by Lori Foster
“Now you.” He caught her under the arms and scooped her up. “I hope the sandwiches filled you up, because I have a feeling we’ll be missing dinner.”
On the ragged edge of need, Alani said truthfully, “That works just fine for me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
HOURS LATER, JUDGING by the limp way she rested beside him and the deepness of her breathing, Jackson assumed she slept. His whole body still buzzed with sensation. He knew sex. He knew pleasure.
God Almighty, what he got from Alani was something else.
He wanted to sleep, too, but he couldn’t quiet the upheaval of his thoughts as they bounced from Arizona and Alani, now and the future, danger and…love.
For most of his life, he’d made a point of not wanting anything that he didn’t know he could get.
But now, he wanted a lot.
And there wasn’t a single certainty to be found.
When Alani’s gentle fingers moved over his chest, Jackson realized that she’d only been catching her wind. He took her hand as it started to wander down his body. “Not to cut into your bragging rights, babe, but I’m spent. Even for me, that was…” Profound? No, he couldn’t say that to her. “Draining.”
“Mmm.” She curled into him. “For me, too.”
How could he make her understand that the last few hours with her only made him want more? Like everything.
He kissed her forehead. “Sleep.”
“I don’t know if I can. Not yet.” She half crawled up over his chest. “What are we going to do?”
They hadn’t turned on any lights, and as the sun had set, darkness filled every corner. With the drapes closed, not even moonlight filtered in.
But he knew how she looked. He knew her small, plump breasts were against his chest, her pink nipples now soft, her pale hair tumbled into sexy disarray and her mouth swollen from too many kisses.
The beauty of her, of having her with him like this, left his heart full.
The uncertainty of the future cramped his brain.
“Do?” he asked while trailing a hand down her spine. “About what?”
Two beats of silence warned him before she said, “Arizona.” And in a rush: “We have to figure out how to help her.”
His blood ran cold. “There is no we.” He turned, putting her under him. “You’ve got nothing to do with it.”
Voice soft, a little wounded, she said, “No?”
“No.” But realizing how that might sound, he clarified, “I’d like you to meet her. I hope that you’ll like her. But she’s into something.”
“How do you know?”
Because she was always into something. He shook his head. “If Arizona needs help, I’ll help her. But you’ll keep your little nose out of it.”
“So I have no part?”
“Not in this.” Not in anything dangerous.
“Then what?” Defiance filled her tone. “Sex?”
“Definitely.” He was sexually satisfied to the point of exhaustion, so they both knew the way he parted her thighs and settled between them was no more than taking a dominant position.
Not that it did him much good.
“You hardly need my input for that.”
“I need your participation.” He bent and kissed her before she could shun him. “And I want you to help me decorate, to pitch in with Grim.”
“Such important jobs.”
He racked his brain. “I like your company. I like talking with you.”
“Well I want more.” Alani shoved against his chest. “I want to help.”
Jackson caught and controlled her hands. Thrusting his face down close to hers, he said, “You can help by not getting in my way.”
That cut her. Though she remained pinned beneath him, he felt her disengage in every other way. “I see.”
He struggled for a breath and put his forehead to hers. “Nah, baby, you don’t.”
“Get off.”
“Already did. How many times?” Teasing wouldn’t win her over, but it’d give him a second to think. “Did you keep count this round?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t matter. So you’re a sexual dynamo or something? So what?” She bucked up against him and almost got away. He quickly resettled her. “I don’t care!”
“Yeah, I think you do.” She’d even bragged about it. When he’d started this erotic campaign to numb her with so much physical gratification that she wouldn’t be able to hold back, he’d expected some excesses, but he’d surprised even himself. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have mentioned it to the wives.”
Breathing hard, she went still. “I didn’t know it was unusual.”
Imagining how Priss and Molly must’ve taken her claims, he had to laugh. He didn’t doubt that Dare and Trace were carnal men, but yeah…he was sort of going for the gold lately. “God, woman, you screw with my composure.”
“Oh, poor you.” She shoved at him again. “Now get off of me.”
Instead Jackson released her hands and slowly, gently, cradled her close. He rolled to put her atop him. “You really want to help, baby?”
As if sensing a trap, she went motionless. He felt her breath, her uncertainty. He felt her body on his, the beating of her heart, the shifting of her thighs. “Yes.”
Sliding his hands down to her adorably rounded ass, he snugged her in close. “Then don’t push me away.” Her skin was so soft, so silky and warm. He closed his eyes against all the ways she affected him. “I can’t sleep. I should be dead to the world, but my brain won’t stop buzzing.”
Her fingertips moved over his shoulder, then up to the side of his throat. “Jackson…”
“Talk to me.”
Voice soft with understanding, she asked, “About what?”
Everything. Hell, he’d brought her to climax over and over again, and while he loved the way she groaned and the sexy sounds she made while tightening all around him, she hadn’t made a single avowal of her feelings. “How about…?” Whether or not you want me for more than sex? That sounded lame even to him.
“What?” Overflowing with empathy, she stroked his jaw. “You can talk to me, Jackson, you know that.”
