Returning Tides Read online

  “Don’t,” Allie said softly. “Don’t get all sweet and gentle on me. It makes me want to kiss you.”

  Bri snorted and shook her head. “Jesus, you make me crazy.”

  “I can’t help the way I am, especially when you pull that fierce butch stuff. It just does something to me.” Allie smiled tremulously. “It’s just a date. Nothing to worry about. Promise.”

  “Okay. Look, I’m sorry.” Bri shrugged. “I just… Well, you know, with Ash in town and—”

  “Walker has nothing to do with anything,” Allie said curtly. “Nothing at all.” She ruffled Bri’s hair and strode toward the door. “I gotta go. Flynn is really hot, and I don’t want to keep her waiting.”

  “Yeah, right. I hear you.” Bri turned and watched the door swing closed behind Allie. She might have believed her, except she’d seen the hurt skate across Allie’s face at the mention of Ash’s name.

  *

  He watched her turn the sign in the window of the shop door to Closed. When she came out and turned right to walk down Commercial Street, he fell in behind her.

  Chapter Six

  “Do you need more ice on that?” Reese repositioned the pillow under Tory’s ankle.

  “No, it feels much better now.” Tory took in Reese in her faded regulation-green boxers and T-shirt. The shrapnel wound on her leg and the burn scars on her arm and shoulder were still red and angry. She’d gained back a little of the weight she’d lost while deployed, but she still appeared wraithlike in the dim light cast by the lamp on the far side of the room. Reese had been nothing but gentle and tender and attentive all evening, but she vibrated with a violent energy Tory knew she was struggling to hide. Tory patted the bed beside her. “Stretch out next to me.”

  Reese frowned. “I thought I would make you some tea. Or maybe a glass of wine?”

  Tory smiled. “Wine. In a few minutes.” She pushed the sheets down. “Come here, first.”

  “I’m just going to keep you awake,” Reese muttered as she slipped under the covers. “You need to rest and I’m not tire—”

  “I’m going to sleep like a baby tonight, I promise.” Tory traced Reese’s lower lip with her index finger, then leaned over and kissed her. In the middle of the kiss, she worked her hand underneath the bottom of Reese’s T-shirt and caressed her abdomen. The skin felt stapled to the ridges of muscle underneath, stretched tight and humming with tension. She flicked her tongue over Reese’s lip and murmured against her mouth, “But first, I have unfinished business.”

  “Tory,” Reese groaned, partly in frustration and partly with anticipation she couldn’t conceal. Tory knew her body better than she did herself. Tory knew what she needed, when she needed it, how she needed it—Tory knew what to do so her tension would ebb, her mind clear, and her dreams become comfort rather than torment. But not tonight. Tory had been taking care of her for months, although they both pretended otherwise. But not tonight. “You need to be careful of your leg.”

  When Reese started to roll away, Tory slid her hand higher, between Reese’s breasts, and held her down. “You’d be surprised what I can do without moving very much at all.”

  “No, I wouldn’t be.” Reese pulled Tory closer and kissed her again. “I know exactly how talented you are, but that still doesn’t mean I want you to wear yourself—”

  “Sweetheart,” Tory said lightly, “shut up.”

  Reese couldn’t answer because Tory was kissing her again, kissing her and massaging her chest, brushing her palm over her nipples, scraping her nails down the center of her abdomen and then stroking to smooth the thin trails of fire left behind. When Tory’s tongue plunged deeper into her mouth, Reese automatically lifted her hips, her thighs turning to iron.

  “Be very good now,” Tory whispered as she drew back and leaned on one elbow, “and do exactly as I say.”

  “Be careful.” Reese fixed on Tory’s gaze. In the yellow glow of the lamplight, Tory’s green eyes danced with flecks of gold, and although Reese was reminded of sparks escaping flames, she didn’t hear the roar of artillery or feel the scathing pain as fire consumed the earth. She saw strength and desire and safety. Here, in the one place only Tory could take her, she did not have to fight.

  Tory skimmed her hand down the center of Reese’s body and underneath the waistband of her boxers. Reese arched and sucked in her breath. Smiling, Tory watched Reese’s face as she slowly and unerringly found her clitoris and began to stroke. “That’s right, darling. Let me have you.”

