Hot As Sin (20 page)

“Last call!” Gabe shouted for the benefit of the few remaining customers. It was a quarter to midnight. The crowd had begun to thin early, mostly because the snow had picked up steadily.

“So soon?” Emily asked facetiously as she climbed up on a stool. “What if I haven’t made up my mind who I want?”

As if he hadn’t heard her outrageous question, Gabe gave a White Russian a lazy stir and handed it off to Marsha Jean, who was clearly torn between staying to hear his reaction or collecting a tip. The tip won. When he was alone with Emma, he kept his voice low, just loud enough that she could hear.

“Darlin’, you know who you want. You’ve made that real clear all night. You just don’t know
what
you want. So I’ll help you out. What you want”—he leaned a forearm on the bar and then casually traced the white strap that showed at the edge of her sweater—“is me inside you. Consider this a warning, Emma, you got my attention. I don’t have to like you to want you. And if you keep playing this game, I’m going to do something about it.”

“I’m playing the part you assigned me,” she reminded him in a whisper. She couldn’t pull back because he still had a finger in the neckline of her sweater.

“You’re playing at being a bad girl. But that’s okay. I like bad girls. They take what they want because it makes ’em feel alive.”

He straightened up, satisfied with the effect of his words. Her breathing had quickened and her green eyes
were wide. Leaning back against the cash register, he crossed his arms. “I’ll tell you one more thing. I also like good girls who play at being bad. ’Cause when they’re bad, it’s just for me.”

For Emily it was as though Gabe opened up her soul and dragged out another dirty secret. Her whole life had been spent in the spotlight—squeaky-clean Emily Quinn, who never kissed on the first date and who lost her virginity on the pristine sheets of a bed in a Canadian hotel and never broke a sweat. Sex didn’t scare her. But making love to Gabe did. She couldn’t imagine holding anything back.

Because of him, the bad girl she’d kept hidden for so long wanted to come out and play.

“I’ve got to help Marsha Jean.” She scrambled off the stool, not caring how transparent her excuse was. Unfortunately, Marsha Jean had absolutely everything under control.

Unwilling to go back to the bar and face Gabe, Emily fished in her apron for a quarter and surveyed the jukebox selections. Not a single soul had come close to recognizing her tonight, and the guy that scared her last night hadn’t come back. Both those accomplishments should be worth celebrating with a song. Surely Gabe had something appropriate on this thing.

While Gabe shooed the last of the stragglers and Marsha Jean out, Emily tried to focus on the list of titles, but her brain was too preoccupied to make much sense of the words. They finally blurred as she heard the door close and the locks snap into place. Emily’s heart thudded sickeningly in her chest. One by one the lights went out. The only illumination left was the glow of the
jukebox and whatever light filtered through the small, high windows from the floodlights outside.

She was alone with Gabe, and they both knew what was about to happen.

The sound of her quarter clinked loudly as it hit the coin bin. Blindly she pushed a couple of numbers. Anything was better than the silence. A second later, Patsy Cline began to sing
Crazy
.

Horrified, Emily realized the song was perfect. She was certainly crazy for falling in love, and that’s what she was afraid had happened. How could she have let herself fall for a man who would never allow himself to love her back?

Gabe crossed his arms and leaned against one of the support posts along the edge of the small dance floor, unwilling to let the moment slip away. They’d reached the point of no return a long time ago, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that tonight would be all they’d have. All he’d have.

They’d been lucky, but it wouldn’t last.

Since they’d been to the cemetery, he’d known why Emma was fighting the bond growing between them. She was afraid of letting someone get close enough to control her life again. He hadn’t been looking to get emotionally attached to a woman who was going to leave. And he sure as hell hadn’t been looking to fall in love with a woman who lied to him rather than trusted him.

Like you have a choice in the matter?

When Emma turned, the lyrics of the song had as much impact on him as the apprehension on her face. He saw something in her eyes that shouldn’t have been
there. Desire, but not passion, something else, something he recognized—a longing for what she couldn’t have. That was an emotion he understood all too well.

