Out of Control

Back home in Dahlia, she would have frozen up at the wanton intimacy of their position. She would have second-guessed. She never could have relaxed enough, felt safe enough, to lose her inhibitions like this. She would have failed to know and give pleasure.

But this wasn’t Dahlia, she reasoned. She wasn’t Alex Morgan, pariah of gossip turned extreme tomboy. Tonight, she was this man’s mystery woman. And she was all woman—all whole, sexually confident woman.

“What are you waiting for?” she gasped into the darkness. And then she tunneled her fingers into his hair and pulled his mouth against her.

Alex’s head fell back and she cried out almost instantaneously as he ran his tongue between her folds and thrust inside her. Wave after wave of sensation rolled down to her core and blossomed back like shock waves through her body. He gently bit down against the hard nub, stroked his thumb along her aching crevice, kissed her and licked her and made her come again and again with just his mouth. Alex bucked and moaned and clutched him against her, her body weeping at the newfound experience of having a man bring her to orgasm.

When he was done, when she was spent, he pulled away, crawling up over her body to reclaim her mouth in a full, deep kiss. She inhaled her own release on his skin, tasted it on her tongue. Alex Morgan had never had a night like this. “You’re good.”

She felt him smile against her lips. “I kind of got that idea. Thanks.”

But she wasn’t done. She pushed against his chest. “Your turn.”

He gave her one last kiss and pulled away. “You’re sure?”

“You’ll have to arrest me to stop me.”

He pulled off his badge and gun and set them on the dashboard.

While she hurriedly redressed, he gingerly dropped one foot to the floor and stretched his other leg out behind her, opening himself up just as she’d offered herself to him. His deep voice coaxed her across the seat. “However you want.”

Alex curled her legs beneath her and scooted closer. The jerk of his leg when she braced her hand against his knee told her he might be as primed for this forbidden encounter as she’d been. “Do you have protection?”

“Shit.” She’d take that as a no.

But not as a never mind. Alex slid her hand along his thigh, crawling closer, massaging away any noble instinct to stop her wandering hands. His shoulders were broad enough, near enough, to blot out any light from her vision. But her sense of touch worked just fine. She palmed him through his jeans and she heard the creak of leather where he squeezed the seat back in his fist.

Interesting. Alex’s pulse kicked up a notch in anticipation. Maybe there were other ways to feel the strength of her femininity that had nothing to do with her own release. She rubbed her palm down the length of his zipper and traced the seam of denim that ran between his legs. He groaned. “There are ways, right? Safe ones?” she asked.

His deep breath stirred the hair beside her ear. “Don’t you know?”

All the innuendoes over the years didn’t mean she knew what she was doing. But she was a quick study when given the chance. She dragged her hand up, tracing the same path. “I’m learning.”

His shoulders rose and fell in the shadows. “You weren’t a virgin. Were you?”

Unfortunately, no. That honor had been stolen from her long ago, trampled on, laughed away as meaningless.

Tonight had meaning. Alex pressed her fingers to his lips, easing his distress as well as her own. “Shh. Enough about me. Talk me through this.”

“You are one serious package of trouble, aren’t you.” He made it sound like a good kind of trouble. An irresistible kind of trouble. He pulled her fingers from his lips and guided her hand down to join the other one. For several moments, he simply cupped her hands over the bulge in his jeans and rocked against her. Her breathing quickened along with his. And then he gave her a command. “Unzip me. Careful. That’s it.”

The trembling of her fingers lessened with each hint of praise or pleasure. She unhooked his belt buckle, slid the zipper gently downward. He shifted slightly to help her ease his jeans off his hips. She smiled at the bright white cotton that poked through the opening they’d created.

Plain white cotton? A kindred spirit. The detective was the right man for the job tonight.

“Pull it out.” She did as he asked, stroking his length through the tight tent of cotton, then reaching inside to capture the hot, pulsing hardness of him in her hand. “Oh, yeah.” His hand tightened around her wrist, holding her still while he thrust inside her grip. The moisture at the tip caught in her palm and smoothed the friction between them. With a gasp that sounded like a tight breath through clenched teeth, he released her. “You do it. Just like that. Don’t stop.”

