Deadly Pursuit

by Ann Christopher

  So he peeled back enough to look down into her flushed face and glittering, heavy-lidded eyes. Catalogued her trembling breathlessness. Absorbed the thrilling heat of her passion for him as it hit him in wave after wave. Best of all, he didn’t pretend not to see her. This one time he could stare at her to his starving heart’s content, drown himself in her eyes and then, when he’d recovered, drown himself again.

  Aware of her writhing against him with growing impatience, the thrust of her hips and the need in her breathy little cries, he slowed down and touched her. Ran his fingers over her smooth forehead and traced the fine arch of her brows. She watched him with wide eyes as he studied her face and stroked her cheeks with his thumbs.

  So soft she was. So incredibly, unbelievably soft.

  Too awed to speak, Jack stared, helpless.

  And, still struggling for breath, she smiled at him. Despite all the danger he’d brought into her life, there was a glow in her face that she didn’t try to hide, a light in her eyes when she looked at him.

  “You’re beautiful,” he told her.

  “So are you.”

  No, he wasn’t, but he wasn’t about to enlighten her.

  Magnetized by the pull of each other’s skin, they couldn’t stay apart. Couldn’t get close enough. Kissing her and backing her toward the bed, he paused only long enough to rip his T-shirt off over his head, a task she didn’t make easy with her clutching fingers and sharp little nails that scratched at him in her desperate efforts to keep him close.

  No problem. Let her scratch him. Let her rip him to shreds. This woman could chew him up and spit out his splintered bones if she wanted to. He was that far gone.

  They hit the bed and tumbled down with him on top, but she didn’t seem to mind his weight. Gripping his ass, she shifted until he was between her legs and his brain melted down even as his swollen dick threatened to shoot off like a rocket with no further stimulation.

  Again he peeled himself away and it was harder this time. Infinitely harder. Standing, he kicked off his jeans and underwear and lunged for his toiletries kit on the nightstand and a condom.

  She, meanwhile, sat up to see what he was doing, caught sight of his erection, and stared with open appreciation. “Oh, God.”

  Her movements frantic now, she jerked her sweater over her head, kicked off her shoes and socks and went to work on the button on her jeans.

  He took over because she was moving too damn slow. Grabbing her waistband and nudging her fumbling hands out of the way, he ripped the jeans down her long legs while she stretched out on her back and helpfully lifted her hips for him.

  The sight nearly knocked him on his ass: Amara, naked but for a virginal white satin bra and skimpy white lace bikinis contrasting with that gleaming brown skin, her hair wild and free, her hands reaching for him, his name on her swollen lips.

  “Jack. Hurry.”

  Hurry. Yeah. Great idea.

  Crawling over her, he flicked the front clasp of the bra and her breasts spilled free, heavy and round, with jutting dark nipples so large he nearly came at the sight of them.

  Rubbing his hands all over her breasts, squeezing and plucking, he thought vaguely that he needed to taste them but he had more important things to taste now.

  Scooting lower, he dragged his tongue over her taut abdomen, dipped it into her belly button, and enjoyed her squirming as he pulled the lacy panties down and off.

  He looked up then, and there she was. Waxed and bare as the day she was born, with the ruddy cleft that was the new focal point of his life engorged and glistening, wet and fragrant with a delicious earthy musk and all for him.

  She spread her thighs, arched her hips and invited him.

  Pausing only to lick that hard nub, to taste her this one time, while he could—she cried out in response, her body jackknifing—he rose up over her and settled in that cradle that he’d been waiting for. Dying for.

  Their gazes locked and she stared at him with such want in her eyes, such need and, most terrible of all, such joy. As though he was the best thing that had ever happened to her rather than the worst.

  And he knew he shouldn’t do it. That this moment was as dangerous and irrevocable as a first hit of heroin. But, Jesus, right now he needed this woman more than he needed to live another day.

  And he was a dead man anyway.

