by Fiona Brand
She was wrong, he had quarter-filled the glass with sherry.
“It’s got ‘fortified’ on the label,” he said dryly, “there’s more sugar. That’s key, so drink up.”
“Is that an order?” With a grimace, she sipped. The rich, syrupy flavour spread across her tongue and flowed like liquid fire down her throat.
He replaced the cap on the bottle. “Last I heard women don’t take orders anymore.”
Jenna choked then had to cough. She hastily placed the glass on the table before she spilled the sherry. O’Halloran was being downright charming, but he wasn’t flirting with her. He was just trying to help her past her little battle with shock.
He gave her a gentle thump on the back. “Better?”
She gave a hiccoughing gulp then drew a long breath. “Distracted is more the word.”
“Good. I’ve got another remedy.” Removing the bag of frozen beans from her neck, he tossed it on the table and hooked out a chair.
Moments later, he scooped her off her chair and sat down with her on his lap.
Chapter 10
Too surprised to protest, Jenna grabbed at his shoulders to steady herself. “I haven’t heard of this remedy.” The muscular hardness of his thighs beneath hers and the furnace heat of his chest and arms were not exactly comforting, but he had definitely driven out the shaky chills and given her something else to obsess about.
One big hand curled around her nape, pressing her head against his shoulder. “It’s not textbook.”
She inhaled O’Halloran’s warmth and scent. Okay, now he was definitely flirting with her, but the rumble of his voice, the steady pound of his heart, was soothing. She gave up the idea of bolting and stayed in place. “I could use another drink.”
He pressed the tumbler of sherry into her hands and waited until she drank. “Can you remember if he said anything?”
A flashback of the black balaclava and the pale glint of his eyes made her stiffen. She couldn’t prevent the small shudder that went through her.
“Have another sip, it’ll help.”
Obediently, she took another mouthful of sherry, then a second, waited for the warming effect, then tried to think. “Other than a nasty name, nothing. The only thing I really noticed was that he was angry. Make that very angry, and it was personal.”
Her stomach tightened at the thought that someone in her past hated her enough to break into her home, wait there while she was in the house, then attack her, even knowing O’Halloran was outside. “I must know him. When I looked into his eyes...” She frowned, trying to catch an elusive wisp of memory.
“We can work through that later. What else did you notice? The colour of his skin, the way he talked, the way he smelled.”
She closed her eyes. The instant she did that, O’Halloran’s heartbeat seemed louder. She forced herself to relax, concentrating on the soothing regular beat, the cosy encircling warmth of his arms.
Taking a breath, she deliberately visualised the moment she had stood in the doorway, poised to hit the stalker with the vase. She tensed as she recalled the blackness filling the doorway then the shock of realisation when she had seen the glint of his eyes. “European. He had light skin and eyes. He was tall, because I had to look up, but not as tall as you. Maybe about six-one.”
She thought back and remembered one other detail. “He smelled like new appliances. When I bought a new dishwasher and washing machine for the house and unpacked them, it was that smell. The polystyrene packing, I guess.”
“That gels with the vehicle he used to make his getaway. It was an appliance van.”
She straightened and stared into O’Halloran’s eyes. “You got the number.”
His mouth kicked up at the corners in that mesmerising way. “I got the number.”
A dizzying sense of triumph and satisfaction spiralled through her. As scary as the stalker was, she thought, he wasn’t nearly as scary as O’Halloran. She had wondered what had been taking O’Halloran so long; now she had her answer. He had been busy outsmarting her stalker.
His gaze locked with hers. “Honey, I’m sorry I took so long to get to you. When I realized the house was in darkness, I almost had a heart attack. I knew he had to be inside.”
Grimly she concentrated on the amber colour of the sherry. Unfortunately, the adrenaline-laced flashback to the moment his hand had clamped onto her throat was hard to stop. “He must have been inside already when we drove in. I didn’t realize until I was upstairs. I think he was after my laptop.”
His gaze sharpened. “Did he get it?”
“No way. I hid it under the mattress.”
“Then you hit him with the vase.” He grinned. “That’s my girl.”
Jenna tried to squash the burst of pure pleasure that glowed through her at the statement. Despite the fact that she was sitting on his lap, she was not by any stretch of the imagination “his girl.” If she wanted to underline that fact all she had to do was recall that O’Halloran hadn’t wanted to guard her and had done his best to fob her off on someone else. “I was going for his head. Unfortunately I got his shoulder instead.”
The faint shaking of O’Halloran’s chest alerted her to the fact that he was laughing.
Jenna blinked and tried to look away from the mesmerising glint of white teeth, the sudden glimpse of the carefree, younger O’Halloran she had once known, but the sherry had kicked in and she was feeling just the tiniest bit woozy.
Feeling suddenly, ridiculously self-conscious she relaxed back against his chest and tried not to love it when his arms tightened around her. “This could get to be addictive.”
“Not as addictive as this.”
Cupping her chin, he gently angled her head. “I’m going to kiss you. If you don’t want it, just say so and I won’t.”
