In the Line of Fire Page 14

  Jett pulled his sweater off, threw it to the floor and reached for the ties on her silk, crossover shirt. He tugged and the knot unraveled and the flaps of material hung down her frame. Jett’s hard, rough hands skated the material off her shoulders and silk drifted over her hands before falling on top of his jersey, the flame orange a perfect contrast to his basic black.

  His tanned hands, moving from her white bra onto her white skin, were another contrast she could appreciate. Sam watched as Jett’s hands explored her chest, brushed over her breasts and skimmed across her flat belly.

  “You are so fucking hot,” Jett murmured, playing with the button on her black, tailored pants.

  “Well, I am a natural redhead,” Sam murmured.

  “I remember that,” Jett replied, his voice saturated with desire. “Step out of your shoes and get your pants off, Red.”

  “Only if you get naked too,” Sam tartly replied.

  “Oh, that’s a given.” Jett stepped away from her and toed off his shoes, his hands on his belt. He popped the top button on his pants and Sam stopped what she was doing to look at him. He was so big, so sexy, a six-foot plus slab of pure sex.

  Jett’s hand was on his zipper, the edge of his palm pushing into his hard cock. She couldn’t look at him and keep stripping, there wasn’t enough brain power in the world. And if Jett wanted her clothes off he could do it himself. She wanted her hands on him, feeling his length, cupping his balls, tasting his tip.

  Jett had turned her into a raving, panting nympho and she kind of liked it.

  Waiting was torture so Sam slapped his hands out of the way and pulled his zipper down. She pushed her hands into his briefs and slid them, and his trousers, down. Unable to wait, she curled her hands around him, massaging his length between her palms as she stood on her tiptoes to reach his mouth.

  Jett’s cock jumped and he clasped her face, taking her lips in a kiss that hurtled her into another dimension. A galaxy filled with heat and want and desire and a million other emotions she couldn’t identify...

  But mostly, there was relief. Jett was kissing her, and all was right with her world.

  Jett’s hands dropped and then he was pulling her bra off and when cool air hit her butt, she knew her pants were gone. A sharp snap suggested he’d ripped her thong off her and she didn’t care that it was designer and expensive. Because Jett’s hand was lifting her thigh and she could feel the tip of his cock at her entrance.

  Jett released a harsh curse. “Condom.”

  If she had to wait, she’d definitely lose her shit. “I’m on the pill. And I’m clean.”

  Jett rested his forehead on hers. “Me too. Trust me?”

  She so did. Sam nodded and Jett’s hands covered her ass and pulled her, if that was at all possible, closer. Groaning, desperate, uninhibited. Sam climbed him, wrapping her legs around his waist, rubbing her clit along his cock, lubricating both.

  “So fucking hot,” Jett muttered. “So damn beautiful.”

  She didn’t need words, she just needed him filling her, sliding into those long neglected places. Sam spread her legs wider, felt Jett’s strong arm under her butt and knew that he could, and would hold her. She positioned herself above him and, giving him no warning, sank onto him, allowing him to fill her.

  Jett groaned and gasped and Sam pulled back to see the astonishment and, yeah, excitement on his face. She lifted her hips, slid up as far as she could go before plunging down again, the movement creating hot and hard friction against her clit. One more time and she’d come...

  She needed to come...

  This woman was going to kill him, in the best way possible.

  “Jett, please, I’m so close,” Sam begged and it took everything Jett had not to plunge inside her and rocket his way to a balls-to-the-wall orgasm. But quick and dirty wasn’t what he wanted, not with Sam.

  “Yeah, no,” Jett growled and, still carrying her, moved toward the bed, laying her down on the cool covers. Ignoring the wet, cold wind coming in from the window, Jett pulled out of her and dropped to kneel on the carpet. He lifted her legs and draped her thighs over his shoulders, and placed his mouth on the inside of her thigh, nowhere near where she most wanted it.

  Sam wiggled, groaned, and begged but Jett wouldn’t budge, he wanted to feast, to play, to pull her back from the edge so he could build her up again. Knowing she was close to the edge, Jett sat back, running his fingers down her stomach, barely touching her clit.

