Hope’s brows rose and she looked at him like he was crazy. “How?”
Dylan raised his right hand. “He holds them down and makes them concentrate on his finger.”
She laughed. “You’re full of it.”
If his mother found out he’d spilled the beans about Cousin Frank, she’d kill him. She didn’t want anyone to know those kind of genes warped their DNA, but hearing Hope’s laughter just might be worth getting killed. “I swear it’s true.”
She shook her head and her hair fell forward and brushed her right cheek. “Why would anyone hypnotize a chicken?”
“ ‘Cause he can, I guess.”
“What does he hypnotize them to do? Go up on stage and act like people?”
He chuckled and moved toward her. “They just lie there, looking dead.” He pushed her shiny hair behind her ear, and the backs of his knuckles brushed her smooth cheek. “My aunt, Kay, seriously thinks he’s gifted.”
“You are seriously demented.”
Her hair tangling around his fingers was cool to the touch, and very soft. “You don’t believe me?”
“No.”
The brief contact twisted his belly into a knot, and he lowered his hand. “I told you the truth about the Rocky Mountain oysters.”
“You also told me you ate a lizard.”
“No, I never said I ate lizard.”
“You let me think you did.”
“Yeah, but that’s not a lie.”
“Maybe not technically, but you wanted me to believe something about you that wasn’t true.”
His gaze slid from her cheek to the bow of her top lip. “Well, then, I guess that makes us even.”
“You think I lie to you?”
He looked into her clear blue eyes, gone all wide and innocent. “Since the day you drove into town.”
She drew her brows together. “You could always do a check on me.”
“I could, but I don’t check a person’s background unless they give me a reason. It’s against department policy.” He paused before he asked, “Do I have a reason?”
“No.”
“Break any laws recently?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“No warrants for indecent exposure?”
“No.”
“Sexual harassment?”
She laughed. “Not recently.”
He looked her over from head to toe, then back up again. “That’s a shame.”
She tucked in her chin and regarded him out of the corner of her eye. “Are you flirting with me, Sheriff Taber?”
“Honey, if you have to ask, then I must be getting old.”
“How old are you?”
“Almost thirty-eight.”
Her lips became a seductive smile that warmed his chest. “You look pretty good for such an old guy.”
“Ms. Spencer, are you flirting with me?”
“Maybe.” A wrinkle appeared between her pale brows. “It’s been a long time since I’ve flirted with anyone, but I think so.” The wrinkle smoothed. “I guess you got lucky.”
Lucky. He didn’t know if he should run like hell or push her down on the couch and show her lucky. He took a step back. “Did you send in a request for Hiram Donnelly’s old file?” he asked, again changing the subject and putting a distance between them.
She stared at him for a few moments as if she didn’t follow the sudden shift in conversation. “Ah, yeah,” she finally said. “Last week.”
“Good. Let me know if you need help making sense out of them.” She stood and he took another step back. “I better get the boys home and put them to bed.”
“Their shoes are upstairs. I’ll get them.” Hope moved toward the stairs and felt very much like she had the night in her kitchen when he’d kissed her. After one touch, he couldn’t get away from her fast enough, and like that night, she didn’t know what she’d done.
When she got to the top of the stairs, she headed down the hall and went into a room on her right. Maybe she shouldn’t have admitted that she hadn’t flirted for a long time.
Maybe she’d scared him.
Beside the bed in the spare room at the end of the hall, she found Wally’s cowboy boots and one of Adam’s blue sneakers. As she crawled on the floor looking for the other shoe, she wondered if she gave off some sort of desperate vibe that freaked him out. By admitting she hadn’t flirted in a while, maybe he thought there was something wrong with her, and maybe he was right to do that. She’d met Dylan just over a week ago. She really didn’t know him, but when he looked at her or smiled at her or talked to her, her chest got tight. And when he touched her, she didn’t think at all.
She walked into the closet and looked around. As she rummaged though the camping gear inside, she heard the heavy tread of Dylan’s bootheels enter the room. She found the sneaker next to some extra sleeping bags, and when she came back out of the closet, Dylan stood in front of the window, over six feet of hard man, looking out across the lake.
“I’ve never seen the view from over here.” His shoulders filled the window, and the weak sixty-watt bulb overhead picked out the buried layers of gold in his hair and emphasized the stark white of his T-shirt tucked inside his Levi’s.
Hope set the shoe by the others next to the bed, then moved to stand beside him. She really couldn’t see out the window, but she really wasn’t dying to, either. She still felt no awe for the beauty around her, but she had to admit that there was a certain stillness to it all. A sort of tranquility that couldn’t be found in the most expensive resort or bought at the trendiest spa.
“You can’t see it from here, but there’s my house,” he said, pointing to the left and sliding over so she could see. “Right over there beyond that biggest ponderosa. And see that bright star at about sixty degrees north?” When she didn’t move, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to stand in front of him. With her back pressed against the solid wall of his chest, and one hand resting on her hip, he pointed to the stars. “Look directly below to that pale spot. That’s Devil’s Chin rock. Right below that is the Double T Ranch. That’s where I grew up. My mother and my sister still live there. If my mother had her way, I’d live there, too.”
