by Delores Fossen, Rachel Lee, Carol Ericson, Tyler Anne Snell, Rita Herron
“I’ll take the couch. You can use my room,” he added to Caroline, holding her hand to take her there.
She knew the way, every step of it, and every scent was familiar because it was Jack’s. By the time she walked into the bedroom suite, her body was humming with that familiarity. With those memories of what had gone on here. None of the bad stuff. Not here. This was all warmth and pleasure.
He’d kept the same quilt, and Caroline knew the feel of it. The soft cotton that had slid against her skin every time she’d been naked in that bed.
“Afraid to be alone with me?” he asked, coming up behind her.
She shook her head. “Fear isn’t the right word for it—”
“You told me you loved me,” he interrupted. “That morning before Eric took you, you told me that.”
No need for him to clarify which morning, but she didn’t like his timing in bringing it up now. “I remember.” She cleared her throat so it would have some sound, and had to do it again. Great. Her throat was clogged now, and her breathing wasn’t faring much better.
Jack moved in front of her, studying her face. He wasn’t frowning, but it was close. “You don’t feel the same way about me now.”
She wanted to groan. Apparently, he wasn’t content with just having her surrounded by old memories of them as a couple. He wanted her to relive it with words, too. And it was working. She felt the slow hum of heat circle around her.
“I’m not sure what I feel,” Caroline settled for saying, but it required another throat clearing.
Her answer didn’t smooth his near frown. But it was partly true. She didn’t know about still being in love. She’d had no time to sort out her feelings, but when it came to Jack, she was certain about plenty of other things. She wanted him more than her next heartbeat. More than she wanted to feel strong and whole again.
And that want was quickly turning into a need.
The silence vibrated between them as he stared at her. It ended when Jack cursed. “I considered offering you no-strings-attached sex. Just to burn off this heat so we could possibly think about something else. Anything else. But I can’t do that.”
Silence fell again, this time because he’d stunned her. “You can’t have sex?” And she hated the disappointment in her voice.
A flicker of annoyance, and heat, went through his eyes. “I can’t give you the no-strings. The sex is going to happen, but not until you know that it won’t be just to satisfy some raw animal urges. Strings,” he repeated, emphasizing it. “I’ll want that I-love-you from you again. Maybe not tonight, but I’ll want it soon.”
Caroline was about to remind him that he’d never given her those words, but Jack snapped her to him and kissed her. It was hard and rough, not just his mouth but the grip he had on her arms. The roughness was something that Caroline quickly realized made it even better. He wasn’t going to treat her like glass. The fragile kind of glass that broke with a careless touch.
He was going to break her in a whole different way. And there’d be nothing careless about it.
Cupping the back of her neck, Jack deepened the kiss. The physical part of it, anyway, since the emotional part was already as deep as it could get. Or so Caroline thought. He proved her wrong when he stopped and eased back enough to stare into her eyes.
There it was. The face that could have been created for an ancient god. The pretty ones who could be both ruthless and very, very desirable. His eyes, dark. That rumpled black hair. Oh, and that scent. Leather and male. It seeped into her, mingling with the heat that his kiss had already flamed.
Jack waited a heartbeat, maybe giving her a chance to change her mind, all the while knowing that she wouldn’t do that. Caroline knew it, too.
The next kiss was just a brush of his mouth over hers. Slow and sensual with their breaths mingling. And he looked at her again. Gauging her reaction. She was breathing too fast, and her pulse was at a full gallop. Every inch of her was quivering, waiting, and she didn’t want the wait to continue for even a second longer.
She didn’t have to.
Jack took her mouth again, and there it was. The raw animal urge that went to full flame and beyond when his hand slid underneath her dress and straight into her panties. Caroline made a gasp of pleasure when he plunged his fingers into her. So much pleasure that his touch would have brought her to a fast climax if he hadn’t suddenly stopped.
“No. It won’t be that easy,” he said, his voice as intense as the look he gave her. Jack reached behind her, shut the door and locked it. “It’ll never be that easy between us.”
It sounded a little like a threat, and he hooked his arm around her, lifting her as if she weighed nothing. Those strong, corded arms closed around her. He kissed her, hard and deep again, while he took her to his bed. He practically dumped her on the too-soft mattress that swelled up around her.
When he didn’t immediately join her, she reached for him, only to realize that his plan was to stay standing so he could strip off her dress.
Which he did.
Jack sent it flying. Then he got on the bed, his knee landing between her legs. As he loomed over her, she could feel his jeans rub against the inside of her thighs. Could hear the rough rhythm of his breath.
He kissed her breasts through her bra. Again, not gently. Both his hands and his mouth were rough as he yanked off her panties and then her bra. He’d said he hadn’t wanted easy, whatever that meant, but he apparently wanted fast.
Good.
Because she wanted that, too. Fast meant she didn’t have to think about this. For that to happen, she needed him as naked as he’d just gotten her. Caroline went after the buttons on his shirt, but when he took her nipple into his mouth, the heat roared through her. Fingers to toes and every single place in between. She gave up on the shirt and went after his zipper instead.
