Dean groaned low in his throat, as if he hadn’t been entirely sure what to expect. Had he thought she merely wanted comforting? A pair of strong shoulders to cry on and a hard body to lean against?
He’d soon know better.
She wanted to grab hold of those strong shoulders, to touch every inch of his hard body. To lightly bite him, and to scratch his powerful back. She wanted her thighs wrapped around his hips, wanted him driving into her with heat and lust until there was no room for thought.
And as she felt him swell and harden to a dizzying size against her hip, she knew she wanted it all twice.
“I want you so much,” she whispered, eliminating all subtlety. “Please don’t make me wait any more.”
Twining her hands behind his neck, she ran the tip of her tongue along his collarbone, needing to taste him. He was salty and warm and masculine; she breathed in his scent and sucked up the delicious heat his body provided.
“Looking at you pulls the breath right out of my lungs,” he admitted, his tone thick and husky with need.
With patience she didn’t know the man could possess, he skimmed his palms over her shoulders, brushing the long, wet strands of hair behind them. It seemed to take forever for his mouth to move toward her temple, then, still with that maddening slowness, down her cheekbone toward her lips.
“Kiss me, Dean.”
He did, giving her not the deep, hungry kiss she’d taken from him in her office, but a lovely, tender one. Softly, gently, he touched his mouth to hers. The water from the shower streamed down their faces, blending on their joined lips and sliding between.
Focused solely on the delicious taste of him, Stacey didn’t have time to prepare herself for the deliberate, steady assault on all the rest of her senses. The pulsing jets of water were not loud enough to drown out the thudding of her heart. The intoxicating scents of warm man and soap and sweat and sex filled the steamy air, drugging her with each inhalation. His hands moved down her sides, tender and deliberate, each stroke both inciting desire and offering incredible pleasure. And when she looked down at him, saw the glory of that masculine body and the powerful erection she would soon take into herself, she quivered with hunger.
“I’ve wanted this since the minute you walked into my office,” she admitted.
“I’ve wanted it since you told your brother to get the hell out of your office.”
Unbelievably, she found a laugh deep inside herself and let it spill softly from her lips.
He cupped her breasts in his hands, gently toying with her sensitive nipples. Gasping, she sagged against him, knowing he wouldn’t let her fall. One strong hand slid down her side to her hip, where he grasped her possessively; then he pushed her back to lean against the wall. Kissing his way down her neck and nuzzling into the hollow of her throat, he murmured tender, sexy promises, the hunger in his voice making her throb with the need for him to follow through on them.
When he covered her nipple with his mouth and sucked deeply, she cried out, tangling her fingers in his thick, wet hair. The water grew cooler, now just tepid against their hot skin, but neither of them suggested getting out.
“Mmm, yes,” she groaned as he moved his other hand down, stroking her belly before tangling his fingers in the curls between her thighs.
Her groan was echoed when he slid his fingers lower and stroked her to insanity. She shook and quaked with the intensity of it as he brought her higher and higher, kissing her again when she cried out her climax.
She hadn’t even had time to come down from it when he deepened his caresses, toying with her and testing her wetness. She was drenched and ready, and while there were a million things she wanted to do with this man, the most important one, right now, was to connect with him completely.
She lifted one leg and wrapped it around his, tilting herself up in both invitation and demand. Dean cupped her face in his hand, staring at her with one final question.
“I’m on the pill,” she told him. “And I want this more than I’ve wanted anything.”
A slow, sexy smile preceded his response. “You won’t regret it.”
Hell, no, she wouldn’t regret it. She already didn’t regret it. She especially didn’t regret it when he lifted her leg higher, making room for himself and moving between her thighs. When that thick, hot shaft began to ease into her, she almost cried out her not-regret.
He went slowly-so slowly-gliding into her an inch at a time, kissing her face, her neck, her mouth. Stacey wanted more. She thrust greedily, demanding more. Until, with a helpless groan, he gave it to her and plunged deep.
Yes.
They didn’t move for a second, just gasping as sensation exploded and pleasure erupted. Helpless to the demands of both their bodies, they began a slow, sultry tango. He filled her; he pleasured her; he offered her tenderness and delight and strength. Dean made her feel, for the first time in ages, that she wasn’t alone, and that there was still goodness and light and beauty to be found if she just opened herself to them.
They loved until the water grew completely cold and they both cried out their ultimate release. But it was only afterward, when he gently lifted her from the shower and carried her to her bed, that she realized the dam had burst. The tears had been released.
And she sobbed quietly in his arms until she fell asleep.
10
Dean hadn’t held a sleeping woman in a long time, and he liked it.
As Stacey’s ragged breathing smoothed and evened, and the tears dried in her eyes, he watched her succumb to exhaustion. Her long lashes rested on her pink cheeks, her lips parted slightly as she breathed over them. Her hair was still wet, spread across the pillow and his chest.
He just kept watching her. Wondering what he’d gotten himself into here, and why he didn’t regret it.
By the end of his marriage, he’d been sleeping in the spare room. Dean had been working crazy hours back then, traveling a lot, getting home late in the night. His wife hadn’t wanted to be awakened, since she had to get up early in the mornings to get Jared off to school. He’d understood. More, though, he’d been relieved.
