“That’s a compliment,” she said.
“And it’s true, although I’m sure you’ve noticed that many people look at you with appreciation,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with appreciation, of course—unless it turns obnoxious.”
“True.”
“Hmm. I’m going to suggest you were involved not too long ago.”
“It’s been a while now. Since I joined the Krewe,” she said.
“He was intimidated?”
“He was. And you?”
It was such an easy conversation. With every word he felt her voice as if it were a caress. He thought she could arouse him to a greater hunger with words than another woman, naked and twisting and writhing before him.
“It ended when I left Texas.”
“She wouldn’t move.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask her to. I was coming home to take care of someone who was dying. There are different kinds of intimacy. I guess we didn’t have enough of the right kind.”
Jane nodded, gazing down at her hands. When she looked up, her smile was slightly crooked, incredibly sensual, and her eyes were like the golden fire of a sunrise.
“Well, I suppose one of us should make the first move....”
7
In a thousand years, Jane would never have thought that becoming intimate with someone she’d known a matter of days could be so effortless and natural.
Yes, one of them had needed to make a move, but ever since they’d sat down together, they’d both been making moves. And after she spoke, he stood, and she must have stood, as well, because she was suddenly in his arms.
She wondered just when she’d known that she had desperately wanted that moment to come, and she wondered what made one person so desirable to another. Was it the unique, underlying scent of each human being? The way a mind worked, the sound of a voice, the way one person could reach out to someone else...?
Then all thought left her mind. She felt his fierce heat as he drew her close and as his lips touched hers. For a moment, that first kiss was almost frantic, as if they both feared they had seconds and nothing more, and every taste and sensation had to be seized.
And then it eased into something that was slow and seductive, the feel of his mouth, his tongue a harbinger of everything about him that suddenly seemed necessary for life itself.
When they broke apart, his lips were mere inches from hers, and he whispered softly, “Not that this isn’t my house, and not that I have a multitude of neighbors close by, but...”
She smiled, and she was almost afraid it was a stupid smile, she felt so deliciously giddy. Then he gathered her up into his arms, and that was easy and natural, too, although he paused and said softly, “May I? Agents of the law can be very finicky when a threat is perceived.”
She slipped her arms around his neck. “I’d thought about doing the same to you. I mean, after all, I am a federal agent.”
“But this is a local situation,” he told her.
“Yes, but you did invite me in,” she reminded him.
“Because of your artistry.”
“I hope it’s up to par.”
He carried her down the hall. “Agent Everett, the second I saw you, I became aware that you certainly surpassed par.”
“Thank you,” she said. “And I do admit, we feds never like to appear as if we can’t handle a situation, but I’m not sure that if we’d reversed this, I wouldn’t have dropped you.”
“Sometimes things just work out the way they should,” he said.
They’d reached the bedroom. It was dark inside, the only light coming from the hallway and the rooms beyond. He didn’t turn on a lamp, nor did he pause to close the drapes; through the window they could see the dark, moon-draped hills beyond, majestic in the purple shades of the desert.