by Lora Leigh
The knowledge of what she wanted, the knowledge that he couldn’t give it to her here, ate at him. What he could give her was the pleasure, though.
*
There was a hunger in Archer’s kiss that Anna hadn’t felt before, a need she hadn’t known could exist, except in her.
When his lips covered hers, gently—oh God, so gently—his lips moved over hers, rubbing against them, stroking, warming them as sensation mixed with emotion to flare in heated pulses rushing through her.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, Anna’s lips parted further as she eagerly accepted the deeper intensity that filled the kiss.
This was what she had needed.
This was what she had ached for.
As Archer’s lips devoured hers, his tongue pushing and teasing hers, the hard curve of his knee tucked high between her thighs. The heated warmth against the sensitive flesh of her silk-covered pussy pulled a moan from her lips. It was so good. It was the most incredible kiss she had experienced. Even in her deepest fantasies she hadn’t known a kiss that fired her blood, her heart and soul, as well as her pleasure at once.
The slow arch and lift of her hips rubbed the aching bud of her clit against his knee, blindly following the sensations suddenly tearing through her.
Burying her fingers in his hair, Anna licked at his lips as he had hers. Moving into his kiss, a muted cry of pleasure was lost beneath the harsh male groan that rumbled in his chest. The combined sounds of pleasure moved through her senses, multiplying the intensity of her pleasure.
Tightening her thighs on his knee, Anna’s fingers slid from his nape, along his neck, then to his chest. Lowering her other hand, instinct and need guiding her actions, Anna was pushing at the material of his shirt, needing to feel his flesh against her own.
As the soft cotton slid over his powerful shoulders, catching on his hard biceps, Archer suddenly moved back from her, jerking the shirt off and letting it fall forgotten to the floor.
Lifting her to the conference table Archer stared down at her, his breathing accelerating at the sight of the short skirt pushed above the silk of her panties as he lifted her knees and moved between them. Gripping her legs he parted them before his hands slid to her hips, drawing them to the edge of the table.
Lying out before him, her long, dark hair spread out above her, her pretty green eyes watching him with slumberous heat, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life.
Moving one hand between their bodies, Archer quickly loosened his belt, flipped open the metal button of his jeans, and eased the zipper over the furious erection pressing against it demandingly.
“Oh, yes!” Need passed her lips as she spread her thighs, her knees lifting to grip his lean flanks.
Quickly rolling the condom he’d pulled from his back pocket onto his cock, Archer bent to her.
“I love fucking you, Anna. Being inside you, feeling the heated grip of your pussy caressing me.” He gripped the thick stalk of his cock and he eased the engorged head through the swollen, juice-laden folds of her pussy.
“Oh God, Archer, I love it.” A moan parted her lips as the thick crest pressed into the now oversensitive entrance. “It’s so good.”
“Watch,” the hoarsely voiced order had her gaze following his.
Reclined back as she was, her thighs spread wide, Anna could see the hard flesh of his cock parting the intimate lips. The swollen curves hugging the wide crest, her juices clinging to it as he began pressing inside.
The slow, controlled stretch of her delicate inner muscles had pleasure rising rapidly as the fiery pleasure-pain began streaking across her nerve endings.
“Archer.” The intensity of the pleasure began to overtake her. “It’s so good, Archer.”
Moving against her with slow, shallow thrusts, he parted the inner tissue, stretching it in burning increments as sensation began slicing through her senses.
Angling her hips to him, her fingers gripping his arms, Anna watched as, with a final hard thrust, he buried to the hilt inside her.
The heavy pulse of his cock had her knees tightening on his hips as the imperative need to orgasm began racing through her.
Lifting her gaze to his, Anna felt her chest tighten, almost felt the tears that would have filled her eyes.
The look on his face—
Her breath hitched, a whimpering moan filling the air around them as he began to move again, his hips thrusting, dragging his cock nearly free before pushing inside her. He worked the heavy flesh to the hilt, pulled back, then thrust hard and heavy inside her again.
The stroke and caress of the heavily veined shaft and the thick, blunt head had pleasure building violently inside her.
Each sensation rose in intensity as overexcited nerve endings began to burn, to flare. Thrusting harder, faster, his gaze locked on hers, Archer’s expression was so tender, so—what?
What was it?
What emotion was whipping between them?
The intensity of it, like the ecstatic pleasure, only strengthened, increased.
“Archer, please.” The need, the overwhelming sensations, were pulsing, expanding inside her.
Groaning, perspiration running in rivulets down his chest, along the side of his face, his golden brown eyes seemed more brilliant, more predatory—
“Anna. Sweetheart—” His groan was hoarse, his body tightening as he lifted one hand from her hips to cup her cheek. “Sweet Anna—”
Archer’s teeth clenched as Anna cried out, her pussy tightening around his cock as it shuttled back and forth, harder, faster.
Flames erupted inside her.
Electric, pulsing ecstasy exploded like fireworks inside the clenched, pleasure-tortured depths of her vagina.
“Fuck! Baby!” His hand tightened at her cheek, some battle raging in his expression as she felt his release suddenly tear through his corded body.
