Chapter 29
LAUREL
Under the stream of hot water, my thoughts drifted to the invisible clock in my head. How many hours did I have left with him?
Don’t think about it, he’d said.
I’d have to shove it down in the same place where I’d had to put all the other stuff I wasn’t processing. The parking garage. The realization my career was over. The night a team of men came and Derrick died protecting me.
There wasn’t any room left for me to put away my feelings about Jason.
After my shower, I dressed and left the bathroom, intent on finding him—except he was sitting at the foot of the bed as if he’d been waiting for me.
“We need to talk.” His gaze was on the carpet.
Why are you surprised? You knew this was coming.
“You don’t have to say anything.” My voice sounded much stronger than I felt.
“I chose to give my whole life away to get where I wanted to be.” I sat on the bed, leaving a comfortable amount of space between us.
A professional distance. “I think you know a little about that, and so I’ll do whatever I can to help you keep your job.
No one will know what happened between us. ”
Except, of course, his brother.
“And I’ll make sure,” I forced the words out, “that mistake doesn’t happen again.”
“You think it was a mistake?”
His hurt reaction was like leaping into the air and the ground had been taken away. There was nowhere to land.
“Wasn’t it?” My question was a whisper.
“No.” His voice was loud. And sure.
He moved so fast, it was stunning, and then he was kissing me with such intensity it caused tears to well momentarily in the back of my closed eyes.
What on Earth was happening? His soft lips pressed to mine and asked for more.
“Jason.” I tried to turn away, but his strong hands cupped my face to prevent it. I wrapped my hands around his wrists and peered up at him. “I didn’t have a choice about giving up my career. But you do.”
The hands holding my face didn’t fall away. His eyes clouded with confusion and doubt, but then those emotions disappeared, like a decision had been made. His shoulders rose with a deep breath, and he gave me a look I hadn’t seen from him before.
It turned my insides into liquid and obliterated every thought. All that remained was the hope that he’d chosen me despite everything.
He used his hold to tilt my head to just the right angle so he could cover my mouth with his, and my heart went into overdrive.
Oh, God, his kiss. He didn’t stop me when I climbed into his lap; this time he welcomed it. His arms banded around me, pressing me deeper into his intense kiss, and for the first time in days I felt like I might be able to survive.
Like nothing could harm me in this moment.
He slipped his tongue into my mouth, caressing mine, and I sighed with contentment. But I was greedy, spinning out of control. Desperate to connect with him in every way. I reached over his back, grabbed a fistful of his shirt, and pulled it up. I needed it to be gone, nothing between us.
Once it was done, his hands returned to my body, one on my waist and the other on the nape of my neck. Our kiss was raw and wild, and the power of it had me clawing at my own shirt.
Our lips parted only for a moment while I yanked the fabric over my head and flung my shirt away. The plain white bra I wore was next, and as soon as I had it unclasped, his hands were beneath the cups, filling his palms with the weight of my breasts.
The ache between my legs was rivaled only by the need building inside me. It felt urgent. Crucial. Like I might die if I didn’t have him.
I struggled out of the straps, arching my back into his touch as my bra fell away. He dipped his head to take one of my nipples in his mouth and drew it in, his thumb brushing over the other.
Blood rushed hotly beneath my skin, heating me all over. His touch tightened the desire inside me to a hard, thick knot that begged for release. I clenched my fist in his hair, too impatient for much foreplay.
But beneath me, there was a shift and he froze.
I lifted my head in alarm. “What’s—?”
Jason had one arm across my back and the other draped around my hips, and his muscles abruptly corded. He took a preparing breath and then rose from the bed, carrying me with him.
With all my years of dance, I’d performed many different lifts and was comfortable with a partner supporting me.
But this? It was shocking and exciting, and far more intimate.
I folded my legs around his waist and crossed my arms behind his neck to hold on, making it as easy as possible for him as he strode across the room.
I didn’t understand until he took a hand off me and used it to slam the open bedroom door shut.
Oh. He was probably thinking his brother had seen enough of my body today.
He turned us, and the wall beside the door was hard and cold against my back, but that was good. I was on fire.
His grip gradually softened, allowing me to slide down the wall until my feet were on the floor, but I was still safely trapped in his arms. He might have had plans of fooling around like this, but that wasn’t going to happen.
