Faye stared at Jake, just three feet away, waiting. His eyes swept down her body, lingering on her breasts, the apex between her thighs. But he didn’t move. She wasn’t even sure he was breathing.
“Jake. Say something.”
“Can’t,” he choked.
“Then do something. I’m starting to feel a little silly here.”
His eyes finally rose. “You’re absolutely exquisite,” he whispered, his voice ragged, raw.
Her belly tightened at his words. “I’m still feeling silly since I’m the only one here without any clothes. I’d appreciate it if you’d take your clothes off. I’ve got something else for you to wear.”
He frowned. “What do you want me to wear?”
She held up one of the condom packets.
He visibly shuddered. But he still didn’t move to take her.
“Jake?”
“You don’t know me,” he whispered, for some reason looking completely miserable.
“I know what I need to know,” she said. “You’re strong, smart, protective even when you don’t need to be. You’re a great listener even though I probably bored you to death on the canoe trip.”
He shook his head. “You weren’t boring.”
“I want you, Jake. Don’t make me beg.”
“I’m going to hell for this.”
“Take me with you.”
He reached for her and lifted her onto his lap, straddling him. He sank his fingers into her hair and shook his head in wonder. “I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman.”
She sank against him, her breasts flattening against his chest as she wrapped her arms behind his neck. “You say the sweetest things.”
He crushed her to him, devouring her in an openmouthed frenzy as if he was dying and she was his only hope of salvation. Their kiss this morning had been mild compared with the heat they generated now. His lips moved against hers, stoking her desire higher and higher, making her moan deep in her throat. She could kiss him forever and never get enough. He was like a master craftsman plying his trade, wrenching every ounce of pleasure her body was capable of feeling, and then bringing her up another level until she thought she’d go out of her mind for wanting him. Her entire body pulsed with need, an ache of longing so deep she thought she’d die if he didn’t make love to her right then.
She wrenched her lips from his and reached down between them, desperate to feel him. She whimpered at the feel of him through his clothes. “Take. These. Off,” she demanded.
He swallowed, hard, and gently set her down on the sleeping bag. He unbuttoned his jeans but he was moving much too slowly. She shoved him down onto his back and went to work on his zipper, then yanked his pants down his legs, shucking them off and tossing them behind her.
He laughed, then sucked in a deep breath when she shoved her hands beneath his boxers. She stroked his velvety soft skin, reveling in his hardness. She bent down and kissed him, tasted him.
A guttural curse escaped his clenched teeth. He grabbed her and pulled her up his body and captured her lips with his. When he finally broke the kiss they were both struggling to catch their breath. He yanked off his shirt and went to work on the Velcro straps of his bullet-resistant vest.
Faye blinked in surprise. “Why are you wearing that?”
He looked at his vest, as if surprised himself, and shrugged. “Habit. I always wear it when I’m working a case.” He quickly discarded the rest of his clothes then pulled her against him, skin against skin, softness against hardness as he worshipped every inch of her body with his mouth.
She was about to beg for mercy when he finally settled himself on top of her at her entrance.
“Wait, wait,” she cried out.
He shuddered and stilled against her. “Please don’t say you changed your mind,” he begged.
“What? No, no. Hell, no.” She giggled and grabbed one of the foil packets. After rolling the condom onto him, she gave him one long, exquisite stroke. “Now,” she said. “Now, Jake.”
But he didn’t take her. Instead, he kissed her again as his hands slid all over her body, stroking, kneading, feathering across her skin until she thought she would die from the pleasure of it. Every nerve ending in her body seemed to be at a fever pitch, ready to explode.
She tore her mouth from his and reached down between them to position him again. “If you don’t do it now,” she whispered against his lips, “I’m going to shoot you.”
He laughed and surged forward, thrusting inside her. She threw her head back in ecstasy at the feel of him stretching and filling her. She scored her nails down his back and lightly bit his shoulder as he plunged into her, harder and faster. She matched his rhythm, wrapping her legs around him and trying to pull him in deeper.
Every movement of him inside her, every stroke of his hands against her between their bodies, every touch of his lips against her skin sent her higher, and higher until she didn’t think she could possibly go higher. And then he took her there, up, up, up, whispering in her ear, telling her how he loved her body and what else he wanted to do with her as he shuddered and plunged into her over and over again.
Her climax washed over her in an explosion of feeling that had her screaming his name and sinking her nails into his shoulders. He rode her through her climax, drawing it out, sending her up and over the edge even as the last waves of her first climax were still rippling through her. She screamed again. He tightened inside her and this time he followed her, clasping her against his body as wave after wave of ecstasy crashed through both of them. They collapsed back against the sleeping bags in an exhausted but thoroughly sated, boneless tangle of arms and legs.
Faye lay there, her breaths rattling out of her as her heart struggled to stop racing and calm down to a natural rhythm again. Sweat slicked her skin and beaded between her breasts, slowly running down her belly. Behind her, Jake’s labored breaths came quick and fast like hers and she could feel his heart pounding against her back.
“Wow,” she finally managed. “I’ve never, ever...”
