His sleep had been shot to hell since that October night.
Did her sleep problems date back to those same hours? The speculation made him laugh. He’d have been willing to bet she hadn’t given a thought to that night. It had just been something she’d done. A kick. The kind of thing Young had told him she liked to do.
Assuming that was the truth.
He observed her for five days and five nights.
And grew puzzled.
If Young was her lover, how come he never showed up?
If she went in for sexual dalliances—and why was he being so careful with his language? If she screwed around, where was the traffic to her bed?
She certainly seemed to live a quiet, private, carefully organized life.
He saw that when he went into her apartment.
He figured he understood why her brothers and sisters had nicknamed her James.
She was a neat, logic-oriented woman No dishes left on the kitchen table in the morning. Her bed properly made. When he opened her closets, he found things neatly hung and stacked. Even her underwear drawer. Panties folded, bras the same.
The underwear—and what a utilitarian name for those bras and panties—surprised him. Having seen the suits in her closet, the pristine condition of the apartment, he’d expected serviceable cotton.
What he found was silk and lace. Thongs that would heighten the beauty of her hips and ass. Bras that would cup her breasts like a man’s hands.
His hands.
Zach felt his body stir. Stir? It came to instant, urgent life.
He touched nothing. Shut the drawer. And got the hell out of Dodge while he still could.
He did note that she always showed caution, looking left and right when she came down the steps of the townhouse, checking the back of her car before she got in, checking her rear-view mirror when she drove, but in itself none of that was meaningful. Any intelligent woman living alone in a big city would know enough to be alert to all possibilities.
What did mean something was that no one was watching Jaimie Wilde except him.
And the more he watched, the more he doubted the story Caleb had been told.
He’d checked out Steven Young, too. Young was tall. Light haired. Well groomed. He wore a constant smile on a bland, Midwestern face.
Zach disliked him on sight. There was something about the man that whispered of unpleasant things, like going to church on Sunday mornings and then going home to jack off to porn in the afternoons.
The thought of him touching Jaimie made his skin crawl, but Young never went near her. If he was obsessed with her, he had a strange way of showing it.
It was cold on this fifth night of his surveillance; the moon was a thin sliver of ivory in a clouded sky. It was also one of Jaimie Wilde’s sleepless nights. She’d turned out the lights at ten, turned them on at eleven, turned them off twenty minutes later. They’d come on again a couple of minutes ago; he’d watched her silhouette as she went from one room to the other.
Somebody should tell her to replace the curtains at her windows with heavy drapes.
Zach yawned.
It was time to put an end to this.
Tomorrow, he’d call Caleb and assure him that there was nothing to worry about. Either Jaimie had imagined a man was tailing her, imagined he’d been in her apartment, or she’d made the story up.
For Caleb’s sake, he decided not to mention the second possibility.
Normally, he’d confront her. Confront her when she was off-guard, demand to know why she’d invented a tale that had scared the crap out of her family and that could have gotten a blameless man in trouble.
Zach stretched out his long legs.
But that was not possible.
He’d have to let her know about her sister going to Caleb and Caleb coming to him. So, no, he wouldn’t confront her. He wouldn’t ask her questions that really needed answers.
Like, why had she slept with him that night?
Was it because she was into that kind of thing?
If she weren’t, if she’d been with him because of the spark, the electricity, whatever you called the thing that had energized between them, then why had she run away and left him that note as if they were strangers because yeah, maybe they’d started as strangers, but that had changed once she was in his arms, burning hot in his arms, with him deep inside her while she moaned his name, saying Zacharias, oh God, Zacharias, that name he’d always hated until he heard her it on her lips, until she’d sobbed it as he moved over her and into her, into her, into her…
“Jesus H. Christ,” he growled.
Enough was enough.
He sat up straight, reached for the key in the ignition. Jaimie Wilde did not have an obsessive lover following her, and he was losing his mind…
What in the hell was that?
Zach froze as a shadow floated through the shrubs across the street.
Adrenaline flooded his body.
There it was again, moving through the narrow side yard of the townhouse.
He flung open the car door. Flew across the road. Dressed all in black, he became a shadow that merged with the night, a shadow following the first shadow…
A shadow that was a man.
A man whose pace had quickened now that he knew he had been seen.
Zach skidded to a stop at the rear corner. He was quick, but his quarry had had a head start. The darkness of the overgrown garden had swallowed him up.
Zach stood silent, listening.
He heard the rustling stir of a small creature in the grass, the whisper of the wind. Nothing else.
He peered into the night.
To the left, a low fence and a yard that was a simple slab of empty concrete.
To the right, a spiked fence at least ten feet high. Not even Houdini could have vaulted it. It enclosed a neat garden, dead now in the cold, as empty of life as the yard to his left.
Directly ahead, the overgrown garden of the townhouse ended in a line of low hedges. Beyond it, Zach knew, were other yards, a street. Zach ran for the hedges, jumped them…
The low roar of an engine broke the silence. Tail-lights winked slyly against the darkness as a vehicle sped away.
