High-Stakes Colton Read online

  She was trembling by the time they made it to the bed, and he paused and drew her into a fierce embrace. Roughly pressing his face against the curve of her neck, he held on to her like she was his lifeline to sanity.

  Trying to get a grip on the wild clamor rising up inside him, he realized he had to stop this. But she chose that moment to cup him, kneading him through his jeans. He gritted his teeth and tipped his own head back, groaning at the pleasure of having her hand on him. Somehow he got her out of her clothes and his off without letting her go. Somehow he managed to tear open the small foil packet and sheath himself.

  He was beyond control when he lifted her onto the bed, then followed her down, dragging her beneath him. He felt as if his heart would explode, as if his lungs would seize up if he didn’t get inside her, if he didn’t get as close to her as he could possibly get. She made a small desperate sound and drew up her knees, urging him forward with urgent hands, and Jake clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, burying himself deep inside her. Damn, so deep. So tight and deep.

  He locked his arms around her, a shudder coursing through him, and he ground his teeth together, the sensory onslaught nearly ripping him apart. It wasn’t the sex, it was the physical connection, as if being inside her fused them into one united whole. Braced against the mind-shattering sensation, Jake remained rigid in her arms, waiting for the heated, electrifying rush to ease. Releasing a breath, he braced his weight on his forearms, his heart trapped in his chest as he covered her mouth in a hot, desperate kiss.

  Alanna sobbed into his mouth, her hands clutching at him, and she lifted her hips, rolling her pelvis hard against him. Jake roughly slid his hand under her head and locked his other arm around her buttocks, working his mouth hungrily against hers as he lifted her higher, then rolled his hips against hers. Alanna made a choked sound, and Jake drank it in, his mind blurring when Alanna countered his thrust, her body moving convulsively beneath his. Aware of how desperately she needed this kind of comfort, Jake dragged his mouth away and gritted his teeth, a fine sheen of sweat dampening his skin as he moved against her, trying to give her everything she needed, trying to give her the pleasure that would make her come apart in his arms.

  She made another wild sound, and her counterthrusts turned desperate and erratic, and Jake tightened his hold. His senses rocked into overdrive, he roughly buried his face against her neck and thrust into her, fighting to go the distance.

  Alanna arched stiffly beneath him, and Jake’s face contorted with an agony of pleasure as her body convulsed around him, pulling, pulling at him. Then, with a ragged groan, he went rigid in her arms and let go, emptying himself deep inside her. Holding on to her with convulsive strength, her face wet against his neck.

  Feeling as if he’d been turned inside out, he pressed his mouth against her temple and closed his eyes, his pulse choppy and erratic, the feelings in his chest almost too much to handle. Man, she filled him up—made him feel indestructible.

  He drew a deep, shaky breath and pressed another kiss to her beautiful mouth, his touch slow and comforting as he softly stroked his hand across her breasts and taut nipples. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he buried his face in her throat, and he marveled at the feel of her legs wrapped around his waist.

  He lifted his head and took her mouth again, taking great care to do it thoroughly. He released a soft sigh, and she slid her free hand up his torso, finally cupping the back of his head. He deepened the kiss, and Alanna yielded full to his questing tongue. Jake slid his arm under her, holding her with infinite care, then drawing away and gazing down at her as he caressed her bottom lip with his thumb. He traced the contours of her face and gave her another quick kiss. He withdrew from her and she arched her back, her breath caught. He rolled to his back and off the bed, taking care of the protection.

  Then was right back in it, snuggling her body up against his. He drew her long, muscled leg between his. Cradling her hips against his, he ran his hand up her naked back, then kissed her one more time. “Stay with me,” he murmured, his tone husky.

  She went still in his arms, and then she turned her face against his and tightened her arms around his waist. “Oh, God, yes,” she whispered, looking up with such a fragile look in her eyes, his heart tightened. He had never seen her like this before.

