They wouldn’t have thought much of it.
Except Gideon Marshall came from that same area ten minutes later.
Nobody said much of anything at first—and they definitely said nothing within earshot of Moira, but they did say plenty after the general surprise died down.
Brannon wasn’t sure he could handle one more question that had to do with his sister and Gideon.
He really couldn’t.
He had desperately needed a reprieve. This … well, hell. It was definitely something to distract him. Feeling like he had been kicked, he stared at Hannah.
She looked serene, unfazed.
Swiping the back of his hand over his mouth, he tried to form some sort of a response. “I … you … what?”
She smiled at him. She’d pulled out the two long, skinny sticks that had held her hair in some sort of complicated twists and now her golden brown hair fell in gleaming skeins to twine around her shoulders and breasts. The sun caressed those golden strands and her skin, making Brannon jealous. He’d do anything to play across her hair and skin the way the sunlight did, caressing her at will.
That smile … it was mysterious and female and as old as time. She brought a hand to the ripe swell of her belly and rubbed it. She’d done that today, often.
“The baby kicked.” Then the smile faded and she looked away. “It was right before Lloyd decided to make an ass of himself again.”
“If he touches you again, I’m going to break more than his arm.”
Hannah arched a brow. “Caveman.”
Shoving off the railing, Brannon came to her. “Absolutely.” Then he reached out, letting his hand hover above her belly. “Can I…?”
She responded by reaching out and taking his hand, guiding it to her belly. “She kicks there,” she murmured, holding his palm in a spot just to the left her navel. “Right there.”
“She.” He swallowed the knot in his throat. “You always say she.”
Hannah just shrugged. “Yeah … I just … I don’t mean to. I don’t really care if it’s a boy or a girl. I just want a healthy baby. But I have a feeling she’s a girl.”
He rubbed his hand in a circle around her belly.
Then, staring into her eyes, he dragged his hand, cupping one of her breasts through the dress. “I want you,” he said bluntly.
Hannah slicked her tongue across her lips. “It’s … um…” She looked around.
“There’s nobody here. I had everybody take the rest of the day off.” Staring into her eyes, he moved his fingers to the buttons of her dress and started to free them, one by one.
Her breasts rose and fell, her breaths ragged, and in moments, her dress hung open, framing the lush, ripe curves of her body. Rose lace cupped her breasts and he freed the front catch, watching as her breasts swung free. “You’re getting bigger,” he said, his voice hoarse.
She made a face. “I know. Half my bras don’t fit. I have to go…” Her voice hitched as he cupped her breasts and squeezed her nipples slowly. “Shopping.”
“Let me take you.”
Her gaze flew to his.
“I’ve had a hundred fantasies about the kind of silk and lace I’d like to see you in. And even more about the kind of silk and lace I’d like to peel you out of.” He tugged on her nipples and watched as her lashes fluttered and fell low, shielding her eyes.
A flush started low on her breasts, spreading upward and he dipped his head, pressing his mouth to the center of her breastbone, right where that pretty pink blush began.
She reached up, cupping the back of his head.
Brannon caught her hips and slid his hands inside her panties. They were cut low, the waistband going under the faint swell of her belly. He pushed them down and when they hit her knees, she wiggled until she could step out of them.
She was all but naked now and he still wore the clothing he’d donned that morning for the memorial.
Hannah slid one hand down the front of his shirt and Brannon felt his muscles jump in response.
His cock pulsed and when that hand slid down, down, down, he could feel his balls drawing tight against him in anticipation.
Before she could start to stroke him through his trousers, he pulled back.
Catching her hands, he guided them back to the smooth wood that formed the railing around the deck. “Don’t move,” he said, his voice low and guttural.
She watched him as he undid his belt and button to his trousers, then freed himself. He removed nothing else. He didn’t have the patience. Going back to her, he cupped her face while she lifted her hands to his shirt.
As he stroked his tongue along the curve of her lower lip, Hannah loosened and tugged his tie free.
He had no idea what she did with it.
He could feel the tips of her fingers brushing against his chest as she unbuttoned his shirt and he decided, yeah, maybe getting some of his clothes out of the way wasn’t a bad idea … not if it involved her touching him.
Then she pushed his shirt open and dragged her nails down the simple white undershirt he’d pulled on hours earlier.
He hissed out a breath.
She bit his lip.
Grabbing her hips, he boosted her up onto the wide, fat lip of the railing.
She gasped and caught onto his shoulders.
“I’ve got you,” he promised, moving to stand between her thighs.
She shot a nervous look over her shoulder.
He curled an arm around her waist, staring into her eyes.
“I won’t let you fall.”
Bit by bit, she relaxed and when he nudged against her, she shuddered and widened her thighs, gripping his hips with her knees.
The wet heat of her pussy kissed the head of his cock and Brannon gritted his teeth against the urge to thrust, deep, hard, fast.
Instead, he watched her as he filled her, slow and sweet and easy. She stretched around him and he watched her head fall back, gritted his teeth as she whimpered and wiggled and rolled her hips forward to take more of him.
