Sin's Gift (Veiled Alliance Book 1) Read online

  “No. Goddamn it, not now,” she whispered.

  She didn’t let her steps falter or slow, forced herself to ignore the warning clambering in her mind. She kept on his ass, ignoring the blare of horns as he ran into the traffic. She darted right behind him, keeping her gaze on him, not the cars blasting their horns or squealing their tires.

  She wasn’t gonna lose him because she’d lost her mind.

  When he ducked into a space between two buildings, she almost smiled. She had him cornered. The end of the narrow space was the back of another building. No exit. All she had to do was wait him out. She relayed her location. Another officer was only a minute away.

  She ducked into the channel, too narrow to drive into, but wide enough for two men to walk through shoulder to shoulder. Still running, she shouted ahead, “You can’t make it out of here. It’s a dead end.”

  His steps didn’t slow.

  So, he didn’t believe her, and she wanted to see his face again, wanted to look closely and erase the blurred image she held in her mind. She kept running. Gaining on him, she reached out for the back of his shirt, grabbing a wad of cotton and jerked. The building at the end was just ahead. All she had to do was swing him around, and she’d take him down.

  Only he was strong. He kept moving forward, dragging her behind him. She tried to dig in her heels to slow them down, but he wouldn’t let her. At the last moment before they slammed into the wall, she raised her other arm to brace for the sudden stop, knowing it would hurt like hell.

  The man growled again, the low, grating hum sounding like a big cat’s squall, and leapt the last few feet, jerking her off her feet and through a hole that glimmered at the edges before it flickered out.

  Chapter 2

  Sin fell through the opening, rolling over the back of the man, her hand still clutching his shirt. Only when she landed, her hand wasn’t balled around fabric.

  A tuft of warm fur pulled away from a mountain lion’s back. It snarled, turned and swiped at her chest, scraping the top of her uniform clean through to her Kevlar jacket. As soon as she rolled free, it loped away.

  “What the hell?” she whispered, kneeling on hard ground, her stomach lurching again. This time, she did throw up, heaving her guts onto rocky soil.

  Still on her knees, she straightened, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth and looked around her. Gone was the narrow space between the buildings. So were the buildings. She sat in a wide-open area, a hilltop, with the moon shining down unimpeded.

  She stood on shaky legs, wondering if she’d finally lost it for good, when she heard something that sounded like a whip cracking in the air above her head. Ducking, she crouched low, looked toward the sky, and saw the outline of a huge pair of wings, the body of a man suspended between them. Before she had the time to even form a question in her mind, it swooped toward her.

  “Hell, no!” she said, and darted up from her crouch, running away from the cracking sounds behind her—the beat of wings against the air.

  She zigzagged on the uneven earth, heading for a deep, jagged shadow in the ground. An arroyo, maybe? She didn’t have time to check it out. She leapt for it, hoping like hell she wasn’t jumping from one bad situation into something far worse.

  As she sank into darkness, she couldn’t help the scream that ripped from her throat, because she didn’t hit the bottom, didn’t get a sense of there even being one. She fell, tumbling head over heels, until something snagged her boot and lifted her, flying toward the sliver of gleaming moonlight at the mouth of the deep chasm she’d leapt inside.

  Straining to see above her, she heard the beating of wings. The creature had caught her, but what choices did she have left? Shoot the bird-man with the gun still clutched tightly in her hand and fall? Or see whether he intended to eat her?

  As soon as that thought formed, she relaxed. She must have hit the wall and passed out. This was just a bad dream. No way could this really be happening.

  But it was one hell of a wild ride.

  The creature flew straight up, his wings skimming the edges of the rough walls of the chasm, until it lifted beyond it and headed back in the direction she’d run—back to the top of the hill.

  Sin closed her eyes as the ground blurred beneath her eyes, and then grunted when the firm hand clutching her foot released her, and she slammed to the ground.

  She coughed and spat out dirt then scrambled to her feet to face him. Close enough now she could make out his features, she thought his face seemed somehow familiar. Like they’d met before a long time ago.

