The 14th... And Forever

by Merline Lovelace

  They only had a few more hours, she reminded herself desperately. There wasn’t time. She wasn’t ready.

  Then Jack smoothed a Band-Aid over the cut and planted a soft kiss in the palm of her hand. When he raised his head, she curled her fingers to hold on to the electric, wildly erotic sensation.

  “All better?” he asked, smiling.

  “No.” Her reply was hardly more than a whisper.

  His smile disappeared instantly. “What’s the matter?”

  “I think... I’m pretty sure...” She swallowed. “No, I know. This is the time.”

  Chapter 10

  Jack stared blankly at the woman perched above him.

  “The time for what?”

  With a shaky smile, Angela tugged her bandaged hand free of his. To his surprise, she didn’t cut small circles or sweeping arcs in the air. Instead, she leaned forward and cupped his face gingerly in her palms.

  “You said the next time we kissed it would be for real. You also said that I could pick the time and the place.” She brushed her lips across his mouth. “I choose now, Jack. Here.”

  Astonishment rocked Jack back on his heels. He grabbed for the closest object to steady himself, which just happened to be Angela’s thigh. Her bare thigh. At the feel of her satiny-smooth skin, astonishment took a back seat to instant need. With an exercise of sheer will, he reined in his sudden, blazing excitement just enough to give her a last out.

  “Are you sure, Angela? Here? Now?”

  “We’d better take advantage of the opportunities we have,” she murmured, tasting the corner of his mouth with the tip of her tongue. “Who knows when disaster will strike again?”

  Not in the next few minutes, he prayed, bringing Angela with him as he surged to his feet. Not in the next few hours or days or weeks. Not until he satisfied the craving he’d felt for this woman since the first moment he saw her.

  He’d keep it slow, he promised himself as her arms wrapped around his neck and his mouth covered hers. Make it sweet. Take only what she was willing to give.

  Too late, he remembered Tony’s warning that Angela never did anything by halves. Every promise Jack had just made to himself went up in smoke the moment she molded her body to his. Her breasts pressed against him through the fleece-lined sweatshirt. Her hips tipped into his.

  He angled back against the sink, taking her into the cradle of his thighs. She sprawled against his chest, and Jack felt her imprint along the full length of his body. His hands skimmed her waist, her hips, memorizing her shape, fitting her even more intimately against him.

  Her tongue met his. Touching. Tasting. Jack slanted his mouth over hers, and knew that touching and tasting wouldn’t be enough. He wanted Angela under him, naked. He wanted her mewling with pleasure and moaning in release. He wanted Angela any and every way he could have her.

  She pulled back then, breathing hard and fast, and rested her forearms on his chest. Despite his promise to take only what she was willing to give, Jack wasn’t sure he could let her go then. To his infinite relief, she didn’t try to withdraw.

  “Did you—?” She gulped in air. “Did you have your eyes closed?”

  “What?”

  “It’s your turn. To keep your eyes closed.”

  He shook his head. “We’re long past experimenting, sweetheart. This is for real, remember?”

  “I remember,” she whispered. “Close your eyes, Jack.”

  Angela’s stomach muscles spasmed when his lids slowly lowered. She’d known. Before she leaned over to brush her lips across this man’s mouth, she’d known where the kiss might lead. She hadn’t wanted to admit it at the time, but Jack had been right when he said that they’d invested something in each other during those moments together on the Fourteenth Street Bridge.

  Every touch since then had been leading to this joining of their lips and their bodies. Every moment they were together had been building to this point in time.

  Slipping her hands under the cabled fisherman’s sweater, she slid her palms up the broad planes of his chest. His heat singed her flesh. His taut muscles jumped under her fingertips. Sheer feminine delight bolted through her. He wanted her. As much as she wanted him. Jack didn’t even try to disguise his urgent need. It nudged her in the belly with every ragged breath he took.

  Hot, liquid desire spilled into her womb. Angela knew she couldn’t stop now if she wanted to, which she didn’t. She most certainly didn’t.

