by Moira Rogers
He leaned back on the bed and gave her his hottest, laziest grin. “What if I’m loud?”
“Steven and Mahalia can yell at you tomorrow.” The fabric inched up, revealing the soft silk panties he’d touched before. A little higher and his gaze slid over the smooth, pale skin of her stomach. Her gentle, warm laughter filled the room as she paused with the nightgown barely covering her breasts. “If you can walk by the time I’m done with you.”
He tackled her to the pillows, laughing at her startled shriek. “I think you might be the one in danger of diminished locomotion, darlin’.”
“Oh yeah?” She lifted her arms to rest on the pillows, leaving her nightgown clinging to the undersides of her breasts. “You think you’re that good?”
He nudged the silk up a little more and bent to taste her skin. “Determined. That’s what I’d call myself.”
“Oh—” The silk slid away to bare one breast and a tight nipple. “Oh, God, I want you—”
He fought for control, finally trusting himself enough to tease the puckered flesh with the tip of his tongue. “No more talking. Just let me…”
She broke through his words with a low moan that shot fire through him. “Let you what?”
“Let me love you for a minute.” He trailed his hand slowly over her hip, giving her time to stop him before he edged his fingers beneath the silk of her underwear again. He exhaled slowly, one long, hot breath over her breast, and sucked her nipple into his mouth.
She clutched his head and made a quiet, choked noise. “You can love me for a lot of minutes.” Her body trembled as his fingers slid lower, past the soft skin of her abdomen. “Maybe for hours.”
Jackson inhaled the soft, floral scent of her skin as his hand slipped between her legs. She was wet, hot, and he stifled a groan against her breast.
Mackenzie made another yearning sound and arched into his touch. He wanted to forget the danger and take her, feel her heat cradling his cock and the sweet slide of her skin over his. He couldn’t afford to lose himself in her, not right now…but he could touch her. Just for a while.
She didn’t make it easy. Her hips rocked against his hand in tiny, needy movements, and her quiet whimpers tore at the jagged edges of his self-control. Worse was the way she whispered his name, throaty and low and full of passion. “Jackson—yes—”
He couldn’t stop his own rocking as his hips rubbed her thigh. He squeezed his eyes shut and panted. “Kenzie.” He clenched his jaw and searched with his fingers, alternating soft and firm touches, trying to find the one that would make her shake, make her voice break over his name.
He knew he’d found it when she tensed and gasped, her eyes flying open. “Oh, God—right there—” Her hand dropped to his shoulder, and he felt the delicate sting of her fingernails. “Don’t stop—”
Jackson covered her mouth with his, muffling her cries as he stroked her. She was gorgeous, perfect as she writhed beneath him. He ached to fill her, but his discomfort was barely noticeable compared to the warm flush of excitement he felt at bringing her such pleasure.
He swallowed her low cry when she came, and he swore he almost felt her climax sweep through her. Magic blazed between them, all gentle heat and heavy pleasure as her body went taut against him. He shuddered and nipped at her lips as her energy prickled over his skin, and she moaned against his mouth and collapsed back to the bed.
Jackson didn’t dare move, so he kissed her mouth and cheek and exhaled shakily. “Okay?”
“Okay?” Her voice came out flatteringly breathless. “Jesus. More than okay. So much more than okay.”
He couldn’t hold back the satisfaction that flared at her words. “Good.” He pressed another kiss to her cheek. “Now I really, really need to go.”
She still looked dazed, but her expression faded from sleepy and sated to perplexed. “Wait, what? You can’t go.” Her hip rubbed his erection and she smiled. “That’s not fair.”
He swallowed his groan. “Neither is life in general, darlin’, and more’s the pity.”
Her lips sought his, and she kissed him gently, tracing her tongue over his lower lip. “I’m not going to pin you down and force you to have hot sex with me, but I’m more than willing.”
He rolled away. “If I don’t go now, Mahalia will whip my ass. Hell, she might do it anyway.”
