Chapter 19 #2
Mac inhaled and then released the breath.
“When I spoke to her a few minutes ago, I impressed the seriousness of the situation. I think that now we have proof Bocharov is alive she’s fully onboard.
” He checked his watch. “I’m gonna call my fiancée and then get a few hours’ sleep.
I’ll text Parker about the bugs on my personal cell.
I want to confirm it is an FBI tap. You think Regan knew about it? ”
The idea stunned Jordan.
He shook his head. “I don’t know, but I always figured we had a good relationship. Regan doesn’t like bullshit.”
“Not even Jon Regan could refuse a direct order from the director without the risk of being fired,” Mac reminded him. “None of us can.”
“I assumed it was a sheer fluke the luggage stayed in the hallway. Now I’m not so sure.” His insides felt jumpy. He wasn’t sure whom to trust anymore.
Mac squeezed his shoulder. “Get a few hours rest. You’ve got nothing to worry about. Without your eye-witness account, we’d have no reason to suspect Tremblay’s death was anything except a tragic accident and wouldn’t know Bocharov was alive and well and possibly planning something.”
“It’s only by chance that I was there.”
“Unless they were deliberately targeting Daisy because of her father?”
“In which case, why didn’t they attempt to grab her?” Jordan shook his head. “Luck or fate had me in that stairwell, and I’m pissed I didn’t stop the sonofabitch while I had the opportunity.”
Mac patted his back in sympathy, then Jordan headed back into the bedroom, grateful and a little disappointed to see Daisy already in bed. Her hair was damp, and she wore dusky pink, satiny, short-sleeved pajamas with white polka dots all over them.
What was wrong with sleeping in a grungy T-shirt like a normal person?
“We should be okay now.” He grabbed his pack and some sleep pants before escaping into the bathroom.
When he came out ten minutes later, he was relieved to see she’d turned the light off.
“What if they use lidar to look through the walls?” Her voice dripped with rich amusement despite the sleepiness. “If you’re concerned that could be an issue, you are more than welcome to climb in beside me if you want.”
He stopped short, then carried on and stacked his belongings on a desk chair. “They’ll see two exhausted humans getting a good night’s sleep.”
“You don’t want a quick blow job to keep up the facade?” Her words held a teasing edge, but the imagery they evoked had him as hard as stone in two seconds flat.
Great.
He forced the reaction away. He was capable of doing hard things. Navigating across the Arctic at minus forty. Swimming ten miles in the open ocean. Flying a goddamned jet. “I think that might cross the line from facade into actuality.”
He heard her roll over to face him as he crawled under the thin blankets. “Like this morning, you mean?”
He’d almost convinced himself this morning on the jet had been another of his dreams. The feel of her, the scent of her, the sounds she made when she came.
Sexual arousal made him clench his fists in frustration. He couldn’t allow it to happen again, no matter how tempted. “Sleep well, Daisy.”
It was dark when she woke, and for a few long moments, she didn’t know where she was. Her fingers tightened around the bedclothes as she fought for knowledge inside her fuzzy brain, but facts were sluggish from the residue of deep sleep.
Her heart raced.
What had woken her?
Dark shadows rippled over the ceiling as the wind blew the trees outside. She held her breath and searched the shadows for clues.
A tortured cry rang out.
Krychek.
Quantico.
“No. No. No!” His head rolled restlessly back and forth on the pillow.
He was dreaming. A nightmare this time.
She sat up, slid her legs out from the covers, and hurried across the narrow space.
“Jordan,” she whispered. She could make out his contorted expression in the dim light and hear his ragged breathing. Sweat glistened on his forehead.
“Jordan?” No response.
She touched his shoulder softly, but he grabbed her hand, still in the throes of this nightmare, and twisted her arm until she fell to her knees, then backwards onto the floor.
She held back a squeak of surprise as he rolled on top of her, holding both hands over her head and crushing her with his weight into the thin, scratchy carpet.
“Jordan. Wake up. Jordan.” She stared into wide-open eyes and watched him blink from the depths of sleep to fully awake, fear and embarrassment warring on his features.
He let go of her wrists and reared up on his hands.
She ran gentle fingers over his anguished features. “Hush. You’re okay. You’re okay now.”
“Did I hurt you? Did I?”
“No, no. You didn’t hurt me. I tried to wake you up that’s all. You were having a nightmare.”
“Shit.” He went to roll off of her, but she wrapped her arms around him, stopped him.
“Let me hold you a minute.” She thought he was going to argue, but the fight drained out of him, and he collapsed down to the floor, rolling her so she lay on top of him, the race of his heart thrumming through her thin pajamas.
They lay there in silence as he stared up at the ceiling, and she stroked him, trying to calm him, soothe him.
Gradually, his breathing settled. She pressed against his side, unable to resist the lure of this man’s body, even though now was not the time.
But what better way to forget a nightmare than to replace it with something fun?
“I think I prefer the sex dream,” she whispered in his ear as she drew her thigh over his.
His arm tightened around her as he stiffened.
She thought he was going to pull away. She wanted to kiss him but couldn’t cross that line without some encouragement.
“So do I.” His breath ruffled her hair, and she raised her head to meet his heated gaze.
Those eyes looked like an invitation, but she didn’t want to be the one to make the first move. She wanted him to finally admit he wanted her too.
Didn’t mean she couldn’t tempt him though.
She placed her splayed hand over his heart. “You feel cold.” That was a lie. “I’ve heard the best way to warm someone up is through skin-on-skin contact.” Her hands went to the bottom of her PJ top, and his eyes followed. “Would you like that?”