  Her fingers trembling, she drew his sweater up and off. The buttons on his rumpled white shirt resisted her fumbling for only a few seconds. Then her hands smoothed around the soft cotton T-shirt to his back, and the springy hair at the vee neck tickled her lips.

  They only had a few hours. Two or three at most, Angela reminded herself. Then the outside world would claim them again. Differing loyalties would tug at them. Danger might stalk them once again. But for now, for these few hours, there was only Jack and her and the sweet, singing need that made her blood rush through her veins and his skin ripple with every touch of her lips and tongue and teeth.

  How had she ever imagined him cold? she wondered in those last few moments while her conscious mind still functioned. How had she thought him as inhuman and as calculating as some of the types her family had dealt with in the past few years? He was hot everywhere she touched him, and she touched him everywhere.

  Jack stood it for as long as he could, which wasn’t long. He’d always been more of a participant than an observer—in his work, in sports. He most definitely wanted to be an equal player when it came to loving this woman. He wanted to touch her as she touched him, everywhere. Taste her as she was tasting him, all over. Breathe in the sight and the scent of her body as it fit itself to his—without the cockeyed seagull as a barrier.

  He eased the door open and angled her out of the room before she quite realized his intent. Then he scooped her into his arms and proceeded to scatter the blankets they’d just neatly folded. The lumpy cushions on the shelf/bed/sofa gave under them as Jack followed her down.

  His cotton T-shirt got lost in the process. So did the seagull and her sneakers. Her stockinged toes curled into his calves. His palms shaped the swell of her breasts in their covering of black lace. Rock-hard and aching, he positioned her under him.

  They were a tangle of straining limbs and slick flesh and hungry mouths when Jack levered himself up a few inches.

  “Wait a minute, sweetheart. Wait.”

  She groaned. “What for?”

  “If we take this any further, we’ll need some protection.”

  Angela heard his low, growled warning over the thunder in her ears. He was giving her a final choice, she realized. Offering one last opportunity to draw back.

  It was too late for warnings. Too late to draw back. It had been too late last night, she now knew. The moment Jack donned that ridiculous top hat, her stomach had done a funny little tap dance with her heart, and neither one of them had yet resumed its normal patterns.

  “Do you have any protection?” she asked, breathless and embarrassed and shy and meltingly hungry, all at the same time.

  He gave her another one of those unrepentant, unabashed grins, the same brand he’d laid on her earlier, when he told her that they’d shared the narrow bed last night.

  “I bought some this morning, at the convenience store.”

  “This morning?” She struggled up on her elbows. “Did you plan on—? I mean, did you think—?”

  Jack kept her cradled between his arms. “I hoped. While I held you in my arms last night, I thought about it. A lot.”

  She fell back, her heart thumping, as he crossed the room and dug in the pocket of his jacket. He came back moments later, shedding the last of his clothes in the process.

  Oh, God, he was magnificent. All lean muscle and trim buttocks and long, clean lines. The urgency pounding through her body picked up speed, until it all but consumed her.

  Angela didn’t know what would come when they left this cabin. At this
moment, she didn’t care. If she hadn’t learned anything else from growing up around the exciting, turbocharged world of the racetrack, she’d learned to give everything she had to this effort, this moment, because she might not get another chance to qualify for the championship circuit. Smiling, she lifted her arms and welcomed him into her heart.

  She was so beautiful, Jack thought as he peeled away her remaining layers. So soft and warm, and ticklish in the most surprising places. Like the bend of her elbow, where the skin twitched under his seeking mouth. And the hollowed plane of her belly. And the long, smooth inside curve of her thigh.

  Then she took him into her body, and he stopped thinking about anything except pleasuring her as much as she was pleasuring him. Her slick inner heat enveloped him. The friction of their bodies added to the searing heat.

