Fearless Love

by Meg Benjamin

  Suddenly, what he wanted more than anything else was to be inside her again. He ran his lips down the side of her throat, nipping lightly at her shoulder, pushing her gently down beneath him again, or trying to.

  She put her hands flat against his chest. “No. Lie down.”

  He frowned. He really hoped this wasn’t going to be some kind of delayed gratification thing. He’d never been good at that. The hell with Tantric exercises. He wanted it now.

  Reluctantly, he lay on his back, tensing as she ran her hands along the muscles of his chest, closing his eyes. “Okay, darlin’. Have it your way. But keep in mind—I’m not a patient man.”

  Her lips edged up. “Patience shouldn’t be necessary,” she said.

  MG stared down at the man between her thighs. Dark hair shadowed his chest, gathering to a point that arrowed down toward his groin. She ran her hands over his flat belly, smiling at the hiss of his exhale.

  Beautiful. He was so beautiful he made her heart skip. The lines of his muscles, the slight olive tone of his skin, his deep blue eyes watching her under his lush dark lashes. Even the bald head with its slight fuzz of dark hair. She wanted to run her tongue over every inch of him, as if he were the sweetest candy she’d ever tasted.

  She dipped her head, sliding her tongue over his belly to slip quickly into his navel. The hiss came again and she paused to press her lips there. Then she began running her tongue downward, her hands braced on his inner thighs, spreading him wider so that his cock sprang upright. Large, thick—disturbingly large, in fact. Very much what she’d expect from somebody with shoulders and biceps like his.

  She slid down slightly and took the tip into her mouth, swirling her tongue across it. He moved almost convulsively beneath her, and she grasped the base of his erection with both hands. His cock slid deeper into her mouth, and she moved her tongue along its length, sucking lightly at the head. Somewhere above her Joe groaned, his fingers delving deeper into her hair, moving along her skull.

  She dipped her head, sucking, licking, enjoying him.

  “Mary Grace,” he whispered.

  She froze, then slowly raised her gaze to his. “Yes?”

  “Yes.” He smiled, running his fingertips along the side of her face. “Come here.”

  She rested her hands on his thighs, looking again at that beautiful face. He cupped her cheek, bringing her down to kiss her again, their bodies straining against each other. He reached to the bed stand, but she took the foil packet from his hand. “Let me.”

  He closed his eyes. “Don’t take too long, darlin’. I don’t know if I’ll survive.”

  “You’d better.” She grinned, and ripped the foil with her teeth.

  He lay down again, letting her run her hands down his length. And then she unfolded the condom, rolling it carefully over the broad head, then down the thick shaft, her own muscles beginning to clench.

  “Jesus,” he muttered.

  “Patience. You just have to be patient for a little while longer.” She rose to her knees, one hand guiding him to her opening, then sliding him slowly inside, easing herself down until he filled her completely. She braced her hands on his shoulders, staring down into his face as she began to move herself up and down his length.

  “Jesus,” he whispered again.

  Her breath caught in her throat as her pulse thundered in her ears. The feel of him moving inside her, the friction, the heat, made her almost dizzy. She heard herself panting, closing her eyes as she dug her fingers deeper into the muscles of his shoulders.

  The panting became groans as the heat spiraled up, the tension gripping her body like a glove. “God, oh dear god.”

  And then she felt his hands on her shoulders, rolling her to her back as he came over between her thighs, driving himself deep inside her. Her words changed to cries, to sheer noise. She clasped her feet in the small of his back, wrapping her legs tight and holding on for dear life. Closer…closer. And then she was skating over the top, sliding down again, her body jerking with the intensity of feeling.

  Above her, she felt him come apart, his body jolting as he thrust against her, pushing her up again as he shouted. And then he collapsed over her, his face pressed against the side of her throat. He wrapped his arms around her, one hand cupping her breast almost reverently. “Holy…” he whispered. “I don’t even have a word for what that was.”

  Wonderful. But she didn’t say it. Instead, she stroked her hand along the back of his head. “Holy does it for me,” she murmured.

