“Probably.”
“Something to straighten out later, I guess.” His tone changed. “You’re serious about going in to work tomorrow, aren’t you? You know that after what happened everybody’s going to expect you to stay home, right? Especially since it’s Saturday?”
Mark was close behind her when they stepped into the shadows that darkened the area near the rickety privacy fence that separated her mother’s backyard from her neighbors’. His hand rested protectively on the small of her back as she went through the gate and toward the Suburban, which she could now see parked in the alley behind the house. Another car waited not too far away, pulled over against the row of garbage cans that lined the other side of the alley. The car was seemingly deserted, but still Jess eyed it nervously. If Mark hadn’t been right behind her, she would have turned and hightailed it back to the house.
“I’ve officially been on Pearse’s team for less than a week,” she said. Mark came around to open the door for her. Given the other parked car, at which she cast another worried glance, although she didn’t point it out since he had presumably noticed it too, she discovered she was glad. She had to wait until he’d gotten in himself before she continued. “Somebody’s trying to kill me: yes, I get that. And I know I don’t have to go in. The thing is, I can’t just lie in bed with the covers pulled up over my head until you tell me it’s safe to come out. There’s Tiffany, for one thing. And Allison. And that lawsuit against Shelter House. And even if I didn’t have anything else going on, I really, really want to do my best at this job. Anyway, there are some things I want to check out that I can only access at the office, like Allison’s computer files. So I’m going in to work. I’ll get brownie points for showing up under difficult circumstances, and I’ll get a chance to do some digging around on my own.”
“What you need to do is hole up in your apartment until we figure this thing out.” Mark pulled off down the alley. “We’ll get it done, and we’ll be as quick as we can, I promise.”
“I know you will, and I appreciate it. But I’m still going in to work tomorrow.” A glance in the sideview mirror revealed that the parked car was pulling in behind them. Its headlights came on even as she watched.
“You are the stubbornest—”
“There’s a car following us,” she interrupted, her eyes wide with alarm as she tracked its progress through the mirror. “It was parked across the alley when we came out.”
“It’s backup.” He barely even bothered to glance in the rearview mirror. “I had to run an errand, so they sent somebody over to keep an eye on your mother’s house while I was gone. I told you, Hasbrough’s committed to protecting you. Besides me, there’ll be people around constantly until whoever this is is stopped.”
“Discreetly,” Jess stipulated. “And, see, that means I’ll be perfectly safe wherever I am.”
“Absolutely discreetly. But, for the record, screwups happen. I just don’t want you to be on the wrong side of one.”
He sounded so grim that Jess changed the subject. “What kind of errand did you have to run?”
“Grab some clean clothes, check the house, you know.”
“Oh.” Watching the car following them turn off and head for the Beltway, Jess briefly lost track of the conversation.
When she finally looked at him again, she was frowning. “My question is, can we trust Hasbrough? And whoever he sends out for backup?”
“Oh, ye of little faith.”
His tone was light. But she knew from the sudden tightening of his hands on the wheel that she’d hit the nail on the head. The real answer was, maybe, probably, who the hell knew?
They were in Foggy Bottom by that time, and traffic had picked up. A surprising number of people were out and about, and Jess remembered the colleges in the vicinity; it was Friday night, and the bars and restaurants were still open for people who actually had a life. Letting her head rest back against the seat, she slanted a look at Mark. “What happens to my Secret Service protection if it turns out that this isn’t some kind of government hit squad thing at all? What if somebody is trying to kill me because of something to do with Allison, or Tiffany, or even those two missing girls? I told you Rob Phillips was there tonight, and his parents were, too. I keep thinking that it all has to be tied into that, because as far as I can tell, what Allison, and Tiffany”—then she saw it—“and I have in common is that trial.”
“How about we worry about that if it happens?” He was pulling into the way-too-convenient-because-it-was-illegal spot near her apartment, and Jess sighed again. She was suddenly too tired even to remonstrate.
“Fine.”
They walked in near silence up to her apartment. Jess’s eyes were so heavy that she barely even spared a look for the shadow behind the magnolia. She missed the lock the first time she tried to put the key in it. When she frowned and blinked at it myopically, Mark took the key from her, inserted it, opened the door, then stood back for her to precede him. As she flipped on the light, an unfamiliar sound greeted her.
“Mee-eee-eee-eee.”
Having clearly been napping on the couch, Clementine stood up, stretched gracefully, jumped down, and came toward them. Jess bent to pick her up, while Mark did his customary walk through.
“You’re very pretty, Clementine.” Jess noticed the white patch under her chin for the first time. Held in her arms, the cat began to purr. She was way too thin, but that would soon be remedied now that she once again had access to regular food. Looking down into the big golden eyes that regarded her unblinkingly, Jess thought of Allison: if what she feared was true, Clementine had no home to return to. But maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was wrong about all of it.
For the first time ever, Jess actually hoped that a government assassin was trying to kill her. Because if it turned out that the attacks had something to do with the Phillips trial, she was afraid that Allison at least, and probably Tiffany, too, and maybe even those girls, if they were all connected, were already dead.
