Wicked Lovers 01 Wicked Ties (38 page)

He drove her straight to Brandon’s car, stopping beside it. He leaned over the steering wheel.

“What Jack did was shitty, Morgan. I won’t deny it. He knows it. But this asshole stalking you is dangerous. And it’s possible he hopped a plane back here. Let me call Jack. He can keep you safe until—”

“Damn it. What part of no don’t you understand?”

“What if this sick freak finds you? He’s tried to kill you once. He’ll try again. You saw that note.”

“I’m a grown woman with a brain. I can manage to hide myself for one night. Then tomorrow, I’ll make other arrangements. Jack is not the only person who can keep me safe.”

“He’s the man who cares about you most. He would do anything to keep you safe, give his life for yours.”

“All bodyguards take that risk.”

Deke nodded. “The difference is, on the job, we risk our lives because we’re paid to do it. I have no doubt Jack would simply lay his down to save yours.”

“No, that’s…” Morgan shook her head, disturbed by the soaring joy and terror inside her. “He’d have to love me to—”

“He does.”

Morgan swallowed. It wasn’t possible. Logically, she’d known Jack three days. He wasn’t the kind of man to give his heart easily, if at all.

Was it possible? a voice in her head whispered. An agreement to an interview had led to an agreement to protect her, which had led to…so much more. Visions of Jack bombarded her: Shielding her from bullets, impaling her against his front door, teasing his grandfather, encouraging her to accept his domination, cursing at her fantasy.

Leaving her.

Jack didn’t love her. Deke must think saying otherwise would persuade her to wait for him. Well, Deke thought wrong.

She stripped off Deke’s sweatshirt, handed it back to him, and gathered up her purse. “I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t think that taking this car is safe. Who knows what the weird-ass did to it. Why don’t you let me drop you somewhere until we can get the car checked out.”

So he could tell Jack where she’d gone the minute his Hummer door shut behind her? “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll call a cab.”

With a long sigh of defeat, Deke put his Hummer into park. “At least let me help you down and make sure this bastard hasn’t tampered with your car.”

As much as she wanted to, Morgan couldn’t argue with that request. She nodded.

Deke hopped down and walked around to open her door. He grabbed her around the waist and lifted her out of the vehicle. His hands lingered. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She still had a stalker to contend with but she could hire someone big and mean and ugly to watch over her, return home, start filming the new episodes of Turn Me On.

A new batch of ice picks seemed to stab at the back of her eyes. “I can’t stay.”

Morgan fished the keys from her overstuffed little purse, cursing as Deke bumped her and half the contents spilled out onto the dark street. God, couldn’t anything go right?

“Sorry. I tripped.” Deke bent and gathered her brush, her wallet, her hand lotion, then put it all back in her purse. “Be safe.”

She opened Brandon’s trunk after Deke checked the vehicle inside and out, then gave her an all-clear signal. With a soft curse, he called her a cab as she grabbed her belongings from the trunk.

“Thanks.” She couldn’t seem to make her voice any bigger than a whisper.

“I hope I see you again.”

Sincere. His words weren’t cute. Weren’t a come-on. A fresh wave of dejection swarmed her.

Morgan nodded and watched him drive away with hot tears scalding her cheeks as the truth hit her: She’d never see Deke again. Worse, she’d never see Jack again. She’d known him mere days and leaving him felt like she was leaving behind a part of herself, like she’d dismembered her heart from her body.

Perfect. How like her. The minute she had to leave Jack was the moment she realized she loved him.

The taxi blessedly arrived moments later and whisked her away.

#

Nearly groaning with every step, Morgan checked into a quaint European-style bed and breakfast on the edge of town with a small overnight bag in one hand and her laptop in the other. She took the renovated carriage house out back, which wasn’t visible from the road and came complete with a Jacuzzi tub and a back door for a quick exit. The whole place sat alone, the yard surrounded by guard fences. The owner swore they’d never had so much as a flower disturbed in the twenty years he’d been running the place. And that sounded like heaven to Morgan. She wanted to lay down and sleep for a week, and after tonight, she just might.

But she had to take care of a few things first.