  “Me too.” He rolled to his side, bringing her with him so that they were face to face again, then pulling her closer into the circle of his embrace. She put her arms around his waist, resting her head against his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart.

  “Tell me you don’t want to go home,” he muttered.

  She rubbed her forehead against his shoulder. “I don’t want to go home.”

  His lips turned up slightly. “Good.” He rested his chin upon the top of her head.

  She felt his body relax.

  For a moment, she had a vision of Robespierre, strutting around the hen yard with murder in his eyes. She tried to remember if she’d left enough food and water in the autofeeder.

  But of course she had. And even if she hadn’t, she’d be there tomorrow.

  They’d all be there tomorrow, of course. The hens. Robespierre. With a new set of eggs and a set of nest boxes to be cleaned and grass to be chewed. She really needed to check with somebody about those carrot peels. Sometime.

  She snuggled deeper into the warmth of Joe’s arms. The chickens could get along without her for once.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Joe wanted to spend Sunday and Monday with MG, but he knew he couldn’t. For one thing, he had to corner Darcy and find out what the hell she thought she was doing when she’d sent him to Oltdorf. For another, he wasn’t sure MG would be up for the idea of that much time in his company.

  On the other hand, she didn’t seem exactly averse. She sat at his kitchen table, wearing one of his T-shirts, her red-gold hair tumbling around her face, her deep green eyes sleepy and mischievous. It was all he could do to finish the omelet he was cooking instead of grabbing her. Of course, after he finished the omelet that would be another story. He had a bowl of strawberries he’d picked up at the farmer’s market in Dripping Springs and a lot of plans, which he outlined to her after he’d carried her back into the bedroom.

  MG leaned back against him as he fed her a strawberry. “You got any plans for the day, darlin’?” he murmured.

  “Chickens,” she muttered around the berry. “I need to do the chickens. In fact, I’m late doing the chickens.”

  “They’ll be okay. Chickens don’t need love, they just need food.”

  “That reminds me.” She picked a strawberry out of the bowl on the bed, popping it into his mouth. “Do you mind if I take some vegetable trims from the kitchen to feed them? Chickens are supposed to like it.”

  Joe shrugged. “Sure. Go ahead. I don’t think anybody ever asked me if they could take some of my garbage before.”

  MG’s forehead furrowed slightly. For some reason it made her look even hotter. “Don’t you compost?”

  “Somebody does. We sell the organics to a recycling company, and they put them in a compost heap someplace. We don’t have the time or the space to do any gardening at the inn right now. Maybe sometime we can set up an herb garden.” Yet another of those maybe sometime ideas he was always tossing around but never accomplishing.

  Maybe you need to focus a little more on something other than cooking. Now there was a heretical idea.

  “So I can grab some peels?”

  He nodded. “Grab away. There should be some there now from brunch prep, unless Dietz has already thrown the garbage out.”

  She grimaced. “Fishhead never throws stuff out until he’s got a can full. He puts it in the room beside the back door and lets it ripen.”

  “Fishhead?” Joe fought to k
eep from grinning. Totally inappropriate.

  “Darcy’s idea. Because he’s got the last remaining mullet in the Hill Country.”

  Joe shrugged. “From what I can see he does his job. Also from what I can see, he’s an asshole, but that’s not exactly unheard of in that line of work.”

  “He’s better at it than I am, but he’s had more experience.” She shook her head. “I fear I’m not destined to be a great kitchen slave.”

  “Yeah well, I had something else in mind for your destiny.” He set the bowl of strawberries onto the floor beside the bed, then turned back to her again. “Something a lot more immediate.”

  “Okay, Chef.” She grinned up at him, nibbling lightly on the edge of his jaw. Joe felt it all the way to his toes.

  An hour later, he was walking into the dining room at the Rose, feeling so good he decided not to interfere with the way Leo was running the omelet station, even though he was using way too many mushrooms in the filling.

  Kit Maldonado appeared at his elbow, dressed in jeans and a sapphire silk shirt. “Good morning. I didn’t know if you’d show up or not.”

