Make Me Melt (7 page)

* * *

C
AROLINE
COULDN
’
T
THINK
.
She could only lay sprawled across the bed, a
helpless victim of the delicious aftershocks of what was possibly the most
intense orgasm she’d ever experienced. Okay,
definitely
the most intense. Her entire body thrummed with sexual gratification. She
was trembling, as weak as a kitten.

Jason eased himself down beside her and pulled her into his
arms. “Good?”

“Ohmigod. Better than good. Amazing.”

“I agree,” he murmured and tilted her face so that he could
kiss her again. Caroline returned the kiss, sliding her tongue against his in a
slow, sensual mating. When she would have wound her arms around his neck, Jason
caught her wrists in his hands and pinned them gently but firmly over her head.
She’d known he was a big man, but it wasn’t until he was over her like this,
with her breasts flattened against the muscles of his chest, that she realized
just how large he really was.

He smiled down at her in a way that caused something in her
chest to contract. His eyes were smoldering as they raked her features. “We’ve
only just gotten started.”

He shifted against her, and she could feel the unmistakable
thrust of his erection bumping against her hip. Caroline’s breath hitched. She
liked this side of Jason, sexy and masculine. The heat she saw in his eyes made
her feel uninhibited and completely desirable. At sixteen, she hadn’t known her
own power. But now she realized that what he had said was true—she had all the
control. Despite the fact that he had her wrists pinned over her head, she was
the one who was calling the shots.

“Maybe this time,” she murmured, her gaze fastened on his
delectable mouth, “we can finally finish what we started all those years
ago.”

“I’m counting on it.”

He released her wrists and Caroline slid a hand up over his
chest to his shoulder. She wanted to touch him everywhere. His skin was like hot
satin beneath her fingers. Hooking a leg over his thigh, she pressed intimately
against him, reveling in the feel of him, hard and pulsing, against the juncture
of her thighs. She slid a hand between their bodies and cupped him through the
stretchy material of his briefs, loving how he jerked beneath her fingers.

“Oh, my,” she murmured appreciatively, then slipped her fingers
beneath the waistband to take him in her hand, dragging a little grunt from him.
He felt incredible in her palm. She stroked her thumb over the head of his
erection, feeling the slick moisture there.

“I think you have too many clothes on,” she whispered, pressing
her lips against his chest. “Can we do something about that?”

“You bet.” His response was immediate; he pushed both his jeans
and his briefs off and kicked them free. And there he was, rising thick and
rigid against the flatness of his stomach. Caroline’s mouth went dry as she
thought of that part of him inside her.

She dragged her gaze upward, forcing herself to look into his
eyes. They were as green as the surf that pounded the sands outside and
turbulent with passion. For her. A primal thrill coursed through her at the look
of raw desire on his face.

“Hurry,” she urged.

He took her hand and guided it back to him, and Caroline needed
no further incentive to wrap her fingers around him. He pulsed strongly against
her palm. God, he was so hot. And hard. And satiny beneath her fingertips.

She slid her hand down the length of his shaft and felt a rush
of possessive pride when he sucked his breath in sharply and then buried his
face against her neck. Caroline continued to stroke him, tentatively at first
and then with growing confidence as he groaned softly and bent his head to her
breast, capturing her nipple in his mouth and drawing deeply on it.

And there it was again. The slow, throbbing ache that made her
long to wrap her legs around him and bring him completely inside her.

“Jason,” she whispered against his hair, “please...”

He raised his head from her breast, and his eyes were
startlingly bright, as if lit from within. “Yeah?”

“I want you. Inside me.”

Without a word, he reached over the edge of the bed to fumble
with his discarded jeans. When he came back, he held a small foil package.

A condom!
God, she hadn’t even
thought about protection. She was grateful that Jason still had the ability to
think rationally, and she wondered how often he found himself in this kind of
situation. Did he always carry a condom in his pocket, or had he come prepared
specifically because he was hoping to hook up with her? She found she didn’t
really care which it was. She had dreamed of this moment, and now that it was
really happening, she didn’t want to worry too much about his motives.

She watched as he covered himself and then positioned himself
above her. Reaching down, he lifted one of her legs and laid it across his back,
opening her. He stroked a finger along the seam of her sex, and Caroline gasped
at the exquisite sensation. Pleasure lashed through her. When she felt the
smooth knob of his erection nudging against her, she lifted her hips in
invitation.

