“This is crazy,” he growled, dipping down to lick her lower lip. She was addictive, like tangy barbecue sauce on sizzling ribs or cold watermelon on a hot day. He couldn’t get enough of her.
“Crazy,” she echoed, her mouth as hungry as his.
“We should stop now, before it’s too late.”
“You first,” she panted.
Even before his tongue found hers, Marsh knew he was making a mistake. Come morning, he’d regret mixing his deadly business with this wicked pleasure. Come morning, his nagging guilt for using her like this would have eaten even deeper into his gut.
But tonight…
Tonight, dammit, he wanted her. No, he craved her with a sudden, driving urgency that shoved every rational consideration from his mind, leaving only a kaleidoscope of irrational and erotic thoughts, not the least of which was a burning desire to unsnap her jeans, slide them down her hips, and treat himself to another glimpse of her lacy little thong.
Just the memory of her trim flanks and rounded bottom was enough to set his brain on fire, not to mention all parts south. He’d work his way down to the thong, he promised himself. Slowly. Piece by piece. Enjoying all the side trips and detours along the way.
His misplaced idea that he could take things at a measured pace went up in smoke the moment he slid his hand under the hem of her sweatshirt. Her belly hollowed under his palm, and her breath caught at the whisper of cool air on her rib cage.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, doubling down to drop a kiss on her tummy. “I’ll warm you up.”
She gave a choke of laughter at the smug promise, but it didn’t take long for her skin to flame under his mouth and tongue and teeth.
It took exactly the same amount of time for Marsh to realize he had to get her out of her clothes, fast. Luckily, she had reached the same conclusion. In a flurry of arms and legs and bumping heads, they shed boots, sneakers, shirt and sweatshirt.
Marsh experienced a momentary setback when he caught sight of the plain, no-nonsense cotton bra she wore under the sweatshirt. To his relief, a teasing strip of lacy elastic peeked above the waistband of her jeans and gave him hope for what lay beneath. He managed a credible one-handed job on the snap and zipper, but when he peeled them down, her whole body went still.
Unfortunately, his didn’t. He ached from his neck down, tight with wanting, hard with need. It took everything he had to drag his mouth from hers and lift his head.
“I can’t…” She swiped her tongue along her swollen lips. “That is, I don’t…”
“Don’t what, sweetheart?”
“We’d better stop. I, uh, don’t…”
She looked away, her face tinted pink.
His groin twisted. Okay. He got the message. She was trying to tell him she didn’t want to take this any further. Marsh could accept that. He didn’t like it, but he could accept it. Now all he had to do was rein in his raging need and…
“I don’t have any protection.”
Her indistinct mumble shot relief straight into his veins. Grinning, he catapulted to his feet.
“I do.”
He’d scooped her up in his arms and headed for the bunk room.
“Oh. Right,” she said coolly. “How could I forgot the hoity-toity stockbroker?”
He kicked open the door, unperturbed by the tiny crease that settled between her brows.
“This is a line shack, remember? Inhabited by a steady stream of horny ranch hands, seasonal hunters and the occasional female visitor. Unless I’m mistaken, there’s a store of essential supplies on the shelf that could tide us over until spring.”
The crease disappeared as Lauren looped her arms around his neck. “Just so there’s enough to get us through tonight.”
And tomorrow, Marsh thought, with a surge of need so fierce it stunned him. If Jannisek didn’t call, they’d have tonight and tomorrow and maybe another night or two.
Disconcerted to find himself hoping that the quarry he’d hunted for so long didn’t sniff at the bait for a few more days, he carried his half-naked burden across the bunk room. Propping her on one knee, he searched the dusty shelf for the boxes he and his brothers had stashed there over the years.
Voluptuous Miss January, the object of so many of his adolescent fantasies, smiled archly down at him. Marsh didn’t spare her a glance. The woman in his arms fired his blood more than the calendar girl ever had.
He finally found what he was looking for on the dusty shelf. A moment later, he took Lauren and himself down on her bunk in a tumble of hot hands, tangled legs and greedy mouths.
