Check Mate (9 page)

Jake munched on the apple. Mariah sat on the edge of the desk and unfolded the paper towel protecting the cheese.

When she held out her hand, offering him a slice of cheese, he eased up off the chair just enough to bring his lips in alignment with hers. She held her breath, waiting for his kiss.

Without breaking intimate eye contact with her, he took a piece of cheese, then whispered against her mouth,

"Thanks."

Tension wound tightly inside Mariah. "You're welcome." Even to her own ears, her voice sounded sultry and breathy. God, why was it that when he got so close to her, she turned into a hundred percent female, without a hint of the tough, highly trained federal agent about her? He brought out all her feminine instincts, reverting her into a primitive woman who needed a man for survival. Snap out of it right this minute, her common sense warned.

He eased back down in the chair without kissing her. Hit by a combination of bemusement and frustration, Mariah laid the paper towel on the desk and picked up the second apple. What was Jake playing now? she wondered. Hard to get? If so, then she'd simply turn the tables on him. Two can play that game.

Jeez, Mariah Colleen Daley, what's the matter with you? Even with Jake she couldn't shake the highly competitive side of her personality. She'd been born and bred on competition, a natural side effect of being not only the baby of four children, but the only girl in a family of three brothers. She'd had to fight, scratch, claw and play rough in order to survive. And as far back as she could remember, she'd thrived on keeping up with her brothers and doing her damnedest to outdo them. Her father, a Hillsboro, Ohio cop, had loved the fact that his daughter was a real scrapper.

And although she and her mother, a Southern gal from Lexington, Kentucky, had always maintained a close relationship, Marian had hero-worshiped her father. Heck, the whole town of Hillsboro had admired big Mike Daley.

Marian eased off the desk and strolled across the room, then flopped down on her bed and bit into the apple. Now wasn't the time for playing games. And it certainly wasn't the time to compete—in any way, shape, form or fashion—

with the man it was her sworn duty to protect. But try as she might, she found it difficult to see Jake Ingram as a helpless victim. Despite being kidnapped with his life now in constant danger, he didn't possess the demeanor of a victim. And even handcuffed and shackled, as he'd been when Burgess and Lester brought him to the cabin, he hadn't seemed helpless. It was that confident, self-assured attitude of his that made him seem invincible. Had that much self-confidence come naturally to him because he possessed a genius IQ?

"A penny for your thoughts," Jake said.

Marian took another bite from the apple, chewed and swallowed. "You like to play games and I like to compete. I guess it's the same thing. There's always a winner and a loser. And neither of us likes to lose."

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"And this great observation is leading up to...?"

"We shouldn't be playing games or competing. We need to cooperate. If we're going to get you safely away from the Coalition, we'll have to work together."

Jake nibbled on the cheese. "Hmmm."

"I'm the professional in this case. I believe you should follow my directions."

"Hmmm."

"Will you stop saying that!"

"You can plan the great escape tomorrow and I'll follow your directions to the letter," Jake told her. "But once we leave here, we're going to devise a plan to steal Gideon's disk from Coalition headquarters. And we'll do what can be done only from the inside—access the disk that will cut off the Coalition accounts."

"Leave that job to us. I've tried to explain how important your safety is to—"

"If you G-men—" Jake grinned "—could get to the disk, you'd already have it. So don't tell me to leave it to the professionals. I thought I'd made myself clear—nothing is more important to me than retrieving that disk."

Is it more important than Gideon's life? she almost asked, but clenched her teeth before she blurted out the information that was sure to prompt Jake into acting foolishly. Put yourself in his place, she told herself. If the Coalition was holding Michael or Steven or Patrick, what would you do? A big part of your professionalism would get lost in your personal concern for your brother. You'd take foolish risks. You'd leap into action and consider yourself a one-woman army.

She had to keep the information about Gideon's capture from Jake—just until she had placed him under guard with a team of Federal agents to protect him. He'd probably hate her for lying to him by omission, but she'd do whatever she had to do to keep him safe. Mariah prided herself on being a top-notch agent. To date, she had an exemplary record, and her accomplishments had been rewarded with several promotions. But saving Jake Ingram had become more than just an assignment. It had become, much to her dismay, very personal.

