by Ravenna Tate
“Why can’t I go back to the police now and tell them I was mistaken about it being you in the photo?”
“Because if you do, they’ll ask all sorts of questions that Tim doesn’t want you answering right now. Let him check out what he wants to and get back to us. He’ll advise the best course of action.”
“You must trust him a lot.”
“With my life.” He and Tim went way back.
That faraway look was back in her eyes again. “I have to trust him, too.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Poor choice of words. What I meant was since our fates seemed to be linked now, because you trust him, so do I.”
Once more, the surge of protectiveness Jagger felt toward her confused and overwhelmed him. He needed fresh air. Jagger took her hand and stood. “Come on. Let’s take a walk.” He eyed her bare feet. “You might want to put on comfortable shoes. We’ll need to take a couple of trains to get there, and have some walking between each one.”
“You have me intrigued.” She smiled. “Where are we going?”
“I told you. It’s a surprise.”
“All right. Give me a few minutes.”
When she came downstairs, she had on athletic shoes, a dark blue tank top, and white capri pants. Her hair was loose, and she wore earrings that matched the color of her pants and top. Jagger’s dick jumped to attention as he eyed her from head to toe.
What the hell had this woman done to him? He should hate her. Because of her lies, he was now embroiled in the drama surrounding a crime he’d had nothing to do with, and hadn’t even known was going to occur. And he now knew her dead uncle was actually alive—a fact he could have gone his entire life not knowing and been just fine with.
The prudent thing to do would be to thank her for giving him the information he needed, help her pack her bag, and walk her home. He should steer clear of her completely, and deny that he’d kidnapped her if she told the police about last night in the park. He would pretend none of this had happened, and he would forget Tony was alive and had tried to frame him.
The quiet life he’d lived for years was one Jagger had cultivated. He wanted it that way. He’d stayed out of trouble and had avoided all of his former associates. Up until that phone call from Nate, that was. And up until he’d forced Tony’s niece to come home with him last night. And as if doing that hadn’t been foolish enough, now he’d fucked Carolyn six ways to Sunday, and had procured legal services for her!
What the fuck was wrong with him?
The bright smile was gone now as she watched him carefully. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just tired.” He winked. “Someone wore me out.”
That quip earned him a beautiful smile once more. He’d have to be more careful around her. She was too intuitive. He held out his arm. “Ready?”
A wicked gleam filled her pretty green eyes. “Are we putting on a show for the cameras again? Should I keep my head down?”
Telling her to do that had been so lame. He mentally winced. “Nah. I mean don’t look deliberately into them, but I suspect the FBI already know you’re here.”
At his mention of the FBI she frowned. “Are you sure it’s them?”
The hair on the back of his neck prickled. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, think about it. You said they were watching you, and the van followed you to the police station. But now it’s a different van. Whoever is in it must realize by now I’m here with you, so why haven’t they questioned us? What if it’s not them? What if someone else is watching us?”
A horrible thought occurred to him. He narrowed his eyes. “Is there something you want to tell me, Carolyn?”
“No, of course not. I’m only saying it seems odd to me that the FBI, with all their surveillance equipment, haven’t come in here by now. We’ve been talking about Uncle Tony all day, and both of us went to the police yesterday. What are they waiting for?”
“Evidence?” Even as he answered her, the possibility it wasn’t the Feds at all had now been planted, and he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it. What if she knew something and wasn’t telling him? He was certain he’d squeezed every drop of information out of her, but what if he was wrong?
The surprise he had planned didn’t seem as filled with fun possibilities as it had earlier. In fact, he wanted to make an excuse now and abandon the idea. But he also didn’t want to sit here, waiting to see what happened next. If he got out in the fresh air he could think this through. He needed this outing.
“Come on.” He took her hand and wrapped it around his arm. “Let’s get out of here. I think we both could use a diversion from all this cops and robbers stuff.”
The cute giggle he had already grown used to helped calm him, but only a little. He needed to get away from here for a while. “Cute pun, Jagger.”
“I thought you’d enjoy that.” They walked into the hallway and toward the elevator. While Jagger enjoyed her touch on his arm, every nerve ending now was on high alert. Had she asked if he was sure the people in the van were the FBI because she knew they weren’t, or because she had seen something that made her wonder? Was she trying to throw him off track, or did she merely find it odd they were just sitting there?
And if it was them, why had they changed vans? Because he had spotted them yesterday, or for some other reason? He studied her profile as they waited for the elevator. He really didn’t know this girl at all, despite their intimate encounters. He’d listened to her lie on the phone to her PO as if she did it all the time. He’d watched her lie to the police for her not-so-dearly-departed uncle. What would stop her from lying to him now about whoever was really in that van?
What if she was with them? What if this was all some elaborate set-up by his former associates to frame him, and she was using her body to lure him into this? He’d coerced her to his apartment, but what if the true mark was him and that’s why she had come with him? What if his threats had been for nothing because she’d planned this all along?
