In Bed with Boone

She hated being shut up alone in this room, but it was better than facing Darryl and his two brainless accomplices. Even with Boone beside her—and when she left this room, he was always beside her, even going so far as to stand guard at the bathroom door while she showered—she was afraid of those thugs.

Earlier today Darryl had suggested that they turn the doorknob on this bedroom around so that they could lock her in and she couldn’t lock her BooBoo out. Boone had hated the idea, and she didn’t blame him. If they turned the doorknob around, Darryl would be able to lock them both in if he was of a mind to, and with the window painted shut, they’d be trapped. She had no doubt that Boone could get past the flimsy lock on the door, but reversing the knob would also mean that they couldn’t lock the others out at night. That would never do.

Boone had told Darryl that no locked door could keep him out. After that, it hadn’t been mentioned again.

Low voices drifted to her from the living room, where the four men had gathered to discuss business. She caught enough words to understand they were talking about drugs, money, some kind of meeting.

She couldn’t help but wonder why Boone was here. He wasn’t DEA, he wasn’t official law enforcement of any kind. So what was he doing here undercover, and what was going to happen in less than a week?

Jayne pulled the comforter to her chin and tried to melt into the mattress. The news of her disappearance had probably reached her parents hours ago. Her mother would be frantic. Lucille Barrington was not a particularly stalwart person, and she had always been a little overprotective of her only child. Her doctor would have given her something to help her rest, Jayne supposed, as he had when Grandpa passed away. Lucille Barrington suffered as a Southern woman should—acutely, and in the privacy of her luxurious bedchamber. Jayne loved her mother dearly, but under certain circumstances the woman could be somewhat melodramatic.

The senator, however, was not a man to sit around and worry, and if any physician had dared to try to give him something to help him rest, he’d probably break the poor man’s arm. He had doubtless called in favors, Jayne knew, marshaled the troops, spent the afternoon on the phone shouting and cajoling and doing everything humanly possible to get his daughter home safely.

Grandmother would be praying and cooking. Whenever she got anxious, Myra Jayne Barrington went to the kitchen. During the last senatorial campaign, she’d fed not only her son’s entire hometown staff, but a lot of the reporters, as well. By now she was probably feeding the entire town.

Boone said he needed less than a week. She didn’t think they had even two days.

When Boone returned, locking the door behind him, Jayne breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t help it; she felt better when he was near.

He was quieter than usual as he sat on the bed to remove his boots and socks. His clenched jaw did nothing to make her feel safe.

“Do you have a cell phone?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he replied absently.

Thank goodness. “I just know my parents and my grandmother are worried sick.”

“Scoot over,” Boone said, lying back as if he actually intended to sleep here beside her.

Her first impulse was to give him a gentle shove and refuse to scoot over. But if she was about to ask him for a favor, maybe that wasn’t the way to go.

She scooted. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I’m not sleeping on the floor again,” he said, stretching out beside her. “I’ll stay on top of the covers, you stay beneath.” A grin flashed across his face. “That way I can be sure you’ll keep your hands to yourself.”

Jayne moved to the edge of the bed, giving the big man all the room he might need. “Won’t you get…cold?” She had been surprised by the night’s chill in this part of the country. Back home, May was warm. Some days felt almost like summer. Here the days were pleasant, but when the sun dropped, it was very clear that winter had not fully departed.

Boone turned his head to look her in the eye. “Are you asking me in?”

Jayne’s eyes went wide, and her heart thumped hard. “No! Of course not.”

“I didn’t think so.” He rocked gently and the old bed squeaked.

Not again. “I need to call my mother,” Jayne whispered.

“Sorry,” Boone said as he rocked again.

“But—”

“We can’t take the chance,” he said, before she even had a chance to present her argument. He continued to move in a manner that made the bed rock and squeak. “You might be overheard, the call might be traced, and cell phones are notoriously insecure. Besides, my cell company doesn’t even have service out here. We’d have to swipe Darryl’s phone, and trust me, that’s not a good idea.”

“Boone,” she whispered, pleading.

He rotated his head and looked at her again. “Shouldn’t you be moaning by now?”

“No!” she whispered. “I’m quite sure I should not.”

“A nice loud yee-haw, then,” he suggested with a grin.

“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.

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