Blood and death.
Don’t be such a baby, she told herself. Again. Go to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a whole new experience in coping.
She forced herself to lie down. Relaxation was impossible. Within seconds she was turning one way and another, trying to get comfortable, to not think.
I’m fine when I have something to do. Maybe I should just give up on sleep and work on Custer’s papers.
Rain from the wind-swept clouds rattled distractingly, with no rhythm to soothe. A gust of wind scraped a branch against glass. It sounded like a muffled groan. She shot upright before she could stop herself.
To hell with it.
Throwing aside the covers, Sara put her feet on the floor. The surprisingly warm floor.
Jay was right. Sleeping above the stove is sweet.
If you happen to feel like sleeping.
She didn’t.
Trying to move quietly so as not to disturb him, she covered her T-shirt and panties with her flannel shirt, which smelled of sunshine and rain and the time before she knew, really knew, how brutally life could be snuffed out.
Her bedroom door opened without a creak. Barefoot, she tiptoed down the hall toward the stairs. She was halfway past Jay’s door when it opened. Light poured into the hallway.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked, his voice husky.
“Don’t start on my coffee habit.”
He looked slowly from her flannel shirt to her bare thighs. “Coffee?” he asked absently. “Damn, woman, you make a flannel shirt look like Spanish lace.”
She glanced down at her shirt. It looked like flannel to her.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. I was just going to do . . . something. Lying awake is making me edgy.”
“Me, too.”
A branch slapped against the roof.
She flinched.
“Come here, sweetheart,” he said, pulling her into a gentle hug. “It’s been a hell of a day.”
With a deep, breaking breath, Sara gave in to the embrace, wrapping herself in Jay’s warmth and at the same time returning it.
“You’re hotter than the stove,” she said, brushing her cheek lightly against the neat mat of hair that covered the upper slopes of his bare chest. “Tickle more, too.”
His muscles moved beneath her cheek in silent laughter. “Rub harder,” he said. “Doesn’t tickle that way.”
“I’m not complaining.” She breathed deeply and relaxed against him. “You smell of smoke.”
He eased his fingers into the silky dark mass of her hair. “I must not have showered well enough.”
Her soft laugh stirred the hair on his chest. “You showered just fine. You can’t feed the stove without picking up the scent of fire and wood. I like it.”
“Beats gun oil.”
He felt her stiffen and silently cursed his unguarded tongue. With strong fingers he rubbed her scalp and the tension along her spine. Slowly her body loosened again.
“You must have washed your hair,” he murmured. “It smells of lavender.”
“And smoke from drying it near the stove.”
“You have a thing for smoke.”
“On you, yes. On me, not so much.”
They held each other as the silence settled around them like another kind of embrace. Finally she rubbed her cheek against him slowly, breathing deeply of him before she loosened her arms.
“You must be cold,” she said. She certainly was wherever she wasn’t touching him.
His fingers—warm—tilted her chin up so that she met his eyes in the intimate twilight of the hallway. “You aren’t used to the kind of day you had.”
“And you are?”
“Not really. It just doesn’t surprise me anymore. Come on, let’s go to bed. And that’s all it will be. Just let me hold you until your adrenaline fades and you fall asleep. Do you trust me that much?”
“You, yes. Myself, no.”
He cocked his head slightly, looking at her.
“Oh, I won’t jump you,” she said wryly, “but curling up with you sounds way too good. I’ve wanted to get close to you for months. That’s why I came to Wyoming instead of going back to San Francisco. I wanted to see if the rest of you matched your voice.” Her sigh ruffled the springy male hair that tickled her lips so sweetly. “It did. Yowza, did it ever. And I’m babbling. Shut me up, Jay.”
Slowly he bent and fitted his mouth to hers, giving her every chance to change her mind. She opened for him without hesitation, sharing the sweet heat inside her lips, touching the tip of her tongue to his, tasting him as he tasted her. Parts of her she hadn’t even known were tight began to relax. Her body softened against his until they were so close that even breath couldn’t get between them. They held each other, rocking slowly, letting the ugliness of murder slide away until there was only a man and a woman savoring the complex heat of life.
The kiss changed as gently as it had begun. Delicate tasting became a deeper seeking, a sensual duel with no losers. His arms hardened, pulling her closer and then closer still, until neither could breathe without the other. He ate at her mouth, wanting more. Her nails sank into his muscular shoulders as she tried to pull herself up his body, wanting to crawl under his skin. Needing to.
He lifted her until she was draped along his body, letting her know how much he shared her clawing need. When she felt the hard length of him, she made a sound of approval and . . . fleeting hesitation.
“Everything seems to come pretty big in Wyoming,” she said, her voice low and shaky. “Are you licensed for that firearm, soldier?”
His laugh was also a groan. “Oh yeah. Are you?”
“I’m having a few doubts,” she said half teasing, half not.
“We’ll fit,” he said, biting at her lips. “It’s killing me to think about how hot it will be.”
She let out a broken breath that was almost a laugh. “As long as you don’t expect fireworks, we’re good.”
