She immediately struggled to sit up.
"Merry, lie back. You need to sleep."
"You need to see all of me," she insisted drunkenly. "So you can know for sure."
"That's a bad idea. Jesus, Merry." She was trying to pull her arm through her sleeve, but her bent elbow got everything mucked up. Still, he saw enough creamy brown skin to make him want to cry. "Please leave your clothes on. I beg you."
"See? I knew it!" She jabbed an index finger at his chest. "You don't like me. You don't want me naked."
"I do, I swear I do. But you're under the influence and, my God, Merry, please stop this, I'm only a man, I have only so much willpower—"
"Will! Power!" She burst into giggles. "You are Will. And you have all the power you want. You got the power, you got the power…" Now she was waving her arms over her head, couch-dancing. Jesus, this was a nightmare. Maybe he should just get the hell away from her before they did something they really regretted.
He was easing away from her, sitting back on his haunches, when she swung toward him and flung her arms around him. She yanked him toward her and planted a kiss right on his mouth.
The shock of her soft lips against his reverberated through his system. With all the fast-talking, quipping and interrogating Merry did, he'd never imagined her lips would be like this. Like caressing velvet, or drinking perfectly aged Scotch. Rich like a vein of gold, deep like an underground lake. Despite his better judgement, he responded, using his lips and tongue to savor the sleek texture of her mouth. Her flavor made his head swim.
He took hold of her shoulders, her soft flesh giving way under his hands. Everything about her was so much more tender and feminine than he would have expected. Merry wasn't just a wisecracking, pain-in-the-ass reporter. She was a warm, passionate, lusty woman.
And she was all shot up with tranquilizers.
With both hands on her shoulders, he thrust her away from him. This time he laid her down on the couch and wrapped the blanket around her entire body, arms and all, like a mummy. "Go to sleep," he told her sternly, as if he were talking to Aiden. "I mean it, Merry. Sleep. Now."
She blinked at him, her eyelids already starting to drift shut. Maybe his kiss had put her to sleep. Or maybe she'd used up the adrenaline that had jolted her awake. She snuggled into the covers and within a few minutes was drooling into his grandmother's throw pillow.
The next morning when he came stumbling out of his bedroom looking for Merry, she was gone. She'd left a note. "Called a taxi. Thanks for the rescue. Now we're even. (Remember last month's puff piece about the sheriff's budget request? You're welcome.) P.S. I don't remember a thing."
Okay then. He'd crumpled up the note and tossed it in the trash. And worked damn hard to erase the whole thing from his memory.
* * *
Now Merry was bringing it up of her own accord. She held a long match and was in the midst of lighting the hurricane lamps set out on the picnic table. As she lit each lantern, a flame flared within its glass globe, then subsided to a firefly flicker.
"I thought you didn't remember that night."
"It's foggy, and I'm not sure I remember it all. But I think I got the basics down. I told you what a hottie you were and tried to kiss you. You were embarrassingly patient and made me go back to sleep."
He frowned at her. "That's not exactly how I remember it."
"Oh no? What am I leaving out? Did I try to take all my clothes off?"
He lifted an eyebrow at her. "Just your top. Don't worry, you were too woozy to get it all the way off."
She shook the match until the flame was out, then tossed it aside. "Oh goodie. That's a relief. Okay then, what am I remembering wrong? If it's too excruciatingly mortifying, you can give me the CliffsNotes."
"It's not mortifying. You can stop beating yourself up. You were hit with a freaking tranq gun. Nothing you said or did meant anything. I put it all out of my mind as soon as I saw your note."
"Yeah, but now it's different. Now we're here, on this…well, I supposed you would call it a date. And that night happened, so we might as well get it all out in the open. What am I leaving out?" She settled back down on the bench next to him. The flames glowed steadily in their glass bubbles.
"You didn't leave anything out. You said you tried to kiss me."
Her expression brightened. "So I didn't try to kiss you?"