Her heart slammed once, hard. She found herself caught in the net of his dark gaze, riveted by the mouth-watering cut of his cheekbones and the sexy hollows beneath, riveted by his mouth. The fact that he had given her a choice, putting her in the driving seat with the kiss, was seductive in itself, and was more than a little manipulative, she decided. But even knowing that O’Halloran was managing her in a distinctly male way, just the fact that he wanted to do so had the effect of draining away any objection.
And she should have an objection. Over the past few minutes, O’Halloran had moved in on her in stages, holding her, caring for her injuries, sitting her on his lap. Allowing more was tantamount to giving permission for sex.
He lowered his head, his breath washed over her cheek and, in that moment, Jenna knew she wasn’t going to move, and she wasn’t going to say no.
She was twenty-nine, and since O’Halloran, she had never been able to choose anyone else. She had never been able to even relax with any of the men she had dated, or enjoy being kissed, which had ruled out intimate touching and sex.
She’d been accused of being frigid, but she knew that wasn’t the case. She wanted to fall in love. She wanted the dizzying highs and the gritty lows, the laughter and the tears and the tender moments, and she definitely wanted the sex.
She wanted to touch and taste and smell; she wanted the earthy, no-holds-barred intimacy of being naked with her man while he made love to her.
Dispassionately, she stared at the hard line of O’Halloran’s jaw, the sexy five o’clock shadow. Her problem was that O’Halloran had spoiled her for anyone else. As hard as she tried not to, every time she met someone new, unconsciously, she compared him to O’Halloran.
Cupping his jaw with her free hand, she lifted up the last few inches and touched her mouth to his. She felt his surprise, the hitch in his breath. A split second later, O’Halloran’s arms closed more tightly around her, although he kept the kiss soft, giving her the opportunity to draw back if she wanted.
A pastiche of conf
licting emotions threw her back to the intense moments in the elevator, then further back still, nine years, to the incandescent lovemaking in his apartment.
Heat shimmered and pooled. Memories, new and old, seemed to shift and meld as she wound her arms around O’Halloran’s neck and gave herself over to the kiss.
His palm flattened in the center of her back, the heat of it burning through her sweater as he urged her closer. Her breasts were flattened against the hard wall of his chest, her nipples pebble-hard. The firm shape of his arousal against one thigh sent a sharp, hot pang through her.
Dimly she noted that it was time to stop, climb out of O’Halloran’s lap and regain some semblance of control. But with O’Halloran still holding her with seducing firmness while his mouth settled more heavily on hers, stopping was rapidly becoming an abstract concept.
He lifted his head, his gaze narrowed and glittering, as if he’d divined her intention to stop. In that moment, Jenna realized that the concept of experimenting with O’Halloran was inherently, dangerously flawed.
She felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. She hadn’t ever been able to forget O’Halloran for one very good reason. Nine years ago she hadn’t just been attracted to him; she had fallen in love.
That was why it had been so difficult seeing O’Halloran and Natalie as a married couple, and why she had kept a careful distance.
The enormity of the mistake she’d made in falling for O’Halloran made her stomach hollow out. She should have met someone in a safe, steady, “normal” job. A man she could have settled down with and started a family.
To make matters worse, if anything, she was even more attracted to this older, grimmer version of O’Halloran.
O’Halloran reclaimed her lips and all of the reasons she should pull back evaporated on a raw surge of heat. Instead, she cupped his face and kissed him back, wallowing in the scent and taste of him, his hard, masculine warmth.
O’Halloran hadn’t come near her in years, now, within days of that meeting in the cemetery, he was making no bones about wanting her. And crazily, she was teetering on the brink of going to bed with him.
A vibrating pulse resonated through the kitchen.
O’Halloran lifted his head. “I need to answer that.”
Calmly, he reached around her and retrieved the phone from the kitchen table, while keeping her on his lap, and answered the call.
The abrupt change from passion to calm neutrality, while O’Halloran fielded the call, was like a dash of cold water.
Not prepared to sit tamely on his lap while he talked business, Jenna unlooped her arms from around his neck and eased off his lap. Not quite saved by the bell, but close. She had forgotten O’Halloran’s knack of switching from hot to cold. That macho, distinctly alpha quality had confused her in the past, but she was not prepared to be confused now.
Grabbing the rapidly thawing bags of frozen vegetables, she replaced them in the freezer then remembered to check the take-aways.
As soon as she opened the oven door and smelled the aroma of spicy Chinese, her stomach rumbled. Probably the reason she felt so shaky was that she needed to eat.
“Let me help you with that.”
Jenna noted O’Halloran’s watchful gaze, as if he was assessing her mood and had judged correctly that she had backed off. “If you want to help you can set the table. The plates are in the cupboard next to the pantry.”
She grabbed an oven mitt and set warm containers of food on the kitchen counter, breathing a sigh of relief as O’Halloran began setting out cutlery and plates.
The intercom at the front door buzzed, indicating that someone was at the front gate.
Jenna’s head came up sharply enough to send a throb of pain through her skull.
“I’ll get it.” O’Halloran’s gaze was still oddly neutral, his voice deep and flat. “That’ll be either Hansen or McCabe.”
