The Love of a Lawman, The Callister Trilogy, Book 3 (24 page)

Lovemaking. Was that what had taken place between them or was it something darker and more basic? Scratching an itch they both felt. Whatever it was, it definitely was
not
"safe."

"John?" She spoke just above a whisper, wanting to save the tender moment.

"Hmm?"

"I thought you'd dozed off."

The corners of his mouth turned up in a smile, but his eyes didn't open. "I could. Seeing as thinking about this kept me awake the last two nights..." He kissed her, a languorous, delicious union of lips. "Awesome," he whispered when they parted, his incredible eyes fixed on hers. "You're awesome."

She smiled into those eyes, studied his too-handsome face. "You, too."

The porch roof shaded the bedroom window, making the room dim even in bright daylight, but a weak sliver of light sneaked through and cast a glint on a few sun-bleached strands of his mussed hair. She reached up and finger-combed them from his forehead. She trailed her fingers over his high cheekbone, down his square jaw. "And I don't mean just... this way. I wonder why I couldn't see that when we were kids."

His hand skimmed over her bottom, caught her thigh and brought it up and across his hip. "You didn't look."

She laughed a little at the truth and shifted to fit herself against his soft penis. "I couldn't. Don't you see? In those days, I thought I was bad because Billy and I... you know, did it. I thought it made me less bad if I steered clear of other boys."

He pressed closer and placed a kiss on her forehead, and she felt the prick of his chest hair on her breasts. "I never thought you were bad. Hell, I was jealous. If I'd been in Billy's shoes, you would've seen me doing handsprings up the hall."

"It's funny how different things look when we grow up. I thought he was so special. I couldn't see him as he really was."

"You'd already been with him a long time when I got to high school. You must've been really young when you and him—"

"I was.... Really young."

Barely fourteen, to be exact. Just a few years older than Ava. She had almost slipped and said it, but a voice in her head stopped her, warned her not to go there. She couldn't bear calling condemnation to herself by confessing to
anyone
that she had been sexually active before her body had fully developed. Nor could she ever openly admit she had enjoyed sex, even when, as a dumb kid, she believed she was doing something wrong.

At this moment the last person she wanted looking down on her was the man now sharing her bed. She reached for his hand and brought it to cover her breast.

"Lord, Isabelle. You're so damned soft." His thumb stroked her nipple and it hardened in instant response. He ducked his head under the quilt and his hot mouth closed around the peaked tip and applied gentle suction. Though she thought her desire had been sated, a deep tingle between her thighs made her shudder.

His head burrowed up from beneath the quilt, his hair askew. He was wearing a bad-boy grin. "You like that?"

She answered with a tiny giggle and he smacked a kiss on her lips. "Want to know how old I was when you stole my heart?"

She felt a shift in his penis and doubted his heart was the organ really on his mind. She moved her hand to touch him again and ran a finger around the tip of him. "How old?"

His eyes closed and a deep hum came from his throat. "Fifteen. You must have been seventeen or eighteen. The older woman."

"Hmm. I'm still the older woman. I just turned thirty-five."

"What? And you didn't tell me you had a birthday?"

She smiled as she felt him growing firmer. "You would've baked me a cake?"

"No baking, but I might've done something else."

She smoothed a finger around the rim at the velvety tip of him. "You would've given me this?"

His eyes were closed, but he grinned again. "Yes, ma'am, if that's what you wanted. Every last inch."

"I love touching you." She closed her hand around his growing erection.

"Ooh, darlin', I love it, too."

"Did you know all about sex when you were fifteen?"

"I knew about sex forever. I grew up on a ranch, remember?... Oh, damn, darlin'. Do that again."

She stroked the velvety tip of him with her thumb. They kissed again and he tenderly bit down on her lower lip. "But just 'cause I knew about it doesn't mean I knew what to do about it.
That
took some teaching. I'll tell you a secret. Back when I spent every day wishing you'd just speak to me? I was a virgin."

She called up memories of an awkward boy with a buzz haircut. "How old were you when—?"

"Sixteen when a woman showed me the ropes."

"Woman? A grown woman?" An unexpected little spurt of righteousness sparked within Isabelle and she felt empathy with a teenager who had been exposed to adult behavior at a young age. "Who? Someone around here?"

"You don't really want to dig into—"

"Yes, I do. Who?"

"A gal from Twin Falls. Nobody you'd know."

Like a neon sign, rodeo flashed in Isabelle's mind. "I can guess. A rodeo babe."

A deep chuckle came from his throat. "She was that, all right. She came to every show I roped in that summer, including the ones in Utah and Nevada."

"Ah, I see." Isabelle tightened her fingers around him and smiled. "Couldn't get enough of this, huh?"

"I don't know about that. I doubt if I was her only cowboy. I know I sure couldn't get enough."

Feeling a pang of jealousy, she made a little gasp and released him.

"Hey, hey," he said softly as he grasped her hand and returned it to him. "It's a rite of passage, darlin'. All boys go through it. Unless there's something wrong with them. There wasn't anything awful about it."

She resumed stroking, but she couldn't keep from resenting another woman touching him so intimately. Her curiosity wouldn't let her abandon the issue. "How old was she?"

"Twenty-six."

She trailed her finger along the thick vein up the back of his erection lying long and thick against his belly. "And you were sixteen? That's terrible. She was ten years older than you."

