In Bed with Boone

“I do not yee-haw,” she said primly.

“Oh, that’s too bad.” Boone’s grin faded. His eyelids seemed to grow heavy.

Boone rocked so hard the headboard banged against the wall. And again. He moved faster, harder, and a mortified Jayne, who did not think she could watch this indecent display any longer, tried to turn away from him.

And rolled off the bed. She squealed and landed on the floor with a thud.

The gyrations of the bed came to a sudden stop, and a moment later a grinning Boone glanced over the side. “Well, that was different. But okay. The guys will just think we had a quickie.”

“That was not…” Jayne began, and then she pursed her lips. She considered sleeping on the floor herself tonight, but there was a draft. It was cold down here! Boone offered a helping hand, which she ignored. His grin faded and he stared at her, his expression hard and dark.

The fall must have addled her brain. Jayne suddenly realized that she was lying on the floor wearing nothing but her slip and panties, and in the fall the slip had ridden up high on her thighs. “Do you mind?” she said coolly, fluttering her fingers in Boone’s direction.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” he said, deepening his Southern accent and shifting away.

Jayne gathered what was left of her dignity and crawled back beneath the covers, while Boone remained on top. As soon as she was situated, he sat up and pulled off his black T-shirt.

“It’s awfully chilly to be sleeping without…something on.”

He tossed the shirt aside and lay back down. “I’ll be fine. Nice of you to be concerned for me, though.” There was just a touch of sarcasm in that last sentence.

At least he kept his jeans on. When he reached over and turned off the bedside lamp and they were left in darkness, Jayne breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe if she didn’t have to look at him, she wouldn’t be so…so distracted.

“I’m not being silly in wanting to call my parents,” she whispered.

“I know. They’re bound to be worried.”

“That’s true, but I’m also anxious about what my father might do. If this area is overrun with federal agents, army, navy, marines…”

“Navy in Arizona?” Boone asked, humor in his deep voice.

“Probably,” she said softly.

“We’ll be fine,” he assured her.

How could she tell Boone that if he got killed or hurt because she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time, she’d never forgive herself? There was more than one danger to worry about. If Darryl found out who she was and that Jim had survived, they were both in trouble. If they actually did get out of here and Boone was mistaken for a kidnapper, he might be dead before she had a chance to explain things.

Apparently Boone didn’t want to talk anymore. Just as well. The man confused her. He looked like a criminal, he cursed too much, he was crude and wicked. But he was also one of the good guys. An angel. A modern-day knight.

More than that, he was sexy as all get-out. The smile, the eyes, the body. A quickie? She knew what a quickie was, thank you very much. Her one sexual experience had lasted less than two minutes, and it had been painful and unpleasant. She hadn’t minded at the time, because she’d thought the man who had asked her to marry him actually loved her, and that things would get better with time.

But she and Dustin Talbot hadn’t had time. She’d found out too soon that the only reason he’d asked her to marry him was that he had political ambitions, and being married to Gus Barrington’s daughter would be a real boost for his career.

Since her recovery from that disastrous encounter, she’d been cautiously guarding her heart and waiting. Waiting for the perfect man to come along. Waiting for her knight in shining armor to appear.

She might occasionally think of Boone as a kind of errant knight, but he was far from perfect.

Maybe she’d waited too long. She was twenty-seven years old, and no man had ever made her moan or shake or shout yee-haw.

As Jayne drifted toward sleep, she chastised herself. She’d be lucky to survive the coming days, and here she was worried about her sex life! Or lack thereof.

But once, just once, she’d like to shout yee-haw.

Boone awoke slowly, reluctant to return to the world of the waking. He’d feel better if he didn’t have to sleep at all, at least not on this job. He didn’t trust Darryl. And Darryl didn’t trust anyone.

There were four of them living in this shack, five if you counted Jayne, and yet there was only one working cell phone. Darryl’s. One car. Darryl’s. This shack was well off the beaten path, and whenever anyone needed to go to the nearest poor excuse for a town, usually for food or beer, he was not allowed to go alone. They traveled in pairs, always.

Setting up his cover here had taken time, but thanks to Dean and Luther, he’d had the paper trail and the contacts to make it work. An introduction from a snitch who hadn’t yet been retired or caught had brought Boone, as Richard Becker, into the circle that Darryl ran and worked. And Darryl was his only key to finding Gurza.

As he came fully awake, Boone realized he was warm. Very nicely, unusually warm. Jayne was using his chest as a pillow. Her head rested over his heart, and one arm was draped around him. She breathed deeply and evenly, and had thrown the covers off so the sheet was partially twisted around both of them. Most of the green comforter had fallen off the foot of the bed.

He should think of Jayne as nothing more than a nuisance. That was all she was. She had stumbled onto something ugly, and in doing so she’d complicated an already difficult job. That aside, Jayne Barrington was everything he didn’t like in a woman. Petite. Classy. Spoiled. Prudish. Rich. Dainty.

It was this make-believe relationship, he supposed, that made him occasionally look at her and wish that some of what he pretended was real.

He touched Jayne’s red-gold curls and gently shifted her head. Comfy as this was, it definitely wasn’t a good idea. “Wake up, sugar,” he whispered.

She murmured against his chest, wriggled a little and didn’t wake up.

His physical reaction to finding a half-dressed, pretty woman clinging to him in the morning, especially when he hadn’t had sex in months, was completely natural, he was certain. Perfectly understandable. Somehow he had to get this woman off him. Now.

“Jayne,” he said a little more loudly, patting her on the back this time.

She stirred finally, lifting her head to look him in the eye, whispering, “Yee…,” before coming fully awake.

Realizing where she was, Jayne rolled quickly away. “How dare you?” she asked in that prim voice she used when she was really annoyed.

“Pardon me, miss priss, but you will notice that I’m on my side of the bed and have been all night.”

She had no argument for that.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said as he left the bed. “You probably just got cold.” Or lonely. “No big deal.”

“Sorry,” she said softly.

Darryl was probably already up and about. Maybe the boys, too. He really should grab the headboard and shake the bed and tease Jayne until she squealed. But he couldn’t. No way. Not now. He grabbed his pistol from the bedside table and stood. “I’m going to take a shower.” A cold one. “Lock the door behind me. Don’t let anyone in but me.”

“Don’t worry,” she muttered.

Once he was in the hallway, he listened until he heard the lock turn. He knew Jayne wouldn’t open that door to anyone but him, but still he rushed through his shower. One way to get his mind off inappropriate speculation was to get his mind back on business.