She cried silently, which was all the more heartbreaking as her fingers tightened and fisted in the shirt over his chest. Wrapping his arms around her, Casey held her as closely, as tightly to him as he could, and still, it didn’t seem to be enough. He wanted her under his skin, to be a part of him, locked so tight to him that neither of them could escape.
Bending his head to her shoulder, the soft flesh bared by the thin straps of her camisole top, he let his lips press to her flesh, his tongue ease out to taste the soft, feminine taste of her.
As though that small hint of her essence only intensified the need, he allowed his lips to part further, his tongue to take more of her taste as he kissed the fragrant flesh.
“Fuck. Roses,” he growled as that hint of a taste penetrated his senses.
God, he loved the taste of roses against her flesh.
His hand smoothed up her arm, lifting until he was cupping her neck, his thumb pressing beneath her chin to lift her face to where the moonlight gleamed on the damp trails of her tears.
Her eyes glittered in the darkness, filled with pain. And God knew he understood how she hurt. How the hunger and the need beat inside her soul, because it beat inside his own.
As her lips parted on a ragged breath, he couldn’t resist the taste, the soft, crushed-silk feel of them.
His head lowered and he took instant advantage of the parted curves, the damp, tear-drenched saltiness, and the heat and pleasure he’d found only with his Sheila.
Her breathing hitched, but this time in response to his kiss rather than in response to the pain.
Lifting her closer as his knees bent, one hard thigh pressing in between hers, Casey pulled her to the furiously hard flesh pounding beneath his jeans.
Her skirt slid back, revealing tempting, creamy thighs in the dim light as her legs lifted, her knees bending to grip his hips and ride the cloth-covered erection raging beneath the denim.
Damn her. His body craved her like air. She was as natural to him as breathing, and he couldn’t seem to exist without finding a way to see her, to touch and hold her.
He let his palm slide up her thigh, beneath the skirt. His fingers tucked beneath the tiny square of material that barely covered her sex to find her hot and wet, the silken folds drenched in sweet, feminine honey.
He was so damned hungry for her it was all he could do to keep from ripping the zipper of his jeans and impaling her with the stiff flesh of his dick.
He wanted inside her so bad he could barely think for it, barely concentrate on anything but the remembered feel of her pussy milking the come from his dick.
As he snarled his head jerked back, his hips grinding between her thighs as a soft, desperate little moan escaped her lips.
“Tell me, Sheila.” He had to hear the words. “What do you want from me? Tell me, baby, and I’ll give you what we’re both dying for.”
He left his fingers tucked between the folds of her pussy, to rub against the snug, clenched entrance in a sensual promise to fill her if she gave him what he needed.
“Casey, just tell me.”
He froze. Staring down at her he could see the confusion in her gaze, the desperation, and he could see how much she loved him.
A love so strong, so deep was what he felt for her.
No, his was stronger, deeper he decided, because he knew it for what it was, felt it for what it was, and she continued to hide from it. From him.
His fingers eased back.
“Casey, please,” she cried out, her voice hoarse with tears. “What do you want from me?”
What did he want from her?
Hell.
“As strange as it may seem, baby, I want you to see without being shown.” He sighed as he eased her back to her feet and steadied her until she was standing on her own. “Come on, I’ll take you to your car.”
Before he ended up fucking her against the wall.
That was a serious danger if he didn’t get her the fuck away from him. He would end up taking her there in the shadows and he wouldn’t give a damn who caught him.
“Wait.” The fingers of both hands wrapped around his wrist. “Were you at the house last night? Did you come to see me?”
He could hear the need in her voice, the same desperation that he had. What the hell did she want? To ensure he made the first move?
“No, I wasn’t.” But he knew it wouldn’t be long. He would break, and the thought of that sent a wave of anger rushing through him.
She had to know what he felt for her. She had to have realized it. No woman could be so fuckin’ obtuse that they couldn’t see when a man was so engulfed in her that he would gladly die for her. Or worse, kill for her.
