“No. In special forces. I took the advanced course.”
Her own smile turned into a grin. “Jeff, you could teach the course.”
He touched her face, then smoothed back her hair. “I wanted it to be good for you,” he told her. “I’m glad you were pleased.”
“Pleased doesn’t begin to describe it.”
He was so gentle, she thought. Despite the fire still raging inside of him. She felt the insistent pressure of his arousal. He was as hungry as she had been just a few moments before. Yet he’d taken the time to satisfy her very thoroughly. This from a man who dreamed he wasn’t human and kept mostly to himself?
She wanted to ask what it meant that they were doing this. But even more, she wanted to feel his bare skin against hers as he entered her.
She stroked his back, then slid her hands around to his chest. “I think it’s time for the second act,” she said and brought his mouth to hers.
As they kissed, he moved his fingers against her breasts, then slipped them lower. She was still slick and swollen and it didn’t take much to get her blood boiling all through her. In a matter of minutes she was writhing against him, as hungry as she’d been before.
He shifted so that he could pull off his jeans, then returned to kneel between her legs. The only light in the room came from outside—a diffused illumination from the streetlights’ glow in the damp night. His face was in shadows and she couldn’t see his eyes. Yet she wasn’t afraid. Not even when she felt his arousal pressing against her.
She slipped a hand between them to guide him inside. With one smooth thrust, he filled her completely. She gasped as her muscles relaxed to admit him, then immediately tightened around his width.
He braced himself on his hands and stared into her eyes. She kept her gaze on him. Even as he entered her again and again, even as her own body began to react to the tension filling her, she refused to look away.
Jeff knew he wasn’t going to be able to last much longer. His lack of control wasn’t about not having been with a woman in a long time, although that was true enough. Instead his legendary self-control was being destroyed by a wide-eyed gaze and the feel of slick walls contracting in pleasure.
He felt the first release ripple through Ashley’s slender body. She clutched his arms and arched back her head, all the while gasping for breath and pleading with him to follow. He told himself to hold back. That his waiting would make it better for her. But suddenly he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t wait, couldn’t do anything but fill her again and again, shifting back on his haunches as he grabbed her hips and pulled her closer.
And then he was at the point of no return. He thrust into her deeply, making them both cry out. He surrendered to the release, losing himself in a perfect moment of paradise.
Jeff rolled over and pulled Ashley into his arms. The night was still except for the sound of their breathing. She cuddled against him, her head on his shoulder, her breath tickling his chest.
“When was the last time you did it on your living room floor?” she asked.
“Never.”
He thought about telling her more. That he’d never invited a woman to his house. He’d never made love here before.
Made love.
The words stopped him, but he couldn’t deny them. Ashley was more than just sex.
“What about you?” he asked.
She propped herself up on her elbow and grinned down at him. “I’ve never made love on your living room floor before, either.”
Her humor made him wrap his arms around her and pull her against him. He liked the feel of her naked body pressing into his.
“How do you feel?” he asked as he stroked her from shoulders to rear.
“Good. Better than good.” She sighed. “You were pretty amazing. All that ability to focus on the task at hand. I should have guessed how well it would translate. Now if only my rug burn will fade by morning.”
“Rug burn?”
He started to sit up to look at her back, but she laughed and pushed him back onto the carpet.
“I’m kidding. My back is completely unscathed.”
“Good.”
She turned onto her side. He slid his hands over her hip and felt the prominent bone. “You’re too thin,” he told her.
She glared. “I take back all those nice things I just said. It’s incredibly tacky to criticize a woman’s body at any time, but never more so than after you’d just done the wild thing and while she’s still naked.”
She was being playful, but he didn’t smile. “I’m not being critical, I’m stating a fact. You haven’t been eating enough. Why do I know that it’s more about money than looking good in clothes?”
She sat up and turned so she was facing away from him. “Don’t, Jeff. I don’t want to talk about that. Please don’t spoil the mood.”
Her request answered his question. He hated that money had been so tight for her that there were times when she didn’t get enough to eat. He wanted to fix her life. He needed to make it better. Except he was the wrong person for the job. Nicole had been right when she’d pointed out that he didn’t know how to be like other men. At least he’d given Ashley a good job. As long as she worked for him, she would be safe.
“You’re supposed to say something reassuring,” she muttered.
“I’m sorry.” He touched her bare skin. “I don’t want to spoil the mood. Please come back here and let me hold you.”
She turned toward him. The lamplight filtered through the partially open drapes, illuminating her body. Her breasts were surprisingly full for her slight frame. The nipples were tight. As she moved, her breasts swayed slightly. She was an erotic image brought to life by the night.
Unable to stop himself, he leaned over and took her right nipple in his mouth. She grasped his head and moaned. Suddenly he was touching her everywhere, needing her, desperate for her. He told himself that it was too soon.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured.
“Don’t worry about it.”
She pressed herself against him as they kissed.
