Tasty Treats Anthology: Volume One Read online

  Always up for a good argument, Adam had met him head on. The more they argued, the more assured Adam became of his point. That was just the opposite direction Killian wanted to go in. So he'd come up with his next plan, start dating a boring, little homebody.

  Once Adam realized that he could have the lush, delectable salmon swimming upstream at the club or some average, every day catfish from the local pond, he'd make the right decision. Only problem with that plan was none of the catfish were biting.

  He'd laid the bait out for over a dozen women and not a single date. His best hope had been with Rachel Allen. They'd really hit it off and he'd actually liked the girl. As far as locals went, she was on the strong side of pretty, intelligent and fun to be around. In some alternate universe Killian could have seen them being friends or a little more. Still when he'd asked her out, she'd shot him down.

  What the hell is with that?

  Killian didn't consider himself vain, but he knew he was good looking. He'd had an interesting enough life to make for conversation. He certainly didn't have any failings between the sheets. He knew a woman's body so well he could make her come all night long, but damn if that didn't seem a sellable trait in the local market. It was like the women didn't really care about sex.

  Well, he knew where a whole bunch of women were who did. That's what Adam really needed. He needed to get any asinine ideas he'd gotten about settling down sucked straight out of his cock by an expert.

  "It's late enough to call off this patrol. Maybe we could still salvage something of the night."

  "Give it another half hour."

  "Oh, come on. All the teenagers that normally try have tried. They're probably three sheets to the wind right now having their own party."

  "You think?"

  "Yeah."

  "Then what's that?"

  "What?" Killian looked around.

  "Shh. Listen," Adam whispered.

  Killian stilled, straining his ears to hear something other than the chaotic shifts of the party behind him. Music, voices, moans, he tried to block out the overwhelming static of the party and hear into the night beyond. The soft hum of insects and the deep throated croaks of the frogs and silence, he'd just about given up trying when he heard it. The engine had blended into the soft murmur of the night, but then it whined upward through the gears in a protest that told him the car was either stuck or trying to tow something way too heavy.

  "Shit," Killian groaned. He really didn't feel like dealing with this.

  "Come on." Adam started off for the vehicle. "Let's go scare some sense into some sixteen year olds."

  Chapter 2

  Rachel gave up the battle. The back tires were stuck. As in not coming out.

  Everything. Everything up to this moment—perfect.

  It figured though her luck wouldn't hold out. As it was, she'd been amazed at how well everything had gone. Tim had let her borrow his camera, completely set up to take night pictures. He'd even bought her excuse about doing an article on the increase in cow-tipping among the teenagers and what it all meant.

  Despite Hailey's assertions, she'd had no problem in getting to the edge of the party. With Tim's camera she'd been able to zoom in and get some amazing shots. Shots of high ranking local politicians with women dressed in nothing but underwear, some even with their breasts out, but all with collars on and some even leashed to a man.

  There had been married men sucking shots out from between some silicone babe's breasts. Women getting spanked, whipped, fucked in almost every position Rachel knew and many she hadn't, but then again she'd never even dreamed of doing more than one man at once.

  She'd have been shocked if it hadn't been for the adrenaline pumping through her at the idea of just what those pictures meant, to her story, to her career. This could definitely erupt into national news. A good thing, too, because she'd have to move after she released this story. After all it wasn't wise to live in a small, southern town when you'd published pictures of the mayor riding some woman's ass or the president of the city council getting his dick sucked by the same woman and, worse, at the same time.

  No, that tended to be a bad idea. What the hell am I doing?

  Sobering reality fed doubts into her mind. The Pittsview Press wouldn't publish this. Rachel knew Carl. He'd have a heart attack in his editor's chair if she even showed him some of the more mild images. Even if he could get over it all, he'd never let that go to print. The Pittsview Press prided itself on being a local newspaper, full of boring, safe, often times happy events that constituted news in Pittsview.