Jack didn’t stop her when she freed him from his jeans and boxers, but he did stop the maddening kisses. Again, their gazes met. And held. Just as he plunged into her.
Caroline made another of those gasps. Pleasure, yes. Definitely that. Mixed with the brief shock of his hard thrust. Then, even more pleasure. So much more.
This was the animal urge part. His eyes held a need of a different kind, though. The pretty, ruthless god planned to claim what he believed to be already his. To possess her. It frightened her a little to think that he could do just that. Frightened her even more that she wanted him to do it.
It didn’t take much. A few more of those deep, plundering strokes inside her, and Caroline couldn’t have held back the climax even if she’d wanted to. She didn’t. But she refused to go falling over that edge alone.
Knowing exactly how to undo him, she lifted her hips, clamping her knees around him and dragging him harder into her. She let the muscles in her body force him into joining her. Her vision blurred, but still she watched him. And he watched her...while they fell together.
Caroline could feel those strings tightening around her, and while Jack gathered her into his arms and kissed her, she prayed for so many things. That this wouldn’t be the mistake she was certain it was. Because those strings weren’t just about love and broken hearts. They were about priority and focus.
And those strings could get them both killed.
Chapter Nine
Caroline still slept like a rock. Jack now had proof that it was something about her that hadn’t changed. Facedown, arms outstretched and butt naked on his bed, she’d slept all night and then through the beep of his morning alarm. Ditto for staying sacked out during his shower and the phone calls he’d gotten and the ones that he’d made.
While Jack would have liked to let her sleep even longer, he had things to do that couldn’t wait. So he poured a huge mug of black coffee that he’d brewed strong enough to the point of being bitter. Just the way Caroline liked it. He added a single ice cube to it to cool it down enoug
h for her to drink it fast—which she would do.
When he went back into the bedroom, he had to push aside the punch of attraction he got from seeing her in his bed. The attraction got another punch when he recalled in perfect detail all the things they’d done there.
Oh, man.
He really needed to figure out a way to deal with what he felt for her so he could do everything possible to keep her out of danger. That had to be his mission now because he couldn’t lose her again.
She stirred the moment Jack held the mug near her nose, and then he moved it so her flailing hands wouldn’t knock into it and spill it. Yawning and groaning at the same time, she lumbered to a sitting position and groped to take the coffee. Jack kept hold of it, too, until he was certain of her grip.
No sips for her. As expected, she downed several long gulps as if it were the cure for all ills, before she looked up as if just realizing he was there. She smiled until her attention landed on his clothes.
“You’re dressed,” she said, frowning now.
“Been up for a while.” Jack eased down on the bed next to her, but not too close. If he touched her, he’d be toast. “You need to slap me. I forgot to use a condom last night.”
“Uh.” Caroline repeated that sound, pushed her hair from her face. “I’m on the pill. I started it last month to regulate my periods.” She added that last part in a barely audible mumble, and continued, “I haven’t been with anyone since, well, just since.”
Judging from the way her face flushed, that seemed to embarrass her. Ironic, since she was stark naked.
Something his body had noticed, of course.
Actually, what his body wanted to do was get back in that bed with her and go for another round or two. Not going to happen, though. But the comment that embarrassed her pleased him more than it should have. Which was stupid. Because the reason she hadn’t been with anyone else was because she’d been hurt and not because of some unremembered commitment to him.
“Zeller still hasn’t returned my calls, but Kellan texted me,” Jack explained, forcing his mind back where it belonged, and it darn sure shouldn’t be on her breasts. “The warrant came through on the missing girl from New Beginnings, and we have the file. Lily Terrell’s coming into the sheriff’s office with her lawyer in—” he checked his watch “—about an hour.”
“An hour,” she repeated, and she sounded a little panicked now.
“I’d like to be there to hear what Lily has to say about those files,” Jack went on, “and I don’t want you here alone. Raylene’s already gone home, but Gunnar’s her relief, and he’s waiting out front in a cruiser to take us in.”
That got Caroline scrambling off the bed and into his bathroom. Gulping down coffee and mumbling, she turned on the shower. What she didn’t do was shut the door, so he got even more of the drive-Jack-crazy peep show of her naked body behind the clear glass of the shower stall.
“I had your other things brought over from the WITSEC house,” he called out to her. “They’re in a suitcase next to the vanity.”
While she showered, Jack gathered up what little willpower he had left and went back into the kitchen to finish his own coffee. He then phoned Teagan. It was his second call to her that morning. The first one had been an hour ago, so maybe she had something on how the location of the WITSEC house had been breached.
“You’re not going to like what I’m about to tell you,” Teagan said the moment she answered, and that caused Jack to groan.
“What happened?” he snapped, trying to steel himself for what would be bad news.
“All the WITSEC files are intact. None of them have been tampered with.” She didn’t snap at him, but there was irritation in her voice that let him know he might have preferred that to whatever else she was about to tell him. “I think the breach came from the laptop Caroline was using, the one you had couriered to me. Did you know she has hacking skills?” Teagan tacked on to that without even pausing.
