Love in Electric Blue (Westlake Enterprises)

by Marie Harte

  “Great, now that that’s out of the way,” he muttered, took a sip of his coffee and sighed with pleasure. That he still took it with cream and sugar reassured her in some small way. “Perfect. Thanks.”

  Her heart raced, but she forced herself not to show how much his approval—even for such a small thing—mattered.

  “The reason Jurek and I went to Max yesterday is why I’m here. We’d intended to get some IT assistance from Max’s guy.” He snorted. “At least I feel better knowing the person undermining me for months was you. You’re the only one I know who can get around my security. To think someone else had been spying on us didn’t sit well.”

  She flushed. “Well, when our firms worked the Glass case, it kind of opened a door for us. You guys have a lot of friends in high places we don’t, so a little insight helped. Not like I stole trade secrets or anything.” She’d helped Max to know his competitor better, was all. “I had no idea that was you. I mean, that you and Joshua were the same person.”

  “I figured that out yesterday.” He grinned. “Don’t worry about tapping into our resources. I’d have done the same.”

  That he didn’t blame her for the trespass reassured her they might be able to get along after all. Remember, this is new. Take it slow, one step at a time. Maybe he understands now—maybe he can forgive you.

  “So this new case we’re on,” J.D. barreled on. “We wanted Max’s thoughts on it, as well as your help. It involves both Westlake and Buchanan Investigations.”

  J.D. paused and watched her without blinking. She waited on the edge of her seat, intrigued to know what held such importance that Jurek had come to Max for help. Jurek Westlake ran a successful securities and investigations firm. He did work for the government, was on a first-name basis with senators and prominent cabinet members, and pretty much did as he pleased. So why come to Max?

  J.D. explained, “A client of ours gave us some info that leads us to believe your uncle, Benjamin Carter, is still alive.”

  He watched Remy for her reaction. When she didn’t appear startled by the news, he wanted to swear. “So you’ve known all along?”

  She licked her lips, her nervous tell, and he had to force himself to ignore the heat that shot through his belly. He focused on the case, determined to handle his definite, though unwanted, attraction for her later.

  “Yes, I knew,” she said quietly, sounding sad again.

  He felt a start of surprise that she’d answered him honestly. “Did you help him escape?” Hearing that Carter remained alive had thrown him back into that dark place it had taken him years to climb out of. From what he remembered, the lab had burned to the ground with everyone still in it. Yet Remy knew her uncle lived?

  Though she seemed much more guarded than she’d ever been with him, he had no trouble reading the fear, hesitation and stubbornness she didn’t voice.

  “Remy.” He meant to warn her to cooperate, but somehow his power reached out to hers, stroking with a touch of positive energy. She jolted at the contact and he withdrew.

  “Shit. Sorry, force of habit, I guess.” Yet he wasn’t sorry. He liked knowing she hadn’t protected herself against him. What did that mean? And a heartbeat later, he grew angry, because she’d left herself too open. “You let me touch you.”

  “I didn’t think you would—”

  “I could have hurt you. You need to better protect yourself,” he snapped.

  “Thanks for the lecture.” She sighed.

  “Shit. Sorry.” Apologizing again. He felt like a moron, but just looking at her made it hard to think about anything but how pretty she’d become. He cleared his throat. “Tell me what happened that night. How did you know about Carter?”

  Watching her, feeling her energy sparkle and snap despite her apparent effort to lock it down, broke that hardness inside him. His determination to exact vengeance on Elizabeth Remington Sinclair wavered. And he didn’t like it one bit. What kind of hold did she have over him?

  “I…” She paused and glanced down at her lap. Concocting lies, or regrouping because of how hard it was to remember those days?

  He wished he knew.

  She met his gaze again, and he respected her grim fortitude. “I’ve always known he was alive. You don’t know what really happened that night when Jurek came to rescue you.” She held up a hand as if to physically ward off his questions. “But I’m not ready to talk about that now, and I know you’re not ready to hear it.”