“Me, neither.” His voice was husky and deeper than usual, sending a delightful shiver straight to her core.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her tighter against him, spooning his body to hers. She loved the feel of his lightly furred chest against her back. In fact, she loved everything about him. Plus, he was a Sagittarius and she was a Libra. Had fate brought them together? She automatically reached for the purple velvet pouch on her necklace before remembering she’d taken it off.
His fingers lightly stroked her belly, warming her all over, making her feel cherished, and for the first time in her life...loved. Loved? She stiffened at that ridiculous thought. No one could care about someone that deeply when they were practically strangers.
His arm tightened. “What’s wrong?”
“I just...we don’t even know each other, and here we are...”
His deep sigh sounded near her ear. “I know. You’re right. I shouldn’t have—”
“Oh yes, you should have. No take backs. No regrets. That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I want to know more about you. I’d like to know more about the man who just blew my mind.”
He laughed, his hot breath washing against her neck. He trailed his fingertips up to that same, sensitive spot and stroked her skin, making her shiver. He pressed a quick kiss to her there.
“What is it that you want to know?”
“Where are you from? Do you have a family?” She sucked in a breath. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
He scooted back and gently rolled her over so she was flat on her back looking up at him. His eyes were dark, his expression intent.
“If I was in a relationship with someone, what we just did wouldn’t have happened.” He gently smoothed her hair back from her face. “I grew up in North Florida, in Saint Augustine. I don’t have any family, not anymore.”
She slid her hands up his chest, delighting in the way his muscles flexed beneath her hands and the way the crisp hairs tickled her fingers. “Not anymore?”
“My parents died a long time ago. It was just me and my sister for years. But she’s...gone now.”
His voice was flat, as if he was trying to mask his pain, but she saw it in the tension around his eyes, and the lines of concentration on his brow. She cupped his face and brought him down closer so she could kiss the worry lines away.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she whispered. “What happened?”
He rolled onto his back. She figured she’d asked him too sensitive, too personal a question. But then he reached for her and tucked her against his side, her breasts snugged up against his ribs. She sighed with contentment and rested her hand on his chest.
“She married my best friend,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “A couple of years later, there was a home invasion. She was killed.”
“Oh my gosh, I’m so, so sorry. What happened to her husband?”
“Rafe? He survived. He was knocked out, shot, but he made it. Shelby didn’t.”
She traced the lines of his stomach muscles. “You blame him. Why?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t blame him. I did, for a long time. I let hate and resentment build up inside me to the point that I made some very bad decisions. It almost cost both of us our lives. And it took a very special person, his new wife—Darby—to eventually bring us back together. But even though he forgave me, I couldn’t forgive myself. I needed a fresh start. So when an old college friend contacted me about starting a private investigation firm with him, I took leave from my police job to jump at the chance, see if it was worth giving up my law enforcement career for good. So here I am. What about you? Did you come from a large family?”
She stiffened, her hand going still on his stomach.
He put his fingers beneath her chin and turned her head to look at him. “I’m not asking as an investigator, Faye. I’m asking as the man who just made love to you, the man who genuinely wants to know more about the extraordinary woman that you are. If it makes you uncomfortable talking about family, tell me something else. But don’t shut down. Don’t push me away.”
She doubted there was any way for him to truly separate himself from his job, but the intimacy between them created by him sharing about his past had her wanting to share with him, as well. She carefully waded through the pieces of her life in her mind, picking out what she could share without giving up the secrets that could destroy her.
“I never had a family, not a real one. My parents died when I was too young to remember them. I was put in foster care, starting in Mobile. I was shuffled from family to family, place to place.”
“You were never adopted?”
“No. I’ve always been a bit...headstrong, and odd I suppose, compared to most people. I didn’t fit in with the picture of the perfect daughter that families were looking for.”
He hugged her close and pressed a kiss on her forehead before lying flat again. “I’m sorry, Faye. That had to be so hard.”
“Early on it was, but in my later years, at the last foster home, I met...another girl, close to my age. We both loved animals and plants and exploring. We wanted to save the environment and educate people about the precious habitats around them. We became each other’s confidantes, like real sisters.”
“What was her name?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
He gave her a brief hug. “Okay. What happened to her? Is she okay? Do you still see each other?”
“After college, we went to work together, contracting out for major landscaping jobs. I used my education in plants and ecology to design the most amazing gardens. And she used her architecture background to add the hardscape. And yes, we do occasionally see each other, though not as often as I’d like.”
After a few moments of silence, he seemed to understand that she wasn’t going to say anything else. She couldn’t, not without telling him too much, not without endangering herself. He turned on his side, facing her. His mouth dipped down to her shoulder. He lightly sucked, sending heat flashing through her.
He kissed a trail across her collarbone before pulling her in for a deep, mind-numbing kiss that had her melting all over again. When he hardened against her, she broke the kiss, looking down in shock.
“Already? You can’t possibly—” she started to say.
“With you, yes, I can,” he answered back.
She grinned. “Jake, remember the blue velvet pouch I put in the pocket of your jeans? Trust me when I say that you really want to get that.” She licked her lips, slowly, deliberately.
