Low Sided by A.J. Downey (best detective novels of all time txt) 📕

Ah…

“C’mon, I’ll take you home,” I murmured, and she slid her hand in mine and nodded. We went out through the front, past the rest of the guys so I could tell Mav what was up. He nodded, told me to ride, and made sure we’d lock up like a worried dad or some shit. I nodded. There would be church over this, but it wouldn’t be until the rest of the boys could get in here, so I had some hours yet.

I would take Raven home, love her, and we would sleep for a time. I think she needed it. She still trembled finely under my hands as I led her out the door in front of me, my hands on her hips.

She went out ahead of me into a blast of frigid air and I wanted to pull her back against me, wrap her in my jacket and cut against my chest and warm her with my body heat. As impractical as it was, it was my first inclination, but I resisted the urge in favor of just getting her home to show her just how much I loved and adored her.

The trip back to her apartment was blessedly short on the bike, but definitely enough to chill my woman behind me. Her teeth chattering, her slim body shuddering as she unlocked the door at the street level for us. I trailed her up the steps after making sure that the street-level door was secure behind us before we went.

She opened her apartment door with an audible sigh of relief. I shut it and locked the line of bolts behind us with an equal sense of decompression.

Raven turned to me and I felt my shoulders drop at the exhaustion on her face.

“Come here,” I murmured, and she did, stepping over to me and burying herself against my chest. I held her tight for several long moments again, waiting for her to soak in her fill and when she had, she sighed out and relaxed beneath my touch. It was as though we both let go of our last vestiges of apprehension with each other, with the situation, with everything. It was nice. It was really nice.

“My turn for the bathroom,” she murmured, and I chuckled as she pushed back from me and I let her go.

“You go on,” I nodded, and I trailed her into her bedroom. She gave me a backward glance as she shut the door to her tiny bathroom, as though she didn’t quite expect me to be there when she got out.

Like I would go anywhere else.

I slipped out of my jacket and cut and set it aside, then pulled my layered tee and thermal off in one piece over my head.

By the time she was washing her hands, I was toeing off my boots. By the time the bathroom door opened, I was working my belt and the front of my jeans open. She paused and looked me over and I stripped for her hungry yet reserved gaze. She was tired, maybe even exhausted. The sun would be up in a few more hours, and she needed rest. To rest, she needed to relax.

“Come here,” I said and crooked a finger, my cock twitching, starting to rise as she drifted over her bedroom floor like some sort of ethereal sprite or Fae-like being.

I kissed her, settling my hands on her hips, and smoothing my hands over the natural fibers of her clothing.

I broke the kiss to whisper against her lips, “I’m going to take all of this off of you a piece at a time, lay you down, and treat you,” I promised, and she made a small noise of want in her throat.

Good, that was good, she had no idea what she was in store for.

I kissed her, gently divesting her of her clothing a piece at a time, letting it fall to her floor. When she was nude, I laid her down on her bed, on her stomach and carefully straddled the backs of her thighs. She was a sight, her back strong and the lines of her lean muscles and dancer’s body so very pleasing to the eye.

I could weep at the sight of her, trailing fingertips lightly over her back in sweeping patterns, deepening the touch into a massage that made her groan in pleasure, teasing the knots from around her spine and out from beneath her shoulder blades firmly but gently, wishing I had some lotion or oil to make my hands glide better.

I asked her, “Got any lotion or…?”

“Lotions in the basket on the milk crate over there,” she said, voice heavy and hazy with the effects of my love and attention.

I went and got the bottle and returned, liberally applying some to my hands, sweeping them over her upper back and shoulders, working my way through muscling the tension out of her, feeling her turn liquid with relief beneath me.

I worked her quietly, listening to her soft little moans of pleasure and sweet surrender under my attentions and it was a hell of an aphrodisiac, let me tell you.

I was as hard as iron when I replaced my hands with my lips at the back of her neck, draping myself over the back of her, caressing her down her sides as I kissed my way down her back. She rose to meet my lips, writhing unconsciously beneath me, and that was so incredibly hot, fucking sexy, she had no idea the things she did to me, but I damn sure knew what I was about to do to her.

I had intended to cut her some slack when I’d started. That I would just give her a little massage and back off, lying beside her, gather her into my arms, but with the way her breath fell from her lips in these soft little gasps of wonder, the way she whimpered and moaned in pleasure, I