  He slid in, and out, and in again. Slowly at first, giving her time to adjust to him, then more rapidly, until he lost himself in her wild rhythm. Angela, Jack rediscovered to his fierce, primal satisfaction, did nothing... nothing...by halves.

  When he bent to take her stiff nipple in his mouth, she gasped and arched her back to give him easier access. When his need sent him driving into her, she wrapped her legs around his and urged him in an even wilder rhythm. Sliding his hand down her belly, he found her slick, hot core. With thumb and forefinger, he brought her to the edge.

  “Jack.”

  “Now, Angela,” he rasped in her ear. “Now, sweetheart. Right here, right now.”

  She climaxed under him in a spine-arching burst of heat and pure sensation. Then she pulled him with her into the swirling, bright-patterned universe.

  They came back to earth slowly. The perspiration that had slicked their bodies cooled. Their breathing gradually slowed. Tugging at one of the blankets, Jack covered them both. Angela pillowed her head on his shoulder, a smug, satisfied smile on her face as she stared up at the ceiling beams.

  “Well, well, what do you know? The roofs still intact.”

  “So it is.”

  “How long do you think it will stay that way?”

  She’d intended the question as a joke, but the moment it was out, her smug smile dimmed by incremental degrees.

  With everything that was in him, Jack wanted to promise her that she’d always be safe. That he’d hold her and protect her and shelter her from every storm that might come. He knew enough about Angela Paretti by now, however, to accept that she didn’t want sheltering. Holding, though, she didn’t seem to mind.

  With an easy lift, he rolled her onto his chest. Eyes widening, she balanced herself on her forearms. Her hair fell forward in dark, silky waves.

  “Maybe we should try again,” Jack suggested, shifting to allow her hips a firmer position against his. “I bet we could blow the roof clear off.”

  “Again?” she squeaked, her smile slipping back into place. “Don’t you have to, um, refuel?”

  “That’s your job,” he told her. “Didn’t you tell me that you spent your summers hanging with a pit crew?”

  “I’m serious! Do we have time?”

  “We’ve got an hour. Two at most. Think you can manage?”

  A wicked glint of laughter entered the brown eyes poised above him. “Do you know how long it takes a NASCAR pit crew to gas, grease, and change all four tires?”

  “No.”

  “Minutes, Jack. Mere minutes.”

  “Show me.”

  She showed him. Twice.

  When they left the tangle of cushions and blankets some time later, the roof was still firmly attached to the cabin walls.

  While Jack finally put the razor and shaving cream he’d purchased earlier to use, Angela slipped on her sweater and tunic. She felt the need to clothe herself in more professional attire for what she knew would be a long, nerve-racking afternoon. She couldn’t do much about the whisker bums on her chin, but at least the tunic’s high collar disguised the marks on her neck.

  She’d just buttoned the last gold button when the phone shrilled. Angela jumped half out of her sneakers, and the bathroom door flew open.

  “Don’t answer it,” Jack instructed tersely, his chest bare and his face lathered with soap.

  Another strident ring cut through the sudden stillness.

  Angela’s heart thumped painfully.

  After the second ring, the phone fell silent. The seconds stretched out interminably. When it rang again, Jack visibly relaxed.

  “Okay. You can pick it up.”

  Her pulse slowing from frantic to merely double-time, Angela reached for the receiver. When she heard the voice at the other end of the line, her heartbeat took off again. Swallowing a groan, she greeted her agitated parent. “Hello, Mother.”

  Across the room, Jack’s brows winged. He shouldn’t look so surprised, Angela thought wryly. He must have given Tony the telephone code when they were talking at the car, and her brother had probably given it to Maria Paretti in self-defense. It would serve Jack right if Angela made him take the call.

  On second thought, she decided, that wouldn’t be a particularly wise move. Not after what had just happened. Maria would worm every intimate detail out of him before he knew what hit him. Turning her back on the bare-chested culprit, Angela did her best to soothe her mother’s maternal fears.

  “No, I can’t come home. Not yet.

  “I know, I know. But the police are working it.