Chapter 10
This was insane.
The refrain clamored in Lauren’s head as she arched under Marsh. Breath ragged, her flesh flaming from the fire he stoked in her, she couldn’t help but note the absurdities.
The bunk was too narrow. Their combined weight stretched the springs to their limit. Marsh was half on the bed, half hanging over the edge. Their knees knocked with every twist and turn. The scratchy blanket pricked her backside.
This was insane and so Becky!
It was also incredible.
Lauren had never lost herself so swiftly, had never wanted so hungrily. She couldn’t remember the last time the scrape of a man’s stubble against her collarbone had given her such delight. Or such exquisite torment.
Marsh used his hands and oh-so-clever mouth on her, playing her the way a virtuoso would a Steinway. Every nerve hummed. Every vein sang. The calluses on his palms raised tiny shivers as he stroked her from breast to hip, back to bottom. The dark, wiry hair on his legs and chest provided just enough abrasion to raise even more shivers.
Caught up in a spiral of rippling sensation, Lauren was just as eager to explore. One hand raked through his hair. The other sizzled with the tactile sensations of hard ridges, coiled muscle and heated flesh.
Her mouth was swollen from his kisses when he shifted his attention to her breasts. With a contortion that threatened to dump him over the side of the narrow bunk, he bent down. Lauren gasped when his tongue went to work on her rigid nipples, and groaned when he substituted teeth for tongue. But it wasn’t until his fingers slid down her belly and hooked on the borrowed thong that her heart flip-flopped inside her chest.
“I’ve been in a serious sweat since I saw you in this little number the other night,” he murmured against her quivering tummy.
That candid admission was enough to dampen the little number under discussion. Then he lifted his head, and damp gushed into wet. The grin he gave her was pure sex.
“Much as I enjoyed seeing you in it, I have to confess I spent most of the day imagining you out of it.”
Looking up into his laughing eyes, Lauren vowed to hit the lingerie stores the moment she returned to civilization. To heck with comfort! So what if she walked funny for the rest of her life. If a tiny scrap of nylon and lace caused this kind of reaction in Marsh, she’d invest in an entire new wardrobe.
It wasn’t until he’d begun to hook the panties down, inch by tantalizing inch, that reality pierced Lauren’s spinning fantasies. A new wardrobe wouldn’t cause any kind of reaction in Marsh, for the simple reason that there was no reason to believe he’d see it. They were together for tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Possibly the day after that. The realization sharpened her hunger to a near ache.
“You’ve got the sexiest knees,” he announced as the thong made its slow descent. “And ankles. I never thought of myself as an ankle man, but…” He lifted first one foot, then her other. The panties disappeared. “…you could make a believer out of me.”
She was wet and near to weeping with pleasure when he stretched out beside her. Her hands roamed his back, swept down to curve his waist. Marveling at the silky steel of his buns, she was searching surreptitiously for the exact location of the gopher bite when she noticed the hot-cold feel of his flesh. The chill mountain air was nipping at Marsh’s rear with the same determination he was nipping at her lobe.
“Marsh, you’re cold.”
“Not hardly.”
Hunching a shoulder against the warm breath washing her ear, she groped under her for the scratchy wool blanket.
“Here…”
Grunting with the effort, she lifted her hips and tugged. Enough of the blanket came free to flip up and over them both. The effect was electric, like encasing hot coals in Reynolds Wrap. The wool trapped the heat between them and magnified it a hundred times. Lauren’s skin went from warm and slick to fiery. The blackness surrounding them sizzled. Every pant sounded like thunder in her ears. Every twist and turn of their bodies generated more heat. When she was sure she would spontaneously combust, Marsh poured even more lighter fluid on the fires.
His mouth hard and hungry on hers, he cradled her with one arm, nudged her legs apart with a knee, and slid his hand over her mound. His fingers were gentle at first. Slow and deep and gentle. Then his thumb found her center, and the twin sensations of penetration and pressure nearly blew her away.
