Troublemaker

CHAPTER 18

SHE STEPPED OUT INTO THE BRIGHT SPRING DAY WITH Morgan close behind her, Tricks’s leash in his hand. Tricks had lapped up some water, then refused to let Bo leave the hardware store without her, as if she knew how upset Bo was.

Once again, because of Kyle Gooding, she heard the sirens of multiple patrol cars and medics racing to Hamrickville. This time there wouldn’t be any dropping of charges, at least not on her part. She intended to nail him with every possible charge and let the district attorney sort it out.

The street was clogged with people milling around, and the parade floats were blocking traffic in every direction. The VFW guys and the Shriners were trying to clear the street by moving the floats out of the way, which met with some difficulty because in several cases the men who had been driving the tractors had left their vehicles to go see what was going on. But the front end of the parade was beginning to move, so the clearing out had started.

There was a concentrated group around the end of the float where Kyle was, and another one across the street, presumably where the gunshot victim was. With Morgan and Tricks beside her, she started across. She didn’t want to see Kyle’s face now because if she did she might snap. Not only that, she didn’t care if the son of a bitch died.

She waded into the crowd, aided by Morgan’s strong arm reaching out ahead of her and moving people aside. Some people glanced at her and said, “Sorry, Chief,” as they moved. Some of them glanced at Morgan, then their eyes widened and they muttered, “Sorry,” as they too moved away. She didn’t have to imagine what his eyes looked like because she’d seen that lethal iciness before. She didn’t know if she actually needed his interference, but she was glad to have it.

A man was lying on the ground, his face and shirt a bloody mess. Several people were kneeling beside him, and one woman was pressing some cloth to his head. The man’s eyes were open and he was talking, which was good.

She did what she knew to do: she moved the crowd back, she crouched down and got the man’s name-Jeff Simmons. She didn’t know him, but his wife, the woman who was holding the cloth to his head, looked familiar. In short order, she discovered that Mrs. Simmons was a teacher at the local school, which explained her familiarity.

Mrs. Simmons was holding it together and began giving Bo a coherent statement, but then she lifted the soaked cloth, and her husband’s head wound immediately started pouring blood again. She made an inarticulate sound of distress and burst into tears.

“Let me take over,” Morgan said, crouching down beside the wife and angling his body between Tricks and the wounded man. “I have some medic training.” He slapped the bloody cloth back over the wound and in about thirty seconds had commandeered someone’s tank top to cover that, which he held in place with someone else’s tie. Who had worn a tie to a parade?

Bo shoved the errant thought aside and concentrated on the task of getting a statement. Mr. Simmons was remarkably calm. “I don’t think I’m shot,” he said. “I mean, we all heard the shot, but there was a kind of sharp ping, then something hit my head.”

Still holding the makeshift bandage firmly in place, Morgan looked around. “Were you standing beside that light pole?”

“Yeah,” Mr. Simmons affirmed.

“I think the bullet hit the pole and a big splinter of wood tagged you in the head. Maybe not. The bullet could have ricocheted and grazed you. Either way, this isn’t a penetrating wound.”

“Oh, thank the Lord,” sobbed Mrs. Simmons. She wiped her eyes and face, which was a waste of time because she was still crying. Someone passed her a handful of tissues.

Then the real medics arrived; they’d parked on a side street and run the rest of the way. Bo and Morgan stepped back. Tricks pawed Bo’s leg and whined; the atmosphere was far different from the parade, and she didn’t like it. Either that, or she needed to pee. Looking down at her, Bo broke into a wobbly smile; it was a definite “I need to pee” signal because if a dog could be said to be squirming, Tricks was.

“You need some time alone with her,” Morgan said, having followed the unspoken communication. “Take her to the side of that building. I need to see about something. Where will you be?”

“Right here,” she said, stepping up onto the sidewalk. “I figure I should stay far away from Kyle.”

“I’ll be right back. Fifteen minutes, tops.” He hooked his hand around the back of her neck and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead, regardless of who might be watching. At this point she didn’t care, and she didn’t think he ever had. All she wanted to do was what had to be done so she could go home.

Morgan threaded his way through the crowd; Hamrickville wasn’t a big town, but most of the population seemed to be standing in the street. That slowed him down some, but not by much. He had something to take care of, and he wanted to do it now. The look on his face had some of the more perceptive citizens moving out of his path. He could feel the ice settling in his veins, the hyperawareness of all his senses, the way he always reacted when things went to shit and it was fight or die.

