Midnight Fire

by Lisa Marie Rice

With the only other person she knew who was off the grid. Jack.

  He stood there watching her as she worked it all out in her head.

  “Well?” He cocked his head, studying her.

  “Well, what?” Those blue eyes, sharp as a laser...they made her feel almost too seen. Too understood.

  “We’re going to have sex. I’m down with that. But there seem to be ground rules. No expectations, no happily ever after. Is kissing allowed? Or are we just going to grind genitals together?”

  Summer drew herself up in outrage. “That’s a terrible thing to say!”

  Jack reached out a long finger, drew it slowly down her cheek. Over her jaw, down her neck, reaching under her shirt with the back of his finger. It made her shiver.

  “I didn’t say that, sweetheart, you did. Me? I’d be perfectly happy having sex the old-fashioned way. Kissing, face to face, cuddling afterward. You’re the one who’s setting boundaries.”

  He was putting words in her mouth. Her teeth ground. “I wasn’t setting boundaries for sex itself! I was setting—” She drew in a deep breath, let it out in a long, controlled stream. Good yoga technique for stress. “I was setting emotional boundaries. Keeping our expectations in line. And I was also saying that sex does not imply a relationship. That’s something you can relate to. You never seemed too keen on sticking around, if I recall.”

  Jack’s face suddenly hardened. It was amazing to see. He dropped ten years when he teased her, clearly thinking about the sex. Returning to the younger Jack who roped women in by the handful, delighted them, then let them loose again into the wild. They staggered back out into the sun, blinded by pleasure, wishing it could have lasted longer.

  This Jack was...something else. Someone else. Harder and more focused. Still sexy but in an overpowering way, not a seductive way.

  “Wait,” he said. He still had his finger inside her open shirt, but it was to hold her shirt, just in case she wanted to bolt. “Let’s get one thing straight here. I don’t care what goes on in that complicated and beautiful head of yours. Tell yourself anything you want to. But the fact is that after we have sex on that bed in there” —he jerked his head toward his bedroom—”you are not getting up and leaving. And neither am I. No way. Don’t even think about it. You were in shock and didn’t hear what I said back at Blake’s place. You are sticking close to me and tomorrow we’re going to go to the safest place I can think of, where we will have a team around us. Portland.”

  Her jaw dropped. “What?”

  “Tomorrow we’re going to Portland, Oregon. I told you my sister has fallen in love with a former Navy SEAL. He works for a company made up of former Navy SEALS. It’s the coolest company on earth, made up of super competent people and if we come out of this alive, I might go to work for them, too. They’re the best of the best. There are two things here you can take to the bank. Whatever happens to me, you are going to survive. These guys will keep you safe. And so will I. So you can toss me away like a used Kleenex after sex if you want, but you will still be sticking close to me. And by close I mean close close. Like glued together.”

  Summer was trying to put this together. While trying to handle in her head the idea of having hot sex with Jack and then not walking away. Having hot sex with Jack and sticking close close to him. She latched on to the only thing that sounded rational. “We’re going to Portland? But how? Won’t they be watching airports?”

  “Yes. ASI, the company, will be sending a private plane. There will be no record of us crossing the country, arriving in Portland. And I’ll make sure no cameras catch us.”

  “But—but—” Summer’s head was still whirling. It was really hard to focus. The idea of sex with Jack on that shadowy bed she could see through the bedroom door was like a black hole, bending all light and reason into it so that there was no room for anything else. “But I have a business to run! People depend on me.”

  Jack sighed and his face took on a sad cast. He just looked at her and she could almost see the wheels spinning. He clasped the back of her neck, kissed her cheek, then leaned his forehead against hers. If she thought they were going to start having hot sex right now, she was wrong.

  He was close to her, his forehead against hers as if he could transfer his thoughts into her head. This wasn’t sex. This was communion.

  “Sweetheart,” he said, then stopped.

  His eyes were fixed on hers and all she saw was sadness in their blue depths.

