The Keeper

by Rhonda Nelson

  He was hit with the insane urge to taste it.

  Need slammed into him, gluing his feet even more firmly to the floor, and his heart decided to abandon traditional beating and move at a skipping, breakneck pace that made him light-headed and breathless. Him, breathless? He swallowed a maniacal laugh as he considered the incongruity. This sensation, this phenomenon, was so intense and so singular he didn’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified.

  Her wide-eyed gaze was strangely confused and resigned as it searched his, then darkened and dropped hungrily to his mouth.

  He went hard.

  She noticed.

  She released a fatalistic breath, muttered “Oh, to hell with it,” and then went up on tiptoe and pressed her mouth to his.

  The shock of it—the sheer perfection—made him stagger against the counter and he pulled her with him. The road to hell might be paved with good intentions, Jack thought, but the heaven along the journey was bound to make up for the eventual destination.

  Surely they wouldn’t fire him over a kiss—just kissing their friend, Jack thought dimly, and if they did…

  Screw them. It was worth it.

  7

  HAD SHE NEVER TOUCHED HIM—had he never offered her that beautifully large, masculine-veined hand—Mariette imagined that she might not have behaved so shamelessly. She might not have stumbled into his magnificently muscled frame and, had she never known what it felt like to be held so closely by someone who a) turned her lady business into a sauna, b) made her feel strangely protected and safe and c)had the most kissable mouth she’d ever seen, then she might have been able to summon the required wherewithal to back away from him.

  She was supposed to be practicing The Hiatus From Men, after all.

  But since Jack Martin did that and oh-so-much more, she’d been doomed to failure.

  Depending on how one decided to look at it.

  And considering she was too busy trying to see if she could crawl out of her skin and into his, she wasn’t looking at anything at all.

  She was relishing the deliberate, wholly thrilling slide of his lips against hers, the taste of his expert tongue as it plunged into her mouth and swept the sensitive recesses with a skilled sort of accuracy that most men never bothered to learn because they were too busy trying to move on to the next base.

  Despite the fact that she could feel his more than substantial erection nudging high up on her belly and she knew that he was as reluctantly snarled up into this mindless heat between them, Jack had made no impatient move to take things to the next level.

  He was feeding at her mouth as though that was all that mattered, as though kissing her fulfilled some sort of precious, deeply seated need. He was allowing this first kiss to be just that—a first kiss. The most anticipated and romanticized milestone for couples throughout time and throughout the world. A first kiss could either doom a budding relationship or make it bloom into something special, but ultimately, a lot rode on that initial contact.

  In addition, a woman could tell a lot about a man by the way he kissed. If he was sloppy, drippy or in a hurry, then you could bet that he hadn’t worked on his other techniques. A good kisser—a man who knew when to suckle, when to slide and when to slip (and, oh, did Jack ever)—was usually one who’d paid enough heed to the little things to ensure that he was going to give the same sort of thorough attention to every other part of the sexual process.

  No doubt Jack Martin was a phenomenal lover.

  The mere thought made her entire body quicken with anticipation, made the fine hairs on her arms stand up, her sex slicken with moisture and throb. Her bare breasts felt too heavy behind her shirt, too sensitive and too neglected. Mariette pressed herself more firmly against him, slipped one hand along his jaw, savoring the line of bone and soft skin, then pushed the other hand into his hair and let the silky strands tangle through her fingers.

  He tasted like minty toothpaste and sweet tea and his particular scent—something musky and crisp—wrapped around her. He was hot and hard, more physically attractive than any man she’d ever met, and with every purposeful slip of his tongue into her mouth, the more fully she settled into the deep, open vee between his legs. The countertop had to be digging into the small of his back, but if he noticed or cared he never made an objection.

  He left off her mouth and slid his nose along her jaw, breathing her in. “Hmmm,” he murmured. “I’ve been thinking about doing that all day.”

  A shiver ran down her spine and gooseflesh peppered her too-hot skin. He framed her face with his hands, kissed the underside of her cheek. It was tender and sensual and something about it triggered a peculiar feeling in her chest.

  It jarred her enough to make her pull away, albeit reluctantly.

  She couldn’t afford to make another wrong decision and something told her there wouldn’t be any coming back from Jack Martin. He’d ruin her heart if he broke it.

  She peered up at him and smiled self-consciously. “I think I’d better try to get some sleep now.”

  He grinned. “That would probably be a good idea.”

  She didn’t move, but looked away, released a sigh and shook her head. “You know I’m not going to be able to look you in the eye in the morning, right?”

  “I hope that isn’t the case,” he said. “You’ve got the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  Startled at the compliment, she turned back and her gaze collided with his. Though throwing herself at his mouth and practically scaling his perfect body hadn’t made her so much as bat a lash, the simple remark made her blush clear to her hairline. “Thank you,” she managed, because it seemed like the right response.

  He inclined his head. “Welcome.”

  Feeling uncharacteristically shaken and unsure, Mariette turned and started to make her way back to her room.

  “Mariette?”

