Enemy Lover (24 page)

Jerking the knobs, she turned off the water and stood unmoving in the large tub. She rubbed her hands through her hair, squeezing the water from it. Stepping from the shower, she grabbed a thick velour towel and wrapped it around her body.

Loud pounding on the door drew Jax out of the steamy bathroom. Her body tingled.

Cross.

On impulse, Jax strode to the door, unlocked the double locks from the inside and yanked the heavy metal door open. Be still her heart.

He was so damn handsome. A far cry from the bloodied bullet-ridden Cross she had last seen. He had cleaned up. He cleaned up well. Really well. His hair was still damp from his shower. His face clean-shaven. His clean, dusky scent swirled around her. He stood with one hand braced against the outer doorjamb, his jacket thrown over his shoulders; his fitted black shirt hugged his broad chest and tapered down his narrow waist into black trousers.

Jax smiled smugly and assumed the same pose but from the inside of her room. “Did you come here to gloat?”

“I came to ascertain your well-being.”

“Right.” She backed away and grabbed the door handle. “I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.”

Cross put his right hand out against the door, stopping her from slamming it in his face. “Tonight, you did.”

“Screw you, Cross! I didn’t ask for a babysitter. I could have handled those guys by myself.” She shoved the door harder. It didn’t budge.

“Don’t you want to know why they were after you?” he slyly asked.

Jax jerked her head back and narrowed her eyes. “What do you know?”

“Invite me in, and I’ ll tell you.”

Jax contemplated his request. “How did you get up here? This is a secured floor.”

He slid his hand into his trouser pocket and withdrew a security card. For some reason, Jax was relieved. If he hadn’t had a card, he would have had to have turned into a bat to get in. She shook herself and realized she was damp and naked save for the towel clinging to her. She
was also losing her mind. He grinned and she nearly melted onto the floor. His face, his scar, his eyes radiated when he genuinely smiled. She could get used to that smile. Too bad she had to kill him.

Knowing she was probably making the mistake of her life, Jaz stood back and said, “Come in.”

Cross grinned, showing his bright white teeth. “Thank you,” he said softly, stepping past her.

Jax closed the door behind him and locked it. Putting her hands behind her back, she leaned against the door and eyed him when he turned that dangerous smile on her. “So tell me.”

He laid his jacket over the chair back by the desk. As if he were staying. “Tell you what?”

“Cross, stop being an evasive ass. Why were those guys after me?”

He shrugged. “They weren’t after you per se. They were after the person who came after the guy you were chasing.”

“That makes no sense.”

He leaned up against the bathroom doorjamb and crossed his arms over his chest. “It could if you told me why you were chasing him.”

Jax fought a smile. He was sly with his angle. “One of the guests was attacked. I was bored. So, I followed the bread crumbs.” Jax pushed off the door and walked toward him. “How did you know I was here?”

Cross casually shrugged. “Like the organization you work for, the one I work for has eyes and ears everywhere.”

Jax yanked the big fluffy bathrobe from the counter where she had left it. She slipped it on, then dropped the damp towel that still clung to her. She watched Cross’s
eyes dip for a look before she secured the velour sash around her waist.

Jax ignored his “organization” reference. She turned and asked over her shoulder, “Why did you call me off tonight?”

He moved behind her, his big body warm and inviting. His large hand brushed her hair from her shoulders. He bent down to where her arm met her shoulder. Gently he brushed his lips across her skin. Jax remained rigid. She was not going to get all gooey like she had earlier. This time she would control every move. “I changed my mind,” he replied.

Jax turned slowly and looked up into his hooded eyes. “Did you come here to give me my alternative mission?”

“Maybe.” He grinned that grin again. “Maybe not.”

Jax eyed him for a long, long time. He was quite a specimen. Big. Broad. Muscular. His hands were the size of dinner plates. His fingers thick and long, his nails square and neatly trimmed. His face. His face was classic Greco-Roman in style and grace. Firm yet boldly sculpted. The scar that ran from his right eye down his face and into his shoulder only added to the dangerous air that swirled around him like his unique scent.