Jesse and Patrick were still at the float, though Kyle Gooding was now sitting on the ground with blood dripping from his nose and chin. Morgan eyed him dispassionately, wishing he’d put more force into slamming the asshole’s head against the pavement. If he had, this would be finished already, so that had been a slight miscalculation on his part.

Patrick had pulled up his patrol car, easing through the crowd with his blues flashing and occasionally tapping the horn. Morgan waited while they hauled Kyle to his feet and opened the back door of the cruiser, easing him into it even though Morgan suspected they both would have liked to drop-kick him into the seat. Kyle sat sullenly, staring down at his feet.

Morgan approached Jesse. “I need a private word with the asshole. Okay for me to get in the car?”

Jesse turned, eyed him, studied his face. “You can’t kill him.”

“Don’t intend to.” Not yet anyway.

“You can’t even touch him. I’m not giving him any avenue to get off the hook this time.”

“Don’t intend to touch him either.”

“Okay, then.” A faint wintry smile touched Jesse’s face. “I would say record everything on your phone, but I probably don’t need to know. Tap on the window when you want out.” He nodded; Morgan opened the back passenger door on the other side and slid onto the seat beside Gooding. He closed the door with a controlled thud.

Kyle lifted his bloody face and snarled at him, “Who the fuck are you?”

I’m your worst nightmare. The line from the movie popped into Morgan’s head, but he resisted the temptation. Looking out the window instead of at Kyle, he said offhandedly, “I’m the man who plans to kill you.”

“What? Who-?” The words were kind of blubbered thanks to the swelling of Kyle’s mouth, which gave Morgan a great deal of pleasure.

Now Morgan looked at him and smiled. He knew it wasn’t a pretty smile because Kyle visibly recoiled. “You tried to kill the chief. I happen to be in love with her.” He was distantly astonished at the words coming out of his mouth but went with it anyway. He’d think about it later.

“Wasn’t trying to kill her,” Kyle mush-mouthed sullenly. “The dog. I was gonna shoot the fucking dog. This was all her fault; if she hadn’t jumped me, I never would have hit her, and my family wouldn’t have made me sign those fucking divorce papers to keep from being arrested. I lost my house, she should lose her dog. Nobody cares about a dog, you can’t even sue for ‘emotional harm,’ or anything like that. I looked it up.”

“Well, see, that’s the law-but I don’t give a fuck about the law. I happen to be real fond of the dog myself. She’s smarter than you are. Better looking, too.”

“Fuck the damn dog. You’re threatening me. That’s against the law.” Blood and spittle dripped down Kyle’s chin. “I’ll have you arrested.”

“Good. I can arrange to be in the same cell with you.” Casually, Morgan looked back out the window. “Here’s how it’s going to be. You’re not going to say a word about aiming for the dog, you’re going to say you were trying to kill the chief-”

“Bullshit!”

“-and you’re going to plead guilty,” Morgan continued as if Kyle hadn’t interrupted. “You’re going to go to prison. And that’s the only way you’re going to stay alive. You don’t make bail, you sit your sorry ass in a jail cell until you’re sentenced, and you serve your time. When you get out, you move far away from here and never come back to this area again.”

“Do you know who I am? My father-”

“Fuck your father. The problem is, you don’t know who I am. I’m a man who knows how to kill you seven ways from Sunday, and I’m just itching to try all those ways out on you, you motherfucker. You set foot outside the jail, you’re dead. Remember that. You want to know how I plan to kill you? I think skinning you alive would give me a lot of pleasure. I can make it last a long time, and you’d be alive and screaming right up until the end. Yeah, I like the idea of that.” He thought of Bo’s white face and wild eyes, the inhuman sounds coming from her throat as she lunged toward Tricks, and the truth of what he was saying was plain in his savage expression.

Kyle jerked back so hard he banged the back of his head against the window. His eyes were wide with fear, whites showing all around the irises. “You’re crazy as hell!”

Morgan considered that, then shrugged. “Possible,” he said casually. “But I’m also a man of my word. The only place you’re safe from me is in jail-and you’d better pray nothing bad ever happens to the chief or her dog because if it does, I’m going to assume you paid for it to happen, and I’m coming after you, jail or not. There’s no place you can go that I can’t get to you, no way you can hide even if you change your name. And I know how to get away with it, even if you tell a hundred people to look at me if anything happens to you.”

