High Octane Heroes Page 5

  “Get in the fucking car.” The edge in his voice brooked no argument. A darker part of her wanted to obey his every wish regardless. Michael Delaney had touched her butt. A grin tried to fight its way onto her face, but she shook it off.

  She twisted on the towering heels and slid into the car. The door slammed against her shoulder, and she scooted into the seat.

  Michael got in on the other side, slammed his door too and shoved the key in the ignition. Kara squirmed, trying to no avail to find a way to sit and allow the skimpy dress to cover her with some semblance of decency. The outfit simply couldn’t comply, so she crossed her legs and stared at her knees.

  He started the car, slammed it in gear and peeled out. Nineteen agonizing minutes of silence later, he slammed on the brakes. They skidded to a halt at a turnout on the side of the mountain road overlooking the city. The valley below was a field of lights as twilight surrendered to the night.

  Michael threw open his door, rounded the front of the squad car and yanked open her door. He reached in before she finished undoing her safety belt. Grabbing her wrist, he pulled her from the car.

  There was no chance to adjust her dress, and the summer breeze brushed across her hardening peaks. He spun her toward him and surveyed her savagely. Inch by inch, he inspected her and the intensity of his gaze melted her from within.

  “Are you stupid?” he snapped.

  “I… I thought—”

  “What if I hadn’t gotten to you?”

  Stunned by his question, she met his hard gaze. What did he mean?

  “Do you have any fucking idea what guys like that do to women like you?” He grabbed the front of her dress and yanked it up. He didn’t seem to care her breast fell out as a result.

  Excitement swelled through her, and her nipples tightened. “Wh… what?”

  “Dammit, Kara.”

  Her heart fluttered at his gruff utterance of her name.

  “Ever since you came into this precinct, I tried to ignore you. To not think about you… This…” He shook her barely there dress in emphasis.

  His gaze blurred into hunger as it dropped, and she felt it sweep across her exposed flesh. “I…”

  “You almost got your ass killed.”

  She stared. This wasn’t a chewing out for being a stupid rookie. There was real heat, true passion in his words. Michael was upset. She knew she should make some effort to cover her breasts, but letting him see them was a thrill she had only imagined before today. “But I—”

  “But nothing. If I hadn’t been close by, you’d be dead. I can’t have that.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  His chest heaved with emotion, and his gaze slid up from her breasts to meet hers with hardened resolve. “I can’t protect you like this, and I can’t stop thinking about you. So… So you belong to me now.”

  Her pulse doubled and a wave of heat rushed through her. “I…belong to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I…” Speechless, she stared back.

  “Don’t even pretend you don’t feel it too. I’ve wanted you from the second I laid eyes on you, but I tried to ignore you. That ends now.”

  In emphasis, he tore what remained of her dress from her and left her mocha skin completely bare. Kara trembled beneath his heated stare, vulnerable and totally naked. His ravaging stare never left her as he tossed the remnants of the shredded dress into the car.

  “You’re mine, Kara.”

  His lips seized hers, and Kara moaned as he crushed her body against his, knowing what she’d tried to deny since the day she’d met him.

  She did belong to him.

  Completely.

  Kara melted into his possessive kiss and yielded to his claim. In the hundreds of fantasies she’d had about Michael, nothing could have prepared her for the reality of his dominance. His greedy lips consumed her, and his tongue battered through to hers and flickered. Fire swept through her, and she thought she might faint.

  His tough hands scooped her breasts, and he glided thumbs across her aching nipples. His touch was surprisingly gentle, but fierce all the same. In the middle of nowhere her wicked dreams of Renegade were going to be realized. Michael Delaney was going to fuck her, and she couldn’t be happier.

  He broke the kiss with a growl and bit her chin lightly. “You deserve better than this.” Michael pushed her backward, and then turned her. “Better than out here.”

  Kara braced herself against the hood of the car and widened her stance. God, she needed him inside her.

  “But baby, I need you.” He swatted her ass with a stinging slap and grabbed it like he owned it.

