She Does Know Jack (12 page)

“…this is not a
joke.”

She stopped dead
just outside the swinging door. Who was Jack talking to? She peered through the
crack. No one. He was alone and just closing his cell phone.

Alarm quickened
her heartbeats and stiffened her spine. What was that all about? Had he gotten
a call? She hadn’t heard his phone ring. Had he made a call? Releasing the
breath she hadn’t realized she held, Brielle proceeded into the kitchen with
her arms full and her mind ready to investigate.

“Here’s the rest
of the mess,” she said, heading for the sink. Her cameraman settled in the
corner while she unburdened her arms.

“Let me help.”
Jack slipped the phone into his pocket before grabbing the teetering pile. “So
tell me, Brielle, how come you weren’t bored to sleep?”

She decided to
play along. “I’d never sleep during that movie. It’s one of my favorites.” His
astonished expression made her smile. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the whole
trilogy, but the first one is my favorite.”

Jack remained
still. “You like this type of movie? Why?”

Her mind raced
for an acceptable response. Somehow, stating it was loaded with dreamy, hunky
men didn’t seem like a legitimate answer. Even if it was true. “Do you have any
idea how much choreography goes into those fight scenes? And the balance
involved? It’s a work of art. And quite graceful at times, too.” She paused to
pull in a breath and end her babbling by switching tactics. “Why? Was I not
supposed to like it?”

“No. It’s just
that most women don’t.” He motioned toward the room were the beauties slept.

She grinned and
shook her head. “Jack. How many times do I have to tell you…I’m not most
women.”

His friendly
gaze suddenly darkened to sapphire, brimming with hunger and flecks of desire.
“I’m beginning to see that,” he murmured, dropping his attention to her mouth.

She stopped
breathing. Oh, this…this wasn’t good. Looking at him did funny things to her
insides.
Steady, Brielle, he’s a suspect
, her mind warned, but it was
too late. A sensual fog obscured the room and everything in it—everything
except Jack.

He stepped
closer. Heat from his body seeped into her skin, raising her temperature to an
instant burn. The pull of arousal ran deep—all the way to her good parts, which
were screaming for her to allow Jack to make them happy again.

With his mouth a
mere inch away, Jack’s curse washed over her face as his hands settled on her
hips. Warmed by his breath and touch, she gave in, lost, her mind officially
shut down and her body eagerly took over. She wrapped her arms around his neck
and ran her tongue over her lower lip in anticipation of what was to come.

He groaned, and
bent his head, until their mouths finally made a connection.

Lips brushed,
hot and real, sending tingles down her neck and spine. She didn’t move, didn’t
breathe, letting his touch awaken every known and unknown pore. God, it hadn’t
been all in her mind. The frenzy, out of control wild yearning from The
Limelight was back. She’d blamed it on the situation. The bad boy liaison. The
fact it was her one and only one-night stand. Oh, she had a million reasons why
her body had ignited under Dodger’s touch that night. But, heaven help her,
Jack was quickly blowing each and every one of them right out of the water.

Tentative, soft
and sweet in one beat, and in the next they were kissing, wet and hard, and
breathtakingly frantic. He tasted of pizza and beer, and hot, very, very hot.
She wanted more. Needed more. Her body wanted everything it knew he possessed.

As if reading
her mind, he backed her against the counter and rocked against her. Oh, sweet
mercy she couldn’t feel her legs. Heat had burst through her core and shot out
in all directions. She moaned into his mouth and fisted his shirt. The man was
one hell of a kisser.

He freed his
hands to thread into her hair and draw her in deeper. Jack took her on a trip
far surpassing what they’d experienced at The Limelight.

The Limelight
.

Damn.

She broke the
kiss and reached for the counter to keep from falling. They shouldn’t have
kissed. That much whispered through the fog in her brain. As for why…those
answers weren’t forthcoming.

He gripped the
counter next to her, his breathing just as ragged as her own. “This is insane,”
he rasped, resting his forehead against one of the top maple cabinets.

“I know,” she
managed, making the mistake of glancing at him.

His eyes still
smoldered, and a second later, he hauled her close and kissed her again.

With a needy
sigh, she melted into him, winding her hands around his neck, practically
crawling up his body as things got wild and desperate and…wild. Bells sounded
in her ears, and it wasn’t until Jack pulled back abruptly, that she realized
the ringing had been his phone.

