A grin flashed across his face, lightning quick and very sexy. “Certainly, Ms. Woods. To your heart’s content.”
Her heart would not be content for a very long time, she thought, speared by the pain that would be so much worse when he packed his bags and left.
But he wasn’t going yet, and she’d made her choice. For a second, sadness wanted to smother her. Was this the closest to true love she’d ever find? Perhaps it was inevitable that she’d fall in love with a man who would only be in her life for a short time.
So be it.
She reached out and cupped him in her hands, watching his face, learning what he liked.
* * *
CONALL DIDN’T LET HIMSELF fall asleep in her bed, even though he desperately wanted to. Lia had conked out after they made love a second time. Once the pressure cooker had been released the first time, they managed slow and tender, and, God help him, he’d never had sex like this.
Asleep, Lia was slight in his arms, her bones delicate when he moved his hands over her. Fulfilling a fantasy, he’d taken her hair from the braid and it now fanned over the both of them, a thick silken blanket. He gently lifted a handful at a time and let it run through his fingers.
She hadn’t told him to go. But he knew she wouldn’t want the kids to discover him in here, or to see him emerging from here later in the morning.
So at last he separated himself from her, kissed her softly when she mumbled protests, and tucked her in before picking up his jeans from the floor, turning off the lamp and slipping out of her room. He left her door ajar, exactly as she always did—and he’d memorized it down to a fraction of an inch—then took himself to the bathroom to discard the second condom and wash.
When he was done he braced his hands on the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. He’d never bothered before, after sex, to look deep. Well, not since the first time, when he was an exhilarated sixteen-year-old on a high from what he’d done with Autumn Hiatt who was short, probably on her way to being plump but possessing huge tits. Sex otherwise was great, one of life’s pleasures. But the partners he’d had that sex with had never mattered all that much. He was shaken to find out how much different it was when the woman did matter.
When he had the really bad feeling no other woman ever would matter the same way. And that maybe sex wasn’t going to be so good in the future, either, when it wasn’t Lia’s gorgeous mouth he was kissing, her slick, heavy hair he’d buried his fingers in, her slim body beneath his, her green-brown eyes, glazed with passion but widening with amazement…
“Oh, hell,” he groaned, and let his head fall.
Tonight he and Henderson had finally caught a break. The men in the pickup had come back with another load, and before dark. They were getting cocky, it seemed. Given a good look, Conall had placed that familiar face, and they’d gotten some decent photos of two of the three residents of the house as well as the visitors.
The bastard Conall knew was a gunrunner. Gordy Costello been peripheral to an operation Conall had worked in Southern California and had escaped the net before arrests were made. He wasn’t important enough then for them to bother pursuing aggressively. A confirmation of his identity now, though, would help justify a warrant that might bring this case to a close.
And then he’d pack his duffel bag, toss it in the Suburban, say goodbye to Walker, Brendan and Lia and drive away.
He swore again, low and ragged.
He was good at moving on. A regular champion at it. Increasingly, he’d gotten bored with whatever he was working; he wanted nothing more than to move on to a new challenge, something that might engage him. It was ridiculous to think he was so happy living the bucolic life he didn’t want to leave. He pictured the damn cows chewing their cud and everything in him rose in outrage. No! This wasn’t him. It was…an interlude. That’s all. Pretty damn amazing sex, sure. Nice kids. He should be glad he’d been entertained while he was stuck here, because he would have gone out of his flipping mind otherwise.
He ran both hands over his face, turned off the light and made his way to the bedroom and twin bed he currently called his. Where he lay awake entirely too long, his gut roiling with some unnamed anxiety as the same scene kept playing through his head: him saying goodbye to those two boys then turning to do the same to Lia, knowing this was it. Moving on.