He was a magician, Lauren thought, in a gasp of wild pleasure. Marsh the magician. He knew just where to touch, just how to touch. She barely had time to wonder if he’d practiced these same sorcerer’s skills on his stockbroker before he settled himself between her thighs.
His first thrust picked up the rhythm his hands had already established. His second drove the sagging bedsprings almost to the floor. To Lauren’s utter astonishment, she climaxed on the third.
She clenched her legs against the blinding rush of sensation. Tried desperately to hold it back. The waves came at her, harder, faster.
“Marsh! I can’t…I don’t… Ooooh!”
A thousand years later, she spun back to earth. A dark, scratchy, unfamiliar earth. Another thousand years passed before she realized he hadn’t come apart at the seams with her.
He still filled her. Hard and hot and heavy. And still grinned down at her with a male smugness she couldn’t miss even with a flap of blanket draped over his head.
“You,” he pronounced, “are incredible.”
Lauren fought her way through layer upon layer of sensual lassitude. Limp, she looped her arms around his neck. Languorous, she lifted both legs and wrapped them around his hips.
“So are you—when you’re not playing big, bad cop and scaring me half to death.”
This time it was Marsh who stiffened. Marsh whose muscles locked. Feeling more than a little smug herself at his reaction, Lauren summoned what was left of her strength and served him the same mind-shattering pleasure he’d served her.
She drifted out of her state of boneless satisfaction some time before he did his. For long moments, she lay still. Not that she could do anything else. Even with most of his weight balanced on his forearms, he took her and the mattress as far as the springs would go.
Darkness still shrouded them. The blanket had twisted around Marsh’s legs, but covered his backside, back and head. Lauren was sure his contours had imprinted on hers. She was sure, too, that it would take her hours to regain her strength.
She was right on the first count, dead wrong on the second. Her breasts tingled from the rasp of his chest hair even after he roused enough to push up on his elbows. Yet when he maneuvered onto his side and brought her up against him, her back to his front, every nerve in her body started a slow dance. She cuddled against him, marveling at the sensation, until he broke the silence long moments later.
“Lauren.”
“Mmm?”
“About this big, bad cop business.”
“Mmm?”
He hesitated, his arms tight around her. “It’s who I am.”
The odd note in his voice worked its way through her sensual haze. He sounded almost apologetic, and very much as though he was issuing a warning. As if she needed a warning.
“We’ve established that you’re a cop.” A smile tugged at her mouth. “And you’ve certainly given new meaning to my definition of ‘big’.”
“Is that right?”
She couldn’t mistake the inflection in his voice this time. It was preening. Definitely preening. Her smile widened.
“And as for bad…”
She nudged backward, trying to find another inch or two on the crowded bunk. Her bottom made direct contact with what, until that moment, had been lazy, relaxed flesh.
“Bad, Mr. Henderson, is in the eye of the beholder.”
His arm flexed, banding her against him. He held her still for a moment, as if fighting the urge that swept them both. Lauren held her breath until he bent over.
“I hope you remember that come morning, Ms. Smith.”
With his whisper hot and husky in her ear and his body hard against hers, she doubted she’d remember anything come morning. After he brought her to a wild, panting climax for a second time, she could barely remember where she was at that particular moment.
Her last, confused thought before she sank into total oblivion was a vague prayer that Becky was safe and David Jannisek would take his time before contacting Marsh.
She woke the next morning to searing sunlight and the realization that she’d spent the entire night in the narrow bunk fitted like a spoon against Marsh. Her back to his chest, his knees tucked into hers, they occupied every square inch of bed space.
Bemused and more than a little stunned by her own reckless abandon, Lauren blinked the sleep from her eyes. The next bunk came into focus. The dust motes drifting on the slanting sunbeams. The potbellied stove. Finally, Miss January.
The pinup’s smirk was even more pronounced this morning. With a sinking feeling, Lauren realized the overblown blonde had probably observed this same scene a dozen times. Maybe two dozen. As Marsh had pointed out, the line shack provided a handy refuge for horny ranch hands, seasonal hunters and DEA special agents.
