Listening to Her Read online

  He eyed the flimsy bottom of her shirt. “Are you one of those women who wants a man to get rough with her?” The words came out strangled and hoarse.

  “You mean a man in authority to dominate me. Like a police officer.”

  “Yeah.” His voice scraped deeper notes. He couldn’t take his eyes off that fluttering white hem.

  “Never tried that.” Her stone rolling foot slowed. “Believe it or not, I’m a good girl. Always have been. Moving cross country like I did for a man was the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”

  “And now you’re all out of crazy.”

  Her admission was like dodging a bullet. He wanted crazy sex in the middle of the midnight, but part of him wanted her to be the kind of woman who’d say no. There was a fancy word for this. Ambivalence.

  Miss Taylor shuffled closer, a breeze blowing hair across her face. “There was a moment when I wanted you to push me up against the car and…frisk me.”

  Her lids fluttered as if the idea was painfully erotic. Palms damp, his dick felt like it was in a vise. Shit. The next motel was five miles down the road. He should tell her to go there and sleep this off. Without him.

  “If I did want to do something wild like that…you’d be the man,” she whispered.

  The compliment branded him. If she only knew what he thought when he saw her bent over looking for her wallet? He wanted to take her first, ask later. His mouth pinched. One night last year he nearly crossed a dangerous line, pinning his now ex-wife to the bed after she’d thrown news of three hook-ups in his face. Tanya had always been flighty and flirty, but he’d never expected her to be untrue.

  When he’d tossed her onto their bed and slammed himself on top of her, his blood boiled. He wanted power over her to hurt her the way she’d hurt him. A raging beast had been unleashed that night. Sorrowful whimpers stopped him from doing his worst. Instead, he rolled off her and left, driving to his grandfather’s lake cabin. He stared all night at the water, listening to crickets, hating himself for losing control.

  Anger ate him then, got him served with divorce papers that he couldn’t sign fast enough. Tanya wasn’t worth another minute of his time, but the bitterness lingered, made him doubt every female under the age of sixty. Some divorced men he knew crawled between the legs of willing female they could find. That wasn’t him.

  Tonight, lust stroked him in all the right places, goading him to take Miss Taylor’s hand and play Please don’t give me a ticket, officer…the kind of thing to get a man fired and brought up on charges.

  “You went somewhere just then,” she said, her face angled in the moonlight.

  The siren’s light shined cotton candy blue through her hair and on her cheek. He chuckled to himself, shaking his head. He was turning Miss Taylor into sugary fairground food he badly wanted to eat.

  “I really do need a good lay,” he said to himself, not caring if he shocked her or not. “Haven’t been with a woman in a year.”

  Nervous laughter trickled from her but she stayed in place, sweat sheening on skin exposed on her V-neck shirt. “I guess that means you’re not married.”

  “No. And before I do something stupid, you need to get in that car of yours and head back to California.”

  “Such chivalry Officer Perry.”

  Three west bound semis drove past, their draft flattening Miss Taylor’s shirt hem against her flat stomach. One driver honked twice and waved. This was his world, hot rubber tires, the asphalt and crickets, southern humidity. Tonight his life shined brighter because of this strange interlude.

  Miss Taylor hooked a finger in his belt loop and tugged him closer. “Before I go, there’s something I want.”

  His breath stuck in his throat when her bare legs pushed between his…a slender knee bumping him. The sounds drove him crazy…flip flops scraping the ground, her thighs, those cotton candy pink shorts brushing his pants, rustling sounds seductive as a woman’s sensual moans. He was hard as a rock and if he wasn’t careful, he’d shoot off like an eighteen year old.

  She cupped the back of his neck, drawing his head down hers. Their foreheads touched. His eyes shut, letting himself feel intimacy, hearing her breathing, the warmth of her touching his mouth. This was connection, the ebb and flow of her body with his. Want washed over him, but the urgent need for sex held back in favor of this tenderness.

