“My father shot himself. The coroner thought it might have been a mercy killing.”
He saw the question Kelsey wasn’t asking. “It wasn’t,” he said firmly, then relented. “At least, not consciously.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Before I became a policeman, I used to go to the gun range to practice shooting. I wanted to become a letter-perfect marksman.” Morgan shoved his hands into his pockets. “When I got married and moved out, I left my old gun in the house. I don’t know why,” he said honestly and then shrugged. “Maybe I wanted to help relieve his suffering without having him on my conscience, I don’t know.”
“You’re not like that.”
She sounded so convinced, so sure. “How would you know?” he asked, controlled anger rippling through his voice. “A few minutes ago, you thought I was capable of it.”
“No, I didn’t,” she told him. “I just wanted to hear you say you didn’t do it.”
It still made no sense to him. People just weren’t unconditionally trusting like that.
“How would you know I wasn’t lying to you?”
She couldn’t say why she suddenly knew that he wouldn’t lie to her, she just did. She was so certain of it that she would have been willing to bet everything she had that he was telling her the truth. For some reason she couldn’t put into words, in these last few minutes, something in her soul had connected with his. She really felt bad about the accusations she’d hurled at him.
Kelsey doubted if Morgan would understand if she told him what she was feeling. She wasn’t completely sure she understood it herself. But it didn’t change the fact that she knew he was being truthful.
She smiled at him, her heart both aching for Morgan and filling with empathy.
Empathy and maybe something more.
Morgan was a wounded soul, and in a way that was minor when compared to what he’d gone through, so was she. Morgan was still waiting for her to answer. “Let’s just say I’ve had an epiphany and it made me realize that you couldn’t have done something like that,” she told him simply.
He scratched his head. The woman blew hot and then cold—and confused the hell out of him. “You’re one hell of a strange person, Kelsey Marlowe.”
The grin on her lips reached her eyes, lighting them up. “My brothers would tend to agree with you.” It was time to go. Before she found a way to put her other foot into her mouth. “Well, I brought you your jacket and wallet—”
A hint of amusement curved his mouth. “Not to mention a barrage of accusations.”
She nodded self-consciously. “That, too,” she allowed. Kelsey glanced toward the front door. “I’d better be going.”
Now that things were no longer adversarial, he relaxed a little. And realized that he didn’t want her to leave just yet. Having her here pushed the loneliness back. “You can stay for a while if you like.”
Their eyes held for a moment. “I’d like that very much.”
Her tone was silken and he realized something more. If they stayed inside the house, things might get complicated. He couldn’t uninvite her without looking like an idiot. And then a way out occurred to him. “How are you at taking orders?”
Where had that come from? “Excuse me?”
He nodded toward the side of the house that led into the garage. “I could use some help working on your mother’s car. Since you’re here, I thought you might want to lend a hand.”
She hadn’t expected that. But from the little bit she’d picked up last night, she found she rather liked watching a car being taken apart and fixed. The prospect intrigued her. “Sure. Fine. Just lead the way.”
He started to, then stopped for a moment as he asked, “What do you know about cars?”
“More than I did before I came over last night,” she answered brightly.
Morgan sighed. “I guess I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
Kelsey offered no argument, only a smile. “I guess so.”
Morgan rested the torque wrench on the padded towel he had draped on the left side of the opened hood. They’d been at this for two hours now. “You follow orders better than I thought you would.”
Despite the cool evening, Kelsey had managed to work up a sweat. Brushing the perspiration off from her forehead with the back of her hand, she grinned. She had a feeling Morgan did not dispense praise freely. “Glad I could surprise you.”
It was getting late. “We’ve done a fair share of work,” he told her. Putting the wrench back where it belonged on the wall, he crossed back to the car and dropped the hood back down. “But that’s enough for one night.” Turning away from the car, he looked at her. “Hold still.”
“Why?” Had she done something wrong? Was she about to step on something crawling around on the floor? The thought made her heart jump. Black widows had a tendency to seek out warmth in the corners of garages and under rocks. She hated black widow spiders.
“You’ve got some grease on your forehead.” Using the edge of his handkerchief, he wiped the smudge away. And as he did, Morgan realized that flicker of attraction was alive and well—and getting stronger. He dropped his hand to his side. “You’d better get going,” he urged. Rather than settle down, her heart was still jumping around. A great deal.
“Do you want me to?” she heard herself asking, her voice barely above a whisper.
“No,” he told her honestly, his eyes never leaving hers. “Which is why you should go.” Otherwise, things could go in a whole new direction. And they really shouldn’t. Her breath grew short. There was hardly enough air in her lungs for her to say,
“Funny, it sounds more like a reason to stay to me.”
“Neither one of us wants this to go anywhere,” Morgan told her quietly. Even though he believed what he was saying, his words sounded as if they lacked conviction, even to him.
“Speak for yourself, Officer Donnelly.”
Taking the rag that he’d picked up out of his hands, Kelsey let it drop onto the hood as she rose up on her toes. The words she’d uttered slipped along his skin, warming his face. Heating his blood. Morgan could feel his gut tightening. And his desire growing.
