Until now. His hands were definitely on her now, gripping her waist, pressing into her flesh while he tried to imagine how good she’d feel without so much fabric between them.
He really needed to get her out of that dress.
The thought made all the others grind to a screeching halt. Brooke was off limits.
John ripped his fingers away from her and took a long step back. Far enough that he couldn’t reach her, but not so far that he couldn’t still smell the warmth of her skin and a hint of sweet perfume. “Enough,” he said. “We need a plan. Whoever has your uncle is supposed to call you, right?”
“Right.”
“Where’s your phone?”
She nodded towards the beaded evening bag tucked under her arm. John took it, pushed aside a tube of lipstick and retrieved the phone. He checked to make sure it had plenty of juice and that it was set to ring as loudly as possible. Then he shoved it into his robe’s pocket. No way was she leaving without it. Better than handcuffs – at least that’s what he tried to tell himself.
“Hey, what are you doing?” she asked, reaching for the phone.
John dodged her hands. “Helping. First, I’m going get dressed. Then, I’m going to make some phone calls.” He walked towards his bedroom, and she was right on his heels.
“I’m not letting you call the police.”
“I’m not going to call the police, or the FBI.” Even though that was probably the smartest bet, he didn’t know who he was dealing with or how deep their influence might go. Until he did, he was going to prepare for the worst and hope it was overkill. He’d been trained to deal with this, so deal with it he would.
“Then who are you going to call?” She followed him into his room and stood in the doorway with her hands on her lovely hips. The blue satin flowed over her curves, glowing silver around the edges of her silhouette where the fabric caught and held the light.
After so many years of thinking of her as forbidden fruit, John couldn’t believe he’d been lucky enough to get away with laying his hands on her without losing them. He could still feel the smoothness of her gown against his fingertips, warm from her body. As good as it was, it couldn’t hold a candle to the silken perfection of her bare arms.
He needed to get her out of sight, just for a few minutes. Maybe then he could think straight.
Adding another layer of clothes was a good idea, too. He needed some sturdy denim to keep his cock in check.
“Friends,” he said and pushed the door shut, signalling an end to their conversation.
He was alone for all of two seconds when the door flew open again. Apparently, Brooke didn’t read signals so well.
“No one else can know,” she told him. “I don’t want you calling anyone.”
“Tough. You shouldn’t have come here if you didn’t want my help.”
“I wanted your gun. That was all. Now give me back my phone and we’ll pretend I didn’t come at all.”
“Nope. Too late for that. And if you don’t want to see me naked, I suggest you leave the room.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.
“The robe is coming off, Brooke.”
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, John.”
As much as he hated admitting it to himself, John despised knowing that. He didn’t want to think about the other guys she’d been with, or how they might stack up to him.
“Fine.” He turned his back, shrugged out of the robe, and dressed as quickly as possible. As soon as her phone was back in his pocket, he shrugged his shoulder holster on, slid his .45 home and covered everything with a leather jacket.
When he turned back around, Brooke was still watching him, but her militant posture had changed. Her lips were parted, her cheeks were flushed, her breathing had sped, and her nipples were tight under the shimmery dress.
She was turned on just from watching him dress, and the knowledge was enough to make John’s blood pressure spike. Women weren’t supposed to be so easily aroused, especially women who were off limits. It wasn’t fair.
Before he did something stupid and shoved her down on the already mussed bed to see what else aroused her, John backed away from her.
He’d taken three steps when the phone in his pocket started to sing.
The colour in her cheeks disappeared and her mouth flattened in panic. “Give me the phone.”
John fished it out of his pocket, but he didn’t hand it over. Instead, he leaned close to her so they could both hear, then flipped it open.
“H-hello?” she said.
The man on the other end of the line said, “Did you empty the safe?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ll call again soon with directions to the meeting location.”
“Wait! Can I talk to Uncle Charles, please?”
John didn’t hear anything, and almost wondered if the man had hung up, then a scratching sound came over the line followed by Charles York’s voice. “Brooke?”
Beside him, Brooke started to shake. “Uncle Charles? Are you OK?”
“Yes. You need to call the police. Don’t cooperate with—”
“Listen to him if you’d like this to be the last time you ever speak to him,” said the man. “Otherwise, get in your car and tell no one.”
Brooke felt like a leaf caught in a hurricane. After the phone call, John took over, sweeping her along with him for the ride. He didn’t give her much of a chance to argue, not that she would have. She needed his help. This whole mess was way too big for her to handle on her own, and the stakes were way too high.
If she messed up, the man who’d taken her in after her parents died, the man who’d taken care of her from the time she was twelve, would die. Maybe it made her a coward, but she was glad John was here. She trusted him not to let anything happen to Uncle Charles.
She trusted John, period.
When her uncle’s kidnapper called back, John listened to the directions, made a flurry of phone calls to his military buddies, and formed a plan. Now, thirty minutes later, she was sitting in her car at the designated meeting spot, waiting to see whether or not her world was going to come to a crashing halt.