  Kara hissed at the spark of pleasure it sent straight to her core.

  “I need to fuck you. Right here. Right now.”

  His words seared her flesh like lava, and her pussy clenched in excitement. It was crazy, wild, but the road was remote, and it was unlikely anyone would come along. She needed him to claim her, and the risk of being caught only made it hotter. They were long past the point of no return.

  Kara looked over her shoulder and arched her back. If her eyes didn’t say it, she was no longer too afraid to utter the words to him. “Take me.”

  Men like Michael Delaney afforded no indecision, and he lifted her ass up with one hand and yanked open his belt with the other.

  Kara watched in lust-stricken anticipation as he pulled out his huge, thick cock.

  He jerked her hips, bucked and impaled her slippery pussy in a forceful plunge.

  Waves of hot pleasure rippled through her as she stretched to take him all. Kara whimpered in ecstasy. Finally.

  Fast, hard and deep, Michael fucked her tightness and took her over the edge within minutes. Kara clung to the car for dear life as she came a second time, and Michael sealed his claim by pulling out and marking her ass with his cum.

  He collapsed against her and held her tight. Together, they sucked in air until the orgasmic tremors faded. Turning her, he took her face into his strong hands and kissed her tenderly.

  He took off his uniform shirt and put it around her. It was longer than the skimpy dress she’d worn and draped just above her knees. She smiled in thanks and understood the gesture was more than offering her clothing.

  “I have to get you back to the lieutenant,” he said gruffly.

  “Yeah…”

  “Let him bitch you out. Don’t argue. I’m putting in a request to have you transferred.”

  Kara was stunned. He’d fucked her, now he was sending her away?

  “I can’t have you getting into shit like that again. I can’t be there to protect you, so I want you to transfer to SWAT training.”

  Stunned again, Kara stared in disbelief.

  “I need you with me. Where I can protect you.”

  “I can protect myself—”

  “I know.” He traced a calloused fingertip across her lips. “I know you can, Kara. But that’s my job now.”

  What could she say to that?

  Michael slid his hands under her chin, lifted her onto her tiptoes and kissed her possessively. Amazed no one had driven by, they got back in the car and drove to headquarters. He stopped out front and took out a card. He wrote his address across the front and slipped it into her hand.

  “Go, check in. Then get your ass to my place.”

  Kara couldn’t wait; right now she grinned. Sometimes dreams did come true.

  PAINTED

  Leah Ridgewood

  Bitter coffee burned Rosalia’s tongue. The steaming black brew from her abuelita’s corner store wasn’t nearly as good as the stuff from the trendy café across the street, but she drank it as a matter of principle. The same principle, in fact, that demanded she scurry up to the third floor of rickety scaffolding at seven-thirty on a cold and foggy Thursday morning.

  The thought of spending the day at the top of the scaffolding made her queasy, but she’d only rented the hulking atrocity for a week. So even if heights turned her into a trembling chihuahua, she had to g
et her skinny ass up there and finish the mural. It was her act of protest and her tribute to abuelita, and it already looked pretty damn good.

  The three-story-high painting splashed turquoise, gold and magenta on the side of the building; La Virgen’s white backdrop stood in bright contrast to the sooty wall. Rosalia had wanted to script giant letters advertising her family’s bodega. But the landlord had told abuelita no. Rosalia’s grandmother was sick and wasn’t getting better. Once she died, the landlord would turn the storefront into a gourmet donut shop, or something equally stupid, catering to the new, wealthier residents of the neighborhood. Meanwhile, Rosalia would lose the rent-controlled apartment that went with the storefront.

  Her hands balled at the thought of the landlord and his arrogant nephew who’d moved in upstairs. No doubt they thought the mural added a bit of local color and deterred graffiti. But in Rosalia’s heart, La Virgen marked the building as part of the real Mission District.

