by JoAnn Ross
Trace had to ask. "I've got another question."
The man who'd massaged away her tension after her sister's funeral was gone. In his place was a stiff-jawed, no-nonsense cop who would stop at nothing to close his case.
"Ask away."
Her smile was a lie. He hoped her answer would be the truth. "Did you know your sister was going to leave you her ranch?"
Even expecting the question, it hurt. "No, Sheriff. I did not somehow discover that Laura was going to rewrite her will and no, I did not find out that she was leaving me the ranch, and even if I had, there was no way in hell I would have killed her for it."
Temper flared. "Dammit, despite our problems, despite all those years we weren't speaking to one another, I loved my sister, Callahan. And she was the only person who ever truly loved me back."
"She didn't care that I was a famous television writer. And although she sent me flowers when I won my last Emmy, I knew she'd feel the same way about me if I was a waitress down at The Branding Iron Cafe. All she ever wanted was for people she cared for to be happy."
Mariah took a deep, shuddering breath. "Laura was the gentlest person I ever knew. Will ever know. I gave her hell over the years, but when most people would have written me off as hopeless, she continued to love me, for myself, with all my flaws. She was the only person ever in my life who loved me openly and honestly and without strings."
Despite her vow not to cry, a single tear escaped, trailing wetly down her cheek. She brushed it away with a furious, unsteady swipe of her hand. "Which is why I'm going to make damn sure her killer is arrested and put behind bars if it's the last thing I do."
He watched her valiant attempt to remain brave and felt something inside his heart clench. Despite her bold words, Mariah appeared younger than her years. Defenseless. And distractingly desirable. "I believe that's my job."
She looked at him and her lips curved into a faint smile. Unlike the earlier feigned one, this smile was honest and trembled slightly with lingering emotion from her passionate outburst.
"Of course it is. But don't forget, Sheriff, even the Lone Ranger needed Tonto's help from time to time."
Trace returned her smile, taking her words as an offering of a truce.
"May I ask a question?" Her voice was soft, but not the least bit hesitant.
He knew what was coming, knew he should stop it, but found himself powerless to resist. "Go ahead."
She sat back down on the couch, tucked her legs beneath her, and turned toward him. "Is this interrogation over?"
Her beguiling scent surrounded him, drawing him in. "It wasn't an interrogation."
She leaned forward, until their faces were scant inches apart and looked deep into his eyes. "All right." Her breath fanned his lips like a soft summer breeze. "Let me put it another way." Needs too long denied stirred painfully in his gut. And lower still. "Are you through asking me questions, Sheriff?"
Unable to resist her sultry siren's lure, he ran the back of his hand down the side of her face. Trace wasn't exactly thrilled by the way such hard-fought control seemed to disintegrate whenever he allowed himself to get close to this woman.
To lose his edge was dangerous. It was insane. But knowing the risk didn't change a thing.
He wanted her. Needed her. With an intensity that bordered on desperation. Although he'd done his best to resist temptation, what he wanted to do, needed to do, was make love to Mariah. Now, while he was only thinking of her, and not all the reasons why he shouldn't.
What he was on the verge of doing was against every police policy he'd ever been taught. Trace knew he was standing on the banks of his own personal Rubicon. Cross this and there'd be no turning back.
Reminding himself he'd never been known for playing by the book, Trace said, "I do have one more question."
Mariah turned her head, brushing her lips against his knuckles. "Yes." Her turquoise eyes, lustrous with sensual feminine invitation, smiled up into his from beneath her lush fringe of lashes. "The answer is yes."
As he lowered his head, Trace watched Mariah's ripe lush lips part in anticipation. His desire to take warred with his desire to give. And although some primal inner urge had him wanting to drag her to the floor and take her fast and hard, another, even more elemental part of him vowed to use whatever patience he'd honed over the years, whatever skill he'd acquired, to bring her pleasure.
Mariah expected passion. Braced herself for it. But in contrast to the heated kiss that had rocked them both the evening of Laura's funeral, this time Trace's lips did little more than nibble at hers, testing. Teasing. Tempting.
