Page 188 of Lone Star

“You know,” he mused, voice rumbling through his chest, through all of her in the places they touched. “The first time I met you, you weren’t wearing anything but a towel.”

She tipped her head back to find him smiling down at her, so softly, fond with remembrance, the sun and laugh lines carving shadows around his eyes.

She recalled the day she’d arrived in Amarillo for the first time, the bedroom mix-up, and felt a smile tug at her own mouth. “You were so angry.”

“For about a second,” he said, grin spreading to flash teeth, head tipping in concession. “And then I was thinking,Damn, she’s hot, how did I luck up?”

“You didn’t, not that night.”

It felt good to laugh quietly with each other, together, in this space where their lives together had started.

His smile faded away slowly, replaced with seriousness; with a shining emotion that could leave no doubt to his honesty when he said, “I love you more than anything.”

“I know,” she said, because she thought it was important that she know. “I love you, too.”

He cradled her face in one freshly clean hand and leaned down to kiss her. Their first kiss since they’d parted this morning. A gentle brush of lips, careful, like he was worried she was too fragile for more right now.

But gentleness had always carried its own sort of aggression with the two of them, and she didn’t want that to change, now.

She reached up and threaded her fingers through his hair, tightened them, and urged him to kiss her deeper. He made a sound against her mouth – of pain, she thought at first. But then his tongue was flicking between her lips, urging them open, plunging deep, and no, it wasn’t pain, but desire. Fervor. His hand closed on the back of her neck, firm but careful, holding her, and he kissed her like he was starving for her. That was good: she was starving for him.

When he picked her up and carried her out into the bedroom, her legs hooked over his arm, his lips pressing feather-light kisses at her hairline, she remembered the last time he’d done this. It had been the night he’d returned home from going to see Pacer, when those first murders had taken place: the bodies starred out on the hard ground, sightless eyes fixed on the sun, the buzzards circling. He’d come in worried, burdened, and she’d teased him, and it had been with mock growls and playful ferocity that he swung her up and carried her off like a war prize.

Tonight, he toted her to the bed like a groom with his new bride; like a prince with a swooning damsel. She relished it, maybe more than she should. She’d never liked being treated like something precious by men before, but Candy was too impossibly big and strong and larger-than-life for it to ever feel like anything less than reverence and the carefulness of a big, violent man unused to watching his steps around someone smaller.

Her eyes started stinging again, when he laid her out on the pillows, and he saw them, of course he did, because his gaze was fixed on her face, ravenous, and covetous, and worshipful.

His brows tucked low. “Okay?”

She nodded, throat tight. “Just…glad.”

His brow smoothed, and he chewed at his lip a moment, a boyish-looking betrayal of his own strong emotions. “I know, baby.”

He stripped off his jeans and boxers without ceremony, then turned his head to sniff at himself. “I can shower.”

“Candy, get down here.” But a moment later, “Oh, your arm.”

“Fuck my arm.” The bed dipped beneath his weight as he nudged her legs apart and settled between them; plucked at her towel and smoothed its halves apart. Unwrapped her like a gift. And then sat back on his heels, and stared at her – studied.

Years ago, she would never have pegged Candy Snow as a thoughtful man. As someone who appreciated things beyond their most basic ability to bring him pleasure. A prejudice of hers, she could admit. But she recognized the look on his face now, the careful way he was studying her, as if committing her to memory.

He reached out and touched her in the dip between her collarbones, lightly, with just the pads of his fingers. Trailed them down, a path that tingled and sparked in the wake of his touch, between her breasts, and up the gentle slope of her belly. He paused there, briefly, to cup the growing swell, his gaze locked with hers. He hadn’t asked about the baby, and he didn’t now, but he’d been worried. A raw honesty in his gaze, maybe even a silent censure for endangering herself and their child both. But that went unsaid, too, and he moved down, and cupped her sex, already slick for him.

“Candy.”

He surged down to her, then, pressed them together, skin-to-skin, and at last, finally, she was home.

Fifty-Six

When they first arrived back, and Candy went to talk to one of the local officers, Fox leaned in to Albie and whispered, “Don’t say anything to the cops. We don’t even live here.” Then he’d smacked Albie lightly on the shoulder. “Come do a perimeter check with me.”

An excellent idea. Axelle had gone off with Michelle and Jenny, was being looked after, and it would be best to ensure that the cartel hadn’t left a man behind. A sniper, even just an observer.

Outside, frost had settled over everything, jagged white fur on the cars, and bikes, and fence posts, the air sharp in his lungs, breath pluming like dragon smoke. The stars were clearer here, compared to Knoxville; the sky broader, all its many shades and tints of blue visible. Fox vaulted easily over the wire fence, and Albie followed, less easily. They went off property, through waving grass turned silver by the moonlight, and up a short rise, where Fox halted, and turned back to look at the clubhouse, glowing warm and yellow like a beacon on an arid sea.

“What?” Albie asked, drawing up beside him.

“We’re not doing a perimeter check. I put someone else on it.”

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