  She took her third sip of coffee and dumped the cup into a green sidewalk trash can. Hefting her knapsack, she readied herself to face her fear. Paint, brushes and turpentine weighed heavily on her shoulders. The rungs of the scaffolding were spaced so far apart she could barely keep her balance as she hauled herself up. At the top, she dragged her legs onto the planks and pushed onto her knees. The wind blew harder, threatening to topple her. Teetering precariously, she leaned into the gust. Her pulse swirled out of control, and the sidewalk spun beneath her.

  She swung her pack down and sat. Squeezing her eyes closed, she leaned against the wall, her head resting against a window. A few deep breaths calmed her panic enough for her to notice the window leaked the sound of rhythmic keening—the nerve-grating sound of two beautiful jerks fucking—and enjoying it too.

  It took no effort for Rosalia to imagine her handsome new neighbor and his girlfriend, limbs entangled, flawless fair skin and golden heads, big muscles and bigger breasts. It took even less effort for her own lean, brown body to slide into the image in place of the buxom blonde, her legs encircling his perfectly sculpted ass, his broad shoulders bunching and straining over her. Desire poured into her veins, erasing her panic and making her pant.

  Hijo de puta. If they woke up abuelita with that caterwauling, she would raise hell and then complain to the landlord. Not that it would matter.

  She shook her head, but the image of his gorgeous body gripped her. From the window of the apartment, she’d watched him come and go like he owned not only the building, but the world. His blond head towered above everyone else on the street. He didn’t even have a job—came and went whenever—sometimes home all day, sometimes gone all night. Just another entitled pig stealing her neighborhood, one bodega at a time.

  The resentment sobered her, and the last threads of her acrophobia unraveled, freeing her to work. She stood on stable-enough legs and pivoted, relieved to find the window heavily curtained. She didn’t have to see what that fair skin over bulky muscle looked like under his fashionably ratty clothes. And, away from the glass, she couldn’t hear them either.

  She’d saved this high section of the painting for last—La Virgen’s crown held aloft by tiny brown-skinned cherubs. With new purpose, she found a pencil and darkened the sketch she’d already made on the siding, adding detail to her little cherubs. Soon they would be chubby brown babies crowning La Virgen, their queen. But first, Rosalia layered bright-yellow paint onto the rays of light surrounding the holy mother.

  When she finished tinting the array, she cleaned her brush, swooshing it around in the small jar of turpentine. A bit of the cloudy liquid sloshed out, and she peered over the side of the platform to see if it had splashed anyone. It hadn’t, but a sleek, towheaded ponytail emerged from the door.

  Without deliberating, Rosalia dropped the jar off the scaffolding. Well, perhaps she thought a bit—she did aim a good ten inches behind the blonde bitch. Which meant when Mr. Muscles appeared at the bottom step, filling out a navy-blue uniform like the sex-god he’d sounded like, the jar shattered at his feet.

  He smelled paint thinner before he realized what had happened. The mural painter had dropped a jar from the scaffolding.

  “What the hell?” shrieked Meegan.

  He braced himself for her outrage. She hated coming to his neighborhood and never hesitated saying so.

  She pointed at the painter. “Get down here this instant. I want an apology. And you barely missed my purse with that nasty stuff.”

  He followed the line of her finger to see the silhouette of a boy in a baseball cap and overalls.

  “I said, get down here. Oh, for Christ’s sake. Do you even speak English?”

  The sole of his boot crunched in glass as he reached for Meegan’s arm. “Are you hurt?”

  “That’s not the point. She’d have killed me, if that thing had hit my head. She probably did it on purpose.” Meegan rummaged in her purse, shouting. “I’m going to call the police if you don’t come down here.”

  He squinted up at the boy, a dark shape in contrast to the foggy white glare behind him. Had Meegan said she?

  “Fuck you,” said the painter, in an unexpectedly high voice. Yep, she.

  Meegan stomped her foot. “Get down here.”

  “Yo no recibo órdenes de gringas perra con palos por el culo.”