  He gave her a quick frown. She couldn’t possibly know what he’d been doing with MG, could she?

  Kit frowned back. “I mean, I thought you’d turned the brunch over to Darcy. Are you checking up on her or something?”

  “Not exactly.” Which was a lie. That was, in fact, exactly what he was doing. “So what are you doing here? I thought you took Sundays off too.”

  Kit shrugged. “Nando had to work. I figured I might as well come over and check on some spreadsheets. Martha’s running the hostess station.”

  As a cop, Nando was in possibly the only profession that had worse hours than hers. Joe folded his arms, watching Leo add a scrunch too much onion to a Denver omelet. “You still seeing the same losses you saw before?”

  Kit’s frown deepened. “Yes, unfortunately. I think it may be a little worse this week than last. If it keeps up, we’ll need to tell Elias. He’ll probably start some kind of investigation about kitchen procedures.”

  Joe gritted his teeth. The last thing he wanted was the inn management interfering with the Rose. So far the new manager had left them alone, and he wanted to keep it that way. “I’m close to getting the whole thing resolved. Give me another few days.”

  “What’s going on?” she murmured. “Can you tell me?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet. I’m not absolutely sure about what’s happening, and I don’t want to screw over any innocent bystanders if I don’t have to.”

  “Right.” Kit blew out a breath. “Just let me know what you find out. If we can stop it, I won’t have to let Elias know.”

  He nodded. “I’ll do that.” He started across the room when he saw Darcy taking a quick inspection tour of the buffet table, then placed himself in the entrance to the kitchen, folding his arms across his chest and giving her his most threatening glare. “Good morning.”

  Darcy glanced up at him. Then her lips spread in a slow grin. “Well, hello there, Chef. How’s it going?”

  He pointed toward the kitchen door. “In there. Now.”

  She sauntered in ahead of him. Joe was only glad he couldn’t see her face—he was pretty sure she was wearing a shit-eating grin.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing?” he asked as the door swung closed behind them. “Why did you send me over to Oltdorf last night without telling me what was going on?”

  She shrugged. “MG was overthinking the whole thing, trying to figure out how to tell you about what she was doing. I thought if you saw her singing, it would cut to the chase. Was I right?”

  Joe narrowed his eyes.

  Darcy grinned again. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “I don’t like you messing in my life, Darcy,” he growled. “I won’t take it kindly if you do it again.”

  “I won’t need to do it again. And for the record, I thought I was messing with MG’s life, not yours.” She shrugged as she headed toward the walk-in.

  He thought about going after her to keep up the argument, but he figured he’d already made his point. Or something. Maybe it was more like he was quitting while he was even.

  He headed for the prep sink where Fishhead—correction, Dietz—was working. Joe could see a pile of vegetable peelings in front of him. He looked toward the back door and saw that MG was right—a garbage can stood just inside.

  Dietz glanced up at him, frowning slightly. “Morning.”

  “Morning.” Joe handed him a plastic bag. “Give me a couple of handfuls of those.”

  Dietz frowned harder, but after a moment, he gathered a bagful of peelings then handed it back to Joe. “Got a garden?”

  “Something like that.”

  Dietz shrugged. “Good for gardens.”

  The walk-in door slammed behind them and they both looked up. Darcy walked back toward the prep area, carrying a tray of yogurt parfaits. “Hey, Gabriel,” she called. “Take these out to the buffet table and set them up.”

  The busboy gave her a sultry look, which she ignored as she headed back toward the sauté station.

  “Oh, mama,” Dietz crooned. “Like to get me some of that.”

  Joe narrowed his eyes. “What did you say?”

  Dietz glanced up at him, then back down at the prep sink, still smirking. “Nice looking woman. I wouldn’t mind breakin’ off a piece of that booty. Under the right circumstances if you get my drift.”

  “Chef.” Joe managed to keep his voice steady. “That woman is a chef. She’s also your boss.”

  Dietz gave him a guarded look. “Thought Fairley was my boss.”

