Hot Secrets (5 page)

“Noon,” her husband responded. He gestured to her ruined bookshop. “I’m sending people in to board up the windows and clean up. We’ll be spending tomorrow morning here.”

The cop rolled his eyes. “Okay. Noon. The hot chocolate and those muffins better be good.”

“The best,” Caroline promised, then sagged against Jack, the voices around her growing distant, the room turning black.

J
ack scooped up his wife and walked out with her in his arms, meeting the eyes of all the cops filling the room. He was awash in fear and anxiety and would have welcomed someone trying to stop him.

He was itching for a fight, since the motherfucker with the knife was already dead.

But no one said anything—just silently shifted and made way for him in the swirling snow coming in through the shattered picture window.

It was a miracle his heart hadn’t stopped when he answered his cell, only to hear the screams of children and Caroline yelling
put down that knife!

He’d been coming back from consulting with the Chief Financial Officer of a bank about banking security. Every hair on his head had stood on end and sweat had broken out all over his body. He’d been in battle countless times, survived dozens of firefights and kept his cool. Right then, though, his entire system had gone haywire.

He was perfectly equipped, by nature and by training, to deal with threats to himself. He had no defenses against threats to Caroline—none. There was nothing in his system that could handle this.

It had begun to snow, but he’d gunned the engine, running through red lights, taking corners so tightly he’d have tipped over if he hadn’t been a combat driving instructor.

Smart Caroline. She’d managed to alert him to the threat and to where she was. He’d made a beeline to the bookstore while listening to what was happening inside First Page. He’dparked half a block away and pulled out the loaded Glock he kept in a concealed holder under the driver’s seat, leaping out of the Explorer before it stopped rocking on its chassis.

He was tackled before he’d taken ten steps, and did some serious damage before he realized he was fighting a SWAT officer.

Even then, the drumbeat of Caroline in danger pounded in his head.

“Sitrep!” he’d barked at the first face he recognized. Sgt. Glenn Baker. Good guy with a gun, good guy to have on your side, good guy all around. Except right now he was keeping him from Caroline.

“Arne Pedersen, thirty-four, rap sheet as long as my dick. Likes beating up on his wife, Anna, who is currently in the county hospital. There’s a restraining order against him—which he has just broken—so with that and endangerment, he’s going away for a long time, no matter what. He’s holding his stepson hostage. Wants his wife. Who is still in a coma. Our medic says he’s hopped up. Here, get a look.”

Baker put a restraining hand on Jack’s shoulder, then showed him a video feed off his cell, and Jack froze. Huge guy, holding a Ka-Bar to a little boy’s throat. The knife was already biting into the skin, blood seeping from a cut.

It would take nothing for the bruiser to slice the boy open.

And there was Caroline, several feet off. White-faced, staring at the man in anger.

“Here.” Jack handed over his cell to Baker. “It’s an open line.”

They put the two feeds together—video and audio—and followed what was happening. Baker was talking quietly to his team through his boom mic.

He suddenly heard Caroline’s voice clearly, talking into the cell. “This is Caroline Prescott at First Page. I’d like to speak with Anna Ramirez Pedersen, please.”

“Honey,” Jack said in a low voice, meeting Baker’s eyes. “I’m right outside. We’ve got rifles on the guy. The instant you and the boy get down, they’ll take the shot.”

Baker notified the team and Jack stood away from the line of sight, heart pounding, listening to Caroline orchestrate the takedown. Admiring her courage, wishing for his sake she was more of a wimp, understanding very well that she was saving that little boy’s life.

At risk to her own.

But now he was holding her. At the thought he might have lost her, he shuddered again.

A warm hand against his face. “Jack.” Caroline smiled at him. “Don’t look like that. I’m fine.”

“I’m not,” he answered, shifting her in his arms so he could open the passenger-side door.

They’d reached his SUV, the driver-side door still open, snow collecting in the footwell.

He placed her in the passenger seat—which was dry, thank God—and rounded the vehicle. Once she was belted in with a blanket from the back over her, he took off, trying to make it home as fast as he could before his nerves gave out.

“Well,” Caroline said, picking at the blanket, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. “That was interesting.”

He ground his teeth so hard the sound was audible.

“What’s the matter, Jack?” She placed her pretty hand on his forearm, as she’d done a thousand times before. She often touched him while talking to him—as if judging his reactions through his skin—and he loved it.

He loved everything she did. He loved everything she said. He loved her.

“I almost lost you,” he said through gritted teeth.

Caroline sighed. “Yes, but you didn’t. ‘Almost’ only counts in horseshoes.”

“And hand grenades,” he answered without thinking, watching her.

“What?”

“The whole quote is ‘ “Almost” only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.’ ”

“Oh. Makes sense.” She reached out to turn his face back to the road. “Pay attention. Just because I tricked death once today doesn’t mean we can’t still die.”

She was right, damn it. He kept his face turned to the road, though all his attention was on the pale, fragile woman by his side.

“I thought I was going to lose you,” Jack said, his voice tight. “I don’t think I could live without you.”

“You’re not going to have to.” Her voice was gentle and soothing, as if he’d been in danger and not she. Except she seemed to be calm and he was all over the place. Skin too tight, nerves twitching, heart racing.

Mr. Cool, losing it.

He’d almost lost her. The thought was there, like a burr biting into his skin—making him sweat, making him bleed. He’d almost lost her.

Jack couldn’t even contemplate living his life without Caroline by his side. This past year had been the happiest of his life. Going back to the bleak emptiness of Before Caroline was unthinkable. He couldn’t do it, simply couldn’t.