  He didn’t think. He let himself want. Crazy, yearning, feel-oh-so-good closeness with a woman. She rocked into him, rubbed herself against him like a cat in heat. Head to toe, the sweet friction was everywhere.

  “Careful officer, I might have to frisk you,” she said against his mouth.

  “Fuck.” He panted hard, hands trailing her ribs. The ridges of her bones, the dips in between. Her waist covered by thin cotton. Rubbing the indent at her side, sliding to her back, he wanted all of her.

  Miss Taylor moaned against his mouth and ground her mons into him. It was a great first kiss. Hot. Sexy. Lips barely touching.

  His body wasn’t his. Miss Taylor owned him. And for that his hands dropped to her ass cheeks and squeezed. It served her right for brazenly caressing his hand with the pert curve. She kissed him fully, yelping when he squeezed harder a second time. Her soft lips molded to his, learning the dip of his lower lip, testing the seam of his mouth, his taste, his smell.

  Heat flared across his skin. His mouth moved slow as molasses on Miss Taylor’s until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He nudged her mouth open. Their tongues touched, stroking long, deep. She moaned in his mouth, grabbed his shoulders and leaped up, wrapping both legs around him. He gripped her ass cheeks, stumbling against her car. Her kisses seared him, stole his ability to think straight.

  Palpable heat radiated from between her legs. Miss Taylor rubbed her crotch against his belt buckle. She broke the kiss, her lungs billowing. Her mons pressed harder on the tip of his penis. Firecracker blue eyes sparked…sensual. Wild. The message possessive.

  See how I fit here? We’re perfect.

  It was perfect. She was perfect.

  Blonde hair fell around her face, the damp tendrils clinging to her cheeks. Miss Taylor’s big blue eyes swallowed him.

  “The kiss.” Her legs unlocked their hold and she slid to the ground, losing a flip-flop. She could barely get her words out. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”

  “Nothing in life ever does.” He picked up her wayward flip-flop and knelt down to slide it back on. He traced the delicate top bones of her foot, the line going to her ankle. “Your cheating ex in Atlanta…he’s a fool.”

  Before she could respond, he strode to his car. The dash was all lit up like him, and now it was time to turn off this strange night meeting. He flipped a few switches and the siren light and headlights went dark. The headlights should’ve stayed on, but he blew past regulation territory long ago. Leaving the hat on his seat was the first mistake.

  No, he smiled, snatching his hat…the hard-on was.

  The dispatcher’s voice scratched through the radio. He unhooked the mouth piece and checked in. “All quiet here, Sgt. Crowley.” They traded small talk for a minute and he watched Miss Taylor smooth her hair into a loose pony tail at the nape of her neck before he set the mouthpiece back on its hook.

  She waited for him, the tips of her white teeth nipping her bottom lip. “This counts as the wildest thing I’ve ever done.”

  “Wilder than moving for your ex?” he asked, running his fingers down a loose lock of hair.

  “Yes. Definitely yes.” Her soft laughter was a tease.

  Makeup smudged around her eyes. She had to be tired. He was tempted to tell her to sleep this off at his cabin on Deerwood Lake. The cabin was nirvana, the sanctuary he’d inherited from his grandfather right about the time he signed those divorce papers. Miss Taylor licked her kiss-swollen lips and leaned in for a hug. Her hand fumbled around his pants pocket, jostling his dick.

  He took a pained gander at starry skies. “Now who’s doing the frisking?”

  Miss T
aylor kissed her fingertips and set them on his lips, murmuring, “Good-night, Officer Perry.” And she tucked herself into her car and shut the door.

  The engine revved to life. Her leaving left a hole inside him. The thought was insane. Yet, this night wasn’t about thinking. It was about feeling again. About listening to a woman. Miss Taylor faced him through the open window, mouthing thank you. Bereft of words, he gave a curt nod and crossed his arms.

  The car’s blinker flashed as she pulled onto the freeway. It would’ve been too crazy to ask her to stay awhile before she went back to her life in California. Women like that wouldn’t want to spend their days on a lake, listening to crickets at night. They had condos to decorate and city friends to meet.

