Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes as another orgasm shredded her, the last vestige of sanity she held onto. She came back down from the high just as she felt him shudder, release, with his shoulders tensing and a hoarse groan ripped from his throat. He held himself above her, his arms trembling from the effort. Sweat dripped off his forehead and splattered on her chest.
Ivory gathered him close, held him to her as his cock continued to jerk inside of her. A smile spread across her face, her limp muscles useless, her core still spamming in aftershocks of the piercing union. It took minutes for either of them to find a normal rhythm of breathing, their hearts beating at each other.
He flipped over on his side and took her with him. “Just give me a minute,” he mumbled.
Ivory studied his face, his eyes closed to her stare. The slash of his eyebrows relaxed, the sharp angles dimmed. She couldn’t resist his lips, and she placed a small kiss there. When she pulled back, the fringe of his eyelashes shadowed his thoughts from her. The flat jade green came back and Ivory’s stomach sank. She wanted to see the passion again. Proof he had a soul in there.
He untangled himself from her and stood to go into the master bathroom. She assumed he cleaned himself up because when he returned, he’d put on a pair of boxer briefs that outlined the member of his body she’d just possessed so intimately. Ivory blushed when he lowered a wash cloth to her sensitive skin. Without words, he cleaned her up, the cool cloth massaging the tender flesh of her swollen outer lips.
He turned away to take the cloth back to the bathroom, and he stopped briefly midstride to say over his shoulder, “Make that call.”
* * * *
Jax stared down at Ivory laid on his nontraditional sleigh bed. The navy color of the spread emphasized the white of her skin and cerulean of her eyes. Jax still felt tremors racking his body. The woman wrung every drop from him, her body greedily sucking his cock dry. Fully sated, he watched as she rolled to a sitting position, her swollen nipples jutting upward as she stretched her hands high above her head. A yawn formed her lush lips into an ‘O’, and Jax felt trouble brew when he found even that sexy.
She rose from the bed, searching for her panties. Watching her dress was as much a turn-on as undressing her had been. She slid her bra straps up her lithe arms, over the sinewy small muscles bunching as she clasped the back. Her jeans concealed her legs, inch by inch, and Jax felt his mouth go dry. “I thought I told you to take the day off.”
Her blue eyes sizzled when she put on her holster. “I don’t take orders from you,” she said. “My boss called while you were in the bathroom. I’ve got a case that’s closing today. A happy ending, thank God.”
Jax settled on the bed, his hands hanging between his knees. Guilt pummeled at him. Ashley needed a good home, and chances were the father of his niece would be either a drug dealer or another junkie. He needed to hear from Mickey. He’d call later, see if the old man had found anything out about his sister’s life. Mickey knew where to look, what street corners to hang around on, and which police officers would be the most helpful.
Jax had lived most of his life in deserts or jungles with his eye pressed to a scope. When he took time off, depending on the place he chose to vacation, he kept in touch with old “friends” and spent the night with them.
When he looked over at Ivory again, she was fully dressed and stood in front of his dresser mirror pinning her hair up. He bared his teeth at her back. The women he spent his nights with didn’t expect promises and pretty things from him, just a good lay and a quick good-bye. Jax knew Ivory Black differed from the status quo and he would have to at least salve the woman’s pride, not to mention if he wanted inside of her again, he’d at least have to be nice.
Part of him wanted to be nice. Jax Morgan hadn’t gotten his reputation has a cold hard-ass by being nice. Of all the men on his team, he was the last person they went to for advice or cheering up. Jocko usually cheered up the men. Ax was the ladies man. Charlie was the good-time fella, and Luke, Jax’s best friend and captain, was the rock-steady moral compass of all them.
“Would you like to get some dinner tonight?”
Ivory met his eyes in the mirror as she finished twisting her hair into the clip. “Are you asking me on a date?”
Jax sighed heavily. “Yes, I suppose I am.”
Her eyes travelled back to her reflection. She pulled his borrowed shirt down and flicked imaginary lint off it. She turned around, checked the back of her reflection, and, when she finally deigned to look at him, raised one pencil-thin black eyebrow. “No. I don’t date men who have no compassion. It would be a one-sided relationship, and I’ve had enough of those.”
Jax felt his stomach cramp. He rubbed a finger over his temple where a slight headache began to spread. “I can’t figure you out, Black.”
She shrugged one slender shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. You won’t be here long enough to get your answers anyway.”
She went to his bedroom door, then hesitated. She turned back to him and Jax felt the earth shift slightly, tilting on its axis. A sadness crept into her blue eyes, and Jax had a sinking feeling that somehow he’d put it there. Shit.
“I won’t be back,” she said.
Jax stared at his reflection cast across the mirror, his shoulder muscles contracting beneath his control, his face impassive, his green eyes flat. “I don’t expect you to be.”
When she closed the door, he pulled on a T-shirt and jeans. He retrieved his cell phone from beside his bed and dialed Mickey’s number. The retired cop picked up on the first ring.
