“Oh, God.” One hand braced on the roof, the other on his shoulder, she rotated into his hand, getting him out of his jeans obviously forgotten. He stroked her again. If the rhythm of her breathing and the soft sounds she made deep in her throat were anything to go by, much more and he’d bring her to climax, but he wanted that with him buried deep inside her, wanted her coming all over him.
She’d released his belt and the button at his fly. With his other hand, he managed to get his zipper down, keeping up the pace of pleasuring her while lifting his hips to shove, wriggle and tug his jeans far enough down to release his eager erection.
When he removed his caressing fingers, she mewed a protest, but he grasped her hips, rougher than he meant to, hard enough he’d probably leave little fingertip bruises, and pulled her down over him. He thrust up into her, the wet pleasure of her punching him in the gut, just like always. She rewarded him with another small cry, her head tilting back, hair spilling over her shoulders.
Moving on him, she caught her bottom lip between her teeth and dug her fingers into his shoulders. Tomorrow, he’d have small barely-there bruises as well. Marked as hers. He tilted his head forward enough to take her mouth, a series of nipping little kisses.
“Mine,” he muttered against the corner of her lips.
“Yes.” She lifted thick lashes, and he glimpsed the possessive fire he’d seen earlier, when she’d caught him coming off that stage and laid a kiss on him that had had him hard in seconds. “Always.”
He tightened his grip on her hips, pushing up harder, needing her to shatter soon, because it was too much, the wet slide of her body on his, the mingled scents of their arousal, her mouth against his, tongue flicking between his teeth, and he was
not
going to be able to hold out much longer…
On a gasp, she tore her mouth from his, folding both arms along the back of his head. “My God, Tick, please.”
“Come for me, precious.” He rubbed his tongue along the edge of her puckered aureole again. “Let me watch you.”
He pulled her tighter into him, and the first squeezing of her orgasm began around him, shivering over every inch of him. In response, his climax barreled through him, stopping his lungs. He held on to her, the ragged puff of her breathing along his shoulder matching his own. She trembled in his arms, and running his hands up her back, he smoothed tangled hair from her face, peppering light kisses over her cheek, jaw and brow.
“Love you,” he murmured. “So damn much, Cait.”
“I know.” She stroked a palm over the back of his head, resting her cheek against his neck. “You too.”
He shuddered under the aftershock of pleasure. “Damn, if it gets any better, I won’t survive.”
She laughed, quiet and husky. Pulling back, she held his gaze, her eyes glittering with love and satisfaction. She touched a finger to his mouth. “You’re right. Things are very good.”
Wrapping her close, he shifted sideways, stretching them out best he could on the bench seat. His knee hit the steering column. He rubbed his cheek on her hair. “Even when my son is screaming his lungs out for no good reason?”
“Even then.” With a humming sigh, she swept a caress over his side. “I wouldn’t trade him for anything and you know it. He’s perfect.” She was quiet a moment before her hushed laugh shimmered through his body. “The best thing since sliced bread.”
He grunted his agreement and lapsed into silence, enjoying these few moments of freedom to hold and touch her, letting his fingers roam over her back and hip while his thoughts swirled all over again.
She tiptoed a fingertip along each of his ribs. “You feel pensive.”
“Pensive.” He drew her closer, tucking the open flap of his shirt around her. “There’s a word you don’t hear every day.”
“Tick. You’re brooding about something.” She levered up on an elbow, the narrow truck seat not offering a large range of motion. With her this near, he was glad of the lack of light. That insightful gaze of hers saw too much. “What’s wrong?”
“Just stupid bullshit.” A harsh laugh swelled from his throat. She waited, silence stretching between them. He twirled a swath of her hair around his forefinger. “You ever think about what your life would have been like if you’d married that guy you were engaged to in college?”
“Um, no.” She traced his jaw. “I don’t. We were so wrong for each other on so many levels and it wasn’t meant to be. You’re thinking about what could have been with Allison Barnett, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Tick, don’t. Please.”
“It’s hard not to, Cait.” He tangled their legs together, his foot banging against the door. He couldn’t get her near enough to him tonight. “I mean, damn. Do you know how easily that whole situation could have gone a different way?”
“But it didn’t. Because it wasn’t meant to be.” She caught his chin in a firm grip. “This…us. We were meant to be. Now stop making yourself crazy. I told you—I’m not sharing you with another woman, and this counts as having to share.”
