* * * *
Stacee left her office ahead of schedule as a precaution. What difference could it make? She hadn’t even walked through the door until after two in the afternoon. She checked her mirror every time she’d gone somewhere, whether it was down the block or to show a house. After leaving the house with the shot out windows, she’d specifically bought a fresh coffee and sat in her car in the shade of a large tree next to one of the downtown parks. She wasn’t about to get out and make herself a target again, but she couldn’t go to work with gallons of adrenaline pumping through her system either. She’d practically jumped right out of her shoes because a cat howled as she approached her car. She needed a few minutes to put her head back in order, to rationalize the shots and her place in this new mini-series of her life. She needed to try to forget those incredible kisses, along with the feel of his hard length against her, pressing into her in all the right places. In ways that made her tremble and yearn. Maybe it was time to start dating again if these chance encounters with a near stranger were turning her insides to silly putty.
By the time she’d hit the bottom of her cup, she had fixed her rattled nerves and went to work. Now, gratefully, it was time to go home. She took every precaution she could, using an alternate route, hiding amongst the large tractor-trailers when she could. A little common sense and her father’s sage advice came in handy. Sporadic checks in her mirror showed her to be tail-less, which gave her a sense of relief.
Once she was parked and in her own home, she breathed another sigh of relief. She could use as much as she could get after the morning she’d had. A knock at her door barely ten minutes later took her by surprise.
“Who is it?”
“Meter reader,” came the brusque reply.
Her brow furrowed. Since when did they come to the front door? She leaned closer to the door. “What do you want?”
A throat cleared. “Your meter box has been damaged. Looks like a kid hit it with a baseball. Just wanted to show it to you. If you can’t find out who did it, it’ll show up on your bill.”
“Really?” she wondered. When did it happen? No telling since she wasn’t home during the day.
“You better have ID,” she warned them even though she knew she had no choice but to see if her house had been whacked carelessly. Her eyes widened when they landed on the men on the other side.
* * * *
Jonas drove to her home with a sense of dread. She hadn’t answered her cell phone and her secretary said she’d left nearly an hour before. His only thought was she had better have been in the shower when he called and she hadn’t picked up. When he approached and spotted the dark Mercedes, he knew his answer.
He called in for reinforcements, parking in the neighbor’s driveway without remorse. Drawing his weapon, he crawled along the side of the house, listening as shouts and crashes echoed through the cream colored walls. He breathed, keeping his head cool when he wanted to rush in and beat the shit out of them for coming here. He couldn’t think of Stacee being hurt. The idea of her hurt and bleeding or worse, made him see red. He sucked air in through his nose to calm his racing heart. Patience and training soothed his rattled nerves back to ice.
Rising on his feet, he looked over the pane of one of the front windows and spotted two men, tearing her living room apart.
“…bedroom.” He heard it as a muffled order with a gesture and one of them spun and left his field of vision. He couldn’t see Stacee in the front room but prayed she was all right. He waited until the second moved out of sight deeper in the house away from the only door he knew would likely be open then slunk his way to it, opening it with a stealthy slow twist.
His entrance went unnoticed, closing the door without snicking the mechanism. He doubted they would have heard it anyway with the racket they were making in their search. They were a loud couple of pricks. Sneaking up on the joker in the kitchen wasn’t hard. He wasn’t expecting to be interrupted. The butt of Jonas’s gun against his head solved that problem. He sank to the floor unconscious in a heap. Sparing a brief moment, he locked one of his hands to a cabinet handle with his handcuffs, searching him for a weapon and finding two. He slid them underneath his belt, safety on, then he skimmed the floor for the bedroom.
He found the second asshole on his toes pulling stuff off the top shelf of her closet when Jonas looked around the corner of the door into the room. Stacee lay splayed out on the bed. His heart tripped painfully at the bruise on her chin. Bastards. They were going to pay for that. Her room was already trashed, drawers pulled out and clothes all over the place. His gaze narrowed at a flash of white against dark black denim. Was that lace trim in his front pocket?
Jonas snarled at the sight, no doubt in his mind what this guy’s trophy was. He straightened to his full height and gripped his gun, imagining every little thing he wanted to do to the intruder for payment. He’d settle for putting his ass in jail for the moment.
“Hey asshole,” he barked, whipping around the door with his gun already aimed at the man’s head. “Don’t move.”
Sweat popped out on the other guy’s brow at his appearance. He lifted wild, searching eyes beyond Jonas.
“He isn’t coming,” he taunted coolly. He motioned for him to raise his hands. “Kneel.” He looked like he was only waiting for the right chance to dive for Jonas. It never came.
Swearing when it proved Jonas wasn’t lying, he knelt and dropped his hands behind his back. A few minutes later he heard the arrival of booted steps through the front door and knew backup had arrived.
Once the one before him was in handcuffs and he could holster his own weapon, he handed over the guns he’d confiscated then quickly went to Stacee’s side.
“Hey, baby, you in there?” he questioned softly, crouched by the bed caressing the hair away from her face where she lay on her side. The warmth of her skin against his fingers alone made him feel so much better, knowing she was okay, just beat up. Again. Poor girl. What a craptastic week for her.