Particularly DEA agents.
She shrugged aside a little pinprick of jealousy. It was too soon for jealousy and too late for regrets. More to the point, the hours she’d just spent in Marsh’s arms most definitely fell into the unregrettable category. But that didn’t lessen her morning-after mix of shyness, satisfaction and confusion. Drawing in a deep breath, she rolled over to find him raised up on one elbow, watching her.
His blue eyes were sleepy behind those ridiculously thick black lashes. Dark stubble shadowed his cheeks and chin. His skin stretched tan and smooth over bulging muscles and…
Lauren gasped, her gaze caught by the fist-sized scar almost covered by a swirl of dark chest hair. With one finger, she traced the circle of puckered skin.
“How did you get this?”
“A bullet went in and didn’t want to come out.”
She couldn’t imagine any more sobering reminder of their teasing give-and-take about cops last night. No wonder he’d issued that warning.
With a gulp, she remembered that he hadn’t brought her up here to play games—as fun as they were. He was here on business. A deadly business that could eventually lead to a man who’d already tried to kill at least once. The thought put a lump in her throat.
Swallowing, she leaned over and kissed the scarred tissue. Muscle and skin jumped under her lips. Marsh’s hand burrowed into her hair. With a tug that was more surprising than painful, he pulled her head back.
“Lauren…”
“What?”
When he didn’t answer, she put her own spin on his silence. Oh, God! Maybe the bullet was still in there. Maybe those groans she’d dragged out of him last night sprang from pain, not pleasure. An agony of remorse swept through her.
“Does it still hurt? You should have told me! We could have…” She flopped a hand helplessly. “…taken things a little easier.”
Marsh stared down at her stricken face, and could swear he heard another crack in the hard shell he’d constructed around himself. His reaction to that featherlight kiss had been pure instinct, a gut-deep need to spare her the ugliness of the wound that had driven away the woman he’d once loved.
Except Lauren didn’t seem to mind the ugliness.
And,
he acknowledged in wry response to her question, it didn’t hurt anymore. It hadn’t hurt in a long time. In fact, he was damned if he could even remember his fiancée’s face with Lauren’s filling his vision.
“No, it doesn’t hurt,” he told her on a low laugh. “And no, we couldn’t have taken things easier. Any easier and I would have died before you…”
A distant sound cut off his teasing reply. Marsh’s head whipped up. The fist still buried in Lauren’s hair tightened. He didn’t realize how much until his glance cut swiftly back to her.
She hadn’t made a sound. Not a whimper. But her jaw was clenched against the pull on her scalp.
“Damn!” He loosened his grip, his own jaw tight. “I’m sorry.”
She brushed aside his apology. “What did you hear?”
“A car. Or truck. I’m not sure. We’d better get dressed.”
Marsh snatched up the weapon he’d placed within easy reach beside the bunk and raced for the other room to retrieve his clothes. Lauren dug frantically in her bag for something to cover her nakedness. Marsh was dressed and checking his weapon when she rushed out of the bunk room, wearing a skimpy T-shirt and not much else. Snatching up her baggy sweatshirt, she dragged it on.
The Glock slid into its leather nest and settled with a familiar weight at the small of his back. “Stay here until I give you the all clear. Lauren! Do you hear me?”
Her head poked through the sweatshirt. “I’m in this, too, Marsh.”
“I know you are. It’s probably Shad, or one of the other hands from the Bar-H coming up to check on us. Just give me time to scope it out, okay?” He raked a hand through his hair to flatten it and pinned on a hopeful smile. “Some coffee would be nice, too.”
“Okay, okay,” she muttered, grabbing her jeans.
Marsh took the gut-clenching sight of her wiggling into her jeans with him. It hovered in the back of his mind as he crossed the cabin, and disintegrated the moment he stepped outside. The roar he’d picked up inside sounded louder out in the thin mountain air. And closer than he’d realized.
Mistaken Identity Page 11