Against her better judgment, she let her body take charge and sighed into his touch. He firmed the kiss into sweeping sin and lit her from the inside out. She couldn’t be sure when he’d gripped her waist to hold her upright; she only knew she couldn’t stand without his help. Her backpack, the cold, the night disappeared as Jack’s touch and taste mesmerized her. Heat centered in her belly and moved through her like a burst of pleasure. Like it had in Ida’s house, their chemistry proved too much to resist. She wanted their connection again, to feel at one with her other half…
He pulled back and smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “You saying no, sweetheart? ’Cause that sigh sounded a hell of a lot like yes to me.”
Her body shook, and she reached for him again, needing to quench her growing thirst for the man. It took her a moment to realize she’d been played. She pushed against him, and he let her go.
Holy hell, since when did I become such a doormat?
“Don’t be such a jerk.” She paused to catch her breath, alarmed when his gaze centered on her breasts, because she didn’t mind in the least, and she should have. “Okay, so we have attraction between us. So what? It still doesn’t mean I want to have sex with you when we have something more important to do.”
He snorted. “Tell yourself whatever you want. You want to fuck as much as I do.”
A glance down his front didn’t show her much, covered as he was by his jacket. Unfortunately, she knew all too well how he’d feel inside her.
Her cheeks felt hot enough to melt the snow off the mountaintop. “Fine. I like your
body
,” she emphasized and was pleased to see his frown. “I don’t know you well enough to like
you
. We had incredible sex, but we don’t know anything about each other.” She felt embarrassed to have this discussion, but maybe laying it out on the line would benefit them both. Jack seemed like a straight-up kind of guy. When he was annoyed, he certainly let her see it.
“I’m not asking for a freakin’ date.”
“Then what are you asking for?” She took the compass from his hand while he glared at her. Trust the moonlight to cast his face in marble perfection. Focusing on the compass, she stepped around him and continued in the direction they’d been heading. The compass helped, but the energy pulling her gave her the better sense of where to go. She followed the Source and tried to tune out Jack, hoping he’d stop pushing for sex.
Because God knew, she had little willpower when it came to him.
JACK STARED A hole through her backpack, wishing he knew what the hell he wanted from the stubborn, gorgeous female. That she had to be the one to remind him they had a mission to accomplish pissed him off to no end. Jack kept his head. Jack fulfilled his duties and never—with the exception of that one huge clusterfuck years ago—failed to succeed.
Yet all of him wanted to sink between Heather’s thighs and lose himself inside her. She fit him perfectly, and he actually forgot to think when having sex with her. No worries, no wounds or troubles, just pure, unadulterated pleasure.
How long had it been since he’d felt that? Hell, had he ever known such comfort?
He put his hand to his pocket, reminded of the picture of her he still carried. As if by holding on to it, he actually owned a piece of the real her. The woman muttering to herself in front of him was so much more than a two-dimensional rendering. She claimed they didn’t know much about each other. Not true. Jack knew a hell of a lot about Heather Anne Stallbridge.
Before he’d agreed to go on this mission, he’d had a thorough talk with Owen. The guy gushed about Heather so much that Jack had suggested she be canonized a saint. Owen had laughingly agreed. Heather spent her life as a vagabond, helping those in need. She didn’t do it for the money; she had no need of financial aid. Instead she had a craving to heal, to assist those less fortunate than herself.
She regularly gave to charity, healed the sick, and never had an unkind word to say about anyone. Well, anyone but him, apparently. He recalled how she’d talked to him. The woman wasn’t a pushover, but her recent emotional distance from her brother had concerned Owen enough to step in. Though Heather traveled the world, she often went with the people Owen provided to protect her—pilots, bodyguards, and a personal secretary.
When she’d left Baltimore, her current place of residence, without taking any of them or letting them know she might be leaving, Owen had naturally worried.
Jack followed her in silence for the next few hours, content to let her lead the pace as his mind puzzled over how to handle his attraction to her. The moon continued to provide assistance, and they walked through the forest shadows without flashlights. Heather stopped so suddenly, he would have run into her if he hadn’t been so attuned to their surroundings.
