Past Midnight (South Island PD Book 2) Read online

  “Yeah. See you tomorrow, around the same time?”

  “Okay, but you don’t have to bring food. I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I want to.”

  He barely held it together when he kissed her, and then he left, carrying a fierce ache with him.

  * * * * *

  Monday night sucked. Peyton did everything she had to do: picked up Jace from school, helped him study his spelling words and made sure everyone ate dinner. She even logged some info into her accounting software.

  But in the end, when all the busywork was done, she was left alone in the AC-chilled darkness of her bedroom, where the blue glow of her alarm clock and faint yellowness of streetlight combined to bury her in layered shadows. That was when it really hit her: an aching sense of regret, a futile sense of frustration.

  Her mind kept skipping back to lunch – the happiest hour of her day, without a doubt. She had lunch with Elijah to look forward to again the next day, and she was looking forward to it. But…

  There was a sense of dread, too, borne of the knowledge that they couldn’t go on just having lunch dates forever. By the time Madison was back on her feet, Elijah would probably lose interest in deferring to Peyton’s personal constraints.

  It was obvious he was into her, but she wasn’t an idiot – she didn’t expect a gorgeous man like him to stick around for months of wolfing down tacos in her cramped breakroom, all for a chance at being able to eventually date her for real.

  He was competent and ambitious, unfailingly sweet. Those qualities alone would’ve made him irresistible. And then there was the fact that he was sex in boots, on top of it all. So hot that just thinking of him set fire to the neural pathways and synapses in some undersexed corner of her brain.

  She’d probably be left with permanent damage: a chunk of mind forever haunted by visions of him in and out of uniform.

  A bolt of sensation shot straight to her clit, making it tingle as she lay in bed, so far from falling asleep it wasn’t even funny.

  Watching the shadows on the ceiling shift as a car drove down the street, she sighed. Not long ago, just glimpsing a police uniform had been enough to conjure up a toxic anger that’d been simmering deep in her consciousness for the past seven years.

  But – God help her – on Elijah, she thought it was hot. The way all that dark blue clung to his frame was undeniably sexy. The uniform didn’t define him; it was just a compliment to his hotness.

  He was the kind of guy you stumbled upon once in a lifetime, if you were lucky. And that was why she couldn’t hope to keep him for long while she had so little to offer.

  Which was too fucking bad, because she could still feel his hands on her body, his mouth on her breasts and his hard cock deep inside her pussy, making it clench so hard that—

  She slipped her fingers beneath the waistband of her boy short panties. Her clit was hard, swollen against the tips of her fingers. Touching it sent a shudder of longing down her spine.

  She wanted him, but she’d have to settle for this. After he realized she couldn’t offer him what he deserved, it’d be all she was left with.

  CHAPTER 15

  The rain was torrential, so thick that navigating through it was like viewing the world through a smoky pane of glass. Charmed’s lavender sign was dulled to a bluish grey, its letters blurred by the water pouring over Elijah’s windshield. He pulled over by the curb, stepped out, and was soaked by the time he reached the shop door.

  Rainwater dripped into his eyes and down his face as the bell overhead jingled. He blinked, eager to see Peyton.

  “You made it.” She smiled from behind the counter. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

  “What, because of a little rain?” He ran the back of his hand across his eyes.

  “You’re soaked.”

  “At least it’s for a good reason. I guarantee I’ll end up standing out in the rain today in traffic. Nobody on this island can drive; throw in some nasty weather and it’s an accident waiting to happen.”

  “Maybe people will stay in.”

  “Ha.”

  She shrugged. “All I know is that rain cuts down on business. If people are out and about, they certainly aren’t shopping.”

  “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’d be lying.” He was hot despite the rainwater soaking through his uniform and making it stick to his skin. “That means I don’t have to share you with customers.”

  Her lips quirked in a half smile. “Well, there’s always a silver lining. Come on – I have lunch waiting.”

  He followed her behind the curtain, into the little breakroom that seemed intimate with the noise of the rain pouring down outside, drumming on roofs, sidewalks and oil-slicked streets. Everything seemed brilliant in the warm lighting after the muted palette of the storm-soaked city.

  “Spaghetti is sort of my specialty,” she said, gesturing to a glass dish. Its rubber lid was slightly askew, and steam was curling from beneath. “I make my own sauce and meatballs.”

  “Wow.” He took a seat at the break table. “It smells great.”

  She dished it out onto two paper plates, and it was great – the best spaghetti he’d ever had.

  “Thanks,” she said when he told her that. “My nephew begs me to make it all the time. It’s one of his favorites.”

  “Hope he doesn’t get mad that you shared this with me.”

  “I made a double batch so we could all have it for dinner tonight.”

  He finished eating fast – maybe too fast. Peyton was only halfway done when he cleared his plate.

  “Seconds?” she asked.

  “I would, but I could seriously hurt myself eating this, and that first plate was huge. I wanna be able to move if I need to after this.”

  A subtle light flickered in her eyes as she shifted in her seat, arching her back just a little. “Oh? Big plans?”

  Her change in posture caused her breasts to strain against the front of her flowy shirt, testing the pearly little buttons.