Jess shivered at the thought.
“All clear.” Mark walked back into the room, and Jess put Clementine down. The cat went over to him, weaving around his legs.
“She likes you,” Jess said, and Mark bent down to pat the cat.
“I fed her earlier,” he pointed out. Jess grinned, then yawned so suddenly that her jaw cracked.
As she clapped an embarrassed hand over her mouth, it was Mark’s turn to grin. It hit Jess then that having Mark there in the apartment with her made it feel like they were home. Together. As if he belonged there.
Oh, no.
She looked at him in dismay.
“Go to bed,” Mark told her. His voice was perfectly even. His eyes were impossible to read. But she knew him, knew he could read her like a book.
She turned and walked out of the room, took the world’s quickest shower, and went to bed.
Alone.
Of course she dreamed of drowning. She should have expected it, but her head had been so full of so many things that worrying about having the kind of nightmare she hadn’t had for years had been the furthest thing from her mind.
When she woke up, tears were streaming down her face.
“Damn it.” It was the fiercest of whispers, uttered as she flopped onto her back and dashed her fingers across her wet cheeks. Taking a deep, shaky breath, she stared blindly up into the dark. Her heart pounded. Her pulse raced. The memories swirled thick and fast through her head, and with another muttered curse she sat up and flipped on the bedside lamp to chase them away. Something leaped off the foot of the bed to land on the floor with a thump, startling her. Alarmed, Jess couldn’t imagine what on earth it could have been until she remembered: Clementine. The cat had obviously been sleeping on her bed, and she had startled the cat.
“It’s okay, Clementine.” The bedside clock read 5:23 a.m. Jess almost groaned. Standing up, meaning to head to the bathroom to wash her face before trying to go back to sleep, Jess spoke to the animal soothingly.
“Mee-eee-eee-eee.” The cat looked at her over her shoulder before waving her plumy tail and padding away.
“Jess?” Mark was coming down the hallway.
Of course she had awakened Mark. Under conditions like these—when he considered himself on duty—he was the lightest of light sleepers. Under more normal circumstances, like when they’d lived together before, he’d slept like the dead. Listening to such a gorgeous man snore like a chain saw had been one of life’s little revelations.
“I’m fine,” she called, hoping to head him off. No such luck. He reached her room about the time the words left her mouth. Wearing only his boxers—tonight’s were blue—he stopped in the doorway to stare at her, all broad shoulders and long, hard-muscled legs. She was suddenly acutely conscious of her tousled hair, which she’d been too tired to put up for sleep, and her bare legs beneath the oversized T-shirt that was all she was wearing. It was purple with Sweet Thing scrawled across the front in pink script and ended at approximately midthigh.
Her glasses were on the nightstand. She glanced at them, thought about putting them on, then remembered what he’d said about them before.
Bad idea.
“The cat woke me up,” she offered, putting up her chin. The thing was, he knew her too well to miss the fact that she’d been crying.
But he didn’t challenge her about it. Instead he simply stood there, all six feet two inches of bronzed, muscular, near-naked, yummy man, looking her over without saying a word. She could see the five o’clock shadow darkening his cheeks and chin, the faint shadows beneath his eyes, the gleam of bright blue surveying her from head to toe.
And her heart, damned traitorous organ, beat faster.
“Mark …” Even from that distance and without her glasses, she knew what his expression meant: he wanted to take her to bed.
Just the thought made her body tighten and quake. She could feel the sudden sizzle of sexual tension arcing between them, and she did her best to close her mind to it. The idea of sex with Mark might have made her go weak at the knees, but with them things were way more complicated than that.
“Everything’s fine,” she repeated. “You should go back to sleep.”
His mouth firmed. He leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, folded his arms across his chest. Uh-oh, Jess thought. She knew that particular stance: it usually meant he was spoiling for a fight.
“This is stupid,” he said. “You love me. And you know it.”
Jess sucked in air. His words hit her like a punch to the stomach. She’d been expecting a fight, not that.
“I …” She lost her train of thought because he was coming toward her. Panic curled through her stomach. She would have retreated if there’d been any place to go, but immediately behind her was the bed. When he stopped in front of her, so close she could have reached out and placed her hands flat on his wide chest, she looked up at him almost piteously. Her pulse raced. Her breathing quickened. She could feel the heat rising in her veins.
“See, the thing is, I love you, too.” Instead of being passionate, his voice was flat. “I knew it when I was pulling you out of that pool. If I’d been too late, if you’d been dead …”
His voice trailed off, but his expression said the rest.
Jess closed her eyes. I love you. How often over the last few months had she longed to hear him say that? She felt the bedazzlement inherent in those words clear down to her toes.
“I can’t do this.” Keeping her eyes tightly closed in an effort to keep her defenses in place, she shook her head as the panic spread. There was nothing personal in her rejection at all, which she would have explained to him if he would have just backed all the way across the room again and given her enough space to get her thoughts in order. It was an act of self-preservation, pure and simple.
“Sure you can.”
