He was so not feeling the reasonable thing. He and reasonable weren’t even in the same zip code at the moment. “Something did happen,” he yelled. “I looked up and saw you sitting right behind Kareem Gregory and my heart stopped, same as it did when you got shot. How do you think I feel—”
A weird sound came out of her mouth and it took him a beat to realize it was a raw, ugly laugh rather than a sob. “Well, that’s just the thing, Special Agent Parker. I don’t know how you feel. So you can understand my confusion.”
The air swooshed out of him, deflating his lungs like a squeezed balloon. Even worse than the laugh was the new brightness in her eyes, the unspeakable wet that looked like tears. If she cried now, tonight, it would kill him the same as one of Kareem Gregory’s hired bullets. Not tonight. Not tonight, God.
“Do you want to know how I feel?” she asked.
Yes. “No.”
A light went out behind her eyes and it felt like the whole world fell into shadow. “Of course you don’t.” She turned away to stare at the blank wall rather than him.
He crept closer, needing to touch her or, if he couldn’t do that, to smell the fresh sweetness of her skin. “All I want,” he said, trying his damnedest to lock his emotions away where she couldn’t hear them in the unnatural huskiness of his voice, “the only thing I’m hoping will come out of this whole mess, is for you to go back to life as normal when this is over.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, wooden as a marionette. “So, just to make sure I have this straight, I’ll wave good-bye to you, hop a plane back to Mount Adams and go right back to work on Monday without missing a beat. Is that it?”
Was that irony in her voice? Jesus, he was so spiked out on adrenaline and emotional overload he couldn’t tell. “Yes.” There was no way he could express, even if he wanted to, how much it meant to him to know that she was safe. “Everything I’m trying to do is to protect you.”
“Protect me?” she said dully. “Because you couldn’t protect your mother?”
Jack froze. Hugging a power line couldn’t have shocked him more. He gaped, too stunned to muster up any of his usual bullshit bravado, and she just stood there, shining her spotlight into every black corner of his damaged soul.
When the anger hit him again, he pounced on it because he did anger real well and it was way easier than dealing with the endless aching guilt that nipped at his heels like a terrier.
“Don’t,” he snarled.
She widened her eyes with so much pure innocence her halo practically glowed. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t psychoanalyze me. Don’t project emotions onto me. It won’t work. That’s not what we’re about.”
“Oops.” She covered her gaping mouth in an impressive imitation of Betty Boop. “You accidentally said the word we’re. I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear it, okay?”
And to think he was going to miss this woman soon. To think that he’d be roll-up-in-a-ball devastated once she was out of his life. All that was pretty hard to remember right this second, when the idea of drop-kicking her into next week was so appealing.
“Don’t try to make this emotional, Amara. That’s what I mean.”
“Don’t try to get to know you?”
He tried not to see the misery in her face or to feel his own. He wished this straightforward transaction, sex between two consenting adults for a few days and then buh-bye forever, would stay straightforward. He wished he didn’t want her so damn much and that hiding his feelings didn’t take every ounce of his strength.
“Why bother?” he wondered. “You already know everything you need to about me.”
She paused as though she knew where this was going. The energy between them shifted into something other than anger, although the anger was still there, simmering and waiting to bubble over. “I don’t know one thing about you, Jack.”
Ah, but she did. Just the way he knew that the glittering excitement surrounding her now meant that she was ready and he wasn’t the only one wanting.
Sex had been the last thing on his mind when he came up here, but now it was the only thing on his mind. All it took was the mere thought in her presence and his body was beyond his control.
Why were they arguing?
“You know this.”
Taking her hand, he pressed it, hard, to his groin.
Chapter 27
A tiny, shameful part of Jack had wanted to shock her, to distract her with sex so she’d drop all her questions and stop trying to worm her way into his head, to light the fuse and see how big the resulting explosion would be. It worked.
Jerking her hand free as though she’d touched the blue flame of a lit gas stove, she squawked with outrage and tried to hit him. Too slow, Bunny. He grabbed her forearm, wrenched it down between them and taunted her because he didn’t know what else to do.
“What’s wrong?” He gave her a pointed once-over, fixing his most insulting leer on her heaving breasts, which were well hidden and yet prominent beneath her ribbed turtleneck sweater. “I thought you were all about being all up under me. I thought you wanted to be close.”
A quick yank had her right up against him, belly to belly, and the last of his good sense died on the spot. He clamped his hands on the faded blue jeans over her tight ass and ground against her, seeking that soft sweet spot that was—he circled his hips and she gasped and bit back a moan—there. Right there.
Unfortunately, hanging on to her ass meant that he couldn’t hang on to her arm, and she hauled off and slapped him. The pain was sharp and good, just what he’d needed, but she was winding up again and a slap was one thing but an uppercut was another.
“I don’t want you,” she cried. “I don’t—”
“I don’t believe you.”
Snatching her arm out of the air, he twisted it behind her, wrapped his arms around her middle, trapping her, and swung her off her feet and around to the bed. It wasn’t fair of him to use his training against her, true, but he didn’t feel that bad about it because she gave as good as she got, grunting and kicking at him in her fury, her teeth bared and ready to bite.
