One Good Man(22)

Would he make choices he might not have made otherwise? Would it be harder for him to put it away if it grew cold again? Would he suffer more guilt should he not be able to close it because of what they’d shared? Would she always wonder if this interlude had been, for Kell, a professional misstep?

God, her head hurt from thinking of all the ramifications of what they’d done. “You’ve taken up where he left off, then.”

“I’m doing my job, Jamie,” he reiterated. “If Kass Duren’s body hadn’t been found and identified, I’d be working on whatever case had the newest leads. It might’ve been this one, it might’ve been another.”

It sounded good. She just had trouble buying it. He’d said Warren Sheets had influenced his life as greatly as his father. Finishing what the other man had started would be more than a job. It would be a calling. A vow.

“Why don’t I believe that?” she asked softly.

He huffed once, twice, then cursed under his breath, the words self-directed, not meant for her. “Because somehow you’ve learned to read my mind? Or at least read me?”

“At the very least,” she told him, because even she hadn’t yet figured out the depth of their involvement.

“I used to be better at keeping my mouth shut.”

“With women, or in general?” she heard herself asking.

He gave her another of his laughs that she loved hearing, then sighed. “Always back to the women with you, isn’t it?”

She felt as if she had a vested interest in him now. And with the Weldon city limits looming, her time with him was too swiftly coming to an end. She wasn’t ready to lose him.

She wasn’t ready to let go. “You’re staying over, aren’t you? You’re not driving back to Midland tonight?”

They hadn’t talked about their parting, whether he’d drop her off at her front door, or tell her goodbye in the morning. They hadn’t talked about keeping in touch, whether he’d check in with her on a regular basis, or if she should just wait for his updates as they came.

They hadn’t talked about the end at all. Did that mean neither one of them wanted it to come?

Finally, Kell broke the silence that was eating her alive. “If you want me to stay, I’ll stay.”

Oh, she did, she did, but…She twisted her fingers together; she didn’t want to reach for him too soon. “Only if that’s what you want.”

He leaned over, settled his hand at her nape, threaded his fingers into her hair and kneaded her there. Tingles of longing tightened her breasts. “I want it more than anything.”





14



WHEN JAMIE HAD PURCHASED her cottage and moved out of the house she’d shared with her mother their first five years in Weldon, she’d also bought the four-poster bed she’d dreamed of since seeing it in a home-decor magazine as a teen.

It was a simple wrought-iron frame in matte black, the canopy draped with sheer white lace panels that made her think of harem curtains, umbrellas with privacy veils, tinted windows—all hinting at the secrets being kept behind.Waking up along with the dawn and beside a sleeping Kell, Jamie realized her canopied bed now held secrets of its own—secrets she would keep close, share with no one, relishing them in private when life left her lonely.

Sure, she would fill her days with work, and have her mother, her friends and neighbors for company. And she would not feel sorry for herself, embracing instead every moment of joy that came her way, even creating them. But this time with Kell would never be far from her mind.

Their paths had crossed on this one particular road, but wishing for more would be folly. His knowing about her past didn’t mean he wanted to live with it, to have to face down her ghosts when they drifted in, unannounced and unexpected, to haunt her.

Still, she’d be forever grateful for the way he’d helped her connect to lost pieces of Stephanie, for the way he’d helped her find the answers to the lingering questions about the night of the murders.

And he’d given her so much more…laughter and deep conversation, tenderness and fiery passion, honesty and hard truths. With every fiber of who she was, she knew she would never get the same from any other man.

She turned onto her side to watch him. He lay beside her on his back, the sheet she clutched beneath her chin draped across his torso, leaving his chest bare. One of his arms rested on top of the bedclothes between them. The other hand was spread low on his belly.

He wasn’t a cuddler, she’d discovered, and that was okay. Just knowing he was there during the night had made her dreams serene, and every once in a while when she’d adjusted her position, she’d brushed up against him, her knee, her heel, her fingers when she’d stretched, and she’d roused enough to smile, somewhere between wakefulness and sleep.