While Alex slid her hand from tip to base and back again, he framed her face with his hands, sifting his fingers into her hair, holding her as tenderly as he’d been firm with her a moment ago. “I want to kiss you,” he whispered at the corner of her mouth. “I can’t seem to get enough of kissing you.”

And then he seized her mouth with the same vigor that Alex used on him. She braced her hand against his shoulder and worked him as his tongue thrust into her mouth. The harder he kissed, the firmer her touch. He went deeper; she stroked harder. He gentled the brush of his lips across hers; she lightly teased the ridge of skin beneath him.

He was pulsing, throbbing, driving into her grip, mimicking the same rhythm with his tongue in her mouth. As she continued to caress his silken length, something deep inside Alex began to pulse in response. He moaned into her mouth, reached down and wrapped his fingers around hers, squeezing tightly as he came up off the seat and pushed himself one last, long time into her hand.

The power of his release triggered an answering satisfaction in her own body and Alex collapsed against him. For several long, timeless minutes, he wrapped his arms around her and she burrowed against his chest, marveling at the warmth, the exhaustion, the contentment she felt.

No encounter had ever been like this for her. She felt safe. Satisfied. Serenely pleased with herself and grateful to this man. Her night in Nashville had turned out to be a success, after all.

As she became aware of the soft, patternless lines he was tracing against her back, Alex noticed the time on his dashboard clock: 2:14 a.m. Her brother would be worried about her by now, her father up, pacing the living room, trying to decide whether to call the sheriff or get into his own car and drive into Nashville to search for her.

And with those concerns, the first frissons of worry marred her contentment.

“Restless?” the detective asked.

Alex pushed away from the tempting haven of his chest and slid back to her side of the seat. She pulled his jacket more tightly around her, but couldn’t seem to ward off the chill of reality that had wormed its way into her thoughts. “I’m just remembering that I’m stranded, that I don’t have any way to get home or even call there.”

He sat up straight, pulling up his jeans and tucking everything back into place. He reached for his gun and badge. “I’ll take you.”

“No.” Alex shot her hand out to touch his wrist. An armed man would hardly reassure her father and brother. She pulled away just as quickly, distracted by the warmth of his skin. “I don’t usually do anything like this.”

“Neither do I.” The gun and badge found their place on his belt. He started the engine. “I haven’t had an enounter like this…for a while.”

He fastened his seat belt, and while Alex did the same, he shifted into reverse and backed out of the alley.

Alex tucked her tangled hair behind her ears. “An encounter sounds like a clandestine rendezvous. Like we were supposed to meet. I’m…”

He checked for traffic and pulled onto the street. “You’re what?”

“Confused.”

“Join the club.”

“Yeah, but you’re…older.”

“So I’ve been told.” The lights from the street and other cars let her read the hard expression that deepened the lines on his face. “Doesn’t mean I’ve got women all figured out.”

Her laugh sounded more like a snort. Yeah, she was a real femme fatale. Not. At least not outside that alley. “I sure don’t have men figured out.”

“I’m not going to apologize for what happened.”

“I don’t want you to.” The old Alex’s doubts were quickly resufacing. “I know we didn’t do…everything. But, you enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

“Hell yeah, sweetheart. I enjoyed it a little too much.”

Alex frowned. “You can enjoy it too much?”

He swore and Alex jerked in her seat. “There are rules and regulations to life. To my job. I think I’ve broken about every last damn one of them with you tonight.”

“I’m sorry.”

He headed up a hill, picking up speed. “Don’t be sorry. Be mad. Get that lawyer of yours and sue me.”

“Why?”

“I was supposed to be rescuing a damsel in distress, not gettin’ my rocks off with her. You can report me for that. In fact, I’ll give you the form to fill out and introduce you to the officer where you can file a complaint against me.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she smiled. “I don’t have any complaints. No one’s ever called me a damsel in distress before. That’s kind of girly, isn’t it?”

“I suppose.” She didn’t understand the 180 degree shifts in his mood from hero of the hour to angry cop, but she had a feeling she was going to be okay. “So, milady—will you let me drive you to precinct headquarters before something worse than me happens to you?”

