Love Letters Volume 1: Obeying Desire Read online

  Her free hand was sweeping his chest, her fingers threading his chest hair and tugging lightly. Cameron hadn’t imagined it like this, but he had imagined it. Lane bit his ear. He moaned.

  If he were free, there would be none of this steady climb toward climax. If he were free, there would be her under him and both of them coming fast and hard. He panted, shook sweat out of his eyes to squint over Lane’s shoulder. It was difficult to focus, battling the rising tension in his thighs, the coarse words he wanted to say, the screaming urge to be free of these damned cuffs and be in control of this encounter.

  The woman they were after was staring right at him. Not at the scene, not at the frenetic, shameless movements between his bound body and the woman who held him, literally, in the palm of her hand, but at him. A thrill of victory coursed through him at the small win—this was the club’s co-owner, their first obstacle to breaching the inner fold of the club’s side dealings. Lane’s hand squeezed him with a maddeningly perfect pressure and he lost all concentration.

  “Good. Very, very good.” Her voice was breathless and husky, and Cameron heated even further at her approval. He was on fire, his breathing choppy. The room was warm, but her fingers were scalding as she started a rhythmic press of her thumb at the base of his head. Down, up, press. Down, up, press. He didn’t even want to know where she’d learned it, he just didn’t want her to…

  “Please, please don’t stop. Faster.”

  She went noticeably faster. His toes curled and he struggled between actually breathing and using the extra split seconds to drive harder against her touch. She raked her nails down his chest, across his stomach. He wanted loose, he wanted to pin her flat on her back and drive his cock into her until she screamed and begged and came hotly, convulsively around him.

  He started to say Lane’s name, but raised his head to find her fever-bright eyes burning into his and her lips parted on her own heavy breaths. The tension in him climbed violently upward and she nodded. Silent permission? Acknowledgment that they’d accomplished their night’s goal?

  Strangely, he took the gesture as the former and when she leaned in and pressed her lips to his, he came blindingly into her next down stroke, gasping for air as his knees gave way.

  *

  The interior of the darkened Mustang was silent. Cameron stared out the window, not daring to look over. The car slid through the dark streets quietly, the engine purring. The car was rented, another part of their flashy cover.

  I asked you a question, she’d said back there, Detective. The Detective was implied. Or maybe he only heard it in his head, in the same slightly cool tone Lane used during their mandated hour-long biweekly sessions.

  Detective Isley, how are we today?

  The use of the word we was meant to make him feel like they were a team, a pair, partners. Even if he had to keep up this pretense of subservience to her, the fact remained—Lane Heywood was his department-appointed shrink.

  It didn’t matter that the thought of Lane on her knees in front of him had kept him up a time or two. No, screw her and the department. He’d been with them for ten years, he had one standoff that ended in a dead perp and they gave the steering wheel to her. He needed her hot little signature on this operation’s final report and he would be free. Free of the nightmare incident that had woken him from real fever dreams in cold sweats, and free of the delectable torture of Dr. Heywood.

  When Chief Henderson had tacked her on as a prerequisite to his first case back on active duty after the shooting, Cameron knew she’d expected him to turn it down. Lane had been the sly deal-breaker slipped into the assignment to deter him from jumping back in on the case he’d been obsessed with for the better part of a year. Both women were more than shocked when the same detective who had to be more than politely reminded to attend his mandated therapy agreed readily to the condition of Lane’s involvement.

  Tell me how you felt when he pulled the gun.

  I followed protocol. Feelings weren’t involved. I was in control.

  The truth was that he hadn’t been in control the night of the shooting and now, he wasn’t in control when he was around Lane. It made him angry. She’d just given him one of the most explosive orgasms of his life, and he couldn’t even look at her. If he looked at her, he’d only want her more.

  “Cameron…”

  His name coming from her lips in that breathy caress of a whisper hammered at his defenses. He wanted to hold on to his anger. It protected him from wanting her.

  “Doctor.”

