Dangerous Secrets (44 page)

Jack′s leg pushed her foot aside and he
lowered her to the ground. Quickly he kicked his jeans away and pulled his
shirt over his head. He removed her jeans and shirt without finesse, yanking
the pink lace panties down and over her long legs, giving no reverence to her
injured leg.

At the last minute, he grabbed his jeans and
pulled a foiled condom from his pocket. He sheathed the latex over himself.
Then he was on top of her, thrusting himself inside her. She would have
screamed, but his mouth clamped to hers and he swallowed the sound.

Morgan thought she was lost when Jack had first
kissed her, now she knew what he meant. He was a beast and she his willing
victim. He held her arms above her head as he thrust stroke after stroke into
her. She was helpless to stop the unleashed animal. And she gave what she got,
lifting her hips and taking him further and further inside until she was sure
the two of them would split into equal halves.

Morgan pushed him over, rolling on top of him.
She took the role of aggressor, vowing not to let him think she wanted to turn
their struggle to tenderness. Jack would expect tenderness. She wouldn′t
give it to him. She′d give him what he gave her and he′d love it.
She lowered herself over him, then began her ride. She rode him long and hard,
her body joining with his. His hands took her waist, guiding her, completing
the dance they both wanted to go on and on. Her heart beat fast and she thought
it would burst with the sensations that flowed through her. She′d known
life before, known love before, but after tonight, after being with Jack, nothing
would continue the same.

And she wouldn′t want it any other way.

***

Jack hadn′t been this close to tears
since he was eight years old and lost his first swimming meet by mere seconds.
He rolled away from Morgan the moment the explosion he knew was inevitable
between them shattered the night and he calmed down enough to move. He wanted
to get away from her. He didn′t want to discuss what had just occurred
between them. He didn′t want to think about it. He didn′t want to
admit that it had touched him more than anything else that had occurred in the
past thirty-seven years.

He sat with his back to her, his head in his
hands. Behind him he could hear Morgan′s soft hiccups as she tried to
regain her breath. He didn′t have much time. Two minutes, three at the
most, before she turned to him, before she touched him. He didn′t want
her to touch him. That′s how this had started. And it was his fault. He
could have stopped it. Why hadn′t he? Why did he let her put her hands on
him? And why did he let it go on?

‶
Don′t do it, Jack.″

He heard her soft voice, the one that sounded
like warm brandy on a cold winter night. The one that sent chills down his
spine and wrapped his resolve around her finger.

‶
Don′t crawl back into the
shell. It′s broken, shattered. There are too many pieces to put back
together.″

Jack swung around and stood up. He took her
hands and pulled her to her feet.

‶
Get dressed,″ he said.

He pulled on his pants, not bothering with his
shirt. When Morgan had on her T-shirt and was trying to put her leg in her
pants without falling, he grabbed her sneakers and lifted her off the ground.
He carried her back toward the cave. Her head fell on his shoulder. She was
light. Much too light for the strength she′d shown today and too light
for the weight she′d pulled from his shoulders. She didn′t know she
now carried it.

***

Nothing remained in the cave. Jack had cleared
it earlier, moving everything Morgan had left there to the SUV before he went
looking for her. He′d unrolled sleeping bags for them to sleep in, but now
figured they′d only need one. He carried Morgan to the SUV.

‶
Where did this come
from?″ she asked as Jack set her on her feet.

‶
I′ll explain it
later,″ he said. He punched the security pad on the key and the back door
unlocked. Pulling it open, Morgan looked inside.
‶
You′ll be warm
tonight.″ Her head snapped around at him.
‶
The sleeping bags.″ Still
the look in her eyes seared through him, leaving him unable to look away.
Morgan stepped in front of him. She was barefoot and wearing no pants. Jack
looked at her upturned face. She was beautiful and no light complimented her
more than the moonlight casting soft shadows across her skin. Hair, framing her
face, turned silvery and he wanted to comb his fingers through the mane he knew
was thick and soft to the touch. His breath became shallow. He controlled it
with a practiced skill.