Nervously, she put her hands behind her, holding on to the jukebox as she inspected the beat-up cowboy boots on her feet. “We had a good night.”

“Not yet.”

Emily’s head snapped up. How could the man’s voice tie her stomach in knots and stop her heart? She’d never felt like this before—not even the first time. All of her instincts told her that falling into bed with Gabe was meant to be. They were about to say something with their bodies that they couldn’t or wouldn’t say with words. Nothing would be the same afterward. If making love was a mistake, there would be no correcting it, no way to turn back the clock.

“Take off the sweater, Emma.”

Heat flashed through her like lightning, restarting her heart and stopping her breathing. Slowly, not to tease him, but because her world had suddenly developed a glitch that made everything move in slow motion, Emily pulled the sweater over her head and tossed it into a chair. She ran her fingers through her hair to straighten it. Then she put her hands on her hips, fingers to the back and thumbs on her waist as she took a deep breath and forced herself to meet his gaze.

Desire was evident in the muscle that tensed in his jaw, in the half-closed eyes, and the way he shifted his feet as if his jeans were suddenly uncomfortable. Emily felt immeasurably better. She wasn’t the only one on the hot seat.

Gabe allowed himself to enjoy the sight of Emma’s
breasts as they strained the thin cotton, the tip of one nipple clearly visible in a shaft of light from outside; the other hidden by a shadow. Shoving away from the support, Gabe went to her, wondering how so much woman could be packed into such a small frame. She was all curves and softness, not a bone in sight.

Without a word he reached out to trace one of those curves, beginning with her shoulder and following the slope upward and around to her collarbone, down the center of her chest. As her breathing quickened, his fingers found the valley between the plump mounds that rose and fell in cadence each time she dragged in air. He let his thumb brush across the pebbled nipple as he tested the weight of her breast, lifting it, filling his hand.

Gabe silenced any second thoughts with his mouth, kissing her deeply. Soon her hands were as busy as his tongue. She found the buttons of his shirt and undid them, pulled his undershirt out of his jeans, and slid her hands over his belly, scraping his skin with her nails. When she unzipped his pants, Gabe dragged her hands away from danger.

“Upstairs,” he said heavily.

“No.”

That one husky word was enough to make his arousal throb and send need surging through him. Cupping her face, he couldn’t resist kissing her before he murmured, “The bed is upstairs.”

“I don’t want soft.” Her hands had found their way into his pants again, spreading the front and freeing him.

Caught between Emma’s needs and his own, Gabe held on to the thread of sanity long enough to grab her
arm and pull her into a dark corner, away from the door. She reached behind her and unfastened her skirt, giving her hips a little shimmy to encourage it to slide to the floor. Gabe swore and lifted her onto the booth table as she put her arms around his neck.

Gently he took her hands away and laid her back. He insinuated himself between her legs, but forced himself to wait, to enjoy the sight of Emma in those damnable red panties she fished out of the dryer every morning. All she had left of respectability was a little scrap of a T-shirt, a pair of cowboy boots, and red silk undies that were going to tear after the first good tug.

Emily watched as he shrugged out of his shirt, flinging it roughly behind him. There was nothing demure or elegant about the fire between them. She hooked the heel of her boot around his hip, silently asking for what she wanted. The pulse between her legs created an ache that could be satisfied only one way.

When he flung his T-shirt away too, she wet her lips. She could feel his heat through the wet silk of her panties, feel his hardness as he teased her, pulling her hips toward him, promising everything and yet delivering nothing except sweet torment. He pushed up her shirt, exposing her breasts to his hungry gaze. He cupped them and plucked at the sensitive nipples, finally bending over to taste them when she arched her back, offering herself.

He seemed to have all the patience in the world, making her grit her teeth against a moan, and then suddenly, as she wove her fingers into his hair and squirmed beneath his touch, she realized that Gabe wanted to force a moan from her. And he fought dirty. As the
motion of his tongue and mouth pulled sensation after sensation through her, his hand moved between them, caressing her intimately, stroking the hidden nub and sending devastating little eddies of passion swirling outward. When he grabbed hold of her panties and ripped them off in one motion, she gave up, and the moan came out as his name, an urgent plea.

