A Risky Affair (11 page)

She glanced away from the horses to find Dane watching her with a quiet, thoughtful expression. “So you left behind a boyfriend and best friend,” he murmured. “Got any other family members living in Haskell?”

Solange shook her head, plucking at a long blade of grass. “My grandparents on both sides passed away a long time ago, and my parents were never very close to any of their remaining relatives, most of whom are scattered around the country. Only a few showed up for the funeral. Once it was over, they hopped back on the next plane and left town without so much as a backward glance.” Her lips curved ruefully. “Sorry. I didn't mean to sound bitter.”

“You didn't,” Dane said gently. “And even if you did, no one could blame you.”

She gave him a grateful smile. “In their defense, it's not as if they left behind an underage child to fend for herself. I'm a grown woman, perfectly capable of taking care of myself. If I had been a minor, I'm sure one of my relatives would have offered to take me in.” She paused, adding with a touch of cynicism, “Especially if I came with a large inheritance.”

“But you didn't,” Dane surmised.

She shook her head sadly. “My parents worked their butts off to hold on to the farm, but one bad crop season could set them back financially several years. When they died and the farm burned down, I had to sell the land back to the county and use most of the proceeds to settle their debts. I can assure you,” she said with a wry grin, “a wealthy heiress I am
not.
”

Dane chuckled softly. “That's all right. I've always gotten along better with poor people, anyway.”

Solange laughed, punching him playfully on the arm. “Wise guy.”

Grinning, he crossed his big, booted feet at the ankles, the movement drawing her attention as she leaned back on her elbows. “Just what shoe size do you wear, anyway?” she teasingly inquired.

He glanced down. “Sixteen.”

“Hmm. I suspected as much.”
And you know what they say about men with big feet.

When she heard the low, sexy rumble of his laughter, she realized she'd voiced the naughty thought aloud. An embarrassed flush stole across her cheeks as Dane drawled, “Why, Miss Washington, if I didn't know better, I would think you were sexually harassing me.”

She rolled her eyes in exasperation, fighting the tug of a grin. “In your dreams, Roarke.”

“Mmm. Or maybe in
yours.
”

Unfortunately, he wasn't too far off the mark. For the past ten minutes, she'd been struggling not to stare at the way the stretchy fabric of his turtleneck clung to the hard, sinewy muscles of his torso. More than once, she'd found herself willing his shirt to inch up so she could catch another glimpse of his beautifully sculpted bare chest, the sight of which was permanently branded on her memory.

“Do you have any plans for the holidays?” she blurted, eager to change the subject before her imagination began to wander into dangerous territory. “Will you be spending Christmas in San Antonio or Houston?”

“Houston, probably. With my parents and my brother and his family. My mom always prepares a big, lavish meal and buys everyone a ton of gifts. She loves to play Santa.”

“That sounds nice,” Solange murmured with a soft, poignant smile. “My mother used to do the same thing. No matter how tough things were, she always went out of her way to make Christmas extra special.”

Dane turned his head to look at her with an expression of gentle sympathy. “I'm sorry about what happened to your folks,” he said in a low voice.

“Me, too.” She gazed up at the soft white clouds drifting lazily across the sky. “But I know they're watching over me, protecting me in their own way.”

“I bet they are,” Dane quietly agreed, and Solange could tell he wasn't merely offering an empty platitude, as people often did when consoling the grief-stricken; he really meant what he said. Her heart swelled with gratitude.

A companionable silence fell between them, broken only by the piercing cry of an eagle that soared high above them. For the second time in two days, Solange felt an incredible sense of peace and contentment wash over her. The sun was warm on her face, the thick grass a soft bed beneath her. Dane lay close to her, so close she could smell him—soap and an intoxicating scent that was uniquely male, uniquely him. She could feel his heat and vitality, as potent as a physical touch. If she could have lain there forever, with him beside her, she would have.

Shaken by the thought, she sat up abruptly. “I guess we'd better start heading back before they think we've been eaten by a mountain lion.”