  Starkly handsome, his features were etched in shadows and light. Deep hollows beneath sharp cheekbones; full lips and a long, straight nose; dark, thickly lashed eyes.

  His body was nude and—except for the wings—just her type. Tall and leanly built. His pale skin shimmered as though lightly oiled. His chest was broad and hairless, his arms and shoulders deeply muscled. His belly, an appealing piece of real estate, was a series of ridged hills and valleys, without an ounce of softness. She couldn’t resist a quick glance at his cock.

  Framed by short dark curls and the spread of his thick thighs, it too looked satiny-smooth…and substantial…even in its flaccid state.

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said in a deep but surprisingly melodic voice.

  “Where exactly is here?”

  He shook his head. “I’m sending you back.” He stepped toward her, and she didn’t resist. She couldn’t, because she was still so shocked by his appearance. His wings flared behind him, rising so high they blocked the moonlight, and then his hands closed on the tops of her shoulders, and he shoved her backward.

  She fell for the second time, back through the glimmering hole and onto hard tarmac—once again inside the narrow space with the height of the buildings closing off her view of the gleaming sky.

  Rolling over, she came up on her hands and knees and dragged in deep breaths. Her knee nudged something solid beside her and glanced over to find a long, dark shadow, a body, stretched out on the ground. Her robber.

  She reached to slide her fingers along the side his neck. No pulse. Fucking wonderful.

  Dizzy and still gasping for breath, she turned slowly to look at the wall behind her but saw only flat, gray stucco peeling off darker gray concrete blocks. She ran her hands across the surface but felt no opening.

  She’d run into the wall with the robber and knocked herself silly. No other explanation for what she’d seen made sense.

  The pounding of feet filled the narrow channel. She raised her gun.

  “It’s okay, Sin,” a voice called out. “Officer Martinez, here.” A flashlight clicked on, and he shined it at his face.

  She let her arm sag at her side.

  “See you got your suspect,” he said.

  “He’s dead.”

  “You shoot him?”

  “I think he hit the wall.”

  “Kinda looks like you did, too. You okay?”

  She raised her chin and nodded then knelt again beside the dead man. “I suppose we should try to resuscitate.”

  “You look ready to drop. I’ll breathe, you pump.”

  Kneeling beside Beno Martinez, she began to work. But Sin knew it was already too late. What a hell of a way to begin her first day back.

  Jake Chappa stood at the end of the narrow alley as the coroner wheeled away the body of the second robbery suspect. His own perp waited in the back seat of his squad car. Jake watched Sin as she spoke with the coroner’s people, gave them a brief, strained smile, and then headed toward him. He could tell she was tired and hurt, but she wouldn’t have appreciated his commenting on it.

  The woman was too damn prickly for her own good. Still, he’d never been so relieved to hear Beno on the radio, letting the other units moving in know it was all over, and Sin’s runaway had slammed his head into a concrete wall.

  Knowing Sin, she’d been on his tail until the very last moment. Looking at the stiff way she moved, she’d run ful
l-steam behind him, his body cushioning hers from worse injury. She never did anything by halves.

  It was one of the reasons he’d loved having her in his bed—but the main reason they couldn’t work together. She scared him shitless.

  Like tonight, taking off alone after the robber while she knew good and well his hands were full wrestling the bastard wriggling under his knees. He’d waited long, tense moments, his belly churning as he’d listened to her terse calls, following her in his mind until the radio had gone silent for far too long.

  The moment he got back to the station, he’d march into Kalisek’s office and let him have a belly full. He couldn’t ride with her. One of them would get killed because he couldn’t stay focused when she sat a foot away from him, smelling fresh and womanly, her husky-toned voice scratching down his spine until he was so damn hard he couldn’t think straight.

  He’d been a walking dead man since he’d gotten the news yesterday. He’d tried his damnedest to keep a professional distance but watching the slight limp in her leg had him wishing he could hurry her home and run a long hot shower and rub all the aches away.

