by Black, Regan
“Does your grandma’s place have Internet access?”
Amelia nodded absently. He suspected her mind remained locked on the story and how best to break it open. His mind should be locked on keeping her alive. And it was. Except for those flashes when his thoughts veered toward the personal details about her he found so captivating.
She turned one last corner and he mentally found himself thanking any god that might still be listening to him. The house sat back from an old column of a lighthouse perched right at the edge of the peninsula. He wanted to cheer. This place was completely defensible, with just few lonely trees dotting the western side of the property. Nothing that would give an attacker real cover.
He paused, taking in the view limited by the rain and testing if he could get anything useful out of his rusty senses. The inherent strength of the woman in the car overshadowed everything else.
Every time he touched her, his enhanced senses reacted differently. He expected the pain, bracing for it or ignoring it as needed to get the job done. What he hadn’t expected was the way the pain changed. Hours after meeting her, his response to physical contact seemed to move through him differently... instead of the usual sharp edges and intensity, it seemed to be a deep push.
He shouldn’t be surprised the ‘normal’ he was used to was shifting again. Nothing had been normal since he’d agreed to go with Gabriel.
“This is perfect.”
“Grandma thought so,” she said when she’d pulled around the far side of the house and parked in front of a detached garage. “She grew up here and inherited the house when her own parents were gone. It’s a registered historical landmark.”
“Tell me there aren’t regular tours.” The exterior of the house wasn’t dressed for the holidays, but there had been enough surprises, he wanted to be sure.
Amelia’s laughter brightened the mood inside the car. “No, but there could be. The historical thing is just one more layer of protection. I still let her church use it occasionally for guests. In return they help me maintain it.”
“And that makes two more sources of public information and potential access.”
“It’s still our best bet.”
“Maybe.”
“You think the house is compromised and that the senator, or whoever else wants this story killed, knows it’s mine.”
He nodded. “Unless you can give me a reason it wouldn’t be. Whoever is mining our personal data,” he gritted his teeth as he thought about the code phrase, “has a clear advantage.”
“Only if my second source is still cooperating with the senator.”
“That mug shot stunt wasn’t convincing enough for you?”
“Of course it was.”
“Good. We have to stay alert. Even out here.” He looked around. “Especially out here.”
“Fine.”
She didn’t have to like it, she just had to cooperate. “Can you pull the car in?”
She shook her head. “Grandma’s car is in there. I haven’t sold it.”
Not everything could be perfect. Except maybe Amelia’s eyes.
Jesus, where did that sort of mushy thought come from? John scrubbed at his face. “Let’s get inside and then I’ll take a look around.”
Gabriel had put him in the program that earned John the extra senses and physical advantage. It was past time to put them to good use for his own benefit.
“One thing first.”
He watched her hand land on his shoulder, watched her fingers curl into his shirt. His senses leaped as she drew him closer. He could scent the vanilla undertones of her body lotion beneath the bouquet of rain, blood, and jet fuel. He had just enough time to decide vanilla was far too mild for such a vibrant, determined woman when her lips brushed softly against his.
If he’d expected fireworks, he would have been disappointed. Somehow, the quiet, gentle connection rocked him more. For that instant, he wasn’t alone. The solitary confinement of his life broke open.
“Thank you,” she said, releasing him. She ducked her head and reached for the door, but not before he caught her tongue sliding across her lips.
A gentleman would protest about her expression of gratitude. John had never been accused of gentlemanly behavior before, during, or after his military days. No one had been close enough to form an opinion after he’d agreed to Gabriel’s terms.
In fact, his ruthless determination during training as well as operations was one of the factors to draw Gabriel’s attention. Or so the slick bastard had said before they systematically fucked over his life beyond all recognition.
He caught Amelia’s hand, ignoring the painful sensation that caused, and waited until her eyes slowly rose to meet his. “I’ll get you through this.”
“I know.”
Her absolute confidence in him shone in the crystalline blue of her eyes and created a physical ache deep in his chest.
He swallowed. “Lead the way.”
* * *
Amelia gave him the short tour of the area, in deference to the lousy weather, pointing out the only real valuable information: the location of the spare keys to the house, lighthouse, and garage.
He’d pocketed those and declared the place defensible. Her grandmother would have laughed at the pathetic excuse for a compliment, but Amelia hoped he was right.
Inside the house, she offered an even quicker walk through of the two main stories, only pausing briefly at the attic and basement doors. Her grandmother would have been appalled, but she blamed her poor manners on the blood matting her hair to her scalp. Lying to herself never did any good. Her abruptness was all about nerves.
They were safe, thanks only to John’s quick thinking, and now the stark reality, the vicious danger of the senator’s reach sank in.
Amelia needed space, from John and the situation, and she wanted a little distance to reclaim her perspective.
She wasn’t sure perspective was possible anymore. She’d kissed him. However brief and fleeting, however inappropriate, she’d felt something far beyond gratitude when her lips met his.
As she tilted her head back under the spray of hot water, her body longed for a certain pair of capable hands.
