shook his head. “I can’t sleep anyway.”
“I can’t sleep, either.” She reached up and grabbed his hand, tugging him down beside her.
He turned toward her, his eyes intense as he stared at her. The pupils dilated, and his chest—his massively muscled chest—heaved as he drew in an unsteady breath. “Josie …”
“You gave me a gun,” she murmured, unbelievably moved by his gesture.
“Most women would prefer flowers or jewelry.”
The woman she’d once been would have, but that woman had died nearly four years ago. The woman she was now preferred the gun, preferred that he’d given her the means to protect herself … even from him.
“I’m not most women,” she said.
“No,” he agreed. “Most women I would have been able to put from my mind. But I never stopped thinking about you—” he reached for her now, touching her chin and then sliding his fingers up her cheek “—never stopped wanting you.”
Then his mouth was on hers as he kissed her deeply, his tongue sliding between her lips. She moaned as passion consumed her, heating her skin and her blood.
Her fingers trembled, and she fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. She needed him. After tonight she needed to feel the way he had always made her feel—alive.
He caught her fingers as if to stop her. Josie opened her eyes and gasped in protest. But then he replaced her hands with his. He stripped off his holsters and then his shirt, baring his chest for her greedy gaze.
He was beautiful, the kind of masculine perfection that defied reality. That weakened a woman’s knees and her resolve. Josie leaned forward and kissed his chest, skimming her lips across the muscles.
Soft hair tickled her skin.
His fingers clenched in her hair, and he gently pulled her back. Then his hands were on her, pulling her sweater over her head and stripping off her bra.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, his voice gruff.
She wasn’t the woman she’d once been, emotionally or physically. She’d worried that he wouldn’t look at her as he once had—his face flushed with desire, his nostrils flaring as he breathed hard and fast. But he was looking at her that way now.
“You’re even more beautiful,” he murmured, “than you once were.”
She didn’t know whether to be offended, so she laughed. “Then the marshals didn’t get their money’s worth from the plastic surgeon.”
“It’s not an external thing,” he said. “You have a beauty that comes from within now.”
“It’s happiness,” she admitted.
“Despite all you had to give up?” His hands skimmed along her jaw again. “Even your face?”
“I have my son,” she said, “our son …”
“Our son,” he said.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was pregnant,” she said, “that I didn’t tell you when he was born.”
“You didn’t trust me,” he said. “You thought I wanted to kill you.”
“I was wrong.” She knew that now. She didn’t know everything. He was keeping other things from her—things that he’d shared with Charlotte but wouldn’t tell her. But maybe it was better that she didn’t know. Maybe the secrets kept her safer than the gun.
He kissed her again, as he had before. Deeply. Passionately. His chest rubbed against her breasts, drawing her nipples to tight points.
She moaned again and skimmed her hands over his back, pressing him closer to her. As she ran her palms down his spine, she hit something hard near his waistband. Something cold and hard.
Another gun.
How many did he have on him?
He stood up and took off that weapon, as well as another on his ankle. Then his belt and pants came off next.
And Josie gasped as desire rushed over her. She had never wanted anyone the way she’d wanted Brendan. Because she’d known she never would, she hadn’t gotten involved with anyone else the past four years. She’d focused on being a mother and a teacher and had tried to forget she was a woman.
She remembered now. Her hands trembling, she unclasped her jeans and skimmed them off along with her simple cotton panties. Brendan reached between them and stroked his fingers over her red curls.
Her breath caught. And she clutched his shoulders as her legs trembled.
“You haven’t changed completely,” he murmured.
He continued to stroke her until she came, holding tight to him so that she didn’t crumple to the floor. But then he laid her down on the couch. And he made love to her with his mouth, too, his fingers stroking over her breasts, teasing her nipples until she completely shattered, overcome with ecstasy. But there was more.
She pulled him up her body, stroking her hands and mouth over all his hard, rippling muscles … until his control snapped. And he thrust inside her, filling the emptiness with which she’d lived the past four years.
Their mouths made love like their bodies, tongues tangling, lips skimming, as he thrust deep and deeper. She arched to take all of him. A pressure wound tightly inside her, stretching her, making her ache. She gasped for breath as her heart pounded and her pulse raced.
Then Brendan reached between them; his fingers stroked through those curls and his thumb pressed against that special nub. And she came. So she wouldn’t scream, she kissed him more deeply as pleasure pulsed through her.
He groaned deeply into her mouth as his body tensed and he joined her in ecstasy. Pleasure shook his body, just as hers still trembled with aftershocks. But even once their bodies relaxed, he didn’t let her go. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, holding her close to his madly pounding heart.
And she felt safe. Protected. For the first time in nearly four years.
FOR THE FIRST time in nearly four years, Brendan didn’t feel so alone. Josie had had their son; he had had no one. No one he dared get close to. No one he dared to trust.
Part of that had been her fault. After her subterfuge, he’d been careful to let no other woman get to him. But he suspected that even if he hadn’t been careful, no other woman could have gotten to him.
Only Josie …
Maybe Charlotte Green was right. Maybe he did love Josie. And maybe he should trust her. He hadn’t noticed any articles she’d written showing up in her father’s papers. Maybe she’d stepped away from the media world. Not that her articles had been sensationalized. They had been brutally honest, stripping the subject bare. That was why he would have recognized anything she’d written—her style was distinctive.
But maybe becoming a mother had changed her
