On the Edge

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  Amy hesitated a moment under the pressure of his hand as if she wasn’t quite sure what to do next.

  “Please, Amy.” The muttered plea sounded harsh in his own ears, but Amy responded to it.

  He felt the warm dampness of her mouth as she worked the tip of her tongue down his body. Jed held his breath as Amy reached her goal. Then she kissed him intimately with soft, exquisite butterfly kisses that teased and tormented. Jed felt his entire body threaten to explode. The cool edge of her teeth was an exciting counterpoint to the delicious warmth and wetness of her mouth. Amy’s hand cupped the fullness at the base of Jed’s trembling manhood, her fingers caressing him until he knew for sure he was going to explode.

  “Amy…” He lifted his hips, demanding more of her. He knew she could taste the tiny drops which were escaping from his thrusting shaft, but she didn’t seem to mind. She worshipped him with her tongue. Jed wanted to shout his pleasure into the skies.

  Then, as if she sensed he could wait no longer, Amy began moving back along the length of his body until she was astride him. Still cradling him in the palm of her hand, she eased his heavy shaft into her. As she sank down onto him, enveloping him completely, Jed shuddered. It was too much. He couldn’t wait any longer. He surged upward, holding onto her hips with both hands. He heard her gasp softly.

  “I’m sorry, Amy. I can’t wait, honey. I can’t wait.” He groaned as his body took complete control, demanding release. He pumped himself into her, flooding her with the warm evidence of his passion. And then as he gave himself up to the hot climax, he heard Amy’s small cry as her muscles tightened around him. It was almost unbearable. The shimmering release took him to the edge of consciousness.

  She wanted him, Jed realized. He’d never been wanted or needed in his life the way Amy wanted and needed him. And she didn’t try to hide it. She held back nothing when they made love. She gave herself completely, with an honest, innocent passion that awed him. He couldn’t resist such magic, even if he wanted to. Amy reached him in a way no other woman could. She touched him on some level he didn’t understand. He didn’t care how her magic worked and he didn’t want to waste time analyzing it. He only wanted to lose himself again and again in the wonder of her.

  Amy was all that mattered.

  Chapter 14

  The distant murmur of Jed’s voice woke Amy the next morning. She stirred amid the tangled sheets, yawning luxuriously.

  “Jed?” She waited for his response and when there was none, she turned on her side. The bed was empty beside her. The faint murmur came again. This time Amy pinpointed the location. Jed was talking to someone downstairs. Wondering who he might be conversing with at this hour of the morning brought her to a sitting position. The sheet fell away from her bare breasts and warm memories of the night flooded back. Before Amy could dwell on them she heard Jed’s rare chuckle. The small laugh sounded cool, lacking any real humor. There was no answering voice.

  Amy finally realized that Jed was talking on the phone. Perhaps her parents had called. She stretched and got up from the bed to find her kimono. Belting it around her waist, she padded out of the room and into the hall. As she reached the top of the stairs, the low murmur of his voice began to separate into distinct words.

  “Skip it, Faxon. Do this favor for me and we’ll call it even.” He paused. “Yeah, I know, but that’s the best I can do. I’m working with limited information. Anything you can get will be useful.” There was another pause and then Jed’s easy, humorless laugh. “Hell, no, I’m not working. I’m on vacation, remember? The info I’m asking for is just because I feel like playing a few games. Private games.”

  Amy descended a few more steps, listening with unabashed interest. She could see Jed standing at an open window, the phone in his hand as he looked out over the sunlit sea. He was wearing only a pair of chinos. His chest and feet were still bare and his hair wasn’t yet combed. In the morning light he looked strong and healthy and vigorous. The bandage on his arm just seemed to add to the overall impression of raw male power.

  He listened to something the other person was saying and then he said in that nonchalant, very knowing voice that men used with each other when they were talking about women, “You’ve got the picture, Faxon. I am not fooling around on some lonely island all on my own. We’re talking the perfect vacation paradise here. Plenty of sun, sand and—” He glanced back over his shoulder at that moment and saw Amy watching him from the staircase. “And a good friend to share it all with.”

