Page 28 of Lone Star Witness

Slade had been beat to hell and back, and he had stitches. This couldn’t be good… she lost the train of thought when he flicked his tongue over her bottom lip just as his thumb did the same to her right nipple.

Oh, the pleasure of it all. So consuming. So demanding.

Still, she fought for some sanity right along with her breath. Slade had robbed her of both of those things, and the robbing continued when he hooked his uninjured arm around her waist and pulled her out of her chair and onto his lap.

All in all, a good place to be for her to feel all that straining going on in his zipper region. If she’d had any doubts about how much he wanted her, that would have rid her of them. The want was there. He was primed and ready. And she might have said to hell with it and unzipped him.

But the sound stopped her.

“You have a visitor at the gate, and he’s requesting admittance,” Spock announced in his flat tone. A real contrast to the furnace war going on inside her.

“Who the hell is it?” Slade snapped.

“Image is on the screen,” the AI program supplied.

Even though her vision was a little hazy, Marise turned and looked at the screen. So did Slade.

And there he was.

Colonel Rosa.

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Chapter Nine

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Slade was damn glad to see the colonel’s face on the monitor, but a part of him wished the man had waited another half hour before resurfacing.

Still, Rosa looked in one piece, and Slade was thankful for that. Thankful, too, that he might get some answers as to why the man had disappeared. Of course, that meant what was happening between Marise and him would have to wait.

“Spock, open the gate for Colonel Rosa,” Slade instructed.

He looked at Marise, who seemed to be battling her own mix of relief and frustration. Slade gave her another kiss, a sort of parting shot to put the pause button on the making out, and he eased her off his lap. By the time he made it to his feet and was walking to the front door, he could already see the vehicle approaching the house on the monitor.

“Stay back in case Sonny’s with him and calling the shots,” Slade warned Marise.

Of course, that put the fear of God look in her eyes. Or rather the fear of Sonny. She stayed back all right, but she also grabbed a black obsidian eagle statue from his desk. Slade figured it was the equivalent of her trusty paperweight she’d used the time she’d confronted Sonny in the parking lot of Patriot’s Retreat.

Slade opened the door a fraction and peered out as the white Ford Focus pulled to a stop. Since the windows weren’t heavily tinted, he could see only Rosa inside and behind the wheel. However, Sonny could be in the trunk, waiting to pounce.

Rosa fired some glances around him when he stepped from the car, and he moved fast up the steps and to the porch.

“Are you alone?” Slade asked him.

The colonel nodded. “But I might have been followed by a black Audi. Couldn’t tell who was inside.”

Slade stepped back so the colonel could enter and in the same motion, gave an order to Spock. “Monitor any black Audis in the area.”

Of course, with no traffic cameras to speak of, the vehicle would have to approach the gate for Spock to detect it. Still, Slade wanted the warning in case the driver—Sonny—parked by the sign and climbed the fence.

“Marise,” Rosa greeted when he saw her.

“Where were you?” she demanded, setting the statue back down.

Rosa sighed. “I know I must have worried you, but I had to get out of there. I saw Sonny in the parking lot of the hospital, and I figured he wouldn’t have any trouble getting past the cop guard on my door.”

“Then, you should have called Slade or me and told us what was happening.” Her scolding tone vanished as quickly as it’d come, and Marise went to the colonel to hug him. “Are you all right?”

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