She couldn’t lose Uncle Charles. She couldn’t be alone again.
John reached over and settled his hand on her knee. The warm comfort of his touch slid easily through the thin fabric of her gown, reminding her she wasn’t alone yet. He was right here with her.
“If he sees you in the car with me, he’s going to—”
“No,” said John, cutting her off. “He’s not. Dr York will be fine. Besides, there’s only one road leading to this site. My friends are watching, and will call as soon as anyone gets near. We’ll have five minutes warning for me to slip out and cover your back, just like we planned.”
“There was no ‘we’ doing the planning. It was all you.” She stared out the window at the area that had recently been turned from farmland into a building site. There were no houses here yet, but the lots had been staked off, some of the roads outlined and there were open trenches indicating where sewer lines would soon lie. Heavy machinery crouched in the darkness, casting deep shadows over the moonlit landscape.
“I’m glad you came to me tonight,” he said. “I can’t stand the thought of you sitting out here all alone, waiting for some greedy asshole.”
Brooke stifled a shiver that had nothing to do with being cold. “I’m glad I found you, too. What I don’t understand is why you left like you did.”
She felt his body stiffen and he pulled his hand away from her knee. “I had another job offer.”
“You’re lying. You liked working for my uncle. I know he paid you well.”
“Not well enough to sell my soul.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I had to leave before I did something stupid.”
She turned in her seat to look at him. There wasn’t much light, but she could see his jaw bunch, see the shadows play over his mou
th as it twisted into a sneer of self-loathing.
“Stupid?”
“You know what I mean. You had to know. Every man you meet wants you. Did you think I’d be any different?”
He wanted her? Something powerful rose up inside her, surging in victory. John wanted her. She could work with that.
“I didn’t think you’d run because I had a crush on you.” She still had one, but she wasn’t admitting it. She didn’t want him running now.
“It wasn’t your crush that scared me. I’d been fine with that for years. It was the fact that I started wanting you, too. That scared me.”
“You act like it would have been some great sin for us to have gotten together.”
“It would have been.”
“Why? I’m twenty-four, single and completely free to make up my own mind about who I date.”
“You’re eleven years younger than me. And I don’t date the family members of clients.”
“Uncle Charles isn’t your client any more.”
Shadows moved over his throat as he swallowed. “I know.”
And yet he didn’t move. He sat there, stoic and noble, unwilling to overlook something as petty as age when she knew how good they’d be together.
Brooke could love a man like John, given half the chance – something he clearly wasn’t willing to give her. And in that moment, it occurred to her that if they were ever going to get past his groundless worries, she was going to have to be the one to make it happen.
She checked the clock. It was nearly four in the morning, and the man who held her uncle wasn’t due until four thirty. She could either sit here, waiting, worrying about her uncle until she burned a hole through her stomach, or she could pass the time in a more pleasant way.
One that could eventually lead her to the possibility of seeing John Augustine naked again.
The memory of that one brief moment between when he’d dropped his robe and pulled his boxers over his hips was enough to fuel her fantasies for years to come. He was all lean muscles and hard planes. The way the shadows had moved over his back as he’d covered his tight butt had nearly brought tears to her eyes.
He was a beautiful man, made to give a woman pleasure, and Brooke had wanted him for years. It was time to take what she wanted.
She hiked up her gown, and manoeuvred herself over the console to the passenger’s seat until she was straddling John’s lap. In this position, she was nearly at eye level with him, and could see the panic flashing in those dark, sad eyes.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“Distracting myself.”
“On my lap?”
“Best distraction I could find.”
He opened his mouth to say something else, but Brooke stopped him with a kiss. He jerked as if she’d hit him, and his whole body went tense. His lips were hard under hers, but she didn’t give up. She’d keep on kissing him for as long as it took.
She slid her tongue along his bottom lip until she felt him yield. A deep, raw groan of surrender poured from his chest, and his big hands moved to cup her face. He held her there, kissing her back like he’d been dying to do just that for years.
Maybe he had. Maybe she’d seen things all wrong and he had left because he wanted her, but none of that mattered now. She was here, now, in this moment, with the taste of John on her tongue and the smell of his rapidly heating skin in her lungs.
His kiss deepened, becoming more ferocious and needy as the seconds passed. In the quiet of the car, all she could hear was the sound of their rapid breathing and the pounding of her own rejoicing heart.
John’s hands slid down over her ribs until they settled on her hips. He pulled her forwards, pressing her against his obvious erection, hitting just the right spot to make something low and deep inside her melt.
She let out a sigh and wiggled to make it happen again. Lights flashed behind her eyelids, and, this time, John was the one sighing in pleasure. It was the kind of sound that a woman was lucky to hear once in her lifetime – a sound so pure and perfect and utterly right that it changed her life.
John was her man. And she was keeping him.
