The Texas Lawman's Last Stand (17 page)

It was a pull, deep inside her. Probably some primitive response, she reasoned.

But the bottom line was she wanted Bo.

He was just next door, one room over, and she wanted to go to him. To climb into his bed with him. And do exactly what her body wanted her to do.

Mattie could only imagine what it would be like to be taken by a man like Bo. He always seemed right on the edge between danger and reason. Between being out of control and taking control.

What would it be like to have him inside her?

Moving, taking and not asking permission for whatever he chose to do to her?

Mattie could almost feel it, and it took the breath right out of her. She pressed her arms over her breasts, trying to stop the tingling that was making its way all over her body.

She saw movement through the open doorway of her room. Heard the footsteps. And then saw Bo. He was naked. Well, almost. He wore a pair of loose boxers that rode low on his hips. And he was aroused.

The boxers didn’t hide that.

Was she just dreaming? Mattie was afraid so. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but he would no doubt disappear. So instead of trying to touch and losing the moment, she took her time, savoring the sight of him.

Outside the window another bolt of lightning slashed through the night and sent a spray of light over Bo’s body. He was like something out of a fantasy.

All man and muscle.

His chest strong and welcoming. His face set in that expression she’d come to know so well. He looked ready to devour her.

Mattie smiled, still sleepy but now very alert. And very hot. “Are you here to devour me?” she asked, chuckling.

“If that’s what you want,” he drawled. He dropped his cell phone on the nightstand.

She froze. That didn’t sound like a dream response. That sounded like the real thing.

Mercy.

If he was real, then no one deserved to look that good.

He stared at her, his eyes narrowing slightly. “I thought you’d be scared.”

“I was.” She swallowed hard. Not because she was afraid of the storm or what he might do next. Mattie was afraid he might go away.

But he didn’t.

Bo reached down and jerked back the covers. She still had her hand on her breasts and probably looked like she was groping herself. However, she didn’t have time to dwell on that. He moved forward, putting his knee on the bed. The mattress shifted with his weight, turning her toward him.

He leaned down, his mouth hovering over hers. His breath kissing her. He shoved aside her hand and put his own palm on her breast. “This is the only time I’ll ask this—do you want me to leave?”

“No.” She couldn’t answer fast enough.

She reached for him, but Bo beat her to it.

His mouth came to hers, but not with the hard pressure she’d expected. No. He was almost gentle. Almost. His mouth barely touched, and it was the same with his tongue. But there was nothing gentle about his body. His muscles were all corded as if he were fighting a fierce battle with himself.

With that same surprising gentleness, he moved the kisses to her cheek. To her neck. And then to her breasts, kissing her through the flimsy fabric of her cotton gown. Each touch of his mouth jabbed at the ache in the center of her body. Each time he ran his tongue over her nipples, the ache pierced through her until she arched her hips, looking for some kind of relief.

He cursed when she brushed against his erection.

Bo stared at her, his eyes hot and burning now. He grabbed her gown and pulled it over her head, sending it flying to the floor. He cursed again when he saw her panties and quickly rid her of those, too. He stripped them off her legs, but in the same motion he lowered his head and kissed her right in the center of all that heat.

Now Mattie cursed.

And when she arched her back, it wasn’t to seek relief. This wasn’t relief. His mouth was torture, and it nearly sent her straight to a climax.

She didn’t want this to end so soon. She wanted it to last all night, but she would settle for at least a few more minutes. That wouldn’t happen if he continued to kiss her there.

Mattie gripped his shoulders, pulling him up to her. More torture. Both of them were misted with sweat, and it created some sweet friction, with his firm male body sliding against hers.

“Could we do this now?” she asked, but it wasn’t really a question. She fought to get his boxers off and then tried to position her body so that she could take him inside her.

But Bo had his own positioning ideas. He kissed her hard and rough this time. Just the way she wanted. The gentle foreplay had been nice, but she didn’t want nice now. She wanted this hot alpha cop that she’d been lusting after for days.

Bo didn’t disappoint. He latched on to her right leg, hooking it around his back. He did the same with her left one, and that put his hard sex right against hers.