  The sweet, loving memories of the night that had been in Amy’s head when she awoke began to dissolve in the harsh light of day. Sun, sand and a friend. If she hadn’t been standing at the top of the stairs would Jed have made that sun, sand and sex? Probably. She had to remember that a man like Jed would view this affair very differently than she had. She had to keep in mind that she was the one in love. Jed had never said or implied anything to give her the impression he even knew what love was, let alone that he felt anything connected with the emotion.

  Jed’s eyes never left hers as he finished his conversation with the person called Faxon. “Sure, this is just the sort of thing I need to get me back into shape. Everything’s healing up fine. I’ll be ready to go back to work soon, but don’t tell Cutter. You can’t blame me if I try to stall a bit.” He paused again, listening. “All right, give me a call when you get the data. You’ve got the number. Take it easy, Faxon, and thanks.” Very gently Jed replaced the phone in its cradle, his gaze still locked with Amy’s.

  Amy was trying to adjust to the last part of the phone call. Back to work soon. He was planning to return to those mysterious, dangerous assignments as soon as he was completely healed. The interlude with her was just that: temporary, a way of filling time between assignments. Her place in his universe was already established and he meant to keep her in her proper orbit. Nothing had changed for Jed.

  “Who was that?” she asked with distant politeness as she slowly descended the stairs.

  “Faxon.” He didn’t move, but he was watching her warily, as if trying to assess her reaction to the conversation. “He handles the files at the agency. He owes me a couple of favors.”

  “I see.” She had reached the bottom of the staircase and wasn’t sure where to go next. The kitchen seemed a reasonable target. Coffee sounded good. She started in that direction.

  I asked him to find out what he could on Michael Wyman.” Jed watched her disappear into the kitchen. He followed, halting in the doorway. “You never know. There might be something on file. After all, Wyman was involved in a company that had plenty of government contracts for military stuff. A security check was probably run on both partners as well as most of their employees at one time or another. It would have been routine procedure.”

  “Your agency would have access to that kind of information?”

  “The agency wouldn’t have been involved in the security clearance check, but Faxon has ways of getting data from the files of other government agencies. He’s got a talent for it. As long as the stuff’s on a government computer somewhere, he can get it. The man knows computers inside and out.”

  “Whatever might be in the files would be old information by now,” Amy observed coolly as she measured coffee into the pot. She kept her back to him.

  “As I said, you never know what might turn up. It’s worth a look. If nothing comes of it, we’re no worse off than we were yesterday. The same damn questions will be bothering us.”

  Amy nodded politely. She turned on the coffee maker and stood looking out the kitchen window. “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it? But then, it always is on Orleana. The perfect vacation paradise. Plenty of sun, sand and friendship. The ideal place to recover from a few picturesque wounds.”

  “And pick up a few more while I’m at it,” Jed said meaningfully.

  Instantly Amy was swamped with remorse. She remembered his injured arm and swung around anxiously to glance at it. “Oh, Jed, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. How
are you feeling today? Is your arm okay? Any signs of infection?”

  Something in his eyes relaxed. A slow grin softened the natural hardness around his mouth. “I like it when you get that stricken look in your eyes. So concerned and anxious. You make me feel wanted.” He walked toward her with a deceptively lazy stride and planted his big hands on her shoulders. Then he dropped a possessive, lingering kiss on her mouth. “It’s a temptation to play injured hero just so I can see that look in your eyes.”

  “That’s called manipulation,” she managed accusingly.

  “Even worse. It’s called greed.” He released her to reach for a golden yellow papaya that had been ripening on the windowsill. “The truth is, I have absolutely no right to use the injured hero routine.”

  “You’re not an injured hero?”

  “Nope. I’m an injured idiot. Only an idiot would have been taken by surprise the way I was last night.” Jed paused on the verge of sinking the knife into the papaya and said thoughtfully, “That’s twice in one month. You know, Amy, I think I’m slowing down.”

