by Helen Brenna
Sean stepped back and Jonas immediately took her hand and drew her to the far corner of the floor where they weren’t at all visible to her friends at the bar. The song on the jukebox was a new rock song with a fairly fast beat, but he held out his arms for a slow dance.
“No.” She shook her head.
“Chicken.”
Before she could turn away, he tugged her into his arms and moved half-time, if even, to the beat of the music.
“If I were Sean,” he murmured, “there’s no way in hell I’d let you dance with me.”
“Well, you’re not Sean. Not even close.”
“He’s not your type, Missy.”
“Oh, and you are?” She tried to pull away, but the bullet wound apparently hadn’t impacted his arm strength. His hold on her was like a vise. He wasn’t going to let go.
For a moment, she stopped fighting it. Closing her eyes, she let herself imagine they’d gone back in time to the first few months of their marriage, when they’d been blissfully happy, to a time when his work hadn’t yet intruded.
Resting his cheek against the side of her head, he brought her hand to his chest and drew her closer. She felt the solid, but quick thudding of his heart under her hand as his hips pressed against hers, and something warm and liquid and needy fired to life inside her. “What do you want, Jonas?”
“That’s simple,” he whispered in her ear. “You.” His voice was raspy and soft and made her stomach quiver.
“You had your chance.”
Before this went too far, she yanked away from him and quickly made an exit along one side of the dance floor. All of her friends at the bar were too busy talking and laughing to notice her heading to the bathroom. She pushed open the door and breathed a sigh of relief that there was no one at the sinks and the stalls were empty, giving her a chance to compose herself. Running her hands under cold water, she splashed her cheeks.
Now what? If she’d known Jonas was going to come here, she would’ve gone straight home after work. Then again, better late than never. She left the bathroom, planning to quietly exit via the alley, only to find Garrett waiting for her in the hall.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Actually, I’m not feeling all that well. I think I’ll head home.” She moved toward the rear exit.
“Missy?” Garrett said softly. “I see the way Jonas watches you. If he’s your brother, I’m the King of freaking England.”
“I’m sorry, Garrett.” She turned. “It’s…private.”
“Just tell me one thing. Are you safe?”
In the way he meant? “Yes. Absolutely.”
“Okay then.” Garrett nodded. “You need help, day or night, all you got to do is call.”
“I know that, Garrett.” Guilt over misleading the islanders overwhelmed her. “Thank you.” Somehow, someway, she had to find a way to make things right with her friends. Soon. “Will you tell everyone I’ve gone home?”
“Sure.” Garrett went back to the bar.
Missy walked the rest of the way down the hall and pushed through the rear exit. As soon as she closed the door behind her, she took a deep breath and relaxed. Alone. Thank God.
“Going somewhere?” Jonas was leaning against the brick wall of the building, obviously having anticipated her move.
“Home.” She took a step toward Main, but he blocked her path. “Don’t touch me.” She put up her hands to warn him off. If he kissed her, she’d be a goner. His hands, she could maybe fight, but his lips, his mouth on hers? She had no defense against him.
He didn’t move. His feet remained planted in the same spot on the cobblestone, but to Missy it felt as if he’d come to stand only inches from her. She could’ve sworn she felt his breath fan her neck, his heat on her arms.
“Why, Missy?” he breathed. “What are you afraid of?” His gaze moved to her lips. He came toward her and slowly, slowly bent his head toward her. His mouth settled on her forehead. She couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to.
Closing her eyes, her head tilted back as if it were suddenly as heavy as a bowling ball. His lips trailed down her nose. It seemed forever before the first, warm stroke of his lips against her mouth. Then his tongue licked at hers, and a groan sounded. Hers, his, she couldn’t be sure.
“We had our chance, Jonas,” she whispered. “Everything went bad.”
“Not everything.” His gaze simmered with memories and she felt herself melting with the heat coming off him. “I know one thing that was always good between us.”
