by Vonna Harper
Dangerous! She’s dangerous!
“Are you going to give her an interview?”
Pulled to the here and now by the unfamiliar voice, he spotted one of the reporters standing under an umbrella a few feet away. Like Mato, she hadn’t had an umbrella. Maybe, like him, she needed to be as close to nature as possible. “Interview?”
“Don’t dodge my question, Hawk,” the reporter said. “It’ll be easy enough to find out whether you’re giving her an exclusive. Damn unfair, that’s what it is. If I had breasts and a pussy, you’d talk to me, wouldn’t you, ’specially if I looked like she does.”
Rain pounding on the umbrella, to say nothing of the vehicle sounds, prevented him from being positive he’d heard everything the reporter had said, but he got enough. “She’s a reporter?”
“She sure as hell isn’t a hooker, which is a pity because she could make more money on her back than writing those award-winning investigative pieces of hers.”
The reporter’s attitude was going to earn him a fat lip if he didn’t watch it. But, then, was he really angry at the man? Shouldn’t his anger be directed at the woman who’d conned or nearly conned him? Telling himself not to give too much away, he looked around for her. Yeah, there she was, still walking in that sinuous way of hers, weaving around the largest puddles, her body small and controlled, ripe. Ready?
“What’s her name?” he asked.
“You don’t know? Haven’t you seen her picture with her columns in Northwest News? Damn, you people are even more isolated than I thought.”
Dismissing the put-down, he stared at the reporter until the man’s jaws clenched. “Smokey Powers. And much as I hate having to admit it, she deserves all the awards she’s gotten, and, yeah, she puts the word investigative into reporter. Word of warning: weigh every word before speaking ’cause nothing gets past her.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the weather ran through Mato to kill his half erection. Well accustomed to sidestepping reporters’ questions, he didn’t believe he had anything to fear from those who were interested only in the current story about the proposed extensive development and local objection to it. They were all privy to the same hearings’ records and thus would essentially write the same articles, articles the majority of people didn’t care about.
But if someone—if she—dug deeper or into the past, everything he and those he cared about and stood for was in jeopardy.
Bottom line, he had to make sure that didn’t happen.
Whatever it took.
Condensation kept Smokey from seeing out, not that it mattered. The cabin she was staying in was down a short, tree-surrounded path from the five-unit motel, which meant her view was limited to the dense vegetation the front porch light illuminated. She’d had to leave her car in the motel parking lot, but fortunately the woman she’d rented from had turned on the porch light, which had saved her from having to stumble around in the dark.
Now that she was inside and had turned up the heat, she could have extinguished the light, but then she’d feel as if she were the only human being in this part of the woods. Maybe she should have opted for one of the motel rooms, but the cabin had come with a kitchen and small living room, space to turn around in.
The TV was on—not that it had gotten between her and her thoughts. Maybe if it was capable of picking up more than five channels…
No, she admitted as she shucked out of the last of her soaked clothes and reached for her terry robe, TV wouldn’t stop her from thinking about Mato Hawk. She should have been prepared for his impact, darnit! After what the young woman at the art gallery had said, she should have had her defenses in place.
Only, what defenses guarded against that kind of raw male energy?
Shaking her head in resignation, she slumped into the recliner and slipped her hand between her legs. Sooner or later she’d be going into the bedroom for her toy collection, but right now she wanted to keep things in as low a gear as possible so she could think.
Tomorrow. She’d see him tomorrow. They’d talk about photography and painting and the town he called home while sparks danced and her skin ignited. Every word he spoke would take on added meaning, every eye contact would have multiple layers, every touch—
Wet. Already wet. Labia loose and easy. Nipples hard.
Closing her eyes, she spread her legs and slipped a finger into what had been designed to house a man’s cock.
It was entirely possible he took her for some damn bimbo without the sense to stay on the highway. He’d look at her in daylight, take his measure of her, put one and one together, and figure she was trying to hit on him.
She could let him believe that, she could! Send out messages that didn’t need words. Let nature take its course. Get him to scratch her itches and do the same to his. Give him a home for his cock and not let him back out until he’d made her scream.
And once her muscles had been drained, she’d tell him why she’d come to Storm Bay.
Groaning, she pulled her finger out of herself. Certain reporters—she called them sleazeballs—thought nothing of trying whatever dirty tricks it took to get the story, but she never had. Granted, she sometimes had to work long and hard at getting reliable material from a source, but the upside was that once she’d forged a relationship, she could go back to that source again and again and know she was being told the truth.
Truth. That’s what she needed to think about, not the smell of herself on her finger and her finger now going into her mouth. Somehow, hopefully through her honest admiration of Mato’s skill with a camera, she could begin to break through Mato’s barriers. They’d go from a discussion of how to keep a diving raptor in the viewfinder to a casual comment about why such a small community had had so many unusual deaths over the years. Maybe—
A muffled knock on the door brought her upright. Pulling her robe tight around her, she got to her feet but stopped before taking a step. Only one person knew she was here, and if the motel manager wanted to talk to her, she would have used the phone, right?
