Truly, Madly, Dangerously

by Linda Winstead Jones

  Sadie closed her eyes and felt as though she was drowning. That kiss danced through her entire body, it ignited flames deep inside her, flames that she’d been so careful to keep doused. Her breath caught in her throat, her heart began to pound. A knot of desire clenched in her gut. All because Truman’s lips touched her neck.

  “Sleep with me,” he whispered into her ear. “You don’t have to love me, and I swear I won’t expect anything from you tomorrow.” He dropped his hand from hers and rested it at her waist, warm and heavy. “I’m tired of wondering. I don’t want to rely on my imagination anymore, and I want it to be you. Sleep with me. Please.”

  She turned in his arms. Those were the exact words she’d spoken to him when she’d been a sixteen-year-old virgin who was crazy in love with her cousin’s best friend. “You remember?”

  “Word for word.” He traced her cheek with one long finger. “A man never forgets being propositioned by a beautiful woman.”

  “I should laugh at you.” Instead of laughing, she rested her head against his chest. “We can’t go back.”

  “I don’t want to go back, Sadie. I want now.”

  He tipped her head back and kissed her. Like his hands, the kiss was soft and hard, gentle and arousing. She wasn’t a sixteen-year-old virgin anymore, and she wanted this. She wanted one night with Truman McCain. She hadn’t been lying when she’d told Jason she was involved. To the pit of her soul, she was involved with this man.

  Maybe one night would chase away old demons once and for all, as well as the new and preposterous ideas that had taken up residence in her head.

  “Yes,” she whispered when he took his mouth from hers.

  Chapter 7

  “Were you expecting to bring me home tonight or are you actually a decent housekeeper?” Sadie asked as Truman switched on the lights that illuminated the kitchen and the great room.

  “Would you be annoyed if I said a little of both?”

  Sadie smiled widely. Man, she really should do that more often. She was always pretty, but when she gave him a true smile she took his breath away. Wouldn’t do to let her know that much, he supposed.

  “I guess not,” she said as she casually scanned the room, the stairs that led to the open loft, the short hallway that led to his bedroom and the master bath. Silent approval softened her eyes. She liked it here, and for a reason Truman didn’t care to explore he was glad.

  “I didn’t really expect to bring you home,” he said as he linked his arm through hers and gently turned her to face him. He pushed aside an unruly curl that had fallen across her cheek. “But I did hope.”

  “You knew the date with Davenport would be a disaster.”

  “We are not going to stand here and talk about Jason Davenport.”

  She reached up and threaded her fingers through his hair, very lightly, very sexily. “Okay.”

  The kiss was like all the others: heat and desperation and promise. It had been a long time since he’d felt this way about a woman. Physical need was one thing, breathless craving was another altogether.

  In a very basic way, he wanted to strip Sadie naked and take her here and now. But a part of him knew this wouldn’t last, and he wanted everything to be perfect. Tomorrow morning she’d likely look at him and curse them both for a moment of weakness, and he’d never get another chance. The ABI would eventually catch whoever had killed Hearn, Sadie would be off the hook, and then she’d be gone. Maybe in another eleven years or so he’d run into her again. Maybe.

  So he kissed her. He kissed her until she melted in his arms and her knees wobbled. He kissed her until she made those little noises low in her throat; little noises that told him she was losing control. He kissed her until he couldn’t think of anything else, and neither could she.

  They edged toward the hallway that led to the bedroom, still kissing, buttons here and there coming blindly undone as they took one step and then another. Sadie unfastened his shirt, one button at a time. He flicked open the button at her waist, and the zipper fell a little. Not a lot; not yet. And all the time, they kissed.

  He didn’t bother to turn on the overhead fixture as they stepped into the bedroom. There was enough light drifting from the main room to illuminate their path.

  Sadie took her mouth from his to ask, “Do you have a…”

  “Yeah.” He slipped his hands beneath her sweater and pulled it over her head. The move ruffled the strands of hair that refused to be tamed, and he thrust his fingers into the dark curls and pulled her back in for another kiss, before sending the zipper on her trousers all the way down.