“I don’t have much, Jax.”
“Tell me what you’ve got.”
He heard Mickey inhale, probably smoking a cigar. Jax tried to recall what the older man looked like, but a fuzzy image filled his mind. He’d lost touch with too many people over the years.
“So far all I’ve got is her address. That from the PD. She lived in a hellhole. I’m surprised the roaches didn’t kick her out,” he said. “I’ll let you know more when I get more.”
Jax closed the phone when Mickey said good-bye and stared at the cream walls of his bedroom. Time didn’t sit well with him. Too much of it left him thinking about the mission. The demons clawing at his soul, yanking him further into the devil’s gate. Faces flashed across his mind, the crosshairs of his scope embedded on their expressions. Some of them going about their daily routine, playing with their kids. Leaving their mistress’s house. Men going about their daily lives, never knowing the cold finger of death waited. The wind had to be right. The breath shallow and steady. Nerves had no place in his line of work, and Jax learned quickly how wrong it went when the nerves got too high.
His first kill still haunted him. A young man. Maybe early twenties, mid at the most. Black hair. Grizzly beard. Desert storm. Walking along the side of the road. To work. Supposedly. Intel had said that the man was involved in heinous acts, and Jax hadn’t questioned his orders as a young sergeant.
The look of horror filling the chocolate eyes of the dead man was stained on his memory forever in time. His face was the first skeleton added to his body in ink, forever demanding his remembrance. Respect the life you take. Or some shit like that. Luke always told him never forget a sniper’s job was not to play God. Snipers were messengers, killing machines. Jax never met another sniper who didn’t feel the weight of what he did, even if he didn’t show it.
The reality of taking life, even from a thousand-yard distance, stayed with the sniper. Deadening their soul, stealing the light from their eyes. To look into the eyes of a sniper was to look into the eyes of the Grim Reaper, and be thankful you weren’t on his list. Snipers were one of a kind. Different from the rest of the human race. To the pull trigger and then go eat dinner required a sort of deference, but Jax never forgot the faces.
There was a poem about soldiers he kept in his uniform pocket, a sort of relief he often looked to when duty caught up with him. It was called the Soldier’s Final Inspection. The last
line of the poem always tripped him up. As a rule, Jax didn’t cry, but on the darkest nights, on the loneliest days, he turned to the poem and found retribution in the words.
He took the poem out then, reading the words that got him through so much. The words that promised eternal peace from the faces, the affliction he carried inside of him. The proof someday he would be forgiven for the sins he’d committed in the name of country.
“Step forward now, soldier, You’ve borne your burden’s well; Come walk peacefully on Heaven’s streets, you’ve done your time in hell.”
The author was unknown. He’d first heard it in one of the base chapels, while he’d been attending Infantry Officers’ Basic Course. When he glanced at his watch again, he realized nearly an hour passed since Ivory left. He at least had things to do, like go grocery shopping. He hated being on leave. Tempted to call Luke and tell him to get the mandatory leave nixed, Jax put his wallet in his back pocket and grabbed his truck keys. If he kept himself busy, the quiet wouldn’t intrude.
* * * *
Ivory had been so hell-bent on saving face after Jax went to the bathroom that she forgot he’d driven her over to his house. She had no car and no way to get back, unless she called a cab, but from Manchester to Boston would be hell on her wallet. So, she took a seat on his monstrous suede couch. He hadn’t come down from the bedroom since she’d left the room.
She had to get back. She called and told her boss she was having car trouble. A little white lie that held some credence. She technically did have car trouble. It was parked at Heron House, where she’d left her common sense apparently.
Her body still ached and burned, demanding more from Jax, but Ivory clamped down on the urges and focused on not screaming out her frustrations. It would get her nowhere, and Jax would come out of his room at some point. She hoped.
When she heard the stairs creaking beneath his weight, her stomach did a triple axel, and she focused her gaze on his appearance. When she saw first his booted feet, followed by his long, jean-clad thighs, her mouth went dry. As if in slow motion, she watched as his torso appeared, accompanied by his muscular, painted arms. His neck. His jaw.
When he finally came into full view, Ivory held her breath. Jax’s flat stare locked on her, sitting with her legs crossed, her purse clutched to her stomach. “I forgot I don’t have my car,” she said.
Jax continued the last few steps to the living room and he seemed to fill up the entire space between her and the front door. He jangled his keys between his deft fingers. Ivory’s cheeks heated at the memory of what those hands could make her body do. Lust was one thing, but Jax made her want to do things she’d never thought of doing. Like have wild monkey sex on the floor of a stranger’s living room.
A smile piqued his full lips and Ivory’s pulse skyrocketed.
“Come on, babe, I’ll take you back to your car,” he said.