He maneuvered them smoothly through the late-night traffic and pedestrians. “Is that where we’re going?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re not arresting me?”

“I’m the one who screwed up tonight, not you. Here.” He pulled out his cell phone and handed it across the seat to her. “The call’s on me.” He stopped at an intersection and watched her punch in a number. “Contacting a friend? Family? That lawyer of yours?”

Alex smiled, feeling extraordinarily relieved and comforted by the simple gift of a phone call. “All of the above. My big brother. He’ll come get me.”

“Tell him to meet you at the downtown precinct station.”

She slid a glance across the seat to her knight in shining armor while she waited for Nick to answer. “You won’t tell my brother what we did tonight, will you?”

He scoffed. “If you don’t tell my deputy chief.”

Nick Morgan picked up after the second ring. “Alex? You okay? I saw Buell and his buddies yukking it up at the track tonight, and I couldn’t help but think…I called your cell a dozen times. You’ve got me scared shitless here.”

“I’m okay.” The truck slowed and turned into a parking garage. “My date with Drew’s friend didn’t go as well as I expected. And I lost my purse.”

Her brother swore. She could hear her father in the background now, asking questions. “She’s okay, Dad.” Nick explained a few details to their father, George Morgan, then turned his attention back to the phone. “You’re not hurt?”

She’d been embarrassed, angry, frustrated and a little afraid before this smoky-haired detective had literally picked her up off the street. But she hadn’t been hurt. “I’m okay, Nick. I met…” Detective Galahad was watching her, hanging on to every word. “Nashville PD has been very helpful.” In ways that made her blush and turn away. “Just come get me, okay? I’m at the downtown precinct station.”

“I’ll be there in forty minutes. I love you, Shrimp.”

“I love you too, Nick.”

They were parked beneath the precinct offices by the time she handed the phone back to the detective.

“Thank you.” She offered him a hesitant smile. “Big brother will save the day.”

He nodded. “So now I know this infamous lawyer-slash-wonder-brother of yours is Nick. You ever gonna tell me your name?”

“Look, Detective…” She unfastened her seat belt and reached for the exit handle. “Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed tonight, but…”

She laughed. It was a sad sound, really—a sound that revealed just how much this encounter had been an aberration for her, for both of them, perhaps.

“This isn’t reality. Let’s forget the names so we can skip the embarrassment of you mentioning tonight to anybody who happens to know anybody I happen to know. Okay?”

“Okay. Your call. Tonight never happened.”

So why did it hurt that he’d agreed so easily to her request?

3

Dahlia, Tennessee Present day

“MMM. YEAH. RIGHT THERE.”

Alexandra Morgan caught her tongue between parched lips as her thoughts drifted away from the fan belt she stretched between her hands and took note of how the fender of the ’94 Buick she was repairing pressed against the juncture of her thighs. A pocket of pressure was gathering where hard steel met soft woman, fueled by an errant fantasy that seemed to keep cropping up at the most inopportune times.

Normally, she relegated her secret fantasies to the privacy of her bedroom or one of her late-night bubble baths where she washed away the grime of a day spent in the family garage where she worked as a mechanic. But this was a routine fix on a slow day, just maintenance stuff for a local customer. The real excitement of her job wouldn’t start until tomorrow or Thursday, when the drag racers who frequented the Dahlia Speedway across the parking lot started showing up for replacement parts and tune-ups in preparation for the regular weekend races.

In other words, Alex was bored. And when she was bored, her mind wandered. Wandering into something as pleasant as her fabricated forbidden affair with the big-city cop with the wide shoulders and hushed, seductive words was a welcome respite from the grief and anger over her brother Nick’s recent death that normally filled her head these days.

Outside the open doors of Morgan & Son’s Garage, the afternoon air was heavy with the promise of a spring rain. Maybe the green scents of budding trees and flower blossoms hanging in the mist and dappling her bare arms with moisture had reminded her subconscious mind of those bubble baths where a cop with stormy gray eyes had had his way with her time and again in an assortment of imaginary story lines.

Her imagination took her to places far removed from tense, worrisome reality.

“You like that, milady?” her knight in shining armor drawled, sliding his hand between her legs and cupping her warmth.