“I’m trying, all right?” He threaded his fingers through the thick fall of her hair. “I can’t imagine missing out on loving you.”
“Oh. My. God.” With an irritated huff, she flopped to her back and almost toppled off the seat. He grabbed her waist and held on. “Let’s see, if I’d married Dennis, I could have been a society wife, you know, a political asset, with a couple of overachieving kids, a Mercedes and a social calendar. Yes, that would have made me dazzlingly happy.”
Reverse psychology. Why wasn’t he surprised? “Cait.”
“Better yet, here’s a scenario for you. What if I’d ended up with the Navy SEAL I spent a couple of weekends—”
“Caitlin.” He sighed. “I get the point. I’ll let it go.”
“Good.” She rolled into him and looped her arms about his neck. “Because she’s going to be trouble, and I need you at the top of your game.”
He propped up on his elbow. “Trouble?”
“Mmm.” She traced his collarbone. “I saw the way she looks at you tonight, and I don’t like it. She’s already called you away from home with that bogus ‘I need to get some things from the house’ bit, publicly bought you lunch in a gossip-bed… That’s trouble brewing, sweet thing.”
“Maybe.” He nipped at her lower lip. “But you said it, precious. Hard to mess with something that’s meant to be.”
Sprawled on her stomach, Madeline surfaced to a soft rumble next to her ear. She rubbed her gritty eyes and rolled to her back. Bright sunlight flowed in the windows, hinting at midmorning. Ash stretched out beside her, asleep, fully dressed.
Right down to his boots.
She smiled, resisting the impulse to trace those strong features. He looked relaxed, peaceful, but more than likely he’d been up since before daylight and had already put in a solid day’s work.
Somehow this was enough, lying in bed with him on a lazy weekend morning, intimate areas of her body still feeling the imprint of his strength. Shit, she wasn’t supposed to feel like this, wasn’t supposed to be so damn happy just from…
His eyes snapped open, no vestiges of slumber clouding the clear green. “Hey, babe.”
“You scare the hell out of me.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. Where the fuck had that come from? She swallowed a groan. God, when would she learn to think before she spoke?
“It’s mutual.” He slid a finger down her cheek. “But I like it.”
She shifted up against the pillow, pushing her disheveled hair out of her eyes. “What have you been doing?”
“Working. I’ve checked the houses, stacked feed, refilled the bins.” He muffled a yawn with a fist. “Now I’m waiting for Tick to get his sorry ass over here so we can patch a roof.”
She prodded his side, testing for ticklishness. No reaction. “You fell asleep with your boots on.”
“I was wasted.” One corner of his mouth hitched in a grin. “Too much lovemaking, not enough sleep. Feel a hell of a lot better now that I’ve had a nap.”
On a nod, she let silence fall between them. He stroked that single fingertip over her shoulder and down her arm. “Tell me about Florida…about why you’re here, I mean.”
Her gaze flew to his. She swallowed. Tell him that, of all things? She shook her head, a slow negation of the very idea. “Ash, please, I can’t.”
“All right.” His thumb joined the soft brush of his finger against her skin, became a firmer caress. “I didn’t mean to push, Mad.”
“I know. It’s okay. I just…” She moistened her lips, the image of Jack sprinting up those stairs flickering in her head. “I can’t do it yet.”
“I get that.” He shifted, levering up on an elbow. “There are things from my army days I still don’t talk about.”
She closed her eyes, the silence settling between them once more. Most of the tension slipped out of her under the steady warmth of his hand on her skin.
Empty hours stretched before her. He had plans and it was her day off. She’d always worked extra shifts in Jacksonville, burying herself in the job. There wasn’t much to do here, except wait on a dental-records match that could take forever. She didn’t have a real caseload, nothing to dig into and lose herself.
Limited choices hung over her. Time with her mama, which always made her crazy. Time with Autry, which could be even worse, since she’d spend the minutes comparing herself to her little sister’s perfection. Time driving over to Valdosta to visit her baby brother in prison, and no way in hell was she ready for that.
Her life was shit, and it was her own damn fault, for putting everything into being a detective and precious little else into making a real life.
“I’ve been thinking.”