  He frowned. “You don’t know me. Sometimes I don’t think you ever really did.” Or you would have known not to play me, that I’d have done anything for you if you’d only told me the truth.

  She laughed, but there was no joy in the sound. “Yeah, well, apparently you never knew me either. All the same, I’m not up for rehashing old times.” She drained her coffee. Remy always had been a caffeine addict. “I’ll talk to you about Carter. Just let me refill my drink. You need more?”

  He shook his head and watched her move, wishing she’d lose the robe so he could see if she was as thin as she appeared. The woman needed to eat more. Yet that fragility only added to her appeal. She looked like an elfin princess he wanted to protect as much as he wanted to possess. And yes, to fuck. She was no girl, but a woman full-grown. Though not big, her curves fit her frame. And they’d fit his perfectly.

  He groaned inwardly, needing to will away another erection. Fuck, but he’d jacked off twice last night to thoughts of taking her, of finally having the one woman who had touched his heart. The only one ever to do so.

  She returned with a fresh cup, holding it before her like a weapon. The core of steel that had always been present in her reappeared. That sobbing, shaking woman from yesterday had all but vanished. Good. He welcomed this woman. And the hell of it was, he wanted her even more like this.

  Funny, in all of the years they’d been apart, he’d never considered how much she’d been hurt by her uncle. He’d thought her part of Carter’s plans from the start, after what Carter had told him. Yet…he sensed more to the story. None of it made sense.

  Remy sat again and spoke, surprising him with her compliance. Though she’d said she’d talk, he’d thought she’d find some way to avoid the truth.

  “The night Jurek’s team rescued you, I watched my uncle escape. He’d been unhurt by the fire. Before he left, he found me hiding. I thought he’d take me with him, that I’d never be free. Then we heard the sirens getting closer. I threatened to slow him down, and I guess he believed me. Because he let me go. But he threatened to never stop looking for me, that he’d find me again and never ever let me go.”

  He could still feel the fire around him as if it had happened yesterday.

  “At the time,” Remy continued softly, “my uncle thought you dead in the explosion. I let him think that.”

  What more hadn’t she said? “Did he ever find you again?”

  “Yeah, on one of my dumber days. I was living in a small town, way off the grid, or so I thought. Working around people is a mistake. And around strangers is worse—I know that now. Back then, I worked in the library and was helping a man find a book in one of the lesser-used sections. Next thing I know, I’m waking up just as he’s getting me into his car.” She didn’t sound upset, just resigned.

  “Drugs never worked on us the way they did other people,” he said absently.

  Christ. She’d been hunted while he’d been protected and watched over by Jurek. He actually felt bad for her, before he remembered she’d nearly fried him at her uncle’s command. Karma could be a real bitch.

  “I was surprised Carter had forgotten that fact. Thanks to my wacky metabolism, I pushed through the drug, managed to escape, and kept on running. I moved every so often, changing my name, my employment. Keeping to the shadows, mostly, while I monitored the Net.”

  “Smart.” J.D. was fascinated, despite his resolve to maintain an emotional distance. She could be lying, but everything he knew about her told him that this, finally, was the truth. “So you ha
cked systems and used whatever you needed.”

  She nodded. “I built some friendships with other hackers too, joined in our lack of trust for Big Brother. I’d plant the notion that some really bad guys were after me, government types, which only stirred the paranoia. It worked. Though Carter tried to stay in the shadows while hunting me, my friends watched and listened. Whenever they’d sense Carter’s minions, they’d pass the news to me and I’d clear out of an area before he could find me.”

  “I just can’t believe Carter would continue to track you after all these years.”

  “Believe it,” Remy said flatly. “He tortures in the name of science, and he’s obsessed with his earliest successes.” Meaning Remy and J.D.

  As a team, they’d managed what none of Carter’s other lab rats could—a seamless, virtually unstoppable force when activated. When J.D. and Remy combined their power, the electromagnetic shield around them repelled danger and increased their output levels. He’d once felt they could do anything together. Yet Carter had never let them reach their full potential, smart enough to know the first casualty would be himself should the pair bond at too high a level.

