9
“What?” Panic streaked across Jill’s face. “Now?”
Jack rose from the white leather sofa, straightened out his tie and jacket, then held his hand out for Jill to take. “Yes, now. Told you I’m a great dancer. Besides, I need to earn my keep as your date.”
Jill stared at his hand like it was an alien proboscis about to probe her. She pulled her red woolen wrap tight around her shoulders, holding it closed as she looked up at him and shook her head firmly. “No, thank you. I’m fine.”
Jack kept his arm stretched out towards her. “Don’t leave me hanging, Jill. Come on. It’ll be fun. Look at those old mafiosos and their wives out there on the dancefloor. You think they give a damn about looking ridiculous?”
“Wait, you think I’ll look ridiculous out there?” Jill’s lower lip jutted out again in that stubborn little pout that Jack was already finding too cute for words. Fuck, he would love to see those pouty lips part in a silent scream as she came for him. She’d look so beautiful coming all over his face, Jack thought as he gulped back his rising arousal, did his best not to let his hungry gaze rest too long on the curve of her ass outlined beneath her fitted black dress, one stockinged leg still crossed over the other knee. “Now I’m definitely not dancing. Besides, I’m not drunk enough yet.”
Jack raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Do you ever get drunk?”
Jill raised both eyebrows back at him. “I said drunk enough. For me that’s like two glasses of wine.”
“Waiter!” Jack snapped his fingers at a white-jacketed, white-gloved server balancing a silver tray which held six champagne glasses filled with bubbly Prosecco. Jack took three glasses off the tray, nodded to the server, then turned back to Jill with a grin. “Two for you. One for me. Come on. Drink up so I can show these mafiosos some Army dance-moves.”
Jill sighed, took one of the glasses, sipped the bubbly, then looked up at him. “I don’t like the sound of that. What does an Army dance move look like for the unsuspecting partner?”
Jack placed the extra glass down on the low marble-topped table, took a big drink from his glass, then shrugged. “Some twirling. Some twisting. Some tossing.”
“Some tossing?” Jill sputtered out a Prosecco-flavored laugh. “I’m sorry, but you are most certainly not tossing me. What am I, a salad?”
“Sure, why not.” Jack grinned wickedly. “But I should warn you, I like my salads without dressing. Undressed.”
Jill rolled her eyes but couldn’t hide the smile. Jack grinned back at her, even though inside him that warning still whispered from the shadows of his psyche.
Don’t you dare hurt her, you piece of shit, growled that warning. Back off with the charm. Ease off on the flirting. She’s getting pulled in, which means you need to pull out, soldier. Don’t you have a moral compass, you dirtbag? You can’t take her to bed and then walk away like you’ve done your whole life. She’s not like the others, not like any other. She’s one of a kind, unique like a diamond, perfect like a pearl.
And you don’t fucking deserve her.
That last thought hit Jack like a hammer, and he gulped down the rest of his sparkling white wine. He placed the empty glass down on the marble tabletop, then snatched up the full glass he’d left there for Jill, so she could get “drunk enough” to dance with him, twirl with him, get tossed like the salad he so desperately wanted to undress and eat like the hungry wolf he was inside, all the way inside, maybe the only thing inside.
You don’t deserve her, came the sickening whisper again from some part of Jack that had never spoken up before, never revealed this kind of insecurity, this sort of self-doubt, a self-directed loathing born of the subconscious guilt that each meaningless tryst had piled onto his hound-dog heart over the years.
You’re compromised, Jack told himself angrily as he opened his throat and poured down the second glass of Prosecco. Just like Benson said, your dick is no longer capable of pointing true north because you’ve corrupted it with too many years of filthy carnal pleasure devoid of emotion, meaningless sex without the beauty of love. You’ll only taint her sweetness with your seed, pollute her purity with your poison. If there’s any sign of a moral compass left in your hollowed-out shell then it should tell you to walk away, let this angel float back to her place in the stars, don’t drag her down in the dirt where you’ve spent your life fornicating with faceless bodies like the heartless filth you are.
Jack stared down at the empty glass, stunned by the sudden assault from within. What the fuck was going on? Had Benson gotten to him with those comments about being compromised in the dick department, that he wasn’t the forever kind of guy, that he shouldn’t try to be someone he isn’t, had never been, would never be?