“Do you want me to stop?” His voice was rough, his breathing
coming in pants. His gaze didn’t waver as he stared down at her.

“No. Please, no.”

With his eyes fixed on hers, he surged forward in one powerful
thrust and sank himself fully in her heat. His possession of her was so total,
so complete, that she almost stopped breathing.

“Oh, God,” she whispered and closed her eyes.

“Look at me,” he ground out.

Caroline opened her eyes. He braced himself above her, his eyes
glittering with masculine satisfaction. He didn’t move, just let her adjust to
him. “Doing okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” she murmured. “You feel incredible. I don’t want
you to hold back, Jason.”

She didn’t want him treating her with kid gloves. She wanted
all of him—all his passion—without any restraints. She shifted her hips
experimentally beneath him, and the slide of his flesh against hers was almost
too wonderful to bear.

Jason closed his eyes briefly, as if in pain. “This feels too
good. I’ll try to go gently, but goddamn, you’re so snug.”

Then, with their gazes locked on each other, he began to move,
pumping slow and deep. Each new stroke heightened her sensitivity, and she could
feel her inner muscles clench greedily around his hard length. This is what she
had wanted—what she had waited for.

Jason. Making love to her.

Caroline gasped as he filled her, and she clutched feverishly
at his shoulders. He captured her mouth with his, sweeping his tongue against
hers. His big hands cupped her buttocks and lifted her to better meet the
bone-melting thrusts of his hips against hers. She arched against him and raised
both legs to wrap them around his lean hips.

“That’s it,” he murmured against her mouth. “Just let go.”

Caroline had never felt anything so all-consuming. He filled
her, surrounded her and drove out every conscious thought she had. There was
only him, connected to her.

She was being swept upward in a vortex of sensations, mindless
to everything but the fierceness of her need. He was moving faster now, pumping
into her with increasing urgency. He lifted his head to look at her. His
features were taut, and a vein pulsed in his neck. He was close to climaxing,
and knowing that she was responsible was a powerful aphrodisiac. Liquid heat
flooded to the spot where he stroked her and heightened the sharpness of her
desire.

“Jason,” she breathed as she felt her own orgasm building
again, even more intense than before.

He smoothed the damp tendrils of her hair back from her face.
“I’m here,” he said huskily. “I’m right here with you, babe.” He adjusted the
angle of his hips against hers, so that each stroke ground him against her
clitoris. He thrust deeper until he filled her completely. “I want you to come
again.”

His words pushed her over the edge.

“Oh, oh,” Caroline gasped, and Jason caught her small, frantic
cries with his mouth, spearing his tongue against hers as he moved faster,
pushing her higher with each mind-shattering drive of his hips.

She climaxed in a blinding white-hot rush of pleasure. Jason
bucked against her, and she felt him stiffen and then shudder once, twice and
then again, inside her. He collapsed onto her, his heart pounding erratically,
and she wrapped her arms around him, not wanting to let him go. She stroked her
hands over his back, slick with sweat, and reveled in the feel of his body,
heavy and replete against hers.

“Ahh...damn,” he gasped. “That was unbelievable.” He raised
himself on his elbows over her. He kissed her, slowly and languorously, but made
no move to withdraw from the warmth of her body. When he finally pulled back to
look at her, his expression was intensely serious and filled with a tenderness
that made her chest ache. “You okay?”

Caroline gazed at him. “I think so.” Her legs were still curved
around his hips, and their breathing was uneven as they stared at one
another.

As if unable to help himself, Jason dipped his head and kissed
her again, a kiss so sweet that she thought she could willingly stay in his arms
like that forever. When he finally lifted his head, it was to carefully withdraw
from her body. After rolling away from her, he sat on the edge of the bed to
dispose of the condom. But he didn’t immediately come back and pull her into his
arms as she wanted him to.

Reaching out, she tentatively touched Jason’s back. “That was
even better than I could have imagined.”

In the indistinct light, his expression was difficult to read.
Finally, he eased himself back down beside her. Reaching down, he retrieved a
quilt that lay folded at the foot of the bed, opened it and covered them both
with it. Pulling her against his side, he smoothed her hair back behind her ear
and gently ran the back of his knuckles across her cheek.

“This is definitely going to complicate things,” he said wryly,
but he took the sting out of his words by dropping a kiss onto the corner of her
mouth.

“It’s what I wanted,” Caroline assured him.