Dragging her laptop out, Morgan hunkered down in the plush king-sized bed and dashed off an email to Brandon. She explained about the damage to his house and promised to return to Houston and get the repairs started. She told him she was alive and safe, that Jack had been watching over her. She sent him the name of her hotel tonight in case he could contact her—and not much more. How could she possibly explain to ultra-responsible Brandon that she had fallen for a stranger in a handful of days? Then, after beseeching him to stay safe in Iraq, she grabbed her phone. She’d read on the Internet that sometimes confronting your stalker with a firm no could make them go away. Maybe that tactic would work with Reggie. But one glance at her phone told her there’d be no calling Reggie tonight. Her phone was deader than dead. Damn!

Resigned that everything would wait until tomorrow, she headed for the blissful steam of a shower.

Twenty minutes and two travel sized-bottles of shampoo later, Morgan emerged from the charming pedastal-sinked bathroom.

Only she wasn’t alone anymore.

“J—Jack?” Her stomach clenched into a tight ball, then fell to her knees.

He stood just outside the bathroom door, big and broad and tense with fight, completely blocking her in and covering both her exits. Morgan licked suddenly dry lips. Most people might mistake that expression on his face for flat. Uh-huh, she knew better. And she shivered.

“How did you…?”

She glanced at the clock visible on the wall just above his shoulder. Deke had told her Jack would probably catch up with her in forty-five minutes. He’d done it in thirty-seven.

All while maintaining tight control over his anger—barely. The clenching fists, the thick veins roping his forearms, his taut jaw, the inky slashes of his brows over reproving dark eyes, she could hardly miss all that.

Nor could she miss the raging erection pushing against the front of his jeans. But it was in her best interest to try like hell.

Jack reached for her purse, dumped it upside down, scattering the contents all over a little round table. He extracted a little black one-by-one inch plastic device. The little gray letters GPS on the back told her everything she needed to know.

Damn! Deke had slipped that into her purse, probably when she’d dumped its contents everywhere after he’d “accidentally” bumped her and he’d “helped” pick it all back up. Morgan made a mental note to slap him silly when— No, she wouldn’t see him again.

“He gave you the means to hunt me down,” she spat.

“I would have found you, no matter how long it took. No matter what I had to do. Deke just made it easier. I wasn’t far behind you, anyway.”

Morgan muttered an impossible wish under her breath.

“No, I won’t leave you the hell alone. In fact, I have a question: Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“For wanting to get away from you after your mortifying exit earlier this evening? Gee, I must be.”

He flinched. Oh, it was subtle, but she knew Jack well enough to catch it.

“Fuck!” He raked a hand through dark hair and stalked closer. “Alyssa called me when you left the club and told me about the pictures and the note. Deke confirmed. What the hell were you thinking? Or were you hoping your dangerous admirer would just pack it up and go home?”

“He couldn’t have any way to follow me here. I’m safe for a night or two. After that…” She shrugged. “You’re not the only person on the planet capable of helping me stay safe.”

Apparently not liking that answer, Jack stepped closer, looking big and dominant and worried as hell under all that anger.

“Know someone else who’s a qualified bodyguard? Who you gonna let protect you?”

“I don’t think it’s any of your business anymore.”

“Why, because I behaved like an ass earlier tonight? Don’t look shocked. I was wrong and I’m saying so. I’m sorry.”

Jack apologizing, just like that? No. It was too simple. There had to be a catch…“You’re only willing to apologize so I’ll be a good little girl, come back, and let you tear me down again.”

“I’m willing to apologize so I don’t lose you. But whether you forgive me or not, I’m not letting this sick bastard anywhere near you.”

Morgan gestured around the otherwise uninhabited room. “As you can see, all’s clear. No psychos here ready to kill me. You can go now.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I’m not going anywhere. It’s possible this asshole followed you here from Alyssa’s. He could have been watching the club, just waiting for you. You don’t know.”

She hated to admit that he could be right…but in this case, he could be. Damn it, she had to start thinking smart, with the brain God gave her, not with her weeping heart.

“And you may think we’re done,” Jack went on, advancing, closer, closer, larger and more insistent with every step. “Think again. I don’t want to lose you to this stalker; that’s a given. But I don’t want to lose you. Period.”