He liked the way she made him feel, but she was
right, it also scared him. She had a power he′d never before felt, one
that made him both strong and weak at the same time. It made him want to be
with her, yet ready to run away. Want to protect her, yet afraid of the threat
she presented to his heart.

Morgan still stared at him as if she were
waiting for him to make a decision. Jack had no choice. He wanted her as much
now as he had in the past, moments ago, ages ago, a lifetime ago. He leaned
forward, removing the small space that separated them and pressed his mouth to
hers. No part of her body touched him, only her mouth. Sensation ballooned
inside him and the heat they seemed to generate like the beginnings of a
nuclear explosion sprang up, surrounding them with its swirling heat

Tenderly his mouth brushed over hers, seeking,
testing, tasting what was his for the taking. But Jack wouldn′t take. He
wouldn′t plunder. Morgan was strong, but she was also fragile.
Contradictions raged through him as his tongue moved past her teeth and he
drank of her well. Where had she been all his life? How could he know she
existed in his world and not fight the forces keeping him from her? He wanted
to grab and pull her against him, but he held back.

He raised his hands and touched her face, still
keeping their bodies apart. The fire around them glowed red, taking the air
between them and creating a vacuum that sought to pull them together. Jack kept
them in place, positioning his mouth over hers and accepting the slow torture
that surrounded his heart like an emotional noose. He never knew his life was
incomplete until this moment. With this woman he understood the forces of the
universe. His previous experiences had lacked the understanding that she was
where his life headed. That around them were an infinite number of circles, no
beginning, no end, only the continual revolution that brought them together.
Running away made no sense. He couldn′t run from the emotion, from the
torture, from the love.

Jack took the step then. His heart nearly burst
as years of running away from her slammed into him like the ghost of himself
finally meeting his own destiny. His hands moved to Morgan′s waist and he
pulled her against him. She wore only her shirt, which hung to her thighs. He
slipped his hands under it to feel her skin. It was hot and soft and his hands
melted into her. He groaned at the sensation that arrowed through him when her
hands slowly ran up his chest and connected behind his neck.

Still he kept the pace slow, although the effort
was herculean. She was a gymnast. Her body had been sculpted through exercises,
shaped to give it the strength it needed to perform on the various pieces of
equipment, but Jack didn′t think of that. His thought was of the way her
frame fit into his, as if some divine hand had found the separate pieces of a
mold and brought the two of them together to form a whole.

Jack felt whole, complete. He walked Morgan
backward to the SUV. At the open door, he lifted his head and looked at her.
Her face was soft, and a mini-smile lifted the corners of her mouth.
Jack′s heart constricted. She climbed into the SUV and lay on the
sleeping bag. It was darker inside since he′d parked it in a secluded
area and concealed it with tree branches. He could still see Morgan. His eyes
read every inch of her body. Everything about her was aerodynamically wrong for
gymnastics. She was too tall, her breasts too large, but Jack loved the
combination. It was perfect for him. Jack pushed her T-shirt up one inch at a
time as he kissed the silky skin it uncovered. She was a wondrous map which he
planned to explore. He heard her gasp when his mouth touched her. Her hands
caught his shoulders and she tried to draw him upward. He wanted to go, wanted
to delve into her, but he forced himself to savor the moment.

There had been an explosion earlier tonight. He
wanted to commit every moment to memory this time. He wanted to know the
sweetness of the torture she went through, carry them both to the brink of
madness before consummation. He only hoped he could do it. His own body was
rock hard. Blood pulsed through him like an out-of-control cyclone.

He pulled Morgan up and removed the T-shirt.
She kissed his bare chest, running her hands slowly over his skin, leaving
trails that could have been molten flame in her wake. Jack clamped down on a
groan. Her hands came down. When she reached the top of his jeans, he knew
their power, knew what would happen if she took him in those wickedly wonderful
hands again.