  It was almost as if some inner defense had been stripped away, leaving her exposed. He wasn’t sure how she would handle that exposure. After all, Alanna Colton had spent her whole life keeping her guard up. He didn’t know how she would react if someone ever brought it down. A someone who was here under false pretenses, working her over to solve a crime, betraying her even as he was making love to her. A first-class heel.

  He didn’t need one more ghost to haunt him. He worried he’d gone too far here, but how he’d wanted her and not just for a night.

  He closed his eyes, his heart throbbing. He’d give up his next breath if he could avoid hurting her.

  But he knew that would be impossible.

  Chapter 10

  She stirred against him, then shifted her head. “Are you all right, Jake?”

  She asked him this while both of them were wading into the deep end. “Right as rain,” he murmured and that wasn’t a lie. Having her, holding her, set him on top of the world, even with the threat of heartache and pain, but that would come. He stayed in the here and now. “Why do you ask?”

  “I didn’t like the way you looked when you left the barn this afternoon. I felt like I had...let you down. Maybe even let myself down. There have always been people around me to push me, pull me, challenge me and break me down. But...never one I trusted to simply walk away and let me decide. You using some of that horse whispering on me?”

  Staring into the darkness, he let his hand rest on the swell of her hip, giving her a small, prompting squeeze. “No. I’m trying to understand you, Alanna. Gaining your trust comes with the territory.”

  She lightly ran her fingertips along his collarbone. Her gaze averted, she continued to stroke his collarbone and Jake waited, sensing her struggle. Her hair was draped around her face, and she lifted it. Jake waited for her to answer, knowing this was critical.

  “Something is happening between us. I think it’s not all one-sided and it’s addictive and scary.”

  “You’d be pretty accurate there. Would one of those people you’re speaking about be your brother?”

  “We have a strange mixture of people in my family and the dynamics have always been volatile, but Fowler is complicated. He cares, but he’s also like a bull in a china shop, all rough display and throwing his weight around. He can’t help being a bull.”

  “Your family has taught you to be tough. To put on armor to face the outside world. In your circumstances, that’s not a bad lesson. It’s good to be strong, but, Alanna,” he said quietly, “too much of a good thing leads to imbalance. Sometimes you just need to lean and that doesn’t make you weak or ineffectual.”

  Alanna rose up on one elbow and looked down at him, her hair creating a waterfall of golden sunlight around her shoulders. She stared at him, the faint light from outside washing across her face and revealing the hesitancy in her expression. A glimmer of alarm appeared in her eyes. “It doesn’t? What does it make me?”

  He met her eyes. “It makes you human.” Her face softened, her eyes going tender, she pressed her face hard against his jaw, placing a kiss there and his arms tightened around her.

  He was a fool. He wanted her to trust him, but it had nothing to do with his mission objective or his job. It had to do with something he couldn’t control deep inside him. He wanted her to see beyond her fear, see him deep down and know he couldn’t hurt her. Not really. His job aside—a necessary evil—there was something honest about what they shared.

  Her face still pressed against him, she murmured, “What motivated you to rehabilitate horses, to work with them?”

  He stared up at her for a moment, then shifted his focus. Avoiding her gaze, he painstakingly hook
ed his thumb under a thick swatch of hair and drew it back, tucking it fully behind her. “Other than my natural tendency?”

  She felt so good against him. “Don’t do that. Don’t make this about something you can’t define. I want to know.”

  For some reason Jake felt as if he’d just been let out of a dark, tight space, and he closed his eyes and hugged her hard, feeling as if he could take his first deep breath in days. “This is about the things we never talk about, the things that mean something deep down. About opening up and laying it all out?”

  “Yes. It works both ways.”

  Screwing up his courage, he took the step that he knew could change everything. “My brother.”

  She gazed at him, her eyes wide, hearing the pain and uncertainty, and then she looked away. “Tell me, Jake. I want to know you. Not on the surface, but deep down where you hold all your secrets.”