  “Yes, I’m safe.”

  To her intense relief, Angela discovered that Tony had endorsed her decision to stay at the cabin. She owed him for that. Unfortunately, she soon discovered that her brother had also told Maria Paretti far more about Jack than she needed to know at this confused point. Angela would get him for that.

  Her face heating, she mumbled her responses into the phone.

  “He’s thirty-six.

  “Divorced.

  “No.

  “Maybe.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure. Not a drop.”

  With a low chuckle, Jack retreated to the bathroom.

  Angela managed to escape a few moments later. Dropping the receiver onto the phone, she heaved a long, heartfelt sigh, only to half choke on it when the phone shrilled again under her hand.

  Jack reappeared on the second ring, wiping his face clean of the remaining lather. Together, they waited through another long pause. When the phone rang again, he answered it. He listened for a few moments, then gave the speaker directions to the cabin.

  “Ramirez?” Angela asked.

  His gray eyes met hers. “Yes. He’s on his way.”

  This time was over. She knew it. Jack knew it. And neither one of them could say when...or if...the next would come.

  Special Agent Manny Ramirez arrived a little over an hour later. As Jack had predicted, he came armed with boxes of financial records, three notebook computers, a fax machine and two harassed-looking accountants.

  “You could have picked someplace closer in,” he grumbled as they carried a load into the cabin. “We got lost three times trying to find you.”

  “That was the point,” Jack drawled.

  Short, wiry, and bristling with nervous energy, the agent dumped his armful of boxes on the kitchen table before raking Angela with a speculative look.

  “I’ll admit I wasn’t too happy when I heard that Merritt read you into this case,” he told her frankly. “But I understand you had something to do with the senator’s offer of full cooperation this morning.”

  “The decision to cooperate was his. He doesn’t have anything to hide.”

  “I also understand he wants in on the investigation... assuming we don’t implicate him personally, of course.”

  “You won’t.”

  His black eyes flickered, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he rocked back on his heels and relayed a, message from Detective Winters.

  “Ed said to tell you the lab guys are still doing their thing, and to please call your mother before she calls him again.”

  Angela stifled a groan. �
�I talked to her a little while ago.”

  “Does the lab have any leads yet?” Jack asked, his eyes gleaming at her chagrined expression.

  “One. They pieced together enough of the detonator to identify it as part of an arms shipment that was stolen from Fort Benning a few months back. The Bureau’s already working with army CID to see if they can find a link to our case.”

  “You may get help from more than just the army.”

  The agent frowned. “Oh, yeah? Who else is putting their fingers in our pie?”

  “Angela’s Uncle Guido is making certain discreet inquiries among his contacts on the street,” Jack replied calmly.

  She threw him a surprised look. “He is?”

  “He is. Tony told me.”

  “Who’s Tony?” Ramirez demanded.

  “My brother.”

  “Your brother?” He made the connection right away. “Your brother is Tony Paretti? No kidding?”

  She nodded. “No kidding.”

  “So who’s Guido?”

  “My uncle.”

  “I got that part. Is he a cop?”

  “No.”

  “He’s with one of the agencies?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then what, exactly?”

  “Let’s just say he’s an independent,” Jack interjected. “He and Ed Winters have had some dealings in the past. Ed might not necessarily approve of his methods, but I guarantee you he’ll vouch for his reliability in this instance.”

  Ramirez thrust a hand through his wavy brown hair. “Hell, Jack! Is there anyone else working this case that I should know about?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. Why don’t you show me what you have here, Manny?”

  Shucking his jacket, the agent pulled the lid off one of the boxes and tossed it into a corner.

  “I have bank records. I have financial disclosure statements. I have tax returns and telephone logs and trip reports for the past three years. Now you and my friends here have to make sense of them.”

  Overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data Ramirez had collected, Angela retreated to the sofa/bed while a Jack Merritt she hadn’t yet seen emerged. This one was the skilled accountant. The precise, thorough auditor. The consummate number cruncher.