Dangerous Lover (23 page)

No. Before they could make love.

Wow
. It was the first time he’d ever called it that in his head. It was also the first time he’d wanted a willing woman
and decided to put sex off because she might not be psychologically ready.

“I hate it that someone was in my house, going through my things,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he said simply.

“And you’ll set up a system no one can get through?”

He’d set up a system not even
he
could get through. He nodded.

“Well, I guess you convinced me.” Caroline took in a deep breath, and Jack heroically kept his eyes on her face, though he had excellent peripheral vision and could see her breasts swelling a little under the sweater. “I’ll accept your gift with thanks, and I guess I’ll give
you
a little gift in return. Dinner.”

She raised herself up on tiptoe to kiss him awkwardly on the side of his mouth. Jack was so surprised, he simply stood there like a dork. By the time he thought to kiss her back, she’d disappeared into the kitchen.

He stood there for a long time, listening to her rattle pans and run water in the kitchen, remembering the sharp burst of feeling in his chest when she’d kissed him.

He rubbed his hand over his chest, where it hurt.

Sanders sat behind his desk, teeth grinding. He’d combed his hair and straightened his clothes in his car before coming back to his office, but there must have been something else visible enough to set off alarms—the rage coming off him like steam, maybe—because his secretary had given him a startled look as he strode by.

Caroline was lost. Doubly lost. It was true, maybe he
shouldn’t have pushed her so hard. But damn, walking into her shop, he’d been taken by a sudden surge of lust. He’d forgotten how beautiful she was, how perfect for him. So when she stood there, in her dinky little one-room bookshop that probably barely paid the rent and told him—
him
!—that no, she didn’t want to go to the most fabulous hotel in Washington state and no she didn’t want box tickets to the opera, he’d lost it.

Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed it, but goddammit, when she said no, something snapped.

Caroline had never been great in the sack, but when she fought him, he could feel her fire, and it excited him. He shouldn’t have pushed it as hard as he did, but damn, he’d been turned on.

And then it turned out that Caroline wasn’t free after all. She was fucking someone else, and that someone else was territorial and violent.

In all these years, in the back of his mind, Sanders had taken it for granted that when he finally decided to settle down, it would be with Caroline, and she would fall into his arms with gratitude. After all, he was offering to give her back the life she’d been born to and had lost with her parents’ death.

He’d always expected that she’d be free for him. But she’d hooked up with that son of a bitch who’d nearly broken his arm, and now she wasn’t free anymore.

Something would have to be done and soon. Now that he’d made up his mind about Caroline, he wasn’t going to let some violent asshole dressed like a bum steal his woman.

The intercom buzzed. “Mr. McCullin you have a visitor.”

Sanders pushed the button. “I don’t want to see anyone, Lori. Hold off all calls this afternoon.”

“Ah…Mr. McCullin, you might want to see…this person. Wait!” her voice squawked through the speaker. “You can’t go in there without permission! Hey, mister—”

The door to Sanders’s office opened and a man walked in, holding out a badge at chest height. Not too tall, sandy hair, black horn rim glasses, cheap shiny black suit. “Mr. McCullin? Mr. Sanders McCullin?”

Sanders couldn’t make the badge out. “Yes. Yes, I am. As I told my secretary to tell you, however, I’m very busy this after—”

“Mr. McCullin, my name is Darrell Butler. Special Agent Darrell Butler, of the New York FBI office. I understand you know a certain Ms. Caroline Lake. We’re making inquiries about a man she’s seeing, who is currently going by the name Jack Prescott. He is a very dangerous criminal. We have reason to believe that this man has committed war crimes and that he has stolen a fortune in diamonds in Africa.”

Sanders sat back down, staring at the man, feeling hope unfurl in his chest once again. “Please,” he said to the FBI agent. “Have a seat.”

Jack was feeling rattled, so he went to tighten the pipes under the downstairs bathroom sink while Caroline cooked. The pipes were leaking, dripping water all over the place and, all in all, he thought her bathroom sink was a pretty good metaphor for his life. He was dripping too, leaking emotions all over the place.

Jack hardly recognized himself, it was like he was losing bits of himself by the wayside.

Caroline was messing with his head and tripping up his heart. In all these years, while dreaming of her and—in the most private recesses of his head—dreaming of bedding her, it never occurred to him that being with Caroline was going to change him in any fundamental way.