  “Opening up a Pandora’s box.” He couldn’t tell her everything. He had to hold back on her. He didn’t want to, but he still had a job to do. A cover to protect.

  “Maybe, but I’m prepared to handle what comes out.”

  He took a breath. He never talked about Matt with anyone, not even his old man; his mom had been dead for ten years from cancer. Discussing Matt was such a sore subject, a wound that had never healed for either one of them.

  “My brother died alone from a drug overdose. He was sixteen. The pressure he was under changed him from an easygoing kid to a worn-out teenager.”

  “Why?”

  “My father’s expectations. It was his way or the highway.”

  “I know all about that. I understand it. He just wanted to escape.”

  “Actually, he wanted independence. He didn’t want to be in our old man’s pocket. He didn’t want him calling the shots and telling him how to run his life. It would have, like the drugs, killed him. He had to get out—had to make it on his own. But the internal battle was too much.”

  She held his gaze for a moment, then bent her head and started rubbing her thumb back and forth across his collarbone again, her touch not quite steady. She swallowed, then took a deep, unsteady breath. “I’m so sorry, Jake. I truly am. Maybe, I ought to think about what you suggested today.”

  “Go out on your own?”

  “Yes.”

  He pressed a kiss against her brow, then hugged her again. His chest expanding with a deep, uneven breath. “I think you’re strong, smart and so damn beautiful. Only do it if it makes sense to you,” he said gruffly.

  Cupping her hand against the angle of his jaw, a solemn, reflective expression appeared. She stared off into the darkness, inhaled and spoke, gently caressing him. “I will. I’m not sure I could handle being treated like I don’t matter.”

  His throat suddenly closed up on him, and he tightened his hold on her, hugging her head against the curve of his shoulder. He had to wait for the spasm to ease, and then he said, his voice husky with emotion. “You matter, Alanna.”

  Her head came up, and she stared at him, a look of wonder on her face. “I do, huh?”

  A warped smile appearing, he tucked some loose hair behind her ear. “Yeah,” he said, his voice lighter. “Very much.” She stared at him, and Jake ran his thumb down her cheek, a tight feeling unfolding in his chest. “What more—”

  She pressed her fingers against his mouth and he tried his hardest to maintain the trace of a smile. “You talk too much, McCord,” she whispered.

  The tightness in his chest expanding, he shifted his gaze to her mouth as she drew her thumb along his lower lip.

  “Is that so,” he muttered.

  She shifted her thumb to the fullest part of his mouth, her expression as soft as her touch. “Yeah, that’s so,” she said.

  He met her gaze, something painful happening around his heart when he saw the glimmer of moisture in her eyes. Sliding his hand along her jaw until his fingers were buried in her hair, he drew her head down. He took her mouth in a soft, comforting kiss. Wrapping his fingers around the back of her head, he held her still as he softly, slowly brushed his mouth back and forth across hers, tormenting her, tormenting himself. “So beautiful,” he whispered unevenly against her mouth. “So, so damn beautiful.”

  Releasing her pent-up breath in a rush, Alanna slid her arms around his neck and moved on top of him. Closing his eyes against the onslaught of sensation, Jake turned his face against her and wrapped her in a hard, enveloping embrace, wondering how in hell he would ever manage without her. Grasping a handful of hair, he clenched his jaw and turned his head against hers, something raw and wild breaking loose inside him. Inhaling raggedly, he clutched her against him. A tremor coursed through her, and she drew her knees up and pulled out of his hold, her hair cascading around her face as she rose above him. Realizing what was happening, realizing what she intended, he snatched her hand away. She twisted her wrist free, reached for protection and sheathed him. Then drew his hand to her mouth placing a hot, wet kiss against his palm. Lacing her fingers through his, she caught his other hand and repeated the hot, erotic caress, then forced his hands down by his head. Another tremor shuddered through her and she rose up, lowered her weight fully on him, taking him deep inside her. Deep, deep inside her.

