MIDNIGHT QUEST: A Short 'Men of Midnight' Novel (19 page)

And lastly, love for her. She knew that was now a cornerstone of who he was.

She’d wanted to wait. It seemed insane to her now that she’d wanted to wait. Wait for what? She’d thought they had all the time in the world, but that wasn’t true. They were blessed because out of seven billion people in the world, they’d found each other. That had been whatever you wanted to call it. Luck. Fate. Destiny. Whatever the force that had brought them together, it had been powerful.

But there were many other forces at work in the universe that were not benign. She could lose Jacko. Though his job wasn’t as dangerous as being a SEAL, the ASI men often walked into danger without blinking. Jacko drove everywhere. He was an excellent driver but there were literally millions of crazy people on the road, many of them drunk or high. Sometimes both. She could have lost him on this last road trip, wherever it was he’d gone.

No one is immune to illness. However strong Jacko was, cancer was stronger. He could have a heart attack, he could be shot, he could be run over. Anything could rip him from her, in the blink of an eye. No one had immunity from life’s dangers. He could be gone in a heartbeat.

This was a very rare man, a man in a million.

There was no waiting.

“Yes,” she said, and his face changed. Transformed utterly.

“Yes,” he said, and laughed.

Lauren’s eyes opened wide. She’d never heard Jacko laugh, ever. He smiled sometimes. Rarely. The laugh was charming and it took ten years off his face. Jacko stood up, hands out. She took his hands and he lifted her up off the couch and into his arms, swinging her about, head back, laughing.

“Yes, yes,
yes!
” he boomed. He held her up so that she was looking down into his face. That dark, beloved face. “When?”

“What?”

“Set the date.” He lifted her even higher as she braced her hands against his shoulders. “Not letting you down until you set a date. Soon, too. My kid is going to be born to married parents—and to parents who weren’t married a day before the birth. So—soon.”

“Soon? How soon?”

“Tomorrow if we could.”

He was holding her up as if she were weightless, but she felt light anyway. As if burdens as heavy as boulders had suddenly cracked open and blown away. She hadn’t had doubts before, but the fact was that her family hadn’t specialized in happy marriages or happy endings. And Jacko’s poor mother had led a tragic life. No happy endings for her either. So she’d wondered whether they’d somehow inherited bad marriage genes.

But no. No one’s life was predestined. Fate didn’t have to thwart them. It wasn’t written in the stars that their marriage would fall apart just because she and Jacko came from unhappy backgrounds. They were going to break the mold and work hard at forging happy lives together.

In order to have a happy married life, though, they’d have to be married first. “I don’t think we could do that unless we eloped to Vegas.”

Jacko opened his mouth and Lauren put a finger across his lips. “Nope. Don’t say it. Don’t even think it. If we elope, we will never be able to come back here. Everybody would be so angry.”

He shrugged a massive shoulder.

“And Isabel wouldn’t help plan our wedding reception.”

Jacko’s eyes widened.

“Yeah.” It was a threat with teeth. No one ever wanted to celebrate anything without Isabel helping to plan it. The woman was magic.

“Huh.” Jacko shook his head, still holding her up. “That’s something to consider, I guess. So set the date. Any date. Right now.”

“Okay.” Lauren smiled down at him, at that dark, unhandsome face, her heart overflowing. “June 1
^st
. I want to be a June bride. And I won’t be showing that much in early June. Is that okay with you?”

“Well, if it can’t be tomorrow, then June 1
^st
sounds fine.”

Jacko held her close. He was massively erect. She could tell he was aroused by other signs, too, signs she was familiar with. The skin over his cheekbones was darker, his lips were darker too, and fuller. He was watching her with a heavy-lidded gaze, which in her experience led straight to mind-blowing sex.

She lowered her gaze back to his mouth, dropping her head to his, wanting one of Jacko’s amazing kisses.

He stopped her an inch from his mouth, holding her up and slightly away from him. “Uh-uh. Not quite yet. So you, Lauren Dare, swear to marry me on June 1
^st
, right?”

She smiled, cocked her head as she studied him. “Right.”

He put her on her feet and took her left hand. He watched her eyes as he slid the ring onto her ring finger. He didn’t have to look at what he was doing. Jacko was one of the most skilled snipers in the world. He could field strip his rifle in the dark in forty seconds, he could slip a ring on her finger without watching what he was doing.