Slow down there, bucko! You’re being really paranoid.
Once they were outside, Jagger stopped and stared at the van parked down the street. He couldn’t see inside it. The windows had too much tint. Had the windows in the other one been that tined? He didn’t think so. The front plate was an ordinary truck plate. He’d try to run the number on it, but since it wasn’t legal to do so, he didn’t want to leave footprints in places he had no business being.
But maybe he should do it anyway? With his luck, the plate was stolen or would only lead to a dead end, and he’d be on the grid for trying to search it.
“Which way?” she asked.
They were both staring at the van. He studied her expression. She didn’t look afraid, but she did appear a bit apprehensive. Why? That was the question he needed to answer, and quickly.
“This way.” He pointed west. “We need to catch a bus.”
Chapter Fifteen
Speculating about who was inside that van made him unusually quiet at the start of the trip. Or at least, Carolyn guessed that was what had him so unsettled. It had her unsettled, too, so she tried to pass the time by making small talk about the city sights.
Once they boarded the train, he seemed to relax a bit. She told him about a game she and her parents would play every time they took a train ride, and asked him if he wanted to play.
“What’s the game?”
“You point out a specific type of tree, like that oak over there. The next person has to find not only an oak, but point out a different type of tree. The third person, or the other person if there are only two of you, has to find the first two trees, plus point out a third type of tree, and so on.”
An indulgent smile graced his face. “How do you win?”
“If the person whose turn it is can’t find the trees and gives up, whoever is left plays until everyone but one person gives up.”
His expression turned wistful. “That’s sweet your parents did things like that with you.�
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“Didn’t you play games of any kind with yours when you were younger?”
“No. We didn’t even talk much, let alone do things like play games together.”
That was sad, but she didn’t say so. Instead she’d asked him again if he wanted to play, and he agreed to. Carolyn started out by pointing toward an ash tree, and he almost gave up because they weren’t that common, but finally spotted one before pointing toward a maple. Those were easy to find, but it took a while until she spotted another ash first.
By the time they each were trying to find over half a dozen trees, he had her laughing at jokes about trees hiding from passing trains, so people on them couldn’t find them while playing games like this.
“Oh, look!” he said, pretending to be looking for the hidden trees. “There’s one! No, wait. It’s gone again. I swear I saw it, though. I think it ducked down behind that group of pines over there.”
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
“Am I supposed to?”
It made her heart flutter in silly ways to joke with him like this. She hadn’t laughed this much in years. What might this have been like for them if they’d met under different circumstances, or if they’d found each other at Lia’s Domain again?
As soon as the thought took shape, she mentally chided herself for musing like a lovesick schoolgirl. This wasn’t a relationship. She had no clue what the hell it was, but she knew what it was not, and she’d best get her head out of the clouds before she ended up hurt.
After nearly two hours of traveling, which included two bus rides, a train ride, and more walking, Carolyn and Jagger arrived at the AirplanesUSA Aircraft Sales of Chicago in Schaumberg Illinois.
As they approached the building, she gawked at the structure. “Why are we here?”
“This is where my plane is.”
“What?” Carolyn stopped walking and stared at him. “You have an airplane?”
“Well, no, not yet. But I will once I completely pay for it.”
Certain she’d misunderstood him, she blinked a few times, waiting for him to say something else and clear up her misconception. But he didn’t. He merely stood there in the sunshine, looking too damn sexy for his own good.
“But you can’t get a pilot’s license. You can’t even get a driver’s license. Neither one of us can.”
“Sucks, doesn’t it?”
“Well, yes. But thank goodness we live in a city with kick-ass public transportation.”
“Yeah, I know.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “Come on. I want to show you this.”
Once inside, Jagger shook hands with a man inside the facility, and they made small talk for a few moments. It sounded to Carolyn like Jagger knew this man very well. Finally, the man led them outside to a hangar.
“Here it is,” Jagger said, the pride in his voice as pleased as if the plane was his child.
“It’s pretty.” Carolyn knew nothing about single engine planes except that they flew.
“Not just pretty. Come inside.”
The man whose name she’d already forgotten didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see Jagger, nor did he have any obvious reservations about allowing him to board the plane with another person.
“I’ll leave you two to look around,” he said. “Come back inside when you’re done.”
Was he a former associate of Jagger’s? Carolyn watched the man walk away. He might even be one of the men who had pulled the original job. She tried to remember all their names, but couldn’t at the moment. Too much had already happened today.
What the fuck were they doing here?
“It’s all right, Carolyn.”
It touched her that he’d seen the confusion and concern on her face, and was trying to reassure her.
“Mark and I go way back.”
“Way back how far?”
“To before I was in jail.” Jagger gave her that heart-stopping grin. “Relax, okay? It’s just a plane. Come inside and have a look.”
“Do you own this?”
“Like I said, not yet.”
“But I don’t understand. What’s the point of owning one if you can never fly it?”
