by Cherry Adair
“As even fifty percent Aequitas, you don’t have a choice. Suck it up and move on.”
Sara bit her lower lip. His gut took a direct hit. Why in the hell did she have to have that annoying habit that fixated him on her mouth?
“Grant isn’t going to like this one bit.”
He hadn’t seen the guy in two years, and Jack was already sick of hearing his name. “Have him take it up with the Wizard Council.”
“You know he isn’t a wizard, Jack. How am I going to explain what you’re doing hanging around?”
Jack turned away to stare sightlessly out the window where two blondes cavorted in the pool. He didn’t like his reaction to seeing Sara again. He didn’t like it a lot. This was exactly the reason he’d promised himself he’d never run into her again.
“Tell him I’m your bodyguard. Hell, tell him we’re back together.”
She cast him an exasperated look. “He’s never going to believe that; he’s not an idiot.”
No, Grant Baltzer was anything but. Jack knew she admired the guy and considered him handsome, charming, and brilliant. He was also loaded, which Jack knew she didn’t care about one way or the other. Although she enjoyed the lifestyle and the perks.
While Sara’s friend and boss was a playboy, he also worked hard. Jack had tried to be civil for Sara’s sake, but it would be a leap to pretend that he’d ever liked the guy. “Tell him the truth then.”
She thought about it for a second. “Maybe some of it. I have to explain Alberto’s absence somehow.” She looked none too happy about it. “Before I put on my Wonder Woman suit and save the world, I have to go take care of the kitchen and talk to the staff, then check on Carmelita.” She leaned over her desk to depress a button on the phone. He held up a hand, and she paused.
“None of the staff have any memory of the slaughter they witnessed—I figured they could all do without it and Mindwiped them. So you might not want to comfort them for something they don’t remember. You should think of a reason why the kitchen door is locked, though; I didn’t want anyone coming in while I was trying to deal with Alberto, and I’m assuming it’s still sealed, thanks to our hasty departure.”
“I’m stunned.”
“By my compassion? Jesus, Sara—”
“That too. I had no idea you knew how to do a Mindwipe.” She put through her call, leaving the phone on speaker.
“Thank God,” a woman’s lightly accented voice said with obvious relief. “Are you okay, Sara? No one knew where you ran off to, all the cars are here and the chopper—”
“I’m fine, Pia.” Thanks to Jack’s quick thinking, Pia had no idea what had happened earlier. “We’ll talk about it later. We have a houseguest. Jack Slater will be staying here for a few days—can you have a room prepared for him?”
“Did you say Jack—”
Sara picked up the receiver. “Yes. And I meant it. … No, I won’t let Grant or the others kill him.” She shot Jack a look meant to intimidate. He returned her glare with a bland smile.
“You’re on speaker,” Sara warned Pia, putting the receiver back in the cradle so she could continue pacing. She told Pia that Alberto and Carmelita would be gone for a while visiting Carmelita’s mother.
“God, how long is a while, Sara? Grant won’t be pleased, and William’s going to have a fit if Alberto doesn’t personally prep his meals.” Her assistant sighed. “Want me to tell Héctor he’ll have the honors?”
Sara’s uninhibited laugh went straight to Jack’s groin, and he tried to concentrate on the two practically naked women outside. How in God’s name was he going to stick to his guns and keep his hands off Sara? Liking had zip to do with lust. Spending days, perhaps weeks in close proximity was going to take a hell of a lot more than willpower and fortitude. He was going to need superpowers.
Remember that last day.
Yeah, he thought bitterly. Good as a cold shower. He turned away from the window as Sara ended her call.
“Wait here,” she told him briskly. “I’ll be back in about half an hour.”
He stiffened. If she thought she was calling the shots, she was sadly mistaken. Edge had instructed that they not be out of each other’s sight. “I’ll go with you.”
“Fine.” She changed into jeans and a crisp white shirt as she strode past him out of the room. A ripple of irritation scored him from head to toe. Sara could say all she wanted about being disinterested in magic, but when it suited her, she was all too ready to use her powers, if only to change her clothes. She was a hypocrite as well as a liar.
