Up the Chimney
UP THE CHIMNEY
A Pistols and Passion Novella
Vonnie Davis
© Copyright 2016 by Vonnie Davis as UP THE CHIMNEY: A Pistols and Passion Novella
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher except for brief quotations embedded in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations and incidents are works of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, things, living or dead, locales or events is strictly coincidental.
Smashwords eBook Edition
ISBN: 9781370449880
Cover Design & Formatting by Kelly Moran, Images Courtesy DepositPhotos
Check out these other titles from Davis:
Santa Wore Leathers
Her Survivor
Hers to Heal
A Highlander's Obsession
A Highlander's Passion
Bearing It All
How to Seduce a Fireman
For the Love of a Fireman
Pin-Up Fireman
Dedicated to women who deny themselves the passion of a lifetime because of pain from the past. I was once like that. And to men who aren’t afraid to make a bit of a fool of themselves to gain the woman they want with every ounce of passion within their hearts.
CHAPTER ONE
I have to pee!
Ciera Parker studied the emergency “Assisting in Birth” instructions on her monitor. “Derrick, we have to see how fast the birth is progressing. You’ve pulled off to the side of the road, correct?”
“Y…yes.” He sounded ready to hyperventilate at any moment.
“And you’ve turned off the car’s engine?” Ciera squirmed in her seat. Hold on bladder. Hold on.
“N…no. Do I have to?”
Ciera rolled her eyes. “For safety’s sake, yes.” She didn’t want the laboring woman to grab the gear shift in pain and jerk the vehicle from Park to Reverse.
“Don’t you dare turn off this car, Derrick! I want heat!” the laboring, soon-to-be mother screeched.
“Derrick, tell your wife, you’ll have the car door open while you examine her, so it’s going to get a little chilly until the EMT’s get there. I have them dispatched. They’re on their way. Turn the engine off.”
“Okay.” A squabble started between the two and was blessedly interrupted by another contraction.
“Derrick, get out of the car, run around to your wife’s side, and open her door. Get her to lie down across the seat and remove her panties. Spread her legs and tell me what you see.”
A car door slammed and the heavy breathing of someone running sounded in Ciera’s earpiece. “Let me get this straight. You want me to look at her pussy? Sorry, ma’am, her privates?”
Well, thanks for making me feel old, kid, when I have a bladder ready to burst and a banger headache.
“Yes, I need to know if you can see the top of the baby’s head.”
“I’m not spreading my legs for you, Derrick! That’s how I got in this damn condition in the first place, you horny bastard. I haven’t seen my feet in months and I’ve got stretch marks and…oh…oh…I…I need to bear down…”
Ciera rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “Tell her not to bear down. Tell her to breathe through her mouth.”
“You tell the bitch on the phone to breathe through her ass!” The woman started screaming.
“Holy hell, lady, I see the top of a head down here. What do I do?” Derrick sounded two heartbeats away from a panic attack.
“Hang onto your calm, Derrick. I’ll talk you through every step. It’ll be okay. You can do this.” Ciera’s unruffled, confident instructions continued and helped him deliver his little girl. She had a lusty cry. Strong lungs just like her mother—poor Derrick, whoever he was. Finally, the EMT’s arrived on the scene and took over.
Ciera ripped off her earpiece to sprint to the restroom.
Chief Detective Mason Holt occupied her chair when she returned to the dispatch communication’s center located in the police station. He unhinged his tall, muscular frame from her seat and tipped his head in the direction of the coffee maker. Rich aroma of brewing coffee filled the small workspace. “I made you a fresh pot while you were gone. How many babies does that make for you now?”
“How did you…?” She glanced at the ceiling tiles and scowled. “Do you have this room bugged, detective? You seem to know everything I do or say in here.”
Mason had a rich laugh, deep and lusty, on the rare occasions he allowed himself to let go, which he did at this moment. She’d been wary of him when she’d started working here. Department gossip had him one step above a manwhore with conquests everywhere. Yet, he’d never been anything but friendly and encouraging with her. Not once had he gotten out of line.
Thank goodness because he’d been the first man to snag her attention since her divorce, and she didn’t want any kind of involvement with a male. Not now. Not ever. Even if he was walking sex attached to a badge and a revolver. He also took her breath away whenever he invaded her space which seemed to be more often as time went by.
The detective flashed his sexy smile. “No, your voice carries when you’re giving commands. It takes on a deeper quality. Draws my attention and I listen. You don’t speak with a boring monotone like so many dispatchers.” He made a step toward her. “You communicate with emotion. It speaks of genuine caring. I like that.”
His voice was rough, as if he’d gargled with glass splinters. But the sexiness of it did appeal to all her girly bits, which unnerved Ciera. She turned her back toward him to pour coffee into her personal “Bite Me” cup. “Would you like some coffee, detective?”
“Later.” He crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder against the wall at the end of the table that held the coffee maker, microwave, and a small artificial Christmas tree with blinking lights. The power of his gaze swept over her and made her hands shake as she poured in enough sugar to have her bouncing off the walls.
