That deep note in his voice melted her. She got up from her chair and let him pull her gently down onto his lap.

“You need to see what you’re getting into,” he said quietly. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it away from his muscular, hair-covered chest.

She was so fascinated with this view of him that she didn’t notice the scars.

That rapt stare made him laugh. He’d been uneasy about showing her what the bullets had done, but she didn’t seem to find him unpleasant. In fact, her stare was flattering.

He drew her hand to the muscles under the thick, soft hair. “Here.” He drew her fingers over the thick scars where the bullets had gone in. Two had hit him in the lung and collapsed it. Another had passed under his rib cage. Two had hit his legs, in the thighs, and it had taken several surgeries to remove splintered bone and repair muscle.

“I’ve never touched a man like this,” she faltered.

He smiled. “I like that.”

“You do? Really?” she asked softly. “I was afraid... Well, you know, some modern men think it’s really stupid that women don’t pass themselves around like drinks at a bar.”

“I’m not one of them. I’m pretty old-fashioned myself.”

She traced around one of the scars and winced. “This must have been horribly painful, Dalton,” she said.

He liked the way his given name sounded on her lips. She was soft and warm and sweet. He looked at her mouth and ached to catch it under his. The way she was touching him was very arousing.

He bent and took her lips softly under his. “You taste like black coffee,” he whispered, chuckling.

She smiled under his lips. “So do you.”

He drew her head down against his shoulder and looked long and deep into her eyes until she flushed at the intensity. He didn’t smile. Neither did she.

He looked at her mouth, pretty and slightly red from the pressure of his lips. “It’s been a long time since I felt so much hunger for a woman’s touch,” he whispered. “A very long time.”

His mouth pressed down on hers, gently parting her lips, moving under them with a slow, steady pressure that grew harder and hungrier by the second.

He lifted her closer, feeling her soft hand tangling in the thick hair on his chest while the kiss became so passionate that she moaned.

His hand found the hem of her T-shirt and moved under it, up to the frilly little bra that covered her. He unfastened it and found the firm, hard-tipped flesh with his fingers.

She gasped, but she didn’t protest.

“Trust me,” he whispered at her mouth. “But not...too far.”

He pulled up the hem and before she realized what he meant to do, his mouth opened on her breast, taking all of it inside, working the nipple hard with his tongue while he suckled her.

She cried out, a sound that penetrated his spinning brain as if from a distance. She tasted like the sweetest sugar on earth. His free hand went down her back, into the waistband of her jeans and around, over the soft flesh on her hip, around to the front, to her belly.

“Dal...ton?” she whimpered.

“Dear God,” he groaned.

He stood up, carrying her down the hall to her bedroom. He kicked the door shut behind him.

“Mama will be home...soon,” she choked out in a voice that she almost didn’t recognize.

“I’ll hear her,” he lied.

He slid her down on the bed and stripped her to the waist, throwing off his own shirt at the same time.

He smoothed his body down over hers, shifting her legs so that he could sink down between them, while his hair-roughened chest buried her soft breasts under it.

His hand went under her hips, lifting her into the sudden hard thrust of his body. “Beautiful,” he whispered, looking at her breasts as he moved roughly against her hips. “So beautiful!”

He was causing sensations within her that she’d never known. The pleasure was shocking. It lifted her body in an arch as she struggled to get even closer. She hadn’t the will to protest what he was doing to her. She loved the weight of him, the feel of him so intimately close.

“It feels...so sweet,” she gasped as he fed on her breasts.

“Imagine how it would feel inside you,” he whispered at her mouth. “Hard, and deep...”

She cried out. He smothered the sound under his devouring lips while his hips moved insistently on hers. She could feel him growing even more potent by the second.

“Merissa,” he groaned. “It’s been so long...!”

He unzipped her jeans. He was pulling them down when the sound of a car pulling up out front with its roaring engine shocked them into stillness.

“No,” he groaned again, shivering.

She held him tightly, kissing his neck. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”

“That’s what...you think.”

He managed to roll off the bed and went into her bathroom.

She got dressed quickly, opened the door and went into the kitchen. She peered into the window, seeing her disheveled reflection. Well, it might look as if they’d been kissing, but her mother wouldn’t suspect anything more. She hoped. She dabbed water on her face and wiped it with a paper towel.

