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S ummer was frozen, incapable of moving, even of breathing.

Someone had booby trapped her home. If not for Jack, she’d be dead by now, or dying. Area 8 had done a special series on bioweapons and she knew enough about sarin to know that she’d have had a horrific death.

Sarin turned the body against itself. Within seconds there was an acetylcholine buildup that made the system go haywire. Sarin gas had no smell and no taste. Summer would have no idea what was happening.

Within seconds, her body would start to go crazy, nose running, eyes leaking tears, suddenly vomiting, bowels and bladder loosening. She’d be on the floor, panicking because her body was out of control. She wouldn’t have the energy to call 911. Not that 911 could arrive in time.

She’d be dead by the time they came pounding at her door. Dead in a pool of tears, feces and urine.

Summer had seen photographs from a secret file of people who’d died of sarin poisoning and the world tuned out as she saw those photographs in her mind’s eye. Superimposed her face on those contorted bodies who’d died wracked with pain.

“Summer!”

Someone shook her, hard.

She jolted, came back to herself. Jack had her by the shoulders and was shaking her.

“Summer, snap out of it!” He bent, put his face next to hers until all she saw was him. He was frowning, concerned. “You okay?”

She looked at him, chilled to the bone. Her mouth opened to say she was okay but she wasn’t. Not in this universe or any other could she be okay knowing someone had tried to poison her with sarin.

“We’re getting out of here.” Jack’s words barely penetrated. He disappeared and Summer felt even more chilled. Having that big body next to hers had given her some heat but now she felt frozen, bereft.

Dimly, as if from a great distance, she heard him rummaging around, with no idea what he could be doing. She couldn’t move, couldn’t even turn her head to follow what he was doing, she was nailed to the floor, trying to contain the wild trembling, trying to focus through the spots dancing before her eyes.

Something heavy and warm fell on her shoulders and her hands reached reflexively to hold it around her. The trembling eased.

Jack was back, some of that amazing warmth was back. He lifted her chin so she was forced to look him in the face. His eyes were narrowed, skin tight over the cheekbones. He had a big black hat on. A Fedora. “You’re in shock, sweetheart, and you have every right to be. But we can’t stay here, we’ve got to go. I have the flash drives and Hector’s computer. You can’t go back to your apartment so you’re coming with me.”

Nothing penetrated except the words— coming with me .

God, yes. After flashing on a horrific death, writhing on the floor alone, unable even to call for help—staying close by Jack sounded like a burst of heat in the Arctic. Because underneath the horrific image of her body on the ground in death throes was something else. Not an image, a truth.

She was alone.

If she’d been blasted by sarin gas, she’d have called 911 if she could. But who else would she call for help? She didn’t have any close friends she could call and there sure wasn’t a lover. A man who cared for her, who wanted her safe and happy.

Area 8 was mainly staffed by freelancers. Her editors—she knew them at work, had little idea of their private lives. And they were journalists—word nerds. No one you’d call for help in an emergency.

She’d have died alone, without anyone even in her head to say goodbye to.

Summer shuddered.

“You can have a breakdown later,” Jack said. He lifted her arms and put them in the heavy overcoat he’d dropped around her shoulders. Just like dressing a child. A big soft scarf replaced the one she had on. Jack wrapped it around her lower face and covered her neck and jawline. Finally, Jack placed a big brown hat on her head. Felt, with a brim. It was a little large and settled low on her head.

She focused on him, focused on his eyes as if they were waltzing and she had to look at him not to get dizzy. Then she was able to focus on more than those sky blue eyes and saw that he’d changed, too, with another heavy dark blue overcoat, a big scarf and the Fedora.

“I raided Hector’s closet. We weren’t seen coming in, but there are no guarantees. If someone did catch us, we’ll look different going out.”

Summer nodded. The warmth of the overcoat and Jack’s big body so close to hers were chasing away the bone-deep chill she felt. But her throat was too tight to talk.

“Sweetheart, we really have to go.”

She nodded again, a jerky movement. She had no control over herself at all.

Jack bent and gave her a quick kiss, heat and light blossoming on her mouth. As if he were prince Charming—which he certainly wasn’t—it brought her back to life.

