Jaimie: Fire and Ice

by Sandra Marton

  Zach undid the chain. “Sorry.”

  The kid shrugged. “No problem.”

  Zach took two twenties from his wallet, looked at the kid, then dug out two more. “Keep the change.”

  “Hey, thanks, dude.”

  “Yeah. You’re welcome.”

  Zach took the box, shut and locked the door, and carried the pizza into the kitchen. Jaimie was placing a candle in a fat white jug on the small round table. She’d already put out pale pink cloth napkins, white earthenware plates and silver flatware with white enamel handles. Everything looked so normal. So simple.

  So right.

  “You were supposed to set the table,” she said, as he put the box on the counter. “Honestly, Zacharias…”

  “Honestly, Jaimie,” he said, and he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

  “Hey,” she said, laughing, “you have to give me enough room to breathe, Mr. Castelianos.”

  He nodded, loosened his grip.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry.” She smiled, stood on her toes and planted a kiss on his lips.

  He let it happen and then he thought of Young, of what he’d just seen, and his mind went to a dark place filled with cold vengeance.

  The only cure was to gather Jaimie hard against him and deepen the kiss.

  “Wow,” she said, on a shaky breath.

  “Sorry,” he said again, “I didn’t mean to—”

  “I have a confession to make,” she whispered, her hands in his hair, her lips an inch from his.

  So did he.

  What had distracted him earlier this morning wasn’t the pursuit of mindless pleasure.

  It was this. Holding Jaimie in his arms. Seeing her smile. Hearing her voice. But it was more. It was—it was what he felt…

  “Hey.”

  He blinked. The look she gave him was equal parts Salome and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

  “Don’t you want to hear my confession?”

  “Absolutely.” He cleared his throat. “What is it?”

  She kissed him. Softly. Sweetly. Put her lips to his ear. Her warm breath tickled his flesh

  “I’ve always preferred pizza when it’s cold.”

  He understood the message. She wanted to make love and, God, so did he.

  But not now. Not here. Never here, in that bed Steven Young had defiled. He wanted out of this place. He never wanted to see it again and he sure as hell didn’t want Jaimie to so much as step through the door after today.

  “That’s good,” he said, framing her face with his hands, “because here’s my plan. By the time we get to this pizza, it’ll be so cold it’ll make your teeth ache.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  “Wicked woman,” he growled. “What I mean is, we’re going to take it with us. To my hotel. Better still, we’ll just take it for a ride in the Prius.”

  She looked at him as if he were certifiably wacko.

  “We’ll find somebody who looks as if he’d enjoy a free pizza. Then we can order up a new one from my place.”

  “Zacharias. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Zach gathered her against him.

  “I’m talking about a tub big enough for two. A walk-in shower. A bed the size of a football field.” He nuzzled her throat. “And pizza, delivered hot, enjoyed cold because it will be absolutely stone cold by the time I’ve had my wicked way with you, woman.”

  “Let me get this straight. You want us to wait until we get to your hotel to eat pizza.”

  “I want us to wait until we get there to make love.”

  Her expression softened. “Because?”

  This time, he could, at the very least, tell her part of the truth.

  “Because,” he said softly, “of what you told me about the guy who’s been following you.”

  Her face fell.

  “Steven. I almost forgot about him.”

  “That’s just it, honey. I want you to forget about him. I want him out of your life and out of your head, and one of the best ways to do that is to go someplace where the memories we make will be all about us. Only us. Does that make sense to you?”

  Jaimie stared at him. The seconds flew by. Was she going to tell him that he really did sound crazy? He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until she smiled.

  “You’re a wonderful man, Zacharias Castelianos,” she said softly.

  “No,” he said quickly, “Really, Jaimie, I’m—”

  “Wonderful,” she said, and then she rose on her toes, pressed one last kiss to his lips, and went into the bedroom to pack.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  In the end, he didn’t let her pack much.

  It was almost as if he didn’t want her to take anything from her dresser or her closet.

  “Toothbrush,” he said. “Hairbrush. That’s it.”

  “That cannot be it, Zacharias,” she said, sounding more like an old-fashioned schoolteacher than a woman who’d just told him she was in a hurry to get him into bed. “I need clothes.”

  “You’re wearing clothes.”

  “I need a change of clothes. For a day. Or two.”

  “I’ll buy you whatever you need.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “You will not do any such thing. I’ll pack another pair of jeans. A sweater. Panties. Bras.”

  “No,” he said, far more sharply than he’d intended, but the image of Young was trapped in his head, Young with his hand in Jaimie’s lingerie drawer. “No,” he said, calmly. “I mean…I mean, every guy has his fantasies, honey.”

  Jaimie folded her arms over her chest.

  “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

  The look on her face made him laugh. Laughter right about now, he figured, was a very good thing.

  “You know those movies where a guy takes his woman shopping?”

  “Is that what I am?” Her voice was soft. “Your woman?”

  “Damn right,” he said, but so tenderly that she could have sworn she felt her heart turn over.

  “Are we talking about chick flicks?” she said, moving closer to him. She put her hands on his chest, ran them down over those hard, amazing muscles. Are you telling me you watch them?”