  She went quiet after that. They pulled up outside the station and Cameron fought hard to hold his tongue. He climbed out of the car and left her and the temptation in the precinct lot. He was bone tired and in desperate need of a shower and some sleep.

  When he finally arrived home, the shower would have to be ice-cold if he had any hope of getting to sleep.

  *

  The annoying nasal buzz of her alarm woke Lane from some very delicious dreams. She slapped at the clock until it tumbled off her nightstand and hit the carpet, blissfully silent. Groaning, she rolled over and buried her face in the deep softness of her pillow. Lane wasn’t even normally a morning person, and now that the morning had intruded so rudely into her Cameron Isley instant replay, she was definitely starting the day off wrong.

  Grabbing her phone from its crowded spot on the nightstand, she disconnected the charger, threw the cord back into the detritus of paperback novels and candy wrappers, and stumbled bleary-eyed into the bathroom. She set her cell on the vanity, grateful to see the screen free of any new texts or missed calls. The bath tap got turned all the way to hot and, distracted, Lane added a too-generous shake of ginger-and-eucalyptus bath salts.

  She’d fallen into bed, exhausted, after a very awkward ride back from the club, filled with a tension that did nothing to alleviate the deep, throbbing ache that their scene had planted in the pit of her stomach. She’d made herself come twice last night before even the edge of the need had worn off.

  She had driven their rented car from the club back to the department, and he hadn’t protested. He had driven when they’d gone to the club. He’d directed the muscle car with tight, precise maneuvers, controlling the machine as it had purred toward the cataclysm neither of them had expected.

  On the drive back, he’d sat in the passenger’s seat with his lips pressed into a thin, hard line and his fist pressed to his mouth. When she glanced over, she could see his pulse beating hard at the base off his throat—the streetlights that flashed across his somber face kept eerily similar time as she’d sped away from Club Limits.

  “Cameron…”

  “Doctor.”

  That single word had been enough to keep her quiet until they pulled into the precinct. He hadn’t spoken at all, just unfolded his tall, lean frame into the harsh fluorescence of the parking lot and strode off. She’d sat, dazed, in the Mustang and it had taken her a full ten minutes to realize that Cameron had been her ride to work that morning.

  So into the precinct she’d gone, her cheeks burning, ready to take a swing at any pup in a uniform who dared snicker behind her corseted back. At least the outfit was enough to gain her three volunteers for a ride home.

  Lane sank into the scented water, blowing bubbles across the steaming surface. Somewhere in her oath as a shrink, she had to have promised not to engage in kinky sex play with a patient. Professionally, last night would have been a big no-no.

  Afraid that the attraction between them would result in an encounter much like tonight’s, before they’d even started on their op she’d signed his release form and submitted it to Chief Henderson. Last night had been so mind-blowing that Lane was still shaking on the inside, unsure how she would keep it together on tonight’s club run.

  She reflected as she shaved her legs. Thing was, she wasn’t a street cop, she wasn’t a detective. She didn’t have the hard edge Cameron did, the drive to chase down all the demons out in the big bad world. Lane fought demons on the insi
des of people’s heads, not in seedy bondage clubs. Cameron Isley was currently her real-world backup and her biggest abstract battle.

  And his eyes go flame blue when he comes.

  Tonight was going to be very, very difficult. Lane pulled the plug on the tub with her big toe and took a deep, steadying breath. Last night she’d never wished so hard that they’d been alone. She’d wanted the gruff cop’s hands on her in return, wanted his lean hips widening her thighs, wanted his fingers digging into her ass while he slid, thick and silken, slow and deep, into her. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

  Quit thinking about him. At this rate, she’d never get anything else done. She’d be stuck in bed trying to self-alleviate a lust that wasn’t going away anytime soon.

  She was climbing out of the bathtub when her doorbell rang. She grabbed for a towel. Interspersed with extremely filthy dreams of Cam, her sleep last night had also been interrupted by paranoid ones of getting their cover blown, of both of them being followed home after the op.

