by Sylvia Day
Jared slid the phone aside to make room for a cutting board on the kitchen counter. “My concern is whether or not the town’s residents are a blind spot in his investigation.”
“I’m working him around to thinking more along those lines. At least considering them.”
“He lets you get a word in edgewise? You’re a miracle worker.” He deseeded a bell pepper, then chopped it quickly into small squares.
“He’s not that bad,” Trish said. “His only experience with federal law enforcement wasn’t a good one.”
“About that.” He worked on an onion next. “I’d like the name and contact information of whoever was the primary on that case.”
“You going to thank him or her for making our job so much easier?”
“Don’t give me ideas.” Using the knife, he scraped half the vegetables into a heated skillet. “It might be worth it to see if anyone in Lion’s Bay rubbed the Feds the wrong way. Aside from Sheriff Congeniality.”
“What time are you coming into the station tomorrow?”
“Not sure. I want to check out the other two locations in the morning. Why?”
“Wouldn’t want Miller to be out and miss you.”
Gripping the handle of the skillet, he jerked the pan to flip the sizzling vegetables. “I’ve requested courier manifests going back six months. While it’d be stupidly obvious to ship hazardous materials in and leave that trail—”
“We don’t want to be the ones who overlook the obvious.”
“Right. I’m hanging up now. Call if you need me.”
“What is that noise?”
“Dinner. I’m hungry. Good night.” Jared tapped the disconnect button on his phone and turned his attention to cracking eggs to finish up the omelets.
As he moved, he mentally cataloged the state of his body. His damned legs were jellied and there was an odd knotting in his gut that he told himself was hunger. He was having trouble staying focused, his thoughts drifting to the woman presently soaking in a fresh Epsom bath.
The sexpot fire inspector had fried his brain. A wild lay was not supposed to make a man feel strange. It was supposed to relieve stress, provide a workout, and clear a man’s head. Instead, he didn’t even hear Darcy enter the room until she spoke.
“Whatever you’re cooking,” she said, “smells delicious.”
He glanced at her, cursing inwardly for being caught unawares. “Omelets.”
“Awesome.” She maneuvered around him and opened a cupboard to pull out plates. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, her composure irritated him. He’d tugged his pants back on because they were about to eat, but he’d left the fly partially open, exposing the waistband of his boxer briefs. He was shirtless and barefoot, comfortable and relaxed, while she looked like she was ready to leave the house.
“Where are you going?” he asked, scrambling the yolk with enough vehemence to make it frothy.
“Excuse me?”
“You got dressed.” And her hair was damp and slicked back into a ponytail.
“I didn’t know I was supposed to eat naked. You’re not.”
He unclenched his jaw. “You could have put on a robe.”
Setting the plates on the dining table, Darcy returned to the kitchen. “I didn’t want—” She exhaled harshly. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m assuming anything or taking anything for granted. You made it very clear that things need to be simple.”
“No assumptions, but you assume I’ll get antsy if you follow the evidence that says I prepared to spend the night.” He poured the eggs into the pan with the veggies, then added the ham he’d chopped before he called Trish. “Unless what you’re not saying is that you’re ready for me to go.”
She straightened and approached him. “Sex doesn’t improve your humor, I see.”
“Maybe because I’m not done.”
“Okay, then.” She pulled silverware out of a drawer. “That’s settled.”
A moment later, Jared heard her moving the plastic shopping bag off the table. From the sounds of it, she was looking inside, perhaps noticing the toothbrush, antiperspirant, and razor sitting next to the two boxes of condoms. As far as he was concerned that wasn’t optimistic, that was practical. He flipped the omelet with a deft flick of his wrist.
“I wish I had a camera,” she said. “You look sexy as hell doing that.”
She looked sexy as hell when he was doing her, all soft and warm and flushed. The memory of her in the bathtub was going to haunt him for a while.
He jerked his chin toward the table. “Sit down.”
Darcy exhaled in a rush. “I wanted to put a robe on. Just so you know, I originally thought about ordering something in, answering any questions you might have about the case, and maybe watching TV if it wasn’t too late.”
“You should’ve gone with your instincts.” He tossed some shredded cheese into the omelet, then slid it onto her plate in a practiced fold. “Dig in. Don’t wait for me.”
“This looks as awesome as it smells. Thank you.”
Returning to the stove, he started cooking for himself.
She moaned, making his dick twitch with interest. “Jared. Wow. This is phenomenal. You’re as good in the kitchen as you are in bed.”
He watched her lift a second bite to her mouth, her eyes closing as she chewed and hummed her pleasure.
Swallowing, she went on. “Not that we’ve made it to the bed.”