“Ah, fuck!” His face tightened, his gaze turning savage. “Anna. Ah, God. Mine!” His hips slammed forward as she felt his cock flex, pulse.
The muscles of her pussy rippled and tightened around him.
“Mine! Damn you, you’re mine!”
His lips covered hers.
Possessive, demanding. The kiss marked her soul and stilled the words being torn from his lips.
Caught together in the cataclysm swirling through them, Anna swore she felt a part of herself merge with him. Felt a part of him merge with her.
And for one precious moment out of time, Anna knew what it meant to belong.
*
Crowe glanced from his office to the hallway, his jaw clenching tighter at the knowledge of what must be going on inside the conference room. It had been all the sheriff could do to keep his hands off Anna while they had been in there during the meeting.
Archer had sat with his fingers curled into fists as he sat back from the table, or flexing his fingers as he obviously kept himself from touching her. The air of tension and sexual connection between them was so damned thick it was all a person could do to stand to be in the room with them.
“Surveillance of the house hasn’t been showing much,” Rory reported as he watched the monitors they’d connected to the wi-fi cameras positioned outside Archer’s house. “You’ll be able to tap into these cameras from the ranch, or your cabin as well, but I don’t think anyone would hit the house.”
“Why?” he asked, still watching the hall.
“Everyone who knows Archer knows he’s paranoid about security,” Rory answered. “Hell, I had no idea who he was the first two days I was here doing recon and I knew he was paranoid about security. If they dared strike the house, it would be disguised as you, Logan, or Rafer, just as they were when they took Marietta Tyme.”
“Are we sure the Slasher will even come after her?”
Were they making a mistake focusing on Anna rather than elsewhere?
“If he’s the one that’s kept her out of the County since she was nine, then having her back here and working for
you and your cousins would enrage him. For whatever reason, he’s put a lot of time and effort into keeping her away. He wouldn’t let the fact that she was back slip by him.”
“What does Jordan think?” he asked, referring to Rory’s uncle, a former Navy SEAL.
The rumor that Jordan Malone was also commander of a silent, shadowy mercenary group hadn’t been lost on Crowe when he’d heard it ten years before. Jordan was the type to be involved in something that covert, but he was also a man with the knowledge and presence to make it work.
“He agrees. If it’s the Slasher, then he won’t wait long before he grabs her.”
Crowe wiped his hand over his face and glared at the hallway now.
Damn, why was he so fucking pissed off over the fact that Archer was obviously fucking his cousin behind those doors? Just as he couldn’t figure out why his protective instincts had gone crazy over the years every time he’d seen Anna Corbin in town. There was something about her that just pissed him off every time he saw her.
“We were always afraid he would focus on her,” Crowe growled.
“Maybe Ivan’s right,” Rory pointed out. “Having her show her faith in you would give more credence to your innocence than anything else could. And it’s always been more than obvious she’s believed in the three of you.”
“Maybe,” he murmured, shaking his head at the thought before checking his watch again.
Hell, they’d been in there a half hour. Would they come out already?
He had to leave soon. He had things to do. After Archer had appraised them of the information the Barons had given them the night before, Crowe had known the confrontation with his grandfather was coming.
Thirty-four years of hell because they had wanted to “protect” their grandchildren?
He didn’t think so.
Whatever event they had been framed for was the key to this, and he wanted to know what the hell it was.
The door to the conference room opened and Anna and Archer stepped out.
Anna tucked her hair behind one ear, looking up at Archer with somber intensity, a shadow of uncertainty, and all the love a woman could hold in her heart, and Crowe froze inside.
It was always like that. Every time he saw her she did something, said something, that reminded him of his too-delicate mother.
He’d only been twelve when she’d been killed on that mountain, but he remembered her so clearly sometimes that it felt like only yesterday. The sound of her voice, the way she would hold his infant sister and sing so sweetly to her. The same way she would cuddle him when he’d been a child, and tell him how much she loved him.
He’d adored his mother.
She had been the center of his young universe, and losing her, his father, and the baby sister he’d cherished had killed something inside him.
Anna nodded as Archer said something. The sheriff let his hand trail gently down her arm in an intimate caress that assured Crowe the other man was definitely in over his head where Anna was concerned.
He’d have been pissed as hell if anything else were the case.
And he had no idea why.
CHAPTER 11
Watching this bullshit was going to drive him to drink.
Anna should have left Corbin County by now. She should have missed her family, her money, her car, all the little comforts the Corbin money bought her, and done what it took to be back in their good graces.
Instead, she was fucking that sheriff like some cat in heat, and hadn’t even bothered to contact her family. And he knew she hadn’t bothered to do so. He had enough spies in the Corbin household that he would know if she were in contact with them.
She hadn’t called. They hadn’t called.
And she hadn’t left town.
Watching as she left the new offices of Brute Force, he did nothing to restrain the erection rising beneath his slacks.
He’d warned John Corbin to get her out of town, out of the County, or suffer the consequences. And still she was there.