“Like I said...spoiled rotten.”

This time there was no malice in his words, and she smiled up
at him. “You’d do better to remember that I always get what I want.”

He was silent for a moment. “You should want more than what I
can offer.”

Raising herself on one elbow, Caroline studied his face in the
darkness. “I’ve done a lot of growing up in the last twelve years,” she finally
said. “And while I may not have as much experience with the opposite sex as you
have, I do have enough to know what I want.”

His mouth curved in a rueful smile. “Just tell me you didn’t
make good on your promise to have a dozen other guys when you were only
sixteen.”

His tone was teasing, but Caroline could hear the underlying
question in his voice.

“There’ve been a few,” she acknowledged, thinking of her past
relationships. “But not until I was in college, and not even close to a
dozen.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I have no regrets, Jason.” She was glad that the darkness hid
her expression. Didn’t he see that she’d gotten exactly what she wanted? She
knew he’d had a rough upbringing, and that maybe he had some lingering
insecurities about his background, but she’d never considered him beneath her,
and the inference that he was somehow unworthy of her was disturbing.

“I’m glad,” he said gruffly and pulled her down beside him, so
that her cheek rested on his chest. She could hear his heart beating and
wondered how long this dream would last.

7

J
ASON
NEEDED
A
stiff drink.

Badly.

He’d waited until Caroline had fallen asleep; then, unable to close his own eyes, he’d finally gone downstairs. Barefoot and shirtless, he strode to the wet bar and poured himself a shot of Judge Banks’s best bourbon, then quaffed it in a single gulp. He gasped as the liquor burned its way down his throat and set the empty glass down on the counter.

Sex with Caroline had exceeded anything Jason could have imagined, and he’d imagined a lot. He just hadn’t been prepared for how completely she’d made love with him. She hadn’t held anything back, and she hadn’t let him hold back, either. As much as he’d like to tell himself this was only about sex, he knew differently. Despite what she’d told him all those years ago, Caroline wasn’t the kind of woman to sleep with a guy unless it meant something to her, and that was causing him all kinds of guilt.

With a groan, he scrubbed his hands over his face and sat down at the table where he had spread out the case files. After several moments, he gave up any pretense of looking at the documents. He couldn’t concentrate. All he could think about was Caroline. Upstairs, in his bed.

Naked.

He could still taste her, still feel the satiny texture of her skin beneath his fingertips. Still hear the feminine sounds of pleasure she’d made as he’d brought her to orgasm. He didn’t think he’d ever experienced anything as sexy and beautiful as Caroline Banks in the throes of ecstasy.

No question about it—he was in serious trouble. If she had even an inkling of where he’d come from or what he’d done in the past, she’d never have considered inviting him into her bed. He tried not to think about what would happen if she were to see through his carefully constructed veneer, to what he really was inside.

In the next instant, he realized it didn’t even matter. She wasn’t staying in California, and he wasn’t about to let himself get serious about her, even if she was. He thought he’d put his past behind him, but it was times like this when he realized he was still very much that angry boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Despite his personal successes, he couldn’t quite convince himself that he was good enough for Caroline Banks. He had no doubt that eventually she’d come to the same realization.

With a deep sigh, he laced his fingers together behind his head and stared at the ceiling, envisioning Caroline curled up in bed. Before he could change his mind, he pushed his chair back and took the stairs two at a time. He still believed that she deserved better than him, but he silently acknowledged that he wasn’t above taking whatever she offered. He was a selfish bastard and not afraid to admit it.

Outside his bedroom, he paused, and then he carefully opened the door. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but he could just make out her form under the blanket. Quietly, he shucked his jeans and slid in behind her. She gave a sleepy murmur of surprise and then shifted so her back was pressed against his chest. Groping with one hand, she found his arm and dragged it over her body so that he was wrapped around her. She was warm, and she smelled like the fragrant soap she’d used in the shower. It took all his restraint not to let his hands roam everywhere. Instead, he forced himself to remain still, but there was nothing he could do about his growing arousal.

“Where’d you go?” she whispered.

Jason leaned over and kissed her. “Just downstairs for a minute. You okay?”

She squeezed his hand and brought it up to cover one bare breast. “Better than okay. That was perfect. You were perfect. Even better than my fantasies.”