“Yes,” she moaned, closing her eyes against the pleasure of his strong hand reaching into the water and rubbing against her clit. “Please don’t stop.”

“Ah, my damsel is in distress, is she?” Broad shoulders filled her vision as he bent over her to gentle her soft cries with a kiss. “You don’t have to beg with me.”

Her diaphanous bathing gown floated in the water, its sheer material hiding nothing from his eyes. The smoky gray orbs lazily looked their fill, each visual caress like the stroke of his hand on her body.

He was unlike the other men in her kingdom. This one came from a far-off country. He served her willingly, while the treacherous knights of her own kingdom were not allowed to touch her. Her mystery knight, the Silver Fox, spoke in hushed, seductive tones. He ruled his own lands with an iron fist but always treated her as nothing less than a lady.

“Will you join me, good sir?”

“You only had to ask.” His tunic and breeches became a taut black T-shirt and jeans as he peeled off his clothes and slipped into the tub with her. Water sloshed over the sides and she laughed as his big frame displaced all the bubbles. Alex’s thighs clenched together when he wrapped his viselike arm around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. A well-honed warrior, he’d fought many battles. But each evening he returned to her chamber to take her in any number of ways. Tonight’s seduction was to be slow and sensuous. And merciless, she thought with a gasp of pleasure, as the bulging evidence of his arousal poked against her bottom. “Milady should never have to beg for pleasure.”

He kissed the back of her neck as he palmed her breasts. His big hands lifted them and kneaded them with a gently urgent reverence—like the patient, mature man he was, not some grabby, greedy teen who could earn ten bucks on a bet if he touched them.

Teen? Eeuw. Reality tried to nudge its way in and mess with her fantasy.

Alex squeezed the humiliating memory from her mind and tried to feel the hardness of the grown man pressed against her.

“You don’t think I’m common, do you?”

“You talk too much, milady. Let me show you my appreciation.” No. She smiled wickedly. This time she’d show him. She spread her thighs slightly, boldly catching his arousal and squeezing it. “Alexandra…”

How did he know her name? That was one of the rules between them. No names. Ever. She squeezed him again, gently punishing him for forgetting.

Alex squirmed in his lap, guiding him closer and closer to where she wanted him to be. Inside her.

“Alexandra…” No names. She adjusted herself over him. He moved beneath her. This time they’d come together. He wanted it, too. She was a lady. His lady. The kingdom need never doubt her fine qualities again.

The pressure was building. The water on their skin—lapping between them, surrounding them—simmered with heat. Their heat.

“Alexandra…”

Someone was shouting her name.

But not in passion.

“Alexandra Morgan!”

Alex jerked at the drill-sergeant shout, bumping her head on the open hood of the Buick. “Ow. Damn.” She slid off her perch on the fender and tugged her tool belt back into place, embarrassed to think that an errant monkey wrench and a tan sedan had triggered one of her stupid fantasies.

“Daddy?” Alex rubbed at the sore spot beneath the yellow bandanna wrapped on top of her head, clearing her brain of naughty thoughts and ignoring the male laughter coming from underneath the car in the next bay. She quickly scanned the length of the garage, from the lube pit to the office hallway door, trying to account for each of the employees who hadn’t gone on lunch break yet. No one had seen her squirming on top of the car, had they?

But she had bigger problems.

“Alexandra!” Her father’s deep, booming voice—as crisp and quick as his military stride—announced she was in trouble. Again.

The door to his office slammed, jolting through Alex’s body with dread. “Oh, no. He found it.”

“Found what?” Winston “Tater” Rawls, a longtime employee of the garage and the closest thing to a big brother she had now that Nick was gone, rolled out from under a Ford hybrid in the next bay. “What’d you do this time, Alex?”

She grabbed a rag off her tool chest and wiped her hands, mentally shaking her head at the lanky blond goofball’s question. “I was thinking for myself again.”

He made a tsk-tsk sound behind his teeth. “That’ll teach you. I think I’ll just listen to the fireworks from here, if you don’t mind.”

“Thanks for having my back, Tater.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice.

“Anytime.” He rolled back beneath the Ford, his laugh echoing from under the chassis. “Anytime.”

