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A more cautious man—his father would say a smarter man—would have handled her gently. But he hadn’t been able to do that. He’d had to push to see how hot she could burn.
Pretty damn hot.
Different time, different place and he’d let the fire run its course. But he couldn’t do that today. He looked down at the bulge in his jeans. Looks like his cock hadn’t gotten the message.
He sat down on the bar stool, trying to unobtrusively adjust his jeans. He reached over to where he’d been sitting and grabbed the worn leather satchel lying on the bar and pulled out the case dossier. His father had e-mailed it from Absolute Security’s home office in Denver.
That’s where Jake wished he was right now, waking up with the Rocky Mountains outside his window and a naked blonde in his bed, someone beautiful, tall and docile. Much more his type than Claire Layton.
He flipped through the printouts. Kendall Burlington, the very rich and spoiled adopted daughter of Denver hedge fund manager Charles Burlington, was the victim. Claire, the county sheriff’s sister, had discovered Kendall’s body in a Dumpster.
He wondered if the good sheriff had scattered any evidence to the wind on his sister’s behalf. His gut told him she wasn’t the killer, but she sure had a temper to go along with that red hair of hers.
She also had a redhead’s tendency to blush, from her awe-inspiring tits to the top of her forehead. The memory made his cock rise. Again. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he saw a woman blush.
An image of Claire arching her back, tossing her hair while she rode him, flashed into his head. Her nipples would be a dark rose color, he guessed. Her tits would sway with her rocking motion as she undulated on his erection. He’d grab her round hips, urge her to rock faster. She’d lean down. Her hard nipples would graze his chest as they kissed, their tongues curling around each other in an echo of what the rest of their bodies were doing. He’d flip her to her back, that red hair of hers spreading out across the white pillowcase like a sunset. She’d wrap her legs around him as he drove his hard dick into her wet center. He could hear her moaning, throaty and wanting. Then—
Whoa there.
She was a witness, not a candidate for making those fantasies a reality. He erased the tantalizing mental images and went back to reading the dossier.
Charles Burlington wasn’t going to take any chances the case would go south because some local yokels couldn’t investigate their way out of a paper bag. That’s why he hired Absolute Security. Jake would poke his nose around without interfering with an ongoing investigation.
Earlier that morning, the old man had called saying Burlington wanted to know if the investigators had found Kendall’s phone. The request stuck him as weird. She’d just been murdered, for God’s sake, why zero in on her phone? Burlington had told the old man it had some photos Kendall’s mother wanted. Jake figured grief made people focus on strange things. Still, the request stuck in his craw.
He scanned the initial sheriff’s report. Nothing there about a phone. Where was it?
“She didn’t do it, you know.”
He looked up at the bartender.
“I’ve known Claire for years. She’s not involved in anything bad.”
Suzie, according to her purple, corncob-shaped name tag, wiped out a glass and set it on a shelf under the bar.
“People surprise each other all the time.” He reached for his coffee. “You never know what’s going on in someone else’s mind.”
He should know. He’d seen the pictures of his mother from when he was a toddler. She’d looked happy. His father thought she’d been content. But she hadn’t been. No one had known until the day father and son came home to find all her clothes gone. A note had been taped to the fridge. I want to be somebody new.
They’d never heard from her again.
Yeah, people hid a lot about themselves. Who knew what secrets Claire hid behind her pretty face?
Chapter Three
Claire had to get Jake out of her bar. The hotshot from Denver pushed her buttons like a payphone.
Tongue tied and turned-on, her body and mind were in turmoil. She should have put a little more effort into getting laid before her whole world had gone crazy. Hell, she should have bothered to look at a man as dating potential. If she hadn’t sworn off men, she wouldn’t be worked into a lather over a yummy set of abs. And the way his appreciative gaze sent shocks through her. And how his voice turned her insides to jelly.
Chris walked ahead of her back to the bar. She stopped in the doorway and stared at Jake. Who wouldn’t? With his movie star looks and granite-hard body, the man was beyond easy on the eyes and hard on the panties. Her body perked up, an electric shot of desire pulling her forward.
He sat at the bar, his attention on the papers in front of him. She savored the chance to observe him unnoticed. As he read, he seemed softer. Not weak, but less cocky and full of himself. However, a sense of restrained danger remained under the surface.
He reminded her of a black panther she’d seen once at the Denver Zoo. The creature had been powerful and languid at the same time. Even in repose on a wooden platform, the cat has a fluid, savage energy had surrounded the predatory cat. He’d swished his long tail and watched her from his perch. Despite the man-made moat and fence between her and the big cat, a chill had slid across her skin, warning of danger.
Jake looked up and caught her staring. In an instant, lust burned in his slate-blue eyes. He got up and stalked toward her, but Claire didn’t feel like prey. No, this was a mutual hunt. She wanted to slide her hands through his short dark hair. Run her tongue across his washboard abs. Trail her fingers down his powerful back and over his hard ass. She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t explain it. She just wanted him. Badly.
The thought jarred her out of her fantasy. He was aggressive and obnoxious. She’d had enough of that type of man with her cheating ex-boyfriend, Brett. The next man in her bed wouldn’t be some alpha male. He’d be caring, understanding and mellow. But man, she was woman enough to admit it would be a plus if he had Jake’s Apollo-worthy bod.
