Keep (Command #2) (8 page)

“Wine, Mr. Dunn?” His British attendant knew him well. He nodded, and she went back to her station.

“Can I have that?”

Kara’s soft voice drew his eyes up. That was a complete mistake. She’d removed all traces of the blood and he could barely see the thin, red line where she’d been cut. Essentially, she looked fine. Back to normal. Which meant she was standing in front of him with no shirt on.

“You’ve never seen breasts before?” She pulled the fabric from his hands.

“Not yours.”

His eyes followed every delicious curve until they disappeared beneath the shirt. He was such a bastard. She’d almost died and all he could do was lust at her. He sank down in a seat, resting his elbows on his knees, hands behind his neck. They’d be forever bound by this night, the night she’d killed someone. To save him.

He hadn’t heard her approach. She drifted over to him and lifted his head with her hands, and then she kissed him, the first time she’d initiated it. She kissed him so softly it almost tore his heart in two. His hands ensnared her waist, pulling her down onto his lap. She didn’t protest.

“Shawn,” she said. Her hollow voice filled him with concern.

“Are you all right?”

“I can’t tell. I feel… empty.”

He kissed her again. It wasn’t passionate or intense. He tried to make it about comfort, to show her she wasn’t alone. He was marginally aware that Victoria stood motionless at the edge of the partition with their wine, not wanting to disturb. So he reluctantly ended the kiss, a hand still buried in the soft hair at the nape of Kara’s neck.

She sipped the wine with a shaky hand while he put the bandage on her neck, and then he called Jason and broke the news. Juric was alive. People were looking for him, and those people believed he was after Kara.

“Where do we go?” Shawn asked Jason. “We’ll be on the ground in fifteen minutes. Should we come to you?”

“No, I can’t risk anyone following you here.” Jason hesitated. “Shit, you can’t take her to your place, either. It’s the first place Juric will look when he finds out an Osterhägen plane landed in Maastricht and then departed for Munich.” There was a sigh. “Take her to the corporate room at the Palace tonight. They won’t register her passport if you’re there with her, and I’ll send the backup team to meet you.”

The idea of sharing a room with Kara Hayward tonight was appealing, but it would satisfy a different need than usual. He didn’t want her to be alone after what had happened. Didn’t want her out of his sight.

“Can you keep her safe?” Jason asked.

“Of course.”

Shawn could picture the dubious expression on Jason’s face on the other end of the phone. “And does that include keeping her safe from your dick?”

-5-

The cut on Kara’s neck stung whenever she took a deep breath, like she just had. Go to a hotel with him?

Shawn’s gaze was soft and unassuming. “This is what Jason said was best. He was a US Marshal, so he knows how to keep you hidden.”

The landing gear rumbled in the belly of the plane as they drew closer to touching down. The severity of the situation must have wiped Shawn’s fear of flying clean away, for his hand on hers was relaxed. And it was soothing to her. She needed the connection. But, still…

“You really think I’m going to sleep with you —”

The serious look he gave was convincing. “No. This isn’t about that. I’m not leaving you by yourself tonight.”

Exhaustion crept in, making simple tasks like thinking difficult. They landed. She stumbled while descending the staircase out of the plane, and Shawn’s hand gripped her shoulder from behind, steadying her. Wasn’t he exhausted, too? She felt like they’d been up for forever. Perhaps she was burning too much energy worrying about her sister since learning that Juric had escaped.

A charcoal gray Audi waited near the plane. It was sleek and gorgeous, and obviously Shawn’s since the flight crew was loading their bags in the trunk. Shawn opened the passenger door for her. She sat down and tried not to notice the interior. Of course the car was beautiful, and it was made more so when he slipped behind the steering wheel. Powerful and in command. In his element.

She pressed her hands against her thighs because she wanted to touch him, but he had one hand on the gearshift and the other on the wheel as he drove away from the tarmac. How the hell was she going to share a room with him?

“How far is it?”

“It should take about thirty minutes.” When his eyes darted into the rearview mirror, she glanced at the side one and concern grew. A dark vehicle followed close behind. Every turn Shawn made was echoed by them.

“Don’t worry,” he said softly, “that’s one of ours.”

Ours.
Not
mine.
When had that happened?

Munich, the part she saw, was narrow streets lined with white buildings and red roofs, with the occasional church stretching high up towards the stars. Historic and charming.

He pulled into an alley and set the brake just as the service door on one of the buildings swung open.

“It’s safer if we come in this way,” he said. He took her hand, helped her out of the car, and led her in and straight to an elevator. Where, like last time they’d walked onto an elevator, he didn’t release his hold, but this time she didn’t fight him. She held onto him fiercely.

Shawn hurried her up to the extravagant hotel room. He’d never stayed in the corporate room before, but his clients seemed to appreciate it. The tone of the room was the same shade of gold his beer was brewed at: a color like honey. There was a living area to the right and the large, inviting bed to the left.

