Clay: Armed and Dangerous (4 page)

From inside the cabin, Sabrina screamed with pleasure.

“My turn.” Sasha lay on her back, her black hair splayed across the old bed quilt.
Brad slid between her thighs and pummeled her without so much as slowing his thrust.

Wanton feelings rose and spiraled throughout Rylie, unlike anything she’d ever felt
before. On and on the stranger stroked her, murmuring erotic words, until the most
intense orgasm she’d ever felt exploded through her. A scream of pleasure threatened
to tear from her, but the man kept his hand tight against her mouth, holding back
the sound. Her body shuddered and rocked against the stranger’s as he kept her pleasure
going, drawing out her climax until she couldn’t take anymore.

In her haze, Rylie was dimly aware that the man had released his hold on her. She
braced one hand on the cabin wall, took a deep breath, and turned to look at the man
who’d given her the most incredible orgasm of her life—

Only to discover he’d vanished into the night.

Gritting his teeth, Clay eased back through the darkness to where he’d left his mare.
Thoughts of Rylie consumed him... of tasting her, driving into her, and making her
scream with orgasm after orgasm.

So much for having a stern talk with her.

When Clay reached his mare, he paused to look back toward the cabin. It was too dark
and too far to see if Rylie was still there. Yet somehow he knew she hadn’t left.
That she was looking into the night, trying to see him.

Damn, but he’d never get the beautiful woman out of his mind now. His brain flashed
images of taking her like Brad had taken those twins. Until she screamed. Until she
couldn’t move. He wanted to brand her and make her his.

Hell, she probably didn’t even know who he was, but in his office and at the cabin—she’d
wanted him as much as he’d wanted her—there was some kind of connection between them
that was electric. If he’d turned her around, if he’d looked her in the face and kissed
her, she might have been willing. But no, he’d walked away because of an outmoded
sense of chivalry and duty.

Clay’s erection throbbed against his zipper, and no amount of shifting eased the pressure.
Crickets chirruped and he could still hear the faint sound of voices and laughter
from the trio going at it in the cabin. A cool breeze brought scents of the desert
to him, and he almost imagined he smelled the woman’s vanilla musk scent.

Well, hell.
He wasn’t going to get anywhere at this rate. Clay could barely walk straight, much
less saddle up and ride.

Spirit swatted her tail against her flank, the swish of wiry hair brushing Clay’s
arm. He unbuckled his belt, eased his zipper down, and pulled himself out of his briefs.
Imagining he was sliding into Rylie’s sweet core, he stroked himself from base to
tip. Yeah, he could just picture that hot little body, thighs spread wide and showing
him her shaved sex.

He knew she’d be shaved. He just knew it.

While he stared into the night, toward where he’d left the woman, his motions increased
as he remembered her smell, the feel of her ass pressed against him. His body tensed,
and heat flooded him from his Stetson to his steel-toed boots. Clay gritted back a
groan as he finally got a little relief.

Unreal.

Unbelievable.

He hadn’t acted like this since he was a teenager.

Shaking his head, he slipped himself back into his briefs and fastened his jeans and
belt. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been that horny even when he
was
a teenager. He’d certainly never had almost-sex while on the job.

It was a definite. This woman’s effect on him—it wasn’t normal, but Clay wasn’t the
type of man who worried about things like that. He was the type of man who knew what
had to be done, and took care of business.

Clay mounted Spirit and guided the mare away from the ranch and back toward where
he’d left his truck and horse trailer. He may have walked away from Rylie tonight,
but come tomorrow, he’d find her and stake his claim.

And next time he intended to do a lot more than feel a little heat through her jeans.

The front door slammed, the reverberations rattling through the house and waking Rylie.
She blinked away early-morning sunlight as wisps of her dream came back to her—of
a dark stranger with a very impressive package and some talented fingers.

Her body ached at the thought of what had happened last night to inspire such an erotic
dream. A tiny part of her thought she should feel properly guilty for her Peeping
Tom routine and maybe even freaked out by making out with a stranger—but the rest
of her said,
Screw it.

It was hot.

It was fun.

