by Becky McGraw
Where in the hell did he find the energy? Fallon threw back the covers but couldn’t even find the oomph to swing her legs over the side of the bed. Instead, she rolled over and grabbed his pillow to hug it, inhale his intoxicating scent, and rub her face in it. Her nipples hardened, and her insides melted, but with a deep sigh, she forced herself to release it and get out of bed.
Jax was jogging, and would probably be starving when he got back home. She would have breakfast waiting on him when he got back, then maybe have him for dessert as a reward, Fallon thought with a shiver as she walked to the bathroom to shower and find some clothes.
By the time she heard the locks flipping on the outside of the door, Fallon was sitting on the sofa with her feet propped up, sipping her second cup of coffee as she flipped through the channels on the large television on the wall. Jax’s breakfast was probably stone cold because it had been two hours since she put it on a plate and left it on the counter.
Nobody ran for three fricking hours unless they were they were triathletes or something. That made her wonder what he’d been up to. She could’ve been kidnapped by the mob or killed in that amount of time. He was supposed to be here protecting her, not getting in his daily exercise. But Fallon knew why she was upset—it wasn’t because he went for a run. She missed him, and wanted to wake up with him beside her. She was damned disappointed to be denied that pleasure, something else she’d never experienced before.
Her eyes swung to the door when it opened, and Jax filled the doorway his hard body backlit by the bright sun. He was drenched in sweat, but her mouth watered because he looked damned good in the sexy running shorts he wore. When her eyes glided up to his face though, she saw he wasn’t smiling.
“What’s wrong?” she asked anxiously, her hands tightening around her cup.
“This,” he growled, slamming the door, before holding up a black box. He turned back to flip the locks on the door angrily, then punched in the alarm code to arm it, before walking over to the sofa to plop down and rest his head on the back.
“What is it?” Fallon asked, her eyes darting to the small black box again.
“A GPS tracking device,” he replied with a huffed breath.
Fear turned her blood to ice in her veins. “They followed us?” she asked, her voice shaking. Leaning forward, she sat her cup on the coffee table and tried to stand but Jax’s hand clamped onto her arm.
“No, they were following me evidently,” he replied with a huffed breath.
Fallon’s eyebrows slammed together in the middle. “Who was following you?”
“An Arab hit squad probably hired by Prince Khalil or his brother. I figured that out when I ran past them and saw the driver who had his window down smoking.” Jax sat up and turned to her. “Remember the van that tried to take us out on the interstate yesterday?” he asked, his voice as tight as his lips.
“Yeah, the one who shot out the car window. How could I forget?” Fallon replied, trying to fit the pieces of what he was saying together, but they just didn’t compute.
“They weren’t the Italian mobsters who are after you, they were Arabs, and this situation just got a helluva lot more complicated.”
“Arabs are after me too?” Fallon asked with a groan, her stomach rolling. To her recollection, she had never even met an Arab Prince, much less made one angry enough to want to kill her. “Did the mob hire an Arab hit squad?” With all the criminal relatives in the Crifaso family, she didn’t see why they’d need to do that.
“No, I told you I think the Prince or his brother hired them, and I believe this is related to the last case I worked at Deep Six. There’s no way my car was at your house long enough for the mobsters who visited to put a tracking device on it. Besides, they had no idea who I was. Those are the guys after you and if they were going to put a tracking device on a car, it would’ve been on your car. This has to do with me and what I know about the Prince’s brother, or what they think I know about him.”
“Deep Six?” Fallon repeated even more confused.
He looked at her and his eyes were fathomless. “The security company who hired me after I was discharged from the teams. A company I let down by screwing up my last assignment with them.”
“How did you screw up?” Fallon asked, surprised and a little afraid since she was this man’s assignment now.
“The Prince’s son was kidnapped right under my nose, so he’s either pissed off about that, or his brother thinks I know too much about his covert activities to continue to live.”