Morgan rolled her eyes. “Lose me, how? As a…little fuck toy. That’s all I am to you. You enjoyed every minute of tearing away all my misconceptions about myself. Congratulations for convincing me I’m submissive. Now get the hell out of my life.” She whirled away.

Jack snagged her around the waist and hauled her back against his chest. It didn’t take more than a second to feel the steelinspired cock prodding the small of her back. The knowledge shouldn’t matter, shouldn’t make her sex clench with need, shouldn’t make her ache to latch onto him, to surrender everything to him.

Shouldn’ts weren’t her reality. Morgan did want him, with a desperate craving that made her body tight and achy, a condition she feared only he could ease.

“A fuck toy?” he growled in her ear. “No. A fuck toy I could have put back in a box and forgotten. I could have sent one of those away without another thought. A fuck toy wouldn’t have me hard every time I hear your voice, or worried when I see you cry. Or feeling ready to hand you my heart on a platter every time you do nothing more than fucking smile.”

Morgan’s breath caught. He didn’t mean it. Impossible after the way he’d treated her tonight. “Let go.”

Her demand fell on deaf ears. Instead, he growled in her ear, “When I put that collar around your neck tonight, that meant something. That dangling heart represented something. I know you get it. The symbolism can’t be lost on you.”

His heart? No… “It meant so much that you cursed at me and stormed out. You’re the one pushing, pushing, encouraging me to open up, let loose, promising me that it’s okay. Yeah, it’s okay as long as it’s some fantasy you’ve been harboring, but when I—”

“My ex-wife cheated on me,” Jack cut in, panting in her ear, once, twice. “I learned she was fucking my then best friend when I found their homemade video.”

Gasping, Morgan’s jaw dropped. Her tirade stuck in her throat. He’d actually seen his wife and his best friend together? Not just heard gossip about them. Not just listened to their confession. He’d witnessed it in a way he could replay it over and over.

To a strong, proud man like Jack that would be the ultimate slap in the face.

Morgan risked a glance over her shoulder. Defenses stripped, Jack’s gaze seethed anger and begged her forgiveness all at once. “We weren’t…close. I tried to give her what she needed— money, health insurance, time, and space after she miscarried. I was faithful, but…”

It wasn’t enough. He hadn’t known what else to do. His burning eyes and painful silence told her that.

Jack turned her to face him and released her. “Knowing that she let another man fuck her ate me alive. She begged him to touch her.” He swallowed. “She could barely stand to be in the same room with me. And then she left me. For him.”

The rest of the message shone clear in his tortured gaze. Morgan mattered, and he wasn’t letting her go. He wasn’t hiding his intention to have her again.

And she’d staggered him with the fact that she’d fantasized about having two hungry cocks command and possess her at once. He fought the knowledge that she ached for Jack to share her.

Another man screwing his ex-wife had pissed him off, hurt his pride. The hot drill of his stare told Morgan that another man touching her had the power to turn Jack into a red-hazed, fullfledged postal maniac. She could bring him to his knees.

Oh, God. He hadn’t stormed out of the playroom because he was shocked; he’d done it because he was scared. Of losing her.

Because he cared.

“I kept wondering what my ex needed that I didn’t give her.” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, closed his eyes. Looked away. “In ten months of marriage, she never told me she loved me. On that video, she told him three times in eight minutes. Ever since, I’ve wondered if maybe…maybe I don’t have that something a woman needs in order to be happy.”

The way his intense gaze gripped hers made her breath catch. In those dark eyes, lurked the fear that she could never love him. Of all the things she’d expected, this would have been dead last on the list.

Warm, gooey feelings exploded in Morgan’s chest. She cupped his stubble-rough cheek in her hand, thumb caressing the hard thrust of his cheekbone. His vulnerable frown tore at her heart as he kissed the inside of her palm and watched her with a gaze scraped raw by need.

“Have you ever told anybody else about your ex-wife?”

“No.” His tight voice sounded somewhere between a whisper and a mutter, then he cracked a pained smile. “Well, I told Deke after one too many hurricanes.”

This proud, dominant man had just laid bare his fear and pain. For her. To help her understand why he’d walked out.