Page 3 of Lone Star

“Pretty much.” He drew back far enough to tip her chin up with a knuckle and leaned in for a kiss. His lips were chilled, but his tongue was warm when it flicked out between her own lips.

She shivered.

“Coconut?” he asked with a grin when he pulled back again, licking a bit of her chap-stick off his lower lip. He touched her mouth with the pad of his thumb, right on the cupid’s bow.

She didn’t feel so tired anymore. “The raspberry was making me queasy.” She wrinkled her nose. “Like everything else.”

He chuckled, and stepped back far enough to go hang up his jacket and toe his boots off at the rack. Then he climbed over the back of the couch with more grace than any man that big had a right to, and settled in next to her, already reaching for her when she leaned sideways and snuggled up to his side, half in his lap. He smelled like Texas: like sun, and dust, and pavement.

On the TV, the ticker was running along the bottom of recycled footage from the scene; Michelle caught the wordscult connectionand turned to gauge Candy’s expression. “Cult?”

“Agent Howdy-Doody FBI thinks so,” he said, shaking his head with obvious disgust. “It’s not.”

She ran her nails lightly down the center of his chest, clicking over the buttons. “Now. Love. Not to second guess your aged wisdom.”

He snorted.

“But cults do exist. And they do sometimes do” – she motioned toward the screen – “the unspeakable.”

“Yeah, well…it’s not that. I’ve got a gut feeling.”

Generally, his gut feelings were correct. But…

“What about the other cases? The ones in Nevada?”

“What about ‘em?” He shrugged, getting agitated. “I’ve been in this game a long time – apparently a damn long time, according to my old lady.”

Her turn to snort.

“And I’ve not seen cult one. When people die horribly, in my experience, it’s about revenge, or it’s about turf, or it’s about fear. And sometimes all three.”

She leaned her head against his chest, and patted his stomach – still firm and taut, still capable of making her own stomach do somersaults. “I know,” she said, and she did. Things in London had been different for the Dogs than they were here – but not that different. “It would just be nice, is all, for it not to be the usual bullshit.”

“Hear hear,” he sighed. And sighed again. “Shit.”

“You’re going to try to figure out who’s behind it, aren’t you?”

“I have to,” he said, a little helpless. “I mean – it’s Pace. He’s club family.”

“I know, darling. I’m with you, one hundred-percent.”

“Oh, no, no.” She felt him twist so he could look down at her more fully, and tipped her head back to meet his gaze. His expression had gone serious – so grave it would have been comical in another situation, his brows up near his hairline. “No. I don’t want you worrying about this at all. You don’t need it on your plate, not on top of everything else.” His brows lowered again, a furrow forming between them. He’d been trying to encourage her to delegate more at the bar and take some off time. So far, she’d taken a grand total of one personal day, and she’d been so bored she’d spent the day crunching numbers on her laptop, double-checking all her spreadsheets…and then triple-checking to be sure.

“If it’s worrying you, it’s worrying me,” she said. “We’re a team.”

“Yeah, we are, but see, chivalry demands that I handle this one on my own.”

“Chivalry? Or you being a stubborn control freak?”

“I like chivalry. Also.” He reached out, deftly slipped a hand beneath the baggy old sweater she wore, and palmed the slight roundness of her belly. His voice lowered, that deep, Texas twang coming out in a register that was nearly a purr, that managed to be both serious, soothing, and wildly arousing all at once. “Whether it’s devil-worshippers, or a bitch-ass new club, or a run of the mill psycho killer, I don’t want any of it anywhere near you and the babies.” He caught and held her gaze, his eyes electric blue in the TV glow, deadly earnest, the handsome, square lines of his face set at their most determined angles.

Her next breath shivered in her lungs. “Damn. How’s a girl supposed to resistthatkind of talk?”

He smiled, a slow, knife-sharp crescent bloom in the dimness. “Hopefully not at all.”

“You’re horrible.”

“C’mere.”

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