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Good girl.”

They walked swiftly out, Jack’s arm around her back. She could feel the heat of his arm through the overcoat, her coat and shirt. He bent, murmured in her ear. “Keep your head down. The brim will cover your face.”

She watched her feet. He didn’t even need to say it. She was feeling so shell-shocked she’d have had to watch her feet anyway. Her whole body felt as if someone had cut some strings—she had to focus to put one foot in front of another, not stumble, not walk into a wall.

Luckily, Jack was right there. He had the backpack slung over one shoulder and had his other arm around her. She wasn’t going to stumble and she wasn’t going to walk into a wall. Not while he was holding her so tightly.

In some dim corner of her mind Summer realized that Jack had shortened his stride for her—they were matching steps exactly—and yet they were moving fast. Through the fog in her head, she observed as they walked down the stairwell and out the side door. In the stairwell, her footfalls were the only sound. Though he was much bigger and heavier than she was, Jack managed to make not a sound going down.

Then they were out in the open air of the night and Summer gasped, taking in a huge breath of night air. She finally felt like she could breathe .

A big hand clasped her neck warmly and forced her head down.

“Big breaths,” Jack ordered and she obeyed. One big breath, two.

“Better?”

“Yes,” she gasped. “Better.”

“Okay then.” He took her arm, looking around carefully. “Let’s get going. You can break down at my place.”

Break down. Oh, God. Yes. She’d nearly had a breakdown in Hector’s secret apartment. It had felt exactly like the bottom dropping out of her world, like going into shock, like extreme trauma.

“I’m so sorry,” Summer whispered miserably. “Sorry to wimp out on you like that.”

Jack stopped examining their surroundings and turned to her with a deep scowl. “Jesus, Summer. You just found out someone wanted to kill you with sarin . Do you know what sarin does to people?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I do.”

“So I think you’re justified in freaking out just a little, don’t you?”

She nodded numbly.

“And you can freak out later all you want, but right now we have to go.” Jack’s eyes seemed to glow in the dark. “Okay?”

She nodded again.

“Good girl.” Jack gave a half smile and bent to give her another one of those heart-stopping kisses that seemed to heat her up from the inside. “Let’s go.”

In moments they were out on the street, Jack, eyes darting left and right under the brim of the Fedora. They passed her car and kept on walking fast down the street.

“Hey, Jack.” Summer slowed down. “That was my car back there.”

The street was full of Mercedes, Lexuses and BMWs. Hers was the only Prius. How could he have missed it?

Jack didn’t answer immediately. He just gave a grunt of satisfaction next to a big luxury car Summer didn’t recognize, bent and pulled something out of his backpack. A few seconds later, he had the front and back plates in his hand and as she gaped, he switched plates between a monster black SUV and the luxury sedan. He walked quickly back to her Prius and took two plates out of his backpack, and switched those with her Prius’s plates.

“They’ll be on the lookout for your car, but for the moment they’ll be scanning traffic cams for your license plate number. They won’t have the tag numbers I just put on your car.” He pointed to the black SUV. “I’ll take that vehicle. Follow me in your car and when I pull over, pull over behind me. We’ll leave your car far away from here and proceed with the SUV.”

“How can you get in the car? You don’t have the key!” Summer objected. Jack just looked at her. “Oh. Okay.”

If he could break into her super secure apartment surely he could break into a vehicle.

By the time Summer got her Prius started, Jack had already broken into the huge SUV and stopped ahead of her. She pulled out and followed him. They headed south, crossed the 11 th Street Bridge. Jack stopped at a suburban used car lot. Summer pulled in behind him and parked.

Half the street lights were broken. It was a bad part of town, barely clinging to a low end kind of respectability, but she knew that four blocks farther south, it became no man’s land.

He got out before she did and was at the driver’s side door in an instant. “Don’t lock the door,” he said as she was getting out.

“What?” Summer waved her hand at the grim surroundings. “It’ll be boosted before dawn if I don’t lock it.”

