Girls Just Wanna Have Guns (31 page)

Bobbie Faye faced Trevor’s pleased-with-himself expression. His deep blue eyes were oh-so-amused. Damned man.

“What happened to you being the guy who pretty much
hated all women—who said that after meeting me, your opinion of them was just getting worse?”

“I believe
some
one”—his voice flowed over her senses, warm as whiskey as he leaned in close—“pointed out to me that I had been dating the wrong women.” He took her hand, lacing his strong, battered fingers through hers, grabbed one of his SIGs, and led her to the bathroom.

“So . . .” she flinched a little as she saw her own disheveled, bloody and blue image in the mirror, “you’re telling me you had a complete turnaround in one day when we met? I know you got smacked around pretty bad in a couple of those explosions, but I didn’t think it jostled your brains that much.”

He didn’t answer; instead, he checked her scrapes and cuts, wetting a washcloth, cleaning off the blood and the grime, just like he’d done at Marie’s yesterday. Most people have a
first song
or a
first dance
. They had a
first time Trevor checked her injuries
. She started to joke about it, but the look in his eye wasn’t anywhere near amused or playful; he grimaced at some of the nastier scratches, and all the while, she could feel him thinking. Weighing what to tell her, and she suddenly understood she needed to let him work out what to say. What to trust her with.

She slanted a look at his face, his own scraped, bruised jaw, his mouth fixed in a determined line, his own gaze roving over her, looking for more injuries. But all the while, thinking. She laid a hand on his cheek, stopping him, stilling him as he watched her, measuring. She wanted him to tell her. To trust her. How in the world had
that
happened?

But just like that, she knew. Knew she wanted his trust.

She leaned forward, her face tipped to his, and gave him a kiss, and then she turned away, dug in a drawer for a comb. He plucked it from her hand and busied himself for a moment, setting to work on the tangles in her hair, pulling the comb through a bottom section, working his way higher and higher with each pass until she looked a little less like roadkill and maybe even managed to sort of resemble a human again.

“You’re really good at that.”

“Three sisters, remember?” He hesitated, pulling the comb through another section. “And the turnaround wasn’t in a day.”

She thought about that, watching Trevor’s intent expression, remembering their argument from that morning, remembering, too, what he’d said to the other agent about giving notification of his intent to date her. Then it hit her. “From the surveillance?” She’d been having a particularly bad streak of luck at the time they’d met, and an equally foul disposition to go along with it. “You liked me enough from that to want to date me?”

“Oh, I want to do a helluva lot more than
date
you.”

Ohdear
Lord
. The grin. She could lose all sense of time and reason from a grin like that. She tried not to blush. “You are insane.”

“Apparently.” He laughed when she made a face at him in the mirror.

As he finished detangling her hair, she watched him. Something rang, and she recognized the sound as her phone buried in her purse in the kitchen; that was the ring she’d programmed in for Cam. She grimaced and ignored it—if it was a Stacey emergency, Cam’s mom or sister would call. Instead, she watched Trevor; he was deep in thought, but not hiding his internal battle from her. He could have. She knew that about him now.

Finally, he said, “I was never going to have that someone special in my life. I knew it, accepted it, and it was for the best, especially in my line of work.”

“But you had it before,” she interrupted, referring to the divorce he’d mentioned only once, months ago.

“No.” His grim expression underlined his point. “Not even close. And it taught me: never again. And then you came along, into my life.
You
intrigued the hell out of me, but there was no expectation. You were supposed to get the tiara, hand it to me in the parking lot, and I’d have left. At least until the case was over and I could engineer some way to meet you again properly.”

“So I held a gun on you instead, shot your truck, and you decided, gee,
this
is the person I’d like to date? I’m a little worried about your standards there, Trevor.”

He grinned, and something . . . joy? . . . shone in his gaze. “Yeah, well, I really did like your shirt.”

He was referring to the Shuck Me, Suck Me, Eat Me Raw t-shirt, and she blushed three kinds of red.