Good to remember.
Jack stayed in his sweat-stained, dusty clothes and followed her. “Nice place.”
“Yes.” She glanced back, the fall of her blond-streaked, light-brown hair sliding over her shoulder. He stuffed his fingers into his front pockets before he did something stupid, like reach out and touch the glossy strands. There was a time when he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her. A time when all it had taken was a look, and they were naked on any flat surface.
She’d killed that.
Hell. She’d almost killed him.
Jack looked out one of the wide windows to the backdrop of vegetation beyond the high walls of the estate. The sun was still shining, but it had started to rain, huge fat drops that turned to steam as they hit the thick vegetation. That impenetrable green wall of jungle, Jack noted, was held back by little more than a half-inch of plate glass. Made him appreciate the air-conditioning.
He rubbed a hand across his aching jaw—aching because, he realized, he was grinding his teeth. Hell, what man wouldn’t be, stuck with the one woman he didn’t want to be close to in the middle of a fucking jungle? God, what a clusterfuck.
There were a lot of windows, all barred and screened. All with views of dense foliage. Damn place was surrounded by jungle. “He’s a pretty social guy. Why have a home so inaccessible?”
“It’s logical to make a home base convenient to where we’re working. And we’re building seven new hotels down the west coast.”
Rain beat a thunderous rhythm on the tiled roof and slashed at the windows. “We?”
“Grant made me a partner six months ago.”
Yet another manipulation to keep Sara at his side, Jack bet. Baltzer did nothing that wasn’t self-serving. “Congratulations.”
She started to say something, then literally bit her tongue.
“What?”
Sara stopped walking and he almost bumped into her. She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “Why does everything you say sound like a damned insult?”
“Maybe you’re too sensitive?”
“You’re an ass, Jack. You’d better be civilized to Grant. You’re accepting his hospitality, and he’s very important to me. Piss him off and you’ll piss me off even more than I’m pissed off already.”
She was damned appealing when she was annoyed. Her brown eyes darkened and her cheeks got sweetly pink. He put up his hands in surrender. “I’ll be on my best behavior.”
“You’d better.” She turned and started walking again. They went through the tiled entryway, through a great room, and down a side corridor. The single-story hacienda was enormous, the size of a small hotel. With any luck, he wouldn’t have to see Baltzer for days. On the other hand, sticking close to Sara when there was this much room might prove to be problematic.
“What happened to Roe?” William Roe had been Baltzer’s partner for years. About the same age as Jack, the guy gave him a serious case of the willies. The snake tattooed on his forearm, positioned so that it seemed to writhe and move forward whenever William shook hands, had a great deal to do with Jack’s aversion to him.
“Still a partner, although, of course, Grant keeps the controlling interest in the company. William lives here as well.”
God, this just got better and better. He’d have to sleep with one eye open and arm himself to the teeth. “One big happy family.”
“You never told me you were Aequitas.”
H
e stiffened, and crushed every soft feeling she’d been bringing out in him. “You didn’t happen to mention you were mestizo Aequitas. So I guess we’re even.”
This time when she stopped, Jack had to grab her shoulders to prevent her falling against him, to stop at all costs making full-body contact. But it brought her close. Too close. He didn’t pull her in, but he didn’t push her away. He just stood there, enduring the torture of inhaling her soft citrus scent as a flood of sensual memories washed over him.
Their high-octane gazes caught, held. They froze.
There was nothing that revived the past quite like a smell associated with it. The heady fragrance of ginger-lemon soap and the sound of the rain beating on the windows brought back vivid memories of burying his fingers in the frothy, scented strands of her hair as he bathed her in the shower.
Jack had bathed all of her. Very slowly. And often. The shower was one of their favorite places to make—
A heartbeat after the thought flashed in his mind, Jack found his tongue in Sara’s mouth, and his hands filled with her wet, naked ass cheeks. Hot water pounded his shoulders. Sara’s slick, soapy, naked body pressed against his. Her taste was still heady, the unexpected intimacy of her tongue curling against his shockingly sweet.
