Secret Sins (27 page)

She wasn’t wearing panties. As she’d lain sleeping, the blankets thrown from her body,
he’d glimpsed the dark shadow of the curls at the very top of the small mound between
her thighs.

Teeth clenched, his jaw bunched, Archer reached beneath the blankets and wrapped his
fingers around the head of his cock.

He’d been forced to jack off the last two nights. The wound at her outer thigh, though
not extremely long or deep, was clearly still painful if the way she walked was an
indication.

Tightening his fist around the engorged head of his dick, it was all he could do to
keep from masturbating to hold back the hunger eating him the fuck alive.

God, he wanted her.

Eyes drifting closed, he could see her lying back in his bed, those beautiful pearly
thighs wide open, knees bent to allow her heels to dig into the bed and lift to his
voracious lips as he ate the satiny, bare folds. Her juices would lie thick and lush
and so sweet that the thought of it filled him with a sexual hunger he wondered if
he could restrain much longer.

Three days and two nights. Sixty hours of pure, unimagined hell lying next to her,
holding her against him because he couldn’t sleep without her warmth against his body.

Not that he’d done much sleeping. All he could think about was the taste of her hot
little pussy and the tight, clenching hold of it around his shuttling cock.

God, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t fucked her the night before the attack. And the
morning of the attack. If he could have, he would have fucked her pretty, pouting
lips the minute he’d closed the door on the world outside the afternoon she’d been
shot.

Now she was hurt, in pain, and all he could think about was paddling her pretty rounded
ass, then fucking it with a need that threatened to overtake him.

Almost uncontrollably his fisted fingers stroked down the thick, hard shaft as it
flexed with furious hunger at the thought of fucking her so intimately. Of having
that tighter than tight little entrance furl open around his penetrating cock. He
ached to clench his fingers in the rounded globes of her ass, to part the curves and
watch his possession of her.

He’d watch the impalement, he decided. He’d spread the cheeks of her ass apart and
watch as his heavily lubricated dick worked its way inside her.

Once buried to his balls inside her anus, there would be no stopping him. Her sensual
submission would be like an aphrodisiac, powering his arousal.

“Archer, have you—”

His eyes jerked open, his head turning to stare at her in frustrated shock as she
stood, still and silent, in the bathroom doorway.

The accusation in her gaze was almost more than he could stand.

“I’m sorry.” She backed up, reentered the bathroom, her face pale, her green eyes
moist with tears. “I’m really sorry.”

The door slammed closed, then locked behind her a second later. And there Archer laid,
his dick still clenched between his fingers, the sheet covering him now slick and
wet with his seed where he’d spilled his release the second he saw her.

So much for self-control.

One look at her— It had taken just the sight of her in that sexy gown to steal his
will and send his release spurting onto the sheets.

And if the look on her face was any indication, she felt nothing less than betrayed.

“Fuck!” Rising from the bed, Archer flipped the blankets from his body, rose from
the bed, and stalked from the bedroom to the guest room shower.

He wasn’t going to survive this.

It had been only three days since he’d had her. Three miserably, painfully aroused
days, and he didn’t know how much more he could stand.

And he had a feeling one more night of it might make him insane.

He didn’t have to actually fuck her, he thought to himself. He could bring her to
her release with his lips and tongue—

The doctor had made the “no exertion” thing clear. Hell, if he got her off, those
sweet little thighs were going to grip his head, tighten, and the stitches the plastic
surgeon had placed so carefully could stretch or tear, leaving a scar she might eventually
hate him for.

He knew women in some things. A scar could completely change her entire perception
of herself. Hell, she might never wear a bikini again. And he knew for damned sure
just how good she looked in a bikini.

Stepping beneath the icy spray of the shower, he wondered if a man could actually
die from arousal.

*   *   *

The ranch the Callahans had set up as a base of operations, and for Ivan Resnova to
oversee the safety and security of Rafer and Logan Callahan’s fiancées, was the same
ranch the Callahan cousins had been raised on after their parents’ deaths.

