One Kiss More

by Mandy Baxter

  “Landon.”

  Emma’s brow furrowed. “What?”

  He leaned in closer and Emma inhaled deeply taking his scent into her lungs. “My name. Is Landon. Not McCabe. Not Deputy. Landon. Say it.”

  Emma tried to swallow and found that her mouth had gone completely dry. The sensual undercurrent of his voice dizzied and addled her, made her excited and deliciously drunk all at the same time. “I . . .” She was at a loss for words. Well, for the one word he wanted her to say anyway. She’d never been tongue-tied. Not once in her entire life. But Landon McCabe could bind her in knots with nothing more than a look and the low, sensual thrum of his voice.

  He leaned in even closer, if it was possible, his mouth hovering over hers. Emma’s breath came in shallow bursts of air as she tilted her chin up toward his face, and her heart pounded in a staccato against her rib cage.

  “Say it.”

  “Landon.” The word rushed out in a breathy whisper that ignited something low in her belly, and Emma found that she couldn’t tear her gaze away from his no matter how she tried. She felt like that eighteen-year-old girl again, dazzled by the stunning, confident U.S. marshal. The man her father made her promise not to harbor any ill will toward despite the fact that he was taking her sole support system away from her.

  He put his mouth next to her ear, and Emma held her arms tight at her sides to keep from reaching out to touch him. “Again.”

  “Landon.”

  This was thin ice to tread and he knew it. Landon’s entire body vibrated from the effort it took to keep his arms braced against the wall and his mouth at Emma’s ear and not on her lips. She smelled like heaven, delicate and sweet, warm vanilla and honey. He wanted to lick every inch of her, for no other reason than to see if she tasted as good as she smelled. The way she said his name, all breathy and soft, was enough to make his cock hard as stone, and he yearned to hear his name on her lips when she came. Would it sound the same, or would passion infuse the word with heat and intensity?

  Fucking hell.

  Landon bent at the elbows, fully prepared to push himself away from the wall. His chest brushed against her soft breasts and he stifled a groan. It would take an act of God to move him at this point. Hurricane-force winds or a bolt of lightning. Once again, he considered that Emma was a powerful magnet and he was nothing but useless metal. He couldn’t pull away from her if he tried.

  “Goddamn it, Emma.” His own voice was ragged in his ears. Each word strained. Tortured. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to be this close to you? The things I want to do to you right now?”

  Emma reached up and grabbed the fabric of his shirt in her fists. She tilted her head up until her silky lips brushed his cheek and murmured in his ear, “What’s stopping you?”

  Those three simple words were all it took to crumble his resolve.

  Landon pressed his body against hers, forcing Emma tight against the wall as he slanted his mouth across hers in a ravenous kiss. He didn’t trust himself to touch her, not yet. Not when the very thought of having her carried him over the edge of reason. Her arms snaked around his neck, holding him to her as Emma’s tongue flicked out at the seam of his lips, a slow, sensual caress that Landon felt from one end of his body to the other.

  Her fingers combed through his hair from the base of his neck upward, and Landon groaned into her mouth as his teeth grazed her bottom lip. As though she couldn’t get close enough, Emma molded her body to his, her fingers curling into fists in his short hair, pulling the strands just hard enough to drive Landon crazy. He kissed her as though he were starved for her, his tongue thrusting into her mouth, his hips rocking against her in tandem. Emma’s taste, her scent, her very presence enveloped Landon in a cocoon of sensation until he felt her in every pore of his skin, every inch of his body. His want of her overwhelmed anything else he’d ever longed for in his life, and tonight, he was going to have her.

  “Landon?” Emma’s voice was tentative as she pulled away, her brow furrowed.

  He studied her for a bare second before lunging at her, greedy to taste her mouth again. She put her palm between them, her brow arched curiously and a bemused smile curving her lips.

  “The phone?” He looked at her, confused. Logical thought was impossible at this moment. All the blood had rushed from his brain a while ago, and like a caveman, he was pretty sure he was only capable of unintelligible grunts. “Landon,” Emma said again. “The phone’s ringing. Don’t you think we should answer it? It could be important.”

