Five Ways 'Til Sunday (2 page)

Yeah, Craig had a point. He had to be every bit as willing to commit to this relationship—or whatever it was they had. “I like the blue. And I like the damn tattoo. Mom’ll just have to get past that.”

Truth was, he didn’t really mind Marti’s unconventional appearance. The blue streak perfectly matched her large, beautiful eyes. The tracery of rose brambles and red blooms on her arm suited her prickly but feminine demeanor. He also didn’t mind that she dressed in leather, had a nose piercing and worked in a bar. The cosmetic enhancements only made her small heart-shaped face look younger and more vulnerable—not a sentiment she’d appreciate.

Since the first night he’d spotted her in The Emerald Tavern, he’d known he had to have her. The feeling had only gotten stronger over time.

Marti might look as though she was completely wrong for him, but when he held her in his arms their differences melted away. He just wished he could figure out a way to convince her they belonged together.

“Be straight with her,” Craig said, dropping his arm. “Ask her to be the same with you. Once you know what it is you have to tackle, then we’ll come up with a game plan.”

“We?” He gave Craig a sideways shove, like they used to do in high school.

Craig shoved right back and grinned. “Yeah, what are friends for? Besides givin’ your girl a thrill?”

He never thought he’d need his friends to help him win a woman. But then he’d never had a more stubborn adversary. “Thanks, man.”

“Buddy, I’ve got your back.” Craig cleared his throat. “Hope you don’t mind my sayin’ but your girl’s ass—“

Jackson elbowed Craig’s ribs, slamming against his protective vest. “Don’t suppose you’re gonna keep that to yourself?”

“You showed me your woman’s pussy. What the fuck do you think?” Craig chuckled. “So tell me, does she wax or did you shave it?”

“Shut the fuck up.” Jackson flashed a grin but straightened his shoulders. “Think we can get back to business? Did you get us something to eat?”

“Burgers and fries.” Craig hit the remote on his key ring as they approached the squad car parked at the curb. He grabbed a brown bag from the passenger seat then held it out for Jackson.

They’d been canvassing the area, working as a pair, gathering information for the robbery detectives investigating a recent spree of hold ups in the downtown area. They had taken a late lunch break—but he hadn’t been able to resist slipping into the bar to see his girl. Now, they’d have to eat between calls, and the food was cold.

Their next stop wasn’t very far. Jackson took a handful of fries and stuffed them in his mouth before entering the next establishment on their list.

It was the site of the second robbery on this block in a week. During the first, the robber put the clerk and a couple customers in the novelty shop on the floor when he fled. This time, he duct-taped the restaurant’s cashier, a couple of waitresses and the cook, and left them in a storage room where the next shift found them.

Jackson didn’t like to think of Marti facing the same scenario. But who would have the balls to rob a cops’ bar? Still, he’d have a little talk with her tonight about safeguards she should put into place. Maybe they’d do some role-playing too. The thought had him grinning as he followed Craig inside the restaurant.

Chapter Two

Marti struggled to regain her breath. “Take it back!”

Jackson’s jaw firmed. Right along with the cock pushed deep inside her. He had her trapped beneath his beefy body, covered from chest to toe.

What a dirty trick—asking her to marry him when she’d been that close to coming. She shoved at his shoulders. “Get off me.”

“Not until we talk this out. If I let you up, you’ll run.”

Pushing out her lower lip, she glared, although she was pretty sure the effect was blunted by the fact her mouth was already swollen after the blowjob she’d given him at the front door as soon as he’d arrived. “I take it back,” she muttered.

“Which part? The ‘Oh God, you’re so fucking good’? Or the ‘I love you’?”

“Both. You’re a jerk.”

“I’m a jerk who’s still waitin’ for an answer.”

She exhaled a shaky gust of air. “Well, the answer’s no.”

Marti expected some disappointment. Maybe even a little anger, but he only smiled.

Which irritated the snot out of her. Narrowing her eyes, she met his steady stare. “I mean it.”

Jackson grunted. “I know you do.”

“So why are you still here?”

His eyebrows did a sexy up and down waggle. “Where? Inside you? Or not slammin’ through the door?”

She huffed a breath, trying to ignore the fact her pussy was getting wetter by the moment. “Both.”