Yes! Talk about living out a fantasy.

He kept kissing her, kept pressing his chest against her. And then he went inside her in one long stroke that filled her until she thought she might scream. She wasn’t a screamer, but she might make an exception for this.

Her breath was gone, so she couldn’t tell him how good it felt. She couldn’t tell him that she was on fire. But Bo apparently knew that, because he moved in her, sliding against the right place to make that fire turn into an inferno.

Mattie fought to hang on, but the heat was too much. The need was too much.

And Bo knew exactly what he was doing.

He drove inside her, over and over again. So it didn’t take much. A few of those strokes. Another kiss. And Mattie felt the gold light explode inside her head. Maybe it was the lightning. She doubted it, though. That gold light was from Bo. And she latched on to it. She latched on to him.

And she let herself shatter.

H
ELL
.

That one word kept repeating through Bo’s mind. He was in trouble.

Being with Mattie had been far better than his expectations, and he’d expected something pretty damn amazing.

Because his body wasn’t on fire right now and had just been sated, he wanted to dismiss this visit to her bed as bad judgment. He could have even lumped it together as a reaction to all the stress they’d been under.

Yeah. “Stress sex.” Good name for it.

Hell.

He wasn’t even sure it’d been just sex. It felt a lot more like making love, and that caused him to mentally curse again. He knew better than to get involved with Mattie. She already had too much to deal with, and now he’d added himself to the things she had to work out. Because she was no doubt trying to put this in its proper place just as he was doing.

He braced himself for the talk. The one where she would make him feel like dirt for adding this wrinkle to her life.

But she didn’t say a word.

Mattie made a sound of sleepy pleasure, a sort of low feminine moan, and her eyes drifted closed.

She fell asleep.

Bo stared at her, watching her face, waiting. But after a few minutes, it was clear she wasn’t in the mood for talking.

Relieved, and a little confused, he rolled off her so his weight wouldn’t crush her. Without opening her eyes, she adjusted, wiggling her body against him until she was on her side facing him, her breasts squished against his chest.

She made another of those sounds of sleepy pleasure.

Maybe because she was thinking about her late fiancé?

That put a scowl on his face. Because he sure hadn’t been thinking about Nadine when he’d been inside Mattie.

He was right back to mumbling
hell
again.

Bo pushed her hair from her face and brushed a good-night kiss off her forehead.

“Bo,” she mumbled, using the same tone as her sleepy pleasure sounds.

The way she said his name, it went through him like a shot of expensive whiskey. Smooth and warm. It made him want to take her all over again. And he might have done just that.

If his phone hadn’t beeped.

He had changed the ring tone so it wouldn’t wake everyone if he got a midnight call. And that’s apparently what he’d gotten.

Bo reached over, retrieved his phone and checked the caller ID screen. It was Sergeant O’Malley and therefore a call he had to take.

He got out of the bed, moving away from Mattie’s warm body. His own body protested the loss right away, and he promised himself he would go back to her when he finished.

“Don’t give me bad news,” Bo whispered to the sergeant. He went into the adjoining bathroom so he could talk.

“Not this time. We just got a call from a tech over in the Justice Department. Because of the nonstop attempts to kill Mattie, they’ve been working night and day to see if they can figure out who hacked into the Witness Protection database.”

“And?” Bo asked.

“And we have a winner. It’s Terrance Arturo.”

Arturo. A dead guy who used to work for Kaplan and Collier. “Is there proof?”

“Just some notes found in Arturo’s apartment. Don’t worry. We’ll keep digging. The captain’s here, and he just brought in Collier, Cicely Carr and Kaplan for questioning. Tolivar’s boss has agreed to bring him, as well.”

Since it was midnight, he was betting all of them were especially riled with the timing and the subject of this interrogation. “I’ll get dressed and get down there.”

“No. The captain says for you to stay put. But he thinks by morning, he’ll know who was behind the attempts to kill Mattie and you.”

Chapter Fifteen

The voices and sounds woke her.

