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7

K earns woke him up at 1:00 a.m., which was vastly annoying. Springer’s wife, Anna, had been nursing a cold and she needed her sleep.

Marcus Springer thumbed the ring to silent before answering, not bothering to keep the note of annoyance out of his voice.

“Yes,” he said coldly, searching with his feet for the Prada slippers. Ah. He stood up, pulled the silk comforter over his sleeping wife’s shoulders and went out into the hallway. “Is something wrong?”

“I waited for the target and finally left some packages for her to discover.”

“And?”

Kearns was silent a moment. “I left a camera outside her door, and outside the front door of her building. Camouflaged. She did not return to the building, but…”

“But?” A cold feeling settled in his gut.

“Somehow someone tipped off the FBI. Their bio team is there right now. I’m watching them going in on my tablet.”

They were very close to completion of the Plan. Springer had wanted to send a message. A strong one. Don’t mess with us. We are stronger than you and we will destroy you.

“Any sign of the Redding woman?”

“No, sir. No sign.”

“She’s gone to ground.”

“Yessir.”

Springer thought. Redding was a good journalist, but she was a woman alone. She had no partner and she ran a business that was good but fragile, like all web-based businesses. Isolate and destroy, he thought.

But first intimidate. Strike terror in her heart.

“Blow up her house. Don’t even try to make it look like an accident. Wherever she’s gone to ground, she should know we have a scorched earth policy.”

“Sir.” No hesitation.

“Then destroy her office.”

“Sir. I don’t think Area 8 has an office. I think it’s headquartered at the woman’s personal address.”

“Even better. We’ll take out her office and home at the same time.”

“Yessir.”

“Who are her co-workers?”

Springer heard tapping, then Kearns came back. “There are two people mentioned on the masthead besides Redding. The rest are freelancers.”

“Take out the two on the masthead. Where are they?”

Another pause. “In the DC area. I’ll take care of those. It’ll be done as fast as possible.”

“Excellent. Hide the bodies. They need to seem to have disappeared. It’ll keep Redding anxious, off-balance.” The Redding woman should know she had no place to turn to. They would come after her and she had no place to hide. She was a journalist, used to pressing forward, not hiding. How long could she evade them? “Full out effort on the Redding woman. Check citywide cameras, check credit card use, check her usual haunts, run her to ground and eliminate. Are we clear?”

“Yessir,” Kearns replied and signed off.

His team had access to vast resources and he could run this off the books almost forever. He didn’t need forever. He just needed three more days and then utter chaos would rule.

No one would remember Summer Redding even existed.

Summer knew exactly what she was doing. She was going to have blow-your-mind sex with a guy she knew could provide it. Guaranteed. Unless, of course, her memory was off and it had been perfectly normal sex, only she didn’t know that at the time, being so new to sex and all.

But the fact was, no other man had come close to giving her what Jack gave her.

No other man had dumped her like that, either. She’d chosen very carefully after Jack and no one dumped her. She’d never been the dumpee ever again. She was the one who dumped, as carefully and gently as she could.

Red hot sex was what she needed right now. She needed it to wipe all this destruction from her mind. She knew precisely what she needed and the only man in the world guaranteed to give it to her was right here, ready and willing, to judge by the erection in his pants, so what were they waiting for?

One thing she knew—she didn’t want an aftermath. She didn’t want anything from Jack other than a good time in bed that would make her feel strong again, not a weak cold thing. She didn’t want cuddles or words of devotion.

She’d had plenty of that the first time around. And then he’d disappeared in a puff of smoke and left her broken-hearted.

Not this time. She was an entirely different person now. Much less vulnerable. Not vulnerable at all, actually. She didn’t want him forever, she just wanted him right now, to get rid of this tension that was humming all through her body.

She didn’t want anyone for forever. Not doing that. The only couple she’d ever seen that wasn’t sick or temporary or had an expiration date stamped on their foreheads had been the Delvauxes. Jack’s parents. They’d been a couple . A real one. Two people who loved each other and shared their lives. But other than them, Summer hadn’t seen anything that really tempted her out of her single state.