For a brief moment Jack remembered that he’d said all those things about himself before Benson ever did. And Jack had said them with prideful posturing, beating his chest with bravado, insisting that he was the exception to the Darkwater rule, that he was going to break the pattern, end Benson’s stupid steak of the names lining up. Except now he felt locked into this pattern, like fate had grabbed him by the balls, destiny had him by the dick, the universe laughing at how easily it had won.
Suddenly Jack felt unmoored, totally lost, barely able to stand straight even though two glasses of bubbly wouldn’t hit him like this.
But it wasn’t the wine, Jack knew.
It was the woman.
His woman.
He knew it in a way that floored him. All that swaggering talk about breaking the pattern, and now he’d fallen hard on the first fucking day, so hard he was all turned around like a middle-schooler with a crush, a love-sick idiot who didn’t know which way was up, a romantic loser drunk on love.
“Drunk enough to dance?” Jill’s teasing voice cut through his thundering thoughts. She uncrossed her leg and rose from the sofa, handing him her empty glass. “Thought you were saving that second glass to get me drunk and undressed.”
Jack took her empty glass and placed it on the table, straightening up and smiling at her teasing words. He glanced into her sparkling brown eyes, then blinked and looked past her. He didn’t want her seeing how messed up he was, didn’t want to reveal the crack in his armor, the vulnerability that had been opened up by the realization that he wanted her body and mind, heart and soul, now and forever.
“You all right?” Jill frowned as Jack stayed quiet, didn’t respond to her teasingly flirty comment about undressed salads. “The sparkling wine can hit quickly. I’m buzzing just from the one glass, actually.”
“Me too,” Jack said somewhat gruffly. “Buzzing, I mean. Maybe we hold off on the dance-moves for a bit, Jill.”
Jill shrugged. “OK. You afraid Jack will fall down and break his crown and Jill will come tumbling after?”
Jack forced a grin as his mind spun back to Benson’s warning that could be a test or could be the truth. Jack and Jill both die in the end, Benson had pointed out with none of that trademark wit to his tone.
In fact Benson’s tone had picked up a sharper and darker edge even before the explosion, Jack reminded himself as he led Jill towards the buffet table so they could get some food into their bellies to cut the buzz in their brains. Maybe Benson was worried that he’d gone too far with the fate-and-destiny thing, was pushing his luck by continuing to feed his OCD-level urge to recruit Darkwater men in alphabetical order.
Like a degenerate gambler who can’t stop himself, Jack thought grimly as he saw Bobby and Nina emerge wide-eyed and unsteady from that private corridor. Yeah, maybe Jack needed to take Benson’s warning at face value. Patterns continued only until they stopped. Streaks continued only until they were broken. You spin the wheel only until you’ve got nothing left to bet.
Until you’ve lost it all.
“Sometimes you just have to cut your losses, I guess,” Jill said softly now as Nina and Bobby stumbled past, their eyes glassy and dilated, both of them with manic grins on their young faces which were already prematurely lined around their mouths and eyes from the effects of whatever they were doing to their bodies. “I’m an idiot to think I could have come here and stopped the wedding. And even if I did pull it off, Nina would be so angry with me that no way I’d have been able to get her into rehab. In fact, if I broke them up, it could be even more dangerous for Nina. She’d feel betrayed by me, might go on some kind of drug-bender and end up overdosing.” Jill turned to him now, her face drawn with disappointment, then disillusionment, finally devastation. “Oh, Jack, what was I thinking with my dumb stupid plan! It all seems so crazy now, surreal and unreal, like maybe I should worry about my own mental health before I decide to save anyone else!”
Jack stared down into Jill’s eyes, wondering if she was cracking inside just like he was, the action and anxiety of the day opening up fissures in their psyches from which emotions were bubbling up like hot lava that had been simmering beneath the surface for years, decades, perhaps forever.
“Stop it,” Jack said with a tight but warm smile. “Maybe sparkling wine isn’t our drink. My head’s been buzzing with some pretty fucked-up thoughts too.”
“Like what?” Jill said as they arrived at the buffet table and Jack began to heap cocktail shrimp onto a plate. “Also, leave some shrimp for the rest of us, will you?”
Jack grinned as Jill pierced one of his shrimps with a cocktail fork, then grabbed a napkin and covered her mouth as she chewed. Jack did no such thing as he wolfed down his plate of shrimp. He did remember to keep his mouth closed while chewing, though.
