He opened one eye and dipped his head once.
She scrambled from the couch, sweeping up his water glass, and padded into the kitchen. She poured more water into the glass and grabbed a bottle of industrial-strength ibuprofen. She wanted to give him something stronger, but it would make him drowsy, and she’d bet the remaining cash in his black bag he wouldn’t want to be drowsy. She tipped two gel caps into her palm.
As she walked back to the living room, Jack said, “I remembered something.”
She tripped and the water sloshed over the rim of the glass, splashing her hand. Why should his news surprise her? It was what they both wanted and expected from his headaches.
Without meeting his dark gaze, she handed him the glass and dropped the ibuprofen into his palm.
He popped the pills into his mouth and drained the glass. “It’s like bashing your thumb with a hammer— intense agony and then a throbbing pain.”
“Do you want me to massage your scalp like I did the other day? Does that help?”
“Yeah. Just not too much pressure.” He sat forward, turned and presented his back to her.
Her fingers burrowed into his thick black locks until they met his scalp. She pressed her thumbs against the back of his neck as the rest of her fingers gently massaged his head. “Better?”
“Mmm.” He tilted his head back, giving himself over to her ministrations. “Thanks for letting it go. It must’ve been hard for you not to jump in and make it all better.”
“I helped more by not jumping in, right?” Her fingers danced at his temples, tapping a soothing beat.
“You did.”
His hair slipped through her fingers and she rubbed the strands between the pads of her fingertips. “You said you remembered more. Can you talk about it?”
He encircled her wrist with his fingers and turned to face her. “The images were jumbled. At first I was talking to someone in the street of a big city, Kabul, I think. He showed me your brother’s lab. It had been destroyed, your brother kidnapped. I met others in the city, a clandestine meeting, and they told me your brother had been taken to a town in the mountains. I don’t know if it’s the same town where I was attacked and left for dead.”
Jack blew out a breath and closed his eyes as if the stream of words had exhausted him. “I think I must’ve been on my way to your brother when I was attacked.”
“You’re remembering more every day.” She cupped his lean jaw in her hand. “Now we have Gabe’s letter and a clear path to his research. Once we secure that formula, the people holding Gabe will have no reason to keep him, unless…”
The catch in her voice turned into a sob. Had they already killed Gabe?
Jack’s arms encircled her in a protective embrace that attempted to block out every bad thought assailing her. As she entwined her arms around his neck, pressing her damp cheek against his, she could almost believe that Jack’s presence acted like a magic shield.
He pulled her into his lap, skimming his lips across her jaw. She dug her nails into his back, urging him on, needing his strength. Crushing her against his chest, he rose from the couch. She crossed her ankles and tucked her head into the hollow of his shoulder.
With a long stride, he crossed the room and took the stairs two at a time, carrying her as if she weighed less than a grain of sand. He kicked open her bedroom door and set her down on the edge of the bed like a precious doll in a little girl’s prized collection.
He kneeled before her, clasping her hands. “You can say no, Lola. You can say no if you believe there’s another woman in my life.”
Gathering his shirt in her fists, she drew him near and touched her forehead to his. She knew with every cell in her body he had no other woman in his life. Not now. Not in this moment. They belonged to each other’s present.
“Yes.” She planted a kiss on his mouth, all at once greedy and possessive. Right now she needed him more than he needed her. Once again, this damaged man had emerged from his pain with the power and strength to console her.
He slid his hands up her thighs and peeled her black panties from her hips. The rough pads of his fingers trailed down her legs, leaving a shivery kind of delight in their wake. He tossed her carefully selected underwear to the side.
Hooking his arms beneath her knees, he draped her legs over his shoulders. A warm ache throbbed in her belly as his moist breath caressed her inner thighs. He shoved her dress to her waist, and the dark intensity in his eyes sent her falling back onto the bed.