  Phone? Ringing? “What?”

  “Landon.” Emma’s voice transformed from soft and sweet to agitated in an instant. “Answer the phone. Please.”

  The worried expression marring Emma’s features was like a bucket of ice water cooling Landon’s lust. Get your shit together, man. The whole point of forcing his way into Crawford’s operation was to keep an eye on Emma. An eye. Not his hands and certainly not his dick. If he let his focus wander . . . his gaze drifted to the swell of her breasts just visible above the V-neck of her shirt. He needed to get his head on straight. Now.

  With more effort than he thought possible, Landon shoved himself away from the wall and turned his back on Emma. The phone continued to ring, the sound drilling into his skull like a thousand sharp screws. He rolled his head back from one shoulder to the other. What a night.

  He strode over to the bedside table, jerked the phone off the cradle, and brought it to his ear. “This is Landon McCabe.”

  “I think you and Galen are trying to force me into early retirement,” Chief Deputy Curt Monroe remarked with less than good humor. “Why in the hell aren’t you answering your phone?”

  Landon pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and let out a measured breath. Wasn’t there a rule somewhere that said you didn’t have to talk to your boss while sporting a raging hard-on? “I left it at the scene of a shooting earlier tonight. I haven’t had a chance to get it back.”

  “Was that before or after you tried to flee the scene of a crime with a person of interest in an active investigation?” The accusation didn’t go unnoticed and Landon cringed.

  “That would be before, sir.” No use trying to bullshit his way out of anything. Crawford had obviously ratted him out.

  “Ah, I see.” A moment of silence passed, and Landon wondered if Monroe was too busy filing his release papers to speak. “And when was it that you brought Kelly into this? From what I understand, he’s had a busy night calling in favors to a few politicians, not to mention the U.S. ambassador to France and Jim Daniel with SOG ops down at Camp Beauregard. Have you lost your goddamned mind, McCabe?”

  He chanced a glance to his side, where Emma was still leaning against the wall. He was waist fucking deep in it, that was for sure. “Crawford and the SOG hijacked our case. Our person of interest. And refused to share information. As the original lead deputy on the Ruiz case—”

  “The SOG has every right to hijack whatever the hell they want,” Monroe snapped. “Including our person of interest. Unless you’ve forgotten, McCabe, there is no them or us. We’re all on the same team. You bullied your way into Crawford’s operation and I’m the one taking heat for it. Do you know what time it is, McCabe?”

  Landon leaned to his right to get a good look at the digital alarm clock and swallowed down a groan. “It’s almost two A.M., sir.”

  “Yeah. And I’ll tell you what, I’d be a hell of a lot happier if I was asleep right now and not tracking one of my deputies across Seattle. Get your damned phone back. As soon as possible. And McCabe, if I get one more report—just one—that you’re fucking up over there, you’re on suspension. Understand?”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “All right then. Get some sleep.”

  “I will. You too, sir.”

  Monroe snorted in response and hung up.

  Landon let out a huff of breath and let his head hang between his shoulders. A knot of tension the size of a freaking boulder formed betw
een his shoulder blades and he doubted he’d find any relief until this operation was wrapped up.

  “Is everything okay?”

  No. Everything was not okay. “Yeah, everything is fine. That was my chief deputy back in Portland. Apparently he got a dose of Bill Crawford charm tonight. But it’s no big deal.”

  “Are you sure?” Emma’s footsteps whispered across the carpeting and the hairs on the back of Landon’s neck stood on end as she came up behind him. So close the warmth of her breath caressed his skin. Damn.

  Landon took a step to the side, putting some much needed distance between them. He couldn’t think straight when she was so near. Couldn’t make a rational decision to save his life. And he needed to be at the top of his game if he was going to keep Emma out of danger and the SOG off his back. Which meant he couldn’t give in to his desires. No more temptation. No more close contact with her. He needed to end this dangerous flirtation before it turned into something he could no longer control.