A small shudder of reaction went through her as he strode out of the kitchen to see who was out on the street. She was jumpy, but then a lot had happened in the space of the past forty or so minutes.
Leaning back against the counter, she felt the lump at the back of her head. Thankfully, it had responded to the ice and had mostly flattened out.
Although, that wasn’t her only problem.
She touched lips that still tingled and burned from O’Halloran’s kiss. After nine bland, benign years without any discernible emotional highs or lows, the past had come back and bitten her, with a vengeance.
She was still trying to figure out just where the biggest danger lay: from the masked intruder she had upset with her latest book, or the ex-boyfriend she had hired to protect her.
* * *
Marc stepped out into the rain and disengaged the manual lock for the front gate, allowing a sleek, black four-wheel drive to glide into a space beside his truck.
He wasn’t surprised to see McCabe step out because the SUV was his. What he hadn’t expected was for McCabe to bring company in the form of Carter Rawlings and Gabriel West. Both former Special Air Service associates of McCabe’s, Marc had met them a few years back during a dangerous situation that had developed when he had been staying in Carter’s hometown, Jackson’s Ridge.
Since then they had gotten into the habit of socialising on a regular basis. Marc had even found himself nominated for duty as a godparent for Carter’s first child, a little hellion called Blake. Saying yes had been a tough moment, but Carter hadn’t brooked a refusal. He had understood how much Marc had lost.
Marc lifted a brow at their evening clothes. “Looks like I interrupted something.”
McCabe shrugged out of his jacket, jerked loose the knot of his tie and tossed both in the rear passenger seat. “We were at an SAS reunion dinner.”
“More like a wake if you ask me.” Carter, who had probably gotten rid of the jacket and tie at the beginning of the evening, walked around the bonnet of the SUV and clapped Marc on the shoulder. “Sadly, I didn’t recognize anyone.”
McCabe frowned. “I saw you talking to Oz.”
“That wasn’t Oz,” Carter said flatly. “Oz had crazy eyes. Whoever was impersonating him looked—”
“Normal?” The third passenger, Gabriel West, by far the quietest of the three and, Marc had always thought privately, the most lethal, stepped just short of the light flowing from the porch. “You’re right. No way was that the Oz we once knew. He was carrying an extra twenty pounds and driving a people carrier. I’m going with the alien abduction scenario.”
Carter looked irritable. “He was bald, not green.”
West shrugged and extended a hand to Marc. “Whatever. There was no pizza or beer at the reunion, so an executive decision was made.”
Marc accepted West’s brief handshake, automatically noting the way both McCabe and Rawlings had fanned out slightly. Even though the positioning was probably unintentional, designed to cover arcs of attack, it emphasised that, the banter aside, this was not a social visit.
He had requested backup and McCabe had brought it. All three had once been part of a tight and very successful SAS team. The tendency to fall into the natural rhythms and patterns of a patrol was probably as instinctive and natural to each of them as breathing.
He jerked his head in the direction of the house. “If you’re hungry, there are Chinese take-aways in the kitchen.”
The door opened, and porch light flared over Jenna, highlighting her delicate curves, the exotic slant of her cheekbones and dark eyes. Three sets of male eyes swivelled. Marc logged the small silence that followed, the automatic aura of male appreciation.
Jenna smiled coolly. “I take it this is the cavalry.”
Marc stepped toward Jenna, the move instinctive, blatantly laying claim, he realized. If any of the three men wanted to shake hands they would have to get past him first.
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br /> He made introductions and watched over the brief exchanges as Jenna invited them into the house. Even knowing that McCabe, Rawlings and West were all happily married to women they were in love with didn’t make any difference. They were competition, and Jenna was single and available.
Until about five minutes ago.
The decision he had made when he had picked up Jenna, sat her in his lap and kissed her, settled in more firmly. He had wanted to comfort her. He had wanted her, period. He didn’t know where this would take them long-term, but he had his confirmation that Jenna wanted him.
Marc’s jaw tightened at the careful way Jenna avoided his gaze. Now that he had made his decision, he was impatient to claim her, but he was aware that if he pushed too hard he could lose her.
Jenna’s reserve had always been about protection, not frigidity. Nine years ago the reason he hadn’t been able to reach beyond her reserve was that not only had she lost her father to the military, she had also lost a fiancé.
The situation had been frustrating, but at least he had finally understood why she’d been so wary of him. In retrospect, because he was a cop, it had been a small miracle that she had even consented to go out with him at all.
Discovering that Jenna had been a virgin when they had made love had been a watershed moment. The relationship had ended, but despite the passage of years he had continued to feel proprietorial about her. In a purely masculine sense, she had belonged to him.
Since then she would have had lovers.
Years had passed, and Jenna was single and gorgeous; he had to accept that fact, even if he didn’t like it.
He watched as Carter, West and McCabe filed inside as meekly as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, when the reality was somewhat different.
Marc had heard some of the stories and read edited Reuters reports of a couple of the SAS missions they had been involved in overseas. They were his friends and no longer in the SAS, but that didn’t change the fact that they had been, and still were, should the occasion demand it, bona fide predators.