Chapter 7 #3
“Sounds great. I’ll look forward to that, but first—” He bent down and covered her mouth with his.
He didn’t touch her anywhere but with his mouth, a source of infinite pleasure and warmth.
Cold was coming off him and his clothes in waves, but he seemed to be able to infuse warmth in her through his mouth alone.
His tongue stroked hers lazily, as if he had all the time in the world.
Kisses have a development, just like novels or movies. They usually start out slow and then rise to a crescendo, usually becoming harder, more penetrating, involving the body and not just the mouth. In Caroline’s experience, kisses led to sex or at least the promise of sex.
This was the first kiss she’d ever had that didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
It just sort of meandered pleasantly all on its own.
His tongue and lips plucked at hers, over and over, as if he’d be perfectly content to stay there all day, kissing her gently, touching her only with his mouth.
It was a summer’s day by the riverbank kind of kiss, completely different from the intense sex of last night.
It was easy to drift with a kiss like that, lightly skimming the waves of consciousness. Caroline stopped being conscious of breathing or of standing slightly on the balls of her feet to reach his mouth.
It was Caroline who bumped it up to the next level, or at least tried to.
She wanted a deeper taste of him and rose even higher on her feet, clutching his jacket.
The shock of encountering patches of ice on his jacket brought her back to reality with a thump.
She lowered herself back on her heels and stepped back.
They looked at each other. He had a slight flush along his high cheekbones and his mouth was wet.
Caroline didn’t dare look down.
Dazed, she said, “You, um, need to get out of that jacket right now.”
“Here.” Jack unzipped the leather jacket and handed it to her. He had a faint smile on his face, or at least the grooves in his cheeks were deeper than usual. “And at this point, I’m really looking forward to that breakfast.”
She stood, holding the jacket that felt like a block of ice.
“Caroline?”
She started. “Oh! Um, go on up, now. Take your shower.” She made shooing movements with her hand.
Jack inclined his head gravely, turned around, and took the stairs three at a time.
Caroline stood and watched him go up. She shouldn’t. She knew that. It had been bad enough standing staring like a dummy when he’d smiled. Sort of smiled. When he lost that grim look, he became incredibly attractive. Her heart had definitely thumped.
Note to self, she thought. Never make Jack Prescott laugh. She’d have a heart attack.
Even just watching him go up the stairs—God!
By the time Jack came back down again, Caroline had herself in hand. She’d given herself a little pep talk—reminding herself what would happen to her bank account if he decided to leave after the first month because he couldn’t deal with a slack-jawed, drooling landlady had helped a lot.
Caroline had even taken three minutes to breathe deeply from her diaphragm, repeating ommmm under her breath, just like her yoga teacher had taught her. So she was cool, calm and collected when Jack made his appearance in the doorway.
Except for the fact that the man messed massively with her head, Caroline was so incredibly grateful for the company.
Without Jack, she knew how she’d have spent her day.
Going over accounts, trying to add up the un-add-up-able and come out with a little profit at the end.
An exercise in futility. Maybe doing the laundry.
Finishing her new Nora Roberts. Skipping lunch. Early dinner on a tray, watching TV.
In bed before nine. A bad night’s sleep, full of ghosts and nightmares. Waking up exhausted.
Instead she had company. Not just any company, either. No, she had an incredibly attractive man who said interesting things, when she could get him to talk. And when she couldn’t … well, there was always the eye candy aspect.
Jack sat down and Caroline started delivering food to the table, on an industrial level. Toasted home-made bread with butter and home-made orange marmalade and blackcurrant jelly. Scones. Buckwheat pancakes, a fluffy cheese omelet, bacon, wholewheat biscuits, link sausage, fruit salad.
Jack sat, hands in lap.
“Please,” Caroline said. “Dig in.”
“Not until you come sit down and eat with me.”
She sat and watched, pleased, as he piled food on his plate, an amazing amount, but then he was a big man who’d just done a full morning’s work. “You like your coffee black, right?” At his nod, she poured the coffee, happy that she’d splurged on French roast.
“This is great, how come you’re not eating?” Jack frowned.