Why would she give up her life? She had a great apartment, a great job, great friends.

Of course—the apartment was gone and probably Area 8 too, since she couldn’t just surface and report things, carry on as if nothing happened. Also—it was entirely possible the shadowy forces after her would go after her friends, too, so she needed to stay off the grid.

With the only other person she knew who was off the grid. Jack.

He stood there watching her as she worked it all out in her head.

“Well?” He cocked his head, studying her.

“Well, what?” Those blue eyes, sharp as a laser…they made her feel almost too seen. Too understood.

“We’re going to have sex. I’m down with that. But there seem to be ground rules. No expectations, no happily ever after. Is kissing allowed? Or are we just going to grind genitals together?”

Summer drew herself up in outrage. “That’s a terrible thing to say!”

Jack reached out a long finger, drew it slowly down her cheek. Over her jaw, down her neck, reaching under her shirt with the back of his finger. It made her shiver.

“I didn’t say that, sweetheart, you did. Me? I’d be perfectly happy having sex the old-fashioned way. Kissing, face to face, cuddling afterward. You’re the one who’s setting boundaries.”

He was putting words in her mouth. Her teeth ground. “I wasn’t setting boundaries for sex itself! I was setting—” She drew in a deep breath, let it out in a long, controlled stream. Good yoga technique for stress. “I was setting emotional boundaries. Keeping our expectations in line. And I was also saying that sex does not imply a relationship. That’s something you can relate to. You never seemed too keen on sticking around, if I recall.”

Jack’s face suddenly hardened. It was amazing to see. He dropped ten years when he teased her, clearly thinking about the sex. Returning to the younger Jack who roped women in by the handful, delighted them, then let them loose again into the wild. They staggered back out into the sun, blinded by pleasure, wishing it could have lasted longer.

This Jack was…something else. Someone else. Harder and more focused. Still sexy but in an overpowering way, not a seductive way.

“Wait,” he said. He still had his finger inside her open shirt, but it was to hold her shirt, just in case she wanted to bolt. “Let’s get one thing straight here. I don’t care what goes on in that complicated and beautiful head of yours. Tell yourself anything you want to. But the fact is that after we have sex on that bed in there” —he jerked his head toward his bedroom— “you are not getting up and leaving. And neither am I. No way. Don’t even think about it. You were in shock and didn’t hear what I said back at Blake’s place. You are sticking close to me and tomorrow we’re going to go to the safest place I can think of, where we will have a team around us. Portland.”

Her jaw dropped. “What?”

“Tomorrow we’re going to Portland, Oregon. I told you my sister has fallen in love with a former navy SEAL. He works for a company made up of former navy SEALS. It’s the coolest company on earth, made up of super competent people and if we come out of this alive, I might go to work for them, too. They’re the best of the best. There are two things here you can take to the bank. Whatever happens to me, you are going to survive. These guys will keep you safe. And so will I. So you can toss me away like a used Kleenex after sex if you want, but you will still be sticking close to me. And by close I mean close close. Like glued together.”

Summer was trying to put this together. While trying to handle in her head the idea of having hot sex with Jack and then not walking away. Having hot sex with Jack and sticking close close to him. She latched on to the only thing that sounded rational. “We’re going to Portland? But how? Won’t they be watching airports?”

“Yes. ASI, the company, will be sending a private plane. There will be no record of us crossing the country, arriving in Portland. And I’ll make sure no cameras catch us.”

“But—but—” Summer’s head was still whirling. It was really hard to focus. The idea of sex with Jack on that shadowy bed she could see through the bedroom door was like a black hole, bending all light and reason into it so that there was no room for anything else. “But I have a business to run! People depend on me.”

Jack sighed and his face took on a sad cast. He just looked at her and she could almost see the wheels spinning. He clasped the back of her neck, kissed her cheek, then leaned his forehead against hers. If she thought they were going to start having hot sex right now, she was wrong.