Kyle’s eye were all but bugging out. The stupid fool couldn’t back down though, had to cling to the idea that he was smarter and badder than everyone else. He sputtered, “I don’t believe you.”

“Your funeral,” Morgan said. “I look forward to attending.” He tapped on the window. Jesse opened the door, and Morgan gave Kyle another chilling smile before he got out of the patrol car.

“If he says I threatened him, he’s lying,” Morgan told Jesse.

“I figured as much.”

Morgan reappeared well within the fifteen minutes he’d allotted. Bo had let Tricks pee, then simply knelt beside the dog and hugged and petted her for several minutes, so grateful to still have her that she almost broke down and let loose the flood tide of tears that were threatening to overflow the dam of her control. She was still there when he circled the building to find her.

“We can go home,” he said, putting his hand on the small of her back when she stood.

“No, we can’t, not yet. We have to give statements.”

“Fuck that. Jesse can come out to the house.” He looked hard and implacable and as if he didn’t give a damn whether or not they gave statements.

Thank God he’d been here. If he hadn’t been-she couldn’t even think the thought. Even afterward, he’d been a rock she could lean on, capable of acting when she herself had been almost frozen by that debilitating sense of horror that lingered deep in her bones.

“It’s my job,” she said, and braced herself to get through the coming ordeal. It wouldn’t be traumatic, just exhausting, when she wanted nothing more than to curl up and not think for a day or two.

“Just let me know when you’ve had enough, and I’ll get us out.”

He would, too; regardless of how many questions still needed to be asked and answered, if she said she had to go home, he’d take her there.

A little buoyed by that knowledge, she waded in to what had to be done. Police work was always much slower than people thought it was; television had given the nation a false idea of how long it took to process a crime scene, to interview witnesses-in this case, a lot of witnesses, upward of fifty people who had actually seen something as opposed to the couple of hundred who only thought they’d seen something. Going home wasn’t on the books for several hours-the rest of the day, in fact.

Jesse took her statement, and Morgan’s, and that of everyone else who had seen anything. Of all the kids who had been on the float, Christa’s statement was the most coherent and thorough, but then she’d been the one kneeling with her arm around Tricks, staring at the pistol in Kyle’s hand.

No mention was made of Morgan banging Kyle’s head against the pavement, and if Kyle had made any such accusation, Bo hadn’t heard about it. Kyle wasn’t there; he’d been taken to the county lockup-again. But the police station was as crowded as it had been the day of the Melody/Miss Doris incident, with people coming and going. The parade had been aborted, of course, but the picnic in the park was happening. Once the snarled traffic had been straightened out, there was nothing the townsfolk wanted to do more than gather in the park where everyone could talk about what had happened or what they thought had happened.

Someone brought her some food from the picnic, and a cold beer. Bo really wanted the beer, but she was too tired and on edge to decide if she was on duty or not, so she settled for water. Morgan drank the beer and smirked at her while he did it. She didn’t care if he smirked. He’d saved Tricks, so as far as she was concerned, he could smirk at the world.

Daina came to take care of Tricks; Bo let her go even though every cell in her body protested letting the dog out of her sight. Tricks liked the crowd and people, but she was getting tired and needed a nap.

Finally the day wound down. Jeff Simmons was being kept hospitalized overnight for observation; the word came in that he had indeed been hit by the ricochet, but he’d be okay. Daina arrived back with a refreshed Tricks, who bounced from person to person to announce her presence, with repeated trips back to Bo to touch base with her center of security.

And enough was, finally, enough. “I’m going home,” she announced tiredly.

Mayor Buddy, unusually solemn, had been there through all the aftermath. He patted her shoulder. “You’ve had a hard day. I think you should take off a couple of days, get everything inside calm again. Unless all hell breaks loose at the park tonight, Jesse and the rest of the men can handle everything, and call you if all hell does break loose. I mean it. Stay home.”

Normally she’d have soldiered on, but this wasn’t normal. She gave a brief nod. “At least one day.” She’d take that one, then reevaluate. She was exhausted. She felt hollow, and frighteningly fragile, as if she might shatter without warning. She needed to just be home.

“I’ll go get the truck,” Morgan said, and only then did she remember that he’d parked at the other end of town, where the parade began.

“No need for that,” Mayor Buddy said, evidently realizing exactly where they had parked that morning. “My car is here, hop in and I’ll take you to it.”

“Thanks, but we have Tricks,” Bo pointed out. A lot of people didn’t want a dog in their car; she’d been one of them, until Tricks.