Their breaths mingled, became one.
With a soft moan, she wrapped her arms around his neck. Her breath caught, then shuddered out. Her lips clung to his, parting like the silken petals of a rose, offering more, inviting everything.
Her taste, as fresh as a spring morning, as sweet as summer sunshine, was drugging him, making him weak. Too soon. Not having realized the edge of desire could be sharp and so jagged, he dragged his mouth away and began lingeringly kissing her silky cheek. Her temple. The tender skin at the nape of her neck.
"You've changed your perfume." Passion radiated from every fragrant pore. He was hypnotizing her, drawing her into the mists without so much as touching her. Her mind clouded, her blood sang. It was both enervating and exciting at the same time.
"Yes," she managed to say on a soft, shimmering sigh as he nibbled lazily on her earlobe. Her head fell back, allowing his clever, wicked lips access to her throat.
Outside a band was playing patriotic marches in the town square, families were feasting on the Cow Belles' annual barbecue, children were playing tag and hide-and-seek among the oak and cottonwood trees as they had for generations, since Whiskey River's earliest days.
Inside, the world had narrowed. There was nothing but Mariah for Trace. Nothing but him for her.
"It's more sultry than your usual scent. It reminds me of heat-soaked scarlet flowers warmed by a tropical sun."
Every nerve ending in her body had begun to tingle, anticipating his intimate touch. As his lips grazed her lids, her eyes drifted closed. "I wore it for you," she murmured, her voice little more than a whisper.
Hungry for another taste of those rigidly cut lips, she drew his mouth back to hers. He tasted dark and dangerous and so very, very male. "To seduce you."
"I thought that might be the case." She tasted like honeyed temptation. A temptation Trace had given up trying to resist.
Mariah circled his mouth with the tip of her tongue, rewarded by his deep shudder. "Is it working?"
It was not in her nature to be coy. But there was something about Trace Callahan that brought out instinctive feminine responses she'd never known were lurking inside her.
He captured one of her hands and pressed it against his. throbbing groin. "You tell me."
His stony sex stirred violently against her palm, sending fiery sparks shooting through her. "Gracious, Sheriff," she said on a low, lush laugh that vibrated all the way through him, "is that your gun? Or are you just glad to see me?"
"I'm always glad to see you." He ran his hands over the silk of her shoulders, down her arms. "Even when I don't want to be."
She was not offended by his obvious reluctance. Even through the mists clouding her mind, Mariah understood that this was difficult for Trace. He might not always follow all the rules, but she knew he was an intensely honorable man. To find himself attracted to a woman involved in his murder investigation undoubtedly presented an ethical dilemma.
Not wanting to discuss it, not now, Mariah pressed a palm against his dark cheek. "I'm always happy to see you, too," she admitted softly. "Sometimes so much it terrifies me."
"Join the club."
Even now she could hear the lingering reluctance in his voice. "I know you didn't want this to happen," she murmured as she rubbed her cheek against his. The roughness of his evening beard was a stimulating contrast to the softness of his lips. Please, s
he prayed to whatever fates had brought them together like this, don't let him change his mind. "But you still have a choice."
He fisted his hands in her hair and tilted her head back to meet his gaze. "No." His eyes filled her vision, gravely dark, steely gray. "I don't."
Before she could respond, he lowered his mouth to hers again. The soft kisses grew longer. Deeper. Darker.
Her lips were warm and moist and so very generous. She welcomed his tongue with a breathless moan that burned through him like wildfire. When his teeth scraped at her bottom lip, his name tumbled from her lips and she clung to him, pulling him down on the sofa cushions.
"Oh, more," she gasped as he buried his mouth in the hollow of her throat where her pulse was hammering hot and fast.
"Much, much more," he promised.
Her body was moving desperately beneath his, kindling smoldering fires he'd struggled valiantly to bank. Erotic images that had been torturing what little sleep he'd gotten since Laura Fletcher's murder flashed through his mind, arousing him like no other woman.
