Fall Into Me: Hearts of the South Read online

  “That.” She waved a hand toward the patio. “He’s going to pull into himself with the Captain America act—”

  “Superman.”

  “—and shut her out in the process because he’s had to face his own mortality and he can’t control what happens with Lee.”

  He rested his cheek against her hair. “Don’t worry. Falconetti’s pretty good at sizing up a situation and taking control. She’ll reel him in.”

  At least he hoped so.

  “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Atlanta.”

  At Chris’s surprised voice, Troy Lee looked up from the monthly traffic report he was compiling ahead of time. He shrugged as Chris fed quarters into the soda machine. “I came home early.”

  “So why are you here?” Chris slumped into the chair at the vacant desk fronting Cookie’s.

  Because he’d needed something to do and the empty squad room had offered both a distraction and quiet, with the only noise the muted squawking from the radio room downstairs. “I could ask you the same question. You’re not on duty, either.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t have family anywhere.” Chris popped the soda top and swigged, grimacing.

  “I wanted to come home, okay? Sheesh. I needed to kill some time, so I figured I’d start on this.” He entered another ticket number into the spreadsheet. Chris snorted a laugh and Troy Lee looked up, annoyed. “What?”

  Chris’s knowing gaze made his skin crawl. “You just referred to Coney as home. You’ve never done that.”

  “Slip of the tongue. Big deal.”

  “Yeah.” Humor lurked in Chris’s monosyllable and the silence that fell after it.

  Aware Chris was studying him like some kind of lab specimen, he entered a couple more tickets—damn, Angel had two warnings this month—and turned his head to glower at his friend and colleague. “What?”

  “She really has you hooked, doesn’t she?”

  He didn’t even have to ask who Chris meant. He turned back to the computer. “No fishing metaphors. Makes me think of…” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Tick Calvert’s office.

  “So why are you here, if you came home to see her?”

  He didn’t miss the emphasis Chris placed on home. “Because she’s not home.”

  “How many times did you go by?”

  He held up three fingers and waited for the ribbing to begin.

  Chris laughed, softly. “Dude, you’re a stalker.”

  “I am not a stalker. I want to surprise her.”

  “So you’re driving by her house repeatedly.” Chris snickered over a swallow of soda and stretched his legs out, crossing one ankle over the other. “Sounds like stalking to me.”

  “Did anyone ask you?” He cast sideways glances at Chris between ticket numbers. Chris never made a big deal about being alone at the holidays, but being without family had to be a bitch. Even as aggravating as Ellis and Montgomery could be, he wouldn’t trade them for anything. “What did you do today?”

  “Worked with Hound. Watched the bowl game. Took a nap.”

  “You lead a sad life, Parker.” A sad, lonely life from the sound of things.

  “I’m not the one stalking women.”

  “Woman, singular. And I’m not stalking her.” He laid aside a stack of officer copies and saved the file to the department server. Maybe Cookie would be the one to review the recap. That way, maybe he’d avoid another little visit with Calvert, going over each and every fucking line. “I’m…waiting for her.”

  “You know it’s after nine, right?” Chris tapped his watch. “When was the last time you went by?”

  “Shit, after nine? You’re kidding me.” A twist of his wrist confirmed the fact it was closer to nine thirty. He’d immersed himself in the data entry and…damn it. “I gotta go.”

  Angel picked up her cell from the bedside table and put it down again for what had to be the fifteenth time. This was ridiculous. Okay, fine, she missed him. She wanted him around. However, she was nearly thirty-seven years old. Old enough not to have these girl-with-a-crush urges to call him just to hear his voice. To lie against the pillows and listen to him talk, to imagine him in that very same bed beside her.

  He’d be home tomorrow. Besides, hadn’t her mama always said it was bad manners to phone after nine o’clock?

  “You can wait.” She addressed her reflection in the mirror over her dresser with a stern voice. She’d take a long hot shower and go to bed early. Darn it all, why hadn’t she opened the bar tonight?