  He blushed. It was an incredible sight. That oh-so-masculine face, those cheekbones that looked as if they’d been carved out of stone, suddenly striped with red.

  “No! Of course not. I do not watch—”

  “What you’re telling me is that you want to pick out the bras and panties you’re going to take off me an hour later?”

  “An hour’s too long,” Zach said with a lazy smile, “but yeah, that’s the idea.”

  “I have never let anyone buy my clothes for me.”

  “Well, I get that. But—”

  “I make a pretty good living.” She sighed. “Or, I did until I gave up a nice, steady 9-to-5 for selling real estate.”

  “I thought you said real estate was safe.”

  “I said it involved numbers. And that isn’t the point. I am not a woman who lets men buy her things.”

  “You let me buy you pizza,” he said, with a straight face.

  Jaimie nodded. He couldn’t read her expression at all—until she giggled.

  “Pizza and lingerie. What a combination.”

  “Extra cheese,” he said gruffly, “and extra lace.”

  * * * *

  They drove to the Georgetown campus. Zach stopped beside the first student they saw.

  “Dude? How’d you like a pizza?”

  The kid looked suspicious. Jaimie could hardly blame him. She put down her window and leaned out.

  “We ordered a pizza. Turns out my boyfriend can’t eat it. He’s allergic to pepperoni and they put pepperoni on it.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. You want it, it’s yours.”

  They drove away pizza-less.

  Zach reached for Jaimie’s hand. He couldn’t recall ever being called someone’s boyfriend. In high school, boyfriends had be
en guys with letters on their jackets and their own cars. In the Corps, there hadn’t been time for relationships that lasted more than a night or maybe a couple of days, and once he was in Special Ops and The Agency, the idea of a woman waiting for him had never entered his head. His life was too uncertain, too risky.

  Too free.

  His life was still like that. By now, it was part of what and who he was—and yet, hearing that old-fashioned word from Jaimie made him feel good.

  Crazy, of course.

  He liked her. He enjoyed being with her, but…

  But, what about that stuff he’d told her a little while ago? About something happening between them. What had made him say such a thing or even think it?

  There was still time to change his strategy. Phone one of Shadow’s operatives. He had half a dozen guys he’d trust with his life; surely, he could trust them with hers.

  Sure he could.

  But he was here, on the job already, and it only made sense to stay with what he’d started.

  That was logical.

  * * * *

  He could feel that cool attitude slipping away even as they rode the elevator to his suite.

  He was losing track of the rules he lived by. Every last one of them, starting with choosing not to tell Caleb he was the last man for this job. Plus, he kept going back to what he’d said to Jaimie, all that crap about precipices and feelings. Not that he’d used the word, but that was what it came down to.

  By the time they reached the suite, he’d gone full circle.

  Time to come clean.

  Tell Jaimie the truth. Why he was here. Who had sent him. She’d be angry. Hell, angry didn’t come close, but so what? He’d tell her about the surveillance videos, too. About Young. Then she’d understand that no matter how furious she was with him, she needed protection. A couple of calls and he’d have things in place. Jaimie, where Young couldn’t find her; three of his men on 24/7 rotation to guard her while he set the legal wheels turning. Young had connections; getting him arrested for trespass and harassment might not be the piece of cake it should have been, but Zach had high-level contacts within the D.C. Metropolitan police. A quiet word would accomplish a lot.

  It was a cool, calm and, yes, logical plan. It was how he should have handled things once he’d discovered what was on that camera. He was a professional and if he’d lost sight of that, he had it back now.

  The hell he did.

  The silence of the room, the darkness collecting outside the windows, seemed to close in. He felt his heart thudding, heard the steadiness of his breath. Every one of his senses had come fully alive in the way they always did when he was heading toward the reality of a mission.

  Jaimie was standing at the French doors. Her back was to him. She was saying something, probably about the view, but at this point, he could hear only sounds, not words.

  He said her name. Not loudly enough, perhaps, because she didn’t respond. He said it again, and she turned and looked at him. She was smiling.

  And then, she wasn’t.

  “Zacharias?” Jaimie said.

  Her lover was walking slowly toward her. She had never seen him like this: his eyes were the color of the sea before a storm; that muscle she’d noticed before was flickering in his jaw. They were in a very civilized place in a very civilized city, but what she saw in Zacharias now was feral.

  A tiny flicker of alarm danced over her skin.

  “Zacharias,” she said softly, “why are you looking at me that way?”

  “Get undressed.”

  “What?”

  He tugged his T-shirt from his jeans, yanked it over his head and dropped it.

  “I said, get undressed.”

  She gave a nervous laugh.

  “Really, Zacharias—”

  He kicked off his sneakers. Undid his belt. His fly. His jeans dropped to his lean hips.

  “Goddammit, take off your clothes!”

  She stumbled back. Her heart leaped into her throat.

  “Zacharias. You’re scaring me. I don’t—”

  He was on her before she could take another step, his hands in her hair, tugging her head back, his mouth on hers, hard and hot and demanding.

