Jacked Up (Bowen Boys #4) (10 page)

Her head was bent at an awkward angle, the spoon still dangling from her hand. Almost three. So this was why she always wrote to him at those ungodly hours.

He disposed of the ice cream. He was going to throw a quilt over her and leave her there, but before he even realized what he was doing, he was lifting her in his arms and heading upstairs. She was a flight risk after all, and having her sleep so close to the front door was stupid.

The first room he tried was Tate’s. The next one was definitely Elle’s. Bold, in-your-face, messy place. Bed unmade, clothes stacked on the chair. More of those inspirational sentences on the walls. Yep, Elle’s.

Life is short.

Break the rules.

Forgive quickly.

Kiss slowly.

Undressing her would make it more difficult for her to bail unnoticed and would piss her off immensely in the morning, but there was no way he could survive that. No way whatsoever.

He put her to bed, tucked her in, and made himself walk away.

He left his duffel bag in the guest room, the one that had been her brother’s. James had told him that Tate and Elle’s dad and older brother had died in a car accident almost a year before he’d met Tate. Drunk driver. Elle never spoke of it, not with him anyway.

No frills. No mess. Perfectly clean room. But instead of staying there he found himself heading to hers. He watched Elle for a long second, and before he could order his legs not to move, he was getting into her bed.

Jesus Christ, not even forty-eight hours around this woman and he was already in her bed. Unable to walk away, not even to the next room. His mind in turmoil, his dick hard as stone. His ulcer killing him. He repeated to himself that if he kept his arms around her, she couldn’t ditch him. This was just an extra precaution. Nothing to do with him at all.

Then she turned to him in her sleep, snuggling and burying herself into him, nuzzling her face on his chest, throwing her leg over him. She took a small, deep breath and went soft in his arms.

This was going to be a long night. A very long, very painful night.

* * * *

I’m calling you exactly two seconds after I send this message. If you don’t pick up, I’m taking the car and heading your way. Haven’t slept much and I’m cranky as hell. I suggest YOU ANSWER OR ELSE.

Elle had barely finished reading the message when her phone rang.

She’d been avoiding her sister and her calls since yesterday, so she knew this was coming. Better get it over fast.

“Hi, sis,” she greeted Tate. “I see your hormones are still raging.”

“Finally!” came from the other side of the line.

“I sent you a message yesterday to tell you everything was okay.”

Tate snorted. “Sure everything is okay. Just peachy. You spent over twenty-four hours in a police station after one of your coworkers was murdered and you came back escorted by none other than Jack.”

“We happened to run into each other in Florida. That’s all.”

“Save it. I talked to Paige.”

Damn. Paige, Rosita’s maître d’, was a tough cookie, but she had nothing on Elle’s little sister even when she was calm. A hormone-ridden, sleep-deprived Tate? A steamroller.

“She said you showed up at Rosita’s with Jack and left with him after dinner,” Tate continued. “What’s going on?”

Elle decided to try Jack’s explanation. “We hooked up.”

A snort of incredulity. “Try again.”

“What? You don’t believe we could hook up? I have my charms.”

Elle was not self-absorbed, but she had eyes in her head and she knew how men looked at her.

“Yes, you have plenty of charms, but Jack is impervious to them, remember? Besides, any hookup between you two would end up on the five o’clock news. The second the sex was over, maybe even before that, you would be ready to shoot each other.”

That was not that flattering. But it was probably true.

“Paige said Jack was scary-looking. More than usual.”

Damn Borg. He’d kissed her twice at the airport and once before the flash mob, but at Rosita’s he’d kept his distance. Of course no one was going to buy they were hooked up if he looked at her as if he was going to kill her. Although in all honesty, he did look like he was going to kill her while kissing her too.

Elle let out a loud breath. She might as well admit defeat and give Tate something. If not the truth, then something close enough. “Jack is keeping an eye on me. He was at the police station when I was there giving my statement about Marlene. I had spent the whole night partying with her and the cops wanted to know more about it.” Which was not a lie per se. The cops had been interested in that. Until she’d told them about their little identity-fraud trick. “I was upset and in shock and he got worried. The case is not closed yet so he insisted on watching my back. He’s staying at the house.”