He was close to her, his forehead against hers as if he could transfer his thoughts into her head. This wasn’t sex. This was communion.

“Sweetheart,” he said, then stopped.

His eyes were fixed on hers and all she saw was sadness in their blue depths.

“What?” she whispered. What could make a man who’d seen his family slaughtered, his boss killed, who’d been on the run for the past six months look that sad? She’d have thought all the sadness had been knocked out of him.

“Summer, I don’t know how to tell you this, but someone has to. Area 8 is gone.”

It was like an electric jolt to the system. She shook, stood straight, moving away from Jack. “What? Area 8 is gone? What does that even mean? I mean, I know I’m not going to post anything today, maybe not this week, but…gone?”

Area 8? Her brainchild? The thing she’d dedicated years of incredibly hard work to? It couldn’t disappear overnight.

Jack pulled her in his arms. Instinctively, she turned her head so her ear was against his chest. He rested his cheek on the top of her head. “Think about it, Summer. These people have somehow latched onto you. They think that you know something that can hurt them and they are scared of you. Further, you personally have one of the biggest sounding boards in the US. Everyone who is anyone reads Area 8 and your articles are picked up by major news services and a million bloggers. Anything you reveal would go viral in a minute and they know that. Not only that. Anything you post will be proof that you are alive and about and investigating. You already have a target on your back. This will make that target big and red. Right now, you have disappeared. Nobody knows what happened to you. For all that these guys know, you inhaled the sarin and got sick and died somewhere else. They don’t know if you are alive or dead and that’s how it’s going to stay.”

Jack pulled away for a second, looking down at her, his face fierce.

Very little of what he was saying penetrated. All she could think about was the death of Area 8 . Her baby. What she’d dedicated her life to.

Jack’s face changed, from fierce to something else. “Ah, honey.” He embraced her again. Held her tightly, one arm around her shoulders, another around her waist, keeping her close. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

Summer needed him. That deep cold that came from somewhere within her, not the outside temperature, was back. Inside she was freezing, even her bones felt chilled. She clung to Jack who seemed to be the only source of heat in the entire world.

The walls tilted, the ceiling moved. Jack was carrying her into the bedroom and she turned in his arms, burying her face against his neck. His entire apartment was completely quiet, a hush that seemed to extend all over the world. No sounds from outside penetrated, it was just the two of them. Their breathing—his calm, hers harsh. She was seconds from bursting into tears and tried desperately to rein herself in.

Summer didn’t cry. She never cried. Tears had never served her as a child, they only alienated her parents. She’d learned never to cry at such a young age it was part of her, like her hair or eye color.

She wasn’t crying now. She couldn’t cry, she didn’t know how. Water was leaking from her eyes, that was all. She swiped her face against Jack’s tee, which looked dirty but didn’t smell dirty. He reached his bedroom and gently put her on her feet. Summer kept her face averted, and he didn’t try to turn it.

His bedroom looked like the rest of the house—plain, not attractive, but not dirty.

Summer shivered again. She needed heat. The closest source was Jack and the amazing sex she knew for a fact he could provide. The cold was eating her up. Though her muscles felt stiff, like she’d been out in a snowstorm, she threw her arms around his neck, lifted on her toes and kissed Jack on the mouth. She missed.

He was so freaking tall. He hadn’t been quite this tall in college. She distinctly remembered having to reach up but not having to stand on tip-toe. Well, if she had to… She rose on her toes.

Her kiss landed awkwardly again, on the side of his mouth. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted one of those amazing kisses you could sink into, lavish and luscious, open-mouthed, tongues touching. Oh yeah. That kind.

She opened her mouth and moved greedily toward his. He opened and yes, there it was. That kind of kiss. Pure heat bloomed in her mouth and she wanted it all, now. All that heat, against her bare skin, chest to breasts, feeling his heavy weight on hers, anchoring her, his sex in hers, moving hard, generating friction. Giving her an orgasm that would nearly knock her out.

He could do it. He’d done it before.

