With each measured thrust he was hitting that special spot inside of me that made me weak in the knees.
If I’d been standing on my own two feet, I’d be collapsing at his.
My face went into his neck as he started to thrust slower, working me higher and higher.
The door opened again and Judge Stanley said, “Hey, kid. I don’t see any sign of your girl. But I have someone checking on her. She was that sweet little dark-haired beauty, right?”
Croft bit down so hard on my neck that it shocked me.
I came.
Hard.
Eyes squeezing tightly shut, I exploded all around him. My nerve endings started to sing as my ears started to ring.
Croft cursed and followed right along with me.
“No problem,” Croft said. “I’m almost fixed right up. Getting dressed now.”
“I’m holding the room for another thirty minutes,” Judge Stanley said. “Let me know if you need anything.”
The door closed again, and Croft pulled back so that he could look into my eyes.
“You’re so going to make me go to hell,” I whispered.
His lips twitched. “At least I’ll be on the boat right alongside you.”
CHAPTER 12
I love to wrap both hands around it and swallow.
-Coffee Cup
CROFT
My ass was dragging after the trial.
I’d won.
That hadn’t been my worry for today.
What had been on my mind was whether or not the person that’d done the shooting would be found.
And, surprise, surprise, he hadn’t.
Which really fuckin’ pissed me off because not only had he shot me, but he’d also tried to break into Carmichael’s house.
And though I’d cared for her before, she hadn’t been mine.
Now she was mine, in all ways, and that meant that I was even more brassed off because I didn’t want her hurt.
I wasn’t sure what in the fuck had happened today, but I needed to figure it out, quick.
Which was why when we arrived home to find the fuckin’ geek here that she worked with, I wasn’t very happy about it.
With my arm around her shoulders, I looked at Alfie and narrowed my eyes.
“Alfie, what are you doing here?” Carmichael tried to pull away, but I leaned on her harder, letting her know without words that I wanted her to stay where she was.
That, and my shoulder throbbed like a motherfucker, and if I kept her where she was, that ache eased.
She looked at me, seeing the strain on my face, and didn’t fight me.
“Umm,” Alfie said as he looked from me to Carmichael and back. “You weren’t at school today.”
Carmichael smiled sadly. “This one was hurt the day before yesterday. He needed some help. I’ll be back to work Monday.”
“Oh,” Alfie winced. “I was worried.”
“Nothing to worry about,” Carmichael shrugged. “Anything fun and exciting happen at school today?”
Alfie shifted restlessly from foot to foot, his eyes focusing on everything but me.
“No,” he answered. “School was fairly calm for a Friday. No fights broke out, and barely anyone stepped out of line. It was quite peaceful, really.”
“Dang,” Carmichael snapped her fingers. “They always have good days when I’m not there.”
I squeezed her shoulder, not liking the way her voice dipped, and a little bit of sadness entered her voice.
“Probably because you weren’t there to shake everyone up,” Alfie teased. I narrowed my eyes, and Alfie took a step back. “Well, I better go. Um, uhhh, see you around? You still going to the Trades Days this weekend?”
“No,” Carmichael sighed. “I think it’s going to be a lazy weekend on the couch.”
She looked at me as she said it, and I felt something warm inside my chest at the thought of her spending a lazy weekend on the couch with me.
It sounded… magical.
I hadn’t had a weekend like that in a really long time.
“Oh, well okay.” Alfie walked toward his bike, and I narrowed my eyes.
There was a report of a bike speeding out of the area yesterday after my shooting, and I studied it hard.
“Have a good one,” Alfie called as he fitted his helmet into place.
“See you Monday.” Carmichael waved with her free hand that wasn’t wrapped around my waist.
Then he rode off, leaving us both watching him go. Me likely for a different reason than her.
“My place or yours?” she asked just as another car pulled into the driveway.
My parents.
Another car followed it closely.
Ezra and Raleigh.
Son of a bitch.
That ‘nice and quiet weekend’ was about to take a flying leap right out the window.
“Oh, boy,” Carmichael whispered when my sister got out of the car and all but flew her way toward me.
“You got shot, and you didn’t call us?” she screeched, waving her hands.
She tripped about halfway toward me on a rock in the yard, and she went down. But she was back up and still waving her hands like a lunatic seconds later.
Ezra, not as annoyed, followed with their son on his hip, eyes on me, assessing.
My mother wasn’t far behind, her eyes moving over the length of my body as if she could calculate my injuries through my clothes.
“Wow,” Raleigh continued. “You get shot. Shot! And you don’t tell us a word. Flint does! How the hell do you get off thinking that we wouldn’t care?”
I waited until she was close to me before I let Carmichael go and pulled her into my arms.
“I’m okay,” I assured her, squeezing her as tight as I dared.
She promptly burst into tears.
I looked at my mother over Raleigh’s head, seeing tears in her eyes, too.
“You shouldn’t have kept this from us,” she said to me softly.
“I didn’t so much as keep it from you as wait to tell you until you could actually do something about it,” I admitted. “You were on a four-day cruise. The boat was out in the middle of the ocean. It wasn’t like me telling you would’ve made it get back here any faster.”
They knew I was right, but still it burned.
“Plus,” Carmichael said softly,