  “I need you,” he said, the words raw and savage. “Now. Right now. No waiting. No preliminaries. I need to be inside you.”

  His hands were all over her, under her sweater, unzipping her jeans, pulling them down her legs. His touch was rough, primitive, terrifying. Ice filled her veins.

  “Wait,” she gasped. “Zacharias, wait…”

  She tried to pull away from him. He wouldn’t let that happen. He caught her wrists. Forced her arms to her sides. Captured her mouth with his again.

  “I need you,” he growled.

  And without warning, ice turned to fire.

  A soft cry broke from her throat.

  She kissed him back, sucked the tip of his tongue into her mouth. Leaned into him, rubbed her breasts, her pelvis against him.

  Zach groaned.

  “Yes,” she whispered, “yes, do it, do it, take me, now, now, now…”

  There was a cabinet behind her. He lifted her, sat her on the edge of it, ripped aside her panties and drove into her.

  Her scream of ecstasy pierced the silence of the room.

  The room spun around her. She hung on the brink of consciousness, the brink of the universe; her lover’s name fell from her lips again and again and again as he filled her, filled her until she thought they might die this way, together, always together in a world of light and color and music that only they could hear, and then it happened again, that transcendent rush through blood and body and heart. Jaimie screamed again; Zach said her name as no one had ever said it before and the world went away.

  * * * *

  Moments slipped by. Zach held Jaimie tightly in his arms; her arms were wrapped just as tightly around him. Her face was buried against his throat; the taste of his skin, salt and sweat and man, was on her tongue.

  Then Zach stirred.

  “Jaimie? Honey, are you all right?”

  She nodded. She didn’t have the energy to speak.

  “Baby.” He tried to draw back; he wanted to see her face. She wouldn’t let him. “Jaimie. Did I hurt you?”

  “No.”

  Her voice was low. The barest whisper. God, what had he done? He’d never taken a woman this way before, blind to everything but need. No kisses. No caresses. Just him, deep within her.

  “Jaimie. Look at me. Honey, I didn’t mean—”

  Jaimie raised her head. Her eyes were wet with tears. Ah, dear Lord. He had made her weep. He had made her cry. And that was the last thing he’d ever wanted to do to her.

  “Baby. I’m so sorry—“

  “Zacharias.” Her lips curved in a smile he knew he would never forget. “That was—it was —She laughed. “Will you stop looking at me like that? That was wonderful.”

  Zach blinked. She laughed again, leaned forward and kissed his mouth.

  “Forget that pizza. I want a steak. Rare. A baked potato with butter and, to hell with it, sour cream. Chocolate cake. And cheesecake. And whipped cream. And…” Her eyebrows rose. “I don’t see you taking notes, Mr. Castelianos. How are you going to remember all this? And you’re going to have to. A woman needs to keep her energy up if she’s going to make amazing, incredible, out-of-this-world love with an amazing, incredible, out-of-this-world man like you.”

  A slow smile eased over Zach’s mouth.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Jaimie said, sweetly enough to give him a sugar high, “but on second thought, before you call room service, maybe we should see if what just happened was a one-time fluke or the real—”

  Zach silenced her with a kiss.

  He was still kissing her as he carried her into the bedroom.

  * * * *

  Eventually, he phoned room service. By the time they’d showered and wrapped up in terrycloth robes as thick and plush as carpets, a table had been s
et in the sitting room.

  Steaks. Baked potatoes. Everything Jaimie had said she wanted and more.

  Zach drew out her chair. She sat down and watched as he opened a bottle of burgundy.

  “Wow,” she said.

  Wow, indeed.

  She’d stayed in luxury suites before. When your father was a general who assuaged his guilt about never being home by flying his daughters to wherever he was stationed during their school vacations, you tended to spend considerable time in five-star accommodations.

  Marble bathrooms, sinfully deep tubs, walk-in showers, stunning views and beds that were, indeed, pretty close to the size of football fields were all things she’d experienced.

  This was different.

  Sharing all those luxuries with your sisters was nothing like sharing them with your lover.

  With the man who made you happy. So happy. With a man who had been a stranger she’d fled from weeks ago and now was the man you—the man you—

  “Whatever it is you’re thinking,” Zacharias said, as he handed her a glass of wine, “I like the way it makes you look.” He smiled. “Want to share it with me?”

  “No,” she said, before she could think.

  Zacharias grinned. “That private, huh?”

  “That private,” Jaimie said.

  And that foolish.

  * * * *

  She ate every bit of her steak, all of her potato, and somehow managed a bite of chocolate cake.

  “No more,” she groaned, when Zacharias pointed innocently to the slab of cheesecake and the bowl of whipped cream.

  “Eyes too big for your stomach, huh?”

  Jaimie laughed. “One of our housekeepers used to say that.”

  “It was my old man’s favorite dinnertime remark.”

  “Great minds, and all that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What? You don’t think it’s true?”

  “The eyes too big part? Sure. The great-minds-think-alike-bit?” He shook his head. “Not very likely.”

  “I’ll have you know our housekeeper was a smart woman. You got punished by being ignored when you asked for seconds the next time around.”