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It had taken everything he had inside not to take her to bed right there and then. He was that hungry for her, and that fact generated even more self-disgust. How could he be so attracted to a woman who was obviously so manipulative? But if she hadn’t said no, he knew it would have happened.
It was just pent-up lust and frustration, or so he told himself.
His lack of vision certainly hadn’t seemed to put Tessa off any, he thought, remembering how passion and need had practically vibrated off her. Her scent was still on his skin. He didn’t know if she was faking that or not. The senator was out of the country, and maybe she’d decided to finish what they’d started when her father was out of play—something like eating cake and having it, too.
“Well, if not with Tessa, you still need to get out more,” Garrett continued. “You’re blind, not under quarantine. When was the last time you were even on a date?”
“Now, there’s the pot calling the kettle black,” Jonas accused.
“I’ve gone on a few dates, but my situation is different.”
Jonas frowned. “I don’t date. I have plenty of women I know who are available when I want one.”
“Classy.”
“Drop it, Garrett. Can we talk about cases, the weather, anything but this? You’re beginning to make me wish I’d gone deaf, too.”
Garrett laughed and acquiesced as their sandwiches arrived and they dug in. They were delicious as always, though Jonas was getting a little tired of sandwiches, in general. They’d been standard fare since he lost his sight, as he didn’t have to worry about using utensils to find the food on his plate, or embarrassing himself in front of others.
When his sight returned, he was heading for the first Italian restaurant he could get to for some pasta. Ideally, he would meet one of the women he called now and then to join him and kill two birds with one stone. If he could get back to his normal life, he knew his obsession with Tessa would fade.
“We’re supposed to be getting some wicked storms today. It’s already turning gray out there. The news said there were tornadoes down south, and it’s all moving this way,” Garrett commented.
“We could use the rain. Get rid of some of this heat,” Jonas said. He loved summer storms, the power and energy of them. “What are Ely and Chance up to?”
“They’re both in the field. Ely’s finishing up the bank job down in Norfolk, and Chance will be caught up in New York for a while. Ely should be back tonight, depending on how the storm affects his travel. I’ve just been minding the store.”
They always tried to have three in the field, with one in the office. They alternated home duty. They didn’t want a secretary, and Garrett did the books. The fewer additional people in the agency, the tighter the security, and that was what it was about.
Ely was the most serious of the bunch, the second youngest, a Marine and just returned from a lengthy tour in Afghanistan. He’d almost re-upped, but after recovering from a near-fatal injury caused by an IED, he’d decided to come back home.
Jonas had held his breath with the rest of his family for pretty much the entire time Ely was gone, and was never as relieved as when his little brother came home for good and joined their family venture.
Chance, aptly named, was their baby brother—and hated being called that with a vengeance. He was also the risk-taker of the family. If it could launch him over a cliff, speed him around a track or take him thousands of feet over the earth, Chance was up for it.
He was also a crack shot and a martial arts expert. Jonas always told him he was overcompensating for being youngest and two inches shorter, though at a solid six feet, it hardly made a difference. In so many ways, easygoing Chance was more deadly than all of them put together because he seemed to have no fear of anything.
“Another couple of jobs well done,” Jonas murmured, proud of his brothers and wishing he could have felt as happy about his own work recently.
The Norfolk job, in particular, was one that James Rose had recommended them for. A high-profile case at a federal bank, it was a nice feather in their cap.
Not only had Jonas crossed a line almost sleeping with Tessa, but if anything had happened to her, he’d never have been able to forgive himself.
He was quite sure the senator would never forgive him, and Jonas only hoped that in time, they could still do business together.
He and Garrett made their way back out on the street. The air was even thicker than before, the humidity near smothering, though a warm wind blew around them. He could hear thunder in the distance rolling closer as wet drops splashed on his face.
“So what now?” Jonas said.
“I have some paperwork stacked up at the office,” Garrett said, walking along.
Jonas was faced with the paralyzing anxiety he’d had every day since coming home from the hospital. When he couldn’t work, he didn’t know what to do with himself. He used weights, listened to books, listened to TV, which was maddening. There wasn’t much he could do at the office.
He didn’t like being at loose ends, useless to those around him. His thoughts and emotions tangled in the darkness that was his life at the moment as they got in the car and drove slowly down the city street. Heavy raindrops hit hard on the outside of his brother’s car as a heavy gust of wind shook them.
Garrett started to say something when a crack of thunder and lightning boomed around them, and Garrett hit the brakes hard.
“What happened?” Jonas asked as they stopped cold.
“Tree down,” Garrett said, sounding apprehensive. “Just split and blocked the street right in front of us. This is getting bad fast. The office is closer than your apartment, so let’s head that way and hunker down there.”
Jonas murmured agreement, his thoughts still on Tessa, though they shouldn’t be. The humid air made her scent rise from his skin, and he swore he could still taste her from the kiss they’d shared that morning. The electric energy in the air from a nearby lightning strike seemed to exacerbate the memory.