  In the shower, she soaped and loofahed and shaved, lathered, rinsed and repeated. Cleaner and smoother, but not relaxed, she pulled on a camisole and pajama pants and stared at the empty expanse of her bed. Shoot, if she went to bed, she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She’d end up staring at the ceiling, thinking about his smile, his eyes, his hands, his mouth. Oh yes, she was gone on him.

  What was she going to do about it? He seemed perfectly happy with what they had. She’d given one man way too much of her life already, waiting for more. She’d given another way too much too soon, hoping for more. Did she dare leave things as they were, let the relationship unfurl as it would?

  Her cell phone vibrated to life and she jumped as “Your Man” filled the air. Anticipation buzzed through her. She snatched up the phone.

  “Hello?” The syllables emerged breathless and damn near quivering.

  “Did you know you have the sexiest phone voice, ever?” His rich tenor filled her ear, the tones lazy and satisfied, the way he sounded after thoroughly kissing her.

  “Hmm, don’t think so.” She strove for casual and relaxed, although she wasn’t sure she pulled it off. “At least no one’s ever told me that before.”

  “Well, you do,” he murmured. If she closed her eyes, she could picture him, sprawled out, phone at his ear, while he drove her crazy with the sexiest male voice ever. The insidious desire pinched at her again. “So what are you doing?”

  “Talking to you,” she replied with just the right note of cheekiness. Good, she didn’t sound too eager. “I just got out of the shower and ready for bed. What are you doing?”

  “Standing on your front porch talking to you.”

  Her ability to breathe stopped stone cold. “What? Troy Lee, don’t tease.”

  “Who’s teasing? Come to the door and see for yourself.”

  A blend of hope and annoyance swirled within her. Barefoot, she padded through the living room. “I swear, if this is some kind of a joke, I’ll—”

  She swung the door open and the words died in her throat. “Oh my Lord.”

  Under the porch light, he grinned at her and snapped his phone closed. He held aloft a cellophane package. “I brought you a fortune cookie.”

  She stared at him, her voice gone, swallowed up by surprise and sheer, overwhelming joy. One thumb hooked in his pocket, he appeared relaxed and almost boneless in his jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned with “26-2”. Somehow, she tamped down the swamping desire to throw herself into his arms.

  His eyes gleamed, burned. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” She finally found her ability to talk, although the words came out shaky and small.

  “Don’t hold back.” His blue gaze dark and serious, he didn’t temper the words with a grin. “I don’t want you to.”

  She tucked damp hair behind her ears, suddenly aware they were talking about more than the obvious. “Are you sure about that?”

  One corner of his mouth hitched up. “I’ve always been sure.”

  “What happened to just for fun, no sex or expectations?”

  A chuckle escaped him in a low rumble. “I had to say something to get you to go out with me.”

  She laughed, eating him up with her eyes, wondering what she was supposed to say or do next.

  He held the cellophane packet up again. “So do you want your fortune cookie? I mean, I drove four hours—”

  “I want you.”

  His eyes went from smoldering to
blazing. “Angel baby, I’m yours. Hell, I’m so yours it isn’t funny.”

  A hot stare trembled between them, and in one step forward, two steps backward, her back landed against the wall inside the door and his mouth covered hers, kissing, teasing, devouring. She pushed at the door with one hand and somehow got it closed.

  He lifted his mouth, chest heaving. He nuzzled her ear, uneven warmth rushing over her skin with each of his breaths.

  “I want to know everything about you,” he murmured, hands moving over bare shoulders. His lips found hers. “What makes you moan, what turns you on, what makes you come apart.”

  “Yes.” Her knees threatened to weaken, to leave her melted and boneless in his arms. “Oh Lord, Troy Lee, I want that.”

  And more, that elusive something more, that specialness she’d never been for any other man. She wanted to lose herself in him, fall into them.

  “Let me.” He dipped the very tip of his tongue between her lips, teasing, tantalizing, while his body pressed into hers, so she felt every hard inch of him. “Let me know you all over.”