Slowly he eased her down his body until her feet touched the floor again.
“Define fireworks,” he said against her lips.
“I’m, well, average. You aren’t. I mean, I like sex as well as the next woman, but it’s not a world shaker for—”
Her words were cut off by his tongue stroking deep and his hands rubbing down her back to her waist. His touch slipped under her panties until he could fill his hands with her sweet ass, fingertips sinking deep, opening her until she made a startled sound and shuddered at the lightning stroke of pleasure. The hot rush of her response spread between them.
“Average, huh?” He laughed. “Sweetheart, I can’t wait to have an average night with you.”
Without warning he shifted his grip, sliding one hand around to her front until he could sink a long finger into her.
“Wet,” he said roughly. “Soft. So . . . damned . . . hot.”
He twisted his finger, rubbing against her deep inside. She gasped again and tightened around the sweet intrusion. The silky pulses of her pleasure made both of them groan.
“I want you to milk my cock like that when you come,” he said hoarsely. “It won’t happen the first time because you don’t know how good it’s going to be and I’ve been too long without anything except my hand for company. But it will happen, Sara. I promise you.”
His hand moved again and suddenly there were two fingers pressing into her. They felt shockingly good, twisting and probing, scissoring until she shuddered and the air between them filled with the heady musk of her passion. Her body bowed into an arc of need, driving him even deeper into her body.
A groan ripped between his clenched teeth. “I could take you right here, right now, and you’d scream with pleasure. God knows I’d want to. In fact, I’d do anything to give you the release you’re shaking for. But I don’t trust myself not to part those plump, silky lips and push home while you’re coming.”
“Do it,” she gasped.
“No condom.”
She bit his should
er in frustration.
“Christ, we’re going to burn down the night,” he said roughly.
With swift movements he shifted her until he could carry her against his chest. She inhaled sharply, unused to being carted around like a child. Before she could adjust, she was lying on her back in his bed, staring up at him with astonished eyes.
“Too fast?” he asked.
“No one has lifted me since . . . forever.”
“I’ll have to make you part of my regular workout.” He smiled rather fiercely. “It sure would be more fun than the usual routine.”
She watched him as he opened the drawer in the bedside table, removed some condoms, and threw them on top of the wooden surface. She reached for one of them, only to have him take her hand and kiss it hard enough that she felt teeth.
“Not yet,” he said, looking into her beautiful dark eyes. “There’s this little thing known as foreplay. I want to undress you, stroke you, feel your nipples rise against my tongue.”
She felt her nipples draw up in an aching hunger that startled her.
“And I’d like to explore every inch of your body with my hands and teeth and tongue,” she whispered, surprised at her hunger to taste him. “That’s new for me.”
A shudder ripped through him, hardening him even more. When he reached out to unbutton her flannel shirt, his fingers had a fine tremor. The fact that she was openly admiring his body—including the hard flesh that had shoved eagerly through the slit in his briefs—didn’t help. And then her finger was touching his tip, lingering over the warm drops that had seeped out of his control. Curious, she licked her fingertip.
“You’re not the only one this is new for,” he said through his teeth. “I’m about to go off like a teenager.”
Her smile was as old as Eve. “Then I won’t tell you how much I like your taste.”
“And you called yourself average. Sweet Jesus.” He locked his teeth and fought for the control he had always taken for granted. “I’ve been waiting all my life for an average woman like you.” He took a deep breath and counted to ten. Slowly. “Do you like sewing on buttons?”
She blinked. “Not particularly.”
“Then you better finish opening your shirt. I’m about a breath away from tearing off everything you’re wearing. With my teeth.”
She looked at the burn of need riding his cheekbones and the stark lines of hard-won control on his face. Reluctantly she slid her hands away from his body and unfastened her shirt.
“All the way off,” he said. “T-shirt, too.”
Not giving herself time to feel shy, she reached back behind her neck, grabbed a handful of flannel and T-shirt, and pulled them off over her head in a single motion.
“Bossy, aren’t—” Her voice broke off at the naked appreciation in his eyes.
“Perfect,” he said, his voice husky.
“Hardly,” she said.
“For me, you’re perfect.”
He lowered himself to the bed and took one dusky nipple into his mouth. After a few seconds, she forgot all about her imperfect body and began twisting slowly against the mouth that was turning her inside out. Other men had dutifully massaged her on the way to sex, their speed making clear that what they really wanted was between her legs. And theirs.
Jay wasn’t dutiful. He quickly found what made her moan and writhe in wordless pleas for more. Then he settled in and drove her so wild she didn’t even feel her panties being pulled down her restless legs. His hungry fingers parted her, twisting as she did, driving her higher and higher, and he savored her unknowing whimpers of pleasure. His thumb probed her slick folds, seeking the proud bud he had called up from her softness. First gentle, then demanding, he circled her flesh, pleasing, teasing, and above all avoiding the pressure that she demanded with each broken breath.
“Tease,” she panted.
“Yes,” he hissed between gritted teeth. “Something about you brings out the devil in me.”
“Is that what you call it?” Her hand curled around his erection and squeezed.
