Missing Page 4

  I could hear him grinding his teeth, heard his breath hiss between them, and hoped it was from exquisite pleasure, not pain. His erection butted against my cleft, followed it, but there was just enough fabric to the thong I was wearing to frustrate me. Before I could push it out of the way, he did. The head of his cock delved my cleft, rubbed along it, gathering the moisture my body yielded for him.

  His cock head nudged the opening to my body, burrowed inward and met resistance. I shifted, going up on my toes to give him better access. He pushed deeper, but the awkwardness of our position made it impossible for him to delve as deeply as I wanted, needed. Dizzy with desperation by now, I tried anyway.

  He caught my buttocks in the palms of his hands and lifted me upward. I teetered, off balance, then wrapped my arms tightly around him as he hoisted me higher, finally sheathing his cock so deeply inside of me I thought I might pass out from the pleasure of it.

  I clung as pressed me more tightly against the door to gain purchase, but his attempts to set a rhythm were thwarted by gravity and emphasized by the squeak of my bare ass sliding down the metal door.

  Panting for breath, he glanced behind him, then struck the wall with the palm of his hand. I was still trying to figure out why he had when he backed up several steps and half sat half fell backwards. A gasp of surprise huffed from my lungs about the same moment we touched down on a bed.

  I hadn’t noticed it when we came in or seen it the night before but discovered I had little interest in its appearance beyond relief. I spread my thighs wider and pressed downward, bringing him deeply inside of me, groaning at the currents of pleasure that movement created. He caught a fistful of my hair, dragging my head back so that I had to arch backwards to ease the pressure. The movement lifted my breasts in offering and he covered one taut nipple, sucking. I almost came that very moment. With an effort, I fended culmination off, slowly sheathing his cock, lifting up to allow it to stroke downward and then pressing down on him again, reveling in the growing flow of ecstasy created by the friction of his cock rubbing along my passage.

  I lost it when he moved to my other breast. Almost the moment the heat of his mouth closed over my engorged nipple and he began to suck and tease it with his tongue, the eruption I’d been trying to stave off broke free. I cried out as convulsions of rapture shuddered through me, shaking, unable to continue the rhythm I’d set. He grasped my hips, thrusting upward hard and fast and deep until he joined me.

  Gasping for breath, he released me and fell back against the mattress. Weakly, I fell forward, catching myself with my palms splayed on either side of him. The haze of bliss dissipated slowly as my heart and lungs regained a more normal rhythm. As tempted as I was to simply flatten myself against him and drift away, reason had begun to tickle at my self-conscious as delight faded into nothingness.

  Still panting, I unzipped my boot and dug for the gun.

  Withdrawing it at long last, I sat back on his pelvis and pointed the business end at his head. “Who are you?” I managed in a gasping breath.

  He cracked an eye at me, stiffening slightly when he saw the gun.

  I had to hand it to him. A lesser man would have withered forthwith. Disconcertingly, his cock, still inside of me, began to grow hard again.

  My eyes widened, but there wasn’t a hell of a lot I could do about the situation now. I had him by the cock. He had me by the pussy. Jeez!

  “Jerico.”

  Ignoring the tightness, the less than threatening position I was in, the faint muskiness of sex and the perspiration of our recent activities, I gave him as hard a look as I could manage.

  “Try again.”

  Amusement curled the corners of his lips. Very slowly, he lifted his arms and locked his hands behind his head. “Jer-eeko Taune.”

  I frowned. “What kind of name is that?”

  “Ren Jtanie.”

  “Ren-what? Where the hell is that? Never mind. What happened to the girl that was here before? The one that went missing?”

  He studied me for several moments, trying to decide, I knew, whether to lie or tell the truth. Without blinking, he spoke again. “She left.”

  There was nothing in his body language to indicate that it was a lie, and yet we knew she hadn’t left--we thought we knew that much, anyway. “So you knew about the woman who disappeared?”

