He used to talk to her.
He wasn’t talking anymore, and she was getting tired of it.
Crossing her arms over her breasts, she tapped her fingers against her arm and glared at her husband. Three nights he had come in late, long after she had gone to sleep. And before that? Before that, sex had been hurried. Quickies. In the shower or afterward. While he was in control. That was something she had markedly noticed. He had only touched her when he was in complete control of himself and his sexuality.
She wanted all of her husband. She especially wanted the parts of him that he thought he should hide from her.
His sexuality. Because his sexuality was tied into so much of who and what he was.
From the information she had about his investigative work, she knew that many of the cases he had worked had involved sexual crimes.
Sexual deviants were his specialty. Had that talent grown from an understanding of them before he came into the agency? Had his own sexuality been influenced by something more than an excessive sex drive?
The questions were driving her crazy. As were the suspicions and her fears that this would end up affecting her marriage in ways that it couldn’t be repaired.
Inhaling deeply, Keiley straightened from the edge of the patio door and moved into the warmth of the summer afternoon, heading for the barn and her husband.
The workhands had the day off; Mac normally didn’t work all day Sunday. By all appearances, he intended to work today on that old tractor, though.
The tractor was his psychiatrist, she often mused. It had been his grandfather’s. It hadn’t actually worked since his grandfather’s death twenty years before. But Mac still tinkered with it when he needed to think. She wondered if he would work out the problems that had that frown brewing between his eyes by the time he managed to fix the tractor.
She knew he was aware of her approach as she followed the graveled path to the barn. His bare shoulders were tense now, the sweat gleaming off them in the summer sun. He was a powerful male animal, and that was what she saw as she stopped at the front of the tractor and watched him silently.
“Lunch ready?” His voice was dark, brooding.
“Not yet. I wanted to see if you wanted to come up and talk to me while I fixed it. ”
He tensed further as he bent behind a large wheel and fiddled with something there.
“Why don’t you just yell at me when it’s ready?” he suggested. “I’m pretty busy here. ”
Oh yeah, she could see that. He was really busy getting his hands greasy as he picked and probed behind the tire.
“It’s just sandwiches,” she told him then. “Maybe a salad. A few minutes at the most. ”
He nodded. “Just yell when it’s done. ”
“I don’t think so. ”
He tensed further, stilling beneath her gaze before his head turned slowly and his gaze latched onto her with almost predatory awareness.
“Excuse me?” The inordinate politeness of his tone caused her heart rate to increase, the blood to surge stronger and hotter through her veins.
“You heard me, Mac. You can come up to the house with me while I fix lunch or you can do without it. I wanted to spend some time with you. It’s something you make certain we don’t do lately. I’m tired of it. ”
Mac shifted, straightening with a graceful, dangerous flex of muscles that had her taking a step back. Suddenly her husband reminded her more of a wild animal preparing to jump. And he noticed her reaction. His lashes narrowed over his eyes as he pulled a discarded rag from the tractor seat and began to wipe his greasy hands.
Not that it helped a lot. And grease should never, at any time, be sexy, but the streaks of oil on his hands and up his arms and the few slashes across his chest were highly arousing.
Sexual tension was like a smothering blanket between them now. As though they had never touched, never been intimate, as though the power of the anticipation for it was suddenly as strong as it had been the day she met him.
“You’re tired of it,” he repeated softly. “Tired of what exactly, Keiley?”
Her lips dried with nervousness. Stroking her tongue over them, Keiley nearly caught her breath as Mac’s gaze flicked to the action.
“You know what I’m talking about, Mac. ” Suddenly she could feel the amount of skin her clothing revealed. The fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. That she wasn’t wearing panties.
“Poor Keiley. ” He tossed the rag back to the tractor seat and began advancing on her. “Maybe you shouldn’t have run away from me in the bedroom this morning. ”