“Okay.” It seemed like a good idea to start over. “I was wondering, if this all ended tomorrow—” She stiffened. “Us?”
“No!” Jesus, why would she think such a thing? “I’m talking about the danger. Once we get it resolved…then what?”
The silence grew deafening until his heartbeat sounded in his ears and his chest hurt.
“I guess…” Leaving that thought unfinished, she scooted to the side of him and sat up. He heard her sigh, felt her vulnerability. “I guess I wouldn’t need your protection anymore, would I?”
She’d always have it, whether she wanted it or not. Sitting up behind her, he wrapped his arms around her, surrounding her with his determination. “Would you stay anyway?”
“You mean here?” She twisted to see him. “At Dare’s?”
“No.” Damn, but this was tough. He wasn’t used to analyzing his words, to thinking about the ramifications to things he might say. Determined to get it all out, he drew her back down to the bed and loomed over her. “With me.”
Shocked confusion had her breathing faster. “At your house?”
“Yeah.”
“You’d want that?”
Right now, at this particular moment, he wanted that more than anything. Curling up to sleep with Alani each night, waking with her snuggled warm at his side each morning and making love to her at every opportunity…what wasn’t to like?
Making himself perfectly clear, Jackson said, “Move in with me.”
“Oh.” Near to hyperventilating, she said again, with more meaning, “Oh.”
Oh, what? Was her reaction shock or lack of enthusiasm? He didn’t know, and at the moment, he didn’t care. “Move in with me,” he said again, with more insistence.
“Why?”
The question threw him. He gripped her shoulders and gave her a gentle squeeze. �
��What do you mean, why?”
Pragmatic, she said, “You asked me to live with you. I want to know why.”
He hadn’t expected an inquisition, but maybe he should have. Nothing with Alani would ever be simple.
The right words to convince her burned his throat, but they’d sound like melodramatic crap, and he wasn’t ready to go there yet.
He bent and kissed her hard. “I want time with you. Time without all the interference, without threats and the constant moving from one place to another. I want to be alone with you, without tripping over your damned brother or Dare.”
She shrugged. “Where I go, they usually show up.”
Yeah, he knew that, but at his place they’d have a lot more privacy. “If you’re there with me, you can help me finish my house. You have great taste.”
“No more naked lady statues and wall art?”
He felt her weakening and grinned. “Not unless it’s a picture of you.”
“Not in this lifetime!”
“Spoilsport.” He kissed her. “We could swim, go boating. Decorate, cook. And we can get Grim acclimated to his new place.”
“You’re saying we could have…fun?”
“Yeah.” Fun pretty much described how he felt about his time with Alani.
After she thought about it, she lifted up to kiss him sweetly on his bottom lip. “And if we’re under the same roof, we could have sex whenever we wanted.”
He locked his jaw and said, “Sunup to sundown.” Not that he could be lukewarm about unhindered sex with Alani. But it meant more than that to him, so he needed it to mean more to her, too.
“I never thought of myself as the type of woman to shack up.” She gave a delicate shiver. “It sounds rather salacious, doesn’t it?”
The phrase insulted the hell out of Jackson. Did she see this only as an opportunity for more experimenting? “I wouldn’t call it that.”
“Then what?”
Was she egging him on? He couldn’t tell. “I want us to live together. You don’t have to call it anything else.”
“I like the idea.”
“But?”
She touched his jaw. “With my job, my brother, our separate responsibilities, how would that work, exactly?”
Jackson concentrated on the simplest problems. “I’m not that far from your office, right? When I’m not off on a case, we could bounce back and forth, maybe stay at your place two days a week so you could catch up.”
“I suppose I could work off the computer the rest of the week, ordering and organizing.”
“There, you see? Problem solved.” Hoping to seal the deal, he kissed her again. “And your brother might as well get used to it, right?” He stared hard through the darkness, wishing he could see her face. “What do you say?”
“Well…”
As time stretched out without her replying, he felt scraped raw from the inside out. He’d never before asked a woman to live with him. He’d rarely ever asked a woman to stay over at all.
Finally he couldn’t take it; his temper snapped. He stretched up on stiffened arms and glared down at her. “Jesus, woman, are you doing math? It was a simple enough—”
“Yes.”
His heart dropped and then exploded in frantic pounding. “Yes?”
She slid her arms around his neck, and he heard the smile in her voice. “Yes, I’ll move in with you.”
Relief obliterated his exhaustion. Alani kissed his shoulder, shifted her legs under his, and crazy as it seemed, he felt himself getting hard again.
He caught her mouth with his own and went about devouring her. Tomorrow, he’d tell her about the plan to head back to his apartment. And before they left Dare’s, he’d explain that Arizona would always be a part of his life. He’d tackle the danger and her brother. Tomorrow.
One way or another, he’d work it all out so that Alani would remain his.
ARIZONA DECIDED TO CALL Jackson at four in the morning.
Like most normal people, he was probably expecting the call to come at a more reasonable hour. And now that he had a new squeeze, she’d just bet he was all cozy under the sheets with her right now. Normally, she’d give him a little more time.
But it wasn’t to be.