Foolish body.
He’d been so cool when everything had gone to hell. Would he be that cool in bed or would something – someone like her – thaw that stoic exterior?
She turned and dropped her head against the tiled wall. Silly women with hearts full of romance had thoughts like that. Not renowned reporters with a career-making story at their fingertips.
John might be the sexiest man she’d ever been blessed to meet, but until the senator was exposed, Amelia had to focus. His curiosity-inducing comments had to wait. Her philosophy had always been one story at a time. Chasing rumors or shiny distractions only worked for the gossip and society columns.
He was here to protect her and he’d made it clear that was all he wanted. She shouldn’t want to change his mind.
She shouldn’t want to stay in the shower and take care of the raw ache of desire pooling between her legs on her own. The senator’s access was too great to think they’d be undisturbed for long.
“Defensible,” she muttered, testing the word. “A defensible position.”
It hit her then, the headline for her story, the lead paragraph came to life in her mind and she turned off the taps as she mentally edited for maximum impact.
Her body dry and the towel wrapped like a short robe around her body, she blotted her hair with another towel and twisted it into a turban. She had her hook, her opening paragraph was starting to gel. Knew just how she would lay out the facts to lull readers until the shock, surprise, and eventual outrage took over.
Senator Larimore thought he was right, thought his appalling violations of privacy were excusable simply because he’d been voted into office. He’d nearly said as much when the first whispers of a potential scandal started to swirl.
When she got done reporting the facts, he’d have to exit,
disgraced by the truth and public outcry.
Giving her reflection the canary-eating feline smile Bernie claimed heralded a front page, sell-out story, she opened the bathroom door and hurried toward the bedroom that had been hers all her life.
But across the hall, the view stole her breath and she stopped short.
John Noble, professional bodyguard, was stripped to the waist. His torn and bloody black shirt cast across the foot of the four-poster bed gave stark contrast to the ivory cabbage rose patterned bedspread her grandmother used in the guest room.
His back to her, she stared at the constellation of scars from shoulder to the waistband that rode low on his hips, likely lower still. Some were faint with age, others newer. Some round and puckered, others long slashes that had surely flayed his skin and gouged through muscle. Her eyes watered with belated sympathy for all the pain he’d endured.
“I don’t need your sympathy.” His voice was a fierce growl.
Good thing, since that tender emotion was quickly eclipsed by sheer female appreciation of his well-honed body. If he’d sensed her there, he must have assumed her reflex reaction. She put a little steel in her voice. “Not sympathy so much as irritation. You need to find a better doctor. Whoever stitched you up did a lousy job more than half the time.”
He snorted, swiveling to face her. If his back had been a wonder, his chest was truly a work of art.
Michelangelo couldn’t have had a better model. She was suddenly inundated with inspiration. Not to paint or sculpt, but to make him immortal in other ways that involved full nudity and mutual satisfaction.
Her eyes lit on the smear of red under his hand. “You lied. You said that wasn’t your blood.”
He shrugged. “Most of it belonged to the other guy.”
“Hmm. I understand lies like that.” She stepped forward and lifted his hand away so she could get a better look. The mark was strange and she tried to make sense of the bruising around the shallow groove through the flesh just under his ribs.
She’d done a story last year on boxers and MMA fighters. This looked like he’d taken a beating a few days ago, but the only marks were around that long, red scrape.
“You were shot.”
“Grazed,” he corrected. “It was an ambush, remember?” He stepped back, scowling when he found himself trapped between her and the bed. He covered the damaged skin with his hand once more. “This shouldn’t count against me.”
His chest was as decorated as his back had been. Some of those injuries and round scars surely marked bullets that passed right through his body. She didn’t want to know what caused the curving slash above his heart.
“It’s a wonder you’re alive. You’re not bulletproof.”
“Not at all.” He coughed, his ripped abs jumping. “But no one’s killed me yet. You should get dressed.”
“That needs to be cleaned.” Her gaze held steady on his wounded side. It wasn’t serious, but she sensed a little care would go a long way. He seemed to bring out a latent urge to nurture. “I’m not a nurse, but I think I can handle that much.”
“I’ve got it under control.”
“But –”
“It’ll be fine by morning. Go on before you find yourself handling far more than you want.”
You want him, some small and slutty voice chanted delightedly inside her. His gruff words echoed in her ears and the heat in his green eyes made her thighs quiver. She backed up a step, hand fluttering to her throat. Her bare throat. Feeling the heat of embarrassment rising in her neck, cheeks and ears, she remembered her lack of clothing and scurried away like a frightened girl.
Safe in her room, she leaned against the closed door. That hadn’t been an exit worthy of a woman who’d dealt with people from all walks of life and all levels of intimacy or danger. Oh well. She would deal with the fallout later. Staying, giving in to the carnal, decadent desires her body was craving would have been a monumental mistake.
The towel, tucked tight across her breasts chafed against her stiff nipples. Looser across her legs, it was no less unbearable as every movement caused the fabric to flirt with the skin of her hips and butt.