  “Tory,” Reese murmured, drifting on Tory’s smile. “You always have me.”

  “Mmm. But not like this.” Tory nipped Reese’s chin. “Helpless. At my mercy.” She squeezed and Reese hissed, her stomach muscles rippling under Tory’s forearm. “So hard and so hot.” She picked up speed and Reese’s breath followed suit, coming faster and harsher with each passing second. The muscles along the edge of Reese’s jaw bunched, and she groaned. An urgent warning. Instantly, Tory released her grip, cupping Reese in her palm as she claimed her mouth with another deep kiss.

  Reese twisted on the bed, desperate for Tory to stroke her. Tory’s tongue danced over hers, teasing and tormenting. She throbbed under Tory’s hand, teetering on the edge. She grasped a handful of Tory’s hair and tugged Tory’s mouth away from hers. “Do it, baby. Please. Keep going.”

  Tory’s vision wavered and arousal swept through her so brutally she couldn’t get enough air to talk. She loved this moment, when Reese needed her and only her for everything. Reese was hers, completely, just as she was Reese’s. “No. Not so soon.” She circled the slick, smooth prominence with just her fingertip, thrilling to the sight of Reese’s fierce blue eyes losing focus as pleasure stole through her. “Just me. Just feel me.” She kissed her, caressed her. “Mmm. Yes, like that.”

  “You’re going to make me come,” Reese gasped.

  Tory stopped.

  “Oh Christ,” Reese moaned, her entire body stiff and quivering. She clamped her hand around Tory’s wrist inside her boxers and tried to press Tory’s fingers where she needed them. “I can’t.”

  “You can.” Tory kissed Reese’s damp temple, then her eyelids, then her mouth, infinitely tender. “Trust me. I know what you need.”

  “Okay. Okay,” Reese said breathlessly. She forced herself to relax her grip on Tory’s arm. “Did I…hurt you?”

  “Oh, sweetheart, no. Never.” Tory’s head pounded with the effort not to move, not to climb on top of her, not to push inside her. She pressed her forehead to Reese’s shoulder, shaking with need. “I want you so much.”

  Reese wrapped her arm around Tory’s shoulders and tried to turn her onto her back.

  “No,” Tory said quickly. “No no no. You are not taking charge, Sheriff.”

  “Let me please you.”

  “You do.” Tory dipped into Reese’s wetness and massaged her clitoris. “This pleases me.”

  Reese rocketed toward orgasm. Her hips bucked under Tory’s fingers. “Close to coming. Close.”

  “Mmm. I feel it.” Tory sped up—circled, pressed, stroked and squeezed. She listened for the hitch in Reese’s breathing, waited for the sudden stiffness beneath her fingers, and then she stopped. Reese broke out in a sweat and moaned against Tory’s breasts. She started, she listened, she stopped. Again and again.

  “Beautiful,” Tory breathed as Reese trembled in her arms. Reese was so close now her clitoris never softened, even when Tory stopped touching her. She took her hand away completely and caressed Reese’s abdomen. “I love you.”

  “Please, I need you.”

  “I need you.” Tory kissed her gently, a brush of lips, a soft caress of tongue and teeth. “I need you more than I will ever be able to show you. But I’ll try.” She slipped under Reese’s boxers again.

  “This time,” Reese groaned when Tory resumed stroking. “Need to come this time. Please don’t stop this time, baby.”

  Tory kissed her forehead and picked up speed. “All of it, darling. Give me every
thing.”

  Reese’s body bowed, her breath halted in her chest, and Tory took her surely and certainly to the edge, and beyond.

  *

  Bri cruised past Reese and Tory’s darkened house, slowing to check that no one loitered around the driveway or in the neighboring yards. “Everything looks quiet around here.”

  “The guy is probably miles away by now,” Carter said to her new partner. Bri had been quiet since they’d met at the station house. After a short briefing, Bri had palmed the keys to the cruiser on their way out, and Carter didn’t even consider asking to drive. Right now, her first night on the job, all of her experience meant nothing. Not in the delicate hierarchy of her new posting. She didn’t mind needing to earn her stripes, and she didn’t mind not driving. She preferred to ride shotgun because she could watch the streets more carefully. Given a choice, she’d rather walk the streets than ride them, but right now, she went where she was told.

