And he had a thing for those long, looong legs. Oh yes, Jack was a leg-man. He dared a glance — one leg stretched and the other propped on the leather upholstery, a liberty he would allow no one else in his truck. And since she was five foot ten, he had a long way to look. Up and down … Slender, shapely, toned. Perfection.
Jack shook his head, trying to clear the anise-honey-almond-scented haze from his head. She’d been eating black licorice again, and the honey almond scent came from her hair. He rolled down the window for fresh air before he did something unforgivable, such as licking her. He would drag the tip of his tongue along the rim of her cute little ear, and if she liked that, he would tease her neck with —
Get a grip, MacGunn. He counted the damn yellow lines again, but he only made it to 128 before he caught his fingers stroking Cassie’s skin. Her sleeping mind made a sound like purring, and her lips pulled into a smile as she nuzzled his leg. A blue-black lock of hair draped over her face and the rest fanned across his lap, making him swallow hard. Lucky Greek genes for perfect hair, long and glossy with punky blue highlighted streaks — Cassie’s attempt at rebellion. He liked her this way: sweet, cuddly, and silent. As soon as she woke, she would berate him in her posh British-French-hybrid accent, reminding him she hated his guts.
At first Jack smiled when she shifted on the bench and sighed like a little girl, still fast asleep. Then she rolled onto her back and parted her knees with a moan that could only mean one thing. He shouted, “Whoa!” and Cassie dug her nails into his thigh as she shot awake.
He swerved from the edge of the left lane all the way into the gravel off the shoulder. The trailer fishtailed behind the truck and tilted onto two wheels as he corrected right, and for a few tense moments, Jack thought he would be lifting a boat, trailer, and a Ford F350 back onto the road. That was his idea of fun but difficult to explain to onlookers.
The truck stopped in a cloud of dust, then Cassie freaked out. “Jack! What on earth is going on? You could have killed us both! And then how would I put you back together?” His heart pounded, his head vibrated and his fists threatened to yank out the steering column.
All he heard next from her was, “Blah, blah, bad driver, blah, blah wreck!” and “Blah, Blah, touch me, blah, blah, blah, How dare you?” He may have heard her promise to sic Kyros on him as well as castrate Jack herself. “What were you thinking?” she railed.
He knew he was being a jerk when he answered in thick brogue, “Darlin’, I’m still feelin’ lucky we didna wreck my boat. Custom paint job, an’ all.” Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head, and he thought she would rip his throat out.
She snarled and tackled him, and proved him right about his throat. She had wicked claws too. And she was strong. But he had sparred with Cassie so often that he knew all her moves, since he had essentially taught her to fight in the first place. In the confines of the cab there wasn’t much either could do except bump their elbows and knees on the dash.
She put up a sporting fight. It surprised him how long it took before he managed to restrain both of her wrists and pin down her knees with his own. They panted in synchronization, and he became aware of what their position looked like. Hell, he was painfully aware of what it felt like. Odd that Jack was calming Cassie when so often he was the one out of control.
Her eyes widened as she gasped in panic. Cassie squirmed and yanked against his hold on her wrists. He smelled a sudden jolt of fear in her blood.
“Jack, no! Let me go!” she shrieked, thrashing like a feral cat in a sack.
He had no idea if he could safely let her go, rabid creature. He released her anyway, and she scrambled to the other side of the cab. She nearly ripped the door from the frame to escape before she finally noticed he wasn’t being aggressive. She stared, and finally he understood.
His eyes. They didn’t exactly glow in the dark, but the iridescent membrane behind his irises enabled his night vision. When provoked to violence a berserker’s eyes illuminated, the root of old legends. Supposedly, Jack only had moments before he lost control and morphed into some sort of raging sasquatch. Cassie waited for it.
She released her breath in a rush. “You’re all right.” It came out as an accusation.
“You’re the one out of control, Cass.”
