Gwen closed her eyes and rested her head on Shiloh’s shoulder as he carried her effortlessly up the staircase to their bedroom. They hadn’t exchanged a single word since driving away from Bon Temps because there was no need to say anything. All they’d said or done before had led up to this moment when biblically they would become one with each other.
She opened her eyes and pressed her mouth to his warm brown throat. “Do you know what tonight is?”
“Yes. It’s our wedding night.”
“No, Shiloh. It’s more than our wedding night.”
Shiloh walked into their bedroom and placed her on the bed, his body following hers down. The light from a lamp on a table in the sitting room cast a warm glow throughout the expansive space. Supporting his greater weight on his forearms, he buried his face against the column of her neck. He pondered her cryptic statement, but came up blank.
“I met you for the first time three months ago tonight.”
He raised his head, his gaze searching her shadowy face. “It’s only been three months?”
Gwen nodded. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
Shiloh recalled the night he’d gotten the call that a woman who “talked funny” was stranded along the road. She didn’t talk funny, but differently from those whose roots ran deep in Southern Louisiana. She talked different, looked different, and her attitude was different from the women he’d grown up with and known most of his life.
He didn’t know Gwendolyn well, didn’t think he would ever know her well, but that was her appeal, because every day with her was a surprise. He never knew what she would say or do, keeping him off balance and more in love with her. The only thing Shiloh was certain of was that his wife would never bore him.
“Yes, it is amazing. You’re amazing.”
“How, baby?” she crooned.
“I’ll have to show you.”
Shiloh lifted his eyebrows, his hands going to the pins in her hair. One by one he removed them before he combed his fingers through the tangled curls.
Gwen let her senses take over. This wasn’t the first time she’d slept with Shiloh, but would become the first time she would share her body with her husband.
His touch was gossamer, fingertips grazing her flesh with each article of clothing he removed. There was only the sound of their measured breathing and the whisper of fabric against bared skin. Shiloh undressed her, and she returned the favor, divesting him of his clothes.
A soft gasp escaped her parted lips when he swept her off the bed and headed into the adjoining bathroom. A motion detector flooded the space with light. Shiloh touched the dimmer switch on a wall panel, and the bright yellow light faded to a soft, flattering pink glow.
Tightening her grip around his neck, Gwen inhaled the distinctive smell of the cologne clinging to Shiloh’s body. She loved him, loved everything that made him who he was.
“I love you,” she intoned close to his ear.
Bending slightly, Shiloh set her on her feet. He stared at her beneath lowered lids. She loved him, and he loved and adored her. He’d told her that more times than he could count, but whenever he was unable to say the words he showed her.
“Thank you.” The two words were pregnant with a passion that came from a part of him no woman had ever touched.
He pulled her over to an area with a free-standing shower. Within seconds water pulsed from the many jets along the wall. The softly falling water fell over their head and bodies as they held each other, heart to heart.
Gwen felt Shiloh’s strong heartbeat against her breasts, his sex, rising and hardening against her thighs. Time stood still for her when her husband shampooed her hair, then washed her body using his hands rather than her bath sponge. His fingers tempted, teased, taunted and tantalized her until she was closing to fainting.
Without warning, Shiloh became a cartographer, his mouth mapping every inch of her flesh, charting a course and claiming her as his. Their labored breathing overlapped the sound of falling water.
“Shiloh!” His name was torn from the back of her throat as the pulsing between her legs and heaviness in her breasts increased.
Hearing her strangled cry, feeling her trembling, and inhaling the rising scent of her desire mingling with the vanilla musk fragrance of Gwen’s shampoo and body wash, Shiloh knew that his wife was close to climaxing. From the first time they’d shared a bed his mission was to know her body as well as he knew his own. It had taken every fiber of his selfcontrol not to make love to her in the shower. Not tonight. Not on their wedding night.
He turned off the shower, while reaching for a bath sheet from the supply stacked on a table beyond the shower. He wrapped one around her body, blotting the water from her face and hair.
Not bothering to dry his body, Shiloh carried Gwen back to the bedroom and placed her on the bed. A knowing smile parted his lips when she extended her arm, welcoming him into her embrace.
He came to her before reversing their position. Shiloh lay on his back, smiling up at his wife. This night was to become hers, then his.
A low, guttural groan came from his constricted throat when she lowered herself over his erection. It was only the second time they’d made love without the barrier of latex, and he struggled not to release the passion straining for a quick escape.
Gwen closed her eyes rather than watch Shiloh staring up at her. She set the pace, sliding up and down, around and around, until she wasn’t certain who she was or where she was. All she knew was that the man she straddled was the one she would love with her dying breath. His hands tightened on her waist, urging her to go faster, and she felt her breath inching up in her lungs—higher and higher as she fought against waves of ecstasy sucking her into an abyss from which there was no escape.
Shiloh’s hands moved from his wife’s waist to her breasts. A keening sound penetrated their harsh breathing as he increased the pressure until they swelled, the nipples pebbling. He felt the burning at the base of his spine as blood rushed to his sex and his head. Having Gwen straddle him hadn’t drawn out the dizzying pleasure rushing headlong for escape. She gasped again, this time in shock when, still joined, he flipped her over on her back.
