Wild Stallion (13 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Jackson wasn’t sure about this at all.

The timing was all wrong, but then the timing had sucked ever since Bailey had come into his life. They had so many things to work out—and he’d already insisted they wouldn’t be able to work them out in bed—but here they were, heading in that direction.

Well, in the direction of his desk anyway.

Judging from the heat of the kiss she had initiated, they wouldn’t make it out of his office, much less all the way to the bedroom.

He forced himself to think of the consequences, but those consequences kept getting bogged down in the hazy passion that was slamming hard and fast through his body. He blamed that on Bailey’s kiss. On the way her breasts were brushing against his chest. Everything seemed to be coming down to sex, and it didn’t seem to matter if Jackson wasn’t convinced that sex should happen.

“This is more than I thought it would be,” Bailey mumbled against his mouth.

Her words made it through the haze somehow, and he shook his head trying to figure out what she meant.

More than sex?

Jackson was about to stop, to tell her that it couldn’t be more. They had too much to work out. Too much to do. Hell, someone was trying to kill them, or at least make them believe that. Life was so far from perfect that
perfect
didn’t even seem to be on their radar.

Did that stop him from kissing her?

No.

He deepened the already too-deep kiss and tightened his grip around her. He slid his hand between them so he could cup her breast.

“I’m falling for you,” Bailey whispered.

Even though her voice barely had sound, he heard it loud and clear. And that caused him to stop.

Jackson pulled back and stared down at her, trying to figure out what he could possibly say to that. Her words were like red flags because of his old wounds and baggage. He’d spent years avoiding words like that. Years making sure that no one ever got close enough to hurt him again.

Bailey’s warm breath hit his mouth. Her eyes were half closed. Dreamy. And waiting. Either he had to dive right into this or step back. Stepping back was in his comfort zone. Years of practice had made it almost a rote response.

Don’t get too close.

But this was Bailey. Hadn’t he known from the moment they’d met that nothing between them would ever be ordinary?

“If you want to stop…” she whispered.

He laughed, but there wasn’t an ounce of humor in it. “The last thing I want to do is stop. I want you more than my next breath.”

She nodded, as if that was all there was to this. She slid her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him in for another kiss.

“Later, we’ll deal with the
later,
” she said, just as her mouth touched his. That simple touch shot through him, turning his body into a furnace all over again.

Later
would no doubt be harder than hell, but it would be easier than resisting her now. Jackson knew he stood zero chance of that. So he just took charge and went with it. When
later
came around, he would accept the responsibility for letting his heart and libido rule his head.

Jackson kissed her, and he didn’t hold anything back. He put all of his feelings, his frustration and the white-hot heat into that kiss. And he didn’t stop there. The need had already made him crazy, so he decided to make Bailey crazy right along with him.

He dropped test kisses on her neck and listened for her response. She moaned when he got to the base of her neck, so he lingered there long enough to please her and himself.

She tasted like all of the best parts of Christmas.

If the need hadn’t been driving him to speed things up, he would have taken more time to savor her, to watch her respond to the kisses that he trailed down her neck and to the tops of her breasts. But this wasn’t a simmering fire. It was a full blaze for both of them.

Jackson pushed down the top of her stretchy dress. Pushed down her lacy bra. Maybe the
later
part would involve a second round so he could taste and sample and touch every part of her. But for now, he settled for wetting his fingers in his mouth and circling her right nipple.

She moaned, arched her back. The change in positions sent her sex pushing against his. Jackson was already hard and ready to take her, but that was just a reminder that the taking couldn’t wait.

Bailey began to fight with her clothes, shoving up her dress and then going after his zipper. Yeah, the heat was making them crazy and speeding up everything until it was a blur. But what he was feeling wasn’t a blur. The need just kept slamming into him, until all he could do was pull her to the floor.

Later, he would apologize for taking her like a sex-starved teenager.

The moment her back was on the floor, Bailey reached for him, pulling him onto her. The location and the timing no longer seemed important. Nothing did, except for what was about to happen.