"I looked older. I was big for my age." He pushed back the quilt, exposing her breasts. Her nipples stiffened even more in the chill. He began to tease one with his tongue.

She reveled in the delight that sang through her body. "Rodeos and horse shows. They're all the same. They're worse than bars for being pick-up places."

"You never fooled around behind the pens at a horse show?"

He moved to her other breast and sucked at her nipple and an eager muscle moved low in her belly. He did know how to drive her mad with his mouth and tongue. She clasped his head and held him to her breast. "I mostly worked like a dog at horse shows."

"That was a hell of a waste, Miz Rondeau, seeing as how much you like what we're doing."

He moved down and blew a whispery breath on her navel, drawing a different kind of gasp from her. "Now you're making me feel like I'm bad again."

"Nuh-unh. Sexy. A lot of women don't like it. They put up with it, but they don't like it."

His tongue made a pattern around her navel, then dipped inside and she couldn't keep from arching her belly up to him.

"Yes, ma'am, you like it," he said in a rumbly voice. "And that turns me on big time."

She giggled as his mouth moved down and placed a suckling kiss on her lower belly. "John, you'll make a hickey."

He kissed the wet spot left by his mouth. "Something to remember me by."

"As if I could forget."

"You don't really want me to stop, do you?"

His warm lips moved back up, all the way to her neck, then to the sensitive spot behind her ear "Oh," she said, lifting her shoulder as his breath tickled her earlobe. "You're a tease," she said as he sucked on her earlobe. "A terrible tease." She trailed her fingers down the valley of his spine. "Have you known many women who didn't... you know, like it?"

His hand pushed between her legs where she felt wet and wanting again. "You know what, darlin'? We need to change the subject."

She gave in to the desire throbbing anew and opened herself to him. His wicked fingers played and soon had her hips moving against them and her on the verge of begging him again.

He reached across her for a condom and in seconds planted himself inside her. "God," he said hoarsely, and she could feel a tremor in his big body. "All my fantasies of fucking you, Isabelle, don't come close to the real thing."

The bawdy words sent a little thrill through her and she trembled, too. She raised her head and caught his mouth in a deep kiss, drank in the warmth of his lips, the nectar of his mouth. His tongue delved in an erotic rhythm. He brought her leg between his, increasing pressure with his thigh and began to move. Heat rushed through her so hot it threatened to smother her. Her breath hitched. Her deep muscles began to contract. She gave in to another shattering orgasm.

Still shaking, she opened her eyes and stared into his darkened pupils, recognized the moment his release hit him. He thrust hard and deep, strained and grunted as he ground against her. When he finished, he sank on top of her.

"Oh, man," he murmured, breathless, and placed an openmouthed kiss on her shoulder. "You're something else. I'm shaking like a cold dog."

He started to roll to her side, but she stopped him. "Don't you dare move."

He stayed and they lay in the cozy quiet until the storm that had battered them subsided.

In time, they made love again. Soon after, John told her he had to be at the sheriff's office by one o'clock to relieve Rooster. They left the bed and she cajoled him into the shower with her. He wasn't all that reluctant.

"I met your girlfriend," she said as they soaped and washed with honey-almond soap under the warm spray in the crowded fiberglass space.

He stopped soaping her breasts. "What girlfriend?"

"Rita, I believe her name is."

He didn't look at her. He seemed to be concentrating on sluicing soapsuds off her breasts. "She's not my girlfriend."

"Hmm. I'm not sure she knows that. She keeps up with your, um... coffee preferences."

He pulled her against him. "Cut it out," he murmured against her neck. "We went out a couple of times. Nothing else."

Isabelle dropped the conversation, but warned herself to be cautious.

He put forth an effort to make love to her again, but failed. "Give me an hour," he said, excusing himself.

She laughed and told him she would feed him a sandwich for lunch so he could rebuild his strength for the afternoon.

He loitered in the kitchen watching her build ham-and-cheese sandwiches. She put them on plates and pulled a bag of potato chips from the cupboard. "Here I am, slaving in the kitchen again," she said and grinned.

"You're a fine cook."

"I'm no such thing."

His hands went to her waist and he drew her close to him. "And you're a good woman and a fine, sexy lover."

She slid her arms up and around his shoulders. "No, you're the fine, sexy lover."

"It's you. Just being close to you turns me into a wild man. Here I am, can't even get it up again and I'm thinking about crawling back into that bed."

"Callister's criminals are waiting, remember?"

"Shit." With a slap on her bottom, he released her.

She had never liked seeing men slap women on their bottoms, but to her dismay, with John, she liked the possessiveness the swat implied.

When they sat down side by side at the oak table, he placed his hand on her thigh, leaned over and kissed her. "I'm gonna be on cloud nine the rest of the day, darlin'. But what the hell am I gonna do about tomorrow?"

Chapter 15

At six, John left the office for the day, anxious to call Izzy just to hear her voice. An odd but pleasant feeling had drifted within him all afternoon, a quietness. He couldn't explain it or even describe it, but he wanted—no, needed—to hear that the feeling was mutual.

On reaching his apartment, he punched in her number, but didn't get an answer. No big deal. She would be outside at the barn. He thought about driving to her house, but cautioned himself against becoming a pest. He called twice more, at nine and nine thirty, but still didn't get an answer.