Captive Star (12 page)

"I can see them cooking the books," she said speculatively. "Timothy has a gambling problem—meaning he likes to play and tends to lose."

"Is that so? Well, Ralph had a lot of connections when it came to, let's say, games of chance. That's a link that slides neat onto the chain."

"So Ralph finds out the creep's playing deep, maybe skimming the till to keep from getting his legs broken, and he puts the pressure on.'

"It might work. And Salvini whines to somebody who's got more muscle—somebody who wants the Stars." He moved his shoulders and decided to give it a chance to brew. "In any case, that wasn't bad work, sugar."

"It was great work," she corrected.

"I'll cop to good. And you looked pretty natural with your hips hanging out the car window, shooting at a speeding van." He drowned his pancakes in syrup. "Even if it did stop my heart. If you ever decide to change careers, you'd make a passable skip tracer."

"Really?" She wasn't sure if she should be complimented or worried by the assessment. She decided to be flattered. "I don't think I could spend my life on the hunt—or being hunted." She shook enough salt on her eggs to make Jack—a sodium fan—wince. "How do you? Why do you?"

"How's your blood pressure?"

"Hmm?"

"Never mind. I figure you go with your strengths. I'm good at tracking, backtracking, then figuring out the steps people are planning to take. And I like the hunt." He grinned wolfishly. "I love the hunt. Doesn't matter what size the prey is, as long as you bring them down."

"Crime's crime?"

"Not exactly. That's a cop attitude. But if you've got the right point of view, it's just as satisfying to snag some deadbeat father running from back child support as it is to bag a guy who shot his business partner. You can bring down both if you get to know your quarry. Mostly they're stupid—they've got habits they don't break."

"Such as?"

"A guy dips into the till where he works. He gets caught, charged, then he jumps bail. Odds are he's got friends, relatives, a lover. It won't take long before he asks somebody for help. Most people aren't loners. They think they are, but they're not. Something always pulls them back. They'll make a call, a visit.

Leave a paper trail. Take you."

Surprised, she frowned. "I hadn't done anything."

"That's not the issue. You're a smart woman, a self-starter, but you wouldn't have gone far, you wouldn't have gone long without calling your friends." He scooped up eggs, smiled at her. "In fact, that's just what you did."

"And what about you? Who would you call?"

"Nobody." His smile faded. He continued to eat as the waitress topped off their coffee.

"No family?"

"No." He picked up a slice of bacon, snapped it in two. "My father took off when I was twelve. My mother handled it by hating the world. I had an older brother, signed with the army the day he hit eighteen. He decided not to come back. I haven't heard from him in ten, twelve years. Once I got into college, my mother figured her job was done and hit the road. You could say we don't keep in touch."

"I'm sorry."

He jerked his shoulder against the sympathy, irritated with himself for telling her. He didn't talk family. Ever. With anyone.

"You haven't seen your family in all these years," she continued, unable to prevent herself from probing just a bit. "You don't know where they are—they don't know where you are?"

"We weren't what you'd call close, and we didn't spend enough time together to be considered dysfunctional."

"But still—"

"I always figured it was in the blood," he said, cutting her off. "Some people just don't stay put."

All right, she thought, his family was out of the conversation. It was a tender spot, even if he didn't realize it. "What about you, Jack? How long have you stayed put?"

"That's part of the appeal of the job. You never know where it's going to take you."

"That's not what I meant." She searched his face. "But you knew that."

"I never had any reason to stay." Her hand rested on the table, an inch from his. He was tempted to take it, just hold it. That worried him. "I know people, a lot of people. But I don't have friends—not the way you do with Bailey and Grace. A lot of us go through life without that, M.J."

"I know. But do you want to?"

"I never gave it a hell of a lot of thought." He rubbed both hands over his face. "God, I must be tired. Philosophizing over breakfast in the Twilight Diner at five in the morning."

She glanced out the window at the lightening sky to the east, the all-but-empty road. "'And down the long and silent street, the dawn—'"

"'With silver-sandaled feet, crept like a frightened girl.' " Finishing the quote, he shrugged. She was goggling at him.

