StrongArmsoftheLaw by Cerise DeLand Page A

Congeniality.” She kicked back at him and he
barked, “You are not going swimming. I told you before, woman!”
    She tried to buck backward in his arms. “Stop it! Rex!
You’re hurting me!”
    “Nothing like I’m going to, if you don’t stop disobeying
me!”
    Slowly but surely, he hauled her around to face him. “What
the hell is the matter with you? We’re safe here. You go out and you never know
if one of those roaches’ll spot you!”
    “We are thirty miles from the nearest town.”
    “Thirty-two point eight miles from the town where you saw
them kill those three women and thirty-one point one miles from the courthouse
where you will testify against them. Not so far, lady, that they can’t be all
around here.”
    “Oh, you are infuriating. They are not out here.” She
pointed to the copse of live oaks and tall cacti that surrounded the house they
occupied. “They certainly do not get up at seven in the morning to spy on the puta reporter they hate.” She began to walk back inside. “If they are even aware
I’m close.”
    “You can bet that they’re looking everywhere within a
hundred mile radius.” He caught her arm. “That’s why you are here with me and
under my care.”
    “Don’t you get it? We’ve tried this for two months now,
Ranger Martinez, sir. I am not safe here with you!” She struggled with
him, her ponytail springing free of its band and that cloud of Marilyn Monroe
platinum spilled around her slim shoulders.
    “Don’t trust me?” Hell. What would it take to strip these
two scraps of fabric off her? A flick of two fingers? No. A court order.
    She pushed at his chest to no avail. “I cannot stay in that
house with you cooped up like a prisoner!”
    “Yeah?” He checked her expression. Pouting. Demanding. “How
do you think I feel?”
    She snorted, pushing herself flush to his poor melting body.
That surprised him. Paralyzed him. She was usually so ladylike, so dainty in
how she spoke and how she moved, that this made him blink. Then she rubbed up
against him, her plump breasts a fiery brand to his shirt as she cupped a hand
over the bulge in his jeans and purred, “Martinez, I know how you feel.”
    He clamped a hand on her ass, holding her against him. Like
he’d get any relief this way! “No, you don’t.”
    “Like now? How could I miss it? With your eyes all over me
for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I cannot pee but what you know it!” She
wrenched away from him and stalked her way down the garden path back to the
house. “Helluva way to hide out.”
    He was hot on her classy little tail, grabbing her arm.
“It’s the only way I know to keep track of you.”
    “You could at least let me take a swim!” She threw out a
hand toward the pool. “That house was built for midgets. And the air
conditioner peters out at eighty.”
    He chuckled. “What can you expect? It was made when Ike was
in the White House.”
    She stomped her foot. “Stop being funny!”
    “I’ll try mean.” He bared his teeth.
    “Do that.” She stifled a smile, but whirled away to hide it.
    He was right on her heels. “Where you’re concerned, I’m
dedicated.”
    She spun and they collided. “To suffocating me, yeah.”
    “To keeping you breathing! No swimming. No walks. No
swinging on the front porch.”
    She huffed, turned and kept on walking. “One Ranger. One
tight-ass.”
    “Yeah. You got a problem with that, tough shit, lady.”
    She tramped up the steps of the porch, the cheeks of her ass
jiggling beneath the skimpy black panties. He forgot to breathe and halted in
his tracks, loving the view.
    She yanked open the screen door, tossing back at him. “I
like rules. Law and order. Nothing wrong with them. What I’m tired of is being
tied down with you.”
    He blinked. She was bored with him? What a crock.
“Thought you liked how I beat you at cards. Chess, too. Every time,” he rubbed
it in.
    She spun, hands on her hips. “Why would I?”
    He rocked back on his heels and