He sheathed himself and drove into her, forcing a ragged sigh of relief from her. Each time he withdrew she found herself trying to hold on, trying to keep him inside. It was her turn to force a groan from him, to feel the tension as nature took control from both of them, setting the hard, fast rhythm that caught them both off guard and unleashed a shuddering climax that blazed through their souls and left them spent. Breathless.

Gabe recovered first, at least enough to know that he’d made a mistake pushing Emma to the edge of her sensuality. He’d caught himself in the trap. There had been no veneer of civilization between them. No meaningless endearments to hide behind. Just the stark reality that they were made for each other. Pieces of the same soul.

And for the first time Gabe admitted to himself that he had it backward. Maybe Emma didn’t need him as much as he needed her. He wasn’t sure he could let her go, but the hell of it was he didn’t have a choice. She didn’t belong to him. No one ever had. Not for long.

She was using him; he was just a port in the storm.

The pattern of being forgotten was a familiar one in his life. It had started long before he arrived at the orphanage. At eighteen he had joined the navy because he thought it was a chance to break the pattern. To have
something real. But in the navy, just like in the orphanage, once the emergency was over, he had been forgotten until the next disaster, until he was needed.

Well, he was needed now. She was his now. He was overdue for a change of luck. Scooping Emma up, Gabe carried her upstairs and made love to her again. This time she chose the pool table. Neither of them asked for promises, and neither of them offered any.

Later, finally in bed, Emily lay in his arms, lazily nuzzling her face against his chest, wishing she could always feel this safe. That she could hide on a mountain-top with Gabe and not have to worry about the world or who she really was. When she was in his arms, she felt found instead of lost, real instead of make-believe.

“Dammit!” Gabe swore, and got up. “I left the bar coffee on. If I don’t turn it off, the whole place will burn down. Hell, I’d better check everything again.” He looked pointedly at her after he pulled on some jeans. “I was distracted.”

They both jumped as the phone rang. Emily pulled on Gabe’s shirt as he reached for it. “Hello? Marsha Jean! Why in hell are you calling this time of—”

Gabe’s exasperation faded. His eyes caught and held Emily’s as he asked, “What kind of questions?”

A prickle of fear touched the base of Emily’s neck and slithered its way down her arms. She didn’t know which she hated worse, the questions he asked or the silence as he listened to the answers.

“No!” Gabe said quickly into the phone. “You did the right thing. What was he doing at Lyon’s? Did he leave when you did? How long ago was that?” He checked his watch. “Okay, then consider me warned. And as of now you’re on paid vacation. I don’t want you back at the bar until I call you. You just sit tight.… No. I don’t want you around here, you understand?… And I am always careful.”

When Gabe hung up the receiver, she could see his mind working, turning over the problem as he filled her in. “Some guy just scared the hell out of Marsha Jean. She stopped to pick up some milk at Lyon’s In-’n-Out. The guy was in the back using the pay phone. He got off when she came in, almost as if he’d been waiting for
her. Started talking to her and then asked questions about the bar and about you.”

“And what’s the bad news?” Emily joked weakly, feeling the panic began to stir in her stomach.

“She thinks she saw this guy in the bar last night, the night ‘Emma’ arrived.”

Emily realized too late that she’d told Gabe everything except one last detail, so she confessed her final secret. “In the farmhouse … when I came down the stairs, I got confused for a minute. It was dark. I was already scared. There were two men, one standing over the other. Just for a second I thought the killer was Patrick.”

At first she thought she was going to have to spell it out, but then she saw understanding dawn in his eyes, followed swiftly by fury. “The man who killed Patrick sat in
my
bar, drinking
my
liquor. I had him cold, and you let him walk away?”

“Gabe, I—I was confused. You talked me out of it! I thought maybe—”

“You thought wrong. If you’d told me about mistaking the killer for Patrick, we wouldn’t be in this mess. If you’d told me about Patrick, we wouldn’t be in this mess. If you’d shot the marshal when you had the chance, we wouldn’t be in this mess. So do us both a favor, and stop thinking.”