Mayor Buddy looked down at Tricks, who was lying with her muzzle resting on Bo’s foot, and a spasm crossed his face. The official word going around was that Kyle had been about to shoot Bo, but she knew differently, and evidently some other people did too. “She can ride in my car any time,” he said. “In the front seat, if she wants.”

Bo managed a smile. It was weak, but it was a smile. “Don’t give her any ideas.”

The ride to the park was a matter of a few minutes; the park was filled with people finishing the day the way they’d planned it, with picnics, food trucks, balloons, games, and fireworks to close out the festivities after dark. For most of them, the morning’s excitement had been a momentary distraction that hadn’t touched them at all other than giving them something to talk about while they ate their grilled burgers and hot dogs. No one paid any attention to them when Mayor Buddy stopped beside Morgan’s big black SUV.

“I’m riding in back with her,” Bo said when Morgan opened the back door for Tricks to leap into her seat. He gave a brief nod and opened the other door for her.

He started the engine so the air conditioning would run, then said, “I’ll be right back,” and strode across the green to one of the food trucks. When he returned, the brown paper sack he carried filled the Tahoe with the smell of grilled hamburgers and onions. With vague surprise, she looked at the clock on the dash and saw that it was well after their normal time for eating dinner. She’d eaten about half of what had been brought to her at lunch, too gut-punched to manage more, but now she was actually a little hungry. The funny thing was, if he hadn’t thought of it, she probably wouldn’t have eaten at all.

Tricks had great interest in the smells coming from that paper sack, but the seat harness prevented her from jumping into the front seat to check it out. Nevertheless, she leaned forward as far as she could go, her dark eyes focused on the sack. Bo put her hand on Tricks, sinking her fingers into the soft fur, needing to feel the warmth and life still there. She needed to touch her.

Morgan glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Gooding will probably plead guilty.”

She stirred herself, made a small scoffing sound. “Kyle? His father is probably in touch with every judge and lawyer he knows right now, trying to make it go away.”

“I’m fairly certain that won’t happen this time.” He didn’t say any more, but she wasn’t stupid, and she definitely remembered his expression-as well as the fifteen minutes when he’d had “something to do.” She could see an echo of that expression on his face now, in the iciness of his eyes. She was fairly certain that if Kyle did plead guilty, it would be because he was afraid not to. She was good with that, and she didn’t intend to ask any questions.

Now that they were alone, she could feel the fatigue setting in, coming at her fast and heavy. The draining emotional upheaval left her as empty as if she’d run a marathon. Sliding over, she let her head rest against Tricks’s side for the comfort of being close to her.

“I know she’s a dog,” she murmured, not knowing if Morgan could hear her but not caring because she needed to say it anyway. “But I love her.” She didn’t add any qualifiers such as like a child because love was love and didn’t need measuring.

His gaze flicked to the mirror again. “I know,” he said quietly.

Finally, finally, they were home. Tricks bounded out, her energy restored; Bo climbed out as if she hurt in every bone of her body, which she kind of did, but mostly she was so tired she could barely move. Morgan checked the sky, said, “There’s enough daylight left for me to take her for a walk. You go inside and put your feet up, eat one of those burgers. I’ll eat when we get back.”

“I’ll go with you,” she said, unable to bear the thought just yet of letting Tricks out of her sight. She’d let Daina take her because she knew that was best for Tricks, but that was the only reason, and she’d been on edge every minute Tricks was out of her sight.

He seemed to get that because he gave a brief nod and held out his left hand to her. She didn’t know if he meant for her to take it or if it was a “come on” gesture, but she seized it and held on tight. “Thank you.” She should have said it sooner, would have if she’d been able to gather her thoughts. She was trying so hard to function and not give in to the terror that still roiled deep inside her that function itself was getting shortchanged. “It was lucky-more than lucky-you were there.”

He squeezed her hand, then laced their fingers together so their hands were palm to palm. The touch of him, the strength she could feel in his hand, held her steady when she was feeling increasingly fragile, as if she might shatter into a thousand shards.

“It wasn’t luck,” he said briefly as they strolled across the yard to the trail she and Tricks had worn in the earth. “I’d already spotted him.” Bo was watching Tricks dance along the trail as enthusiastically as if she hadn’t gone that same route multiple times a day for most of her life, but at Morgan’s statement she glanced questioningly up at him.