  “He’s one of them. Darcy’s another. And right at this moment, she’s the only boss you need to worry about. Correction—you need to worry about me. You need to worry about me a lot.”

  A muscle flexed in Dietz’s jaw. “Yeah. Got it.”

  “Make sure you do.” Joe stared down at him, narrowing his eyes slightly. “If you make trouble, you’re out. And trash talking the women who work here is making trouble far as I’m concerned. You keep your mouth shut about them. Are we clear on that?”

  Dietz stared up at him, his expression stony. “Like I said, I got it.”

  Joe turned away, crushing the bag of peelings in his hand. Of course, he’d really like to be crushing Dietz, but at the moment punching him out seemed like more trouble than it was worth. On the other hand, he now had a very good idea of what the run-in had been about between Dietz and MG a couple of weeks ago. One more good reason to either punch the guy out or send him packing. Which he might have to do soon enough.

  Robespierre had been distinctly standoffish when MG arrived in the chicken yard, but he couldn’t hold out against a couple of handfuls of cracked corn. “You’re way too easy,” she muttered as she watched him gobble up the bribe. The hens didn’t seem to have any similar problems. She found eighteen eggs—close to a record. Apparently, they didn’t feel neglected, or if they did, neglect appealed to them.

  She heard the sound of a car driving up just as she finished cleaning the nest boxes. Joe. She wiped her hands on a rag and started out into the chicken yard.

  And saw her Great-Aunt Nedda climbing out of her classic Lincoln Town Car. Ah well.

  She hadn’t really spoken to Aunt Nedda since arriving in Texas, given that what she really wanted to say was “How the hell could you let your own brother lie there alone in a hospital?” Now she watched her stride across the yard as if she weren’t in her eighties, as MG happened to know she was.

  She wore jeans and a rust-colored suede jacket that a fashion maven might call vintage, but which was probably just something her great-aunt had held onto until it looked fashionable again. Not that Aunt Nedda gave a good goddamn about fashion, even though her black Lucchese boots would probably bring a nice price at a trendy shop. She came to a stop a few feet outside the chicken wire. After a moment, sighing, MG opened the gate and joined her in the back yard.

 
; “Morning, Aunt Nedda,” she said, managing to make her tone neutral rather than reluctant.

  “Heard you were running the place,” Nedda snapped. “Figured I’d come out to talk to you since you couldn’t get yourself around to talking to me.”

  “Nice to see you too.” MG gave her a dry smile.

  Nedda surveyed the chicken yard, pushing a hand through her bright orange hair, a color clearly not found in nature. “You ready to sell yet? Not that it’s worth much. Particularly in this market. But Hill Country land can always get a few dollars an acre.”

  “You want to buy the farm?” MG felt like shaking her head to clear it. Nobody had mentioned her great-aunt’s interest in the place before.

  “Might. If the price is right. Figure I’d know how to do something with it more than you do, seeing as how I’ve lived in this country all my life.”

  MG took a deep breath. Already this conversation was drawing on her limited reserves of patience. “I’m not interested in selling the farm, Aunt Nedda. Grandpa wanted me to have it. I don’t know how you got that idea. I like it here.” She realized that, amazingly enough, she wasn’t lying.

  “Got no money, though, do you?” Her aunt narrowed her watery hazel eyes, creating a new set of wrinkles alongside the crevasses already resulting from eighty years in the South Texas sun. “Heard you were working at that place up the road. Tourist trap that place is. Nobody from around here would be caught dead there.”

  “I’ve got enough money.” MG raised her chin. “The job at the Rose helps pay the expenses.” With any luck that would be the end of this conversation.

  “You think so?” Aunt Nedda gave her a singularly unpleasant smile.

  “I’ve got enough,” MG repeated. “Thanks for asking. You’ll get your check at the end of the month, just like usual. Anything else I can help you with?”

  “Don’t know why you’d want this place anyway.” Her aunt narrowed her eyes, studying the chickens. “Not much left of the old farm. That fool Harmon sold off half his acreage to pay for those cancer treatments for Lureen. And then she died anyway.”