“Jonas—”
“No more talking,” he said, bending his head toward her. “All it ever did was get us into trouble.” His lips sliding against her cheek and down her neck.
She pressed back against the brick wall, wishing she could slip through it, knowing exactly what was going to happen if she couldn’t stop this. She put her hands against his chest, in a ridiculously feeble attempt to push him away. He only laced his fingers through hers and slowly drew her hands over her head. Then he was against her, pressing into her and all she wanted was to be under him, to feel his weight pressing on her.
“We always had this,” he murmured against her lips and kissed her. He pushed the line, was insistent, but not needy. Resolute in his movements, but not arrogant.
She tilted her head, unintentionally urging him on and he dipped his tongue inside her mouth, at once testing and teasing. He knew her better than she knew herself, read her body, her touch, her sighs. She would never be able to walk away from him. Not while his hands were on her, not while she wanted him with an ache four years in the making.
Her bones turned liquid, her want quickly spiraled into need. There was only one thing she could do to stop this madness. “No,” she breathed, knowing he would never force her.
“You don’t mean that.”
She closed her eyes and pushed the word from her mouth. “No!”
His hands and lips stilled for a moment. “You’re as much mine today, Missy, as you were that first night in Quantico. There’s no other man who can make you feel the way I do, and you know it.”
She ran her hand over her mouth, trying to dispel the tingling sensation. “Just because you can, Jonas, doesn’t mean you should.” Summoning every ounce of willpower, she turned and walked swiftly home.
J ONAS FOLLOWED M ISSY , his thoughts chaotic. At first only a few steps behind her, the dull ache in his side had him falling back a good half a block by the time she reached her house. She went inside, slamming the front door behind her.
He arrived in time to hear her slam her bedroom door. Pacing in the kitchen, he managed only one length of the room before abruptly stopping, a raging hard-on pressing uncomfortably against his jeans.
This need he had for her was eating him up from the inside out, and there was little doubt something very similar was happening to her. Or was it? She was in her bathroom getting ready for bed, washing her face, brushing her teeth as if nothing had happened. How could she possibly put that kiss out of her mind? Since the moment they’d first met and he’d first touched her, Missy had been like a volcano ready to erupt. Nothing had changed for him. How could it have changed for her?
Then it hit him. Nothing had changed. She hadn’t any more control than him. It was all an act.
Well, maybe it was time to call her bluff.
Stalking down the hall to her bedroom, he turned the knob and pushed open the door. The room was dark. He saw nothing but a sliver of moonlight slicing the room in half. The only sound was a sharp intake of breath. Then his eyes adjusted and his gaze landed on her body. In profile. Naked.
He nearly lost it right then and there.
Instinctively, she pulled the nightgown in her hands in front of her as she spun toward him. “What are you doing in here?” she whispered.
I want you. He didn’t have to say it for her to know it. Taking a few slow steps into the room, he gave her a moment to accept the inevitable.
“Stop right there.” She held out her
hand, exposing one full breast upturned and bathed in moonlight.
Jonas swallowed, aching to draw that dark, tight nipple into his mouth. As soon as he did, she’d be his again. The word no would disappear from her vocabulary. “You want this as much as I do, Missy. Admit it. At least to yourself if not to me.”
“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t,” she whispered, though the sound was more of a whimper. “Sometimes what we want is the worst thing for us.”
“Enough talk. Let’s do this.” He went to her, stood before her and waited for her to step back. When she didn’t, he reached out and ran his hand over her collarbone and down her arm, giving her every chance to pull away, to say no again, to back up her words with action. Instead, she closed her eyes and her head fell back, in silent invitation.
He bent toward her and kissed her neck, her shoulder, her arm and then he moved to the upper swell of her breast, giving her every chance to back away and shut him down. Instead, her breathing turned rapid. The nightgown slipped from her grasp and Jonas could no longer hold back. He cupped her bare breast in his hand and took her into his mouth, laving her nipple with his tongue.
“Jonas,” she breathed. “Please.”