  Sam sat up on her elbow and her eyes were blue fire when they met his. “Do you know how they say that redheads have a rocking temper?”

  “Yeah?” Jett lifted an eyebrow, sinking a finger into her moist, hot channel. Sam’s eyes rolled back in her head and her words deserted her, just as he intended. He pulled his finger out, using his knuckle to graze her clit. Sam bucked and moaned and cursed him.

  “You were saying something about a redhead’s temper?” he prompted her, smiling.

  “Keep teasing me and I’m going to take a chunk out of your ass,” Sam hissed, letting out a loud moan as he plunged two fingers back into her.

  She cried out again when he licked her, before sucking her clit into his mouth. She was so close and she shuddered once, then twice. Jett shot to his feet, leaned over her, and plunged his cock into her, burying himself in as far as he could go. Sam let out a yell and every muscle in her body contracted.

  For a brief second Jett thought he’d been too rough, that he’d hurt her but then he heard her moan and felt her internal muscles clench around him and a small wave of warm moisture covered him. Unable to wait a second longer, he rocked his hips, once, twice, and felt the familiar sensation gather in his balls, rocket up his spine and set off fireworks in his brain. Sam slammed her hips up, rolled into another orgasm and Jett felt his cock respond, eager for more.

  Jett gathered her close as they hurtled toward, and rolled into, oblivion together.

  Minutes passed and when Jett felt like he could form a word, he pushed up and rested his weight on his elbows, stroking Sam’s hair off her forehead. “Hey.”

  “Hey back,” Sam murmured, her eyes closed.

  Jett traced her straight nose with his index finger, moved onto her freckle-dotted cheek. “You still mad?”

  Sam opened one eye. “I’m too mellow to be mad, anymore. Though I’m not promising that my mellowness will last.”

  “I’m trying to keep you safe, Samantha.”

  “You can keep me safe and still talk to me, Jett,” Sam said, her voice revealing the hurt under her sass.

  “That’s me trying to keep myself safe.”

  “Safe from what?” Sam asked.

  “You. Feeling too much, wanting too much. Getting my ass kicked when this is all over,” Jett stated, resting the side of his face on her chest. Sam curled her arms around his head, the smell of sex and perfume and snow swirling around them.

  Sam, as he expected, had nothing to say to that so Jett rolled off her and walked to the en suite bathroom to clean up. When he returned, Sam had turned to lie on her side, looking like Shakespeare’s Queen Titania, queen of the fairies. Her long eyelashes were smudges against her cheek, her mouth rosy from his kisses. Jett stopped, his heart stumbling. She had freckles everywhere, on her shoulders, her chest, each dot a revelation. He wanted to spend the rest of his life connecting those dots, drawing patterns in her skin.

  He’d thought he could handle this, handle her... that he could cruise along in this relationship, taking it day by day, moment by moment. He was in too deep to play it that way anymore. Jett picked his pants up off the floor. He already wanted too much, felt too much. He loved her, and he didn’t know what the hell to do about it.

  Or her.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I want you to use me as bait,” Sam announced at dinner that night, sitting around the big table in Stone’s minimalistic dining room. They were eating spaghetti alfredo, courtesy of a recipe handed down from Kelby’s Italian grandmother. The men were all on the
ir second helping while Sam had yet to eat a third of hers. She was the only female at the table, Seth’s fiancée, Leah, was on a plane to South Africa to spend some time with her brother, Jed, and his growing family.

  Jett looked at her plate and frowned. “You’ve barely touched your food,” he said, his voice a low growl.

  Yeah, well, dropping bombshells tended to kill her appetite.

  When nobody replied to her comment, or even looked at her, Sam pushed her plate away and scowled. “What, are you just going to pretend that I didn’t say that?”

  “Pretty much,” Stone said, not bothering to lift his eyes off his plate.

  Jett did look up but he also lifted his fork to point it at her. “No. Eat.”