"You succeeded. You did kiss me."
Looking aghast, she turned to him. "I kissed you?"
"You don't remember? Great. Talk about a blow to the old self-esteem."
She put a hand on his arm, laughing with dismay. "You said yourself I was impaired. I just remember bits and pieces. I remember how sexy your mouth looked and how I wanted to kiss you. The next thing I remember after that was snuggling into the pillow while you wrapped me up like a burrito."
Maybe it was ridiculous, but his pride objected to that whole scenario. How could she forget that kiss? "I was holding back," he pointed out. "You weren't yourself. I didn't want to take advantage."
"Come on now, you don't have to make excuses." She patted his shoulder in mock sympathy. "It's nothing against you. Not all kisses are everything they're cracked up to be."
He glared at her. "Mine. Are."
"Whatever you say, Deputy. I really think you're overreacting." The demure glance she gave him from under her eyelashes made him growl. "How about we just agree that the kiss was amazing and unforgettable and move on to some other topic. There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about, as a matter of fact. It's not a case, really, just something I want to give you a heads up about."
Her voice receded into a distant buzzing. She kept talking, but all he could think about was the movements of her mouth, the way her full lips wrapped themselves around her words, the upward tilt of the left corner of her mouth, a quirk that made it look as if she was always on the verge of laughter. Her skin glowed like burnished bronze in the light of the lanterns. She was so beautiful and brilliant, she took his breath away.
Forget his kiss? Hell. No.
He cupped his hand around her chin, stopping her in mid-sentence. Her eyes went wide, the pupils dilating. "I'm correcting the record right now."
"You are?"
"I'm going to kiss you and you're not going to forget about it." He paused for just enough time to give her a chance to pull back if she wanted.
She didn't. In fact, her lips parted and a curious spark lit up her eyes.
That was his Merry. She could never turn down a chance to learn something new. Or something she'd forgotten, in this case.
He tilted her face up and softly skimmed his lips against hers, just the merest brush. "One thing to remember," he murmured in low tones against her lips, "is that you initiated the last kiss. I'm sure it wasn't your best either, since you were zonked out. So it didn't begin the way I would have preferred."
She shivered, goose bumps lifting on her skin. Already he was liking this kiss even more than the first one.
"Normally I like to take my time. You know me. Deputy Slow-mo." He demonstrated by slowly sliding his tongue just under the curve of her upper lip. Her lips were ever so slightly chapped, the rough bits tickling his tongue. "When you do something slowly, you have time to make sure it's right. You can be thorough. That's how I like to kiss. Thoroughly. Completely. I don't leave anything on the field when it comes to kissing." As he talked, he explored the full swell of her mouth with his teeth, his tongue, pulling out just enough to form words.
Her breath came faster, her pulse jumping a mile a minute in her throat. "Do you," she cleared her throat, "do you always talk this much when you kiss?"
"Nope. This is for you, my favorite wordsmith. I figure the way to your heart is through words along with kisses. Am I wrong?" He tugged at her lower lip, using his teeth to add a little edge to the move.
"You're not wrong." Her voice was getting shaky. Triumph filled him. She was not going to forget this kiss. He was going to kiss the living daylights
out of her if it was the last thing he did.
So he plunged his hands into that soft profusion of hair, tilted her head back, and kissed her so deep and long and wild that he lost track of time. His entire focus, one hundred percent, was devoted to her. He forgot they were alone in a gazebo lit by hurricane lamps, that not far above them, an infrared telescope was aimed at the stars, that an ocean stretched all the way to Japan from the cliffs below. He forgot the day, the time, his name, everything that wasn't Merry and the taste of her lips and the warmth of her mouth and the soft sounds she was making and the feel of her hands gripping his back, the magic springing to life between the two of them and wrapping them up in a shower of sparks under the stars.
She broke off the kiss with a ragged gasp. "Will. My God."
