“Take what you need,” she urged. “Take it how you need it.”

Rubbing her bent knee against his flank, she urged him on. With his gaze on hers, he rolled the condom off and wrapped it in a tissue from the bedside table, tossing it in the trash can beside it. Moving quicker now, he caught her leg and lifted it into the air to prop against his shoulder, then he did the same with the other.

He stared down at her, his features harsh with lust, his blue eyes dark and soft with emotion. “I’m crazy about you, Inspector.”

He positioned his cock’s head against the lubricated pucker of her ass, groaning as the eager orifice flexed in invitation. She flowered open for him, catching her breath as the thick crown pushed past the tight ring.

With her heels in the air and her ass cupped in his hands, he pushed into the slick passage, his gorgeous face twisting in a grimace of tortured ecstasy as she clenched around him like a fist.

“Darcy, sweetheart, you’re so tight.” Sweat coursed down his temple and glistened on his flexing abdomen. “So damn hot. You’re scorching my dick.”

Her neck arched, her head pressing into the pillow as surrender radiated outward from the place where he pressed inexorably into her.

“Jared.” She moaned as pain mingled with her pleasure. The surfeit of sensation pulsed through her, tightening her chest and quickening her breathing.

“I’m right here with you,” he said hoarsely. “Ah, God, I’m gonna come before I get all the way inside you.”

“Please…” She wanted that. Wanted to feel it. Wanted to know that there were no barriers between them physically, just as there were none between them emotionally.

Adjusting his grip on her hips, he pumped deeper, sliding over highly sensitive nerve endings. Her hands fisted in the disheveled sheets; her head tossed from side to side. It felt as if something feral were trying to claw its way out of her skin. She surrendered to it, surrendered to him, the uninhibited lover who took the sexuality she’d always embraced and enhanced in a way that made it new. Made it his.

Pushing onto her elbows, Darcy looked at where he entered her, her mouth drying at the sight of the thick veins pulsing along his rigid erection. He was at the limits of his control, yet still he held back for her. “Jared.”

His gaze was hot as it met hers. She tightened down on him and he jerked violently, sliding deeper. With a growl, he thrust in to the root and started coming, spurting hot and thick in the depths of her rear.

She writhed as her pussy clenched on the verge of climax, then screamed as he placed the pad of his thumb over her clit and rubbed, hurtling her into orgasm with him. They arched together, straining against the vicious ecstasy, Jared thrusting mindlessly as he pumped his semen into her willing body.

As the tension eased and her body sank limply into the mattress, Darcy came to the awareness of the unabated erection sliding in and out of her ass. Blinking heavy-lidded eyes up at Jared, she moaned as his gentle fucking stimulated overworked and hypersensitive nerves.

“You just…”

“I did.” His voice was gravel-rough and sexy as hell. “And I have more to give you. Everything I am, Darcy. Everything I have. It’s yours.”

She set her hands over his where they gripped her hips. “Give it to me. All of you.”

Chapter thirteen

Jared ran his fingertips up and down the arm Darcy had draped over his abdomen and ran the gathered data through his mind for the hundredth time, searching for what he might’ve missed.

When Darcy bolted upright without warning, his arm shot out, his hand grasping for his weapon.

Breathing heavily, she stared at the gun he had aimed at the door, then met his gaze. “Dani never said a word to me about Chris, but she told Jim. I didn’t know they were close, her and Jim. Close enough that she’d share a secret lover with him.”

“Okay,” he said carefully, returning his gun to its holster. “You’re following the same train of thought I had. I e-mailed Ralston’s name to Agent Kelley. She might have some questions for him.”

She pushed her hair back from her face. “I don’t want to make trouble for him. He doesn’t deserve it.”

He propped some pillows behind his back. “You deserve answers and I’m gonna see that you get them.”

“You don’t think he has anything to do with this, do you?”

“He wasn’t one of the subjects the Feds interviewed, so technically he didn’t lie to them, but it’s never a good thing to withhold information. It smacks of having something to hide.”

“Or someone to protect.”

Reaching for her hand, he linked fingers with hers. “How close is he to Miller?”