Fallon bit her lip to stop the whimper. She could be kidnapped from right under his nose too. Her faith in Jaxson Thomas’s ability to protect her slipped a little with that knowledge. Especially if he was distracted because his life was in danger too.
“So you have a hit squad trying to kill you too? And you’re trying to protect me?” She looked down at her hands. “Maybe you should find someone else to protect me and worry about yourself.”
“There is no one else, remember? That’s why I was assigned to your case.” Jax pushed up to stand. “We need to get out of here, find another place to hide out. This location has been compromised.”
Before she could say a word, or offer him his breakfast, Jax headed down the hallway and slammed the bathroom door.
CHAPTER TEN
Two and a half days later, they were still driving, and Jaxson still hadn’t told her where they were going. They’d stopped twice at hotels overnight, but only for a few hours before hitting the road again. At both hotels, he’d gotten double beds too. Since the night they’d made love at the condo, he hadn’t made any signals that he wanted to have sex with her again. Fallon was confused and about to burst she was so frustrated.
Maybe he hadn’t enjoyed it as much as she had. Maybe she had repulsed him with her inexperience she felt sure he’d noticed from her responses to him. Or maybe he’d simply accepted what she’d offered, her body as recompense for what happened in Cancun. He sure seemed cold enough to her for that to be the case. That made her feel dirty, as well as angry.
“Where are we going?” she demanded for the fifth time since they’d left Virginia.
Fallon was tired of being a blind sheep and trusting this shepherd to lead her in the right direction. It was time for her to get answers, decide what she wanted to do.
He huffed a breath. “Colorado,” he replied tersely. “We need to lose this car. I put the tracking device back on it.”
“What?!?” she shouted, turning in the seat to stare at him. Good, Lord—no wonder they had been traveling so long! That was almost cross-country from Virginia!
He ground his jaw for a second, but didn’t reply.
“Why do we have to change cars? Why didn’t you just lose the tracker? Throw it in a ditch somewhere in Virginia?” Fallon demanded, wondering at this man’s intelligence.
“I can’t explain it right now, but you’re safe, Fallon. You have nothing to worry about right at this minute.”
She’d never met a man more close-mouthed than this one. She was in this car and her life was at stake too. “I have men who want me dead, you won’t tell me a damned thing, but I have nothing to worry about?!?” she screeched, her voice raising an octave.
“The guys after you are back in Washington. You’ll just have to trust me while I deal with this situation. Those Arabs want me dead, and I’m going to oblige them.”
Fallon lost her breath as a wave of grief punched her in the sternum. Had the stress of this whole situation driven Jaxson over the edge of his sanity? She twisted in her seat to put her hand on his forearm, and it tensed.
“I am not going to let you kill yourself—I need you, Jaxson. When we stop, I’ll call someone to get you help—”
Jaxson glanced over at her and his eyebrows were halfway up his forehead. His lips wiggled then spread into a smile that socked her as hard as the grief had in her midsection. Laughter rumbled at his lips when he looked back at the road.
“Don’t worry. I’m not go
ing to do their job for them, babycakes. I’m going to make them think the job is done. That’ll get them off my back and buy me time to neutralize the threat against you. Deep Six is handling the other issue. I called Slade this morning and filled him in.”
Babycakes. The pet name Jaxson whispered in her ear so many times the night they’d had sex dredged up both heat that gathered at the top of her thighs and anger that burned in her heart.
Come for me, babycakes. Oh God, yes…suck me harder, babycakes.
Yes, Fallon had finally gotten to try what she’d learned about in that book. And yes, it had been good for both of them. But since he’d evidently decided there would be no more of that, Fallon didn’t want to be reminded.
“Don’t call me that,” she said, folding her arms over her chest as she sat back in her seat.
“Call you what?” he asked, glancing over at her with a frown.
“Babycakes. I don’t like it.”
He snorted. “Well you seemed to like it well enough—” Jax stopped to glance at her again and the tension in his body, the regret in his eyes told Fallon he realized his mistake. She also realized her own right at that minute.