Alex dashed toward the exit leading to the business offices. She made it all the way around the sedan before the stale smells of body odor and cigarette smoke stopped her in her tracks. Not now.

She tipped her chin to the black-haired mechanic who blocked her path. Artie Buell was nothing if not persistent. Of course, she wished he’d also learn how to wash his stained coveralls, use a little less gel in his hair, and take no for an answer.

Using his tongue, he rolled a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other with a suggestive swipe. “I’ll watch your back, Alex,” he drawled. “You need me to smooth over anything between you and your daddy, I’m your man.”

Right. Ever since their sophomore year of high school, when dating his older brother hadn’t worked out so well for her, he’d tried to be her man. She’d grown up, moved away and learned to dream of bigger things than small-town stereotypes. She’d come home again because her father and brother had needed someone to manage their home and feed them. She couldn’t cook as well as she could fix a car. She couldn’t sew or garden as well as she could grow a business. But she loved the men who’d been her only family from the time she was a toddler, and for right now—especially now that Nick was gone—she’d be whatever her father needed her to be.

Artie Buell, however, hadn’t changed a bit in nine years. If he wasn’t such a good mechanic—and the sheriff’s son—she’d have raised a stink about him working here. But she had her own reasons for wanting to stay on the Buell family’s good side now. The truth might depend upon their cooperation. And for that reason alone, she summoned a smile. “I can handle my dad just fine. Thanks.”

“I think I impressed him when I won the Moonshine Run last month.” Damn. The polite chit-chat wasn’t over. Alex froze her smile into place and endured. “You know, I didn’t see you at that race. I kind of thought you might want to root a friend on, especially seeing as how I rebuilt most of that car right here in your daddy’s garage. Remember I ran some of those last-minute calibrations by you?”

“Sure. I’m glad they helped. Gotta go.”

When she would have scooted around him, Artie’s hand snaked out to grab her arm and halt her beside him. “You should have at least helped me celebrate at the party afterwards.”

Working with Artie was one thing. Anything more personal would be like reliving a nightmare. Keep it nice. “I told you I was busy that weekend. Congratulations again, though.” She tugged against his grip. “Dad’s waiting.”

Instead of releasing her, he pulled her close enough that she got a whiff of the cigarettes on his breath when he leaned down to whisper. “You haven’t even been down to the pit to see my trophy. It’s a bigun.”

Right. Like she’d ever venture down into that sunken room that reminded her of a burial chamber unless she had a damn good—work-related—reason to do so. The fact that it was Artie’s main work space at the garage probably added to the eerie claustrophobia she got whenever she went down there. “A bigun? That’s a pretty lame line, even for you.”

“C’mon, Alex. I’m not the bad guy in the family. Remember?”

“Artie.” Tater was out from underneath the Ford again. This time, he wasn’t laughing. “I thought I asked you to get the specs for this car off the computer for me.”

Artie winked one dark eye at Alex but spoke to Tater. “I got ’em.”

“Then move it.”

“I’m movin’.”

When he pulled the printouts from his pocket and released her to deliver them, Alex glanced down at her forearm. She didn’t know which bothered her more, his grimy fingers on her skin, or the memory of another Buell’s touch. Both turned her stomach.

“Alexandra!”

The steel door connecting the garage to the office corridor swung open. Alex jumped as her father’s barrel-chested physique filled the doorway.

For a moment, his stern green eyes looked beyond her into the garage. “Get to work, Artie. I need you back down in the lube pit to change the oil on Jeb Worth’s car before he stops by at one to pick it up. I don’t pay you to stand around and flirt with my daughter.”

“Yes, sir.”

As Artie handed off the papers to Tater and both men returned to the cars they were working on, Alex hurried on over and greeted her father’s ruddy expression with a wry smile. “Thanks for the rescue, Daddy.”

But Staff Sergeant George Montgomery Morgan, USMC, Ret., didn’t smile back. Instead, he waved a bill at her face. “What is this? What new scheme are you cooking up now? You know I don’t like surprises. I told you I wanted to be cautious about expenditures now that the Fisks are selling the track to Whip Davis.”