She jerked at Ash’s quiet statement. He watched her with serious eyes and an ironic smile. Geez, how long had she spaced, anyway?
“About?”
“I know you’re only planning on being around a few weeks.” He rubbed his thumb over her knee in a hard caress.
“Yeah.” Why did that single syllable hurt so much, pushing it out?
His lashes hid his eyes for a moment before he met her gaze head-on. “Why don’t you move some of your things over here from your mama’s?”
The guy really knew how to take a girl’s breath. Madeline swallowed. “Um, why?”
He merely looked at her.
Nerves fluttered in her belly. Coming over here, spending the night, borrowing his sister’s things…that was scary enough. Bring her stuff here?
“Madeline.”
“My mama would have a fit.”
“Has that bothered you in the past?”
Well, no, but…
“Ash, you don’t—”
“Babe, there’s a lot in life to be afraid of. Public speaking, Iraqi soldiers shooting at you, losing your ass in a business venture. But being afraid of living? No way. You’ve got to get beyond that.”
“You’re afraid of public speaking?”
His deep laugh hung between them. “Stop dodging the subject.”
Bringing her things here smacked of a relationship, of something semipermanent. Besides, she was leaving in a few weeks, as soon as the review board finished the inquiry into Jack’s…into the shooting
…
and cleared her return to the PD.
“Mad, I’m not asking you to marry me here.” Seriousness lurked beneath the sardonic humor. “We said we were going to take this one day at a time, but I like having you in my bed as much as you like being there. It’s just easier if you have some stuff here for the nights we’re together.”
He made it sound so logical, so easy. Like the Devil and that slippery slope she’d been warned about so often in Sunday School while she was growing up.
A distinctive truck rumbled outside. Ash swung to a seated position on the side of the bed.
“That’s Tick. I have to go fix a roof.” He leaned over and kissed her, a quick featherweight brush of his lips that left her wanting more. “Think about it, will you, babe?”
“I’ll think about it.” With an irritated huff, she gave him a tiny shove toward the door. “And quit calling me babe.”
He
sauntered
out, damn him, on an amused laugh, leaving her still facing an empty day and his too-seductive suggestion.
Shit. Now what was she supposed to do?
“You asked her to move in?” Tick’s voice rose on a surprised note. “For real?”
Ash hammered in another nail. “I didn’t ask her to move in. I suggested she bring some of her stuff over here.”
“I think that constitutes moving in.” Tick grinned around the roofing nail clenched in his teeth. Ash shook his head at that bad habit. He was going to swallow one of those things some day.
Ash gazed across the pasture. From his vantage point on the roof of chicken house number four, he could see the house. Madeline’s car was still gone. She’d left a few minutes after Tick’s arrival with no word on her plans. He was dying to know what she was up to, if she was over at her mama’s, packing up.
“You are in sad shape.” Tick laughed and adjusted a shingle. His hammer made short work of two nails. “You’re whipped.”
“Yeah? Go look in a mirror and say that.” Ash stretched out for another handful of shingles, almost out of reach. His foot slipped off the batting board and a jolt of unease slammed into his gut. He scrabbled for purchase, knee banging into the board and popping to the side as his other foot slid uselessly over rough shingles.
He caught the one-by-four with the fingertips of one hand—damn it, his injured hand—and for a second relief hung before him, until his nails broke to the quick, stitches gave way, the injured muscles of his hand gave in and gravity pulled him over the edge. Hell, this was going to hurt.
His chin jammed on the metal edging. A glimpse of Tick’s horrified surprise filled his vision before everything tunneled to the sick sensation of falling. Then hard earth slammed into his frame, and he couldn’t breathe.
Pain, shock, a shout he wasn’t sure was his or Tick’s.
Nausea flooded his throat, his chest frozen, blue sky blurring.
Shit, this was bad.
Metal clanged over and over. Tick’s white face appeared above him with a dismayed expression that would have been funny if he hadn’t been absolutely fucking sure he was dying.
“Ash?” Tick’s hoarse voice bordered on a squeak. “Don’t move. I’m going to call for help.”
Don’t move? He couldn’t fucking breathe and Tick was worried about him moving?
With excruciating slowness, his lungs decided to begin working. The problem was each inhale and exhale brought piercing, cringe-inducing pain. Hell, where didn’t he hurt?