  You’re not a street cop, Lane. She was jumpy. It was the anticipation of tonight’s trip—presumably the night they busted Limit’s sleazebag, heroin-slinging owners.

  She grabbed the handgun she’d stashed with last night’s outfit and made her way to the peephole. Cameron Isley stood outside her door, a shopping bag dangling from his arm and two paper coffee cups in his hands. Lane dropped the gun to her side and opened the door.

  He raised a dark eyebrow at her and it was only after an intense few seconds of scrutiny from those illegally blue eyes that she realized he was waiting to be invited in.

  “Oh. Come on in.”

  He took a few long strides into her apartment and she shut the door, leaning against it.

  “What can I do for you, Detective Isley?”

  His smile was a half one, amused, guarded, wry. “I think you can call me Cam after last night, Doc. How long’s it been since you fired that thing? Academy training?”

  He was still wielding the sarcastically intoned shortening of her title. Letting her in, setting her firmly back. Cameron in control. In control of conversations, situations, impeccable in his dark suit at 7 a.m.

  He’d probably special-ordered the razor-thin width of the pinstripe. Lane wondered if the perfectly close shave, the precise shine of his shoes, the textbook tie knot were all a reaction to how completely he’d lost it last night.

  “Cameron,” she tried again, ignoring his jab about the gun, “what can I do for you?” He’d set the coffee cups and bag down on her entry table and was walking her living room, peering into the kitchen, opening her linen closet.

  “If you’re looking for a way out, you just came in the only door.” She crossed her arms and waited while he disappeared into her bedroom.

  “The raid is tonight, assuming we can get that slimeball Keating to take us upstairs.” His voice seemed to be coming from her master bathroom. She followed, aware as she entered the room that she was still in a towel. He came out of her bathroom and walked past her, headed back to the living room.

  “Stay here.”

  She bristled. “What are you looking for?”

  He paused near the door. “Nothing. I like to be aware of my surroundings.”

  Cameron in control.

  He disappeared and she stood waiting. Moments later, he reappeared with the shopping bag in hand. He tossed it on the bed and nodded at it. “Supposed to bring you that. It’s for tonight.”

  It was Lane’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “I have an outfit already.”

  “Oh, it’s not a Doc-in-charge outfit. Tonight, we switch.” His gaze was unwavering, but the corner of his mouth twisted up slightly, bemusedly.

  “We—I—how is that going to—that’s not our cover.” She dropped her eyes to the bag, a pale pink paper with lace for handles. It was not a very big bag. Whatever was inside was most likely not substantial. She looked up at Cameron, who was watching her with half-hooded eyes. Lane realized, as she felt a hot flush spread up her cheeks, that he was enjoying delivering the news.

  “I didn’t agree to this.” She swallowed, hard.

  He shrugged. “We don’t always have a choice, Doc.”

  “You know I agreed to see this through to the raid. You’re backing me into a corner, Isley.”

  He grinned, but it was humorless. “Right. Like the way I got assigned to this case was completely different. My balls aren’t in a sling here at all.”

  “So, this is turnabout? Payback? How did you get this approved?” Lane didn’t realize she was still holding her pistol until Cameron stepped close and took it out of her emphatically gesturing hand.

  He tossed her gun on the bed next to the bag. “As clever as you thought this little setup was, the chief knows you’re as good as a rookie when it comes to field work. Tonight we get to the back rooms and see if we can spot any of the storage for the drugs, though damned if I can tell where they keep them—every square inch of that place is accounted for on the building’s plans. It’s safer if you’re the one at a disadvantage tonight. I’m better equipped to handle the situation if anything blows up. All I had to do was reason with her.”

  His voice was low, cold, as if he were pressing a suspect. Assertive. Something about their switched roles was bringing back the sharpness she’d seen on countless hours of his interrogation tapes.