  Taking the head of his penis, he stroked it in that slick river, back and forth, lubricating both of them, and then, with a single hard thrust, buried himself as deep as he could humanly get.

  Ah, shit. Shit, God, shit.

  The pleasure stole his breath and streaked straight to his brain.

  The unbearable friction scared him for a second. He froze, paralyzed by the blinding ecstasy and the fear that if he so much as flexed his hips he would hurt her. She was stretched so tight there was no way he could avoid ripping her to shreds, but it would kill him to stop now when he had so little control left.

  Bracing on his forearms, he trembled, waiting for a sign from her.

  To his astonished relief, her features twisted into a breathtaking look of such euphoria that he didn’t need to ask if she was okay. Hell, if she felt a millionth of what he was feeling, then she was the luckiest woman on earth.

  Experimenting, with her and himself, he rotated his hips in a tiny circle and they both unraveled. Amara arched backward, incoherent and uncontrollable cries pouring from her mouth in an endless stream … or was that him?

  She wasn’t done with him yet.

  Smiling and whispering, panting and meeting him thrust for thrust, she locked those plump thighs around his waist and palmed his cheeks to bring him in for an openmouthed kiss.

  As her body’s sweet suction milked him, he cried out, over and over again until—Jesus, was that him? Shouting her name like that?

  He couldn’t help it. In this woman’s arms he just couldn’t help himself.

  Payton Jones pulled the car into the parking lot and turned off the headlights. She circled around back, past the chain-link fence and black pit that was no doubt a swimming pool covered with a tarp for the winter, and parked outside room 112. Thanks to the GPS device she’d slipped into Amara Clarke’s coat pocket back at the diner, Payton could put her finger on them anytime she wanted to.

  Selecting a space both for its view of the long row of room doors—the lovely Highway 8 Motel was only one level, nothing but first class all the way, so that made things easy—and for its easy access to the highway on-ramp, which was a quarter mile down the road on the left, Payton parked, cut the engine and waited.

  And seethed.

  By now she should be on her way to the Argosy, where her luck was about to change. Instead, she was still here. And Jackson Parker was still alive.

  Keeping one eye on the row of doors, Payton reached for her case and pulled out the rifle’s butt with hands that were, she realized with annoyance and dawning humiliation, unsteady.

  Never once in her life had she lost control of a job like this or been taken by surprise. Never once in her life had she lost her weapon. Never once in her life had she been so royally fucked.

  But it was all good because her little mistake could be rectified soon. And the tables at the Argosy would still be hot and still be waiting for her when she returned to Lawrenceburg.

  Caressing the rifle’s shaft, she attached it to the butt, the weight comforting in her hands, the wood smooth and solid. Reliable. And then she reached for her scope.

  Chapter 12

  Jack was ignoring her again.

  After ruthlessly possessing her with the kind of skill and passion that had damn near disintegrated her body, he’d all but jumped out of the bed. While she was still reeling with reverberations that probably registered on Richter scales in both Beijing and San Francisco, wondering if her legs would ever solidify enough for her to walk upright and unaided again, he’d shoved away from her and begun to dress.

  This was no surprise, so she tried not to take it personally. They were
still being stalked by a killer, after all, and still in grave danger.

  Her semihysterical brain dredged up that courtroom scene from A Few Good Men where Tom Cruise grills Jack Nicholson on the witness stand. “Grave danger?” Cruise asks. “Is there any other kind?” wonders Nicholson, the asshole.

  So, yeah, she and Jack were still in grave danger and having the sex of a lifetime didn’t change that. Knowing that she’d never see Jack again after tonight, never know whether he was alive and well and cooking at, say, a Galveston diner or dead, shot execution style two days from now, didn’t change that. The fact that Jack meant something to her and she meant nothing to him didn’t change that.

  It probably made sense for her to get dressed, too. The cavalry would be here any minute, after all, but in her current dazed state she wasn’t sure she’d be able to correctly identify the body parts that needed socks, for example, so she decided to stay put for another minute or so.