  “What?” she whispered. What could make a man who’d seen his family slaughtered, his boss killed, who’d been on the run for the past six months look that sad? She’d have thought all the sadness had been knocked out of him.

  “Summer, I don’t know how to tell you this, but someone has to. Area 8 is gone.”

  It was like an electric jolt to the system. She shook, stood straight, moving away from Jack. “What? Area 8 is gone? What does that even mean? I mean, I know I’m not going to post anything today, maybe not this week, but...gone?”

  Area 8? Her brainchild? The thing she’d dedicated years of incredibly hard work to? It couldn’t disappear overnight.

  Jack pulled her in his arms. Instinctively, she turned her head so her ear was against his chest. He rested his cheek on the top of her head. “Think about it, Summer. These people have somehow latched onto you. They think that you know something that can hurt them and they are scared of you. Further, you personally have one of the biggest sounding boards in the US. Everyone who is anyone reads Area 8 and your articles are picked up by major news services and a million bloggers. Anything you reveal would go viral in a minute and they know that. Not only that. Anything you post will be proof that you are alive and about and investigating. You already have a target on your back. This will make that target big and red. Right now, you have disappeared. Nobody knows what happened to you. For all that these guys know, you inhaled the sarin and got sick and died somewhere else. They don’t know if you are alive or dead and that’s how it’s going to stay.”

  Jack pulled away for a second, looking down at her, his face fierce.

  Very little of what he was saying penetrated. All she could think about was the death of Area 8. Her baby. What she’d dedicated her life to.

  Jack’s face changed, from fierce to something else. “Ah, honey.” He embraced her again. Held her tightly, one arm around her shoulders, another around her waist, keeping her close. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

  Summer needed him. That deep cold that came from somewhere within her, not the outside temperature, was back. Inside she was freezing, even her bones felt chilled. She clung to Jack who seemed to be the only source of heat in the entire world.

  The walls tilted, the ceiling moved. Jack was carrying her into the bedroom and she turned in his arms, burying her face against his neck. His entire apartment was completely quiet, a hush that seemed to extend all over the world. No sounds from outside penetrated, it was just the two of them. Their breathing—his calm, hers harsh. She was seconds from bursting into tears and tried desperately to rein herself in.

  Summer didn’t cry. She never cried. Tears had never served her as a child, they only alienated her parents. She’d learned never to cry at such a young age it was part of her, like her hair or eye color.

  She wasn’t crying now. She couldn’t cry, she didn’t know how. Water was leaking from her eyes, that was all. She swiped her face against Jack’s tee, which looked dirty but didn’t smell dirty. He reached his bedroom and gently put her on her feet. Summer kept her face averted, and he didn’t try to turn it.

  His bedroom looked like the rest of the house—plain, not attractive, but not dirty.

  Summer shivered again. She needed heat. The closest source was Jack and the amazing sex she knew for a fact he could provide. The cold was eating her up. Though her muscles felt stiff, like she’d been out in a snowstorm, she threw her
arms around his neck, lifted on her toes and kissed Jack on the mouth. She missed.

  He was so freaking tall. He hadn’t been quite this tall in college. She distinctly remembered having to reach up but not having to stand on tip-toe. Well, if she had to... She rose on her toes.

  Her kiss landed awkwardly again, on the side of his mouth. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted one of those amazing kisses you could sink into, lavish and luscious, open-mouthed, tongues touching. Oh yeah. That kind.

  She opened her mouth and moved greedily toward his. He opened and yes, there it was. That kind of kiss. Pure heat bloomed in her mouth and she wanted it all, now. All that heat, against her bare skin, chest to breasts, feeling his heavy weight on hers, anchoring her, his sex in hers, moving hard, generating friction. Giving her an orgasm that would nearly knock her out.

  He could do it. He’d done it before.

  With a wordless sound, Summer wrapped her arms around Jack’s neck and melted into the kiss which was spreading heat throughout her body.

