Straight to the Heart

by Samantha Hunter

  Then he left her body, leaned in close over her shoulder.

  “I burn for you, Joanna. But I want to know you want me just as much. Tell me, or I’ll stop,” he said softly by her ear, making her shiver.

  “Please, don’t stop…”

  “Why?”

  “I want you…I need you, Ben,” she begged, and was willing to do it again, as many times as she needed to, to have him inside her, taking away the ache and the loneliness.

  “I need you, too,” he said, sinking his teeth lightly into her shoulder as he entered her again, deep and full, not holding back this time as he quickened the pace and sent them both reeling when heat exploded between them.

  She started to move away, but he held her in place.

  “Again,” he panted, and she blinked, realizing he was still hard inside her, and moving again, taking her under.

  But Joanna had had enough of him calling the shots, and reached down to turn up the warm water before facing him.

  “Let me,” she said, looking into his eyes and sliding to her knees before him, watching the water wash over his skin as she dragged her nails down his thighs, then back up before closing over the root of him and taking him into her mouth.

  “Oh, Jo,” he ground out, pushing a little farther into her, and she welcomed his invasion. “Yessss,” he hissed, his hands placed gently on her hair as he helped her set a pace that made him even harder.

  She massaged the loose skin around the head of his shaft with her tongue, loving his taste, and how his legs trembled as he approached the edge. With her other hand, she fluttered her fingers over his sac, and slightly behind, massaging the tender stretch of skin that sent him off. Ben’s entire body convulsed as he came, emptying himself into her, making her answer his groans of release with her own sounds of satisfaction.

  He reached down, hooking his hands under her arms and helping her back up to fuse himself to her in a deep kiss.

  When they parted, he pushed her hair back from her face, and looked at her in a way that broke her heart. So tender, so full of…something that was not just about the sex.

  “I didn’t know what to expect when I walked in here,” he said, reaching to turn the water off. “I knew I should leave you alone, but…I couldn’t.”

  They stepped out, and she took the towel he offered her.

  “I’m glad,” she said simply, unsure what to say.

  Wrapping the towel around his waist, he met her eyes in the mirror as she wrapped in hers as well.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “Nothing has changed, Ben,” she said, her voice soft. “I have a job to do, and we can’t let this get in the way. And when it’s done, I’ll be back to work. I won’t be here, I’ll be…God knows where,” she said with a humorless grin. “But I won’t be here.”

  “It would have helped a lot to know that when you showed up here,” he said frankly, opening the door as they stepped outside into the darker hall. “But I can’t say I’m not glad it happened. And I’d like it to happen again,” he added.

  Heat rose between them, and she realized she was ready for him again, ready to give herself over to this man in a way she never had for any other.

  “Me, too, but you know that once you go to court, you probably won’t see me again after that. And if I was smart, I’d walk downstairs right now, call my supervisor, and have him send out someone else. Someone male,” she added, making him smile.

  “Don’t do that, Jo,” Ben said, walking forward, backing her against the wall. “Don’t go yet. I’ll testify, do what I need to do. I’m a big boy. I know we’ll be over when it’s done. I won’t get in the way of you doing your job, or moving on. But at night, here, when we’re alone…”

  His hands slid up to loosen the towel, letting it fall to the floor.

  She gasped as he touched her, convinced her with his hands, his fingers and lips. She clung to him as he lifted her, taking her again as if his life depended on it, his thrusts deep and set into a rhythm her body seemed to know by heart.

  How could she say no? They’d part ways soon enough. He’d testify, he’d cooperate, and in the end, she would move on.

  “Yes, at night…this,” she said breathlessly, kissing him.

  Holding on tight, she moved against him, not wanting to let go. Not yet, anyway.

  11

  BEN KEPT HIS PROMISE. FOR THE next week, they worked the bar, and Joanna watched his back, did her job, as did Marshal Stivers at his parents’ ranch.

  During the day, they maintained friendly, professional distance, though if he could somehow touch her while passing her a tray, or walking by in the kitchen, he did. He needed to gather up as many touches as he could. She was only his—and only at night—for less than a week.

  But the nights were shatteringly hot. Ben knew there was going to be a wicked price to pay after this, but he didn’t care, not as long as they were together right now.

  The trial didn’t bother him as much as thinking about Joanna being gone after it was over. She’d go back to her work and that would be that.

  Sure, they could meet up, maybe see each other now and then, but Ben knew he wouldn’t—that would never be enough.

  He made it through another day, serving beer, chatting with Lisa, joking with Charlie as if nothing was wrong, as if everything was just fine.

  By the time they closed up and he and Joanna were heading back to the house, he had a rotten headache, and needed some air.

  “Let me check the perimeter before you come out.”

  “I’ll go with you. I need a walk.”

  She paused, considering, and then nodded.

  As they walked to the end of the building, he shoved his hands in his pockets, took a deep breath of evening air.

  “Did I ever tell you that your brother called me?”

  She stopped short for a moment, looking at him under the starry sky.

  “Jarod called you?”

