Devil in Texas(43)

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

Uncertain what he meant, she shot her sea monster a warning glare. It didn't stop him from wading closer.

"Where's my button, felon?"

"Reckon you'll have to search me for it, detective."

His head lowered, and his tongue slid along her bottom lip.

That's when she remembered, to her utter mortification, she was wearing whiskers.

But Cass, being Cass, was thoroughly amused by the sheer wrongness of kissing a bearded woman. He rubbed his chin against her chin. He nibbled the bristly end of her mustache. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed his dimples. Darling. Devilish. Dangerous to any female with a functioning brain.

So what did that say about her?

"The glue tastes like honey." His murmur throbbed with sin. He reached for her waist.

"Don't you dare get my face wet!" She reared back, shoving a hand between their chests. "I'm wearing my favorite beard, and it has to look presentable after you ravish me!"

His chuckle was wolfish. The next thing she knew, he'd kicked her feet out from under her. She squealed in protest, but it was already too late. Cold, dark waters were closing over her head. She came up blind and sputtering, her sodden curls plastered over her nose, her whiskers floating somewhere in a sea of bubbles.

"Ducks don't have beards," he said cheerfully. "'Course, now you look more like a drowned rat."

"I hate you."

He whooped and splashed her in the face.

"All right. That does it, slug-head."

She pounced, but he fended off her headlock, and they had a rollicking wrestling match in the shallows. As her legs grappled with his, she felt the small pouch that he'd strapped above his right knee. But it was hard to plunder pouches when his wicked fingers kept dancing across her flesh, stroking and tickling. She tried to dunk his cocky head, but the water worked against her, slowing the Judo moves she'd learned in Pinkie training.

"Is that the best you can do?" he taunted.

She grabbed a fistful of his hair, yanked his head lower, and thrust her tongue into his mouth. He growled. The rumble vibrated deep into her belly, awakening her smoldering volcano, shooting sparks of lightning along her nerves. When she locked her thighs around his waist, he turned predator. He kneaded her buttocks with powerful hands. He slanted his mouth across hers, demanding more of his feast.

Now she was panting, but he was too. His arousal was hot, like velvet-sheathed steel sliding against her belly. She rubbed his swollen head, delighting in his throttled groan. Knowing his weakness, she clamped her teeth over his earlobe and tormented the ticklish inner space. He staggered, and she smiled wickedly, enjoying the way his nipples pebbled against her chest.

But Cass had tricks of his own that could drive her wild. Most had to do with his mouth and her cleft, but with the water in the way, he shifted tactics. He arched her back over an arm, suckling a ripe, rosy breast while circling his thumb in an insidious pattern of pressures over her pleasure bud. She bit back a moan, nearly crawling out of her skin when his forefinger finally, slyly probed her. She hiked her hips in shameless wanting, and he obliged, taking his time to please her, to tease her, to milk her restless yearning to a fever pitch.

"Take me Tiger," he murmured, "make me yours."

So you can leave me again?

For an embarrassing moment, her eyes filled with tears. She was aghast at her traitorous rise of sentiment. A woman like her couldn't afford to feel. If caring for Cass had been unwise as a whore, it was sheer lunacy as a Pinkerton. Cass excelled at many things, but fidelity wasn't one of them. He was the minstrel of charm, the sensei of seduction...

And the wizard of pleasure. An exquisite, aching kind of pleasure that could leave her shattered in a jumbled heap of emotions she didn't dare explore. His expert caress fanned her inner fires in a way that no other man's could. Friend and foe, lover and rival, student and master—that was Cass. When the stars faded and daylight bloomed, she could count on him to ride away. Because that's what the Rebel Rutter always did.

She squeezed her eyes closed.

She blocked out the hurtful memories.

Hugging his shoulders tighter, she locked her ankles over his buttocks. He shuddered as her hips sank, driving his sleek, slick length into her smoking core. She delighted in the erotic sensation of rubbing bellies and the sinful indulgence of sensitized nipples, dragging through silky man fur. His heart beat a wild, ecstatic cadence against her breasts; her blood thrilled to the surge of his pleasure.

With each rhythmic pump of her hips, she reveled in the corded strength of his thighs and the primal power of his thrusts. He was like her mountain, her Gibraltar. On the outside, icy green tidal waves buffeted her body; on the inside, a firestorm crashed and flashed, raining stars and comets on her senses.

And then came the explosion. Crackling, sizzling, her awareness rocketed through a heavenly storm.

Cass staggered, gasping her name. He clutched her heart fiercely to his, burying his face in her hair. Only a desperate act of will could silence the rapture that wanted to rip from her throat in wild, fearless song:

Always yours, I shall be,

Born for you...

He must never know, she warned herself sternly. He must never, ever know...

"Sadie." He was panting. "How could you not tell me you were a Pinkerton?"

Emotionally drained, physically spent, she slid from his hips. She hadn't expected her knees to buckle. He caught her waist from behind, and for one precious moment longer, she leaned against him, serenaded by the thrumming of his heart.

"Here," he murmured.

The button swung before her tear-glazed eyes. She swept aside her sopping hair, and he fastened the chain around her neck.

Then he turned her shoulders to face him. His fingers, warm and tender, steadied the bauble where it nestled among her freckles, just above her cleavage. She gazed down at his big, sun-bronzed hand, and another forbidden frisson of feeling threatened her composure.

He'd bought her a gold chain.

"Sadie," he murmured, cupping her cheek with his palm. His eyes were like velvet midnight, soft, luminous and full of stars. "I know how lawmen can throw their weight around. I know how they can bully folks, making it seem like you don't have a choice, except to do their bidding."

"Cass—"

"Listen to me." He was holding her face between both hands now and staring into her eyes with an intensity that sent shockwaves to her soul. "Sterne got you into this mess with assassins and arsonists. But you don't have to be afraid any more. I can help you. Baron can help you. All you have to do is tell me—"

A rifle blast shattered the night, echoing like an explosion in the room.





Chapter 14



Cass cursed, bowling her off her feet. They went down with a frenzied splash. Sadie tried to break free of his arms, but he was shoving her into deeper waters. Safer waters.

For a long moment, she was too busy retrieving her footing and trying to swipe hair out of her eyes to surface. Through the bubble fizz above her head, she glimpsed Cass looming over her, like the marble bust of some Grecian warrior-god. His head was cocked to the west. He appeared to be listening.

By the time she'd breached the surface and gulped down air, he'd become Lucifire, minus his guns.

"Head down," he snapped.

She obeyed reluctantly, straining to peer past his hips and over the edge of the pool. As far as she could tell, no assassin was threatening from the deck or the sun porch beyond. Since the skylight wasn't shattered, Sadie concluded that neither she nor Cass had been targets.