  He let his gaze linger there for a second, his imagination practically imploding with the memory of her breasts bare beneath his hands and lips, her nipples dark and sweet.

  “What I meant was that I’m a man of action – never know when I may have to pursue a suspect on foot or wrestle a violent criminal into a pair of cuffs. But if you’ve got something else in mind, even better.”

  Her smile widened, sly and seductive, at odds with the blush coloring her cheeks. “I know I said business is slow on rainy days, but…”

  He felt the same smile tugging on his lips and his dick surged to half-mast. Just the thought – the teasing mention – of getting intimate with Peyton was enough to get him hard.

  “But what?”

  “You don’t get much of a lunch break.”

  He refrained from admitting that his fifteen remaining minutes would’ve been plenty of time.

  “Besides…” She lowered her voice, as if she feared that a customer might walk in at any moment. “I don’t have any protection. Do you?”

  “Uh-uh. But you know, there are things I’d like to do to you that don’t require it.”

  Her brows levitated upward, highlighting the perfect roundness of her eyes.

  He leaned forward across the table, until he was almost close enough to kiss her. “Why don’t you slip out of those pants? I promise to keep mine on.”

  A brilliant flush spread across her cheeks, butterfly wings unfurling on either side of her nose. It was cute in a way that made his groin tighten and his spine tingle.

  Seeing her get all pink and flustered over the thought of him going down on her gave him a heady sense of power. Knowing that he could throw this gorgeous, smart woman off-kilter with a suggestion was intoxicating.

  “Seriously?”

  “I’m dead serious.” His mouth was watering. He could kiss her to prove it, if she’d just lean a little closer. “I’ve been so hard for you ever since Saturday night.
Keep replaying it over and over in my head. I want to do it all over again, plus do a hundred other things we haven’t yet.”

  Her lips bowed in a pout that made his dick jerk. “I’m sorry all I can offer is getting together like this during your lunch breaks. I know it’s lame after—”

  “That wasn’t a criticism. I like this. Gives me something to look forward to during the first half of my shift and puts a spring in my step during the second half.”

  He lifted one of her hands from the tabletop and massaged the back of it, rubbing the fine bones beneath her soft skin. “We’ve got a little time left though, and there’s nothing I’d rather do with it than make you come.”

  The flush brightened, and she squeezed his hand.

  “I won’t push you if you don’t want to do that at work, but—”

  “Are you kidding me?” Her mouth fell open in a little O, and she shifted in her seat, rubbing her thighs together. “Of course I want to. I mean, if you’re offering—”

  That was all he needed to hear. Within seconds, he stripped her out of her slim-fitting pants and had her back in her seat in a pair of tiny pale blue panties.

  They were soft and delicate, thin enough that he could feel her heat radiating through. His rain-chilled fingers had warmed up almost as soon as he’d entered the shop, and now they practically burnt as he slid the fancy underwear down her hips and thighs, tossing it aside.

  Naked from the waist down, she opened her thighs as wide as the chair would allow.

  Seeing her do that – feeling her thighs quiver when he laid hands on them – made him groan. Her pussy was visibly slick and her posture urged him not to hesitate.

  He inhaled her sweet musk as he leaned forward and she gripped the chair’s arms.

  She’d been holding her breath, and now she was breathing fast, her knuckles turning white.

  His cock was rock hard, aching beneath his uniform pants and the annoying weight of his duty belt. He wanted her so bad that in his uniform and current position, it actually hurt.

  And she wanted him just as bad. He could see how hard her nipples were, even beneath her shirt and bra. They were tempting, but not as tempting as her pussy lips, wet and close enough to kiss.

  He pressed his open mouth against her entrance, tongue gliding down over her clit and between her lips.

  She arched in the chair like she’d been electrified, gasping and grinding her pussy against his tongue and teeth.

  It was automatic, an unintentional physical reaction to what he was doing. He could tell by the tension in her muscles, the way her body jerked and the way she sounded surprised, even without speaking.

  His balls drew up so tight that if he hadn’t just seen her white-knuckled grip on the chair, he would’ve sworn she held them in her hand.

  * * * * *

  The insides of Peyton’s thighs ached from tension she couldn’t help, and the outsides ached from pressing against the arms of the chair. She couldn’t stop the pressure, the semi-conscious will for the chair to simply melt away so she could open her thighs even wider.

  Elijah was on his knees in front of her, his dark blue uniform almost black with dampness from the rain. His gun and cuffs and a dozen other things she couldn’t have named were strung around his hips, and she knew he was hard beneath the belt that held them all.

  She couldn’t see his cock straining his uniform pants, but he ate her pussy with obvious hunger, his tongue delving between her lips and inside of her when he wasn’t sucking her clit. Every time he did that, a silent scream got stuck in her throat.

  She couldn’t keep her eyes open, couldn’t think of anything except the blinding pleasure and the burning need for more, for him to suck on her like that until she came.

  Every time, he stopped just before she reached the edge, like he knew – like he was trying to draw out those fifteen minutes.

  She loved it and hated it, couldn’t help but die a little inside every time he abandoned her clit and stroked her below.