  Breaking out in a cold sweat, Jake clenched his jaw against the sharp, electrifying surge of feeling, his shoulders coming off the bed as she moved once, twice against him. His heartbeat a frenzy in his chest, his pulse thick and heavy, he tightened his fingers against the pillow.

  “Alanna...darlin’. Ah... God. I can’t...you’ve gotta stop, babe.”

  Bending over him, she stroked the palms of his hands with her thumbs, her breasts grazing his chest. “No,” she whispered brokenly. “No.” Another shudder coursed through her, and she tightened her hold on his hands, her breath catching as she flexed her hips, her hot, wet tightness gripping him, stroking him, drawing him closer and closer.

  An agony of sensation shot through him, and he rolled his head again, the cords of his neck taut, and he sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. God, he wanted to let go, wanted to ride out the hard, swelling need.

  Then she moved against him, taking him ever deeper inside her, and he went under, the fever claiming him. He groaned and flexed beneath her, driving inside her. He lost it.

  *

  Wisps of a dream receded when Jake roused from sleep, half aware of a heavy weight on his arm. He shifted, a jolt of pain shooting through his shoulder, and he drowsily wet his lips and opened his eyes. The room was still dark and Alanna was sound asleep, her head resting in the hollow of his shoulder, but he guessed it was early morning. He waited for the mental fog to clear a little, and then he carefully drew her head onto his chest and flexed his hand against the tingling sensation. After scrubbing his face to rid himself of the last vestiges of sleep, he tucked his head and brushed a soft lingering kiss against her forehead, smiling a little when she made a soft sound and turned her face toward his warmth. If only things could be that simple.

  Brushing back the wisps of hair clinging to her face, he kissed her again, then cautiously rolled his throbbing shoulder. Easing the tightness, he leaned forward and stuffed two pillows behind his shoulders, settling himself into a more comfortable position before resting his still-tingling arm along her hip. He stared into the darkness, thinking about what had happened last night. He had received something from her that he had never expected. An emotional gift. And he wouldn’t be sorry about her deep, abiding trust in him.

  It filled him up at the same time as it hollowed him out.

  He liked the way Alanna dealt with almost everything in her life from a strong base of operations. What she had given him was tangible. But what left his gut in a knot was he bet she’d never lost it the way she had. Had never gone over the edge. He recognized something in her that pinged off something in him. It shook his foundations.

  Releasing a heavy sigh, he gazed at her, his expression solemn. Even in the faint light from outside, he could see the shadows un
der her eyes, and he wondered if she’d had as little sleep during the past few days as he had. It was pretty obvious he’d shaken up her world outside of her missing father.

  A small, wry smile appeared. Of course he’d given himself a good shake in the process. He lightly brushed his thumb along her cheekbone, then tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear. Remembering that galvanizing instant when she had taken him deep inside her, Jake tipped his head back and closed his eyes, fighting the urge to draw her up against him. He waited for the thick, heavy surge to ease a little, then took a deep, steadying breath and glanced at the clock on the bedside table. Four o’clock.

  Maybe it was time to stack a few thousand bales.

  She stirred when he gently maneuvered away from her, and he leaned over and brushed a light kiss against her temple. “We better get you back to your room,” he whispered gruffly. He lifted her hair off her face, then sighed deeply when she wrapped her arms around his neck and hummed softly against his throat.

  “You smell good,” she mumbled.

  Her hand traveled down his body, heading south, and he grabbed her wrist, laughing. “Oh, no you don’t. We don’t want a roomful of cowboys watching as you trot your beautiful butt down those stairs.”

  She raised her head. “You’re trying to protect my reputation.” Her mouth hitched up in a teasing grin, her sleepy eyes glinting. “That is so darn sweet.”

  He threaded his fingers through her hair and gave it a little tug. “Don’t be sassy in the morning.”

  She gave him a full-on smile and it made him want to let go of her wrist and find out where she had been going with her hand. “I’m buck naked and we’ve just bared our souls. I don’t think I have much else going for me.”