Praise the Lord.
Putting all her remaining strength behind it, she aimed for the man’s head, raining blows on him with the stick. When that didn’t work, she changed targets, looking for anything that might hurt him. She whacked at his body with the hard wood of the stick. She heard a few of the bones in his hand crack at one point, but this guy was tough. Nothing seemed to faze him.
Finally, she used the pointy end of the stick to push at his neck. That seemed to get some results as he shifted away. He moved enough for her to use the rest of her body for leverage, crawling out from under him.
His friend was up and coming back as she crabwalked away on her hands and feet, toward the door and the sunshine beyond. Her backup was coming. She just had to hold on until they could find her.
The two men followed her, moving as if they had all the time in the world. Their pace was steady and measured as she crawled as fast as she could toward the door. It didn’t make any sense. They could have easily overtaken her, but they kept to their slow, walking pace.
Sarah hit the door and practically threw herself over the threshold. She had to get out in the open where her backup would see her right away. She was losing blood fast and her vision was dancing, tunneling down to a single dim spot. She was going to pass out any second. She had to do all she could to save herself before that happened.
Backup was coming. That thought kept her going. They’d be here any second. She just had to hold on.
She crawled into the sunlight, near her cruiser. Leaning against the side of her car, she tried for her radio, but the mic was long gone—probably a victim of the struggle with those two men. They were coming for her. They had to be.
But when she looked up, she saw them hesitate at the doorway to the building. The second man stepped through, but the first stayed behind, cowering in the darkness. The second man’s skin was gray in the outdoor light. He looked like some kind of walking corpse, with grisly brown stains of dried blood all around his mouth. Some of it was bright red. That was her blood. The sick bastard had bitten her.
The man walked calmly forward, under the trees that shaded the walkway to the old building. Sarah had parked on the street, out in open sun. She watched in dread as the man walked steadily toward her, death in his flat gaze.
Then something odd happened. He stopped where the tree cover ended. He seemed reluctant to step into the sun.
Sarah blinked, but there wasn’t any other explanation she could think of. Then she heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. Her backup.
With salvation in sight, she finally passed out.
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“You call that a clinch?”
Whatever it was made Callie’s head explode. “Sure.”
“Tell me something.”
No way was she agreeing to that without more information. Hand this man an opening and he’d steer a submarine through it.
He kept talking anyway. Looked pretty relaxed in his slouch as his smile inched up on his lips. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
If he wanted to shock her…well, he did. “How is that relevant?”
“Call me curious.”
“Are you allowed to ask me about that?”
“You think there’s a law against it?”
“There should be.”
“So, you’re not going to answer?”
Not until she knew where this was going. “What does the state of my love life have to do with anything?”
“You know all about me. Only seems fair I get some background on you.”
“I need to know about your life in order to do my job.” At least that was the excuse she used when she ventured outside the file Mark gave her. She’d lost her clearance when she walked away from her job at the FBI, but she still had friends of the computer hacker variety. In just a few hours she had all the paperwork that existed on Ben.
She had admit her little search mission turned out to be a huge disappointment. His background was so clean it squeaked. If he hadn’t passed through screening committees and all sorts of interviews to get his current judicial position she would have thought someone manufactured his past. No arrests. No trouble. Great grades. Always within the law. For some reason she expected to find a smart guy with a bad-boy past. That sounded good in the fantasy she created in her head but looked as if it wasn’t true.
“So, you’re not poking around just because you’re nosy?” he asked.
No way could he know about her travels through his personal history. She’d been careful and cleaned up behind her. “I don’t poke.”
“Tell me what you want to know.”
She smelled a con. “Anything?”
“You get one question.”
She thought about his decision to leave the military and about the scarce information on his parents. She skipped all of that and went with the issue at the front of her mind. “What’s going on between you and Emma?”
“I’ve already answered that. We’re friends.”
Callie snorted just to let him know what she thought of his fake deals. “I don’t climb all over my friends when the door shuts.”
“Really? When do you climb on them then?”
“Huh?”
He closed in. One minute he shot her a lazy smile. The next he stood up straight and hovered over her with his cheek right next to hers. “What do you do with your friends?”
Heat thrummed off him, surrounding her and filling her with tingly sensation from shoulders to toes. “I don’t—”
“Do you touch them?” Ben trailed the back of his hand down her cheek. Dragged his thumb across her lips.
“I…”
“Smell them?” He leaned down and nuzzled her ear. “Do they smell as good as you?”
His mouth traveled down her neck, nipping and kissing. Hot breath tickled her skin as his fingers caressed her waist. The double whammy of touching slammed her breath to a halt in her chest. Her body strained to get closer to him as her palms skimmed up his back.
Holy crap. “This isn’t a good idea,” she said.
“Probably not, but I’ve been wanting to do it all day.”
“I thought you were mad at me.”
“Be quiet for a second.”
Then his mouth covered hers. His lips pressed deep and strong and his tongue brushed against hers. There was nothing teasing about this kiss. It shot through her hot and wet, electrifying every cell inside her. She fell into the sensation of being overpowered and claimed. Her stomach tumbled and her knees dipped. Muscles relaxed as her brain shifted into neutral.
“God, yes,” he mumbled when their mouths lifted on gasps of harsh breaths.
He dove back in. His lips met hers over and over again in a kiss that had her winding her arms around his neck and pulling him close.
