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Gina was about to respond when Kyle interrupted. “ Shelter locations are kept secret. No one is ever told where these people go when they get set up with a new life.” He picked up his wineglass, staring at it without drinking.

“ That’s right.” Gina nodded, sensing a dark undercurrent from Jack’s brother. “ The shelter may relay a message, but there’s never any direct contact.”

“ Ever ,” Kyle added.

The woman in Chicago ? Jack had said his brother saved her from a vicious beating, then she went into the system and disappeared. Judging from the faraway look in Kyle’s eyes, she really had been important to him. Perhaps , she still was.

Thirty minutes later, Jack and Deke helped their mother clear the dishes and went into the kitchen, leaving Gina with Kyle to set out dessert plates and coffee cups.

“ It’s a good thing you’re doing.” Kyle pulled out fresh paper napkins from a sideboard. “ People are clueless about the cash flow required to make the program work.”

“ You know someone who went into the system,” she said softly. “ Don’t you?”

He stopped setting out the napkins and raised his head. This time, she didn’t flinch under his unnerving golden stare. There was pain in his eyes, as surely as if it was stamped on his forehead. “ She was…a friend.” He resumed placing the napkins on the table.

She’d bet they were more than friends. “ How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”

“ Ten years.”

She began setting out the plates. “ Did you ever make a request to have a message relayed to her?”

“ No .”

“ Why not?” She paused before putting down another plate.

He shook his head. “ It’s better this way.”

“ How so?” she prodded. “ If she cares about you?—”

“ It’s complicated. But thanks.” As he set down the last napkin, he gave her a fleeting smile, then went into the kitchen.

Her heart went out to him. She understood how difficult it was when someone you loved disappeared from your life. Whatever had happened between him and this woman was meaningful enough to last over a decade. That kind of emotion could only be one thing: love.

Was that really what she felt for Jack ? The feeling of impending loss struck as surely as if she’d been run over by a truck. If he disappeared from her life, she had a horrible suspicion she’d be just as tormented as Kyle was. Acknowledging that sent a bolt of fear directly to her heart.

Drawn by laughter, she headed for the kitchen. The atmosphere inside the Gates family home was everything she was missing in her life. Everything she’d been robbed of when her parents were taken from her.

Pausing in the doorway, she watched Jack and his brothers huddled together like little boys, joking about something while their mother finished slathering white frosting on a giant layer cake.

Somehow , Jack being an FBI agent was beginning to matter less and less. The man beneath the badge was starting to matter more.

Catching sight of her in the doorway, the men lifted their heads.

Kyle whispered something to Jack , and Deke grinned.

Jack’s expression went utterly blank as he continued staring at her.

Then he smiled, his eyes sparking with something she’d never seen before.

Whatever it was, it made her heart flutter wildly, and suddenly the idea of giving Elaina grandchildren wasn’t so frightening.

* * *

“ Am I ever going to see where you live?” Gina unlocked the door to her apartment. They hadn’t discussed it, but his coming home with her seemed so natural.

Home . This was her home. It was too soon, but did she want it to be his, too, someday?

Jack didn’t answer right away. He watched her, his expression once again inscrutable. “ You really want to see it?”

“ Yes .” She flicked on the foyer light, tossing a flirty grin over her shoulder.

“ For all I know, you could be some kind of weirdo with a clown fetish or”—she hooked her fingers into quotation marks—“have a ‘red room’.” In truth, she just wanted to see his home.

He kept that part of his life separate from hers, and she wanted to know all there was about him.

He stared unsmiling at her from across the foyer, but his eyes lit with banked humor. “ Red rooms are for guys that can’t get it up any other way. I don’t need one to satisfy me or my woman.”

“ Really ?” She took off her coat and hung it in the closet. She loved the witty banter that sprang so easily between them.

“ Haven’t I already proven myself?” He shrugged out of his jacket and reached over her shoulder to drape it on a hook on the closet door. As he did, he intentionally brushed his arm against her breast, making her shudder.

She closed the door. “ How do I know that wasn’t a one-shot deal?”

“ One shot?” He gave a snort of disgust. “ I believe I’ve made it clear that it wasn’t.”

“ Maybe I need periodic reminders.” She stepped back and pulled her sweater over her head, knowing he’d like what he saw.

His nostrils flared. Beneath the warm, bulky purple sweater, she wore a black, low-cut, lacy-edged bra that barely covered her nipples. His eyes darkened like a storm cloud ready to unleash everything it held inside.

He advanced on her slowly, and with each step he took forward, she took one back until they were in her bedroom.

Foreplay she’d had before but never like this—teasing, tantalizing, and their bodies were still three feet apart.

Electricity hummed and sparked between them.

This was fun, exciting, and sexy. Like him.

The backs of her legs hit the edge of the bed. Without touching her anywhere else, Jack began kissing her neck.

“ If you really want to see where I live,” he said, his deep rumbly words like a warm, gossamer caress on her skin, “ I’ll take you there.”

Her body trembled with need she could barely contain. “ Okay .” If he didn’t put his hands on her soon, she’d scream.

“ Not right this second.” He backed away. “ Take off your pants.”

“ Why don’t you take them off?” she teased, really, really wanting his big hands all over her.

