Maybe even what he needed.
He wondered if he was man enough to find out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LISSA AWOKE IN a tangle of arms and legs beneath a yellow shaft of sunlight pouring in through a crack in the motel room curtains. One of Colt’s powerful arms draped over her middle, pinning her to the bed.
A tingle of heat ran through her. Last night had been amazing. With Timmy missing and in danger, it had been wrong to take pleasure for herself. But the feeling of helpless frustration had added to her worry and to Colt’s. The sex had started as a means to relieve the stress both of them were feeling. What had happened had become far more than that.
The vulnerability Colt made her feel had unexpectedly surfaced in him. Without the black eye patch, he was simply a man, one with needs the same as her own, one who gave as well as took. She had touched something in him, as he had touched something in her.
In the light of day, she doubted either of them would admit it.
Bright red numbers on the digital clock on the nightstand read 6:00 a.m. Lissa managed to slide out of bed without waking Colt and headed for the bathroom. She quickly showered and dressed, walked out to see him standing there gloriously naked.
Memories of all that hard male muscle, of Colt on top of her, inside her, had her belly clenching. Desire she shouldn’t have been feeling again so soon curled like smoke through her veins. Her gaze went to his face. The patch was back over his eye, his armor back in place.
“I need a shower,” he said. “Then we need to call your friend Tabby. See if she’s got any leads.”
Knowing Colt would want to hear what Tabby had to say, she nodded and dragged her gaze away from his broad V-shaped back as he closed the bathroom door. She finished repacking her few belongings, heard the shower go off, then the phone began to ring.
She grabbed it off the nightstand. Tabby.
“Tell me you’ve got something,” Lissa said.
“I’ve got plenty and none of it’s good.”
“Tell me.”
“Ray Spearman is a known drug dealer who works for the Los Zetas Cartel. He’s a fixer for them, works with the cartel’s connections in south Texas.”
Lissa glanced over her shoulder to see Colt walking up behind her, drops of water on the fine gold hair on his powerful chest, a towel slung low around his hips.
She put the phone on speaker. “Colt’s here. Go ahead.”
Tabby briefly repeated the information, then added, “Spearman was recruited during the time he spent in prison. He’s known as El Puñal. It means ‘The Dagger,’ probably a play on his last name. He’s got a compound somewhere in the hills outside Monterrey.”
Colt grabbed his cell and quickly accessed Google Maps. He held the screen up so Lissa could see the location of the city.
“If he’s heading back home, he would have made the border sometime last night,” Lissa said. “Nobody’s called to tell me they stopped him.”
“From the location of the city, he likely would have crossed in Laredo,” Colt said. “But he could have gone through Guerrero. It’s the less-traveled route.”
“Nobody stopped him because he’s traveling under a fake ID,” Tabby said. “According to Interpol, he’s wanted under at least four different aliases. He won’t be using any of those now.”
“What’s he wanted for?” Colt asked.
“Besides drug smuggling, gun running, and human trafficking? Raymond Spearman, aka El Puñal, is wanted for murder.”
Silence fell.
“So he’s wanted in the US?” Colt asked.
“Both Mexico and Texas have warrants for his arrest.”
“Anything else?” Lissa asked.
“I’m still on it,” Tabby said. “I’ll keep you posted.” The call ended and Lissa looked at Colt.
“We need to get on the road,” he said.
“You’re that sure he’s heading to Mexico?”
“My gut says so. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.”
She nodded, because her instincts were saying the same thing.
He tossed the towel away, turned, and started pulling on his clothes. Lissa ignored a sharp tug of lust she didn’t want to feel. They needed to find Timmy. The boy was all that mattered.
She wondered if Colt would mention last night, but he was a man, so she didn’t really think so. Sex was just part of his life, an itch he scratched. Nothing more.
She told herself that was all it had meant to her and ruthlessly set out to make herself believe it.
THEY’D BEEN ON the road for two hours. Colt gassed up the car and pulled into a McDonald’s drive-thru for coffee and Egg McMuffins, then they were back on the highway. It was three hundred miles from San Antonio to Monterrey, traveling the closest route, which was straight down I-35 until they reached the border.
It no longer mattered where Spearman had crossed. If they were right, he was already in Mexico, already back in his compound. If he was with Timmy, getting the boy out wasn’t going to be easy.
Colt sliced a glance at Lissa. They had been carefully avoiding each other all morning. He was tired of it.
“About last night...”
Her gaze swung toward him, surprise clear on her face.
One of his eyebrows went up. “What? You didn’t think I was going to mention it?”
She just shrugged. “I figured you might just be in it for the conquest.”
He grunted. “If anyone made a conquest last night, it was you.”
A faint smile curved her lips. “Is that right?”
“Yeah, and as far as I’m concerned, you can conquer me again as soon as this is over.”
She laughed, easing some of the tension inside the car. “We were good together.”
He slanted her a glance. “Understatement of the year.”
“All right, we were dynamite together.”
“C-4, and considering I’ve had some experience with explosives, I know the difference.”
Her golden-brown eyes traveled over the black patch on his face. “Is that what happened to your eye?”
He nodded. “IED took out our Humvee. Killed a couple of our guys.”
“Liam?”
“No. He was killed
