Luke (Armed and Dangerous Book 2) (8 page)

Her nipples beaded even tighter in the bedroom’s cool air. Her pulse picked up at the thought of Luke’s mouth on her nipples, licking and sucking, and biting her the same way he’d kissed her.

Slipping one hand between her thighs, Trinity ran her fingertips along her folds and shivered. She’d never been so wet before. So hot.

Trinity let go of the guilt, let go of everything but the fantasy of letting that cowboy make her his own. She slid her fingers into her drenched folds and gasped when she stroked herself. She was so close to exploding, when it usually took her awhile to reach orgasm.

With her free hand she cupped one breast and raised it up while lowering her mouth. Her breasts were big enough that she could flick her tongue against her nipple while she fingered herself.

She closed her eyes, imagining it was Luke who licked her nipples. Luke rubbing his cock against her before sliding deep inside her. And how it would feel to have Luke driving into her. She could still feel that long hard length of his cock as he’d pressed up against her on the dance floor.
Oh, God.
He’d take her so deep and hard, rough and wild, and he’d make her scream.

Trinity bit back a cry as her orgasm spiked through her, and her eyes flew open. Her hips rocked against her hand as she drew out her orgasm as long as she possibly could, enjoying every electrifying jolt.

When she could catch her breath, she rolled over and switched off the Tiffany lamp and tried to relax on her pillow.

She turned one way. Tossed the other. Kicked off her covers. Pulled them back up.

Wasn’t happening.

She’d never get to sleep with Luke constantly in her thoughts.

Only a kiss,
she told herself as she closed her eyes.
It was only a kiss.

That was a lie, wasn’t it?

Trinity sighed.

She might be a lot of things—confused, insecure, worried about her homecoming—but she wasn’t stupid.

The way she’d enjoyed Luke Rider’s touch, it might not mean a thing about where she’d go with that cowboy, but it damn sure meant a lot about where she should go with Race.

And where she shouldn’t.

Trinity turned on her lamp again, and estimated the time in England.

Not optimal, but then, it never would be, would it?

She got up naked, feeling half out of her own body as she made her way to her purse and pulled out her cell phone.

Her heart thudded as she realized what she was about to do. She was going to dump the man she’d been with for two years, a man she was close to being engaged to.

For what? A kiss by a cowboy she might never see again?

The thudding of her heart slowed and she was surprised at how calm she felt when she heard Race’s familiar, cultured voice answer on the other end of the line.

Two years together, yet it only took a few minutes to tell him it was over between them.

Race was far too much of a gentleman to pitch a fit over getting dumped, even suddenly, and long-distance instead of face-to-face.

Trinity almost wished he would have made a little fuss, fought for her in some way—even threatened to fly straight to the States and talk sense into her. But of course, he didn’t, and that really summed up her problems with Race.

He was hurt. Polite. And in the end, cool and distant. The man had absolutely no fire at all, at least not for her.

By the time Trinity turned off her phone and slipped back into bed, she was positive she’d done the right thing. She knew she’d be able to sleep, maybe better than she had in months.

Her hand moved back to the warm, damp place between her legs, and she closed her eyes.

First, though—another fantasy.

This time, without a drop of guilt...

After the party, Luke headed back to the Flying M Ranch, refusing to let himself consider that Trinity MacKenna was staying in the main house. She was practically close enough he could smell her, if he let himself go sniffing.

Which he damned sure didn’t need to do.

Luke bypassed the main house. He saw the strange Mustang convertible and knew the sweet little treasure was tucked somewhere inside the house. His pulse throbbed in a vein at his throat to know she must really be there as he made his way to the foreman’s cabin behind the bunkhouse.
Shit.
He had to get his mind on his job. For now.

Out of habit ingrained from years of training, he made sure the building was secure before he let himself into the small cabin. He’d installed his own security locks on the front and back doors, as well as pull-down shades at the windows, and he always chose a different means of identifying if anyone had been in his quarters in his absence. Today the almost invisible threads had still been intact at both the front and rear entrances, and he found nothing suspicious.