That should have been a big tip-off about the state of his marriage. He hadn’t given a damn. He’d had no physical interest in the woman he’d married. Between his absorption with his job and focusing every spare thought on his son, he’d been entirely oblivious that she was walking out of their marriage.
He really had been a lousy husband.
With all these realizations that had been hitting him in recent days, he was seeing the whole sorry mess clearly for the first time since he’d been so blindsided by her request for a divorce and her confession about the affair.
He’d been furious. Humiliated. Ashamed.
But not heartbroken.
It had taken him more than a year to realize that truth. She hadn’t broken his heart. Because it hadn’t been hers to break anymore.
Stacey sighed in her sleep, her bottom lip quivering. Drawing the sheet up, he covered her naked body-so feminine and curvy for a woman so tough and capable.
“Maybe too tough,” he murmured, swiping the tip of his finger down her cheek.
In another time and place, the idea of a woman bursting into tears and sobbing her heart out right after they’d both had orgasms that nearly blew the tops of their heads off might have been a little disconcerting. Even worrisome.
But he knew why she’d cried. She had at last been releasing those closed-up boxes of dark emotion that he suspected had been building in her head for a very long time. She’d needed to let them go. That the catalyst for the final emotional meltdown had been a poor pup someone had left on her front porch meant only that she’d been ready to break anyway. He was just glad he had been here when she did.
“Dean?” she murmured, not even opening her eyes.
“Hmm?”
“I’m sorry.”
He tightened his arm around her waist. “I’m not.”
“I mean, sorry that I broke down.�
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“Repeat: I’m not.”
She nestled closer, her face against his neck. “I don’t usually do things like that.”
Unable to help it and wanting to lighten her mood, he replied, “Really? You’re incredibly good at it.”
She chuckled a little against his throat, but didn’t reply. And within moments, her breathing returned to its deep, steady pace as she drifted off again, obviously feeling completely safe right here with him.
Well, wasn’t she? Because he’d do anything to make sure she didn’t get hurt. Except he somehow had the feeling he’d already hurt her, at least a little. By showing up in her town and invading the nice, safe world she’d invented for herself after she’d escaped from the horror she’d seen in her previous job, he suspected he had hurt her badly. She either hadn’t realized it yet, or just didn’t want to acknowledge it.
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” he whispered into her hair.
From the bathroom a few feet away came the ringing of his cell phone. Dean normally would have ignored it, but not now, not while he was on a case-especially this case. Carefully disentangling himself from her, he padded naked across the room and grabbed his jeans off the bathroom floor. Tugging the phone from his pocket and seeing the familiar number, he couldn’t keep a smile from his mouth.
Not the case. Not the job. Something much more important.
“Hey, big guy,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“Hi, Daddy. We gotta talk.”
Smothering a chuckle at Jared’s serious tone, he knew before the words left the boy’s mouth what the problem was.
“They’re back.”
“No way.”
“Yes way. They’re under there. I hear ’em.”
“Impossible, dude. You know your mom wouldn’t stand for any dust bunnies under your bed, so there can’t be any dust-bunny-eating monsters.”
From across the room, he thought he heard a sound. A quick glance, however, revealed that Stacey was still sleeping soundly.
“I think they eat candy wrappers now.”
“Well, that’s a different story, then. Have you been tossing candy wrappers under the bed?” Candy. He almost snorted. His ex and her dentist husband would have a fit.
“Maybe one or two.”
Or maybe his son just wanted to say good night once more. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d shared a second good night phone call since he’d given Jared the cell phone. His ex hadn’t liked it, but too bad. Dean wanted Jared to be able to reach him whenever and wherever he wanted.
“You’re gonna get those wrappers out of there in the morning, right?”
“Yep. But until then…”
“Okay.”
Cupping his hand around the mouthpiece of the phone, he began to recite the rhyme he’d made up when Jared was five and had first started hearing monsters under the bed. They banished them with invisible laser beams. Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader-who’d somehow become a hero between Dean’s generation and his son’s-helped. So did Jared’s favorite stuffed bear, which he still slept with but hid from his buddies by day.
“Jared’s not coming down there; you can wait all night. So just get going or we’ll have another fight,” he concluded, hearing his son sigh in sleepy happiness at the end. The boy barely even murmured good-bye, already half-asleep.
Dean was smiling as he stuck the phone back into his pocket and carried his jeans into the bedroom. At least until he saw that Stacey was now awake, climbing out of the bed, not meeting his eye. And definitely not smiling.
“Where are you going?”
“Are you hungry? I’m hungry. I forgot about that steak. Let’s go eat.”
“Better idea. Let’s go back to bed.”
She did that weird take-the-sheet-off-the-bed-and-wrap-it-around-yourself thing that he had only ever seen in movies. As if he hadn’t explored just about every inch of her body in the shower less than an hour ago.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why. “Stacey, look, if anybody was due for a meltdown, it was you. Don’t wig out because you happened to let some of the pent-up emotion in your head come out through your eyes.”