With hands that were not nearly as steady as he would have liked, he slid the gathered sleeves of her peasant blouse down her arms, freeing fragrant breasts that spilled enticingly over the top of a strapless ivory silk camisole.
Her sun-kissed California flesh gleamed in the lamplight like molten gold. Just looking at her, lying beneath him, so beautiful, so willing, caused a silken fist to squeeze his heart.
When he trailed a fingertip over that luminous skin, he was suddenly all too aware of the calluses first earned that long-ago year when the Texas correctional system had decided to crack down on youthful offenders. The program, which had been touted to the politicians and the press as a stonemason class, had, in truth, been nothing but good old-fashioned convict rock busting.
When she shivered, he said, "I'm sorry. My hands are too rough."
His strong hands were bringing her a pleasure she'd never known existed. His fingers felt like the finest grade of sandpaper against her flesh, stimulating nerve endings.
When he went to take those masculine hands away, she grasped his wrists, kissing each roughened fingertip in turn. "Don't stop." Her eyes, lush and luminous with anticipated desire, locked on to his. "I like it." With her gaze still on his, she pressed her lips against his right palm. Then his left. Smiling softly, she returned them to her breasts which were aching for his continued touch.
Following her lead, he continued to caress her, skimming his palms with tautly controlled patience over those silken slopes, brushing his thumbs over rosy nipples that hardened and ached in response. When she would have rushed, he slowed the pace, continuing to seduce her with slow hands and tender lips.
Mariah had no idea how long he treated her to such torment. It could have been minutes. It could have been an eternity. She only knew that flames were rising deep in some secret center, spiraling outward to her fingertips and if she couldn't feel him there—where the heat was most intense—she'd go crazy.
"Trace." She was moving beneath him, arching up against his hard male body. She heard the plea in her voice but felt no shame. Only hot, desperate need. "Please." His mouth had claimed a taut nipple, his tongue and teeth creating a dazzling, pulsating tension between her legs. Framing his face with her hands, she pulled his mouth back to hers. "I need you. All of you."
Groaning his own need, Trace complied, leaving the couch and lifting her in his arms in one gloriously strong movement to carry her into the adjoining bedroom.
The mattress sighed as he laid her on the bed with uncommon tenderness. It whispered again when he sat down beside her.
"You are so incredibly lovely." He caressed her from shoulder to thigh. "You take my breath away."
Men had called her lovely before. But no man had ever possessed the power to make her blood burn. Men had wanted her before. But never had she wanted a man with an intensity that bordered on madness.
Anticipation had risen to a fever pitch. Mariah managed a shaky smile. "You're pretty magnificent yourself, Sheriff."
He winced at that. No woman had ever called him magnificent before. But then again, he considered, no woman had ever looked at him the way Mariah was looking at him now.
The room was draped in long purple shadows. A tree, sighing in the soft summer night breeze, brushed its leaves against the window. Outside, music drifted on the air; inside there were only soft sighs and low moans as Mariah and Trace undressed one another, reveling in the wonders of fingertips brushing over naked skin, of flesh pressing against warm flesh.
When she saw the ugly scar bisecting his chest, Mariah could not quite hold back her gasp. "Oh, Trace."
Her voice was thick with dull horror. She'd known about the shooting, of course. Known of the open-heart surgery that had managed, just barely, to save his life. But to see such a vivid reminder…
"It'll fade." His own voice was gruff. He didn't want to talk about the shooting. Or think about it. Not tonight. Not when heaven was within reach. "They all do."
Understanding why he'd declared the subject off-limits, but needing to somehow show her feelings, to let him know how glad she was that he'd survived, she pressed her lips against the angry red line, trailing kisses down his chest, over his stomach, lower, then lower still.
The touch of her lips on his throbbing penis was like a fiery brand. Trace's mind emptied of everything but Mariah. Mariah of the golden hair, the turquoise eyes, the soft, perfumed flesh. Mariah whose clever, circling tongue was enough to make a grown man weep.