“I think we should call a halt. It’s close to three in the morning.”
Jack stopped with her and looked around. Oh joy. More shadows and trees. They didn’t seem to be walking along a prescribed path, for which Jack was grateful. No need to follow any manmade trail to the Source that the whole town used. They were off the map, so to speak. Now to find a place to bunk down…
To the far right, he noticed a large wealth of rock obscured by some thick tree trunks. “Wait here.” He turned and left Heather sputtering behind him.
Good. Let her stew over blanket orders
. The woman needed to be reminded of who was really in charge of their expedition.
He found what he’d hoped to find and returned to her. “There’s a cave we can take shelter in. It’s not deep, and nothing else is in there.” He held his flashlight by his side. “There’s a small stream to the side too. You can hear it.”
She nodded. “Yeah. That will work.”
He lifted a brow. “Glad you approve.” Then he turned and left her muttering to herself behind him. Once inside the cave, he switched on the lantern function of the flashlight and made note of the dimensions he had to work with. Letting his pack drop gave his back a nice respite. The pack hadn’t been heavy, by any means, and much less than he was used to carrying on a mission. A quick check earlier had shown one change of clothing, extra socks, his gun, ammo, some trail food, and a few bottles of water—similar to what Ida had packed for Heather, minus the gun. They had enough for a few days in the woods, but much longer out here, and he and Heather would need to find real sustenance.
She joined him and put her pack down. She watched as he kicked a few rocks away from where he planned to make their main sleeping area. He wondered what kind of stink she’d make when she realized they’d be sleeping together.
Jack took his sleeping bag, unzipped it, then put it on the cold, hard ground. “I need your bag.”
She blinked at him. “What?”
“Give me your sleeping bag. I won’t fit in that tiny sack Jan gave me. And it’s cold enough out that we’ll need to share body heat to stay warm. My bag on the bottom, you and me inside, and yours on top. I’ll keep my hands to myself if you will.” He paused and, seeing the mutiny in her expression, added, “If you
can
.”
Like her brother, she couldn’t resist a dare. She lifted her nose in the air. “Oh, I’ll be fine. It’s you I’m worried about.” She bent down and grabbed her sleeping bag, then tossed it to him. “Thanks for making up our little camp. I’m going outside to freshen up, but I’ll be back soon.”
He hadn’t heard anything or anyone nearby and didn’t worry about her being alone. After she returned, he left to take care of his own needs. He washed in the colder-than-hell stream but felt more himself, despite the lethargy dragging him down, and then returned to their camp. He’d had little sleep the past week, constantly on the lookout for Miss Priss, who eyed their sleeping arrangements with a frown.
“Problem?”
She whirled to face him. “Problem? No. Not really.”
“Take off your jacket and sweater. It’s best if we sleep in pants and boots, ready to go. But a T-shirt on top is best. I give off a lot of body heat, and together, we’ll generate enough warmth under the sleeping bag.”
Heather nodded and stripped out of her jacket and sweater. She wore a short-sleeved T-shirt underneath, one that clung to her curves. Then she practically killed him when she took the band out of her hair and shook out her braid. The strands of her honeyed hair curled around her face and teased her breasts.
He wanted nothing more than to unzip his jeans and free his aching cock. Then he’d order her to please him, and she’d beg so prettily to swallow his cum… Talk about one hell of a fantasy.
She lay between the downy blankets of nylon. “Ugh. I haven’t been sleeping on the ground in months. I’d forgotten how uncomfortable it can be.”
He hadn’t. Jack had been through all kinds of shit during his days working for the government, and some memories never faded, like bivouacking in the jungles when hunting cartels no longer on Uncle Sam’s payroll. Other ugly memories flashed in his mind’s eye, and, as usual, Melissa’s face intruded. But unlike the other times when he’d rage when thinking of her, Heather’s face superimposed over Melissa’s. This time, he felt nothing but desire.
“You okay?” She patted the spot next to her…in invitation?