“Yet.”
“Yet,” she agreed. “You know, I should get some credit for being concerned about scaring you off. I’m giving you credit for being offended at the possibility of a brush-off.”
Jared stared into the skillet. Simple would be taking the out she’d offered him and heading back to the motel to sleep in a solitary bed. Simple would be keeping his eye on the job he was here to do and his hands off the smoking-hot inspector who flooded his system with so much testosterone he couldn’t think straight.
Rubbing the back of his neck, he said gruffly, “Keeping things simple means not making things complicated. You’re overthinking.”
Of course, he was hardly thinking at all. He was running on pure animal instinct when it came to her.
Darcy laughed softly. “You can’t put this on me. I know how men work when they start off with the warning to keep it simple. That means don’t get clingy. Don’t expect me to be there for you when we’re not fucking. I get that, and it works for me. That said, I know all men have hot buttons, but I don’t know what yours are.”
He grunted. As far as he was concerned, everything about her was a hot button. And this conversation had veered into a direction certain to drive him crazier than she did.
“You know what I’m talking about.” She set her fork down. “Things that freak you into thinking the situation is becoming more involved than you want it to be.”
He slid his own omelet onto his plate, returned the pan to the stove, and joined her at the table. Too late for the freak-out warning. It had been going off since he’d drilled her into the sofa. He had no control with her. No cutoff switch or throttle.
Darcy leaned forward. “You can’t tell me that a woman assuming a sleepover when you’re in a wham-bam frame of mind doesn’t make things dicey.”
Shoving a bite of his food into his mouth, he chewed through his frustration. He didn’t want to analyze this…them. He’d rather stick with orgasmic ignorance. “I can tell you that as long as we’re both in the same place at the same time wanting the same thing, I really don’t give a shit.”
Darcy pushed back from the table. “All right. Excuse me a moment.”
He scowled at the sight of her half-eaten omelet, then glared at her retreating back. He’d give her five minutes to get her tight little ass back in her chair or he was going to drag her back in to finish eating…
She returned in a short white satin robe that revealed her bare legs and the lack of a bra. Jared forgot his aggravation.
As Darcy resumed eating with obvious relish, he leaned
back in his chair, watching her.
“In a town of this size, with only one fire station, how does the city council justify paying for two fire inspectors?”
When she looked up at him, her eyes were lit with amusement. “A combination of nepotism, being willing to work part time, and a good word from Jim.”
Jim. He reined in his irritation with a long, slow exhale. “Who’s the family member?”
“My uncle. He moved several years ago, but memories are ageless in Lion’s Bay.”
“And the rest of your family is gone, too?”
“Yep. Although my parents didn’t go far. They bought a place on Lake Horton.”
Which wasn’t all that far from his place in Seattle. “Why do you stay? What’s here for you?”
Darcy pushed back from the table and picked up her plate. “Why not?”
He studied her as she came toward him to collect his plate, too. “It doesn’t suit you,” he said. “The town. This house.”
“You don’t know that.”
Standing, he followed her to the sink. “I do.”
“Maybe I’m not as easy to read as you think.”
Jared backed off, noting the tension in her shoulders and the way she avoided his gaze. Coming up behind her, he pushed her ponytail aside and brushed his lips over her nape. He’d get the story out of her eventually. In the meantime, he wanted her soft and warm. He wanted to explore what it was about her that made him want to kiss her all over.
She turned to face him. “Why did you join the Marshals Service?”
He gripped the counter on either side of her, trapping her in the cage of his arms. She smelled sweet and clean, and he was hyperaware of the fact that she was mostly naked beneath the thin wrap of white satin. “Because the military and I were done with each other and there’s nothing else I’m good at.”
“You’re a good cook.”
“Thanks.”
Her hands went to his hips, her fingers twining in his belt loops. “You’re seriously hot. You could be a calendar model. Or a Chippendales dancer.”
“That’s not flattering.”
“You’re outrageously good in bed. Although monetizing that is illegal.”
“I like it on this side of the law,” he murmured, bending his head over her. “And I’m picky about who I go to bed with. I’d starve to death.”
“Well, that’s flattering.”
Darcy was a confident woman; she knew the force of her sex appeal. Since it was highly doubtful she would’ve picked up that level of sensual sophistication around a town of this size, where the dating pool had to be painfully small, he was even more curious about the time she’d spent away from this place. And what had brought her back. Maybe she was licking her wounds after a bad breakup, swearing off men for a while and retreating to a place where she’d be left alone.
He stepped back. “Wanna watch TV?”