He was hard in a heartbeat. Hard and hungry, as if they hadn’t made love less than an hour before. He cupped her breasts and teased her nipples. She ran her fingers through his hair and down his back. He put his hands on her hips and urged her to straddle him. She did so; then in one easy, sexy movement she settled on top of him and let him find his way home.
Ashley couldn’t believe they were making love again. She was generally a once-every-three-or-four-days kind of girl. But with Jeff she couldn’t seem to get enough. The second he began to fill her, she felt herself contracting around him. The first release made her arch her head back in an attempt to catch her breath. The second made her frantic to have him fill her more and more and more.
She raised and lowered herself with a pace she thought might be too fast until she realized that his hands guided her hips, keeping her in place and her rhythm steady for both of them. Every few seconds another contraction filled her. She hadn’t known it could be like this.
Suddenly tension spiraled through her. Tension and need. It consumed her until she had no choice but to shudder with the glory of it all. Just as she reached her pinnacle, she felt Jeff stiffen and cry out. Together they clung to each other as their bodies reveled in the moment of being one.
Ashley slept like one of the innocent, Jeff thought later when they were both in his large bed. Her even breathing spoke of her rest. He couldn’t find the same solace; he didn’t dare.
When was the last time he’d made love? Not had sex, but actually made love with a woman? He couldn’t recall. Not since Nicole. And with her it had been before things had started to go so desperately wrong. Sex was a bodily function. He understood and respected his body’s need for release. But this was different.
He closed his eyes but didn’t allow himself to sleep because the dream lurked in the world of the unconscious and he didn’t want to have it twice in one night. Not with Ashley sl
eeping so peacefully beside him. She might think that she understood him, but she had no idea of his real self.
So instead of sleeping he held her close, ignoring the very male part of him that wanted her again. He told himself that the wanting was allowed for this night but no longer, because wanting was dangerous. Wanting made a man weak and careless. Either could get him killed.
In the morning he would walk away without looking back. He would never allow himself to do this again or even to think of it. That would be best for both of them. But until morning there was the night. He closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet scent of her skin.
The next morning Ashley was fighting both a mild case of rug burn and a major case of the guilts. She tried to act as normal as possible as she fixed her daughter’s lunch, even though Jeff was also sitting at the table, looking as if nothing had happened the previous night. Fortunately Maggie didn’t sense the tension between the adults and chattered away as if this was an ordinary morning.
Ashley had awakened to the sound of Jeff in the shower and had used the moment of privacy to escape to her own room. When they’d met up in the kitchen, she’d managed to greet him and pour him coffee without melting into a puddle of desire, or worse, clueing in her daughter that something was different.
As she spread peanut butter on bread, Ashley tried to reconcile the well-dressed conservative man sitting at the table with the one who had licked her entire body the night before. Or the one who had awakened her just before dawn so they could make love yet again. She couldn’t wait for round two.
Just hold on one minute, she told herself as she reached for the jar of jelly. There wasn’t going to be a round two. Last night had been amazing. It had been special and perfect and it had to be a one-time event. Jeff wasn’t the kind of man a woman like her settled down with, and she didn’t want a casual, sexual relationship. For her, the act of physical intimacy had always been closely tied to love. She didn’t love Jeff; she didn’t want to love Jeff. To make sure that didn’t change, she was going to have to stay out of his bed.
She would tell him as soon as they were alone.
That decided, she finished her daughter’s sandwich and put it in the small, plastic, cat-covered lunch box.
“It’s gonna be Easter soon,” Maggie was saying.
Jeff smiled at the little girl over his coffee mug. “What happens then?”
Maggie looked shocked that he didn’t know. “Mommy and me go to church where they have lots and lots of pretty flowers and we listen to the min—min—” She glanced at her mother for help.
“The minister,” Ashley said.
Maggie beamed. “And when we come home we find what the Easter bunny left for me. Last year he was very nice and left me lots of chocolate.” She leaned toward Jeff and lowered her voice. “I’m hopin’ he’s nice to me this year.”
Maggie turned to her mother. “Mommy, can I take my new book to school to show my teacher?”
Ashley nodded.
Maggie jumped from her seat and raced toward the stairs. Which, unfortunately, left Ashley alone with Jeff. He turned his attention to her.
“How are you feeling?”
Was it her imagination or did his tone sound different this morning? She barely stopped from slapping herself in the forehead. Of course it was different. They were different. Their intimacy the previous night had changed everything.
“I, ah, I’m fine,” she said, barely able to meet his gaze.
She could feel the heat flaring on her cheeks. What was he thinking? Was he, too, remembering what it had been like when they’d been together? Should she tell him now that it had been wonderful but really couldn’t happen again?
“Jeff, I—”
“I found it! I found it!” Maggie’s singsong voice filled the kitchen as the little girl flew into the room, her new book clutched to her chest.
She dashed over to Jeff and flung herself into his arms. “Thank you for my book. And the kitty. They’re my bestest presents ever.”
Ashley watched her daughter’s small arms go trustingly around Jeff’s neck. She saw the large man she now knew to be tender and considerate, hug her back. Suddenly she was aware of the sound of her own heartbeat and the way the room seemed to tilt slightly.
