by Barb Han
“Ohmygosh. They’ve been here,” she said in barely a whisper.
His gaze scanned every door, every surface, every possible hiding place. “Shhh. Stay here.”
“Don’t go in,” she pleaded, tugging at his arm. She couldn’t even think of him getting hurt, or worse.
Jaden didn’t immediately break away from her, although his tense body language said he would. Instead, he turned to her and held her gaze. “I’ll check it out. Make sure it’s secure so you can get your things. Then you’re coming to my place where I can protect you.”
She swallowed, raw emotion threatening to drop her. “I’m going inside with you.”
“Not this time. You stay put. I need you here to watch out for them. You make sure not a soul comes through this door. If anyone out there looks suspicious, scream as loud as you can.”
He produced a small gun from his boot, took off the safety, and placed the weapon in her shaky palm.
“Look first, then shoot.” The spark of determination in his eyes confirmed he meant what he said.
“But what if something happens to…”
His eyes glinted. “You’re sexy when you’re worried.”
“Be careful.” Sensual heat crawled up her neck, mixed with fear, but this was not the time for either.
“Take care of yourself until I come back for you,” he said, pressing a kiss to her lips.
She forced her attention to the walkway outside. She couldn’t think why anyone would come to her place. Except maybe for money. Did they think she’d hide it here instead of taking it with her?
Gun drawn, Jaden eased inside. One more time, he quietly instructed Lauren to stay back.
What felt like an eternity later, but in reality was only a few minutes, he returned and motioned her to join him.
In the kitchen, her table and chairs had been turned over. Cabinets had been emptied onto the floor where shards of glass mixed with broke bits of bone China.
“Everything’s here. It doesn’t look like anything’s missing, just destroyed. Why would they do that?” she asked.
Jaden kept guard near the door. “At first I thought maybe they were looking for something. But now, I think they’re sending a message.”
“To me? What did I do to them?” she asked.
“Nothing personal. This is meant for Max.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, stepping over debris, determined to check out what was left of her upstairs.
“It’s a threat. They want to make you afraid to come home again by showing you how easy it is to get to you,” he said.
“If Max testified against these guys, does that mean I’ll never be safe again?” Max wouldn’t be the only one who needed a new identity. “That might’ve been what Max was trying to tell me. I wish I’d taken his calls.”
“Don’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have known,” Jaden insisted.
Lauren sucked in a breath and kept moving. A similar scene was found on the second floor, and it angered her to the core that everything she’d worked so hard for could be destroyed in one evening. Then again, she’d only worked for things so far. It wasn’t like she’d spent the past few hears investing in anything real. Like a family. Kids.
Lauren shook it off. She never thought of wanting those things before she met Jaden.
“We have to leave. Grab a change of clothes and anything you want from the bathroom. My place isn’t far.”
Chapter 18
Lauren followed Jaden’s instructions without argument, still numb. She focused intently on folding and placing clothes in her overnight bag.
“What else did you learn about be in my folder?” Did it tell him how much of her life had been spent alone?
“That you’re a runner. You like to jog in the morning,” he said.
Her gaze trailed up to meet his. He alternated between watching the door and the window, and she was reminded how dangerous the situation was. It should be strange to be alone in her bedroom with a virtual stranger. Although, Jaden didn’t feel like a stranger. Not after what they’d survived together. “What else?”
“You’ve been a successful entrepreneur—”
“I won’t be for long. Not after I raided all the cash.” She suddenly realized she didn’t leave enough to pay vendors next month. She’d taken it all. Left her entire life savings along with all the money she could secure in the middle of the sea. She heaved a deep sigh. “I was a successful business owner. Did that file tell you anything else about my private life?” Anger flooded her, had her asking questions before she could stop and think. “Does it say who I’ve dated? Who I’ve—”
“Slept with? No, it doesn’t. Satisfied?” A flash of what looked like shame crossed his features. A pang of guilt washed over her. She was yelling at him because she couldn’t yell at the real people provoking her.
Frustrated, Lauren sat down on the edge of her bed. “I’m sorry. I’m taking all this out on you. Look at you. You’re hurt. You’ve been through everything I have and more. I shouldn’t be giving you such a hard time right now.”
“Believe me when I say I’m just as irritated,” Jaden said, holding his position and watching the door intently.
“Of course you are. I remember you told me about your brother and how you hate all this. You must see his face in every situation,” she said.
“It’s more than that. This one’s even more personal for me.” His back teeth clenched.
“Why? What happened?”
“This bullet hole in my shoulder happened. I attended the funeral of one of my operatives. Not two weeks later, I lost another. Then, I had to tell a wife she was going to bring up her children alone. In the past forty-eight hours I lost one damn good man on the beach and a fucking kid at my safe house.” There was so much guilt and anger in those words.
“I’m so sorry, Jaden,” she said. It was easy to see that he blamed himself for every loss.
He didn’t immediately speak.
“How did you get shot?” She could tell this wasn’t easy for him. Every muscle in his body tensed. His hands fisted and released. His lips thinned. She’d never had this much difficulty getting a few words out of him.