  Amy seized the opportunity to say stoutly, “Then it’s time to consider a new line of work, isn’t it?”

  He looked at her as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’ll cut the papaya for breakfast. Go back upstairs and get dressed. Unless, of course, you’d rather scratch the papaya plans and have something else for breakfast?” There was a deliberately friendly leer in his voice.

  Amy pretended not to see the sexy amusement in Jed’s eyes. The phone rang as she headed for the stairs. She halted on the bottom step, turning back to answer it, but Jed was already walking out of the kitchen to pick up the receiver. Perhaps he was expecting Faxon to return his call very quickly. Amy watched Jed’s face as he spoke.

  “Oh, hello, Kelso. Yeah, I’d appreciate an update.” Jed listened intently and then said quietly, “I see. I’ll have to think about it.” There was another long pause and then with crisp farewell he hung up the phone and met Amy’s questioning glance.

  “Well?” she prompted anxiously.

  “That was Kelso.”

  She waved aside the obvious. The detached watchfulness was back in his eyes. “What’s going on, Jed?”

  “Not much. Kelso says Vaden hasn’t said much and it doesn’t look as though he’s going to. He’s obviously been in this sort of situation before and knows that his best bet is keeping his mouth shut. Kelso wants to know if I’m going to press charges. He recommends I don’t.”

  “On what grounds?” Amy demanded, incensed at the idea.

  Jed mumbled something unintelligible and stalked back into the kitchen.

  “What was that?” Amy called after him.

  “I said, Vaden’s only comment this morning was that he was the one who was attacked. He claims he pulled the knife to defend himself.”

  “But that’s ridiculous!” Amy hurried after him.

  Jed shrugged as he went back to work on the papaya. “Who’s to know for certain what happened? Vaden and I were the only ones present at the time. We both got hurt. What’s more, we’re both off-islanders, so who cares?”

  “I care. Besides, Vaden may be just an island hopper, but you’re a guest on this island. My father’s guest, for pete’s sake.”

  Jed inclined his head in mocking acknowledgment. “Thank you, but I’m afraid that at this stage the protection of your family’s name extends only so far. I’m still an unknown quantity, at least as far as Kelso is concerned. He’ll honor my privileged status only up to a point. Face it, Amy. The easiest thing for Kelso to do is write off last night’s events as a classic example of a couple of tourists having a little too much to drink and getting into a quarrel. They both got hurt but no one was killed. No property was damaged and nothing was stolen. No big deal.”

  “Dammit, I will not allow Vaden to get out of this so easily. He used a knife on you, Jed!”

  “Don’t get so excited, Amy. These things happen.”

  “How can you stand there and say that? How can you treat it so lightly?” She was rapidly losing her temper.

  “I give you my word, I didn’t treat it lightly last night.” That stopped her for an instant. “Just how badly is Vaden hurt?”

  “He’ll recover. He’s already got his voice back, although Kelso says he can barely talk. And the bleeding has stopped.” Jed casually scooped the little black seeds out of the papaya.

  “The bleeding has stopped?” Amy repeated weakly.

  “His nose was bleeding when I last saw him.” Jed placed the fruit neatly on two plates and looked at her. “Are you going to get dressed before we eat?”

  She stared at him, afraid to ask what he’d done to Vaden that had temporarily deprived the other man of his voice and left his nose bleeding. Aware that her mouth was open, she abruptly closed it and started once more for the stairs. “Whatever it was, he deserved it,” she muttered.

  “What did you say?” Jed called after her.

  “Nothing. I’ll be right down. Are you going to press charges, Jed?”

  “No. It’s not worth it. But I’d like to convince Kelso to keep Vaden out of our hair for a few days. Go on, Amy. When you come back, I’ll tell you what Kelso said about his interview with Guthrie.”

  Amy scurried up the stairs, dashed into the shower and then pulled on a pair of scarlet shorts and an exotically printed blouse. She was downstairs in record time. Jed was pouring the coffee.

  “All right,” she announced. “Tell me about Guthrie.” She reached for a piece of toast as she sat down.