The warm caress of his lips had her clutching the bedspread. His tongue traced her pulsing flesh, and her breath hissed between her teeth. He used his lips, his tongue and even his teeth in ways she’d never before experienced. If every man who’d lost his memory came fully equipped with these particular talents, then line up the amnesiacs.
She giggled, but the giggle morphed to a moan as Jack increased the intensity of his attentions. Heat pooled between her legs, and the warmth raced through her body. Her toes began to curl. She dug her heels into his back.
Pinpricks of pleasure scattered across her skin as the climax claimed her in every way. She arched off the mattress and crashed back down. The release seeped into her flesh and her bones turned to liquid.
Jack stood up between her legs, and she dug her elbows into the bed to prop herself up to watch the show.
He unbuttoned his borrowed shirt and pulled off his T-shirt. Yellowed bruises and scabbed-over abrasions marred his perfect form. The battle scars enhanced the power emanating from his solid frame. He appeared invincible.
“Do I scare you?” He splayed his hands across the ridges of his abs. “Are you afraid of what you’ll find underneath?”
The only thing that frightened her was the idea that she’d never get her fill of this man. She scrambled forward on the bed and yanked at the fly of his slacks. “I’ll have to see what’s underneath first.”
She pulled his slacks down around his thighs and smoothed her hands over his erection. His hot, smooth flesh pulsed against her palms and she took him into her mouth.
His fingers crept into her hair, digging into her scalp. She invited him deeper, and he gasped and rocked forward. She caressed the hard muscles of his buttocks, wanting to lose herself in the sensations of his body.
He pulled away from her. “Not like this.”
He kicked off his pants, and then unzipped her dress and pulled it over her head. Stretching out beside her, he unfastened her bra and rubbed his chest against her bare breasts. “I want to feel every part of your body against mine.”
Their bodies lined up, and Jack rested his chin on top of her head as he skimmed his hands across her skin, shaping and kneading. He then tilted back her head and possessed her mouth with his.
His kiss branded her. It seared her very soul, and with it he imprinted himself on her memory forever. No matter what happened in their future, no matter what Jack discovered about his past, he would always be a part of her.
He rolled her onto her back and straddled her, his knees on either side of her hips. He planted a path of kisses from her throat to the juncture of her legs. He returned to her breasts and teased her nipples with his tongue until her head thrashed from side to side.
He parted her thighs with his knee, and she reached up to drag her fingernails across his sculpted chest. He captured her hand and pressed a kiss on her palm.
His dark eyes, veiled no longer, glimmered in the low light of the room, and then he said, “She doth teach the torches to burn bright.”
And with that quotation from Romeo and Juliet lingering between them, he entered her…and her world shattered.
JACK TUCKED THE COVERS AROUND Lola’s shoulders and crept out of the bedroom. After yesterday’s events at the hospital, she needed her sleep. Hell, she needed her sleep after last night’s events between the sheets.
Would he regret that night of passion when he came face-to-face with a long-lost wife? No. There couldn’t be another woman in his life. It didn’t mat
ter how many cracks on the head he endured, he’d never forget a woman like Lola.
He jogged downstairs and cranked on the coffeemaker. They had a long day ahead of them. He’d start some inquiries into his military records and his attendance at Stanford, and then they had to pay a visit to Cain, Gabe’s research partner.
He’d have to do everything in his power to protect Lola while they were out and about. After reading Gabe’s letter last night, he had a clearer understanding of the threats to Lola’s safety.
The people who snatched Gabe in Afghanistan believed Lola possessed information about the vaccine. As long as she held on to the key to the formula, her life remained in jeopardy.
The alarm on the front door beeped once and Jack spun around in time to see Rosa, loaded down with bags of groceries, stagger into the foyer. He sprinted for the door as a bag slid down the length of her body. He snagged it before it hit the floor.
“Ah, gracias, Mr. Jack.” She put a hand on her generous hip and blew a strand of hair off her face. “Is Miss Lola still sleeping?”
He plucked a bag from her other arm. “You can call me just Jack, you know.”