After pulling the lantern and his loaded pistol close, he set the alarm on his watch and turned off the light. He stripped off his jacket and sweater and joined her under the cover, conscious of her prime, curvy body inches from his. To keep himself from reaching for her—
be professional, asshole
—he linked his hands behind his head and stared at the black ceiling, wide-awake.
“What’s wrong?” she asked in a whisper.
“Nothing,” he said in a thick voice, unable to disguise his arousal. “Get some rest. I’ll keep an ear out for trouble. I’m a light sleeper.” At this rate, he’d have nothing but a crick in his neck and an unending hard-on before the morning was out.
Fuck
. Had he really thought he’d be able to sleep next to her? Even after walking through most of the night, the woman smelled like roses.
Instead of rolling to her side away from him, she rolled closer. He felt her breath on his neck, and he tensed, unable to help it. Then the blasted woman put her hand on his chest. All the energy pulsing through the ground into him centered embarrassingly on his dick. He did his best not to react, until she started rubbing, brushing over his sensitive nipples through the thin cotton of his T-shirt.
Amazingly, arousal mixed with a soothing sense of peace, and his troubles seemed to lighten the more she touched. He found himself slowly easing into a comfortable intimacy, even as a part of him warned to be vigilant, not to trust her. When she asked him to share his troubles, he answered with only the slightest hesitation.
Resting on her side, propped up on her elbow, Heather continued to siphon the demons plaguing Jack. Such deep wounds, a bevy of negative energy holding the big man down. He growled, and he snapped, but he’d been aware of her and careful to keep a pace she could handle. Even their sex, explosive as it was, had been for her pleasure before he took his own.
She sensed tenderness and love buried deep inside him, and though it wasn’t her place to explore areas in a person uninvited, she’d been itching to help him since they’d first met. It didn’t help that the Source stirred her to use her abilities. She’d felt almost on overload during their trek through the forest. But after dropping her pack, she felt a bit better, as if she could rest and not worry so much about everything.
With the townspeople far behind, she and Jack had some time to just
be
for a while.
He hadn’t been kidding about being hot. The moment she’d taken off her jacket and sweater, she’d started shivering. Even the cover over her hadn’t helped much. But a few seconds next to Jack, and she felt almost overheated.
Touching him was more than an idea, but a necessity. She had to connect again, even though she’d been telling herself throughout their journey to let him go. The sex had been phenomenal, but Jack was a bit of an arrogant jerk. Yet everything inside her called to him.
Now she took as much pleasure in sharing her energy with him as he no doubt felt from receiving it. He moaned under her touch and shifted on the ground. She wondered if he felt a tenth of the desire raging through her blood.
The craving to know more about Jack begged, and she asked him to share, knowing he’d probably regret it later. But by then it would be too late, and she’d have already siphoned off the bad energy making him such a bear to deal with.
“What do you want to know?” he asked in a gravelly voice.
“Why don’t you like me?” She noted he kept his hands locked behind his head, which gave her that much more room to work. What an incredible chest. The man had muscles on top of muscles, and she wanted to do a lot more than touch.
“I like you well enough,” he muttered. “Fuck. I like you
a lot
right now.” He shifted under her again, and she knew he battled the same desire she did. The knowledge relieved her worry that her extreme attraction might be one-sided.
“Then why are you so mean to me?” Heather wasn’t used to men acting so brusque around her. Most of them wanted to please her, to do anything to get her attention. She had the famous Stallbridge looks—blonde hair, green eyes, and good bone structure. But Jack didn’t seem to like wanting her. “Are you mad you’re here?”
“Yes and no.”
He moaned when her hand lowered to his amazing stomach. Such tightly packed muscle. She wanted to bite his belly, to see if she could.
“I don’t understand.” She drew away the anger festering inside him, the same energy that swelled whenever his thought patterns seemed to shift in a certain direction. Not for the first time did she wish she’d inherited her grandmother’s ability to read minds.
“I didn’t want to look for you. Owen’s a pain in the ass, but he needed the help.” He sighed with pleasure when she slid her hand under his shirt and stroked his bare flesh. His belly, his pecs, his shoulders. The man was like a heater, and he felt so wonderful under her hand.