Rylie might be uptight about a lot of things, but sex sooo wasn’t one of them. Healthy,
heated, and consensual—that’s all that counted.

She smiled and stretched her limbs, the sheet sliding across her bare flesh and down
to her waist, exposing her body to the cool morning air. She always slept in the nude
and loved how freshly laundered linens smelled, and how they felt against her naked
skin.

With a grin, Rylie bounded out of bed and snatched her robe off the hook on the back
of her bedroom door. She was a morning person and rarely slept in late, but that dream
had certainly been worth sleeping in for. She had needed something to help her forget
about the truck thefts, and had last night ever been the ticket.

She slipped on her robe and then opened her door to head to the bathroom across the
hall, her mind wandering to the memory of last night. How incredible it felt to have
the stranger’s muscled body pressed tight to her backside, his big hand between her
thighs, his fingers moving like they knew exactly where to touch. That deep, sexy
voice of his was enough to make her explode just thinking about it.

Too bad the man had pulled a vanishing act. She had a feeling he would’ve been one
hell of a ride. His voice, though... Something about it had been familiar. Was he
someone she knew? He had a mustache, wore jeans and a Western hat—that much she’d
been able to tell. She knew a few men with mustaches—Wade Larson and a couple of Skylar
MacKenna’s ranch hands... but the voice just didn’t match any of them.

Rylie shut and locked the bathroom door as she thought about how she’d instinctively
trusted her mystery man. She had a natural intuition about most folks that was almost
always dead-on. The one time she didn’t listen to that internal voice, she came close
to being raped in high school by an asshole named Reggie Parker. Thank God Levi had
come to her rescue and kicked Reggie’s skinny white ass.

Unfortunately, Levi had ended up in jail overnight for hitting a minor. That bastard
Reggie had deserved having his face turned into hamburger. Rylie still owed her big
brother for that one.

The faucet creaked and pipes groaned as Rylie ran the water in the tub, waiting for
it to turn from freezing to only chilly before she jumped in. She and Levi needed
to get a new water heater in the worst way, but right now most of their cash was sunk
into the herd and she was going to have to shell out a bunch more to cover the cost
of new trucks, whatever insurance didn’t pay. If only the price of beef would go back
up, they might be able to afford a thing or two. The smell of rust met her nose, the
water coming out orangish-red, compliments of plumbing twice her age. New pipes would
be nice, too. Hell, a new house was what they really needed.

Once the water ran clear, Rylie ditched her robe and stepped under the spray. She
shivered from the burst of cold. Accustomed to rushing through her morning ice-water
shower, she shampooed her hair, soaped her body, and shaved her armpits, legs, and
other places in record time.

How did he know I was the shaving type? Mystery Man must have himself some good instincts.

Rylie thought about how the stranger enjoyed touching her. What would he look like?
Judging by the height of his package pressed against her backside, she figured he
was a good eight inches taller than her, which would put him at close to six feet.

Her body got a lot warmer despite the chill of the water on her flesh. He was big
in other ways. She had definitely been able to tell that without even touching him
with her hands. Ten inches, or she’d eat a pair of her own underwear. A man like that,
tall and strong and well proportioned...

Yum.

The sound of water roared in Rylie’s ears, blending with the pounding of her heart.
Goose bumps sprouted on her skin, and she knew she had to get a grip and drag herself
back to reality.

Reluctantly, she shut off the water and reached for a towel off the rack.

Too bad reality couldn’t always be like last night.

***

Clay wondered why he was even trying to concentrate. Every three seconds, his mind
wandered to Rylie Thorn, and once he got her in his thoughts, he couldn’t get her
out.

She fit in his hands like he had been born to touch her. And the way she smelled,
the silk of her skin—
Damn. Just, damn.

He shook his head, but that didn’t help, so he took a deep breath and forced himself
to stare at the file folders on the desk in front of him: “Hazard Quinn,” “Sam Blalock,”
and “Joe Garrison.” His three day-shift deputies, or more to the point, the heap of
a mess he had inherited from the previous sheriff. These men had little training,
even less discipline, and they had been allowed to run wild with a boss who barely
showed up to work, and a superior officer, Gary Woods, who had gone about as bad as
a law officer could go.