“Exactly,” Fallon spat, folding her arms over her chest. That one word rang between them, and Fallon hoped he would explain himself, assure her that he didn’t intend on being the asshole she was beginning to believe he was. But Jax didn’t say a word. He gripped the wheel tighter and they drove in absolute silence for at least the next hundred miles, until Fallon gave up and dozed off.
Jax watched Fallon turn away from him to face the door, snuggling her face into her hands and the sight ripped at his heart. He knew she was confused and probably stinging, but he was doing what he needed to do to keep them safe. Focusing on figuring out a way to stop the two-pronged attack they were under. One prong headed by the professional hitman hired by the Prince or his brother to kill him, and the other led by the amateur clowns from the mob who’d made Swiss cheese of Fallon’s house.
Jax’s conclusion, after thinking about the clowns, was that they were new members of that crime family trying to earn their stripes by taking Fallon out for the mob boss. Amateurs who probably hadn’t even traced them as far as Virginia yet. They weren’t skilled enough to find their target now that she was on the move and off the grid with Jax.
Divide and conquer. The GPS tracker on the underside of his car assured him the Arab hitmen knew exactly where to find him. That’s why he wasn’t stopping long until he passed the car off to the Deep Six operatives that Hawk, their badass former Nightstalker pilot, was flying in from Texas to meet him in Colorado. They were going to dispose of the car and use it as bait to catch the hitmen. Slade and Logan wanted them alive so they could interrogate them.
But Jax wasn’t going to explain all that to Fallon and worry her more, or buy himself more questions. She was safe for now, and he was taking care of his problem.
When he crossed into Colorado from Kansas, Jax was tempted to stop the car and kiss the ground, but he just kept focused on following the directions the British sexpot on his dashboard gave him, which would take him to his agreed upon rendezvous point with Hawk.
He was thankful that Fallon slept through most of the two hours it took him to get there, only stirring when he finally turned into the driveway at the small general aviation airport.
Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes, leaned forward to squint at the terminal building then looked at him. “Are we there yet?”
Jax smiled, because she sounded like his little sister used to when they moved to a new base every few years when he was growing up. “Yep, we’re here.”
“Why Colorado?” she asked grumpily, as she sat back in the seat.
“My mother lives here, and we’re borrowing her SUV so I have transportation,” he replied, and her eyes widened.
“Jesus, you couldn’t have rented a car?” Fallon asked, with an exaggerated eye roll that again reminded him of his sister. “I’d have rented you one or let you use mine.”
“Yours is in the shop, remember? Besides, the goons know what it looks like. I need long-term transportation since my car will be history shortly.”
“You’re trashing your car?” she asked, her voice constricted.
“Yep, I have a feeling Deep Six’s explosives guy is going to have a ball with it. The Arabs need to think I’m dead.”
“How far is your mother’s house from here?” Fallon asked impatiently, her lower lip sticking out. What in the hell was wrong with him, thinking about how much Fallon Sharpe resembled his sister who he missed so damned bad it hurt. It had been almost five years since he’d seen her. About the same amount of time since he’d last seen his mother. They talked about twice a year, but after this assignment was over, he was going to make a trip to St. Louis to see her. Anna had to be out of college now, or close to it. If she hadn’t changed her major again.
“She’s meeting us here,” he said, scanning the lot for her vehicle. He found it at the farthest end of the lot, backed into the space.
Driving a purple SUV that more resembled a min-van wouldn’t have been Jax’s choice by a long shot, but it was free and had four wheels. According to his mom, she could drive the spare vehicle her new boyfriend had just sitting in his garage. Must be nice, Jax thought, as he swung into a spot near the front door of the terminal.
With a sigh, he pulled the keys from the ignition, but before he opened the door, he leaned forward to rub the dash and kiss the steering wheel of the car he’d put the first mile on six years ago when he drove it off the dealer’s lot. Damn, he was going to miss her.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re crazy as a loon?” Fallon asked, as she jerked the door handle on her side.