“But your eyes … ”
If his eyes glowed, it meant he was dangerous. She was thinking the same as he interrupted, “Think of a different kind of danger.” She blinked, so he explained, “You buried your face in my lap and practically begged me to shag you.”
Her mouth dropped open as she inhaled a gasp. “You pervert!”
“I would like to point out that I stayed on my side of the seat. You came on to me, Cass.”
“And you took advantage, you filthy — ”
“I did not.”
“Yes you did!”
“I was trying to behave myself, but — ” He made an irate gesture with his fist to cut off her interruption. At least she shut up, but her eyes shot fire at him. That damned bottom lip pouted again. “There was this … ” Erotic heat? Magnetic attraction? No way would he say that to her, but even now it hummed in the air between them.
Still, accusing him of molesting her? He tried to calm the flash of anger. “I’ve spent half my life guarding you, Cassiopeia Noyon. Why the hell would I turn on you now?”
Because you’re a playboy and a womanizer, and you’ll take any excuse to get it on. She didn’t dare say it out loud, but the resentment in her voice made his anger boil.
He growled in frustration and felt his skin stretching taut over tensed, pumping muscles. The cab seemed to shrink. Now he risked being enraged, her short-sighted ingratitude sending him on the fast track to going berserk. His heart rate accelerated and he could feel a battle frenzy coming on, so he wrenched the door open and stomped away from the truck, leaving it running on the side of the road.
Cassie followed, calling to him in a girly tone of voice that raked over his last nerve. He growled in the back of his throat — a warning — and sensed her wince at the savage sound. She tried to poke at his mind, but he slammed the door shut in her face.
The mesquite tree in his way he yanked out by the roots, and instead of walking around a boulder, he hurled the bathtub-sized rock over his head and watched it shatter into pebbles. His vision darkened, his heart rate doubled, and her words clattered around in his brain. He resented her ignorance — she didn’t know what he’d sacrificed for her, but oh, he did. Years. Long, lonely years. Anger alone he could handle, but her accusation … it hurt. He couldn’t take it.
Delirious energy pumped through his scalded veins, his muscles plumped and hardened to an iron-like density, his entire being wound tightly like a steel spring.
A small touch on his arm made sensation zing to the top of his head down to his toes — Cassie’s gentle intrusion. She tried to speak to him, but to his fevered brain it came as a wash of treble murmuring easily drowned out. A primitive thrumming drove his thoughts in rhythm with his pulse, its ancient translation, fight, fight, fight!
With her hands on his face, she leaned in. He couldn’t look away from her mouth. It looked like she meant to go for a kiss — he panicked. He darted back, not trusting himself to touch her. She didn’t understand. Off his leash like this, he would do a hell of a lot more than just kiss her, and he’d rather die than hurt her. Her mouth was moving, making sounds he couldn’t translate into words, a pleading expression on her face, and she reached for him again —
Jack launched himself toward the nearest mountain, blowing a trail of dust behind him resembling jet exhaust. His heart thrummed, fueling his battle frenzy, the oxygen in his blood cycling it into more energy as he ran. Agitation turned to exhilaration as his entire body sang with delight at the exertion. The wind in his ears whistled, pitched higher and higher as his speed increased, and he could no longer fee
l his feet contact the ground. He whooped a war cry — it came instinctively. Generations of his ancestors had made the same fearsome sound on the battlefield.
Just when he thought he would take flight, Jack tripped headlong over the edge of a ravine hidden by a tangle of sagebrush. Airborne, with too much momentum and his feet trailing behind him, he hurtled toward a collision with the ground below. He tucked so he could land rolling over his shoulder but crashed into a bed of powdery silt instead. Finally a stubborn mesquite tree stopped his long skid.
His heart hammered in the eerie silence, his pulse echoing the heavy rhythm in his neck, wrists, and groin. He snorted in gusts to avoid inhaling the dust. The tree groaned then toppled, thankfully in the opposite direction. Slowly his vitals calmed, and as his berserker rage waned he became aware of pain. His poor ribs had taken the brunt of his fall, again. His thighs and calves burned with pleasant strain.