“I don’t know. Are they gone?” she whispered back, without moving a muscle. Or opening her eyes.
He stroked her hair to soothe her. “Yeah. Both of them, though your place will need a week’s worth of maid service.”
She huffed a short breath, but didn’t say anything about that. “I was praying, if I stayed still and didn’t move, they might leave me alone.”
“How long have you been awake?”
“I don’t know. I know one of them came in here twice before they started seriously searching.” Her eyes opened and speared Jonas to the quick with the meaning of what she was getting at. She shivered in reaction. “I think he was thinking about it but they had priorities. And I was no fun if I wasn’t fighting back.”
He shook his head at her level of cool, well aware what she meant. Now he wished he had done more than just arrest their sorry asses for putting their slimy hands on her. He put a hand under her arms and stood, bringing her up with them until she was on her knees on the bed. Wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight seemed the most natural thing to do. Her arms curved around his neck and nothing had felt more natural in his life.
A funny tumult hit his heart at the thought, making it worse because he didn’t want to let go. So he didn’t. He didn’t think about it either. Just the here and now. That was something he could deal with.
He leaned back and inspected her face. “You’re getting quite the collection,” he murmured teasingly.
She lifted a hand to her jaw. “Wasn’t expecting it, that’s for sure. Gave me some line then popped me. I thought guys didn’t hit girls.”
He smiled watching her work her jaw back and forth, consternation coloring her cheeks. “The good guys don’t.”
She stopped moving and caught his stare, something so deep, so hungry in their depths, he felt swept up into their dark swirls.
“I like the good guys,” she said, sounding almost breathless.
He was lowering to her lips before he could stop
himself. He had to taste her. Had to know she was okay. Had to feel her the way he’d been craving since that morning. Her breasts were pushed against his chest, warm and giving. His hands cradled her, holding her at her waist with a firm but tender weight.
The brush of her fingers in his hair sent another shot of lightning into his blood stream. His hold tightened, finally giving in to the feeling. She welcomed him, devouring his kiss passion for passion.
Sweetness soaked into him as he suckled on her tongue. She shimmied closer, and he felt the teasing heat of her against his cock. He groaned. So good, he thought. Then he stopped thinking altogether when she brought them even closer. He couldn’t remember the last time a kiss had been this good, this consuming.
A throat clearing jerked him back to his senses. He relinquished her lips with slow enjoyment, but he left his hands right where they were. He couldn’t give a rat’s ass if rumors had started flying five seconds ago. He wasn’t letting her go.
He looked behind her as she leaned to rest against his shoulder for support.
“Yes?”
“They are heading down to lockup, sir, if you would like to come make your statements.”
“We’ll follow you in a few minutes,” he stated, brooking no argument from the officer at the doorway. He turned and left the pair in the bedroom. “I’ll take you with me.” He rubbed his cheek against the top of her head. He couldn’t seem to stop touching her. There was only way he’d ever get enough, and even, then he wasn’t sure it would be enough. It gave him pause, but the argument didn’t convince him to let go.
“You don’t have to do that,” she replied, sounding extremely content right where she was.
“I do if I’m taking you out tonight.”
She laughed, burying herself into his neck to hide it. Her warm breath soaked into him just like her kiss had. He’d never felt so hungry for a woman’s touch or her kiss in his life.
He fought with himself to sound normal, because he sure didn’t feel normal. He felt hot, overheated, hungry, ready to gorge himself on the wonders of her luscious body. She wasn’t making it easy for him either.
The sight of her in her business suit was hot. He liked a confident woman, and she dressed to shout that confidence to the world. Sexy sharp skirts. Heels to make his mouth water. She was a total package kind of woman. The idea of her in something like her jeans—the ones he hadn’t forgotten—were enough to send him into a lusting tailspin too.
“Why don’t you get into something relaxing?”
“Because I don’t have a Jacuzzi,” she retorted playfully.
He almost groaned as he sucked in air, envisioning her soaked and naked, or naked and soaked, he didn’t care. “Do you hurt?” he asked, fighting to keep himself in check. He didn’t like the idea that she was still aching from her misadventures.
“Only a little but right this minute, I feel wonderful.” She sighed in pure contentment.
“Stacee, if I don’t let you go, it’ll be hours before we leave this room,” he warned her, albeit regretfully.
“I’d be fine with that,” she replied, running her tongue up the side of his neck. His eyes slammed shut in reaction. He stretched, giving her room to play, and she didn’t disappoint. The slight scrape of her nails against his scalp was just the precursor to the delicious torment he was about to receive. He couldn’t find the strength to tell her to stop.
Daring lips and a wicked tongue painted a heated trail from his shoulder to his ear. Tender and wanton, she nipped and scraped against his nerves with her teeth, causing heat and lust to harden his cock until he thought he’d died and gone to heaven. He felt his entire body tighten like steel in answer. His groans deepened into hard growls of need.
