Instead, he used his caresses to gentle her, as he would one of his horses, with slow sweeps of his hands—drawing out her pleasure, prolonging his own torture. He knew it would take only a moment to unfasten his jeans, sheath himself and drive into her heat right here against the motel room door. But when he made love to her properly—and he knew he would sometime, hopefully very soon—it would be in a large comfortable bed where he could truly explore what they could achieve together.
Cord straightened her clothing and kissed her again.
“I’d better go.”
“Go?”
For the first time since he’d met her, she sounded unsure.
“Yeah, I’ll be seeing you soon.”
With that, he moved her bodily away from the door and opened it. He strode straight to his truck and got immediately inside, no mean feat when he had a hard-on that made his jeans uncomfortably tight as he settled himself into the drive home. He hazarded just one look at the motel room door before he backed out of the parking space. She stood there, holding the front of her shirt together with a bemused expression on her face.
Good, let her be bemused. While he might be in agony and his balls might be blue, he’d left with the upper hand. Let her think on that for a while.
Zoe rose the next morning still mad. She should never have let him kiss her, let alone touch her like that. And she’d climaxed, right there against the motel room door, she thought, staring balefully at the unassuming slab of wood. She never came like that—so quick, so intense. Even now, thinking about it, she felt a tingle of anticipation all over again. Damn Cord Galicia for being so clever with his hands. And don’t forget his lips and tongue, her subconscious oh-so-helpfully supplied.
This was hopeless. She needed to get out of here and do something, anything, to replace the memories Cord had instilled in her last night. She wondered how he’d felt as he’d left—whether he’d taken care of himself later once he’d gotten home. Perhaps in the shower, with hot water coursing over his body like a lover’s caress. It was all too easy to picture in her mind and all too distracting, again.
She strode angrily to the bathroom. It was basic but, like the rest of the motel room, clean and functional. Besides, with how uptight she was feeling right now, there was no way she was going for comfort. Setting the shower to as cold as she could bear, she got under the spray and pulled the curtain across to encapsulate herself in the small space. She lathered up quickly and rinsed off, skimming her body with her hands and determinedly pushing back the memories of another set of hands on her pale skin. Of broad suntanned fingers touching and teasing her body, of those same fingers coaxing responses from her that had left her limp and sated and hungry for more at the same time.
It angered her that she’d been that easy. She’d come to Royal to further her investigation, not to have meltingly hot sex against a motel room door. And what was with that? Where had all her good sense gone? She’d been the one to drag him across the threshold and into her room. And when he kissed her, she kissed him back, as if she’d been starving for that level of attention. Okay, so maybe that bit was true, she admitted ruefully as she snapped off the shower and reached for her towel. It had been a while, and she’d never been the type to enjoy casual encounters. Her work made maintaining a relationship difficult at the best of times. She worked long hours, dedicated to both her team and to the victims whose stories she had to uncover. And that was what she was here for, she reminded herself sternly as she wiped her still-tingling body dry. Work, not play.
By the time she was dressed, she realized she was starving. She’d spied a coffee shop when she’d driven into town yesterday. It might be a good place for her to formulate her plan of attack for today. She still needed to get ahold of Jesse Stevens and actually talk to the man. She got into her car and, using the hands-free kit, called the number she had for the Stevens ranch. This time she got a staff member, but she still wasn’t able to speak to Jesse. Frustrated, Zoe drove to the coffee shop.
She got a parking space right out front and walked up to the café, laughing under her breath at the name, the Daily Grind. Her nostrils were assailed with the delicious aroma of freshly roasted coffee beans the moment she entered. She ordered her coffee and a Danish and took a seat looking out the front window. Royal was a busy place, she realized, as people headed on their daily commute to work and school. The Daily Grind was no less busy as people stopped in for their morning coffee on their way to work, or settled in for a quick breakfast. When her coffee and Danish came, she took her time enjoying the flavors and skimmed the news on her phone. It looked like the Houston papers were still bemoaning the lack of progress in the Hamm murder.
She knew it wasn’t personal—they had little to go on, but even so it irked her intensely that they hadn’t been able to discover more by now. A heading regarding the Texas Cattleman’s Club caught her eye. It looked like the official opening would be going ahead next month. No doubt that would be a glittering affair with all of Houston’s who’s who of anything important in attendance. She wondered about the guy who’d featured as an early suspect in the Hamm case—Sterling Perry. A leading contender for the presidency of the new club, he was an arrogant piece of work who wore his family’s wealth like a second skin. She would have loved to have seen his ass nailed when her colleagues had arrested him on suspicion of operating a Ponzi scheme, but he’d been cleared of that. Even when he’d been suspected of being involved in Hamm’s murder there’d been nothing to support the initial leads—the guy was like Teflon. Nothing stuck.
And then there was the other guy vying for the presidential role, Ryder Currin. Younger than Sterling Perry, Currin was far more charismatic and her research had shown he’d come into most of his money through sheer, hard work. Even now, despite his millions, the guy dressed as if he’d just stepped off the ranch. Zoe had wondered if the rivalry between the men had anything to do with Hamm’s murder, but Ryder Currin had an airtight alibi for the window of time when Hamm was murdered. He’d been stranded at a local shelter when the storm hit and Angela Perry, Sterling Perry’s daughter, had been there, too, and had vouched for him.
Zoe consumed her Danish and knocked back her coffee before leaving a tip and returning to her car. Maybe she’d have better luck tracking Stevens down at the hospital. Cord had told her his sister was there.
The Royal Memorial Hospital was easy to find, and visitor parking was relatively empty at this early hour. No doubt because visiting hours weren’t until later in the day, she realized. She clipped her badge onto her waistband and went inside, knowing that the badge might give her access she would otherwise not get.
Sure enough, she was shown through to a ward where Janet Stevens was recovering. The young woman was in a room on her own—apparently having been moved there not long before, after a brief stint in ICU post surgery. That was obviously why Cord had been so protective of his friend, knowing the other man must have been worried about his sibling. Galicia’s protectiveness was, at its heart, an admirable trait, except for the part where he’d attempted to stall her investigation.
It made her wonder anew if that incident between them last night hadn’t just been a distraction tactic. Something to blur her mind and keep her off Stevens’s trail. Maybe he’d thought the little woman would be so blown away by what he’d done to her that she’d even hightail it back home.
Zoe discarded the thought almost as quickly as it bloomed in her mind. She’d been the one to pull him into her room, not the other way around. If anything, she was to blame for what had happened between them. And he’d been the one to walk away, unfulfilled. What did that say about the man? She shook her head. He was a conundrum, that was for sure. One she wouldn’t