He turned on the radio, listening to the storm warnings, trying to forget her, though he suspected it was going to take a very long time for that to happen.
“I SWEAR, LYDIA, I had no idea. It was such a shock. How could they not tell me that he’s blind?” Tessa asked for the fourth time, pacing the hard tile floor of the foundry, her voice breaking with misery. “And it’s because of me. My father had to know. He could have told me.”
It was starting to rain harder, the drops falling more heavily from a blackening sky; even though it was only midday, it looked like evening. The weather approximated her mood.
Lydia Hamilton, who owned the tattoo shop Body, Inc. next door to Au Naturel, looked on in sympathy as Tessa paced.
“Your dad has been traveling, and you know how he is. It’s not your fault, Tessa. These guys take risks every day,” Lydia said in her usual frank fashion. “It’s part of the work they do. It is a shame though. He was hot.”
“He still is. He’s blind, not maimed or dead,” Tessa said, thanking the universe for that, at least.
It was part of why she always resisted the protection her father pushed on her. She could never stand to think someone died trying to protect her. What made her so special?
“Jonas was so … angry. He has some idea that I was using him to get back at my father.”
“Well, that was your M.O. once,” Lydia said, sliding her a knowing look.
“Yeah, back in my twenties. Not for a long time. Believe me, it didn’t take long to figure out the jerks I dated to annoy my father didn’t make me happy, either. I can’t figure out why Jonas would think that. We got to know each other quite a lot in those few weeks. I thought he was starting to like me.” More than like.
“Well, he’s lost his sight. It’s a trauma. People have strange reactions to things like that. Maybe he just had to strike out at someone, and you were there.”
“I guess. But he was pretty specific about why he was angry with me.”
Never had Tessa imagined the degree of Jonas’s injury from that night. She remembered feeling reassured when she’d heard his voice as he talked to the EMTs when they had loaded him into the ambulance. She’d wanted to go with him, but the police wanted to talk to her about the attack, and then her father had sent Howie to check in on her, and everything was chaos for the rest of the night, with the press and trying to get rid of Howie.
“Are you sure he’s angry with you? Maybe he’s just upset in general?”
“Furious might be a better word.”
“Well, maybe wait it out, see what happens. He might come around.”
“I guess I shouldn’t have pushed the issue by throwing myself at him. If he had a bad opinion of me to start with, that didn’t help. I was just so hurt. By how he kept saying there was nothing between us.”
“So you wanted to prove that there was.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know. From what I saw, the way he used to look at you, a fool could tell he was crazy for you,” Lydia said, picking up a lotion sample and rubbing it into her hands, then smiling as she sniffed.
“I like this,” she interjected. “Is it new?”
“Yes. I meant to tell you about it—it’s a combination of gardenia extracts and spices.”
“Nice.”
“Well, I put the ball in his court. I told him if he wants me, he knows where I am. I’ll be damned if I’ll beg or humiliate myself any further.”
“Under the right conditions, I might consider begging if a guy like Jonas was interested in me,” Lydia said mischievously.
“You’re a bad influence, you know that?” Tessa said, smiling at her friend.
Lydia smiled sympathetically, which accentuated the small crescent moon tattooed at the corner of her lips. “So I’ve heard. If he’s smart, he’ll show up at that door and apologize. If he doesn’t, it’s his loss. You have to be able to move on.”
“I know.” Tessa sighed. “I just never really felt with any other man what I felt with him.”
“Then you haven’t been with enough men, my friend.”
“Again, the bad-influence thing.”
“I have to get back to the store,” Lydia said, looking upward as thunder crashed louder outside, offering Tessa a warm smile before she walked to the door. “I do love storms. I know you don’t. If you need company, just text me. I’m closing down early.”
“Okay,” replied Tessa as two other people walked into the store.
She didn’t expect any business in weather like this, and the two women struggled to get their umbrellas folded and left their raincoats on hooks by the door.
“Welcome to Au Naturel, ladies. You are a couple of determined shoppers, to be out in this weather,” Tessa said with a professional smile, helping them set their soaked umbrellas by the front window to dry.
“We had no idea the weather was going to be this bad, but we had to stop here before heading home,” one explained, pushing a handful of thick, auburn curls away from her face, smiling.
“I’m getting married this weekend, and I need to buy some items for my honeymoon. You know, maybe some scents that will drive him a little crazy? A friend of mine was raving about your honey dust?”
Tessa smiled. Her organic honey dust—a body powder made of honey that made women’s skin very soft and that was also very delicious to lick off—was one of her top-selling products.
“I have several new varieties,” she said. “I’m sure I can find something that will work for both of you,” she promised.
She had been working on a line of scents that were specifically for erotic stimulation, but many scents had arousing side effects.