But it was his crystalline eyes, so blue, so clear, so hypnotic that gave her pause every time she looked into them. While he was a reticent, quiet man, a killer, assassin and lost soul in so many ways, his eyes spoke volumes. Pain, deep and angry, lingered in them, just below the surface.

“Who really killed that little girl in D.C.?” She wanted to know.
Had
to know.

He reached out a hand to her cheek. She stood rigidly. She watched those oh-so-expressive eyes harden. His jaw set. His dark brows pulled together over his aquiline nose. “Blalock strangled her.”

“Would you have eliminated her if she’d witnessed what you did to Blalock?”

Cross remained silent for a long time, his eyes never once blinking or wavering from hers. “There was another girl in that room that night. She’s home now, with her parents, where she should be.”

His confession stunned her. “Why did you tell me that?”

“So that you would see your intel is off. Don’t believe everything you’ re told in preop briefings.”

Jax contemplated his statement. She did not deny the fact that intelligence could and did get certain facts wrong or overlooked other ones. But he hadn’t come to her room to tell her that. “Why are you really here?” she asked.

He grinned a half grin. “Because we both want the same thing.”

“Which is?”

“To blow off some steam. It’s been quite a night.”

“Yes, it has. But if I had wanted more action, I would have stayed out. I’m in for the night. I want to be alone.”

“No—you don’ t.”

“What, you’ re a mind reader now?”

“No, Jax Cassidy, I just know you. We’ re too much alike.”

He knew her name now. “How so?”

“At our core we’ re both primal.” He moved in closer.
“We both come alive when the chase begins.” He traced his fingertips along the curve of her collarbone. “We are masters of our craft.” His fingers dipped between her deep cleavage. “We are both sensualists.” He slid his other arm around her waist and pulled her against him. “And we both want to connect on the most basic of levels.” He brushed his nose across the top of her head and inhaled her. “I didn’t lie when I told you I wanted to fuck you all night long.”

Jax held her breath for a long moment and composed her swelling desire. He did things to her with only a fingertip that her ex hadn’t been able to do with his entire body.

“I want to take you to the moon, then to the stars and to the sun. I want to fuck you so hard and so deep a part of me will stay inside you forever.”

“You’ re such a romantic,” Jax said, the sarcasm not lost on him.

He smiled. “I’ ve never told a woman that before.”

“I feel so special.” She shook her head, feeling delirious with desire. “But understand, I don’t want to keep any part of you.”

“Yes, you do.” He slid his hand down her belly, unknotting the sash. When it fell away, her robe opened and cool air rushed against her skin. She shivered. He sank to his knees and pulled her against his lips. His hands trailed up her bare legs to her ass. Jax bit back a moan. His skin was warm and smooth against hers. It felt good. Solid. Strong. But it was wrong. She wanted control. She wanted to lead, to decide if and when this would happen. Not him.

Jax raised her foot and planted it against his chest. His fingers clamped around her instep, his thumb caressed her skin. His other hand brushed the inside of her thigh. Jax clenched her jaw. “I want to know why you pulled the plug on tonight and what I have to do to get an audience with Lazarus.”

“Give us both what we want and I’ ll tell you.”

“You want sex, I want answers.”

He pressed his lips to her instep and softly kissed her. Jax nearly swooned. When he dragged his tongue across the skin there, the leg she was standing on wavered. He looked up at her and said, “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is if you’ re me.”

He nodded, let go of her foot and slowly stood. Cool air wafted between them doing nothing to cool her sultry body down. Jax wanted to scream at him to take her, just throw her on the bed and impale her. But she didn’ t.

They stood facing each other for long-drawn-out minutes. His hooded blue eyes waiting for her to just say the word. Her body screaming for her to just do it, ease the torturous ache that consumed her. Jax moved to the other side of the room, putting the king-sized bed between them.