The hearty shrimp followed by a generous sampling from the cheese board did the trick. The buzzing in his head was gone, his thoughts were clear, and he was ready to dance if Jill was still up for it. She’d had a rougher day than Jack—at least mentally, since she wasn’t a trained Special Forces killer. But damn, she’d held up like a champ, was on her feet and looking fresh and gorgeous after a day which included seeing a dead body, getting carjacked, then driving three hours to a mafia wedding she was trying to stop by sleeping with the groom.
At least that last part was off the table now, Jack thought as he took Jill’s empty plate and held it out for an attentive server. Then he took Jill’s hand and led her onto the dancefloor.
His heart began to race as that earlier warning threatened to mess with his composure and remind him that he was supposed to take a step back, not press his body against hers and gyrate on a fucking dancefloor. Besides, he was supposed to lay low and observe, not make a spectacle of himself.
Damn it, Jack thought as the music changed to a slow song just as they arrived at the center of the dancefloor. The older Darkwater guys had said fate was real, but Jack didn’t think they meant destiny was a DJ who would literally put on a cheesy slow song just when you get to the damn dancefloor.
They faced each other now, Jill’s cheeks darkening with color as Jack looked down at her and shrugged like they were in middle school and it was the first slow dance and none of the couples knew what to do.
“At least you can’t do your Army dance-moves to this song,” she whispered shyly up to him as he placed his hands gently on her hips, leaned in close as her hands rested on his shoulders and they began to move together. “No twisting, no twirling, and certainly no tossing.”
Jack laughed, the motion briefly bringing his face near enough that their noses touched, their lips so close Jack could almost taste her red lipstick.
Jill gasped softly, her fingers curling on his shoulders, her breasts brushing past his chest, her hips grazing the front of Jack’s trousers as they moved together.
Now Jack’s head was buzzing again, and this time it definitely wasn’t the wine, was definitely just the woman.
“Jill,” he said, his voice thick with some emotion too intense to be real but too vivid to be fake. “Jill, listen, I can’t believe I’m saying this when we’ve only known each other a day, can’t believe I’m saying this in a way that actually feels truer than anything I’ve ever said. Hell, I know I shouldn’t say it, especially not after that possessive crap I blurted out in the hotel room. But Jill, I . . . I have to say it, there’s something inside me that needs to say it even though it’s crazy to say it.”
Jill stared up at him, her fingers digging into his shoulders as Jack’s hands tightened around her hips, drawing her swaying body closer as he crept his fingertips around to her lower back, tightening the circle, closing the space between them until they were almost up against each other, almost cheek to cheek, so close that if Jill raised her head even slightly their lips would touch.
And if that happened, he would kiss her.
By God, he would kiss her.
“You . . . you can say it,” Jill murmured, her voice trembly and torn, her eyelids fluttering in a way that Jack could feel against his cheekbones. “Whatever it is, you can say it, Jack.” She moved her head just enough that her nose nuzzled against the side of Jack’s chin. “Please . . .” she whispered, her voice husky and low, barely audible but louder than a scream. “Please say it.”
Jack could barely see now, barely stand, certainly could not fucking think of anything other than this woman so close to him, the feel of his fingertips just above the curve of her bottom, the gentle brushing of her front against his trousers, the way her hair smelled like citrus and sex, the way her lips shone like blood and honey, sweetening his future even as it cleansed his past.
He wanted to say it, needed to say it, fucking yearned to say it. Those three words that he’d used so trivially in the past now felt like the most monumental sounds that he would ever utter, tightening his throat to a thread, compressing his vision to a point, making his head buzz harder than any drug.
The buzzing was loud, too loud to be coming from inside his head. Then Jack felt the vibration inside his jacket and realized it was his damn phone again.
Shit, had Benson been listening in? Was he calling to interrupt them like some chaperone, a fairy godmother? Should Jack even bother answering?
Then he remembered he was on a mission and he”d already screwed up twice today, and with a sigh Jack pulled out the phone and looked at the urgent message along with the missed call notifications.
Hogan had just dropped off the Darkwater surveillance package at the Winchester Hotel. It was still early enough that Kay Steffen might still be here at the cocktail party. If she’d ever arrived here in the first place, of course.
Jack was suddenly on full alert again. He swept his gaze quickly around the room, made it all the way past the buffet table to the bar. Then he froze.
