She scooped up her purse and bag as he slipped on his boots and tucked in his shirt.
“So, that’s where you hide them,” she said, fingering the cuffs he’d stuffed in the back of his waistband. Right next to his gun.
She led the way to the door, then turned when he didn’t move from the foot of the bed. She arched a questioning brow. “Lose something?”
“My sanity?”
“What, you mean you don’t often spend the morning performing lewd and lascivious acts with strange women not a block away from your office?”
“Shh,” he said, nodding toward the open door at her back. She merely smiled back at him. “There was nothing lewd about it,” he said, crossing the room. “And you’re no stranger to me.” He pushed the door shut and pulled her into his arms. “Not anymore.” His kiss caught her off guard and he willingly silenced her gasp with his lips and tongue. He pulled her under with him until his own head spun. When he finally straightened, she was struggling for equilibrium, judging from the dazed look on her face. He took advantage of that, too. “Lascivious, now that I might cop to,” he said with a grin. “Don’t check out.”
She’d started to shoot back a retort—never one to be thrown for a loop for long, not Liza—then stopped herself. “What? What did you just say?”
It had been hard enough the first time. But he made himself say it again. “Don’t leave. Not yet.” He pressed his finger across her lips, buying time to explain. He only hoped he explained it to himself at the same time. “I know I asked you to wait for me once before. I’m asking again. I’ll be back late tonight. Be here.” He slid his finger from her mouth. “Please.”
Her lips curved slightly, but her eyes bored into his, and those nerves fluttered within them once again. “Why?”
“You said you didn’t leave something until it felt finished. This doesn’t feel finished to me. Does it to you?” He pushed his fingers into her damp curls and tilted her head. “Does it, Liza?” he queried softly.
She stared into his eyes for what felt like eternity, then slowly shook her head. He let out a breath he hadn’t even been aware of holding.
“So? Does that mean you’ll stay?”
Slowly, so slowly, her bow-tie lips curved into a smile that was definitely both lewd and lascivious. His heart picked up speed. He knew enough now to understand the promise behind that smile. And if physical bliss was all he could count on with her, then, for the time being, anyway, he was happy to take what he could get.
He could push and nudge and prod for more later.
“Twenty minutes to the airport?” she asked.
Confused, he nodded.
She reached around his waist and pulled the door open, even as she leaned in and kissed him. This time he was pretty sure he was the one with the dazed expression on his face. “Then that gives you twenty minutes to convince me, Sheriff.” She nudged him into the hall and pulled her keys from her purse. “You want to drive, or shall I?”
DYLAN HAD TO ADMIT her little car was fun. He’d always gone for trucks, as tucking his long frame into a small death trap had never appealed to him. He supposed it was that remnant of renegade that got a hot thrill from the high speed and the tight way it hugged the mountain curves.
He glanced at Liza, at her curls dancing wildly around her head in the wind. “I can see why you love this little demon,” he admitted. “Suits you perfectly.” All tight curves and high speed, indeed.
She laughed. “Yeah, and you’re just hating it. You’ve got more demon in you than you think.”
He shot her a grin. “Something about you just brings that out in me, I guess.”
She buffed and examined her nails. “I try.”
You succeed, he thought, turning his attention back to the road. Boy, do you ever. His focus should be on the meeting ahead. He hoped it went down smoothly and they got what they needed from Pearl without too much hassle. He needed to get back to town for the meeting with Tucker, then there was the council meeting the following day he had to prepare some notes for. And at some point, he needed some sleep. But all he could think about was when he’d get Liza alone again. Surprisingly, it wasn’t even about the sex, though he wasn’t going to lie to himself and say he wasn’t looking forward to the possibility of more of that, either.
But just having her next to him on the drive to the airstrip, all sexy smiles and bouncy curls, made him feel good…and spiked his curiosity. It was as if there was some dormant part inside him that had dried out, like a sponge laid out in the hot sun for too long. And now he wanted nothing more than to fully saturate that long-ignored facet by absorbing every last bit of her. Being around her was like irrigating his soul.