Once he’d made a quick round of the living room, single bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, he slung his duster on the coat rack beside the door. He tossed his Stetson on the knobby top, where it rocked back and forth for a moment before going still.

From out of his duster pocket he withdrew his PDA—a slim palm device. From the holster he pulled out his cell phone and switched it so that it would hum instead of vibrate, and then kicked back in the comfortable leather recliner in the cabin’s small living room. The room always smelled of mesquite wood from the pile stacked next to the old woodstove and of leather from the worn couch and armchairs.

The furnishings weren’t much to look at, but it was neat and clean. A pair of ancient deer antlers was mounted on the wall beside the black stovepipe of the old woodstove. A few throw rugs were scattered around the tiled floor and the room had been paneled in a rustic knotty pine.

On one of the wooden tables perched a small potted Christmas tree with miniature decorations, courtesy of Skylar who figured all her ranch hands needed something Christmassy in their quarters. The tree she’d put in the bunkhouse had been a little too big for his tastes, but the men had gotten a kick out of it.

Luke managed to keep his mind off Trinity MacKenna—sort of—as he set to work. He turned on his palm device and used the stylus to tab through the pages of notes he’d made during the cattle rustling case, until he came to his short list of subjects and suspects, people he thought might be players in the Guerrero operation, or potential competitors.

He added in Joyce Butler and Gina Garcia, though he wasn’t happy about it. Ralston thought Guerrero was using more than his charm to rope women into doing his dirty work—and Ralston’s instincts had proven pretty sharp in the past. As for Guerrero, damn, but that bastard deserved something worse than a bullet between the eyes.

Maybe he and Rios could accidentally castrate the fucker when they took him down?

Luke wanted to smack the PDA on the table, but stopped himself before he destroyed the little piece of technology. He needed to get the sociopathic drug lord out of circulation, and fast, but he hated the idea of having to lean on scared, vulnerable women to get the information he needed.

Guerrero probably knew that, too.

Tomorrow Luke had plans to head down to the county hospital to interview a UDA who’d been used as a mule to smuggle drugs in from Mexico. The man had been beaten half to death by the coyotes who had been loosely connected to the cattle rustling they’d stopped at this ranch a few months back. Maybe he’d get enough information from the mule to leave Butler and Garcia out of the picture.

The hum of his cell phone snapped Luke out of his consideration of the suspects to date. He picked up the phone from the end table and saw by the caller ID that it was Rios.

“Denver,” Luke said into the phone at the same time he shut off the PDA.

“Just talked with Miguel Cotino,” Rios said.

“The Special Ops supervisor over at CBP?”

“Yeah.” A feminine giggle could be heard in the background and Rios’s voice lowered. “Said to not bother heading to the hospital to interrogate that mule. He’s dead.”

“Shit.” Luke ground his teeth and thumped the PDA onto the end table after all. “Anything else?”

“Nah. Catch you tomorrow. I got me a hot little thing waiting for me.”

“Lucky bastard,” Luke said before punching the phone off and setting it back down.

At least Rios was getting some tonight. He could use a distraction himself, like Trinity MacKenna. That was about as likely as a tornado in Arizona.

With a frustrated sigh, Luke got up from the recliner. Damn the coyotes. Damn, damn, damn. Without the mule, what did he have, other than suspicions and scared women?

Scrubbing his hand over his stubbled face, Luke considered what to do next. He’d never get to sleep feeling as restless and edgy as he was.

And as for distractions—well, he could go into town, but he didn’t think generic hookups would work so well, due to one sexy little strawberry blonde he couldn’t get off his mind.

Didn’t help that he was sure she was only a few yards away from him.

It took only a few minutes to lock up and secure the cabin. Luke found himself striding through the dark night and toward the MacKenna house without any real purpose or plan. Just on the hope of seeing Trinity, maybe catching her outside or in the kitchen, and getting to talk to her for a few minutes.

He passed by the corrals and barn, the sounds of a horse whickering, the low of a cow, and the singsong of crickets filling the night.