She pulled back from their kiss long enough to look into his handsome face. She wasn’t sure if he was aware of how the course of his life had now changed, and she hoped that her decision to keep him wasn’t glowing in her eyes. She didn’t want to scare the poor man to death.
Brooke had other plans for him right now. Plans that involved getting him naked again.
He still wore his leather jacket and shoulder holster, but she managed to snake her fingers up under the hem of his shirt to feel the hard planes of his abs and chest. She dug her fingers into him, feeling his tight muscles.
A swirling wave of need rose up in her, taking her breath away. Not that she minded. Breathing was superfluous right now. All she needed was John, deep and hard inside her.
She reached down to undo his belt, needing to feel the smooth heat of him filling her grip, but he brushed her hand aside. “Me first. Once my jeans are off, I’m not going to be far behind.”
Brooke wasn’t sure exactly what he meant until she felt his fingers slide up her thigh, shoving the hem of her gown up a few more inches.
She’d worn a thong tonight to avoid the awkward combination of panty lines and shiny satin, so there wasn’t a whole lot of fabric to serve as an obstacle to John’s seeking fingers. She felt a tentative touch, a slight brush of one finger over the scrap of silk, then that touch slipped under the silk, and met slick skin.
He groaned as if in pain. “You’re wet.”
“I can’t help it when I’m around you. You make me want.”
John’s free hand cupped the nape of her neck, and he tugged her forwards for another kiss. Brooke let him do it. Now that he was no longer tense and resistant, she got an idea of the level of skill the man had with his tongue. She could hardly wait to see what else he could do with it.
His clever fingers stroked her until she was frenzied with the need for more. Those gentle, grazing touches were not nearly enough.
“I want you inside me,” she panted.
He groaned again and, this time, there was a hint of pain reverberating in that deep sound.
“Bad timing,” he said.
She couldn’t think of any time that had ever been better than this one right now. She opened her mouth to tell him so, and, just then, his cell phone rang.
“Shit.” And then his hand was gone, and her body was quaking from the loss of his touch, protesting the emptiness grating inside her.
He answered his phone. “Yeah?”
In the quiet of the car, she could hear a man on the phone say, “Stop necking and get out. Our guy’s here.”
Brooke’s body locked up as a tidal wave of fear came crashing back down on her. Her mind had trouble sorting out the fear and lust, and it all kind of jumbled together in her stomach, making her feel sick.
John hung up, lifted Brooke from his lap and helped her squeeze back behind the wheel. “Sorry, Brooke. Showtime.”
She nodded, but couldn’t speak.
He stroked the side of her face and cupped it in his palm. “Do you remember the plan?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“You gonna be OK?”
“I think so.”
He leaned over and kissed her, lingering for only a moment. “You’ll do great. This will all be over soon.”
John moved away, but Brooke grabbed his arm, desperate to keep him near for just one more minute. “When this is over, I’m not going to let you forget where we left off.”
He gave her a crooked smile and a wink. “You won’t need to work very hard to remind me.”
A second later, he eased out of the car and disappeared into the darkness.
Brooke couldn’t see the vehicle of the man who’d abducted her uncle yet, but she could feel him getting closer.
Three
John’s head was not in the game. It was still back there with B
rooke, feeling the satin warmth of her skin under his fingers. The sweet wetness of her desire for him. The intoxicating scent of her need for him.
I want you inside me.
John was never going to get over hearing those words; never forget the dark arousal shadowing her eyes as she spoke, or the way the words came out desperate and perfect.
He had no idea what he’d done to deserve even that brief moment with her, but he thanked God he’d had it.
There was no way he was going to forget where they left off, despite her worries. In fact, he was going to be remembering the last few minutes for a very long time to come. The hard part was going to be forgetting them long enough to do his job.
And he had to do his job. If anything happened to Charles York, he’d never be able to look Brooke in the eye again.
Then again, maybe never looking at her again was the best thing he could offer her.
Either way, it was time to shrug off the lust and get to work. Saving Dr York was his priority. His dick was just going to have to wait.
From his position behind a bulldozer, he saw headlights glowing in the distance, signalling the approach of Dr York’s abductor.
John’s body was pulled tight, hating every second that Brooke was out there alone, dealing with the greedy asshole.
The Bluetooth headset stuck in his ear buzzed with the voice of one of his buddies, Abe. “I see only one guy in the van.”
It didn’t necessarily mean there was only one, but it was better than seeing two.
“Got the plates?” asked John.
“And blocked the exit. The only way he’s getting out of here is on foot. The ground’s too rough for off-roading in that van.”
The van pulled up in front of Brooke, spilling light on to her car, and over the precious shape of her face.
John was never going to get tired of looking at her. How the hell was he going to find the strength to walk away?
She held her hand up to shield her eyes then slowly got out of her vehicle. So did the man in the van. He was armed, and though he wasn’t pointing the revolver at her, he had it in hand.
“Show me the diamonds,” he ordered.
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