by Peggy Jaeger
Gemma snuck one last look at him, then turned and walked up to the second floor. She could feel his gaze, following her, burning on her back the whole way and had to clamp down on the need to turn and look back down at him.
After she shut the bedroom door, she clasped her hands together and realized they were shaking. She laid her camera carefully down on the dresser top, every movement precise and slow, un-holstered the gun and put it alongside the camera. Mindlessly, mechanically, she crawled into bed, not bothering to pull the covers up over her body. On her side, with her knees drawn up to her chest, she closed her eyes, and on a ragged breath, fell almost instantly to sleep.
And dreamed of a God-like man with eyes the color of a calm sea.
* * *
Shadows from the afternoon sun played along her face, forcing her eyes open. Gemma rolled to her back, stretched, and listened as her stomach told her it was time she gave it something to eat.
The great room was empty, the bedroom he’d used as well when she peeked in. The entire downstairs area was quiet. Too quiet.
Knowing Ky would never purposely leave her alone, she nonetheless gave in to a few seconds of panic when she couldn’t find him. A slow, dim, thudding sound came from what she thought might be the garage, so she moved through the kitchen’s back door after disarming the alarm, and out to the building.
The sound was loud, accompanied now by grunting noises. Fear pounded through her. Gemma pulled her gun from its holster and crept along the side of the house. She stopped at a small window facing into the garage, held her breath, and peeked in.
The noises she’d heard were coming from Ky. Her fear flew when she realized he was pummeling the punching bag suspended from the ceiling.
The moment she wished she had her camera in her hand, she bolted back to the house, ran up to her room and was back at her viewing spot within a few seconds, the lens pointed at the powerful image in front of her.
Ky was slathered in sweat, his hair stuck flat to his head. His hands were wrapped in gauze as they’d been in the safe house basement. Shirtless, the muscles in his neck and chest flexed with each roll and thrust of his arms as they connected with the bag. The St. Michael’s medallion bounced against his neck with each move he executed. Moisture poured down his torso, dipping and pooling in the curves and indentations of his abdominal muscles.
Gemma snapped dozens of pictures, alternating the settings on her camera with every shot. She wanted to capture each and every movement he made without worry of blurring or distorting the image.
He was simply magnificent to watch, even more so because he hadn’t a clue he was being observed. Free and unfiltered, every motion he made was pure and raw, true to form, and unadulterated. His breathing was coarse but controlled, heavy sounding but not labored. A few times she heard him suck in air then let it out in a natural, easy rhythm as his fist connected with its target.
The bag swung and shifted with every hit as if it weighed nothing more than a fistful of cotton balls. Gemma appreciated just how powerful and focused Ky’s punches were when he jabbed two fists in rapid succession and the bag swung away from his body with such a force, he had to sidestep it on the recoil.
It was at that moment he became aware of her.
Standing square with him now, Gemma saw his face fully for the first time and not in profile. Her heart actually missed a few beats, then made up for the deficit by rebounding to a skipping cadence.
Primal, savage fury encompassed his features. His eyes were so filled with heat she was astounded she didn’t burst into flames when they lit on her. His luscious full mouth was open, dragging in huge gasps of air; his massive shoulders rising almost to his ears with each inhalation. Visible steam floated from the heated sweat evaporating off him.
Ky dropped his hands to his sides as he watched her, silent.
“I’m sorry,” Gemma blurted, clutching her camera to her chest. “I didn’t want to interrupt. I woke up…I couldn’t find you and I got worried…I’m, I’m sorry.”
She clamped her mouth shut.
Ky shook his head and, like a dog shaking wet fur, his sweat fanned and danced around him. He pulled one of his wrapped hands to his mouth, saying first, “You don’t have to be sorry.”
Like she had once before, Gemma said, “Here, let me help.” She swung her camera from its strap to rest on her back. She crossed to him and felt the temperature in the air surrounding him shoot up a good twenty degrees. Taking his hand from his mouth, she pulled it down and began to unfurl the wrapping.
With her eyes trained on her task, she could feel his penetrating stare covering her. She wanted to look up at him but was fearful once she did, she wouldn’t be able to look away. Ever.
She was eye level with his chin and watched, mesmerized, as moisture pooled in the deep indented notch at his throat. She swiped her tongue across parched lips and, in one insane moment of mind-numbing lust, wished beyond everything she could lap the area dry.
And then proceed to lick the rest of him.
When she felt her own cheeks flame with heat, she cursed her fair skin.
Standing toe to toe with this man who defined the word male, Gemma felt every part of her body that made her a woman scream out with desire and want.
And she did want him—in the purest, most sensual, mating sense.
When the drenched gauze fell freely, unwound from his hand, Gemma rolled it into a ball and finally ventured a look up at his face.
If she wasn’t mistaken, that dark, graphic, just barely constrained force she saw mirrored back at her told her he felt the same way she did. Her detailed and creative imagination went into overdrive, giving her a full and erotic sense of what the two of them would be like if they ever fell together.
Oh my! Bad imagination.