  If she wanted to see this through, she'd have to go to a larger paper. Then she'd be opening her small town up to the devastating scrutiny of outsiders. She'd be wrecking not only individual lives, marriages, families, but the whole damn town.

  That's my ticket out? Destroying the town I love?

  Figures.

  She'd have been better off with her frozen Italian dinner and watching TV. It had been stupid of her to even try. Even if she did get the car out of the ravine, what would she really do with the pictures she snapped?

  Nothing.

  She should have listened to Hailey and waited for her two-depression-drinks-night-out tomorrow. Now that she knew what she knew, she couldn't stop thinking about it. As the thrill of the adventure waned off, the horror of what she'd witnessed began to creep back in.

  Horror not because any of the women had looked like they had actually been getting hurt. Just the opposite, the woman at the party appeared to be experiencing the very thing that Rachel had wanted to find herself at the beginning of the night. A true, hot-blooded orgasm.

  Perhaps that's why she felt the way she did right now, a little hot, a little itchy, and a whole bunch horny. That's where the horror came in. As the dirty, dark, erotic images repeated themselves in her mind she felt her body responding. Slowly her mind replaced the images of those women with her own.

  "Hey."

  "Ahhhh!"

  Rachel screeched at the sudden sound of a deep masculine voice. She started so hard she fell right off the hood and went crashing into the uneven ground. With the momentum of her fall, she rolled twice down the small embankment and came to a stop as a heap of limbs. Pain shot up her ankle and the screech turned into a scream of pain.

  "Oh, damn."

  That voice came from right over her head, but the hands that appeared to help try to get her back on her feet came straight from the right. They were disembodied and for a moment she didn't care. She didn't intend on going anywhere. It just hurt too damn much.

  "Will you look at what you did?"

  "I didn't mean to scare her like that."

  "What the hell did you think was going to happen?"

  "Oh, yeah. I planned this whole thing, Adam." An oversized set of hands cupped her cheeks gently, brushing the hair out of her face so she could see as he tilted her head up to meet his. "Are you all right, sweetheart?"

  Oh, crap. Killian.

  How could it be that the man she'd thought of at the start of the night was now looming over her? He was just as devastating in the cloak of night's shadows as he had been illuminated under the diner's fluorescent lighting.

  He had the kind of features that belonged on the cover of GQ, with that square cut jaw and hard chiseled features. In the bright glow of the full moon his eyes were amazing. She remembered the color, blue green. They were light, multifaceted, like crystalline orbs designed to entrance and mesmerize any woman stupid enough to directly look into their mysterious depths.

  "Did you hit your head?"

  He might as well have been speaking French because the only thing she understood was that he had the gentlest of touches. Big hands with slightly callused fingertips traced around the edge of her hair line in an almost ticklish caress. She definitely tingled from the sensation.

  That tingle merged with the warmth of her previous musings. A flash spark over the volatile mix of hormones in her body, his touch ignited her brimming imaginatio
n and scenes, those dirty, dark, erotic images of woman as bitch and man as beast, snapped through her mind as still-life possibilities of Killian and her.

  "She hurt her ankle, moron. Can't you see it's swelling already?"

  "Doesn't mean she couldn't have hurt her head. If you hadn't noticed, she isn't speaking."

  That's you.

  That's me.

  Say something before you look like a moron, or more of one.

  Before she could get all the parts in her body to work together on that plan, another set of hands tilted her face in the opposite direction.

  Oh. Double damn.

  Here was the second man to round out the kinky little scenes playing out in her mind. This one had more rounded features, but they were just as hard. Instead of jet black hair with vibrant light eyes, he had a rich, chocolate brown hair with matching soulful eyes. Oh, God did she love chocolate.

  "I don't think she hurt her head. Her eyes don't look dilated."

  That statement followed his thumb and finger wrenching open her lids as he held her head straight up into the moonlight. Instinctively she jerked her head back and glared. Handsome or not, that had been rude.