Trevor turned her around, lifted her and set her on the big white faux marble top of the bathroom vanity. He stepped between her legs and she was damned glad she wasn’t actually having to use them to stand up because they’d just sent a resignation letter to her brain:
quitting now
. Especially since he’d pulled her hips so that she scooted forward and pressed into his hard body. A very toned,
half-naked
body. (
Yes
, said Lust.
Let’s focus on the important things here
.) His hands slid gently up her arms, caressing the curves of her shoulders and then down again as she moved her own hands around to hold his waist, but detoured, mmmmmmmmmmmm, to his abs. Her fingers drifted lightly, and dear God, he got all tense and hot and then his hands were beneath her shirt and her brain hung a “not operational” sign up.

Somewhere far far away, probably on another planet even, she heard the dim racket of her phone ringing once more with Cam’s designated chime. Trevor reached over and slapped the bathroom door shut, muffling the sound. “I’m going to say this one time.” His tone was not without a hint of frustration. He nodded toward the still-ringing phone. “Cam is a
good
man.”

It took her brain a moment to fight through the lust. “Huh? What?” And then she registered what he was saying, which was in direct juxtaposition of just how intimate their caresses were becoming. “Okay, that’s about the dumbest wooing strategy I’ve ever heard of.”

“I’m serious. He’s in love with you,” he said, softly, “and you’re a fool if you don’t see it.”

They both stopped the caressing as she stared at him, trying to form a sentence, stopping and starting over twice
before she could think of something coherent to say. He was wrong about Cam, but there was no point in arguing about it. “I’m beginning to see why you got divorced. You suck at this whole ‘wooing’ thing.”

“Oh, there will be wooing.” (And her Hormones did the Wave.) “But this is the only time I’m going to say this: you know him, you have a background in common, and he could provide you with a good future, as soon as he gets his head out of his ass—and he will.”

“We really need to get you a manual.
Wooing 101
.” His hands slid through her hair, his touch setting every single nerve ending she had on vibrate.

“I’ve been around longer, I’m hell to live with.” She eased him away and hopped down as he talked. “My job has been to manipulate, infiltrate, and, on occasion, kill. I’m good at it, Sundance. All of it. In fact, very damned good. That’s not ever going to change.”

“Are you under the impression that I hadn’t figured this out?” She cranked the shower knob on and water spewed out, hitting the chipped tile. She faced him again.

“I’m just warning you—
I don’t care
if he’s in the way. Emotionally or physically. Unless you tell me right now that you’re in love”—she lifted her arms up—“with him—what are you doing?”

“I wonder if there are wooing instructions on the Internet?” He frowned, and she loved that completely confused expression. She so rarely saw it on him. She leaned in a little, letting him in on the plan. “We’re getting naked now.”

He watched her, with her arms in the air, waiting for him, and the slow, sizzling grin that spread across his face melted her bones. “I can work with naked.” He reached for the hem of her shirt and began sliding it upward and then stopped a second. “But I want more than that.”

“Then you better get busy.”

“Are you always going to be this bossy?” he asked, tugging the shirt off and tossing it to the floor.

“Yep.” She worked the button on his jeans.

“Good to know.”

She felt her breath hitch at that and she stilled—he
got
her. He framed her face with his hands and kissed her and she’d never known that sort of searing heat and tenderness all at the same time. She worked her hands into his now-loose jeans (Hormones: Score!) and cupped his ass as he reached between them, undoing her own jeans, and the feel of him in her palms? Well, she was writing a letter when this was over:

Dear Sister Mary Margaret:

Hell is sooooooooooo worth this. I promise. You have no idea.

Then he shucked her jeans, impatient, and she tugged his off, just as determined, and within seconds, gone was the bra and everything else and he took a minute to scan her, head to toe, and said, “Dear God,
thank you
.” She nodded at him, in awe; she didn’t think it was entirely right to say
holy fucking Jesus, he’s gorgeous
—it might seem sacrilegious or something, and if she got struck by lightning right now, she was going to be
completely
pissed off.

