Or maybe not. Maybe this was nothing more than proximity and a long dry spell. Who’s to say that if another All-American Hunk stood before her, flexing his pecs, she wouldn’t feel the same way?
He let out a chortle of satisfaction and pulled a wriggling fish from the water. He turned to her like a conqueror flush with victory, a grin on his lips and a gleam in his eyes. ‘‘Am I good or what?’’
Alarm bells clanged. Danger signs flashed. Enough. Annabelle rolled to her feet and gathered up a change of clothes, soap, and a towel. ‘‘I’m going to wash up. The water is hot for whenever you want your pouch of stew.’’
‘‘Thanks,’’ he called over his shoulder as he put his fish onto a stringer. ‘‘I’ll eat in a bit. Stay within ear-shot, would you?’’
‘‘Sure.’’ She walked downstream less than a hundred yards and found a shallow pool. She kicked off her sneakers, then dipped her toe in the water. Ice-cold. ‘‘Brr . . .’’
Movement across the stream caught her attention. A doe and her fawn moved out of the trees and up to the bank of the creek. Annabelle held still and watched them. So pretty. Mama and baby. Nature . . . life. It made her think of her own mom and a yearning to hear her mother’s voice washed through her. Too bad she didn’t have cell service. She could use a dose of Lynn Monroe’s common sense right now.
‘‘Wouldn’t Mama be shocked to hear me say that?’’ she murmured. Her mother didn’t think Annabelle listened to anything she said, but she was wrong. Just because Annabelle’s dreams had taken her off the farm and away from Kansas didn’t mean she didn’t share her parents’ values or value the lessons they had tried to teach her.
For instance, her mom would be pleased to know that she’d been a virgin on her wedding night. Too bad Annabelle couldn’t tell her, since that would mean spilling the beans about the Las Vegas Lunacy, and her mom would never forgive her for that.
Maybe it was good she didn’t have cell service after all. What would she do, call up her mom and ask, ‘‘How do I quit lusting after my ex?’’
Annabelle stripped off her shirt, wincing at her thoughts as much as at the soreness of the wound on her arm. She understood part of the problem. When a person has a brush with death, she wants to reaffirm life. Annabelle had it time and again during her years in the service. She’d never indulged that urge in the past and she wouldn’t indulge it tonight.
Really.
She wouldn’t.
Absolutely not.
She slipped out of her jeans, grabbed her soap, stepped into the icy water, and soaked herself.
Mark was feeling pretty cocky as he returned the stringer to the water. He’d landed three speckled trout for breakfast. While the freeze-dried pouches provided decent food—the beef stew had proved downright tasty—fresh trout at sunrise couldn’t be beaten.
He decided to follow Annabelle’s lead and wash off some of the stink. He peeled down to his skin and got wet.
He’d just stepped from the water and reached for his T-shirt to dry off when Annabelle came marching into camp. She stopped abruptly. ‘‘Oh, you dirty dog.’’
‘‘Huh?’’
‘‘This is not a hotel, Callahan.’’
He gawked at her, then glanced around. What was she talking about? ‘‘No, it’s not a hotel.’’
‘‘We are not married!’’
Oh. He pursed his lips. Now he understood. She was thinking about sex. Thinking about sex and looking a little wild. ‘‘No, we’re not.’’
‘‘Okay, then.’’ Her gaze raked him up and down. She closed her eyes, grimaced, and whirled around. ‘‘Okay.’’
Mark’s lips quirked in a slight grin. Well . . . well . . . well. Heat surged into places diminished by the mountain stream’s icy chill and as his body stirred to life, he glanced down, halfway expecting to see steam rising off his pecker. But no, just the Seven-Star General stiffening to attention.
‘‘Put your pants on, Callahan.’’
‘‘Hey, you’re the one who came busting into camp before I was finished with my bath.’’ Unlike Annabelle, he hadn’t packed an entire change of clothes for the trek down the mountain. He did, however, have a pair of gym shorts, which he’d figured to sleep in, since he avoided the confinement of denim while he slept if possible. While he tugged them on, he considered how he wanted to play this.
If he put his mind to it, he could probably seduce her, though it wasn’t guaranteed. Annabelle was a strong-minded woman, not the type to be swept away by her hormones.
Well, except for that night in Las Vegas. And the one in Paris. Melbourne. That afternoon in Madrid. Holy crap. The beach in New Zealand.
Come to think of it, the woman had no control whatsoever.