  As if reading his thoughts, Remy nodded. “He needed more time to figure out how to control us. Carter is a smart guy. The tranquilizers failed to work before. They won’t fail the next time. If he finds me again, I don’t know that I’ll ever get away.”

  He saw the shiver she tried to hide.

  Before he shifted to hug her—a dumb move she’d probably take as a threat—Remy rose from her chair and crossed to the window. She gazed at the building next to her apartment.

  J.D. ached to comfort her, yet he wouldn’t. Letting her get inside his head would be stupid. A pitiful story and sad face wouldn’t work on him. No matter what she’d suffered since the Institute, she’d brought it on herself. Sure, he was entitled to feel a little pity, but that didn’t absolve her prior guilt.

  But he couldn’t deny that it went a long way toward her atonement.

  “So tell me how you got from there to here, working for Buchanan.”

  She turned to face him, and he lost himself in her eyes. “I found Max when I needed him. Before I left the Institute, I took some papers with me. I knew about Jurek and Max a long time ago. I thought Max might help me. And he did. Working for Buchanan Investigations is the longest I’ve stayed put in years. Honestly, I don’t know if I’d have survived on my own much longer. It’s hard to be on the run all the time.” She blinked, battling tears, it seemed.

  J.D. felt an unfamiliar stirring of jealousy that she’d gone to Max and not him, knowing he was still alive. She should have sought him out—the boy she’d claimed to love.

  Fuck. I have no sense feeling anything about this woman. It’s been ten fucking years. She’s a stranger. Forget the past. “So, uh, you’re safe here.”

  “Maybe.”

  Alarm made him sit up straight. “How’s that?”

  She blew out a breath. “Forget it.”

  “Tell me.”

  She watched him in silence, and he didn’t think she’d answer when she said, “I’ve been having dreams about my uncle. I don’t know. I’m not clairvoyant, but when I get this itch, it normally means he’s getting close. Then you tell me your case involves him. My guess is he’s found me. Or if not yet, he will soon.”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh my God. If he finds me, he’ll find you. We can’t let that happen.”

  “Are you trying to protect me?” he asked, incredulous.

  She flushed. “So what if I am? You think I’m a loser skank who tried to kill you, so why shouldn’t I make up for it?”

  “‘Loser skank’?’” He couldn’t help it. He laughed. Hearing words like that from Remy didn’t fit. She looked like a pixie queen.

  He crossed to her, trying to understand. She worked for Max, and Buchanan would scan any employees before letting them near his family or the business. Max obviously liked her—a plus.

  Then there was the matter of her knowing her uncle lived, yet she hadn’t ratted J.D. out. Granted, she hadn’t known Joshua Moran and J.D. Morgan were the same person until yesterday, but she could have had Carter out searching for the boy she’d known had survived. He’d have heard about it during his years with Jurek.

  He studied her. “You’re still so cute when you’re angry.”

  “I’ll show you angry,” she muttered.

  “Now, honey. You don’t want to bruise this handsome face, do you?”

  “Jerk.” She muttered a few more uncomplimentary things about his ego, but she didn’t look away from his face. That uncomfortable, erotic, affectionate connection snapped in place between them. Positive to negative, magnets of need that could no longer be denied.

  He had to taste her. Just once more. He pulled her to him, and holding her hands behind her back, he drew her against him.

  “Joshua,” she breathed but didn’t protest.

  He groaned, unable to resist. And then he kissed her.

  Chapter Four

  When Remy stiffened under him, he gentled his hold. Despite everything between them, he apparently didn’t want her afraid, and the love she’d never lost for this boy, now a man, flooded her once more.

  She moaned and relaxed into the kiss while he unknotted her robe and pushed it off her shoulders, then deepened the embrace.