Mason had a powerful air about him. Maybe it was the scar above one of his dark eyebrows or his closely cropped beard and mustache or the small dragon tattoo below his one ear. Moody at times, the handsome man had been an unwanted blip on her radar since soon after she’d started working as a dispatcher for the police, fire department, and emergency medical services at Willow Bend, New York, two years ago.
The detective with black hair and dark chocolate eyes was by turns caring and callous. Ciera figured his irritability went with the job. As a homicide detective he’d probably seen enough to distort his perception of humanity. Hers had changed before she’d moved to this state.
She raised the mug to her lips, blew on the hot brew, and sipped. “Ah, strong and bold, just like you.”
His eyebrows rose. “With all the sugar you just poured into your cup, I’m surprised you didn’t say it was sweet like me.”
“I’ve yet to see you be sweet. Moody. Brash. Arrogant. All of those.” She took another gulp of coffee. “But sweet?” She shook her head once and pursed her lips. “Nope. I’m not seeing it.”
“Smartass.”
“Thank you, detective.”
Mason’s office was next to the communication’s center. Between them was half-wall partitions topped with glass panels. For the most part, he kept the blinds over the glass in his office open, unless he was royally pissed about something and jerked them shut. She’d observed many a policeman charge up to Chief Detective Holt’s office, notice the closed blinds, and slink away. The man was known for his temper.
“You know you’re not supposed to leave this area unattended. It says so in the rule books.” Mason slipped his hands into the front pockets of his gray suit pants. “When I saw you take off, sweet person that I am, I came over to answer any nine-one-one calls that might come in.” He had the nerve to glare at her while giggly “Double-D,” as the policemen called Darla Denton flirted her way through both the police department and the attached fire station at the back of their building.
“You could have just paged Darla. She’s been on break for over an hour. If you want to call what she does taking a break. Sorry, if that was bitchy, but I happen to care a lot about this job. Thanks for the coffee and for covering for me while I made an urgent pee run.”
Ciera took her seat. She reached for the bottle of migraine medicine she kept by her monitor, festooned with red and green garland, and tried to pop off the lid.
“Here, let me.” His warm hand brushed against hers and zinged a shard of sensual warmth up her arm until it hit the feminine highway to her belly.
The woodsy cologne with traces of citrus he wore was distinctive. She always indulged herself with a few extra whiffs of his very male scent when he was around. It smelled of male strength and power and, yes, sexual expertise. Crap, must be the headache making me think like this.
“These migraines you’ve been suffering are coming more often.” He glanced at the label and dumped two into her open palm.
How did he know so damn much about her life? She washed the pills down with the coffee and rotated her neck.
“What you need is a good massage.” His large hands wrapped around her throat sending chills on a roller-coaster ride through her system as the pads of his thumbs rotated behind her ears and the across the base of her skull.
Dear God, she hadn’t expected him to touch her. Or for it to feel so freaking good. Her eyes drifted shut as her chin dropped to her collarbone. She moaned and her nipples peaked under her sweater about the same time her toes curled in her boots. Goosebumps rose on her skin as if she were chilled, when in reality she was growing hotter by the second.
His scruff was soft against her skin when his lips inclined against her ear. “What keeps you so tense, Ciera? I worry about you.” His hands slid down to her shoulders and all of his fingers went to work, kneading and working out kinks.
“I never knew you had magic fingers.” Visions of what he could do to her with those magic fingers of his while she was naked made her panties damp. No one had done that to her since Seth, ages and ages ago when her heart still lived and loved. Until he’d been arrested in the midst of a scandal and her heart had frozen with revulsion and betrayal.
“Oh, Mason has magic fingers, all right. The stories I could tell you.” Double-D chose that moment to strut back into the work station, her blue stilettos clapping the tile floor. She ran her blue-tipped fingernails over Mason’s broad shoulders as she passed behind him. “Right, handsome?”
“Christ,” Mason muttered under his breath.
Darla sat and reached for her earpiece. “Remember when I told you my back went out last week, Ciera? It was the massage Mason baby gave me that made it better.” She smiled and waved an open hand. “Girl, his magic fingers on my ass felt so good I forgot all about the pain.”
Ciera leaned forward and rubbed her temples. “You can take your hands off me now.” What was with this sudden sense of loss twisting her stomach? She and magic-fingers-man had never been more than working associates; friends on good days. Why should she care who he put his hands on?
He wasn’t Seth, but he had some of his charming, yet deceitful qualities. Maybe it came with the male gender. Who knew? She most definitely wasn’t in the mood to find out.
“Ciera.” The way he pronounced her name sounded like a plea or a warning. Either way, she was ignoring him.
The phone on the emergency system rang. “Darla, take that call,” Mason ordered. “Your partner, who’s been manning this center while you were gone for over an hour, needs a break.” Mason coiled his long fingers around Ciera’s arm and pulled her from her chair. “Come into my office. We need to talk.”
