had to bite his tongue. No way would he tell his partner how unprofessional he’d been.
“Fine,” he said in a calm voice. “The new plan is going to work out great. In a couple of days I should be meeting everyone in town through her.”
Before Jim could ask anything else about Mary, Jake sent the conversation off in a slightly different direction. “I know the sheriff in Honey Creek is your old navy SEAL buddy, but are you sure he is definitely in the clear on the murder of our informant?”
“Wes Colton is so straight you could mistake him for a ruler.” Jim took a deep breath through his nose and Jake could imagine him tempering his irritation over the insolent question. “Wes isn’t involved in our money-laundering investigation. You and I already came to that conclusion. He’s provided us with solid information.”
Jake tsked at his partner’s lame excuses. “We’re talking about the murder of our main informant. You do remember that we’ve discussed the fact that Mark Walsh had a lot of enemies? His death could’ve been a crime of passion and not connected to our investigation at all. There’re several kinds of passion. Revenge, for one. Wes Colton’s brother has been sitting in the Montana State Prison for the past fifteen years for a crime he obviously did not commit. Sounds like a possible motive for murder to me.”
Jim grunted through the phone. “I’ve already checked on Wes’s whereabouts around the time of Mark Walsh’s murder, smart-ass. He was at Quantico, taking one of the Bureau’s weekend classes for local enforcement. He was back in time to haul the body out of the creek. But as a suspect? Nope, he’s not a possibility. Check the sheriff off your list.”
This time it was Jake who was holding back the chuckle. “Got it. Anything else?”
“Dead ends and false leads so far. But I’m working every detail. Keep me informed of how you’re doing in Honey Creek.”
Jake hung up and pocketed his phone. Taking one more exploratory trip around the hotel grounds, he checked for anything suspicious and came up empty.
He headed back to Mary’s room, hoping she hadn’t awakened while he’d been gone. After he’d slipped inside and checked to make sure she was still breathing, he emptied the bathtub and wrung out the towels. Mary’s clothes looked like a lost cause. He dumped them in a pile on the floor.
Then Jake took up residence in the straight-backed desk chair. One of the most uncomfortable places to sit in his memory.
But he kicked off his shoes and settled down to wait anyway. He wanted to watch her until the morning to assure himself that she was okay.
While he watched her sleeping, Jake vowed that he would use these hours to his best advantage. He would work to convince himself that the two of them could indeed have a romantic relationship without becoming intimate. He vowed to use her only up to a point. After all, a few things in life went far beyond his job description.
“No. No. No. Don’t make me.”
Jake practically jumped out of his seat and scanned the room for intruders. Early-morning light peeked around the edges of the curtains. No intruders.
Another noise drew his attention toward the bed. Mary was whimpering and flailing her arms in her sleep. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she cried out with unintelligible words.
“I hate you. Hate you!” Those words had been clear enough. He relaxed slightly, realizing she was having a nightmare.
In the next moment she twisted in her sheets and kicked fiercely. She screamed and he began to worry that she was becoming hysterical and might hurt herself. Mary then uttered words that drove a chill up Jake’s spine and sent him stumbling to her side.
“I wish you were dead. I swear I’ll kill you!”
Chapter 3
Strong arms closed around her, bringing Mary out of her nightmare with a start. Where was she? And who could be jumping her while she slept?
“Easy there. Everything’s okay. I’ve got you. It was only a bad dream.”
Jake. The cobwebs in her mind disappeared in a flash and she pasted herself to his body. If it had been possible to crawl right inside him, she would not have hesitated.
He cocooned her. Wrapped her in warmth and tenderness.
“Relax,” he whispered into her hair. “You’re safe.” Swallowing down the night’s terrors, Mary reached out toward his face to assure herself that this was no dream. She used her forefinger to trace his features, drawing a line from his high forehead down his Roman nose. Her fingers fanned across the strength in his jaw and in and out of the tiny cleft in his chin. She wanted to memorize every dip and ridge, every nuance.
The reality of being in bed with a sexy man was so much better than anything she had ever read in the pages of a book. She molded herself to him—tried to align their legs in perfect union.
His breathing became rough, uneven. She heard and it turned her to mush. She fisted her hands in his shirt and breathed in his exotic smell. All man. Masculine and exhilarating.
Jake eased back and gently rubbed his thumbs across her wet cheeks. “Okay? No more dream bad guys?”
More than okay, she felt totally wonderful. As though someone had poured a vat of warm chocolate over her. This was what she had been waiting for her whole entire lifetime.
He bent his head and placed his lips against her forehead. Nuh-uh. Not what she wanted from him at all.
Digging her hands in his hair, she pulled his head back and put his lips where she wanted them. On hers. Her tongue slid inside his mouth. The all-consuming flames instantly sprang between them, as she’d expected—as she’d hoped.
Sensation after sensation raged through her. Rainbows of bright colors. Textures and shapes, a tapestry of passion.
Frantic to touch him—everywhere—Mary kept half her brain concentrating on the taste of his mouth and on worrying his lips between her own. And with the other half of her fuzzy mind, she fought to open the buttons on his shirt. A button popped. Then something ripped. But the sounds only served to spur her on.
At last she reached her goal, warm skin and chest hair. The sensation of wiry hair against her fingertips was erotic. She wanted to plant her lips there, replacing her fingers. She needed a taste of him. Of all of him. The pulse right below the surface at the base of his neck would be a great place to start. His salty skin and all those fascinating hidden ridges and creases came next.
“You’re killing me here.” He dragged his mouth from hers, panting hard.
Through his sensual haze, Jake knew his breathing wasn’t the only thing growing hard. She was too close. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t remember why they shouldn’t be doing this.
“Am I hurting you? “
Exasperated, Jake pried her fingers off his shirt and placed her hand against the hard ridge lying under the zipper of his pants. “What do you think?”
“Oh.” Her voice was deep, flirty. “Then don’t stop
