by Marie Force
“That’s so nice of you,” he said, his face lighting up with a warm smile. He stared at her for a long, intense moment. “Ah, Jordan, this is Blaine Taylor, chief of police.”
“Good to meet you, Jordan,” Blaine said.
“You, too.” Returning her gaze to Mason, she focused on the bloody towels. “Your hands…”
“I’ll be fine. The only thing that matters is that Syd and her baby are okay.”
“That’s not the only thing that matters,” Jordan said, looking up at him. “Why haven’t they taken you back yet?”
“I told them to focus on getting Syd and the baby warm.”
“Since you’re in very good hands here—no pun intended—I’m going back to work,” Blaine said. “You’ll stay with him, Jordan?”
“I will.”
“Okay, then. I’m out. I’ll check on you later.”
“Thanks, Blaine,” Mason said.
Jordan led Mason to a chair and sat next to him, taking his right hand into her lap. She steeled herself and unwrapped the blood-soaked towel to reveal his pulpy palm and fingers. “Oh God, Mason. What did you do?”
“It’s okay. Doesn’t hurt at all.”
“It will.”
“I’m okay. Really.”
Jordan used the unsoiled portion of the towel to wipe away new blood.
“Don’t get it on your dress. You look so pretty.”
“I don’t care about the dress.” She dabbed at the wounds on his right hand and then reached for the left one. “How about your elbow?”
“It’s fine.”
Jordan glanced up to gauge whether he was telling her the truth. When her gaze collided with his, she found him watching her with an unexpected level of intensity. “What?”
“I’ve never had anyone come looking for me before.”
Touched by his sweetness, she said, “Never?”
“Not once ever.”
“Well, now you have.”
“Now I have.”
Chapter 19
The most terrifying fifteen minutes of his life. That was how Luke would remember watching the car containing the two people he loved best fly off the bulkhead into the water below. He’d been walking toward the car to greet his girls when the car suddenly disappeared. A surge of nausea had him swallowing hard, trying to contain the pressing feeling that he was going to be sick at any moment. When he thought about what might’ve been lost…
Sydney continued to sob uncontrollably as Luke sat with her in the hospital bed while Lily slept in her arms after crying herself to sleep. Both of them were under warming blankets, and Luke was lending his own body heat to the cause. “Shhh.” He stroked Syd’s damp hair. “Everything is okay.”
She was crying so hard, she couldn’t speak.
He held her while her body seized with sobs. The poor thing had already been through so much after losing her first husband and her two young children to a drunk driver. She didn’t deserve another frightening experience.
“It’s all over now,” Luke said, trying to convey calm even as his own heart still beat so fast, he worried he might need medical attention, too.
“I d-don’t know w-what happened,” Syd said.
He wiped the tears from her face, which was red and puffy from crying.
“One minute, we were p-parked, and the next…”
“Your foot must’ve slipped off the brake.”
“I was on the phone ordering new furniture for Eastward Look after the fire. It’s my fault. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“The car was parked, sweetheart. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was an accident.”
“I couldn’t figure out what’d happened, and Lily.” She swallowed hard, as if she, too, was trying not to be sick.
“You hit your head hard, probably on the steering wheel. It might’ve knocked you out for a second.”
She took a shuddering deep breath. “I was so afraid.”
“I know, baby, so was I. When I couldn’t get the door open, and the window wouldn’t open from inside…” Worst feeling he’d ever had. Thank God Mason and Blaine had gotten there as fast as they did. He owed the two of them everything.
Jenny Martinez came rushing into the cubicle. “Syd.” She burst into tears at the sight of her friend. “Thank God you’re all right. And Lily.” Jenny covered her mouth with a trembling hand. “Thank God.” She came to the side of the bed and worked around Lily to hug Syd, the two women sobbing. “I came as soon as I heard.” She brushed the hair back from Sydney’s face to take a closer look at the bump on her forehead and rested a hand on Lily’s back. “Does your head hurt?”
“A little. David said I need a couple of stitches.”
“Are you hurt anywhere else? Is Lily?”
“No, we’re both fine, thanks to Mason and Blaine.”
Jenny rested her hand over Luke’s. “What about you?”
“I’ll be okay. In a year or two.”
“I can’t even imagine. What can we do for you? Everyone is asking.”
“As long as we have each other,” Syd said, “I can’t think of anything we need.”
Luke couldn’t have said it better himself.
Mason still couldn’t believe Jordan had come to the clinic to find him. While David cleaned and dressed the wounds, Jordan stood by his side, keeping him company through the painful treatment. David applied bandages and showed Jordan how to use skin glue and properly position the bandages when they needed to be changed.
She paid close attention and asked questions to make sure she could take care of him.
He wanted to pinch himself to believe that she was real, that she wanted to care for him and that she’d come to find him at the clinic.
When David discharged him, Jordan walked him to her sister’s car with her hand tucked into his right elbow, apparently without a care as to who might see them together and jump to conclusions.