“Exactly.” Jack met her eyes. “I’m really sorry sweetheart but you’re going to have to sacrifice your cute little car. If we leave it here unlocked, inside of twenty-four hours it will be in a chop shop or taken out for a joyride and left in a field somewhere. The best way to get rid of a car. They’ll never find it.”

“Oh.” Instinctively, Summer reached out a hand and put it on the fender, caressed the metal. She sighed. “I just paid her off.”

Jack hooked an arm around her neck, pulled her to him and kissed her forehead. “Sorry.”

Not sorry enough to change the plan, though.

Her car. She loved it. It had never broken down or abandoned her, not once. It had served her faithfully like a knight of old and she was going to abandon it to a fate worse than death. Maybe cut up for parts or left to rot and rust in some abandoned field.

“Summer.” Jack cocked his head at the SUV. Time to go.

“Yeah, yeah.” She gave the fender a last farewell pat and followed Jack to the SUV, having now lost her home and her car. Her last attachment to her old life was the broad-shouldered man in front of her, bending to open the passenger door of a stolen vehicle for her.

Jack was about as sure as he could be that no one could know he and Summer were in this SUV. They could track it as much as they wanted. It was anonymous and had someone else’s plates on it and no one could possibly know they were inside. The windows were tinted very dark. He’d chosen it for that reason.

Behind his safe house was a covered alleyway. He’d park there, safe from overhead drones or even satellite surveillance. The safe house had no security cams around it. He’d made sure of that.

But there was another reason he wasn’t taking evasive maneuvers. He wanted to get to the safe house as fast as was humanly possible. He drove at the exact speed limit. Getting pulled over would be hard to explain away so he didn’t give any police officer any opportunity to do so.

He knew the route so well he was on automatic pilot. He checked all the mirrors constantly, was aware of the cars behind him at all times and knew he could pick out a tail immediately, but he did this without thinking too much.

All his attention was focused on Summer. She was way too silent and way too pale for his liking. She had the uncoordinated movements of someone who’d had a bad shock. She’d stumbled when getting out of Hector’s little hideaway, something someone as naturally graceful as Summer wouldn’t do.

Even in the uneven light of the street lamps he could see her skin was pale as ice, almost cadaver pale. Even her lips were white and he knew for a fact that even without makeup her lips were a full, rich rose color. She looked drawn, as if she hadn’t eaten or drunk in days, as if something had sucked vital things out of her, leaving a husk.

Well, something had sucked vital things out of her. Her home had been invaded. That was a very basic trauma, almost as bad as being physically attacked. He hadn’t told her and he wouldn’t tell her for as long as he could get away with it—but her home was basically gone. That lovely flat, decorated with style and pretty personal touches, full of watercolors and fresh plants and tons of books and CDs—gone. The Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Sciences Department of the FBI would go over it molecule by molecule but no one would guarantee that every single possible booby trap had been eliminated and Jack wouldn’t let her go back in if there was the faintest possibility of contamination. Every single soft surface of the apartment—curtains, sofas, all clothes, all tablecloths and sheets, the bed mattress—would be encased in plastic and removed to an FBI laboratory and she would never get them back again.

And anyway, Nick and the Director wouldn’t let her go back in until the investigation was completed. Which might be next month, next year. Might be never.

And her car—that was over, too.

Jack reached over and squeezed her hands. She was clasping them in her lap. They were cold, dry. He held them until he felt them start to heat up. There wasn’t much Jack could give her right now. He didn’t even have a home to take her to. But she was welcome to as much of him as she’d take.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. He spoke quietly, as if she’d been in a bad accident.

She didn’t respond. Her pretty profile was still and pale.

Jack drove on in the dark, windy night. The straight route home took them through some trafficked avenues and he kept close watch on the cars around him, but nothing pinged on his radar.

About twenty minutes from the safe house, Summer finally spoke.

“I’m really sorry I freaked on you back there.”

“You’re allowed, when you discover that your home has been seeded with a deadly bioweapon.”

She sighed. “It’s not that, it—” Her lips clamped shut.

“It’s what?” Jack asked. The road was broad and almost empty. He swiveled his head to look at her directly. She seemed a little less in a state of shock now. Sad and afraid but not devastated.