They tumbled down together and she scrambled away on the bounce, crawling to the edge of the bed, and he laughed because he admired her strength and determination even if both were futile.
There was nothing he wasn’t capable of tonight, nothing he wouldn’t do to get inside her. But he wouldn’t have to do it because she’d surrender. She always surrendered.
Grabbing her ankle, he jerked her and she collapsed face first onto the bed. Then he crawled over her, mounting her from behind, working his thigh between hers, thrusting his erection against the flexing globes of her ass and settling his weight on her. She didn’t like it, or maybe she liked it too much. She screamed with frustration, her cries muffled by the linens, and writhed to get free of him.
“Shh.”
He sank his nose deep into her hair, breathing her into his body, and used a skimming touch to stroke that hair away and bare the tender curve of her neck and shoulder. Going still at last, she whimpered, and her melting vulnerability drove him out of his fucking mind.
He bit her. Not hard enough to hurt—just hard enough.
“Oh, God,” she gasped.
A renewed burst of writhing wracked her body, but her hips were definitely undulating against his now and were as much a plea for more as they were a plea to stop.
“Don’t fight me.”
He tried to sound soothing, but apparently she wasn’t buying it because she growled and jerked her head back, trying to break his nose. It almost worked. Cursing, he ducked out of the way just in time, rolled her to her back, pinned her hands overhead, high above her arching back, and stared at her. Both of them were panting.
“I hate you, Jack.”
Maybe there was hate in her glittering eyes, but there was a whole lot of passion there, too. He could almost smell it on her, taste it in the damp sweat on her brow.
To get to the passion, he’d de
al with the hate.
“I don’t care whether you hate me or not.”
Ducking his head, he kissed her.
This was some good shit. Some really … outstanding … shit.
Marian Barber’s head disconnected from her body and drifted away, circling and hovering somewhere above her, hyper aware of the bathroom … of the blue tile … of the annoying drip-drip-drip of the faucet, which somehow didn’t seem so annoying at this second. On the other hand … she was aware of nothing at all. Her head was heavy, her limbs leaden and clumsy, her lids tired.
Rest. She needed rest.
She leaned back against the wall near the bathtub and let the nothingness wash over her. It was good … so good.
But the weight of her weightless body got to be too much, so she slid and slumped her way to a seated position on the floor, being careful to keep the tiny bottle clutched in her hand and take it with her so she could find it again when she needed it. There was nothing worse than losing track of her medication or dropping some of the precious pills on the floor. These little babies were worth every dime she’d paid for them and more, oh yes indeedy.
Although … she didn’t think they were her usual or even the improved shit Jerome sold her last time.
They were a different color, for one thing. The difference hadn’t hit her until she’d crunched her first few and felt the welcome rush of relief, but, yeah, they were definitely a different color.
Using all of her concentration, she raised her heavy arm to look at the bottle. After that came the struggle to focus her eyes. Squinting, she held the bottle in front of her nose and stared, good and hard.
Yeah. She saw it now. These were red. Wasn’t that red? She looked again. Yeah. Red. The ones she normally took were … pink.
Did that matter? Maybe, but … right now she couldn’t think why it would.
She should go to bed.
Tilting her head back, she scanned the distance to the closed door. She thought about opening the door. She thought about the distance between the open door and her bed. She thought about getting up off the floor and the effort that would take. Then she thought again about how tired she was and how nice it felt just to close her eyes, just to breeeeathhhhhe.
The floor wasn’t so bad.
But …
This pill thing.
It worried her.
Didn’t that matter, if you took pills that were a different color?
And … the numbers on these pills … they were … different, too.
Her old pills said 20. The last batch from Jerome had said 30.
This batch from Jerome said—she squinted down at them and focused her eyes again—60.
Did that matter? Had she taken too many? The possibility tried to alarm her, but her precious Oxy wouldn’t let it. That was why she loved her Oxy. It made everything okay.
Anyway … it wasn’t like Jerome would sell her anything that wasn’t safe.
Sliding down that last little bit, she rested her head on the rug. Ahhh. Perfect.
Not as good as the bed … but not … so bad …
Time for some sl—
Amara didn’t seem to know whether to kiss or bite him and Jack was happy with either option. Sweeping his tongue as deep into the sweet depths of her mouth as he could, rabid with hunger, he nipped her back and soon tasted blood. Whether it was his or hers he didn’t know and didn’t give a fuck.
There was a lot of noise in the room. Her breathy cries … his low growls … their joint moans. And then she seemed to catch herself in this moment of weakness and pulled back.
“Don’t.”
Don’t. Yeah, sure. He’d be sure to stop in another year or so.
He laughed and followed her, kissing her with such bruising force that he felt her head sinking further into the pillow. Maybe she hated him, but she damn sure had her thighs wrapped around his waist and her tongue in his mouth. Freeing her hands, he stroked down over her breasts, filling his palms, and then went to work on her jeans.