“I’m eating,” Caroline protested. “Just not… as much as you.” Caroline nibbled on her toast, watching him down his fourth slice.
It gave her such pleasure watching him. She had out a brilliant red cotton tablecloth and her red and white porcelain breakfast set.
The rich smell of the coffee rose to her nostrils, melding with the smells of the toast and jam and omelette and bacon and sausage.
It looked like Christmas. It smelled like Christmas. It was Christmas.
Caroline sipped her coffee, smiling. “If it’s okay with you, I thought we’d have a big breakfast and then we’d have our Christmas meal around six.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Jack set her delicate china cup down in its saucer without a sound and took her hand.
He lifted it to his mouth, brushing his lips across the back.
Caroline could feel the softness of his lips and the slight rasp of his unshaved beard.
Jack’s eyes held hers. “I have a few ideas about what we can do in the meantime.”
Her heart gave a huge lurch in her chest. He wasn’t grinning suggestively, but there could be no doubt what he meant. The heat in his eyes could have melted steel. What she saw there took her breath away.
This was so far off her radar, sitting here on Christmas morning, her hand in the hand of the sexiest man she’d ever seen, both of them thinking of the night before. Both of them thinking about sex. Both of them thinking that soon, they’d be back in bed.
He’d felt the little jolt in her hand as he’d said the words. Her hand trembled slightly in his. She couldn’t think of a word to say. The silence of the house enveloped them as they watched each other.
The silence. The silence of the house. The house was silent. Completely, utterly still.
“Oh, God no!” Caroline jumped up, all pleasurable thoughts of lovemaking and celebrating Christmas gone, vanished from her head as if they’d never lodged there.
She knew exactly what that silence meant. The heating system gave off a constant low hum, a background noise that became white noise, something you forgot instantly, but it was always there. The utter silence in the house could only mean one thing—the boiler had died.
Tears sprang to her eyes.
“The boiler,” she whispered. “Oh, Jack, the boiler’s just kicked the bucket again, oh my God, I’m so sorry.”
Caroline knew exactly what the boiler dying entailed. Mack the Jerk wouldn’t come until Monday evening at the earliest, so they had three miserable, painful days to look forward to.
The house would take about two hours to lose its heat and then the icy fingers of the outside world would reach out and squeeze the house and them, hard.
All of today, all of Sunday and all of Monday would be spent in the freezing cold.
It meant bundling up with every item of clothing possible, until only the fingertips and nose showed, and they would slowly chill so much it would hurt.
It meant huddling around the fireplace, roasting on one side, freezing on the other.
Any other part of the house would be so cold it was painful.
Once, she’d actually had to crack the ice in the toilets to relieve herself.
Foolish foolish Caroline, thinking that this Christmas would be any different from past Christmases, hard and lonely.
The light elation she’d had since waking up had vanished utterly. Things had seemed … so different. For the first time in a long time, there was a lot to look forward to—the zing of attraction she hadn’t felt in years, a couple of days just lazing around, flirting, having fabulous sex.
Instead, a couple of grim days trying to just stay alive in the freezing cold was what she had to look forward to.
“Relax,” Jack murmured, and ran a finger down her cheek.
Easy for him to say. Though, come to think of it, maybe he knew exactly what it was like to have to huddle for days seeking warmth.
He’d fought in the Hindu Kush. She distinctly remembered him saying that.
She knew enough geography to know exactly where the Hindu Kush was—the foothills of the Himalayas. So this was something he could do.
It’s just that this wasn’t a mission to some godforsaken outback, where hardship was the norm. It was a home he’d paid good money to live in, and he had the right to expect comfort.
Caroline had wanted some light-heartedness back in her life, after so many years of struggle and darkness. She’d been so looking forward to a couple of days of flirtation and lightness and … well, yes, sex.
She’d been planning on drowning him in good food and raiding the Lake wine cellar. What good were all those bottles of Syrah and Valpolicella doing down there in the dark?
And instead, here she was, in a repeat of the horrors of the Kippings. Cardigans pulled out, polite smiles, strangled conversation trying to avoid the stark truth of a freezing home.