“I didn’t know who he was,” he explained, “but he was wearing a jacket and that made me suspicious. When he moved, I followed.”

“What’s suspicious about a jacket?” Then it hit her, and she said, “Oh.” Why would anyone wear a jacket on such a warm day unless they were hiding whatever was under the jacket? She wouldn’t have noticed that, at least not at first.

Those few awful moments flashed in front of her, as vivid as if they were happening again. She saw the hate in Kyle’s eyes, the sheer viciousness, and the sick enjoyment of what he intended to do. “He was aiming straight at Tricks,” she said in a low tone and swallowed with difficulty because her throat immediately tightened at the memory.

“I thought he was. He could have been aiming at you, given that you were directly behind her, but I was fairly sure she was his target.”

“I knew I couldn’t get there in time.” Her voice had tightened to a thin thread of sound. “But you did.”

“Hey.” He squeezed her hand again, which brought her stricken gaze up to his. “I wasn’t going to let anything happen to either of you.”

But it could have. Who else but Morgan would have noticed something odd in someone wearing a jacket? His training, his level of expertise in taking people down, had put in him a unique position to stop Kyle, but what about when he was gone? She couldn’t think about that now, she simply couldn’t.

“I don’t understand it. Why hurt her? She’s so innocent-” Her voice broke.

“He blames you for making him give Emily everything she wanted in the divorce.”

“Me?” Indignation saved her, gave her back some control. She stopped in her tracks to stare at him in astonishment.

“His reasoning-or lack of it-is that everyone was so angry at him because he punched you, and he wouldn’t have punched you if you hadn’t jumped him. Ergo, it’s all your fault.”

She had nothing to say to that, too stunned by that monumental lack of logic to even try to get her mind around it. Silence was good, requiring no effort. Pretty much the only things keeping her going were watching Tricks go about her routine untouched by the day’s happenings, and the feel of Morgan’s hot palm pressed against hers. Tricks did her business and they turned around, retracing the path through the purpling twilight.

Their hamburgers were cold, but she nuked them just enough to get them warm, while Morgan opened a Naked Pig for each of them. If it hadn’t been for the beer helping the food to go down, she never would have been able to swallow. When Tricks was fed and they were fed, the day crashed down on her. She let Morgan handle what cleanup there was and dragged herself upstairs, made herself shower. Afterward, she went to the balcony rail and called down to Morgan that she was going to bed.

He was sitting on the sofa watching television. He tilted his head back so he could see her. “You okay?”

“No,” she said honestly. “But I will be.”

And she would. She knew she would. Just not tonight. Tonight, it was all still too close, her nerves were still too raw. When she got into bed, Tricks jumped up and snuggled against her, as if she somehow knew Bo needed comforting.

The need to touch Tricks was overwhelming. Bo stroked the soft fur, trying not to think how close she had come to losing her. “Sweet girl,” she whispered, remembering Tricks as a puppy, a lightning-fast ball of white fuzz hell-bent on attacking life and sampling everything she could, tripping over her own paws, diving at Bo’s shoelaces, splashing wildly in the plastic wading pool Bo had bought for her. She tried to hold on to that line of thought, to make herself smile and use the good memories to keep the bad ones at bay.

She couldn’t do it. The fragile smile in the dark faded, and the other memories rushed in. Lying there, she was swamped by that horrible moment when she’d been fighting to get to Tricks, knowing she was too late. For a few minutes that were so devastating she could barely think about them, she’d thought she had just seen Tricks killed in front of her. That yelp-what if it had been the last sound Tricks ever made?

The raw sound of anguish tore from her throat. She buried her face against Tricks’s neck as sobs shook her. She hated crying; she kept her emotions battened down and buttoned up, because viewing everything pragmatically and evenly was the best way to get through life. She wanted to stop, wanted to put this behind her and get back in balance.

She had always tried so hard to keep Tricks safe, and today she hadn’t been able to. If Morgan hadn’t been there, Kyle would have killed her.

She was so mired in distress that she didn’t hear the bedroom door open, but she wasn’t startled when the bed gave under Morgan’s weight as he sat down with his hip against her back. “Hey,” he murmured as he smoothed strands of hair away from her wet face. “It didn’t happen. Keep that thought front and center: it didn’t happen.”

“I know,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “But it was so close. I couldn’t get to her. I saw what he was about to do, and I couldn’t move fast enough. I felt as if my feet had been glued down.”

“For what it’s worth, in a crisis like that how things feel and how they really are are two different things. You were moving like you’d been shot out of a cannon.”