Dane chuckled, a deep, rumbling sound that made her belly quiver. “I think you're the only one Crandall would mourn.”

Solange laughed. “I wouldn't be too sure about that. Something tells me he'd hire a new personal assistant within the week.”

Dane grinned as they rose together. “Don't sell yourself so short, Angel Eyes. I'd give him at least two weeks to replace you.”

Solange smiled distractedly, her insides warming at the endearment that had slipped so naturally from his mouth.
Angel Eyes.
He thought she had the eyes of an angel. God help her.

As they started back toward the waiting horses, she suddenly stopped. “Wait a minute. This view reminds me of something I've always wanted to do.”

As Dane eyed her curiously, she ran toward the edge of the cliff, but not too close, and proceeded to spin around in circles while belting out the lyrics to
“The Sound of Music.”

Dane threw back his head and roared with laughter.

As Solange completed her last twirl, her ponytail came loose, sending her hair flying about her face and shoulders. Laughing, she bent to retrieve her scrunchie from the ground as Dane approached, smiling and clapping softly.

“Bravo. That was quite a performance,” he drawled. “I think Julie Andrews would have been impressed.”

Solange blew her long bangs out of her eyes and grinned up at him, breathless with exhilaration. “Really? You think so?”

“Most definitely. I know I was.” His dark, heavy-lidded eyes roamed across her face, glittering with frank male appreciation and something else, something that made her heart skip several precious beats.

He shook his head slowly. “God, you are so beautiful,” he whispered huskily.

Instantly the air around them grew hotter, thicker. Gazing up at him, Solange felt as if she were teetering precariously at the mouth of the cliff, poised to be pushed over the edge in a dizzying free fall from which she would never return.

Her lips parted, trembling, but no sound came forth.

Then, before she could react, Dane captured the nape of her neck with his fingers and slanted his head over hers. His mouth descended and seized hers with a raw urgency that ignited her blood.

Even as her mind shouted in protest, she gave herself up to the kiss, feeling the sweet, hard pressure of his lips upon hers, opening her mouth at the insistence of his hot, probing tongue as it slipped between her teeth to touch her, taste her. She shivered, a soft moan escaping as she curved her arms around his neck. His hand slid up to cradle the back of her head as he deepened the kiss, his other hand banding around her waist to draw her against the hard length of his body. She was drowning, drowning in sensation and a fierce need that was unlike anything she'd ever imagined.

Without breaking the kiss they sank to their knees. Desperate for the feel of hot male flesh, Solange tugged his shirt from his waistband and reached beneath the turtleneck to splay her hands across his bare, muscular chest. He shuddered, tightening his hold on the back of her head as he ravaged her mouth like a starving man.

With his free hand, he cupped her left breast, and she gasped. Through the cotton fabric of her peasant blouse and lace bra, he sensuously traced the outline of her nipple with his thumb. Her breast swelled, her nipple beading like a pearl beneath his touch. His erection pressed against her belly, thick and impossibly hard. Mindlessly she ground herself against him, the sensitive flesh between her legs throbbing with need, aching for fulfillment only he could provide.

He eased one side of her blouse off her shoulder and kissed the soft, sensitive spot where her neck and shoulder met. Solange trembled hard, her head falling back on a soundless cry. Dane took full advantage of the exposed arch of her throat, his mouth homing in to suckle her hungrily. She locked her arms around his broad back and clung to him for dear life.

“I want you so damn bad,” he uttered raggedly, sinking both hands into her hair as he rained hot kisses along her throat. “I want to feel you wrapped around me.”

Through the fog bank of desire clouding her brain, his words—and the stunning reality of that moment—registered. Solange stiffened against him, her eyes flying open as sanity returned, along with a healthy dose of alarm.

Oh, God, what had she done?

Or, better yet, what had she
almost
done?

Shaken to the core, she quickly pulled away from Dane, making him groan softly in protest. Struggling to catch her breath, she watched as his lashes slowly lifted to reveal the smoldering heat in his midnight eyes. His nostrils were slightly flared, his sensuous bottom lip slick and shining. He looked a little wild and dangerous, and so damn sexy it took every ounce of self-control she possessed not to launch herself back into his arms.