Sage for boosting libido and quelling anxiety. Lavender to create a sense of comfort and safety, perhaps for lovers who were having rough times. Orange for joy and heightened sensitivity, and sandalwood, her favorite, to incite an air of earthy creativity, encouraging lovers to experiment and enjoy each other.
She was so excited about the new idea. Sex and scent were so closely aligned, more so than people imagined, but there were a lot of myths about scents, as well.
For instance, according to some studies, a woman’s sensitivity to musk scents was almost one thousand times more sensitive than a man’s, being that much more arousing for women than for men, as previously thought. Hence, musk colognes for women didn’t make much sense, depending on your sexual orientation.
Stopping for a moment, she closed her eyes, inhaling and remembering Jonas’s scent. He didn’t wear cologne, but he used a sandalwood soap that she had given him, and he had grudgingly admitted to liking it. She liked it, too. A lot.
She’d worn some scents including cinnamon and lavender around Jonas, the first known to arouse men and increase erections, the second providing comfort and an inviting aura.
People thought that sex happened in the brain, but the brain only processed all the things brought to it by other reaches of the body, like the nose or the mouth. Or the hands, the lips … and all the other parts she would like to share with Jonas.
Jonas had a very strong nose, and a firm, sensual mouth. She loved his hands. How he had closed his long fingers around her wrists earlier, even though he had been trying to stop her, still made a delicious shiver run down her spine.
“Miss?”
Tessa blinked, her cheeks warming as she realized she had completely lost track of the moment, and the two women were standing, gazing at her curiously.
“Oh, so sorry. I was thinking about which scents would be best for a bride on her honeymoon. Tell me a little more about your husband-to-be, his likes and dislikes, and your relationship. We can go from there,” Tessa said, pushing thoughts and worries about Jonas to the back of her mind as she listened and focused on her work.
There was no point in torturing herself with thoughts of him—that was clear from how he’d walked away earlier, rebuffing her concern.
An hour passed, and before she knew it, she was hustling the two women back out the door to the cab she had called for them. It was normally still light outside, but the storm had made it like night. The winds were picking up, the rain coming down harder.
She flipped the sign to Closed and stared out at the wind-whipped rain, wrapping her arms around herself and holding on as a roll of thunder made a ripping sound that had her hugging tight.
She hated storms because when she was a kid, lightning had hit their house outside her bedroom and had started a small fire. It wasn’t a major incident, the fire was put out before it became serious, but all she could remember was being shaken from a sound sleep by the crash of noise and blinding light, being hustled from her bed and then the sirens. Although lightning had started the fire, it was the thunder that always bothered her more.
She wished it was Jonas’s arms she had around her, but that didn’t look as if it was going to happen. When he was around, she hadn’t feared anything. He made her feel safe. But he wasn’t here, and he wouldn’t be. She would be riding this one out alone.
The best solution was work, to keep busy. It was her usual solution to disappointment and heartache.
Maybe she could make some new scents—rosewood, jasmine and lavender for healing a broken heart. Though right now, as her mind rolled over all that had happened, she knew it would take a lot more than aromatherapy to make her feel better.
But it was a beginning.
3
5:00 p.m.
JONAS FOCUSED AS he ran his fingers along the edge of the window frame where he used duct tape to attach plastic sheeting to the edge. His entire right side was soaked from the rain coming in while he worked, and the wind kept pushing the plastic around, but he managed, proving to himself that he wasn’t entirely useless.
A few minutes after they had gotten back to their offices, Garrett went to help a friend whose house was having some serious flooding in her basement.
Jonas smiled to himself. Melissa, the friend in question, was a particularly pretty friend who had been making no bones about her interest in Garrett. Jonas wondered how serious the flooding problem was, or if Garrett was going to have a little fun during the storm.
Good for him, if so. His brother deserved some of that particular variety of fun.
Ever the responsible one, Garrett had insisted Jonas come along with him, but Jonas had made a point of wanting to stay at the office, telling Garrett to go. He said he wanted to listen to some of the most recent recordings of case files, and that he would call a taxi to get home. Garrett seemed happy about Jonas’s apparent interest in work, and had grudgingly agreed but said he would keep his cell phone on.
Jonas didn’t plan to interrupt him.
Jonas also wasn’t exactly alone in the big old Victorian in West Philly that housed their offices, as well as a few other businesses, along with one apartment on the top floor. He’d heard sounds on the other side of the wall and assumed the insurance office that resided there was open if he needed anyone. He also had Irish to keep him company, though the big old tomcat who had adopted them the year before wasn’t being much help. Irish was about six, they figured, and had some nicks and scars from his battles before he’d found his home. In that respect, he fit perfectly with the Berringers, who all had their own set of scars and histories.
Jonas knew Irish was really a lover more than a fighter, though. The big male cat had been caught soothing a sick kitten that lived next door, and wooing the pretty calico upstairs.
Right now, Jonas glanced down when he heard the cat’s inquiring noise.