“Son of a bitch.”
What a hell of an agent he was! The man could have been a burglar. A kid, up to no good. He could have been Santa Claus, out scouting his Christmas Eve run.
A better bet was that it had been Steven Young.
And, Zach had lost him through his own stupidity. His inability to concentrate on the job at hand. Why? Because his brain, goddammit, was too busy remembering that night, that one unforgettable, infuriating night.
Grim-faced, he plodded back to the Prius. Opened the door. Climbed inside. Tapped his fingers against the steering wheel.
So much for calling this off.
He sat in the car for another twenty minutes. It was late. Very late. Almost one in the morning. Her light was still on. His adrenaline was still pounding, a river of it flooding his muscles and his brain.
He was trained for this. For making rational decisions in difficult situations.
Think, he told himself, think.
Jaimie needed protection. Logic said as much.
Logic crashed and burned.
What she needed, he told himself, as he flung the car door open, crossed the street, picked the pathetic lock to the outside door, went down the hall and banged his fist against her door, what she need was him.
“Jaimie,” he growled, “dammit to hell, Jaimie…”
He heard the snick of the peephole as she opened it. Then the turn of one lock. Two locks. The door opened as far as the guard chain would permit. A wide, dark-lashed blue eye stared at him.
“Zacharias?”
The door shut. Had she closed it so she could open the chain? Or wasn’t she going to let him in? He’d break down the door if he had to; he’d do whatever it took to get to her.
He’d waited too long. Much too long.
; Slowly, the door swung open.
Jaimie stood in front of him, barefoot, her hair a pale nimbus, her face devoid of makeup. She was wearing a long white nightgown. It was cotton, simple, unadorned.
Almost sheer.
Through it, he could see the outline of her breasts, her nipples; his gaze swept over her. He could see more, the delicate shadowing of her sex.
His heart thudded.
“Zacharias” Her voice shook. “Oh God, Zacharias…”
“Jaimie,” he said in a rough voice.
Then he stepped through the door, reached for her, and she sobbed his name again and flung herself into his arms.
CHAPTER TEN
He held her against him, his arms tight around her. She was on her toes, her arms looped around his neck, her body pressed to his, her face warm against his throat.
She was trembling.
Anything could have happened to her tonight, could have happened all these terrible weeks since she’d run from him.
His blood chilled.
Maybe he hadn’t spotted an intruder casing the building. Maybe he’d already been inside.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she said, her words somewhere between laughter and tears. “I was dreaming about you, and I woke up and—and here you are.”
Thank God. He’d spooked the intruder before he’d been able to do whatever he’d intended to do. A peeper? Maybe, but there’d been something in the way the guy had moved, and that he’d parked his vehicle a street away and knew precisely how to get to it suggested more.
Zach gathered her even closer, ran his hand up and down her spine, breathed in the scent of her.
“Why did you leave me?” he said in a thick voice. “Why did you run away that night?”
She lifted her face to his. Her vision was blurry with tears, but it was Zacharias, just as she’d remembered him, dreamed of him. Big. Beautiful. His eyes so green, his body hard and lean and exciting against hers.
She had questions, too. Like, why hadn’t he come after her until now?
It was a reasonable question, but what did reason matter when the man she’d never stopped thinking about was holding her so close that she could feel his heart racing? All that heat. That power.
She made a small, choked sound. Rose higher on the balls of her feet, dug her hands into his thick, silken hair and dragged his mouth down to hers.
For one endless second, she thought she’d made a mistake.
Then a rough groan broke from his throat and he swept her into his arms.
“The bedroom…”
But her hands were already on him, pushing up his shirt, moving over his shoulders, his chest, his belly. He groaned again, set her on her feet, tore off his jacket and shirt, pushed her back against the wall. Blindly, he searched for buttons on the nightgown, for hooks or snaps and then he cursed, grasped the center of the neckline and tore the gown open.
She gasped as he cupped her breasts, thumbed her nipples. She sobbed his name, rose toward him, caught his bottom lip between her teeth and bit the tender flesh.
Zach slid his hand between her thighs.
The breath shuddered in his throat.
She was hot and wet; she moaned as he cupped her. As he parted her. Her clitoris was already swollen and he stroked it with his fingers. She was panting. Gasping. He stroked harder and she cried out, lifted one leg and wrapped it around his.
He cupped her bottom with his big hands, raised her to him as he backed her against the door. She brought her other leg around him and he clasped her thigh, brought her leg higher, higher…
“Now,” he said, and he drove into her hard and fast and deep.
Her cry of pleasure, the clamp of her muscles around his erection, almost undid him. Hold on, he told himself. Wait. Wait…
But he’d already been waiting. Days. Nights. Weeks. For this, the exquisite taste of her mouth. This, the honeyed sweetness of her body. This, the feel of her muscles contracting around him.
She was weeping.
Was he hurting her? It took all the effort he possessed to withdraw, hold still…
“Don’t stop,” she said, “don’t stop don’t stop don’t—”
Zach groaned. He rocked into her again and again and caught her cries with his mouth. She was coming apart in his arms and he—God, he was flying, flying…
One last thrust.