"How do you know that? Just what did you take in college?"

"Whatever appealed to me."

Now she grinned, propped her elbows on the table. "Me too. I drove my counselors crazy. I can't tell you how many times I was told I had no focus."

"But you can quote Oscar Wilde at 5:00 a.m. You can shoot a .38, drop-kick your average man, you eat like a trucker, understand ancient Roman gods, and I bet you mix a hell of a boilermaker."

"The best in town. So here we are, Jack, a couple of people most would say are overeducated for their career choices, drinking coffee at an ungodly hour of the morning, while a couple of guys in a van with one headlight hunt for us and the pretty rock you've got in your pocket. It's the Fourth of July, we've known each other less than twenty-four hours under very possibly the worst of circumstances, and the person who brought us together is dead as Moses."

She pushed her plate aside. "What do we do now?"

He took bills out of his pocket, tossed them on the table. "We go to bed."

The motel room was still tacky, cramped and dim. The thin flowered spread was still mussed where they had stretched out on it hours before.

Only hours, she thought. It felt like days. A lifetime. More than a lifetime. It felt as if she'd known him forever, she realized as she watched him empty his pocket onto the dresser, that he'd been a vital part of her forever.

If that wasn't enough, maybe the wanting was. Maybe wanting like this was the best thing to hold on to when your world had gone insane. There was nothing and no one left to trust but him.

Why should she say no? Why should she turn away from comfort, from passion? From life?

Why should she turn away from him, when every instinct told her he needed those things as much as she did?

He turned, and waited. He could have seduced her. He had no doubt of it. She was running on sheer nerves now, whether she knew it or not. So she was vulnerable, and needy, and he was there.

Sometimes that alone was enough.

He could have seduced her, would have, if it hadn't been important. If she hadn't been so inexplicably and vitally important. Sex would have been a relief, a release, a basic physical act between two free-willed adults.

And that should have been all he wanted.

But he wanted more.

He stayed where he was, beside the dresser, as she stood at the foot of the bed.

"I've got something to say," he began.

"Okay."

"I'm in this with you until it's over because that's the way I want it. I finish what I start. So I don't want anything that comes from gratitude or obligation."

If her heart hadn't been jumping, she might have smiled. "I see. So if I suggested you sleep in the bathtub, that wouldn't be a problem?"

He eased a hip onto the dresser. "It'd be your problem. If that's what you want, you can sleep in the bathtub."

"Well, you never claimed to be a gentleman."

"No, but I'll keep my hands off you."

She angled her head, studied him. He looked dangerous, plenty dangerous, she decided as her pulse quickened. The dark stubble, the wild mane of hair, those hard gray eyes so intense in that tough, rawboned face.

He thought he was giving her a choice.

She wondered if either of them was fool enough to believe she had one.

So her smile was slow, arrogant. She kept her eyes on his as she reached down, tugged her T-shirt out of her jeans. She watched his gaze flick down to her hands, follow them up as she pulled the shirt over her head, tossed it aside.

"I'd like to see you try," she murmured, and unsnapped her jeans. He straightened on legs gone watery when she began to lower the zipper.

"I want to do that."

With heat already tingling in her fingertips, she let her hands fall to her sides. "Help yourself."

Her shoulders were long, fascinating curves. Her breasts were pale and small and would cup easily in a man's palm. But for now, he looked only at her face.

He took his time, tried to, crossing to her, catching the metal tab between his thumb and finger, drawing it slowly down. And his eyes were on hers when he slid his hand past the parted denim and cupped her.

Felt her, hot, naked. Felt her tremble, quick, deep.

"I had a feeling."

She let out a careful breath, drew in another through lungs that had become stuffed with cotton. "I didn't get to my laundry this week."

"Good." He eased the denim down another inch, slid his hands around her bottom.

"You're built for speed, M.J. That's good, because this isn't going to be slow.

I don't think I could manage slow right now." He yanked her against him, arousal to arousal. "You're just going to have to keep up."