  "Maybe she's drunk," Killian offered.

  "I am not drunk." Finally she said something, and it felt good to come out of her stupor.

  "Oh, look. She speaks."

  "Yes, I speak, and it is extremely rude of you talk about me as if I can't hear you, Killian."

  Rachel turned her head back toward the guy with starlight in his eyes. To avoid being distracted by his mesmerizing gaze she kept her eyes planted on his chest, his wide, hard, muscular looking chest. Oh, man, his T-shirt looked so soft. It molded perfectly to the smooth planes and cut ridges of every single one of his mouthwatering muscles.

  "Rachel?" She could hear the confusion in his tone. It irked her. He didn't have to sound so shocked. "Rachel Allen?"

  I recognized him. You think he could recognize me. It's only been a month after all.

  "Rachel Allen?" The other one repeated slowly. "Why does that name sound so familiar?"

  "Because you see it in the paper every Sunday. She's a reporter for the Pittsview Press."

  Uh-oh.

  She could feel the tension thicken in the air as they all recognized the ramifications of that statement. She could only imagine that the two men were coming to a conclusion that she had been doing just what she'd been doing. As for her, she came to realize that they must be some of the surveillance Hailey had mentioned earlier.

  "Ow! My ankle hurts. Are either one of you going to help me with this?"

  "Not until you tell us what you are doing out here." Killian's friend made that tight statement. All traces of concern had blipped out.

  "Oh, but it hurts. I don't think I can stand the pain." Rachel added just a hint of a whine as a threat of what would come if they didn't start caring about her ankle.

  "Your ankle is fine."

  "It is not!" She really didn't care for Killian's friend. Handsome or not, the man had a defunct sensitivity chip. "I twisted it. It's already swelling. It could be broken."

  "It's not broken."

  "Oh, you don't know anything."

  "I know about broken bones."

  "What? Are you a doctor?"

  "I spent twelve years in the Marine Corps. I've seen enough broken bones to know one."

  "You can't tell a broken bone by looking."

  "Sometimes you can."

  "Yeah, if it's sticking out!"

  "You don't have any bones sticking out do you?"

  "That doesn't mean my ankle isn't broken."

  "It's not broken."

  "It is broken if I say it is. It's my goddamn bone and I know when it's broken. Not you. I don't care how many years you spent in the Marines. I wasn't there. You haven't seen my ankle before. So you don't know anything about it!"

  "Enough!"

  The man twitched for a moment like he wanted to say something completely else. Rachel watched his jaw flex and anticipated the cursing to come. Instead, she got a low toned snarl that made chills run up her arms.

  "If you are truly in pain then you can see the wisdom in answering my questions promptly. If you would rather waste time and delay medical treatment, please, continue on with your tantrum."

  "I am not having a tantrum. Why do men always say that? I am annoyed and in pain and I am allowed to—"

  "What are you doing here?"

  "What are you doing here?" Rachel shot back, forgetting in the moment to go with the ankle pain as her escape plan.

  "Answer my question." He could barely get his teeth to lift in order to get those words out.

  "I'm not going to be bullied by you. I don't have to answer anything. I'm the one who has been wronged in all this. I'm the one who was out here minding her own business when you two assaulted me. I don't—"

  "Assaulted you?" Killian choked on that one. "You fell off your own car all by yourself, sweetheart. That's not assault."

  Rachel tossed her hair over her shoulder as she turned her head back toward Killian. The strand whipped around and she hoped smacked the other man in the face. She felt confident the move had worked when she heard the crunch of dirt beneath his shifting feet. She could feel him moving upward even as his shadow grew long over her.

  Giving Killian a coy little smile, she shrugged. "Who is to say what happened?"

  "I am. I'm a cop, unless you forgot."

  "Cops go bad all the time."

  "I can go bad."