“Are you going to bite me?” She had to know. The thought terrified her and, on a very basic level, thrilled her.

He cracked a smile. His eyes actually twinkled under the lamplight. “Only if you want me to.”

Jax swallowed hard as their gazes locked. She was
going to burn in hell for what she was about to do. “My terms,” she whispered.

Cross’s eyes glittered like sapphires on a sunny beach. He nodded so slightly that she wasn’t sure she had witnessed it.

“Strip,” she hoarsely said, hoping that her plan would get her answers and keep her integrity intact.

Amazing. That was the word Marcus would use to describe Jax Cassidy at that moment. He’d told her what he was,
killed
in front of her. He’d fully expected her to run for the hills. Instead, she stood there and challenged him. Brave, brave girl. So why should her command to strip surprise him? Of course she would take charge. Of course she would try to handle him. Use him. Make him believe that the job was the only reason she would give him her body.

He didn’t buy it.

He knew she was sexually excited. He could smell it on her. He could see it in the sharp flare of her nostrils, feel the heat of her want through her open pores. There was no way she could deny it. In truth, he couldn’t imagine her doing so. She was all ballsy honesty, more likely to slap his face than lie to it. Yet, beneath it all, he detected fear. And he knew it was founded. Her blood did not lie. She had been brutalized by a man. He’d sensed it the first time he’d tasted her.

It was a wonder she could feel desire for him at all. But she did.

That fact not only increased his own desire, making blood pulse in his cock with the same thundering beat his heart played out against his chest, but it also told him their intense attraction was unprecedented. For them
both. That in and of itself intrigued him. As a human, he had never felt such violent desire for a woman. To feel it now, when he was soulless, was virtually unbearable. She was a shot of adrenaline in his mundane life.

After he’d had her, would his want for her lesson, or would it burn as savagely in his veins as it did now? He hoped it flared brighter. At least for a while.

Unhurried, he silently watched her. Her eyes boldly held his. Sparks of excitement gave them a preternatural glint.

He knew she had motives other than sex on her mind, but so did he.

He had questions and only she had the answers. Oh, he could snag one of her cronies, but it would not be nearly as interesting wrestling the information from one of them as it would be her. Besides, men bled more than women, and he wasn’t in the mood to get his hands dirty. Not that way. He understood her need for control, but he would not give it to her. Never. That was his to command.

He unbuttoned his fitted black shirt one button at a time. The slight tremble in his fingers surprised him. Then it angered him. While she was most definitely a cut above every other woman he had had, she was still just a woman. And a conniving one at that. In a few minutes, he would find out if his fire would be extinguished or burn hotter.

Taking a step forward, he pulled the tails of his shirt out from his trousers. To his surprise, Jax put her hand up. “Stop.”

He hesitated for a heartbeat before he stopped. Her fear had spiked. He wasn’t the man who’d brutalized
her. Letting go of the fabric, he dropped his hands to his sides. “Come here,” he softly commanded.

She shook her head but stepped toward him anyway. When she stopped an arm’s length away, he nudged her chin up with his hand. He saw the reflection of his fiery gaze in her eyes. “I won’t hurt you like the other one.”

Her body stiffened. The color drained from her cheeks. Slapping his hand away, she stalked to the other side of the room. When she spun around to face him, her eyes blazed like emerald coals. “I don’t know what you think you know, but give me enough respect by not pretending with me.”

He cocked a brow. “Pretend? How so?”

“You tell me you want to fuck me from the inside out. How am I supposed to take that?”

“Exactly as it’s intended.” She shook her head and looked at him, incredulous. He explained, “You and me, we’ re driven by pure animal instinct. And while there may be some hurt involved, it’s the good kind. The kind that makes you want more. That’s how it will be between us, Jax.” He stalked closer to her until only inches separated them. “Hard, furious, primal.” He traced a finger along her bottom lip. “That’s how you take it.”