Jackson kept kissing her, hoping that her taste would satiate him enough so he would slow down. No such luck. Her taste and her eager hands just fueled the already-raging heat, and when he found the top of her panties, he peeled them off her.

He had to touch her. Couldn’t resist. So, as he’d done with her breasts, he eased his fingers inside her. Into all that slick heat that was a primal invitation to his aroused body.

Bailey obviously thought turnabout was fair play. She unzipped him and took him into her hands. Jackson could have sworn his eyes crossed, and he heard himself curse. The need was shouting for him to take her
now now now,
but, man, he wanted this to last for hours.

Lasting hours was obviously a pipe dream.

He drew back his hand and entered her slowly. Or rather, that’s what he tried to do. But Bailey made the intimate contact complete by lifting her hips.

Whatever was better than Christmas, this was it.

Any coherent thought that was left in his head was toast now. He was beyond thinking, and he moved inside Bailey, taking them both to the only place their bodies needed to go.

She made a sound of pure pleasure. A sound Jackson was positive he would never forget. He wouldn’t forget that look on her face either. Part relief, part surprise.

All Bailey.

Her hands were frantic, reaching for him, dragging him closer, even though getting closer wasn’t possible. There was a flicker of panic in her eyes, as if she thought for just a split second that she wasn’t going to get the relief she needed.

But she came in a flash.

Jackson didn’t stop. He was already too close to taking the leap himself, but that didn’t prevent him from savoring the incredible woman in the throes of her orgasm.

It was Bailey who drew him deeper into her. Bailey who urged him on. Bailey who took him right over that cliff with her.

The French were right. It was a little death. Everything slammed toward that one moment. That overwhelming moment where everything became crystal clear. Where everything was reborn. And in that moment Jackson could see and feel only one thing.

Bailey.

He whispered her name as he buried his face against her neck and let himself go.

Jackson tried to move, to readjust their positions so that he wasn’t crushing Bailey, but his body seemed reluctant to break the intimate connection. He finally managed to roll to the side, but he kept her in his arms. She rolled right along with him, and they landed on their sides and face-to-face.

Somehow, this was more intimate than when he’d been inside her.

Jackson considered himself a strong, occasionally ruthless man, but Bailey had a way of bringing him to his knees.

He wanted to tell her that she was beautiful and that what had just happened was pretty damn amazing. But he heard the ringing sound. For a moment, Jackson thought it was all in his head.

It wasn’t.

It was his cell.

He hated the interruption, but since this could be a critical call from Steven or the sheriff, he reached up to the desk and answered the phone.

The caller ID flashed Captain Shaw Tolbert.

Jackson knew the name. Tolbert was a bigwig in the San Antonio Police Department, and that meant the captain might have news about the gunmen and the investigation.

Jackson took the call while he helped Bailey up from the floor. He sandwiched the phone between his ear and shoulder so he could talk while he fixed his clothes.

“Captain Tolbert,” Jackson greeted. Judging from Bailey’s suddenly alert expression, this was a conversation she wanted to hear, so Jackson put it on speaker. “What can I do for you?” But Jackson was hoping it was the other way around, and that the captain would help end this danger breathing down their backs.

“I got a call from your estate manager and he told me about the latest attack. Or the ruse, if that’s what it turns out to be. We’re looking into the matter. And we’re looking for Robin Russo because she’s still a suspect in the disappearance of Bailey Hodges’s baby.”

Jackson and Bailey exchanged glances. While it was a glance on her part, since she was putting her panties back on, Jackson did more than glance. Then he forced his attention back to the phone call. “And what about Shannon Wright?”

“Also a suspect. Both women were in the hospital the day of the hostage crisis, and both have some critical time gaps that they can’t or won’t account for. I also understand Robin accused Shannon of having an affair with one of the gunmen.” The captain groaned softly. “We thought this case was over four months ago, when SAPD killed the gunmen who took the hostages. But things have happened. There have been other attacks.”

