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“How?” He pushed his fingers restlessly through his long hair. “What the hell was I supposed to do, Maggie? I was in the middle of an operation, I couldn’t just tell you what the hell was going on.”
“You could have warned me you had a job to do. That’s all I needed.” She jumped to her feet, anger surging through her. “I knew you worked for the DEA, Joe. I wasn’t stupid or incompetent. I wouldn’t have asked questions, but I would have been warned. Why the hell do you think you walked out of that party with all appendages intact that night? I didn’t strike out just in case you were working, rather than trying to fuck Miss Big Boobs hanging on your arm.”
“Then why are you still so pissed?” He was genuinely confused. “Why did you avoid me, Maggie? We could have worked this out.”
“Because you didn’t warn me, Joe,” she reminded him with false patience. “Because you expected more from me than you were willing to give, and every damned message you left on my phone proved it.”
“What?” He frowned back at her in confusion. “I asked you to call me.”
“You demanded I call you. You informed me, more than once, that I was being silly, childish, petulant,” she sneered. “No, Joe, I wasn’t. I expected no more from you than you would have from me, and you weren’t willing to give it. You would never have tolerated seeing me with another man; why did I have to endure seeing you with another woman? No warning. No explanation. No nothing.”
He was silent, staring back at her with narrowed eyes and stubborn features. His arrogance was one of the things she used to admire, that complete male self-confidence that drove her crazy and turned her on all at the same time.
“I didn’t expect that from you,” he ground out. “I would have explained.”
“The explanation was too late.” She tossed her hair back before smiling tightly into the growing anger in his dark eyes. “I’m not arguing this with you any longer, Joe. My relationship or lack thereof with Grant is none of your business. Just as your job and what it requires of you is none of mine. You’re here to do a job. To protect me, and to find out if I know where Grant hid your precious proof. Stick to the job. You’re good at that.”
With that, she stalked from the living room into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her. She really prayed he took the hint and left her alone. The hurt and anger she had buried when she had left Joe were rising inside her now. The lack of outlet over the years, and her determination to hide from her feelings for him, had kept her safe from the repercussions. Now the pain was flowing through her, the remembered shock and heartache when she realized how little she had meant to him, slammed into her with a force she hadn’t expected.
She deserved the same love she was willing to give, and her marriage to Grant had taught her that she wasn’t willing to settle for less. Especially not from Joe.
chapter 5
the bedside clock read two in the morning before Joe heard the deep, even breathing that indicated Maggie had slipped off into sleep. Within minutes, as she had every other night, she rolled from the edge of the bed to the middle, and her slender body tucked in against his.
He gritted his teeth against the arousal pounding between his thighs, and knew Craig wasn’t going to be happy to be pulling the extra hours of watch that he would be stuck with in the morning.
Maggie was unaware that Craig was watching the outside of the cabin. The other man slept through the day, then took up watch at midnight until Joe moved onto the porch each morning to indicate he was awake and on the job. Joe was getting up later every morning, though. Sleep was becoming harder with each successive night.
As Maggie shifted against him demandingly, he lifted his arm, allowing her to settle against his chest before he let himself hold her close. She felt right in his arms, but hell, she always had.
How many times had she slept against him like this? How many times had he awakened in the middle of the night, just to listen to her breathe, to feel the softness of her hair as he held her close?
He stared up at the ceiling, his lips compressing as he remembered the accusations she had thrown at him earlier that evening. Had he really expected more from her than he was willing to give?
Maybe he had. He had been so busy assuring himself that what they had was just an affair, that the volatile little redhead wasn’t getting beneath his skin, that he had missed the fact that she was firmly entrenched in his heart.
That was why he had jerked her out of the interrogation room when she had been brought in for questioning. That was why he couldn’t accept that she had been part of Grant’s criminal activities, despite the proof—pictures of Maggie handing Diego and Santiago Fuentes several envelopes at an upper-class restaurant, pictures of her greeting them at the door of their home, and exchanging small talk at several parties she had attended for the paper.
She had told Detective Folker she was unaware of what the envelopes contained. That she had run the errand for Grant simply because it was easier than fighting over it, and she had been going into that part of the city anyway.
The journal Grant had kept held pages and pages of accusations against Maggie. Implying that he had begun betraying the agency and his friends because of her spending habits, because of her determination to always have more.
But Maggie hadn’t dressed any differently than she had before her marriage to Grant. There were no expensive clothes, no fancy jewels, and she had never driven the new car Grant had bought her. So where was the money Fuentes had given him?
He buried his fingers in Maggie’s hair as he tried to work through the questions. After a week with her, his suspicion that she might have been involved was dissolving beneath his hunger for her and the knowledge that if money had been what Maggie was after, then she would never have cut him out of her life as she had.
He had money. A DEA agent’s pay sucked, but his family was one of the most influential in Georgia, and his trust fund would see any children he had into old age if they were careful. Not to mention what his parents would one day leave him. If Maggie had been after money, then she had missed a much easier opportunity than marrying Grant and becoming involved with the Fuentes family.
Instead of trying to snag him for marriage or money, Maggie had left him. Not that Joe claimed anything as his own. Money was accessible if he needed it. But his parents’ money wasn’t his own, and he refused to touch it. Still, that wasn’t the reason she had been so furious. She hadn’t forgiven him for not warning her before she saw the daughter of the man they were investigating on his arm.
He had been there to get information. He had gotten the information, but he had lost the girl. His girl. Was he willing to lose her again?
A soft moan slipped past her lips as she moved against him again, her lips pressing the bare flesh of his chest. Joe clenched his teeth against the heated pleasure of her soft little tongue stroking over the flat, hard disc of his male nipple.
Could he survive another night of her in his arms without touching her? God, it was getting hard. She was like a little kitten, pressing to get closer, her fingers curling against his abdomen, her nails raking his flesh and sending a flash of clenching sensation to seize his balls. Sweat popped out on his forehead and along his chest and thighs, and his cock tightened further.
&nbs