Her lashes drooped low.
“Look at me.”
But she didn’t.
Tightening the steadying arm he had around her waist, Brannon slid his free hand up to cup her jaw, splaying his fingers into her hair. “Look at me,” he demanded, his voice rougher now, hunger making him half wild.
Hannah’s lids lifted.
Need made her eyes almost black.
He swiveled his hips in the cradle of hers and she cried out.
Her muscles clamped down on him and he arched his hips, slamming harder into her. At the same time, he tugged her closer, angling her hips. She tightened the grip she had on his knees.
He swore.
Couldn’t get deep enough, couldn’t get close enough.
Pulling her up against him, he turned.
Hannah cried out and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her weight drove her down on his cock. It took less than three seconds to get to the picnic table, roughly the same amount of time to lay her down and then he drove deeper, harder inside her.
She cried out.
It still wasn’t enough.
Catching her legs behind the knees, he surged within her.
“Brannon!”
* * *
Hannah reached up, fisting her hands in the lapels of his shirt, hanging loose off his shoulders.
She tried to arch up, to rub herself against him—she was so close. Her orgasm was just a whisper away. One flex of his hips and she’d—
She keened out his name as he withdrew. She gulped air, staring up at him.
The table beneath her was hard, flat, warmed by the sun. Brannon’s body was just as hard, even warmer. She felt caught, trapped, surrounded.
He came down on her and moved up.
It shifted his body’s angle, had him rubbing against her clit and she whimpered.
Sunlight shone down, forming a nimbus around him that made him almost painful to look at.
Tugging him closer, she
pressed her mouth to his.
He kissed her, his tongue demanding entrance even as his cock took it.
She opened for him—in every way. So close … so …
“Say you want me,” Brannon muttered against her mouth.
“I…” She panted, hardly able to breathe now.
“Say it.” His voice was insistent, impatient.
“I want you.”
“Say you…”
But the words faded away and he shifted, burying his face in her hair. “Hannah.”
That was it. Simply her name.
His cock pulsed, jerked—and she lost it, shattering beneath him and coming hard.
* * *
Say you want me … Hannah squeezed her eyes shut tightly as the bits and pieces of a fragmented memory tried to break free.
Say you want me.
She sucked in a breath and as she did so, she caught the scent of Brannon. It was in the air, on her skin. Everywhere. Surrounding her.
Like she’d gotten caught in a riptide, Hannah’s mind jerked away from her and she found herself caught and tumbling in the current of memory streaming free.
“I want you. Say you want me.” Brannon rasped the words against her lips before he lifted his head up to stare at her, the demand on his face clear.
“Want … I guess that’s one way to phrase it.” I want chocolate three times a day. I want to sleep until noon and stay up to watch the sunset over the river. But I don’t always get what I want. She didn’t tell him that, though. Instead, she guided his mouth back to hers.
She groaned when she felt him tearing at the button on his jeans, fumbling with the zipper and then she tensed in anticipation when he rocked back and forth against her mound. She was already wet and the sensations had her crying out, arching closer.
He came inside her in one hard, driving thrust and her whimper of shock was smothered by his kiss.
It was bliss and it was hell and it ended far too soon.
Wet trickled down her thighs as he lowered her feet to the ground.
Hannah’s legs wobbled and she clutched at his shoulders, trying to steady herself.
He’d come inside her.
No rubber.
She mentally groaned, even as she thanked the irregular periods that had eventually forced her to start taking the pill. That much, at least, should be okay.
Brannon stroked his hand down her back, easing in closer, his breathing still heavy and fast.
“We didn’t use a rubber.”
* * *
Hannah was still and quiet.
He wanted to hear her say it.
He had no right to expect it of her.
But he wanted to hear her say it.
Eyes closed, he stood in the main area of the winery, listening to the water running in the bathroom as she cleaned up.
Neither of them had spoken.
Hannah had lapsed into a taut silence and he recognized that look in her eyes by now. She was remembering something. Or trying to. And there he was, struggling with the guilt that still choked him over the things he hadn’t shared with her.
He was falling in love with her, so hard and so fast. He needed to fix the mess he’d made of things, but he didn’t know how.
She’d told him she loved him, but she didn’t remember it.
She’d told him she loved him and he’d thrown it back at her.
The water came to a stop and he pushed off the counter, trying to force some sort of coherent thought into his head.
The door opened and he turned to look at Hannah.
She was fiddling with the buttons on her dress, smoothing her hair down, making it clear she would look at anything and anybody but him.
He cleared his throat.
She darted a look at him.
He took a step toward her.
She headed for the door. “I need to get going,” she said, her voice overly bright. “I’m barely going to have time to shower and change before I’m due in my shift this evening.”
Brannon opened his mouth. Say something, dumb ass.
“I love you.”
* * *
Hannah crashed into a wire rack of cards.
They were all done by local artists, everything from Americana to medieval, mythical looking fairy creatures. She tried to catch the rack, keep it from falling, but it slid out of her fingers and toppled, sending colorful bits of paper flying.