She screamed.
Zach threw back his head and flew into the night with her, let the ecstasy of being inside her again sweep everything else away.
* * * *
They stayed that way for long minutes.
Then, he kissed her mouth. And, slowly, lowered her down the length of his body until her feet touched the floor. He kissed her again and again, with a tenderness that brought tears to her eyes.
She sighed. Leaned into him. Buried her face in his chest.
Their respiration slowed.
She felt boneless; if he let go of her, she thought dreamily, she’d probably sink to the floor.
Amazing, that being in the arms of a man she hardly knew should be like coming home.
The last weeks had been so hard. The fear that Steven was stalking her. Trying to make sense of what she’d done in New York, not just that she’d slept with a man she’d known for, what, a couple of hours, but that she’d run away rather than face him in the morning.
That, at least, was behind her now.
Zacharias was here.
He’d come to her.
After weeks had dragged by.
No phone calls. Nothing. For all she knew, he hadn’t thought of her once during that endless time. Now, suddenly, here he was, at her door in the middle of the night, pounding on it, demanding entry.
And she’d gone straight into his arms.
No explanations. No apologies. Not even a hello. She’d let things happen exactly as they had that first time, his rules, his script. What was happening to her? She didn’t like this new Jaimie, this—this out-of-control creature who seemed to have forgotten the simplest tenets of morality.
“I can almost hear your brain whirring.”
She stiffened. Pulled back. Not far; he wouldn’t let her, but she did draw back far enough so she could look up, into his eyes.
“Meaning what?”
He smiled. She felt a little knot form low in her belly. She hadn’t forgotten that smile, that sexy I-am-the-ruler-of-the-world tilt of his mouth.
“You’re thinking, ‘After all this time, is that any way for a man so say hello?’”
She didn’t want to laugh. And she wouldn’t.
“What I’m thinking,” she said, “is what are you doing here, Zacharias?”
He smiled again. Why wouldn’t he? They both knew what he was doing here. What he had just done. What she had just done.
“I haven’t seen you in weeks. I never heard from you after—after the—the blackout—“
“After the blackout,” he said solemnly.
She didn’t want to blush, either. And she wouldn’t.
“Exactly. Now you turn up, threatening to knock the door down in the middle of the night.”
“I did not threaten to—“
“You walk in as if you have every right in the world to be here.”
“Jaimie,” he said, the very voice of reason, “honey—“
“How about ‘Hello, how are you, I know I owe you an apology’?”
Zach let go of her. Unconcernedly zipped his fly, narrowed those amazing eyes, then folded his arms over his bare chest. Why didn’t the man cover himself?
Why didn’t she? she thought, grabbing the edges of her torn gown and dragging them together.
“Sounds like a plan,” he said.
She blinked. “What does?”
“That ‘Hello, how are you, I know I owe you an apology’ bit.” He paused, just long enough for confusion to show in her face. “I have to tell you, babe, you’re the first woman ever pulled a vanishing act on me.”
Dammit. So muc
h for not wanting to blush.
“We are not talking about me, Zacharias, we’re talking about you.”
“I’m not the one who ran.”
“I did not run!”
“There I was, all alone in that bed, the indentation of your head on the pillow beside me, the scent of you, of our lovemaking, still on the sheets—”
“We had sex,” she said, her face flaming. “Sex, after just—just shaking hands. And—”
“Actually, I don’t recall ever shaking hands. All I remember is that candlelit dinner, the waiter hovering over us, the sommelier trying to be discreet.”
“You know damn well there was no waiter or sommelier!”
“There would have been, if you’d said ‘yes’ when I first asked you to go out to dinner with me.”
“We couldn’t have gone out. The blackout—”
“The blackout came after you turned me down.”
“That isn’t the point. If we’d been in a restaurant, nobody would have been hovering over us, not once the power went out.”
Zach shrugged. “OK. You got some of it right.” The look on his face changed. His eyes darkened from emerald to forest green as he took a step forward. “But you got the most important part wrong.”
How had she gone from offense to defense?
“What important part?” she said, taking a quick step back.
“The sex part.” He reached out, framed her face with his hands. “What we had was more than sex. It was—hell, it was incredible.”
“It was only—”
He leaned in. Put his mouth gently against hers. She bit back a moan.
“Don’t try and change the topic.”
“Trust me, honey.” His arms went around her as he gathered her in. His erection pressed against her belly, hard and full of absolutely decadent promise. “I’m not trying to change the topic. Why would I want to do that when we’re finally together again?”
Jaimie caught her breath.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “I can’t think when you—”
He caught her hand. Brought it to his mouth. Kissed the palm, then brought her hand down his body and lay it over his fly. She gave a moan so soft, so filled with need that he was afraid he’d ruin everything by moving too fast, undoing his zipper, parting her thighs and burying himself deep inside her again.
Jaimie: Fire and Ice (The Wilde Sisters) Page 14