“It worked for you.”
“Definitely.” She wanted to whimper when he dropped his hand away. “What about you, Jack? How did you end up here?”
“I joined the Army because I wanted adventure and a paycheck. Here I am.”
She sensed it wasn’t the whole story, but she had no right to push him. “Here you are. Good for me.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth and sparks snapped in her belly. It shocked her that she wanted to lean into him, press her mouth to his, and feel his heat and strength. After the last week with Athenasios, it surprised her that she could want that kind of closeness with any man right now.
He pushed away from her and crawled toward the mouth of the cave. Then he shot her a look over his shoulder. “Moon’s nearly gone. Want to get out of here for a bit?”
“Sure.” She crawled out of the cave and stood up. Jack walked away from her as if he couldn’t stand to be near her for a moment longer. She tried not to let it bother her as she strode down the beach and stopped at the edge of the water.
But it did.
*
Living in a tight cave with this woman wasn’t exactly easy. Or comfortable. Jack shifted for the millionth time that day, trying to relieve the pressure of a hard-on. Last night he’d had to get out of the cave before he did something stupid. She’d been looking at him with wide, trusting eyes, and he’d found himself wanting to kiss her.
It pissed him off. And scared him too.
He hadn’t wanted a woman since Hayley died, and now he was stuck in a tight spot with a woman who was miles out of his league by anyone’s measure—and all he could think about was stripping her out of that damn bikini and burying his aching cock in her body.
Shit.
She stirred against him and he knew she was waking. It was almost dark out, and soon they could get outside again. He couldn’t wait. Except, after they’d swam and exercised a bit last night, it had been chilly in the cave and they’d ended up huddling together for body heat since they couldn’t have a fire. The Mylar blanket was meant for one, so if he didn’t want to freeze, he had to get under it with her.
Her robe was pitiful protection against the cool night air, so he’d wrapped his arms around her and let her burrow.
They talked, but no matter how much they said or how many things they discussed, his body stayed in a perpetual state of arousal. He couldn’t wait for HOT to find them. He’d sent a signal, but he had to be careful with the electronics in case Metaxas’s men were also looking for them.
“Hey,” she said.
He looked down to see her smiling up at him. He liked her smile. “Hey yourself.”
She shifted away from him and he let out a small sigh of relief. When she touched him, his entire body lit up like a beacon. He’d been thinking about that for a while now, and he knew it had to be because it had been so long since anyone had touched him. His heart might be dead, but his dick wasn’t, and this was the first time since his wife died that he’d actually been close to a woman.
A soft, sensual, lovely woman with a body that had no doubt fueled a million masturbatory fantasies. He had to remind himself who she was, because when he looked at her, all he saw was a beautiful, tough, somewhat insecure woman who hid a core of vulnerability beneath a worldly exterior.
“I guess the Lone Ranger hasn’t arrived to save the day yet,” she said.
“No, not yet.”
“But the evil villain hasn’t arrived either, so we’re doing all right.” She frowned. “How are we on food?”
The food was meant for one, not two, but he hadn’t told her that. He just kept dividing it up and telling her it was all right.
“We’ve got a couple of days yet.”
“Will they find us? Your guys, I mean.”
“Yes.” He had no doubt HOT would come. If they weren’t here yet, it was because there’d been some serious shit happening after they’d taken out Metaxas. The gunrunner basically owned this part of the island, and his people controlled access via the public road. As for the water approach, well, that was a bit trickier.
But Jack’s guys would come.
She stretched her arms out in front of her. Her robe gaped open and the bikini top showed the swell of her breasts to perfection. Jack deliberately looked elsewhere while his dick throbbed a little more than before.
“I would love a shower and some coffee.” She looked down at her body. “And some more clothes.”
“Yeah, that would be nice.”
Her robe slipped a little more and… fuck. Was that a belly-button ring? He hadn’t noticed it before because she’d been covered up. And when he’d looked at her through the scope, it hadn’t been her belly he’d been concentrating on.
She looked up and caught him staring at her. His first instinct was to look away, but he didn’t. He just… didn’t.
“You’re a good guy, Jack,” she said softly.
“Not really.” He sounded gruff.
She pulled her robe closed and sat with her arms wrapped around her middle, and that one gesture ripped through him.
“Shit,” he said. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to be uncomfortable with me.”
“But I am.” Her head was bowed. “And not for the reasons you think. That look you gave me just now… I think it causes you pain.”
He blew out a breath. “Yeah. It’s been… There’s been no one since Hayley died.”
She looked up, her eyes shiny. “I think that’s sweet and sad and wonderful. And I’m really sorry, Jack. Really.”
There was a lump in his throat. “I know.” He shook himself and pushed up to crawl toward the opening. “I think it’s safe to go for a swim now.”
He stepped out of the cave and didn’t look back. Right now he needed a dip in the ocean. It wouldn’t be cold enough to douse this flame, but at least it was a start.
*
Gina slipped into the cool water and immersed herself. When she came up again, she could hear Jack swimming nearby. It was dark, but the moon was out and the stars were plentiful. After the first night, Jack had realized they were fine if they stayed in the shadow of the rock. The moon gave them light, but it didn’t pick them out for anyone who might be looking.