His erection was instantaneous and hard enough to pole-vault him to Australia. He kissed her like a starving man at a feast. Her hungry mouth beneath his gave him jolts of intense pleasure, the sensation so powerful he went deaf and blind with it. He felt something give way inside him. Something hard and tight suddenly soared free.
Her lips were just as he remembered: firm, moist, delicious. Hunger fueled equal hunger as her mouth opened wider, and their slick tongues mated. He shoved her back against the tiled wall, pressing his erection to the soft curls between her legs, and held on to her as if she might suddenly disappear.
Skin flushed, Sara murmured low in her throat, angling her mouth against his, licking then biting his lower lip. Her entire body shuddered as he held her steady, one ass cheek cupped in his hand. He lifted her slightly and felt the erect pebbles of her aroused nipples through the hair on his chest. Her arms tightened around his neck as she curled one silky-smooth leg around his hips.
They kissed frantically. Jack pulled her tongue into his mouth, wanting to absorb the taste and feel of her as he worked his mouth over hers until they were both panting and breathless.
Without warning, Sara ripped her mouth from beneath his, her breathing labored, her eyes flashing fire.
Completely disoriented, Jack surfaced. “What’s the matt—” It took him a moment to realize this wasn’t where they’d been—either physically or emotionally—a few seconds ago. “What the f—” They were bare-ass naked in a steaming shower stall, their bodies glued together.
The tight vise of her leg dropped from its position across his ass. Water dripped from her lashes as she blinked at him. “I’m going to kill you, Jackson Slater.” She pounded a fist on his wet chest. “Get your damned hand off my ass.” She used both hands to shove him away. Hard.
“Hell—it wasn’t—” The steaming water suddenly turned cold, just like her eyes before she vanished.
“Crap!” Braced by his arm, Jack thumped his forehead against the cool white tiles. To say he was in trouble didn’t begin to cover it. Sara might be amping his powers, but she was messing with his head—and apparently with his ability to control his powers.
He had to be cold-blooded around her. Unfortunately, Sara had always had a profound and disturbing ability to heat up his hemoglobin like no other woman before or since.
Good damned thing cold was his power to call.
He froze the droplets on his skin to glittering shards. Even so, it took a few moments to get rid of his erection. When he figured he was cooled off enough, he brushed the ice crystals off his skin, stepped out of the unfamiliar enclosure, and materialized his clothes.
He needed armor. Body armor and brain armor. Head-to-toe-and-everything-in-between armor.
Jack closed his eyes for a long, pained moment.
He was so screwed.
JACK CAUGHT UP WITH Sara in the north wing. He must’ve traced her, damn it.
“Whoa! Don’t go storming off in a huff. As interesting as that was, it was not my fault.”
Sara hadn’t had enough time—say, ten or fifteen years—to gather even a modicum of equilibrium after the shocker of finding herself pressed against Jack’s wet, naked body without warning.
Interesting? She still felt the rasp of his callused thumb stroking a light circle against the small of her back as he tugged her closer. Stop it. Walking faster, she bit her kiss-swollen lip until it hurt enough to bring her back to her senses.
“Whose fault was it, then?” she demanded, jaw aching from clenching her teeth. “Certainly not mine.” She was not, absolutely not, going to allow her rampaging hormones to erase the hurt and anger she felt toward him. She used to mainline her love and lust for Jackson Slater and had been forced to cut off the addiction cold turkey. She wasn’t going back down that dangerous path ever again. The withdrawal had almost killed her.
“Isn’t it funny how nothing is ever your fault?” He let out an angry breath. “Do you ever take any responsibility for your actions, Sara? Or do you just blame your own bad choices on someone else because otherwise you’d have to acknowledge your own piss-poor judgment?”
Her blood pressure spiked, making her eyeballs throb. A hundred pithy, insulting responses came to the tip of her tongue. Sara ruthlessly suppressed them all. She knew what happened when her emotions were let loose. She dared not risk blasting Jack, angry as she was. Changing clothes was one thing; if that bit of magic went wrong, she could find herself in a red blouse instead of a black one. Serious spells going wrong had much more dire consequences.