He pulled her to him, kissing her, skin to skin, body to body, feeling the hard length of him pressing against her and
wow
. She ran her hands over him as he devoured every inch of her, spending an inordinate amount of time on the inside of her left thigh and then at her center; his mouth was hot and talented and that’s pretty much when she lost her entire mind. And for the first time in her life, she forgot about control, forgot to hold the wall up around her heart, forgot to keep back a little of her
self
for safety. She forgot to be afraid, forgot where he ended and she began. She’d never flown so free.

Somewhere in there, she slapped off the water and managed to breathe out “floor.” She wasn’t entirely sure which one of them had opened the bathroom door (there was soooo not enough floor space in there) and how they’d managed to get to the plush living room rug (and when did they turn over that coffee table?) or how they knocked the
fishing poles down (all thirty or so of them) or when the fish mounted on the wall fell and broke the lamp—these things skimmed around the edges of her awareness only as Trevor moved them to safety each time while they kissed each other crazy.

And then they were on the rug, tangled and rolling (and there went the DVD tower, oops) (and holy crap, all the knickknacks on the bookshelves were toast—and anyone who thought putting on a condom was easy had not been dodging a bunch of Elvis paraphernalia). But there was nothing in the world that she wanted more than this.
Need
pulsed from her core, radiating outward, hungry for him. All of him. He worked his way down and then back up her body and he paused there as she moved to take him in; she gazed at him watching her, and saw him
wanting, needing
in return. Not just the physical. But
her
. Needing her. And she realized
that’s what that expression was that he’d had when she fell over the railing
. She knew he could see a reflection of that same feeling in her, and he skimmed a finger along her lips, drawing out the suspense until she thought she’d snap in half from the tension.

“I will beat you senseless if you make me wait,” she said, wiggling beneath him.

“I think that’s the same thing you said when we were waiting for the chili cheese dogs,” he teased, smiling against her lips as he moved just enough to taunt her into madness. She squirmed, and he touched her, bracing on one elbow as he skimmed his other hand between them. She was hot and wet as he slicked his fingers into her, toying with her, playing, pushing her to the edge of sanity, and felt the pressure inside her build, heat and pressure and need until she writhed and begged.

“Trevor?”

“Hmmm?” His lazy growl belied his own taut body.

“Need,” she ground out as his fingers pressed into her.

“This?”

“You.” She tangled her fingers in his hair. “Just you.”

“It’s about damned time,” he said, and then he kissed
her, rough and hard, as he thrust inside her and she arched, shocked, filled with him, with mind-bendy goodness. He moved then, and took her with him over the edge and the world stopped; there was just him, just the feel of him and his blue eyes on her as everything else simply ceased to exist.

Aiden watched Mollie saunter back to the car, a feline grin lighting up her face and he knew she’d scored.

“So?” Sean asked as she climbed in the backseat. “Are you going to make me wait all fuckin’ day?”

“They’re right friendly here,” Mollie answered. “Seems there’s a cabin down a bit, b’longs to the brother, but he don’t let on.”

“Not fuckin’ helpful, with a bridge out.”

“Sure,” she said, the smile evident in her voice. “But there is a barge that’ll ferry us, for the right price.”

Trevor carried her into the shower, which was probably a necessity since she could barely walk. The fact that he was fairly proud of that fact made her want to smack him, except that might be counterproductive because then he might not be as . . . vigorous next time. Except she discovered he had an entire arsenal of
vigorous
, including the slow, delicious, suspend-Bobbie-Faye-against-the-shower-wall version, which blew her mind.
Vigorous
was her new favorite word. She sort of came back from nirvana a while later when he had her leaning against him, her back to his chest, and he worked the shampoo through her hair.

“Um, hi,” she said, sheepish.

“Welcome back.”

“How long have I been . . . drifting?”

“Oh, not long. Couple of stars imploded, they changed the name of the continents, nothing big.”

She faced him as he helped rinse her hair. “Proud of yourself, aren’t you?”

“Hey,” he held his hands up, all
you asked for it,
and said, “you mocked the wooing.”

“Are you always going to be this smug?”

“Every. Single. Chance. I. Get.”