Silence. Then disbelief. “Jack is staying at the house?”

“In Jonah’s bedroom,” Elle felt the need to clarify.

Or so she’d thought. She’d totally zonked out on the sofa and woken up alone in her bed. Tucked in but dressed. With the faint recollection of hard arms around her and an even harder chest behind her, unbending, keeping her trapped and weirdly safe during the night. And her pillow smelled like Jack. Then again, to her everything smelled like Jack by now. He took up so much space. He walked into a room and the space grew smaller, as if he’d sucked in the light and the air around, all the attention going to him.

Be that as it may, she’d woken up incredibly hot and bothered. Her pussy wet and throbbing. Her nipples hard, her clit engorged and pulsing. Needing to come so badly she’d had to go to the shower to relieve herself. She’d been without sex for months and hadn’t really missed it. Then she spent one measly night under the same roof with testosterone-ridden Jack and she was finger fucking herself in the bathroom like there was no tomorrow, legs barely holding her as she came, hoping real hard the sound of the shower’s running water would muffle her moans.

“Where is he now?” Tate asked.

“Not sure. I think he’s in the kitchen.” When she’d gone downstairs he was coming in with his hands full of groceries. He’d growled a “Not a thing to eat here, pet” and stomped down the hall.

“I don’t eat breakfast,” she’d whispered more to herself than him.

At least not this early in the day, anyway.

“Now you do,” he’d growled back, not even turning to her.

How he’d heard her, she had no clue, but she hoped he’d heard the screw-you that came after that.

She was actually waiting for him to burst into the bathroom at any moment and drag her out to eat protein shakes or some shit like that.

There was a long silence before Tate spoke again. “You’re lying to me. There’s more to it than Jack watching over you.”

Elle put on her poker face. And her poker voice too. “What makes you think I’m lying?”

“Have you forgotten who you’re talking to? And I know Jack. You’re back in Boston. He would be running in the opposite direction if you were safe, not watching over you. Much less staying in the same house as you.”

Her sister was absolutely right.

More silence.

“Are you going to tell me the truth anytime soon, or do I have to come and beat it out of you? I’ll remind you, hormonal women do not go to jail. It’s called justified temporary insanity. Now spill, sis.”

Chapter Seven

Jack stood up the moment Elle left her advisor’s office. Thank God. About time.

As an undercover operative, one of his strengths was infiltrating all sorts of environments, but on a university campus he was out of his depth. So many brats around, he was getting a fucking headache.

“Aren’t you too old for school?” And for all these schmucks salivating around her? A lesser man would have been struck dead by her fulminating glare but he shrugged it off.

“No one is too old for school, dummy. I took several detours, restless soul that I am.”

Pain-in-the-ass soul, if they asked him. “How many detours?”

She took a bite of the ice cream she’d bought. Well, technically she hadn’t bought it, because as she’d tried to pay, the kid working the stand had smiled and refused her money. He’d still been dazzled when Jack had grabbed cash from his pocket and shoved it in the kid’s hand, daring him not to take it.

“Let’s see. There was that sabbatical after college; then the time I spent in San Francisco before the Eternal Sun Resort and transferring to school to Florida. Hi, John,” she greeted the guy who crossed their path waving at her. “Then the couple of semesters I took off to get my physiotherapy degree. And—”

“You a physiotherapist?”

“Not a licensed one; I didn’t show up for the last exam. I didn’t need it. I already knew all I had to. And by then I was into teaching English for foreigners, so I jumped into that. It’s a great way to travel the world and earn money.”

That explained why she was twenty-eight and just finishing her studies. Because she wasn’t able to keep on track even if her life depended on it.

“Was that before the snake-charming studies or after becoming a bounty hunter?”

She threw him another dirty look. “No, it was before the class on lifeguarding if you must know. No snake charming, but the bounty hunting is interesting. I’ll look into that. You can never have too many hobbies.”

Yes, one could, obviously.

“And what are we studying now?” he asked mockingly.

“Astronomy.”

That stopped him dead in his tracks. Astrology, sure. Astronomy? Never in a million years would he have guessed. That explained all the geeks around though.

If she was dangerous enough working at an airport, he didn’t want to know what she could do at NASA.