Metallic taste flooded his mouth, like he’d licked a flagpole. He concentrated on getting oxygen in and out, on not screaming, on the fact this was the dumbest-ass thing he’d ever done.
“Ash? Called for an ambulance. Don’t move.” Tick was back, breathing hard, hands roving over him, making darts of pain worse in places, sending shards of torture through his knee. “Can you feel that?”
Feel it? Shit, he was living it, wrapped up in nothing but friggin’ agony. Tick looked down at him, eyes darker than usual with appalled concern.
“Holy hell, your face is a mess.” Tick mopped around his chin and mouth with a handkerchief, and the flash of crimson staining the white fabric as Tick pulled it away turned his stomach further. What had he done?
Tick’s face relaxed a little. “I think you just busted your mouth. Your lip is bleeding.”
Strong, sure hands eased along his body once more, testing, assessing, sending rockets of pain over his nerves every so often. A touch at his torso took his breath all over again.
“Can you talk?”
“Never…getting…” his jaw felt like smashed glass, his tongue swollen and thick, and that metallic taste filled his nose, “…on a…fucking roof with you…again.”
“Mama, I am thirty-six years old.” Madeline pulled a stack of T-shirts from her dresser and dumped them on the bed. “I don’t need your permission to do anything.”
“I simply do not understand you,” her mother said from the doorway. “What are you thinking, moving in with this man so fast?”
“I’m not moving in with him. I’m taking some stuff to his place for… Oh, forget it.” Madeline opened her rolling case and tossed clothing into it in a haphazard jumble. She’d sort it out later. “I thought you liked him.”
“I do. But, Madeline, spending nights at his house? What will people think?”
“Who cares? It’s a small town, Mama. Everyone gets talked about, and if people don’t know the gossip, they make it up. Lord knows you should be used to people talking about me by now.”
“What would your father say?”
She froze in the act of transferring toiletries and straightened, a cold knot at the base of her throat. “Nothing. He’s dead, and when he was alive, nothing I did was ever good enough, remember?”
“Your father loved you, Maddie.”
“I think you’re confusing me with Autry. She was Daddy’s perfect little girl, the one who did everything right. I was…” Her throat closed, and she swallowed hard, blinking against a stinging rush of tears. “I was his biggest disappointment.”
“I just think—”
“That’s fine, think whatever you want, Mama. You’re not going to change my mind.”
“You know, that is the same stubbornness that broke your daddy’s heart.”
What about his stubbornness and her broken heart? The wave of pain and guilt shut her lungs down, the same old huge knot of remorse and separation settling in her chest, and she was right back where she’d been at eighteen. “Fine, whatever. I’m out of here, Mama.”
“There you go, with that attitude.”
Without a word, she lifted her bag and brushed by her mother. She refused to cry. Shedding tears never solved anything, never made a situation better. Her mama trailed her through the house to the front porch. “Madeline, please, would you stop and think about what people will say?”
God, that’s all her father had ever been concerned with too. Didn’t it ever stop? She tossed her bag on the backseat. “What are you going to do, Mama? Tell me if I go I can’t come back?”
Those words echoed in her head, her father’s anger bouncing around like it had for years. All she’d ever wanted was…
To get the hell away from here. To find acceptance, somewhere she could be herself without unreachable expectations hanging over her every single second. The Jacksonville PD couldn’t call her back to work soon enough. She hoped Ash didn’t mind having her around a few days. She was going to need that in order to calm down before facing her mother again.
Behind the wheel, she flexed fingers aching from being clenched too tight and backed around, finally pulling out to the highway and turning in the direction of Ash’s. She fumed all the way to Long Lonesome Road.
An unmarked patrol car topped the hill behind her, blue lights and headlamps flashing. He flew around her, engine roaring. What was that all about? She frowned, trying to remember what all was on this road now.
She forced herself to relax, breathing through the hurt anger. She would not take this home to Ash. He didn’t deserve the aftereffects of her crazy family dynamics.
The road straightened out from the double S-curve, blue lights still visible ahead of her. He was moving, though, almost at pursuit speed. Brake lights flared as the cop swung a turn.
Into Ash’s driveway.
Fear surged into her bloodstream. She pressed harder on the accelerator, seconds stretched into dreamlike forever even as she closed the distance. Her pulse pounded in her ears, laid over by the cool calm instilled by years on the job.