The front door opened.

“I’m back,” Clara called.

“I’m in here,” Merissa called. She smiled at her mother. “Dalton’s in the bathroom,” she whispered.

“Ah.” Clara put the walnuts on the counter. “The car’s making funny noises,” she said sadly. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I do,” Dalton said from the doorway. He didn’t look disheveled at all. His hair was combed and he was smiling. “I’m sending one of my mechanics over tomorrow to have a look at it. But this time, he’ll come with Darby Hanes. So if anybody else shows up and claims to be sent by us, you call the ranch house first. Okay?”

“Okay. Dalton, you really shouldn’t,” Clara began worriedly. “I mean, you’ve done so much already...”

“We take care of family,” he told her. And he looked at Merissa in a way that made her cheeks go red.

Clara started to speak but didn’t.

Dalton just chuckled. “I’m going to be a pest,” he told her. “Sorry. But your daughter is like flowers to a bee. Can’t stay away,” he said, and his voice dropped an octave as he looked at her.

“I don’t mind,” Merissa said, her own voice full of soft meaning.

Dalton winked at her. He checked his watch. “I have to go,” he said. “I need to pack to get ready for the Texas trip.”

“You’re going to Texas?” Clara asked.

“Yes. I’m going to talk to Sheriff Carson and a couple of feds about my run-in with the drug cartel.”

“Not alone?” Clara continued, concerned.

Tank chuckled again. “Rourke’s got a buddy who’s going to cover me like tar paper,” he told her. “I’ll be fine.”

“In that case, I won’t worry.” She smiled. “Have a safe trip.” She lifted her head and groaned. “He’s still at it!”

They heard the tapping on the wood outside Clara’s bedroom window.

“The woodpecker.” Clara laughed. “I’d better go feed him before he breaks into the house.”

She took a package of walnut halves, opened it and walked toward the back of the house.

When they heard the back door slam, Tank pulled Merissa close and kissed her with a new tenderness. He drew back, smoothing his big hand over her blond hair.

“We’re going to be very good together,” he whispered.

She flushed. “Listen, I’m very... I mean I...I can’t...”

He hugged her tight. “I won’t ask you to. That’s a promise. I have something more permanent in mind.”

“Permanent?” she asked at his chest.

He smiled and drew back. “We’ll talk about it when I get back from Texas. Okay?”

She brightened. “Okay.”

He laughed and shook his head. “I wish I could take you with me. Listen, you watch where you go. Be aware of your surroundings. Rourke will be watching, but he can’t be everywhere.” His eyes pinned her. “I want you safe.”

“I will be,” she promised him. “You be careful, too,” she added. She bit her lower lip. “Airplanes are scary.”

“I’ve been riding around in airplanes half my life.” He laughed. “It’s safer than driving. Really.”

“Okay. Have a good trip.”

“I will.”

He kissed her again, hungrily, let her go and went out without looking back.

Merissa was still staring after him when her mother came back into the kitchen.

She put a comforting arm around her daughter. “He’s the one.”

“Yes,” Merissa said, hugging her back. “He’s the one.”

* * *

TANK WAS DISCONCERTED by his powerful reaction to Merissa, and, especially, hers to him. She really was hungry for him; that was evident. He should probably take a step back before rushing in headfirst, but caution was the last thing on his mind.

Then he remembered Vanessa. She’d come to work for the brothers, babied them, petted them. Tank had gone overboard for her. And then they found out that she was a thief, a woman with no particularly fine feelings at all. He’d trusted her and he’d been, like his brothers, betrayed by her.

But Merissa was different. People locally knew her. She might have a strange reputation, people might even think she had supernatural leanings, but she was respected. She wasn’t the sort of person who’d betray him. Of course she wasn’t.

He had to stop thinking that way. He’d learned the hard way that women couldn’t be trusted. Before Vanessa, there had been another heartbreak. He was a sucker for a sweet smile; that was the problem. But this time was different. Very different.

“You look pensive,” Mallory said when he came in the door.

Tank made a face. “I’m getting in over my head,” he said.