Her eyes sparkled with silent laughter. She knew damn well he wanted another go at her, but he was going to hold off. He needed to be more careful or risk her burning out on him. He also needed to get a grip on himself.
“Find something you like,” she urged. “I’ll join you after I load up the dishwasher.”
He went along with the suggestion only because he wanted to get a closer look at her place without making her nervous about it. Moving into the living room, Jared took notice of all the details he’d been too lust addled to appreciate earlier. His gaze went to the now infamous couch first. Its modern lines and extra deep cushions were very much in keeping with how he saw Darcy, as was the sixty-two-inch flat-screen TV hung over the fireplace. Both were out of place against dated wallpapered walls. The coffee and end tables were sturdy wood pieces as retro in style as the dining table, while the knickknacks around the room were contemporary pieces.
Pausing by the fireplace, he looked at the framed photos on the mantel. Some were of Darcy with her parents, some were of her sister. He could tell the two apart easily, a difference confirmed by pictures of the two sisters together. The set of Darcy’s shoulders and the cant of her chin were unique to her, displaying a self-possession and boldness that wasn’t as evident in her sister’s shy smile.
He turned away from the fireplace as she entered the room, his gaze hungry as it swept over her slender frame. He should be wrung out by the two explosive orgasms she’d already given him, and there was no denying she was sore. But that didn’t stop her from looking at him like she wanted to ride him ’til morning or him from seriously weighing the pros and cons of letting her. He’d experienced potent sexual attraction before, but this was inexorable. Feeling his cock stir, he shucked his jeans but left his boxer briefs on.
“Don’t get excited,” he warned, when she caught her breath, “I’m just getting comfortable.”
Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she gave him a deliberately provocative look. She ran a finger down her throat to her cleavage.
“Keep it up,” he drawled, grabbing the remote before dropping into the corner of the couch where he’d had her pinned just hours before. He spread his legs and patted the spot between them. “Now be a good girl and lay here against me.”
She came to him with a wry smile. “You don’t strike me as the type of man who likes good girls.”
“I like you.” He wrapped an arm around her as she settled her back against his chest. “And I don’t expect you to behave.”
“You know me so well,” she teased, raking her short nails across his thighs.
Not yet, but he would.
chapter six
The sun had barely risen when Jared finished poring over Darcy’s files. Finding his cell phone a poor substitute for the big screen of his laptop, he availed himself of Darcy’s office. He powered on her desktop, praying she didn’t have it password protected. Whether she always slept like the dead or he’d just worn her out, he figured she needed the sleep, considering the demands he’d be making of her over the length of his stay.
When the computer screen flickered to life, he found himself looking at an image of Darcy and her sister, which served as the desktop wallpaper. They were children in the photo, not quite teenagers. Their hair was arranged in matching pigtails and they wore identical pale pink leotards. A reflection of their backs in a wall of mirrors was behind them, with a ballet bar that traversed the full width.
He tucked the image away along with the other bits and pieces he was collecting in his mental file for her, then he got to work. He accessed the Merkerson case files, comparing the information with what he’d just acquired from Darcy’s. The similarities were irrefutable. In fact, they were nearly perfect.
The only anomaly he could pinpoint was the incendiary devices in relation to the rapidity of the timeline. Merkerson had started out with smaller devices, such as soda cans, but he’d been more intermittent. Months passed between arsons, until later in his rampage, when he advanced to using paint can–sized devices and striking every seven days. His illness had progressed to where he wanted the entire world to burn. Fire was his obsession and his mistress. This new combination of smaller devices and frequency melded his earlier work with his later freneticism, but whether that was evolution, devolution, or simply a poor fit to the pattern was debatable. And any of those options left the field wide open.
Jared drafted a quick report to his superior, giving a rundown of his thoughts and impressions. She’d lived the case the first time around, which gave her insight worth tapping into. He also asked for an update on the anonymous 911 call that alerted the authorities to the second fire. Miller had ascertained that the call originated in Seattle and was placed via a burner phone. But the sheriff had stopped investigating at that point, leaving the thread dangling. Why?
With that question in mind, he powered down Darcy’s computer and checked the time. Seven thirty.
Heading back into the bedroom, he stopped by the nightstand and checked her alarm. It was set for eight, which gave him just about enough time. He looked down at her, find
ing her just as luscious while resting as he did when hit with the seething sensuality of the way she moved. She lay on her back with one arm bent around the top of her head and the other at her side. The sheet was loosely draped over her, exposing the upper swell of her tits and the bent knee of one leg.
He pinched the sheet between his fingers and tugged it down, exposing her body in delicious increments. She slept on, innocently luring him to start the day with a bang…