“Take off your pants,” I ordered.
My command thrilled him, but he cocked his head and gave me a serious look. “You don’t want to do that?”
It was the same look he’d given me in the mirror at the safe house, and as a result, I couldn’t breathe. He was right, though. I did want to do it.
I dragged my fingertips across his shoulders, tracing a deliberate line down the hard plane of his chest until I reached the button of his jeans. My fingers were hurried as I undid it, then the zipper, and pushed both his jeans and his boxers down over his hips.
This is taking too long, my brain whined. So I placed my hands on the heated skin of his chest and shoved him backward to make space. The pants at his knees made him stumble, but he understood the assignment. I’d given him an order, after all.
As soon as he finished taking off his pants, I did the same.
The sight of him naked, all muscle and flesh, watching me undress, was too much to handle. The desire was too great. Once I was free from my clothes, his hands were on my body, roaming everywhere. Each touch set my nerve endings on fire.
I was only vaguely aware when he laid me back onto the mattress, his mouth hot on my neck and then working lower.
“No,” I said, writhing beneath him.
“No?”
“Now. I need you now.” My words fell on him like the crack of a whip.
His rough hands were gone from my body. They went to the bedside table, yanking open the drawer so hard it sounded like he’d pulled it off its track.
I could tell he was hurrying with the condom, yet it felt like a lifetime.
Every cell in my body was aching for him.
Hands went under my legs and jerked me to the edge of the bed, my body before him as he stood over me.
“Please, Jason.” Everything was so out of control, and then suddenly he was there, moving inside me. Filling me completely.
His face was devastatingly handsome, his eyes full of concern and longing. “Is this what you needed?”
“Yes,” I gasped.
The word annihilated any control I had over my body or my emotions, and I gave up fighting them. My hands clawed for him, bringing him close so his ragged breath was loud in my ear, and the rough edge of his unshaven face scraped my neck.
It spilled from my lips. “Oh, God, yes.”
He withdrew from me then sank back in, inch by inch. It felt impossibly good to the point it was almost torturous. I let out a soft sound of satisfaction, but it was muffled under his kiss, and then he began to move, easing to a steady pace.
The rock of his body against mine made fire rage, tightening a coil in my center.
It was as if his hands were everywhere. But his mouth, which stayed on mine, was unrelenting. Even when it became too difficult to draw air into my body and forced me to tear my lips away, his went to the sensitive spot just below my ear.
The coil inside me twisted tighter.
I clung to him and my hands drifted to his back, but I remembered to stop before I touched the place where his skin was an angry, dark purple. The spot where he’d taken a bullet for me.
Instead, I reached one hand behind my head and balled the sheet into a fist, and wrapped the other behind his neck, curling my fingers into his hair.
I didn’t care if I was panting, or moaning, or if my legs were too tight around his waist. It didn’t matter if his brother might hear us. All I wanted—all I needed—was release, which each of his thrusts promised to give.
“You feel so good,” he whispered. It sent pleasure glancing up my spine. But then his pace slowed and he blew out a long breath as if he were struggling to even himself out.
“Don’t slow down,” I pleaded. I was going to lose my mind standing right at the edge of ecstasy, and irrational panic flooded my thoughts that he was going to hold me there indefinitely.
He obeyed my command. His arms went under my shoulders and scooped up my head, holding it in place, his face just over mine. His dark and intense gaze locked on mine. It made time stop.
And it was my total undoing.
I cried out as I came, my eyes slamming shut as pleasure coursed throughout my body, all the way to my fingertips tangled in the sheet above my head. I heard him groan and felt his muscles tense, and his thrusts became uneven and deep until he jerked inside me, prolonging my pleasure.
It seemed to last forever.
Afterward, it took him longer to catch his breath than it did for me, and when he rose to stand, his jaw tightened in pain.
“Did I hurt you?” I asked.
He made a noise, some sort of half-laugh. “No, L, you didn’t hurt me.”
Before I could ask him to elaborate, he stepped back and walked toward the bathroom. While he was gone, I shifted on the bed, moving to put my head on the pillow and get under the covers.