Summer shook her head. “Nothing.”

Jack slowed down. “This is a serious situation, Summer. You were about to say something. It wasn’t nothing. Tell me.”

“Or what?” She turned to give him a faint smile. It was a sad effort but he was happy to see she made that attempt. “You’ll beat it out of me?”

God.

“No, sweetheart.” Jack picked up one of her hands, brought it to his mouth. It wasn’t icy cold any more. He kissed the back of it, as if she were his liege lady. “I could never hurt you and you know that. But I’m trying to keep us alive here, doing my very best, and I don’t like question marks, things left unsaid. They could get us killed. So I would be very, very grateful if you could finish that sentence for me.”

“Not fair,” she complained, and this time the smile was less strained. “You’re appealing to my better nature.”

“Anything that works, sweetheart.”

She sighed. “It has nothing to do with” —she waved her hand “—with whatever is going on. Back there, at Hector’s secret little love pad, when I heard that my house had been booby-trapped with sarin, I flashed back on something that happened in my childhood. A bad memory. That’s all.”

Summer’s childhood had been really rough. Jack knew that. He’d heard his parents talking about her when she lived with Vanessa and Hector, who’d totally ignored Summer in their vicious fights with each other. His parents, bless them, had tried to take Summer under their wing.

“Tell me,” he said gently. “If you talk about it, it’ll pull the punch of the memory. I don’t know what else is going to happen, probably not a whole lot of good things, so I’d like to know what could be a trigger for you. Drag up memories that make you freeze.”

She sighed. Looked down at her lap. Clasped her fingers together then pulled them apart.

She was going to talk. She wanted to talk. Jack recognized the signs. He gave her the time she needed.

“Okay,” Summer said finally. She stared straight ahead, not looking at him, which was not a good sign. Summer always looked people right in the eyes. This was going to be bad. “The summer I was eight my parents and I were living in Cartagena, Colombia. It wasn’t a happy place. We were surrounded by cartel soldiers and pushers but I suppose that was sort of the point, for my parents. They got high a lot. Sometimes they left me alone for days. Once, they left to go somewhere—I have no idea where—and I ate something tainted. It gave me violent food poisoning. For almost two days—I think it was two days, I lost all track of time—I vomited and voided everything that could be voided.

“I spent two days and two nights curled around the toilet in blinding pain, drenched in my own waste, and I begged God to let me die. I’ve never been so sick before or after in my life. I thought I was going to die alone in a miserable hole in Cartagena and I didn’t want to die alone.” Her long lashes swept down as she looked at her hands again. They were trembling and she clenched them so hard the knuckles turned white. “That’s what I was flashing on. Being violently sick, all alone. Dying alone.”

Jack swallowed but didn’t allow anything at all to show on his face. Nothing. Because he felt such vast pity for the little girl who’d been left alone while so sick, and a murderous rage at her careless junkie parents who hadn’t taken care of her at all.

The summer Jack had been eight, he and his parents and Isabel—the twins hadn’t been born yet—had taken a long vacation in Disneyworld and it had been sheer heaven. They’d all had a fabulous time. The memory of that summer still made him smile. He’d been loved and protected when he was a little kid. He’d lived in a bubble of happiness all his childhood, looked over by loving parents.

It had never occurred to him that not everyone’s life was like that and he doubted he’d have understood it at the age of eight.

He’d had no idea of what the world was like and by the time he discovered it was full of fuckheads who liked inflicting pain and chaos, he was a man, and he’d started extensive training to handle them.

Not eight years old like Summer had been, helpless and vulnerable and abandoned. Nearly dying on her own in a foreign country would have been an imprinting experience—something that colored the rest of her days.

He understood completely how she flashed on that experience.

This was a woman who’d known adversity as a little girl beyond anything he’d ever had to experience. And now someone was after her.

Whoever these fuckers were—and he suspected the DD of the CIA, among others—they weren’t going to touch Summer. He was going to make sure of that. He was going to stick by her side and he was going to take her away to the safest place he could think of.