Kay Steffen was now at the bar.
Her hotel room would be empty.
It was time to go.
“We’re leaving,” Jack said curtly, grabbing Jill’s hand and leading her off the dancefloor, doing his best to ignore the way she looked at him, the way her face fell like a disappointed child, that pouty lower lip sticking out again. They made it to the corridor leading to the parking lot exits before something occurred to Jack. “Actually, it’s better if I go alone.” He flicked his gaze towards the bar again. Kay Steffen stood facing the bar alone, nursing a glass of what appeared to be whiskey. “Will you stay here and keep an eye on Kay Steffen? If it looks like she’s leaving, send me a message.”
Jill shrugged dejectedly, then nodded without looking at him. Everything about her was subdued, like that interruption had taken the wind out of her sails, perhaps even sunk their ship before it got a chance to leave the dock.
That’s a good thing, Jack told himself sternly as he resisted the urge to put his arms around Jill and pull her close, kiss her gently on the cheek, trace his fingertips along the curve of her back again. But the timing of the phone’s rude interruption sent a prickly chill along Jack’s spine. Hogan had gotten there early. The calls and messages had come from Paige, not Benson. Maybe Benson was listening, but surely nobody could have synchronized Hogan’s early arrival at just that moment, like it was timed to stop Jack from saying something that now felt psycho-stalker crazy, impossibly intense in a way that seemed to confirm Jack wasn’t thinking straight, was totally unprepared for the emotions evoked from being next to this woman.
“Listen, Jill,” he said softly, clenching his fists by his sides to keep his hands to himself. He glanced past her towards where Bobby and Nina were at the far end of the bar lining up shots for what looked like some of Bobby’s buddies and their dates. “Are you going to be all right alone here? Do I need to worry about you doing something crazy? Something dangerous? I should be back here within an hour, but—”
“Go. I’m all right alone.” Jill glared up at him, then blinked and showed a tight-lipped smile which quickly reverted to a pout so pronounced her lower lip almost turned inside out. She dug into her clutch and produced a set of keys. “Here. Don’t crash my car, please. And if you adjust the seat, please put it back to its original position when you’re done.” She handed Jack her phone. “Put your number in my phone. Don’t worry,” she added with the hint of a teasing smile. “I won’t spam you with cat-videos, so long as you don’t send me any dick-pics.”
“Aw, man,” Jack said with a relieved grin as he felt the tension break. He punched his number into her phone, tapped twice to send himself a message from her phone so he’d have her number. “Dick-pics are the cornerstone of my game!”
“That explains a lot,” Jill retorted, turning towards the main hall. She glanced over her shoulder before walking away, thankfully just before Jack’s gaze landed on her ass. “You going to come back for me or do I need to get a ride back to the hotel later?”
Jack blinked away that inexplicable familiarity that made it seem like they were together, partners making plans, a couple in cahoots. “Of course I’m coming back for you. Shouldn’t be more than an hour.” He smiled, gazing past her towards the main hall where Romeo Carmine was still holding court and Bobby Carmine was still doing shots and Kay Steffen was still alone at the bar finishing her whiskey. For a moment Jack got that strange feeling sort of like déjà vu but not exactly, more like there was something in the air, something about the players in the room being drawn together, events unfolding like an origami shape that wasn’t quite formed yet, like things were still in flux, the wheel still in spin, the cards still being shuffled.
Jack gulped back a sudden urge to pull Jill against his body, keep her close to him. The urge was strong, instinctual, almost irresistible. But Jack was so fucking turned around that he didn’t trust the instinct, couldn’t be sure whether it was the need to protect or to possess.
The indecision froze him long enough that the moment passed and Jill was already walking away, was far down the corridor, into the main hall now, finally disappearing into the crowd of suited men and gowned women. Jack stood there in silence for another long moment as that strange déjà-vu-like sensation rippled through his body again. He rubbed his eyes, shook his head to clear it, started to turn away to head out, then stopped and stared in shock.
He could see Jill now. She’d made her way through the crowd, past the buffet table, towards the crowded bar. She was looking for an open spot at the long wooden bar, and Jack stared in disbelief when Jill chose a spot right next to the solitary black-suited Kay Steffen.
“What are you doing, Jill?” Jack muttered when Jill ordered a drink, then smiled at Kay Steffen and started to make conversation. “What the hell are you doing?”