With a wordless sound, Summer wrapped her arms around Jack’s neck and melted into the kiss which was spreading heat throughout her body.

She could feel Jack’s muscles against the inside of her arms, against her breasts. He’d always been muscular but these muscles were a man’s not a boy’s. Hard, dense, fascinating. All that strength, all that heat—she needed it all next to her skin. She took her arms from around his neck—it felt almost painful not touching him—and with a shrug her blouse was on the floor. Then she scrabbled for the hooks at the back of her bra.

Oh why weren’t her breasts smaller so she could go without a bra? And why hadn’t she splurged on that La Perla bra that closed in front, that was all silk and frothy lace? Why had she opted for the plain cotton sports bra that closed in back?

She made a sound of disgust in her throat as the hooks stupidly refused to disentangle. Argh!

Jack lifted his head and looked down at her. He stilled her hands with his own, flattening them against her back. “Shh,” he murmured. “There’s no need to hurry.”

“Yes,” she said. “There is.”

Jack made a sound that was like a laugh and it unnerved her. Angered her. Fine for him to say, to establish the pace. She was cold and hurting now . Needing heat now . Wanting sex now . As a matter of fact, if she could push a button and both of them could beam to the bed naked, him on top, inside her—well, she’d push that button in a heartbeat.

A slow undressing, gentle touches, foreplay. Summer didn’t want any of that. She felt too shaky, out on a limb with nothing beneath her. Maybe if he took his time they’d have to…talk. She didn’t want to talk, she didn’t want anything but straight up sex. Right now.

Jack pulled her arms down to her sides and dipped his head to her neck. His lips and tongue moved up and down some kind of nerve there that only he had ever discovered. Goosebumps broke out all over her skin.

But his arms were not only holding her, they were holding her hands down. She couldn’t move them. Summer tried, gently, to lift her arms to her back to attack the hateful hooks but she couldn’t. Jack simply pressed a little harder against her arms. He wasn’t using force. He didn’t have to. He was so strong the weight of his arms kept hers down.

“Let go.” Summer had never liked being held down. Jack knew that, damn him. “Let go of my arms.”

“Shh,” he said again. “I want to undo your bra. Will you let me?”

Summer shifted her weight from foot to foot. She felt…something. God only knew what. Like her body was swelling and her skin couldn’t contain it. Itchy and scratchy and restless. She twitched herself away from Jack’s mouth. He was kissing his way up and down her neck, and every single inch of the skin under his mouth burned.

But she didn’t want seduction. She didn’t want slow sighs and soft touches. She didn’t want to think, she wanted only to feel and she wanted to feel him on her, in her, right now .

“Can I?” His teeth took just the slightest nip of her skin. Not pain, just a tiny little shock. “Can I take off your bra?”

“Only if you do it fast.” Summer clenched her teeth. “And then you get naked fast.”

“Tsk, tsk.” Jack’s voice was deep and lazy. The beast. “Such haste. Now why is that, I wonder?”

It was a miracle Summer didn’t crack a tooth, she clenched her jaws so tightly. “I thought we agreed on sex. I didn’t agree to spend hours standing in your bedroom.”

“This is sex.” Jack nipped her skin again and she shuddered, all through her body. Goosebumps rose on her skin. Surely, even in the penumbra, he could see them. “It’s all part of one continuum.”

“It is not part of a continuum.” Summer was so frustrated she wanted to scream. His hand was hovering over her back, as if he couldn’t quite figure out how to undo her bra. Jack Delvaux, who’d made bra unfastening an Olympic sport. “You know precisely what sex is and I want…”

Her voice died away as her bra fell and her naked breasts came against his chest. He had on a tee but the muscles underneath were ridged and she felt every one as he rubbed himself against her. She rubbed back, hungry for the contact, hungry for his warmth.