Feverish didn’t quite say enough about how she felt in this moment. The realization startled her. She pushed away from the door and ripped the towel away, grateful for the kiss of the cool air in the room.
While she could count her lovers on one hand, not one of those men made her feel the desperate, restless longing she felt for the man across the hall. A man she’d known less than half a day.
If she didn’t know better, if she hadn’t made the call herself, she’d think Bernie had arranged for John to be a sufficient distraction to pull her focus from the senator’s story.
But she was doing enough of that on her own. And it was long past time to stop, she decided, yanking open the top drawer of the tall boy dresser standing between the windows.
Though she’d moved to her own apartment in Back Bay, it was habit to leave a few things here. Since her grandmother’s death, she came out for a rare weekend to write or relax away from the city. Now she was enormously grateful she wouldn’t be stuck in filthy clothes.
She wrestled herself into a snug sports bra and stopped short when she realized she was searching for panties to match. “Not happening, Bennett.” She grabbed a pair of sturdy white cotton ones and tugged them up over her legs.
As much as she wanted to jump the hot, scarred body in the next room, as much as she wanted him to want her with the same intensity, she had a job to do.
What was the point of having a protector keeping her alive to tell the story if she didn’t actually tell the damn story?
She found the holey Boston College sweatshirt and an older pair of jeans she wore whenever she’d helped her grandmother with maintenance. Maybe if she felt less attractive, she could ignore her attraction.
Sounded like a plausible theory.
Chapter Seven
John thought of the two million in his account and wondered why he was being such an idiot about the woman. The assignment, he corrected. She was a job. His last job and, as required with every previous job, he’d vowed to see it done.
He knew he’d pushed the bedroom door closed, would never have attempted the repair to his skin where anyone could happen by and catch him. Yet she’d done just that.
“Damn old house,” he muttered, resisting the urge to slam the door closed this time and brace a chair under the handle.
Certain the door wouldn’t fall open again, he returned to dealing with the wound on his side. It was shallow, and definitely the least of his lengthy list of injuries, but the raw skin annoyed him.
In training he’d felt like a target at a shooting range as they perfected the formula they’d pumped into him so he could eventually heal himself. He could still feel the heat of a few of the bigger rounds they’d used in testing. While the ability to regenerate flesh and bone sounded ideal for a mercenary combatant, the reality of the pain involved for healing, required a great deal of courage to put that ability to use.
During his time in that Mexican hellhole, he’d learned the slow, natural process was even worse.
When she’d called him bulletproof, he thought she’d managed to uncover his code name along with the locker thirty-one code phrase. Bulletproof stretched the truth, but his ability to heal meant he was as close as a man could get.
He covered the bullet’s shallow path once more. Something like this was hardly worth the effort. Thanks to whatever they’d pumped into him, it would heal on its own within two days if he did nothing. Except somewhere between the junk yard and here, John decided he didn’t want another scar.
It wasn’t vanity, it was her.
He absolutely refused to bear any physical reminder of this assignment and the blue-eyed woman who ignited his senses unexpectedly at every turn.
That was the definition of insanity.
With no effort at all, he could recall the faces of the people he’d killed. They played li
ke a slide show whenever he closed his eyes. Those he’d saved, he tossed aside, refusing to think about where they might be now, how their lives were going.
Those saved were worthy of life, deserving of a second chance, while John knew he was different – worthy only of going through the motions until called to mete out another death.
No questions allowed.
Though Gabriel promised, John didn’t believe he’d be granted the freedom or redemption he’d earned. They’d invested too much, considered him a success simply because he remained alive despite the alterations.
He glanced down, pleased to see only a faint discoloration where the bullet had striped his skin. Retrieving his damp shirt from the bed, he slipped it on and ignored the tear. Cracking open the door, he paused long enough to hear Amelia moving about in the bedroom across the hall. When he decided it was safe, he headed toward the bathroom to wash off the rest of the airport ambush.
A few minutes, feeling better after the shower, he followed her soft vanilla scent downstairs to the kitchen, and found her rooting through a tall cupboard. The baggy sweatshirt hid her sweet curves, but the faded denim, stained with various colors, hugged her ass when she bent over to check the lower shelves.
He indulged in a long, appreciative study of what he couldn’t have. “Hungry?”
She jerked upright and whirled around, a big kitchen knife in her hand aimed at his gut. “Don’t sneak up on me.”
“Sorry,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “You licensed to carry that?”
She scowled at him, then turned the expression on the knife. “Sorry,” she echoed. Her wrist twisted and the metal shone under the glaring light of the overhead fixture. “I’m a little jumpy.”
“It’s about time.” Hands held high because she hadn’t lowered the blade, he wondered what had changed to make her so edgy. “Did you find something new?” Had she decided trusting him wasn’t a good idea? He tilted his head toward the laptop open on the kitchen table.
“Yes and no.” She lowered the knife. “You were in the bathroom and I wanted to be prepared in case someone else showed up.”
“Smart.” But that didn’t quite clarify things.
