“Yeah. I like your family so far.”
She snorted. “Well, the fact that you’re still alive probably means they like you, too. Either that or they’ve decided you’re an experiment.”
“How so?”
“They’re probably taking bets to see how long it’ll take me to screw this up.”
He raised his brows at her. “You do that often?”
She punched him in the arm. “I get enough cheek from that bunch over there,” she said, nodding in the direction of her brothers. “If you’re staying, you’re my ally, okay?”
He shrugged. “Sure. Does that mean I get to kiss you again?”
In an instant the atmosphere between them thickened and changed into something far more intense. The sounds of the kids playing in the yard, of Jed grilling the meat and Sarah calling her boys to help bring salads out from the house all faded into the background. All Cord could focus on was Zoe’s mouth. On the way her lips glistened with a sheen of moisture on the remnants of the lipstick she must have applied a while ago but that had mostly worn away. He wanted to remove the rest of it—with a scrape of his teeth, a rasp of his tongue, with the pressure of his lips.
Heat poured through his body and arousal followed swiftly after. He continued to stare at Zoe, and she remained silent in response. Her eyes had widened slightly, her pupils almost consuming the blue irises that told so much and yet hid so much at the same time. Cord realized that while he knew exactly how to bring her to a screaming climax, he knew very little about Zoe Warren, the woman. And he wanted to. Oh, how he wanted to. What had started as a distraction had wormed its way deep into his psyche and gone way beyond the physical attraction that sparked like fallen power lines between them.
This was so much more, and it was equally as dangerous at the same time.
Twelve
Zoe’s breath caught in her chest. One minute they’d been bantering, she on the point of asking him to leave, until he’d gone and offered to do so—and she’d realized that she didn’t want him to go after all. In fact, he was the reason she looked so darn tired today. It had nothing to do with the early start back at the station and everything to do with cursing herself for making him leave last night.
The truth was he frightened her. He was intense about everything he did—from seeing to his ranch to stroking her body to flaming life. She couldn’t handle it. Didn’t want to. And did, all at the same time. Cord Galicia had turned her on her head and she didn’t like it one bit. Worse, he was distracting her from her work even when he wasn’t deliberately trying to hold her back from doing her job. He’d inveigled his way into every crevice in her mind, meaning thoughts of him—reminders of his scent, the way he moved, the way he tasted—would unexpectedly send ripples of desire through her body at the most inopportune moments.
Last night, after she’d closed the door on him and sent him away—for good, she’d believed—she ended up going to her room and collapsing onto her bed, clutching her pillow to her body like some lovelorn teenager. She wasn’t that person, and yet, somehow, he’d made her like that. Made her want him. Worse, he’d made her need him. She’d been unable to sleep in anything more than short snatches, and she’d been short-tempered with her team when she’d gone into the station this morning and they’d ribbed her about her vacation in the country.
There’d been no further progress on her case. She’d reviewed the sound and video files and polygraph results sent through from Sheriff Battle’s office, looking for a loophole she might have missed, but they merely confirmed Jesse Stevens was totally clean. She’d even had his alibi checked out, although his receipts had been conclusive in themselves.
And then there was Cord.
She realized that her family was beginning to give them strange looks, as if they’d both missed something going on around them. And they had. While she and Cord had been locked in their bubble, the world had continued around them.
“Aunty Zoe, are you in love?”
The piercingly innocent curiosity of one of her nieces shook her from the spell she’d fallen under.
“What makes you say that, Theresa?” she asked, bending down to the four-year-old’s level.
“’Cause you’re looking at that man like mommy looks at daddy when she says she wants to eat him all up.” Theresa took a deep breath. “And mommy loves daddy.”
“Out of the mouths of babes,” Cord murmured from behind her.
“Don’t encourage her,” Zoe said over her shoulder before smiling at her little niece. She rose, taking the little girl’s hand. “No, honey. I’m not in love. But I am hungry for dinner. Are you?”
The rest of the evening passed relatively uneventfully. To her relief, Cord gave her some distance and didn’t stick to her side. Even so, she was constantly physically aware of his every move. Even the way he tipped his beer to his lips sent a pull of longing through her. By the time her brothers and their wives started to gather up their kids and head home, it was getting late and exhaustion dragged at her.
Cord had been busy in the kitchen, helping clean up, when she decided it was time for her to go. Her mom, bless her heart, shooed Cord from the kitchen, telling him she and Jed could manage just fine from here. As a result, Zoe and Cord walked out together, and instead of her parents standing on the front porch and waving at her until she was out of sight, she had to fight back a tug of humor at her lips when her mom grabbed her dad by his arm and dragged him back inside immediately and shut the front door with a bang.
“Nice touch with the flowers for my mom, Galicia,” Zoe said as she walked to her car with Cord shadowing at her side.
“I like to pay my respects. You have a nice family.”
“Yeah, as much as I like to complain about them, I love them dearly. I couldn’t stand to be too far away. It’s not often we can all get together at the same time. We’re all on different shift rosters, so whenever there’s a free Sunday, Mom puts on an evening like this.”
“Family is important.”
“It’s one of the reasons I’ll never leave Houston,” Zoe said firmly.