“Th-that was a mistake,” she whispered shakily.

“Right,” Dane murmured, a trace of mockery in the curve of his mouth. “Because you have a boyfriend. What was his name again?”

“Lamar,” Solange supplied without thinking.

Dane inclined his head in the barest hint of a nod, his eyes narrowed on hers. “Lamar's a very lucky man.”

Solange made no reply to that. Instead she climbed to her feet and busied herself with brushing dirt and grass from her knees. “It's late,” she said without looking at him. “I'm ready to go back.”

“Of course,” Dane said softly.

But as they mounted their horses and started down the mountain trail, one unsettling thought kept echoing through her mind.

There is no going back.

I
t took the entire ride back to the ranch house to cool Dane's raging libido.

Every time he relived kissing Solange, touching her and having her warm, lush body pressed against his own, he grew hard—painfully hard. He had to force himself to think about other, less stimulating things, like the remaining Christmas gifts he needed to buy, or how he was going to handle a particular surveillance assignment that week.

When they reached the barn, Solange swung down quickly from her horse, refusing the assistance of the young stable hand who had emerged from cleaning out a stall to meet them. The dark-haired Hispanic boy smiled at Solange, his teeth flashing white in his ruddy face.

“Did you enjoy your ride,
señorita?
” he eagerly inquired, wiping his soiled hands on a cloth rag.

“Yes, thank you, Tomas,” Solange said with a quiet smile. She passed him the reins, then stroked a hand down the sorrel's silky neck and leaned close to murmur something that made the animal's long ear twitch in response. Solange winked at Tomas, who blushed like an infatuated puppy. Then, barely sparing a glance at Dane as he dismounted from his horse, she turned and started up the hill toward the main house.

Dane and Tomas watched her departing form in shared admiration—the long, shapely legs covered in snug denim; the way her thick, shoulder-length hair swung from side to side as she walked, her hips rolling in an easy swagger that was purely feminine and maddeningly sexy.

After another moment, Tomas turned to him with a worried frown. “What did you do to Señorita Washington?”

“Not as much as I wanted to,” Dane muttered under his breath. At the confused look the boy gave him, he chuckled softly and clapped him on the shoulder. “Don't worry about her, my friend. Women can be unpredictable creatures at times, as you'll see for yourself someday.”

Tomas grinned, looking even younger than fifteen. “You sound like my father. He says the same thing.”

“You should listen to him. He knows what he's talking about.” Dane reached over and ruffled the boy's hair playfully. “By the way, Tomas, how do you like working on the ranch?”

Tomas beamed. “I love it! It's the best job I've ever had.” He paused for a moment, his dark brows furrowing together thoughtfully. “Well…I guess it's the
only
job I've ever had. But you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do. And I'm glad to hear it. But you look like you could use some help down here,” Dane observed, leading his horse into the large stable. Inside the old building, the pungent odors of leather and oil, manure and dry straw, horses and cobwebs permeated the air. As he passed the first stall, a bay mare whinnied softly in greeting. Dane smiled and tipped his head in response.

“I'm usually the only one here on Sunday mornings,” Tomas said, following him into the barn with the chestnut sorrel Solange had ridden in tow. “But now that Señor Thorne has decided to open the ranch to visitors for hourly horseback rides on the weekends, I guess we'll need more help.”

“Good, because I have a friend who might be interested. He's about your—”

“Roarke! Where the hell are you?”

Halfway down the straw-covered aisle flanked by dark stalls, Dane glanced over his shoulder and met Tomas's wide-eyed, anxious stare. “It's Señor Thorne!” the boy whispered. “You'd better go. I'll take care of the horses,” he rushed on when Dane hesitated, frowning.

“He can wait another—”

Tomas's expression turned beseeching. “If he sees you helping me with the horses, he'll think I'm not doing my job.
Por favor, señor.
You
have
to go.”