  Sam ignored their negative response and started to speak. “We could go on like this for days, weeks. That’s simply ridiculous and not something I’m prepared to do. Wire me up and send me home and let’s lure the serial killer and The Recruiter in.”

  “No.”

  “No.”

  “Maybe.”

  Sam’s eyes swiveled to Seth who uttered the only marginally encouraging word. He placed his fork on his plate and tapped his finger against the bowl of his wineglass, ignoring the super-heated looks he received from both Jett and Stone.

  “If it was anyone else but Sam, would you be hesitating?” Seth asked.

  Sam could see both Jett and Stone wanted to argue but she knew, as well as they did, that last year Seth had to make the hard decision to allow Leah to be a pawn in another game The Recruiter played with them, and it had nearly ripped him apart. But he’d pushed aside his worry and concern and decided to trust his, and Jett’s, ability to keep her safe.

  “It worked out with Leah,” Seth said and took a sip of wine.

  It was a powerful argument, Sam realized. Seth loved and adored Leah but he’d still made the tough call to put her in the line of fire, knowing that he could protect her, just as Sam knew that Jett could protect her.

  She wasn’t scared of what would happen, she was more scared that she would go nuts in this house with nothing to do. And she wanted to start living again, whether that life had Jett in it or not. She wanted to go back to her house, sleep in her own bed, wallow in her bath with bubbles, a book and a glass of bubbly.

  Or with Jett.

  She wanted to live and not exist.

  Jett pushed his plate away and leaned back, his eyes shuttered and his face blank. Sam now knew him well enough to realize that was his resting bastard face. He wasn’t a happy camper.

  “I don’t like the idea of using Sam, using anyone for bait, and not knowing who we might catch,” Jett stated, his voice suggesting that they not disagree.

  Seth wasn’t intimidated. “Does it matter? Is it not better to get one of the sharks out of the tank?”

  Jett drained his glass of club soda and gripped the vessel so hard Sam was concerned it might shatter in his hand. She reached across the table to tug the glass away and was rewarded with a blistering glare.

  Jett was not happy with her. Again.

  “I was going to raise the possibility but Sam’s bald statement beat me to it,” Seth said. “Unlike Sam, I have a plan.”

  Sam grinned at his gentle teasing.

  “Can’t wait to hear this,” Jett muttered, crossing his arms.

  Seth nailed Jett with a hard glance. “Can you try and remember that you do, actually, work for me?”

  “Fighting a losing battle there, Boss,” Kelby said.

  Seth tossed a hard look at Kelby. “You’re not a Boy Scout either, Marrow, and I’m certain that you also have the tendency to go rogue.”

  Kelby grinned. “Yeah, but you like that about us.”

  “Can we get on with it?” Stone asked, impatient.

  Seth nodded, his expression now contemplative. “I suggest we get Will to do a press release, that she announces the NYPD have arrested a person who they think is the serial killer, that he’s in custody and charges are being drawn up. Sam and Jett, still acting as lovers, head back to Sam’s place and act like lovers would. Life is back to normal.”

  So far, so good. They were at least discussing a plan. “I pull Jett back to work on the guise of an assignment and Sam stays behind. Hopefully, that will make either The Recruiter or the serial killer relax enough to go after Sam.”

  And there, that was the part she wasn’t that excited about. She hated feeling trapped and she wanted her life back but it was the part in between the two she wasn’t looking forward to.

  “It sounds too damn simple.”

  “Simple isn’t bad, Sam, it just means there is less to go wrong,” Seth said. “We’ll wire her house, with audio and cameras, and we’ll have eyes on the house all the time, we’ll be close.”

  “How close?” Jett demanded. “Close enough to stop someone slitting her throat?”

  Ack. She’d momentarily forgotten about that.

  Seth ignored Jett’s sarcastic statement and looked at Sam. “Do you feel comfortable with a weapon? Have you spent any time on the firing range lately?”

  Sam winced. “Not for a couple of months. But I’d know what to do.”

  “We’ll stash numerous weapons all over the house. She won’t be two steps from a weapon wherever she moves, or is taken,” Seth said.