  He shrugged. “I run the club. I know everything that happens here.”

  I gaped at him in absolute shock and disbelief. “You run … you mean you own this club?”

  “I’m one of the owners. My job is to set up the new clubs and see to it they’re running properly.”

  This was more information than I’d expected to get out of him. Why hadn’t any of this turned up in the background check Junior had run? He’d checked every available source and had come up with zilch--no owner names, and certainly not the fact that it was a chain. I wasn’t certain that that had any bearing on my case, but it could have.

  Maybe this was some kind of front for white slavery. Maybe they were catching women and sending them off to god-only-knew where.

  “Exactly what is the purpose of these clubs?” I demanded.

  His dark brows rose. “Dates and mates.”

  Irritation flickered through me, but after a moment a new possibility presented itself, one we’d dismissed. “She met somebody here.”

  “Yes.”

  “And left with him?”

  “Yes.”

  I lowered the pistol, studying him. “Why didn’t you tell anyone that when the cops were investigating her disappearance?”

  Instead of answering, he caught my wrists. I was so stunned by the lightning quick move, I merely stared at him in stunned surprise. Lifting my arms up, he rolled, tipped me off, and then sprawled half on top of me. Still holding my wrists above my head, he leaned toward me and nuzzled my neck, placing light kisses along the side of it from shoulder to ear.

  My flesh prickled in reaction.

  “Why did you take the job at the agency?” I asked, determined to get the answers from him if he had to torture them out of me with pleasure.

  “To assess the situation.”

  I frowned, struggling against the warmth seeping into me. “But--you posed as my inside contact,” I reminded him, trying to sound indignant.

  “Mmm. I couldn’t resist.”

  I digested that while he investigated the swirls of my ear with his tongue, wreaking havoc with my concentration. “I don’t--understand,” I said, gasping the last word out.

  “It was the opportunity I needed.”

  “For what?”

  “Dates--and mates,” he murmured, as if that explained everything. “You weren’t looking. If not for the case, you would not have come. So I … waited.”

  That penetrated my absorption in what he was doing. “For a date?”

  “I should tell you the rules of the club--twice are dates, thrice a mate.”

  It sounded nonsensical, but then he’d stopped teasing my ear and was making his way to my breasts. I lost my grip on the pistol when he covered one puckered nipple with his mouth. I lost interest in the conversation altogether when he pushed his knee between my thighs and moved over me.

  I needed no further encouragement and opened myself to him. My body burgeoned as I felt his cock glide slowly inside of me, stroking the wonderfully sensitive walls of my passage and setting off currents of enjoyment. Releasing his grip on my wrists, he slid his arms under my shoulders, dipping his head to nipple teasingly at my lips and finally covering them, thrusting his tongue into my mouth and stroking that cavity with the same rhythm he had set in thrusting his cock into me. The double penetration set my heart to racing, heated my blood.

  Without a whimper of protest I allowed myself to be submerged in the thrill of his possession, caressing him as he caressed me, arching to meet his every thrust. As slowly as he began, the assault was powerful, building passion swiftly, building it higher than before.

  My body reached pinnacle, co
nvulsed briefly in release and, without missing a step, coiled tighter, climbed higher. We became slick with the heat of our desire and labors. Almost as one the first quakes of release caught each of us. Jerico began to move faster, as if racing to catch the crest of a wave. His need pushed mine to the brink and finally over it. My body clenched around his swollen member, milking him. I cried out as the waves of ecstasy washed over me, through me, turning me molten inside. He groaned, his body convulsing in time to mine.

  I groaned as the molten tension began to mellow, slide away from me, taking every ounce of strength with it.

  “Come back to me,” he whispered hoarsely as I drifted past consciousness into sated, peaceful nothingness. “Promise.”

  Chapter Four

  I cracked an eye and peered at the room around me before I was even fully conscious. It looked familiar--real fucking familiar. Groaning, I pushed myself up on my arms, blinked my eyes a couple of times to try to focus and tried again. It was my bedroom alright.