“I’m a cop, testing soon to be a detective. I don’t take a statement at face value. I dig deeper.”

She arched a brow. “You couldn’t get much deeper than you are right now.”

“You weren’t complainin’ about that a minute ago.”

“A minute ago, I didn’t know you were gonna spring something like that on me. Marry you? As if!”

“What’s wrong with the idea?”

“
I’m
wrong. Look at me.”

They’d left on the lights on the nightstands—Jackson’s preference. His gaze burned a trail down her body, all the way to where their two bodies joined, then slowly back up again. “I don’t see the problem. We fit.”

She ground her teeth. It was sweet and all that he seemed blind to their incompatibilities, but someone had to look out for him—for his own good. “I don’t have a college degree. Hell, I don’t even have a high school diploma.”

“Do you think I’ll look down on you one day because you don’t have a piece of paper hangin’ on the wall? You’re better traveled than me. And you speak three languages.”

“I have blue hair.”

“A pretty blue streak. It matches the color of your eyes.”

“I have a tattoo and more piercings than a tuna fish.”

“Your tattoo makes me hot.”

She deepened her scowl. “Everything makes you hot. What happens when you take me to the policemen’s ball and the wives turn up their noses at me?”

“What century do you live in? A lot of them have ink.”

“You don’t,” she muttered. “Bet your family doesn’t.” Not that she knew for certain because she’d never met any of them. He didn’t mention them much either, which had made her wonder whether he was ashamed of her.

Jackson kept right on swirling his hips, screwing slowly into her. “Would you feel more on a level playing field if I got a tattoo or two? I’d wear a heart with your name on it. I’ll even let you choose where. Arm or ass?”

How’d he expect her to stay mad when he moved like that? When he gave her a lazy forward thrust, she all but purred like a kitten. “You’d do that for me?”

Jackson settled on his elbows and cupped her face between his hands. “Baby, I’d do anything for you. I want to marry you. Have children with you.”

This close, his jaw tight with lust, but his expressive eyes soft and warm, it was hard to stay annoyed. She wrinkled her nose. “Can you imagine me with the soccer moms?”

His snort was all male. “My boys’ll play football.”

“What if I don’t want kids?”

He grunted. “But you do.”

“Yeah, but what if?”

“We’d talk through whatever worries you have.” He moved again, this time easing out—so slowly her channel clenched all along his length to hold him inside.

“I never pegged you as lackin’ in confidence,” he growled.

The warm whiskey of his deep voice sent a prickly shiver across her belly. “I’m not. At least, not usually,” she gasped. “But…I’m not ready to get married. I’ve told you that before.”

He sighed, pushed his cock back inside then aligned his legs on either side of hers to clamp her thighs closed. “Tell me your concerns. We can work through them.”

Despite the languid heat causing her body to yield, she thought fast. “It’s not so much concerns as I have this bucket list.” At the arch of his brow, she glanced away. “It’s a list of things I have to do before I die.”

“And you can’t do them after we’re married?”

“Um, some of them are things I would never do after I have a husband.”

His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What kinds of things?” Gone was the husky, seductive note in his voice. He’d bitten each word. The body weighing her down slowly turned rigid.

“You won’t like it,” she said softly, eyeing him with defiance.

“Maybe I’ll be in agreement—after I hear you out—and then you’ll have won the argument.”

But she didn’t want to win. Not really. She just wished he’d stop thinking that they had something more than this. “But I don’t want…” Her eyes stung with unshed tears.

His expression lost a little tension. His dark eyes smoldered. “You don’t want what, baby? You can tell me anything.”

“I don’t want this to end before it’s supposed to,” she whispered.

Jackson sighed. “Did you ever think that maybe it’s not supposed to end? Baby, I love you. You love me. It’s really pretty simple.”

She shook her head. If it was so simple, why did her stomach feel like it was tangled up in a knot?

Jackson sighed. “What’s on the list? Show it to me.”

How? She didn’t have a list, just a notion that she needed to stall. “It’s not written down. It’s…in my head.”

“Are these
things
sexual in nature?”

That made her blink. And gave her an idea. She nodded, a blush heating her cheeks. She’d win this argument. There was no way he’d agree to fulfill her secret desires. Not when they were too wicked to voice and mostly against every law known to a straight-arrow kind of guy like Jackson.

