LITMIR.BIZ

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and they’ll pass this county up like they always have before. They’re not going to try anything where the law has bowed its back against them. There’s no need. There are too many folks more than willing to cooperate with them for the kind of money they’re offering. I’ll put out the word that the feds are moving in and nothing will happen.”

      “You swear you’ll get some help?” she asked. “You’re not just saying that to pacify me?”

      “I promise, Jenny. First thing tomorrow. Chase can tell me exactly who to call.”

      Again she held his eyes, trying to read what was in them, he guessed. He had nothing to hide. He would do what he’d said. He would never break his word to Jenny.

      Finally, she nodded. Her hand moved, following the line of his jaw. Her fingers touched the softness of his mustache and then traced up the high cheekbone, thumb brushing across the long, dark lashes, feeling them move as his blue eyes closed in response to her touch.

      Her fingers spread, threading into the slightly curling, sun-touched hair at his temple. They cupped the back of his head, pulling his mouth downward to hers, which opened to the caress of his tongue.

      His mouth was warm and sweet. So dearly familiar. His tongue teased across her lips and then invaded them, suddenly demanding. Hot and hard. Evoking memories of his body moving above hers in the darkness.

      Waking her from sleep. Or coming up behind her to cup his hands under her breasts and trail wet, pulling kisses down her throat as she stood at the kitchen sink, up to her elbows in dirty dishwater. Pushing his arousal into the softness of her bottom. Once Mac had pulled her panties off and simply unzipped his jeans, thrusting into her as she lay where he had placed her on his grandmother’s kitchen table.

      Making love to her because that was what he wanted to do. Whenever he wanted to do it. Unthinking. Unplanned and unstudied. Sometimes quick and sometimes endlessly, heartbreakingly slow. This was what their lovemaking had once been. And in her demands for a baby, they had lost this gift.

      Perhaps sensing her stillness, Mac lifted his head. His blue eyes were luminous in the darkness. Questioning.

      “Make love to me,” she invited softly.

      “What the hell do you think I’m doin’, Jenny-Wren?” Mac asked. The soft humor she loved was back in his deep voice.

      Please, dear God, she prayed. Don’t let anything happen to Mac. Please, God, keep him safe.

      Her eyes burned again, but she blinked, determined not to let him see her cry. He was right. It was his job, and he wouldn’t be the man she had married, the man she loved, if he didn’t do it. At least he had promised to let someone know what was happening. And Chase was home. Chase wouldn’t let anything happen to his brother.

      Mac’s big hand found the elastic band of her slacks and began pushing inside, moving awkwardly because of the restriction.

      “I can take them off,” she offered without moving. Her face was in the hollow between his shoulder and the strong brown column of his neck, her breath moving against the man-fragranced warmth of his skin. “I can take them off,” Mac said. “I’ve about forgotten what it feels like to undress you.”

      “It feels slow,” she said, suddenly inclined to giggle at the unromantic discomfort of her slacks, their waistband rolled and twisted, canted to one side as he struggled to pull them down.

      “Damn it,” he breathed, his big hands tangled in the offending garment.

      “You used to be better at this,” she teased.

      “Your butt used to be smaller,” he parried.

      “I can’t believe you said that.”

      But she pushed her heels into the mattress, obligingly lifting her bottom off the bed, and felt the slacks and her panties slide downward, guided by his hands. Then his hands deserted her for a moment, and she used her bare feet to push her clothing the rest of the way off her legs.

      She was just in time. Mac’s hips and thighs lowered between hers, spreading them. His hand had found her breast, thumb flicking over the cotton-covered nipple that hardened into an tight, aching bud with the first stroke.

      She could feel the cloth of his pants against her bare legs and the roughness of that texture was sensuous. Sensual. Teasing and tantalizing her as were his long fingers, which had caught the pearled nipple and were rolling it between them. Rolling it with hard, demanding pressure. Almost to the edge of pain.

      The sound that feeling evoked came from deep within her throat, aching with want. With need. He responded immediately, pushing into her so strongly that it literally took her breath. She was a little surprised to realize how ready she had been for his entrance. Wet. So wet for him.

      Her heels pressed again into the mattress, lifting her body upward to meet the hard downward thrusts of his. It hadn’t been like this between them in a long time. Almost primitive. Need-driven. No whispered endearments. No laughter or “old married” teasing. Just need. Desire. Hot and hard and aching for each other.

      She was so empty. Only Mac could fill her. Only Mac could satisfy the aloneness that she hadn’t even been aware of. The awful black aloneness of even thinking about having to try to exist without him.

      She blocked the horror of that thought, denying it, and arched upward again. The sound she made this time was guttural, a response to her desperation to enclose him. To hold him to her. To keep him with her forever.

      She locked her legs around his waist, her bare ankles twined, and then closed her mind to everything but the sensations that grew and expanded in her body as his strained above her in their familiar darkness. When she felt the beginnings of his release, she thought it was too soon, and she tightened her hold on him, trying subconsciously to slow him, to slow what was happening.

      There was no need. Her own response was again a surprise, its force exploding in shivering torrents throughout her lower body, sensations spreading upward through veins and nerves and muscles like warmed honey. She could hear her own gasping breath above the harsh panting of his. Could feel, despite the chill of the December night, the sweat on his face, its masculine roughness tight-pressed against her cheek.

      Slowly, slowly, the sensations faded, retreated, his body stilled, and the world shifted back to its familiar focus. The room was dark and slightly chilled. She shivered involuntarily, either from the temperature or from the aftereffects of their lovemaking. Mac rolled onto his back, muscled arms locked around her body to carry her with him. She lay on top of him, half clothed and totally relaxed, and listened to his heart beat just beneath her ear.

      “I love you, Jenny-Wren,” he said softly.

      She heard the words, not in the night air that surrounded them, but the sound of them rumbling through their very skins, slick with commingled sweat and still joined. Always joined.

      “I love you, too,” she whispered. Her fingers moved across the hair-roughened contours of his chest.

      She lay and listened to his breathing, slow and even as his body gradually relaxed under hers. His arms loosened their hold, and she knew finally that he slept.

      Still she didn’t move away, and it was a long time before she closed her eyes. She stared instead into the darkness, thinking about what he had promised. Thankful the hot tears that seeped onto the broad, dark chest pillowing her cheek didn’t wake him.

      JENNY DIDN’T HAVE ANY idea what time it was when the phone rang. It wasn’t all that unusual for them to get a call in the middle of the night, and Mac’s voice when he answered was calm and official, if not yet fully awake.

      She lay and listened to his monosyllables and soft questions without really hearing them. He’d tell her what was going on when he hung up. She closed her eyes and snuggled her bare bottom against his hip. She realized Mac was still wearing his pants, and it wasn’t until the incongruity of that attire penetrated her sleep-fogged consciousness, that she remembered last night.

      She

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