  He walked to his car, tapping his hat against his leg. Sliding onto his seat, a paper crunched in his pants. A gas station receipt stuck out of his pocket. He sat in the dark and pulled it out. Reading the paper by his instrument lights, she’d gassed up in Oxford, buying break up necessities like chocolate and the surprise…oranges. Blue ink seeped through the paper. He flipped it over. A phone number and a message.

  * * *

  Officer Perry,

  This has been one crazy night.

  You have my cell number. Please call me.

  I want to hear your voice telling me about crickets.

  Ali

  * * *

  A pink lip gloss kiss smudged her name.

  This was a not-so-subtle invitation to court Miss Allison Taylor. He tucked the paper in his left pocket over his heart. If Fate kicked a man when he was down, she had a fine way of helping him get back up. A red Ford Mustang blew past him at ninety. He scraped a hand over his mouth, grinning ear to ear as he started up his cruiser. Flipping on the siren, he floored the gas pedal.

  The chase was on.

  About the Author

  I hope you enjoyed Listening to Her. In romance, I write three unusual sub-genres: Viking romance, Georgian romance, and contemporary romance.

  My Kissable series runs on the steamy side. Expect to find sizzle. Expect to find two stories in each book (sometimes related, sometimes not). While my short story Listening to Her was fairly tame on the heat scale, read on! You’ll find a hot excerpt from the first book in this series.

  Cheers to you, Reader!

  ~Gina

  * * *

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  And freebies)

  Excerpt from FEEDING A BROKEN HEART

  Feeding a Broken Heart

  Bookstore clerk Abbie is off-the-charts nervous her first night moonlighting in a sex-for-hire job. If she only kept her mouth shut…but nothing goes as expected, including the intense blue-eyed surfer who walks through her door. Mark wants to work out a few kinks —and leave the lifestyle for good. Past mistakes still haunt him, but sweet Abbie turns Mark’s plans upside down, and two broken hearts discover honesty is the hottest aphrodisiac.

  Anything But Safe

  Former trophy wife Jennifer wants to thrive again, but when her new life hits a speedbump, her unlikely hero is rough working man AJ. The woman he rescued is out of his league, but the two together are magic. Jennifer smooths his rough edges, and when she’s with AJ, her true, quirky colors show. A surprise threatens to derail the two who quickly learn…love is anything but safe.

  * * *

  “She’s naked in black stilettos as you requested.” Mrs. Smith’s voice echoed down the hallway. “A fresh face…a California blonde.”

  Mrs. Smith’s real last name was a string of unpronounceable consonants, something eastern European. About an hour ago she’d smiled at me like a pageant queen with Vaseline-slick teeth. “We avoid names, dear. It keeps mistakes to a minimum.” She’d also dubbed employees and her clientele dates. “It gives atmosphere.”

  Names or not, my new employer led a brand new mistake my way. I had life errors galore, not all mine, but at twenty-six, I’d lost count. Life came down to the people I loved and numbers. Big numbers owed and puny ones in my bank account.

  Scooting to the edge of the bed, sheets bunched around my butt. My palms were sweaty as I smoothed yards of black silk. Just how was I supposed to wait for him? Stretched out on the mattress, playing the seductive vamp? Or standing? Either way my date would see how shit-scared I was. How I waited for him didn’t matter. He was paying to tie me up.

  Cold air pinched my nipples, the icy bite uncomfortable. I’d better get used to it. One large decorative iron hook stuck out of the ceiling, perfect for ropes and chains in the bare bones room where a single red bulb cast more shadows than light on plain plaster walls. The hook got me shaking with that chilly urge-to-pee feeling you get before public speaking.

  This is going to hurt.

  The door swung half open, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the hook. I was about to let a strange man hurt me, spank me, put clamps on my nipples. I hugged myself, covering my breasts. Who in their right mind wanted their nipples pinched hard? And why would a man want to do it in the first place? Only the depraved.