She heard him swallow. Saw him nod woodenly.
She pulled off her top and tossed it up onto his bed. Watched his expression battle between lust and denial, saw the moment lust won.
He cradled the back of her head and rolled her onto her back in one sure motion. His mouth latched onto her nipple as he spanned his hands under each side of her ribcage to raise her up to feast upon.
Pleasure streaked along her nerves, and she was instantly, achingly aroused. She wanted him inside her. She didn’t want him to think or remember all the stupid reasons he’d invented so they couldn’t do this.
It was just sex. Nothing wrong with good, healthy sex, despite how the puritanical prudes tried to convince people otherwise.
The more those people tried to impose their own beliefs on others, the more she figured they had something to hide.
But Jordan’s issues were due to the fact he’d placed her off limits because of who her father was, and he needed to get over that.
His lips moved to her other breast while his fingers rolled the first delicate peak and made her squirm.
Thankfully, he knew what he was doing, and this was going to live up to her own hopes and expectations.
She bowed up off the floor and heard him groan in appreciation. She shimmied out of her shorts and kicked them off.
Heat built as desire climbed. She ran her hands over the rippling muscles of his shoulders as his magic tongue teased the delicate tissue of her nipples.
She tugged on his short hair, but he wasn’t to be rushed, no matter how much she wanted him to get to the main event.
He moved downward instead of up, pressing her thighs wide apart as his clever mouth licked the seams where her thighs met her torso.
His breath on her skin, the scrape of his day-old beard, combined to make her shudder with want.
He knew exactly the right amount of pressure to apply when he found her clit, swollen and pulsing.
He pinched her nipples and pressed the flat of his tongue against her as she found herself balancing on that ledge and then careening right over.
Sweat broke out on her skin as she landed in a damp heap.
“Christ, you are beautiful when you come.”
She laughed, then pushed at his shoulders. “My turn.”
For a moment, he looked like he wanted to argue but after a brief pause he shifted to the side.
She darted into the bathroom and ran back with a strip of condoms from her toiletries bag, quickly, before he could retreat into his defensive shell and change his mind.
She knelt beside him. “Roll onto your back.”
She smiled as he did as she asked and eyed the erection tenting his pajama pants.
It had been a long time since she’d been with anyone. When her ex had cheated on her with her best friend, she’d also retreated into a defensive shell, but with Krychek, she could have this without the emotional baggage of wondering what it meant and if it would go anywhere.
It wouldn’t.
Jordan would rather face an armed hostage taker than start dating. She’d gotten that vibe loud and clear over the past few weeks. And she knew better than to invest her own happiness in another human being.
They were perfect for one another.
She straddled him, then grabbed his hands to press them into the carpet above his head.
She kissed his cheek, his jaw, the edge of his mouth, testing his control.
She moved to his neck as he tried to capture her lips.
The pulse in his throat leaped under her tongue as she let go of his hands and kissed the smooth, elegant lines of his collarbones, down those heavy pecs to tease his flat nipples.
Her fingers skimmed the bumps of his abs, and her tongue played with his bellybutton, even as her hands hooked into the waistband on his pants and drew the plaid material over the impressive length of his penis.
He opened his mouth, but no words emerged, clearly at war with himself, obviously losing the battle.
She met his hot gaze as she took him deep into her mouth, felt his thighs bunch as she made love to him, finally felt him cede control as she pleasured him.
She could feel his reaction, feel how close he was, right on the edge. She grabbed one of the condoms and ripped it open and slid the slippery material over his silky length.
She straddled his thighs and placed the tip of him against her opening, just the tip. She needed to know this was an experience they were sharing as equals. “Are you awake this time, Jordan?”
His eyes gleamed with something almost feral as he gripped her hips and surged inside her. She clamped around him, and instantly her inner muscles shimmered in a cascade reaction, but she wasn’t done with him, and he wasn’t done with her.
She leaned over and finally took his mouth before sinking down and taking him inside her again, slowly, even though she knew instinctively that he wanted rough.
This was her show. She traced those lips, memorized that tongue, that mouth.
The taste of him mingling with the taste of her.
She set the tempo, took the sensation up another notch as she moved her hips sinuously over him.
But her own orgasm overtook her again and she shattered, crying out as the pleasure hit her in waves.
He didn’t let her land this time. He flipped her onto her back and drove inside her, keeping her on that endless wave that didn’t crest, but instead grew as he slid over her clit, again and again.
She dug her nails into his back and held on. Wrapped her legs around his hips, taking him even deeper, until it felt as if they were one, striving for the ultimate completion.
She came again in another rush of sensation that made her sob out his name in a strangled cry. He jerked against her, once, twice, three times, then collapsed on top of her.
She lay there hardly able to breathe, unsure if it was because of the force of her release or because of his solid weight.
She squeezed her muscles around him and felt him grunt.
He withdrew, careful of the condom, and headed to the bathroom.
The floor was cold without him beside her, so she crawled up into the bed and dragged the sheet over her.
Jordan came back into the room and hesitated.
“I’m cold,” she murmured sleepily.
He didn’t say anything, but she felt the mattress dip and then his bare skin pressed against hers in the narrow confines of the twin bed.
“That wasn’t bad, considering,” Daisy muttered into the pillow, hiding a smile.
He bit where her shoulder joined her neck, hard enough to make her toes curl. Then he covered them both with the thin blanket and wrapped his arm around her.
“Go to sleep.”