He’d wondered several times, and prayed he was only being facetious, when he’d wondered who he had to kill to convince her he loved her?
“Oh.” She released him slowly.
Catching her hand, he drew her to her car.
“Where’s your key?” He couldn’t keep the anger from his tone.
Pushing her fingers into the side pocket of her skirt, she pulled out the small electronic key and the snick of the door locks filled the silence.
Jerking the door open, he held it for her, watching as she moved around him to slide into the driver’s seat.
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered as she stared back at him. “What kind of game are you playing with my heart, Casey?”
And that only pissed him off more. If she thought he was playing a game, then it could only be because she was playing one herself. And the thought of that lit a fuse to his temper that went straight to his lusts.
He’d find out the game she was playing.
He hadn’t been at her home last night, but tonight? Oh baby, he promised her silently, he’d be there tonight.
“Go home, Sheila,” he told her gently as he stepped back, gripping the edge of the door. “And think about it. I’ll give you one more chance to figure it out on your own.”
He closed the door before she could argue and stepped back, his gaze still connected with hers, his expression, harder than she may have ever seen it.
She had him ready to explode. Not so much in anger as in pure dominant male lust. A dominance and a lust that went far beyond anything he had ever wanted to give another woman.
He wouldn’t allow her to play games with what he knew existed between them. He’d be damned if he’d ever seen the love a woman felt for him in her eyes. But he’d seen it in Sheila’s. Just as he’d felt her pain, her longing, her fucking confusion.
The vehicle started, and as he watched, she backed out of the parking space and turned, heading to the exit.
He watched until her taillights faded around the curve ahead and several other vehicles pulled out behind her.
And he promised himself, he silently swore to her, that before the night was over, she would know to the soles of her feet who the fuck she belonged to, and why she belonged to him.
After tonight, she’d know better than to ever again ask him what game he was playing with her heart.
ELEVEN
By all accounts and research, Sheila Rutledge was a good girl.
Her heart had been broken once by Ross Mason, a young man who had used her to further his own ends. He had, at a very vulnerable time in her life, used her to get to her father and to gain an important government position within the financial sector.
The knowledge of Ross Mason deception had caused Miss Rutledge to retreat behind a wall of frigid unconcern where men were involved. Until a man named Nick Casey had arrived in town five years before to work for Ethan Cooper at the Broken Bar.
Gossip, it appeared, had been focused on Miss Rutledge and her bouncer since the day she had met him.
And in the past nine or ten months, it had only become stronger.
Since the night Miss Rutledge had left the bar with her bouncer and spent the night at his apartment.
They were an item, despite the fact that it seemed the young miss was determined to hold on to the man whose past was shrouded in shadows.
Strange, the fact that Captain Rutledge seemed blissfully ignorant of the fact that Nick Casey wasn’t who he said he was.
Of course, Rutledge himself had a rather shady past as well. A man in his fifties and he’d never risen above captain? For all his connections and political friends, his rank should have been far higher. Which meant somewhere, in some way, Rutledge had compromised his position and his values.
Ahh, such tangled webs.
A sigh filled the pickup. Following Miss Rutledge, knowing the task ahead, weighed heavily on the shoulders.
It wouldn’t be easy, terrifying her, harming her. She was a gentle person, a kind person, and forcing her to pay the price for a past she had nothing to do with would be a haunting act. It would be a memory that would haunt not just the present, but the future as well.
Hands tightened on the steering wheel. The vehicle began to accelerate. No, harming her wouldn’t be easy, but what other choice was there?
Beau refused to make the call.
There was no gossip that his woman was in danger, Miss Rutledge had kept her suspicions to herself. No one else knew her home had been broken into. No one knew a vehicle followed her a little closer each night.
No one else knew about the phone message she had on her recorder.
Beau had no idea his lover had been targeted and had not yet made that all important phone call.