Judging by the cloud of dust in his wake, he had apparently run about a three-mile distance in less than a minute. Cassie could tell him his speed, he thought absently, then a jolt of alarm shot through his addled brain.
Bodyguard of the year, right here.
Cassie! Where are you? He called for her over and over, but it was six and a half more minutes until she appeared, jogging alongside the stirring dust trail, looking thoroughly annoyed. Disguising his relief, he scowled back, recalling what had happened before she provoked him into a rage. Her mind opened and he saw himself though her eyes: sprawled on the ground, covered head to toe in dirt with his hair sticking straight up. He still panted like a dog.
His brain wasn’t working yet, at least not well enough to handle her. “Three miles?” he croaked. “How fast?”
She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. She reminded him of the little brat she had been as a kid as she cocked her hip and rested her hand on it. Imperious, impatient — the Cassie he remembered.
She indulged him. “Three-point-two,” she corrected. “A forty-six mile per hour launch, and when I lost sight of you just after two miles, you topped one-sixty-three.”
Jack knew the last mile he had spurred himself even faster, so it was possible he had approached his maximum capacity of 177 m.p.h. No wonder I feel good. The powdery desert sand created a problem as it refused to settle. Any humans who noticed the supernatural three-mile-long tidal wave of dust would wonder.
Jack thought about getting up, but his ribs counseled him otherwise. Now that his breathing stabilized, he became well aware of the stinging, pinching pain every time he inhaled.
He stared at Cassie, silently reviewing their stupid argument. He really didn’t think he’d screwed up this time and didn’t want to apologize. It would be nice if Cassie did, though.
Wordlessly she knelt by his side and none too gently hiked up his T-shirt to look at his ribs. Matching bruises. Nice, Jack.
Yesterday’s cliff diving had colored his left side, and today’s wipeout did a number on the right. He hated it when she did that pushing thing to check his ribs and let her know it with an irritated grunt.
He felt her gentle intrusion in his mind then the familiar sensation of her ethereal presence settling where the worst of the pain throbbed. He tried to hold still while she worked, mending what he heard her diagnose as cracked ribs. Jack couldn’t help his slow hiss of relief.
Her hand lingered on his belly, tracing the shapes his skin made as it contracted with his breath. He froze, they exchanged glances, and heat washed over him. It radiated from the contact of her hand, made his vision burst into a vivid spectrum of color, and his instincts sharpened to perceive time in slow motion.
He watched as her hair furled, onyx and sapphire in the breeze. Her eyelids lowered and raised in a slow, sultry blink, and her pulse adjusted to match his. The twin drumming beat deep and steady, spiking his blood with fire. His thoughts tinted with red. Grayscale sharpened into dramatic shadows. Dark compulsion and sweet temptation flooded over him with all the subtlety of a burst dam. The sensation went straight to his groin.
Jack leaped to his feet and retreated a few steps, alarmed by the surge of arousal. Cassie rose from her crouch and stared back. Guessing by her wide-eyed look, she had experienced it too. It was worse than the playful, sexy heat when he kissed her in the boat this morning. What they had brewed a moment ago was dangerous, and they both knew it.
When he approached his truck, the unwelcome sight of flashing red and blue lights greeted him. Jack cleared his throat to get the attention of the patrolman peering into the cab. He mentally thanked Cassie for remembering to lock the doors as she handed over the keys.
“This yer truck?” The officer thumbed over his shoulder and repressed a jolt of alarm as he took in the sight of Jack.
Jack altered his gait into a non-threatening loping, but still he intimidated. He hadn’t recovered from his berserker rage, not back to normal size yet; normal being six foot six, 240 pounds. His T-shirt stretched over the engorged muscles of his neck, arms and chest. Thanks to his rush of aggression compounded with Cassie’s unwelcome inspiration a few miles back, his pants fit uncomfortably at the moment.
“Yes, sir,” Jack answered and disabled the alarm with the key fob. The officer finally noticed the copper-colored cloud trail stretching westward away from the road.