Previously, the Triple R, or Ramsey Ranch, had belonged to Clyde Ramsey, Rafer’s great-uncle
on his mother’s side. Had it not been for Clyde, Anna knew, the three boys would have
ended up in foster homes, and only God knew what would have happened to them.

Even so, their lives had been hard enough as Clyde fought to deflect the often cruel
barbs that had come not just from kids their own age, but also adults. Add that to
the twenty-year court battle to keep the inheritances their mothers had left them,
and it had made some years pure hell for the cousins.

Despite the Barons’ attempts, or that shadowed
he
who had attempted to destroy them for most of their lives, and the cruelties of the
fine, upstanding, God-fearing citizens of Corbin County, the Callahan cousins had
still managed to turn out pretty decent.

They were hard, though Rafer and Logan had softened considerably since falling in
love and becoming engaged. Crowe was still considered hard core, cynical and too rough
around the edges. He sometimes still gave the impression that he was just looking
for a fight, a means to expend the violence that three decades had built inside him.

He was a man ready to explode, and Anna had heard that comment from more than one
person in the County. Most people were wary around him, and had been for some time.

As Archer turned his big black four-by-four pickup onto the ranch road, Anna narrowed
her eyes and gazed at the wide valley and rising mountains. She had to admit, if what
she had heard before returning to Corbin County was true, the Ramsey and former Callahan
Ranch would be perfect for the rumored plans they had for it.

Gossip was running rampant on her grandfather’s ranch that the Callahans were combining
the Ramsey Ranch property with the property their Callahan grandparents had owned,
and were turning it into a year-round spa and resort that would also cater to scheduled
wilderness-survival parties.

The cousins were partners in two related businesses that were migrating to Sweetrock,
then also setting up year-round offices at the resort they were planning.

Off Road Excursions, a camping and mountain adventure store, had just filed a legal
agreement with the Callahans at the courthouse last month, giving the business limited
use of both properties for a period of three years, which many said substantiated
the rumor.

There was also talk that Brute Force, the security company Anna had been hired to
work at in Sweetrock, had signed an agreement—though this one private—for use of the
land for small, private survival-training parties, but also for the guerilla warfare–type
games designed to train security agents in the best possible protection of their clients.

The cousins would be crazy not to do so and take advantage of the rising tourism traffic
into Colorado, but especially into Aspen and Sweetrock itself.

The mountains were a magnet for adventurers and families alike. Camping, fishing,
hunting, skiing, and exclusive mountain vacation cabins were all rumored to be part
of the business the Callahans were setting up.

“Is it true Crowe and his cousins are really going to set up the resort everyone’s
talking about?” She turned to Archer, asking the question as curiosity ate at her.

She’d been dying to ask Crowe, but hadn’t yet found the best opportunity to approach
him with the question.

Archer glanced at her in surprise. Not that she blamed him.

“You haven’t said two words to me since walking in on me earlier, and this is what
you ask when you finally decide to talk?” he asked, a hint of rueful amusement playing
at his lips.

Shrugging, Anna turned back to stare straight ahead. “I was just curious.”

“Why haven’t you asked Crowe?”

“Because he’s an asshole when he thinks I’m being nosy about his life,” she countered,
glancing over at him once again. “And he tells me to mind my own business.”

Which drove her crazy.

Archer’s lips quirked at the admission.

“He has a thing about privacy,” he agreed.

“So are you going to answer me?” She turned and glared at him, silently demanding
the answer.

Archer rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “If the Callahans were considering such a move,
I bet they would have taken on silent partners,” he mused. “And if they had, there
would be a silencing clause until they had everything ready to roll. Don’t you think?”

“Do they?” She frowned.

“Who the hell knows?” He shrugged. “I’m just saying, that’s probably why no one knows
for sure.”

