, Detectives Smith
and Terrell were waiting outside the security gate parked at the curb.

“Well there’s no surveillance video in the parking garage.”
They followed her into Imogen’s home. “So there’s no security video.”

She could have told them that but she just nodded.

“And we’re assuming he entered the parking garage on foot.
He’d have to have a permit to enter with a car but we’re still checking into
all the vehicles that were there last night. I just wouldn’t expect anything
with that.”

She started zoning out. She was tired and they weren’t
telling her anything new. This man didn’t want to be found and he was doing a
damn good job of keeping it that way.

They’d found her bags and jacket in the stairwell and set
the items on the kitchen counter as she offered them tea. They declined and in
less than ten minutes they were leaving.

Imogen called while she was fixing dinner. It was late in
the UK and she was just getting back from having drinks with a couple of her
old friends. Katrina could tell she was half drunk and though she knew Imogen
would be livid later, Katrina decided not to bother telling her about the
parking-garage incident, or the sex incident for that matter. When they finally
hung up, Katrina sat at the dining room table alone to eat the chicken she’d
managed to burn. She stared at the emptiness around her, feeling pathetic.

She missed Dillon and she was certain she’d pissed him off
that morning. She had no idea how to feel about him or what had happened
between them. She wanted him in the way she’d finally had him but she knew it
was a risk to his career. Could she put an end to it with him to protect that?
She didn’t hold out much hope she could. If she had the opportunity to be with
him again there was no chance she could say no to him. She needed him. She
cared for him too. Hell, she just plain loved him.

She curled up in bed with her phone and started typing. “Are
you upset with me?”

His response came nearly ten minutes later and left her
convinced he’d contemplated not responding at all. “Usually.”

“I’m sorry.”

There was no response after that and thirty minutes later
she gave up waiting for one and fell asleep.

* * * * *

“Are you sure you’re not really into Ms. Page?” Molly was
just finishing up packing as he lay across her bed. Seth and Jake were
downstairs loading their bags into Molly’s Traverse.

Dillon was now technically on vacation for the next week
too, though he’d be spending the week sitting alone afraid to go to San
Francisco lest the woman he was secretly pining over be attacked again. It
promised to be a great time staring at his walls with nothing at all to do. Her
reaction the morning before had been a disappointment—not that she’d
necessarily said anything wrong.

Even as he was confessing to caring about her he knew he was
holding back. He was in love with her but she’d not even managed to reciprocate
his mildest of emotional confessions, so he certainly wasn’t going to be giving
her any more than that. But none of it really mattered. She could decide she
hated him tomorrow and he still couldn’t bear to leave her and be too far away
from her knowing her life was in danger.

“Molly, it doesn’t matter how I feel.” He sounded like Seth
as he said it—annoyed that she couldn’t understand the situation
telepathically. “Something happened and it didn’t exactly end the way I’d have
liked it to.”

“Something as in…”

He stared for a moment, contemplating, considering,
debating. “Fuck it. I slept with her.” Molly’s mouth fell open. “A couple
nights ago and the next morning…it was—I don’t know what it was. Things just
fell apart.”

Molly still hadn’t managed to close her mouth so he
continued. “She’s worried about how a relationship with me could hurt my
career, she’s worried I’m making decisions based on how I feel about her and I
guess she doesn’t want me to. Or…I don’t know. I mean she likes me. I know she
does and she’s said as much but then when it came to my staying here for spring
break or the idea that I was going against the rules being with her, she was
upset.”

“You slept with her?” Apparently Molly’s brain had shut down
after that first statement.

“Molly! Focus.”

“Fine, fine. She probably feels guilty that you could
endanger your career for her. She probably also feels guilty you’re staying
here rather than coming with us to San Francisco. I mean, put yourself in her
position.”

“I’m doing this for her!”

“And that can leave anyone feeling guilty. You’re
sacrificing for her. That’s great, that’s noble, I get it but maybe she doesn’t
quite think she deserves that. Does she know you love her?”

“I didn’t say I love her.” He said it defensively.

Molly gave him her cocked head annoyed expression. “And you
don’t?”

He sighed. “I do.” He sounded damn near pissed off about the
admission.

“If she doesn’t know that, then it’s really no wonder she
doesn’t quite understand your motive. It’s no wonder she feels guilty. I’d feel
the same way in her position. If you love her and you’re willing to take risks
for her and compromise certain things for her, then she needs to understand why
you’re making those decisions for her.”

“Shut up.” He rolled his eyes as he turned onto his back and
stared at Molly’s ceiling.

The boys came in, jumped on the bed and started singing “I
Left My Heart in San Francisco.” They’d been tormented by Molly and Dillon with
this particular song on every last car trip they’d taken to San Francisco and
they were finally old enough to turn the tables. They had nothing on Tony
Bennett and as they wailed the tune in their best vibrato, Molly and Dillon
laughed and Dillon socked Seth in the face with Molly’s pillow.

It was hard to rationalize not going with them when Katrina
couldn’t even seem to understand his need to be close to her. But the moment he
let his mind wander to the ugly things that could potentially happen to her,
there was just no choice. He couldn’t physically force himself to put that much
distance between them. He’d go insane if he couldn’t be close.

Dillon walked them out to the car on his way out and gave
Seth a quick hug. “Hey, Dad, take care of my teacher. I’m actually getting a
good grade in her class.” Dillon let out a strained laugh at Seth’s words and
then said nothing. There was nothing he could say but Seth’s somewhat serious
expression said plenty. He was worried.

“I’ll see you in a week and a half. Say hi to Grandma and Grandpa
for me.” He watched them pull away before walking to his own house and flopping
down in front of the TV. He wanted to call her but he was so fucking confused
about what to think. Molly was right. She’d put him on the spot and expected
him to explain just why he was making the decisions he was making in regard to
her and he’d failed to deliver. He’d told her he cared about her. He’d just
made love to the woman he’d fallen in love with and the most he’d been willing
to say was he cared. Then he got pissed at her for putting him on the spot and
not simply accepting that she was worth all that. She was but he’d not
convinced her of it or even gone so far as to try. He’d simply walked away from
her.