Mackenzie laughed. “You’re scared of a sweet little lady. That’s cute.”
He stared at the ceiling fan and willed his heart to slow its pounding. “She is sweet. Until she thinks you’re taking advantage of some pretty young thing in trouble.”
Her fingers trailed lightly up his arm. “Want me to tell her I took advantage of you?”
He eased off the bed. “Then she might whip your ass. She’s protective of me.”
She chuckled again, low and warm and with a husky, sated edge that made it hard as hell to keep from turning around and climbing back over her, sliding into her. “Fine. But just because I’m letting you go now doesn’t mean I’m not going to pounce on you as soon as the bad guys are taken care of.”
“I’ll consider that a promise.” He chanced a look at her, taking in her disheveled hair and flushed skin. “Sleep tight, Mackenzie.”
Her lips curled in a lazy smile. “Good night, Jackson. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Jackson thought that maybe a dip in the pool would help cool his libido, but he didn’t get past removing his shirt before Mahalia’s voice stopped him. “Hang on a second, Casanova.”
He turned to find her sitting in a wrought-iron chair on the patio, smoking. “You know those things’ll kill you, right?”
“Not before you do, kid.” She flicked ashes onto the grass. “You two ran Steven off.”
“He heard?”
“Yeah.” She looked annoyed. “He heard.”
Jackson snorted. “Oh, I’m sorry, did I interrupt your booty call?”
“Hush your mouth.” The words lacked heat, and Mahalia fastened him with an appraising stare. “Do you really think you need to be messing around with that girl right now? With everything she’s gone through, not to mention what she’s got ahead of her?”
He had to look away. “It’s not like that, May.”
Mahalia tilted her head. “Tsk. I saw you earlier, Jack. She lights you up.” She held up a hand to halt his protest. “Mind you, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. If you find someone who makes you feel that way, you should grab ’em and hold on. The problem is the situation.”
Jackson wanted to deny it, all of it. He wanted to say he liked Mackenzie just fine, but there was nothing going on between them. But the way she’d felt beneath him wasn’t nothing, so he shrugged at his mentor. “What do you want from me?”
Her answer was firm. “I want you to say that you’re thinking with more than your dick, and I want you to mean it.”
“Jesus, May.” Jackson’s cheeks heated. “Fine. I’m thinking with more than my dick.”
She extinguished her cigarette. “All right.”
“I mean it,” he insisted. “Nothing happened, because this whole thing is just messed up, and that’s no way to start something.”
“No, it isn’t.” She rose from her chair. “I remember when I first met you, Jack. You were…miserable. Working that awful job at the insurance company, no friends. But you always smiled and joked, and not a single one of the regulars at the bar knew just how unhappy you were.”
As a cautionary tale, its clarity was questionable. “I’m not sure I get your meaning, May.”
She sighed. “If you can let this woman see beneath all that good ol’ boy bullshit, I think she could be good for you. And I know you could be good for her.”
She was warning him again, he was sure of it, but he just grumbled, “I’m going to go pull out the sofa in the living room.”
Mahalia smiled. “Good boy.”
He made a face and reached for the sliding glass door.
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
&
nbsp; “She’d be lucky to have you.”
Jackson was watching infomercials on the converted sofa bed when Steven came back. He nodded to the older man as he flipped channels. “Sorry about earlier. You didn’t have to go.”
Steven leaned against the doorframe and gave him a flat look. “I really did.”
“Mahalia already read me the riot act. Not that I needed it,” he added pointedly.
Steven dropped into the chair beside the couch. “I’m heading to the airport in the morning. I can’t do anything to help until Peyton arrives, and my presence could put you all in danger. But there are things you need to know before I go. Things she’ll need to know when she’s ready. You’re going to have to tell her if I can’t.”
Jackson turned off the television. “All right.”
Steven closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I have to leave because there’s no spell you can cast to hide me from Charles Talbot.” A bitter smile tugged at his lips as he opened his eyes again, and the look in them was chilling. “Blood calls to blood. That’s what Mahalia says. He’s my uncle.”