  Flirtation? Yeah, right. They’d passed flirtation a few miles back. Before Monroe’s interruption, Landon had been racing down the road toward hot, dirty sex. His body reacted as he thought about kissing Emma. Touching her. Tasting . . . O-kay. Time to call it a night. Fuck. How was he supposed to stop thinking about Emma like that when all he wanted was to think about her like that?

  “It’s late, Emma.” Landon infused his voice with a calm he wasn’t even close to feeling. “I think we’d better go to bed.”

  A slow, sensual smile spread across Emma’s lips, still swollen and pink from their kisses. Her dark eyes smoldered with a heat that promised all sorts of wonderful things as she took a step closer. Jesus, she was killing him. Landon averted his gaze and grabbed a pillow from the king-sized bed. “I’ll take the chair. You can have the bed. You need to get some sleep. I guarantee tomorrow is going to be a busy day.”

  Her expression fell, the disappointment slicing through Landon like a razor blade. “Oh, okay, then. But you don’t have to sleep on the chair, Landon. There’s plenty of room in the bed.”

  Distance would be a hell of a lot easier if he hadn’t demanded that she call him Landon. The way his name rolled off her tongue was bliss. Each syllable sweetened by her voice. “I’ll be all right. Believe me, I’ve slept in worse places. Tomorrow, I’ll try to get us two adjoining rooms, or one with two beds at the very least.”

  A deep crease cut into her brow, her beautiful mouth turned down in an almost pout. Adjoining rooms? Separate hotels would be better. Separate states. Landon doubted a cross-country divide would be wide enough to keep him from wanting Emma with anything less than raging desire. But he had to keep himself in check. She deserved him at one hundred percent. And he wasn’t going to give Crawford or Monroe any excuse to shit-can his ass.

  Emma turned her back on him and a deep ache took root in Landon’s chest. From the edge of the bed, the sound of several hitched breaths made its way to him before she reached over to turn off the light. In the blinding darkness, Landon waited for the telltale sounds of the bed linens rustling as Emma crawled under the covers. Once she settled in, he took his place on the chair, propping his feet up on the ottoman as he tucked the pillow beneath his head. He stared at the ceiling, unseeing, every nerve on his body aware of the woman lying not five feet from him. Minutes passed. And then an hour. The silence gutted him, but he kept his ass parked right where it was despite the urge to go to her.

  Emma let out a gentle sigh, and after a few minutes her breathing finally became deep and even. Landon shifted on the chair—his holster was digging into his ribs—and he moved the damned Glock out of the way lest he wake up with a bruise the size of a baseball. She’d never given up on her dad, even after all this time. Any other person would have thrown in the towel, but not Emma. She fought and dug, and fought some more until she got what she wanted. And she didn’t even realize what she was in for. Emma had thrown herself into a dangerous situation without a safety net and Crawford was going to capitalize on that blind bravery and use it to his advantage. Landon got the whole “protect the nation—the masses—at all costs,” but Emma’s life was a casualty he wasn’t willing to simply sit back and accept. After everything she’d told him, he couldn’t help but feel as though he’d failed her six years ago by letting her father take the fall for a crime he hadn’t committed. He refused to fail her again.

  Landon’s eyes drifted shut and he let the gentle sounds of Emma’s breathing lull him. He just needed to sleep. A little rest would bring him some much-needed clarity and focus. Tomorrow was a new day and he’d be ready to face it like a professional. No matter the personal cost. Even if that cost was a chance with the one woman he wanted more than anything.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Everyone I know—even my best friend—thinks I’m dead.

  Emma inhaled a deep breath and brought her arms high above her head, chin tilted toward the ceiling as she paused in the Sun Salute position. Her palms came together and she brought them down to heart level as she exhaled and shifted into Warrior’s Pose. There wasn’t enough yoga on the planet to bring her the level of calm she needed, but at this point she’d take what she could get.

  The events of the previous night took up way too much space in the forefront of her mind, and no matter how many times she tried to forget them—to clear her thoughts and focus on the meditation techniques—she couldn’t banish the sound of Landon’s voice from her ears when he said, “Do you have any idea how hard it is to be this close to you? The things I want to do to you right now?” Emma’s stomach clenched tight as she remembered the way his lips had felt on hers. His teeth nipping at her bottom lip . . . and the sting of his rejection when he’d finally come to his senses and opted to sleep curled up in a ball on the armchair rather than in the bed with her.

