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He had an instant image of her naked, water pouring over her body. How would she feel? His fingers curled slightly, as if imagining cupping her breasts.
Damn her, he thought. She wasn’t going to win. It was time to stop playing nice.
He moved forward, crowding her. She stepped back until she bumped into a weight bench, then she dropped into a sitting position. He crouched in front of her.
“You do not want to play this game with me,” he told her in a low voice. “I’m not one of your brainy book guys. I have seen things you can’t begin to imagine, I have survived situations you couldn’t begin to invent. You may be smart, but this isn’t about your brain. You can play me all you want, but eventually there will be consequences. Are you prepared for that, little girl?”
“I’m not a little girl.”
He reached behind her and wrapped his hand around her ponytail, pulling just hard enough to force her head back. Then he put his free hand on her throat and stroked the underside of her jaw.
Her eyes widened. He sensed her fighting fear and something else. Something sexual.
He knew because he felt it, too. A pulsing heat that arced between them. Need swirled and grew until he wanted to do a whole lot more than teach her a lesson.
Then she smiled. “I’m getting to you, aren’t I?”
He released her. “In your dreams.”
* * *
Back at the house, Meri went up to her room to change clothes. She didn’t offer to help Jack with his. After their close encounter at the gym, she needed a little time to regroup.
There had been a moment when Jack had touched her that had if not changed everything then certainly captured her attention. A moment when she’d been aware of him as being a powerful man and maybe the slightest bit dangerous.
“I’m not impressed,” she told herself as she brushed out her hair, then slipped into a skimpy sundress that left her arms bare. “I’m tough, too.” Sort of.
Jack was right. He’d been through things she couldn’t begin to imagine. While they’d both changed in the past eleven years, she wondered who had changed more on the inside. Was the man anything like the boy she’d both loved and hated?
Before she could decide, she heard the rumble of a truck engine. A quick glance at her watch told her the delivery was right on time.
“It’s here! It’s here!” she yelled as she ran out of her room and raced down the stairs. “Jack, you have to come see. It’s just totally cool.”
She burst out of the house and danced over to the truck. “Were you careful? You were careful, right? It’s very expensive and delicate and I can’t wait until you set it up. You’re going to calibrate it, right? You know how? You’ve been trained?”
The guy with the clipboard looked at her, then shook his head. “You’re a scientist, aren’t you?”
“Yes. How’d you know?”
“No one else gets that excited about a telescope.” He pointed back at the compact car parked behind the truck. “He calibrates it. I just deliver.”
Jack walked outside and joined her. “A telescope?”
“I know—it’s too exciting for words. It was very expensive, but the best ones are. You won’t believe what we’ll be able to see. And it’s so clear. How long until sunset?”
She looked at the sky. It would be too long but worth the wait.
“You bought a telescope for the house?” he asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“We already have one.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It’s a toy. This is an instrument.”
“But you’re only here for a month.”
Less if her plan went well. “I know, but I want to see the stars. Everything is better when there are stars to look at.”
“You’re leaving it in place, aren’t you?”
“For the families,” she said, watching anxiously as the ramp was lowered on the truck. “I’ll write up some instructions, although it’s computer-guided. They won’t have to do anything but type in what they want to see, then stand back and watch the show. Not that we’ll be using the program. I can find whatever you want to see.”
“I have no doubt.”
She glanced at him. “What?”
“Nothing. Just you.”
Which meant what? Not that Jack would tell her if she asked.
“Hunter would have loved this,” she said absently, knowing her brother would have made fun of her, then spent the whole night looking at the sky.
Thinking about her brother was both wonderful and filled with pain. While she appreciated all the memories she had, she still had a hole in her heart from his passing.
“I think about him every day,” she told Jack. “I think about him and wish he were here. Do you think about him much?”
Jack’s expression closed and he turned away. “No. I don’t think about him at all.”
She knew he couldn’t be telling the truth. He and Hunter had been close for a long time. They’d been like brothers. Jack couldn’t have forgotten that.
Her instinct to be compassionate battled with her annoyance. Temper won.
“Most people improve with age,” she said. “Too bad you didn’t. You not only break your word but you’re a liar, as well.”
Three
Jack spent a couple of hours in the loft office, working. He called his assistant back in Dallas.
“They’re building more roads in Afghanistan,” Bobbi Sue told him. “They’re looking at maybe an eighteen-month contract, but we all know those things take longer. And Sister Helena called. They want to take in another convoy of medical supplies.”
His business provided protection in dangerous parts of the world. His teams allowed building crews to get their jobs done and get out. The work was dangerous, often a logistical nightmare and extremely expensive. His corporate clients paid well for what they got.
The corporate profits were channeled into funding protection for those providing relief efforts in places often forgotten. He’d grown up in the shadow of the Howington Foundation, a philanthropic trust that helped the poor. Jack hated having a number after his name and had vowed he would make his own way.