  I collapsed on the bed again. “What the fuck?” I muttered wondering briefly how I could get from the club to my apartment without remembering a damned thing about the trip.

  Closing my eyes, I struggled to focus my thoughts into something coherent. Last memory--absolute ecstasy. Nope. Jerico had said something. I had to think for a while before that came back. By the time I’d remembered it I was wide awake.

  Rolling over, I checked the clock. Dismayed when I discovered what time it was, I rolled to the edge of the bed, tangling in the covers on the way and landing on the floor when I misjudged the edge. “Ow,” I managed to get out after a mental examination to see if I’d hurt anything besides my pride.

  Fighting free of the sheets, I tossed them in the general direction of the bed and headed for the shower.

  I’d overslept again. I still had time to get to work before my shift started, but just barely, not enough time for a lot of primping and certainly not enough time to eat. I grabbed a coke out of the fridge and a couple of energy bars. Traffic was a bitch. I discovered I couldn’t eat and dodge cars at the same time, much less comb my hair. I used the traffic lights for grooming and snatching bites of one of the bars. By the time I arrived at the precinct I’d managed to comb my hair and bundle it into a reasonably neat ball on the back of my head and I’d eaten--and I had the indigestion to prove it.

  Wiping my mouth on the sleeve of my uniform as I parked, I checked the buttons, zippers, etc., climbed out of my car and walked briskly inside to meet my new partner. I discovered, not very happily, that my new partner was outside in the patrol car, waiting for me.

  Gritting my teeth, I turned around and left the building again, this time by way of the garage. The car I’d been assigned was on the second level. I found it at the end. My partner had already parked his ass in the driver’s seat.

  I’d had a hell of a morning already and damned little sleep for days. Appropriation of my seat was enough to set spark to tender. I stomped around the car to the driver’s side and tapped on the window. The man at the wheel, rolled the window down and peered up at me.

  My mind went perfectly blank.

  I blinked, slowly, wondering if my mind had snapped. After all, I’d gone out to a club my boss said didn’t exist--twice--had the best sex I’d ever had in my life--with a man my boss said didn’t exist--and ended up in my own bed the next morning with no memory of how I’d gotten there. And now, my new partner was looking up at me with Jerico’s face.

  “You’re the rooky?”

  He smiled, a slow, sweet smile that looked exactly the way Jerico smiled--except different. I couldn’t put my finger on the ‘different’. The difference was in his eyes. There was absolutely no recognition in them, as if he was looking at a complete stranger, and the smile was polite, not intimate. For that matter, I couldn’t detect so much as a touch of devilment, or the self-confidence Jerico exuded like strong cologne. He looked almost--shy.

  “I guess I should be on the other side. I wasn’t sure you were going to make it today, though.”

  I blinked again. His voice wasn’t quite the same either. Dumbfounded, I merely stumbled back as he pushed the door open and stared at him as he climbed out of the car and moved around to the other side. I finally managed to will my legs to propel me forward when he’d slid into the passenger seat, and sort of fell into the driver’s seat, partly because my knees had lost their starch and partly because he had the seat pushed way back to accommodate his long legs.

  “Are you all right?”

  I turned to look at him, still too numb with surprise to bring order to the chaos inside of me. He looked like Jerico, but he didn’t sound like Jerico and he didn’t act like Jerico. Where did that leave me?

  Jerico was either a damned good actor--or he had an identical twin. What were the odds, I wondered, of Jerico’s identical twin just happening to show up at my precinct for job? For that matter, how had he managed the paperwork to get it?

  “Jerico?” I managed to say, though my voice sounded weak and distant.

  Something flickered in his eyes--I wasn’t sure what--and then I saw both devilment and laughter in his eyes.

  “Jared.”

  That threw me. I’d just convinced myself that it was Jerico. I held up a hand before he could say more. “Don’t you dare tell me you don’t know Jerico, because I’m not going to believe that for one minute.”