  Mrs. Smith’s muffled voice dragged my focus off the hook to the masculine shoulders filling the doorway. She was upselling, offering him a double date if he was so inclined. The man gave her non-committal grunts, the kind of sounds men make when a woman rattles on and he tunes her out. My date finally shut the door. He stayed there head bent low, one hand on the knob, a black nylon gym bag clutched in the other hand. A cracked surf graphic stretched across his back, expanding and contracting when he breathed. His fist worked the gym bag’s handle. He was tall but not overwhelming. Maybe he stood six feet.

  I cleared my throat. “Hello.”

  He swung around, the soles of his shoes squeaking on cement. A wall of heat and lust emanated from him. Darkness covered most of his face but when he tipped his head, red light slanted across eyes doing a slow burn over my body, catching on my plain black panties before drifting down to my stilettos. Goosebumps sprung wherever his gaze touched. His longish brown hair hadn’t been trimmed in months. With sun-bleached streaks in his hair and tanned arms, I pegged him as one of those guys who tended bar or waited tables because they lived to surf.

  I expected a dark, brooding dominator, not Surfer Man.

  “You’re supposed to be naked,” he said abruptly.

  “It’s cold in here.”

  He took two steps and dropped his gym bag, the corners of his mouth curving without humor. “You expect bikini underwear to keep you warm?”

  “Better than standing in nothing but—” I froze when he hooked a finger under my chin, intense eyes narrowing above me “—my shoes.”

  Surfer Man was a hawk, and he’d come to taste me. He sized me up, giving me the chance to do the same to him. He was handsome enough…long straight nose, firm serious mouth, and fine lines at the corners of fuck you blue-grey eyes. This man wasn’t big on smiling, nor would he work hard to give me warm fuzzies tonight. He didn’t have to.

  “You’re older than I thought.” His voice was sandpaper rough.

  “Is that a bad thing? Like you need a refund?” I joked.

  His eyes widened a fraction. Goofy humor was my default or else Surfer Man would notice my trembling. This whole situation was ludicrous. Never in a million years would I be here except for an intersection of lousy circumstances and a fringe-living friend who paved the way. My signing on with Mrs. Smith yesterday was never in my plans. Yet, here I was with an older, not so-bad-looking guy who looked like he owned me.

  For tonight, he did.

  My knees stuck together and my body dropped a degree of warmth. I wasn’t lying about the room being cold.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked, trying to smile.

  Sincere smiles and eye contact were the best way to connect, better than conversation or sexy clothes…or in
my case, no clothes. Surfer Man’s severe mask slipped as his hand fell away, the concentrated stare softening before he gave me his profile. His Adams Apple bobbed noticeably, and I got the feeling he too debated the sanity of being here —for vastly different reasons than mine.

  “I’ve never done anything like this before,” I said, filling the void.

  “I can tell.” He exhaled long and loud. “Truth is I’m a bit rusty. It’s been awhile.”

  “For BDSM?”

  His laugh was a dry broken sound. “For anything.”

  He zeroed in on the rumpled bed, and I’d swear a bead of sweat glistened on his temple. He was lost on the sea of black silk. Not able to dive in. Not ready to walk away. What could possibly make him hesitate? Or come here to pay for an evening of sex in the first place? Laguna Niguel was crawling with women on the hunt for surf gods like him. Faded jeans molded to athletic legs. His faded blue T-shirt hugged a rock solid chest, going snug around the swell of his biceps.

  Sure, nice-looking guys can be weirdos, but my creep-meter registered…nothing.

  Surfer Man was intense but normal.

  “Isn’t it like riding a bicycle?” I said. “You get back on and it all comes back?”

  Where did that come from? My date didn’t need encouragement, yet I wanted to be nice to him. His gaze dropped to my chest. He stared at curves squashed by both arms still hugging an X over my chest. I wasn’t big, but side boob showed. A mouth-drying lump gathered at the back of my throat the longer he stared. What was I doing? His hesitation was my escape.