“And I still wouldn’t have been there fast enough.” Heartbreak was plain in her tone. She would have failed. Tricks would have died.

The bedroom wasn’t dark because of the light from the landing coming through the open door; she could see Tricks’s brows quirking quizzically at this unusual behavior from both her main human and her auxiliary human, her face so expressive she might as well be speaking. Bo’s heart swelled as she trailed a tender finger down the golden head to rub between Tricks’s eyes.

For all of Tricks’s life, Bo had done everything she could to keep her safe and healthy, to give her a happy, secure life. Dogs didn’t live that long; every day was precious. But despite everything she’d done, all the precautions she’d taken and the care she’d given, she could have lost Tricks today, and it had been out of her control. Things happened. Some people were stupid-ass idiots. She couldn’t anticipate everything, couldn’t control everything, or even most things. Loss happened. It was random, striking without warning and despite all efforts to ward it off. Lightning could strike a hermit alone on a mountain as easily as it could someone in a town.

“Don’t,” Morgan said, and she realized she was sobbing again. She could no more stop the tears than she’d have been able to stop the bullet.

She could have lost him today, too. He wasn’t hers to lose but… she cared. She couldn’t deny that she cared. Tricks hadn’t been the only one in danger; Kyle could have turned the gun on Morgan just as easily. Today had all but slapped her in the face with a hard truth: there were no guarantees. She could safeguard her emotions to the best of her ability, and still be blindsided by events she couldn’t control. She could have lost Tricks today. She could lose Morgan tomorrow. Whether or not she slept with him, let herself show how much she cared for him, wouldn’t affect the amount of pain she would feel if anything happened to him. She would instead bear the extra burden of regret, regret that she hadn’t made the most of their time together.

He might stay, or he might go. She had no control over that. The only thing she could control was how fully she lived now because now was all she had. That realization was almost as terrifying as that moment when she thought Tricks was going to die. She had been protecting herself with an illusion.

Silently he got up from the bed and went out onto the landing. The light went out. His absence speared through her, and she started to call out a strangled plea for him to come back when she saw his dark shape moving back to the bed.

He stood on the other side and she heard the rustling of fabric, the sound of his belt hitting the floor. Her heartbeat began a hard, thumping pace, sending heat through her body and banishing the cold. His voice came in the darkness, deep and firm. “C’mon, Tricks, find some other place to sleep.” He snapped his fingers, and Tricks, the treacherous hussy, bounced up as if she’d been longing to get on her own comfortable bed but had been keeping Bo company while she was so upset, but thank you very much for relieving her of the duty. Her paws hit the floor and she trotted out with great purpose, as if she had something important to do.

Bo made a strangled sound at her own thoughts, half sob and half chuckle. She swallowed and managed to say, “What?” Not very coherent or eloquent, but it was the best she could do.

He sat down on the bed to remove his shoes. “You know what. The only question was when. The answer is now.”

That was succinct enough.

She wanted this. She wanted him, specifically. But she didn’t want him here out of pity, and all this crying might be a major turnoff to him. Morgan didn’t strike her as a man who had a lot of patience with weakness. “Are you sure?”

He was lifting the covers, and he paused. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m a mess.” She was a tangled turmoil of emotions, grieving when there was no need to grieve, crying when she hated to cry, so overflowing with thoughts that she couldn’t get a handle on any of them long enough to know for certain what she was feeling.

“I’m a guy,” he said prosaically as he got into bed beside her.

She was surprised into laughter and surprised that she could laugh. “Does that mean guys don’t mind messes?”

“Pretty much.” He slid his arm under her neck, urged her closer so that she was lying completely against him, her head snuggled onto his shoulder. The heat of his bare skin engulfed her, warming her through the fabric of her clothing. Under her fingers she could feel the crispness of his chest hair, grown back enough to be somewhat soft.

“I just don’t want you to do this because you feel sorry for me,” she confessed almost inaudibly.

For answer he took the hand lying on his chest and moved it down to the front of his shorts. His erection jumped at her touch, pushing into her palm. “Does this feel like sympathy?”

No, it definitely did not. Excitement speared through her; when he lifted his hand she left hers where it was, and trailed her fingertips up and down the hard length before folding her hand around his penis to get a good feel for the size of him. A little purring sound vibrated in her throat before she could catch it. He was so thick she had a pang of doubt before her hormones smothered it. Yes, she wanted him, she wanted this. She had always been alone, stood alone, and now she didn’t want to.