  “Yeah. That’s not a man you want on the phone asking if you are the bastard who made his sister cry,” Ben said with a chuckle. “Other than that, he sounds like a nice guy. Obviously cares for you, a lot.”

  Joanna shook her head. “I can’t believe he did that. I am so going to kick his butt when I see him,” she said.

  “It’s good to know that none of that was true—that he didn’t care, wasn’t there for you,” he said.

  “I hated lying about that—Jarod is amazing. And so is my dad. And now I have my sister-in-law…they are all wonderful.”

  “Family is important. And Lenny…I assume he was fictional, too?”

  “Sort of. There was a Lenny in my past, and he was kind of a jerk, but nothing like what I told you. Sorry about that. I had a friend who went through something similar with another guy, so I sort of just worked off partial truths.”

  “To make believable lies,” he noted, nodding. “College?”

  “Master’s degree in criminal justice,” she admitted. “It was where I learned to waitress, too.”

  “And your brother and father are Texas Rangers,” he said. “Your mom?”

  “That part was true. She really did take off when I was seven. I have no idea where she is, what she’s doing. And I can’t say I care. Jarod and Dad are my family.”

  “So how come you didn’t end up a Ranger?”

  “The marshals were a good fit for me, and I didn’t want anyone saying I had the way paved for me by my family.”

  “Can’t believe they’d dare,” he said lightly, making her laugh again. He liked her laugh—it was easy, genuine. “But I know people can make those connections, even when they aren’t true. You see Jarod and your dad often?”

  “More lately, especially since I was—” She stopped. They hadn’t talked about it, though he’d seen the scar. Touched it, kissed it.

  “Shot,” he supplied softly.

  “Yeah, it was—”

  “My dad showed me a news article. Showed you being loaded up into an ambulance.”

 
“Oh. I was tracking this guy in Yuma, a real monster who had been evading everyone for a while. His last victim was a fifteen-year-old girl he raped and left for dead. He was arrested, and managed to escape when his transport driver had a heart attack. I had him cornered, but backup was probably at least twenty minutes away. So, I went in. Long story short, I was shot, he took off…it was a mess, basically.”

  “But they found him?”

  “Oh, yeah. The FBI found him a few days later, holed up. I only wish I had had the chance to take him in,” she said bitterly.

  “Well, what matters is that he’s off the streets, and that you survived.”

  “Barely. Physically and career-wise. I didn’t impress anyone for going in on my own, not waiting for backup. The USMS doesn’t really care for exposure in front-page news articles, even in small-town newspapers, and the fact that another agency managed to take him down stung, too.”

  “You did what you had to do,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “It must have been hard for your family. What about your dad?”

  “He’s getting close to retirement. Jarod’s in administration these days. He took a promotion, got married. They’re thinking about starting a family,” she said.

  It was a little weird, considering how intimate they had been, feeling as though he was just getting to know her. Their nights hadn’t been full of conversation lately; they used their precious hours together otherwise.

  “That’s nice, that he can make that work. Does he miss being out there?”

  “Maybe sometimes, but I think he’d miss his wife more.”

  “It sounds like you all did fine, even with your mom taking off.”

  “It was hard at first. Dad and Jarod didn’t always know what to do with a girl growing up, but they taught me the most important stuff.”

  “Such as?”

  She grinned up at him. “How to shoot, how to drive, how to read a map, how to be safe in the desert, how to fend off boys.”

  Ben laughed. “Those would be the top five things teenage girls should know,” he agreed, and then he narrowed his eyes on her. “How to shoot, huh? When did you start?”

  “Around age seven.”

  “So you were choking on purpose.”

  “It wasn’t easy, believe me, especially when I know I’m a better shot than you, or at least as good,” she said, and he grinned at the challenge in her tone.

  “It would be nice to have a chance to find out.”

  “You’ll have to take my word for it, I guess.”

  “Part of my decision to leave the SEALs had to do with someone getting shot.”

  “You took a bullet for someone?”

  “No. The other way around.”

  “One of your team died protecting you,” she supplied, some things now clicking into place. “Is that why you resisted protection from us so much?”

  “Maybe. It’s hard to think of anyone else putting their life on the line for you. There was a young guy, new to the team, Tony Lorrano. We were infiltrating a warehouse and the guard was supposed to be clear at the time, but he wasn’t. Tony and I were paired up, and I guess he saw the guard before I did, and he stepped in front of me to return fire, but it was too late.”

  “So you feel guilty for Tony dying, which made you willing to put yourself in front of a bullet in this situation? Some kind of balancing of the scales?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve been running that night over in my head, the night of the shooting,” he said. “It’s like there’s something I can’t quite see straight.”

  “That’s normal. Is there something in particular that’s bugging you?”

  “Just that I can’t remember if I reacted quickly enough, the same as what happened with Tony. I’ve been through situations, training like that, hundreds of times, and I keep wondering if I could have done something to save either of them, Tony or the rodeo official. Why didn’t I see it? Why wasn’t I fast enough?”