  She stilled, darting him a look over her shoulder. His golden hair gleamed in the semidarkened room and a rueful smile turned the impossibly sexy lips she’d just been kissing. Atlas, indeed.

  “If it makes you feel any better, I would have made the move if you hadn’t. The only reason you beat me to the punch was because I was too damned stunned by how much I want you, to react. Even knowing that you’re a friend of my new employers and they’d kick my newly hired ass—” though, admittedly, it would take all three of them “—wasn’t enough to keep me away from you.” He leveled a look at her. “If you’d like to request another agent, then now’s the time to do it.”

  He didn’t have to add “Or else you know where this is going to lead,” because she knew it. She knew that if he stayed here the ultimate conclusion to this hellish attraction would involve the two of them and a bed…and probably the shower and the wall and the kitchen table, as well.

  Those visions obligingly took root in her fertile imagination and the image of his gloriously naked body looming over hers, that sinfully carnal mouth suckling her breast sent a barb of heat directly into her clit, making her resist the urge to squirm.

  He pushed off from the counter, grabbed the liquor bottle and took a long pull. “Just let me know what you want to do in the morning and I’ll take care of it,” he said. “And I’ll own it.”

  Meaning, he’d take the blame and wouldn’t leave an iota of it at her doorstep.

  He was definitely a different sort of man, Mariette thought. The sort that was going to get her into trouble, no doubt.

  But when had that ever stopped her?

  JACK WATCHED MARIETTE turn and make her way to her room. He waited, until he was certain she was out of earshot and not going to come back, to swear theatrically but quietly under his breath.

  He’d known, hadn’t he? He’d known the instant he clapped eyes on her this morning that she was going to prove to be more tempta
tion than he was accustomed to resisting. And now that he’d tasted her, felt that lush, womanly little body bellied up to his? The only way to keep this from reaching its ultimate conclusion was by taking himself out of the equation.

  Was he proud of this? Not especially.

  Jack had never met the irresistible woman…until now.

  He’d had friends’ girlfriends and wives hit on him over the years, couldn’t go into a bar without a girl making some sort of pass at him. He didn’t have to beat the women off with the proverbial stick, but he didn’t have to do much to attract them, either. He guessed he was passably handsome, tall and fit, had all of his teeth, didn’t live with his mother and was gainfully employed.

  All of that certainly put him working ahead of the curve.

  But this fatalistic, all-consuming, out-of-his-mind need that he felt for Mariette Levine was out of the realm of his experience. It was uncharted territory and he was navigating without a map.

  He supposed he could try to lie to himself and insist that he could keep things on a strictly superficial level, but despite the fact that he’d been told he could sell ice to an Inuit, Jack knew better than to try and sell himself this self-righteous, self-serving load of B.S.

  He’d known before he’d kissed her that she was going to set him off and now that she had? You couldn’t put the bullet back in the gun.

  It was done.

  That’s why he was giving her the choice, why he’d given her an out.

  It was gallingly pathetic how much he hoped she didn’t take it.

  Ordinarily he’d be worried that fraternizing with a client would end up getting him fired, but since Charlie and Jay had met on the job—and so had most of the other Ranger Security agents, the three founding members included—he didn’t see where he could possibly be kept to a standard none of the rest of them had managed to keep. He didn’t imagine that they would necessarily like it—Mariette was a friend, after all—but they weren’t hypocrites. They could hardly fire him over something they’d all done, right?

  Right.

  If she’d just stayed in that room, he thought, trying to get a handle on himself. But no, she couldn’t sleep. Perversely, he wondered how well she was sleeping now. He imagined it couldn’t be any better than it was before and almost wished it was worse.

  He’d been miserable before, thinking about her being in that room, close but not close enough. Now he was in agony. Because he’d touched her, tasted her, felt her hot little body pressed to his, the reciprocated desire in her kiss, the greedy way she’d slid her hands all over his body.

  She wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her. That, at least, was gratifying.

  His cell suddenly vibrated at his waist and he checked the display. Charlie. He rolled his eyes. Perfect timing, as always.

  “Yeah,” he answered by way of greeting.

  “Bobby Ray lives at a pay-by-the-week motel out on Dearborn,” she said.

  He frowned. There hadn’t been a current address in the file Payne had sent over, only the one of his last foster family who had said they hadn’t seen or heard from Bobby Ray in more than a year. “How did you find that out?”

  “I used my special skills.”

  He grinned and chewed the inside of his cheek. “Who did you hack this time?”

  “That’s for me to gloat about and you to never know,” she quipped. “Anyway, I waited for a couple of hours for Bobby Ray to show up and when he didn’t I went in and talked to the night manager.”

  “Was he helpful?”

  “He had some interesting information to share, yes. He said that Bobby Ray hadn’t been back to his room for the past three days, but that a couple of people had been by looking for him.”

  Ah. He could only imagine what kind of people. “Did the manager know who they were?”

  “No,” she said. “I suspect he’s lying about that, but short of vaulting across the counter and putting him in a choke hold until he told me the truth, there was nothing I could do about it.”