When the irony of it dawned on him, he felt his lips quirking up.

“What?” she asked impatiently.

“I remembered your fear of flying. I hope you aren’t planning on any deep-space exploring.”

“Very funny, Borg. I’ll call Eve and get some of her blue pills.”

“Hi, Elle,” another schmuck interrupted, waving at her.

“Hi, sweetie,” she answered, offering him a smile. Jack turned to her and she shrugged and whispered, “Can’t remember his name, but he makes to-die-for daiquiris. And knows all the names of the pulsars.”

“Are you acquainted with every-fucking-body here?” Which was amazing, considering all her extracurricular activities and how much time she actually spent away.

“I’m friendly and talk to people, not like others.”

“I’m friendly enough,” Jack muttered.

“Sure, for a bloodthirsty, inarticulate terminator you are,” she said, going in the direction opposite from where the car was parked.

“Now what?”

“A short stop.”

“A detour to learn how to restore old buildings?”

“Ha-ha. I agreed to get a mani with the girls. It’s just here around the corner.”

“I don’t think so,” Jack growled, but his cell rang, and when he saw that the caller was Mullen, he decided that fighting with Elle had to wait.

“Jack here,” he said, answering the call while she sprinted to the beauty salon. “Any news?”

“Maldonado is back in the US. We subpoenaed all the videos from the airport. We’ve placed Aalto at the airport, but not near Maldonado’s jet, which, by the way, was spotless.”

No surprise there. The second he realized the body had been found, he must have started covering his bases. Major criminals didn’t make it that long without taking precautions.

“We’re going through Aalto’s computers with a fine-tooth comb, but so far we haven’t found anything.”

“Using Elle is not an option,” Jack warned, already foreseeing where Mullen was heading.

“You know she would want to testify. Bring her friend’s killer to justice.”

“Please spare me the bullshit. What about the two bodyguards? Have you turned the heat up on them?”

“Escudero and his niece have disappeared.”

If Elle would be more agreeable, Jack would consider leaving her under someone else’s watch and go to Florida himself to sort that mess out. He was not a cop, so he didn’t have to play by the same rules; he would get results much faster. Too bad Elle would eat her keeper alive. She’d smile and bat her eyelashes, and the poor devil would be doing her bidding in no time.

He knew firsthand; he was waiting outside a beauty salon. How fucked up was that? He hadn’t done shit like that since Ronnie.

“And the autopsy? Any leads there?”

“No bullets recovered if that’s what you are asking. They couldn’t find any injury inconsistent with plunging twelve thousand feet at a hundred twenty-five miles per hour. There wasn’t a single bone unbroken.”

Fuck.

“Oh and Copeland?” Mullen said from the other side of the line, taking Jack out of his musing. “The NSA is sniffing around, extremely interested in getting Maldonado. So far the FBI is coordinating the whole operation, but if they decide to take over, we will have to hand the whole investigation to them.”

That wouldn’t happen. Jack would make sure of it. Having the NSA involved would mean more people knowing about Elle. Unacceptable.

After disconnecting the call, he took a deep breath and entered the beauty salon.

“You have a back exit in there?” he asked the befuddled girl behind the counter, who shook her head. “Windows that open into the street?” Another head shake.

He didn’t get why those questions always left people flabbergasted. First thing he did when entering a place was study the layout. Entrance and exit points. Shit happened no matter what, but there was no excuse for letting it surprise you.

Satisfied with the clerk’s answer, he nodded and sat down. No risk of Elle disappearing. Not that he hadn’t covered her with bugs, because he had—one could never be too safe when dealing with such a nutcase—but he didn’t want to let her out of his sight. He’d been in this business long enough to know things could go south in a second, so he opened a magazine and tried to forget he was reading fucking
Cosmopolitan
, in a beauty salon, with women around him whispering and gesturing.

He’d gotten his hands on Elle’s agenda—that is, he’d studied the humongous calendar on the fridge door, where apparently she kept track of her crazy schedule and marked all her appointments—and apart from university in the morning, Italian classes early in the afternoon, and then Rosita’s, she’d had nothing else planned. That improvised stop in the middle of her schedule came out of the blue.