CHAPTER TWO
Mason practically shoved Ciera into his office, snapped the lock on the door, and jerked the shades shut on his windows. He was so pissed at Darla and her big mouth he could choke her. Just when he was finally making some progress with the serious beauty with the short crop of dark curls and almond-shaped cobalt eyes, mouthy Double-D had to ruin the mood between them.
And there had been a mood, a connection, a sensual reaction. When he’d touched her neck, her nipples hadn’t pebbled under her white sweater for nothing. Nor had her lips parted and her breathing hitched as his fingers caressed her smooth skin. She was definitely responding to him and the erection in his suit pants certainly demonstrated his testosterone feedback.
“What’s wrong with you? You act like I did something wrong.” She planted her bare hands at her waist. “If you’re upset because I went to the ladies room, might I remind you, you are not the boss of me?”
Oh, but I will be when I get you naked in my bed.
He made a step toward her. “I’m not angry with you. It’s Darla that has me ticked off. She needs chained to her work area.”
“Why? So you can stare at her instead of settling for me? Don’t think I don’t notice how you scowl at me all damn day. It gets on my nerves.”
Hell woman, you might scowl, too, if the person you want so damn bad works across the glass partition from you…every damn day…clueless…driving you batshit crazy with need.
She stepped backward when he stalked closer to her, breathing in her delicate floral fragrance. “Maybe I’d sooner watch you than Darla.”
“Is that why you had your magic hands on her ass?” Her pointy chin jutted.
He reached and clasped her chin between his thumb and two fingers. “Are you jealous, Ciera?”
Cobalt eyes flashed a stormy blue. “Oh, you wish! I’m not one of your many lovers, Detective Holt. I’m a friend at work. A pal you taught how to shoot. Now, why did you march me over here like I was some criminal under arrest? I do my job and I do it damn well. I take pride in that.”
Her eyes shone with moisture. Damn, he’d hurt her feelings. How, he hadn’t a clue, but then his sister often accused him of being dense where women were concerned. He backed Ciera against his desk and wrapped one arm around her waist. The fingers of his other hand rose to her graceful neck as he slowly inclined his head and pressed a kiss to her forehead to soothe her. “Yes, you do your job very well.” He feathered a kiss to one corner of her mouth. “You’re right. We do work together.”
He moved to the other side of her mouth and pressed a kiss there, too. “And we are friends. Which reminds me, shouldn’t you call me Mason? I call you Ciera.” Her feminine perfume wove a sensual spell over him. Darla practically bathed in her strong fragrance, but not his Ciera. She wore just enough to snare a man’s attention.
She’d gasped a little at his first kiss, no doubt in utter surprise. The woman had no clue the things she did to him. A little moan escaped her throat at his second kiss that damn near drove him mad. Job or no job, he had to taste her desirable lips full on. His lips softly rubbed hers. Just a few gentle sips before he released her. Sweet Lord, the sensual noises she made while her fingers curled and uncurled from his shirt once his lips met hers were intoxicating.
He was so primed for her, he pulsed with need. Pulling her against him, he covered her mouth with his—more intent than before. His tongue swept across the seam of her lips, sweeping in for a taste. His damn phone rang.
He muttered a curse as he pulled away from the sweetest pair of lips he’d ever savored to jerk the r
eceiver off the base. “Holt!” he barked, his other arm still locked around her waist. He liked having her flush against him from chest to knees.
“Detective, this is Officer Burke. I’m at the south entrance to Kagawa Park in the wooded area. Four kids found a dead body. Female. Around twenty. Naked from the waist down. Signs of strangulation. Knife wounds. Looks like a homicide to me.”
His eyes swept over Ciera’s face in regret and his hand rubbed her back. “Okay, Burke, I’m on my way. Keep the area secured, so I’m not examining footprints of a hundred people.”
Ciera’s previous blush had dimmed to a charming swath of pink across her cheeks. How long had it been since he’d made a woman blush? She was trying to back out of his grip. “I need to get back to work, Mason.”
At least she’d used his first name. “I know. So do I.” He trailed the backs of his fingers down her cheeks. “For the record, I don’t regret that kiss. What I do regret is the brevity of it. We’ll talk more later. I don’t know how long this case will keep me busy today with the initial stages of the investigation. I’d like to take you out to dinner after your shift, but I don’t know what direction any leads I get will take me. I might be working late into the night on this.”
She shook her head, her fingertips over her lips. For a second he thought she was going to fall apart, but she pulled her shoulders back obviously struggling for control. “I…I don’t deal in office romances, Detective Holt…er…Mason. I mean, the kiss was nice and all.”
Nice? What the hell?
“But I won’t be another one of your many conquests, although I can see how you get so many. Being held in your arms was quite…quite…ah…” She allowed her open hand to wave through the air like a butterfly searching for the right descriptive word.
He raised his hands to his waist and leaned toward her, his temper on simmer. “Nice?” he bit out to save her the effort of searching for a difficult descriptive lie. Because that’s what she was doing. Covering up her attraction to him with a gee-that-kiss-didn’t-affect-me-at-all lie.