  “Yeah. It doesn’t make sense he was local,” Bri muttered, slowly heading west on Commercial. In the East End, the galleries and restaurants were all closed for the night. As they drew closer to MacMillan Wharf, activity picked up. More people on the street, making the rounds of the bars and clubs along Commercial and tucked away in narrow alleys. “You’d have to be crazy to break into the sheriff’s house!”

  “Can’t rule out that possibility,” Carter said quietly. “Crazy, I mean.”

  “Yeah. I hear that.”

  “So what’s the routine?” Carter asked.

  Bri shot her a glance and then looked back to the street. She was used to riding with Allie. They had a rhythm. They didn’t have to talk about what they’d do, how they’d handle a situation when they took the call, how the shift would spin out. Thinking about it now, she realized that she’d kind of fallen into the role of shift leader, not because Allie wasn’t capable, but because Allie really didn’t care who was in charge. And that suited Bri fine. She couldn’t take any of that for granted with Carter, but it seemed as if Carter was handing her the ball. “We’ll cruise for a while if no calls come in, and then when the bars start to close, take a walk through town. Check for trouble.”

  “Drunk and disorderlies?”

  “We can always count on a few fistfights, some lewd and lascivious that’s so in-your-face we can’t ignore it. Once in a while a drunk gets rolled and we’ll need to get the EMTs out.”

  “Much trouble with DUIs?”

  Bri nodded. “Yeah. We’ll need to head out to Six when the ones who aren’t staying in town start heading back up Cape.”

  “And there’s what, one other car out?”

  “Smith and one of the seasonal guys—Girelli. They’ll mostly stick to the highway and out around the beaches. Since the storm, there hasn’t been much action out that way, but we’ve had problems with boats bringing drugs in.”

  “For a sleepy little town, there’s a lot going on here,” Carter remarked.

  Bri laughed and then quieted abruptly as the radio crackled.

  “Charlie five, copy?” the officer manning the desk back at the station asked.

  Carter grabbed the mic. “Charlie five, go ahead.”

  “Auto burglary—parking lot at Bradford and Standish. Female motorist needs assistance.”

  “Charlie five, affirmative. Suspect in the vicinity?”

  “Negative. Requested motorist wait with vehicle—break…”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Gray Lexus, Massachusetts license Victor Bravo three-seven-one.”

  A lead weight dropped into Carter’s stomach. “That’s Rica’s car.”

  Bri leaned forward, flipped on the sirens and light bar in one fluid motion, and floored the gas pedal.

  *

  Ash wasn’t sure why she’d come out to the Pied. She hadn’t had more than a few hours’ sleep a night in almost two weeks and had logged over ten thousand miles driving up and down the eastern seaboard from one devastated area to another. But sleep wasn’t what she wanted. Her head buzzed with stress and her skin tingled with restless energy, so she’d changed into a navy shirt and jeans and sought out the one place where she might find a diversion. She’d never been much of a drinker, but she seemed to be leaning on alcohol a lot lately to soothe her nerves and dull the constant low-level ache of loneliness that threatened to mushroom into the unrelenting pain of despair. When she thought about it, which she tried not to, the last eight months had been pretty much a blur. She worked as much as she could, until she was physically exhausted and mentally too weary to think about the direction her life had taken. When work wasn’t enough to keep her from questioning the decision she’d made, she tried to block out her unhappiness with transient trysts. Frantic couplings in no-name motels with women whose faces all ran together. There hadn’t even been much of that lately because she couldn’t muster enough interest to pretend she cared about the women she was with, and she couldn’t tolerate the self-loathing in the morning. Even a one-night stand deserved to be seen.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  Ash looked up from her beer at the slight, curvaceous blonde in the very short skirt and low, tight top who stood with one hip canted and a smoldering look on her face that said she knew exactly how sexy she was. She had to be a dozen years younger than Ash, if not more, and the irony was not lost on her. The same twelve years separated her and Allie. Shaking her head, Ash said, “The seat’s free, but you don’t want to sit here.”

  Surprise flashed across the blonde’s delicate features and she tapped one manicured nail on the tabletop. “What makes you think so?”