Instantly he released her. Had he gotten too carried away? His head was swimming from the intoxication of her kiss, the candlelight, the night breeze. "Sorry." God, his voice sounded like a rusted-out hinge.
"No, no. I don't mean it that way. I just mean, Jesus. That was some kiss." She touched her tongue to her lips. Her eyes gleamed with liquid light.
Satisfaction spread through him like his favorite smoked ale. At least she wasn't so dismissive of that kiss. And he could do even better. If he could just get her alone and naked somewhere, get past those thorny defenses, get her relaxed and loose and deadline-free…
"Okay, we need to set down some boundaries," Merry declared, fluffing her hair where his hands had disturbed it.
His little fantasy shattered, just like that. "What do you mean?"
"No more kissing. And definitely not like that."
He drew back and scowled at her. "What are you talking about? You liked that kiss."
"You put your finger on the problem."
"Problem?" Now his head was swimming even more. Confusion gave way to irritation. Merry really knew how to keep him off-balance. "You wanted me to kiss you."
"I did. I know." She scooted away from him, putting a couple inches between them. "And it was…great. You're right. You really know how to kiss. I must have been out of my mind on tranquilizers to forget the first one."
Hurt pride officially soothed. "So what's wrong?"
"Think about it, Will. We work together all the time. And now it turns out there's this other connection. I'm still getting used to the idea that you're StarLord. I feel like on a virtual level, on Flirt, we're really great friends. And then on a professional level, there's another whole dynamic. I pester you with questions, you stonewall me. It's a truly magical relationship."
Her dry tone made him laugh. "I don't stonewall. I'm deliberate. I only share what I feel needs to be shared."
"Okay, well, leaving that aside. I respect you as a deputy, despite my complaints. And I hope that's a mutual thing."
"Yes. You do good work. I've always respected you, that's why I'm extra careful around you."
She shot him a surprised look. "I'm going to take that as a huge compliment."
"Sure. But I'm still stuck on the part where you don't want to kiss me anymore."
She held up a finger to correct him. "Where I don't think we should kiss anymore. It's not about wanting to or not wanting to. If we had no other connection outside of Flirt, that would be a different story. I just think we should step carefully."
He rested his elbows on his knees and looked at the planked floor of the gazebo. Maybe Merry had a point. He was used to low-maintenance, easygoing women like Roxy who offered a good time in bed but didn't want much of a relationship outside of bed. That wasn't Merry at all. Merry was the kind of woman who would consume his time and attention because she fascinated him. It would be all in, no holds barred, lose your heart or go home.
"I hear you," he finally told her.
Was that a flash of disappointment in her eyes? Too bad. He might be a bossy deputy, but he never pushed a woman where she didn't want to go. If Merry wanted to put the brakes on, he'd go along with it.
For now.
Until she saw the benefits of more kissing. And more than kissing.
"So what now? What about StarLord and AnonyMs?"
She twisted her mouth in thought. "It seems kind of silly to use code names now. It's just so strange, like annoying Deputy Knight is gone and soulful StarLord is gone, and instead there's this new person. You. And you're some kind of combination of the two."
"So you're saying I'm kind of a stranger."
"I guess so."
"Maybe that means we should start over from the beginning."
"What do you mean?"
He didn't know exactly what he meant. But he did know that he wasn't letting this go. Not yet. He was too damn attracted to her. He knew AnonyMs so well, knew how her mind worked, and despite Merry's take on it, to him, they were the same person. He planned to use all his knowledge to lure her where he wanted her—into his bed.
But he kept that intention to himself.
"Jupiter Point is a small town. We have friends in common. We'll probably run into each other. We can just see how it goes." He spoke as casually as he could, but inside he didn't feel casual at all. Determined would be a better word.
She nodded thoughtfully and stuck out her hand. "Friends, then?"
He reached his right hand across his body to shake hers. "Close enough."
As their palms met, he gritted his teeth to keep from pulling her into another kiss, another embrace. The pull between them was so strong, it felt tangible.