She’d been worried about getting involved with a man who wasn’t right for her. She’d been concerned about having her heart engaged in futile longing for a man who could never love her back. But she’d never once thought anyone else was at risk.
Now, as she observed the tall, dangerous man and the trusting little girl, she knew that Maggie was the one who had already given her heart away. Maggie had bonded with Jeff, viewing him as the father she never had. Maggie would have dreams and expectations, and there was nothing Ashley could do to warn her about holding back.
An ache filled Ashley’s chest. She wanted to protect her daughter, but she didn’t know how. Should they leave? Should they—
Jeff whispered something in Maggie’s ear and her daughter laughed. Ashley knew it was too late to keep Maggie from connecting with Jeff. And taking her away now, before they had to go, seemed cruel. Perhaps it would be best to let the child enjoy Jeff while they were in his house. Later they would both have to deal with the impossible task of getting over Jeff Ritter.
Chapter Ten
Jeff left his office with the Kirkman file under his arm. He knew he could have asked Brenda to do the research on the small town just neighboring the Mediterranean estate, but he needed something with which to distract himself. Something that would take his mind off Ashley.
They hadn’t spoken that morning. Maggie provided a perfect buffer and he hadn’t seen the point of trying to get Ashley alone for a few minutes of conversation. It was ironic. He who had faced numerous terrorists, enemy soldiers and certain-death assignments without flinching was nervous about talking with a woman. He grimaced. Nervous didn’t begin to describe how he felt. He was flat-out terrified.
He didn’t know why she’d agreed to make love with him last night. He’d told her about the dream; he’d bared something close to the truth about who and what he was. And yet she hadn’t run away. Maybe she hadn’t figured out what it all meant. Maybe that would come later.
He didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want to see her features tighten in disgust or fear. He didn’t want her backing away from him when he entered a room.
And yet, despite all that could still go wrong, he wasn’t sorry. How could he be? Last night had been perfect.
He stepped into the research room and settled at one of the specially programmed computers. Even as he typed on the keyboard, he thought about what it had been like to be with her. How she’d looked and felt and tasted. How she’d sounded. The way that she’d clung to him, losing herself in the moment.
No, he couldn’t be sorry about that. Even if it meant that he could never sleep again.
He frowned slightly. The dreams lurked in the back of his mind, an ever-present enemy. He knew that they would extract their revenge for his temporary assumption that he could be like everyone else.
“Where’s Brenda?”
The question came from behind him. Jeff turned and saw his partner lounging in the doorway to the research room. Zane raised a questioning eyebrow and continued, “Did she call in sick?”
“No. She’s around.”
Zane sauntered over to the chair next to Jeff’s and took a seat. “So why are you in here?”
Jeff shrugged. “I had the time.”
Zane didn’t look convinced. “Are you all right? You haven’t been yourself for the past few days and today it’s worse.”
“What are you talking about? What’s worse?”
“I’m not sure.” Zane studied him. “It’s the woman, isn’t it? The one staying at your house.”
Jeff didn’t think he’d been acting any differently, but obviously he’d been wrong. Zane was observant and he didn’t make mistakes.
“Nothing’s changed,” he bluffe
d, knowing it was a lie. Having Ashley and Maggie come live with him was just the first of many changes.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Zane told him. “I think you having a woman around is a good thing. I’m all in favor of that. You need some normalcy.”
Jeff didn’t agree, but he wasn’t about to argue. Ashley was dangerous to him because she distracted him. In his line of work, a distraction could cause a mistake. Just one misstep, one unnoticed detail, would mean the difference between living and dying.
Zane jerked his head toward the open door. “You ready for the meeting?”
Jeff glanced at his watch, then nodded. They had four new recruits going through orientation. A quiet, competent woman in her early thirties, and three ex-military men.
“What do you think?” he asked his partner as he closed his folder and followed Zane out of the research office.
“They’re all right. The youngest of the three, Sanders, is a little gung ho for my liking. He still thinks the protection business is glamorous.”
Jeff grimaced. “Just what we need. Someone stupid. How’d he get this far?”
“Great credentials and impeccable recommendations. They’re genuine,” Zane continued as he paused just outside the conference room. “I checked them myself.”
Then they hadn’t been faked, Jeff thought. Zane didn’t make those kind of mistakes, either.
Jeff stepped into the conference room with Zane on his heels. Jack Delaney, former Secret Service agent and arms expert, nodded as his bosses walked to the front of the room. The four recruits sat at a conference table facing the podium. Jeff looked them over, noticing the even gazes that met his own. The woman sat a little apart from the rest. She had long red hair and a body that would make traffic stand still. He briefly wondered what had brought someone that good-looking to this line of work, then dismissed the question. Her appearance didn’t matter if she was the best.
He glanced at the three men. The youngest was easy to pick out. He wore a grin the size of Texas.
“These are the men who sign your paychecks,” Jack said easily. “Jeff Ritter and Zane Rankin.” He nodded and stepped away from the podium.
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