Anna’s lips twitched.

Archer could be devious; she’d known that for years. It had taken her just a moment
to figure out what he was saying.

“I’m sure he would. So the very fact that no one can say for certain would basically
indicate it’s pretty much a given,” she stated.

“That’s what I would assume, myself.” He nodded.

Anna stared around at the passing vista.

“They’ll make a fortune,” she breathed out. “The Callahans, as well as anyone lucky
enough to be invited into the venture.”

“This is true.” The smile that shaped Archer’s lips was one of pure satisfaction.
“This is true.”

The former Ramsey Ranch was incredibly beautiful, but Anna knew the Callahan property
and the bordering Crowe Mountain were so breathtaking that for decades JR and Eileen
Callahan had had to fend off buyers and resort investors desperate to utilize the
property.

The very things that the founding “Barons” considered too rough and unfitting to use
for ranching, made the land excellent for tourism and the horse ranch it had originally
been designated for by the founding Callahan.

The hunting itself was phenomenal. Where the Rafferty, Roberts, and Corbin Ranches
were mostly valley and bottomlands, the Callahan Ranch was mostly rolling hills and
mountain vistas, clear streams, white-water rapids, and hidden caverns and caves where
wildlife made dens and homes.

There was one small mountain lake, and another much larger one, in one of the few
wide valleys the Callahan property possessed.

She was guessing Archer was one of those lucky investors.

He and the Callahans had been friends since they were boys. No matter the obstacles
Archer’s father had placed between the friendships, they had not just maintained but
thrived.

As the house came into view, Anna narrowed her eyes on it, remembering what it had
looked like the only time she had accompanied her father when he’d had a meeting with
Clyde Ramsey years before.

There had been a lot of security upgrades since she’d last seen it, though, according
to gossip, most of those changes had occurred only in the past six to eight weeks.

High fences surrounded the back, with a thin sight-barrier netting stretching around
and over it to allow Cami and Skye the opportunity to enjoy a newly installed pool
without having to worry about the sniper who had shot and killed one of the security
guards hired to protect Cami several months ago.

The fact that the security guard had taken a payoff to kill Cami himself wasn’t the
point, Rafer had raged. The point was, there was a sniper out there with a bead on
his fiancée.

Armed security guards now prowled not just the main ranch yard, but the mountain overlooking
the ranch house, where they had turned away several hunters. Several of those security
guards held the leashes of some vicious-looking trained German shepherds, as well.

“This place is starting to resemble an armed camp,” she sighed. “Skye must hate it.”

Archer glanced at her somberly. “Most of the protective additions were her idea.”

That surprised her. Skye had never cared much for armed camps, armed guards, or security
strongholds. But then, love changed a person. She had not just her safety and security
to think of, but also her lover’s, and their unborn child’s.

“They may have been her idea, but I know Skye, and I know she’s hating not just the
necessity of it, but also the fact that this is how she’s being forced to live.”

“But she’s alive.” Archer sighed. “The fact that you survived that shooting is more
a testament to your own reflexes than the shooter’s lack of skill or my ability to
protect you. You could have died, Anna, or lost your leg and been paralyzed from the
waist down because of that fucking bullet and the bastard who’s targeted you.”

Once again, why her?

What made her so important to a killer?

Pulling the vehicle into the graveled parking area, Archer parked and jumped out with
a muttered “Stay put.”

Stay put?

She watched as he strode to her side of the truck, opened the passenger door for her,
and helped her out. He’d insisted on helping her into the truck earlier, though she
had been certain she could have managed with the running board on the side of the
vehicle.

Swinging around, she gripped his shoulders as he clasped her hips and swung her easily
to the ground.

“I could have managed,” she assured him, not certain how to take the gesture.

“I’m sure you could have.” Setting his hand at the small of her back, he placed himself
carefully behind her as they made their way to the front porch.

The front door opened as they reach the last wide step.