It was time to ensure that all knew Miss Rutledge had a stalker. One willing to kill her to achieve whatever ideal she represented.
The vehicle accelerated further, moving steadily closer to the small car ahead and the future Sheila Rutledge might well pay the ultimate price for.
TWELVE
Sheila watched in her rearview mirror as the headlights behind her accelerated at an unusual speed. They were moving faster, coming up on her at a speed that was rarely used on the back road that led to the exclusive estates outside Simsburg.
The mostly retired residents didn’t drive like bats out of hell. Like the vehicle behind her and the one that had ridden her ass for the past several trips to the bar. For some reason, she never failed to miss the driver who came up on her like an Indy Car driver and, after a few seconds, zipped around her as though she weren’t even there.
Tonight, though, it wasn’t zipping around her.
This time, it wasn’t a car but a monster four-by-four. The powerful sedan that had come up and gone around her at such high speed was absent. The chrome grill of the pickup filled her rearview mirror, the lights almost blinding as they speared into the back window.
And it wasn’t trying to pull around her.
Sheila slowed down, and the truck slowed.
She sped up, and the truck sped up.
She didn’t take any more chances.
With her heart in her throat, she hit the call button on the steering wheel.
“Casey.” She had to fight to steady her tone for the voice-recognition software that powered the automatic calling feature of the Bluetooth connection.
The sound of the phone’s ring was overly loud in the car as the truck’s motor revved behind her. And it came closer. Impossibly closer.
A second ring as her gaze jerked back to the rearview mirror.
“Sheila, you okay?” Casey’s voice came across the line, concern filling it.
Yeah, that was right, she never called anyone as she drove home. It was an agreement made when she first began carrying the flash drives from the bar to her father.
“I have a tail.” Her voice was trembling now. “A close one, Casey.”
The sound of the truck’s powerful motor giving a hard, dark growl behind her sent fear pumping through her system.
“Stay on the line,” he ordered. “Turk, Jake, Iron, and I are on our way. How far away are you, baby?”
She swallowed tightly at the threatening rumble of the vehicle behind her as it advanced, slowed, then advanced on her once more.
“I’m about fifteen minutes from home, Casey. I’m passing through Gator Bay now.”
Gator Bay was the locals’ nickname for the road she was on because of the increasing number of alligators seen on the road and along the edges of the swampy marsh further out.
“We’re coming after you, sweetheart—”
At that second, the sound of the engine behind her revving and the harsh, shocking impact of the truck’s grille on her bumper caused a shocked scream to escape her lips.
Her foot hit the gas harder as she fought to control the little car and edge away from the truck as it nearly rammed her again.
Casey barked out her name, the sound of loud voices and harsh orders being called out on his side of the connection echoing around her.
“Oh my God, Casey, he just hit me,” she cried out as she clenched the steering wheel and fought to get more speed out of the car. “I can’t outrun him, Casey. Oh God, I can’t outrun him.”
She was trying, but the car wasn’t built for speed. They were doing seventy down the little country road and Sheila could feel the tires’ grip on the road lessening with each curve she took at that speed. They threatened to skid, to throw her sideways; at one point, the back end almost fishtailed as she hit a particularly tight curve.
A curse exploded from her lips as the headlights behind her gained on her once again. A second later the impact of the truck’s grille on her already abused bumper had her cheek hitting the steering wheel as she nearly lost control once again.
Sheila screamed as the car was thrown forward, the tires screaming as she fought to control the vehicle, to employ the driving lessons Casey had given her when she had first taken the job as courier from the bar to her father’s office.
“Casey!” she cried out as the truck suddenly rammed the back of the car again. “Casey, I can’t stay ahead of him!” she screamed.
“By God you will!” he screamed back at her. “I didn’t spend those months teaching you to drive to let some asshole defeat you.”
Fear was a cold, hard lump in her throat as she pressed her foot harder to the gas, barely managing to keep from being rammed again as both car and truck tires squealed going around another curve.