“Damn,” he
ground out as he stepped away.

Brielle blinked,
backed into the counter again, and clutched tight. Damn was right. What had they
done? Her gaze bounced to the cameraman smiling in the corner. Son-of-a… She’d
forgotten he was there. How could she forget that? The man had been videotaping
their every move. Cripes. Jack sucked cells from her brain faster than she drew
in air.

He answered his
phone with one hand and thrust the other through his hair. “Yeah? What?” His
head snapped in her direction, and he frowned deep. “When? Are you all right?”

Her heart hit
the floor.

“Okay. Fine.
I’ll inform Franco and have him send his men. I’ll see you when you get back.”
He flipped the phone shut and placed it on the counter.

“What’s wrong?”
she asked, traces of desire still evident in her tone.

He folded his
arms across his chest, and cocked his head while the heat in his blue gaze
frosted. “You tell me.”

I
’m the biggest, damn idiot!

The next day,
Jack didn’t let up on his inner admonishment or his attack on the punching bag held
by his brother. A task Matthew had taken over from Rodriquez when the big man
had gotten tired.

“I can’t believe
how stupid I was! I’m sorry, Matthew,” Jack said between punches.

“Quit beating
yourself up about it. You can’t be in two places at the same time,” his
frowning sibling claimed. “Besides, how were you to know I’d get a call at the
game?”

“That’s not the
point,” he spat.

His computer guy
determined the call had come from a burn phone, which made it impossible to
trace. And according to his brother, the voice had been mechanical and too
distorted to tell whether the caller had been male or female.

 He shook his
head. “I shouldn’t have left those two contestants alone.”

After hanging up
with Matthew last night, Jack had grilled Brielle and concluded she hadn’t been
the one to call and threaten his brother.

Images of her
tight-lipped expression filtered into his mind. Those warm incredible lips.
Lips he’d tasted only moments before he’d accused her of being a stalker. His
jaw clenched. He didn’t know who he was angrier with—himself or Brielle.

He shouldn’t
have kissed her. And she sure as shit shouldn’t have kissed him back. At least,
not if she was really there for Matthew. Dammit. If she hadn’t had him so
twisted in knots and distracted, he never would’ve left the other two women
unsupervised long enough to make that threat.

“Look, we’ve
been over this. You thought Mandy and Carla were sleeping, and maybe they
were.” Matthew's words brought Jack back to the present. His brother
repositioned the bag against his shoulder, then signaled for him to continue.
“Maybe Danni did it. She wasn’t with me when I got the call.”

Jack stopped.
“She wasn’t?”

“No. She’d
stepped out to go to the bathroom. I couldn’t very well go in there with her,
so who knows? Maybe it wasn’t Mandy, or Carla.” Matthew shrugged. “At least you
know it wasn’t Brielle.”

Jack curled his
fist and hit the bag hard. Damn her. It’s all her fault.  He punched again.
Because of her, he’d broken his cardinal rule.
Punch. Punch.
Gave into
his growing attraction for her.
Punch. Punch. Punch.
Brushed lips with
her.
Punch-punch. Punch-punch.
Damn woman. The instant they’d touched,
an energized shock wave had engulfed his body.
Punch. Punch. Punch.

“Hey,
Jack…Jack!”

Matthew’s
muffled oath broke through his fogged brain.

“Take it easy. I
need my shoulder in one piece.”

Fists paused mid
air, Jack blinked into focus. He’d forgotten his brother was there. “Sorry,
man. I was—”

“On a mission. I
know.” Matthew rubbed his shoulder. “Jeez, when you’re driven, you’re really
driven.”

“Ah…yeah.” He
unraveled the tape from his hands, balled it up, and tossed it into the
garbage. Too bad he couldn’t toss last night away. His lip twitched. No. Last
night might have been a big mistake, but he'd learned from it, nonetheless.

Kissing
Brielle—not once, but twice—had proven her dangerous. Not to Matthew, but to
Jack and his self control. What self control? He bit back a curse. It ran out
the door the moment Brielle had waltzed onto the set. And Jack hadn’t seen or
heard from it, since. Hell, he should probably call his buddy in the L.A.P.D.
and put out an APB.

“Am I to assume
you have a problem with Brielle since your assault on the bag, and my shoulder,
started after I mentioned her name?” Matthew leaned against the wall, arms
folded, serious expression on his face.