When he reappeared, he climbed in beside me beneath the sheets, his hand sliding over my stomach. It was so he could urge me onto my side and pull me back against his sweat-dampened chest. As we curled up together, he smoothed my hair back so he could be close.
“Just so you’re aware, I’m capable of doing that for longer,” he said, “if you’ll let me.”
His mouth traced the shell of my ear, and it gave me a delicious shudder. “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
“No.” His lips abandoned what they’d been doing, and I’d swear I could feel the anxiety seeping out of him. “I have to tell you something you might find upsetting.”
I turned under his heavy arm, only to be met by a grim expression.
“The last thing Bill told me was they couldn’t locate your sister. I should have said something sooner. I’m sorry.”
I didn’t understand. Why would he think this would be upsetting?
“If she got divorced, I’m sure she moved.”
His lips pressed into a line, and he looked at me like I was missing something. “The Marshals Service is pretty good at finding people. That’s what we do, and it’s concerning that we haven’t.”
Oh. My pulse spiked. “You’re worried this is Frey?”
“I don’t think so. You haven’t talked to her in years, so it doesn’t make sense he’d go after her. But,” he added, “it’s possible, and you needed to know.”
The room was cold, and even in his embrace I shivered. He reached down to pull the thick duvet over us, and there were faint lines of concern around his eyes that made my heart hurt.
“Had you ever killed anyone,” my voice was a ghost, “before that man in the hotel bathroom?”
He hesitated like he wasn’t sure if he should answer. “Yes.”
“Was it hard? I mean, to live with yourself after?”
He didn’t blink. “In both cases there wasn’t any other option. Why are you—?”
“He’s not going to stop until he has me or I’m dead.”
My statement landed like an anvil. The attack on the hotel had proven how far Frey was willing to go. Jason looked conflicted, like he wanted to deny it but didn’t want to lie to me, either.
“Don’t think about it. We’ll catch him,” he said. “Until then, you’re here where you’re safe.” His arm secured me up against him once again. “You’re safe with me.” His kiss silenced any other thoughts, ending the discussion.
I’d pulled my clothes on, unable to drag my gaze away from the man asleep on the bed. We’d both drifted off, still behind on sleep, and for a while Jason’s touch kept my brain quiet. But now I was awake and the panic over my sister grew to be too loud.
Shawn sat on one of his couches in the living room, a hand around a crystal tumbler half-full of a caramel-colored liquid. His warm eyes lit up when he saw me. Then he adjusted his posture so he wasn’t slumped and gestured to the available seating around him.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked. “You don’t like my beer, but that’s not the only thing I have.”
I lowered onto the loveseat that was perpendicular to the couch. “What are you drinking?”
“Bourbon.” When I glanced at a clock near the television, he added, “It’s after six in Munich.”
I couldn’t stomach the taste of bourbon on a good day. “I’m fine, thank you.”
Staring at Shawn was disorienting. He looked so similar to the man in the other room, the one I cared about so deeply and suddenly, it was terrifying. There was considerable worry that I was beginning to fall for him.
And I was scared I’d need to tell Jason as much, because when he called Bill and the new plans were laid out, things might happen too fast. Our days were numbered, and it might be my only chance. I couldn’t let him go without knowing.
But a statement that powerful was bound to have adverse side effects. He might run or claim it wasn’t enough time, even though we’d spent virtually every hour together since the morning he’d sauntered into that FBI conference room and I’d decided I hated him.
And now I might love him.
“Are you all right? You don’t look well.” Concern washed through Shawn’s expression.
“I have a lot on my mind.”
“I would think so.” He gave me a calculating look. “I don’t know if it’ll help or confuse you further, but I don’t believe Jason’s been in love before.”
I almost fell out of my seat. “What? Why would you tell me that?”
“The only emotion he’s good at expressing is anger. The rest are a struggle. I thought I’d warn you that it might be difficult for him to put what he’s feeling into words.”
I was barely able to comprehend his meaning, and my voice fell to a hush. “You think he’s in love with me?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe not. Perhaps he’s only halfway there, but I do know this. I haven’t seen him like this before. He’s never looked at anyone the way he looks at you.”
I didn’t know how to react or what to do with that information. Warmth spread through me, even as everything felt like it was upside-down.
“I think I’m ready for that bourbon,” I said.