  He was genuinely surprised that she hadn’t. He chuckled. “What stopped you?”

  A beat slid to three and she swore low under her breath.

  Jack frowned. “Charlie?”

  “I haven’t even told Jay yet,” she said. “Dammit, I can’t believe I just did that.”

  Told Jay what? Did what? Jack felt his eyes widen and he drew a quick breath. “Oh, my God. Are you—” He knew they’d been trying, but…

  “Yes,” she said, sounding equally exasperated and overjoyed. “And if you breathe a word of it before I—”

  “I won’t,” he assured her, smiling wonderingly. A bizarre sensation winged through his rapidly expanding chest and he gave his head a little shake, trying to wrap his mind around his sister—his scrappy little badass sister—becoming a mother. He swallowed, his eyes inexplicably darting toward Mariette’s room. “You’ll be a wonderful mother,” he told her. “Congratulations, little sister.”

  “Thank you. You’re going to make a great uncle,” she said fondly.

  Evidently done with the mushy stuff, Charlie cleared her throat, all business once again. “All right, back to Bobby Ray. I think you should spend some time watching his motel tomorrow and see if they come back. The night manager says Bobby Ray’s rent is up day after tomorrow and that if he’s not there to pay up for another week, he forfeits whatever he has in there. Considering that all he has in this world will fit in that little dingy room, he probably wants it.”

  He imagined she was right.

  “Whoever these guys are have frightened him enough to keep him from coming back. That makes him desperate. And desperate people often act in ways they ordinarily wouldn’t.”

  Another Bobby Ray convert, Jack thought. But he understood. He’d read the kid’s files, the ones he was able to get through the legitimate channels and the ones that had required Charlie’s specialized skill. His foster care file was three inches thick and read like a horror novel. The permanent record she’d managed to pull from the last school he’d attended hadn’t been any better. In fact, both documents had painted a picture of a kid who had never been given a modicum of affection, much less a break.

  He’d known about his father giving the boy the scars—he hadn’t known that his father had done the same thing to his mother “so that the two would match” and that her cuts had been too deep and had resulted in her death.

  “I found something else that was interesting, too,” Charlie told him.

  His senses went on point. “What was that?”

  “I let myself into his room and—”

  “You what?” he asked, his voice rising. “Have you lost your damned—”

  “Hush,” she interrupted. “I found a receipt for a headstone in the bedside drawer,” she told him. “It was dated a month ago and was twenty-three hundred dollars.”

  Damn. Where in the hell had the kid gotten that kind of money? A lottery ticket? He doubted it. Otherwise, why were those men following him? And he certainly wouldn’t have made that at the dairy.

  “It was for his mother,” Charlie confirmed sadly. “There was also a printout from the local hospital. Judging by the leftover pain killers and bandages, Bobby Ray ran into some trouble a few days after he bought the memorial.”

  Jack frowned. Whatever the boy had gotten into, he was definitely in over his head. No wonder he’d been nervous when Jack had shown up at the dairy. He was probably terrified that he’d been part of the crew who was clearly chasing him.

  “I’ll watch the place tomorrow,” Jack told her. “And I’ll go by the hospital and see if I can find out anything about Bobby Ray’s visit.”

  “They’re not going to tell you anything,” she said. “Confidentiality laws. And their computer systems are much mo
re complicated than you’d—”

  Jack merely smiled. “You’ve got your methods, I’ve got mine. You let me handle it.”

  “Whatever,” she said in that patronizing you’re-wasting-your-time tone of hers.

  “And Charlie?”

  “Yes?”

  He braced himself, because he knew she wasn’t going to like what he had to tell her. “You stay away from that motel.”

  He could feel the blast of her anger before she said a word. “Look here, Jack. I am perfectly capable of taking care of—”

  “Stay away,” he repeated. “Or I’ll have a chat with your husband. And your bosses.”

  She called him something their mother would certainly object to and then disconnected.

  A lead at last, Jack thought.

  And he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it was going to royally piss off and disappoint both Mariette and Audwin.

  Unfortunately, it couldn’t be helped. And he had a job to do.

  The next morning Jack found a Post-it note stuck to his bedroom door. It was a single word note and hadn’t been signed.

  Stay.

  8

  MARIETTE WASN’T ALTOGETHER certain what was up with Charlie, but she was pale and sullen and not at all the otherwise happy, chatty person she’d been the day before. Because she could be paranoid with the best of them, Mariette wondered if she’d somehow managed to inadvertently telegraph the fact that she’d been crawling all over Charlie’s brother the night before and, possessing just as keen observation skills as her brother, she’d noticed it.

  Mariette released a sigh. “Charlie, have I done something wrong?”

  Charlie looked up at her and blinked. “What?” She grimaced. “No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I’m just in a funk this morning.” Her lips twisted with a wry smile. “When I was trying to persuade Payne, Jamie and Guy into bringing Jack on board after the accident, I was so busy thinking about how wonderful it would be to have him home and work with him that I’d forgotten what a pain in the ass he can be.”