She needed to make it clear that she’d meant what she said back in Royal. No matter how powerful this attraction between them, there was no way it could ever work. Her job aside, she’d slowly die inside if she was that far from the network of her parents and siblings.
“I understand,” Cord said quietly, his hands shoved into his jeans pockets as if he had to confine them to stop himself from reaching for her.
A part of her wished he would. Wished he’d take her into his arms and kiss her, right here on the street in full view of anyone. Instead, he tugged his keys out of his pocket.
“Good night, Zoe. It’s been great. But I get the message. I’d hoped we could figure it out—make us work somehow—but now, having seen your family and you with them, I truly do understand what keeps you here. It’s not just your job, because I know you’d be a great cop anywhere, and it’s not the city. It’s them, and you don’t need to make any apology for that. Family is the glue that holds us together.”
“Well, they’re a pain in the butt most of the time, but yeah.”
“They only want you to be happy. To have what they have.”
Unexpected tears sprang to Zoe’s eyes. His words cut her to her soul. She wanted that, too, but she wanted to be so much more than that at the same time. Somehow she’d just never envisaged being able to juggle it all. Her job had defined her for nine years, and, yes, she’d put her work ahead of everything and everyone she’d met along the way. With her dad and brothers being in the force, it had made it easier for her to hone her focus, even though they’d always teased her about settling down one day. But, at the same time, they balanced their work and family life without any serious problems.
But it would be different with Cord if they ever did try to make things work between them. He’d already lost a woman h
e’d loved to her job and in the worst way possible. Zoe had pulled the incident report and skimmed it when she’d gotten into work today. The facts had been chilling. No wonder Cord was so put off by guns and the people who carried them in their line of work.
He was walking away now, and she felt as if she was being torn in two. One half of her urging her to let him go, the other begging her to make him stay, even if only for one more night. The flip side won.
“Cord!”
She was moving toward him before she even realized it. The moment he turned, she reached for him, tugging his face down to hers. She kissed him—hard and fierce and with every ounce of longing that pulsed through her body.
“Come back to my place, please?”
He stared at her a full twenty seconds before replying. She could see the battle that raged behind his beautiful sherry-brown eyes. He closed them a moment, his long lashes sweeping down. They should look ridiculous on a man like him, a man who was so lean and fierce and strong, but instead they only made him look that much more appealing.
“Yes.”
It was one simple word, just three letters, and yet it had the power to make her feel as if she’d won the lottery ten times over.
“Follow me,” she said and all but ran back to her car.
He tailed her the few short miles back to her apartment building, pulling into the visitor parking he’d used the day before while she put her car in the parking garage. She ran up the ramp to where he was waiting at the front of the building, and she grabbed his hand and tugged him through the front door. She barely acknowledged security when they greeted her; she had only one thought burning through her mind. If this was to be their last time together, it had to be perfect, because it would have to last her forever.
The ride in the elevator was interminable, but finally they spilled out of the car and down the hallway to her apartment. She just managed to wrestle her door open and tumble inside her apartment with Cord right behind her. She grabbed him by his shoulders and pushed him up against the wall the second the door was closed and secured behind them. She tugged at his jacket, then his shirt, exposing the warm, tanned skin of his chest to her gaze, her fingers, her mouth.
He groaned and tangled his fingers in her hair as she kissed him and dragged her lips down his throat, nipping at the cords of his neck, then soothing them with her tongue. Her hands were busy at his belt, unbuckling it and then unbuttoning his fly with a dexterity that amazed her under the conditions. She shoved his jeans down his lean hips and her hand cupped his engorged shaft through his boxer briefs.
Cord didn’t waste any time. He tugged at the buttons of her blouse and opened her jeans with equal alacrity, and she toed off her ankle boots and stepped out of her jeans, standing now on legs that trembled. His heated palm cupped her between her legs, and she just about went ballistic on the sensation of heat, silk and moisture against her most sensitive skin.
And then he was lifting her up against him. She hooked her legs around him and held on tight.
“Bedroom?”
“First door on the right past the sitting room,” she directed.
He walked them both to the bedroom and dropped her unceremoniously onto the bed, but the second he joined her on the mattress she straddled him again, smoothing her hands in hurried caresses over his shoulders, his chest, his belly.
“You feel so good,” she murmured and bent down to kiss him, her tongue teasing his, her teeth nipping gently at his lower lip, tugging it before swiping it with her tongue and kissing him hard.
Her entire body hummed for this man, and she couldn’t wait to feel him inside her, stroking her to another amazing crescendo of feeling and sensation, but she could prolong the agony of waiting just a little longer if she could feast her eyes on him and touch him in all the places she longed to. Zoe traced the lean lines of muscle that defined his stomach, letting her fingers edge ever closer to the waistband of his briefs. She skimmed the elastic, then started from the top of his shoulders all over again.
“Detective, is there anything in particular you’re looking for? Because you seem to be examining my body of evidence rather thoroughly.”
She chuckled and nipped him in the hollow just inside his hip bone. He laughed in response.
“Don’t rush me,” she growled and pinched the side of his leg in punishment.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied.