Hell, he was trying not to jump to his own conclusions. In just a few days, she’d become the sun that lit his life with warmth and affection and a kind of true pleasure that he’d rarely experienced—and not just in bed.
“Hang on a sec.” She opened the passenger door and put the seat back as far as it would go, a gesture that further endeared her to him.
He was really losing it when it came to her, and he didn’t even care that he was probably setting himself up for a painful fall. Every second with her was worth any pain that came later—or so he told himself now. After he was seated, she leaned in to seat-belt him in.
“Hey.”
“Hey what?”
“Kiss me.”
Jordan smiled and touched her lips to his.
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Yes, you did.”
Jordan gazed into his eyes for a long moment in which Mason felt the ground beneath him shift and the door to his heart swing wide open to let her in. She came storming in, knocking down the barriers he’d put up to protect himself from being hurt again.
He raised his hand to her face, thankful his fingertips were mostly unscathed so he could touch her. “Jordan.”
“Yes, Mason?”
“You’re beautiful. Inside and out.”
“Thank you.” She kissed him again, and he wanted to stay right there all day with her sweet lips attached to his. “Let’s get you home.”
“I should go to the station.”
“No work for three days. Doctor’s orders. You need to give your wounds the chance to heal.”
Her stern tone made him hard for her. Hell, the sound of her voice made him hard for her. “All right, then. Let’s go home.”
She drove him to his house, sticking to the speed limit with a precision that amused him.
“You know, if you go five miles over, I can probably get you out of the ticket.”
“I haven’t driven in ages.”
“Now you tell me.”
Jordan’s husky, sexy laugh made him smile. He could listen to her laugh
all day and never get tired of the sound. “You’re perfectly safe with me.”
She’d told him otherwise last night, but he wasn’t thinking about her heartfelt warnings of all the reasons why it wasn’t a good idea for him to get overly involved with her. Those warnings were the last thing on his mind after she’d come to find him at the clinic and was driving him home, apparently planning to take care of him, too.
When they arrived at his house, she released his seat belt and came around to let him out of the car.
“I should be opening your door, not the other way around.”
“You can stand down on all that business while you’re injured.” She got the doors for him and then went back to retrieve two bags of groceries. “Thankfully, the cold stuff is still good because I bought a big bottle of cold lemonade.”
While he sat at the counter, enjoying the way she moved about his kitchen like she belonged there, she put away groceries. “Are you hungry? I bought some turkey and this loaf of fresh-baked bread. I can make you a sandwich.”
“I won’t say no to that.”
She got out lettuce, tomato and mayo and opened the bread bag. “Cheese?”
“Yes, please.”
If Mason had wondered how deeply he had fallen into serious like with her, his suspicions were confirmed when he realized she was adorable even when making a sandwich. Before she finished, he went to answer a knock on the door, determined to get rid of whoever it was so he could be alone with Jordan.
Dermot was outside his door, while another department vehicle idled behind his SUV in the driveway. “Hey, Chief, we brought your truck home for you.” As he handed the keys to Mason, Dermot’s eyes bugged. “You’re that girl on TV!”
She came to the door. “Hi, I’m Jordan.”
“Oh my God,” Dermot said as he shook her hand with unbridled enthusiasm.
“Enough.” Mason’s tone and the pointed look he gave his lieutenant compelled the younger man to release Jordan’s hand.
“Are you guys… Holy crap! You and Jordan Stokes?”
Mason glared at him. “If you breathe one word of that to anyone, I’ll remove your tongue with tin snips. You got me?”
Dermot flashed a big dopey grin. “Yes, sir. You got it, sir. Nice to meet you, ma’am. I'm a big fan of your show. Can’t wait for it to come back on. You and Gigi are so funny and so hot and—”
“Leave now, Dermot.”
“Going now, sir.” He saluted as he grinned and tripped over his own feet on his way to the other vehicle, where he would absolutely tell whoever had followed him here that Mason was in there with Jordan Stokes. It would be all over the island before sunset.
“Seems like a nice guy,” Jordan said.
“He’s a goddamned fool, but a great firefighter and paramedic, so I keep him around.” Mason returned to his perch on a stool at the counter.
Jordan handed over a plate with the sandwich as well as pickles and chips on it. As he ate the sandwich, working around the bandages and wincing when the cuts made themselves known, she rolled a slice of cheese and a tomato into a piece of lettuce and took a bite.
“That does not count as a sandwich.”
“It does when you don’t eat bread.”
“How can you live without bread?”
She came around the counter to sit next to him at the bar. “Rather well, actually. I discovered a few years back that I’m gluten intolerant, and since I cut it out of my diet, I’ve been generally much healthier than I was before.”
“I can’t imagine life without bread.”
“You get used to it.”
“So you bought bread just for me, then, huh?”
“I did. I also bought turkey for you since I don’t eat that either.”
He put his arm around her and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “What did I do to get so lucky?”
“Other than save my life?” she asked with the smile that made her dark eyes shine.
“Other than that.”