When she took him fully, deeply into her warm, wet generous mouth, he buried his hands in her tumble of silken hair and closed his eyes, allowing her to take him closer and closer to the edge. Just when he was hovering on that steep precipice of release, he caught hold of her bare shoulders and pulled her up beside him.
"Not yet." He kissed her and tasted himself on her lips. "We've plenty of time."
And then, gloriously, his hands, his lips were everywhere. Relentlessly caressing her flesh, probing, biting, licking, bending her to his will. When she would have rushed, he ruthlessly slowed the pace. Never, in a million years, could she have suspected that such a large man could be so tender. Or that such strong hands could be so gentle.
Helpless to resist, Mariah felt herself melting, like a candle left too long in a hot tropical sun. She could hear her own breathing in the hushed stillness of the darkened room. Feel her heart pounding in her chest, her throat, her ears. Never had she been so aware of her body. Never had she known such mindless pleasure.
When his tongue cut a hot swath down her spine, she moaned and shifted anxiously beneath him. When his teeth nipped at the tender cord at the back of her knee, she choked back a sob.
And when his breath—as hot and erotic as a desert sirocco—feathered the soft curls between her legs, she drew in a ragged breath and waited, every nerve ending poised, for the inevitable.
She was hot and burning. And remarkably, she was his. Her sensitive pink lips, framed by those blond curls, were glistening like dewy rose petals. Drawn to their silky softness, Trace caressed them first with a fingertip, then his lips.
When her legs began to tremble, his wide rough hands cupped her hips, holding her against his mouth. His tongue plunged into her heat, sending shock waves of pleasure and pain surging though her that had Mariah crying out. She reached blindly for him. Her body was rapidly building toward its flash point; she was desperate for him to be inside her when it happened.
Helpless, stripped of control, gasping for air, she begged for him to end her torment even as she wanted it never to stop. As she was racked with a sharp, shuddering climax, Mariah told herself that there couldn't possibly be more. That pleasure could not be any sharper, nor passion any richer than this.
She was soon to discover how wrong she was. His lips, warmed by her skin, returned to hers at the same time as he plunged into her, like a hot steel sword all the way to the hilt, filling her still tingling flesh, pounding so hard, so dee
p, that everything that had gone before paled in comparison.
She locked her legs around him, her hips meeting his, thrust for thrust. Her hands fitfully roamed his back, exulting in the feel of each glistening muscle bunching and straining.
Release exploded, hot and hard, first hers—again!— then Trace's close behind. They were still engulfed in the blinding fireball when a thunderous boom rattled the windowpane and the night sky was filled with the dazzling red, white and blue brightness of Fourth of July fireworks.
"I don't believe it!" Mariah said on a breathless laugh when she could finally speak again. "I'd never get away with writing a clichéd scene like this."
Feeling more satisfied than he'd ever been in his life, Trace grinned down at her and brushed a few strands of moist hair away from her face. "It may be clichéd. But you gotta admit, it works."
For the first time since she'd met him, Trace actually looked relaxed. He'd been ruggedly handsome before, but the boyish grin made him downright devastating.
"I'll admit to being impressed, Sheriff. Not many women get fireworks. So how are you at making the earth move?"
He pressed a kiss against her smiling lips. "Next time."
Mariah was disappointed, but not all that surprised -when Trace's walkie-talkie began to crackle from the other room.
He cursed as he pushed himself out of the cozy warmth of her bed. He wasn't ready to return to the real world. And he definitely was not eager to get back to work.
Mariah remained where she was, frustrated that she could not make out his murmured words. She was debating following him into the living room of the suite when he returned and began to scoop up his clothing from the floor.
"I'm sorry." He pulled on his briefs. His jeans followed.
She managed a smile she didn't quite feel. "I understand."
"I really hate rushing off like this." Smooth move, Callahan, Trace blasted himself. Take the lady to bed then get the hell out before things get too sticky. Standing beside the rumpled bed, he shrugged into his shirt.