One bed. She gazed at it with nervous eyes.

“I can sleep on the couch,” he said. He meant it about not leaving her alone. It had been a tremendous struggle on the drive here not to take her hand again. It was soft and slender and still locked in his right now. He hoped she would allow him beside her in that bed. Not just so he could be close, but because the couch was little more than a love seat and Shawn was enormous.

Her breathing grew rapid and unsteady. “As long as we’re both adults and can keep our hands to ourselves, it’s fine.”

Was she unaware what their hands were doing right now? But he nodded, flooded with relief. “Did you want something to drink? Are you hungry?”

“No, thank you.” The nervous timbre of her voice stabbed into him. He wanted her to feel safe.

“Let’s get some rest, then. We can sort through everything tomorrow.”

She didn’t fight him. Her eyes were already heavy. She changed in the bathroom, reappeared in a T-shirt and shorts, and got under the covers, curling up in the big bed away from him while he got undressed.

The wicked side of his brain grumbled. This wasn’t how he’d planned to bed her when she’d stepped onto his plane this morning. But he shut it down and got under the covers, turning out the light.

Jason’s warning was loud in his mind.

If Shawn reached for her, he didn’t trust himself to stay in line. The last thing he needed to do was complicate her life more than it already was at this moment. He was fairly certain if he put his hands on her that he wouldn’t be able to hold back the bastard inside him. He wanted to be a gentleman. He wanted to do the right thing.

The only sound was her quiet breathing.

“Fuck it,” he whispered.

He slid across the sheets, curling his body around hers, enjoyed the feeling of her in his embrace. Enjoyed the feeling when she pulled his arms tighter around her body.

A phone buzzed somewhere, rattled on a hard surface. Kara lifted her head and glared at it. His phone, on the nightstand. She wanted to go back to sleep. She wanted to yank the covers over her head like a child to avoid the day.

She couldn’t do that. There was a man in bed with her for the first time in forever. Shawn’s arm was heavy and warm, and they were face to face.

“Your mobile’s ringing,” she said.

“I can hear it.”

But he didn’t move. She struggled to breathe while locked under his sleepy gaze. His hair was askew, and he was shirtless, and he was so close she could almost kiss him…

Incredibly dangerous, that’s what doing that would be. She looked down at his arm and back to his face. This whole version of Shawn, sweet and caring, was the most dangerous of them all. She had absolutely no defense against it.

The phone continued buzzing until it rolled over to voicemail, his eyes studying her.

“What if that was your brother?” she asked.

“Then he’ll call back.”

The bed shifted as he closed the distance between them, touching his soft lips to hers like he was testing the waters, curious. Electricity jolted through her, and she had to gasp in a deep breath. And hold it. His second kiss was more possessive. His tongue swept over hers, and she could feel it
everywhere
. The arm around her pulled her closer so the bare skin of his chest was warm beneath her hands.

Desire flooded through her veins as he touched her, one hand on her hip and one cupping her face, holding her into his kiss. She’d hungered for a man to touch her like this, and yet she knew there was more to it than that. She wanted
this
man, and
this
man made it clear he wanted her. How much he wanted her was growing harder between them, pressing against her. The heat of his palm slid down her neck, steadily inching its way down over her collarbone. Further still, and without thought, her back arched into his touch, wanting it to find its target —

His phone buzzed again.

He groaned in annoyance, abandoning her and snatching the phone off of the tabletop. “
Hallo?”

With the warmth of his body gone, her brain regained control. She threw the covers off and sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and wishing she could scrub the desire from herself just as quickly. Shawn continued the conversation in German, so she grabbed her stuff and stumbled to the bathroom. During her shower, she focused on how to word the e-mail to her office in Maastricht letting them know she wasn’t coming in today. That she might not be coming in for a while. She tried not to think of the arrogant man on the bed or his hands.

After her hair was dry, she emerged. Shawn hadn’t moved. He was sitting upright and staring vacantly into space. Still shirtless and still dangerous, even when he looked less like the polished businessman he normally was.

A thought had hit her like a ton of bricks in the shower. “My fingerprints are all over the murder weapon,” she said.

“First of all, you didn’t murder him, it was self-defense. And second, there’s no body. Jason sent a man to your apartment, and it was empty.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Had he recovered enough to slink away? Or had someone else come to recover the body before Jason’s man got there? “What happens now?”

“You’ll stay here where you’re safe, until we have a plan.” He stared at her as if waiting for an answer.

Was there any other option? She sighed. “Okay.”

She expected him to get up, to go to the shower, but he continued to sit there like a lump.

“Thank you,” he said, “for agreeing.”

Annoyance grew in her. “Can you stop doing that? Treating me differently?”