Hard Night

by Jackie Ashenden

  “The video quality is shit—”

  “Show me,” Jacob repeated, in no mood to dick around.

  Isiah—showing he knew what was good for him—didn’t argue again and two seconds later a video file showed up on Jacob’s phone.

  The 11th Hour commander hadn’t been lying; the video quality was shit and the angle was wrong. The man coming in to rent the car wore a cap pulled down low over his eyes and a plain black jacket that could have come from any one of a number of clothing stores.

  The transaction lasted all of a minute and there was no sound.

  Jacob kept Isiah on the phone as he watched it once, twice, and then another couple of times more.

  “See anything?” Isiah asked. “Because I sure as hell—”

  “Shut up.” Jacob hit pause on the video as something caught his eye. The man was handing the car rental guy some money and there was . . . something on his hand. A ring of some kind. “Thirty seconds in,” he said. “Get me a still. And get Sabrina to see if she can do anything with the resolution if I want to blow it up.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “Sir,” Isiah said, then disconnected.

  Jacob waited. He hadn’t needed to tell Isiah he wanted it now because Isiah knew that if Jacob hadn’t specified a time frame it meant he wanted it immediately. And he did mean immediately.

  Sure enough, a minute or so later, the still appeared on his phone with a message from Sabrina letting him know that the quality was as good as she could get it.

  He stared down at the picture, focusing on the hand reaching out with the cash in it, zooming in to the glint of something bright around the man’s finger. Yes, it was a ring and not a wedding ring. Worn on the middle finger of his hand and with some engraving.

  Jacob tried to zoom in closer to see what the engraving was but the resolution wasn’t good enough. Not that he needed to anyway. Not when his gut was telling him all he needed to know.

  That ring was familiar and it was familiar because he was pretty sure it was the same one as he had sitting in a box in his study back in his house in San Diego.

  The ring with a snarling wolf’s head engraved on it.

  There were only six people in the entire world who knew what that wolf’s head meant and he was one of them. The rest...

  The rest were supposed to be dead.

  The Wolf Pack, a special ops team that had imploded after a disastrous mission in the Ukraine had led to the deaths of five team members.

  His team members.

  His jaw got tight as he stared at the ghost in the picture, shock pulsing through him along with a wave of unwanted memory. Bad intel that had led the team into a trap, a deliberate sabotage by some higher-up who’d wanted them all dead.

  He’d never been able to figure out who that higher-up had been or the reasons for the sabotage, nor how he himself had managed to get out of the trap alive. But he had.

  After, he’d headed back home, determined to find out the truth about what had happened, only to discover that all evidence of his team had been swept from the records. They no longer existed and neither did he.

  The government had given him a massive payout for his troubles, which he’d taken because he hadn’t any other choice, and then he was told that if he wanted to remain alive, he needed to disappear.

  So he had. Once again, left with nothing.

  Nothing except his mission to find his brother.

  Jacob gritted his teeth, staring at the phone screen.

  Apparently, though, he had something left after all. One of his teammates he’d thought was dead. Who appeared to be involved with a gun-running ring and who was now after Faith.

  Fuck, this was getting worse and worse, and he’d hit a brick wall with his sources. The only thing he had was Faith and the contents of her head, and she couldn’t remember.

  Which meant he had to make her. Except he was running out of things to try to prompt it with because he didn’t know anything about Joanna Lynn, other than she’d been ex–special ops and potentially his brother’s lover.

  Fighting hadn’t worked and neither had sex, so what the fuck else did he have?

  Tossing aside his phone, he put his hand on the keyboard and sent a quick e-mail to the contact who’d found him the initial info on Joanna, then he shoved himself out of his chair and strode back into the bedroom, intending to wake Faith up and have a serious chat.

  But she was lying there still asleep, all curled up with her head resting on the pillow, black hair spread everywhere, her hands folded beneath her cheek like a child’s. She looked vulnerable and beautiful, and possessiveness hit him like a gut punch, even stronger than it had been earlier.

  She belonged here. She belonged to him.

  Faith might, but does Joanna?

  His chest tightened, something painful constricting inside him.

  Once she remembered her past, this would all be over. She would hate herself for what she’d done with him, for betraying his brother, and maybe she’d hate him, too. And this moment he’d had—this one precious moment where she’d given him not only her body but her trust as well—that would be gone.

  And he didn’t want it to be gone.

  The night’s not over yet.

  No, it wasn’t. And taking it, keeping Faith for the duration of it, wouldn’t change anything. He could take a night. Just one.

  He went over to the bed and reached out a hand, gently touching the fine-grained skin of her cheek, feeling softness and warmth.

  She’d been such a generous lover, both with her body and her trust. She hadn’t hidden her desire for him or the pleasure she took in his touch, and even though she’d eventually given him her surrender, she’d given him enough of a fight to make that surrender sweet.

  Physically, she really was perfect for him in every way. An exquisite combination of strength and beauty and fire, and a sweetness that stole his breath. Eager and honest and brave, too.

  He hadn’t had a woman who suited him so well in such a long time, if ever.

  She didn’t wake as he touched her, but her head turned slightly toward his hand, as if she knew he was there and wanted more of him.