“So I’ve heard. And witnessed firsthand. Twice, someone has come after Bailey while she’s been at my estate. What I want to know is, is Shannon or Robin responsible for that?”

“We’re not sure. Either or both could be innocent. We have no proof that Shannon and the gunman, Danny Monroe, were involved romantically or otherwise. We had her followed after the hostage incident ended, and she never met with Danny. There were no calls to him either, according to her cell phone records.”

“So why would Robin accuse Shannon of something like that?” Jackson asked.

“Maybe to throw suspicion off herself,” the captain suggested. “There are things going on. We’ve gotten wind of another possible hostage situation.”

“Oh, God.” Bailey pressed her fingers to her mouth, but it didn’t suppress the sound of her words.

“Is that Miss Hodges?” Captain Tolbert asked.

“Yes.” Her voice was shaky now, and Jackson knew why. She didn’t want anyone else to go through the nightmare that she’d experienced.

“We’re working with another hostage, a woman we’re calling hostage number four, so that the media doesn’t plaster her identity all over the press,” the captain continued. “She has some memory loss, but we’re hoping we can unleash those memories so she can tell us more about what happened in the hospital four months ago. Anything
you
can tell us?”

Bailey shook her head and inched closer to the phone. “No. I had just had a C-section when the gunmen came into the ward. I didn’t know anything about it until after the fact. Until after my baby had been taken.”

The captain stayed quiet a moment. “Someone’s trying to kill this other hostage, too,” he revealed. “That’s why it’s important that we get to the bottom of Shannon’s or Robin’s possible involvement.”

“Both of them are liars,” Jackson volunteered, “so I seriously doubt you’ll get the truth from them.”

“You’re probably right, but I want to reinterrogate both women. I’m hoping your sheriff can locate Robin since we know she was just out at your place. But do you have any idea where Shannon is?”

“None,” Jackson answered. “She came to the estate with some bogus papers and claimed she was my adopted son’s biological mother. She’s not. Bailey is.”

Bailey expected the captain to jump right on that, but he calmly said, “I see. Well, that’s resolved. And the baby is safe?”

Not really. But Jackson would remedy that.

“Someone sent a man out to kidnap him and probably kill Jackson and me as well,” Bailey blurted out.

“Yes, Sheriff Gentry gave me an update on that. The guy’s name was Melvin Cross, a hired gun. He was a big badass years back, but his love of the bottle put him off his game. He’s been off our radar for nearly a decade.”

So that meant someone could have hired him cheap. It also meant this drunken SOB could have harmed Caden by accident rather than design. Not that he needed it, but it gave Jackson even more reason to go after the person who was behind all of this.

“Talk to me about these threatening letters you’ve received,” the captain said to Jackson.

Those. It was yet something else on his too-full plate. “I got another one yesterday morning. Someone left it outside my downtown office, but it was left in an area where there were no security cameras.”

“Yeah, that’s what the detective handling it told me. You think that threat is connected to everything else that’s going on?”

“I have no idea.” And he didn’t. “But it can’t be a coincidence.”

“Well, we’re looking into it,” the captain explained, “because it might be connected. It’s true, none of your security cameras were aimed in that area, but we’re trying to tap into the ATM camera of the bank just up the street. We might get lucky.”

Yes, but even if they identified the person who’d left it, Jackson couldn’t see how it would be part of the attempts to kill him and kidnap Caden. A threatening letter was benign compared to those other attempts.

“What happens now?” Bailey asked the captain.

“We keep working with hostage number four, and we help her regain her memory. And get her to trust us. Things aren’t going so well in that department,” Captain Tolbert added in a mumble. “In the meantime, I’ll keep pressing Shannon and Robin, because I damn sure don’t want another hostage incident.”

No. Neither did Jackson.

“You should interrogate my business manager, Evan Young,” Jackson suggested. “He also tried to fake the DNA evidence for Bailey’s son. I doubt he had anything to do with the original hostage incident, but he might have learned something from Shannon after the fact.”