It wasn’t unheard of to have sex with your ex. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d seen the topic touted on a magazine cover. Maybe even a book cover. Surely they had a segment on Lifetime TV about it.
His gaze drifted over her. She’d changed into sweatpants and that basketball jersey and piled her hair on top of her head. Damp tendrils escaped the rubber band and danced in enticing curls at her neck.
Need grabbed at him with sharp, tearing claws. When she glanced at him over her shoulder, heat flared as if a half dozen logs had been tossed upon the fire. ‘‘Belle . . .’’
It was there, hovering between them—the chemistry, the past, the knowledge of the pleasure each could give to the other.
‘‘Honey . . .’’
‘‘No.’’
For a one-syllable word, it sure came out shaky. Uncertain. It wouldn’t take much to change it to a yes.
He took a step toward her. ‘‘I’m working on a long dry spell here, Annabelle. The last time I had sex was with you in New York.’’
That gorgeous mouth of hers gaped. ‘‘You are kidding.’’
‘‘Nope. You’re a hard act to follow.’’ He took another step toward her. ‘‘You pretty much spoiled other women for me.’’
She moved back. ‘‘You are so full of it, Callahan.’’
‘‘No. Not about this. Never about this. After we split, I went looking a time or two, but my heart wasn’t in it.’’
Emotion flashed in her eyes, a flicker of hope that, once recognized, she quickly doused. She lifted her chin and scoffed. ‘‘That never stopped you before.’’
He clicked his tongue. ‘‘Now, Annabelle. You wound me.’’
‘‘As if.’’
‘‘So, tell me.’’ He ran his tongue around the moist inside of his mouth. ‘‘Has it been different for you? Have you found what we had with someone else? Do your other men make you sizzle and shake and scream?’’
‘‘I’m not going to tell you anything.’’
‘‘It makes me crazy thinking about you with other men, you know.’’
She opened her mouth to protest, but he held up his hand palm out. ‘‘I know, I know. I have no right. I gave up my rights where you are concerned. That doesn’t mean I don’t miss how right it was between us.’’
She laughed bitterly. ‘‘How right it was?’’
‘‘It was perfect, Belle.’’
‘‘It was physical attraction and sexual tension. That’s all.’’
‘‘You’re wrong.’’
‘‘Am I? I don’t think so. We could have had more, but you wouldn’t let that happen.’’
‘‘For me it
was
more,’’ he said, his tone soft and sincere.
Annabelle closed her eyes. ‘‘Don’t do this.’’
‘‘Do what? Tell you the truth?’’ His mouth twisted in a wry smile and he deliberately pushed one of the buttons he knew so well. ‘‘Grovel at your feet?’’
‘‘Seduce me. You’re trying to seduce me.’’
‘‘Is it working?’’
She closed her eyes. Closed him out. ‘‘I’m tired. It has been a very long day. I’m going to sleep now. Alone.’’
He was close enough to smell the soap she’d used— something coconut. One more step, and he could touch her. If he touched her, he could have her. He knew it and he wanted it. He wanted her. Desperately.
But dammit, she had said no. A weak no, but no nonetheless. ‘‘Are you sure?’’
The moment’s hesitation gave him hope, but finally, she nodded. ‘‘I’m sure.’’
Crap.
She walked over to the two-man tent, bent, and began to pull her sleeping bag from inside. ‘‘Don’t do that, Annabelle. Rain is headed this way. There’s no need for you to sleep outside. I won’t touch you. You’re safe with me.’’
When she shot him a doubtful look, he twisted his mouth in a rueful grin. ‘‘Like you said, this isn’t a hotel.’’
When she still hesitated, he added, ‘‘I give you my word.’’
She let that hang in the air for a moment, then said, ‘‘Thank you.’’
She climbed inside the tent and closed the flap.
Mark let out a long sigh, then turned away and began to tend their camp. As time passed, he kept an eye on the sky. Rain might miss them after all. He sat beside the fire, stirring it with a stick and adding more wood when the flames began to die.
Fatigue dragged at his bones and he counted it as a blessing. It was hard to maintain a raging hard-on when he was dog-ass tired.
Clouds rolled in as dusk deepened into night, and as intermittent raindrops began to spatter onto the fire, Annabelle’s voice came from within the confines of the tent. ‘‘Have you honestly not had sex since our divorce?’’
He straightened. ‘‘No.’’
A minute passed, then two. Just when he decided that she’d said all she intended to say, she spoke again. ‘‘Me, either.’’