His hands were slick on the steering wheel by the time he drove into the garage.

Something was happening to him, something big. He felt like he was about to explode if he didn’t do something, something . . . right . . .
now
.

But what?

The answer came when he gave Caroline his hand to help her out of the vehicle, and her skin burned against his.

What to do?

Fuck her.

Get in her and stay in her as long as was possible, because while he was in her nothing bad could ever happen to her. He could keep her safe, keep her his. Nothing else would do.

He was as hard as a rock, every nerve ending sparking like torn electric wires.

“Jack?” Caroline’s voice rose, startled, as he headed through the house with her in tow. Nearly running up the stairs, striding fast down the hallway to their bedroom, where he slammed the door behind them with his boot and stood in the middle of the room, breathing hard, holding both her hands in his. “Jack, darling. What’s wrong?”

Caroline kept her voice low and soothing as if he were a wild animal—and that’s exactly how he felt. He was sure his eyes showed the whites all around like a panicked pony.

Jack looked at her, at his miracle of a wife. Grace, goodness, and beauty. A woman in a million, and he’d nearly lost her.

He told her his deepest truth. “I need you,” he whispered hoarsely. “Right now. If I don’t have you right now, I think I’ll die.”

She stepped closer to him, closer still, until her breasts touched his jacket, watching his eyes all the time. “My darling Jack.” She lifted herself up on tiptoe and awkwardly kissed the side of his mouth. “I’m yours. You know that.”

His control broke. His hands fisted in her hair and he kissed her hard, almost savagely. He knew he was bruising her mouth but he couldn’t stop himself. It was as if her mouth were giving him life. He would stay alive as long as he was kissing her.

He picked her up and carried her to the bed, landing on top of her, still kissing her. Somehow he got them both naked, ripping her underwear, but it didn’t matter because then he was touching her silky-soft skin all over—particularly the silky-soft
wet
skin between her legs—and it blew all his circuits.

He couldn’t wait—not one second more—and entered her with one long hard thrust. He was so careful with her, always, but this time he couldn’t be careful, couldn’t be gentle; he needed to possess her the way he needed to breathe.

He pumped in her—hard, fast thrusts that made the headboard beat against the wall—and watched her face move up and down under him, breasts swaying to his beat. Her head was arched back, eyes closed, breathing heavy. Her arms and legs were wrapped around him, holding him tightly. She, too, was celebrating the escape from danger with sex.

Jack groaned, cupping her buttocks, moving his hands down to her thighs, lifting the backs of them higher. The fit became deeper, tighter.

He fucked her with the full strength of his body, mindless heat filling his head. He couldn’t slow down, couldn’t do anything but ride her as hard and as fast as he was able.

Caroline groaned and she tightened around him, one strong pulse. It lit him up and he moved even faster and harder, in an almost brutal rhythm that would shame him later but which now seemed as inevitable as the tides. Simply the way it had to be.

Another sharp pulse and another. Caroline cried out and he swelled inside her and then exploded, his entire body electrified by something that was more than sex, more than an orgasm.

This was something he’d never felt before, as if the universe itself were moving through him. He moved his face to the pillow and shouted into it as he came and came endlessly in the strongest orgasm he’d ever had.

When it was over, he realized he was plastered to his love with his own sweat. He was panting, completely drained. He turned his head to see if she was all right, but he never completed the move because he fell into a sleep so deep it could have been a coma.

Christmas Day

 
“Get up, sleepyhead! We’ve got some training to do. Today you’re going to start teaching me how to shoot. I want to be Annie Oakley!”

The words came from several universes away and barely made sense to him.

Someone shook his shoulder.

Jack didn’t even have the strength to open his eyes. He was under some kind of boulder that wouldn’t let him move his muscles.

“Jack, wake up!”

A finger pulled up one eyelid and he saw a sideways Caroline, watching him with bright eyes.

How could she be bright-eyed when he felt like he’d been hit by a train?

“Open both those baby browns,” she crooned. “That’s right. Good boy.”

He could open his eyes, barely, but nothing else could move. He was utterly and completely wiped out.

His eyes tracked around the room. It was morning, the pale pearly light of a snowy morning filtering in through the windows. How could it be morning when two seconds ago he’d fallen asleep?

“Get up, get up! We’ve got work to do!” his wife cried. “Training, cleaning up the bookstore, celebrating Christmas . . . and celebrating something even more important. But first—Rambette!”

She was grinning. He blinked. Her eyes were bright and her color was high. She was dressed for the outdoors, mittens hanging from her parka by their strings. She danced in place like a boxer.

Jack licked dry lips. “Work?” he croaked. How could she have all this energy when he felt like he’d died a week ago?

“I’m going to start training seriously, and by God, you were right!”

Jack blinked, his thought processes fuzzy and slow. “I was?”

“Absolutely! I need to train harder and I need to know how to shoot. And I’m going to
pack heat!
I’m going to get myself a pink shoulder holster and no one is ever going to mess with me again. Ever!”

He smiled. She was so amazingly beautiful right now. “Yeah?”

“Yup.” She nodded sharply. “And today—I’m going to throw you. For real.”

And she did.

 
If you enjoyed HOT SECRETS, see where Caroline and Jack’s story began in

Dangerous Lover

 
Available Now

And don’t miss the other books in Lisa Marie Rice’s Protector’s Series

Dangerous Passion

 
Dangerous Secrets

 
Available Now