  “Guthrie was absolutely stunned to find himself involved in this whole affair.” Jed sat down across from her, his amusement obvious. “He told Kelso he had no idea I’d followed him up the hill into the warehouse section.”

  “So what was he doing in that section?”

  “Claims he was trying to find a local legend. Ever heard of a lady of the night named Matilda Hawkins? Apparently she runs a small business operation out of a converted warehouse.”

  Amy hesitated and then realized who he was talking about. “Mattress Matty? But she retired years ago. Business was never the same for her after the Navy pulled out. She lives in a room that overlooks the main street in town.”

  “Apparently her legend lives on,” Jed said dryly. “Guthrie claims some locals told him all about Mattress Matty and implied the business was still, uh, thriving. He went looking for a little action. Guess the nightlife on board the cruise ship wasn’t sufficiently exciting. Maybe he’s not much into dancing, either.”

  Amy wrinkled her nose. “I can see some of the local characters deciding it would be a great joke to send a tourist on a wild goose chase looking for Matty. So that’s how Guthrie came to leave the ship, hmm? What about Vaden?”

  “Kelso’s convinced his original assumption is the right one. Vaden was just lying in wait, hoping to take a few wallets off a couple of unwary cruise ship passengers. When I left the ship and headed up into that deserted warehouse district, I became a very tempting target.”

  “Yeah?” Amy demanded caustically. “If Vaden was looking for tempting targets, why didn’t he pick on Guthrie?”

  “Who knows? Maybe he didn’t see him. Or maybe I looked easier.”

  Amy put down her unfinished slice of toast. “Jed, this is all very, very strange.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I agree.”

  Dan Renner shot out of the shaky wicker chair where he’d been sitting and began pacing the small inn room with his usual sizzling impatience. Guthrie watched him in laconic silence. He’d known from the beginning it was a mistake to actually take the client along on the job. Clients were notoriously unpredictable, emotional and inclined to hysteria. Clients didn’t understand true professionalism.

  “This whole thing is falling apart,” Renner accused furiously. “It’s cracking like an eggshell. What the hell is happening? You and Vaden were supposed to be good. You were supposed to know how to handle this kind of thing. Neutralize Glaze, you said. That was the simplest thing
to do. Get him out of the way and then concentrate on using the woman to get the box. What happens? It’s Vaden who gets neutralized. Shit. Now we’re sitting here waiting for Vaden to spill his guts and drag everything out into the open. It’s like waiting for a time bomb to go off. Christ. What next?”

  “Vaden won’t talk.”

  Renner swung around, his eyes glittering. “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve worked with him before. He’s a pro. What’s more, talking would only get him into real trouble and he knows it. His best bet is to stick to the story he gave Kelso. He and Glaze had both had a little too much to drink, got into a fight in the parking lot and went up to the warehouse district to settle the matter. They both got hurt, but since it was Vaden who was unconscious, it was Glaze who got to give his story to Kelso first. Because Glaze was connected to the Slaters, it was Vaden who spent the night in jail. He knows if he keeps his mouth shut he’ll be out in a day or so. Kelso can’t hold him for long.”

  “What about Kelso pinning you down? That doesn’t exactly give me a warm, comfortable feeling, Guthrie.”

  Guthrie was unconcerned. “I had the Mattress Matty story ready, didn’t I? He bought it.”

  “But now there’s a link between you and Vaden. That’s bound to start someone thinking.”

  “The only link is the one in your mind. Kelso’s not going to make any connections. I doubt if that man’s done much original thinking in twenty years. You saw him yesterday. He’s hooked on rum. Vaden and I each gave him perfectly acceptable stories and the easiest thing for Kelso to do is believe them. He’s the kind who will take the easy way out, believe me.”

  “What about Glaze?” Renner asked challengingly. “He sure as hell will think there’s a link between you and Vaden. And because I’m connected to you, he’ll figure I’m involved, also.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Doesn’t make any difference. If we’re right and he’s after that box, too, the last thing he’ll want to do is make waves with the local authorities. He’ll stick to his story. Not much else he can do.”