"You can't ignore me forever, Maggie."
She stopped in the middle of the living room, breathing in deeply before turning to face him.
"I'm not trying to ignore you,Joe."
His eyes were brilliant with lust, the same look that had the power to bring her to her knees during their relationship. Literally.
He tucked his hands into the pockets of his slacks and stared back at her silently, as her gaze nickered to the action. The heavy bulge between his thighs sent heat burning through her body. Her vagina ached, echoed with emptiness, as her nipples pressed hard against the material of her bra.
She swallowed tightly as she felt the need for oxygen increase.
"Did he please you in bed?"
The question took her by surprise.
"Excuse me?"
"Grant." He frowned back at her. "Did he please you in bed? Did he make you scream and beg for more, even when you were too exhausted to take more?"
Her eyes widened at the flicker of anger in his eyes.
"That's none of your business—"
"The hell it's not," he snapped. "I went crazy for two and a half years wondering if he pleased you, knowing he shared your bed . . ."
"Stop it, Joe. This isn't going to get us anywhere."
"I'll know." He kept his voice low, even, a sure indication that he wasn't going to let the subject go.
"No, you won't." She lifted her chin as she stared back at him, her fists clenched at her side as she fought to maintain her control. "Because I'm not answering you."
Shame filled her at the thought of revealing the truth. She had known on her wedding night that the mistake she had made in her marriage was more severe than she had expected. Grant's lust had sickened her, his spoken perversions filling her with disgust and fear.
"His journal was pretty in-depth concerning your sex life," he informed her then. "He was quite descriptive."
Maggie felt herself pale. "We weren't having sex then. I hadn't shared his bed since the first months of our marriage, I told you that."
"Why?" He moved closer, stalking her like a predator.
"That's none of your business, Joe. Let it go." She watched him closely, wary, uncertain as to how he would react.
"You're a very passionate woman, Maggie. I can't imagine you denying yourself, or cheating on your husband to attain satisfaction."
"I like sex, so automatically I had to be fucking someone?" she snapped out furiously. God save her from hardheaded men.
"That wasn't what I said."
"Yes, Joe, that was what you were saying." She waved her hand back at him in a gesture of frustration. "What did you do for the last two and a half years? We both know you weren't a virgin when you came to my bed. How many women have you had since me?"
"No one."
The answer had her flailing for a response; instead, she could only stare back at him in shock.
She stared back at him silently as he came closer, his expression dark, intent as he watched her.
"You tormented me, Maggie."
She shook her head desperately. "Don't play with me like this, Joe. Please." She was willing to beg. She had left him, believing he didn't hold her heart. Now, two and a half years later, she admitted the truth she hadn't wanted to face then. She had loved him then, and that love had never died.
"I'm not playing with you, Maggie." His hand covered her cheek as she lost her breath. The sound of her tremulous gasp would have been humiliating if his touch weren't so warm, so needed. "I'm trying to save us both this time."
She was panting for air, certain her shaky knees would give out before she found the strength to move away from him.
"Do you remember what it was like?" he asked her gently.
Maggie stared back at him, dazed, uncertain, as his lips lowered to breathe a kiss against hers.
"All night long," he whispered over her lips. "I would fall asleep, still buried in your body, still hungry for you. Do you remember that?"
"I remember seeing you with another woman." She forced the words past her lips. "I remember you staring at me across the room, your expression as cold as ice. That's what I remember, Joe."
His jaw clenched. "You can forget that."
"No, I can't forget that." She pushed away from him slowly, fighting back the regret as she did so.
"I didn't sleep with her, Maggie."
The tension tightening his body had her stepping back further. She could feel the certainty that he was at the edge of his control. Once he slipped past the veneer of civility, denying him wouldn't be an option. The hunger in him called to her too fiercely, pulled at her too desperately. When Joe began coming after her in earnest, she would be lost, and she knew it.
"It doesn't matter that you didn't sleep with her," she told him softly as she moved to the couch. There was no way in hell she was heading to the bedroom. "It's not about the woman, Joe, it's the fact that you did it. You weren't as invested in me as I was in you, otherwise, you would have told me about the party. You would have told me about your date."
She curled into the corner of the overstuffed couch, drawing her legs up until they bent to her side and gave her a measure of protection against the throbbing heat between her thighs.
He hadn't moved from where he stood, other than to turn and follow her progress across the room with his eyes. She knew what he was doing, what he had been doing all day. Trying to push her buttons. From the first words out of his mouth that morning, when he accused her of pouting, to now, he was trying to work her, to get what he wanted without giving any of himself in return.
