LITMIR.BIZ

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house, but the old man had leased it to a neighboring rancher, and Brady had continued the lease. Someday, though, he planned to put up a barn and buy a few horses from Easy Rafferty, one of Reese’s friends over in Heartbreak who raised damn fine paints.

      He went inside the dark, empty house, turned on the TV and settled on the sofa with a beer. Welcome to his usual Saturday night.

      Most of the time he didn’t care how alone he was. Hell, he’d been that way so long it had come to feel natural. Growing up, he and his kid brother, Logan, had pretty much been each other’s best—and only—friends. They’d known other kids at school, of course, but they’d kept to themselves. It had seemed safer that way.

      Then Logan had disappeared without a trace nearly seventeen years ago. Brady had gone to bed one night and Logan was there in the next room, and he’d awakened the next morning and his brother was gone. He’d taken his clothes and left a note, one line that had just about killed Brady.

      He didn’t let himself think about Logan very often, but tonight it somehow seemed appropriate. Where was he? Had he even survived the last seventeen years? Had he managed to make himself over into someone who could live a normal life, have friends, laugh, be happy? Had he ever married, had kids? Did he ever think about looking up his older brother?

      Probably no more often than Brady thought about trying to find him. He had run a nationwide driver’s license check a few years ago and come up with a number of Logan Marshalls, but none whose birth date matched his brother’s. He’d even considered hiring a private investigator, but had discarded the idea. Logan had had his reasons for taking off the way he did. The least Brady could do was respect them.

      He flipped through the channels, watched the clock and told himself that, barring any emergencies, he was home for the night. Bored with television, he went in and took a shower, then went into the bedroom to get a pair of boxers. He wasn’t getting dressed, he told himself, even as he took a clean pair of Levi’s from the closet, and he repeated it as he pulled a T-shirt from the dresser drawer. He absolutely wasn’t going anywhere, he insisted as he picked up his wallet, pager and keys from the dresser, then started toward the front door.

      He wasn’t going to the motel.

      Wasn’t parking beside her Mercedes in the back lot.

      Wasn’t climbing the stairs.

      Wasn’t standing in front of Room 22.

      He stood there, trying desperately to talk himself out of knocking. But damn it, being accustomed to being alone didn’t mean it didn’t eat at him sometimes. Some days the need for somebody got under his skin and damn near drove him mad until he’d satisfied it. That was what had sent him to the bar Thursday night—what had made him come back to the motel with Hallie. Usually that one night would have been enough to fill the emptiness that sometimes consumed him and would enable him to go back to his life for a few more months.

      But this time, God help him, he wanted more, and Hallie Madison was the perfect person to give it. They’d already filled each other’s needs once. He liked her, and she… He didn’t know whether she liked him, but at least she wasn’t intimidated by him.

      And most important of all—she was leaving town the next morning. He would probably see her again, but not until she came back to visit Neely, and that could be months—even years. By then she might not even remember his name.

      Raising his hand, he hesitated, then rapped sharply on the door.

      Seconds ticked past with no sound from inside the room. He wouldn’t blame her if she refused to open the door—half wished she would do exactly that so he would have no choice but to go home. But after a minute, maybe two, there was a rustle inside, then the door swung open.

      She’d obviously showered since the party. Her face was free of makeup and her hair, still damp, was slicked back from her face, and damned if she didn’t look as pretty as she had all dressed up. She was wearing something thin and satiny held up by tiny straps and ending somewhere around midthigh, and she was naked underneath it. She looked sexy and innocent and vulnerable, and he knew if he touched her again, he would be damned to hell with no way to redeem himself.

      Even knowing that, he reached out.

      And he touched her.

      Chapter 2

      Hallie knew why he’d come.

      It was in the hunger that made his blue gaze intense, in the tension that crackled around him and the heat where his fingers loosely held hers. She could send him away with no more than a shake of her head…or she could pull him inside and close the door.

      Sending him away would be the smart choice, of course.

      But in all her thirty years no one had ever described her as the smart sister.

      Barely breathing, she watched him watch her. He hadn’t taken so much as a step over the threshold, and she knew he wouldn’t unless she gave him an invitation. Did she have the courage to offer that invitation?

      Did she have the strength to hold it inside?

      She didn’t know how long they stood there—one minute or ten—but the sound of familiar voices in the parking lot below signaled that time had run out. Her sisters, mother and stepfather were back from the party, and while Doris Irene’s room was on the ground floor, Bailey and Kylie were sharing a room down the hall and around the corner.

      Send him away or let him stay?

      She wanted to do the first. She needed the last.

      Tightening her fingers around his, she took a step backward, then another. While her family said their good-nights downstairs, she drew Brady into the room and closed, then locked the door.

      As he’d done the first time—what she’d thought would be the last time—he turned off the lights, then pulled her close. She thought of her smart, talented, capable sisters kissing their mother good-night, then coming arm-in-arm up the stairs, far too good and moral to indulge in anything so tawdry as a one- or two-night stand.

      Then Brady kissed her as if she mattered, and she stopped thinking.

      He aroused her expertly, stroked her, caressed her. Though she wore nothing but a simple satin shift, he took his sweet time removing it, exploring, touching, tormenting every inch of her. When she was naked and weak, when the need for him throbbed throughout her body, he clamped his mouth to hers and kissed her onto the bed before pulling away.

      Her entire body was vibrating, thrumming with need. In the inky darkness, she heard his boots hit the floor, followed by the soft whoosh of his shirt falling and the rasp of his zipper. She raised up on one arm, but it was too dark to see. She could hear, though—harsh breathing, strong hands crinkling plastic as he tore open the condom wrapper. She could smell the clean, fresh scent of him as he came nearer, the faint hint of beer, the fainter essence of pure, base lust. She felt the mattress give under his weight, then the warm, satiny skin when she slid her hands to his shoulders.

      Just as he’d done the other time, he grasped both of her hands in his, pinned them at her sides, then lowered his head to kiss her. Forgetting that she wanted to protest, she greedily welcomed his tongue, then, with a swallowed gasp, welcomed him into her body—every hot, silky, hard-as-rock inch of him.

      For a moment he was content merely to be inside her, and she was content to feel him there again. He didn’t move, but held himself rigid, letting her body adjust to his. She sighed deep in her throat at the pure simple pleasure of it. For this brief time, she felt connected. Wanted. Even needed.

      And that was all she wanted—all she’d ever wanted. Tonight the feelings didn’t even have to be real as long as she could believe in them for the moment.

      “You’re a beautiful woman, Hallie,” he said, his voice little more than a growl that vibrated all the way through her. Then he began moving, slowly taking long, deep strokes, pulling out, filling her again. At the same time he lowered his head to nuzzle her breast.

      She

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