Strong Enough

by M. Leighton

  But Jasper doesn’t seem like a criminal. Surely he couldn’t be a bounty hunter if he was. They work with law enforcement. Surely they’re . . . regulated somehow. I figure I’m safe. All set. I’m paying him to do a job. He’ll do it. End of story.

  “I’m not kidding, Muse. You be careful.”

  “I will, I will. Try not to worry. I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

  I stuff my charger in one of the zippered compartments of my suitcase. My fingers pause mid-zip when I hear Miran’s next words.

  “I love you, kid. I’ll be mad as hell if you mess around and get yourself killed.”

  “Miran, why in the—” A knock at the door pulls me up short. I rush to the window and see a sleek, black Mercedes sedan parked at the curb. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you when I get there, ’kay?”

  “Leave your phone on and make sure it’s charged at all times, got it?”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Be safe. I’ll see you when you get back. Give my love to the Colonel.”

  “I will. And, Miran?”

  “Yeah, babe?”

  “I love you, too.”

  With that, I hang up and reach for the doorknob. I can’t help noticing the fine tremor in my hand and the slight tingle down my spine. I try to use reason and common sense to talk myself into a calmer state.

  I was uptight yesterday. I’m sure he’s not nearly as heart-stopping as I thought he was. No man can be that gorgeous, that sexy, that intense.

  I take a deep, cleansing breath and I swing open the door.

  And realize how very, very wrong I am.

  —

  Standing on my stoop is a man that is quite possibly even more disturbingly handsome than he was yesterday. His arms are crossed over his broad chest, a casual gesture that belies an unmistakable impatience I feel rolling off him.

  “Ready?” he asks in a no-nonsense way that fits him as perfectly as the lightweight black T-shirt he’s wearing. The long sleeves are pushed up his forearms, revealing golden skin, ropes of sleek muscle and thick, bulging veins. I’ve never wanted to stare at forearms before today.

  I feel my frown appear again. I’m baffled that anything could distract me so much from my worries, yet it seems that every millisecond that I’m around Jasper, my focus is pulled inexorably in his direction. He fills my thoughts and warms my blood. I suppose I should be thankful for something to take my mind off my concerns, but Jasper is almost too consuming. If he affects me this way when I’ve got so much else to consider, God help me when I don’t.

  “Hello?” he prompts, bending slightly to put his face in my line of sight.

  I shake off my thrall. Or at least I try to. “Sorry. Yes, I’m ready.”

  I roll my suitcase over the threshold and turn to lock the door behind me. “Got someone to feed your fish for a few days?”

  “I don’t have fish.”

  “Cat, then?”

  “I don’t have a cat.”

  “Then what kind of pet do you have? You look like a woman who likes animals.”

  “I do?” I ask when I finally turn to face him, which is a mistake. Jasper’s heavy-lidded amber eyes are strolling down my body, studying me in such a way that I feel naked before him, like he’s peeling off clothes as he goes.

  When they rise slowly back to my face, he answers. “You do. Like maybe you’d take in all the strays. Let them sleep in your warm bed.”

  I steel myself against the little shiver that trembles through me at his words. The way he said “warm bed,” like he wants to be there, too . . . Holy Lord!

  I swallow the cotton in my mouth and focus on his observation, which happens to be accurate. All but the bed part.

  When I was younger, I’d beg the Colonel to let me keep every animal I stumbled across. He always agreed, but after a few weeks (or sometimes just a few days), they’d disappear and I’d never see them again. I’d search for days and days, hang fliers all over whichever base we were stationed at, but they never turned up. They were just . . . gone.

  My father would console me, take me for ice cream, promise me that I’d forget about each one, but I never did. It wasn’t until I got older that I began to see a pattern. He never admitted it and I never asked, but I knew that the Colonel was doing something with them. It gives me a cold chill down my spine just to think about it, about what he might’ve done to all those sweet little animals that he didn’t want. I finally stopped bringing them home. I knew they’d have a better chance of survival if I didn’t, so I’d sneak off after school and on the weekends to feed them and play with them, wherever they happened to be holed up. It never stopped me from loving them or wanting to take them in. It only stopped me from letting it show.