“Miscalculation. I trusted my partner. Smith got involved with a woman whose brother is a big time dealer in South America,” he said.
“Menendez?”
He nodded. “She convinced him she was innocent. I believed her, too.”
Hard to believe anyone had ever tricked a man like Jaden. Then it occurred to her why a man’s judgement might slip, and a pang of jealousy rippled through her.
“Was she very beautiful?”
“Yes.” His answer made Lauren wonder if that was the reason he didn’t trust her back on the rocks.
She resisted asking the question she wanted answered and settled on, “What happened?”
“She walked us straight into a trap. We were supposed to meet to exchange guns for drugs. Instead, we marched into an ambush. My partner, Smith, took a bullet between the eyes. I took one to the shoulder.” He nodded toward his left shoulder. She’d noticed that he’d been nursing it at times.
“And lived,” she added, unable to imagine the sense of betrayal he must’ve felt. “You said before that all of this could be caused by someone from the inside, a mole. Why would one of your own do something like that?”
He shrugged. Anger scored his stormy blue eyes. “Why does anyone maim or murder? Greed. Sex. Power. Money.”
A creak sounded on the stairs. Jaden switched gears instantly. He unlocked the safety on his weapon. “It’s probably nothing. Settlement noise. But stay here while I check it out.”
Lauren was used to the sound. Dallas houses were built on clay soil. And yet, hearing it after what she’d been through unnerved her just the same. She quickly finished her packing, more than ready to get out of her house.
Jaden returned a moment later. “Looks fine. We should get going, though.”
“I’m ready.” As they returned
to the borrowed vehicle, Jaden kept a close watch all around them.
Sitting there, doing nothing but waiting for him to put her suitcase in the trunk made her feel like stink bait being dragged along the bottom of a pond full of catfish.
Her skin pricked.
Her stomach clenched.
Something felt very off but she couldn’t pinpoint the reason.
Then she caught sight of a blacked-out SUV creeping along the garage.
“I see someone coming,” she said, and pointed. “Over there.”
Jaden stared at the vehicle for a long moment.
The tension was so thick inside the vehicle Laruen struggled to breathe. And then the SUV pulled away.
“It’s fine,” Jaden reassured.
“When can I see my brother?” Would she look at every SUV differently now? Would she check behind her every time she took two steps on the street?
Jaden glanced at his watch. “It’s too late tonight. We’ll go in the morning. Since Menendez’s people seem intent on finding you we should probably change your appearance.”
An urge to see for herself that Max was still okay gripped Lauren. She didn’t want to wait. She was tired of waiting. What if his injuries were too great and he slipped away in the night? “What if Max doesn’t—”
“He will.”
She would argue the point, but Jaden had been spot on so far. “Did Gunner say he’d let us know if anything happened to him?”
“Yes. But nothing’s going to happen. He’s in good hands,” Jaden said.
Lauren wished she possessed the tiniest bit of his confidence.
Why did everything and everyone in Lauren’s life feel so fleeting?
Jaden’s home was two blocks from Laurens and had no unnecessary furniture. The living room had a couch and TV. The kitchen had a small table and chairs. There were a few dishes in the sink. The bedroom housed nothing more than a bed, and a TV tray for a nightstand. A handful of change had been tossed on top. A cord lay draped across, which looked to be a charger for his phone.
“You can put your stuff in here,” Jaden said. His blue eyes darkened. “The shower’s in the next room. I’d like to dress your wounds again when they’re clean.”
Lauren put her bag in the bedroom and moved to the bathroom where she took a hot shower. It was nice to have some comforts from home, like a razor and shaving cream.
Home?
Home had been destroyed. Like so much in her life recently. She felt emotionally wrung out and drained from inside out.
“There’s food in the kitchen,” Jaden said, after knocking on the door. “I made a few phone calls. We can see Max in the morning. They’ll expect us around nine.”
“Did they say how he was doing?”
“Better than expected.” His voice, soothing and calm, shouldn’t make her feel like everything was right with the world.
It did.
The knob twisted.
“Lauren? You okay?”
“No. I’m fine,” she said, allowing his deep baritone to wash over her for another minute. She was tired of fighting her feelings for Jaden. “I’ll be right out.”
She finished dressing in her nightshirt and pajama shorts and joined him in living room. When Jaden’s gaze landed on her, appraising, heat flooded through her, and her heart stuttered.
Jaden’s pulse hummed when he saw Lauren standing there in her sleep clothes, her fiery hair silky and flowing down her back. He was becoming painfully stiff, so he readjusted his length.
The rosy hue in Lauren’s cheeks brightened.
God, she looked beautiful. He moved to her and leaned close, breathing her in. She smelled like fresh flowers and sunshine and everything good about a summer day.
When she didn’t step away, blood flooded south. He smoothed his palm over her flat stomach before lowering it to grip her waist as he pulled her tightly against his bare chest. They were skin pressed against life-giving skin.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her chin and then her lips. He dropped a hand around her hips and squeezed. “And incredibly sexy.”