  He opened his mouth to ask if she was okay, but his throat tightened up. Instead, he gave her a curt nod and slid into the car, waiting while she did the same. She didn’t glance back at the suspect in the back seat, just slumped wearily beside him.

  Jake cleared his throat. “We’ll head back and get started on those reports.”

  “Sure,” she said quietly.

  “Hell of a first night.”

  “Yeah, look,” she began, her gaze straight ahead. “I’ll tell the lieutenant this isn’t working out.”

  He gave her a sharp glance. “What do you mean?” he asked, even as his belly started to unknot.

  “You and me,” she began. “No, just me. I’m still seeing things, Jake. I saw Danny today. And I took a little trip down the rabbit hole when I knocked myself out.”

  Jake sat silently beside her, wrestling with his conscience for a long moment. “I see him, too,” he said softly.

  Her gaze swung his way. “Not like me, I bet.”

  Jake drew a long breath. “Not at first, anyway. After you woke up…in the hospital… That night, I saw him, Sin.”

  Sin’s green eyes glittered in the scant light from streetlamps they passed. “You saying that to make me feel better?”

  “I’m saying it because it’s true. And I don’t want you to think you’re alone.”

  “Well, fuck. I was ready to tell the L.T. I was done.”

  “Still wish you would.”

  “Because you don’t trust me?”

  “Because I don’t trust myself. You distract me.” He remembered the man sitting behind them. “Let’s talk about this later, okay?”

  She nodded, but now she sat a little straighter in her seat, and her glance sliced his way often. He could almost hear the questions shouting in her mind. It was time to come clean—the least he should do for her. She’d been through hell, part of it of his making.

  Besides, he didn’t think he could stand to spend another night without her in his bed.

  Jake didn’t let her have any room to slam her door in his face. He skipped up the steps behind her and practically pushed her through the door. The urgency gripping his entire body had him on the verge of exploding.

  She didn’t demur. Didn’t utter a single protest. She also didn’t look back at him as she headed to her bedroom. She undid her utility belt, drew her weapon from her holster and locked it in the safe under her bed. Then she stood and began to strip. First her uniform shirt, then the Kevlar vest. Her bra. She toed off her boots and unbuttoned her pants. Only then did she glance up.

  Horny as hell, the edgy anger that rippled through him was potent, explosive. He turned on his heel and stalked into her bathroom, bending to twist the faucet handle and start the shower.

  No long leisurely bath. A shower, and she wouldn’t be taking it alone. He stripped, dropping his belt and clothing on the counter, and stepped under the water, letting it sluice over the top of his head, hoping it would take the edge off—make him a little less dangerous.

  When the curtain swung back and she stepped inside, his stomach sank. Anger flared in her gaze, and her chin rose. This wasn’t going to be an easy reacquaintance on either of their parts. She was ready for a battle.

  She reached for the shampoo bottle and turned away, ignoring him while she soaped her dark red hair.

  Jake’s hungry gaze swept down her nude back, noting bluish bruises on her side and ass, along with admiring her lean, almost boyish figure. He lingered over her heart-shaped backside, wanting to reach over and cup each firm globe in his hands.

  “Quit staring,” she said, not looking back.

  “I’m not,” he lied, a smile quirking up one side of his mouth.

  “I can feel it, crawling all over my ass.”

  “Always loved that ass.”

  “Yeah, well it isn’t yours anymore.”

  “Then what are you doing here? With me?”

  “It’s my goddamn shower.” She stuck her head under the water and long ropes of suds slid down her skin.

  Jake began to relax a bit. The hard bite of her voice was all too familiar. God, the sex was gonna be great. He reached over her shoulder, deliberately sliding along her skin, and grabbed the soap from the tile dish.

  Her back stiffened, and she slowly turned. Her chest rose twice, lifting her round tits. Then she placed her hands on either side of the stall and spread her legs shoulder-width apart. Just like old times. Her signal she wanted him to wash her down.