“Please what, Miss?” Tenderly, carefully, he closed his teeth over her nipple. “What do you want me to do?”
She moaned and put her hands on his head, as if she couldn’t decide whether to push him away or pull him closer. “I…I don’t know,” she whimpered.
“I do.” Gently, he ran his hands along the sharp slope of her shoulders, down the gentle sweep of her back, and on to the rounded curve of her bottom, cupping her to him.
That’s when she touched him, dipped her hand under his shirt and turned hot under his hands.
“Want that off?” He ripped his shirt over his head and threw it on the floor. “Now what?”
She glanced lower.
“Excellent idea.” Quickly, he unzipped his jeans and dragged them off, right along with his boxers.
Pulling her into his arms and feeling her naked breasts pressed against him took him back. “This at least was always perfect between us.” From the very first time to the last, she’d given him everything she’d had to give. He’d done the same.
He backed her onto the bed, spread himself over her, brought her knees up and felt her softness against his rigid flesh. He hadn’t meant to move so fast, but it’d been so long for him and she was so ready, so slick, so swollen. She shifted, tilted her hips under him, putting the tip of him inside her. The uncontrollable need to have her consumed him. He thrust hard, driving himself into her.
“Oh, Missy,” he whispered against her mouth. “There isn’t a better feeling in the world than being inside you.”
The moment Jonas had touched her, the moment he thrust into her, it was as if Missy had ceased to exist, as if her body was no longer her own, as if every hair, every breath, every single one of her bones belonged not to her, but to Jonas. He moved one way and she moved with him, as though she not only anticipated him, she was a part of him.
He brushed his mouth against hers as he drove hard into her one last time. Their breaths mingled as they came together, as they spiraled into oblivion for several long, blissful moments where not a coherent thought pierced her consciousness. There was only skin and heat and the feel of the only man she’d ever loved inside her, pulsing against her, making her his again.
Slowly, as her orgasm shuddered to completeness, she became aware, limb by limb, of how tightly she’d wrapped herself around Jonas, holding him to her. What was she doing? Suddenly, Missy crashed back to reality. After what he’d done to her, after faking his death and walking away, how could she let this happen?
Ashamed, she drew her legs down and held still. She prayed he would just leave, leave her alone, leave her be, leave her to gather the pieces of herself back together.
He took a shuddering breath, rested his full weight against her for a moment and rolled onto his back. “When I’m right, I’m right,” he said with a smile in his voice. “You wanted that as much as I did.”
With those words, what little was left of her dignity dissolved. She covered her face with her hands and couldn’t stop a tiny sob from escaping.
“Missy?” He reached for her.
“Don’t.” She rolled away from him. “Don’t ever touch me again. Never.”
“Missy—”
“No. No, no, no, no, no.” Grabbing a T-shirt and sweatpants, she yanked them on and headed for the door.
“Oh, so now you hate me, right?”
She spun back around to find him lying lazily back against her pillows. “The only person in this world I hate more than you right now, Jonas,” she whispered, “is me.”
T HE BACK DOOR SLAMMED and Jonas felt the smile disappear from his face. As his body sank into a deep lull of contentment, his conscience slowly awakened. “You really are an asshole,” he muttered into the cool night air. But she’d wanted that as much a she had. She’d wanted him to take her.
Just because you can, Jonas, doesn’t mean you should.
Her face. The disgust toward him. Herself.
“Screw it!” He threw a pillow across the room. What was done couldn’t be undone.
He got out of bed. She shouldn’t be outside at night, at least not alone. He hadn’t been followed to Mirabelle and it was highly improbable that they’d found him this quickly, but tempting fate was a good way to get dead.
After pulling his clothes back on, he grabbed his gun and went outside. Quietly, he followed her down a path through the woods. She moved slowly, as if her feet were weighted in cement, but he kept his distance. Rustling not a leaf, nor disrupting a branch, he kept his presence unknown. He’d done enough damage for one night. The least he could do was let her think she was alone.