“Keep that up and I won’t be able to stop you,” she said as her bright eyes twinkled. She had eyes that he could look into for days.
She took a step back. “Jaden. We should think this through. There are probably a thousand logical reasons as to why we shouldn’t sleep together.”
“Who said anything about sleep?” His joke brought out the smile that sent a bolt of lightning straight to his chest.
“Do you want this? Me?” was all he asked.
A pink flush rose to her cheeks. Her gold-brown eyes darkened with desire. “Yes.”
“I said we were going to finish what we started yesterday and I meant every word. But you tell me to stop and I’m hands-off.” He closed the gap between them and she didn’t back away. He was close enough to feel her chest rise and fall when she breathed. He felt good in this space.
Kissing the top of her shoulder, he guided his lips up the nape of her neck, across the smooth skin of her face. He feathered a kiss on the small freckle above her mouth, until his lips found hers. She parted hers and teased his tongue into her mouth.
He moved them to the bed, undressing her along the way.
His tongue, hot and needy, pressed into her mouth as she pulled him on top of her. He instinctively reacted to her movements. His passion heated with the kind of fire that had been shelved for years and finally set free.
Jaden took his time, tasking every inch of her neck, her jawline. His heft covered her, and she trembled beneath him. Her back arched and her hips shifted, her soft skin pressed against his erection.
She was perfection.
He brought up one of his hands and smoothed it across the exposed skin of her breast. Her nipple beaded and she wrapped long, lean runner’s legs around his midsection.
With Lauren’s naked and warm body pressed against him he noticed that she fit every part of him. The feel of her bare silky skin was enough to drive him to the brink. He thrust his tongue deep inside her mouth.
He pulled back enough to take in her body, letting his gaze linger on every curve of her incredible figure. He watched as full breasts rose and fell with every deep breath she took.
With one arm wrapped around her waist, he pulled her body tight against his before letting his hands wander over her sweet skin. He touched every inch of her stomach and then her full breasts.
Feeling the softness of the curves in her back, his hand moved lower. He slowed at the curve of her sweet bottom. The crush of fresh flowers enveloped him.
He used the tip of his tongue to click the crest of her nipple before taking it in his mouth. She moaned sexy sounds of pleasure.
Her lips quivered and her tongue darted across her perfect pink lips as his thumb grazed her beaded nipple. It was his turn to groan when he felt it swell under his touch.
“Hold that thought,” he managed to say as he pushed off the bed. He disappeared into the bathroom in order to retrieve a condom, returning to Lauren quickly.
“You’re beautiful,” he said before his lips crushed down on hears, kicking off a whole new wave of desire as she helped him sheath his erection.
He leaned over and kissed her belly. Moved down her leg, lingering behind her knee. He brushed kisses down her calves, stopping at her ankles.
Making his way back up, he slowed at the bend of her knee before brushing his lips on the insides of her thighs. He moved his hands up the curves of her stomach, kissing his way to her earlobe.
She nuzzled against his body, kicking off a whole new swell of desire.
He splayed one hand against the small of her back, positioning her exactly where he wanted to in order to better access her silken lips. His kiss, slow and tender at first, began to deepen as she parted her lips for him.
Lauren shifted underneath him before palming his erection and guiding him inside her. He dipped his tip and the sexiest sound tore from her lips.
; She bucked her hips and he surged a little deeper.
“Take me, Jaden.”
Chapter 19
Lauren brought her hands up to Jaden’s shoulders and dug her fingers in as he thrust himself inside her. Everything about this man heightened her senses and brought her body to life. His warm and salty scent. His solid-walled chest. His beautiful blue eyes. And those lips. God those lips.
His fingers stroked her hair as she felt his lips brush her forehead, and she felt a yearning well up from deep inside that made her head numb. Being so close to him, feeling his skin under her fingers put her at war from the inside out. She struggled to do something as basic as take oxygen into her lungs as she felt his hands on her hips, and his length thrust deeper.
Lauren’s body craved his touch as she moved his hands up and down his back, her fingers stopping to outline every muscle. Her senses heightened until her body pulsed and tingled with the kind of sensations that must be similar to freefalling off the face of a cliff.
She let her fingers wander, tracing his jawline and then down his chin until they mapped his muscled chest. Every part of her was awake, alive with desire, with a need to feel his bare-naked skin. His tongue marked her every curve as his, lighting a fiery trail and she couldn’t imagine wanting a man more than she wanted this man.
“You’re perfection,” she heard him say into her thick mass of hair.
He kissed her, slowly this time, but with so much skill she got lost—lost inside him without any sense there could be anything else.
He stroked her body as his warm hand flushed a hot trail along her skin. He groaned a low, throaty growl as he stroked her breasts and she matched him thrust for thrust.
“Jaden,” she managed to say.
He stopped long enough to smile at her.
Her heart was in danger.
He raised her hands above her head. He moved her to the exact position he seemed to want her, kissing her on the lips. His elbows supported his weight, kept him from crushing her.
Lauren tensed as she tightened her legs around his midsection, allowing him to drive himself home.