This wasn’t the sex she wanted, but he was right—it was a form of sex. Particularly when Jack pulled off his tee and pulled her to him so tightly she could feel him breathing against her breasts. Skin to skin. What an amazing sensation. Heat skittered across the entire front of her body. His chest hair had thickened. He’d had a neat little vee of chest hair at twenty and now it covered his chest in a springy mat, from nipple to nipple right down to underneath his loose jeans waistband.

Below that was the biggest erection she’d ever felt, right there against her belly. Her nipples hardened with the abrasion against his chest hair. Her sex felt like a furnace. He thrust his hips against her, hard, and her womb clenched.

The prelude to an orgasm. Just from holding him bare-chested. They still had their pants on and she was about to come.

It was crazy, it was wonderful.

Every single problem seemed so far away, outside the miraculous things that were happening under her skin. The world was a few dark clouds on the horizon of an amazingly blue and bright sky. Hardly worth noticing while her body was singing with joy.

Why oh why didn’t she have sex more often? What was wrong with her? Why had she forgotten how incredible it felt to have every single nerve ending on fire? Why did she deprive herself of this?

Jack was still working on her neck, every touch of teeth and tongue shooting sparks through her. Her neck muscles felt lax, unable to hold her head up. Her knees were about to go. She opened her mouth to say that they should get to the bed because she couldn’t stand any longer, when Jack unzipped her pants, swiped his big hands over her hips and carried pants and panties down with them.

Awkward moment. Yeah, this was one of those awkward moments and maybe one of the reasons she didn’t have much sex. All these fiddly things—getting undressed in an attractive way, not fumbling with your clothes, getting shoes or boots off while standing—that was why not many dates ended up in bed.

Awkward, embarrassing moments.

But it turned out not to be awkward or embarrassing at all. Somehow Jack had some magic wand, probably connected to his magic penis, that did everything for him. His mouth left her neck for about two seconds as he kneeled and then voilà! Like magic. There she was, naked, in his arms. He was somehow naked, too. Nothing awkward or embarrassing about it.

Everything about him was so exciting. Impossibly broad shoulders, smooth skin over hard muscle…

Not so smooth skin.

Her fingertips wandered over his back and oh, God. He was covered in scars. Raised keloid tissue over his rib cage, two round puckered scars that could only be?—

She pulled away, looked up into his face.

His expression was harsh, closed. “They bother you?”

“The scars? No. Well, actually yes. There must have been a lot of pain attached to these.” There was distance now between them and even in the semi darkness, Summer could see more scars on his chest. Two that must be the entry wounds to the puckered round scars she felt along his back. And another long, raised scar with staple stitches along it. She hadn’t seen scars like that since her childhood in third world countries. Nowadays no scars left stitch marks like that.

It must have been a field dressing.

For a second she mourned the old Jack, who’d been scarless, inside and out. Such a happy golden boy, to whom nothing bad had ever happened, and nothing ever would. The Jack that had been blessed by fate.

This Jack was scarred, darker, tougher. He’d been to war.

Jack shrugged one massive shoulder. He gave a small smile. “If the scars don’t bother you, then can we get back to what we were doing before?”

Oh God. Just like that, her body simply lit up. Her spirit had darkened feeling Jack’s scars, knowing how much pain each one represented. But he was revved and whoa, so was she. Sorrow and darkness and the past simply vanished, like the mist at morning. What was left was fierce heat and electric currents running over her skin. What was left was hard, aching breasts and wet heat between her thighs.

“That’s my girl,” Jack murmured and bent to her neck again, licking behind her ear. Even Summer could hear her breath coming more harshly.

“I didn’t say a word,” she protested, but her voice came out weak and thready.

“You don’t need to say anything, darlin’. Your body talks for you. It’s tellin’ me what ah need to know.”

She sighed heavily. In bed, Jack slipped naturally into a soft southern accent and it had excited her enormously. She assumed that it came from his mother, Mary, who’d been from South Carolina and had spoken with a honeyed southern accent. Jack obviously equated affection with that accent and it simply spilled out of him. It had turned her on like a light bulb.

Still did, apparently, because her sex clenched again. Just from his tone.