The next thing she knew his fingers were tilting up her chin. She could feel him studying her face, but she kept her eyes stubbornly closed.
“You’ve been crying.” His knuckles brushed her still damp cheeks. “Why?”
Her eyes flew open. “I had a nightmare,” she said.
“I’m not surprised.”
Of course he knew about the nightmares that had been a near nightly ordeal for years when she’d been young, about Courtney, about her whole life, because she’d told him. He was the only person she’d ever told, and suddenly it hit her what a big deal that was.
He knew her. He said he loved her.
“Mark.” Even she didn’t know what she wanted to say. Just his name, that was all. But she had a terrible feeling that her unthinking heart blazed at him through her eyes.
His hands slipped to her waist. He bent his head and kissed her, the slightest of soft kisses. At the feel of his warm lips against hers, her heart leaped. Her breathing got all uneven. Her senses went haywire. She reached out instinctively, meaning, she thought, to push him away. Instead her hands, with a mind of their own, flattened against his chest. Which, she realized, they’d yearned to do all along. Then they went further still, sliding up over the warm, firm expanse of his chest, over his broad shoulders to lock behind his neck, almost of their own volition. As if she didn’t really have any say in the matter at all.
He lifted his head to look down at her. His eyes were hot and dark.
“I love you,” he told her again, his voice now slightly husky. “But say the word, and I’m back on the couch. I’ll be damned if I’m going to seduce you into this.”
Her heart slammed against her chest. Her body pulsed with longing. Her throat closed up so that even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t have answered.
But now at least she knew what she wanted.
Once again she let her body do the talking for her, rising up on her tiptoes, closing her eyes, and fitting her mouth to his.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Okay, I want to hear you say it when you’re not naked.” Mark gave her a level look as she straightened up from pouring more food into Clementine’s bowl, for which the cat thanked her by digging in hungrily.
Mark didn’t have to specify further. She knew what he wanted, what he meant.
Dressed for work, they were in the kitchen grabbing coffee before heading out the door. It was almost ten thirty, already so late that Jess knew she was going to feel embarrassed when she made it to Ellis Hayes’s sixth floor. Of course, her colleagues would think she’d passed the hours since they’d seen her last recovering from her ordeal. No way could they know she’d spent at least three of the last five having wild, thrilling, mind-blowing sex with Mark.
She should have been feeling scared about going back out into the world, where someone had twice tried to kill her, she supposed. But she didn’t. Somewhat to her own surprise she felt cool, composed, and determined. We’re going to find you, was her mental message to the man who’d dragged her under the water. As for the fear factor, to combat it she had her brains, the pocket-sized canister of pepper spray she’d swiped from the drawer of Grace’s nightstand, and a hunky, lethal, armed Secret Service agent for an escort.
“I love you,” she told Mark. Of course she’d said it before, multiple times. Each time she’d come, to be precise. As in, I love you, I love you, I love you, Mark.
Now, remembering each occasion with his eyes on her in the unforgiving kitchen light, she could feel herself blush. Saying the words in the cold light of day like this made her feel exposed, vulnerable, raw, afraid—until she looked into his eyes.
They were warm and steady and reassuring—and they made her instantly hot.
God, am I a slut for him or what?
He knew what she was thinking; she could tell by the satisfied curl of his mouth.
“There you go. See what you can do if you try?”
She made a face at him, and he laughed and pulled her close and kissed her. For a moment, under the influence of that warm, firm mouth, all Jess’s good intentions hung in the balance. Her body flamed, her mind went blank, and she pla
stered herself against him and kissed him back. Still, there it was, the fear. It was cold and hard and real, like a tiny rock in a comfortable shoe. Her attraction to him was so strong that it was almost impossible to deny, but the thought of making herself vulnerable again made her go cold all over.
She pulled away, looked up at him.
“I’m not going to like this, am I?” His tone was resigned.
“Just to be clear, we are not back together.”
“What? You just said you love me.”
“That doesn’t mean we’re in a relationship.”
“Want to tell me what this is, then?”
Okay, he had her there. “It’s a … I don’t know what it is, exactly. But I know what it isn’t. It isn’t an engagement. We’re not getting married. I don’t even want us to be locked into any kind of commitment.”
He studied her. “In other words, we’re both free to do exactly what we want.”
“Yes.”
“Suppose what we want is to be together? Not necessarily permanently, but for now. We could take things one day at a time, see where it goes. No strings.”
That made so much sense to Jess that she could feel herself brighten.
“You’re okay with that?” she asked with some suspicion. She knew Mark, a traditionalist to his core.
“Thrilled to bits.” His voice was dry.
“Then great.” Smiling at him, feeling as if a weight had been lifted, she reached up to kiss him. The kiss got hot fast, and if it hadn’t been for Clementine twining herself around their legs, it probably would have been at least another hour before they left. But Jess jumped at the unaccustomed contact and the spell was broken.
“Later,” Mark promised as she dragged him out the door.
And just like that, a hundred erotic images chased each other through her head, and her body quickened with anticipation while her blood turned to steam.
But she really needed to get to work, so her inner slut was going to have to wait.
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