“I thought I was speaking for you,” he said, each word making its appearance slowly, in a measured cadence that seemed to take a great deal of effort just to push out. Kelsey moved her head slowly from side to side, her eyes never leaving his.
“Nope,” she murmured. “You weren’t.”
“If I kiss you again,” he warned even as he wove his arms around her, drawing her closer, “I’m not going to stop there.”
He saw the hint of a smile in her eyes. Saw the same smile curving her mouth.
“Promises, promises,” she murmured.
There was a sense of danger here that he didn’t encounter on the street. On the street, he knew the odds, knew the chances he was taking. This was walking a high wire without a net. One misstep and it was all over. “I’m not kidding, Kelsey.”
She could feel her heart racing. Felt excitement starting to build. Her voice was husky with anticipation as she said, “I certainly hope not.”
Kelsey’s lips were only inches from his. So close he could all but taste them against his own. Taste every word as it was spoken. His body throbbed.
How much was a man supposed to take? How long could he resist something he wanted so badly? Something, even as he wanted it, he knew he shouldn’t indulge in. If he was sensible, he would just walk away.
But he wasn’t sensible. And he couldn’t walk away.
“Whatever happens here is on your head,” he told her in one last-ditch effort to scare her off. The last-ditch effort failed.
He knew it would.
“I know. I accept full responsibility,” she whispered. This time, as she spoke, her lips lightly grazed his. The dam burst. The last straw broke. His mouth came down on hers as his arms tightened around her. He was swept away by his feelings, by his all but overwhelming need for her. A need that seemed to be mushroo
ming within him even as he tried to assuage it.
But it was impossible.
Morgan had known in his heart that kissing her wasn’t going to solve anything, wasn’t going to end anything. On the contrary, it sent him launching headfirst into a completely different world. One of their creation. One that only the two of them inhabited.
They might as well have been the last two people on earth.
In her bruised and damaged heart, Kelsey knew Morgan was right. She should have just stopped it while she still had the power to do so. He wouldn’t have pushed, wouldn’t have insisted. She instinctively knew that wasn’t the kind of man he was. Maybe that was why she hadn’t allowed him to back away. Hadn’t wanted him to back away. Because he would have if she’d asked him.
She wanted a man who cared enough about her, not himself, to take her feelings into account. He was that man. Besides, his story had gotten to her, had made her open up her heart and bleed for him. And now she was vulnerable. So vulnerable that when intense desires sprang up within her, they all had his name indelibly tattooed on them.
He couldn’t stop.
Didn’t want to stop.
Knew he should do the right thing and back away, but he just didn’t have the strength, the willpower, to do so. It just wasn’t in him. If she’d given him a sign, just one little sign that she realized this was a mistake, that she wanted him to pull back, he would have forced himself to stop. For her. But faced with her compliance, with her fervor and enthusiasm, he couldn’t. Couldn’t do it alone. Not when her mouth tasted sweeter than any fruit he’d ever had. Not when her skin smelled of vanilla and the scent of her hair made his head swirl.
Holding her fast to him with one arm, he felt around on the wall until he located the switch that would automatically close the garage door, locking them away from prying eyes. He hit the switch and he heard the mechanism slowly begin to grind, sending the door back down into place. It vaguely registered. His mind was otherwise occupied. As were his hands.
God, but she felt soft. Soft and pliable. Touching her was like sifting a small piece of heaven through his fingers. The fire within him flared. If he wasn’t careful, he would wind up ripping off her clothes and taking her right here. Snatching up the last of his control, Morgan picked her up in his arms and pushed open the door that led from the garage into his house.
He felt as if he was stumbling through the dark. His lips never left hers as he made his way in. She was the source of his madness and, for now, the source of his fragile solace, as well.
Once inside the house, Morgan got no farther than the family room.
His passions running rampant in his veins, Morgan was only vaguely aware of undressing Kelsey. He tried to strip away barriers, tossing them aside to get ever closer to the warmth, the heat that he suddenly needed more than he needed to breathe.
The kisses grew deeper, the pace faster.
Morgan felt her fingers, flying along his chest and he realized that she was breathlessly doing to him what he was doing to her. Tearing away anything that got in the way.
Material went flying, replaced by palms that were spread out, pressing hard into warm, willing flesh, replaced by lips eager to sample new tastes and to anoint new regions.
Thoughts came in disjointed pieces and feelings rode on lightning bolts, crackling as they made contact on planes no one else could see or feel. But they did. They saw, they felt. And most of all, they made love. Chapter Eleven
H e made her want to do insane things, like just be there and absorb what was happening. Savor it and revel in it before disintegrating into hot, spent ashes. But by nature, Kelsey had never been a passive soul willing to merely accept, to quietly receive. Something inside of her, the competitive streak of being the youngest and only girl in her family, burst forward. She was determined to make Morgan feel as weak in the knees, as ecstatically overwhelmed as she was. But if this were an actual contest, Kelsey knew she would have come in second. In her own defense, it was hard to concentrate when her insides turned to liquid flame. When the feel of Morgan’s lips, his hands, his tongue, his very breath along her skin drove her to a world where coherent thoughts no longer existed. Where only incredible pleasure mattered. And the pursuit of more was the single reason for drawing breath. She wasn’t a novice at lovemaking, but she might as well have been because she had never felt a connection like this before. Never felt as if she were having an outof-body experience before. Never hit the heights exclusively and more than once before she finally became one with her lover. She did this time.