“Problem?” Yeah,
he had a problem with her all right, but not one he wanted to discuss. Swiping
his water bottle from the floor, he straightened to face his brother.

“Come on, Jack.”
A smile tugged Matthew’s lips. “You don’t honestly suspect Brielle, do you?”

Good question
. He eyed his
brother, warily. “Why? Do you like her?” His stomach knotted. Did he really
want to know the answer? No. Not really.

“Yes, I like
her. I think she’s great, don’t you?” Matthew’s dimples deepened.

Ah hell. He
looked like a man intrigued. “I guess.”

What he thought
didn’t matter, and the
matter
of Matthew and Brielle didn’t bear
thinking about.

“You suspect
her, don’t you?” Matthew continued to press.

Jack tossed his
head back and drained the water from the bottle before he spoke. “She was with
me at the time you said the call came in. So, no, she didn’t make the call. But
that doesn’t mean she wasn’t working with one of the others.”

Matthew pushed
from the wall, dark eyes troubled. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying she
could’ve been pretending to help me clean up last night in order to keep me
occupied in the kitchen.”

There, he’d said
it out loud. The scenario had been niggling him ever since he’d learned Matthew
had received another threatening phone call—at the exact time he’d been
distracted by Brielle and left Carla and Mandy unattended.

His grip
tightened around the empty water bottle until the crackling ceased to assault
his ears or fuel the ache in his head.

“I think it’s
dead, Jack.”

Unable to stop
his lips from curling, he propelled the plastic torpedo into the garbage only
to have it bounce back out. Just like Brielle—she refused to stay out of his
mind no matter what he did. He exhaled, and ignoring his brother’s raised
brows, picked up the bottle and dropped it straight in.

His thoughts
returned to last night. It wasn’t like he’d planned on being in the kitchen
long. He’d just needed to put some space between himself and Brielle. Two
excruciating hours of sitting next to her on the couch was more than his libido
could take. She sat there looking all soft and smelling of some kind of exotic
spice that made his mouth water and temperature rise. So did her long expanse
of leg. He couldn’t stop himself from brushing her thigh. Hell, he’d eaten more
pizza and drank more last night than he had in two months, all so he could
experience the feel of her leg. He swallowed. Damn, but that woman had the
nicest pair of legs. Well, next to Ariel. He rubbed his chin, mentally
comparing the two.

Smooth,
shapely…sexy, they had a lot in common—not the least of which was the fact they
got his motor running. Although one was slightly thinner with long red hair and
blue eyes, and the other curvier with shorter brown hair and brown eyes, they
both tasted hot. Ariel had tasted like hot, wild mangos. Brielle tasted like
lime and pizza, and, oh yeah, hot. And wild. Jack grunted. He was an idiot. If
Brielle was part of the problem, then he’d played right into her hands.

“Jack? Jack?
Earth to Jack.”

Matthew’s
fingers snapped in front of Jack’s face.

“Where were you?
Never mind. I know. Another mission.”

Yeah, a
forbidden one.
He felt bad enough about jeopardizing the case, but that didn’t even come close
to the guilt gripping his gut for putting the moves on his brother’s possible
girlfriend.

Should he tell
Matthew?

Jack studied his
brother’s open brown gaze. Yes. Dammit. He had to. He lived by the honesty
code. Several tours in Iraq, some bearable, some not so bearable, he’d learned
a man had nothing if not his word. And after the
Dear John
he’d gotten
from his fiancée, and the utter betrayal from his last girlfriend, Jack valued
honesty over breathing.  He drew himself up to his full height, and braced for
his brother’s reaction.

“Matt, about
last ni—”

“There you two
are,” Bill interrupted, scurrying into the massive home gym, sweat beading on
his brow. “I’ve been all over this place looking for you.”

“You should’ve
called my cell.” Amusement lit Matthew’s eyes and twitched his lips.

“Or checked the
security monitors,” Jack added.

Bill pushed his
glasses up. “Yes, well, I’ll make a note of that for next time.”

“I’m glad you’re
here.” Jack cupped the producer’s shoulder making sure he stayed put. “I want
to take a look at the box seats Matthew and Danni occupied last night.”

His brother
frowned. “I thought Franco’s men and the police already went over it?” 