Now that she was awake, she refused to allow herself to drift off again and miss any more of this time. She wanted to move closer to him, to enjoy his warmth, his weight sinking into the mattress, his bulk beside her lifting the sheet when she was so used to it lying flat around her.

She scooted toward him, quietly, an inch at a time, doing her best not to rock the frame or pull the covers. She watched his chest rise and fall, felt the heat of his body as she drew near, and then he moved the arm blocking her way, and mumbled, “I’m awake, you know.”

“I know,” she whispered back, though she hadn’t been certain.

“Hard to sleep with you thinking so hard over there.”

She laughed to herself, a soft sound that came out on her next breath. At least he couldn’t hear what she was thinking. She didn’t want to scare him away.

“It’s okay,” he mumbled. “I’m not going to shoo you off and roll over.”

Or could he hear it all? His eyes were still closed, his lips barely parted. His cheeks were covered with a dark shadow of beard, and she liked this scruffy, disheveled Kell as much as the clean and pressed Texas Ranger version. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

He peered at her through one slitted lid. “Too late. I’m disturbed.”

A tingling set up in the pit of her belly. “Maybe I’ll just stay where I am—”

“Don’t even think about it,” he said, and reached for her, tugging the sheet out of the way as she climbed on top and straddled him. “My disturbance needs attention.”

So she’d noticed. “A trip to the facilities maybe?”

“I made one an hour ago,” he grumbled. “This is all you.”

Hmm. She hadn’t even heard him get out of bed. “Feels to me like it’s all you.”

“Then you’re obviously not doing enough feeling.”

She was feeling with her inner thighs, with her belly. The head of his cock pushed there, hot, sticky with the moisture of his arousal. She knew this would be their last time, and she didn’t want to rush through loving him.

The sheet was white and cool on her back, a contrast to the warmth and dark hair she encountered along her front as she moved down his body to take him into her mouth. He exhaled, a long slow potent groan that thrilled her, rumbling beneath her, a rocky surface, as it did.

He tasted like rich wine and salt and dark earthy musk, and she savored him, breathing him in, finding the seam that split the underside of his glans, her fingers ringing around him just beneath. She teased him with the tip of her tongue, curled it and cradled him.

He reached for her hair, tugged, biting off words that were gritty and raw, sex words, nasty words. She felt her sex swell and open, her juices ready to ease the way. She wanted him now and forever, filling her, beside her, with her.

Holding her mouth just so, she took him to the back of her throat, pressing her lips tight to his shaft as she pulled her way back to his cock’s head. She stayed there, circling her cupped hand and her tongue over and around until she felt his balls tighten, his thighs and ass clench.

It would be so easy to give this to him, to let him finish, to come in her mouth, a pleasure they had shared last night, but she didn’t. She let him go, crawling over his body, dragging her breasts, her belly, then her sex the length of his engorged cock.

“You’re a cruel woman, Jamie Danby,” he told her as she nuzzled his throat, his right armpit, his closest nipple that was as hard as hers. She flicked her tongue over it, massaged the muscle around it, the tips of her breasts skating through his chest hair as she moved from side to side. “Know I’ll be getting back at you for this.”

“I hope so,” she said as she reached for a condom from those remaining on her nightstand. Throwing off the sheet, she sat on her knees and rolled the protective sheath to the base of his shaft. “If you don’t, I’ll have to hunt you down like a rabid dog.”

He laughed, a guttural blast of sound, and grabbed both cheeks of her ass, urging her to take him, no, demanding that she did until she lowered her hips. Softly, she sat, impaled. Then she began to move, bracing her hands on his knees behind her, grinding, rotating, using her hips and her pelvis to dance, her clit sliding through the springy hair surrounding his thickness.

Sensation consumed her, sent her flying. Kell bucked his knees and she fell, planting her palms on either side of his pillowed head. He cupped her breasts, pushed them together, bit and kissed and licked his way from one peak to the other while she pumped up and down.