  He stifled a laugh. She’d pegged the bitchy and uptight Meegan, for sure. The laugh died in his throat. Why was he sleeping with her if that’s what he thought? Little miss painter had shown him the light.

  “What did she say?” Meegan asked.

  He shielded his eyes and saw the mysterious woman had removed her cap. Sunlight fell on waves of raven black hair and a full-lipped, sensuous mouth, pulled into a sneer. She was easily twenty-five, but petite.

  “She said it’s a long way down, and she sees no need to descend.”

  The painter snorted. “That’s not—wait. You speak Spanish?”

  “Sí.” And he would use it to ask what had happened. “¿Sabía usted lanza el frasco en ella?”

  “Fue un accidente.”

  “An accident. You heard her, Meegan. Let’s go.”

  “Not until she apologizes.”

  The painter let out a stream of curses in Spanish so fast and loud it made his head spin. He wouldn’t fool Meegan about those, so he grabbed her, dragging her toward the train station.

  The shouts cut off abruptly. “Hey. Why are you wearing that?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, the light behind her illuminating the swell of small breasts and gently curving hips. They distracted him from her question, but he refocused. “What?”

  “That uniform. Why are you wearing that?”

  He shrugged. “For work.”

  “You work?”

  From her tone, he may as well have said he was a Martian. “Uh, yeah. Paramedic at General,” he called out, dragging Meegan behind him.

  In the station, he shoved her onto the train with more force than he preferred to use with a lady. His sense of honor recoiled, even though she’d proven herself to be anything but. A clock over the turnstiles warned he was running late. His work boots and heavy pants weren’t ideal for a run, but he jogged the eight blocks to the sprawling redbrick complex of San Francisco General Hospital. With a few minutes to spare, he powered up his phone and discovered five texts from Meegan, the last of which said, Call back now or we r thru.

  Nice of her to make it easy on him; one of the nicer things she’d ever done.

  A routine day of emergency calls followed—a heart attack, an overdose, a car accident, and in between, plenty of waiting. Sipping hospital coffee and burning time, he recalled the surprisingly beautiful mural painter’s sneer. A tickling suspicion formed—it hadn’t been an accident at all. He should be mad, but instead he admired the feisty little thing, and her judgment about Meegan had proven better than his own. If the painter was back in the morning, maybe he could get her number.

  After his shift, he crossed the intersection toward his building.
Lit by the bluish light of a streetlamp, the mural seemed nearly finished, though the scaffolding obscured it. He wanted to see it uncovered, and to see its painter even more. Hopefully tomorrow.

  He closed the gate behind him, climbing the unlit stairs to the landing. A door opened. Once again in silhouette, she appeared in its frame. She closed the door behind her. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, her features came into focus. Glittering almond-shaped eyes seemed made for laughter, but they were narrowed. Under her slightly upturned nose, those full lips were pursed. Her dark hair spilled over her shoulders like shiny silk.

  “You live with Mrs. Lopez?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “The mural looks great.”

  She tried to skirt around him, but he wasn’t ready for her to go. He blocked her.

  “Let me past.”

  “No.” Her eyes widened, and he cursed. What the hell was he thinking?

  A big guy alone with a beautiful woman in a dark stairwell. He retreated.

  Her chest rose with a deep breath, and she seemed more at ease. Instead of moving past him, she crossed her arms. “Where’s your girlfriend?”

  The scathing tone should have chilled him, but whatever hid behind the question made his body come alive, tightening his chest and stirring his cock. “Not my girlfriend anymore.”

  A husky laugh filled the stairwell. “Why?”

  “I took your side.”

  “Did you?” She raked her fingers over her forehead and through her gorgeous hair.

  “You know I did, and I suspect I was wrong. But I’m not sorry. Were you trying to hit her?”

  “I was trying to hit you.”

  Her lie made him laugh. “What’s your name?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “We’re neighbors, and I owe you a thank-you for saving me from Meegan. Can I buy you a drink?”

  Her throaty laugh rang out again. “We don’t go to the same kind of bars. Go find another blondie.”