  She surged up against him, wrapping her arms around his neck. In a silence punctuated by kisses, she drew him the short distance to the dimness of her bedroom. He stared at her and sifted his fingers through her hair, stroked along her throat and shoulders, hooked his forefingers beneath her camisole straps and slid them down her arms. In their wake, he danced caresses along her bare skin.

  “I’ve dreamed about this, about you,” she whispered, shivering as fingertips, callused from strumming guitar strings, feathered over her collarbone and traveled down to just touch the rise of her breasts.

  “Me too.” He traced the lacy edge of her camisole. “Dreamed about you, thought about you, fantasized about you.”

  “Fantasized?” Her breathless voice dripped with the arousal he brought to life within her. No one had ever claimed that she’d inspired his fantasies, and all sorts of wicked possibilities tumbled through her head as she pondered what he’d imagined, what he’d done while thinking of her. She flicked a glance up at him, from his burning gaze, to his fly and back again.

  A slow, devilish smile revealed white teeth and he leaned in to whisper near her ear, “Yes, I did, while thinking about you, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  Her faced burned, even as another flush of arousal sizzled through her, ending in a wet, pulsing heat between her legs. His dark chuckle tickled her ear. “It shocks you, doesn’t it, that I jacked off while thinking about being inside you. You’re awful naïve, for a woman who keeps giving me hell about being older than me.”

  With every word, he made teasing little forays just under her camisole. She moistened dry lips. “There haven’t been that many men who would have had reason to think about me and…and…”

  “You can’t get it out, can you?” He laughed again, still touching her as he circled to stand behind her, fingertips rubbing maddening trails along the edge of her cami. “Have you ever done it?”

  “Done what?” Now his chest pressed against her back, his arms enfolding her as he teased.

  His humor rumbled through her and he pressed his lips to her shoulder. “I thought not.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything, Troy Lee.” She tried for a stern note, but with his mouth doing sinful things to her neck while he edged the camisole down, she couldn’t pull off more than a husky protest.

  “Maybe not.” The thin fabric pooled at her waist. He hooked his thumbs in it and swept it and her loose pajama pants down in one easy movement. Hot palms spread over her belly, covering, heating, enticing. “Or maybe it means Jim Tyre was too much of a dumbass to inspire you.”

  “Why are we talking about Jim?” She shivered, anticipating the movement of those long-fingered hands, maybe one upward to her breasts, another down to the damp heat trembling and unfurling at the top of her thighs.

  “Because I want you to get that I’m not him.” His teeth scraped at her earlobe. “It’s not going to be about ten minutes in the missionary position, with a couple of quick feels as foreplay. Or maybe having you on top when the mood is adventurous.”

  Shock slid over her and she turned her head. “How did you—”

  “He looks the type.” His fingers moved in a soft fret over her skin, but his hands didn’t change position. “A little too straight arrow to inspire a woman like you.”

  “Like me?” With her head turned toward him, she could see their shadowy reflections in the old mirror above her dresser, light glimmering over her pale nudity while he almost loomed behind her, fully clothed, his face taut with desire.

  The easygoing almost-too-pretty-boy was gone. In his place was all male, all man, set on ravaging her. A visceral thrill moved over her. “What do you mean, a woman like me?”

  “One who takes charge and likes to make things happen.” He nipped at her ear once more. “One who knows what she wants. You do, don’t you, baby? You know what you want me to do to you.”

  Oh Lord, did she. The picture that had repeated in her brain over and over flashed through her mind—her hands wrapped around the footboard, his tall body behind hers, having him all over her while he drove into her again and again.

  “Yes.” Her raw whisper tore from her throat.

  “Then show me.” All laughter had disappeared from his deep voice. “Make me give you what you want.”

  Chapter Seven

  She wrapped trembling fingers around his wrists. Under her touch, his skin was hot, and crisp hair abraded her fingertips. She closed her eyes, his “make me give you what you want” beating in her head. What did she want?

  Him, all over her. His hands, playing her body the way he did a guitar.

  On a deep inhale, she spread his arms, moving one palm up to her breasts, sliding his other hand to the juncture of her thighs. He caught his breath, thighs brushing her butt, his fingers tightening. Roughened fingertips swept over her nipple.