“Yes?” she said, making her voice sound as authoritive as possible. “Who is it?”
5
Mato Hawk. He’s here, standing just outside.
Torn between wishing she was anywhere but here tonight and shaking at the thought of sharing this space with her, Smokey turned the knob. As she did, a simple fact registered: she hadn’t locked the door, which meant he could have walked right in.
There he was, wearing a rain-painted jacket, his hair plastered to his head, droplets clinging to his too-long-for-a-man lashes.
“I didn’t expect…” She indicated her robe. “I thought everyone would be home tonight.”
“I’m not everyone.”
No, you’re not. You’re the most bone-rattling man I’ve ever seen.
“Are you going to invite me in?” he asked.
Before she could put her mind to what her response should be, he stepped past her. Now that she was dry, she felt his humidity on her neck and the arm closest to him. Waves of heat and cold radiated from him, making her wonder if he was capable of countering weather’s extremes. Just the same, she wanted him in here. Close to her.
“Do you want…The heat register’s over there.” She pointed. “Maybe you need to stand near it.”
“No.”
His arms were at his sides, fingers still, sending out the message that he was at peace with his body. In contrast, energy hummed through her.
He’d have to be dead not to feel it. To not know she was naked under the robe.
“Aren’t you going to ask what I’m doing here?”
Think like a reporter. Control the interview. Somehow. “I was waiting for you to explain.” Damn his wet jeans. The way they clung to his form and cradled—oh, shit, an erection! “But you’re right, I do want to ask a question.” She stood as tall as she could in her slippers. “How did you know where I was? If you followed—”
A lift of a dark eyebrow silenced her, that and the
line of his jaw and width of his shoulders, and that bulge.
“There’s only one motel in Storm Bay. I called Sandra. She told me you were staying in the cabin.”
“Sandra?”
“This is her business. It supports her and her daughter, barely.”
So that was the too-slim young woman’s name. The way he said it made her wonder about the relationship between the two. Was it possible—no, surely he would have said “my daughter” if the girl had been his. And, she wanted to believe, he’d support his child no matter what his relationship with the mother.
A mental shake brought her back to the most unnerving man in recent memory, if not ever. “Why didn’t you call me, then?” she asked, pleased because it was a reporter’s question. “Whatever you had to say—”
His hand was on her shoulder almost before she knew it was going to happen. Living weight pressed against skin and bone, rooting her in place. And more, damn it, a hell of a lot more.
What came after combustion, after flames and fire?
Her mouth went slack; her eyes wanted to close. Longing for the feel of his fingers on her throat and from there to her breasts, she surrendered to the weakness climbing over her. He’d turned her female, nothing but female, a simple touch shaving off layers.
“You deliberately didn’t tell me who you are.” His low voice spread out to coat her, the deep tones saying everything that needed to be said about the male animal in him. “But someone else did.”
“Oh.”
“A reporter.” He leaned back a bit as if trying to get away from what he’d just said, but his hand remained on her. Kept the connection going. Kept the fire flamed.
“You sound—you’re making it sound as though my career’s something I should be ashamed of.”
“Am I?”
Oh, god, he was leaning close again, his breath on her hair and upturned face. She’d turned on only that one lamp, the bulb hardly up to the task of erasing the night. Maybe that’s why he seemed to dominate the room.
But maybe it would feel that way to her no matter what the lighting.
Think! Just think! “I saw and heard you tonight, you and the other residents. I had a pretty good idea what your reaction would be if I revealed my profession; you’d tell me to take a hike instead of granting me access—”
“You came here for the same reason the others did, to report on our opposition to NewDirections and more than hint at our reasons for wanting Flann Castetter dead. To try to convict us because it makes for sensational press.”
Anger, so much anger.
Or was that what she was feeling? Was it possible that his emotions were more complex, more in tune with hers?
Dangerous.
Exciting.
“Do you read my column?” she asked. Much as she wanted to clutch her robe, she forced herself to keep her hands at her sides. One thing she’d learned on the job was never to give away emotion. “If you do, you’d know I don’t play that game. I’m about facts, not insinuation and sensationalism.”
“No, I don’t read your column, but I called some people who do, and I talked to your competition, not that the jokers who came here are capable of that.”
She waited for the punch line. Instead she got his other hand on her previously untouched shoulder. Locked in place, his grip said. Right where I want you.
Right where I want to be, she came dangerously close to telling him.
“What did you learn?” she asked because the silence was killing her.
“That you don’t write about backwater communities—not unless there are layers to the story other reporters don’t pick up on.”
He knows. Or at least he’s guessed. “Tell your source I take that as a compliment.”
Pressure on her shoulders, dangerously close to pain. “Tell me about the layers, Smokey. What really brought you here?”
“So that’s why you hunted me down.” The moment she said the word hunted, she wished she could take it back. “To find out what skeletons I’m going to try to dig up.”