That wasn't enough for her now. She wanted as much in return as she had to give, or she wanted nothing at all. And giving all of himself wasn't something she thought Joe would do easily. He faced her, his jaw flexing with tension, his brown eyes raging with frustration and arousal.
"Why didn't you tell me, Joe?" She tilted her head when he said nothing. "What would you have done if you'd seen me on another man's arm that night?"
"I would have torn him apart," he snapped.
"Your date left with all her hair and teeth intact," she pointed out gently.
"And you never came back," he growled. "You wouldn't answer my calls. By God, you didn't want to hear explanations."
"No, I didn't," she admitted sadly. "The explanation should have come before the reality of it kicked me in the gut, Joe. I watched you that night, pretending you didn't know me, that I was nothing, as you danced with another woman. . . ."
"I never took my eyes off you."
"Or your hand off her," she reminded him.
"It was a fucking case, Maggie," he snapped, a grimace contorting his face. "Do you think I wouldn't have told you if I thought you would be there? After I saw you it was too late; I couldn't jeopardize the case."
"I cover the society page, Joe," she yelled back, infuriated with his logic. "You should have known I would be there. You should have warned me."
"How?" He pushed his fingers restlessly through his long hair. "What the hell was I supposed to do, Maggie? I was in the middle of an operation, I couldn't just tell you what the hell was going on."
"You could have warned me you had a job to do. That's all I needed." She jumped to her feet, anger surging through her. "I knew you worked for the DEA, Joe. I wasn't stupid or incompetent. I wouldn't have asked questions, but I would have been warned. Why the hell do you think you walked out of that party with all appendages intact that night? I didn't strike out just in case you were working, rather than trying to fuck Miss Big Boobs hanging on your arm."
"Then why are you still so pissed?" He was genuinely confused. "Why did you avoid me, Maggie? We could have worked this out."
"Because you didn't warn me, Joe," she reminded him with false patience. "Because you expected more from me than you were willing to give, and every damned message you left on my phone proved it."
"What?" He frowned back at her in confusion. "I asked you to call me."
"You deman
ded I call you. You informed me, more than once, that I was being silly, childish, petulant," she sneered. "No, Joe, I wasn't. I expected no more from you than you would have from me, and you weren't willing to give it. You would never have tolerated seeing me with another man; why did I have to endure seeing you with another woman? No warning. No explanation. No nothing."
He was silent, staring back at her with narrowed eyes and stubborn features. His arrogance was one of the things she used to admire, that complete male self-confidence that drove her crazy and turned her on all at the same time.
"I didn't expect that from you," he ground out. "I would have explained."
"The explanation was too late." She tossed her hair back before smiling tightly into the growing anger in his dark eyes. "I'm not arguing this with you any longer, Joe. My relationship or lack thereof with Grant is none of your business. Just as your job and what it requires of you is none of mine. You're here to do a job. To protect me, and to find out if I know where Grant hid your precious proof. Stick to the job. You're good at that."
With that, she stalked from the living room into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her. She really prayed he took the hint and left her alone. The hurt and anger she had buried when she had left Joe was rising inside her now. The lack of outlet over the years, and her determination to hide from her feelings for him, had kept her safe from the repercussions. Now the pain was flowing through her, the remembered shock and heartache when she realized how little she had meant to him, slammed into her now with a force she hadn't expected.
She deserved the same love she was willing to give, and her marriage to Grant had taught her that she wasn't willing to settle for less. Especially not from Joe.
Chapter Five
The bedside clock read two in the morning before Joe heard the deep, even breathing that indicated Maggie had slipped off into sleep. Within minutes, as she had every other night, she rolled from the edge of the bed to the middle, and her slender body tucked in against his.
He gritted his teeth against the arousal pounding between his thighs, and knew Craig wasn't going to be happy to be pulling the extra hours of watch that he would be stuck with in the morning.
Maggie was unaware that Craig was watching the outside of the cabin. The other man slept through the day, then took up watch at midnight until Joe moved onto the porch each morning to indicate he was awake and on the job. Joe was getting up later every morning, though. Sleep was becoming harder with each successive night.
As Maggie shifted against him demandingly, he lifted his arm, allowing her to settle against his chest before he let himself hold her close. She felt right in his arms, but hell, she always had.
How many times had she slept against him like this? How many times had he awakened in the middle of the night, just to listen to her breathe, to feel the softness of her hair as he held her close?
He stared up at the ceiling, his lips compressing as he remembered the accusations she had thrown at him earlier that evening. Had he really expected more from her than he was willing to give?
Maybe he had. He had been so busy assuring himself that what they had was just an affair, that the volatile little redhead wasn't getting beneath his skin, that he had missed the fact that she was firmly entrenched in his heart.