  “Oh yeah, baby.” His murmur rushed over her ear. “Make me give it to you. Do you know how freakin’ sexy that is?”

  Heat flushed her face, her momentary embarrassment soon lost to the sensation sizzling out from his soft tweaking at her nipple. His other hand flexed beneath her easy hold, fingers sliding over intimate folds. “Show me how to touch you.”

  Eyes closed tight, she pressed his palm over her mound, urging his fingers into the moisture between her legs. Soon, he’d picked up the rhythm she set, plunging two fingers inside her while the heel of his hand ground against her clit. At her breast, he plucked at her nipple, rolling and teasing the hard flesh. Tense desire bloomed low in her belly, growing, uncurling, heating her body. A moan slipped from between her lips.

  She released his wrists and clutched the sides of his thighs, afraid her knees would give out. He nipped and suckled a path from her ear, down her neck, across her shoulder. “You feel so good, Angel, so hot and soft…damn, I love how soft you are, all over…”

  His gravelly voice only added to the irresistible sensation swirling through her. She pressed her spine against his front, even the oft-washed denim of his jeans a sensual torture against her sensitized body. The exquisite pressure swelled and she dug into his legs, a hard shudder moving over her. “Troy Lee, I’m going to come.”

  His lips fastened on the area between her neck and shoulder for one intense second. She bowed, straining against his hand. “Troy Lee—”

  “I want to taste you.” He moved with an agility and speed that froze her already reluctant lungs. Using one arm about her waist, he lifted her easily to the bed, her back still to him, and on her knees, she grasped at the footboard, old and worn smooth by time, to steady herself. Her body buzzed and tingled, on the edge of climax, and she sucked in a shaky breath. He pumped his fingers inside her, a slow in-and-out slide, and his other hand spread across her stomach, tilting her to him, the soft cotton of his T-shirt rubbing against her thigh. The next second his mouth was on her, his tongue a hot, wet rasp over her clit, slipping, gliding, skimmi
ng. Every muscle she possessed went screaming taut and she arched into him, seeking more of his hands, more of his mouth, more of him.

  “You’re fantastic.” He muttered the words, and moist, heated breath rushed over her, his thumb brushing along her dripping folds. He swirled his tongue around the tiny trove of nerve endings, painful pleasure clenching her body tighter. “I can’t get enough of you, don’t want to get enough of you.”

  She danced along the sharp edge of an orgasm, not quite falling over, despite the dual torment of his mouth and fingers. “I want you to fuck me.”

  Had those words actually come from her lips? She’d never said them before. In her world, good girls, even ones who flirted with the edges of scandal, who got themselves talked about, didn’t say them, certainly didn’t tremble and throb and burn for him to follow through.

  His raw inhale chafed through her and he was gone, leaving her gripping the bed for dear life, eyes closed, afraid of what she’d done with those words. Fabric rustled, twin thuds hit her floor. Plastic crackled and he hissed in a breath before his large hand covered her again, sliding over the wet flesh.

  “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this.” His dark whisper flowed over her ears, hips bumping hers, the thick ridge of his erection rubbing along the damp throbbing between her legs. The head nudged at her clit, the warmth of his palm and fingers spreading across her lower stomach, combining with the incredible heat of his body at her back. “How long I’ve wanted you.”

  “Troy Lee, please.” She pushed against him, wriggling her butt into the cradle of his pelvis. “Stop teasing.”

  “Make me.” Another torturous glide between her thighs. He brushed his nose up her spine, stopping to drop a hard kiss on her shoulder. “Tell me what you want. I want to hear you say it again.”

  “I can’t.” She tingled all over, her skin burning, her breasts aching with each sway.

  “Angel.” He traced whirls over her belly, up her ribcage to roll one begging nipple between his damp thumb and forefinger. The clean, sharp note of arousal invaded her nose, their scents all tangled together, making her only want more. Teeth scraped her shoulder, leaving prickles of pain and shivers of passion in their wake. “Make me give you what you want.”