  Ugh.

  She looked to her right, her eyes roaming freely over Landon’s contorted form. A self-satisfied smirk grew on her face as she thought of the tight knots and stiffness he’d suffer today from sleeping that way. Not that his mild discomfort could even compare to the hurt she felt at his rebuff, but still. At this point, she’d take what little retribution she could get.

  Emma plopped down on the bed—yoga wasn’t doing anything to calm her—and snatched the TV remote from the nightstand. She flipped through the channels, unconcerned that the noise might rouse the hotshot deputy marshal camped out on the chair, and searched until she found ESPN. If she couldn’t find a state of Zen through meditation, SportsCenter was bound to do the trick.

  “What are you watching?”

  Landon sounded a little better than death warmed over, his voice heavy with exhaustion and carrying the slightest rasp. Which did absolutely nothing for Emma. Not sexy. Like, at all. Rather, she attributed the glow of warmth that radiated over her skin to Gilberto Silva recapping the Sounders game last night. Yep. That was it. Nothing turned her on like listening to the witty banter of a sports anchor walking her through the highlights as she watched the replay of Clint Dempsey evading the Galaxy’s defenders to score the winning goal. In fact, maybe when this was all said and done, Emma would see if Tyson could hook her up with one of the guys from the team. They were all pretty good friends and it was time she got out there and started dating again.

  “SportsCenter,” she finally replied. As though on their own, her eyes wandered to where Landon was stretched out on the chair, his usually tidy hair rumpled with sleep and his bright blue eyes still a little bleary. It was totally unfair that he would look so cute disheveled like that when she looked like Godzilla for about an hour after she woke up. “I’m catching up on the scores.”

  When you grew up not only playing sports but also hanging out with guys who ate, drank, and breathed sports, there wasn’t much more that interested Emma. Except for maybe a beautifully designed website, well-constructed code, or the satisfaction of stealing millions of dollars from criminals who prided themselves on their ability to hide their laundered money. Okay, so maybe she’d b
e retiring that particular interest now....

  From the corner of her eye, Emma couldn’t help but notice that Landon had sort of zoned out, his glassy-eyed expression dazed and blank as he stared at the TV. She wondered if it was SportsCenter in general that he found mind-numbing or if he was simply still tired. What did Landon McCabe like? Was he a football guy or was basketball more his style? Maybe he favored European sports like rugby or cricket. She found herself wanting to ask him, to dig around in his brain and learn as much as she could about him. Then, she reminded herself that he’d dismissed her with a verbal pat to the head last night, seemingly unaffected yet again by the moment they’d shared. What was it about McCabe that made him so damned unreadable? Emma could usually get a pretty good bead on people, men especially. One of the benefits of hanging with a testosterone-fueled posse. But Landon was a complete mystery. He ran hot and cold, his gaze fiery and full of passion one moment, icy and detached the next. She’d never met a guy who turned on and off as quickly as he did. Did he really want her in the way he’d said last night? Or had his words been nothing more than lip service?

  Though, she hadn’t been disappointed in anything his lips had done to her last night. Those kisses made Emma breathless just thinking about them. There was no point in continuing to figure him out, she supposed. He’d made his feelings pretty clear. She had to accept that distance was the safer option at this point. No need to learn any more about Landon than she already knew. Because that was almost too much as it was. Like, for instance, the fact that he kissed like LeBron James dunked—transforming the simple act into a work of art, a display of skill and precision that boggled the mind.

  Landon rubbed at one eye with the heel of his palm, a slow, tired motion that made him look more like a kid than a grown man. Emma’s heart clenched as she watched him and she forced her gaze back to the TV. “It didn’t really hit me until this morning that, as of right now, everyone thinks I’m dead. Is there any way I can call my friend Jeremy, and maybe Tyson, to let them know that I’m okay?”