It was Lauren whose gaze drifted down to her hand. Her eyes widened. It was absolutely perfect. A circle of small diamonds flanked by two sapphires in an exquisite setting.

“So beautiful,” Lauren breathed and looked up into Jacko’s smiling face. “It must have cost a fortune.”

He lifted a shoulder. Jacko didn’t care about money, and in any event, he had plenty.

“Who helped you choose it? Suzanne?”

“Bingo.” Jacko shook his head. “Man, I was in a sweat. All I knew was that I wanted something special for you. But it was repeated to me over and over that it wasn’t just a question of money and size. That you didn’t like ‘gaudy.’ That’s Suzanne talking, not me. The hell I know about
gaudy
?”

Lauren suddenly saw how it had played out. “You’d already picked something and Suzanne nixed it.”

He winced. “Yeah. That’s when the g-word was used. A lot. Isabel chimed in too.”

Isabel had been born into one of the top families in America and like Suzanne, she oozed class from her fingertips to her toes. Suzanne and Isabel were, together, an unstoppable force for elegance. It was like they’d invented the concept.

Lauren admired the gorgeous ring on her finger. “What was your original choice?”

Jacko sighed. “Just a rock. The biggest I could find. Suzanne made me take it back. That jeweler was one unhappy puppy, let me tell you.”

Lauren smiled up at him. “Well, this one is absolutely perfect. I can wear it while drawing, too. And it’s beautiful but I don’t need a security guard walking around with me.”

“That’s more or less what Suzanne said. She said the one I picked out was too heavy. That you wouldn’t be able to wear it for ordinary chores and you’d keep taking it off. And I want that ring on your finger every day of your life.”

Lauren curled the fingers of her right hand around the fingers of her left, as if someone could take her ring away. She already loved it.

“So, it’s a deal?” Jacko nudged her with his shoulder. “Ring, marriage on the first of June, kid already started…we’re good?”

“Yeah,” Lauren whispered, throat tight. Her eyes were wet and a tear spilled over, ran down her cheekbone. “We’re good.”

“Whoa.” Jacko looked alarmed, which was alarming in itself. He never looked alarmed. But right now he was scowling, the whites of his eyes showing, the skin around his nostrils pale. “You’re crying. Why are you crying? Oh fuck, oh fuck.” His voice was hoarse as he patted her all over, as if looking for sudden bullet wounds. “What’s the matter, honey? Is the thought of being married to me so bad?”

Lauren shook her head and leaned into him, arms outspread. She nestled against him, against that broad chest that was her protection against the world, and held him tightly.

Jacko stopped talking. She was leaning into him, not leaning away. He understood that maybe something was wrong, but that something wasn’t her wanting to leave him. So he shut up and held her, which was exactly what she needed.

The tears dried up fast. Hard to cry when Jacko Jackman was holding you tight.

His leather jacket was open and she wiped her wet face against his shoulder. “I’m getting some mascara on your shirt.”

“Like I care?” he rumbled, and tightened his hold.

She gave a watery laugh, tipped her head back to look at him, then leaned her forehead against his chest.

She held on to his shirt, now dampened by her tears. The tears had dried up, though. Lauren had a sudden vision—like the curtains over the world were suddenly pulled back. She knew, without any doubt, that these were the last tears she would shed for a long, long while. She could feel it, as surely as she could feel spring in the air outside. For a little while, the sad years were over.

“Those two years I was running,” she said finally, voice quiet. “I didn’t dare make friends with anyone and I felt so alone. I never knew whether Jorge would find me, and kill someone else while trying to get to me. He’d already killed two women he thought were me, I just couldn’t risk it. And I couldn’t risk dating anyone. I couldn’t tell anyone who I really was. I had to keep the lowest possible profile. You were an anomaly because you just sort of stuck around. Couldn’t get rid of you.” His arms tightened even further. “And I think in my heart of hearts, I was sure you could handle yourself if Jorge came with his goons.”

“Damn right,” he muttered.

“But until you, I just assumed that my life was over and I was going to be in hiding until I got old and finally died. And that a husband, a child—a family—were never going to be possible for me. Jorge had taken that away from me. I was so lonely. I cried myself to sleep more times than I can count. I’d spend weeks without talking to anyone other than the guy at the convenience store where I bought milk and bread. All those things—a home and a family. People I could love and who loved me. They were impossible dreams.”