Shiloh loved Gwen, hard, long and deep until he felt his heart beating outside his chest. Gripping the pillow beneath her head, he quickened his thrusts until the dam broke and all and everything he felt for the woman who now bore his name erupted in a turbulent maelstrom of ecstasy deeper than any he’d ever experienced in his life at the same time Gwen cried out his name in a fevered whisper of awe.
He pressed his mouth to the base of her throat, feeling the runaway pulse beating there. He’d climaxed, but he hadn’t had enough of his wife. Sliding along the length of her body, his tongue surveyed an expanse of silken flesh and tasted salt in his downward journey.
Pushing his face against the moist curls, Shiloh revived her passion at the same time he was aroused to a fervor that made him want to lie between her legs until hunger and thirst forced him from her bed.
Reversing his direction, his mouth retracing his journey, he covered Gwen’s mouth, permitting her to taste their flesh, and joined their bodies, then began the dance of desire all over again.
Gwen welcomed him into her body and as the real world spun and careened on its axis she was transported to one where only she and the man in her embrace existed. And they found a rhythm that bound their bodies, hearts and minds in a coming together that lingered beyond their lovemaking.
Shiloh waited until his respiration slowed and his heart resumed its normal cadence, then gathered Gwen to his side, one leg holding her fast. He smiled when she melted against him like a trusting child.
She was perfect.
His world was perfect.
Gwen walked into the SMPD station house, smiling at the red-haired uniformed officer at the desk. “Good morning, Deputy Lincoln.”
Frank Lincoln stood up when he recognized his boss’s wife. “Good morning, Mrs. Harper. Are you here to see your husband?”
“No. I have an appointment with Deputy Jameson.”
Frank caught the gaze of several officers and civilian employees before he took a quick glance at the telephone console. “Deputy Jameson is on a call, but if you want you can wait for him in your husband’s office.”
“That’s okay. I’ll wait here for Deputy Jameson.” She sat on a wooden bench, unaware of the grumblings from those participating in the station-house pool. Each time she came in and didn’t enter Shiloh’s office they were forced to add to the pot.
“What’s going on here?” asked a deep, drawling voice. Gwen and the others turned to find Shiloh standing outside his office, arms crossed over his chest. “Not everyone speak at the same time. Is there a problem, Deputy Lincoln?” he asked when the others resumed whatever it was they were doing before Gwen walked in.
“No, sir. Your wife…I mean Mrs. Harper is here to see Deputy Jameson.”
“Does he know she’s waiting?”
“Not yet, sir. As soon as he completes his call I’ll let him know.”
Shiloh smiled at his wife as he struggled to keep a straight face. He’d heard about the office pool and knew the police and civilian staff were taking bets on whether he would cross the line with his personal and professional relationship with her. The last thing he wanted was for Gwen to become the brunt of a station-house prank.
“Have a good day, Ms. Taylor.” She’d decided to keep her maiden name as her byline.
She returned his smile. “Thank you, Sheriff Harper.”
Shiloh waited until Gwen sat back down on a wooden bench before returning to his office. Their honeymoon of one day was much too short. He’d surprised her Sunday morning with breakfast in bed when he made buttermilk pancakes, spicy sausage links, sliced melon and coffee. They’d spent the day listening to music, and talking about what they wanted for their futures.
He’d told her of his professional goal to attain a judgeship by his fortieth birthday, but since falling in love with her that wasn’t as important as making her happy, while she confessed to shortening her wish list to one entry: to live happily ever after. Right now he was a happily married man for all of ten days.
Leaning back in his chair, Shiloh stared at the bound report on the corner of his desk. It was a list of initiatives drafted by the sheriffs of Southern Louisiana, of which he was one of three vice presidents, that would be submitted to the state’s Police Jury Association.
He opened the cover, then went completely still when he heard loud voices, then a gunshot.
His stomach muscles contracted. Gwen was in the waiting area!
Pushing back his chair, he vaulted over the desk and flung open the door, heart pounding. The scene unfolding before his eyes made the blood run cold in his veins. Gwen lay facedown on the floor under the bench; the other civilians were also on the floor, and Frank, gun in a two-hand grip, trained it on a disheveled gray-haired man whose own gun was pressed to the head of a scantily dressed young woman. Both were on their knees.
“Gwen, baby,” Shiloh whispered harshly, “are you all right?”
“Yes-s-s,” came her strangled cry.
“Don’t move.”
Knowing she was unharmed made what he planned to do easier. Holding his arms away from his body, he approached the elderly man, motioning to Frank to holster his firearm.
“Put down the gun, Wesley.”
Red-rimmed rheumy eyes shifted to Shiloh. Wesley Gibson had begun drinking heavily after his wife of more than forty years left the parish with his best friend.
“I’m going to kill this bitch for stealing my money.”
Shiloh did not drop his gaze as he closed the distance between him and the retired fisherman. “If she took your money, then I’ll arrest her. But, first you have to put the gun down.”
A dozen pairs of eyes were trained on Shiloh, the crazed man with a loaded gun, and the trembling young woman who cried silently.