Her nipples pulled into two tight, painful pebbles beneath her bra. Stomach muscles she didn’t even know she possessed cramped and clenched as her lower body tensed. When she pressed her thighs together in a purely involuntary move, she felt the area at the top of them throb and moisten with need.
“Want me to do the other one?” she asked before she gave into the urge to jump up and wrap those throbbing thighs around his waist.
It took him a moment before he replied, “I’m good, thanks.”
Gemma took a mental step, and a few physical ones, back as he removed the second gauze.
“You got some sleep, then?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Feel better?” He reached out for the gauze she still held. She dropped it into his hand, careful not to touch him because she didn’t know how she’d react if she actually did, and then he tossed both over his shoulder and into a trash pail.
“Yes.”
It was his turn to nod. “Let me grab a shower and then I’ll see about dinner.”
“Let me help,” she said. When his eyebrows shot up his forehead, she realized how he might have misinterpreted her meaning. “With dinner, I mean. Cooking. You’ve…you’ve been doing everything. All the cooking, and such. I want to help. And I can cook. You know who my sister is, after all. I know my way around a kitchen. Even an unfamiliar one.”
She came slamming to halt. She never babbled, so why did just having this man look at her with a question in his eyes cause her to turn into a nonstop chatterbox?
Taking a deep breath, she counted to three, then said slowly, enunciating each word clearly, “You go have a shower. I’ll make dinner. Deal?”
He bent over, grabbed his gun from its resting spot on the floor, said “Deal,” and then moved by her and into the house.
Once she was alone, Gemma flattened a hand over her shaking abdomen and took in a deep, slow breath. There was no sane reason the thought of Ky naked and standing in the shower, lathered in soap and essence of, well, man, should make her knees goes soft and her thighs tremble.
But when she passed the closed bathroom door on her way to the kitchen and heard the shower kick in, they did just that.
Bad knees.
* * *
Ky was starting to realize the benefits of a brutally cold shower. Not only did it cool off the total body swelter his workout had heated him with, but it helped tamp down the lust raging through him.
Walking around in almost a full state of arousal for hours on end was starting to take a toll on his body and his nerves.
From the moment Ky’d watched Gemma hit all her targets like a sharpshooter, to the hours he’d spent with her in the woods, watching her work, his body had been on hyper alert.
Taking an hour to try and sweat off his ravenous desires, he’d almost gotten his body back to normal when he saw her watching him, her camera poised. The workout may have calmed him for the moment, but the sight of her in the garage had him hard and pulsing in an instant again.
This is insane.
He was charged with keeping her safe from a madman. He couldn’t do that if every time he looked at her all he could envision was what color those beautiful eyes would turn to when she came; what her skin would taste like as he ran his tongue over every inch of it; the noises she’d make when she fell apart in his hands.
Insanity. Lusting after a woman who didn’t even like him and only tolerated his company because she had no other choice.
With her brother-in-law, the other agents, even with Jon, Gemma had smiled and spoken to them as if they were old friends. With him, she continued to be reserved and quiet, nervous and unsure, all traits he didn’t think she usually possessed.
He wasn’t naive by any sense of the word—he knew when a woman liked him, desired him, wanted to be in his company.
Gemma Laine gave no indication she felt any of those things. In fact, she’d been peeved he hadn’t let her go off on her own to wander through the woods. She may have yielded to his demand to go with her, but he knew she hadn’t been happy about it. They’d walked for hours with barely a few sentences said between them.
It was obvious his desire was one sided, which was probably a good thing since he had a job to do. If his ego was a little bruised because of it, well, he’d just need to live with it.
Ky toweled off, dressed, and checked his gun before inserting it back into his shoulder holster. He needed to remember why they were hiding out here. He had to keep his mind alert and focused, his guard up, to make sure nothing happened to either of them. He had to do his job, no matter what was going on in his mind.
He took a quick glance at himself in the bedroom mirror and nodded, determined to keep himself in check now. He knew he could do it—he had to.
The smell of tomatoes simmering hit him the moment he opened the bedroom door.
“It smells great out here,” he said.
Gemma turned from the stove, continuing to stir a steaming pot of something, and in that moment he knew he’d just lied to himself yet again. There was no way he could keep his body, mind, or imagination from reacting to her.
She’d pulled her bangs off her face with a headband and for the first time he realized she had a well-defined heart-shaped peak on her forehead, the base separating her face into two perfect sections. Her features were so symmetrically balanced, if she weren’t the one taking photographs, he could see her in front of the lens, gracing the covers of beauty magazines.
“I found a box of pasta and what I’m pretty certain is a quart of Kandy’s homemade sauce.”
Ky moved to stand next to her and dipped his head to get a whiff of the sweet-and-spicy smelling brew. Gemma gave a little jump when his shoulder bumped her arm, but Ky just closed his eyes, ignoring it, and took in the heady aroma.
“If this tastes as good as it smells, I’ll need the recipe for my mother.” When he turned his head and opened his eyes she was staring at him. She was eye level since he’d ducked his head, and all it would take was a subtle shift on either of their parts to bring their lips together.