After a while, she broke through the trees and onto the shoreline. Standing quiet for a moment, she lifted her face to the moon. A trail of tears glistened on her cheek, and it was all Jonas could do not to go to her. But he didn’t have it in him to comfort her. Not anymore.
“What do you want?” she whispered.
He went still, stopped even breathing. Was there someone else here? Someone he hadn’t seen?
“Haven’t you had enough, Jonas?”
How she knew he was here he had no clue, but that was Missy for you. All intuition and insight. No reason or caution, only feelings and actions. “It’s not safe out here.”
“Not safe. Out here?” She laughed and hugged herself. “Is that supposed to be a joke?” As she glanced at him, he saw himself through her eyes. He didn’t like what was there.
What have I become?
Cruel, cold, and unfeeling for starters.
Yes, she’d very definitely wanted him, his body at least, back in her bedroom. He hadn’t forced anything on her, hadn’t taken anything she hadn’t freely given, but he hadn’t planned for it to happen in that way.
“I’m sorry, Miss,” he said quietly.
She glanced at him. “The Jonas I knew never would’ve taken advantage of a woman’s weakness in that way.” She paused, seeming to gauge his sincerity. “Who are you?”
“Not the Jonas you married, that’s for damned sure.”
“What happened to him?”
He’d as much as died for real in that helicopter crash.
Knowing it would still be best to keep his distance, Jonas leaned against a tree and looked out over the dark lake. “Being undercover is…not for every agent. I was good at it. Maybe too good. That’s one of the reasons they wanted me for this assignment. When you’re undercover you have to, to some degree, forget who you are and become someone else.
“I didn’t mind stepping away from my life for a little while,” he continued. “A couple days, a couple weeks, it’s not a big deal coming back down, fitting back into your regular life. But four years? To tell you the truth, Missy, I’m not sure I know who I am anymore.”
Moonlight cast a glow on the side of her face, made her ha
ir look silver. She’d given herself to him, always wholly and completely. What had he given to her? Nothing but pain.
A piece of the old Jonas, a tiny sliver of humanity, snuck back under his skin. “Come back to your house, Missy. Go to sleep. I swear on my mother’s grave, I won’t ever touch you again.”
CHAPTER TEN
MISSY SAT MOTIONLESS on a bench by the shore and stared out over the relatively calm waters of Lake Superior. The sun was barely rising on the horizon as a charter boat cruised out of the marina with a group of early-rising fishermen. Noisy gulls circled the shoreline, cawing and swooping after breakfast. The first ferry of the day was speeding toward Mirabelle. Though aware of all that was taking place around her, Missy felt disconnected from everything.
Jonas reappearing in her life had shaken her world and she couldn’t seem to find solid ground on which to stand. Despite having managed to completely avoid him for the last couple of days, the memory of the earth-shattering sex she’d shared with him was ever-present at the edge of her consciousness. She felt a stranger to herself, and it was all his fault.
Or was it?
On Mirabelle, she thought she’d found a place where she fit, a place where she could settle and build a life. She thought she’d found herself. Instead, she’d been living a lie, and if fitting in was based on a foundation of lies, wasn’t it inevitable that her world would eventually crumble? There was no way around it. She had unfinished business in her life and, Jonas or no Jonas, only she could tie it all up. How to begin?
By telling the truth.
Before she could back down, Missy quickly climbed the hill, ran past her own home and went directly to the back of the Setterbergs’ house. Their inside door was open, leaving only the screen to block mosquitoes and bees. She heard water running in the kitchen sink and voices, but couldn’t make out any words.
“Morning,” Missy called. “You two up and about?”
A chair scraped across the kitchen floor and Ron appeared. “Well, you’re awake early. Come on in.”
Missy entered the kitchen that, more and more, felt as comfortable as her own. It wasn’t that unusual for her to appear at their house unannounced. In fact, she did so with a great deal of regularity and, with any luck, what she had to say today wouldn’t change a thing between them.