“Like the kids say, I’m old-school.” She stooped to retrieve a bag from the tiled entryway. “I worked for Lola’s parents for a long time, and I used to wear a maid’s uniform for them.”
Stepping back to let her pass, he said, “What were Lola’s parents like?”
“Old-school.” She grinned as she brushed past him on her way to the kitchen. “Eduardo Famosa was a teenager at the time of the revolution. He’d already started pulling some scams around the clubs in Havana. When he landed in the U.S., he graduated to bigger scams until he was sort of a godfather character in the Cuban community of Miami. Delores, his wife, adored him.”
“And the kids, Lola and Gabe, how’d they cope with their father’s…business?”
She shrugged, expressing everything and nothing. “Kids cope. They grew accustomed to the bodyguards following them to their private school. Mr. Famosa, he was shot once, but Lola and Gabe weren’t with him at the time.”
Jack leaned against the sink, folding his arms. “They must’ve sensed the danger. It was probably rough on them.”
“Sí, but they’re both strong, and Mr. Famosa pushed them into medical school. There was no question that they would follow in his footsteps. He never would have allowed it.”
Jack clenched his jaw. Lola had walked a narrow precipice as a kid, and now he’d brought that menace back into her life. Even with his memories intact, he was surrounded by danger. Now he knew without a doubt he couldn’t be married, because what kind of man would bring a woman into this shadowy world?
He’d made the biggest mistake in his short memory by making love to Lola last night. All night.
“What are you two cooking up?”
Jack glanced up, his gaze raking over Lola, with her tousled hair and rumpled nightshirt that hit just above her knees. His breath hitched in his throat at the memory of sliding his hands over her silky skin. His arms ached with the need to drag her into his arms and kiss the sleepiness from her face.
Rosa glanced from Lola to Jack and back to Lola. “Nothing yet, but I’ll whip up some banana nut pancakes for the two of you.”
Lola yawned. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.” Rosa tapped the side of her neck. “Where did that bruise come from?”
“Where?” Lola raised her hand to her throat, covering the bruise, so she must have felt some soreness.
“Lola was attacked yesterday at the hospital.”
Rosa gasped and dropped a raw egg on the counter. “Dios mío.”
“Thanks, Jack.” Lola narrowed her eyes, clear of all drowsiness now. “There’s no need to worry, Rosa.”
Jack ripped a paper towel from the rack and swept the broken egg into the sink. “She should know. She lives here, too.”
“Qué pasó?”
Lola folded her arms across her stomach, hugging herself. “It was in the basement of the hospital. It was deserted, someone attacked me, he escaped and we called the cops.”
“Did he hurt you, Miss Lola?” Rosa rubbed Lola’s upper arms.
“No. Jack came to the rescue.”
She wagged a finger in Lola’s face. “That’s why you need a big, strong man around…like Mr. Jack.”
After Lola convinced Rosa to her satisfaction that she’d suffered nothing more than that bruise to the neck, Rosa shooed them out of the kitchen to work magic with flour and bananas.
Lola slumped at the kitchen table and powered on her laptop. “Rosa, when did that mail come?”
The muscles at the back of Rosa’s arms worked as she mashed bananas. “Over the course of a few months. Mostly junk.”
“There was a letter from Gabe.” Lola’s voice snagged on her brother’s name, but Rosa, humming to herself, didn’t seem to notice.
“Yes, I saw his doctor’s chickenscratch on the envelope. He thought you were going to stay here while he traipsed off to his outlandish places.” She turned with a bowl of batter in the crook of one arm. “So did I.”
“Do you remember when that letter came?”
“Not long after Mr. Gabe left. I’m sorry I didn’t get it to you before. I kept expecting you to show up, so I thought I’d just collect the mail and hold it for you. Was it important?”
Lola traced the edge of the envelope and shot a glance at Jack. “Not really.”
“Hold off for a while,” Jack murmured and jerked his head toward the laptop, the cursor blinking and ready. Rosa already knew too much. He didn’t need any more amateur spies trolling around for his past.