She’d already surmised that he wasn’t a man for evasion or lies, so she expected him to agree with her. Instead he drew her closer, so damnable close that a single step would bring her in contact with his erection. She wouldn’t, absolutely wouldn’t!
“Let me go.”
“It isn’t that easy.” When he went out of focus, she knew he was zeroing in on her, his mouth challenging hers, insanity speaking to insanity.
She wanted—hell, but she wanted!
Only she hadn’t lost her mind—yet.
Teeth clenched against a whimper of need, she slid her hand into the space between their mouths and pressed her fingers against his lips. For long seconds they stayed like that, touching, breathing in each other’s essence, sharing heat.
Then he flicked his tongue over her fingers, and she knew he’d had no intention of kissing her.
“You taste of sex,” he said. “A woman who’s been taking care of her needs.”
Oh, god, no! Much as she wanted to pull back and preserve what little was left of her dignity, it was too late.
“What I was or wasn’t doing is none of your business,” she told the man who’d invaded her space and taken the taste of her juices into him.
More silence. A return on his part to that place she couldn’t make sense of.
Things like this didn’t happen to her, damn it! Her lovers were men with brains she respected—tax-paying, law-abiding career types who mixed sex with equal doses of intelligent conversation. She didn’t lust after hard bodies—well, not really. The way she’d always seen it, if there wasn’t a mind to go with the body, the package was incomplete.
Right now she didn’t care if Mato Hawk was headless.
“Let me get this straight,” she tried. “Instead of getting warm and dry on this miserable night, you decided that trying to grill me about my supposed ulterior motives was more important? What are you, paranoid?”
“I’m a man with responsibilities.”
What did that mean? And did she care?
Not tonight.
“So am I. A human with responsibilities.” If she lowered her head, his breath would stop washing over her eyelashes and upper lip, but she didn’t. Couldn’t. “Mine are to my employers and readers, not to you.”
“Aren’t they?”
Why were they talking when she wanted to fuck?
Fuck? Had she really thought the word again? Damn it, her world was politically correct, not earthy and uncivilized. She spoke of intercourse and sex, not fuck.
Something changed that pulled her off her thoughts and back onto her body. It took seconds to realize his grip on her shoulders had stopped feeling like restraint and had slipped into caress. He was stroking her, those workman fingers gliding over her robe. His heat, his life and energy slid through her layers, spreading out and spiraling deeper, touching her lungs, belly, cunt.
Cunt. Pussy.
Pure sex.
“What are you…”
“Tell me to stop.” His voice was more growl than words; a man clinging to self-control? “If it’s not what you want, say it now. Fast.”
No logic or sanity. No clothes. Her skin warming his and sanding away his goose bumps. His hands roaming her while hers did the same, touching, feathering, pressing, mouths coming into play, bodies pressing.
She knew what he had in mind the moment he wrapped his fingers around the vee of her robe. Her body belonged to her, not to him. He had no right. And that’s what made what he was doing even more exciting and unnerving.
Strangers. Strangers standing face-to-face, the truth sparking between them and words buried deep.
Her body spoke for her, her thighs weak and strong, wet heat coating her sex, nipples puckered, mouth hungry.
Hunger. All hunger.
His nail on her right breast shut her off from thought, and she became sensation. Nothing but wanting.
Her breasts were exposed, his if he wanted them. If she so
much as shrugged, the robe would slide off. The tie no longer hugged her waist—a discarded length of fabric.
Unless he binds my wrists with it.
Where did that come from? she wondered, but the question evaporated before she could mold it. Before, his breath had had a measured cadence, but now his lungs clawed for oxygen in ways that mirrored hers.
Insanity! Two near strangers blasting through convention’s barriers.
Feeling as if she’d been thrown into a whirlpool, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on with all the strength in her. Hating the barrier his jeans represented, she pressed against him. His breath deepened, quickened. One arm went around her back and became a living restraint that held her tight against him. The other claimed her buttocks, not that she needed encouragement to tip her pelvis at him.
She wasn’t simply offering herself to him, wasn’t simply losing control. Instead, she insisted. Us. Fucking. Now!
Assaulted by a sudden shiver, she plowed her way through a sex fog. He was wearing his jacket, his wet, cold jacket, and beneath that was his equally wet shirt. Growling something beyond reason, she arched away and released his neck. Her fingers went in search of buttons. Finding snaps, she tore and ripped, not stopping until she’d shoved the garment off his shoulders.
“Get the hell rid of it,” the bitch she’d become ordered.
He let go of her long enough to obey And before he could capture—capture?—her again, she locked her fingers around his sodden, hot shirt and yanked. One button popped free. Another flew off.
“What the hell—”
“Get rid of it!”
Was that a laugh? Maybe a growl. Didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except Mato’s fingers on his shirt and the sight of his undershirt. She helped him rid himself of the flannel and then dipped her head and closed her teeth around the skin tight cotton. Rearing back with the cotton between her teeth, she looked up at the dark stranger.