Mattie’s eyes flew open, and she was stunned to see that it was daylight. The rain was still spattering against the windows, but there was no hint of lightning or thunder. The worst of the storm had passed.

She glanced at the clock and couldn’t believe the time. It was 8:00 a.m., and even though that was still early to a lot of people, it obviously wasn’t for Jacob and Holly, because it was their voices she was hearing.

Mercy, she hadn’t expected to sleep at all, much less for eight straight hours.

She threw back the cover and caught Bo’s scent still on the sheets. On her, too. It made her feel all warm and golden again. But then she sighed. Yes, it was great sex, but Bo was probably having trouble coming to terms with it. Mattie was surprised to realize that she wasn’t having doubts or issues. It was crystal clear to her.

She cared deeply for Bo and wanted him in her life.

However, working that out was an entirely different matter. Bo might not be ready for an emotional entanglement, especially since he already had enough entanglements in his life.

She took a quick shower and dressed in another of the loaner outfits that she grabbed from the closet—a dark red cotton dress and a pair of black flats. Mattie slapped on some makeup and tried not to think about how awkward it would be to face Bo. She only thought about facing Jacob and Holly and hoped she wasn’t too late to share breakfast with them.

Mattie hurried into the kitchen and came to a stop. Bo was at the stove cooking, his back to her, and he had his phone anchored between his ear and shoulder. Rosalie was wrestling with Jacob, trying to get him strapped into the high chair. Holly was already in her chair, and the little girl gave Mattie a bright smile.

These were the things she’d dreamed of seeing for the past thirteen months, and here was her baby, right in front of her.

Jacob smiled, too, when he saw her and quit struggling with Rosalie, who quickly put him in the chair.

“Sorry about all the noise,” Rosalie said, “I was trying to keep them quiet.”

“I’m glad they woke me.” Mattie wouldn’t have wanted to miss this for the world. She went closer and helped Rosalie put some dry cereal bits on the trays. Mattie knew this part of the routine. The kids would eat the cereal while Bo prepared a hot breakfast. This morning, it was oatmeal. Bo was stirring a pot of it on the stove as he added some brown sugar.

“He’s been on that phone since the kids got up,” Rosalie remarked, dishing up some of the oatmeal into two different bowls.

The nanny handed Mattie one of them after adding some milk to cool it down. Apparently, she was going to get to feed her daughter this morning.

But Mattie gave some of her attention to Bo. She couldn’t tell who he was talking to, but judging from his stiff body language, it was about the investigation.

Mattie pulled up a chair and gave Holly the first spoonful of oatmeal. Most of it made it into her mouth. However, Holly took part of that bite into her hand and squished it around her fingers.

All right. So breakfast would be messy. But fun. Holly babbled with each bite and even offered Mattie some from her fingers. Mattie gladly sampled it and then did the same for Jacob, who obviously wanted to be included.

She loved them both so much and wondered just how much it would break her heart if she couldn’t have all of them—Bo, Holly, Jacob and even Rosalie—in her life.

Bo ended the call, closing the phone and shoving it into his pocket. He looked ready for work in his black pants and white dress shirt. He’d even shaved, making her wonder if he’d gotten any sleep whatsoever.

“Sorry I didn’t get up sooner,” she said to him. She’d been right about the awkward part. “I slept like a rock.”

He smiled a little, just enough to ease some of her anxiety and to renew the heat that always flared whenever she was around him.

“That was my captain on the phone,” he explained, the smile fading. “When they searched Arturo’s apartment, they found notes that indicate he’s the one who hacked into the database of the Witness Protection Program.”

She tried not to react, because Holly was only inches away, but it was impossible to keep her emotions totally in check. Arturo. He had been the one who had started the spiral of danger that had ultimately caused her to leave Holly in the hospital with Nadine.

“Any idea why he outed my location and identity?” Mattie asked.

Obviously sensing the seriousness of the conversation, Rosalie took over feeding duties, and Mattie stood so she could face Bo.

“Arturo probably did it for money. There’s about twenty thousand dollars of unaccounted funds in his bank account.”