Her eyes glinted into his, her chin angled in a dare. "I haven't had any trouble keeping up with you so far."

"So far," he agreed, and ripped a gasp from her when he lifted her off her feet and clamped his hungry mouth to her breast.

The shock was stunning, glorious, an electric sizzle that snapped through her blood and slapped her heartbeat into overdrive. She let her head fall back and wrapped her legs tight around his waist to let him feed. The scrape of his beard against her skin, the nip of teeth, the slide of his tongue—each a separate, staggering thrill.

And each separate, staggering thrill tore through her system and left her quivering for more.

The fall to the bed—a reckless dive from a cliff. The grip of his hands on hers—another link in the chain. His mouth, desperate on hers—a demand with only one answer.

She pulled at his shirt, rolled with him until he was free of it and they were both bare to the waist. And found the muscles and bones and scars of a warrior's body. The heat of flesh on flesh raged through her like a firestorm.

Her hands and mouth were no less impatient than his. Her needs no less brutal.

With something between an oath and a prayer, he flipped her over, dragging at her jeans. His mouth busily scorched a path down her body as he worked the snug denim off. Desire was blinding him with hammer blows that stole the breath and battered the senses. No hunger had ever been so acute, so edgy and keen, as this for her. He only knew if he didn't have her, all of her, he'd die from the wanting.

Those long naked limbs, the energy pulsing in every pore, those harsh, panting gasps of her breath, had the blood searing through his veins to burn his heart.

Wild for her, he yanked her hips high and used his mouth on her.

The climax screamed through her, one long, hot wave with jagged edges that had her sobbing out in shock and delight. Her nails scraped heedlessly down his back, then up again until they were buried in his thick mane of gold-tipped hair. She let him destroy her, welcomed it. And, with her body still shuddering from the onslaught, wrestled him onto his back to tear at the rest of his clothes.

She felt his heart thud, could all but hear it. Their flesh, slick with sweat, slid smoothly as they grappled. His fingers found her, pierced her, drove her past desperation. If speech had been possible, she would have begged.

Rather than beg, she clamped her thighs around him, and took him inside, fast and deep.

His fingers dug hard into her hips when she closed over him. His breath was gone; his heart stopped. For an instant, with her raised above him, her head thrown back, his hands sliding sinuously up her body, he was helpless.

Hers.

Then she began to move, piston-quick, riding him ruthlessly in a wild race. Her breath was sobbing, her hands were clutched in her hair. In some part of his brain he realized that she, too, was helpless.

His.

He reared up, his mouth greedy on her breast, on her throat, wherever he could draw in the taste of her while they moved together in a merciless, driving rhythm.

Then he wrapped his arms around her, pressed his lips to her heart, groaning out her name as they shattered each other.

They stayed clutched, joined, shuddering. Time was lost to him. He felt her grip slacken, her hands slide weakly down his back, and brushed a kiss over her shoulder. He lay back, drawing her with him so that she was sprawled over his chest.

He stroked a hand over her hair and murmured, "It's been an interesting day."

She managed a weak chuckle. "All in all." They were sticky, exhausted, and quite possibly insane, she thought. Certainly, it was insane to feel this happy, this perfect, when everything around you was wrecked.

She could have told him she'd never been intimate with a man so quickly. Or that she'd never felt so in tune, so close to anyone, as with him.

But there didn't seem to be a point. What was happening to them was simply happening. Opening her eyes, she studied the stone resting atop the scarred dresser. Did it glow? she wondered. Or was it simply a trick of the light of the room?

What power did it have, really, beyond material wealth? It was just carbon, after all, with some elements mixed in to give it that rare, rich color. It grew in the earth, was of the earth, and had once been taken, by human hands, from it.

And had once been held in the hands of a god.

The second stone was knowledge, she thought, and closed her eyes. Perhaps some things were known only to the heart.

"You need to sleep," Jack said quietly. The tone of his voice made her wonder where his mind had wandered.

"Maybe." She rolled off him, stretched out on her stomach across the width of the bed. "My body's tired, but I can't shut off my head." She chuckled again.