After wavering another moment, Dane reluctantly handed over the reins, then turned and started toward the entrance to the stable as Crandall appeared, his nostrils flaring with displeasure—from the stench of the animals or from having to search for Dane, he couldn't be sure.

Either way, it gave Dane a surge of perverse satisfaction. As far as he was concerned, any man who was tyrannical enough to cause a fifteen-year-old kid to quake in his boots deserved to have his nose rubbed in a little horse dung.

“There you are,” Crandall growled as Dane approached. “We've been waiting for you back at the house. We didn't expect Miss Washington to return without you.”

“Yeah, well, she was in a bit of a hurry,” Dane drawled.

The old man's eyes narrowed suspiciously on his face. “What did you do to her?”

Dane let out a choked laugh. “That's the second time in ten minutes someone has asked me that question. If I didn't know better, I would think y'all didn't trust me.”

Crandall scowled. “I
don't
trust you, Roarke. Not where beautiful young women are concerned.”

“Touché,” Dane quipped, brushing past him on his way out of the stable. “Then I suppose I should thank you for letting me go riding alone with Miss Washington.”

“I didn't
let
you,” Crandall sourly reminded him. “I got suckered into it by that matchmaking busybody housekeeper of mine. Damn meddlin' woman.”

“Hey, that's no way to talk about Ms. Rita. Besides, it's not
her
fault you can't say no to her.”

“I say no plenty of times,” Crandall grumbled, but without much conviction. “Anyway, Gloria's here with your cake. So I guess that means you can hit the road.”

Dane arched an amused eyebrow. “In a hurry to get rid of me?”

Crandall looked him square in the eye. “Let's get something straight, Roarke. I like you well enough—”

Dane snorted rudely. “Coulda fooled me.”

Crandall pinned him with a look that had undoubtedly made jurors quake in their chairs. “Solange Washington left her home and everything she knew to come work for me. That means I have a vested interest in her welfare. If you think I'm going to stand by and watch you amuse yourself with her until something prettier and shinier comes along, think again.”

Dane held his hostile stare for a prolonged moment, then chuckled softly. “Relax, Thorne. Even if I had less-than-honorable intentions toward Miss Washington, she made it perfectly clear she's not interested.”

Crandall gave a brisk, satisfied nod. “Good. Then she's even smarter than I thought.”

“Yeah, she is.” Reliving the explosive kiss he and Solange had shared, Dane muttered under his breath, “One of us had to be.”

Long after Dane left the ranch and returned to the single-story bungalow he'd been renting from his cousin for the past year, his mind kept replaying the conversation with Thorne. He supposed he couldn't really blame the old man for behaving like a pushy, overprotective father. If he had even an inkling of just how badly Dane wanted Solange, he'd probably ban him from his property or get a restraining order.

As much as it killed him to admit it, Dane knew Thorne was right about him. Although he wanted nothing more than to make love to Solange, to possess her body in a way neither of them would ever forget, he had no intention of getting serious about her. Not because there was anything wrong with her. On the contrary. She was smart, beautiful, funny and sexy as hell, the kind of woman that could, without even trying, make a man lose his damn mind. God knows he'd already lost more than a few precious hours of sleep thinking about her, fantasizing about her, imagining their naked, sweaty limbs entwined in his bed. Kissing her had only fueled his craving, making him want her the way an alcoholic craved his next drink.

But he couldn't have her, because even if he'd wanted more than a sexual relationship with her, and even if there was the slightest chance of her dumping her boyfriend in favor of him, he wasn't sure he could let go of his personal demons in order to let her inside, to trust her completely. He knew what it was like to trust the wrong woman, to let down his guard only to be betrayed in the worst imaginable way.

It wasn't an experience he cared to repeat.

Dane frowned, peeling off his turtleneck and kicking off his jeans as he headed into the bathroom to take a shower. It was the third time in less than a week he'd found himself reliving the devastating circumstances that had led to his abrupt departure from the FBI.

And this time, as he twisted on the shower faucet and stepped into the glass-encased stall, he let the old, painful memories flow as freely as the hot water that sluiced down his body.