He dived for his jeans.
* * *
JAKE CAME AWAKE SLOWLY, reluctantly. He didn’t want to open his eyes and face the repercussions of last night. Making love to Faye had ranked up there with one of the most incredible experiences of his life. Especially after they’d opened that blue velvet pouch. He shuddered just thinking about it.
But even though making love to her had been practically life altering, it was also one of the dumbest mistakes he could have made. Nothing had changed to make it okay to use her in that way when she had no idea why he was really here. When they found Gillette, she was going to hate him. And he wouldn’t blame her one bit.
Perhaps knowing that he could never hold her again was the real reason he lay on the sleeping bag resisting getting up. He could sense the sunlight, knew it was morning and that he needed to get on with the hunt for Gillette. But if he got up he’d have to let go of Faye. And doing that was harder, much harder, than it should have been.
He ran his hands over her silky hair and slid his fingers in it. Or at least, he tried to. Her hair felt silky, soft, but he couldn’t distinguish the individual strands like last night. And her hair was...warm?
Hot breath panted against his face. A sandpapery tongue licked his neck.
Jake’s eyes flew open. He stared into a pair of deep green eyes. But they weren’t Faye’s.
They belonged to a black panther.
He scrambled out of the tent, expecting to feel the panther’s claws at any moment, raking down his back and slicing his skin open. He’d just cleared the tent entrance when the panther tackled him from behind, its heavy body knocking Jake to the ground.
He twisted around, aiming a punch at the panther’s jaw. But his fist met nothing but air. The panther had jumped off him and bounded across the clearing. Jake scrambled to his knees to see where the animal went. His veins turned to ice when he saw Faye walking toward him from the trees. The panther was headed straight for her.
“Faye, look out!” Jake grabbed one of the small branches from the cold fire pit from last night and ran after the panther.
Faye’s eyes widened with alarm.
Oh, God. He wasn’t going to reach her in time.
“Faye!”
The panther jumped at her. Faye disappeared beneath a black ball of fur as she fell to the ground. Jake reached them and pulled back the branch like a bat, ready to let it fly.
“Don’t hurt him!” Faye yelled, rolling with the panther out of Jake’s reach.
Jake stopped with the branch up in the air, blinking down in shock. Faye was on her knees, her arms around the panther’s neck, glaring at him as if he was the bad guy.
“He’s harmless. Leave him alone,” she said.
He slowly lowered the branch, his heart slamming so hard he could feel each beat. “Harmless?” he choked. “He’s a wild animal. He attacked me in the tent.”
She rolled her eyes. “He probably cuddled with you and licked you. He certainly couldn’t have attacked you.” She pulled his mouth open. “See, no teeth. No claws, either, except on his hind legs. And I don’t see any claw marks on you to justify you threatening to hit him.” She hugged the panther and stroked it as if it were a large house cat. “There, there, Sampson. It’s okay. Don’t be scared.”
Jake should have felt ridiculous standing there naked while Faye hugged a toothless, clawless panther as if it were a domestic house cat. But all he could think about was the sheer panic and overwhelming fear when he’d thought she was about to be mauled. Everything else had faded away. All that mattered was reaching her in time to save her.
He’d been willing to sacrifice his own body to protect her, instead of taking the extra few seconds to retrieve his gun from inside the tent, which would have been a hell of a lot smarter than grabbing a tree branch. But he hadn’t wanted to risk those extra few seconds. He’d fully intended to wrap his arms around the wild cat and give it something else to chomp on if that would keep Faye from getting hurt and give her time to get a gun to protect herself.
“Jake? Jake are you okay?” She shoved the cat away from her and stood. She looked him up and down, as if searching for injuries. “What’s wrong?”
He strode over to her and grabbed her shoulders. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong is that I thought you were about to be hurt, or killed. And I was too far away. My God, I couldn’t reach you, I couldn’t...” He closed his eyes briefly and swallowed. When he opened them again he looked at the panther, lying on its side, calmly licking its fur. “Next time one of your ‘pets’ is skulking around, warn me,” he bit out.
He stalked back toward the tent to get dressed.
* * *
FAYE’S MOUTH DROPPED open as Jake strode away from her, his golden skin gleaming and rippling with muscles in the morning sunlight peeking through the trees overhead. His anger showed in every step, every jerky movement of his beautiful body until he disappeared into the tent.
It hadn’t even occurred to her to tell him about Sampson. The cat often followed her on her jaunts through the woods. But he usually stayed closer to the store so he wouldn’t miss a meal. She and Amy fed him ground-up meat every day out the back door. The cat tended to be shy around strangers, with good reason. Its past as an abused circus animal still made it skittish. She’d never expected him to show up with Jake here.
And she’d never expected Jake would get so upset, all because he thought she was going to get hurt. She couldn’t help but smile. Her instincts about him had been right. He was a good man. After everything that had gone wrong in the past few years, finally everything was starting to go right. When she and Jake found Calvin, they’d tell him about the brother he never knew he had. And then they could all return to Mystic Glades together.