She felt it too, he would swear it on his life. Their eyes met and magic pulsed between them.
Far too soon, she pulled her hand away. "We need to pack this stuff up. Suzanne left a garbage bag here somewhere."
Fighting disappointment, he helped her clean up the remains of the picnic. They blew out the lanterns and left them in a crate under the table. He claimed the garbage bag—"that's my job, remember?"
That made her giggle, but as they walked across the lawn toward the parking area, she sobered.
"If we're really going to be friends, there's something else I should tell you."
"Shoot." A warning bell clanged in his brain. What could be more of a shocker than finding out that AnonyMs was Merry Warren?
"You know that intern, Chase, who came out to the airstrip with me?"
"The one who took all those pictures?"
"Yup. He's—" she hesitated, and he wondered for a stark moment if she was going to say that she was dating him. "He's my half-brother."
13
Poor Will. Honestly, there wasn't enough champagne in the world for all the bombshells Merry kept dropping on him.
He blinked at her. "Your what?"
"We have the same father. I'd never met him before, but recently he showed up out of the blue. He got the internship at the paper and he's been hanging around ever since. He says he wants to get to know me."
He nodded a few times. "And how's that going?" he asked dryly.
"Not well. He seems nice enough, harmless. But maybe I'm just naturally suspicious. Why did he all of a sudden want to track me down? And why stick around even though I'm not really into it?"
He laughed. "If you ever want to go into law enforcement, you're off to a great start."
"Do I sound paranoid?" She scuffed the toe of her boot against the pavement as they reached the parking lot. "I saw him looking through pictures from Knight and Day Flight Tours. He mentioned those rumors about the missing money."
"If he wants a life of crime, he'd better learn not to blurt things out."
"Okay, I get it. I'm paranoid. But I don't trust that entire family, not after how they treated my mother." At his questioning glance, she explained. "They gave her money to go away." She bit her lip, the old hurt sneaking in the way it did sometimes. "Anyway, I just wanted to warn you."
When she looked up at him, she caught an odd expression on his face. As if he was—touched. "You don't have to worry," he said almost tenderly. "But it's kind of cute that you did."
"Cute?"
&nb
sp; He turned her with one strong arm so she faced him. "Yeah, cute. I appreciate the thought. But the Knight brothers can take care of ourselves. I'm more worried about you and this half-brother of yours. He seemed like a dopey kid to me, but I can check into him if you want."
"No, that would feel really strange, checking out my own brother."
"You wouldn't be, I would. And he's not my brother. As far as I'm concerned, he's a stranger in town, and we don't cotton to strangers around here." He shifted into a backwoods accent.
She giggled. "You're pretty cute, aren't you?"
"I prefer 'devastatingly handsome,' if you don't mind."
She laughed again, flashing on that kiss. It still reverberated through her like the sound of a bell. Or maybe like a wake-up bell. Rise and shine, it called to her. Something big is happening, something beyond exciting, something you've never felt before.
Honestly, it scared her, which was why she'd instantly decided they shouldn't try that again. Messing around with Will would be like playing with dynamite. With his strength and authority, he made her previous boyfriends look like little boys. That kiss…there was so much behind it. So much intensity and emotion and depth.
They'd reached his Tacoma. She paused but he nudged her past it. "You don't have to walk me to my car," she protested.
He gave her a look that said "no arguments." God, he really was in rock-wall mode now. Of course he had to walk her to her car. Protectiveness was woven into the fabric of his being.
Which was another reason not to go to bed with Will. She didn't need a full-time guardian, or even a part-time one.
When they reached her car, she leaned her rear against the driver's side door. He stayed back a step, which she found oddly disappointing. One little kiss goodbye wouldn't hurt, would it?
But his mind wasn't on kissing. It was still on Chase. "Do me a favor, would you? If anything happens with Chase, if anything bugs you, or he says something that sets off any alarm bells, please call me. Anytime, day or night."
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