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“Don’t stop.” His palms, heavy and firm on her thighs, urged her to straddle him. “I need younow.”
Her palms gliding across his chest, she savored the feel of his crisp hair over the hard slabs of muscle, gave herself over to her need and their mutual pleasure.
***
Bart held her there until her breath evened out and he knew she was sound asleep. He supposed this meant he’d taken over the watch. Which was fine because he was the one who was wide awake now.
One moment he’d been dozing, sliding along the edges of those dreams he had about her. The next, he woke up to discover his fantasies made flesh. He kind of missed the transition.
If there had been one.
She murmured as he slipped out from under her, but she settled soon enough as he drew the sheet up to cover them both.
So much for his silent vow to keep his hands to himself. Of course, she wasn’t the sort to cry foul—especially when she’d started it. He couldn’t really complain about being used, because he’d enjoyed it completely.
Still, he felt like he was missing something. Something other than the condom they hadn’t used.
Good grief, now he’d never sleep with that thought circling like a hungry shark in his head. He sat up against the headboard, careful not to wake her. Might as well be productive, as Tim had been fond of saying.
He turned the bedside lamp on low and flipped open Tim’s notebook. Most of the entries were deciphered, but he still didn’t have the context. What had Tim been tracking and how did it connect with Hannah’s investigation of the mobile meth lab of the cartel?
Bart felt a now-familiar pang of guilt for letting the cartel get such a foothold right under his nose. He was better than that, and yet—assuming Tim’s notes were about illegal activity—someone had managed to use his truck stop at will for the past two months.
Only one answer met the criteria: an inside job.
But inside which organization?
Hannah stirred, snuggling closer to his side of the bed. It had been a long time since he’d let a woman stay in his bed. Long enough that he indulged in the distraction. Her long lashes fanned against her soft creamy skin. In sleep, tension didn’t tug at her mouth and eyes as it had been doing since her arrival.
He couldn’t stop staring at her. She was naturally beautiful, but her sense of humor and her intolerance for bullshit were the qualities he found most endearing. He’d avoided attachments and serious relationships after Beth left him, but he wasn’t so out of practice that he didn’t recognize goodbye sex when it woke him up and seized his heart.
If Hannah hadn’t been exhausted from the day, if she had somewhere else to go, he figured she’d probably be dressed and gone already.
Much like how they’d parted in Las Vegas.
In the days following that stunning experience, he’d decided he hadn’t been the only one shocked by the fireworks between them. After months of business and friendship peppered with a little casual flirting, they’d taken a weekend away as friends only to hit the sheets with enough force they should have burned down the hotel.
It was one of those moments they tacitly agreed to look back on fondly. And never risk repeating. From his side of it, the intense connection just under the surface scared him. He didn’t want to need anyone like that again. Hated the idea of being vulnerable to someone.
Once he’d heard the whole story, he understood why she’d made up the wild tale of a wedding so she could come back and help him with this. Hannah did the right thing, tracked down the bad guys, and to hell with the personal consequences.
He was surprised she’d gone the extra mile to make their union believable. But everyone needed a purpose and sex wasn’t the worst way to be useful, he thought with a smile.
He smoothed her hair back from her face. Losing this particular witness had seemed to really take a toll. He knew her score sheet had more wins than losses, but he also knew from experience that some losses hurt more than others.
Well, today’s capture of the kid at Tim’s place had them both right back in the game and he was sure she’d feel better about the whole case in the morning.
He glanced at the clock. Morning was closing in fast and though he believed in thinking positively, he also believed in being prepared. Suter and Kellerman were working the evidence they believed in with enough attitude to cause him some worry. Tim wasn’t the source of the problem, but his murder proved his cook had known something.
Bart dragged his attention back to Tim’s notebook, determined to find a lead before he had to go down and startbreakfast. The dates were easy enough, written in the military style of day-month-year, but the other notes took on a life of their own.
With his slight advantage of military experience, he understood the shorthand for Tim’s menu plans. Except there was no reason Bart could conjure to explain why Tim needed notes for a system he repeated every week. Regular customers counted on the specials and Bart knew many of them planned their stops at Patriot Plaza accordingly.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. Maybe Tim was simply getting forgetful and this was a wild goose chase. Except a man didn’t get murdered like that for being forgetful. Bart would never completely erase those obvious signs of torture from his memory, but there was only one logical reason a drug cartel would be that upset with a truck stop cook.
Frustrated by the mystery of the first pages, Bart flipped to the last page of the notebook. The final entry was only last week. As he reviewed the menu list and the delivery schedule he thought about just sending the damn notebook to Eva. She was the analyst. His specialty had been firing solutions and heavy lifting.
Not that it hadn’t been a good time while it lasted. He’d enjoyed the challenge of training, the excitement of learning new tech and weapons, and the high of a mission accomplished.