The sound of her zipper doused a little ice water on the proceedings and she disentangled her legs, trying to scoot away again. The continued struggle at this late stage of the game infuriated him. Who did she think she was fooling? What was the point of this whole denial exercise? Did she not know that this was probably their last night together?
“I don’t want you.” Levering herself up on her elbows, she glared at him, defiant to the last follicle of hair. “No, Jack.”
The word checked him for half a second. No meant no, right? When a woman said no, that was the end of it. Except that he looked back in Amara’s eyes and there was no no anywhere in sight.
If she didn’t want him to work on her jeans, he’d work on his. It took two seconds for him to unbutton and unzip, three to shove the front of his boxer briefs down, pump himself a time or two—God, he was ready to explode—and four to grab a condom from the nightstand, open it with his teeth and work it on.
That gleaming gaze of hers tracked his movements the whole time, saying nothing.
When finally he was ready, he paused, trying to pull together some modicum of self-control before he touched her again. The way things were headed now, he was liable to hurt her.
“Please.” The tiny whisper was all her mouth said, but her body was doing most of the communicating. The bright eyes, the straining lungs, the way her gaze dropped to his jutting erection and she swallowed hard, almost like she was salivating for him—they all told the rest of the story. “Don’t do this to me, Jack.”
Jack struggled against himself, his mind wanting to do the right thing and his body straining to take what it needed. Need won. Flashing her a hard look, he reached again for her jeans and jerked them down her hips. Not all the way off, but out of his way. Something in his expression must have scared her, because she made one last bid for freedom, flipping to her belly and trying to scramble away.
Jack lashed out and grabbed a hank of hair at her scalp. Not pulling—he would never pull her hair—but holding her in place. If she wanted to pull her own hair out to get away from him, that was certainly her prerogative.
The lust making him shake, he waited to see if she would struggle.
Kareem waited for Kira in her bedroom.
Actually, it used to be their bedroom, and that used to be their bed. Until the terrible day when Jackson Parker and his team tricked, trapped and arrested him, and his beautiful wife looked at him with horrified new eyes.
Just the way he was going to look at her when she finally got home.
They’d been happy together in this room. How many times had they made love under that fluffy duvet? He ran his hand over the fine cotton, remembering. Every single time had been glorious. There’d been nothing like making love with his wife. It was good to fuck the occasional other woman, sure, but he only ever made love to his wife.
Until that day when she realized the truth about him and cast him from the Garden of Eden straight into the flames of hell, where he burned. To this day, he still burned. And he’d been so stupid, so criminally foolish, that he’d wanted to make it up to her. He’d tried to be understanding while she came to terms with who he really was, tried to give her time, tried to be a patient and loving husband and let her come to him on her own.
Those days were over.
The bitterness collected on the back of his tongue and he swallowed it down. Then he swallowed another hard gulp of the Cabernet he’d brought upstairs with him and drained the crystal goblet dry. Wait—dry? Yeah, dry.
Infuriated because nothing ever went his way these days, he wheeled around and hurled the goblet into the mirror over the dresser, shattering both with an ear-splitting explosion of glass that sent shards in every direction.
The release felt so good that he looked around for something else to throw and was startled out of his fury when Mama poked her head in the door and shot him a glance full of that worried mother hen shit.
“Is everything okay—”
Los
ing it, he did something he almost never did: roared at her. “Get the hell out of here, Mama.” Her eyes widened with alarm and that made him feel a whole hell of a lot better. “You stay away from this room tonight.”
She faltered, her jaw flapping. “But—”
Here he dropped his voice because sometimes speaking softly scared people worse than anything else, and if there was one thing he wanted to do tonight it was scare some people. “Don’t make me tell you again, Mama.”
Some combination of his voice and the look on his face seemed to do it. She scurried off down the hall, leaving him alone in Kira’s bedroom with only her belongings and his memories of the days when she’d been a loving wife.
The bitterness rose again, nearly choking him this time.
Kira was many things now, but loving wife wasn’t one of them.
Passing the bed, he came to the chair where, just like always, she’d thrown her nightgown, a pale blue one. He picked it up in a slither of fine silk, pressed it to his nose, and dropped to the chair as the sweet familiarity of her scent swept over him. No one smelled like Kira. She wore some elusive combination of flowers and sex that gave him a hard-on every time he whiffed it. Like now.
Despair hit him in sudden, giant waves, and he propped his elbows on his knees and buried his hot face in the nightgown. For one terrible second he actually thought he might cry—he was that upset. But then he heard a welcome sound and it gave him something else to focus on: Kira’s light footsteps in the hall.
His loving wife. Returned to him at last. What a fucking joke.
Standing, he tossed the nightgown aside and smiled at her. “Hi, baby.”
“Hi.” She lingered in the doorway, obviously not knowing what to make of finding him in her precious off-limits sanctuary. He imagined her expression would be the same if she found a turd in her bowl of ice cream but, to give her credit, she recovered pretty fast and plastered that fucking Stepford wife smile on her face. “What’re you doing here?”
Deadly Pursuit Page 25