  She could feel Jack’s muscles against the inside of her arms, against her breasts. He’d always been muscular but these muscles were a man’s not a boy’s. Hard, dense, fascinating. All that strength, all that heat—she needed it all next to her skin. She took her arms from around his neck—it felt almost painful not touching him—and with a shrug her blouse was on the floor. Then she scrabbled for the hooks at the back of her bra.

  Oh why weren’t her breasts smaller so she could go without a bra? And why hadn’t she splurged on that La Perla bra that closed in front, that was all silk and frothy lace? Why had she opted for the plain cotton sports bra that closed in back?

  She made a sound of disgust in her throat as the hooks stupidly refused to disentangle. Argh!

  Jack lifted his head and looked down at her. He stilled her hands with his own, flattening them against her back. “Shh,” he murmured. “There’s no need to hurry.”

  “Yes,” she said. “There is.”

  Jack made a sound that was like a laugh and it unnerved her. Angered her. Fine for him to say, to establish the pace. She was cold and hurting now. Needing heat now. Wanting sex now. As a matter of fact, if she could push a button and both of them could beam to the bed naked, him on top, inside her—well, she’d push that button in a heartbeat.

  A slow undressing, gentle touches, foreplay. Summer didn’t want any of that. She felt too shaky, out on a limb with nothing beneath her. Maybe if he took his time they’d have to...talk. She didn’t want to talk, she didn’t want anything but straight up sex. Right now.

  Jack pulled her arms down to her sides and dipped his head to her neck. His lips and tongue moved up and down some kind of nerve there that only he had ever discovered. Goosebumps broke out all over her skin.

  But his arms were not only holding her, they were holding her hands down. She couldn’t move them. Summer tried, gently, to lift her arms to her back to attack the hateful hooks but she couldn’t. Jack simply pressed a little harder against her arms. He wasn’t using force. He didn’t have to. He was so strong the weight of his arms kept hers down.

  “Let go.” Summer had never liked being held down. Jack knew that, damn him. “Let go of my arms.”

  “Shh,” he said again. “I want to undo your bra. Will you let me?”

  Summer shifted her weight from foot to foot. She felt...something. God only knew what. Like her body was swelling and her skin couldn’t contain it. Itchy and scratchy and restless. She twitched herself away from Jack’s mouth. He was kissing his way up and down her neck, and every single inch of the skin under his mouth burned.

  But she didn’t want seduction. She didn’t want slow sighs and soft touches. She didn’t want to think, she wanted only to feel and she wanted to feel him on her, in her, right now.

  “Can I?” His teeth took just the slightest nip of her skin. Not pain, just a tiny little shock. “Can I take off your bra?”

  “Only if you do it fast.” Summer clenched her teeth. “And then you get naked fast.”

  “Tsk, tsk.” Jack’s voice was deep and lazy. The beast. “Such haste. Now why is that, I wonder?”

  It was a miracle Summer didn’t crack a tooth, she clenched her jaws so tightly. “I thought we agreed on sex. I didn’t agree to spend hours standing in your bedroom.”

  “This is sex.” Jack nipped her skin again and she shuddered, all through her body. Goosebumps rose on her skin. Surely, even in the penumbra, he could see them. “It’s all part of one continuum.”

  “It is not part of a continuum.” Summer was so frustrated she wanted to scream. His hand was hovering over her back, as if he couldn’t quite figure out how to undo her bra. Jack Delvaux, who’d made bra unfastening an Olympic sport. “You know precisely what sex is and I want...”

  Her voice died away as her bra fell and her naked breasts came against his chest. He had on a tee but the muscles underneath were ridged and she felt every one as he rubbed himself against her. She rubbed back, hungry for the contact, hungry for his warmth.

  This wasn’t the sex she wanted, but he was right—it was a form of sex. Particularly when Jack pulled off his tee and pulled her to him so tightly she could feel him breathing against her breasts. Skin to skin. What an amazing sensation. Heat skittered across the entire front of her body. His chest hair had thickened. He’d had a neat little vee of chest hair at twenty and now it covered his chest in a springy mat, from nipple to nipple right down to underneath his loose jeans waistband.