Clay glanced out his office window. Hazard Quinn was bent over a stack of papers,
his too-tall dark hair sprayed in place as if he hoped he’d run into Elvis or Lyle
Lovett, and be able to express his undying admiration. The boy worked hard, but he
was young and he had a tendency to go off half-cocked. Then there was Sam Blalock—blond,
too handsome for his own good—and that goatee, which would have to stay trimmed. Clay
didn’t want anybody working for him who reminded him of old church paintings of Satan.
Blalock had proven himself handy at turning up information other people missed, and
that was good, because Joe Garrison was hitting middle age, working on a whole lot
of nothing besides his paunch. The man had a tic that made him blink until Clay could
barely concentrate when he was trying to work with the guy.

“Construction projects,” Clay muttered to himself. “All three of them.” He closed
the folders, stacked them up, and pushed them off to the side. Then he picked up a
list he’d been keeping, folded it, and slipped it into his jeans pocket. He wasn’t
going to start thinking about Rylie Thorn again, not unless he kept sitting on his
ass. The only cure for wanting a woman like he was wanting her was work, hard work,
and lots more work on top of that.

He walked out into the main area and pointed to Quinn and Blalock. “You and you. Come
with me. We’ve got a few stops to make.” To Garrison, Clay said, “Hold the fort and
give us a shout if you need us.”

Garrison looked relieved that he wouldn’t have to do much of anything, and Clay bit
back a rumble of irritation. He’d lead, the young ones would follow, and before long,
Garrison would either pick up his step or get on out of their way.

Clay took a squad car and had both deputies follow in another. He hadn’t made an appointment,
but after yesterday’s little display, Guerrero had opened the door for him to waltz
back into Arizona Motors South with a semblance of a good excuse. When he pulled into
the lot, he parked in a far-off spot and had Quinn and Blalock do the same.

He got out into the day’s heat and motioned to both men, who stopped in front of him,
alert and nervous.

Good.

They should be nervous this close to a swimming shark or a prowling wolf. Nervous
might keep them both alive when things got dicey down the road.

He faced the older of the two, the one with the chin hair. “When we go in, I’m going
to talk to Guerrero alone. Blalock, you keep an eye on the employees. I want to know
what they do, how they seem to you.”

“Yessir.” Blalock bobbed his head and his goatee bounced up and down.

Clay tried not to notice. He turned to Quinn and continued with Police Work for Kindergarteners.
“Guerrero’s office is glassed in instead of walled off, so the view’s clear. Stand
off a few paces and keep an eye on Guerrero as he talks to me. Watch for anything
I might not see.”

“Gotcha, boss.” Quinn smoothed his hair even though not a strand was out of place,
couldn’t possibly be out of place, and probably would snap clean off if Clay breathed
on it too hard. He wasn’t sure he could trust a man who used hair spray, but for now,
he didn’t have much choice.

He glanced at the sky, half hoping God would make an appearance and tell him what
to do with these two, but he didn’t see so much as a single cloud. The three of them
entered the auto dealership, hot and nearly sun-blind, and the cool air hit Clay like
a quick slap on both cheeks.

Guerrero’s salesmen saw them, but didn’t approach, which was fine with Clay. Blalock
drifted off into the showroom just like he’d been told, and Quinn glanced at Guerrero’s
glass office and got busy picking his spot.

Clay headed straight for Guerrero’s door, knocked, and went in when Guerrero looked
up and gestured to him.

Guerrero stood, and Clay noted he was dressed all in black, just like the day before,
except for his red tie. Maybe he was trying to make black silk a trademark.

Maybe he’d get on good with Hair-spray Boy out in the showroom.

He slipped the list out of his jeans with his left hand and made himself shake Guerrero’s
proffered hand with his right.

“I brought a list of victims who would like to take you up on your rental offer.”

“Excellent.” Guerrero showed Clay to a leather seat in front of his desk, then sat
in his rolling wing chair. “I’ll have my men call and make appointments for these
people.”