  “It’s a simple, clean solution, Jett,” Kelby said. “We’ve done this a hundred times before and we’ve never lost anyone.”

  Jett locked eyes with Kelby, allowing his worry to show. “It’s Sam, Kels.”

  Sam bit down on her bottom lip, looking down so the men couldn’t see the tears in her eyes.

  “That just means we all have an added incentive to be better, work harder, act sharper. She’ll be okay, Jett.”

  It’s Sam, Kels. Three words, simple words, but they wrapped around her soul, from the inside out. Sam pushed her chair back and hurried around the table to wrap her arms around Jett’s broad shoulders.

  She rested her temple on his and spoke in his ear, “I’ll be okay, Jett. I can do this. You guys are legends. You won’t let anything happen to me. I need to put this behind me, we need to. We need to move on, to find a way forward.”

  Jett pulled her onto his lap and buried his face into her neck, his other hand on her butt. After a minute, he lifted his head to look at Stone, who was scowling at their unusual display of affection.

  “What’s this?” Stone asked. “And since when?”

  “We’re still working it out,” Jett replied, his voice suggesting her brother park his questions. “Are you going to authorize this madness or not?”

  Sam knew Jett was hoping that Stone would say no, that they’d be off the hook and he’d have to find another way to resolve this situation. But Stone hadn’t made Pytheon into one of the world’s premier security services by not being able to make tough decisions.

  Stone looked straight at her. “Are you 100 percent on board with this? Do you trust that these guys will keep you safe?”

  “So convinced,” Sam nodded and immediately felt Jett’s tension.

  His fingers dug into her thigh and he seemed to stop breathing. Then he tipped her off his lap, making sure she had her balance before standing up himself.

  Jett stared down at her, shook his head, and gave the three other men a death-ray stare. “I am not happy about this.”

  Sam understood that; she wanted to walk away, to be safe, to not take any chances. But she also knew she had to do something, they had to move on.

  These men weren’t the only ones who could make tough choices.

  “Noted,” she said. “But we’re doing it with or without you. So, are you in or out?”

  “Fuck!” Jett shouted. He stormed across the room and slammed the door to the room closed behind him.

  Seth looked at Kelby. “Was that a yes or no?”

  “It’s a reluctant yes. If Sam is involved then he will be all over this like a rash, checking and double-checking every detail.” Kelby smiled. “He’ll calm down and be
back to his professional self in ten minutes or so.” Kelby looked at Sam and winced. “Heads up, he’s going to be mad at you for a while.”

  “Yay,” Sam muttered, slapping her hands on her hips. Then she shrugged. “I can’t help that. But I’ll console myself with a big bowl of choc-caramel ice cream. Anyone in?”

  Sam and Jett stood in the kitchen of her house in Boerum Hill, and Sam, once again was blindfolded. And not in a good, see-if-you-like-this way. They were doing another drill and Sam, Jett could tell, was frustrated as hell.

  He didn’t care. If they were going to go through with the crazy-ass plan, then she was going to be as prepared as he could get her.

  Jett silently approached her from behind and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off her feet. Sam lunged forward and grabbed the gun he’d taped under the kitchen counter and swung in backward over her shoulder, her finger off the trigger and waving the barrel around like a drunken sailor.

  Jett dropped her back to her feet and Sam immediately pulled the bandana off her eyes. “What did I do wrong this time?” she demanded, oozing sarcasm. “Because, hell, I’m always doing something wrong.”

  Jett ignored her irritation. “Don’t swing the weapon up and over your shoulder, you’re giving your opponent too much time to take it from you. Grab it, get your finger on the trigger, swing it backward and behind you, angle it, and fire. You might hit his thigh or his stomach but I guarantee it will be enough for you to get free. And that’s the objective. You need to get away from him.”

  Sam sighed and stared at her feet. She looked around her kitchen and, defiantly, walked over to the window and pulled up the shade to allow the weak winter sun to chase away the shadows in the room. “I’m done.”

  Sam ignored Jett’s annoyed snort and headed for the coffee machine, hit a button to power it up, and pulled a cup from the cupboard.