Jason groaned, knowing he was a goner. Her breast was heavy and soft in his hand, and he cupped it gently, stroking his thumb over her nipple until it tightened beneath his touch. While there was a part of him that was scared shitless about what had happened between them, another part of him was filled with masculine satisfaction. For tonight, it was enough. He wouldn’t let himself think about tomorrow.

* * *

J
ASON
LEFT
THE
bed as the first fingers of light were touching the ocean beyond the dunes. He crept silently down the stairs, unwilling to wake her. After last night, she needed her sleep more than she needed to rush to her father’s bedside. As he entered the kitchen, he stopped short.

Colton leaned against the counter with a cup of coffee in one hand and a disapproving expression on his face. Silently, he poured a second cup of coffee from the fresh pot he had brewed and handed it to Jason.

“Don’t say it,” Jason warned, accepting the mug.

“What were you doing upstairs?” Colton asked. “Please tell me you weren’t with her.”

Jason took a gulp of the hot liquid, ignoring the other man’s question. “Have you been in touch with the hospital?”

Colton nodded. “Yeah. There’s been no change to the judge’s condition.” He glanced at his watch. “What time do you want to leave?”

Jason walked over to the table and pretended to consider the files that were strewn across the surface. “I thought I’d let Caroline catch up on her sleep. She had a pretty rough day yesterday.”

Colton was too well trained to comment, but Jason knew the other man wasn’t fooled. The truth was, he and Caroline hadn’t gotten very much sleep after he’d returned to bed. Jason was still riding an adrenaline high, but he knew he’d be feeling the effects of the strenuous night before the day was through. He was trained to go for extended periods without sleep, but Caroline wasn’t. The emotional stress she was under, combined with the physical demands he’d made of her, meant she would be exhausted unless she got some rest.

“It’s more difficult to be objective when you’re emotionally involved with your detail,” Colton commented. “Not to mention that it’s not very professional. I know you and Caroline go way back, but I’m not sure this is the time or place to rediscover whatever it is you had together.”

Jason shot him a baleful look. “Let it go, Black.”

Colton made a sound of disgust as he pushed away from the counter and headed for the door, coffee mug in hand. “I hope you know what you’re doing. I’ll be outside if you need me.”

Jason didn’t take offense at the other man’s words. The two of them had worked together for over five years, and Colton was the closest thing he had to a friend. If their positions were reversed, he’d have expressed the same concerns. He didn’t regret last night, but he acknowledged that sleeping with Caroline might not have been the smartest idea. But now that he had, everything had changed.

She was his, in the most elemental way there was. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. In order to protect her, he needed to find out who had shot her father. Whoever was responsible was still out there. And while the FBI had formal jurisdiction over the case and was performing its own investigation, Jason knew it couldn’t hurt for him to review the files. He had an immediate familiarity with most of the cases and a good instinct for what might have motivated such a vicious attack.

Pulling up a chair, he set his mug down and began methodically going through the files. Steve Anderson had done him a favor by segregating the worst offenders out of the pile of possible suspects. Flipping through the documents, Jason discarded one and then another file. He set two of the files to one side, believing they warranted a closer look.

The first was the Sanchez case, and while Jason knew the leader of the drug-smuggling gang was more than capable of putting a hit out on the judge, he wasn’t sure that would be his style. Sanchez would lose any hope of serving out the remainder of his prison term in Mexico if the authorities even suspected he was behind the shooting. But it was possible that one of his henchmen had acted in retaliation. He set the file aside for further investigation.

He reached for the next file, and then hesitated when he saw the name that was written across the top. He told himself that Edward Green was a common enough name, but when he opened the file, he recognized the man in the police photo. Eddie Green was one of the most notorious gang leaders in the Hunters Point region of San Francisco. He’d been charged with numerous offenses, including drug distribution, operating a prostitution ring, weapons possession and murder. Jason recognized him from his own childhood. They had grown up together in the projects, and Jason had been one of Eddie’s earliest recruits into his violent Hunters Point gang.

He closed his eyes briefly against the unwelcome memories. He’d been twelve years old to Eddie’s sixteen, and he had worshipped the older boy, for both his cunning and his reckless attitude. Eddie Green didn’t take crap from anyone, and if someone did him wrong, he meted out his own form of brutal punishment. When he was seventeen, he’d been suspected of beating his mother’s boyfriend to death, but no charges had ever been pressed.