  “I’m halfway drunk and I can’t offer anything except a quick fuck and good-bye in the morning.”

  Laughing, the blonde pulled out a chair and sat down. She was braless and when she leaned toward Ash her pert round breasts swayed invitingly. “So you think you’ve got it all figured out? What makes you think I want any kind of fuck?”

  “My apologies.” Ash lifted her beer bottle and when the woman reached out to take it away, she let her. “I’m afraid my conversational skills are impaired at the moment as well.”

  “What about a dance? Can you manage that?”

  Ash frowned and focused on the music. “If it doesn’t get any faster.”

  “If it does, we’ll pretend we don’t notice. My name is Lisa.”

  “Ash. Ash Walker.”

  Lisa stood and held out her hand. “Then come along, Ash Walker, and dance with me.”

  *

  Allie waved to the women on the door at the Pied and some of the locals she knew as she made her way through the late-night crowd toward the bar. She hadn’t been out in weeks. The last woman she’d dated had gone and fallen in love with someone else. As every weekend rolled around, she’d kept telling herself she’d go out, relax, find a woman to play with for a few days or a few weeks, but she hadn’t. She’d always found something else she needed to do that kept her from spending a night with a stranger. And before those few weeks with Deo Camara, who was the first woman since Ash she’d thought she might be able to get serious about, she hadn’t been to bed with anyone for a few months. So to say the last six months had been a dry spell was an understatement. She was twenty-three years old and she liked sex, and even more than that, she liked to wake up to the feel of a woman in her arms. She was lonely and she was horny, and she was tired of being both.

  Flynn was easy to pick out, leaning against the bar. She wasn’t wearing her navy blue EMT jumpsuit now. Taller than Allie by a head, with her thick blond hair slicked back from her strong, bold face, she looked lean and sexy in tight black pants, a white open-collared shirt, and black motorcycle boots.

  “Wow. You look hot,” Allie said as she sidled up next to Flynn.

  Grinning, Flynn ducked her head and kissed Allie’s cheek. Her gaze drifted down Allie’s body, taking in the rich fall of ebony hair, the full breasts straining against the stretchy top, and the hip-hugger jeans accentuating a tight round butt. “And you look gorgeous.
”

  “Thank you.” Allie smiled and waved at the bartender. “Sammy! Draft?”

  “Got ya covered, baby,” the husky dyke called back. “One minute.”

  “So how was the rest of your night?” Flynn asked.

  “Quiet.” Allie paid for her beer and took a sip. “You?”

  “A couple of minor callouts. Nothing serious.”

  Allie liked the way Flynn leaned with one elbow on the bar, her eyes fixed on Allie’s face, as if they were alone together and not in the middle of a packed bar. “Where are you from?”

  Flynn looked momentarily taken aback, as if the question had thrown her somehow. Then she quickly said, “Chicago.”

  “This place must seem like a big change,” Allie said lightly, having noticed Flynn’s hesitation. Okay, so she didn’t want to talk about her past. Fair enough.

  “Yeah.” A look of relief tinged with sadness passed over Flynn’s handsome features. “I’ve only been here a few weeks, but it already feels like home.”

  “I know what you mean.” Allie ran her fingers down Flynn’s arm and squeezed her hand. “I hope that means you’ll be staying.”

  “Don’t worry,” Flynn replied, the mischievous light returning to her eyes. “Now that I’ve gotten your attention, you won’t get rid of me so easily.”

  Allie laughed, enjoying the flirtation. “Believe me, you’ve had my attention all along.”

  Flynn eased a little closer and settled one hand on Allie’s hip. She ducked her head and whispered in Allie’s ear, “Well then, I want to be sure to keep it.”

  “You’re doing pretty good so far.” The pressure of Flynn’s hand on her hip, the tease of warm breath in her ear, stirred a tingle of excitement low in Allie’s belly. She tilted her head just a little to bare her neck to Flynn’s mouth. Flynn’s lips were so close she could almost feel the kiss about to drop onto her skin. Enjoying the pleasant anticipation, she let her gaze drift over Flynn’s shoulder out to the dance floor, and thought she glimpsed a familiar face. She blinked, not quite believing, as Ash’s face came into sharp focus.