Her gaze flicked to his mouth and it took every ounce of will Ky possessed not to move in and discover exactly how she tasted.
He pulled upright and sidestepped away from her.
The little shudder he caught her make solidified in his mind how she felt about him.
He watched as she took a breath and flexed her neck from side to side in a move that had his mouth watering. She’d done the same thing that morning before proving what a good marksman she was, and it elicited the same reason from him now as it had then: he went concrete hard.
“You’re out of luck with that request.” She went back to stirring the sauce. “This is one of those recipes of Grandma’s that Kandy will never share. It’s strictly for family.”
Something he wasn’t and never would be.
She’d set the table and put bottled waters at each place setting.
“There’s no wine,” she said as she poured the sauce into a serving bowl. “I really wish there was wine.”
He grinned at the wistfulness in her voice. “Water is fine.”
He waited until she had everything ready, then sat with her.
“This is beyond delicious,” he said after his first forkful of the sauce-laden linguini.
“No lie.”
They ate in silence for a few moments, the only sounds the movements of their forks across the plates.
Raised in a family with six brothers and a sister, Ky was used to mealtimes being loud and lively. At the safe house, Jon had always been able to keep the conversation flowing, eliciting responses from Gemma without any effort. Sitting here quietly, just enjoying the meal was a rare treat. He wondered if she felt awkward with the silence, but when he stole a glance at her, she seemed content enough.
After a while she cleared her throat. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll be honest with me in your answer?”
Taken aback by the question and the hidden implication behind it, he said, “Of course I will. I’ll always be honest with you.”
Gemma considered his words, then nodded. “How much longer do you think we’ll need to stay here?”
The question wasn’t what he expected, but she’d asked for the truth, so he gave it. “I wish I could tell you, give you an exact date and time, but I just don’t know. My division is doing everything it can to find Ritandi, but until he’s in custody, he’s a threat to you, so we have to keep you out of sight. I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer.”
Her shoulders fell as she stared down at her plate. “I figured as much.”
His heart broke at how resigned she sounded. They ate the rest of the meal in silence.
“Since you cooked, I’ll clean up,” he told her once they were done.
“No, I’ll help.” She shrugged and picked up her plate and utensils. “There’s nothing else to do.”
She washed while he dried, both remaining silent.
When the kitchen was cleaned and everything put away, Gemma leaned against the sink and sighed.
“What’s wrong?” Ky asked, standing across from her, his hands dipped into his pockets.
Her full mouth pulled down into a frown and her arms crossed over her chest. “What if he isn’t caught?”
“Ritandi?”
She nodded. “What if your men can’t locate him?”
“They will, believe me. The access to his money has been cut off. His passport has been rescinded and he’s been tagged by the FTA both here and abroad. We know his closest contacts and they’re being watched. Believe me, he’ll be found.”
“But when?” She yanked the headband from her head and scrubbed her fingers into her temples. Her bangs swished back across her forehead, perfectly aligned once again, the peak hidden from view. “It could take years. Am I supposed to spend the rest of my life running from him? Hiding out? No
t able to work? Never seeing my family?”
He told himself it was because her voice broke on the last word that he moved toward her and pulled her into his arms. She looked so forlorn, all he wanted to do was comfort her, keep her from falling apart. The moment she slipped her hands around his waist and laid her head down on his chest he knew he’d told himself yet another lie.
He shouldn’t touch her. He knew it. But the need raging within him to offer whatever he could to this woman was beyond something he could fight.
“I can’t live like this,” she mumbled against his shirt. “This isn’t my life. I’m not the criminal, but I’m the one caged and cut off from the world. It’s not fair.”
Because he agreed, he whispered against her temple, “No, it isn’t.”
The delicate aroma of cherries drifted up from her hair. Ky closed his eyes and rubbed his hands down her back. She felt like a piece of porcelain against his fingers, delicate and fragile, her skin smooth and soft wherever he rubbed. But he knew the strength under that velvet covering, the backbone forged in steel. In all the time they’d been forced together, from the initial attack in her apartment, to the gun spree at the safe house, she’d never cracked. Even now, when he’d expect any other woman to dissolve in tears or rant and rave at the situation, Gemma was angry more than anything else.
Well, he could deal with anger. He didn’t know what he’d do if she ever fell apart.
“I promise, we’ll get him.”
Gemma pulled her hands from around him and shifted back. Her gaze scrutinized his face, darting back and forth between his eyes, looking for what, he didn’t know. She seemed fascinated with his mouth all of a sudden, her attention focused on the lower part of his face.
Her tongue slipped out and fanned her bottom lip while she regarded him. Why hadn’t he noticed before how it was so much plumper than the top one? It glistened with the moisture her tongue had drawn across it. Ky tensed, every nerve in the lower part of his body firing with longing.
He knew he shouldn’t, but the need to know what she tasted like was too powerful a temptation to defy. Ky bent, just a fraction, as Gemma pushed upward toward him, their gazes locked.