Him. Her. Touching. Nothing else mattered. Pleasure crashed over her, drowning out everything around them. Fingers searched and sculpted. Her hands swept into his hair while his pushed against her lower back, easing her closer to the junction between his thighs. She heard the grumbling moan in his chest and the deep breaths from her own.
She lifted her head in an attempt to get some air. “Ben…that…”
“You taste so good.”
His mouth found that sensitive spot right at the slope of her chin. Her kryptonite. A few nibbling kisses and she wanted to strip that conservative shirt and tie right off him.
She dropped her head back to give him greater access. “Right there.”
When his mouth found hers again, lights exploded in her brain. He kissed like he worked, with an intensity that sent her common sense screaming in wild defeat. The touch of his lips was all she dreamed about and everything she feared.
But her mind shouted out a red light warning through the sensual haze. She had a job and he had a girlfriend.
Callie pulled her mouth away, letting her forehead rest against his cheek as she struggled to breathe without w
heezing. “We have to stop.”
“God, why?” He mumbled the question against her hair.
“Emma.” Callie now hated that name.
With the gentle touch of his palms, he lifted her head and stared down at her. The gaze from deep brown eyes searched her face. The rapid beating in his chest thumped against her as his eyes grew soft.
“I don’t cheat,” he said in a husky whisper. “If I were with Emma I wouldn’t be kissing you.”
Callie knew she should pull back, but she rubbed her hands up his back instead. “But, I saw—”
“Evidence of a lifelong friendship.” He traced her cheekbones with his thumbs. “That’s it.”
“You’re not—”
“No.”
“Does Emma know that?”
His chuckle vibrated against her from everywhere their bodies touched. “Definitely.”
Relief washed through Callie. She balanced her head on his chin as she tried to figure out what it all meant. “Now what?”
“You invite me to your house.”
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“I didn’t invite you in, T.J..”
He just smiled.
He was built as solid as the mountains that had shaped his life, and frankly had the attitude to go with it, the one that said he could take on whoever and whatever, and you could kiss his perfect ass while he did so. She’d seen him do it too, back in his hell-raising, misspent youth.
Not that she was going there, to the time when he could have given her a single look and she’d have melted into a puddle at his feet.
Had melted into a puddle at his feet. Not going there…
Unfortunately for her senses, he smelled like the wild Sierras; pine and fresh air, and something even better, something so innately male that her nose twitched for more, seeking out the heat and raw male energy that surrounded him and always had. Since it made her want to lean into him, she shoved in another bite of ice cream instead.
He smiled. “I saw on Oprah once that women use ice cream as a substitute for sex.”
She choked again, and he resumed gliding his big, warm hand up and down her back. “You watch Oprah?”
“No. Annie was, and I overheard her yelling at the TV that women should have plenty of both sex and ice cream.”
That sounded exactly like his Aunt Annie. “Well, I don’t need the substitute.”
“No?” he murmured, looking amused at her again.
“No!”
He hadn’t taken his hands off her, she couldn’t help but notice. He still had one rubbing up and down her back, the other low on her belly, holding her upright, which was ridiculous, so she smacked it away, doing her best to ignore the fluttering he’d caused and the odd need she had to grab him by the shirt, haul him close, and have her merry way with him.
This was what happened to a woman whose last orgasm had come from a battery-operated device instead of a man, a fact she’d admit, oh never. “I was expecting your brother.”
“Stone’s working on Emma’s ‘honey do’ list at the new medical clinic, so he sent me instead. Said to give you these.” He pulled some maps from his back pocket, maps she needed for a field expedition for her research. When she took them out of his hands, he hooked his thumbs in the front pockets of his Levi’s. He wore a T-shirt layered with an opened button-down that said Wilder Adventures on the pec. His jeans were faded nearly white in the stress spots, of which there were many, nicely encasing his long, powerful legs and lovingly cupping a rather impressive package that was emphasized by the way his fingers dangled on his thighs.
Not that she was looking.
Okay, she was looking, but she couldn’t help it. The man oozed sexuality. Apparently some men were issued a handbook at birth on how to make a woman stupid with lust. And he’d had a lot of practice over the years.
She’d watched him do it.
Each of the three Wilder brothers had barely survived their youth, thanks in part to no mom and a mean, son-of-a-bitch father. But by some miracle, the three of them had come out of it alive and now channeled their energy into Wilder Adventures, where they guided clients on just about any outdoor adventure that could be imagined; heli-skiing, extreme mountain biking, kayaking, climbing, anything.
Though T.J. had matured and found success, he still gave off a don’t-mess-with-me vibe. Even now, at four in the afternoon, he looked big and bad and tousled enough that he might have just gotten out of bed and wouldn’t be averse to going back.
It irritated her. It confused her. And it turned her on, a fact that drove her bat-shit crazy because she was no longer interested in T.J. Wilder.
Nope.
It’d be suicide to still be interested. No one could sustain a crush for fifteen years.
No one.
Except, apparently, her. Because deep down, the unsettling truth was that if he so much as directed one of his sleepy, sexy looks her way, her clothes would fall right off.
Again.
And wasn’t that just her problem, the fact that once upon a time, a very long time ago, at the tail end of T.J.’s out-of-control youth, the two of them had spent a single night together being just about as intimate as a man and woman could get. Her first night with a guy. Definitely not his first. Neither of them had been exactly legal at the time, and only she’d been sober.
Which meant only she remembered.
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Copyright © 2010 Sherrill Quinn
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ISBN: 978-0-7582-5733-8
Taming the Moon Page 23