Jackson just stared at him, trying to make sense of his words. “That’s why you were helping Mackenzie’s parents. How you even knew they needed help. Jesus.”
“It was supposed to be voluntary,” Steven said quietly. “Cougar couples who believed in Charles’s dream, who were willing to work with him. I wasn’t around much because I was the one who traveled the country to find them. The first couple I brought to him had a baby boy. Marcus. The next time I came home, they were dead and Charles was raising Marcus as his own son.”
“Talbot killed them.” It wasn’t a question.
“The closer he got to success the more…unbalanced he became.” Steven rubbed at the side of his face. “It seems brutal, the way the wolves treat Michelle, but there’s a reason Seers are so feared. Having access to that much power… Charles started to think he could play God.”
Anger welled in Jackson with surprising speed, and he rose from the sofa bed and began to pace. “Except he wasn’t just playing God, was he? He was getting it done, and you were helping.”
Steven didn’t defend himself, only nodded. “Yes. I was helping. I’ve tried to tell myself over the years that I didn’t know, but there’s nothing I can do to change what happened. All I can say is that as soon as I realized he wasn’t looking for willing participants, I tried to make it right.”
Jackson fought to calm himself. Whatever Steven’s role in Talbot’s operation had been, it was ancient history. “Mackenzie was already on the way, so you took her parents to New Orleans. To Mahalia.”
“I’d met her during one of my trips,” Steven confirmed. “She wasn’t powerful enough to hide them forever, but we needed to keep them safe until Jess—until Mackenzie was born. She watched over them and did her best to hide them while I tracked down Zacharias. It took four years to find him. Even then he was a virtual recluse.”
Jackson leaned on the arm of the couch. “Wait, so… Mahalia knew Mackenzie after she was born?”
“No. She cast the spells, but they didn’t stay in contact. They were only supposed to call Mahalia if there was an emergency, even after Zacharias cast his spell. Simon and Janice called her when Charles came after them, but by the time we got there all that was left was an empty, burned-out house.”
“The fire that supposedly killed them all.”
“Yes. That’s the end of what I know. Janice, Simon and Jessica Evans disappeared. I didn’t believe any of them had survived until Mahalia called me.”
Jackson nodded, his jaw tight. “We’ll have to get the rest of the story from Talbot when we find him.”
“Jackson—” Steven’s expression was serious. “You have to understand what we’re dealing with. Charles isn’t just powerful; he’s experienced. He’s had over sixty years to fine-tune his skills, and he has more raw power than anyone you’ve ever met. If we get the chance, we take him out. No questions, no complicated plans and no asking him why. It’s the only way Mackenzie will ever be safe.”
Jackson ran his hands through his hair. “If he’s so damn powerful, how exactly are we supposed to take him out in the first place? Do we have a plan?”
“We have Michelle.”
“That’s your plan?” Jackson asked, incredulous. They couldn’t throw Nick’s sister at Charles Talbot and hope she managed to best him. “Will there be a steel cage involved, or is this going to be more of a street fight?”
Steven sighed. “That’s not the plan. But she’s the only one with a chance of stopping him, and unless you can tell me exactly what she’s capable of, I don’t know how to plan at this point. Mahalia has the experience and Michelle has the raw power. We’ll do what they think will work.” His smile was self-deprecating. “I’m just the muscle.”
Jackson dropped to the sofa again. “I’m sorry. I feel so damn helpless. But that’s not your fault, so I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
“You like her.”
Jackson played dumb. “Who, Mahalia?”
Steven snorted.
Jackson shot him a look. “Fine, yes. I like Mackenzie. I thought that much would have been obvious, seeing as how you had to leave when she and I started making out.”
“I didn’t ask if you wanted her. You’re both young, attractive and dealing with a lot of stress. Sex wouldn’t be terribly surprising. I was asking if there was something more going on.”
It was Jackson’s turn to snort. “I tend to save my requests for casual sex for women whose lives aren’t in danger, thanks.”