  He twisted, settling his back against the door and giving me a thorough once over. “He’s my brother.”

  I studied him suspiciously. Now I didn’t know what to believe. Was it Jerico pretending to be a twin? Or was this really Jerico’s twin? And if he was, why hadn’t Jerico mentioned it?

  All right, there hadn’t been a lot of time for discussing a family tree, I admitted, but it was a hell of a thing to leave out. And now that paranoia had set in, I wondered who I’d been with. Jerico? Or Jared? I could’ve been with either or both and I wasn’t sure I would’ve known the difference.

  He hadn’t seemed to know me, but could I trust that?

  After a moment, I scooted the seat forward and started the car. I had questions but I wasn’t about to ask them in the precinct garage. I didn’t have any particular destination in mind, but when I discovered I’d turned down the street where I lived I figured it was as good a place as any. Pulling into my space, I put the car in park and switched off the engine.

  Jared glanced at me curiously but said nothing.

  “What’s going on?”

  He turned to study me, lifting his brows questioningly.

  When he said nothing my temper sparked again. “Are you aware that it is against the law to impersonate a police officer?”

  “Earth law?” he asked with interest.

  “What?”

  “Earth law?”

  “United States Law--I don’t know. Everywhere I guess,” I said testily. “Don’t avoid the question.”

  “No.”

  “No, what?” I asked suspiciously.

  “I didn’t know.”

  I gaped at him, feeling that twilight zone thing settling over me again. “How could you not know?” I demanded.

  He frowned. “Why did you ask if you were so certain I did?”

  I gripped the steering wheel, resisting the urge to wrap my fingers around his throat and choke the life out of him. Questioning him was about as useful as questioning Jerico. That much was certain. “I should just turn you in. I don’t know why I didn’t arrest you right off and march you inside.”

  He seemed to think that over for several moments. “I don’t think you can do that.”

  “I happen to be a trained police officer, I’ll have you know. I can take you down if I have to,” I snapped.

  He looked both interested and amused, but not the least bit intimidated. “But you don’t have to. I’m a police officer.”

  “My ass!”

  His gaze immediately dropped to my lap. Abruptly, I had the strangest feeling that English was not his native tong
ue. I don’t know why, except that he seemed to take the slang literally, because he didn’t have any accent at all that I could detect. “Do you have trouble understanding English?”

  He hesitated a fraction of a second, just the sort of delay one makes when they’re interpreting. “No.”

  “But it isn’t the language you usually use, is it?”

  He thought that over a bit longer. “Why do you ask?”

  I sucked my bottom lip in and gnawed on it thoughtfully, trying to tamp my impatience. Clearly I wasn’t getting anywhere. It seemed unlikely that trying to arrest him was going to get me any further. He wouldn’t be sitting here now, in a uniform, in a patrol car, if he hadn’t had everything he needed to establish his identity and get the job. If I cuffed him and marched him into the station swearing he was impersonating a police officer, the likelihood was that I’d be sitting in the shrink’s office before the day was out.

  “Why are you here?” I asked finally.

  “To work.”

  I had the feeling his ‘work’ wasn’t what those two little words seemed to imply, but I realized that there wasn’t anything I could do without evidence of some kind. Sighing, I started the car, dug a city map out of the glove box and headed toward my patrol route. The entire shift went pretty much like the first part had. He was quiet unless I asked him something directly. When I did, he usually answered the question with another question and managed to avoid divulging any information at all, remaining exquisitely polite throughout.

  It was just as well I had Jared to entertain me, because absolutely nothing happened on our shift. By the time we returned to the garage I was convinced that the captain had taken great pains to place the two rookies in the only area of the city that had no crime at all.

  Brushing the dust off, I hit for home to change and head to my other job. Bill was holed up in his office with a client when I arrived. Balked of that prey, I went down the hallway and tapped at Junior’s door, opening it and poking my head in when he called, “Yeah?”