There’d been enough death and destruction around for one day, but God, she was tempted. So freaking tempted. She settled for “Bite me.”
“And get food poisoning? I don’t think so.”
She felt dizzy just imagining turning around and punching him. Hard. Somewhere. Anywhere. Words alone wouldn’t relieve this tight band across her chest.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Do. Not. Respond. In. Out. In. Out. Stay calm. Immune.
“What the hell are you doing?” He peered into her face. “Having a seizure?” He didn’t sound concerned, just rudely amused.
Sara closed her eyes and shook her head. In. Out. In. Out. “I’m ignoring you.”
“Well, can you do that without sounding as though you’re gearing up for a deep-sea dive?”
Her sensitized nipples rubbed annoyingly on the inside of her lacy bra as she moved, and the crotch of her panties was damp. Those few moments in the shower hadn’t exactly been foreplay, but her body, deprived of Jack’s for so long, didn’t give a damn. She was primed and ready for sex. And she wasn’t going to get any, not for the foreseeable future.
“No, Jack, I’m afraid I can’t.” Without looking at him, she kept moving.
They’d fought only toward the end. She’d hated it then and she hated it now. It gave her the same sick feeling, like putting on a favorite pair of jeans and realizing they not only didn’t fit anymore, they pinched uncomfortably.
Jack was walking too close. Close enough for her to feel the heat emanating from his tall body. On him, her soap smelled nothing like it did on her. He smelled like clean male. A quick, surreptitious glance out of the corner of her eye showed he was back in his dusty, disheveled pants and shirt, but his dark hair was clean and slicked back off his forehead.
No more touching, she warned herself sternly. She could convince herself she was immune, as long as Jack didn’t touch her. She unclenched her hands and took several calming breaths. If he smiled, if he even looked as though he might smile, she would smack him.
“If you ever do anything like that again, Jackson Slater,” she snapped, picking up speed, eyes front, “I’m going to take great pleasure in using every ounce of my magic to emasc
ulate you.”
“Pull in your claws, Sara. It won’t happen again. We’re supposed to be working together here, remember? Let’s just call a truce.”
His heat—the hardness of his erection—had been shockingly familiar pressed to the tender juncture of her thighs. The encounter had been instantaneous—no buildup, no warning, no time to marshal her defenses. She’d literally melted into him before she remembered that this was now, not then.
Oh, God, Sara thought, adding jumpy and panicky to horny. How am I going to handle seeing him every freaking day? “Fine. But the truce doesn’t extend to sex.”
“Fine by me. And just as an FYI—I didn’t do it,” he reminded her flatly. “We did it. Next time you think of sex in the shower, make sure I’m not anywhere near you.”
Oh, great, Sara thought, absolutely appalled. The sound of the rain on the roof, the smell of him after so long—how did Jack know she’d been thinking exactly that when he’d grabbed her? “I wasn’t thinking about you,” she fibbed. “Or a shower. Or anything el—hi, ladies.”
Thank God. Saved by the belles, Grant’s latest vapid set of blue-eyed blond twins. The women, not even out of their teens, were identical. Both wore minuscule threads of black floss on their tanned, taut, oil-slicked bodies. Their combined IQ was close to their bra size.
“Inga and Ida Angstrom, meet Jackson Slater.”
Inga had a livid bite-shaped bruise on her breast, and Ida had tried to cover the fresh marks on both wrists with makeup. Grant forgot his own strength sometimes, and if he wasn’t careful, one day one of his playmates was going to report him to the police. None of her business, but hard not to notice. Sara sighed inwardly.
“Hi, Jackson,” Inga cooed. The scent of coconut oil and hot sunshine mingled on her rain-wet skin with the smell of chlorine from the pool. The girl licked her lips like a porn queen, her hot blue gaze pinning Jack in place.
“We can’t find Carmelita and it’s way past lunchtime,” Ida whined in the particularly annoying baby voice she used around men. Her big blue eyes were also locked on Jack like a tractor beam.
Jack had shirts older than these girls.