After catching a few hours of shut-eye, she’d gone out on the hunt again. Tooling around the truck stops, she’d asked too many questions and deliberately stirred up suspicions.
Finally she’d gotten a bite.
No idea if one of the cars trailing her was owned by the same yahoos in the silver BMW. But maybe. Until she got them, every last one of them, she wouldn’t feel complete. She’d remain only a piece of a person. A brain, a heart—but no soul. No real substance.
That thought made her laugh. Having no substance meant she couldn’t be hurt. When was the last time she’d felt like a normal person?
A lifetime ago.
No wonder she couldn’t remember much about it. Even with Jackson trying so hard to help her fit in, the truth won out: she’d been forever changed by her experiences. The past had helped to shape her into a force of vengeance.
Jackson had killed the ones who hurt her, robbing her of the revenge she’d desperately wanted.
But if it hadn’t been for him, she would have died.
So she paid it forward by helping others who would be abused by traffickers. Somehow, somewhere, it had to make a difference.
To someone.
Pulling up to the front of another bar, in plain view of passersby, she put the car in Park. Windows up and doors locked, she sat back and stewed on the plan. Jackson would want to help her, but in this, he couldn’t.
Not this time.
She needed a safe place to set up. Having no personal residence of her own, she’d have to make do with someone else’s digs.
Girlfriend’s? That might work.
But she was more familiar with Jackson’s apartment. If she got him out of there, then she’d have a clear field.
Guilt nudged at her resolve, but she shoved it aside with ruthless determination.
She dialed Jackson.
It didn’t surprise her that his cell rang only once. Jackson might sleep, but even then, he remained on alert. He was the most amazing man she’d ever met.
“Hey, sweetcheeks. It’s me.”
As if he hadn’t been sleeping at all, he said crisp and clear, “Where are you?”
Watching every car that passed, every man who peered at her, Arizona laughed. “You’re a broken record, you know that?”
“I want to see you.” Rustling in the background interrupted that command. She heard Jackson shush a sleepy-voiced woman.
His new honeypot.
Arizona curled her lip. “Am I interrupting?”
“No. Where are you?”
Relentless. “Actually, stud-o, I’m heading out to meet you.”
Paying no attention to the pet name, he asked, “Now?”
Arizona could almost picture him looking at the clock. “No time like the present, right? Unlike some people, I don’t have a warm body beside me to keep me lazing in the bed.”
He ignored that, too. “Where?”
One car moved past slowly, and even though Arizona couldn’t see into it through the windows, she tracked it until it went out of sight. Her senses prickled. Déjà vu? She didn’t recognize the car, but she recognized something.
Absently, she said to Jackson, “I was thinking of the all-important backup plan.”
“How long?”
Even with the car out of sight, her senses continued to prickle in an alarming way that somehow had nothing to do with danger. “When did you become a man of few words? Or is it that your little tootsie is listening in?”
“How long, hon?”
Oh, how that voice did her in. Jackson was the only man she knew who treated her like a very special kid sister. Even her father had never shown her that same simple acceptance. But then, her father had been a weak, sick fool. He hadn’t deserved her mom.
He hadn’t deserved her.
Jackson wasn’t weak. And unlike most men she knew, he didn’t want her as a woman. He only wanted her as a…responsibility. Sometimes a friend. But never anything sexual.
It confused the hell out of her. It also freed her to show all the affection she wanted to give. To Jackson.
He wouldn’t misunderstand. He wouldn’t take advantage of her own weakness. Pressing a fist to her heart, she cursed low.
“Arizona?”
She shook her head to clear it of overly sentimental slush. “Let’s say a couple of hours, give or take fifteen minutes, okay?” She was less than half an hour from his apartment, but she had the sudden urge to cause a little chaos. Violence always cleansed the remorse.
She flexed her fingers, clenched a fist and continued, “Later, baby.”
He tried to protest, but she shut the phone and ignored it when he called back. What was she? A child who needed constant supervision?
If he knew what she planned, he’d have a conniption, and that’d ruin half her fun.
Pausing at the open door to the bar, she peered past the smoke and darkness and saw the same depressing sights as always. Men slumped at dirty round tables. Others hung over the bar, cradling their drinks like lifelines. Some staggered about, and a few even looked sober. But it wouldn’t last.
She needed to do nothing more than walk in, and one of the foul bastards would get grabby.
It never failed.
Anxious for the relief of mindless violence, she started in—and a noise to her right grabbed her attention. Something moved, the scratching of sluggish feet, metal scraped, paper rustled.
Curious, she headed toward a dark alley that ran between the bar and a closed novelty shop. Out of nowhere, a man appeared beside a trash bin. Tall, strong. Shoulder propped against the brick wall, head held just so.
On the ground nearby lay a crumpled body.
Well, well, well. What had happened here?
Arizona tucked in her chin and studied the scene. Thanks to a faulty streetlamp, she couldn’t see the man’s face, couldn’t read his expression.
But it didn’t matter. On a gut level, she recognized him all the same.
Affecting a stance—arms crossed, hip cocked out— Arizona smiled. “You stole my wallet.”