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It could just be the musicians setting up downstairs. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays the roadhouse had live bands playing, and she’d seen the guys drive in and unpack their gear while she was on the phone.
Her apartment would not be quiet until well past midnight tonight, or for the next few nights, but if the music was good, maybe she’d go downstairs and enjoy it.
A thudding sound, and then a hard, loud knock had her stepping back in surprise, bumping into the table and knocking over the lamp on the small table by the door, her heart hammering. The lamp didn’t break, and she picked it back up, settling it on the table.
“Joanna?” she heard Callahan’s voice on the other side. “What was that? Are you okay?”
She grimaced, standing and setting her phone on the table before she opened the door to find him standing there, a boxed air conditioner at his feet.
“Everything okay in there?” he asked, peering past.
“Fine. I just upset the lamp on my way to the door,” she said, her pulse calming somewhat as she looked back down at the AC unit.
“Here’s the air conditioner. I can get it installed in just a few minutes. Where do you want it?”
Joanna watched appreciatively as he bent to pick up the appliance, which wasn’t small. She enjoyed watching the strong play of muscles in his shoulders and back as he did so.
Swallowing hard, she hoped her warm cheeks didn’t give her away as he met her eyes again.
“So, where do you want it?”
“I’m fine, actually. The place is great with all the windows open.”
He shook his head doubtfully. “Supposed to get up over one hundred again tomorrow.”
“You didn’t need to go to so much trouble.”
She was screwing this up, she knew, and chastised herself for arguing with him. Any form of connection she could forge with Callahan would help her do her job, so why was she rebuffing him? Something about him just made her … itchy.
“Okay, if you say so,” he said, shrugging muscular shoulders as if the air conditioner didn’t weigh a thing.
He turned away, and she closed her eyes, blowing out a breath and sucking up her natural self-reliance. Joanna Wyatt, the U.S. Marshal, didn’t need a guy to take care of her or worry about her, but Joanna Wallace, the waitress without a penny to her name, would not refuse this kindness. And it was hot in the apartment, even with the windows open.
“Wait,” she said, stepping out onto the small, square landing in front of the door and putting a hand on his back to stop his progress.
They both stilled, and she paused a moment before taking her hand away. He turned, his eyes seeming a little darker, a little hotter.
“Yes?”
“Listen, thanks. It would probably make nights more comfortable. I just didn’t want you doing me any special favors.”
“It’s just an air-conditioner.”
She nodded. Callahan was a stand-up guy. A nice guy.
She was being ridiculous. This was about her and her hormones, not about him.
“Uh, this is getting heavy,” he said, interrupting her train of thought. “I thought the bedroom might be the best idea?”
Her heart rate skyrocketed. “What?”
“It will keep it cool at night. For sleeping,” he said, not seeming to notice her reaction.
“Oh, right, that makes sense,” she agreed, stepping back into the apartment and holding the door open for him.
“Bedroom it is,” he said, and walked past her and then back to the bedroom.
Holding her breath and praying he would leave before she gave in to her baser instincts, she followed him into the small bedroom, ignoring every warning bell that was ringing in her head.
Joanna turned out of the room and went back to the kitchen, pacing, as she listened to Callahan in her bedroom wrestling the air conditioner into the small window. When she heard profuse cursing, she gave in and went to see if she could help. Surely she was not so pathetic as not to be able to stand in a room with the man, was she?
“Everything okay?” she asked from the doorway. “Do you need help?” Was that her voice sounding a pitch higher and slightly breathless?
“As much as it dents my masculine ego to admit it, I could use a hand with this window,” he said with a short laugh. “The sash cord seems to be broken, and I nearly got my hand caught in there on the last try,” he said. He was squatting on the floor in the small space between the bed and the window, wearing a chagrined smile.
She nodded, crawling over the bed, the only way to get to the other side of the air conditioner without crawling over him.
She wasn’t trying to be enticing, but as she crawled on all fours over the fresh linens that Lisa had brought up, she saw a muscle tick in his jaw as he watched her.
It made her want to lick the spot.
He might let her, too. She’d been around enough men to sense that particular sort of tension in their bodies, that look that said they wanted to get naked as soon as possible.
She was here in a small, overly warm bedroom with a sexy hunk of a guy who she was pretty sure could make her sleep well tonight. Or not sleep at all.
A noise from below, the strong strum of a guitar chord made her jump, and she looked up, seeing him smile.
“Forgot the band was warming up.”
“They any good?” she asked, making small talk as she swung her legs over and squatted down on the opposite side of the AC unit, pinched between the wall and the bed’s frame.
“They’re good. One of the more popular bands around here. Helps the draw on Thursdays,” he said, and her hand brushed his forearm as they wrangled the unit into position.
The idea of being wrapped in Callahan’s powerful arms, keeping her warm all night long, flooded her mind. She had sexual fantasies about guys—who didn’t? But she never thought about them holding her through the night as she slept. She’d never been one for romance novels or lovey-dovey fantasizing. Still, tripping over her thirtieth year a few months before, and thinking about that bullet drifting an inch in the other direction made her wonder about what she might have been missing in her life. Spending time with her brother and Lacey had only driven that home for her, but at the end of the day, Joanna was the job. She loved it, and she didn’t know anything else. She certainly wouldn’t give it all up for a man.
Ben seemed absolutely clueless about her inner conflict as he managed to line up the unit with the window frame once more.
“If you can hold the window up while I get this positioned, that would be great,” he directed, distracting her yet again with how the T-shirt he wore clung to his skin in the hot room.
“Sure,” she said casually and pushed the window up, holding it higher than necessary so that he had room to maneuver.