Jack knew himself and was very comfortable with who he was. He’d had a hard life, and it had taught him self-reliance and coolness and a great deal of emotional detachment in whatever he did.

Caroline had blown all that right out of the water.

His head had nearly exploded when he’d seen that fucker McCullin manhandling her. It was a good thing he hadn’t known that he was the handsome blond boy Ben had seen through the windows that Christmas Eve long ago. He’d spent the past twelve years hating that boy, wondering whether he was the man Caroline would marry and have children with.

Even without knowing who he was, Jack had gone haywire inside. Another minute and he’d have shattered the guy’s arm. The rage in his head had been so loud he knew he was capable of killing the man, which would have landed him in jail. Once in the slammer, he could kiss Caroline good-bye, literally, not to mention spending the next twenty-five years of his life behind bars.

It was only Caroline’s hand on his arm that had pulled him back from the brink.

And just now, coming in. If he’d been paying attention, he’d
have seen the tampering around the lock from the driveway. Instead, he almost missed it. That
never
happened. He was always security-conscious and had a sixth and even seventh sense for breaches of security.

So he lay on his back under the sink in Caroline’s chilly little downstairs bathroom, feeling good about stopping the leaky sink, tightening the bolts fastening the toilet bowl to the floor and repairing the showerhead, all the while wishing he could fix himself, get himself back to the way he’d been BC—before Caroline—cold, businesslike, detached.

Caroline stuck her beautiful head into the doorway and smiled at him. It was like being struck by lightning.

“Dinner’s ready, Jack,” she said, and walked back to the kitchen. His eyes tracked her every step of the way, watching the way her shiny hair bounced on her shoulders, how her hips swayed slightly, listening to the light sound of her heels on the marble floor echoing the beat of his heart.

A faint scent of roses hung in the air.

Jack rubbed his chest again, where it hurt. Fuck, maybe he should see a cardiologist.

After the FBI agent left, Sanders sat very still at his desk, staring at his hands.

The office was quiet. He employed an administrative secretary, two legal secretaries and two interns. Everyone had long since gone, knocking off early due to the bad weather. He was alone in his office and with his thoughts.

Sanders was very aware that he’d just been handed a sec
ond chance with Caroline, but the next few steps had to be handled very carefully.

The FBI Special Agent had his own agenda and his own priorities and they had nothing whatsoever to do with getting Caroline Lake back together with Sanders McCullin.

Special Agent Butler had been very clear on that. He’d also been clear that he didn’t want interference from Sanders. Butler had wanted some information and had warned Sanders to keep away, something Sanders had no intention of doing, not when it was a question of getting Caroline back.

When the fuck did she start going out with this guy—this Jack Prescott or whatever his name was? It must have been a very recent affair because just last week Sanders had seen Jenna, and she hadn’t said anything about Caroline going out with someone.

It just went to show that Caroline didn’t know how to manage her life. She didn’t listen to him when he’d told her to put Toby in a home, she didn’t listen to him when he told her to sell Greenbriars and now she’d hooked up with a criminal.

Instinctively, Sanders knew that this would be wonderful ammunition when they got married. Whenever she questioned his judgment, he had big howitzers full of ammo to pull out.
Yeah? And who fucked a mass murderer?

She’d shut up and do what he said, guaranteed.

The past twenty-four hours had given him some startling revelations about himself. He’d been dancing around Caroline for years. He’d fucked other women, sure, hell—he was a man, wasn’t he? But she’d always been in the back of his
mind, and he knew he’d been waiting for just the right moment to come. That moment was now, without any interference from her family.

He’d also discovered that he very much liked having the upper hand with her. It was an aspect of himself that had never come to the fore with other women. His women were savvy and good fucks. He’d never wanted much more from them than a good time in bed and maybe some networking for his job. By the time he might start caring about them obeying him, he’d moved on.

But it turned out he liked dominance, a lot.

Dominance.

Caroline needed dominance. She needed a strong hand. And to his amazement and enjoyment, when she resisted, it turned him on, powerfully. So when they were married, he could look forward to an obedient wife, dependent on him for money and reluctant to cross him because she’d fucked the wrong guy. Sanders would never let her forget it.