Still, he’d warned her it was a risk. But it was a risk they had to take because staying in that cave certainly wasn’t easy. Gina floated on her back and thought of the way he’d looked at her. A shiver drifted over her, but it wasn’t due to being cold. She’d thought he wasn’t interested in her at all—in fact, she’d felt terrible for being attracted to him—but then he’d looked at her with such an expression of raw hunger that she’d grown instantly wet.
She’d closed the robe because her nipples were hard, not because she’d been upset that he’d been looking. Now her nipples hardened again, spiking against the fabric of her top. She let a hand drift up and over her breasts. Another shiver rippled through her.
She sank beneath the water again, only this time she stayed down, forcing her mind to go blank, her thoughts to drift away. When she surfaced, she wasn’t alone.
“Jesus, Gina,” he said, his voice a hiss because his strictures about talking loud still applied. “I couldn’t see you at all.”
She slicked her hair back from her face. “Sorry.”
“I thought something happened.”
Her face grew warm. “Nothing happened. Clearly.”
She was watching him so intently that when the next soft swell bumped into her, she didn’t let it roll over her the way she should have. Instead, she let it carry her forward until she had to put out her hands to stop herself from crashing into him.
His skin was warm, hard, and slick beneath her touch. The muscles were defined… and suddenly tense. His hands went to her waist, steadying her.
“Sorry,” she said again. It was such a small sound. A useless sound.
His fingers flexed against her waist. And then his hand slid up her ribcage, around to the tie of her bikini top. Her heart fluttered
like a frantic moth. She wanted him to untie it so badly.
But he didn’t. He simply traced his finger along the line and she wanted to whimper.
“It’s okay, Jack,” she said. “Do it. I want you to do it.”
“Do what, babe?”
“I want to be your first after…” Because there was something sweet about this man, something vulnerable, and she ached for him. “God, I’m sorry if that sounds insensitive—”
He dragged her against his body—his very hard, semi-naked body—and fused his mouth to hers before she could finish her sentence. His tongue met hers and her body shuddered as hot need washed through her.
He put his hands under her ass, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, moaning when his cock slid against the thin fabric of her bikini. He was big, hard, and she flexed her hips, sparks tingling deep inside her as the bundle of nerves in her clit rubbed against him.
Oh, she wanted him inside her. And yet she knew how difficult this must be for him, how emotional. She wanted to tell him she understood, and yet she was certain he wouldn’t want to hear it. That she would sound like she was patronizing him.
She lost herself in the kiss, moving her body against his, her excitement rising, her pussy aching, the tension inside her spinning tighter and tighter.
He seemed to know what she wanted and he began to flex his hips, moving his body against hers. His hand moved, and then she felt a finger slide beneath her bikini. When he encountered the slick heat of her, he groaned.
“You’re hot for me,” he said against her cheek.
“I know. Please, Jack, do something about it. Or if you’d rather not, stop now and leave me here to cool off, okay?”
He pulled back to look at her, his eyes searching hers. “Leave you? Fuck no.”
He started moving toward shore, still carrying her, and then he set her down and pulled her up the beach, grabbing his clothes on the way. He’d stripped down to his underwear to swim, a pair of black briefs that cupped his perfect ass.
When he got her inside the cave, he laid her down on the Mylar and stripped off her wet bikini. Then he warmed her with his mouth, licking her salt-drenched flesh until his hot mouth closed over one nipple and she clutched her fingers in his hair, gasping at the intensity of the pleasure.
“Please,” she begged, her fingers twisting in his hair. “Please.”
He reached for his pack and pulled out a condom package—thank God for those condoms—and ripped it open with his teeth. She helped him sheath his cock—and then he pushed into her slick folds, sliding deep inside her until they both let out a moan.
He held still for a long moment and she began to think he might be having second thoughts. But it was dark in the cave and she couldn’t see his eyes. She reached for him, ran her fingers over his cheek, his lips, and then down over his chest.
He shuddered once, and tears sprang to her eyes as she wondered what that shudder was about. Was he regretting this? Angry with himself? With her? But he was still hard, still deep inside her, and when she shifted against him, arching her hips up to him, trying to increase the friction on her most sensitive places, he made a noise that might have been a groan or a protest.
But then he started to move, and everything else fell away…
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENT DAY…
“That’s right, friends, we’re giving away last-minute tickets to see Gina Domenico tonight at Wolf Trap. This is her first concert in the DC metro area in more than three and a half years—”
Jack flipped the radio dial to off, then glanced in the mirror at the guy tailgating him. He must have looked pretty pissed, even with his eyes hidden behind his Ray-Bans, because the dude backed off. Jack rested his arm on the windowsill of his 1969 classic Mustang, ready to give the guy the finger if he did it again. Not mature, but some days you just needed an outlet.
Today was definitely one of those days. The name he’d just heard on the radio was still pinging around inside his brain like a bullet fired into a rubber room. Jesus, Gina fucking Domenico. Her name managed to twist him up inside in more ways than one.