  He’d laughed at her, surprised and bewildered, when she’d been sixteen and had offered herself to him.

  He wasn’t laughing now.

  She had forgotten. Heaven help her, she had forgotten how good it felt to be touched by a man. Warmth and softness, sweat and hardness, trembling and anticipation and primal need. It was all right here, in the way their bodies came together.

  Sadie pushed Truman’s shirt off his shoulders. Nice shoulders, she noted before kissing them. Nice chest, too, with just enough muscle to be sexy and just enough hair to let her know he wasn’t a kid anymore. He had a man’s body, an athlete’s body, hard and sculpted and a little bit worn around the edges.

  He jerked down the quilt that covered his bed, revealing crisp white sheets beneath, and she sat on the side of the mattress, bouncing lightly as she landed. This was Truman’s bed, where he slept every night. And tonight, he was going to sleep with her.

  Her trousers couldn’t come off until she removed her boots and the pistol. Before she could get started, Truman grabbed one leg and tugged on a boot. Sadie laughed as she fell backward. The laughter bubbled up in her, uncontrolled and joyful. Anticipation rippled through her body. He removed her boot and the sock beneath before lifting the other leg.

  “Careful,” she said softly, her laughter fading.

  With his hands on the boot, Truman lifted his eyebrows slightly.

  “Gun,” she explained.

  He very gently removed the boot and the holster. “This is new,” he said. “I’ve never had to disarm a woman in my bedroom before.”

  “Good.” The word slipped out of her mouth before she had time to consider her response. This wasn’t romance, it was sex. What she and Truman had was casual, not commitment. She shouldn’t—couldn’t—care if he’d ever disarmed a woman in his bedroom before tonight.

  But she did.

  Truman joined her on the bed and they undressed one another, slowly but with fingers that occasionally trembled. She hadn’t trembled for any reason other than coming off an adrenaline rush in so long that she’d forgotten how it felt to spin out of control, to dance on the edge, hungry and heated and wanting. She was in danger of coming the moment he thrust inside her, at this rate.

  Rolling away from her, Truman opened a bedside drawer. He had to reach into the back for a condom. She would never tell him, but she was glad those condoms weren’t conveniently stashed at the front, as if he brought women into his bedroom every night.

  The thought was foolish, but she didn’t want to be just another woman. Not tonight.

  It was reckless for her to be here, to offer herself not only physically but emotionally. Truman lowered himself to lie atop her, naked and hard, and she quit questioning herself. For once, she quit questioning herself.

  Mouth to mouth was so fine it was almost enough. No man had ever kissed her quite this thoroughly. But Truman’s hands on her skin felt so good, and the insistent thrum of her body told her the kiss wouldn’t be enough for much longer. He touched her at the heart of that thrum, and she arched up into him as if she were still sixteen and madly in love and couldn’t wait for him to be inside her.

  No, when she’d been sixteen she’d had no idea what she’d been asking for when she asked Truman to make love to her. Now she knew exactly what she wanted….

  She touched him, wrapped her legs around his hips and guided him to her. Into her. Holding
on with her arms and her legs and pulling him into her body. She quivered, she clenched and unclenched and arched into him to draw him closer and deeper.

  Truman made love to her as if he already knew her body intimately, and she responded. Each stroke took her closer to completion, but not too quickly. Each push took him a little bit deeper, until she was gasping every time he reached a new and untouched place.

  She touched him with her trembling hands, and with a series of gentle swells she reached up to meet the sway of his hips. They fell into a rhythm without ever finding themselves in an awkward place. Their coming together was perfect, in a world that was flawed. How many perfect moments had she experienced in her life? Not many. None like this.

  Eyes closed, heart pounding, she quit thinking and instead listened to the demands of her body. And what her body demanded was Truman.