Cord bunched his fists in her bedcovers and lifted his hips slightly as she slid her fingers beneath his waistband and began tugging his briefs off. His erection sprang proudly free of its confines, and Zoe smiled as she anticipated what she would do next.
“Seriously, Detective? You’re just going to look at it?”
Stifling another chuckle, she looked up at his face and gave him a stern stare. “Like I said, Galicia, don’t rush me.”
“Or what?”
“Or you might live to regret it.”
“Are you going to torture me? I could get used to that.”
She ignored the pang his words engendered. Get used to it? Get used to her? That wouldn’t happen. She’d made it clear outside her parents’ place. And then she’d muddied the waters by inviting him back here.
“Zoe?”
She looked into his eyes, saw the concern there.
“Just dreaming up a suitable punishment,” she answered lightly.
She turned her attention to Cord’s very enticing body and in particular to one very demanding shaft of flesh. She closed her fingers around the hot, hard rod and stroked him from base to tip before taking him into her mouth. He groaned again, and she teased him with her tongue and her lips until she knew he was almost at the point of no return. She released him from the warm, wet confines of her mouth and blew softly against his skin.
“Detective, I think you need to take me into custody soon or I might not be responsible for my actions.”
“Duly noted,” she said with a smile as she stretched over him and reached for the bedside cabinet drawer.
She grabbed a handful of condoms and dropped them onto the bed beside them before selecting one and smoothing it onto his straining flesh. Then, without wasting another moment, she straddled him again and guided him into her body, slowly and deliberately taking him inside her inch by slow inch. The expression on his face was one of pure concentration and control, as if he could slip at any moment. She loved the idea that she did this to him and that he let her.
Zoe rocked her hips, taking him that little deeper, clenching against his hardness, then releasing him, setting up a rhythm that increased in tempo until she could control herself no longer. And then she was lost on that wave of pure bliss, her internal muscles spasming and pulling Cord right along with her on that journey to the stars and back again. She collapsed over him, her body slick with perspiration and every nerve shuddering with the power of her climax. Inside her, she could feel him swell and twitch as the last of his orgasm pulsed into satiation and, finally, calm.
Cord’s arms wrapped around her and he rolled them onto their sides, and together they slid into sleep, only to wake two hours later and take each other all over again. This time it was Cord who led the way, tormenting her to a point where she felt as though she might shatter into a thousand pieces, before taking her to even greater heights of pleasure.
When Zoe woke in the morning, it was to an empty bed and an empty apartment—and an even emptier heart. She sank onto the sofa in her living room, wrapped in one of her bedsheets, and bent her head and cried for all that they’d shared together and all that they would never have again. She knew now that it went beyond sex. Way beyond it. Somewhere along the line he’d stolen her heart. But it was a love that could never work, she reminded herself. She wouldn’t compromise on that which was most important to her. Her family. Her work. And he knew that. Accepted it. Because he’d left without a goodbye, and now it was up to he
r to deal with that.
* * *
Eighteen-year-old Maya Currin synced her playlist to her car and settled in for the drive. The baby of Ryder Currin’s kids, she knew if she’d told her family she was coming home, someone would have flown to drive her down or at least accompany her on the long journey from Boston back to Texas. But she didn’t want company because she had plenty of thinking to do along the way. Not the least of which was clearing her head of that waste of space she’d called her boyfriend.
How could she have been so stupid to have thought Dirk had truly loved her? All he’d loved was her last name and the kudos that came with being one of the children of the famed oil baron and businessman, Ryder Currin. But she wasn’t a real Currin, was she? No, she’d been adopted, and apparently discovering that had been enough for her boyfriend to stop pretending to love her anymore.
She shook her head as she put her car on cruise control after entering the I-81. How could she have been so stupid, so gullible? It was the latter that irked her the most. Her dad had always told her that people would like her for their position, for their money. She hadn’t believed him and, believing she was a good judge of character, had delighted in proving him wrong. When she met Dirk, she truly believed every word that fell from his lying lips. Well, more fool her. Her love affair with him, however intense and brief, had momentarily distracted her from her quest to find out the truth about her birth. She’d always known her father knew far more than he’d ever let on, and she’d stopped worrying about it when she’d fallen in love.
But no more. Now she was going to get to the bottom of it. To find out what her birth story really was. She deserved to know. She was an adult, after all. Her father had promised he’d tell her the truth once she was eighteen and he owed her that truth now.
Being rejected for not being a real Currin was one thing. She could get over that and the idiot who’d even had the nerve to say such a stupid thing. But suffering the perpetual sense of disconnection from her father and her older siblings, Xander and Annabel—that was something else. Yes, she’d known and accepted that Ryder Currin had chosen to raise her with Annabel’s mom, Elinah. Elinah, Ryder’s second wife, had, until her death when Maya was only five, been the only mother figure Maya had known. As a kid, she’d never questioned why they’d adopted her and brought her up as their own. Her adoption had been private and closed—which had sent up some flags when she’d tried to investigate exactly who her birth parents were. She had a right to know. A right to her history.
Tangled With A Texan (Texas Cattleman’s Club: Houston Book 8) Page 13