  God, the last time she’d kissed a man had been over a year ago, an experiment to see if she could let go and just enjoy sex. Yet her virginity remained intact. A twenty-seven-year-old virgin. Embarrassing, but she wanted her first time to mean something. Remy was no prude. She knew how she liked to be touched and reveled in her own pleasure. But to give over to another, to trust someone that much, she’d never thought she could do it.

  Until now.

  She couldn’t believe that after all their time apart, Joshua—J.D.—still had this effect on her. They’d shared an innocent kiss as teenagers, but nothing at all like this. No chaste embrace, but a passionate, carnal meeting of mouths and tongues and teeth.

  More, J.D. Please, more.

  He licked the roof of her mouth and let go of her wrists, since she no longer protested his hold. Instead, his large hands covered her ass and pulled her against an erection he couldn’t hide. He felt huge. He’d never fit inside her but, Lord, she wanted him to try.

  She gripped his shoulders for support, still learning this new man. No longer a whip-thin boy, J.D. Morgan had muscles, strength, and so much delicious power sizzling inside him.

  His full lips tantalized her own, not taking but giving such pleasure. His soft caresses were all the more seductive for their surprising gentleness. It had been so long since she’d been held, and she couldn’t deny she wanted him with every breath in her body.

  Remy sighed and opened her mouth wider at his subtle urging. She sagged into him as his tongue dueled with hers, tasting her, arousing her. She mimicked his movements and heard him groan low in his throat. Then his hands started moving and she lost all thought, seething with sensation.

  He curled his hands around her narrow waist, stroking her rib cage and the tight plane of her stomach. Not enough for either of them, because he slid his hands under her pajama top. The dual sensations of his tongue and his touch, flesh to flesh, made her putty in his hands.

  Overloaded and unable to process more than desire, she clutched him tight when he cupped her bare breasts. The notion to deny him never entered her mind.

  Then he pinched her nipples, and her body sizzled with more than her excess energy, but with a climb toward an impending climax she never could have achieved on her own. She deepened their kiss, desperate for more, longing for him to ease the burning ache inside her.

  He left her mouth to feather kisses across her jaw to the sensitive spot on her neck, just under her ear.

  “Yes, please,” she begged.

  “Touch me. Take me out and feel me.” He guided her hands to the snap on his jeans, and she followed his direction. Unsnapping then unfastening
his pants, she reached beneath his underwear to grasp the hard, hot length of him.

  “Christ. Yeah. Pump me. I’m so close to coming. Fuck. I need to come all over you.”

  The dirty talk, his desperation and need, turned her on like nothing else. And while she fit her fingers awkwardly around his girth, sliding through the moisture over his tip, he plunged a hand down her belly, eased past her panties, and returned his mouth to hers.

  When he sought and found her moist core, she moaned into his voracious kiss and gripped him harder. Fast, intense, and then they were just…there.

  He reached his own climax while she shuddered in hers.

  The kiss was brutal, the orgasm more so, since they crested it together. Their energy intertwined and burst, making the ecstasy of the moment so much more than a sexual catharsis, but a reopening of a connection never quite forgotten.

  After they parted and she could breathe again, Remy blinked up into angry blue eyes.

  “I made a mess,” he said softly and withdrew his finger from her sheath. When he grazed her clit, she shuddered—and he smiled. But there was no happiness in the expression, just a calculated satisfaction that made her feel dirty. Used.

  “Let me go.”

  “You first.”

  She blushed as she realized she still held him, half-hard, in her grasp. Releasing him, her fingers coated with his seed, she mumbled an excuse and fled for the bathroom.

  She shut and locked the door behind her, then leaned against the sink and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked wild, out of control, such a contrast to the orderly way she tried to live her life. Letting go meant allowing the currents constantly surging through her body free reign. Even after all this time, she still worried she might one day lose control and hurt someone.

  Yet she’d just lost her mind completely. Had a mutual masturbation session with J.D., for God’s sake, and hadn’t done more than get off while riding an electrical high.

  With shaky hands, she cleaned up, more than puzzled at how wet he’d gotten her. She knew all about orgasms, but she’d drenched her panties, big-time.