“Yeah. One of her many talents,” he grumbled. Along with picking locks, hot-wiring cars and driving him crazy. “There were filters on that laptop,” Jack pointed out.
“Caroline got past them, and because her skills are better than ours, it took the geeks all night to find it. Several of the sites she used to do a search on Eric Lang had a tracker on them. Something experimental and beyond my skill set to explain. It’s called Geo-Trace. It wouldn’t have alerted her, and it was well hidden in the website codes. But the geeks think that’s how someone found her.”
Jack cursed, not just because he was pissed about the hacking but because this could crush Caroline. This could put her on the fast track to a panic attack and a guilt trip. Hell, she’d want to be offering to take a bullet for him because she would see this as having put him in danger.
“If it works the way the geeks think it does,” Teagan explained, “Geo-Trace would have allowed someone to track the computer without getting a warrant. And Caroline wouldn’t have known about the risk. Like I said, Geo-Trace is still in the experimental stages. Whoever put it on the sites was probably looking for her.”
And had found her.
“See if the geeks can figure out who put Geo-Trace on the sites,” he suggested. “Maybe try a reverse hacking maneuver.” Ironically, it was something Caroline might be able to do, but he didn’t want to go to her with this just yet.
“I’ll try, but the Geo-Trace program corrupted itself when our techs tried to examine it. They got portions of it, but it was as if it had an encoded virus to stop someone from digging into it too much.”
A fail-safe. One that would have required some serious computer skills. That still didn’t convince him to bring this to Caroline. Even if he caught flak for it later, which he was certain he would.
“Don’t mention this to Caroline,” he added to Teagan.
Teagan rattled off a string of profanities before she said, “You’re not going to question her about it?”
“Not right now. I need to ease her into it so that it doesn’t send her into a tailspin.”
Teagan groaned. “What part of your body are you thinking with right now?”
“Probably the wrong one,” he admitted and ended the call just as Caroline hurried into the room.
She was dressed, mostly, but still adjusting the above-the-knee denim skirt and snug red top. Clothes that hugged curves on Caroline that he wished he couldn’t see right now.
Yeah, the wrong part of his body was doing the thinking, and that had to stop. With the breach of the WITSEC location, it wasn’t a stretch for someone to figure out that she would have gone with him. That was why he hurried when he got her out of the house and into the cruiser. He had to concentrate on who had attacked them and stop the person from coming after them again.
Jack frowned when he looked up at the sky. The iron gray clouds were already moving on, indicating a storm was on the way. He didn’t mind bad weather, but he didn’t like the idea of it happening when he was trying to get Caroline back and forth from the sheriff’s office.
Gunnar flashed Caroline a grin that he seemed to cut short when Jack scowled at him. He knew that Gunnar didn’t have any romantic interest in Caroline. He was just being friendly, but Jack wanted the deputy in concentration mode, too.
“Did they find the shooter?” Caroline asked.
“No. The CSI team processed the car, and all the prints, fibers and trace they collected were sent to the lab. They might find something,” Jack tried to assure her.
Since she’d been a criminal profiler and had dealt with investigations for years, Caroline probably knew that was a long shot. Anything collected from a rental car wouldn’t necessarily belong to the last person who’d been inside it. Plus, a would-be killer had likely made sure not to leave any evidence behind.
Caroline shifted in the seat and studied him. “Is something wrong? I mean, something other than
the obvious?”
There were two kinds of obvious here. The investigation and the personal. Jack had filled her in on everything about the case except for the likelihood that her laptop had been the reason her location was compromised. He still intended to hold off on asking her about that, which left them with the personal. And yes, there were things about that they also hadn’t touched on yet.
Since Gunnar was only a few feet away, Jack reminded himself to keep his voice low. “I’m worried I messed up things last night.”
Caroline stared at him, her expression flat. “I’m guessing you’re not talking about the sex itself but rather the distraction it caused.”
He nodded. Neither of them was going to dispute that the sex had been good. Darn good. Heck, they couldn’t even try to pretend that it wouldn’t happen again. But in this case, there could be a price to pay.
“You’re on fragile ground,” he said. “I know that. You’re recovering from a nightmare that hasn’t ended yet.” And now he had to pause and figure out how to sort out the jumble of thoughts and emotions going through his mind. It’d been too long without her, and the need had been too much to overcome. “I’m sorry if this is messing with your head.”
Her eyebrow rose, and for a moment he saw the flash of humor. Jack almost expected her to make a joke, something along the lines of it hadn’t been her head he’d been messing with. But the humor faded as quickly as it had come.
“I suspect it messed with your head, too,” she said. “What I don’t want it to do is make you feel that you have to shelter me.” But Caroline immediately waved that off. “I’m not talking about protective custody here. I’m not stupid. I need that. I need you.”
Jack hated that the needing-him part made him feel a lot better than it should have.
She huffed and moved closer, the side of her arm sliding against his chest as she shifted in the seat. Caroline looked him straight in the eyes. “I want you to treat me the way you did in bed,” she whispered. “I didn’t feel damaged or broken then. And even if I am both of those things, I don’t want you to make me feel as if I am. Understand?”