And then he and Nick and the FBI and the guys at ASI were going to go on the attack.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he said quietly and she nodded.

Now that he was close to the safe house, Jack made his usual rounds to check for tails. He drove three blocks in every direction, in a grid. Circled his block twice. And he was clean.

“We’re here.” He turned quickly into a little driveway then took a right under a canopy in the alleyway out back.

“Good thing.” Summer picked up her purse from the footwell. Her movements were smoother now, hands no longer trembling. “You went around the block a couple of times. I thought maybe you were lost.”

Lost. Jack never got lost. He was about to say so when he saw her smiling at him. A genuine smile. She was teasing him. He put on his seducer’s voice, the one he hadn’t used in years. “I always know where I’m going, darlin’. You can count on that. Stay here.”

He rounded the big vehicle and opened her door. She’d been unsteady on her legs when she got in. She didn’t seem to be unsteady now but…he wanted to help her down. He wanted that badly. He wanted his hands on her in the worst way. Layers of wanting. He wanted to make sure she wasn’t trembling and was steady on her feet. He wanted to reassure her that he was there for her, in the most basic way there was—by physical touch. And he wanted his hands on her because he wanted her.

Not now , he told himself sternly. He’d learned to control his dick a long time ago. In college he’d been guided in most of his decisions by his dick, but that hadn’t been him for a long time now. So this sudden lust in the middle of the most dangerous op of his life, with the greatest consequences, danger at every turn for Summer too—that was wrong.

It threw him off his stride. He’d been a top operator for Hugh because he was focused like a laser beam on the op, always. The people he loved—his family—were far away and safe and that always allowed him to be concentrated on the mission. He had no idea how his fellow Clandestine Service operators managed to focus when they had loved ones living in the same city.

Now Jack had a taste of that and he didn’t like it. Didn’t like being operational and looking after someone he cared about. It messed with his head, big time.

The sooner they got out of Dodge the better, because right now all he could think about was Summer’s mouth and the feel of her beneath his hands. And memories of how sweet she’d been in bed filled his head so that he wasn’t calculating how many traffic cams they’d passed, even in a SUV that wasn’t being looked for. All he could do was keep his head low, Blake’s Fedora hiding his features. Making sure Summer’s face was covered, too.

This was amazingly stressful—hiding his tracks and hers while wanting her in his bed. She was a huge distraction and yet you’d have to get bolt cutters to separate him from her. She wasn’t going anywhere without him right by her side.

Damn.

Jack opened the passenger side door. Man, he’d swiped a humongous SUV. He’d been able to put his boots on the ground no problem but Summer was much shorter than he was. She’d have to slide off the seat and hop down.

Well, there was an app for that.

“Lean forward,” he ordered.

Jack had killed three of the four street lights at both ends of the alleyway. It wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where street lights were replaced often. Only one was working but it was enough to see the pale oval of her face inside the vehicle, light gray eyes almost glowing. She smiled faintly at him. She looked exactly like someone who was scared but was putting up a brave front.

His heart gave a huge thump in his chest.

She leaned forward until their faces were inches apart. He clasped her small waist through enough material to fashion a yurt and lifted her out and down, telling himself to let go of her once her feet hit the ground.

The entire world seemed to have stopped. The blustery wind that had shaken the tree branches had stopped, or at least here in the back alley they were sheltered from the wind. A full moon was rising above the rooftops of the buildings around them, pure silver magic.

Jack totally lost his situational awareness. He was aware of absolutely nothing but Summer as he stood there, hands still around her waist, so close he could feel her breathing. The only sound he heard was the roaring in his ears.

His eyes became heavy and hers did, too. He was bending down and she was stretching up when a loud clatter sounded behind him and he was wrenched back to where he was and why.

He was behind his safe house with Summer, who had narrowly missed dying the most atrocious death possible thanks to the fact that she was with him. He had to yank his head out of his ass, and get them inside pronto. Some very bad guys, with an agenda so huge one death among so many would mean nothing to them, were after her. And him, too. Only he’d been trained hard to win in scenarios like this. Summer hadn’t. Her bulwark against danger was him.