  “Well, I haven’t been here very long, and . . . and I’m not sure how long I’ll stay, so . . .”

  “I would’ve taken you for the roots kind.”

  “Most people are the roots kind, aren’t they?”

  “Most,” he answers flatly.

  I tilt my head to one side to consider him—the warm skin at home in the sun, the raven hair still wet from a shower, the whiskey eyes that seem both hot and cold all at once. “But not you.” It’s not a question. It’s an observation. One he doesn’t bother to refute. He only watches me quietly.

  “We’d better get going,” he finally says. With that, he picks up my busting-at-the-seams suitcase like it’s light as air and starts off down the sidewalk, leaving me to follow in his mysterious wake.

  SIX

  Jasper

  I’m comfortable in the quiet. In fact, I prefer it. I thought I’d made the rules of this road trip clear to Muse in advance.

  Evidently I didn’t make them clear enough.

  “So, how did you get started in this kind of work?” Muse asks after less than an hour in.

  I shrug. “Just sort of fell into it, I guess.”

  “How does one fall into bounty hunting?”

  “If you have the right skill set . . .”

  “And how did you come by the ‘right skill set’?”

  I sigh. Loud enough for her to hear. “I thought you weren’t going to ask questions.”

  “I thought you said not to ask questions about your methods. You didn’t say anything about asking questions about you.”

  “I like the quiet,” I tell her. She takes the hint.

  —

  Two hours later, I can tell she’s about to bust. She has filed her nails, organized some sort of list on her phone, cleaned out her purse and turned the radio on at least twice. Each time, I’ve turned it off.

  Muse reaches down to pull off her shoes and tuck her feet up under her on the seat. “This is a nice car. Not quite what I pictured you driving.”

  “It’s a long trip. I thought you’d appreciate a comfortable ride.”

  I see her head jerk toward me. “You did this for me?”

  I glance in her direction. “Don’t look so surprised. I’m not completely heartless.”

  “I—I didn’t say you were heartless.”

  “No, but you were thinking it.”

  She doesn’t argue.

  —

  Just after a quick and silent lunch of burgers and fries right outside Tucson, she tries again. “Where’d you get that watch? It looks like something a sniper would wear.”

  I glance at the black square on my wrist. Not a sniper’s watch, but . . .

  When I don’t answer, she asks more directly, “Were you in the military?”

  “Yes,” I answer grudgingly.

  Encouraged by my answer, she turns in her seat to face me. “Really? What branch?”

  “The Army.”

  “My father served in the Army. He went in because his father and both his brothers served. Did you have family in the military, too? Father? Brothers or sisters?”

  I grit my teeth. These are not things that I want to think about, much less talk about. “I really need you to find something else to do with your time. I’m not the
talkative, sharing type.” I twitch my head to the right and see the wounded slant to her big green eyes. I sigh again and turn back to the road. “Look, I’m not trying to be rude. I’m just being honest.”

  After a few seconds of silence, I glance back over at her. The twin emeralds are flashing. “Well then let me be honest with you. It’s been a really shitty year for me and now my father is missing. I can’t stand sitting here with nothing but time to think about what I might find back home. I’m sorry if polite conversation isn’t in your repertoire, but maybe, just maybe, you could make an exception just this once.” Her voice is louder, punchier at the end and I know her temper is on the rise.

  Fire.

  Damn, I’m liking that!

  “I’m doing you a favor, Muse. You don’t want to get to know me.”

  “Maybe I do. You can’t possibly know that.”

  “Maybe I don’t want you to,” I confess quietly.

  I hear her huff of frustration before she flounces back in her seat, crossing her arms stiffly over her chest and turning to stare out the window.

