Cody Walker's Woman (11 page)

In the silence that followed, Cody watched as a red-tailed hawk lazily circled the sky, then suddenly dived toward the earth. Keira’s gaze also followed the hawk until it disappeared from view. Then, in a voice so casual he knew it was calculated to hide how she really felt, she asked, “Are you sure?”

Their eyes met, and Cody saw something in the depths of Keira’s brown eyes that shook him, an emotion he was afraid to name. “I’m sure,” he said, a second before his mouth descended on hers.

If anyone had told him his thirty-seven-year-old body could react to a simple kiss as if he were seventeen, he wouldn’t have believed it. But then, it wasn’t really a simple kiss. And his body was rock hard and hurting before he knew it.

Those firm lips, lips he’d once thought of as unkissable, melted beneath his. His arms slid around her, drawing her close, and closer, as the kiss went on. In some part of him he knew he should stop, but when she moaned softly deep in her throat and her hand came up around his neck, all rational thought deserted him.

They broke apart to breathe, but he couldn’t let her go. His blood was pounding in his veins, and his breath rasped in his throat. He wanted...wanted...

His lips found hers again. His hands threaded through her red-gold curls, and they were just as soft as he’d imagined they would be. Then his hands were cupping her face, and he was kissing her eyes, her cheeks, the hollow beneath her ear. And she was kissing him back. He might have been able to stop if not for that. At least that was what a corner of his brain said, but he knew it was a lie. Kissing Keira was rapidly becoming an obsession.

And not just kissing her. He desperately wanted to touch her in other places—soft, secret places. He wanted to know if she would melt there for him, too, the way her lips did. He wanted to taste every inch of her skin, to fill his senses with her, to hear her call his name when he brought her to the peak...and beyond.

She was still wearing her jacket, and he needed to feel her, to touch her everywhere. He whispered her name and pulled away slightly, his right hand sliding between their bodies to fondle her breast beneath the open jacket. Her unexpected whimper stopped him cold.

He drew back from her. She averted her face from his, but he caught her chin, forcing it up. Her eyes gave her away, and he
knew.
His face contracted in pain, and he cursed himself silently. “Keira, I...” He swallowed hard. He leaned his forehead against hers. “God, I’m sorry. I don’t know my own strength. I didn’t realize I...”

She shook her head slightly. “You told me to scream, but I couldn’t, so...”

Cody remembered the way he’d roughly assaulted her the night they’d met, the way he’d ripped her blouse open and groped her until she screamed, and was devastated. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he whispered brokenly.

“You did what you had to do to rescue me—to rescue both of us,” she maintained fiercely, defending him and his actions. “It was the best way you could think of at the time. And I already told you I bruise easily.” Her face softened suddenly; her eyes softened even more as her right hand captured his left one and brought it to her right breast. “You can touch me here,” she invited in a breath of a whisper.

But the spell, or whatever it was that had gripped Cody, was broken. His desire ebbed, replaced by self-recrimination. He pulled abruptly away from her and stood, putting distance between him and temptation.

“Why don’t you just call me a son of a bitch and get it over with?” he asked, his anger at his earlier behavior forcing bitterness into his voice that was aimed at himself.

But she misunderstood. He could see it in her expression as she wrapped her arms around herself protectively. Despite that, she said firmly, “Because I don’t think of you that way. How many times do I have to tell you?”

He gazed at her and realized she wasn’t just trying to make him feel better; she actually believed it. But it didn’t make any difference in how he felt about what had happened. Guilt made him say, “I should never have touched you.”

She flinched but held his gaze. “Then? Or now?”

“Both.”

He saw his answer sink in, and only the slight crinkling of her eyes betrayed that he’d hurt her...again. He wanted to take the word back, but it was too late. She stood up quickly and dusted off the back of her pants, then mounted the three steps to the porch and put her hand on the door. He watched her—he couldn’t help himself—wishing with all his heart he hadn’t been the one to hurt her. Not then. And certainly not now. He hadn’t realized just how much or how easily she could be hurt, emotionally as well as physically.