  Killian lowered not only his voice but his face. When they were nose to nose and she could feel the warm brush of his breath, smell the intoxicating scent of man and soap, see all of her erotic fantasies promised in the wicked depths of his eyes, he growled again.

  "You want to see how bad, Rachel?"

  Not making the situation better. Do something. Think!

  "Answer Alex's question. What are you doing here?"

  "I was going down the road when a deer ran out. I lost control trying to avoid the poor thing and ended up in the ditch."

  The lie came out of nowhere as some desperate attempt to say anything that would get him to back up. It worked. He released the hold he had on her focus by about a foot. Still crowding her space, he did look up at his friend.

  "What do you think, Adam?"

  "That must have been one hell of a spin out."

  Go indignant. You're not lying. This really happened. Go with it.

  "Are you doubting me?"

  "I'm just saying." Adam rubbed his chin. "Given the way your car is in the ditch, it doesn't really look like it spun into it."

  "And you would know that?"

  "Considering the number of traffic accidents I've investigated, yeah. I would know that."

  "Oh." Rachel felt her head lower as her shoulders crept up into a guilty slouch. "You're a cop, too."

  "That's right, sweetheart," Killian gloated. "We both are. So why don't you try the truth this time?"

  "Just because you're cops and don't believe what I say, doesn't mean I'm lying. What happened to innocent until proven guilty?"

  "Guilty as in your car is pointing out of the ditch like it drove through it matching the tracks. As in not pointed into the ditch as it would be with the non-existent tracks you left in your imaginary spin out."

  "Fine. I didn't spin out, but that doesn't mean you have to treat me like a criminal, you know? I was just out here to…look at the stars. Got to get away from the city lights and all that, you know?"

  "City lights and all that?" Adam raised an eyebrow as he repeated her own lame words back to her. "I take it that's why you are dressed all in black, because you're afraid bright colored clothes would interfere with your viewing."

  "Oh, shut up."

  "Does that mean you're tapped out?" Killian almost sounded amused now. "We're not moving on to lie four?"

  Chapter 3

  Rachel turned back to Killian and narrowed her eyes on his smug smirk. He enjoyed this a littl
e too much. If he wanted a lie then she'd keep on dishing them out. Eventually she'd wear him through.

  "I like wearing black."

  "All black?"

  "I'm grieving."

  "Grieving?"

  "Yes, that's why I came out here. I was hoping for some peace and solitude during my time of sadness."

  "Uh-huh. You're not too good at lying, you know that?"

  "I'm not lying."

  "That's all right, sweetheart. I think I know what this is all about."

  "Really?"

  Oh, shit.

  "I don't know if I mentioned this to you, Adam," Killian began as he looked up toward his partner. "Rachel came by the station a few weeks back to do an interview with the Chief. He wasn't there, so I did her a favor."

  What?

  "I showed her around and even took her out to lunch to answer her questions."

  What does any of that have to do with now?

  "It soon became obvious that she had…kind of a crush on me."

  I do not.

  "I tried to be as nice as I could when she asked me out."

  He asked me out!

  "I let her down as easy as possible, but I got to tell you she was quite upset. I'm afraid she really has it bad for me."

  Of all the—

  "Listen, honey." He turned to her looking as sincerely angelic as any angel. "You got to let it go. You can't continue to pursue me with this obsessive infatuation. I don't want to be rude, but you're leaving me no option here."

  Obsessive infatuation, I should have clobbered you in that diner.

  "I'm just not that in to you."

  "I don't like you right now either."

  "Oh, come on." How could he lie right at her, knowing that she knew the truth? "We both know you came out here tonight to try and find me."

  "I didn't even know you were going to be out here."

  "Please, Rachel, this is getting embarrassing."

  "Oh, give it a rest. How could I even know you were here? This is the middle of nowhere."

  "Obviously you followed me, which is just really pathetic."

  "I'll tell you what is pathetic," Rachel snapped. "It's you, thinking any woman would take enough notice to even bother being aware that you were in the same room as her!"