  She’s better off not knowing me. She just doesn’t know it.

  SEVEN

  Muse

  It’s dark when we arrive at our stopping point for the night. I’m relieved to be off the highway.

  I ache. Mentally and physically. From too much stillness, I think. The only physical exertion I got all day was wallowing around in the passenger seat, taking two pee breaks and getting out to stretch while Jasper was in the drive-through at lunch. Mentally, the only stimulation I got was wrestling with my own private, tumultuous thoughts. Jasper provided me with . . . well, nothing. Nothing but the services of a chauffer and a heaping dose of frustration.

  I’ve met guarded men before, but none quite so extreme as Jasper. He doesn’t even want to share in conversation about other things, mundane things. It’s like he doesn’t want to participate in life, get even politely close to anybody. Or at least that’s the impression I’m getting so far.

  Anxious to be able to stand and move, I practically leap out of the car when Jasper parks outside the hotel he chose for the night. We’re on the outskirts of El Paso, a town I’ve never had the pleasure of visiting. It could be a fun and interesting night, a nice diversion from my worries and inner turmoil, but since I’m with a stick in the mud, my expectation now is to crash in my room and be back on the road at an obscene hour.

  “You’re a terrible road tripper, by the way,” I tell Jasper bluntly as I wait for him to come around the front of the car so we can register at the hotel.

  “And why is that?”

  “You’re about as stimulating as a goat. We didn’t even play stupid road trip games or anything!”

  I wasn’t expecting a deep philosophical discussion on the way, but a fun game of “punch buggy” or “ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall” might’ve helped ease my mind a little.

  He doesn’t even glance at me when he responds, just starts off toward the hotel lobby. “A goat? I’m crushed.”

  I strike out after him, still fussing. “As well you should be. The least you could do is make some small talk occasionally. I mean, God!”

  He startles a yelp out of me when he stops suddenly and turns toward me. “I didn’t realize you needed stimulation. Maybe you should’ve made your expectations clear from the outset.” I crash into his chest and stumble backward. He reaches out to grab my upper arms, hauling me up against him to keep me from falling.

  I gasp at the electricity in his touch, in the feel of his body pressed so firmly to mine. My front, from my nipples to my navel, is hot and tingly and . . . aware. Too aware.

  His eyes burn down into mine. He’s so close I can see the black of his pupils explode to eclipse the amber of his irises. Whatever I’m feeling, it’s affecting him, too.

  I struggle to keep my wits about me. It’s a struggle I lose. His nearness is too much. His emotion, something he has showed so little of, is too overwhelming.

  “I . . . I . . .” I don’t know what to say. His reaction is so surprising that I’m struck temporarily speechless. I hold his gaze, let it wash over me until I see the golden orbs flicker to my mouth. I lick my suddenly dry lips and when his eyes return to mine, they’re full of fire of a different kind.

  “While I’ve got you here,” he snarls, “might as well get this out of the way.”

  With no other warning, Jasper lowers his head and crushes my mouth with his own. He’s so forceful, so . . . angry, that I remain stiff in his arms. Until the moment that I begin to taste the real Jasper, the Jasper that he hides beneath his gruff exterior.

  I taste softening in the way his fingers loosen their grip. They caress rather than restrain, coerce rather than demand.

  I taste dominance in the way his lips move over mine. He is in control, but he is sure to make certain I enjoy every second of it.

  I taste acquiescence in the way he groans into my mouth. He didn’t want this, but like me, he can no longer resist it. There’s something between us, something that has a life of its own.

  And, finally, I taste desire in the way his tongue slips inside to tangle with mine. He is heat, he is gravity. He is the center of all my senses. He is consuming.

  Just like those few seconds when he first walked into my life yesterday morning, life ceases to exist outside his presence. He took my breath away then and he’s taking my breath away now. There are no fears, no reservations, no other people. There is only Jasper and this insane attraction I feel for him. He is wild and raw, dangerous and tempting. He’s a sleek, powerful animal, seeking to thrill and to destroy. He overcomes, he devours, he possesses. He refuses to share his kill with anything else. For a heartbeat, I’m his. His prey. Not necessarily willing, just helpless to fight against him.

