“He’s no idiot. He’s only being questioned. We really can’t make a formal arrest yet. They should beat us to the courthouse by just a few minutes.”
As moods went, Junior was in the black hole of Calcutta. There was no peace to be found anywhere, though his Jag streaked through the streets of town at an indiscriminate speed in pursuit of it.
Angus was on his back. His mother was on his back because Angus was. Last night she had sternly commissioned him to get off his ass—not in those terms, exactly—and do something that would make his father proud.
Sarah Jo found the idea of having Reede Lambert back at ME untenable and, using a harsher tone than she had ever used with him before, told her son that it simply must never happen.
“Angus wants you, not Reede.”
“Then, why did he offer him a job?”
“To wake you up, darling. He’s only using Reede as a subtle threat.”
Junior promised her he’d do his best. But when he had called Alex and asked her to have dinner with him, she’d turned him down, saying she had a headache. She did agree to meet him for lunch today. And then, when everything had been going great, Reede had showed up and snatched her out of his grasp again.
“Business, my ass,” he muttered as he pulled into the wide, circular driveway of the judge’s home and brought the car to a jarring halt. He jumped the flower bed and landed a hard blow on the front door with his fist.
Stacey didn’t get to the door quite fast enough to suit him. He was practically frothing at the mouth by the time she answered.
“Junior!” she exclaimed gladly when she saw him. “This is a sur—”
“Shut up. Just shut up.” He slammed the door behind him, rattling every piece of china and glassware in the house. Taking Stacey by both arms, he backed her into the wall of the foyer and covered her stunned, gaping mouth with his.
He kissed her roughly while his hands attacked the buttons on her blouse. They scattered like BBs across the marble floor when he got too impatient to work them out of their holes and ripped them open.
“Junior,” she gasped, “what—”
“I gotta have you, Stacey,” he mumbled, plunging his face between her breasts. “Please, don’t give me a hard time about it. Everybody gives me a hard time about everything. Just shut up and let me fuck you.”
He flipped up her skirt and slip, worked down her panty hose, and then opened his trousers. He rammed into her dryly, and she cried out.
He was causing her pain. While he knew it and hated himself for hurting her when she didn’t deserve it, he was glad, in a dark part of his soul, that somebody else besides himself was suffering. Why should he be the only person in the whole freaking world to be miserable?
Everybody picked on him. It was time he got to pick on somebody. Stacey was available… and he knew he could get away with it.
Her dismay, her debasement made him feel powerful. His release came from subjugating her, not from the sex itself. When it was over, he collapsed against the wall, sandwiching her between himself and the floral wallpaper.
He regained his breath and his reason gradually. He eased away from her and stroked her cheek. “Stacey?” Slowly, she opened her eyes. He gave her a disarming smile and a soft kiss. Realizing that she was dressed up, he asked, “Did I keep you from going somewhere?”
“A meeting at church.”
The dimple in his cheek grew deeper as his smile widened. Playfully, he tweaked an exposed breast. “You don’t look much like going to a church meeting now.”
As he knew she would, she responded to his caresses, which got bolder. “Junior,” she whimpered breathlessly when he pushed her blouse off her shoulders, yanked down her brassiere, and fastened his mouth to her raised nipple. She chanted his name, interspersing it with avowals of love. He moved his head down her body, pushing aside clothing as he went.
“Junior?” she asked timorously when he dropped to his knees.
He smiled up at her beguilingly as he slipped his thumbs between the lips of her sex and spread them apart.
“Junior! Don’t. No. I can’t. You… can’t.”
“Yes, I can, honey. What’s more, you’re just dying for me to.” He licked her lightly, enjoying the taste of himself on her, the musky smell of aroused female, her uneasiness. “Still want to go to church?” he whispered, nuzzling her with his mouth. “Huh, Stacey?”
When her orgasmic sobs echoed off the walls of the empty house, he pulled her down to straddle him as he lay on his back on the cold marble floor. He emptied himself into her again. Afterward, when she was curled against him like a rag doll, he felt better than he had in weeks.
W
hen he moved to sit up, Stacey clung to him. “Don’t go.”