Cain didn’t stop, not even when she cried out in release, not until his own release burned through him. In seconds, he was hard again, aching for more. Rolling her beneath him, he drove her up again, pushing her to a second powerful climax, pushing himself to the very brink, then over.
For long seconds, they drifted, trapped in the sweet pleasure, enjoying the moments of pure contentment.
Time passed, and little by little, reality began to seep in, but the sense of peace remained. Cain lifted himself away and lay beside her, eased her into his arms. Jenny rested her head on his shoulder.
She ran the tip of her finger over his pecs down his abs and tilted her head back to look at him. “Are you okay?”
Cain smiled. “I didn’t turn into a demon, so the answer is yes.” He stroked a hand over her silky curls. “Thanks for what you did.”
“It wasn’t just for you. I wanted you. I did it for both of us.”
It went unspoken that, in giving herself to him, she had shown him how deeply she trusted him. Cain kissed her temple. He thought of King and what the horse had suffered. He thought of the unknown enemy he had made and Nick Faraday’s warning.
What if his enemy came after Jenny?
His chest clamped down. No one, he vowed, was going to hurt her.
No one.
* * *
It was early when Jenny returned with Cain to Jerome the next morning. Cain dropped her off at the Copper Star; then the Jag continued up Hill Street to the Grandview.
When Jenny walked into the lobby of the Star, ringing the bell above the door, Heather was checking out two hotel guests. While the husband loaded their luggage into the trunk of their compact SUV, Jenny noticed the wife, a saucy little blonde with short, spiky hair, writing something in the journal. Her husband honked, and she raced out the door toward the car.
“The woman who just left?” Heather said, drawing Jenny’s attention. “They stayed in room nine last night. She told me she thought there was a ghost in the room. She said she was sitting at the table by the window when her hairbrush lifted off the dresser, flew across the room, and slammed into the wall. She said it barely missed hitting her in the head. You don’t think it could be true, do you?”
Jenny hoped to God it wasn’t. “I have no idea. Let’s go up and take a look.”
Heather grinned and nodded, more intrigued than afraid of spirits.
The bed in room 9 was unmade. Damp white towels sat in a pile on the bathroom floor. There was a soda-can ring on the nightstand, but the tops were covered with a plastic coating, so nothing sank into the wood. It looked the way rooms usually did when people checked out.
“Mrs. Grogen told me the hairbrush hit the wall,” Heather said, surveying the interior. “But the room looks okay to me.”
The room was done in shades of rose and cream, with pink-rose wallpaper behind the table near the four-poster bed. Jenny took a close look at the walls, but didn’t see anything.
“This might be something,” Heather said, pointing toward a spot next to the chair beside the table where the woman had been sitting.
Jenny moved closer. It was hard to see the spot in the pink-rose paper, but there was definitely an indentation. She ran her finger over the place where the plaster had been dented. Something had caused it, and from the fresh tear in the paper, it was recent.
Her stomach knotted. “Do we have guests in this room tonight?”
“I checked. Unless we get a call, there’s no one coming in until next week.”
“Okay, let’s get it cleaned and leave it empty, at least for now.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Jenny nodded, distracted by the possibility there could be more trouble in the new wing of the hotel. Back downstairs, she checked in with the kitchen staff to make sure they didn’t need anything before the saloon opened for the day, then walked out the front door.
She was on her way to the library to see if she could find something to validate Cleo’s story about the miner who had been shot. Glancing up, she saw Dylan step onto the sidewalk in front of her.
“Hey, sis.”
“Dylan!” She smiled as he bent and kissed her cheek.
“Last day off before I’m back on duty,” he said. “I thought I’d come up and say hello.”