She turned back, and her face was a frozen mask he scarcely recognized as the same woman he’d just kissed. “It won’t happen again,” she said in a flat, toneless voice. She slipped through the door and closed it firmly behind her.

“Damn!” The word released some of his tension, but nowhere near enough. He wanted to hit something. Hard. But not Keira. Never her. Himself.

He looked at the door through which she’d just disappeared, wishing he hadn’t driven her to escape, wishing he could explain...
Explain what?
he asked himself, uncertain what he thought he could explain.
Explain that the minute you kissed her you forgot everything, including why you’re here? That you’ve wanted her since the first time you touched her?

He remembered the way she had responded to his kiss just now, and desire flickered back to life. In his head he heard the soft moan she hadn’t been able to hold back, and his body hardened in a rush again, making his jeans uncomfortably tight. Then he remembered the whimper of pain...and what had caused it in the first place. But he also remembered her placing his hand on her other breast, saying,
You can touch me here.

This time his desire didn’t fade.
Great,
he thought.
Now, when it’s too late. Now that she wouldn’t touch you for anything you offered her and would probably scratch your eyes out if you touched her.

He had to explain. He had to find the words...somehow. He headed for the door before he could change his mind. He owed her another apology, and he’d start with that. Not for kissing her—he’d be damned before he’d be sorry for kissing her. But for letting her think he regretted it.

He found her inside, studying the contents of the kitchen cabinet, the nonperishables he kept the cabin stocked with. They hadn’t bothered to bring food with them because he’d told his team the cabin already had enough canned goods to last them several days.

He glanced at Callahan still asleep on the bed.
Good,
he thought.
I don’t need a witness to this.
He walked up to Keira, determined she wouldn’t misunderstand this time. He took the can of beef stew out of her hand and placed it on the countertop. “I’m not sorry I kissed you,” he said, softly but firmly.

She didn’t respond, just turned back to the cabinet and brought down another can, green beans this time. He took that can from her, too. “Please, look at me.”

She looked in his general direction, her face that same frozen mask he suddenly realized she hid behind when she was emotionally vulnerable. But her eyes wouldn’t meet his. “Okay,” she said. “You’re not sorry. Point taken, message received.” She didn’t say it, but she didn’t have to—he read her thoughts.
We have a job to do, so let’s move on.
Then she said something she’d said to him once before. “Forget about it. I have.”

He was damned if he would. And he
knew
she was lying.

He moved, trapping her against the countertop, and her eyes flared at him as she tilted her head up, finally meeting his eyes. He’d expected anger, but that wasn’t what he saw. He saw the vulnerability she struggled yet failed to hide...and something else. It was the something else that gave him hope. In a breathless voice she asked, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Kissing you again.” He didn’t give her a chance to escape. This time it wasn’t a kiss of exploration, of discovery, of seduction. It was a kiss designed to apologize, and he put his whole soul into it. All his aching regret for every bruise she wore because of him, all his longing to prove that wasn’t the way he thought of her, joined the pent-up yearning for a woman to care for him as passionately as he would her.

She resisted at first—a token resistance—but then she surrendered...by inches. Desire flooded him as her body softened against his incrementally. Then her hands gripped his shirt, and at that point the kiss changed. The yearning, the aching need rose to the top, and he pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her as if he could make her his woman that way. As if he could stake his claim to her just by kissing her.

He wanted. Needed. Yearned. His hands clasped her hips and pulled her closer so she couldn’t help but feel his desire. But this wasn’t about sex. Not at all.

He wanted to lay Keira down in a field of grass with a breeze rippling through it, the wide, blue Wyoming sky arching overhead and the sun warming their skin. He wanted to undress her slowly and have her do the same to him, as if they had all the time in the world. He wanted to kiss away every bruise he’d inflicted and swear to her there would never be another. He wanted to stroke her skin, to caress her until she cried his name and pulled him close, needing him as he needed her. He wanted to watch her eyes with their gold-tipped lashes as he came into her, wanted to make her face come alive with the same desire he ached to share with her. And he wanted to lay with her afterward, his head pillowed on her breasts, passion spent but still waiting to reignite.