Slowly , he shook his head. “ I’m calling the shots.”

“ Ooh , bossy tonight, aren’t we, Special Agent Gates ?”

He grinned wickedly. “ I keep telling you. It’s an FBI thing.”

She could totally buy into this change of plans . Game on, big guy. She kicked off her shoes, then unzipped her jeans and slid them down her legs. Bent over as she was, Gina knew he was getting an eyeful of her breasts. She tugged off her jeans and socks, tossing them aside.

As he took in her tiny matching black panties, his mouth parted and he took a deep shuddering breath. “ You are so incredibly beautiful.”

His appreciative words went straight to her core, lighting up every feminine part of her body that wanted him deep inside her.

He swallowed, his nostrils flaring wider. “ Touch your breasts.”

She did as he ordered, cupping her breasts and pinching her nipples through the lacy fabric. A ripple of lust zinged from her head to her toes. Not from her hands on her body. From watching him while she did it.

The thick bulge behind the zipper of his pants told her how turned on he was. His eyes had gone smoky gray, backlit with so much lust and desire she could practically feel it on her skin, stroking and licking every square inch.

“ Take off your bra.” His voice was gravelly, commanding.

Reaching behind her, she unhooked her bra and let it fall to the rug. Cool air washed over her nipples, making them pucker and tighten.

He swallowed. “ Now your panties.”

A thrill ran through her, and she did as he ordered.

“ I want to watch you pleasure yourself,” he said. “ Do it now.”

Parting her legs a few inches, she ran her middle finger between her pussy lips, finding her plump, throbbing clit. She was wet and totally turned on.

“ Push your finger inside.” His eyes were glued to her hand. “ Pinch your nipple.”

Yes , sir . She pushed her middle finger deep inside her wet folds, undulating her hips and pinching one of her nipples.

She let her head fall back, gasping as waves of pleasure converged in her core.

He was absolutely right. No red room needed.

No whips, chains, or handcuffs. She was on the verge of coming, and he hadn’t even touched her.

She took shallow breaths, plunging her finger faster, rocking harder against her hand.

“ Stop !” His voice was tight. “ Get on the bed.”

Yessiree . She sat on the bed and started scooting back when he clasped her ankles, kneeling on the floor as he tugged her hips to the edge of the mattress and draped her legs over his shoulders.

He fastened his mouth on her wet folds, sucking, biting, nibbling until she writhed and moaned, gripping the duvet in clenched hands.

He drove her to the brink of a sexual precipice so intense she nearly screamed.

When he pushed two fingers inside her and began pumping to the rhythm of his tongue sucking on her clit, she gasped at the powerful spasms rocketing to her core.

“ Jack , I’m going to come!” She arched her back and cried out as the orgasm blasted through her. He fastened his mouth tighter, drawing out the near-painful ecstasy and making her body jerk from wave after wave of pleasure.

Her mind went completely blank. The pounding she heard and felt was her pulse roaring in her ears and her heart thumping wildly in her chest. She could barely draw in a breath. That uneven, raspy sound was her own pathetic effort at breathing.

They should write books about the orgasm Jack had just given her. Sexy , erotic, no-holds-barred, tell-all books with diagrams and instructions, because that orgasm had been world class.

Slowly , she opened her eyes. Jack’s lips tipped up in a smug, satisfied grin.

The man definitely took pride in his work, and she wasn’t just referring to his abilities as an agent.

With the same appreciation he’d shown her while she’d stripped out of her clothes, she watched him do the same as he peeled off his shirt and jeans, taking in his powerful shoulders and thickly muscled chest and arms.

His cock hung low, thick and fully erect as he tore open a wrapper and rolled on a condom. She’d expected him to push into her and take her hard and fast, but he didn’t.

Bracing his arms on either side of her face, he lowered gently on top of her, tucking wayward strands of hair from her face and kissing her softly on the lips.

She looped her arms around his waist and dragged her nails up and down his back, loving the ripple and play of his body beneath her fingertips.

He deepened the kiss, slipping his tongue inside her mouth. His erection pressed against her hip, but still he made no effort to enter her. “ You okay?”

“ Mmm ,” she mumbled, loving his masculine scent and the minty taste of his kisses. “ Never better.” Never in a million years, would she have expected anything to happen between them. “ I need to ask you something.”

He continued dropping kisses on her neck. “ What ?”

“ What were you and your brothers talking about in the kitchen when I walked in?” She’d meant to ask him that on the ride home but had chickened out. Whatever they’d been discussing, it had seemed like a private matter.

He lifted his head. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he stroked his fingers down her cheek. “ They told me that I shouldn’t let you go.”

As it had at his mother’s house, her belly fluttered. “ And what did you say to them?” she whispered.

“ That maybe they were right.” He lowered his head again, kissing her as he nudged her legs apart and entered her, filling her core and stretching her walls.

She sighed, rocking her hips to meet his rhythmic thrusts. The merging of their bodies was different this time, not fast and furious but equally amazing in its sweetness and tenderness.

He clasped the sides of her face, watching her as they both neared their release. In his warm gray eyes, she saw everything she’d ever wanted. Home . Family . The future. And just like that, she tumbled head over heels and fell in love. With an FBI agent.