No answer. Gee, what a shock. With a loud sigh, she followed him up the stairs and into the plane. It was a hell of a lot smaller than a commercial jet, but larger than she’d imagined from the ground. Jagger sat in the pilot’s seat, and she sat next to him. He eyed the instruments, and for a few seconds she was certain he was going to start the thing up and fly them out of there, but instead he turned to face her with a sad expression in his beautiful eyes.
“Carolyn, haven’t you ever wanted to do something momentous, simply for the sake of being able to do it? Before I got stupid and decided it would be easy money to steal things, I took flying lessons.”
“You did?”
“Yes.” He held up his thumb and forefinger to indicate a small space. “I was actually this close to being able to test for a license before I was sent to prison for a felony conviction.” He snapped his fingers. “Dreams gone, just like that.”
So many emotions bubbled up as she imagined how he must have felt giving up such a dream. They were here, in this plane. Even though he likely could never fly it on his own, he was buying it anyway.
“When I was younger, before my parents died, they used to take me to the beach in Plage de l’Almanarre in Hyères, between Nice and Marseille. It was my favorite place in the entire world. Have you ever been there?”
The look he gave her was filled with surprise. “No. Never.”
“I used to watch the windsurfers and kite surfers, fascinated. I wanted to fly the way they did.”
They locked gazes for long moments, and everything stopped. There was nothing but the blue of his eyes, and that expression of wonder on his handsome face.
“So you should understand why I love this plane.”
“I do now, yes.” She nodded.
“I own half of it. I’m paying on it, slowly, so I don’t attract attention. Mark knows my past. He knows I can never fly it out of here, but he also understands why I want it, just the same.”
“You could hire a pilot, the way people hire drivers.”
“Yes, I could.” He smiled, but it was more of a sad smile than a happy one. “I certainly have enough money to do that. I might one day.” He reached over and pulled her onto his lap, which wasn’t easy with what little room they had in that chair. “Thank you for listening.”
Then he kissed her. A long, deep, passionate kiss that had her pussy wet and her nipples tingling. “Ever do it on a plane?” he asked.
“No.” She couldn’t help giggling as images rose up.
“Me either.” He pushed his hand down her top, and she gasped as hot desire shot through her. “This isn’t just a plane, Carolyn. It’s a Piper Malibu Mirage.”
“I have no clue what that means.”
“It means it’s the best damn single engine plane they make.”
When he moved her bra aside, he slid the strap of her tank top down and fastened his mouth on her nipple. She cried out in pleasure, cutting her gaze toward the door of the hangar. “What if Mark comes back?”
“He’ll get one hell of a show.”
Jagger pulled off her tank top and unhooked her bra before leading her to the back seat. It was more of a bench seat, as opposed to the others which were single seats. He sat down and she straddled him, moaning loudly as he sucked and bit her nipples, one after the other.
“You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever met.”
“And you’re the most fun I’ve ever had.” It was true. Tears stung her eyes as she realized that despite the danger they were in, and her nagging doubts, she’d never felt this alive or excited in her life. No job she’d ever pulled, or vacation she’d gone on had evoked this kind of passion or need in her for more.
The realization that she could lose her heart to this man both scared the shit out of her, and intrigued her like nothing before. She was powerless
under his spell. Propelled along as if he’d sucked the willpower out of her with that incredible mouth. She only wanted to give into him, and let him take over everything. Her body, her mind, her heart, and her very soul if that’s what he wanted.
“Stand up. Pants off.” His face was covered in a fine sheen of sweat, and his voice came out all gravelly, like he had to clear his throat. She stood and removed her pants and panties, but kept the shoes on.
When he fished a condom out of his jeans pocked and held it up, grinning, she laughed. “Were you a Boy Scout? Always be prepared?”
“Ah, no. Not even close.”
As he undid his jeans and slid them down, the boxers came with them. He slipped on the condom. Carolyn thought she heard a noise and glanced out the window, but there was nothing there.
“Relax,” he said, nuzzling her neck.
“Have you made love in here before?”
The look he gave her was strangely tender, and her heart did that damn fluttering thing again. “No. I meant it when I said that before. I’ve never brought anyone here to see my plane. This is my secret, and now you know it, Carolyn. What will you do with it?”
Was there a hidden meaning in his question? She held her breath, trying to decipher it. Was this a test of some sort? Was he asking if she could be trusted? Had something else happened that she’d missed?
“I’ll keep it, of course. You can trust me, Jagger.”
“God, I hope so.” He said it so softly she barely heard it, and had no time to process the depth of emotion in that statement because he kissed her. Hard and deep, his tongue probing without mercy.
A wave of desire too strong for Carolyn to resist swept over her and engulfed them both. She kept her mouth fastened on his while helping him push his jeans down further so she could lower her pussy over his dick.
It was a good thing she had the seat to hold onto for leverage, because when he fingered her clit as she moved up and down over his cock, she came so hard she saw stars. Her orgasm was fast and powerful, sending contractions out to her fingertips and toes with its intensity. And still he fucked her.