He had. He’d grown his company from nothing, but he couldn’t seem to escape that damn sense of duty. The one that told him he needed to use his profits for something other than a flashy lifestyle.
His critics said he could afford to be generous—he had a trust fund worth nearly a billion dollars. What they didn’t know is he never touched it. Another vow he’d made to himself. He’d grown up with something to prove. The question was whether or not he would have achieved enough to let that need go.
“Get Ron on the contract,” Jack told his assistant. “The usual clauses. Tell Sister Helena to e-mail the best dates for the convoy and we’ll get as close to them as possible.”
“She’s going to want to leave before you’re back from your vacation in Tahoe.”
“I’m not on vacation.”
“Hmm, a month in a fancy house with nothing to do with your time? Sounds like a vacation to me.”
“I’m working.”
“Talk, talk, talk.”
Bobbi Sue had attitude, which he put up with because she was the best at her job. She was also old enough to be his mother, a fact she mentioned on a regular basis, especially when she hounded him on the topic of settling down.
“Someone else will have to take Sister Helena’s team in,” he said. “See if Wade’s available.” Wade was one of his best guys.
“Will do. Anything else?”
“Not from my end.”
“You know, I looked up Hunter’s Landing on the Internet, and the place you’re staying isn’t that far from the casinos.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“So you should go. Gamble, talk to some people. You spend too much time alone.”
He thought about Meri, sleeping in the room next to his. “Not anymore.”
“Does that mean you’re seeing someone?”
“No.”
“You need to get married.”
“You need to get off me.”
Bobbi Sue sighed. “All right, but just in the short term.”
Jack hung up. He glanced at his computer, but for once he didn’t want to work. He paced the length of the spacious bedroom, ignoring the fireplace, the view and the television. Then he went downstairs to confront the woman who seemed determined to think the worst of him.
Not that he cared what she thought. But this wasn’t about her—it was about Hunter.
He found Meri in the kitchen, sitting on the counter, eating ice cream out of a pint-size container.
“Lunch?” he asked as he entered the room.
“Sort of. Not exactly high in nutrition, but I’m more interested in sugar and fat right now.”
He stared at her miniature spoon. “That’s an interesting size.”
She waved the tiny utensil. “It’s my ice-cream-eating spoon. I try to avoid using food as an emotional crutch, but sometimes ice cream is the only solution. I use this spoon because it takes longer to eat and I have a better chance of getting disgusted with myself and stopping before finishing the pint. A trick for keeping off the weight. I have a thousand of them.”
“This situation required ice cream?”
She licked the spoon. He did his best to ignore the flick of her tongue and the sigh that followed, along with the rush of unwelcome heat in his body.
“You pissed me off,” she told him.
Translation: he’d hurt her. Hunter was her brother. She wouldn’t want to think his friends had forgotten him.
He leaned against the counter as he considered what to do. His natural inclination was to walk away. Her feelings didn’t matter to him. At least they shouldn’t. But this was Meri, and he was supposed to be looking out for her. Which meant not making a bad situation worse.
Maybe a small concession was in order. “I don’t want to think about Hunter,” he admitted. “I’ve trained myself not to. But he’s there. All the time.”
She eyed him. “Why should I believe you?”
“I don’t care if you do.”
She surprised him by smiling. “Okay. I like that answer. If you’d tried to convince me, I would have known you were just placating me. But your stick-up-the-butt attitude is honest.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re excused.”
He frowned. Had she always been this irritating?
“You getting much work done?” she asked as she checked her watch. “I’m not. There’s so much going on right now and I really need to focus. But it’s tough. Being here, seducing you—it’s a full time job.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “You need to let that go.”
“The seduction part? I don’t think so. I’m making progress. You’re going on the defensive. What happened in the gym was definitely about taking charge. So that means I’m getting to you.” She held out the ice cream container. “Want some, big guy?”
She was mocking him. She was irreverent and fearless and determined. All good qualities, but not in this situation. She was right. He wanted to get control. And he could think of only one way to do that.
He moved close and took the ice cream from her. After setting it and the spoon on the counter, he cupped her face and kissed her.
He took rather than asked. He claimed her with his lips, branding her skin with his own. He leaned in, crowding her, showing her that she hadn’t thought her plan through.
She stiffened slightly and gasped in surprise. He took advantage of the moment and plunged his tongue into her mouth.
She was cool from the ice cream, cool with a hint of fire. She tasted of chocolate and something that had to be her own erotic essence. He ignored the softness of her skin, the sensual feel of her mouth and the heat that poured through him.
She pulled back slightly and gazed into his eyes. “Is that the best you can do?” she asked before she put her arms around his neck and drew him in.
She kissed him back with a need that surprised him. She opened for him and then met his tongue with darting licks of her own.
She’d parted her legs, so he slipped between her thighs. Although she was much shorter, with her sitting on the counter, he found himself nestled against her crotch.
Blood pumped, making him hard. Desire consumed him. Desire for a woman he couldn’t have. Dammit all to hell.