  He lifted her hips and pushed deep and she shattered, clenching around him and crying out softly. Her entire body was affected by the orgasm, and it came on waves that made her arch against him. Waves of pure joy washed through her, one and then another, until she could not breathe or speak or even move. He came with her; she felt it.

  And then they melted down together, easing into the softness of the mattress.

  Sadie didn’t want to let Truman go just yet, so she didn’t. She held on to him, with her thighs and her fingers. Her breath still wouldn’t come right, and she quivered from head to toe.

  In the back of her mind, she reminded herself that just because this was a stunningly beautiful moment, that didn’t mean she could love him. It was just sex, and when she left Garth she wouldn’t look back. Much.

  She threaded her fingers in his hair. “Truman McCain, that was definitely worth waiting thirteen and a half years for.”

  He raised up and looked down at her. A small half-smile tilted the corners of his very fine mouth. “And the night isn’t anywhere near over.”

  Truman wasn’t done with her yet, and she certainly wasn’t finished with him. This was the time for her to say something sweet, but not too sweet. Fond, but not clingy. Something that would tell him she cared—but not too much.

  At a loss for the proper words, she finally settled for, “I’m starving. What have you got in the kitchen?”

  Sadie wearing one of his plaid shirts and nothing else, standing at his kitchen counter making sandwiches, was enough to make Truman think odd and very bad thoughts. Things like: Why didn’t she stay? Why did a woman who looked like Sadie Harlow want to be a private investigator, anyway? She could be anything she wanted to be. She could live anywhere, have any man…

  Damned if she didn’t have him by the nuts already.

  He opened a bottle of wine, and Sadie carried the plate of sandwiches to the couch in the great room. They sat there—Sadie in the shirt that was halfway unbuttoned, he in a pair of boxers—and they sipped wine and ate the sandwiches. At first it was almost as if Sadie attempted to keep a distance, as if she didn’t want to touch anymore now that the sex was over. And then she brushed against him once, and that distance disappeared.

  She laid her hand on his arm when she asked about his brother, Kennedy. She leaned her head on his shoulder when she had finally had enough to eat and had placed the empty plate on the coffee table. For a little while they talked about unimportant things, like where he’d found the coffee table and Sadie’s sudden craving for brownies and last week’s college football games.

  And then she reached down and laid her hand over his scarred knee and let it rest there.

  “It really sucks, doesn’t it,” she said as she caressed the scars from the three old surgeries he’d had on that knee.

  There had been a time when any mention of the injury had made him sad or angry, depending on the day and his mood. Tonight he could actually laugh. “Thank you. Most people either treat me like I have a handicap or else ignore the limp altogether. And you’re exactly right. It sucks.”

  “But you’re doing okay, right? Nice cabin, good job…”

  “Respectable job,” he corrected. “Maybe one day if I run for sheriff and win, then I’ll have a good job.”

  Her body shifted against his, and damned if he wasn’t ready to carry her back to the bedroom. Or take her here and now, on the couch, in the heat of passion that surged through him.

  “There’s something to be said for respectable,” she said, settling against him and staring toward the window that looked out over the lake. There wasn’t much to see at night, but the moon did sparkle on the water, and there was some beauty in that.

  He slipped one hand into the mostly open shirt she wore and cupped one breast, brushing his thumb across the nipple that hardened at his touch. He had never been this comfortable with a woman. The touch was almost casual. Right and easy, as if his hands were simply drawn to her body because it was—in a way he had never experienced—his as well as hers.

  “Since we’re talking about jobs, can you tell me why on earth you do what you do?”

  She didn’t answer for a moment. “I’m good at it,” she answered softly. “Isn’t that enough?”

  He should let it go right there. Push her back, open the rest of the buttons of his shirt, kiss her again.

  But he didn’t. “No, that’s not enough. I did a little checking around this week, while you were doing your best to ignore me. For God’s sake, Sadie, The Benning Agency takes on some very dangerous jobs.”