Jesus, Jackson, you have been out in the hot sun for too long. Irrigating your soul? He sounded like one of those Chicken Soup books.
But when he glanced back at her again, took in her profile as she took in the stark scenery around them, with that oddly compelling mixture of clear-eyed wonder and sharply focused attention, it somehow didn’t feel as ridiculous as it sounded.
“So, what got you into public relations in the first place?”
There was a pause and he glanced over to find her looking at him somewhat warily.
He smiled. “What? Is that such a strange question?”
She shrugged and turned her attention back to the scenery. “No, I suppose not. Why do you ask?”
She might as well have said, “What does it matter to you? Aren’t we just having sex?”
“Do you always separate yourself like that?”
Now she looked honestly surprised. “Like what?”
“Well, I think I can safely say you are a woman who is pretty direct about things. Pretty honest about what she wants and not at all shy at going after it.”
She didn’t smile, but simply nodded. “You’d be right.”
“Which is all fine as long as you’re doing the directing.”
She sighed. “Are we back to my supposed control issues again?”
“Maybe. But I’m not talking about sex. You don’t seem to have any problems communicating with your body.”
She didn’t take any offense at his statement, merely nodded in agreement. “I’ve never had anyone misread my signals, if that’s what you mean.”
“See?” he said. “That’s one of the things that attracts me to you. You don’t play coy. You take a direct statement as it’s intended. No reading between the lines, assuming some other meaning lurks behind the words.”
“Well, I do assume that by saying I can communicate with my body, you inferred that I don’t do all that well verbally.”
“Oh, I don’t think you have any problem verbally when you want something.”
“Clear and direct articulation of one’s needs is important in my former career. I happened to be quite good at it.”
“Exactly.”
“Meaning?”
“As long as you’re in charge and directing the conversation toward your interests, you handle yourself with absolute aplomb.” He slowed and looked directly at her. “But let someone else try and direct the conversation, probe to the woman behind the words…and suddenly this wall comes down. Wham! That’s what I meant about separating yourself.”
“Just because I don’t want to spill my guts to strangers doesn’t mean I can’t ‘let my hair down.’ Which is what I think you mean.”
He swerved to the side of the road, making her grasp the door for balance. The dust from the gravel shoulder swirled around them as he swiveled his body as far as the tight compartment would allow. “Strangers? You honestly think of me as a stranger?” He lifted his hand. “And don’t tell me that sex isn’t the same thing as intimacy. I know that. And a lot of what we’ve done together has been about feeling good, not about forming some sort of intimate bond.”
“You’re yelling,” she said calmly. But her blue eyes were wide and not so clear.
“I know.” He took a moment, and a slow, deep breath. He looked out the windshield and tried to compose what he wanted to say, but the words came out in a tumble, anyway. She did that to him, too—jumbled him up. “The sex was great. Mind-blowing. Out of this world.” Then he looked at her. “But any two people who put their minds to it can probably achieve that.” He waited a beat, some part of him wanting her to refute that, tell him it had been different with him. Because, though he believed what he said, believed that a great part of what they’d had together was purely physical, it didn’t negate the feeling, the deep-in-the-pit-of-his-gut feeling, that beneath the tingling nerve endings and brain-numbing climaxes, there was another connection being made. One that had nothing to do with bodies talking to each other, and a lot to do with souls reaching for one another.
But he couldn’t say that without sounding as ridiculous as he knew it had to be. Had to be. But somehow wasn’t.
“You don’t mind me getting to know you in every carnal sense of the word,” he said quietly. “But the moment I try to get to know the intimate you, the stuff that makes up the best parts of what you are, or seem to me to be, you shut yourself off. Why is that? How is it that a person can be so good at facilitating the lives of others, at meeting the needs of others, and so fully close off her own needs?”