But all he could do was kiss her. Endlessly.

She pulled away from him so suddenly that at first he tried to force her back into his arms. Then he heard it, too—a loud yawn from the bed in the corner that indicated Callahan was waking up—and he abruptly let her go.

They stared at each other for timeless seconds, their breathing ragged. Cody saw a pulse beating in Keira’s throat, and he longed to put his hand there, knowing the pulse beat for him. But he couldn’t do that to her, not in front of Callahan.

She turned away first, her hands gripping the countertop for a moment before she got herself under control. He watched, amazed at how quickly she transformed from warm, vibrant Keira to cool, collected Special Agent Jones. He didn’t realize he was doing the same thing, that the face he was showing her held nothing of the turmoil inside him.

Movement from the direction of the bed made him look away from Keira and watch Callahan come awake and alert; Cody realized with a jolt just how close he and Keira had been to having a witness to the interlude between them. He suppressed a surge of unreasonable anger at the other man for being there.
It’s not Callahan’s fault,
he reminded himself.
You had no business starting something with Keira you knew damn well you couldn’t finish.

His body didn’t want to hear it. He was still hard and aching, his arousal obvious...and painful. And however much he willed it, he couldn’t make it go away. With a muttered curse under his breath, Cody turned and headed for the back door, the only escape available to him. He slammed out the door, and the cool outside air washed over him as soon as he walked out, a welcome relief to his heated body.

Spring came late to the Big Horn Mountains, although earlier than to the Rocky Mountains in the western part of the state. But Cody had been here when it snowed in July, and it was only the end of May. He breathed deeply and adjusted the fit of his jeans. He tried to drag his mind off thoughts of Keira, needing to regain the control he’d let slip so badly. But it wasn’t easy.

The back door opened behind him, and Cody turned to see Callahan descend the steps, stretching a little to work the kinks out. He looked better than he had before he slept, but nothing would ever make him look anything but what he was—a hard man willing to make the hard sacrifices he’d made in his life. And one of those sacrifices had almost cost him Mandy.

“Get enough sleep?” Cody asked.

“Enough for now. I’ll sleep again tonight.” He rotated one shoulder, then the other. “Anything happen while I was unconscious?”

Cody shook his head. He wasn’t about to tell Callahan anything about kissing Keira, and other than that... “No, but I didn’t tell you something you probably need to know,” he said. “Something that happened in Denver yesterday.” He succinctly relayed the story about being followed, about recognizing the tail as someone who’d been following him even before Callahan’s call.

“Keira said— I’d already thought of it, but she suggested my name might be on the militia’s hit list. That the guy tailing me might be scoping out ways of taking me down, same as you.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Callahan laughed softly. “They love me only a little more than they love you, which is to say—not at all.”

“Yeah.” Cody turned away and stared at the muddy clearing around his cabin, but he wasn’t seeing it; he was seeing the events of long ago. “I thought it was all over six years ago,” he said honestly, “until I got your call.”

“How do you think I feel?” Callahan’s voice was cold. “You think I would
ever
put Mandy at risk? You think I would have let her get pregnant with one child, much less three, if I thought there was a chance—” He broke off. Out of the corner of his eye, Cody saw the other man clenching and unclenching his right fist.

Cody turned to him and began, “I told Keira—Special Agent Jo—”

Callahan cut him off. “Don’t bother.”

Cody bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Let’s just say that when I’m awake, I’m awake. The yawn was to let you know.”

Cody absorbed that statement in silence. His initial deep embarrassment over having his kiss witnessed by Callahan was overcome by a fierce surge of protectiveness for Keira. He knew he had to explain, or else Callahan might get the wrong idea about her. “It’s not what you think,” he said. “It just happened. She’s a fellow agent and a damned good one by all accounts—D’Arcy and McKinnon think the world of her.” He took a quick breath. “There’s nothing between Keira and me. Not the way it might have seemed if you saw us.”