Bodyguard/Husband (19 page)

But there had been something special about Holly from the beginning. He’d known the first moment his eyes met hers that she was different. And sure enough, she’d turned his life upside down.

She hadn’t given over control of her life to him, depending on him to make her safe. Just the opposite. She’d resisted, clinging with all her might to every bit of control she had.

A little bit in love.
Was she? He looked at her, hating the thrill of hope that sent his heart racing. He cursed himself for wanting to believe that her feelings were more than just the natural and temporary attraction between the victim of a stalker and her bodyguard.

Despite his best judgment, he leaned up on one elbow and rubbed his fingers across her knuckles where she gripped the pillow.

“I’m supposed to be protecting you.”

Holly nodded. “You are. Since you’ve been here I’ve felt safe for the first time in a long, long time. But I’m worried and afraid. I need someone to hold onto tonight. Can you truly say you don’t want me?”

Jack groaned silently as his body reacted to her plea. “It’s not that simple. I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you,” he whispered. “What I don’t
want is this.” As if to illustrate his statement, he moved closer, allowing her to feel how forcefully she affected him.

She gasped as he pressed his arousal against her.

He was in bed with the only woman he’d ever met who could destroy the detachment he’d spent twenty years perfecting, and it was taking every ounce of strength he possessed not to cross the remaining few millimeters of snowy cotton and wrap her in his arms.

Her eyes were wide and glittery in the dim light. Hurt welled like tears in their amber-brown depths. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.” He reached up and pushed a strand of hair off her cheek. “I just know I don’t have the strength to resist you any longer.” His body tightened painfully, his arousal grew heavy and even harder, his heart quickened. “I’ve never done this before.”

She began to tremble. “Done what?”

It was the middle of the night. He was in bed with his wife. And he had suffered through two long, painful nights of unslaked desire. To his dismay, his hand shook against her cheek.

“Made love to my wife,” he whispered raggedly, awed by the words. He’d never dreamed he’d ever say them. He’d never even considered marriage. Letting people close was not something Jack O’Hara did easily.

But Holly was changing him. Her bravery, her honesty, her genuine caring were melting through his self-imposed barriers like a blowtorch through ice.

He pulled her to him.

She came eagerly, a small whimper escaping her lips as his arms encircled her. Her skin was heated, her body supple and yielding as he flattened his palm
on the small of her back so that every inch of her body pressed against his.

As his mouth sought hers, his hand slid downward. He pushed her cotton nightshirt out of the way and cupped her bottom, that firm, rounded bottom that drove him crazy each time he looked at it.

He bent over her, kissing her deeply, torturing himself by holding back. He felt like a teenager, his body throbbing with a need so great he thought he’d lose control any second.

As he settled on top of her, she accepted him, shy but yielding when he urged her legs apart with his. He looked down at her, his senses filled with the image he’d built in his mind of this moment. The reality was so much more beautiful. Her hair was a dark velvet scarf draped over the white pillow, her eyes glinted with amber fire in the darkness, and her mouth drew him like a sailor to a siren’s song.

He sat back, pulling her with him, and slid her nightshirt off over her head. His breath caught at his first sight of her bare breasts. As he cupped their perfect roundness in his hands and bent his head to taste them, Holly cried out and arched her back, lacing her fingers around his neck.

He lifted her to gain better access to those taut, rosy nipples. Then he touched and tasted all the places he’d fantasized about for three days.

Her body fascinated him. She was strong, firm, yet decidedly feminine. The silk of her skin over her long, smooth muscles acted like an aphrodisiac, sending him toward the point of no return. Her stomach muscles contracted as he ran his palm over them.

He loved everything about her. Everything. Her stubborn need to stay in control, her compact, supple
strength and her responsible nature destroyed all his preconceived notions about women.

Jack bent and ran his tongue down her ribs to her perfect navel, tasting the sweetness of her skin. His mouth watered as he anticipated moving farther, down her belly, to taste what would certainly be the sweetest nectar of all.

She gasped and her fingers fisted in his hair.