“They did, but I
want to check a few things out for myself.” He transferred his attention back
to Bill. “So, what do you say?”

“Sorry, Jack. No
can do. You’ll have to call Mr. DeMarco or send your men over there. I need you
and Matthew to accompany the four girls on a picnic,” Bill stated, hugging his
clipboard.

A grin split
across Matthew’s face. “Sounds like fun.”

“A picnic?”
Jack’s senses red flagged. He narrowed his eyes. “What aren’t you telling me,
Bill?

“Nothing. You’re
all going to a horse ranch two hours north of here.” The producer tugged loose,
then strode to the door where he stopped and turned to face them. “Oh yeah, and
there’s horseback riding, a firing range and a great picnic lined up, too. You
leave in an hour. I’m leaving now. See you there.”

“What? No way.
No fucking way.”

Too late. The
producer disappeared faster than studio magic.

Matthew patted
his shoulder. “Look on the bright side. You can determine if any of the girls
are marksmen.”

“Is that
supposed to be funny?” Jack muttered a few colorful expletives at the absent
producer, and questioned his brother’s sanity. “Why in the world would you want
to do this?”

“What?” Matthew
blinked at him like he was the one off his damn rocker. “Why would I want to
spend the day with four beautiful women, who all want to be with
me
—Matthew
the starving artist, not Andy Matthews the famous one? Gee, yeah, can’t imagine
why I’d want to do that.”

Jack sighed.
“Look, I know it’s tough on you, being famous, but surely you see there's a
potential for danger here?” He grabbed Matthew’s shoulders and glared at him.
“I’m not putting a gun in any of those girls’ hands, especially with you
around.”

“Fine, the guys
running the range can,” Matthew said, his gaze beseeching. “I want this, Jack.
I
need
this. Okay? And I’m willing to do whatever this show wants in
order to get it.”

Jack dropped his
hands and closed his eyes. He couldn’t believe how reckless his brother was
being. What the hell was wrong with him? Why would he put himself in danger?
Unless...
Jack’s eyes snapped open.

“Matthew.” He
stepped closer and locked gazes. “Are you in love with one of the contestants?”

“I…uh…” His
brother momentarily closed his eyes and sighed, before his gaze returned. “Yes,
Jack, I believe I am. But I’d like to take every opportunity this show gives me
to figure that out.”

“Care to tell me
which girl?”

He knew he
probably wouldn’t get an answer because of the show’s rules, but he had to try.

“You know I
can’t. But, I will tell you this.” Matthew elbowed him and winked. “She’s
beautiful and has the nicest pair of legs.”

Jack’s gut
tightened. Brielle had the nicest pair of legs—in his opinion, anyway. He eyed
his brother. “Gee, could you be a little more specific?”

“Yeah, but what
fun would that be?” Matthew laughed. “Oh, come on, bro. What could seriously go
wrong on a picnic?”

He grunted. “You
want the short list?”

W
hen Brielle learned the ranch they were
to spend the day at had a firing range, she immediately locked herself in the bathroom
and called her uncle.

“You have to
talk to the producers and get them to change today’s destination,” she urged,
pacing the ten-by-ten floor.

“I already
tried, hun. But since Matthew gave the go ahead, they’re proceeding as
scheduled.”

“Are they nuts?
Are they hoping he gets shot? Is that the kind of ratings they want?” She
stopped to take a breath. This assignment was a complete nightmare, for more
than one reason.

“Calm down. No
one is going to get shot. I sent some of our men with Jack’s to check
everything from top to bottom, and they’ll be running the range.”

She exhaled a
long breath. “Thank goodness for that. But I still don’t like it, Uncle Franco.
Couldn’t we just forgo the range and concentrate on whatever else the ranch has
to offer?”

“I tried that
too, Brielle, but the producers insisted Matthew wanted to utilize the whole
ranch.” A sigh filled the phone. “So, I guess you’ll be a shoot’em up, ride’em
cowgirl today.”

She groaned. “I
don’t know how to ride a horse, and I’m going to have to pretend I don’t know how
to shoot.”

“Why would you
do that?”

Brielle pulled
the phone away and stared at it as if it had grown a tail.
Has he flipped?
She blinked, then brought the phone back to her ear. “Maybe because I wouldn’t
want Jack to wonder why I’m such a good shot? It’s not generally a prerequisite
for a dancer, you know.”