  Jake ground his teeth, felt the flex of his jaw and the tightening of his shoulders, then went down on one knee in front of her. He rolled the bar of soap between his hands then dropped it on the floor of the tub and reached straight for her breasts.

  Sin’s breath hissed between her teeth on a long indrawn breath, but her gaze locked with his. He rubbed his hands around her small, round breasts, careful not to touch her tender nipples, drawing out the moment because he feared she’d cut it short. Afraid she’d remember she had reasons to hate his guts.

  She stared into his eyes, and slowly, her body softened, rocking slightly into his hands, urging him without words to touch her cinnamon-colored nipples.

  He relented, gripping them between his slippery thumbs and fingers, and tugged rhythmically. She had the most sensitive nipples, had nearly come a couple times when he’d plied them relentlessly.

  Her lips opened around another indrawn breath. “Lower.”

  Jake smoothed his hands down her sides, careful of the bruises, and along the front of her belly, slipping a fingertip into her belly button before drawing away to soap his hands again.

  When he looked back up, her lips trembled, and she spread her legs a little wider.

  Breaking with her gaze, he lifted his hands between her legs, staring as he worked the suds into her auburn thatch, then circled deeper, scraping his fingertips along her outer labia.

  Her thighs began to quiver, and he didn’t hide his smile. He had her now. Her resentment was melting away, for now, beneath the quivering. The only time Sin didn’t like being in control was when desire rode her hard.

  He swirled his fingers along her slit, fingered between them, then thrust one digit up inside her.

  “Jake!”

  “It’s okay, baby,” he murmured. “Everything’s okay.” He rinsed her with handfuls of water then spread her lips and leaned close, nuzzling her sex with his nose and mouth, rubbing the coarse stubble sprouting on his cheeks and chin to chafe her tender flesh.

  Her legs wobbled, and he urged her to drape a leg over one shoulder, and then crouched lower and tilted his head to run his tongue along her seam, slipping between her folds to stroke inside, then curling his tongue upward to flick at her hooded clit.

  Sin rocked forward and back, shuddering hard, and he rewarded her submission by thrusting two fingers inside her. He pulled up her folds to expose her red
dening bud and latched his lips around it, sucking it hard.

  Her fingers clutched his head as she jerked against him, and he could feel how close she was. Her pussy clasped his fingers, and soft moans, one after the other, rose inside the shower, echoing around them.

  As much as would have liked to finish her now, his balls ached; his cock was stiff and riding high. He gripped her hips, kissed her pussy and shoved upward to his feet. “Get to the bed,” he said, wincing at the harshness of his voice.

  Sin didn’t hesitate, stepping over the rim of the tub and grabbing a towel which she used to blot her skin as she strode to her bed.

  He didn’t bother taking the time to dry off, following on her heels, dragging away the towel, then turning her and pushing her down on the mattress.

  Sin scooted backward as he climbed over her, allowing her only enough room between their bodies to crawl to the center of the bed. Then he lifted her legs, urging her thighs around his hips. He dipped to capture her lips and rooted at her sex with his cock, until he found her entrance and slid into her slick cunt.

  Jake flung back his head, his eyes squeezing shut. “Jesus, fuck!” He wanted to take her slow, wanted to make it last, because he didn’t know whether she’d ever be weak again and need his brand of comfort.

  But his body felt ready to explode. He glanced down, catching the glitter of tears in her eyes again. Damn, she never cried. He pulled out slowly then sank back inside, trying to savor the clasp of her pussy around his shaft, the silken texture of her inner walls. But it was too late. He was too far gone. He pulled out and slammed hard inside her, then did it again and again, until he bucked wildly against her, stroking deep and hard.

  Not deep enough. He pressed her legs upward, slipped his arms under her knees, and crammed the fronts of her thighs against her chest. He hammered at her cunt, but he wasn’t the only one unraveling.

  Liquid spilled from deep inside her, washing him in welcome. He came so fast all he could do was clench his teeth and force his hips to keep rocking against her, until at last he felt the little convulsions that rippled up and down his cock.