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  The Heroes of Silver Springs 5

  Tonya Ramagos

  MENAGE AMOUR

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Amour

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  Copyright © 2009 by Tonya Ramagos

  E-book ISBN: 1-60601-431-5

  First E-book Publication: June 2009

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2009 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

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  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  To the Chattanooga police officer who gave me my first ever speeding ticket. Thank you for the inspiration.

  To all the victims of the recent hurricanes on the Gulf Coast and the men and women of the public service departments who have banded together to help their cities in need.

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  Silver Springs, MS is a fictional city existing only in my imagination. Any liberties I have taken or mistakes I have made in regards to fire department, police, FBI, DEA and military procedures are my own for the sake of the story.

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  The Heroes of Silver Springs 5

  TONYA RAMAGOS

  Copyright © 2009

  Chapter One

  Rayne Jasper Jacobs gazed into his whisky brown eyes and felt positively drunk. Great, just what she needed, to be suspected of drinking and driving before nine o'clock on a Tuesday morning!

  She licked her lips and watched his gaze fall to her mouth, saw the whisky darken and heat. Sweet Jesus! She swallowed and felt the burn of the shot slide down her throat, splash in her belly, and settle between her legs.

  "Is there a p-problem, Officer?"

  His gaze leapt back to hers and for a moment he looked dumbfounded. She supposed it was a stupid question. Of course there was a problem. Why else would he have pulled her over on a busy highway? But what else could she to say? She'd never been stopped by a cop in her life! If there were a script for this type of situation, it should've been included in the driver's manual.

  "I clocked your speed back there at seventy-six." His voice was as smooth and rich as his eyes, and Rayne felt her world spin a bit faster. "Are you in a hurry to get somewhere?"

  Your bed. Her cheeks burned with the thought, the heat in her face rivaling that between her legs. Where had that come from? Okay, so he looked like a slightly older version of Anakin Skywalker in Episode Three. What was the actor's name? Hayden Christensen. Yeah, Hayden would be in his late twenties by now, and if Officer Drink Me hit a day over thirty, she'd be surprised. His short blondish-brown curls framed a long slender face with totally kissable lips sure to make a woman melt the instant they curved into any semblance of a smile. Although right now, those lips were set in a thin line. Not frowning exactly but certainly not smiling. Did this Anakin have a dark side, too? Was she seeing it now?

  Rayne absently poked at the nosepiece of her glasses, pushing them higher on the bridge of her nose and blinked. "I, uh, no, I was…"

  Not paying attention to my speed at all. She'd been thinking about the call from the publisher of Southern Paradise Magazine, about his idea to do a calendar to raise money for the victims and city residents after the wrath of Hurricane Emilio some six months back. They wanted her to shoot the photos, to put it all together. She would, of course, get a small portion of the profits for her labor and expenses, but the bulk percentage would go to the people. She wondered fleetingly if a speeding ticket would be considered a viable expense. She'd been thinking about business, after all.

  "Honestly, I didn't realize I was driving that fast."

  Seventy-six? Eeek! She'd been doing twenty-one miles over the posted speed limit. Didn't twenty miles over constitute reckless driving or was it twenty-five? Please let it be twenty-five.

  "What yahoo set the speed limit on a highway at fifty-five, anyway? Speed limits across the country went up to seventy-five a decade ago." One blondish-brown eyebrow winged up and she realized she'd spoken aloud. "Sorry," she muttered and blushed again.

  "That would be interstate speed limits. You want to add highways to that, you'll have to take that up with the city officials, ma'am. The yahoo in charge is likely found in the offices downtown."

  Ma'am. Ma'am! Okay, at thirty-one, she was probably a year or two older than Officer Drink Me, but come on, a year or two didn't elevate her to ma'am status. What? Did she look like she was wearing support hose? Lucky for him she wasn't or she might have wrapped them around his neck. No, better yet, use them to tie his hands behind his back that way she could unfasten his buttons and slip her hands inside and…

  Ho now! Where were these thoughts coming from? Maybe it had been, well, okay, she didn't want to think exactly how long it had been since she'd gotten laid, but cripes! Who knew getting stopped for speeding could be such an intoxicatingly arousing experience?

  "In the meantime, can I see your license and proof of insurance, please?"

  Please? First ma'am and now the P word. Was he always this polite and, if so, what would it take to bring out the bad boy in him? Not that she would stand a chance at finding out. She might be a brunette, but that was where her similarities with Queen Amidala, AKA Padmé, AKA Natalie Portman ended. Besides, the last thing she needed was to allow herself to fall in lust with this man. Hadn't she learned her lesson the last umpteen times?