That was why he had jerked her out of the interrogation room when she had been brought in for questioning. That was why he couldn't accept that she had been part of Grant's criminal activities, despite the proof—pictures of Maggie handing Diego and Santiago Fuentes several envelopes at an upper-class restaurant, pictures of her greeting them at the door of their home, and exchanging small talk at several parties she had attended for the paper.
She had told Detective Folker she was unaware of what the envelopes contained. That she had run the errand for Grant simply because it was easier than fighting over it, and she had been going into that part of the city anyway.
The journal Grant kept had held pages and pages of accusations against Maggie. Implying that he had begun betraying the agency and his friends because of her spending habits, because of her determination to always have more.
But Maggie hadn't dressed any differently than she had before her marriage to Grant. There were no expensive clothes, no fancy jewels, and she had never driven the new car Grant had bought her. So where was the money Fuentes had given him?
He buried his fingers in Maggie's hair as he tried to work through the questions. After a week with her, his suspicion that she might have been involved was dissolving beneath his hunger for her and the knowledge that if money had been what Maggie was after, then she would have never cut him out of her life as she had.
He had money. A DEA agent's pay sucked, but his family was one of the most influential in Georgia, and his trust fund would see any children he had into old age if they were careful. Not to mention what his parents would one day leave him. If Maggie had been after money, then she had missed a much easier opportunity than marrying Grant and becoming involved with the Fuentes family.
Instead of trying to snag him for marriage or money, Maggie had left him. Not that Joe claimed anything as his own. Money was accessible if he needed it. But his parents' money wasn't his own, and he refused to touch it. Still, that wasn't the reason she had been so furious. She hadn't forgiven him for not warning her before she saw the daughter of the man they were investigating on his arm.
He had been there to get information. He had gotten the information, but he had lost the girl. His girl. Was he willing to lose her again?
A soft moan slipped past her lips as she moved against him again, her lips pressing the bare flesh of his chest. Joe clenched his teeth against the heated pleasure of her soft little tongue stroking over the flat, hard disk of his male nipple.
Could he survive another night of her in his arms without touching her? God, it was getting hard. She was like a little kitten, pressing to get closer, her fingers curling against his abdomen, her nails raking his flesh and sending a flash of clenching sensation to seize his balls. Sweat popped out on his forehead, along his chest and thighs, and his cock tightened further.
His erection was so damned hard, so sensitive he bit back a tortured groan as the crest flexed against the material of his sweatpants. And there was no relief. He sure as hell wasn't going to try jacking off with her in the bed with him, and doing it any other time was out of the question. Besides, the hollow release gained from the act wasn't what he needed. He needed Maggie, her sweet, tight pussy enveloping him, burning him as he possessed her.
"Joe." His name whispered past her lips, that sleepy little plea he remembered from the past, the throb of hunger in her voice that had once had him turning to her, slipping easily inside her as he awakened her fully to his touch.
Instead, he now lay still, tortured, tormented as her silken hand moved over his stomach, caressing, raking her short nails over his flesh and sending agonizing bursts of pleasure through his cock.
He breathed in slow and deep as her teeth raked over his nipple, a murmur of feminine pleasure vibrating from her throat as her hand moved lower.
Joe lifted his arm, his free hand gripping a slat in the headboard behind his head as he fought for control as anticipation began to spiral inside him. He knew her like this. Drowsy, when she would awaken in the middle night, hungry for him, all kittenish and relaxed. And he wasn't about to fuck this up. No way in hell. In those brief minutes between sleep and awake, Maggie had the most amazing habit of forgetting if she was pissed off with him. If she didn't remember it right now, he wasn't reminding her. Uh-uh. Was not going to happen.
"Maggie." He couldn't stem the hoarse groan that left his throat as her fingers played with the elastic band of the sweats.
He could feel his mouth drying out as anticipation began to build, his erection flexing in need as her fingers began to move beneath the band.
"Hmm," she murmured against his chest, her teeth sinking against his flesh in a sensual, warning little bite, as he parted
his thighs and let her have her way.
Hell no, he wasn't reminding her of no thin'. If he did, then she was likely to turn away, to be embarrassed, angry. Whichever, it meant she would stop touching him, that the blazing heat of her hand wouldn't. . .
Son of a bitch!
His hips jerked violently as she moved again. Slender fingers tried to encircle the raging shaft as she shifted against him again, her lips moving lower on his chest.
Oh hell, he knew what was coming. He remembered this well, and if she came to her senses while his dick was in her mouth then she was likely to get violent.