At her touch he went rigid and gave a rough groan. Firmly he grabbed her hand and moved it away. “You aren’t the only one with problems,” he growled, his voice sandpapery. “I haven’t had sex in so long I’ll last maybe fifteen seconds. I have to think about the tactical aspects of this.”

The darkness made it easy for her to relax, to smile. “You’re looking at me the same way you would a military mission?”

“Damn straight. I have territory to conquer, like these points of interest.” He slipped his big hand inside the loose neck of her tank top and gently rubbed his palm over her nipples, making them tighten. The rasp of his rough skin sent a sharp twinge of sensation from her nipples straight to her groin. Her back arched in response, her fingers dug into his shoulder. Primal excitement lit up her nerve endings, firing off such a multitude of responses she instinctively turned into him to seek more of them. His heat seared her from head to toes, drawing her in, comforting and enticing.

“Hills and ravines,” he murmured, pressing his lips to her temple as he moved his hand to the small of her back and deftly slipped under the elastic waistband of her sleep pants to stroke the curves of her ass and slide a finger along the cleft there. Helplessly she arched again, her body knowing what it wanted and curving into his touch. Her heart was racing, her breath coming in rapid puffs. Just like that he had her skin so sensitized she felt as if a mild electric shock was running through her. Just like that she was ready for him-but then, she’d been ready for him since the first time he’d kissed her.

“Interesting tight places,” he continued, sliding his hand farther down to curve it between her legs. Two big fingers pressed into her; the sensation of being penetrated and stretched was almost overwhelming. She clutched at his broad shoulders, digging her fingers into the pads of muscle. When he moved, he moved fast. There was something she needed to think about, but as long as he was doing what he was doing, she seemed incapable of thought, only of feeling.

Then his fingers were gone, and he deftly turned her onto her back; the sudden emptiness was so sharp she had to fight the irrational surge of anger at the absence of all those sensations. But at least that gave her a little breathing space, and she remembered what she’d wanted to tell him.

“I’m on the pill.” She blurted it out, too distracted to think of a lead-in. She had been taking the pill for years-not for birth control, but because otherwise her periods were horribly irregular.

“Good deal. I’d hate to get out of bed and make an emergency run to town to buy condoms. You might not let me back in.” She could hear the smile in his voice.

She might not, simply because she might panic. She hadn’t made love in years, not since her divorce because in the bitter aftermath she had concluded that sex made women stupid. The obvious solution was to not let anyone close enough that she was even tempted-and she hadn’t been, until Morgan.

When she didn’t argue with his supposition, he gave a rueful laugh and kissed her. Until he did, she hadn’t realized that in the middle of all the great-feeling things he was doing to her, she had really wanted to be kissed. She looped her arms around his neck and gave him back as good as she got, matching his tongue stroke for stroke, loving the taste and hunger and urgency of him. His hands clenched on her sides and he drew back, yanked the tank top off over her head, then came back down on top of her.

Oh. That was the only thought she could muster. He was heavy and warm and the hair on his chest rubbed her tender nipples to achingly tight points. The weight of his legs nudged her thighs apart and he settled between her legs to push the hard ridge of his erection against her soft cleft. She made an incoherent noise, lifted against him. She had never before felt so… overwhelmed, so completely undone and turned on. He was big, he was dangerous, and he was about to do things to her she had thought she was done with, likely for the rest of her life. Instead, in his hands, she had gone from zero to ready so fast she was dizzy.

Being made love to like a military campaign was a novel experience. He was thorough in his tactics, laying waste to any possible skittishness she might suffer, overwhelming her with pleasure and moving on to new territory before she recovered enough to protest any particular liberty he might be taking. She tried to reciprocate, but he was having none of it. “No touching,” he ordered when she tried to caress his penis through his boxers. “My fuse is too short-”

“Doesn’t feel short to me,” she murmured, earning a chuckle from him.

“Just save that for next time.”

Maybe, she thought, and maybe not. She took her arms from around his neck, stroked them down the muscles in his back, down to his hips where his boxers clung. She slipped her right hand beneath the waistband, drew back enough to murmur, “Why don’t you take these off?”

“Not yet.”

His refusal only made her more determined to get the boxers off him. Swiftly she tugged them down as far as she could reach, baring part of his ass; he reached for her hand and while he was distracted by that she lifted her left leg high around him and slid her foot down his side until she hooked the waistband and could drag it downward.