  And then, God help me, I respond. My body takes over and I lose myself in this kiss, in this moment. In this man. I arch my back, pressing my aching breasts into his chest. With every muscle, every nerve, every fiber, I strain toward him, drinking him in with my body, my soul, my mouth. Unwittingly, I unleash the animal I thought I’d already seen.

  With a fierceness echoed in the growl that trembles into my open mouth, Jasper spins, plastering my back to one of the large, concrete columns that support the overhang. He tilts his head and deepens the kiss to a level I’ve never been before, to a height, to a depth, to an intensity I’ve never known. He punishes me with the pressure of his body, but he soothes me with the soft lick of his tongue. I feel him everywhere. Within, without, penetrating, radiating.

  The kiss comes to a slow, tantalizing end that makes me want to whimper when Jasper breaks the contact. And then I’m free. Free to breathe, free to speak. Free to think and see and hear, but I don’t. I don’t do any of those things. I can only feel, like the residual sting of a burn. A burn so good.

  “Jesus H. Christ!” he mumbles, rasping his cheek over mine, his breath tickling my ear.

  I want to beg him for more. I want to know what he’s thinking. Why he did that. What’s to become of me since meeting him. Because I know I won’t ever be quite the same. I have no reason to suspect that, only pure intuition. A feeling. A strong one.

  He raises his head, but he doesn’t push me away, which further surprises me. He just stands, holding me against him, staring down into my eyes.

  I watch Jasper watch me, both of us reeling from the heat of that kiss. But then, to my bewildered amazement, I see his expression harden little by little until I can’t see what he’s feeling anymore. I just watched him bury it. Purposefully. Resolutely. The strange this is, I know it’s still there.

  It has to be.

  Doesn’t it?

  “Let’s go get a couple of rooms,” he says in a hoarse voice.

  The Jasper of moments ago is now hidden, hidden beneath a matter-of-fact exterior, smothered beneath unruffled feathers. Meanwhile, my world is still rocked and my feathers are still standing on end all over my body.

  What the hell just ha
ppened?

  I’ve never witnessed such absolute control. It’s a bit mindboggling, which is why I pay no attention to the muted greens of the lobby or the broad smile of the twentysomething girl behind the counter when we enter the lobby. It’s also why I pay no attention to what Jasper is saying or how the clerk responds. I stand off to myself, a few feet behind him. Thinking.

  I’m spinning with sensation, which opens the door to more sensation. Thoughts war, feelings battle, guilt descends. I realize with utter dismay that I forgot all about my father, all about my woes twice within a thirty-six hour period. Granted it was only for a few seconds, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. What kind of woman lets a man so totally consume her?

  One who’s never met a man like Jasper.

  I’m shaken from my troublesome musings when the object of my turmoil turns and hands me a thin envelope with a number scribbled on the front. “You can have 213. It has a view of the pool.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Right next door, beside the stairwell.” Something tells me he arranged that on purpose. I bet he’s one of those guys who likes to sit facing the door in a restaurant, too. It makes me wonder all the more what goes on inside his head. I can’t imagine a more complex man. “You can go on up. I’ll get our stuff.”

  I nod, wanting to say something, but knowing it will do me no good. Besides, I don’t even know what I’d say. I have only questions. Lots and lots of questions. And Jasper is anything except willing to answer them.

  I let myself into the cool comfort of my room. I walk to the window and push aside the thin sheer to gaze down at the rectangle of lighted water below. I don’t jump when I hear a knock. I was expecting it.

  I open the door for Jasper, but he only leans in enough to set my suitcase on the carpeting and give me a curt, “I want to pull out at seven. Be ready.” Then he turns, black duffel thrown over his shoulder, and lets himself into his own room.