  “You could drive yourself crazy with that thinking. You’ve lost a lot, and I can see how that would make you want to handle things on your own, but if you died, that wouldn’t help. Bad men would go free, and your family would have lost you. You can’t control it all. You can’t save the whole world and make everything right,” she said, covering his hand with hers. “Not even big, bad navy SEALs can do that.”

  “I know,” he said, turning his hand over to hold hers. “Or U.S. Marshals,” he added with a lifted brow, making her grin.

  “Well, maybe.” Her smile faded.

  Ben leaned in to kiss her ear before he pulled her forward. She stepped aside, looking around.

  “Not out here. Never in public, you know that.”

  He looked around at the sprawl of the desert at their feet, the starry sky.

  “This is hardly public,” he said.

  “You know what I mean. Let’s get inside,” she said, scanning the horizon, suddenly tense.

  “You see something?” he said, also training his own gaze on the landscape around them.

  “I don’t think so, but we should go,” she said. “Standing around out here wasn’t a good idea.”

  She fell in behind him, and it took every ounce of control he had not to pull her up alongside, or put her in front of him, but she was being his marshal again, not his lover.

  It reminded him of the space between them, and that he had been pretending that this was real, when in truth, it was no more real than what they had shared before. Their desire was real, but everything else was temporary.

  Inside the house, she blew out a breath, relaxing.

  “Stay here—”

  “I know, you’ll check the place out, and I’ll stay here like a good little boy,” he said with a forced smile.

  “I know it’s hard, Ben, but it’s almost over.”

  Like he needed another reminder.

  JOANNA WOKE SUDDENLY, BEN’S arm thrown over her, her awareness sharp. Her eyes went to the window, where she heart it again, something down below. A footfall, a snapped twig.

  Ben was passed out, snoring, which made her smile a little as he said he didn’t snore. She slipped from his embrace very gently so as not to wake him up. Slipping into her jeans and T-shirt, unable to find her shoes in the dark, she went downstairs without them.

  She kept the lights off, and went to a window near where she had heard the sound. Someone moved in the shadows, near where her car was parked out back. Walking silently to the door, she slipped out into the dark and locked the door behind her. Reaching for her cell phone, she called Stivers, whispering.

  “I might have something here,” she said.

  “Need me there?” He sounded wide awake.

  “Not just yet…let me check it out, but you might want to take a second look around there, in case we’re both getting visitors.”

  “Will do.”

  Joanna shoved the phone in her pocket, calmed her breathing, moving silently in bare feet across the rocky, uneven surface of the gravel-covered area in front of the porch.

  Putting the possibility of stepping on something poisonous at the back of her mind, she focused on her surroundings, mentally calculating the movement of the shadow she thought she saw, and heading in that direction.

  Her thinking quieted, her focus homing in on the sound that seemed to come from around the side of the bar—a scrape or creak of metal, like a door opening. Then again, followed by a clunk of something heavy on metal.

  Joanna headed toward the sound, moving quickly until she stopped short, caught in the eyes by the glare of headlights. A second later, a gunshot, and a bullet zipped by her head, making her hit the ground and crawl back behind the corner of the building, where she found…Ben.

  “What are you doing here?” she hissed, reaching for her phone to contact Stivers and call for backup.

  “I heard you get dressed, go out. I knew something must be up.”

  “Yes, there is something most definitely up,” she said between clenched teeth,
and cursed as she heard the engine of a vehicle start up. “And they’re getting away.”

  Making her call, she glared at Ben. “Get back in the house.”

  “What if that’s what they want? What if this is a distraction to lure you away?”

  She blew out a breath. “Okay, stay with me, then, but stay low. Whoever it was, they’re escaping,” she said in exasperation, hearing tires grind over gravel in the parking lot as she raced up the other side of the bar, gun drawn.

  Sure enough, the pickup had just made its way to the road, and Joanna knew of only one way to stop it, firing on the vehicle as it hit the gas. She aimed for the back tires, not wanting to risk shooting the driver, if she could help it.

  Her aim was dead on, as the tires blew and the pickup went out of control, teetering over the edge of the road into the ditch, half on its side.

  “Stop!” she shouted, keeping her gun aimed as she approached the car. “U.S. Marshal. Hold your fire,” she shouted.

  Joanna heard the door open, saw a figure emerge, the engine still running. She dove behind a rock, searching for cover, but her assailant didn’t seem to be interested in shooting now. He was running.

  Cursing the lack of shoes again, she took off after him, easily following the sound of the person in front of her breaking through the brush.

  Holstering her gun as she got closer, she prepared to take the runner down when another figure lunged from the side, and, for a moment, her heart was in her mouth as she thought: mountain lion.

  Close.

  Taking the flashlight from her pocket, she heard the sound of fist hitting flesh, and shone the light on the two men grappling on the desert floor.

  The one on top was clearly Ben. He was restraining the shooter easily, still, Joanna grabbed her gun again, just in case. Then, unexpectedly, Ben almost slammed back into her when he cursed and flung himself backward from the guy on the ground.

  His shock matched her own as her flashlight fell on the face of the shooter, illuminating the few feet between them.

  “Charlie,” they both said in unison, and Joanna felt her abraded feet suddenly starting to ache along with her head.