She ran her finger along the edge of the collar. The leather was crinkled and scoured. It showed its age, but in a good way. Like the squint lines at the corners of Rye’s eyes.

Unable to resist, she dropped the towel, lifted the jacket off the chair, and slid her arms into the sleeves. It was too large and heavy on her frame, but the silk lining against her bare skin was seductive and felt wonderful.

She was examining one of the nicks on the sleeve when the door was pushed open and Rye strode in. When he saw her, he stopped dead in his tracks. The door closed on its own.

Brynn was petrified by embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I just…You’re obviously very fond of this. It must have special significance. I don’t know…I don’t know what possessed me. I shouldn’t have touched it, much less…”

“Stop.” He walked past her on his way to the window.

He didn’t report a change, so she assumed the police car was still there. He turned back to her, closed the distance between them, and took hold of the jacket with a fist on each side of the zipper. He rested his forehead against hers. “Once this is over, I’m off again.”

“I understood that the first dozen times you told me.”

“But, dammit, Brynn.”

“What?”

Raising his head, and looking her up and down, he whispered, “How did you know that this is my favorite fantasy?”

“It is? Since when?”

“Since I walked in that door.”

With a groan, he stamped his mouth over hers, slanting it to the perfect angle. The forceful thrust of his tongue was no less thrilling and exciting than it had been the first time he’d kissed her. More so, if that were possible. It reignited her craving for his mouth, his hands, him.

She pushed off his shirt, then folded her arms around the back of his neck, clinging. He slid his hands inside the jacket, his palms coasting over her breasts before he placed them on either side of her waist and pulled her with him as he backed up to the end of the bed and sat down.

Holding her in front of him between his legs, he nuzzled her breasts, dabbed at her nipples with his tongue, nipped at the area around her navel with his teeth. His tongue drew spirals in the hollows beneath her hip bones.

When he started to move lower, she responded to the gentle guidance of his hands as he parted her thighs, wider, until his soughing breath caressed her, then the brush of his lips, the wet heat of his open mouth, the sweeps and swirls and strokes of his tongue.

She gasped his name, clutched his hair. His mouth was merciless, unpredictable, eliciting unexpected flares of feeling that stole her breath. When an orgasm was only one caress away from shuddering through her, she angled his head away. “Not yet.”

She placed her hands on his shoulders to steady herself, then pushed him back onto the bed. In the process of scooting toward the head of it, he unbuttoned his jeans and worked them past his hips. Brynn straddled his legs. The feel of soft denim against the insides of her thighs was incredibly erotic. She relished the sight of his heaving chest, the drastic dip of his taut stomach beneath his rib cage, and his sex, pulsing with vitality, the tip already glossed.

He panted, “If you don’t ride me, there is no God.”

Smiling, she combed her fingers up through the fan of light brown hair on his chest as she bent over him and took him into her mouth. Sensations aroused by his elementally male scent and taste were intensified by the low animal sound of pleasure that vibrated through his entire body. She drew on him until he huffed her name and tugged her head up by handfuls of her hair.

“Now.” He took himself in hand, so that when she stood on her knees, he guided himself into her. As she sank down on him, he released a long exhale. Through the squint she was coming to identify with him, he looked at her with thrilling, possessive greed. “Damn, this is hot.”

His thumbs stroked the channels at the tops of her thighs; then he reached around and claimed her bottom with strong hands that lifted and lowered her as she rubbed herself against his hardness, creating the friction that rendered almost unbearable pleasure.

Their motions grew increasingly fast and urgent. He jackknifed up, burrowed his face into the open jacket, and sucked her nipple into his mouth. He worked his fingers down between them where they were joined, gathered moisture on the pads of them, then feathered, pressed, encircled. Again, again, and again until she came apart.

Her orgasm was long and intense. While aftershocks continued to ripple through her, he lay back down and carried her with him. Then, with his hands splayed over her bottom, grafting her to him, he thrust high and came.

Brynn lay limp and motionless on his chest, feeling his fingers sifting lazily through her hair, listening to his heart beating against her ear, until she fell asleep.

2:14 a.m.

A short while later, she moved off him. He mumbled sleepy protests and tried to hold her, but she extracted herself, took off his jacket, and laid it at the foot of the bed. With a groan, he got up, checked the window. “I hope the bastard’s uncomfortable.”

He shucked his jeans and got back into bed.

She pulled the covers over them and snuggled against his side, his arm cradling her head, their legs intertwined under the covers.

She kissed his pec and touched his nipple with the tip of her tongue. He gave a grunt of approval. “Should we set an alarm?” she whispered.

“I’ll wake up.”

“You’re sure?”

“Um-huh.”

She resettled and was almost asleep, and thought he was, when he mumbled, “What happened with the wild Hendrix boy?”

She snuffled a laugh. “Whatever brought that on?”

“Just wondering if I have to hunt him down and kill him.”

“He’s spared. Nothing happened. We never even went out. I just let Dad think so.”

“How come?”

“To get his attention.”

He’d been lying with the back of his head on the pillow, eyes closed. He opened them now and tipped his head to look into her face.

She gave a small shrug. “It worked for a week or so.”

He studied her for a moment, then stroked her lips with his fingertip. Without saying anything more, he turned her away from him and fit her into the curve of his body. He lay his arm across her. Heavily. Holding her close.

Chapter 30

5:32 a.m.

I can’t believe this.” Delores angrily disconnected her phone, ending another unsuccessful attempt to reach Nate. “I feel like I’m operating in a vacuum.”

“Coffee?” Richard asked.

She snapped a no, and then instantly ameliorated her tone. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to take my distress out on you.”

“I’m as anxious as you are, Delores. More so. I’m the one with terminal cancer.”

She fell back as though he’d inflicted a mortal wound.

He ran his fingers up through his hair. “Now I’m sorry. Lashing out at each other is counterproductive, a waste of energy. Let’s try to keep calm. All right? We don’t know that anything catastrophic has happened.”

“We don’t know that it hasn’t, either. Where is everybody?”

They’d awakened almost simultaneously and, in robes and house shoes, left the master suite. The housekeeper wasn’t due to report to work for another two hours. Delores had asked Richard to get the coffee started while she checked in with Goliad.

Except it wasn’t their trusted facilitator she had found in the study. Asleep on the sofa was their chauffeur, snoring like a warthog. She’d startled him awake with a loud and imperious, Where is Goliad?

That was just one of the million-dollar questions among many. Where was Nate? What was he doing? When he’d taken his departure last night, he’d said he was going home to try to sleep for a few hours, but had insisted they contact him immediately if they received news of Brynn.

Delores had been periodically calling him for the past half hour. All the calls had gone unanswered. Goliad had inexplicably left the house, destination unknown, and wasn’t answering his phone. She was furious with both of them.

She’d declined coffee, but Richard poured her a mug anyway and added the two packets of raw sugar she preferred. He slid it toward her across the eating island. She sat down, took one sip, and then sprang up again.

“On the most critical day of our lives, everybody has abandoned us.”

“Goliad must have given the chauffeur a reason for calling him to watch duty.”

“He told him to come immediately, that he had to leave without delay. He didn’t explain why. To him or to us,” she added with irritation. “How many times have we told him to keep us informed? How hard is it?”

“Maybe the matter wasn’t important enough for him to disturb our rest.”

“But important enough for him to tear out of here?”

“Delores, please stop prowling. Sit down, drink your coffee.”

She slapped her hand on the granite. “Stop being so damn calm.”