His burger on his plate, his wrists against the table’s edge, Kell leaned forward, his gaze catching hers and holding it tight. “What he’s told Vargas is to watch for movement. We have no reason to go anywhere. So if the killer shows up and demands we drive to a more remote location, say, some out-of-the-way place like the spot he took Kass Duren, Vargas will be watching and know something’s wrong.”
And ostensibly report back to Greenley…or if he wanted to give his brother time to make his escape, maybe not. “What if the killer shows up and just shoots us in the head? Leaves the SUV where it is? Or makes us drive his car?”
“It’s a ploy, sweetheart,” Kell told her. “That’s all. To make sure Vargas gives us up to his brother.”
Okay, she was definitely not cut out for this cat-and-mouse stuff. “He won’t know that?”
“No reason he should. He’ll just think he’s doing his job, following Greenley’s orders. As long as he’s been in the department, he’ll understand Greenley’s hedging against every move the suspect might make, no matter how far a reach.”
It sounded reasonable, she supposed. Except…“You don’t know for sure his brother is the killer. Or that Vargas is the leak.”
“True,” Kell said, sitting back. “That’s why Greenley’s going to surreptitiously see that word gets out. The fact that I have a cabin in the Guadalupes is common knowledge around the office. If Vargas isn’t the leak, the information on our location will hopefully get back to whoever is.”
“If there is a leak. If the killer hasn’t just been watching me all this time.”
He nodded, finishing off his food.
Jamie could only stare at hers. “Either way, we’ll never know he’s coming. No matter what I said about being able to see if he was.”
“That’s okay,” Kell told her, the smile on his face deliciously, deviously wicked. “Because we’re no longer the only ones watching. Greenley and his boys have got our back. There’s no way anyone is getting to us without first going through them.”
19
WITHOUT LOOKING at a clock, Kell knew it was after midnight. He also knew Jamie was pretending to sleep. The cabin only had one bed, meaning they shared it, or he slept on the couch. Since she hadn’t made the suggestion when he’d joined her, he figured she’d come to terms with his plan. A good thing, since he needed her on board.
He never should have told her he’d set up the two of them as bait. Yes, she deserved to know, but it made this whole…thing—was it a relationship?—between them harder to deal with because he’d done it without telling her first.Overhead, the cane ceiling fan stirred the air, squeaking in a maddening rhythm while drawing the heat from Kell’s body. He needed a can of WD-40. He needed a second bedroom, or a longer, more comfortable sofa. He needed a way out of this mess that was guaranteed to save Jamie’s life.
He’d done what his experience as a Texas Ranger dictated he do. If it had been anyone but Jamie, he wouldn’t be caught up in this circle of second-guessing; every time he told himself he’d done the right thing, he came right back to feeling he’d done wrong by Jamie.
And those feelings were all tangled up with the ones he had for her. The ones making failure impossible. Sleep, too.
“I’m awake, you know.”
He closed his eyes, swallowed, opened them again. “I know.”
“You can talk to me if you have something on your mind,” she said softly.
“I know.” He left it at that, mostly because he didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t going to apologize for doing what he’d done. And if his job cost him her love…
Wow. Yeah. Best he leave it at that.
Jamie sighed, rolling onto her back. “I’m not mad at you.”
Anger he could handle. Anger could be worked through. It was hatred he didn’t want. Hatred meant she felt strongly, just not the things he wanted her to feel. “You’ve got to know, I would never put you in more danger. If I thought for a minute that he could get through us to you…”
“I want to be as confident as you are that he can’t. That he won’t.” She pulled the sheet to her chin and held it there. “I’m just not that brave.”
Not that brave? Kell found himself frowning, and turned onto his side, keeping the distance he was waiting for her to close. “This guy wasted no time in coming to you after the hypnosis and Duren’s body was ID’d. If this goes down, it’s going to happen fast. I’ve got men on every road, footpath, hiking and biking trail that lead to the cabin. He’s not going to get to you. It’s not going to happen.”
“You’re assuming he’ll use a path or a road or a trail,” Jamie countered. “He could be walking in as the crow flies even as we speak.”