He smelled faintly of musk and cologne, and the scent of cool night air clung to his skin. She looked out into the night, but there was nothing to see. The window faced the empty lake, and not so much as a sliver of light for her porch or the Aberdeens’ yard penetrated the darkness. Instead of watching where Dylan pointed, she watched his reflection. “I take it you don’t want to live there.”
“No. I grew up herding cows and baling hay. It’s a hard life. One you better love. I don’t, but maybe Adam will someday.” He was silent for a moment, staring off into the distance as if he could see something that she could not. “I couldn’t wait to get out of this town. I left shortly after graduating high school.”
“But you came back.”
“Yeah. Sometimes you have to wander around until you find where you really belong. And sometimes it’s right where you started. I had to get really miserable before I wanted to come home.”
“Where were you living that you were so miserable?”
Within the window’s reflection, his gaze met hers and he smiled. “First I lived in Canoga Park, and then I moved to Chatsworth.”
“You lived in L.A.?”
“For about twelve years.” His grasp on her hip tightened a fraction. “I was a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department.”
“I lived in Brentwood.”
“I probably could have guessed that,” he said and slid his hand from her side to her stomach.
“But I grew up in Northridge,” she added. She took deep, even breaths and thought about whether she should step away from his embrace or remove his hand. She felt like a teenager again, uncertain while every cell in her body tingled with life. But unlike that innocent time long ago, she knew where the feelings heating her up like a grow light would lead. What she did
n’t know was if she wanted to go there with him, or if he wanted to take her.
“You moved a little farther uptown than me.”
The heat from his palm seeped though the cotton of her tank top and warmed her abdomen from the inside out. With a little effort, she controlled her impulse to turn within his arms and touch him the way he touched her. “Blaine already had a lot of money when I married him.”
“That was your husband, Blaine? Was he gay?”
“No.”
“You really married some guy named Blaine?”
“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”
He shook his head. “A guy named Blaine can’t be any good at buttering the muffin.”
“That’s ridiculous. He could butter the muffin just fine.”
“Exactly. I said any good.”
“He is a very smart man,” she said, then wondered why she was bothering to defend her ex-husband.
“Uh-huh. What does he do?”
“He’s a plastic surgeon.”
Through the glass, his green-eyed gaze shifted to her breasts.
“No, those are mine.”
He lifted his gaze and smiled, unrepentant. “I’d hate to think they weren’t.” He settled her into his chest and said, “Something like that just might blow all my fantasies about you.”
She stilled. “What fantasies?”
He buried his nose in her hair and looked at her reflection in the glass. “I don’t think I should tell you.”
“Why? Am I tied up?”
She felt his smile. “In a few.”
A few?
Creases appeared in the corners of his eyes. “Do you have a problem with that?”
Did she? She probably should. “What, with the fact that you fantasize about me, or that I’m tied up?”
“Either.”
But she didn’t. No problem at all. Just the opposite. It raised her temperature another notch and threatened to lower her lids. The heat in her abdomen spread between her thighs, and she squeezed her legs together. “Did I enjoy myself?”
His thumb fanned her abdomen and brushed the underwire of her bra. “Of course. I treated you real good.”
As if he’d actually touched her, her breasts grew heavy, and beneath the thin cotton of her top and the thin nylon of her bra, her nipples tightened into hard, sensitive points.
“Do you want to hear how good?”
With her breath stuck in the back of her throat, she nodded.
Through the window glass, he watched her as he lowered his face and lightly ran the tip of his tongue down the shell of her ear. “You liked it when I did this,” he whispered, then gently sucked her lobe. His breath warmed her cheek and a shiver tickled her spine. With his free hand, Dylan pushed her hair aside and slid his mouth to the side of her throat. “And this.” He placed warm kisses on her neck, and she watched his face settle into the crook of her neck, felt him gently suck her flesh into his hot mouth, but before he left a mark, he moved on, and slowly he slipped the straps of her tank top and bra from her shoulder and down her arm.
“You’re so soft,” he said and pulled her even tighter against his chest. “Even softer than you look.” His hand on her stomach curled, bunching her shirt in his fist. The hard length of his erection pressed into her behind and she went all liquid inside. Lust pooled hot and wet and wanting between her legs. The thought of them naked, making love, almost had her turning around and hooking her legs around his waist. For a moment she allowed herself a fantasy of her own, one in which she stripped off his clothes and ran her hands all over him, but with what remained of the little sanity she still possessed, she reminded herself that she hadn’t known him long enough to actually get naked.
“I don’t think sex is a good idea,” she said just above a whisper.
His gaze lifted to hers in the window. “Who said anything about sex?” he asked and kissed a warm trail to the end of her shoulder. “We’re just messin‘ around a little bit.”
“In front of the window?”
“Honey, there’s no one out there for miles.” He tugged the bottom of her tank top out of her skirt and got back to business. “If I make love to you, it won’t be with two little boys right downstairs. I’ll come prepared, and I’ll make sure I have all night to touch you the way I want.”
She’d completely forgotten about the two boys asleep downstairs. “Maybe we should stop.”