He kissed her as they sat, his fingers exploring
her back and taking pleasure as she arched toward him whenever he moved his
hands over her. He spanned her small waist and moved upward to cup her breasts.
She opened her legs then and moved to sit over him. No space separated them,
not even the absent light could have sought space. The kiss went deeper as her
mouth demanded more. He shifted from side to side, kissing her, tasting her,
devouring her mouth like a long drink of cold water when the temperature soared
over the ninety degree mark. He wanted more and more of her. Kisses
weren′t enough.

Jack pressed her back and removed his jeans. He
slipped one of the condoms over him and joined with her. Jack heard her sigh of
pleasure as he settled between her legs.

God! This
is heaven,
he though.

Everything Jack had thought about taking his
time was lost the moment his body connected to hers. Pure sensation, lust,
wanting, need, love took over and he could think of nothing other than the
combined pleasure that two people could give each other. Not any two people,
specifically Morgan Kirkwood and Jack Temple. Her body was made for his. His
blood pounded and his heart beat and his senses told him she was different,
more than any woman he′d ever slept with. Making love was something that
didn′t happen often, and while he′d thought he′d made love
before, nothing compared to the woman in his arms, in his bed and in his body.
She′d insinuated herself inside him, stolen into his pores when he
wasn′t looking and taken up residence. She was here for the duration.
There was no going back after this.

Morgan was the Rolls-Royce of his life and he
thanked the heavens he′d found her. He called her name as a sudden rush
like an approaching tsunami pounded within him. Lightning flashed inside his
head and drove him like a madman. Her body accepted the force of his as the
wave topped him and crashed. His release was like falling from an airplane. The
ground rushed upward but the parachute saved him and gently set him on the
ground.

Morgan′s arms were his lifeline. She
hugged him, slipped her sensual hands over his heated skin, as she rained
kisses over his face. Jack was as weak as a man recovering from a long illness,
but he knew the Morgan sickness which had invaded his body was something that
had no cure.

And he didn′t want one.

***

The house glittered white in the sunshine. It
was one of those monstrosities left over from the Jazz Age or some age that
never seemed to fall completely out of style. The rich passed them around like
Faberge eggs, changing the interior once a decade to make it seem as if it was
part of the present. The place should have been demolished years ago and a
shopping mall put up, but it had survived to be decorated according to the
taste of its present owner, who favored a Far Eastern motif. All the windows
and doors had been covered with opaque sliding panels. He always felt as if he
were entering a tomb when the doors slid in place behind him.

There was practically no furniture in any of
the downstairs rooms. Some of them had a couple of steps leading down to a
floor of gravel, which was carefully raked for evenness. Trees of odd shapes
grew inside and appeared green no matter what the time of year. It was as if
the owner never wanted the outside world to touch him, so he built his own
world within the walls. Never having been above the first floor, he wondered if
there were beds or if some other unexpected forms were used there.

He stopped the car at the end of the driveway,
which stretched three miles from the road to culminate in a circle around a
fountain. Atop it stood golden dragons spouting water in the four directions. A
long sigh escaped him as he got out of the car. He hated coming here.

He got out of his car in the circular driveway
and looked at the sky. The day was clear, warm, a hint of the humidity that
could descend on the place without warning was in the air, but he wasn′t
uncomfortable in his suit and tie. The water dragons spouted at the relentless
sky, arcing rainbows in the light.

His steps were heavy approaching the door. He
had bad news and he never knew how it would be received, but whether there was
quiet or explosion, he knew underneath was a seething heart that had no
compassion, no conscience. He had little either, but he did draw the line at
cruelty to animals and children. He′d never be involved in any operation
that preyed on the innocent and defenseless. Children should be protected and
maybe they wouldn′t grow up to be like him.

He rang the doorbell. It was immediately opened
by a maid who said nothing. She admitted him and showed him to one of the
downstairs rooms. He′d been in this one before. This one had a floor,
instead of a rock garden.