What happened to the brave soul who’d put Jax in his place upstairs? she asked herself. Ivory knew the answer. She’d had time to sit down and think about what she’d just done. She needed to get out more. When he placed a palm at the small of her back, Ivory shivered. The heat fused with her shirt and created a molten pit of want that shot straight to her core. How could she possibly want him again so soon?
Jax lead her down the brick stairs, past the pansies that lined his sidewalk and opened the door of his truck for her. He stood behind her, his body so close yet not touching. It drove her insane, the nearness yet, the distance between them an ocean wide. She looked back over her shoulder, meeting his intense eyes. The green glinted frosty in the brightening sunshine. Her cheeks caught fire.
“Look at me like that again, Ivory, and you’ll be on your back so fast you won’t know what hit you. Right here, in front of my entire neighborhood,” he growled.
The man’s moods changed so quickly that they became hard to process. She rubbed her temple and struggled with the seatbelt. She realized she was way out of her league. The man who climbed in beside her sucked the oxygen out of the truck and sent off waves of danger and raw sex appeal. Any woman would whimper at his feet, begging for mercy.
She shook off her thoughts and wished she’d never met Jax Morgan. If there were a way to dump the case on someone else, she would, if only to save her sanity and her body from making her decisions for her. If she let her libido have its way, she’d never have left his room.
He backed out of the driveway, the quiet surreal, as if they hadn’t just fucked. She tried to focus on little Brian Dancer, the child being placed with an adoptive family today, but every time she forced her mind in another direction, it seemed to find an overgrown path right back to Jax’s body. The tattoos covering his chest, the way he climbed inside of her and pushed her to her own limits. The fury he seemed to hold close to the vest, the demons that chased him.
When they finally returned to the Boston city limits, Ivory breathed a little easier. Only a few more minutes, and she could escape the dark, sexual currents invading the space. When they arrived at her car, Ivory hesitated before getting out of the truck. Jax looked at her with no remorse, no hint of a smile. Nothing. Just emptiness.
“Thanks for the ride.”
She must have said something that amused him then, because his mouth transformed from a grim line to a slash of humor, his teeth flashing white. “Anytime.”
When she got out, she barely closed the door before he sped away, the rumbling truck sounding like something out of a horror movie. She watched the black monster round the corner, disappearing from sight. She rushed back into Heron House for her scarf and gloves.
Jenny still sat in the den, her decorations scattered about. She’d placed buckets full of candy on the mantel of the fireplace dominating the room. “I just got a hold of Tanya. I can go out tonight if you want,” she said as Ivory inched her way through the mass of Halloween memorabilia.
Ivory picked up her scarf, wrapped it around her neck. She donned her gloves, working the leather over her small hands. “Sure. What time?”
Jenny frowned at a broken skeleton and grabbed a roll of scotch tape to repair the injured arm. “How about nine? The kids will be in bed by that time.”
Ivory fished around in her bag for her car keys. “Sounds good. Just call me.”
Before Jenny could get a good look at Ivory’s face, she ducked out the front door. She needed to get back to the office and forget the split personality she’d temporarily experienced that morning.
* * * *
Brian Dancer sat in the office, his blond hair combed over, his freckled face rosy from the cool wind of October. Ivory went straight to her desk and dropped her keys and purse in the bottom drawer of her desk. “So, are you ready to go home with Nick and Cassie?”
Brian smiled, his front tooth missing. “Yes, Miss Ivory.”
She smiled, the morning forgotten as she spent a few minutes with the boy. Claire appeared, followed by the boy’s new parents. “All right,” she said to Nick and Cassie St. John. “We’ll have a hearing in November to finish the adoption and make it legal, but I think everything looks good.”
Nick and Cassie kneeled in front of Brian and Ivory stood back, making her way toward Claire. “He looks so happy.”
Claire smiled. “It’s a good day today.”
Ivory nodded. “Well, I’m happy he’s found a good home.”
Claire studied her, and Ivory felt her neck tingle as one of her closest friends and confidants appraised her appearance. “So, any headway with Mr. Morgan?”
Ivory glanced away, out the window overlooking Fifth Avenue. “Uh, no. He’s still not sure what he wants to do.”
Claire chuckled. “You’ll convince him,” she murmured. “One way or the other.”
Ivory smiled. The St. Johns took each of Brian’s hands and ushered him toward the elevator bank just outside the doors of their office. He looked over his shoulder one last time at Ivory and Claire, tears of joy shimmering in his eyes. Ivory felt his happiness, letting it settle in
her heart. In social work, the small triumphs made the best ‘thank you’s and his tears were worth the long days and broken hearts.
“Okay, so, I’ll follow up on Liza. Have the police located any information on Ashley’s biological father?”
Claire sighed and ran a hand back through her short blond hair, mussing the perfectly coifed do. “No. They can’t even find a birth certificate for the child in Mary’s things.”
Ivory felt her moment of happiness fade. One child’s happy ending dulled the pain of lost children for only a moment. “Maybe she didn’t have her in a hospital.”
Ivory's Addiction Page 5
