He couldn’t hide his wistful smile.

She reached up and touched his cheek. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned her.”

“It’s okay,” he said, setting the washcloth on the nightstand. “She did raise me better.”

As he was lying back down, Jordie sat upright and gave a soft cry of alarm. She touched the bandage on his side. “You’re bleeding.”

A few spots had seeped through the gauze of the bandage and showed through the outer layer. “The incision leaked a little when Wiley and I were running after Hickam.”

“Let me check it.”

“I already did. It’s fine. And even if it was a hemorrhage, you’re not going anywhere.” He pulled her down beside him, took her hand, and placed it over his resting penis.

“Good,” she said. “I like it here.”

He grunted with pleasure at the squeeze she gave him. “I noticed you looking before.”

“How could I miss it?”

He shot her a crocodile grin. “In my dreams, you couldn’t keep your hands off it.”

“You dreamed about me?”

“When I was coming out of anesthesia. Really dirty stuff.”

“Dare I ask?”

“Not unless you want to be embarrassed.”

She laughed and rubbed her nose in his chest hair before resting her head on him. “That night in the bar, I wanted him to be you.”

“Him who?”

“The man who called me there.”

“It was me.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know that then. I saw you walking toward me. My heart rate kicked up. But you went past, didn’t stop, didn’t acknowledge me. I was disappointed.”

“That is such bullshit,” he said. “You didn’t give me a second’s notice.”

“Oh, I noticed.”

“Really?”

“Hmm. I thought, ‘Bad boy alert.’”

“What’s that mean exactly?”

“Dangerously sexy.”

“Keep talking.”

She laughed and raised her head, propping her chin on his sternum. “I’ve said enough. You get the idea.”

“I couldn’t get enough of looking at your ass. On that bar stool? Oh man. And I smelled your perfume. Made me want to bury my face in your neck. And in your cleavage.” Turning his voice smoky, he said, “I think you can guess where else.”

She ducked her head shyly then came up and looked into his face, outlining the C on his chin. “Are you ever going to tell me how you got this?”

“One of Panella’s guys.”

“One you had to—”

“Yeah. He was a knife man. I defended myself with a nine-millimeter, but not before he got in one good swipe.”

“My God, Shaw. How can you be so blasé about it? He could have disfigured you.”

“He did.”

She kissed the scar, then whispered against his lips. “How little you know.”

Keeping their lips together, he said, “One thing I know…your thumb is the second best thing that’s ever happened to my cock.”

“Please. I’m blushing.”

“And you blush in all the best places. Come here.”

He motioned her up until he could reach her nipple with his mouth. Under the brush of his lips, it hardened instantly, but he worried it with his tongue until he felt her belly quickening against his. He moved to the other breast. God, they were perfect.

So was her ass, which his hands lightly stroked, then firmly gripped when that thumb of hers discovered a tear of semen leaking from his slit and spread it over the tip. “Jesus, Jordie.” His head fell back onto the pillow. He didn’t believe he could possibly be more aroused, until he noticed her nipples, erect and glossed from his mouth. “Wet looks good on you.”

“How does it look on you?”

A tidal wave of lust surged through him as she began inching down his front. She pecked kisses across the center of his chest, ruffled his chest hair by blowing through it softly, brought his hips up off the bed when her tongue delicately flicked his nipple.

Her hair slid across his belly like a veil of silk. When she got even with the wound she’d inflicted, she looked up at him with remorse and tenderly kissed the bandage.

She moved lower and nuzzled his navel, whisked her lips back and forth across the line of hair that tapered down from it. Then her face hovered above him for an eternity. He could feel her breath; he held his.

First the damp velvet touch of her lips, then glancing caresses of her tongue, and, at last, she took him into her mouth.

His erotic hallucinations had been nothing compared to the real thing. Unlike the porn star Jordie of his dreams, the real one was more giving, less expert, and all the sweeter for it.

His hands fisted in the sheets, but after a time, he couldn’t help but grip one handful of her hair. Sweat broke from every pore. He growled her name in appeal. For what, he wasn’t sure.

But Jordie seemed to know.

When it was over, he pulled her up beside him, eased her onto her back and rolled onto her, kissing her mouth long and deep, tasting himself. Finally coming up for air, he whispered, “I take it back.”

“What?”

“Your thumb is the third best thing.”

Chapter 35

Mr. Panella?”

“Speaking.”

“I know it’s terribly late where you are, but you left a message for me to call you an hour before the bank closes for the day.”

“I did, and the time doesn’t matter. I just got in, actually.” Flicking sweat off his brow, he looked over at the hoodie, now lying on the floor just inside the door. It had spatters of the FBI agent’s blood on it and would have to be burned.

The banker was saying, “Prior to calling, I took the liberty of checking to see that everything is in order. I noticed that you never requested the two-million-dollar wire transfer which we discussed a few days go.”

No, he hadn’t needed the two million because Mickey Bolden’s recruit had turned out to be a cop!

Shaw Kinnard hadn’t kidnapped Jordie from that bar. He’d saved her. All that bargaining and squeezing him for more money? Bullshit. Kinnard wounded, captured, and in custody? More bullshit.

“Mr. Panella? About the wire transfer…?”

“Yes, right, sorry, I was distracted.”

He’d been hoodwinked. By Shaw Kinnard, who’d finagled a new deal for a hit he never intended to carry out. By FBI Agent Joe Wiley, who’d told him that Kinnard had been arrested.

He hated being had.

If he hadn’t been in Tobias today, he might not have discovered the ruse. But he’d been drawn back to the town to enjoy firsthand the chaotic aftermath of Royce Sherman’s murder. Of course, he hadn’t gone near the side road where he’d shut up that redneck loudmouth for good, but he’d picked a spot in which he could remain out of sight while observing the comings and goings at the busy sheriff’s office annex.

He’d recognized the girl when she arrived. She was wearing the same clothing she’d had on the night before while being pawed by Sherman. Today she had looked a wreck, crying her heart out, needing the supporting arm of a friend as she stumbled into the building.