Lethal

His breath was warm against her skin when he released a short laugh. “My oh my. Who would have guessed?”

Knowing what he had discovered, she said primly, “You didn’t corner the market on tats.” She had spent several minutes admiring the barbed wire encircling his biceps.

“No, but a tramp stamp? On a second-grade schoolteacher? I can remember my second-grade teacher, and I seriously doubt she had one.” He leaned down and took her earlobe between his teeth. “But it makes me hot as hell to think about it. What inspired you?”

“Two Hurricanes at Pat O’Brien’s. Eddie and I spent a three-day weekend in New Orleans while Stan kept Emily.”

“You got drunk?”

“Tipsy. I was easily persuaded.”

Coburn had kissed his way down and now his tongue was drawing tantalizing circles around her tattoo. “What is it?”

“A Chinese symbol. Maybe Japanese. I can’t remember.” She moaned with pleasure. “In fact, with you doing that, I can’t even think.”

“No? What happens when I do this?” He worked his hand between her and the mattress and began massaging her from the front, while he settled heavily upon her back. “That day in your bathroom…” he murmured, his lips brushing her ear. “When I had you up against the door.”

“Um-hum.”

“This is what I wanted to be doing. Touching you… here.”

What he was doing caused her breathing to turn choppy, but she managed to say, “I was very afraid.”

“Of me?”

“Of what you would do.”

“To hurt you?”

“No, to make me feel like I do now.”

He stilled. “Is that the truth?”

“Shamefully, yes.”

“Turn over,” he growled.

He helped her onto her back, then knelt between her legs and rubbed his lips over her belly. He planted soft kisses on her hipbone and the hollow beneath it. Then nuzzled lower.

“Coburn?”

“Shh.”

His palm settled between her hipbones, and his fingertips caressed her belly while his thumb dipped down to separate and stoke. Then he deep-kissed her. The dual caress of mouth and thumb soon had her gasping his name and begging him with her arching body not to stop.

He didn’t. But he was inside her when she climaxed, inside her when she felt his own release, and when she finally regained the strength to open her eyes, he was still there, cupping her face between his hands and stroking her cheekbones with his thumbs.

The intensity of his expression caused her to tentatively ask, “What?”

“I’ve never been a big fan of the missionary position.”

Not quite sure how to respond to that, she said simply, “Oh.”

“I preferred making it any other way.”

“Why?”

“Because it didn’t have anything to do with getting off.”

“What didn’t?”

“Looking into the woman’s face.” He murmured the statement as though puzzled by it.

Her throat grew tight. She reached up and stroked his cheek. “You wanted to look into mine?”

He continued to stare into her eyes for several moments, then pulled away from her so abruptly that the emotional withdrawal was as definitive as the physical separation.

Reluctant to let that happen, she followed him, turning onto her side toward him. He lay on his back, looking up at the ceiling, suddenly but completely detached.

She spoke his name.

He turned only his head toward her.

Quietly she said, “When this is over, I’ll never see you again, will I?”

He waited for a beat or two, then gave an abrupt negative shake of his head.

“Right,” she whispered, smiling ruefully. “I didn’t think so.”

He returned to his study of the ceiling, and she thought that would be the end of it. Then he said, “I guess that changes your mind about this.”

“This?”

“Fucking me. But you knew what you were getting,” he said as though she’d disputed him. “Or you should have known. I haven’t made a secret of who I am, what I’m like. And, yeah, I’ve wanted you naked from the minute I saw you, and I made no secret of that either.

“But I’m not a hearts and flowers guy. I’m not even an all-night guy. I don’t hold hands. I don’t cuddle…” He paused, swore. “I don’t do any of that stuff.”

“No, all you’ve done is risk your life to save mine. More than once.”

He turned his head and looked at her.

“You repeatedly asked me why I left the garage,” she said. “Now I want to ask you something. Why were you coming back to it?”

“Huh?”

“You had told me that if you didn’t return within a few minutes of ten o’clock, I was to drive away and get as far from Tambour as possible. So, for all you knew, that’s what I had done. After nearly dying in that explosion, with a burn on your shoulder, and your hair singed, you could have run in any given direction in order to get away, but you didn’t. When you found me on the railroad tracks, you were racing back to the garage. To me.”

He didn’t say anything, but his jaw tensed.

She smiled and moved closer to him, aligning her body along his. “You don’t have to give me flowers, Coburn. You don’t even have to hold me.” She laid her head on his chest just below his chin. Her hand curved around his neck. “Let me hold you.”

Chapter 40

Diego held the edge of his razor to Bonnell Wallace’s Adam’s apple.

Wallace was proving to be a stubborn son of a bitch.