Sanders looked at the visiting card Special Agent Butler had left and at the number on the bottom.

Sanders was a careful lawyer, used to checking all his facts. He rarely lost arguments, and he rarely lost cases because of that aspect of his character.

He picked up the phone and punched in the number. The phone was picked up on the second ring. “New York FBI Field Office, how may I help you?” a female voice with a heavy Hispanic accent said.

“Yes, I’d like to speak with Special Agent Darrell Butler please.”

“I’m sorry sir, but Special Agent Butler is out of the office. Can I take a message?”

“No, thank you.”

Sanders put the receiver down gently in its cradle, smiling.

Yes, things had taken a wonderful turn.

“Eat.” Jack frowned at Caroline’s plate, where she’d been picking at the same slice of chicken for the past half hour, looking more and more worried.

She’d prepared a fabulous dinner. Lentil soup, sourdough bread, chicken whosis—an Italian name like terrazzo only different—a four-bean salad and apple crumble. She’d cooked enough for four people, and he’d eaten for three and a half. The other half was on her plate, and she was pushing pieces around listlessly.

Caroline looked up from where she’d been watching her fork tines make interesting little patterns in the chicken breast. “Do you—do you think he went into the kitchen, too?”

Jack didn’t have to ask who “he” was. “He” was the shithead who’d invaded her home and made her pale and shaky. “Probably not. Kitchens aren’t usually where people keep valu
ables, though they should. Precisely because burglars don’t check kitchens. Why?”

Caroline shrugged, the tines now making patterns on the plate with the beans. “I don’t know. It’s just—” She watched her fork shift a green bean from one side of the plate to the other. “Ever since I’ve been taking boarders, I’m sort of used to the idea of sharing my space. But the bedroom and the kitchen are
mine,
and I hate the thought of someone pawing through my things.”

Jack speared a good bite of the chicken and held it in front of her mouth. “Well, then, it’s a good thing that after tomorrow no one else is going to break into here. Now open wide.”

He slipped the bite into her mouth and waited for her to chew. By the time she’d swallowed, he had another square of chicken at the end of his fork. “Another one.”

She grimaced, but ate it. The third time she turned her head. “I’m really not hungry, Jack.”

Frustrated, he put his fork down. He wanted to make her eat, but he found he couldn’t use any form of force with her.

Caroline was looking down at the tabletop, a long lock of shiny hair falling forward over her face. Jack pushed the lock back with his forefinger, then lifted her chin so that she had to look at him.

“That’s not all that’s bothering you, is it?”

She shook her head, the movement enough to send a faint fragrance of roses over to him, rising over the sharp smells of the food. “No.”

“This is about your—friend, isn’t it? You were in shock this afternoon. You weren’t expecting that, were you?”

“God, no.” Caroline looked up at him, chin quivering. Her eyes welled, but she blinked back tears furiously. His heart gave a tight little squeeze at how she willed the tears back. He suspected she’d done a lot of that over the years. “I’ve known Sanders for…heavens, forever. I think I told you we dated in our teens. I thought I knew him inside out. He’s got his good points. He’s intelligent and good at his job. He knows a lot about art and design. He’s a decent dinner companion, and he’s fun if you want a relaxing night out. He’s got excellent taste in films and theater. You just can’t expect too much from him. He’s vain and selfish, and he’ll always look out for Sanders McCullin first, but then there’s his charming side to make up for that. That’s okay because I know him well enough not to expect more than he can give. Today just—” She shook her head. “I had no idea.”

Jack placed his hand over hers. She needed to talk it out, and he was more than willing to give her the space to do it in. “Tell me,” he said quietly.

Caroline looked him full in the face, eyes wide. “He liked it when I fought him.” She shook her head, slowly, clearly still stunned at the idea. “It excited him. It was…God, it was unmistakable. At first, when he tried to kiss me, I thought all I had to do was push him away, so I did. Or tried to. He just held me closer. It’s not—” She shook her head again. “Most women have experiences like that. Someone you don’t want wants you. And usually it doesn’t take that much to make them back down once you make it clear you’re not interested. And I thought it would be like that with Sanders—just push away, and he’d stop. But he didn’t. And when I started
fighting back hard…” She drew a deep breath. “He got an erection. It was
horrible.
”

Son of a bitch. Maybe Jack had been wrong. Maybe he
should
have killed the fucker.