Lola nodded and pulled up a local news website instead. “I wonder if there’s any news about Hector Villagrande, Elena Hidalgo’s boyfriend, and his case. Maybe he was the one who attacked me yesterday.”
Jack leaned over her shoulder as she searched and then dropped back into his chair. She smelled like musky, intoxicating sex. Neither one of them had showered yet this morning, but the scent of their night together only increased his desire for her.
A desire that smacked of selfishness.
Rosa clicked her tongue and placed a plate stacked with steaming pancakes on the table between them. “I know you two are just waiting for me to leave so you can discuss important business. Just don’t let anything happen to her, Mr. Jack.”
“I won’t, Señora Rosa.” Jack followed Rosa to the front door and reset the alarm. He rubbed his hands together as he returned to the kitchen table. “Where do you want to start?”
“Let’s search for U.S. military records first.” She accessed a U.S. government website and entered Jack’s name. “You’re not eighty-nine years old, are you?”
“When I woke up on that cliff in Afghanistan I felt about eighty-nine years old, but I don’t think so.”
“I can’t find any possible matches for you in this database.”
“We already figured a Green Beret picked for a covert ops team wouldn’t pop up on a public website.”
“Should we try Stanford?” Lola tugged on her earlobe, looking as dubious as he felt.
“Let’s see. I don’t know my date of graduation, my birth date, my Social Security number. I don’t think they’re going to give me anything, Lola.”
A pretty pout claimed her lips. “I thought we’d gotten so much information from Lars last night, and it’s turning out to be useless.”
He rubbed her arm despite his vow to back off. “Lars did give us some good info, more than we had. It’ll be useful to Lesley when she administers the truth serum. It’ll provide her a starting point for questioning me.”
“And you’re still having your visions or flashes or whatever you want to call them.” She covered her eyes with one hand. “It’s just so damned hard to watch you go through that, Jack.”
“You did good last night.” He circled her wrist with his fingers and pulled her hand away from her eyes. “No matter how bad it looks, let it pla
y out. I can handle it.”
“Is there anything you can’t handle, Jack?”
He couldn’t handle being this close to her and not kissing her lips. “Hunger.”
He speared a couple of Rosa’s pancakes and dropped them onto a plate. Shoving the plate next to the laptop in front of Lola, he said, “Eat.”
He served himself, and then drizzled syrup all over the golden spheres lumpy with nuts and smooshed bananas. Closing his eyes, he savored the sweet, nutty taste. “Do you think once I find out who I am, Rosa will come and cook for me?”
Lola skewered a neat triangle of pancake and held up her fork. “Rosa is clearly smitten with you. She’d follow you anywhere.”
“What about her husband?”
“Roberto? What about him?” She slid the bite of pancake into her mouth and licked her sticky lips.
Jack dragged his gaze away from her mouth. “We haven’t seen him since we got here.”
She waved toward the window. “They live in the guesthouse. He spends most of his time there. He used to do some yard work around the estate, but Gabe hired gardeners to take care of most of the work. Why? Are you really thinking of snatching her away from Roberto?”
“For these pancakes, I just might.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes and then Jack pushed away his plate. “I’m going to see Cain this morning.”
“You’re going to see Cain? You mean we’re going to see Cain.”
“I don’t want to keep dragging you around on my mission.”
“It’s my mission as much as it is yours.” She dabbed her lips with a paper napkin. “Besides, Cain knows me. Do you think he’s going to allow some stranger with a crazy story to poke around Gabe’s computer?”
“Probably not.” He stacked their plates and carried them into the kitchen.
“So you’re stuck with me…for now.”
AN HOUR LATER, Jack fidgeted in the seat next to her on their way to Gabe’s lab. Lola had come to the conclusion that Jack didn’t like being chauffeured around. To be fair, the fact that his chauffeur was a female probably didn’t make it any worse for him. He just liked being in control. He did not like depending on other people.
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