“Frequently,” Jax replied with a laugh as he grabbed his GPS, wrapped the cord around it then opened his door to get out. Shoving the front seat forward, he hefted his weapons bag out and put it on his shoulder. Mentally he went over the contents of the glove box, trunk and scanned the back floorboard before he stepped back and shut the door.
A shrill squeal split the air, and Jax flinched, knowing exactly who produced it. A flash of tall blonde hair was his only warning before his mother barreled into him, wrapping her arms around him so tight he had to struggle to lower his bag to the ground to hug her back.
“I’ve missed you so much, baby boy,” she said, her voice breaking.
Jax’s eyes tracked to Fallon who stood on the sidewalk grinning. Behind her stood two camo-clad guys he knew were Caleb and Levi from Deep Six. Hawk pushed through the door to finish out the crew who stood there witnessing his humiliation. Heat craped up his neck when Marjorie Thomas finally stepped back to pat his cheek.
“I swear you get more handsome every time I see you, Jaxson Oliver Thomas, but that isn’t often at all is it? Only when you need something.” Her eyes turned into shining sapphires with her tears ,and guilt washed through Jax at the truth in her words.
The last time he’d seen her had been right after his discharge when he’d gone to her house in Florida to have a nervous breakdown while he figured out what he was going to do with his life. In those dark days, Marjorie had taken care of him, so she knew exactly how dark they’d been. Once she heard Fallon’s name, she’d also knew the woman standing right behind her was responsible for that breakdown. Jax wondered how his mom would react when he introduced them. They might need every one of the men standing behind Fallon to protect her.
With a smile, his Mom turned and asked, “But I’ll forgive you since you finally brought a girl home to meet me.” Jax’s heart sank to his toes as she walked to Fallon and held out her hand. “I’m Jaxson’s mother, Marjorie, and who are you?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Fallon took his mother’s hand and Jax gritted his teeth waiting for the explosion he knew was coming. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Marjorie, I’m Fallon Sharpe.”
His mother’s back tensed and Jax knew she was winding up. Running up to her, he leaned down by her ea
r. “Not now, Momma. I’ll explain later—everything is fine. Please just get the keys for me,” he growled. It was touch and go for a minute as Jax waited for her body to relax. Finally, she did and nodded, but he caught the hot glare she tossed at Fallon as she stormed by her to go inside the terminal.
“Is your mother okay?” Fallon asked, her gaze following her stiff back into the building.
“She’s fine,” Jax grated. Everything was fine, would be fine, as long as he could get those keys and get the hell out of here quickly.
Jax did not have time for female drama, right now they needed to get on the road. But he had one more favor to ask of his mother before they left. Now that she knew Fallon was with him, she may not even agree to it.
“We’ve got to get going, man,” Hawk said, stepping off the curb to extend his hand, and Jax was glad for the momentary reprieve as he shook it. Levi and Caleb stepped down too to shake his hand then Hawk eyeballed him.
“Logan said to give you a message. When this is over, you’re coming back whether you like it or not. That cluster fuck with the kid was not your fault, and he doesn’t blame you at all. There’s something fishy going on there, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it.”
Relief washed through Jax that he had the option of going back to Deep Six. He missed these guys, and whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was kind of missing Texas too.
“He’s back from his honeymoon?” Jax asked.
“No, who knows when he’ll be back, but at least they’re checking in every day now. I mean really? How much can one man honeymoon?”
Jax’s eyes glided past Hawk’s shoulder to Fallon’s mouth. A helluva lot with the right woman. Hawk glanced over his shoulder and his eyebrow lifted along with the corner of his mouth.
“Lord help us, not you too.” Hawk groaned, patting Jax on the shoulder. “Good luck with that buddy. Thank goodness I’ve had my immunization against that affliction.”
“What?” Jax asked in confusion.