  Not that his tongue teasing her pussy lips didn’t feel good, and not that her pussy didn’t seize up with greed every time he slipped his tongue inside. But she wanted to come like she wanted her next breath.

  She’d been so turned-on ever since she’d woken up Sunday morning. He’d reawakened her sex-starved body, and now it was like it was trying to make up for lost time.

  She wanted to do it all over again: to be in bed with him, where he could tease her first – like he had last time – and then really fuck her, stretching her aching pussy with his hard cock until they both came with him inside her.

  But this was good. So good that she was shaking, from her thighs to her shoulders, as the tension that lay low in her belly built.

  She squeezed the chair arms tighter as he exhaled, his breath hot against her folds as he slowly drew his tongue out from between them. Tensing, she didn’t dare to breathe. She knew what was coming. Finally.

  He closed his lips around her clit and sucked.

  Jesus, she could feel his lips and tongue and even his teeth around and against that tiny little bit of her.

  Her hips bucked, all on their own. She couldn’t control it, or the way it made his teeth abrade her thin, sensitive skin as he sucked harder.

  She moaned as it all caved in around her and buried her: the pressure and the heat, the mind-numbing pleasure. It was so intense, it was almost violent. She couldn’t keep quiet or still, couldn’t stop grinding her pussy against his mouth.

  He groaned too, gripping her thighs hard. His light stubble pressed into her lips and inner thighs, causing a sharp bolt of sensation to shoot through her.

  She sucked in a harsh breath, arching again, her head tipped back.

  When he finally raised his head from between her thighs, she was on the verge of begging him to stop.

  Her climax had been so powerful that she wanted to curl in on herself, shut her eyes and forget about the world until her head stopped spinning.

  He stood and she felt his hand in her hair, grounding her. “I never meant to tease you. I know you wanted to come sooner, but I wasn’t ready to give up the taste of you.”

  He bent, tipped back her head and pressed his mouth against hers.

  She could taste herself on his tongue and feel her heat on his lips. It made her pussy clench and her belly flutter.

  It wasn’t until minutes later, when he walked out the door, that she wondered what the hell she’d just done.

  * * * * *

  “Those new body cams in yet?” Elijah asked.

  His shift sergeant looked up from his cubicle desk and removed a pair of reading glasses. “No.”

  “We’re still getting them, right?” The city had promised the department a set of top-notch body cameras. Their current ones sucked, and if they had to use them, it would be nice to use ones that weren’t such a pain in the ass.

  “Yeah. Any day now. At least, that’s what they keep telling me. They were backordered or something.”

  “Well, I’m out a cam for the time being. Mine finally gave up the ghost.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yeah.” He’d been messing with the thing for the past several days, but it simply refused to function.

  “You try replacing the batteries?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “New cams should be here any day. Shame you’re out a camera, though. I’d hate to miss any gems like that time you—”

  “Walked into the plastic wrap.” Elijah narrowly suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Rogers had turned her bodycam on just to capture his embarrassment on film.

  “Exactly. That was classic.”

  * * * * *

  Night shift meant no meeting Peyton for lunch. There was a silver lining, though: Elijah had taken to stopping by Charmed for an early dinner, or sometimes just dessert, before he went in for his six o’clock shift.

  Sometimes he brought food, and other times Peyton did. She was a great cook, and when she didn’t bring a dish
from home, she had baklava from the Greek place just down the sidewalk. That kicked ass, too.

  On his days off, he stopped by Charmed without worrying about leaving in time to make it to work. On one of those occasions, Peyton had shown him the second story storage space. It was spacious, quiet … and it locked.

  He got hard just thinking about getting her alone in that room stacked with boxes of lingerie. All in all, working nights wasn’t bad.

  There were a lot of drunks, though. Especially during the warmer months. As he cruised down Benton Street, an SUV swerved suspiciously a block ahead of him.

  He pressed on the accelerator, gliding a little faster through the shadows that lined the street, cast by palmettos and brick buildings. The string of businesses on Benton was half restaurants, half an eclectic mix of other attractions: a tattoo studio, a convenience store and a wine bar, for starters.

  Three women were coming out of a sushi place, purses swinging from bare shoulders. It was a warm, muggy night and every female on the island seemed to be wearing a sundress. Elijah’s gut knotted as the women started down the sidewalk, strolling in his direction. Something wasn’t right.

  The SUV was going too fast, veering too far to the left, toward the painted line snaking through the two-way street. Away from the women, but…

  A sense of foreboding fogged the atmosphere inside his cruiser, almost a physical presence. And there it was, the reason why: the SUV’s driver overcompensated, swerving back to the right, toward the women on the sidewalk.

  The tires rolled over the curb, the large vehicle powering over it like it was nothing.

  One of the women screamed.

  CHAPTER 16

  “Madison, this looks really, really good. Like a professional designed it.”

  “Hey, I am a professional.” Madison sat on the living room couch, her healing leg extended over a cushion. Peyton was smooshed between her and one arm of the sofa.

  “Okay, technically, yes. But when you said you’d take over our social media presence, I didn’t realize that meant you were going to become a Photoshop goddess.”