  Below that was the biggest erection she’d ever felt, right there against her belly. Her nipples hardened with the abrasion against his chest hair. Her sex felt like a furnace. He thrust his hips against her, hard, and her womb clenched.

  The prelude to an orgasm. Just from holding him bare-chested. They still had their pants on and she was about to come.

  It was crazy, it was wonderful.

  Every single problem seemed so far away, outside the miraculous things that were happening under her skin. The world was a few dark clouds on the horizon of an amazingly blue and bright sky. Hardly worth noticing while her body was singing with joy.

  Why oh why didn’t she have sex more often? What was wrong with her? Why had she forgotten how incredible it felt to have every single nerve ending on fire? Why did she deprive herself of this?

  Jack was still working on her neck, every touch of teeth and tongue shooting sparks through her. Her neck muscles felt lax, unable to hold her head up. Her knees were about to go. She opened her mouth to say that they should get to the bed because she couldn’t stand any longer, when Jack unzipped her pants, swiped his big hands over her hips and carried pants and panties down with them.

  Awkward moment. Yeah, this was one of those awkward moments and maybe one of the reasons she didn’t have much sex. All these fiddly things—getting undressed in an attractive way, not fumbling with your clothes, getting shoes or boots off while standing—that was why not many dates ended up in bed.

  Awkward, embarrassing moments.

  But it turned out not to be awkward or embarrassing at all. Somehow Jack had some magic wand, probably connected to his magic penis, that did everything for him. His mouth left her neck for about two seconds as he kneeled and then voilà! Like magic. There she was, naked, in his arms. He was somehow naked, too. Nothing awkward or embarrassing about it.

  Everything about him was so exciting. Impossibly broad shoulders, smooth skin over hard muscle...

  Not so smooth skin.

  Her fingertips wandered over his back and oh, God. He was covered in scars. Raised keloid tissue over his rib cage, two round puckered scars that could only be—

  She pulled away, looked up into his face.

  His expression was harsh, closed. “They bother you?”

  “The scars? No. Well, actually yes. There must have been a lot of
pain attached to these.” There was distance now between them and even in the semi darkness, Summer could see more scars on his chest. Two that must be the entry wounds to the puckered round scars she felt along his back. And another long, raised scar with staple stitches along it. She hadn’t seen scars like that since her childhood in third world countries. Nowadays no scars left stitch marks like that.

  It must have been a field dressing.

  For a second she mourned the old Jack, who’d been scarless, inside and out. Such a happy golden boy, to whom nothing bad had ever happened, and nothing ever would. The Jack that had been blessed by fate.

  This Jack was scarred, darker, tougher. He’d been to war.

  Jack shrugged one massive shoulder. He gave a small smile. “If the scars don’t bother you, then can we get back to what we were doing before?”

  Oh God. Just like that, her body simply lit up. Her spirit had darkened feeling Jack’s scars, knowing how much pain each one represented. But he was revved and whoa, so was she. Sorrow and darkness and the past simply vanished, like the mist at morning. What was left was fierce heat and electric currents running over her skin. What was left was hard, aching breasts and wet heat between her thighs.

  “That’s my girl,” Jack murmured and bent to her neck again, licking behind her ear. Even Summer could hear her breath coming more harshly.

  “I didn’t say a word,” she protested, but her voice came out weak and thready.

  “You don’t need to say anything, darlin’. Your body talks for you. It’s tellin’ me what ah need to know.”

  She sighed heavily. In bed, Jack slipped naturally into a soft southern accent and it had excited her enormously. She assumed that it came from his mother, Mary, who’d been from South Carolina and had spoken with a honeyed southern accent. Jack obviously equated affection with that accent and it simply spilled out of him. It had turned her on like a light bulb.

  Still did, apparently, because her sex clenched again. Just from his tone.

  “What’s my body telling you?” Summer tilted her head so he could kiss that special spot where her neck met her shoulder. Yes, she thought. That one.