Jack studied her features, then turned on his heels.
He was leaving.
Caroline didn’t blame him a bit.
“Jack?” It came out a small croak.
He turned.
This was so hard, after all her childish yearnings. Merry Christmas, indeed. Caroline forced herself to stand upright and caught herself twisting her hands. She let them drop by her side. This was hard, yes, but she’d been doing hard for a long, long time now.
“Do you—” she had to swallow past the tightness in her throat. “Do you want your money back?”
She’d surprised him. He looked totally blank for a moment. There was something about his face that told her he wasn’t often surprised. Then he frowned in puzzlement. “Why would I want that?”
“Because—because you’re going to spend the Christmas weekend in a freezing cold house. That wasn’t what you paid for. I imagine you want to leave.”
He searched her features. “You’re upset,” he said. “So you get a free one.” He turned around again.
Caroline stood, swaying a little, blinking with surprise, holding her arms around her midriff. Already the temperature had dropped a couple of degrees. “So… where are you going?”
“To go get the tool kit in the garage,” he said, without turning around, “so I can fix that damned boiler.”
JFK Airport
“ENP Security, how may I help you?”
Deaver stepped into a quieter corridor away from the crowds and noise at Kennedy. “Yeah,” he said in a heavy, nasal mid-Western accent. “Can I speak to Jack Prescott? This is Pat Lawrence, tell him we met at Intersec in Dubai last year.”
Coming into Customs as a foreigner had been beyond weird, but it had gone smoothly. Security was primed to question Middle Eastern males, not Swedes. Good ole’ Axel’s passport had biometric data and the photo likeness had been enough for Deaver to be waved through.
First order of business, find Prescott. The Old Man had died, Prescott would be the new CEO of ENP. Deaver had to find out if he was in North Carolina still.
Axel’s documents would hold for a while, but soon he’d need more.
He prepared to be put on hold. The ENP secretaries wouldn’t put anyone through to Prescott immediately. They’d make him jump through hoops. Deaver was willing to wait it out, though.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the secretary said, instead of Hold please. “Mr. Prescott is no longer with the company.”
Deaver straightened. “What? That’s ridiculous! Of course—”
“The company has been sold to Orion Security and Mr. Nathan Bodine is the new CEO. Have a nice day.” The dial tone came on.
Fuck! Deaver stared at the phone, jaw clenched, breath coming in spurts.
The son of a bitch had sold the company.
His father barely dead in the ground and the bastard hands over his life’s work, just like that.
Well, of course. Fucker had a fortune in diamonds.
He wasn’t going to go to work every day when he had a fucking fortune in his hand.
Deaver angrily punched out another number. Prescott’s home line. Secretive bastard had never given him his home number. Deaver’d had to lift it from company files.
Eight rings. He was about to hang up when a female voice answered. “’Lo?”
“This is Larry McAllister. Can I talk to Jack Prescott?”
“Listen buddy,” the female voice said sharply. “Jack Prescott sold us this house a week ago. I’ve been working fourteen-hour days, plus the move, and I don’t appreciate being woken up on Christmas day.”
“Do you have a forwarding address I can—”
“No,” she said and hung up.
Son of a bitch had run! Simply pulled up stakes and disappeared!
Deaver hadn’t factored that in at all. Prescott had thrown him to the dogs and stolen his money, but it hadn’t occurred to him that he would disappear with the money.
Prescott was a close-mouthed bastard and didn’t have friends—or at least men he’d have confided in—in the company. Even if Deaver wanted to take the chance of showing his face in Monroe, he’d probably come up with nothing. No one would know where Prescott had run off to.
Deaver knew. Fucker had gone to his woman, this Caroline Lake. Find her, find him, find the diamonds.
He needed to regroup, and he needed ID and weapons.
There was a man in New York named Drake, lived out in Brighton Beach. Drake could get anything, anywhere, as long as you had the price. Deaver would hang out in Manhattan, get himself kitted out with new ID, while he searched the net for Caroline Lake.
Deaver punched in a Brighton Beach number and waited.
“Drake,” a smooth bass voice answered.