“What’s my body telling you?” Summer tilted her head so he could kiss that special spot where her neck met her shoulder. Yes, she thought. That one.

“It’s telling me exactly where you like to be kissed.” Jack’s mouth moved up to just under her jawline and nipped again. She jumped as an electric current shot through her body.

“It’s telling me exactly where you like to be touched.” Jack’s mouth settled over hers, tongue licking her lips until she opened for him. One big hand smoothed its way over her back, down over her buttocks, down, down…

With his hand he silently told her to widen her stance and she opened her legs and oh my God! His fingers found her slick heat and she shuddered. He touched her just so. A Goldilocks touch. Not too hard and not too soft and oh! A probing finger rubbed over her clitoris then dipped inside her heat and she clenched. She clenched with her entire lower body, it was so intense.

She opened her mouth under his and gasped.

“That’s my girl,” Jack murmured.

“Jack,” she whispered.

“Darlin’,” he whispered back.

Something came from her throat and though it was impossible, it actually sounded like a growl. Jack chuckled.

He was chuckling ! It meant he was in control while she was losing hers. That was wrong. They had to be on equal footing here.

She brought his head down to hers for a fierce, aggressive kiss, tongue licking into his mouth, teeth nipping at his lower lip. She rolled her hips against him and felt his penis swell.

Jack made a noise in the back of his throat, stepped to the bed. Three steps. Her legs followed his, as if they were dancing. The backs of her knees hit the bed, then her back and Jack covered her. He was amazingly heavy but it didn’t bother her, all that heat and power felt so delicious. His mouth hadn’t left hers, her arms hadn’t left his shoulders.

“Open your legs,” he whispered hoarsely.

Oh yeah. Her legs slid apart quickly, because she needed him like she needed air. A big hand reached down to her sex and, like before, circled her, rubbing her at the top of her sex, exactly at the pleasure point.

She’d had clumsy lovers who pressed too hard there, until it became almost painful. They didn’t understand women’s bodies, that a touch had to be just right. The perfect amount of pressure, but never too much.

Jack understood a woman’s body. Though his hand was huge, strong and had become rough with calluses, his touch was as delicate as could be. He circled her slowly and her thighs began to tremble, the prelude to orgasm. Just from his touch.

She could feel him, hot, heavy, swollen, against her thigh. When she contracted around his finger, his penis moved against her thigh, swelling even further.

The last time she’d been this excited had been with Jack. That Jack had filled her with joy. This Jack filled her with heat, heat that prickled up and down her spine, pooled between her legs.

She pressed upward with her hips and Jack understood. He could read a woman’s body like other men read books. He lifted his head and looked down at her. They were so close she could feel his breath wash over her face.

Jack had always looked so happy when making love, big grin on that beautiful face. Right now he wasn’t grinning, he looked serious, eyes narrowed as they watched hers. He shifted his hips until they were in alignment with hers and held her open for him with two fingers. She felt the big head of his penis against her and he was as hot as molten steel. Maybe they would blow up where they were touching, it felt that explosive.

Summer placed her open hand on his hard buttock and pressed. She didn’t have the words to say it. There was no breath in her lungs, her throat was too tight for words. But the pressure of her hand was enough. She could feel his buttocks tighten as he filled her slowly, watching her face so carefully.

His look was intense as his body filled hers. She closed her eyes because the ferocity of his gaze was simply too much, and because she had to concentrate on him inside her, at last.

So hot, so hard, so…right. It was like a homecoming, something she’d wanted, missed for so long. Her legs rose, wrapped around him as tightly as her arms around his shoulders as she savored a connection that was a missing piece of her. As if she’d been half dead and was coming back to life.

Jack withdrew slowly, pushed back in, and it was sheer bliss, her body had missed this, she’d missed him so very much. To her horror, tears sprang to her eyes but her body saved her in the nick of time. She tipped over into orgasm and tears were perfectly normal while climaxing.

And she could pretend it was just sex instead of her heart opening to Jack Delvaux once more.