He slipped his hand under her shirt and his hot palm caressed her bare skin. “Do you want me to stop?”
She looked up at him and her forehead brushed his rough chin. “No.”
“Then keep your ears open for little feet coming up the stairs.” With his mouth poised above hers, he asked, “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” she responded without thinking about her answer first. She shook her head when she realized that probably wasn’t what he was asking. She raised her hand to cup his rough cheek. “I feel like I should probably ask you to leave.” She kissed the corner of his mouth and bristly jaw. “But I don’t really want you to go. I want you to stay, but I know you shouldn’t.” She buried her face in his neck and breathed in the scent of his skin. “Mostly you make me feel confused and lonely.”
His fingers fanned her bare stomach, his thumb brushed the bottom swell of her breast, and she had to remind herself to breathe. “With my hand up your shirt, how could I make you feel lonely?”
“Because you remind of things I didn’t even know I missed until I drove into this town.” She kissed his throat, then added, “Like the sound of a man’s boots on my floor and the feeling of a rough, scratchy cheek beneath my palm. The warm, solid pleasure of your chest against my back. Feeling safe.” And sex. He made her realize how much she missed being sexually intimate with a man, being desired and consumed and tangled up in sweaty sheets and raw lust. “And sometimes when I look into your eyes, I think that maybe you’re lonely, too.”
He was silent for a moment, watching her. Then he asked, “Do you know what I see when I look at you?”
Beneath her lips, his pulse pounded and she shook her head.
“I see someone who reminds me exactly how long it’s been since I’ve touched and smelled a woman’s sweet skin.” Again he pressed his erection into her behind, and she felt the heat of him through the worn denim. It spread down the backs of her legs and curled her bare toes against the cool hardwood floor. “When I look at you, I forget exactly why I’m living like a priest.”
She looked up into his face and her skepticism must have shown.
He pulled back. “You don’t think I’m living like a priest?”
“I’ve seen the way some of the women in this town treat you.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have problems with control around them. They don’t tempt me. Not like you do.” With her head tilted up, her neck arched, Dylan softly kissed her lips. “They don’t tempt me into fantasies about hot, down and dirty, no-holds-barred sex. They don’t make me ache to touch their soft skin like I want to touch yours. All over, with my hands and mouth. Hope, I want to kiss your breasts and little belly button and between your thighs. I know I should stay away. Being around you makes it worse, but I can’t make myself stay away. I have no control over wanting you.”
She knew the feeling. He gently pressed his mouth to hers and settled into a kiss so slow and sweet, and in such opposition to the blood she felt speeding through his veins, that she slid her hand from his cheek to the back of his head and forced deeper contact. For a man who said he had no control, he seemed to be doing just fine. She licked the tip of his slick tongue, and the kiss eased into a gentle mating of their mouths, a deep intimacy that teased much more than it satisfied. A maddening chase and follow. A slick advance and retreat of hot tongues and mouths.
Then, as if she’d suddenly lit a fire within him, the kiss turned greedy and he devoured her, sucking the breath from her lungs. In an instant, she was consumed, and she thought she rather liked the feeling of giving up control over something she co
uldn’t control anyway.
Beneath her shirt, his hand moved upward to gently cup her breast, and everything got so hot and dizzy she gave up thinking about anything except his palm and his thumb brushing her nipple through the sheer nylon of her bra.
Dylan groaned deep in his chest and pulled his mouth from hers. His lust-filled eyes searched hers, and as Hope watched his profile, he slowly lifted her shirt up over her breasts, then completely stilled. She held her breath, watching him and waiting for his reaction.
“Look at you,” he said and turned her attention to the refection in the window, of Dylan standing behind her, his big hands bunching the bottom of her tank top. His gaze pinned to her white bra, the material so sheer she might as well have been naked. Her breasts and her tight, puckered nipples straining against the thin nylon.
“You’re beautiful,” he breathed and met her gaze in the glass.
She pressed her arms against her sides and kept her tank top up around her armpits. Then she placed her palms on the outsides of his hands and moved them to cover her breasts. He gently squeezed and a hot flush spread across her flesh. She tried to turn, but his grasp tightened. “If you move, we’re goners,” he said.
“I want to touch you, Dylan.”
“Tonight, I touch you.”
Her eyes closed and her lips parted. It had been a long time since she’d felt so good. Her back arched and her hands fell to her sides.
“Hope, open your eyes. Look at me. Look at me touching you.”
She did. She saw her shirt pulled up, the right straps of her bra and tank top shoved to her elbow. Dylan’s palms cupped the weight of her breasts from behind, the dark pink tips poking out between his widespread fingers. She looked at her reflection, at the desire shining from her eyes.
Dylan squeezed his fingers together and pinched her nipples between them. Her knees buckled and he held her tight against his chest. “If we were alone in the house,” he said in a whisper, “I’d put my mouth right here.” He kissed the top of her head and the side of her face. “Then I’d work my way down.” He reached for the bottom of her shirt and pulled it back down to her waist. “But we’re not alone, and leaving you isn’t going to get any easier.”
True Confessions Page 14