And he was an idiot who’d actually contemplated standing outside kissing her. And fuck him if it still didn’t seem like a really good idea.

Another clatter and he moved forward, taking her elbow.

“Stray dogs?” Summer asked. She was keeping pace with him. Good girl.

“Hmm.” Knowing the neighborhood, it was more likely rats, but he didn’t say that. He concentrated on getting them inside as quickly and quietly as possible. There was a flimsy gate that wasn’t at all as flimsy as it looked. Actually, it was made of steel with a titanium core. It had a print-activated keypad that got them quickly into the backyard. Jack pushed the gate behind him and heard the soft snick of a well-machined lock close behind them.

The back door was much harder than it looked, too. Again, a thumbprint activated a coded keypad to open the door.

The small backyard was bristling with hidden sensors including IR, motion sensors, audio sensors. Only blank brick walls surrounded the yard. At the push of a button, a covering that mimicked a dirt yard would stretch out from side to side and from the back wall to the gate. If he needed to be shielded from a drone or a satellite, all he had to do was push that button.

Hugh had chosen the safe house very well, but then he’d been a master of the game. For a second, Jack had a pang of pain in his chest. The fuckers after him had taken his family and the man who’d been like a second father to him.

Well, they weren’t going to get him and by God they weren’t going to get Summer.

Inside, Jack helped Summer shed Hector’s heavy overcoat and her own coat and helped her unwind the long scarf. He took his stolen overcoat and his own coat off and hung everything in the hallway closet.

His mom had drilled neatness in him but he also couldn’t stand the thought of being cooped up in a small apartment that looked like weasels nested there. He’d spent way too much time here over the past six months. If he didn’t keep the space clean he’d go crazy.

Crazier.

It wasn’t nice like Summer’s apartment was, but it was okay. If you squinted.

“It’s not that bad,” Summer said, turning around. Surprise was in her voice.

“What were you expecting?” Jack asked. “Animal house?”

She sketched a smile. “Not quite. But in thrillers, safe houses are stacked high with fast food and pizza boxes and empty beer bottles and they smell like a zoo.” She sniffed. “Doesn’t smell like a zoo, doesn’t smell of anything, really.”

Jack shrugged. “Yeah. I try to keep it livable.”

He tried to look at the space through her eyes. You could take the whole thing in at a glance. Living room, with round dining table near the kitchenette. Two other doors. One door open into the bedroom—thank God he’d made the bed—the other door closed. The bathroom.

It was a far cry from his family home, a sprawling two hundred-year-old complex on two acres of landscaped grounds. His mom had turned it into a showcase and he’d taken it entirely for granted until he’d come home for the first time from college and realized how beautiful his home was.

It had been lost after the Massacre. Yet another thing Hector Blake had taken from him.

“You hungry?” he asked.

Summer turned around, wide-eyed. “You cook?”

Jack lifted a corner of his mouth at her expression. “You don’t have to make it sound like rocket science, beyond my ability. Though, to be frank, I actually don’t cook. But there’s an excellent deli around the corner. And I happen to have four big pastrami on rye sandwiches I can nuke. And some beers in the fridge. You game?”

“God, yes,” she breathed. “I’m starving.”

“Danger will do that.” Jack sat her down at the round dining table, grateful that he’d swiped off the crumbs from that morning’s bagel. Max’s pastramis on rye were a wonder to behold. He put two huge sandwiches on a platter, stuck it in the microwave, put two plates on the table, two glasses, two napkins and for Summer a knife and fork if she wanted it. Personally, Jack wouldn’t let a knife and fork touch Max’s masterpiece.

When the microwave dinged he took the steaming platter and put one huge sandwich on Summer’s plate, the other on his. He’d nuke the remaining two when they’d finished these.

“Wow.” Summer lifted her eyes from the monster sandwich, filled with two inches of juicy, thinly sliced pastrami. “Looks good. Looks gargantuan.”

Jack wrapped a napkin around his and brought his pastrami to his nose and closed his eyes. It smelled as heavenly as it always did. “Dig in.”

Summer used her napkin to hold the sandwich, too, and took a huge bite. Meat juice spilled down her chin and she laughed.