“Jack.” Her voice was breathless and panicky.

He froze, his heart pounding, his breathing raspy in the quiet room. If she said no, he could stop. He could.

He closed his eyes. He hoped he could.

“I’m scared.”

He lay his head on her gently rounded belly, feeling her unsteady breathing. “Me, too.”

She might be talking about the killer who had targeted her, but Jack wasn’t. Holly might never understand how afraid he was. He’d never felt this way before. Right now he felt more naked and exposed than he’d allowed himself to feel since the night his mother died. It was terrifying, and yet strangely seductive.

Holly was strong, capable, able to take care of herself. That made her sexy as hell to him.

He sat up and peeled off his clothes, then lay beside her again.

Holly trembled with desire. The feelings he’d coaxed from her with his hands and his mouth had been too much to bear. The urgency and force of her own response had surprised and frightened her.

She didn’t remember ever feeling as turned on as she’d been with Jack’s hands and mouth roaming over her. She’d never thought of herself as a sexual person until that instant before she’d stopped him, terrified of
losing herself in uninhibited response to the sensations he was evoking in her.

He’d said he was scared, too. Was he? She traced his face with her fingers, searching for the truth. His eyes never wavered as she touched his cheek, his nose, the corner of his mouth.

Her heart in her throat, she let her fingers drift down his jawline, his neck, the strong curve of his shoulder. He gasped as she lightly touched the dark, flat aureole of a nipple, feeling it harden under her fingertip.

Something changed in his face, and he grabbed her wrist, startling her.

No,
she begged silently.
Don’t stop me this time.
She didn’t think she could ever work up the courage again.

He kissed her fingers. “Holly,” he said, pushing her hand down his muscled stomach. “Touch me.”

A thrill of desire melted her insides to liquid fire. She could hardly breathe as she trailed her fingers down, down, with his hand guiding, until she felt him, hard and straining, against her palm.

He groaned quietly and moved his hips slowly, rhythmically, as she shyly stroked him. Then, in a swift, smooth movement, he lifted himself above her and touched her as intimately as—more intimately than—she was touching him. An instant of embarrassment washed over her as his fingers slid easily inside her. She knew she was slick and ready. Her body revealed what she couldn’t say. She needed him desperately.

He drew a swift breath as he stroked her once, twice, three times, bringing her closer and closer to the brink.

“Jack.”

He slid into her, hot, hard, filling her. At the same
time he kissed her. She was engulfed in him, surrounded by his lean strength, and she felt more frightened and yet safer than she’d ever felt in her life.

She met him, stroke for stroke, kiss for kiss, until sensation surrounded her and everything faded to black except the two of them.

Chapter Ten

Thursday, June 26

“He is with her; and they know that I know
Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow
While they laugh, laugh at me.”
Oh my dearest love, why do you hurt me so?
“Will you cast For a word, quite off at last
Me, your own, your You?”

Of course not. Not you. Still, time grows short and I grow impatient. Do not betray me, my dearest love. Oh, no, not you. And then I think…

“Is one day more so long to wait?”

H
OLLY WOKE
the next morning with her head on Jack’s shoulder and his arm cradling her. She woke easily, quietly, moving into wakefulness with a sense of safety and comfort she couldn’t remember feeling since she was a small child. Had it been that long since she’d felt safe and cared for?

She knew it had.

Her thoughts lingered for a moment on the night, and the incredible magic of Jack’s lovemaking. But the
haze of bliss faded as she came fully awake. She needed to call the hospital and check on her great-aunt.

She carefully slipped out of Jack’s embrace.

“What time is it?” he whispered, his fingers gliding sensuously down her naked back as she pulled away.

She looked at the clock on her bedside table as she rummaged around in the covers for her nightshirt. “Six-twenty. I intended to be up before now. Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you in a little while.”

He opened one gray eye and peered at her. “Are you okay?”

The question thrilled her. She’d been so afraid he would revert to the official Jack this morning. “Just worried about Aunt Bode. I want to get to the hospital early.” She couldn’t stop herself from smiling at him. She pulled on the nightshirt. “But I’m fine.”

