“Are you sure? We don’t have to—”
“I need you,” I whispered again.
His body shifted away from me a little and I considered it a sign that he was going to reject me, until the end table’s drawer opened and then shut. The telling sound of a foil packet crinkled as he ripped it open. He seemed to understand what I was asking him for because, seconds later, he shoved me forward, settling me on my stomach, as he positioned himself between my legs.
He wasn’t gentle. Which is exactly what I wanted. I needed him to claim me in a primal way, to disintegrate the images from inside of my head, as he screwed me senseless. Cowboy lifted my hips, yanked my pajama bottoms down to my knees, and plunged inside of me from behind. I whimpered, but my mind focused solely on him.
Gripping my hips with both hands, he grunted and groaned as he pulled almost all the way out and thrust himself back in once again. I gasped from the raw power of his body slamming against mine. Suddenly, he stopped. Reaching around to find my clit, he applied just the right amount of pressure, which had me panting and hurtling toward a mind-numbing orgasm. But I bucked back into him, rocking hard onto his member. More than anything, I needed to feel him deep within me.
“Christ, darlin’, you’re going to make me come if you keep doing that.”
Continuing to work my hips over his length, I gave as good as I got. The pace was frantic as he took me from behind, jarring my body forward and repeatedly jerking me back onto his length. The orgasm swept over me in much the same way, coming fast and furious, as Cowboy’s own climax peaked. Not giving me one second to catch my breath, he rode me hard all the way to the end until he collapsed over me, breathing heavily onto my back.
After a few minutes, he rolled off me in a way mimicking an alligator’s death roll and lay there, spent. “If we keep this up, I’m pretty sure you’re going to be the death of me.”
I winced, remembering the danger I was putting him in by staying.
God, I hoped not.
The moment Cowboy began breathing heavy, suggesting he was asleep, I eased away from him and slipped out of the room. I didn’t want him to know I was still battling insomnia, so I closed the bedroom door to keep the light on the computer from waking him. At least one of us should be able to sleep.
I spent some time mulling over a few promising websites and then settled on one to use for my research before I continued my search for Ned Swanson. An hour passed by with no new information. Same name. Wrong man. Each and every time.
My eyes grew weary and my body slumped in defeat with every click. So when I found a wedding photo labeled “The Swanson Brothers,” I wasn’t expecting much to come of it. I clicked on the thumbnail picture to blow it up to a sizeable proportion and took a closer look.
My heart stopped.
In the photo, a young Chief Swanson wore a black tuxedo and chuckled as he sprayed another man with a bottle of champagne. The other male also wore a tux and ducked to avoid the drops of liquid raining down on him. Unfortunately, his hand blocked out most of his face. Didn’t matter, though. This was definitely Chief Swanson’s brother, Ned.
Elated by my find, I zoomed in on the photo until I could make out the name on the building in the background. Baytown Community Center. I finally had a clue. Hoping to find an old address of his in the nearby Texas town, I typed the city name into a search engine, along with his, and gave it a go.
Within moments, my breath shuddered out of me.
The search results listed Ned Swanson as a current resident of Baytown, Texas. It couldn’t be true. How could he have lived so close to his brother all these years without Chief Swanson knowing? It had to be an old address or something. But as I continued to scroll, I managed to retrieve a listed phone number…one that had been updated a week ago.
“I found him?” I said out loud to myself. “Oh my God! I found him!”
Quickly, I scrawled the number on the notepad next to me like the information would somehow disappear from the computer screen if I didn’t write it down elsewhere. Then I hurried to the bedroom to tell Cowboy the great news. But when I creaked the door open, he stirred and released a low pitiful groan. It was as if it pained him to rouse his tired body even in the slightest way.
Guilt washed over me.
Just because I couldn’t sleep didn’t mean he didn’t deserve to get some rest. Especially after he’d spent the entire evening pampering and caring for me. With all the extra duties he performed as acting chief, he probably wasn’t getting as much sleep as he needed to sustain his schedule. And with his investigation into the fire and the stress from the chief’s death, it wouldn’t be fair to disturb him or rob him of any more of it.
The good news could wait until morning.
I barely finished the thought when Cowboy rolled over, idly rubbing his hand over my side of the bed. The very idea that he was subconsciously seeking me out in his sleep made me smile. So I crawled carefully back into bed with him, slid under the sheet, and snuggled into his hard, masculine body.
“Mmm,” he moaned, pulling me tighter against his warm chest and making me shiver. “Are you cold?” His raspy voice sounded thick, heavy with sleep.
“A little.”
He angled away from me, letting his large hand move around to my waist to the front, then dipped his fingers beneath the waistband of my pajama bottoms. “Want me to warm you up?”
Holy hell. This man and his insatiable libido.
But remembering the news I hadn’t yet shared with him, I grabbed his wrist to stop him. “Wait a minute,” I said, while wondering why the hell the news couldn’t hold out a little longer. “I have something to share with you.”
His lips traveled up my neck and he nuzzled my ear. “Oh, yeah?”
“I found Chief Swanson’s brother. Even got his phone number for you.”
Cowboy yanked his head up and blinked at me. “What? When did you—”
“After you dozed off. I’ve been searching for him for over a week. But tonight when I couldn’t sleep, I got back up and spent some time online doing research.”
He frowned at that. “Anna, I’m glad you found him, but we need to talk about this sleep disorder you have.”
“I don’t have a sleeping disorder.”
The look on his face told me he wasn’t buying it. “Where’s the number?”
“It’s on my desk. I scribbled it on the notepad next to the keyboard. Why?”
“I need to call him.”
I shook my head. “You can’t call him at this hour.”
“Sweetheart, his brother died. I don’t think he’s going to give a damn what hour it is when I call—”
A high-pitched alarm rang out, and my body jolted.
Cowboy unraveled his naked body from mine and sat upright, grabbing his pager from the nightstand and turning it off. He lifted his cell phone, read the screen, and quietly cursed under his breath. With the sheet still covering my waist, I sat up and leaned into his shirtless back. “What is it?”
“There’s a structure fire on the south side of town.”
“Oh,” I said solemnly. An involuntary shiver ran through me at the thought of him leaving me here alone.
He must’ve felt it because he said, “Don’t worry. I’m not going.”
I didn’t know which was worse: him putting off work commitments to make sure I was all right or me needing him to so I could breathe normally. I sighed. “You can’t not go. You have a job to do.”
“I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”
“I’ll be okay,” I promised.
He groaned. “Then I’ll get Jake to come over here and keep an eye on things until I get back.”
“No, they have a new baby. I don’t want you to wake up Emily and Lily by calling him in the middle of the night. Just go. I’ll be all right. If nothing else, I’ll stay awake until you get back.”