“You’ve made me smile and laugh, among other things that haven’t happened in a very long time.”
He knew what she meant, but wanted to hear her say it.
“What other things?”
She put her lips close to his ear, making him shiver. “Orgasms. Really good ones.”
And just that quickly, he was hard as a rock and ready to roll. “Are you still sore?”
“A little.”
“You want me to kiss it better?”
“No, I want you to let your hands and elbow heal, which means you have to take it easy.”
“I will take it easy. Come with me.” He stood and went into the bedroom, tugging the uniform shirt that was stained with blood over his head. Tossing it aside, he fumbled with his belt buckle with fingers that didn’t cooperate.
“Stop.” Jordan approached him and took over the task, working on his belt until it was unbuckled and then on his pants.
Mason was so hard, he could barely think of anything other than getting her naked as fast as possible. “Clothes off. Hurry.” He stood back to watch her strip for him, committing every second of it to memory to ensure that he’d never forget what she looked like as she revealed her body to him. She was so pretty, so sexy, so fucking hot. She was like a dream that had taken over his life in the best possible way.
When she stood before him, completely naked, he could only stare.
“What’s this plan of yours?”
He hooked his uninjured thumbs into the waistband of his boxers and took them off, watching as her eyes darkened and her lips parted at the sight of his hard cock. Then he got on the bed, situating himself so he was flat on his back. “Come here.”
Jordan got on the bed and scooted over so she was kneeling next to him.
“Come over me.”
She was so petite that she almost couldn’t get her legs wide enough to straddle him.
His cock jumped with excitement as he thought about taking her this way. “Up here.” He could tell the second she figured out his plan, because her eyes got big, and she started to say something. The words died on her lips as she moved to straddle his face and grasp the headboard behind him.
“Like this?”
“Just like that, only closer.”
“You won’t be able to breathe!”
His low chuckle earned him a glare from her. “Yes, I will.”
“Mason.”
“Shhhh, come closer.”
Injured hands or not, he grasped her ass and put her right where he wanted her and then sank his tongue into her.
“Ung, ah, oh, ohhh, Mason. Mason!”
Thrilled by the way she lost her mind, he went to town on her, licking and sucking and torturing as she rode him shamelessly, chasing the orgasm. He was determined to make her work for it, to take her right out of the here and now and send her flying. When he got the feeling that she was getting a little tired, he sucked on her clit and drew a keening wail from her as her body seized above him. He stayed with her, making sure she didn’t fall or hit her head or feel anything other than the pleasure, and as the orgasm began to wane, he moved her down to press her heat against his erection.
Her eyes flew open as he notched the head inside her tight flesh. “Are you on birth control?”
She had a wild, untamed look to her as she nodded.
“I’m clean. I got tested a month ago, and I haven’t been with anyone since.”
“I’m clean, too. I got tested in the hospital. After.”
Mason knew what she meant and hated that he’d made her think of that ordeal, especially when they were naked and in bed together. “Are we okay to go without the condom?”
“Yes.”
The thought of being inside her with nothing between them made him even harder, which, of course, she noticed. “Mason, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Relax.”
Her nervous giggle rang through the room. “Easy for you to say.”
He reached for her, brought her lips down to meet
his. “You got this. You’re a stud, remember?”
“No, you are.”
Smiling, he kissed her again as he rocked against her soft, wet heat. God, she was hot and sexy and sweet and adorable. He couldn’t get enough of her.
Dropping one hand from her face, he reached down to where she was stretched to the limit and found the tight knot of her clit.
“Mason,” she said, gasping, “your hands. Don’t.”
“Then you do it.”
If he died today, the memory he’d want to take with him into the next life would be the sight of her pleasuring herself as she rode him with unbridled enthusiasm. Her breasts bounced, her lips parted, and her eyes closed as she threw her head back in the second before she came hard, her internal muscles clutching his cock.
Mason put his arms around her and turned them so he was on top and drove into her until he found his own release, which seemed to come from the deepest part of him. His entire body was engaged as he held her and kissed her and absorbed her sweetness.
Ignoring the pain in his elbow and hands, which paled in comparison to the need to keep her close, Mason was on his way to dozing off when her cell rang.
“Ugh, I should get that.”
He withdrew from her, let her go, watched her cross the room to where she’d left her purse and noticed when her entire body went rigid. “What?”
“I think it’s my ex.”
“You don’t know for sure?”
She shook her head. “I blocked him. He’s been calling from other phones.”
That news alarmed Mason. “How often is he calling you?”
“At least once a week.”
“Do you want to talk to him?”
“Absolutely not.”
Mason appreciated the emphatic way she said that. “Is he out of rehab?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, so you already knew that?”
She nodded as she rejoined him in bed. “His manager reached out to me and Nik to ask where I was.”
“You guys didn’t tell him, did you?”
“God, no. I’d never do that, and neither would she. She hates his guts. But he knows I love it here, so it probably won’t take long to figure out where I am if he can’t find me in LA.”
“I don’t like the idea of you being in danger, Jordan.”