Jack reached out and wiped her chin. “Good, isn’t it?”

Her mouth was so full she just nodded. Swallowed. “God. Fantastic.”

He finished his second sandwich a little before she did, but it was close.

“Have a pickle.” Jack held a dill pickle spear in front of her mouth and she took a big bite out of it.

For some crazy reason, it gave him enormous pleasure to feed her. She’d had nothing but shocks since he’d showed up in her apartment. In the time since he’d inserted himself back into her life, she’d lost her apartment and car and, for the time being, her job. Crazy danger had attached itself to the both of them. They were on the run and God only knew for how long. Jack had been investigating the Massacre for six months and so far hadn’t made much headway.

It might be possible that her life would be put on hold for six months, too. Longer. Maybe forever. It was entirely possible that life as she knew it was over.

He represented nothing but pain and loss for her.

So, by God, feeding her felt really good. Just like it felt really good watching a little color return to her face, and a half smile form. She had a naturally serious face but her smile could light up a room. He wanted to see her smile. He wanted that a lot.

“More,” he said and held the spear to her mouth again.

She took a big bite out of it and as he watched her luscious mouth open and close over the pickle spear, his dick gave a hard kick in his pants.

Could she feel it? Did his dick send out a disturbance in the air? Because she swallowed and stared at him, mouth a little O.

“You’re aroused.” It wasn’t a question.

Jack stopped himself from glancing at his crotch. Christ, his crotch was under the table. How the hell could she tell? Did he have a light switching to red on his forehead?

But however she knew, she knew. It was pointless lying.

“Yeah.” His voice was hoarse. “God yeah.”

“You were aroused back in Hector’s place.”

He nodded. No use denying it. Was it vibrating?

Where was she going with this? Was it her way of showing him he was the lowest of the low? Here she was, running for her life and all he could think about was sex?

You haven’t changed , she’d told him. But that was the thing. He had . He had changed. Getting a hard-on, thinking about sex while he was on an op, was definitely not like him. So okay, he’d felt temporarily safe in Hector’s place and he knew this place was safe. He was not going to get a hard-on out on the streets or in a public place. But he had major wood now.

His dick had reverted back to adolescence, when it had a mind of its own.

Was he making her uncomfortable? Was he being a dick? Was his dick being a dick?

He opened his mouth to apologize and she said, “Okay.”

His mouth closed with a snap. Did she just say what he thought she said?

“Okay?” he echoed. Okay what? Because it couldn’t be?—

Summer stood up, gestured with her head to the bedroom. “I’m incredibly tense and a little bit scared and I think sex would loosen me up. I remember sex with you and it was fun and I think I could use a little of that right now.” She searched his eyes. “But here’s the deal. It’s sex and nothing else. I don’t expect anything from you and you don’t expect anything from me. We’re thrown together right now and I’m hoping to get a major story from all of this. So we have a little fun together but it won’t be more than that.”

Jack stood absolutely still. He had no idea how to answer all that. The old Jack, his asinine adolescent self would have shouted hell yes! Because no-strings sex was every teenage boy’s dream. Quick roll in the hay, out of bed, out of mind.

But he wasn’t the old Jack and he knew absolutely that he couldn’t do what she asked. He couldn’t keep himself separate from his emotions. Couldn’t fuck her and walk away with a wave. Couldn’t do it.

It had been a long time since he liked anonymous hookups. Sex with someone you cared nothing about was fake. Like eating cardboard food when you were hungry. He wasn’t a walking sack of hormones like back in the day. He was a person. Not a dick with extraneous meat around it.

He liked Summer. He more than liked Summer. He’d found, to his vast surprise, that there was a Summer-shaped hole inside him and she was filling it up just fine. She was beautiful, fascinating, brave, smart. She was everything he could ever want in a woman. He didn’t want to jeopardize a future relationship just because she had an itch he could scratch.

No sir.

He was better than that and so was she. He wanted to have sex with Summer in the worst way, but he wanted sex and other things, too.

He opened his mouth to refuse because he wasn’t that kind of guy, but what came out instead was, “Great. Let’s go to bed.”