The corners of his mouth eased upward a fraction. “Tell ya what, you write it all down for me.”

“I’ll write it down and leave it on the table. That way when you read it, I won’t have to see your face.”

“Will it be that bad?”

“That naughty,” she whispered. “Things a girl fantasizes about doing just once before she’s leg-shackled.”

His mouth curved. “And why do you think I’ll be mad?”

“Because I know you. I know how territorial you are. If you were a dog, you’d piss all over me to keep every other horn dog away.”

“So this has to do with another guy? Anyone I know?”

“No one
I
know. Let’s not talk about it now, Jackson.” She slid a hand between their bodies and reached down to ring the root of his cock with her thumb and forefinger. “I got you off. Turnabout’s fair play.”

“Feelin’ neglected?” he murmured.

She walked her fingers over the crest of his shoulder. “Yes, and ugly. You’re all the way up inside me and haven’t moved. Makes a girl wonder if you’re bored.” She squeezed her pussy around him just to watch the heat flare in his eyes.

Air left him in a slow breath. “Do that again,” he whispered.

She closed her eyes and concentrated, tightening first the mouth of her vagina then pulling him inward to caress his length.

His hips dipped, digging his cock between her closed thighs. “We’re not finished talkin’.”

“I’ll make your damn list—just fuck me, Officer Teague.”

His legs shifted, and his knees pushed one at a time between her thighs. She opened eagerly, bending her legs to cup either side of his hips as he settled into the space she made.

Jackson dipped down and kissed her, rubbing her lips with a lazy wag of his head. “Baby…”

“Mmmmm?”

“It’s gonna get rough.”

She grinned. “Do I look scared? I had a molester do me in my office today, and I didn’t scream once.”

“You screamed exactly once. Craig can verify.”

“Craig better keep the rest of the details to himself.”

“Don’t count on it,” he muttered. His hands slipped beneath her, arms wrapping tightly around her back. She savored the hug, accepting the comfort.

Only comfort wasn’t really what he had in mind.

He reared back on his knees, lifting her from the bed, their bodies still connected.

She caught her breath and grabbed for his shoulders. They knelt face-to-face; she straddled his lap. Liquid seeped from inside her, the wet warmth surrounding him, coating her.

Scooting her knees in closer, she took her weight and began a sexy little up and down bounce that pulled and pushed on his cock because she hugged him inside as well, her feminine grip constricting around him.

He groaned and sank his forehead against her shoulder. “Tryin’ to kill me?”

“It’d be murder one. Think they’d let me off for good behavior?”

“I’d come back from the grave to testify I died with smile on my face.”

Marti’s breaths shortened to strained rasps. “Baby?”

“Umm?”

“I gotta move real bad, but I don’t think I can. I’m starting to shake.” And she was, a delicious quiver prickling the skin of her belly and weakening her thighs.

Hands clamped on her ass. He raised his face, and there was that look again—the feral, hard-edged lover who took no prisoners.

A shiver of feminine fear shook her. She cupped his cheeks with her palms and bent slowly toward him.

His chest rose and fell. His nostrils flared.

Tilting her head to align their noses, she brushed his firm mouth once with her wet lips, then again more insistently, knowing instinctively that when she went soft and pliable, his arousal grew more intense.

Sure enough, a low, rumbling growl worked its way up his throat. His mouth opened to capture hers, his tongue pushing past her lips, invading her to thrust against her tongue. Then his hands squeezed her ass and lifted her off his cock, his whole body tightening so she felt every flex of muscle against her chest, her belly, her inner thighs. He slammed her down, his thick, hard rod forcing guttural gasps.

She broke with his kiss and clutched his shoulders for support because he was moving her relentlessly up and down, his arms straining, his face sharpening, reddening.

Their gazes locked. She felt as though the room became smaller, her sight constricting until she saw only his taut features.

Her breaths grew more shallow, chopped apart by the hard, downward thrusts. His breaths were coming faster, too, accompanied by manly grunts, the same sort of sound he made when he worked out, sounds she adored because she loved this big, powerful man and the way he dwarfed her, overwhelmed her at every turn.