“Ah, God,” he said. Sweat broke out on him from forehead to heels. “Mercy, sweetheart.”
“Why?”
“Condom,” he said on a broken breath. He hugged her close with his free arm and rolled her across his body, massaging her butt cheek as he did. “On the table. My hands are busy.”
Then so was his mouth.
She barely registered the words. The combined onslaught of his mouth and hands and the twisting flex of his body overwhelmed her. Between one second and the next, a savage ecstasy shook her. Despite her continued tremors of pleasure, she managed to snag a foil packet and blindly press it into one of Jay’s hands.
In record time, he put on the condom. He rolled her over onto her back, lifted her knees over his arms, and sank into her pulsing core. He clenched his body and fought against his own release, wanting more, much more, than a few strokes on his way to orgasm.
But that was what he got before his body put paid to any idea of waiting. He had already waited a lifetime for a partner like Sara. He measured himself within her once, twice, three times and then ecstasy drew his body so tight he trembled. With a shout that was her name, he spent himself deep inside her.
When he could move again, he forced himself to separate from her. The hallway to the bathroom felt cold after her heat. He got rid of the condom quickly and went back to the room, not knowing whether to laugh or swear at the way she had described herself.
“Average,” he said as he walked back in from the bathroom.
She opened her eyes for a second, then closed them and sank back into a boneless kind of languor. “I wasn’t talking about you,” she mumbled. “Hell, someone should bronze your dick and—” Her eyes flew open and she slapped a hand over her mouth.
He laughed a low, satisfied male kind of laugh. “Bronze, huh? Bet that would tickle something fierce.”
She groaned. “I’d blush if I had the energy.”
“Save your strength,” he advised.
“For what?”
“Next time is your turn.”
Her eyes opened. “I had my turn. Oh yeah, I had a really good turn.”
“Who said you only get one?”
When dawn stroked gentle fingertips over Jay, he was lying on his stomach, his head turned toward the center of the bed.
No, not dawn. Sara.
He opened his eyes as he arched against the fingers sliding slowly down his spine, probing sensuously, caressing each vertebra.
“All there?” he asked, his voice husky with sleep and desire.
“Twenty-two . . . twenty-three . . . twenty-four,” she murmured. “So far so good. The last nine are harder to count, even with the curtains open and the sun pouring in. Those are fused in two sections—your vertebrae, not the curtains. Five in the lower back”—her fingers probed less gently—“and four in the coccyx, also called the tailbone. Sometimes a light touch is better for counting there.”
His body tensed as her fingertips slid to the crease in his buttocks and kept going.
“All thirty-three present and accounted for,” she said. “Plus two, oh yeah, two really fine testicles, also called balls.” Her hand massaged slowly as she admired the way his body tightened into clearly defined muscles. “And last but really not least”—her hand slid under his body—“we have one penis, which we’ve already established is truly a bronze-worthy work of art.”
“I don’t want to know how many ribs I have,” he warned her, flexing and releasing his buttocks to rub against her fingers.
“Ticklish?”
“Are you?”
“Right. No ribs.”
He rolled to his side, making it easier for her to stroke him—and for him to pet and tease her breasts.
“I could get used to waking up with you in the morning,” he said, admiring the peak he drew from her breast.
“Same goes. I’m going to enjoy you to the max before I go back home.”
His fingers
paused, then resumed shaping her. “When do you have to go back?”
“I’ve been thinking about that since I woke up,” she admitted.
“And?” He rolled her nipple.
Her breath caught. “I think the Custers will show best in Jackson. There’s plenty of high-end traffic there, the kind that will be attracted to the paintings and can afford to buy. Of course, we won’t be selling. We’ll just be pumping up buzz before a future auction date. There was a space for rent across from the antler park that—”
“Antler park?”
“The place downtown that has antler arches leading to grass.”
He smiled. “Antler park. I like it. There was an empty storefront?”
“Yes. If you rent it for, say, six months, I could set up a display space for the best of the Custers. I know it’s hard to rent prime retail space for only six months, but some kind of deal could be worked out.”
“No problem. If we’re thinking of the same space,” he said as his fingers probed between her legs, “Vermilion Properties owns the building. It used to be a modern art gallery.”
“Handy,” she said breathlessly.
“Very.” His fingers slid into her. “God, I love the feel of you.”
“We’re supposed to be talking business.”
“Multitask.” He lifted her leg and rested it on his hip, opening her for his pleasure. And hers. “So assume that the space is rented. What then?”
“I know two of the best cleaners and”—she shuddered gently—“restorers west of the Mississippi. They—” Her voice broke. “I can’t think when you do that.”
“This?”
Fingers sleek with her passion plucked at her clitoris.
“Yes.”
The liquid heat of her response licked over his hand.
“Just wanted to be sure.” He moved his fingers up a bit to her dark, curly hair and began tugging gently. “Clean, restore, and I assume frame?”
She wanted to smack him. The devilish light in his eyes told her that he knew exactly how she felt. Deliberately she began tracing the thick vein on his penis with her fingernails.