Luke knew the sounds well. He’d visited Douglas dozens of times as a kid, to see his favorite aunt on her little ranch that had been sold years ago. Not to mention he was a native Texan. He owned his own nice spread near Houston, full of its own cows and crickets. Once this case was closed and cleaned up, he intended to head back there.

Although he enjoyed his work, he was accustomed to family dropping in, big get-togethers with his folks, his grandma, his sisters and brothers, and all his nieces and nephews. It had been months since he’d seen them, and he could sure use some of his mom’s blueberry pie, straight from the oven, with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream right on top.

He might even talk to his mom about Trinity.

Luke almost stopped walking, because that thought caught him totally by surprise.

Not smart. Don’t even start thinking that way.

Yeah, he knew how this movie ended, and the story never worked out neat and pretty. Best to go back to his cabin—but before he knew it, he was standing in front of the ranch house and near the room he knew had belonged to Trinity MacKenna when she was growing up here. No doubt it would be where she’d be sleeping.

What are you going to do, Denver? Throw rocks at her window?

He bit back a wave of frustration and embarrassment. But then, why the hell not? Maybe she’d get a kick out of it, of him showing her his teenage-feeling interest.

Around the corner at the back of the house, hidden within a closed-in yard, he could hear the pulsing of the hot tub jets as well as Zack’s and Skylar’s voices. By the sound of Skylar’s gasps and Zack’s groans, Luke suspected they were more than enjoying themselves.

Better move on from that.
Private things were private—though to hear Rylie Thorn talk, she wouldn’t have thought twice about it.

That little hellcat would have pulled up a front-row seat and wouldn’t be the least embarrassed to admit it.

Luke had never been much for voyeurism, except for once in his teen years, when a kid could be forgiven for being desperate. With a wry smile, he bent and picked up a few pebbles from the yard. Then, he eased behind the trees that obscured the room’s window from sight and looked in.

Covert operations was something he’d done often, although nothing like this... spying on a woman he was dying to get his hands on, with the intent of grabbing her attention with a pebble or two.

I’m losing my damned mind. And I don’t spy on women I’m interested in.

All right, except for that time when he was thirteen and he had peeked into Maggie Jensen’s window while she was dressing. She’d been eighteen and built like a brick shithouse—one of those figures that gave all teenage boys wet dreams. It’d been the first time he’d seen a live pair of breasts and a woman’s hair-covered mound. Afterward, he’d masturbated more than a time or two over the image of her naked, imagining what she’d feel like.

But now he was an adult, with a raging hard-on for a woman who he couldn’t get off his mind.

A few tosses. If she doesn’t answer, I’ll go on back home.

He melted into the shadows behind the tree as he peered through the parted curtains. Good. The window was closed. He raised his hand for the first pebble toss just about the time he saw Trinity.

She was lying on her back, staring up at the canopy of the bed. The light beside her bed was on, its stained-glass shade casting rainbow fragments across her face and the pale blue nightgown she wore.

Luke hesitated, hand at the ready, the pebble feeling warm and solid between his fingers.

That gown had thin little straps that would easily break if he tugged on them, and he was sure the silky-looking material would feel soft beneath his hands, just like her skin. The nightgown was hiked up to the top of her thighs, but not quite high enough for him to see anything more than her shapely legs.

Her thighs were squeezed together tightly, and she squirmed a little, as though trying to alleviate an ache there. But in the next moment she reached her hands up and pulled off her nightgown.

Luke dropped his arm back to his side. The pebble—hell, all the pebbles—fell out of his hands.

The woman had damn perfect breasts with cherry dark nipples just begging for his mouth.

His cock bucked against the denim of his jeans. He knew he should have some moral battle inside, but the reaction was too strong, too deep. This woman, oh, yeah, she was his. He had claimed her at Nevaeh’s, and he was claiming her again, right there under her sister’s tree.

He unbuckled his belt, unzipped his jeans, and released his aching erection. With slow familiar strokes he moved his hand up and down the length of his cock as he watched Trinity shimmy out of her thong before she cupped her breasts and squeezed her nipples.