Not once, but twice, and then again. Three times she reached a climactic peak. The experience was so fulfilling, she didn’t think that there was anything left within her to offer Morgan when, finally, he slid his body along hers.
Balancing his weight on his elbows, he framed her face with his hands a second before he entered her. The moment he did, the dance, wickedly delicious, began, building an impossibly beautiful castle in the sky that kept on rising.
Kelsey tightened her arms around him. She held on as tightly as she could, as if she was afraid that he would let her go and she would wind up freefalling through space.
As the furor built, Kelsey moaned against his lips. Morgan could almost feel the sound pushing the fire in his veins a notch higher. The excitement he felt was barely controllable, barely containable. Although he logically knew it was impossible, she still made him wish this moment could go on forever or at least indefinitely. But he couldn’t hold back any longer.
He needed, wanted to scale that ultimate height and bring her with him. It was a matter of timing and he was good at that, or had been, back when it mattered. Back when he’d been part of the human race and had a wife and child to complete him.
The moment the summit was reached, Morgan could feel the sadness encroaching. Sadness and a feeling of disloyalty because, unlike the handful of other times when he’d had sex with what amounted to a total stranger, doing this with Kelsey somehow mattered. And in mattering, it tarnished the memory of his past life. The sharp blades of guilt were not far behind.
She could feel it.
She could feel Morgan withdrawing from her, not physically, but emotionally. Feel it as if it were a sudden, cold draft that intruded between them, dividing them and wrapping them each in separate, icy sheets.
“I’m sorry,” she heard him say. The words instantly froze her heart. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that to you.”
She clutched her anger to her. It was all she had. Anger was her weapon, her shield.
Kelsey raised herself up on her elbow so she could look down at his face.
“First of all,” she said in a voice she struggled to keep level, “you didn’t do it to me, you did it with me. In case you didn’t notice, this wasn’t some back-alley assault. You didn’t just drag me by the hair behind some Dumpster and ‘have your way with me’ while I whimpered and pleaded for you to stop.” Her eyes flashed angrily. “What we just engaged in was mutual.” And she really, really didn’t want to regret it, but he was now pushing all the wrong buttons, casting a pall over what had, only moments ago, been glorious.
“And second?” he asked quietly.
Kelsey stared at him as if the man had suddenly lapsed into some foreign tongue. Or had lost his mind. “Excuse me?”
“You said ‘first of all.’ That would necessarily mean that that there’s a ‘second of all’ on your list. What is it?” he asked. She raised her chin slightly. Stubbornly. Had her brothers been there, one of them would have warned Morgan that he had just unwittingly stumbled into uncharted territory.
“And second of all,” she continued tersely, “who was here with us?”
It was his turn to be confused. Looking at Kelsey, he waited. When she didn’t elaborate, he had to ask, “What?”
“Who was here with us?” Kelsey repeated slowly, deliberately. Then, before Morgan could protest that he didn’t know what she was talking about, she pressed the point. “While we were m
aking love, there was somebody here with us,” she insisted. “Not at first, but definitely now. And whoever it is is making you feel guilty for making love with me.” Her eyes never left his. “Is it your wife?”
She got it on the first guess, Morgan thought, irritated with her and with himself for different reasons. He sat up, dragging a hand through his unruly hair. This was all wrong. Damn it, he wouldn’t have thought of himself being this weak. “Look, maybe you’d better go home…”
She didn’t want it to end this way. Not after she’d scaled such wonderful heights. Because if it did, if she left now, all she would remember would be the argument. And the sharp, painful feeling of being abandoned.
Not only that, but his flatly stated suggestion felt like a slap in the face. She wouldn’t stand for being “dismissed.” If she left, it would be because she wanted to, not because he told her to.
“I’m not an expert on these things,” she said, her voice as flat as his, “and I didn’t know your wife, but from what I’ve picked up, she wouldn’t have wanted you to be unhappy. She would have wanted you to move on with your life.”
“You’re right,” he said. She stared into his face and instantly knew that his agreement wasn’t a cause for celebration. And she was right. “You didn’t know my wife,” he continued, his voice sounding as if his throat was tight. “So you can’t pretend to know what she would or wouldn’t have wanted.”
Pulling her clothes to her, Kelsey rose to her feet with the dignity of a princess.
“Anyone who loves someone wants only the best for them,” she told him stiffly.
The vulnerable, exposed feeling permeating through her went far beyond the fact that she was naked. Kelsey quickly left the room—and him. She made her way toward the rear of the house, hoping to find either the bathroom or a guestroom so that she could hurry into her clothes in isolation. The sooner she was dressed, the sooner she could work on shedding this embarrassed feeling.
Kelsey found a bathroom first.
[Kate's Boys 05] - A Lawman for Christmas Page 10
