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Why did he have to look so damned sincere? Livie wanted to believe him, but she’d been badly burned in the past and it was an experience she’d just as soon skip this time around. She had to admit though, in the five days, twenty hours, and fifteen minutes he’d been inside the compound, she hadn’t seen him flirt with anyone. Hadn’t even seen him checking anyone out but her. The looks he gave her made her run straight for her vibrator, and he was giving her one now.
“You have to stop looking at me like that.”
“Like I want to strip you naked and have my wicked way with you?”
His tone was light, but his eyes were hooded and promising. It made her tremble, and she stared at him, wondered how fast she could get back to the privacy of her own room. This was getting ridiculous.
“Yeah. Like that.”
She turned to leave but he blocked her, looking frustrated.
“I know what you’re planning, darlin’. If you insist on getting off with a little mechanical help, I should at least get to watch.”
Oh god. Her face felt so hot she had to be flaming red. It was bad enough she used the damned thing because of him, but he had to know about it too?
“We could start with lunch. Our suite. One hour. I’ll raid the kitchen. Come on, Olivia,” he said with the teasing smile that he had to know would make her give in. If she didn’t put a stop to this soon, she’d end up in bed with him. Her libido thought that would be just fine. Thank god, her head knew better. She needed to get some damned distance before she said the hell with it and flung herself at him.
“Fine. Let me by.”
“Sure.”
He walked at her side, quiet, impossible to ignore no matter how much she tried. At the mansion he stopped by Mason’s office, and she jogged up the stairs, relieved to be alone until she approached her door and saw Vin leaning against it, waiting. He straightened when she came closer, but he didn’t return her smile. Didn’t look like he was happy to see her at all. That wasn’t a big surprise, given how close he and Jack were.
“What’s up? Jack’s in Mason’s office if you’re looking for him.”
He shook his head. “I need a minute with you.”
Wonderful. She was going to either get interrogated by the best friend or warned off. Not that she needed a warning to keep her distance from Jack. She pushed inside the suite and invited Vin to follow, going straight to the mini-fridge for water. She tossed him a bottle and took a long swig from hers.
“There’s something you should know about Jack and I’m pretty sure he hasn’t told you. You wouldn’t be so cold to him if he had. I hope.”
She stared at him, water bottle clenched in her hand hard enough the plastic crackled. That wasn’t the opening she’d expected. His tone wasn’t just serious. It was grim and pissed off. Fucking hell. Had someone died? Was that why Jack never committed?
“What happened?”
“Did you know we grew up together?”
“Yeah.” She’d discovered that years ago.
“There used to be three of us. We were neighbors and we were tight. When we graduated high school, Jack and I enlisted in the Army. I got commissioned later. Anyway, our other friend Austin, stayed home and went to work for his dad’s company. There was this girl.”
He huffed and Livie got a damned good idea where this story was going.
“Jack’s girlfriend?”
He nodded. “They did the long distance thing for a couple of years. Eventually got engaged. One weekend, he thought he’d surprise her on a four-day pass. I’m sure you can guess the rest.”
She sat on the couch, reeling more than a little. Yeah, she knew him as a player but had figured that was his default mode. She’d probably first met him very shortly after the breakup, and if Vin was warning her, it had to have deeply affected Jack.
“He really loved her?” she finally asked.
Hell, twenty year olds weren’t known for their maturity. Maybe it hadn’t been something that wouldn’t have lasted anyway.
“He loved her,” Vin said, sitting down in front of her. “Not nearly as much as he loves you. When you took off... Just don’t do that again.”
“Are you saying he’s had his heart broken twice?” she asked sarcastically.
“He wasn’t that upset about her. Austin’s betrayal was the real kick in the balls.”
She heard old anger in his voice and understood exactly where he was coming from. It was eerily familiar. A soldier has a lover back home and decides to surprise him with a visit, except she was the one who got the surprise. It was her friend’s betrayal that had hurt worse than her boyfriend’s.
“Are they still together?”
He shook his head. “It was over after that.”
“Sounds like Jack was better off.” She knew he was. “What was her name?”
“Kailey. Why?”
She shook her head. She had no idea why she’d asked. Maybe she just needed someone to use as a buffer for her own heart. A reminder, though Jack was probably long since over it, even if he’d cared more than Vin let on. Her own betrayal was much more recent.
Vin stood and walked to the door where he paused.
“I’ve never seen Jack back down from something he really wanted.”
And he wanted her, for now at least. Watching out for his friend might be a big part of why he’d told her this, but she was pretty sure he had an ulterior motive. He didn’t want to get kicked out of the Elect compound anymore than Jack did.
“Jane have anything to do with you coming here?”
He gave her the slow smile she’d always thought transformed him from cute to gorgeous.
“Maybe.”
After he closed the door behind him with a soft click, she stared out the window at the lush green estate, wondering what the hell she should do. She could leave, of course, but the last time she’d done that Jack had just tracked her down. She had to give him points for persistence. He’d surprised her when he’d followed her to Tampa, and that didn’t happen often.
There she’d been thinking they were scratching an itch, taking their one last chance to indulge their curiosity in each other. Simple, no strings attached sex. She’d known from the first kiss she was delusional, and yeah, she’d run as fast as she could. It wasn’t until after she’d started her new job with the Tampa PD, met Aaron Lee and been told what she was that she’d realized what Jack was to her.
She hadn’t been able to get the damned man out of her head and months of voice mails from him hadn’t helped. When they’d suddenly stopped, when she’d thought he’d finally given up, her heart had cracked a little, but she’d known she’d had a lucky escape. She hadn’t told anyone else about him, never would have admitted it, but those first couple of days she’d curled up in her bed and sobbed until her throat was raw and it felt like her eyes were bleeding. Her aunt, Delia, had found her and badgered the whole depressing tale out of her.
Olivia had taken the job in Tampa because Delia, who had raised her, had decided to take an early retirement and move to the beach. It turned out they were both Elect, which meant her mother probably had been too. She’d died in a car accident when Livie was ten, and she had never known her father. He’d disappeared before she was born. Delia had taken her in and they’d gotten through that grief together. It had stunned Livie when they’d both moved onto the compound and her relentlessly single aunt had fallen for a gruff, hard Elect male. That was when she’d really understood what Jack was to her, what he should have been. When she’d finally seen what she’d never have. Then the jerk showed up in her life again.
The door opened, and speak of the devil, he strolled through with a tray full of food and used his elbow to shut it behind him.
“What happened to one hour?”
She needed that time to get her head on straight, damn it. He set the tray on the table by the window and held a chair out for her. She arched her eyebrows but didn’t decline the invitation.
“Well?” she asked after they were both seated. She took a bite of blackened fish and moaned. “Who made this?”
“What makes you think I didn’t?”
“You didn’t have enough time,” she said, putting butter on a baked potato. “Can you cook?”
He grinned. “Guess you’ll have to wait and see. Carter made this.”
“Did you steal Jamie’s lunch? I don’t want to get caught in the crossfire.”
“This was extra. And it’s here now so one, it doesn’t get cold and two, because they want us in the security office in thirty minutes.”
“Did we finally get something on Stine?”