It wasn’t a name you could forget, because she was constantly the subject of attention. And when she’d disappeared from sight for a few months after they’d gotten off the island, she’d become even more intriguing to the media.
He hadn’t been surprised by her disappearing act. They’d spent three days together, waiting for rescue, sharing food and water—and body heat. God, had they shared body heat.
It shamed him every time he thought about it. It was like he’d betrayed Hayley when he’d had sex with Gina. But, goddamn, it had been a long three days and they’d talked about every fucking thing under the sun. She seemed like such a normal person under all the glamour and wealth. A lost, frightened soul you just wanted to take care of even though she wrapped herself in toughness like a turtle encased in a shell.
He’d told her after that last day when his body was sated and the guilt was eating him alive that it couldn’t go anywhere. That he loved Hayley and always would.
But Gina had lifted her chin and said, “Don’t get all excited, Jack. I was lonely and bored and you were here.”
Her answer had stunned him in a way, though maybe it shouldn’t have. She’d used him for comfort—hell, they’d used each other—but it was nothing more than a bit of hot sex between two people who weren’t certain they would make it out alive. There’d been no deeper meaning, no bond. It was sex, pure and simple, and it was done.
When HOT had finally arrived, she’d taken Big Mac’s hand when he’d tugged her onto the boat, and then she’d huddled against the wall until they’d reached their transport farther out to sea. There, she’d been debriefed and taken to the nearest island where they’d arranged for her to be flown back to the States anonymously.
Jack hadn’t talked to her again. Hadn’t seen her, other than on television or staring back at him from magazine covers in the checkout line. He hadn’t wanted to see her, though every once in a while he caught himself thinking of that last day together on the island. Was she really the wounded soul she’d seemed or was the truth more nebulous than that?
He would never know. A few months after the island, she’d disappeared. Gone to a private retreat in Europe, according to her manager, where she was writing new songs and resting. Jack had thought she probably had PTSD after her ordeal, and he’d hated that it had happened to her. That he’d been at least a partial cause of it by shooting those men in her presence.
A year later, she’d emerged again, armed with new songs and ready to take on the world. She’d seemed healthy and happy, and he’d been glad for it. Six months after her comeback tour, she’d adopted a baby and gone into seclusion again. She performed when she wanted to perform, and when she didn’t, she usually lived in a house somewhere in Europe and vigorously maintained her privacy.
Jack took a right onto the parkway and headed into the setting sun. He’d had her for a few hours once, and he could still remember how she felt when he slid inside her body that first time. He remembered the way her breath hitched in and how she cried his name when she came.
He’d violated way too many principles that day, and he’d lived with the guilt ever since. Worse, he’d dreamed of her when he should have only dreamed about Hayley.
Hayley was slowly fading now. It was normal, according to the psychologist, but it still felt wrong somehow. He would never forget Hayley, never forget how much he loved her. But he didn’t wake up wondering where she was anymore. And he wasn’t celibate either. After Gina, he’d remembered how good it felt to get lost in the physical and he’d rejoined that bandwagon a few weeks later when the urge had gotten too great to ignore.
His cell phone rang and he picked it up without taking his eyes off the road. Not many people had his number, and they were all people he wanted to talk to anyway.
“Hunter,” he said.
“Jack.” Her voice was soft and shaky, but he recognized it
anyway.
“Gina? How did you get this number?” Anger shot through him that someone in his circle had betrayed his privacy. And then there was the curiosity. What could she possibly want? To see him? To reminisce about old times?
Fuck no. Even though his body went rock hard at the thought.
“My b…baby,” she said. “S…someone took him.”
His blood froze. “Jesus,” he breathed. “Why are you calling me? You should be calling the police.”
“No! They said not to. They said they’d kill him. Jack, please.” She sobbed then and it twisted his stomach into knots. The Gina he knew didn’t break down. She’d been so tough, even when she’d been scared beyond reason. She’d never broken down, not like this.
“Tell me what you need.”
*
What did she need? She needed her baby back. Gina twisted her hands together and then dashed her fingers beneath her eyes for the thousandth time since she’d gotten the call. Why had she left little Eli in New York? She didn’t like leaving him, but she’d flown down for this concert and then she was flying back immediately after, so it had seemed like the right thing to do. He had a nanny. The building was staffed by security. And she’d hired her own security once the new threats started coming.
She’d told herself it was simply a crazed fan. She was accustomed to that and she could deal with it. But someone had taken Eli from his nanny when she’d gone out for coffee that afternoon. Just snatched him up and then told her not to call the police. Instead, they’d given Cassie a note and told her to read it to Gina over the phone.
Call the police and your baby dies. Wait for instructions.
Gina shot up from her seat and paced the spacious living area of her suite. She’d thrown everyone out and told her manager to let Jack in the instant he arrived. He was the only person she could think to call since the police were out of the question. It hadn’t been easy getting his number, but she’d persevered because she had to. And then he’d answered with that clipped “Hunter,” and heat had flared in her belly at the sound of his growly voice.
Hot Shot (A Hostile Operations Team Novel)(#5) Page 3