  *

  Lane felt anger rise in her throat, and she swallowed against it, tried to keep her voice level. “So, you went behind my back.”

  “It’s safer.” He hadn’t stepped back. She could feel the warmth of him radiating, and she was suddenly aware of how chilled she was, her hair still wet, her skin still damp.

  “Yes, well, we all know what happened last time things blew up on your watch.”

  He stiffened.

  She ran a hand through her wet hair, breathing deep to quell her urge to slap him. “You didn’t get a damned thing out of our sessions, and now you’re just playing the game to get out. You won’t deal with the shooting and I’m done trying.”

  He was between her and the end of the bed. She started to brush by him, but he caught her arm. She stopped at the slight pressure, but his fingers stayed.

  “What do you want me to say, Doc? That I liked it? That I felt nothing but a raging sense of self-satisfaction when I pulled the trigger? That it excited me even more than being beaten by you?”

  She winced at his sarcasm. “What happened last night is part of the case.”

  His laugh was dry, without humor. “I was talking about the mandatory therapy.”

  “And now we’re through with that. I already signed off on your release form. You’ll be fully reinstated, so you win. We’ll play switch. Then, after tonight, this is done.”

  “It’s far from done. Last night you made me come so hard I thought the top of my head was going to pop off.”

  His eyes were blazing again. He smelled amazing. Lane weakened, her ire faltering. She didn’t want his derision, didn’t want his resentment. She didn’t want him angry. She wanted—she wanted him.

  “I think you should go.”

  “I can’t do that. Last night, I trusted you. Tonight you’ll have to trust me.”

  She was staring at his mouth. She couldn’t help thinking back to last night, how hot his skin had been, how he’d twisted and strained against his restraints. No metaphor there.

  She’d kissed him just as he’d come, even though the gesture had later seemed to her even more intimate than anything else that had happened. She’d just wanted him to know that she was there. She’d wanted him to have somewhere to rest when he was finally spent. And, again, Lane, with the sentiment-also-applies-elsewhere. Highly unwise to start having personal feelings about a patient.

  “I’m your doctor, Isley, and this is not the club.”

  “You’ve already discharged me from your care. I’m a healed man.” His thumb started doing soft, electric circles up her arm.

  “That’s subjective.” Oh, God, now he
was staring at her mouth. Lane leaned into his touch as he slid his whole palm up the back of her arm to her bare shoulder. He skimmed his fingertips over her shoulder, up her neck, into her wet hair.

  “Let’s do something a little less ambiguous, then.” Just like that, the coldness was gone from his voice, the deep timbre as warm as his lips as he pulled her forward and dipped his mouth over hers. The first contact was startlingly gentle, considering the conversation just moments before.

  Lane brought a hand up to his chest and her lips parted on a small moan. He pressed in, brought her closer, and she could feel his intake of breath just before his tongue darted in.

  Cameron in control. She was not going to be able to handle tonight.

  *

  The inside of Lane’s mouth was hot, wet and maddeningly soft. Damn her for showing up at her door in nothing but a towel. Damn her for having eyes that were even bigger when her hair was wet and slicked back. Damn her for smelling like spice and mint and God knows what else.

  Cameron cupped her chin, tugged, keeping her mouth open as he gave up gentleness and devoured every curve and corner of the full lips he’d fantasized about. She gave as good as she was given, syncing with his sudden aggressiveness and pushing back in kind. He was biting her lower lip, sucking it into his mouth, scraping it with his teeth. Her hands were fisting in the front of his shirt.

  Then, he felt a button slip free and her fingers were inside, on his bare chest. He exhaled sharply, pulling back, caught immediately by the glossy amber of her eyes, breathless as she made short work of two more buttons. He grabbed for her wrists, wrenching them away from his chest.

  “Lane,” he started, aware that he was panting, “stop.” Her wrists went slack in his grip and he closed his eyes against the need etched into her face. He dropped her wrists, rubbed a thumb across her newly swollen lower lip, shook his head to clear it.