  She didn’t try to deny it or downplay the danger. “Yeah.”

  “You’re right in the middle of it.”

  She hummed an affirmative answer.

  “And you like it.”

  Sadie lifted her head and looked him in the eye. Her face was flushed, her lips full, her hair wild. “I do like it. Very much.” She licked her lips, more nervous than seductive. “It’s who I am now.”

  “I don’t get it.” A woman like this…she should have a man to hold her every night, a safe and warm place to call home, maybe a few kids. Truman knew his father’s old-fashioned teachings were clouding his views on the matter. Not every woman wanted a man, a home and kids.

  “I never had any control over my life,” Sadie said softly. “Never. My father died, my mother died, I came here to Garth as a kid and was a fish out of water. After I left, things didn’t get much better. I fell in love with the wrong man, he broke my heart, and once again I lost control of my life. I got so tired of letting other people tell me what to do and how to be, so I…I found myself taking another road.”

  “Having a gun doesn’t put you in control.”

  Sadie almost smiled. “When you know how to use it…” She let the sentence hang there, unfinished.

  She was so soft in his hands, even though she was taut with firm muscle and anything but weak. “I just want you to be careful, that’s all.”

  She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “Why?”

  He didn’t want to see her hurt. He didn’t want to get the news through the grapevine, one day down the road, that Sadie Harlow had gotten her head blown off saving someone she’d never met. For the rush, for the paycheck, for her damned control.

  But telling her that would probably send her running. He knew that much already. He grabbed her wrist in his hands and forced her gently back on the couch. “I have a feeling we could have this conversation all night and never agree.”

  She hummed again, affirmatively this time.

  “I have better things to do with you tonight.”

  He got a full-blown, heart-stopping smile. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  He unbuttoned her shirt, and her body was laid out before him, toned and bare and gorgeous. He lowered his head and took one nipple into his mouth, drawing it deep and savoring, while Sadie threaded her fingers through his hair and held him there. She sighed. She bucked a little, her body waving up into his.

  She wasn’t in control now.

  His mouth moved down slowly, tasting as he went. He spent a little time there at her belly button, and she laughed when
he traced his tongue around it.

  Sadie didn’t laugh when he spread her thighs and placed his mouth against her, tasting her, teasing the nub at her entrance with his tongue. She came, quick and hard, bucking beneath him and crying out loud, shaking in his hands as the orgasm faded and she was left breathless. Again.

  She sat up and pulled him close, reaching down to lay her hands on his erection and stroke. “Take me back to bed,” she said, her voice husky. She pressed her shaking body to his. “I can’t believe it, Truman, but I want you again.”

  And at least for tonight, he was going to give her everything she wanted.

  Sadie made coffee, poured herself a cup, and stepped outside. Wearing Truman’s shirt and a pair of worn drawstring pants she’d found in his chest of drawers, she carried her coffee down to the dock and sat, her bare feet dangling over the edge.

  It was a morning fit for a postcard, with the trees around the lake red and gold and the rising sun glittering on the water. A cool wind chilled her bare feet, but Truman’s clothes and the coffee cut the chill.

  After the night they’d shared, her body ached. But oh, it was a good ache. A bone-deep, warm, loving ache. A night like last night could last a girl a long time in the memory department.

  The memories would have to last. She did care for Truman. Too much. Much more than she wanted to care. But that caring couldn’t stop her from living her life as she’d planned.

  As she sat there, drinking in the quiet and the peace, she wished he lived in a forgettable place, or else that it was winter instead of autumn so the trees would be bare and ugly, and instead of a chill she’d have to suffer an icy blast to sit by the water.

  Instead she was engulfed by a sense of belonging. That same sense Truman had talked about.

  She adored her job and her friends and the life she’d made for herself. But this was home.

  She’d fought it for so long, afraid to tie herself to any one place. When she wasn’t tied down she didn’t have anything to lose. No one could take away something that she didn’t have.