The sexy minx was seducing him. And he was almost ready to let her. God, what he’d give to feel himself buried inside of her heat. To feel the slide of his cock inching slowly into her pussy, the soft squeals of pleasure he knew she’d make scorching his nerves with every caress. The taste of her skin on his tongue, the heat of her touch burning him like she already was. He shuddered with sexual longing when she nipped at his earlobe, drawing on it to suckle like he’d played with her tongue just a moment before.
He lifted a hand and swept it through the wave of hair down her back, thrilled at the silky feeling, the richness of it on his skin.
“Sweetheart,” he tried, sounding like he’d run a ten mile marathon as he gasped beneath her touch. “We’re not alone yet.”
“Mmm…” she breathed against his flesh. Hot pants of breath wove over his neck, as she stopped her attack on his nerves. He shuddered with a long lost desire that she’d unerringly awakened with that wicked pouting mouth and eyes the color of the most artistically blended brown and gray marble. “Kiss me Jonas. Kiss me like I need you to, and I’ll let you go.”
His heart went right through his ribs. He’d never been needed with that breathless intensity before. He’d never been on the receiving end for that deep of a hunger in a woman’s touch before.
“Baby.” He swallowed his own groan as he lifted his head to stare down into her eyes. Fringed in dark chocolate lashes, lit from within with what she was feeling, with what she desired. Him. Open and trusting, believing in him. And craving just as much as he was, but able to give him what he needed, space and time if he wanted.
If he could give her what she needed to let her know it wasn’t one-sided.
He could. In spades.
He lowered to her lips and felt the earth move.
CHAPTER FIVE
Jonas spread the blanket on the ground, trying not to gape at her bared legs beneath her summer dress as he did so. She wore a cream sweater over her shoulders but those legs… He had to remind himself there were other things to look at in the park.
“This was a wonderful idea,” she told him, sitting after he’d sufficiently spread out the blanket. He placed the second one nearby for when the temperatures cooled, with the basket dinner he’d brought at arm’s reach.
With the sun setting, the bruises she’d collected that week would be harder to see, but the bruises were the last thing he found himself staring at.
Jonas shrugged. He’d brought girls from his pack to the park to listen to the music in past years. The season was just starting. Every Friday night until mid-September. This was the first time he’d brought an actual date though.
“I’m glad you’re not disappointed it’s not the usual restaurant thing.”
She smiled when he looked down at her. “Oh, not in the least. I love being outdoors.” He had to sit. Her words had the effect of knocking his legs right out from underneath him. He stretched out next to her, his legs in front of them as he leaned on an elbow. Safer to already be on the ground in case she said anything else that he had that kind of reaction to.
He glanced at her, catching her profile as she studied the layout of the stage and the couples scattered thinly on the grounds. It was early in the season. In a few weeks, it would look like a New Jersey seashore with towels, blankets and people.
Stacee seemed perfectly at ease, very relaxed considering the week she’d had. He’d postponed the offered date to tonight when he remembered the concerts were just starting up again. Stacee hadn’t argued, saying a day to relax from the break-in and start the dreaded cleaning of her house should be faced.
She absently pushed a wave of hair away from her face and he followed the entire motion like it was a ‘must see’ movie clip. He wanted to bury his nose in the crook of her shoulder and just stay there.
He drew a hard breath and faced forward to listen, or at least look like he was.
What was it about Stacee that drove him so hard up that wall of lust? That made him hunger? He dropped his attention to the stage as the first sounds of a guitar soared up to them on the hill incline. Was she the one? The ‘mate’ that many of his male brothers had already found? Jonas knew the right woman for him didn’t have to be pack. She could just as easily be human. The genetic ability he
carried was male dominant. The women who found their loves among the packs were no different than most, just better adaptable. And devotional to the extreme. Pack couples never strayed, never divorced.
The idea that she could be that one woman for him struck him with terror and lust at the same time. There wasn’t any point in fooling himself. He wanted her. Just laying there as she swayed and smiled to the music flowing around them, he wanted her. Yet if she was the one, taking her to his bed would make her irresistible to him forever. He almost snorted. Like she was resistible now? She was also the first woman to completely distract him from a working case. Ever.
Not good, he mocked himself.
He didn’t have the freedom to lose his focus. Those memory chips held the entire nation’s safety on them. Bank codes. Security codes. Access to classified government information. They had to be found.
“You don’t like the song?” she asked, a glint of humor in her gaze.
He relaxed, realizing his shoulders had gone tense with his thoughts. “No, it’s fine. I come here usually once or twice a year.”
“Then?” she asked, lifting a hand to run through his hair. He lifted himself into the caress as though compelled to answer.
“Just thinking about work.” He rarely gave out details. Stacee was the first—the only—to know just what he did.
“This isn’t on the clock tonight,” she reminded him. She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his mouth, soft, warm, giving, flipping his world yet again because there was absolutely no demand in it. It was simply a kiss. For him. “Relax.” Devilish lights rose in her eyes and her lips twitched. “Or I’ll make you forget in front of everyone.”
“Is that a dare, woman?” he asked her, heat coursing through him like lava flow. Damn, would he ever stop wanting her? Somehow, he doubted it.
“Try me and find out.” She arched an eyebrow in challenge, and he couldn’t resist.
Watching Her Every Move Page 4