McCullin had punched a hole in Caroline’s self-confidence, in her sense of herself as a woman. Jack wanted to give a measure of control back to her, repair the torn fabric.

“I know guys like that,” he said, as he held Caroline’s hand. “It’s like there’s something fundamentally wrong inside them, like there’s something broken. Because, honey, a normal man does
not
get excited at the idea or the feel of a woman who’s frightened or in pain. Trust me on this one. The military attracts a lot of guys like that fu—like McCullin. They like the idea of the power trip and of being trained to dominate physically.

“Luckily, the military also has ways to screen men like that out, and they do that because they never work out as soldiers. Those kinds of men are broken inside in other ways, too, not just sexually. They don’t know how to work in teams, which is what a good Army is all about. They don’t take orders well, and they often have an inflated idea of their own abilities, which can be disastrous in combat. So a lot of them get weeded out. Not all of them, but most of them.” He held her chin and bent and kissed her softly, just a touch of his lips to hers. “The guy’s a sick fuck, and he’s not worth an instant of your time or your worry.”

Caroline gave a soft laugh. “Actually,
you’re
the one who should be worrying. Didn’t he threaten to sue you? I warn you, Sanders is a really good lawyer. I hope you won’t have any trouble because of me.”

She’d been manhandled by someone she considered a friend, had had her home broken into, and she was worried about
him.
“Let me worry about that.” He reached out with his thumb and erased the little frown line between her brows. “He doesn’t scare me, believe me.”

“No, I imagine he doesn’t. And I never thanked you for showing up right in the nick of time, did I? Just like in the movies. Jack Prescott to the rescue. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Jack’s voice was suddenly hoarse, and he had to clear his throat to get the words out.

She was holding the stem of her wineglass, twirling it, watching the deep red wine climb the walls of the crystal, lost in thought.

The hand holding the stem was delicate, as was her wrist. He could see the tendons working as she twirled the stem. Everything about her was delicate, even fragile. Tonight she didn’t have her usual rose under ivory color—she was pale and looked tired.

Much as she tried to build little havens for herself from the outside world in her home and her shop, the sharp-toothed outside world had come roaring in to take a big bite out of her in both her havens.

The world was not kind to the kindhearted.

Jack’s heart simply rolled over in his chest.

It was almost as if he were seeing her for the very first time. Caroline had been in his head for most of his life, it seemed. A mysterious, otherworldly beauty, unreachable, unapproachable. Someone to fantasize about while jerking off in lonely places. A unicorn. A myth.

But this—this woman was
real
. This woman with the gallant, warm heart wasn’t a myth, but a real flesh-and-blood woman. Strong, yet vulnerable. Steadfast, yet fragile.

She was also the bravest person he’d ever known.

If you’d asked him, Jack would have said he was brave. Christ, he was a soldier. He’d been in more firefights than he could count. He went into battle each and every time fully prepared to die. He didn’t back down from anything, man or beast.

Didn’t mean jack shit. When the Colonel had fallen ill,
that
was when his courage had been tested. It had been three weeks of utter and total hell. He’d spent all the time he could at the hospital, wishing he could escape each and every second. Watching the Colonel die, inch by inch, watching him become weaker, day by day, had taxed his courage to the maximum.

Jack had gone home every evening, gone down to the basement and worked out at the punching bag for an hour a night, and it barely took the edge off his desperation.

At the end, he could barely look at the Colonel. He was ashamed of it still, but he couldn’t stand to see that emaciated face, the skin paper-thin and almost bloodless. The tubes running in and out, the gasps for breath.

When the nurses came to change his bed linen or give him his medication, Jack took the excuse to escape, if only down to the canteen for a cup of what they laughingly called coffee. And each time he came back, he stood outside the door of the Colonel’s hospital room, sweaty hand flat against the door, willing himself to push it open. It sometimes took him
half an hour finally to get the courage to go back in and help his adoptive father die.

It had nearly killed him, and it had lasted three weeks.

Caroline had done that for her brother for six fucking
years,
while laboring under a terrible financial burden.

She deserved the Congressional Medal of Honor.

She was a woman in a million.

