“Hmm, Alicia,” he whispered against her lips, drugged by the feel of her, by the whisper of her heated breath against his mouth, by the sound of her heart pounding as hard as his. She clutched at the towel until he deepened the kiss, and then her hands went around his neck and the towel slid forgotten to the floor.

Scooping her up, he carried her to the bed, yanked away the cover, and deposited her. He shucked off his clothes as she watched him, her gaze lowering to his rigid arousal. She made him hard with a touch, a glance, a whisper of a kiss. No woman had ever affected him the way she did.

When he was naked, he joined her in bed, his hand caressing her breast, his eyes looking into hers—dark, rich chocolate and full of desire.

He bent his head and kissed her parted lips while her tongue touched his, teasing and penetrating his mouth, and he sucked on her tongue, smiling when she moaned in capitulation.

His hand massaged the supple mound of her breast, enjoying her softness compared to his hardness. He leaned over and licked her nipple, mouthed it, and tugged gently on it the way she had done his. But his fingers soon swept down her soft belly and lower until he found her wet curls and the place at the apex of her thighs already swollen and moist with eagerness. She parted her legs, combing her fingers through his hair as he plied her with strokes between her legs meant to bring her to joyful climax.

Her pelvis arched against his stroking fingers as she lightly moaned with pleasure, pushing him to deepen his movements while he watched the expression on her face—lost in bliss, her tongue moistening her lips, her eyes heavily lidded with lust. He loved the way she writhed under his ministrations. Loved bringing her to climax and seeing her expression of elation. Wanted to do it again and again.

Alicia hadn’t meant to allow this to happen, hence the hesitation when she’d stepped out of the bathroom to get her skating skirt out of her bag but found Jake standing in front of it. Dressed as she was in the skimpy towel and the way he was eyeing her with interest, she was certain he wasn’t going to let her get away with just pulling a handful of clothes from her suitcase. Not that she wanted to discourage him. That was part of the problem.

She didn’t have an ounce of willpower when it came to wanting him. But she imagined that if she had managed to get dressed, he’d want to undress her once he saw her in the skimpy ice-skating outfit, and they’d be right where they were now.

His fingers stroking her caused a flare of white-hot heat to erupt deep inside her. With her nipples tingling with delicious feminine appeal and her freshly showered skin even more sensitive to his every touch, she arched against him like a feral animal, craving more and faster and harder and deeper. She’d never felt as wild or uninhibited as she did with him. She wasn’t sure why, but at the moment, she didn’t care. She just wanted to enjoy the fiercely intense sensations of pleasure that he made her feel.

Her bucking against him encouraged him to stroke and push his fingers deep inside her chasm, to explore and rub and send her hurtling to the edge of the earth and beyond. She was so close to climaxing, the sweet ecstasy just within reach, and then the explosion came, the rapture of his touch pushing her over the edge into a starry universe of pleasure. Her insides quaked with completion as she cried out softly, her hands clasping his waist, then moving over his hips and his buttocks, and sweeping up his back.

With that, he spread her knees farther apart and plunged deeply into her, hard and fully, with all control cast aside. He was thick and heavy and stretched her nicely, diving so deeply that she thought he reached places no one ever had been before. He felt so good with his muscular body working her, enjoying her as she thrilled in the feel of him, his lightly haired chest brushing against her nipples and making them even more sensitive to his softly abrasive touch.

He continued to thrust, his hands raking through her hair, kneading her breasts, and cupping her face, his mouth on hers, then her jaw, her throat, her breasts. Every inch of her felt cherished beneath Jake’s sexy onslaught—from the way he licked her nipples, kissed them, and blew his hot breath on them, to how he smiled when she moaned and kissed her throat as his hand went back to massaging a breast.

Straddling him in the throes of passion in the woods had been an experience Alicia never would have thought she’d feel. And she hadn’t thought she’d ever feel that way again. But with Jake, every time was different, exciting, and fulfilling, and she couldn’t believe anyone would find her as appealing or as sexually stimulating as he seemed to find her. That made her feel special, although she had to remind herself their relationship was so new that, in a few days, it would surely be just like the way her ex-husbands had treated her. The newness worn off. The need to fulfill her desires secondary to fulfilling his own.

She shoved aside her silly self-doubt, reminding herself that this was all it would be, some really great sex with a really great man, and then he’d move on and she would, too, and that would be the end of anything between them.