Jason couldn’t think about those days without a degree of self-loathing. He’d had a crummy homelife, with a grandmother who worked too much to really be an influence in his life and a father who was a drug addict. His grandmother had died when he was fifteen, and after that, Daryl Cooper had been too concerned about where his next fix was coming from to worry about what illegal activities his kid might be involved in. Jason had never known his mother. She’d been gone long before he was old enough to remember her. Eddie Green and his budding gang had seemed like family to Jason, and he’d looked up to Eddie as he would have an older brother.

Even when Eddie had demanded he commit petty crimes in order to prove his loyalty and commitment to the gang, Jason hadn’t stopped hanging out with the group. He’d deluded himself into thinking that it was okay to rob a convenience store or break into someone’s home when they weren’t there and steal their jewelry and electronics. He’d told himself that society owed him something for dealing him such a lousy hand. Still, on some level, he knew it was only a matter of time before he’d be told to kill someone. But by then he was too deeply entrenched to get out. Then his grandmother had died, and Jason had realized that if he didn’t extricate himself, he was going to end up dead or a junkie like his father. He’d been arrested three days later for jacking a car and had ended up in Judge Banks’s courtroom. Looking back, it was the best thing that could have happened to him.

He flipped through Eddie’s file, noting that his former friend had been released from prison about fourteen months earlier, having served six years on a murder conviction. But Eddie’s younger brother, Mikey, along with another key gang member, were on death row, charged in the murder of two police officers. Eddie’s gang had threatened to take down everyone involved in the sentencing if Mikey’s conviction wasn’t overturned. Judge Banks had been the one who had sentenced the two men.

Closing the file, Jason sat back in his chair, feeling as if he’d had the wind knocked out of him. He knew what Eddie and his men were capable of. They were ruthless criminals without consciences, and they would absolutely destroy anyone who got in their way. But would they go so far as to shoot a superior court judge in his own home? Jason didn’t know. He thought again of what Steven Anderson had said about seeing an old car parked in the Sea Cliff neighborhood, conspicuous because of its age and condition. Could it have been Eddie, or one of his gang members, in that car? Just thinking about that scumbag coming anywhere near Caroline made his blood run cold.

Jason no longer identified with the troubled youth he’d once been, and he’d done his best to put his past behind him. But there were times, like now, when the memories of his upbringing clung to him like a dirty second skin that no amount of washing could remove. As much as the idea repulsed him, he knew he’d have to return to Hunters Point and get whatever information he could about Eddie Green and Judge Banks.

He looked up when he heard footsteps on the stairs and saw Caroline slowly making her way toward him. She wore his discarded T-shirt and a pair of shorts, and she hadn’t bothered brushing her hair. She looked so sexy that Jason felt his heart thud in his chest.

“Good morning,” he murmured, rising to his feet. “Did you sleep okay?”

She nodded and moved into his arms as naturally as if they’d been lovers for years. She was warm and supple and she smelled good enough to eat. Jason closed his eyes and hugged her tightly, unable to believe that this woman wanted to be with him.

“I missed you when I woke up,” she said and pressed a kiss against his jaw.

“I wanted to let you sleep, and it gave me time to start going through these case files.”

Caroline inspected the open file on the table. Jason wanted to slap it shut and prevent her from reading about the sordid details of Eddie Green’s history.

“I remember overhearing my father talking about this guy when I was a kid,” she said, picking up the photo of Eddie and inspecting it. “He sure is a scary-looking guy.”

Standing behind her, Jason studied the photo she held in her hand. Eddie had changed in the years since Jason had known him. He’d shaved his head, and the exposed skin was covered with intricate tattoos that extended down his neck and over his shoulders and chest. He had gauges in both ears and a piercing in one eyebrow, but it was none of these things that made him look frightening. It was the utter deadness of his eyes.

“He lost his way a long time ago,” Jason said.

Caroline replaced the photo in the file and picked up the written report, scanning quickly through Eddie’s rap sheet.

“He’s one nasty character.” She turned and looked at him. “He’s from Hunters Point, too. Did you know this guy?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.” He didn’t want to share his troubled youth with Caroline. He’d worked hard to put it behind him. He’d dedicated his life to putting creeps like Eddie Green behind bars. He didn’t want her to even think of him and Eddie in the same thought. “Like you said, he’s a bad character.”

She reached up and gently traced one of the scars on his face with her fingertip. “I remember when this was brand-new,” she said. “You had so many scars back then. I asked my father about them once, but he wouldn’t tell me anything.”