Caroline could be hurt at any time, be taken from him at any moment. The world is a big, cold and cruel place. No one knew that better than Jack. No one knew better than he how brutal and savage life could be. One swipe of the reptilian hand of fate, and Caroline could be wiped off the face of the earth in an instant, shattered and forever gone to him.

The beauty and goodness in her could vanish as quickly as a candle being snuffed out.

This woman was incredibly precious, light in darkness, grace in sorrow.

At that moment, Jack realized, with a sense of truth that went deep as bone, strong as blood, that Caroline held his heart forever, and that his mission in life was to keep her safe and happy, bring a smile to her face and the rose blush back to her cheeks.

As long as he drew breath, he would make sure no harm came to her that he could prevent. But even more than protecting her, he wanted her to be her truest self. Nothing could take her back to the carefree, privileged girl she’d been, but by God, he wanted the woman he’d caught glimpses of during the weekend back. A charmer, good-natured, secure in her beauty without being run by it. Well-read, with a good
sense of humor, even earthy. That woman was Caroline, the essence of Caroline, when life wasn’t beating her down with a big stick.

Jack couldn’t go back in time and undo today, but he sure as hell could drown her in pleasure at the end of it.

“Come,” he said suddenly, standing up.

She looked puzzled when Jack placed two clean stem glasses and the half-empty bottle of excellent wine they’d been having for dinner in her hands, then yelped as he scooped her up in his arms.

“Where—” she began, then held her tongue. Where they were going was very clear as he headed up the stairs.

“I thought we’d have a nightcap up here.” Jack smiled in her eyes as he carried her along the upper-story landing to her bedroom.
Their
bedroom now.

He didn’t switch on the light in the bedroom, but the light on the landing filtered in. It was just enough to wrap them in the intimacy of darkness, yet let him see her. He needed to be able to watch her as he loved her. He knew her body well enough by now to know that he could tell by touch what was happening to her, but he wanted to see it, too.

Nothing in the world was as exciting as watching Caroline’s eyelids drooping with arousal, as if keeping her eyes open was too great an effort. Or watching her skin turn an even deeper rose where he touched her, or the barely perceptible beat of her speeded-up heart over her left breast.

God, it all turned him on. Everything about her was designed to make his cock swell, his heart beat faster, his blood rise. The sight of her, the sound of her, the feel of her, the
smell of her—everything kept him in a state of semiarousal whenever he was near her or even just thought of her.

He wasn’t in semiarousal now, it was the full-blown deal. Jesus, good thing he’d bought himself another pair of tight jeans because he needed to keep it in his pants for a while.

Tonight was a night for romance, and romance meant foreplay, though it wasn’t what he was good at. Once he got a woman naked, sex was only a few minutes away. He wasn’t used to pacing himself or holding back.

Tonight would be a crash course in control because tonight was about her.

Jack sat her on the side of the bed, poured her half a glass of wine and put it in her hand. He poured himself a glass and clinked it to hers. The pure ring of crystal blossomed in the room.

“To us.” He drank, watching her over the glass.

“To us.” Caroline smiled, swirled the wine around, sniffed deeply, then sipped.
That’s my girl,
he thought. It’s all about the senses tonight.

Enjoy.

He sure intended to.

Jack dropped to a crouch, wincing a little as his cock rubbed up against his jeans. Fuck, it hurt. Maybe he should just go naked around Caroline, spare himself the pain.

He slowly slipped her right shoe off, then the left, getting a kick out of looking at her pretty feet and her toenail polish gleaming creamy pink through the stockings.

In the quiet room, he undressed her, slowly, like unwrapping a wonderful Christmas present to himself. Stockings,
skirt, sweater, panties, bra and there she was, naked, just for him.

His cock pulsed painfully. His heart pulsed painfully.

Her ankles were slender, he was easily able to encircle her ankles with his hands. “You have such beautiful feet,” he whispered, raising his eyes to hers.

They were silver in this light, rimmed by a darker blue. “Thank you,” she whispered back.

He leaned forward, running his hands from her ankles up the outside of her thighs, over her hips, nuzzling her soft little belly.

He leaned forward a little, his shoulders forcing her knees apart.

“Lie down, honey,” he said, his voice a little hoarse. “This will take a while.”

That brought a smile to her lips. She ran a hand over his hair, then slowly lay down, one arm covering her eyes.