She stared at him, snagging that full bottom lip between her teeth. Sniffing, she murmured, “Thank you for that. I guess I needed to let it go.”
Exactly. But that damned sheet stayed in place. And she actually headed toward her dresser and began pulling out clothes. Sensible, nonseductive Stacey clothes, including a simple white bra and boy briefs that he knew would look sexy as hell on her.
He didn’t, however, want anything on the woman. Except himself.
“What’s going on?”
She pulled on the underclothes, dropping the sheet. Yeah. Supersexy.
Grabbing a brush, she yanked it mercilessly through her long hair. He knew she was putting up barriers, but damned if he was going to watch the woman rip those long strands out by the roots. Stepping into the bathroom again, he grabbed his briefs, tugged them on over his naked body, and walked up behind her. Dean took the brush out of her hands and began working it through the tangled, damp mass of hair, which had begun to curl softly against her skin as it dried. Such beautiful hair, kept so tightly restrained. Like the rest of her.
“You don’t have to do that.”
He met her stare in the mirror over her dresser, unsmiling. “I know. It’s not a problem.”
They remained silent while he worked out the knots, sliding his fingers through the strands as each one was freed. With each stroke of the brush and his fingers, he silently gave her time to figure out what she wanted to say to him. Because he knew her well enough to keep his own mouth shut, not asking her what was wrong. Something was; that was clear. She’d let him know when she’d figured out how to tell him.
Finally, when he’d finished and placed the brush on the dresser, he put his hands on her shoulders and stared at her in the mirror. “Okay?”
Her eyes were moist and red from her crying jag. But they also swam with fresh emotional uncertainty.
“You’re wonderful,” she whispered.
He rolled his eyes.
“It’s true. You’re all hard-ass and tough, but you’re also utterly wonderful.”
“You’re nuts. I told you before, I’m no nice guy.” He had an ex and a bunch of other people, like those he’d busted and some he’d worked with, who’d confirm it.
She turned around in his arms, her body pressed against his as she looked up into his eyes. “Yes, you are. That’s what’s killing me here.”
“I so don’t get you.”
“I heard you on the phone with your little boy.”
He shrugged. “He’s afraid of monsters under the bed.”
“You love him. You’re a wonderful father. You gave me exactly what I needed just now. And I can’t have that.”
Her seriousness told him they’d finally reached the point. “Care to explain?”
“This is a fling, damn it. Just sex, just while you’re in town, just because I’m lonely and you’re newly single.”
Ahh.
“No strings, no emotions. No wonderfulness. No hearing you on the phone with the kid you adore, when I don’t even want kids.”
Taking the same tack she’d used earlier in the car, he forced a dry laugh. “Hey, I came over to have a beer, not knock you up.”
She saw right through him. Putting one hand on his chest, she pushed him back and ducked away. “I could fall for you.”
“Don’t,” he warned her, knowing that she was right. This was just a fling. A get-back-in-the-saddle interlude for them both to gain a little release. The fact that she was someone he already cared about was something he’d fully intended to ignore when he’d shown up tonight.
And the idea that she could care about him? Inconceivable. He didn’t have to hear her say it to know that her coming back here to Hope Valley had been all about getting away from men like him, in jobs like his. And he had alread
y proved once that he totally sucked at the whole relationship thing.
“Stacey, I get the picture,” he insisted. “I agree. It’s sex, great sex, no strings. That doesn’t mean we can’t like each other. In fact, liking you makes it better, in my book. Less…”
“Impersonal?”
He nodded, liking how quickly she got him. “God knows the situation couldn’t be much worse, but the timing, at least, is right. We both need exactly what we’re getting. No more, no less. Not a one-night stand with a stranger, and not a lifelong relationship. Something in between that works for both of us.”
She eyed him warily. “Really?”
“Really. You’re not falling for me; you are attracted to me and you like me. And there’s not a damn thing wrong with that. We’re friendly lovers.”
“Not loving lovers.”
Yeah. Right. Exactly. At least for now.
If his expression changed with that crazy thought, she didn’t appear to notice. Instead, she seemed almost relieved, mumbling, “Okay.” She glanced at the bed, then down at his body. “Still want that steak?”
He reached for her, sliding a hand around her waist and tugging her against him. “The steak can wait.” Then he covered her mouth and kissed her deeply, with slow deliberation. He’d had her up against a shower wall before. Now he wanted her in bed. For hours.
Before he could take her back there, though, his damn cell phone rang again. “I’m sorry; I can’t turn it off.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.”
Not allowing himself to get frustrated, since he knew Jared’s calls were more about staying connected to his dad rather than any real fear of monsters, he got his phone. But the caller ID said it wasn’t Jared.
“Hey, Wyatt,” he answered. He immediately pulled his head back in the game, shaking off his sensual lethargy. And willing down his hard-on.
He listened to what his boss had to say, the information doing a lot to remove from his brain any thoughts of sultry sex with a sultry sheriff. In fact, by the time Wyatt was finished, Dean’s mind was filled with nothing but red rage.
Because it appeared they were too late.
“What is it?” Stacey asked after he’d disconnected the call.
Fade To Black Page 19