  And watch Jack.

  He didn’t shower again. It wasn’t that she was trying to attach undue importance to this little detail or anything, but they were sharing a hotel room and it was hard not to notice: he didn’t. Her scent was, therefore, all over his body and would be there until he showered. Did he know that? Did that register with him? Probably not.

  She, on the other hand, wasn’t going to shower either, and it wasn’t because of time constraints or panic or anything else like that. It was because she wanted to carry any little part of Jack—as much of Jack—as she could with her for as long as possible.

  His musky-fresh scent, the accidental marks from his nails or teeth, the delicious ache he’d left between her thighs. She only wished his hands had tattooed their prints all over every inch of her body because she didn’t want to forget anything.

  “Jack?” she began.

  “Get dressed.”

  It was an order barked over his shoulder as he bent to pull his gray boxer briefs up over the flexing globes of his incredible ass. In front—and, again, it wasn’t that she was being nosy or anything, but it was hard not to notice with the way his body was angled—his thick length was still ruddy and engorged and took a little adjusting after he slid into his underwear and jeans and tried to pull up the zipper. Finally, with a muttered curse, he gave up on the bottom half of his body and reached for his T-shirt and sweater, yanking them over his head in choppy movements.

  “What are you doing?” Startled, Amara glanced up to see him—hey, what do you know?—glaring into her face. Well, no. Apparently he could only look at her as long as she wasn’t looking at him. That was how it worked. The second their gazes connected, his skittered away and he began the all-important search for his shoes and socks. “I told you to get dressed.”

  “So sorry, Special Agent.”

  That got him, just like she’d hoped it would. Waiting until his head whipped around in her direction again and she saw the glinting anger in his eyes, she threw the sheet back and got up, giving him a full and unobstructed view of her naked body.

  The effect on him was immediate and satisfying: his mouth opened and closed, all but choking on whatever sarcastic retort he’d meant to fling her way. To his credit, he tried not to look and then, when that failed, tried not to gape. But a naked woman was too much for most men and Jack turned out to be mortal after all. Who knew?

  His expression black and thunderous, he looked his fill, lingering on her still-swollen parts, namely her jutting nipples and slick sex. Unfortunately, winning this one small point with him was torture for her, and it was all she could do not to writhe and beg—she wanted him that much.

  Even so, her momentary discomfort was well worth the look on his face. The starving, needy, half-crazed look that told her he wasn’t immune after all. She may be unlikeable but she was amazing in bed and therefore unforgettable.

  Hah. Take that, jackass. Good luck with that zipper now.

  Feeling triumphant though still lost and empty, she turned her back on him, found her panties, and bent to pick them up.

  Behind her, Jack made a strangled noise.

  “What now?” she asked.

  Jack didn’t answer.

  “Jack?”

  Glancing over her shoulder, she had the pleasure of seeing him try, with what looked like a lot of difficulty, to peel his gaze away from her ass. Then he cleared his throat and reverted to Jack the Untouchable and Unreachable, all business and as approachable as an armed nuclear warhead.

  Finished with his clothes and jacket, he shoved his weapon into the waistband behind his back and threw his few remaining belongings in his duffel.

  “The team’ll come. We’ll run out, get into their vehicle and be on our merry way. You’ll be questioned, I’ll be questioned, they’ll figure out how to protect you for a little while, and we’ll go our separate ways. The end.”

  He was leaving; why did that hurt so much? Of course he was leaving. Her mother had left, and so had her aunt. People always left. It was the name of the game and there was nothing she’d ever been able to do about it.

  And yet she still had to ask. “You’ll go back to Cincinnati for the trial?”

  He checked his phone and didn’t answer.

  God, she hated him sometimes.

  “You do understand,” she said through the uncontrollable flexing of her tight jaw, “that I am a lawyer, right? I know how to get information about dockets and trials and stuff. I can make one phone call to a contact in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Cincinnati and find out all I need to know—”

  “You don’t need to know.”