Wesley’s lower lip quivered. “I can’t, Shiloh. She took all my money.”
Squatting so he wouldn’t appear threatening, Shiloh stared directly at Wesley. “What did she do?”
It took several attempts before Wesley disclosed how the young woman had approached him and offered to show him a good time. But it was going to cost him.
“How much did she charge you?” Shiloh asked.
“She said I had to give her fifty dollars.”
“Did you give it to her?”
“Yes.”
“Did you have sex with her?” Wesley nodded. “I have to hear you say it, Wesley, so I can charge her with solicitation and prostitution.”
Wesley blinked rapidly, trying to focus his gaze. “Yes, I gave her money for sex. I gave her the fifty, and she took all the money I had in a drawer next to the bed. And when I woke up this morning I went looking for her. When I asked her for my money she told me she didn’t have it because she gave it to her boyfriend.”
“How much did she steal from you?” Shiloh asked.
“Three hundred dollars. It was all I had left from my social security check.”
“Give me the gun, Wesley, so I can arrest her.”
“Are you really going to arrest her?”
Shiloh extended his hand. “Give me the gun. Butt first.”
Wesley’s hand shook as he lowered the automatic and handed it to Shiloh. A chorus of sighs filled the waiting room as the woman scrambled to her feet and headed toward the door.
Shiloh stood up. “Where do you think you’re going, miss?” he shouted at her. Teetering on a pair of five-inch heels, she turned around. Smudges from her damp mascara left black streaks on her pale face.
“He told me to take the money,” she said quickly.
Shiloh gestured to Frank Lincoln. “Read her her rights, book her, then find out who her pimp is.”
Jimmie, who’d come out of his office to watch the tense interchange, ran a hand over his shaved head. “What do you want to do with Wesley?”
Shiloh expelled a breath. “Put him in a cell until he sobers up.” He handed Jimmie Wesley’s handgun. “Please put this away, too.” He leaned closer to his deputy. “Get my wife out of here, and she’s never to come back again. I want you to either fax or e-mail her whatever she needs for her column to the Tribune.”
Jimmie Jameson stared at his superior officer. “I don’t think that’s going to sit too well with her. I’ve been helping her with a cold case and—”
“I just gave you a direct order, Deputy Jameson,” Shiloh said between clenched teeth.
Jimmie nodded, dropping his gaze. “Yes, sir.”
Turning on his heel, Shiloh went over to Gwen, helping her to her feet. “Jimmie’s going to show you out.” Dipping his head, he kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you later on tonight.”
Gwen’s chest hurt. It felt as if she’d held her breath during the entire time Shiloh was negotiating with the man he’d called Wesley, not releasing it until the older man handed over his gun.
“I can’t leave now, Shiloh.”
He stiffened as though she had struck him. “It is not an option.” He’d stressed each word. “Either you leave now, or I’ll make a public announcement that you’re never to come in here again.”
Her jaw dropped. “You can’t do that.”
His grip tightened on her elbow. “I can and I will.”
Gwen’s temper flared. She’d been scared witless when Wesley fired the gun at the ceiling, but defiance and boldness had returned with her husband’s impertinent directive.
“I’m a taxpayer in this parish…” She was never given the opportunity to finish whatever it was she intended to say when Shiloh’s fingers, tightening like a vise around her wrist, led her toward his office. He closed the door so hard the vibration rattled windows.
Shiloh’s anger with Gwen had become a red-hot scalding fury. Did she not know how much he loved her, that during the short time he’d negotiated with Wesley he prayed that Wesley wouldn’t lose it, shoot the young woman, then shoot up the station house? He hadn’t married Gwen only to bury her.
“Don’t give me the speech about the freedom of information act, Gwendolyn, because right about now I don’t give a damn about your column. I cooperated with Nash when he came to me about creating the Blotter because he wanted to hire you. But it ends today, now. I’m going to call Nash McGraw and let him know that there will be no more information coming out of this department.”
Shiloh’s tone and words infuriated Gwen. “How dare you try and interfere with my career!”
“I dare, Gwendolyn Harper,” he countered. “I dare because I love you and want to protect you. But I can’t do that if you expose yourself to what just happened here today.”
“And you think you’re less vulnerable than I am? That old man could’ve shot and killed you like that kid killed your father.”
“You’re wrong. Wesley is harmless,” Shiloh lied smoothly. Drunk, depressed, penniless, and threatening to shoot someone, Wesley Gibson had become a living, breathing time bomb primed to detonate with the slightest provocation. His hand moved to her upper arm. “Either you leave here with Jimmie, or I’ll lock your ass up in the back until my shift is over. The choice is yours, Gwendolyn.”
Gwen was so furious she could hardly speak. Her breath burned in her throat like an out-of-control fire. How dare he threaten her as if he were an avenging demigod. “Take your hand off me.”
Shiloh released her, watching as she opened the door and closed it quietly behind her. He felt no victory in bullying or intimidating her the way he had, but what his obstinate, head-strong wife failed to understand was that he had to keep her safe, and that he would willingly sacrifice his own life to accomplish that pledge.