Spirited 1 Read Free

again .
    She rushed into the hallway, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Big Jim! Big Jim! Help me! Big Jim!”
    “Quiet!” the cop shouted. He grabbed her from behind and clapped a hand over her mouth as the door slammed shut.
    He pulled her against him. With her cuffed hands behind her back, she pushed against him, trying to twist away. Leveraging her weight, she clutched and got a fistful of coat leather in one hand and warm, cotton pajama bottoms in the other. She froze. Her hands were lined up with the apex of his thighs.
    Could this get any worse?
    Of course it could.
    His body reacted to her unintended groping. Jules attempted to push away, but only succeeded in pressing harder against his tightening groin.
    No, no, no.
    Images of their naked bodies joined together slammed into her mind, stealing her breath. Never in her life had she experienced such vivid fantasies, only these weren’t hers. Like the entrancing smell that drew her into his apartment, these images were coming from outside of her, manipulating her senses.
    The sex scenes playing through her mind had to be courtesy of the cop holding her too close. Jules nearly swallowed her tongue at the onslaught of the explicit images he’d somehow sent winging into her mind. Before she had time to wonder how a living person managed to project his thoughts—and they had to be his—he’d spun her around to face him.
    Her gaze dipped past his abdomen before zipping back to his implacable expression. She hadn’t intended to look, but in his fantasies he was huge. According to the sword tenting his pajama bottoms, that part of his fantasy was real.
    And the gladiator image sprang to life again.
    He cleared his throat, drawing her attention to his lethal gaze.
    “I, uh . . .” Her cheeks heated as she stammered a muffled apology. His hand loosened, but remained pressed over her lips. “P-please—”
    “Look, Happy Hooker, do you really want to add soliciting a police officer to your list of offenses tonight?”
    “No,” she whispered and shifted farther from him, pressing against the wall behind her. He crowded closer. At first it seemed threatening; except he emanated desire, not hostility.
    A stream of heated images flitted through her mind, images of his lips exploring her . . . everywhere. Her breath skittered, her cheeks burned hotter, and her mouth went dry at the flare of attraction in his eyes.
    “Mmm . . .” She tried to speak, inadvertently moistening his salty palm with her tongue.
    The cop sucked in his breath. His darkening gaze flicked from her eyes to his hand on her mouth and back again. Then he drew his fingers across her lips in a manner so sensual, she shuddered.
    “Don’t push this any further,” he whispered against her ear. He lightly traced her bottom lip with the tip of his index finger. Time stopped as his face lowered to hers.
    Lost in his nearly obsidian gaze, she waited for him to kiss her.
    And he was going to kiss her.
    Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew this was a bad idea.
    But, God help her, she couldn’t think of a single reason why she should stop him. His gaze lowered to her mouth and Jules licked her lips.
    He leaned closer.
    Her heart raced.
    A rusty-hinged door squeaked open. Big Jim—who wasn’t really big at all—appeared out of nowhere.
    “Seth? What’s with all the noise?” Big Jim yawned, stepping out into the hallway and closing the door behind him. “You’re gonna wake April.”
    The cop leapt away from Jules but kept a firm grip on her upper arm. “Hi, Ernie. Sorry for the disturbance. Police business. I thought you and April were in Florida this week.”
    “Nah. We leave Monday.” As if seeing her for the first time, Big Jim turned to her. “Jules? Is that you?”
    She glanced at the man, barely twelve years her senior, who’d adopted her shortly after her thirteenth birthday, then back at Seth the Cop. Thanks to Big Jim’s appearance, her illogical and ill-timed desire