“Dust devils. Did you see them come through a few minutes ago?” Cassie nodded as she came up behind Jack, and again the officer appeared stricken witless. His thoughts abruptly went stupid, something archaic like “Ah-ooo-gah!”
For a moment Jack thought going to jail for assaulting an officer would be worth it, but Cassie stilled him with silent caution. Her careless amusement irritated him; she knew she was goddess-gorgeous and enjoyed how men reacted to her. It just wasn’t healthy, either for the male gender or her ego.
Before the officer could start asking questions, Jack put on his California accent and explained, “My wife gets nauseated when we travel. We had to stop.” Jack grinned and pulled Cassie against his side with his arm wrapped around her waist. “Thanks for guarding my truck. I always worry, you know.” He paused to wink at Cassie and patted her hard, flat belly. “Baby comes first, of course.”
Jack squeezed her waist as he heard her bristle at his implication. “Feeling better, sweetheart?” He smiled when she silently threatened to kick him in the nuts.
The highway patrolman blinked, then tucked his spiral notepad in his belt. Too dazzled to notice she and Jack were covered in dust, the officer gave Cassie a once-over. His gaze lingered on her neckline where her bathing suit did that criss-cross-thing, which gave the illusion of gaping open from certain angles. Jack clenched his fists and Cassie squeezed his biceps in warning.
“Uh, remember to flash your hazards — ” The patrolman flushed and shook his head. “Turn on the hazards — ”
Cassie interrupted, “We’ll remember the emergency signal next time, of course. Thank you,” she added a bit too curtly, and then they were alone again. She shoved Jack hard, and he only laughed as he climbed back into the truck.
The silence in the cab was awkward, and Jack was starving. A rage always left him ravenous to the tune of 8,000 calories, yet he found himself stuck in the desert with only a bag of baby carrots and beef jerky. He watched the road and rested his arms on the steering wheel as he drove, but he couldn’t help the tension pinching his back and shoulders. Cassie acted upset too. She was the ice queen though, and she could hold out longer in a Cold Silence Contest.
“I’ll be cleaning the dirt out of my truck for weeks,” he complained, for the sake of saying something, anything.
“A minor inconvenience,” she muttered in her prim accent.
It set him off. “Next time I get mad, stay out of my way,” he growled through clenched teeth. He was a flaming idiot, and he had the fine grains of sand stuck in his eyelashes to prove it.
“It was
a matter of environmental emergency, Jack. I saved the trees.”
“Scraggly weeds,” he argued.
“Desert landscape. Federally protected tortoise habitat.”
“It was either the trees or your pretty neck, Cass.”
“It’s not my fault you are a horny sicko.”
Jack shouted in frustration and veered off the freeway again, braking hard. They jerked forward then slammed back against the seat with the abrupt stop. He yanked the gearshift into park and turned to stab an accusing finger at Cassie’s nose.
“Cassiopeia Andromeda Noyon. I’ll say this only once more.” He breathed heavily in and out to keep a lid on his anger. “I did nothing untoward to ye. Not today, not ever. You enjoyed your pleasant childhood, did ye not? Know why? Because I was guarding you! Every. Damned. Day. Since you were six years old.”
Her eyes shuttered and she shrank back against the door. He lowered his voice. “While you were playing hopscotch on the playground. Plucking on your guitar with Kyros. Typing on your laptop at college — I was nearby, defending you.” He snorted, “Did ye think you’d never been in danger? That Kyros’ enemies never tried to get ye?”
Jack jabbed irately, pointing to the long scar from his right temple to ear, to another circular one just right of his collarbone, and yet another running the length over his left forearm. “These were for you, Cassie. Because Kyros asked me to, because I wanted to. I did it for you.”
He thrust his chin out and spoke with his gaze searing hers, “I have many faults, Cass, I know it. But don’t you … ever … accuse me of betraying ye. Ever. Again.”
The Valkyrie's Guardian Page 3