“Not very. But I do think he said what he did yesterday to protect Chris. If you tie the arsons and the murder together—which is what Chris came looking for you to talk about—outing Chris’s relationship with Dani absolves him of both. He has an airtight alibi for the first arson, he was out of town for three days prior to it—his sister just had a baby. And the night of the shelter fire he was in the station when the call came in, working on evaluations. Unless you find out differently, that makes it impossible for him to have been the one to set the fire or make the call from Seattle.”

He tugged her close, urging her to snuggle up with him again. “Can you get Ralston to talk to you?”

“Yes.” She laid her cheek against his chest. “When I talked to Nadine yesterday, she said jealousy can make a person crazy. If Chris isn’t the father of Darcy’s baby, there was someone else in her life. Maybe he found out about Chris and lost it.”

“We’ll figure out the why when we figure out the who. We’ll get there, sweetheart.”

She looked up at him. “I’m ready to put this behind me.”

“Where was home for you before you came back here?”

“Albuquerque. I wanted something arid after growing up with so much rain.”

“I can do arid.”

Her gaze softened. “Would you?”

“Sure, I can transfer.”

“When I left New Mexico, I thought it might be a while before I figured out what was next. I quit my job, sold my condo…” She ran her hand over the light dusting of hair on his chest. “I can start over anywhere.”

“I don’t care what the plan is, as long as it includes you.”

“After losing Dani and then last night…I could’ve lost you, too. A few minutes here or there and you wouldn’t be here now. I don’t want to waste any chances, Jared.”

He hugged her tightly. “We won’t. We won’t waste a thing.”

DARCY PULLED INTO the parking lot of the fire station and waved at Trish, who waited for them with Ralston by the open apparatus bay doors.

Jared stopped her from exiting with a hand on her arm. “I don’t want you leaving town. Even the animal shelter is too far. And I don’t want you in the car with someone else if you’re not behind the wheel. Don’t go anywhere private with anyone. And text me as you move around so I know where you are.”

“All right. I’m just going to pick over the motel scene with Jim, then come back here to the station to expand on my prelim report. If that changes, I’ll let you know.”

Dressed in her uniform, with her lush hair restrained in a ponytail, there was little evidence of the insatiable wanton who’d shredded him just hours before. Except in her eyes. The way she looked at him made his chest ache.

“You be careful, too,” she said quietly.

“Always.”

They split up and he watched her pull out of the lot a few minutes later, driving the pickup with Ralston in the passenger seat.

“You okay?” Trish asked.

“I’ve been better.” He faced her. “You?”

“Fired up. I want this shithead’s ass in a sling.”

His mouth twitched. “We’re starting here because of a volunteer named Mitch Quinn. There have been a few suspect shipments to the station, all under Quinn’s name. Inspector Michaels says he should be here today.”

“All right. Let’s talk to him.”

They found Quinn in the kitchen, putting away groceries. He looked up as they came in, his frown melting into a wide smile. With his shaggy blond hair and pale blue eyes, he had the look of a surfer about him, an impression strengthened by the seashell and hemp necklace visible through the opening in his uniform collar.

“Hi,” he greeted them. “Are you looking for Inspector Michaels?”

Trish returned his smile, but her game face was on, her eyes flat and watchful. “We’re looking for you, Mitch.”

He paused, then shut the refrigerator door. “What can I help you with?”

Jared stepped up to the island. “We need to talk about some of the deliveries coming through this station—”

Quinn shoved the groceries across the tile at Jared and fled.

“Well, shit,” Trish muttered.

Jared leaped over the oranges and apples spilling off the island onto the floor, and gave chase.

DARCY PICKED THROUGH the charred remains of the motel while Jim jotted notes in his folder.

“Your prelim was well done, Darcy.”

“Thank you.”

He closed the folder with a decisive snap. “When are you going to ask me why I didn’t say anything about Miller and your sister earlier?”

She faced him. “I was waiting until we got through the scene first.”

“All right. We’re finished for now. Since I was out all night, Columbo missed his morning walk. How about we pick him up and we’ll talk about it away from here?”

“Sounds good.” They headed back to the truck. She closed up the evidence collection boxes in the bed of the pickup and said, “I take it from your overnighter that the date went well?”

“Yeah…not bad. I appreciate you handling things last night.”

“You needed the break and I knew we’d need daylight to get the full scope.” She slid behind the wheel and headed to his house.