  Rayne sighed and mentally slammed the drawer on her libido as she reached for her fanny pack in the passenger’s seat. Excited by the movement, Sunshine leapt between the seats from the back to lick her hand and beg to be scratched. A mixed breed of who knew what, the dog was barely larger than Rayne's size-seven foot, a ball of black fuzzy fur, and a bark far larger than her bite. She also cowered instantly at a sharply spoken word, which was how Rayne had managed to keep the dog in the backseat and quiet until now.

  "Sit, Sunshine." Though she whispered the command, it was just sharp enough to have the dog obeying. Sunshine sat.

  Rayne tugged her PDA case from the outside pocket of her fanny pack, extracted her driver's license from the inside credit card slot, and handed it to t
he officer. "My insurance card is in the glove box," she told him, not wanting him to think she was going for a gun or something as she leaned over, released the latch on the glove box, and let the door fall open.

  She saw it tumble out like a slow motion scene straight from an action movie. Or maybe a horror movie would be a more apt description because horrified was exactly how she felt as the item registered in her snail-absorbing brain. The much more quick-witted Sunshine dove to the floor after it, only to come up a half a second later with it hanging from her playful mouth.

  "Sunshine, no!" Her mistake was in reaching for the dog, or rather the black lace and satin bra dangling from the dog's mouth. God save her! The sudden move registered in Sunshine's mind as play time. The gleeful idea of a game of tug-of-war overrode Rayne's dagger-sharp command.

  Rayne closed her eyes and could've sworn she heard a low snicker from Officer Drink Me. No way would she look over her shoulder at him to find out for sure. She was mortified! Any effort she made to retrieve the bra from Sunshine would only draw more attention to the very sexy, very skimpy article of underclothing. Rather than attempt another unsuccessful snagging, she snapped out a curt order for the dog to sit, then reached in the glove box and pulled out her insurance card.

  She couldn't meet that whisky gaze, instead fixed her eyes on his badge as she held out the card. Ford Harris, his badge said. Detective Ford Harris. Detective, not officer. Just her luck that Detective Drink Me decided to go slumming on traffic duty the one morning she was distracted and speeding.

  "This card is expired."

  That had her gaze jumping up to crash with his. Expired? "But it can't be! I just renewed the policy last month and, oh no." She'd forgotten to put the new card in the car. Her heart sank and the blasted heat returned to her cheeks. For crying out loud, she'd never blushed this much in her life!

  His lips twitched and for one hopefully dreadful moment, she thought he was finally going to treat her to the full-blown ninety-percent proof effect of his smile. No. Not now. Please, not now. Already superficially drunk, her hormones on a fast ride to Happyland, and completely embarrassed by it all, she feared both instant meltdown and brain damage. She couldn't take anymore. If he smiled, she'd be half in love with him so fast, he'd have to transport her straight to the funny farm!

  She shot a glance over her shoulder to the boxes stacked in the backseat, nervously pushed her glasses on her nose once more, and winced. "I'm in the process of moving. The new card is probably in one of those boxes, but I don't know which one. There are more boxes in the trunk, too."

  "I'll take your word for it. Is the information here correct?" He tapped the edge of her driver's license on the open windowpane.

  "The most correct I have at the moment. I still get mail at that address." Even though her beloved little house occupying the property was hardly standing thanks to the tornado that partied on top of it during the Hurricane Emilio bash.

  "Good enough. You and Sunshine sit tight then and I'll be back in a few minutes."

  It was the barely disguised laughter she heard in his voice that had her looking back at him, her gaze dropping to his mouth. Damn Skippy! Instant meltdown just as she'd expected and, just like that, she felt herself teetering on the edge of Half in Love Mountain. Getting a guy stuck in her mind and her heart long after she met him tended to be a major downfall for Rayne. Already, she knew she'd be thinking of Detective Ford Harris and those ‘drink me’ eyes far longer than any normal woman would.

  Then he had to smile. A slow curve of those truly kissable lips that put adorable Hayden's sexy as hell sideways grins to shame and she was a full-blown goner. Arousal rushed through her, beading her nipples and creaming her panties and she couldn't look away. Intoxication, acute and all-consuming, made her world spin in a delicious drunk so potent, even good old Everclear couldn't have competed.

  He stepped away from the window and she finally managed to blink. Sunshine gave a quiet, little nip from the passenger’s seat and Rayne glanced at the dog to see her still chewing on the bra. It was black. The dog was black. By all rights, the two should have blended perfectly, camouflaging the sexy lingerie. Instead, the bra somehow managed to stand out like a flashing white beacon in a pitch night sky and Detective Drink Me with his ninety-proof smile had no doubt noticed it as well.

  Rayne sighed, turned her head, and caught sight of the vision in her side mirror. Yes, he definitely had a dark side. He was going to give her a ticket. Her very first ever speeding ticket! It was an act certainly worthy of the cruel power wielded by Darth Vader.

