“No matter what?”

Trapper held his father’s stare. “No matter what.” He turned and walked out.

“Hello, it’s Hank Addison.”

“I saw your name on the ID,” Kerra said. “I hope you’re not calling with bad news.”

“No, it’s good. You were kind enough to ask me to call you if things went south, but I thought you’d like to know that my dad was released. We just got him home. He’s irritable, but okay.”

She smiled into the phone. “Irritable is a good sign, I think. I know you’re all relieved.”

“I tried to reach Trapper to let him know, but Dad says he’s changed his phone number.”

“I’ll pass along the news. He’ll be glad to hear it.”

“I’m ashamed of myself for hitting him.”

“Even he admitted that he had it coming.”

“Still.” He paused, then, “Well, I won’t keep you.”

“Actually I’m glad you called. I went online and found the website for your church. The architectural renderings of the new tabernacle are most impressive. My schedule is in flux right now, but after I return to work and things settle down, would you agree to my doing a feature story on the church? If the stats on the website are true—”

“God would hold us accountable if we fudged on the stats.”

She laughed. “Would you agree to letting me do a story?”

“Absolutely.”

“Not so much from a proselytizing standpoint, but as an aspect of area growth. That kind of thing.”

“I’ll figure a way to work in the proselytizing without anybody noticing.”

“Great, then. I’ll be in touch, but in the meantime, please notify me if something of special interest occurs, and I’ll try to—” She broke off when she heard footsteps approaching the door. “Sorry, Hank. I need to run. I’m glad your father is doing well. Thank you for letting me know.”

She disconnected just as the lock clicked and Trapper pushed open the door. Seeing her, he stopped short of clearing the threshold. He looked around the room, taking in her bag on the floor in the corner, her laptop open on the table where she sat, her handbag on the dresser with a few articles scattered around it.

When he came back to her, his eyes were glittering with anger, his jaw set.

She stood up and faced off with him. “I forgot my toothbrush and had to come back for it.”

He remained immutable.

“I bribed the manager into giving me an extra key. It cost me a ten-dollar bill and my autograph. Once I was here, I saw no reason to rush off.”

He didn’t even blink.

“You should have gotten stitches to close that cut.” She motioned to the Walmart sack clutched in his right hand. “I hope you at least bought Band-Aids.”

Nothing.

“All right, I know you’re angry to find me here after trying to get rid of me, but I’m here, and I’m not leaving.” In a gesture of defiance, she flicked a strand of hair over her shoulder. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Remember you asked.” He came in and slammed the door shut.

Chapter 27

As he stalked toward Kerra, he dropped the Walmart bag and shrugged off his coat. Reaching behind his back, he unclipped his holster. It was still in his right hand when he took her by the shoulders and propelled her backward toward the bed.

Either she was too shocked to protest or she was ready for this, too, because she didn’t resist as he, in one coordinated motion, set his holstered pistol on the nightstand and lowered her onto the bed. She grabbed a handful of his shirt as she lay back. He followed her down, maneuvering as he went so that when she was reclined, he was between her legs, the important body parts perfectly aligned.

Taking her face between his hands, he fused his mouth to hers, pressing his tongue deep, thrilling to the way she hummed her pleasure. He might have gone on forever just kissing her if not for a greater hunger that he must gratify or die.

He worked her top up over her breasts. Her bra was lacy and sheer and only half there to start with. The cups were easily lowered. He took a moment to cradle a breast in each hand. “I freakin’ love that,” he murmured.

“What?”

That they get so hard so fast.

The words were in his mind, but he didn’t say them aloud because by the time he thought them through he was already taking one nipple into his mouth and toying with the other, deriving pleasure from the pleasure he was giving her. With every wet tug of his mouth or sweep of his tongue or gentle pinch, she gripped his hair a little tighter and rubbed her body against his with matching maddening urgency.

He might die yet if he didn’t get inside her.

He pushed up on his knees and yanked open the buttons of his fly. As he worked his jeans down, a drop of escaped semen slicked his thumb. He was that close.

Kerra, her gaze fixed on his erection, angled her hips up, grappled with button and zipper, then lowered her jeans and panties as far down her legs as she could reach. He pulled them down and off and threw them aside.

She was too many erotic images for him to register right now, so he concentrated only on the cleft between her thighs. He slid his hand between the swollen lips of her sex, tested her readiness, then spread his fingers to open her.

She gave a little gasp of feminine modesty, and he would enjoy reliving that purely feminine reaction. Later.

But now he took hold of his penis and planted the head of it against her opening. It was tight, but it was wet, and with a subtle push he stretched it, breached it, and secured his smooth tip inside.

It was ecstasy. But still not enough.

Looking into her eyes, he continued to press into her until he was completely sheathed. He could see in her face that the sense of wonder wasn’t only his. Her lips silently formed his name.

He made a vow to himself to languish in her clenching heat, but later. Later. In the here and now he had to move. He began by pulling back ever so slightly. She clamped her lower lip between her teeth and held it until he sank into her again. When she released her lip, he ran his tongue across that incredible, turn-on pout. He kissed her beauty mark.

Responding to her restless motions beneath him, he shifted the angle of his hips and increased friction where she most wanted it, and he got it right. God, did he. Her throat arched into an offering made to him. He rubbed his open mouth along the smooth column. He nuzzled her ear and groaned the choicest of naughty words. He dipped his head and sucked her nipples in turn, causing her to whimper.

Even during this love play, he didn’t stop pumping into her. He probably had been this hard before, probably as strained and blood-infused and lust-mad and unable to command the instinctual mating movement of his hips.

But if so, he didn’t recall it, because this was the only time that mattered. He wanted this time to be an exorcism and possession at once. Doom and salvation. He wanted it to be both carnal and sacred.

He wanted this to be the fuck Kerra would remember for the rest of her life.

Her hands, which had been on his back, had moved to his butt, and now her fingers were digging in deep, holding him to her. Her head went back and her breathing turned choppy. Knowing she was about to come, he pushed deep and held, moving only to grind against that most sensitive spot. She made a sobbing sound an instant before he felt the clutch of her orgasm all along his cock.

She came long and lusciously. Just before the last rippling aftershock, he held her hips between his hands, gave a few quick thrusts, and then had the most wrenching climax of his life, expanding and pulsing until he gave a hoarse cry of helplessness and fell into her embrace.

Through the moments of subsiding, she held him close and continued to hug him to her until it was over. Only then did her body relax and settle. He lay motionless and heavy on top of her. His skin and hair were damp with sweat, his limbs deliciously heavy, his penis still snugly imbedded inside her.

He nestled his face in the curve of her neck and felt the first heartbeat of contentment he’d known in years.

“Kerra?”

“Hmm?”

Trapper stirred, then raised his head, lifted a strand of hair off her neck, and twined it around his finger. “Why is it that every room you occupy feels like a tropical rain forest?”