But as soon as he thrust inside her, all her thoughts were swept aside as she explored every inch that her greedy fingers could reach, from sweeping them over his firm butt and fondling him to enjoying his hard-working muscles rippling under her touch and the silky feel of his skin. Taking in a deep breath, she savored his fragrance—musky male and pine breeze. She scraped her fingernails lightly over his buttocks and up his back, soliciting a low growl of ecstasy from him that made her smile.

He reached down and pulled her legs toward him so that her knees were bent, and he wrapped his arms around them, tightening them against his body as he deepened his thrusts. His pelvis rubbed against hers, her heart drumming with rapture as she arched against him, attempting to satisfy the need to soar all the way to the sun suspended in the late-morning sky.

And then she climaxed with much too loud a groan of complete blissfulness, and he kissed her mouth again before withdrawing and moving off to lie beside her. His fingers captured a handful of her hair that he brought to his lips and kissed, his eyes and lips smiling at her with a sense of smug satisfaction. She shook her head. She had known that if she got anywhere near her suitcase wearing that skimpy towel, this was exactly where she’d end up.

His arm captured her and rested there, his face nuzzled against her cheek as he closed his eyes. She realized that, at least for now, they weren’t going ice skating or anywhere else. She rolled onto her side like she was used to sleeping, although taking midday naps wasn’t her usual thing. But having conducted surveillance on Mario late into the night and then early this morning, and having made love to Jake twice today, she felt blissfully tired.

She thought Jake had fallen asleep, but he pulled her into his arms, spooning her with his thighs and chest and with his arms around her body in a possessive way, claiming her as his own for the moment, his face nuzzled against the back of her head. His heated breath caressed her ear, and she sighed. He was sexy and hot—very hot and, for the moment, all hers.

She didn’t even want to think about saying good-bye. Yet all along, she knew that was where this was headed.

***

“You said you didn’t want the bitch dead,” Danny Massaro, Mario Constantino’s cousin, muttered to him as Mario sat on his leather couch reading the morning paper, irritated as hell with the two buffoons who’d botched the job. “We wouldn’t have bothered trying to bring her in alive if you hadn’t ordered us not to kill her. But she shot Carino on the trail,” Danny insisted.

“You’ve told me three times already,” Mario said darkly, flicking a hard look at Danny. “You both knew she was armed. That she’s nothing like her mother. You should have handled it better.”

Mario had two cousins. Two. Danny and Ferdinand Massaro. And although Danny, the younger of the two brothers, was loyal as could be, Ferdinand was the one who could be counted on to get a job done right. Too bad Mario had pissed him off. But the damned woman Ferdinand had been seeing had stolen a hell of a lot of money from Mario’s Vegas casino. And no one got away with that without paying for it big time. He had a reputation to maintain, after all. He just hadn’t realized how hard Ferdinand would take it. Hell, family loyalty was supposed to take priority over some damned broad.

“Alicia’s a bounty hunter now. If she catches sight of me, she can arrest me and turn me in for the reward,” Danny said.

As if some woman could get the jump on Danny. When Mario didn’t respond, Danny shoved his hands in his pockets, his action whenever he was stumped about what to do next. “What about the guy? Can’t we kill him?”

“The artist?” Mario snorted. “Lover boy?” He shook his head. “The woman has something I want. Don’t kill her. As for the guy, he’ll disappear soon enough. One way or another. If he’s smart, he’ll leave and live another day. If he’s not…” Mario shrugged and looked back at the paper, reading an article about a drunk driver who had ripped out forty feet of fence on a local ranch.

Nothing noteworthy in the area. Not since killing the Greiston woman six months ago. Or the shooting at the same location today, if anyone had been aware of it.

He really should have killed Danny and Carino after they’d botched the job of murdering Alicia’s mother. Killing her right next to the trail, where hikers could find her, was more than stupid. And murdering her lover at the falls? Double the stupidity. Yeah, he’d wanted it done, but discreetly. Idiots.

He sighed, opened the paper to the crossword puzzle, and laid the paper down on the coffee table, then pulled a pen out of his pocket. “Has Carino gone home?”

“Tucker took him back to Denver so Doc can patch him up without the authorities getting any word of it.”

Mario nodded and read: One Across: Lupus, four letters. He wrote: wolf.

“What now?” Danny asked.

Mario looked up at him. “You said the artist met with her in the woods.”

Danny balled his fists in his pockets. “Yeah, she must have planned to rendezvous with him there. I saw his truck parked near her car in the lot, but I didn’t see any sign of him when I brought Carino in. Later, I found both Alicia’s and her lover’s vehicles parked at her hotel. They were still there when you told me to meet you here.”