  Christ. That shouldn’t have made him want more too, but it did, the tightness in his chest winding tighter, even as his cock hardened. But he didn’t want to wake her so he took his hand away, the warmth of her skin lingering on his fingertips all the same.

  Yes, if all he had was tonight with her, then he’d take it.

  He’d fucking take it all.

  But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to give. Because he did have something of his own that she’d wanted and maybe it was time to offer it to her.

  Information. The questions she’d wanted to ask. The things he’d never told another soul.

  She’d trusted him enough to let him make her his. It was time to show her that trust went both ways.

  Why? Don’t you know how dangerous that is? What the fuck do you think she’ll do with that information when she becomes Joanna again?

  He didn’t know, which he guessed made telling her a really stupid idea. Maybe nothing would happen. Or maybe she’d use it against him in some way. Or maybe it would stay with her, a little part of himself that she’d always carry.

  “I suppose, Ms. Beasley,” he murmured very quietly, “one way or another, we’ll eventually find out.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Faith woke up after a dreamless sleep feeling boneless and heavy and unbelievably sated. Jacob wasn’t there, which was disappointing, but he couldn’t have gone far, and for a moment she simply lay there enjoying the sensation.

  They’d spent all day in bed and it had been so good that she’d have been quite happy to remain there for the rest of the night too.

  Jacob had been . . . well, quite simply, Jacob had been magnificent in every possible way there was and she knew—even without having any other frame of reference—that she wouldn’t find another man to match him.

  Even thoug
h she was supposed to be his brother’s lover, it was difficult to know how his brother could possibly give her what Jacob had given her over the course of the day. So much pleasure. Like he could see inside her and anticipate her every desire. Even some she didn’t know she had.

  It had been . . . revelatory.

  She stretched, then glanced toward the window. It was dark outside so obviously she’d been asleep awhile.

  Time to get up.

  Slipping from the bed she debated the merits of another shower, then decided not to. She liked the scent of sex and Jacob on her skin and she thought he might like it too.

  Going over to where her bag sat on the dresser, she dug around inside it, then pulled out a clean pair of panties and a loose white T-shirt, and put them on. Since her yoga pants were in pieces back near the control room and she had no desire for Jacob to rip up another pair, she didn’t bother with pants, heading straight out of the bedroom as she was.

  But when she got to the living room, she stopped dead.

  The only light was warm, flickering, and she realized it was coming from the multitude of candles that had been lit and were standing in bottles placed at different points around the room.

  The candles were of the plain white emergency kind and the bottles looked to be old wine or beer bottles, but the light they gave off was beautiful.

  There was another candle sitting on the table, the glow softening the hard edges and brutal lines of the man sitting near it, his gaze on hers.

  Jacob.

  She stopped in the doorway, a breathless feeling sweeping over her.

  Were all these candles for her?

  And then she noticed something else. The table was set and there was food on it, plus an open bottle of wine.

  “Is this for me?” A stupid question when she was the only one here.

  His beautiful mouth settled into a half smile. “Of course it’s for you. I thought you might like to join me for dinner, Ms. Beasley.”

  Her throat constricted. She didn’t know why a simple roomful of candles should make her so breathless or her heart feel like it was swelling up in her chest, but it did.

  “I would,” she said, not caring that her voice was all scratchy. “I would very much like to join you for dinner, Mr. Night.”

  That half smile deepened into something warmer and brighter than all the candles in the room put together. He had such an amazing smile. How had she not noticed?

  He gestured to the seat beside him. “Come sit.”

  So she did, but not where he indicated.

  Instead she went straight to him and stood next to his chair, looking down at him meaningfully.

  His gaze made a slow journey down her body, lingering on her breasts, making her nipples get hard, before moving down farther, to her panties and her bare legs. He made no effort to hide the heat in his eyes, and when they came back to hers, the flames in them nearly burned her alive.

  He said nothing. Merely pushed his chair back.

  She didn’t need any further invitation, straddling his lean hips, then settling down into his lap so she was facing him. He was hot and powerful beneath her and she was sad he was wearing a T-shirt, because she very much wanted to touch his bare skin. But she lifted her hands and put them on his chest anyway, purely so she could feel his heat and his strength, so satisfyingly hard beneath her palms.

  He watched her, that half smile playing around his mouth. “I didn’t mean you could sit on me.”

  She arched a brow. “Is that a complaint?”

  “Hardly. I approve of your T-shirt, by the way.”

  “Thought you might.” She’d known it was vaguely see-through when she’d put it on. That was the whole point of wearing it. “And I approve of the candles and dinner. You’re quite the romantic.”

  He gave a soft, deep rumble of a laugh that she found so sexy she wanted to kiss him. “Not quite. The candles are from the emergency stores, the wineglasses are glass tumblers, and I’m not sure the wine is even drinkable. But the steak, at least, should be good.”

  “Well, I like the thought at least.” She stroked him like she was petting a big cat. “What’s the occasion?”

  “You need a nice dinner after all the exercise we’ve done today.” His smile became sensual. “Plus, you also need to build up your strength for tonight.”