Within a few minutes, he had the air conditioner fitted tightly into the window, and it was ready to go. As Joanna let the window down, he leaned over to plug it in, and then set it so that cool air immediately started pulsing out of the appliance.
It felt great, Joanna had to admit, and pushed her hair back from where it clung to her cheek. When she looked down, she caught him staring up from the floor, his attention clearly caught by the way her nipples were at full attention from the cold air blasting on her.
He turned away, fussing with something.
“It’s a small room. Probably can set this on low,” he said, more to himself than to her, and Joanna murmured something just as unintelligible.
She wasn’t even aware of what she said, more to herself than to him; she’d rarely felt chemistry like this, not this fast anyway.
Thinking he was going to turn around to walk out, she moved in that direction as well, but he leaned down to get some packing plastic that had dropped on the floor.
Legs tangled, arms flailed, and a second later, Joanna was sprawled on the firm mattress with Callahan spread over the top of her.
The cool air from the AC on her bare feet made her shiver—or was that the heat from the heavy length of his body that was burning into hers?
“Um,” she said, licking her lips and looking up at him. He didn’t move. She didn’t ask him to.
He felt good. Heavy, masculine and hard. She had to force herself not to widen her thighs and arch against him. It was almost embarrassing.
Except that he seemed to be having the same trouble—more so because he couldn’t hide his reaction, his heavy shaft pressing into the crux of her thighs.
“Don’t do that,” he said, his breath sounding short.
“Don’t do what?”
“Lick your lips like that.”
“Oh, sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. She couldn’t help but notice that he hadn’t moved yet.
“I should probably get up,” he said, his breath warm on her cheek.
“Yeah.”
“But I really don’t want to,” he admitted, and she might have imagined it, but it seemed that he pressed himself against her thigh ever so slightly.
Heat streamed through her, making her wet and all too close to the edge. All he’d have to do is edge one of those thighs down in between—or any part he wanted—and she’d be gone.
Resisting temptation never had been one of her strong suits.
He dipped in suddenly, fusing his lips to hers, diving his fingers into her hair and wiping her mind clean of anything but him.
The surprise of it shook her, and Joanna opened underneath him, her lips parting, her thighs opening, her arms sliding around his massive torso as she gave herself over.
For the first time in her life, she knew what it was like to be truly carried away by the moment. By a kiss. By a man.
“This is better than I even imagined,” he whispered into her ear, taking a break to catch a breath, and drawing the tip of his tongue along the lobe.
Joanna had to bite her lip hard to stop from moaning in pleasure at the contact.
“So you’ve been fantasizing about me, huh?” she said, trying to reach for something light, something to ward off the intensity that had exploded between them.
“From the second I saw you,” he admitted, much to her surprise, as he drew back and looked straight down into her face. She could tell by his eyes that he wasn’t lying.
His gaze dropped to her mouth. She wanted him to kiss her again almost more than she wanted to breathe, and that scared the daylights out of her. As much as she enjoyed sex, usually men wanted her more than she wanted them.
“Maybe we should get up now,” she said, trying to control her voice and her breathing as something close to panic set in.
She didn’t know why; she wanted him, and she wasn’t afraid of him. But at the same time as her body was screaming for him, her mind was sending out red alerts.
“Are you sure?” he asked, not moving.
His hand slid up the side of her rib cage, his thumb moving lightly over a nipple, making her suck in a breath and arch, even though she tried to stop her reaction.
“You’re my boss,” she said, unsure what relevance that would have, but apparently she’d hit the right key.
He stilled, pressed up tight against her, staring down.
“I would never use that. Not in this way,” he said seriously, his hand dropping to the side of her. “Not at all. In fact, I’ve never slept with anyone I worked with, though I have to admit, none of the people I worked with were as hot as you.”
“I—I didn’t mean it like that. You don’t … seem like the type to coerce someone into sleeping with you. It’s just that … it can make things complicated.”
“Yeah, sometimes. Is there someone else? Are you worried about your ex?”
“No to both,” she said, knowing that she was just opening the door she really should be closing.
“Good,” he said, looking down at her intently. “I’m fine with being your in-between. Your rebound guy,” he said, leaning down to nuzzle her throat in a way that made her melt again. “We could have some fun,” he promised. “No strings attached. At work, it’s just work. No pressure.”
So, so tempting.
Joanna wasn’t sure she wanted to say no. What was the harm, after all?
Then he lifted away from her, and the heat of his body was replaced with the blasting air of the AC hitting her directly.
Callahan stood by the side of the bed, extended a hand. She ignored it, and rolled to standing, fixing her clothes. She didn’t catch herself in time to prevent a wince as she rolled over her still sore shoulder.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Your shoulder, you hurt it.”
Thank goodness the T-shirt she wore hid the scar from the bullet wound. She covered it up with makeup when she wore anything revealing, but she knew he’d recognize it for what it was. Thank God he hadn’t managed to get her shirt off. She kicked herself for forgetting, but it was a good reminder of why this couldn’t happen.
“I tweaked it carrying a heavy load of dishes, that’s all.”
“You could let one of us get the really heavy trays.”
“Sure. I will next time,” she said cooperatively, which made him narrow his eyes.
“I think it’s not a good idea. You know, us, hooking up,” she added.
Looking him in the eye, it took no small amount of discipline not to let her gaze slip lower.
“Sure, whatever you want.”
They stood there, facing each other until she turned and walked out of the room. He followed, not saying a word. In the front room, comforted by the brighter light from the lamp, she wrapped her arms around herself, still warm and aroused, trying not to focus on how amazing he looked.