Those two little words all but knocked the air from his lungs.
The flap on the tent whisked back and Annabelle crawled from inside, then rose to her feet. Mark would have stood, too, but he seemed to have lost the ability to move . . . to swallow . . . to breathe.
Because she grabbed the hem of her blue and white jersey and whisked it over her head.
‘‘Don’t take this wrong, Callahan. We’re just two healthy, unattached adults with normal human drives.’’ She shimmied out of her pants. Now she stood before him wearing only a hot pink thong. ‘‘This is nothing personal.’’
Bullshit
, he thought as his gaze burned over her. It
was
personal. Very personal. The epitome of personal. That she would attempt to claim otherwise totally pissed him off.
‘‘We’ve had a difficult few days,’’ she continued, ‘‘and we’re likely to have a few more. We’re stressed.’’
Stressed? This wasn’t stressed. This was chemistry. The chemistry that had propelled them first into a wedding chapel in Vegas, and then into hotel rooms all over the world. It was chemistry that he’d never found with another woman and that, apparently, she’d never found with another man.
‘‘It is like the guys on the team always used to say. Sex is the best stress reliever around. If we do this, we’ll be able to sleep. We need to sleep to concentrate. We need to concentrate so we can put a stop to any more murders.’’
‘‘Sex to solve a murder?’’ Mark laughed. ‘‘Hell, babe, the police academies will be overrun.’’
Her eyes looked a little wild. ‘‘As long as we’re up-front and honest about it, I don’t see what a little casual sex will hurt.’’
Casual sex. Mark’s jaw hardened and in two steps he stood before her. ‘‘Annabelle?’’ He reached for her uninjured arm and dragged her against him. ‘‘Shut up.’’
Then he crushed his hungry mouth to hers.
He devoured her with lips that ravaged, with a tongue that plunged and plundered and took. It was a kiss fueled by more than two years of anger and frustration. Two-plus years of loneliness and guilt. And she responded, by God. She shuddered. She moaned. She whimpered.
Nothing personal, my ass.
His teeth nipped into her at the base of her throat, a little savage, a tiny bit mean. ‘‘Casual sex,’’ he growled. He jerked his head back. His gaze burned down into hers. ‘‘Fuck that. Nothing about us has ever been casual.’’
He noted a flicker of apprehension before bravado filled her eyes and she lifted her chin. ‘‘This will be.’’
It was waving a red flag in front of a bull. ‘‘You think so? You think you get to call all the shots? Well, think again, darlin’. You came to me. You asked for this. This time . . . tonight . . . we’re doing this my way.’’
He picked her up and backed her against the rock wall, then held her there with his body as he punctuated his declaration with another blistering kiss. The blood boiled in his veins, fueled by anger and by passion and by regret.
I’ll show you personal.
He allowed her feet to slide to the ground; then he grabbed both her wrists, eased her injured arm above her head, yanked the healthy one up. She gasped and struggled against him a bit as he secured both wrists with one large hand. Her doe eyes glittered in the firelight. In their depths, he saw excitement, arousal, and a bit of apprehension.
His hand slipped beneath the minimal barrier of her panties and tested the soft flesh between her legs. Oh, yeah. She was wet for him. Ready. He could take her now—fast and hard and hot—and release the tormenting pressure.
That’s what she wanted. Relief. Mindless, physical release.
Right at the moment, it sounded pretty damn good to him, too, but he ruthlessly resisted even as she arched and rubbed herself against his hand. Speed wouldn’t do. Speed might be what Annabelle preferred, but not Mark. He wanted more.
He wanted everything. And he wanted it to last all night long.
Who knows if I’ll ever get the chance to have her again?
He yanked his hand from between her legs and she let out a little whimper of loss. ‘‘My way,’’ he murmured, locking gazes with her. ‘‘We’re gonna do this my way.’’
Surprise flickered in her eyes. ‘‘Mark, I don’t—’’
‘‘First, I’m going to eat you up.’’ He brought his fingers up to his mouth and slowly, thoroughly, licked away her delicious honey. ‘‘Mmm . . .’’
She drew in a ragged gasp and closed her eyes. It was, he knew, surrender.
He skimmed the backs of his fingers down her cheek and across her neck, then filled his palm with the soft, heavy heat of her breast and rubbed his calloused thumb over its turgid nipple. She visibly trembled. He nipped her chin, then moved lower, replacing his thumb with his teeth, raking them across her hard tip, before sucking her into his mouth.