  A shiver ran the length of her spine.

  “But there’s also another reason,” he went on, the heat in his gaze dampening slightly. “I wanted to give you some time to ask your questions.”

  Surprise moved through her. She’d thought he’d forgotten about that. Hell, she certainly had—until now at least.

  “Why?” she asked bluntly.

  “Because you’re mine and I want you to know.” His gaze was very direct. “And because you gave yourself to me this afternoon. You gave me your trust. So now I’m going to give you mine.”

  Something in her chest shifted again, her throat tightening.

  She hadn’t expected this. Yes, he’d told her that all she had to do was ask and he’d answered a couple of her questions already, but . . . Well. He wasn’t a man who’d give his secrets to anyone lightly, and now, here he was, promising them to her, a woman with no past and no memory.

  A woman who wasn’t even sure who she was.

  “Is that wise?” she asked softly. “You don’t know who I am, Jacob. Even I don’t know who I am.” Then another thought hit her. “Are you sure that you want Joanna to know these things?”

  His obsidian eyes gleamed. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  A little pulse of some emotion she couldn’t name went through her and she wanted to tell him yes, that he could tell her, that he could trust her. But the reality was she didn’t know.

  “I think,” she said thickly, “that you should be careful.”

  His mouth twitched. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Jacob, I . . .” She broke off, not really sure what she wanted to say. So she slid her palm up his chest, over his left pec, to where his heart beat strong and sure. And she kept it there. “Are you really sure about this?”

  “Yes.” There was no hesitation. “Ask any question you like, Ms. Beasley.”

  A thousand questions instantly jostled for position. “Okay, so.” She pressed her hands against him, testing the firm muscle of his chest. “How did you and your brother get to be in foster care?”

  “You don’t start with the easy ones, do you?”

  “I thought I’d start at the beginning.”

  “It’s not a happy story, Ms. Beasley. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

  “You were in foster care.” She smoothed her hand over him. “Of course it’s not going to be a happy story.”

  “I suppose not.” He was silent a minute. “Believe it or not, it starts out happy enough. Dad was a sergeant in the army so he and my mom lived with us on base until Josh and I were about six years old.

  “Then Dad went on deployment, going missing soon after on a routine patrol. They never found his body, he simply vanished. I don’t remember much else about it, just Mom crying whenever I asked her when Dad was coming home.” He paused, the look in his eyes turning distant. “About a year later, Mom got sick. Aggressive breast cancer. It was terminal and she had no other family except a great-uncle in a nursing home in Florida, which made figuring out what to do with Josh and me difficult. But she had a very good friend who offered to take us when the time came and so, when she eventually died, Rebecca took us to live with her.”

  Faith swallowed. His voice was deep and measured, and there was no pain in it, but she could feel the tension in him. The muscles of his thighs were tight, as were his shoulders. And no wonder, losing his parents so young and both so quickly must have been dreadful.

  She said nothing, because she couldn’t think of anything to say besides banalities. So she stroked him instead, trying to loosen that tension, give him whatever comfort she could.

  “It was okay at first,” he
went on. “Rebecca was kind and even though she wasn’t Mom, she was good to us. But a couple of years after, she fell for a man named Greg. Initially, he seemed like a good guy, but gradually . . . Let’s just say I noticed things about him I wished I hadn’t.”

  Foreboding settled down inside her. Jacob’s expression gave nothing away, but she could tell that whatever it was he was going to say, it wasn’t going to be good.

  He must have picked up on her own tension because he said softly, “You might not like this next part, Ms. Beasley. Shall I continue?”

  She looked into his strong, battered face. “Is it important?”

  “Very.”

  “Then yes, continue. If you can say it then I can listen.”

  Something glittered bright in his gaze. “Greg liked Joshua. But in a way he shouldn’t.”

  Cold crept over her skin. “Oh God. Did he . . . ?” She stopped, unable to actually say it.

  Jacob’s gaze had become very black, the lines of his face hardening. “I’d taken to carrying around a little pocketknife Rebecca had given me for my tenth birthday, and the day I found Greg trying to hurt Josh, I stabbed him with it.” His deep voice was stripped down and rusty-sounding, with an icy edge to it that made her shiver. “The knife wasn’t very big so I didn’t hurt him much, but it was enough for him to call the cops. A fuss was made and even though I tried to tell everyone what that prick had done, no one believed me.” Jacob smiled, very white and very sharp. A shark’s smile or a tiger’s. “He hid his demons well, I’ll give him that. So well not even Rebecca believed I was telling the truth.”

  The righteous, protective anger that gripped Faith in that moment surprised her with its strength. “How could they not believe you?” she demanded. “I mean, why the hell would you make something like that up?”

  “Greg told them that I was making trouble because Rebecca was pregnant and I was jealous of the new baby. He then convinced Rebecca that the pair of us should go into foster care since he and Rebecca didn’t have the skills to look after us properly.”

  Faith stared at him, horrified. “Oh my God, seriously?”

  “Yes. He told her he thought it would be for our own good and for the good of the new baby.” Another of those white, menacing smiles. “I was dangerous, apparently. Too dangerous to be around other children.”