He gave a smothered laugh. “Fighting dirty, huh? Guess I’ll have to show you what fighting dirty really is.”

In a flash he had her sleep pants jerked down and off. His strength was so effortless she could only imagine what he was like when he was in top shape; even now he put most men to shame. She had a momentary qualm about being nude while he wasn’t, more vulnerable, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it because he slid down between her legs, lifted her thighs over his shoulders, and put his mouth on her.

Oh, God. She arched, her fists knotting the sheet. He definitely knew what he was doing. Oh-God! He licked at her, sucked at her. She was flooded with sensation, pleasure that spiked and ebbed, only to spike again. Her muscles clenched and relaxed, clenched and relaxed, caught in a rhythm that grew steadily stronger until she was shaking from the force of it, her body drawn bow-taut and aching. Heat seared her from the inside out until she felt molten.

Her climax roared at her like a freight train, fast and relentless. She gave a hoarse cry when it hit, the pleasure so all-encompassing she could only endure and try to ride it out. At her cry he surged upward, covered her, reached down to fit the head of his penis to her opening and pushed inside while the spasms were still wracking her. She cried out again, a guttural sound of both shock and ecstasy because he was big enough to stretch her to the point of pain, and feeling the bulk and heat of him so deep inside her intensified the rhythmic clenching of pleasure. She needed something to hold on to, to keep from spinning away, and the only rock she could find was him so she locked her legs and arms around him and clung through the tempest triggered by his hard, deep thrusts.

Maybe he did last only fifteen seconds; she didn’t know, didn’t care. All that mattered was that they were both caught, riding out the fury together. She was in his arms and he was in hers as he shuddered and bucked in release.

Then it was over and they lay there like storm wreckage, breathing hard and trembling, unable to muster the strength to separate. Their bodies were sweaty from exertion, glued together. That was good, she thought dimly, managing to lift one hand and put it on his side. He’d finally shed those damn boxers, though she couldn’t have said when. Didn’t matter. Now was what mattered.

“Holy shit,” he muttered weakly, started to lever himself off her, and instead collapsed back with a groan. He was so heavy she could barely breathe, and she didn’t care. She turned her face against his neck, inhaling his hot male scent and drawing it deep inside her.

“Stay here a minute.” She loved the feel of him on top of her, inside her. Had sex felt like this before? If it had, she didn’t remember. She couldn’t remember feeling stretched and invaded and possessed; she never would have allowed herself to be possessed. And yet… Morgan had done all of that, and she had reveled in it. As intense as the pleasure had been, it had also been mutual, and she had possessed him in turn.

Slowly their heartbeats returned to normal, their lungs stopped heaving in search of oxygen. Her body felt heavy and relaxed, resembling marshmallow more than muscle. He braced himself on his elbows over her, letting her breathe more easily, and nipped at her lower lip. She nipped in return and he threaded his fingers through her hair and began kissing her, slow deep kisses that impossibly ignited a subtle but unmistakable flare.

No way. Even if he was capable, she wasn’t. Maybe in an hour or two. Right now she wanted to sleep, though the need to clean up was becoming more pressing with every second. She might need to change the sheets if she had the strength to care.

He stretched an arm upward and turned on the lamp. She blinked against the flare of light, then smiled at the expression on his face. His hair was damp with sweat, his eyes heavy-lidded from pleasure explored and sated, his mouth curved in pure satisfaction. If ever there had been a perfect picture of masculine sexual triumph, he was it. Her own mouth curved in a smile because the triumph was hers; she had put that look on his face, and she didn’t care if he ever realized it because this wasn’t about keeping score, it was about making each other happy.

Her heart gave a hard thump of recognition, and she curved her hand around his neck to pull him down for another kiss.

Just as their mouths were about to meet, he froze. The look of satisfaction on his face changed to consternation.

Bo frowned in puzzlement. “What’s wrong?”

He was motionless, as if he’d come face-to-face with a rattlesnake. Slowly he cut his eyes to the left.

Bo turned her head. Tricks was standing with her muzzle resting on the edge of the bed, her brows beetled above her dark eyes as if she simply couldn’t believe what she’d seen her humans doing. The accusation in her eyes as she stared at Morgan was plain: he had to be the instigator because Bo had never done such a thing before.

“Ah, shit.” Morgan gently disengaged from Bo’s body and rolled to lie beside her, staring up at the ceiling. “I may never get another hard-on in my life.”