Surrounded by hand-drawn steamers and lovely inked fairies, she just stared.
Hearing the scuff of a shoe on wood, she slowly looked up and found herself staring at Brannon.
He was moving closer.
She backed away, one hand coming up.
Her blood roared in her ears and her heart pounded like thunder.
And beneath all of that, she heard a vaguely familiar voice. Her voice … maybe.
I’ve been in love with you since I was in high school.
She had loved Brannon since high school—almost half her life, she thought.
But he’d never …
He cupped her face and his hands were rough, yet so gentle. He used his thumbs to tilt her gaze to meet his. Hannah swallowed, the knot in her throat large, all but choking her. “I love you,” he said again. “It could have happened yesterday. Maybe it happened a year ago—five years ago. It could have happened in the past five minutes. I don’t know. I just know I love you.”
She thought maybe her heart had stopped, wondered if she should be worried about that.
But then he kissed her and the only thing she could think about was that—Brannon was kissing her and he’d just told her he loved her.
Did anything else even matter?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I say we bring the senator in and sweat him.”
Gideon looked over at Tank, a headache pulsing at the base of his skull. His eyes felt like sand-covered golfballs—inflamed sand-covered golfballs—and they were burning holes in his sockets. He hadn’t slept worth shit. He rarely did, but the past few days had been particularly lousy. “We bring him on what evidence?”
“Two deaths.” Tank shrugged. “Loosely connected to him, but there is a connection.”
Gideon rubbed the back of his neck and went back to staring at the murder board. “Well.… I got some money in the bank. House is paid off now. If I end up out on my ass, I’ll be okay for a while. You got two ex-wives and a kid, though.”
Tank snorted.
“Yeah, laugh it off, you jackass.”
“This isn’t anything to laugh off.” Tank shrugged and settled down on the chair in front of Gideon’s desk. “Look, we can connect him to Shayla. So what if he was flat on his back in the hospital? I don’t think he killed her, either, but he doesn’t have to know that. But you and I both know he’s involved in the death of Alison Maxwell. You can take it to the bank. We’ll bring him in, sweat him, and see what happens.” Now Tank’s smile turned cagey. “The man’s spine is made up of wax and straw. He’ll melt. All we have to do is put a little heat on him. Do it the right way and even his lawyer won’t shut him up in time.”
“The lawyer will fuck us if we aren’t careful.” Gideon curled his lip.
“The way I see it, we’re fucked now. At least this way, we have a chance.” He shrugged with practiced casualness as he added, “All we need is one decent lead and we can push for a warrant—climb all over his bank records, phone records. The son of a bitch is arrogant. There’s a trail somewhere.”
Gideon had to agree, but his thoughts drifted back to Shayla. “He won’t lead us to her,” he murmured. “I know he won’t.”
Tank didn’t speak, but Gideon suspected they were both thinking the same thing. Sometimes you just had to take what you get and right now, Alison Maxwell’s killer might be the easier one to pin down. It was a sad fucking state, because pinning a crime on a politician was always a pain in the ass. Their money and position made it a dance of politics and eggshells.
“It’s not making sense,” Gideo
n said, his hands going to his hips. So far, they’d talked to almost everybody on their list, and of those people, the few they could see with the capacity or ability to strangle a woman, neither Tank nor Gideon could see them killing Shayla in cold blood.
The one woman who might have been able to do it just out of sheer meanness was Tessie Foreman, and that old bat was seventy if she was a day and didn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds. She also liked to do inappropriate things with her farm animals and she had more cash hidden away on her farm than Croseus. She wasn’t quite up there with the McKays, but she wasn’t hurting for money.
But she’d bluntly told Gideon, If I was going to kill that bitch, I’d have done it in town—right on Main in front of everybody.
Gideon could believe it.
“What’s not making sense?” Tank asked.
He gestured to the board. “The people who had the most reason to kill her? They are the ones we can’t see doing it.” Moving to the list, he skimmed the notes he’d made.
Most of them had to do with affairs and while the people involved thought they were being discreet, half the people in town knew. Shayla was just the one greedy enough to cash in and the people with their pants down were foolish enough to think they were still fooling everybody else.
“I can see Jimmy Bradshaw killing over this.”
Gideon looked over at Tank. “Then you haven’t ever been in the pub on a Friday or Saturday night. That man has been known to pass out at the sight of blood.”
“Shayla didn’t bleed.”
Gideon rolled his eyes. “Splitting hairs. He’s big and loud and has a temper, likes to get in your face.” Shrugging, he went on to the next name. “But I’ve seen kids half his age back him down. He just can’t handle fights or confrontation.”
They brooded over the list for another fifteen minutes before Gideon turned to Tank. “Know what bothers me about this list? If it was somebody on here, they did it out of rage or desperation, wouldn’t you think?”
“Stands to reason.”
Gideon moved to the folder that held the autopsy photos of Shayla Hardee. “She wasn’t killed with any rage. There was no desperation. She was just … disposed of.”
He looked up to meet Tank’s eyes but the other man was studying the images.
The Trouble with Temptation Page 20