  She tipped her glasses down for a better view as he walked away. Broad shoulders stretched his uniform shirt to perfection, leading to a slim back, narrow hips, and a truly delectable ass. Of course, even Vader deserved forgiveness, especially if he had a rear end like that.

  * * * *

  Ford knew he had to give her a ticket.

  He waited until he reached the back bumper of her car before he let himself chuckle and shake his head. He would not feel guilty for giving her a ticket. Not even when he knew she was currently checking out his ass. Years as a detective with the Silver Springs Police Department had honed his instincts and his senses, both of which screamed her interest with a capital I.

  She was cute. Not his usual type but rather pretty in a plain Jane, almost nerdy, way. Sexy, he thought as he reached for the door handle of his patrol car. Something about the glasses, the over-sized MSU t-shirt, and the tawny hair pulled into a sloppy ponytail rang his sexy chime. It was probably the knowledge that under those floppy clothes, she could be wearing a lacy bra like the one that had fallen out of her glove box. Maybe even with a matching pair of thong panties. And the expressions she made along with the timid way her cheeks flushed, oh, baby, that had been enough to give him one hell of a hard-on.

  He shot a quick glance at her car, chuckled again when she abruptly jerked straight in her seat and then slowly sank out of sight. He'd thought she was on something when he'd first approached her window. The whole deer-in-the-headlights thing she had going on behind those wire-rimmed glasses made her look guilty enough to stand trial. He'd acquitted her on the basis of nerves when he noted the little shake in her hands and the tantalizing quiver to her otherwise sweetly soprano voice. The way she'd stared at him as if he'd asked for her favorite sexual position rather than her license and insurance had only intensified the throbbing in his cock.

  Ford slid behind the wheel of his squad car, adjusting his still semi-hard cock with one hand as he reached for his radio to call in the stop. In less than three minutes, he knew Rayne Jacobs had no local priors and a squeaky local record. For the second time, he tamped down the guilt as he scribbled the speeding citation and got out of the car.

  It surprised him she hadn't attempted to talk her way out of it. He’d worked traffic duty full-time when he first joined the force and heard some real doozies. He’d even been propositioned by the most beautiful and best. Yet, Rayne Jacobs hadn't spun him a tale or peppered him with blatant seduction. He almost felt disappointed by the last. She had, if anything, been completely honest. A lot of cops would let her off with a warning. Problem was Ford had seen firsthand the destruction a simple slap on the wrist could cause when it came to breaking the law.

  Horrid images flashed through his mind. He gave his head a hard shake, sending them back to the deep recesses of his memory where they belonged. To his immense relief and chagrin, they were replaced with heated fantasy snapshots of Rayne Jacobs wearing only thin lacy strips of black satin, much of her smooth creamy flesh bare, her tawny hair loose around her shoulders. It was the sight of the bra again that did it. Apparently, she'd decided it pointless to take the dick teasing garment from Sunshine now that the damage had been done.

  Ford looked at her. She sat slumped in the driver's seat, her head back and eyes closed. She looked almost peaceful, as if she'd worked while he'd been gone to calm her nerves and was now serenely waiting for him to return, so she could be on h
er way. Her lips parted slightly, but her eyes remained closed. He stared at her mouth, the glistening moisture making his own mouth water. His gaze slid down, over the smooth line of her jaw to the creamy expanse of her neck, the patch of downy flesh just below her ear.

  The hunger to taste her came so fast and furious, it nearly knocked him out of his boots. His gaze dropped lower, to the gentle rise of her breasts, and he wrenched it up and away, cursing under his breath.

  In the passenger’s seat, Sunshine shifted, tilted her head and stared back at him with a look that clearly said, "Yeah, you want to do her." He stifled a laugh and cleared his throat.

  Rayne's eyes flew open and she bolted upright in her seat. Still fighting the urge to laugh, Ford's lips twitched and her gaze was instantly there. Her gray eyes turned the mesmerizing shade of dark stormy clouds. Oh, damn, baby. He held out her license and the citation.

  "All finished." Thank his lucky stars. Another minute with this riot of sensations, fantasies, and needs in this woman's presence and he might be tempted to step into on-coming traffic in a last ditch effort to ensure he died with at least an ounce of his sanity intact.

  She glanced at the ticket as she reached for it and then met his gaze. Her eyes were wide and swirled with unmistakable arousal and something very much like confusion. She licked her lips to speak. The sight of her tongue sliding between her lips made his cock pulse and dance and…Too late. Forget being hit by a car. The last of his sanity seeped out the toe of his boots.

  "What do I do with this?" She took the ticket, her attention now focused on it, her lips dipping into a frown.