“Good,” he murmured, his eyes drifting shut.

Holly watched him for a minute, her eyes feasting on his broad shoulders, the lean sculpted chest and abs, the side of one hip revealed by the casually draped covers. His face, relaxed in sleep, looked young and vulnerable, not harsh, in the early morning light.

Reluctantly leaving the room, she headed for the kitchen to start the coffee and call the hospital. Then she’d bake a pan of Uncle Virgil’s favorite muffins.

When she flipped on the kitchen light, her gaze fell on Jack’s wrinkled jacket, the one that had gotten soaked the other night. She had tossed it onto the washing machine, thinking she’d hang it up later, then had forgotten about it.

She picked it up and reached for a coat hanger. The jacket seemed heavier on one side. Feeling the pockets, she fished out a small leather-bound notebook.

Holly stared at it for a moment, stunned.
Danny’s casebook.
Jack had told her he hadn’t seen it.

She opened it, recognizing Danny’s familiar scrawl. Her heart ached as she read the notes that sounded so much like him. She touched the pages, missing Danny’s quick laugh and caring attitude. He’d been a good friend.

She glanced in the direction of her bedroom, frowning. Uncle Virgil must have given the book to Jack, although why Jack hadn’t bothered to tell her she couldn’t imagine.

A wave of irritation flowed through her. Jack was arrogant, he could be really annoying when he was in his official mode, but he’d been open with her about every aspect of the case. Why then, hadn’t he mentioned that he had Danny’s casebook?

Hoping that Danny had written something that might trigger a memory and provide a clue to the killer’s identity, she flipped through the book. Just as she remembered, Danny had faithfully chronicled each day when he was working on a case. She’d sat here in her kitchen many nights with him while he carefully recorded everything she told him about her fiancé, her husband, the notes she’d received.

Toward the last of the filled-in pages a name caught her attention.

Jack.

Her pulse pounded in her throat. Jack? She squinted at Danny’s hurried scrawl.

March 7. Called Jack O’Hara at the FBI for assistance regarding possible stalking case involving Holly McCray Frasier.

Danny had gone to Jack for help? She stared at Jack’s name. Was it a professional contact or had they known each other?

Holly felt a twinge of doubt. Jack hadn’t mentioned that he had Danny’s casebook, and he’d never given her the first indication that he’d talked to Danny about her case. What was he hiding from her? And why?

Holly pushed her fingers through her sleep-tousled hair. Her defenses were crumbling. She hadn’t realized how much she’d come to depend on Jack, on his uncompromising honesty—

“Holly?”

Holly jumped at the sound of his sleepy voice. Her fingers clenched around the book.

Jack wore jeans slung low on his hips and no shirt. His eyes were still heavy-lidded with sleep, and as he absently ran his fingers across his chest, Holly’s mouth went dry at the remembered silky steel of his skin.

She swallowed and pushed away the memory of their lovemaking. No, she couldn’t call it lovemaking. She’d thought last night that it was, but now, knowing that Jack had deceived her about Danny, could she trust anything about him, including his motivation for taking her to bed?

She held up the book like a small shield. “Why didn’t you tell me Danny contacted you about my case?”

She had the brief satisfaction of knowing she’d surprised him. His brows shot up, his eyes turned glacial, and his lanky, relaxed stance went rigid.

“Where did you get that?”

“From the pocket of your jacket. You lied to me. Uncle Virgil didn’t call you, Danny did.”

She turned to the page and held it out. “He wrote this on March seventh, about two months after he started investigating Ralph’s disappearance. Danny
asked for your assistance, and now he’s dead. What took you so long, Agent Macho?”

“Look, Holly, Danny and I had been friends for a long time. He and his family were there for me when my mother was murdered. When he called I was in the middle of a case.”

“Friends? That’s why you’re here? Because Danny was your
friend?
”

“Holly, I came here because of Danny, but—” Jack was interrupted by the telephone.

Holly slapped Danny’s casebook closed and reached for the phone. “It’s probably Debi, wondering where I am.”