He could be, but Kell’s men had more eyes and ears than their own. They had surveillance equipment. Heat sensors. Motion detectors. Parabolic mics. To avoid apprehension, the killer would have to slip in on a shadow, or like smoke. “He’s not going to get to you.”
She reached out with one hand and stroked it down the center of his chest. “The good guys don’t always win, Kell.”
“I will not let him get to you,” he told her again, wondering for a moment which of them he was reassuring. He squeezed her fingers, held them over his fast-beating heart.
“I know you’ll do your best—”
“No, sweetheart.” He was not going to let her lie down and give up. Not after ten years spent in hiding. Not after he’d just found her. “Getting to you is going to require going through me. And I’ve got a really big gun.”
She laughed softly. “That does make me feel better. Even if we’re not talking about the same weapon.”
His breath caught, his cock thickened. “It’s all yours. Anytime, anywhere.”
Her nails scratched lightly over his skin. “As long as it’s not in my driveway, you mean.”
“Next time we’re there,” he said and sucked back a sharp breath at her touch. “I promise.”
“Promise me there will be a next time?” Her fingers were moving now, searching, surrounding. “That we’ll get out of here in one piece?”
He would die making sure it happened. But rather than put the emotion overwhelming him into words that would sound too simple, he brought her face close and kissed her, speaking to her in the only way that felt right.
He knew about love. He’d grown up in a home where there was never a question that his parents would make up after fighting. Where actions spoke louder than words, but where the words themselves were never in short supply, and were used wisely, appropriately, used to solve as well as to soothe. Yeah, he knew about love.
He didn’t know about this, about Jamie, precious, a gift, making his heart swell, ache, crave, making his body hard, splintering his focus. She was his case, but she was so much more, and he opened his mouth over hers and asked her to be his everything.
Her lips parted, her tongue tasted his. She wedged her body so far beneath him that his only move was to cover her. He did, and she opened her legs, hooking her heels in the small of his back, pressing her hands to his spine. She was supple, pliant, warm like wax, melting into him.
He needed a condom, but he didn’t want to turn away. His erection lay pressed between them, pulsing. His mouth hadn’t tasted enough of her yet, and he wanted this mating to last until they were both too exhausted to move. If might very well be their last time—a thought he pushed away before it caused him to suffer and soften.
Her fingers massaging up and down his back, Jamie tilted her hips, seeking him. He groaned, freeing himself long enough to hang over the edge of the bed and dig his wallet from the jeans he’d kicked out of last night. Once he was sheathed, he entered her, no foreplay, no seduction, no romance.
Her sigh as she sank into the mattress was of satisfaction, of a gratitude that humbled him, of love. He had given her something she wanted, a something he was quite certain touched her in places his cock never would, though not for his lack of trying.
He rocked against her, not thrusting, not stroking, but a simple rhythmic motion of his lower body that kept them pressed together from belly to breast, as did his arms scooped beneath her. His head he rested beside hers on her pillow, sharing the air that she breathed.
Neither one of them said a word, they loved gently, slowly, though sounds of pleasure—gasps, moans, whimpers—were impossible to hold back, and punctuated the whir of the cane fan above.
And when neither of them could deny their bodies, they came together, the completion ripping into the core of his soul.
WHEN JAMIE FINALLY WOKE on her first day as killer bait, it was almost noon. Consumed by exhaustion, she’d never even heard Kell get out of bed, or smelled the scent of coffee that still lingered in the air. Neither had she heard him in the main room, walking in the kitchen, talking on his phone, though she was quite certain he had.
She pushed up to her elbows and listened. Then she sat up in the center of the bed. Still not a sound, prompting her to pull on the clothes she’d worn yesterday and left on the floor beside the bed. She’d shower after the mystery was solved. And, middle of nowhere or not, she had no idea whose eyes were prying. She was not going to walk outside in her skin.Standing in the center of the front porch and shading her eyes, she found Kell sitting sideways in the driver’s seat of his SUV, the door opened, his cell phone pressed to his ear. She didn’t want to disturb him, but was curious what conversation had sent him outside to talk. They were too deeply involved in this game of catch a killer for secrets.