She stood straighter as she reached up and cupped Jacko’s strong jaw. His jaw muscles bunched under her hand. “And now look at me. At us. We’re going to be married, Jacko. We’re going to have a child together. Things I thought I’d never have, things I thought were beyond my reach forever, and now I will have them.
We
will have them. It feels like…like being reborn. It feels like magic.”

“Sometimes—” Jacko stopped.

“Sometimes what, darling?”

“Sometimes you
can
get what you want.” He shook his head and smiled.
You can’t always get what you want.
The Rolling Stones line was one of his favorites, summing up his worldview, and he’d just turned it on its head. A complete turnaround in his personal philosophy. “Weird, huh?”

Lauren watched his eyes. “Are you going to tell me where you were and what you did?”

His gaze never wavered from hers. “Of course. Tell you everything. Actually sort of interesting. Found out some stuff.”

His speech got clipped when he was emotional. It had taken her a while to realize that. She cupped her hand around his jaw again. “I’m dying to hear it. To hear what happened to you, what you found out.”

Jacko nodded. “But first, a shower.” He sniffed his armpit and gave an exaggerated shudder. “Been driving a long time.” His face changed again, sharpened, eyes focused on her with a laser-like intensity. “We should shower together. You like that.”

She did. Showering with Jacko was…whew.

Heat suddenly shimmered through her body, a bright, delicate wave of it starting from her head and moving down. She was flushed pink, she could feel it. Jacko didn’t signal things through his skin, it was too dark, too tough. By the time she could see a flush along his cheeks and his lips suffused with blood, he was heavily aroused and ready. Her skin showed everything, immediately. It was a curse.

Jacko was studying her face. “You like that idea,” he said again.

No use pretending. “Yeah. You always make showering together…interesting.” Which was code for red-hot sex.

He was already shepherding her toward the bedroom and the bathroom beyond. “Now,” he said. His face was tight, eyes narrowly focused on her. When he was down to one-syllable words, that meant she was in for a wild ride.

Jacko turned her toward him and started undressing her, utterly concentrated on it. He was quick. Sweater, bra, leggings, panties, lace socks, flats. In about ten seconds Lauren was standing naked in front of him, shivering at what she saw in his eyes.

He frowned and shot a glance at the thermostat. They kept the house slightly colder than normal when he was home, but she’d kept it at 74° in his absence. “You cold?”

“No,” she whispered. “Excited.”

Jacko closed his eyes tightly for a second and, hands a blur, tore his own clothes off, ushering her into the bathroom with a hand to her bare back. Oh God, she shivered again, just at the feel of his hand against her skin, hot and huge, like a brand. This time he didn’t ask if she was feeling hot or cold or was comfortable or uncomfortable. He knew what she was feeling.

A twist of his hand and the shower came on, just as they both liked it—boiling hot. They stepped inside. It was a normal shower, not one of those huge fancy ones, and Jacko took up most of the space. That was okay. Lauren loved being in this enclosed, steamy space with him, their own damp bower.

“Here.” Jacko picked up her shower gel and put it in her hand. “Do me.” The gleam in his dark eyes showed that he understood exactly the double meaning.

“You sure?” Lauren squirted a dollop of the pink gel into her palm. It was freesia-scented and Jacko said it smelled like pure girl. It did. They had his and her shower gels on the stone tray. His smelled of pine. Because they didn’t make engine-oil-scented shower gel.

“I’m sure.” Jacko’s eyes never left hers. “I want to smell like you.”

She shook her head, smiling. “I think for that you need my jasmine-scented body oil and rose-scented body lotion, and your nightwear should be in a drawer that has lavender sachets and…”

He bent and stopped her mouth with his, moving forward two steps until her back was against the glass wall. His mouth moved over hers, tongue deep inside, stroking hers. Her nose was against his cheek, which was slightly bristly. The taste of him was familiar and yet exciting. How was that? The excitement never died down, no matter how many times he kissed her, and he kissed her a lot. He kissed her mouth often, but he also kissed her neck, her breasts, her belly. He kissed her between the thighs exactly as if it were her mouth, tongue deep inside her.