“We’ve all miscalculated. It makes us human.”
Her gaze softened, and for a second, he saw the woman who had trusted him and loved him until he had left her behind in a fire. “That still doesn’t make it acceptable.”
Jessica Halpern had been ignoring the cops and her husband all day. And now, as she drove up to the mountain cabin, far out of cell service, she could finally get a status report. She was anxious to see him and ask what the hell she was supposed to do about Gideon. The detective was digging deeper into the fire than she had ever expected. The cops had not announced the identity of the fire fatality, but she knew it had to have been Lana.
Too bad for Lana, if she was the one who had gotten cooked in the fire. The girl reminded her a little of herself at that age. She knew how to cut hair, she had a knack for hair color, and she was ambitious. But when she was not working, she was stirring shit up and creating problems among the other girls.
She parked, leaving the car engine on and the headlights shining on the rustic cabin that had been built as overnight lodging for hunters. Heat came from a wood-burning stove, and the water source was the stream that she had passed a few hundred feet below the cabin.
When she and Darren had married, they had shared a weekend here. To say it had been fun would be a lie. Both were in serious creature-comfort detox within the hour, and even though Darren kept the fire banked high, it had been one of the coldest nights of her life. They had packed up first thing the next morning and returned to town. Still, she had not gotten around to selling the place, because there was no better place to meet in secret.
She honked the horn three times, their signal that it was her.
A figure passed in front of the window, and the front door opened. He stayed back in the shadows just out of reach of her headlights. All this cloak-and-dagger shit annoyed her. They both had a reason to keep their mouths shut, so hiding in the shadows seemed unnecessary. She shut off the engine.
“Come inside,” he said.
She grabbed the paper bag on the front seat and walked to the open front door. “Do you have my ring?”
“I do.”
“The last thing I need is for the cops to figure out that Lana was wearing my ring.”
“She promised she would keep our engagement a secret.”
She chuckled. “Really? You give a rock to a girl like that, and you think she’s not going to tell anyone?” For the first time, he looked slightly dumbfounded. Men. “We need to wrap up our business. It’s cold, and I want to get back to town.”
“I have something for you.”
She held up the paper bag. “This is for you, as we agreed upon. Now, give me back my ring.”
He fished the ring out of his pocket and held it out. When she stepped toward him, she had to look up to meet his gaze. She was tall for a woman and liked a good-size man.
He took her hand and carefully threaded the ring on her finger. His calloused touch sent a ripple through her, and she remembered how good those hands had felt on her body. If only she had time for a session between the sheets.
He grabbed her by the wrist, tightened his hold. He was not hurting her, but he was showing her who was boss. She had always liked it when he manned up.
“Let go of me,” she said.
He yanked her toward him until her breasts were pressed against his chest. His hot breath brushed her neck, and she knew his gaze had dropped to her full cleavage.
“Step inside,” he ordered.
His voice had a smoky quality that made her tingle a little. Every time they fucked, it was always so good.
Thrusting her lip out into a small pout, she flicked her head back as she traced her finger down the center of his chest. “What are we going to do inside?”
“Find out.”
He turned and went into the cabin, confident that she would follow. And she did. She liked what the wild woods did to him and what he then did to her.
The interior was dark except for several flickering candles on the hearth of the large woodstove that dominated the cabin’s single room. He closed the door behind her and took her hand in his. He pulled her toward the small bed in the corner of the room, and she willingly lay down and angled her body up on pillows. The moonlight caught the contoured edges of his face as he straddled her. She ran her hands up and down his hard thighs.
“I don’t have long,” she said.
“This won’t take any time at all.”
Before she could question him, he’d wrapped his hands around her neck and had begun to squeeze. They had played games like this before, but this time was different. He was rougher, and there was a darkness in his gaze she had never seen before. “What are you doing?”
He smiled and squeezed tighter. “Killing you.”
She waited a beat to see if this was just another twist to one of their past fantasies. But as the pressure grew tighter and her air supply stopped, survival instincts took over. She arched back, connecting her knee with his groin.
He grunted while his grip slackened enough for her to roll toward the edge of the bed. “This is not funny,” she gasped.
“It’s not meant to be.” Pain strained his voice, even as he recovered quickly.
As her feet hit the floor, he grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her back. “Stop it! You’re hurting me.”
“You never complained before,” he said. He