He'd joined the Bureau right out of college and spent the next fourteen years working hard to ensure no one ever questioned his right to be there. He'd served on various task forces and had been instrumental in the capture of several Wanted fugitives. Although he'd resented the bureaucratic wrangling that often made it difficult for agents to do their jobs, and had been told by more than one supervisory special agent that he had problems with authority, Dane had enjoyed his work and looked forward to a long, fulfilling career with the Bureau.

When he was asked to serve on a task force investigating a local crime syndicate suspected of committing sports bribery, Dane never imagined that he, along with his partner, Stan Rupert, would become the targets of the investigation.

The task force was headed by Rosalind McCray, a senior agent who'd recently been transferred to the Philadelphia field office from Chicago. Tough, beautiful, intelligent, with a sharp-witted sense of humor that had helped her to survive in the male-dominated agency, Rosalind was a breath of fresh air. She and Dane, as the only African-Americans assigned to the investigation, had hit it off immediately.

Late one night, long after the other members of the task force had packed it up and gone home, Dane and Rosalind had found themselves alone in the old warehouse that served as the group's base of operations. Over greasy slices of takeout pizza and stale beer, they'd talked about everything from their families to career aspirations. Rosalind told him in no uncertain terms that her top priority, next to catching bad guys, was climbing the ranks in the Bureau, for which she made no apologies. Dane had raised his bottle in a mock toast to her, and she'd laughed. The next thing he knew, they were kissing and groping each other. His staunch rule against dating colleagues had crumbled like a cracker the moment her blouse came off. They'd made love that night, and although they both regretted crossing the line afterward, it wasn't long before they wound up in bed again.

Over the next several months, Dane had wined and dined her, and because she claimed to share his love for sports, he'd surprised her with courtside tickets to NBA basketball games, courtesy of the home team's star player, who happened to be an old college buddy of Dane's.

He had no way of knowing that such an innocent gesture on his part would someday come back to haunt him.

When the sports-bribery indictments came down on several bookies and members of a notorious crime syndicate who had conspired with two basketball players to shave points in a series of playoff games, Dane was stunned to learn of his partner's involvement in the illegal scheme. He was even more shocked to find himself being interrogated by Rosalind, who claimed to have incontrovertible proof of his guilt. The so-called evidence, as it turned out, had been planted by his partner in an effort to cover his own tracks. Doctored phone and audio recordings, manipulated computer data, falsified eyewitness statements—you name it, Stan Rupert had thought of it.

It had taken an intense series of Justice Department hearings, and months of having to endure the scrutiny and suspicion of his colleagues and the media, before Dane's name was finally cleared.

But by then it was too late. The damage had already been done. Not just to his career and reputation, but to his personal life as well, namely his relationship with Rosalind. Even if he could have forgiven her for her complete lack of faith in him, the fact that she'd suspected him of criminal conduct for months and had continued sleeping with him while secretly building a case against him was more than he could stomach. As far as he was concerned, any woman capable of that level of deception was nothing but poison. Although Rosalind had apologized profusely, wept and begged his forgiveness, Dane had not relented. Even the sight of her on her hands and knees—an astonishing act from such a proud, fiercely independent woman—had failed to keep him from walking out the door and never looking back.

While in federal custody, Stan Rupert, overcome with guilt for trying to frame his former partner, had taken his own life. His rambling letter of apology to Dane arrived on the day of his funeral.

Dane was too numb to curse, or mourn, the man he'd once considered a close friend.

But Rupert's death was the straw that finally broke his back.

One day he was receiving job-promotion offers from the contrite management, the next day he strolled into his supervisor's office and handed in his letter of resignation, then simply walked away from his life as an FBI agent.

In the two years since, whenever he allowed himself to reflect upon all that had happened, Dane realized that what bothered him the most—even more than his partner's treachery or the loss of his job—was Rosalind's betrayal. Not because he'd loved her or hoped to have a future with her, but because he'd trusted her, and in his book, once trust was violated, it could never be restored.