“I suppose I screwed up taking care of her and have no right to worry now.” He shrugged. “I want to do a better job this time. Take care of her, Jackson.”
“I will,” he promised. “Don’t worry about her.”
“Take care of Mahalia too,” Steven added with a grin. “Just don’t tell her I told you to. She’ll kick both of our asses.”
“Will do. Thanks, Steven.”
Steven smiled as he rose. “Good night, Jackson.”
“’Night.” Jackson watched him go, trying to not to think about the fact that the man was headed in the direction of Mahalia’s bedroom. Instead, he settled back down on the sofa bed and retrieved the remote control again.
Chapter 12
It was a sign of how much better she felt about the world in general that Mackenzie didn’t panic when a gentle hand on her shoulder woke her. She rolled over with a sleepy yawn and blinked at Jackson’s face in the dim light. “Hey.”
He smiled softly as he lowered himself to the bed. “Hey. Mahalia’s making breakfast and Steven just caught a cab. It’s safest for everyone if he leaves now.”
His words distracted her from how nice it was to wake up to his smile. “What do you mean? Why are we safer if he’s gone?”
“Because Talbot can find him,” he answered simply. “Maybe easier than he can find the rest of us. It’s hard to explain.”
She took him at his word and moved closer to slide her arm around him. “You’re staying here though, right?”
“Of course I am.”
Mackenzie smiled, feeling surprisingly at peace. A full night’s sleep in a comfortable bed had done wonders for her state of mind. So had the memory of how amazing Jackson’s body had felt pressing hers into the mattress.
“We said no sex,” she murmured as she rubbed lazily at his back, “but what are your feelings on good morning kisses?”
“Acceptable under most circumstances.” He wrapped a lock of her hair around his finger. “Is that a purely hypothetical question, or were you planning to ravish me?”
She probably had morning breath and most of her hair had escaped its braid to tangle wildly around her head, but she didn’t care. “It depends. Hypothetically, do you have anywhere else you need to be?”
He considered the question with too much deliberateness to be believed. “Hmm. I was going to take a shower, but I might have a little time. Maybe just a few smooches. Like this.”
He feathered a kiss across the tip of her nose.
The gesture made her laugh as she played with the hair at the back of his head, just above his neck. “I’m going to kiss you.” She whispered the words against his cheek. “Really, really kiss you. Open mouths and tongues and maybe some whimpering. If you’re not interested, you might want to run.”
Heat flared in his eyes, darkening them. “Oh, I’m interested.”
“Good.” She only had to shift her mouth an inch to the side to catch his lower lip between hers, and she ran her tongue teasingly along it before kissing him in earnest.
He moaned softly and tilted his head, bringing his lips closer to hers, his tongue delving into her mouth as he cupped the back of her neck. His warm, strong fingers on the sensitive skin made her shiver.
She wasn’t sure when she made the conscious decision to move, but she was suddenly on her back, her arms around him as he leaned over her, his mouth leaving hers to skim over the edge of her jaw to her throat. “Is this going to hold you over?”
“No.” She laughed and tilted her head back, loving the feeling of his lips on her. “But I suppose I’ll manage somehow. Especially since Mahalia’s all of thirty feet away right now.”
Jackson rose from the bed. “I’ll be out of the shower in time for pancakes, so save me some, all right?”
“Better hurry. I’m hungry, and she’s a great cook.”
“No argument here.” He gave her an almost tender look before disappearing through the door. Mackenzie crawled out of bed with a bemused smile. It was far too easy to ignore the life-changing events of the past weeks and give in to the giddy thrill that always came with a new crush, or a new—
Relationship? The thought stopped her, and she stood next to the bed with her pants in her hands. A relationship was the last thing she needed at the moment. And yet…
The bemused smile returned, and she couldn’t shake it while she cleaned up and brushed her hair, or while she pulled on her clothes. She couldn’t even banish it when she walked into the kitchen to greet Mahalia. “Good morning.”