  “Don’t tell me what I need.”

  Jack the Cool and Unruffled now looked furious. “What you need is to forget that you and I ever crossed paths and go back to your life.”

  Yeah, sure. Like she could do that.

  Fully dressed, she jammed her hands on her hips and faced him, itching for a fight. “No problem. Consider yourself forgotten.”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw as he focused the full might of what looked like a killing fury on her. “Great.”

  “But it would be nicer,” she continued, “if you sent me a message to let me know that you’re okay—”

  “No.”

  “You can send a message. That’s not a huge deal. Send it through the U.S. Attorney’s Office or—”

  “No messages.”

  “—use a code or something so I’ll know you’re still alive, you bastard.”

  Well, so much for her brilliant and simple plan to not let him know how she felt. The ringing hysteria in her last two words was pretty much a dead giveaway.

  She squared off with him, which was like having a staring contest with Lincoln’s image on Mount Rushmore, all granite and no emotion, no flicker of humanity. She was ready to say, screw it, Jack, I’m begging you, when his phone vibrated and, with obvious relief at the distraction, he pressed a button and listened.

  “Got it,” he said.

  Lowering the phone, he stared at her and she knew this was it—the have-a-nice-life part of the proceedings—and her stomach plummeted with a lurch so sickening that she wondered if she’d vomit.

  “They’re here.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

  To her surprise, he didn’t seem so steely all of a sudden. She’d expected him to fling open the door, plant a foot on her butt and kick her outside, thrilled for her to be someone else’s responsibility now, but he didn’t.

  Hesitating, he stared down at her and she edged closer and stared up at him, miserably aware that she’d never have another stolen moment with him and would probably never be alone with him again.

  This was it and anything she didn’t say now would never get said.

  You’ve infected me and I don’t know what to do about it.

  Could you please reverse the spell you’ve put on me so I can live a normal life?

  I could never forget you, even if I wanted to.

  “Stay safe, okay?” she whispered.

  His lips curled i
nto a crooked line so heavy with irony that it could never be called a smile. “I always do.”

  Neither of them moved.

  Amara was dying to touch him again, would have sacrificed a limb just for the pleasure of cupping her hands on his hard cheeks the way she’d done when he’d been buried deep inside her and they’d watched each other come, but she knew that he wouldn’t tolerate her touch now.

  “I lied,” she told him. “I’ll never forget you.”

  “You should. It’s for the best.”

  Turning, he slung their bags over his shoulder and reached to unlock the bolt on the door, and it was this loss of his attention that spurred her into action. Screw it. She needed to know and in another thirty seconds the chance would be gone forever. They couldn’t leave it like this.

  “Jack.”

  Taking a huge emotional risk, she put a hand on his arm and squeezed.

  He froze, his head bent low, and didn’t look at her. Beneath her fingers she felt the iron flex of his muscles as they stretched tighter and tighter.

  “This thing with us. It was … it was something, wasn’t it? It could have been something … couldn’t it?”

  There it was. She, Amara Clarke, queen of emotional distance, put her heart on the line and he, bastard that he was, didn’t answer. Didn’t even look at her.

  “Please,” she said, because, hey, if you were going for complete humiliation, why not go big? “Please, Jack.”

  He stared at the floor and shook his head.

  Rage flooded her. Rage and sudden embarrassing tears that she would not—would never—let him see. Why was she even bothering to be upset? Wasn’t this the one unchangeable constant she’d experienced since birth?

  It was the story of her sorry existence: people left her the first chance they got.

  Sorry, Amara, buh-bye. Try to have a nice life now, you hear?

  Snarling, she tightened her grip on his forearm, hoping to make him bleed, to mark his skin and leave a permanent reminder that Amara Clarke had once been in his life.

  “You son of a bitch, you can leave me with that much.”