Illicit by Madeline Pryce

way. Damn Peter No Last Name for making sure she would remember his claiming.
    Wresting the keys into the ignition with frozen fingers, it took her two attempts to start the truck. The engine roared to life, streams of icy air pouring from the vents. She shivered, pressing her forehead against the steering wheel to wait out the cold.
    Mistake. The throb in her head turned into a full-blown headache. An unwanted image of Peter flashed into her mind and she tried to shove the picture away. She was too raw from Greg’s death, too confused by the intimacy she and Peter had shared during their shower.
    “I need you.”
    She shook her head, found it impossible to dislodge her stranger. Jesus, even from a distance his arrogance prevailed. All over again she felt his hot, wet mouth. The stroke of his tongue. At the memory, a shiver ran down her spine. Her sex clenched in needy anticipation. God, the way he’d kissed her had been like a man starving. Desperate. Like a man allowed to glimpse salvation for the briefest of moments.
    His husky, sex-drugged voice stole through her head once more: “ Please .”
    Without meaning to, her hand rose to her kiss-swollen lips. Slowly, softly, she drew her finger back and forth.
    A pounding, three-beat knock rapped against her side window. Her fantasy crashed. Burned. Eva’s scream was loud and long. She barely heard the piercing wail over her thunderous heart. The knock came again, more urgently this time, and she forced her breathing to even. Who else was out in this weather?
    Using the sleeve of her coat, she cleared the fogged window and peered out. Her relief at seeing the familiar face was palpable. And short-lived. She’d have welcomed anyone except Detective Grady Keller, the one man who’d know on sight she’d been fucked every way possible. The man who thought taking her virginity gave him permanent rights to her body.
    Swallowing, she beat back the encroaching guilt. Would Grady know how many times? How many different ways? Would he know she’d allowed Peter to fuck her without a condom? He stood outside her door, his every exhale sending visible puffs of air from his mouth and red-tipped nose. Concern deepened the handsome angles of his face. A scraggy beard, the same dark brown shade as his eyes, protected his cheeks and chin from the frost. The coarse stubble invited a woman’s hand to run through it.
    Dang. He sure hadn’t had that much facial hair when they’d dated in high school. The heavy, fur-lined jacket he wore made his shoulders wider and his chest thicker than she knew them to be. She pressed the button on the control panel, counted the seconds while the window whirred down. Any warmth the truck had managed to gain disappeared.
    “Detective, what can I do for you?” Her voice was husky and raw from screaming. That was a lie. The rasp was from having Peter’s cock shoved so far down her throat.
    Grady knew. Recognized the unmistakable aftermath of the kind of oral sex she liked to give. His left eye twitched. He stepped close. The squeak of boots on snow raised the hair on her arms. One gloved hand and then the other gripped the window frame, pulled him inside the truck. The bulk of his massive six-foot-four frame blocked her closest exit.
    He scanned the inside of her vehicle before turning his hot gaze on her. “Eva.”
    Her cheeks flushed. She fought the impulse to press her fingers against her swollen lips. Oh, she knew without looking that she had a freshly fucked and sated appearance about her. Grady would know. He’d seen that look on her himself too many times to count.
    “What do you want?” She forced the words between chattering teeth.
    His gaze moved over her lips, down the line of her throat to where, no doubt, she had a couple of love bites. Self-consciously she shifted and her coat gapped open, revealing the day-old dress beneath it. Well, hell. Even though a beard covered his face, she didn’t miss the tightening of his jaw or the thinning