Those consequences would be visited upon her soon.
As he watched, the newcomer to town stepped from the bar and with a quick grin fell into step with her.
Rory Malone.
The black-haired bastard was from Texas. He’d come in several mornings before and applied at the bar for the position of bartender that was being advertised.
He’d rented the garage apartment the Brocks had advertised near the sheriff’s house, and in the past few days had seemed to become quite cozy with Anna. He walked her to work each morning as he went in himself, and walked her home as he was getting off from work.
Archer could have a rival for her affections if he wasn’t careful, he thought with amusement. And perhaps, if he was lucky, he could manage to convince his partner to strike out at her for that reason alone.
The thought of his partner left a grim anger sparking at his senses.
The bastard.
The rules he had once found so quaint were now becoming a pain in the ass. Not enough of a pain to get rid of him, of course. Good partners were damned hard to come by in his line of employment.
He couldn’t chance her presence in Corbin County much longer, or in the sheriff’s bed. The sheriff was much too close to the Callahans, and his knowledge of them was possibly dangerously deep.
The only way she could be allowed to live was if she lived out of the County.
This was what he got for allowing the treacherous weakness he felt for her mother to rule his good sense.
“Please, please don’t hurt her,” her mother sobbed as she cradled her child to her breasts and knelt next to the body of her dead husband. “Please. Oh God, Wayne, please don’t hurt her. She’s just a baby. She’s just a baby.”
“A Callahan baby,” he raged, the fury of her betrayal making him sick to his stomach. “She could have been mine, Kimberly. She could have been our child.”
How he had loved her. She had been the world to him. And now she sat before him, sobbing for her dead husband and the child they’d had together.
One of the children they’d had together. If her son, that trashy Callahan bastard, had been with them, he would have put a bullet in his head as well.
“Please, Wayne,” she continued to sob as the baby whimpered from the cold, her little limbs turning blue from where he’d jerked the blanket from Kimberly as David Callahan’s body had collapsed onto the ice and snow. “Please, I’m begging you.”
Her head had bowed.
How defeated she looked with her long red hair cascading over her baby’s fragile body, her shoulders slumped and all the fight seeping from her body. He wished he hadn’t revealed himself. He could have let her live.
Fisting the blanket in his hand for long moments, he finally tossed the thick covering to her.
Her head jerked up, tears still pouring from her incredible green eyes.
God, how he loved her.
“I’ll save the girl,” he told her. “Your brother’s child died this morning in the hospital in California. If he’ll return home and take Sarah as that child, then I’ll let her live. If he doesn’t, she’ll die, Kimberly.”
He had to harden his voice. He had to harden his soul.
She wrapped the covering snugly around the baby, kissed her forehead.
“Mommy loves you, Sarah Ann,” she whispered, the sobs tearing from her soul. “Always remember how Mommy loves you.”
The baby whimpered weakly.
Slowly, her arms trembling, she extended the baby out to him.
She was delicate, light.
For a moment he was tempted to toss her over the cliff out of pure hatred.
But the look in Kimberly’s eyes stopped him.
She trusted him.
Shock trembled through him. He had just killed her husband, and she knew she was going to die in this blizzard as well, and still she trusted him.
Opening his coat, he tucked the girl against him and rebuttoned it.
As she moved to lie n
ext to her husband, he snarled in fury.
“Move away from him. I won’t let you die beside him. I won’t let you cuddle to him in death, Kimberly.”
She was sobbing. Weak. Cold. The bodies of her brothers and sisters-in-law were scattered around her. Dead.
With each step she took away from her husband she cried harder until she had only the strength to cry, and collapsed in the ice and snow several feet from him.
She stared back at him, her tears falling so fast they were like streams down her face as he leveled the gun at her head.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I always loved you, Kimberly. You were to be mine. We could have ruled Corbin County together.”
He wasn’t even aware the moment he pulled the trigger.
It was a perfect shot straight into her heart.
He didn’t put a bullet in her face. He couldn’t risk damaging her perfect face.
She crumpled to the ground and, damn her to hell, if she had had a breath left in her he would have killed the brat in front of her for her final betrayal.
As she fell to the ground, her arm reached out, her fingers burying in her husband’s all-but-frozen hair.
A howl of rage brought a cry from the baby. A whimpering little sound of distress that struck at his heart. At a heart he swore he could not still possess the day he’d realized how she had betrayed him.
But she was so like his own daughter. So small and fragile. And he did love his own child. His flesh and blood. Amelia wasn’t Kimberly’s daughter, but she was still his own.
Together they wouldn’t find a treasure others could only dream about. Together they wouldn’t create their own family. And now, he would never see her smile or know her laughter again.
It wasn’t the daughter’s fault, it was the son’s.
That little bastard. If she hadn’t become pregnant with him, then David Callahan could have never convinced her to marry him, Wayne was certain of it.
As he stared at her fallen body, the first teardrop fell.
He’d murdered the Callahans’ parents, and even then he’d felt no sorrow. He’d felt none until his precious Kimberly had fallen, her hand reaching out to touch her beloved husband.