"I understand how you feel," she told him. "And I'm not going to waste my breath arguing with you. We need to concentrate on one goal at a time. And our first goal is to get away from here and out from under Burgess's and Lester's watchful eyes."

"Agreed." Jake finished off his slice of cheese and chased it down with a last bite of apple. "When I get back to civilization, I want a steak as big as my head."

"Would that be the actual size of your head or the figurative inflated ego size? The latter would mean a steak the size of Texas." Mariah took a huge bite out of her apple as she lifted her eyebrows and gave him a humorous glance.

Jake wiped his hands off on the wrinkled paper towel, then strode across the room, his gaze riveted to Mariah's face.

She gulped. And when he was almost upon her, she tossed the apple core on the nightstand and started scooting backward, inching away from him. She wasn't afraid of him, not in the normal sense of the word. But the way she felt about him unnerved her. She really didn't like the fact that this guy could turn her inside out with just a bold look. It wasn't like her to go all gushy-gooey over a man.

Yeah, but Jake Ingram isn't just any man, she reminded herself. He's
the
man. Her maternal grandmother would have said, "He's so Cary Grant." As far as Grandma Gloria was concerned, Cary Grant was the standard by which all other men on earth were judged. Mariah guessed there was a touch of Cary Grant in Jake, as well as a bit of Sean Connery's James Bond and maybe a hint of George Clooney's devil-may-care persona. And don't forget that the guy's a genius and about as physically perfect as a man can be, she reminded herself.

Keeping several inches separating their bodies, Jake leaned over Mariah. "Since we have a very busy day planned for tomorrow, I'm ready for bed. How about you?"

Mariah swallowed, then nodded. "You in your bed and me in mine."

"Aw shucks, ma'am, we can't have no fun in two separate beds."

"We aren't going to have any fun. We're going to get a good night's sleep."

"How can I sleep in my condition?" He lifted himself up just enough to give her a full view of his aroused state.

She knew she had to stop their sexual bantering before it went any further. "Have you forgotten that Burgess and Lester are downstairs and both men carry very big guns? We're in a dangerous situation here and it's hardly the time for fooling around."

Jake swooped down over her, bracing his hands on either side of her head, the handcuffs dangling from his left wrist. He straddled her hips with his knees. "What better time to release some pent-up energy than when we're facing danger and maybe even death?"

He had spoken the words in a light, humorous tone, but when Mariah looked deep into his eyes, she saw how deadly serious he was.

"No, Jake, we can't"

"Yes, Mariah, we can."

"No. I'm a federal agent on an assignment. I can't—"

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He cut off the rest of her sentence with a devouring kiss that took her breath away. The kiss was absolute perfection and had the desired effect. She melted like ice on asphalt in the summertime. Nothing could really be as wonderful as she thought this kiss was, could it? He continued the kiss, playing with her lips. Nipping. Licking. Oh, yes, this kiss was every bit as good as she thought it was. Maybe even better. When he eased his tongue inside, he slid his hand between them and undid the buttons on her shirt. She tossed back her head, exposing her throat and giving him a clear path from her lips, down her neck and to the front closure of her plain white bra. His quick, talented fingers undid the hook and shoved the cups away from her breasts. The dangling handcuff glided coolly over her hot skin. The moment he nicked his tongue across one nipple, she closed her eyes and sighed as her femininity clenched and unclenched.

Mariah wanted to touch his naked flesh. Tugging hard, she managed to free his shirt from his pants, enough to skim her palms up and over his rock-hard muscled chest. While exploring, she discovered a V-shaped thicket of curling hair that spread across his chest and down the center of his abdomen. She wanted to see him, but when he unsnapped her pants and slid his hand inside both her slacks and her panties, she bucked up, her body's needs quite obvious, as she forgot everything except her desire to have him bury himself deep inside her.

While Jake cupped her mound, she moved his shirt enough to kiss his neck and then his ear. He glided his fingers between her feminine lips and stroked her most sensitive spot. She writhed against his hand when he dipped two fingers inside her.

Nuzzling her neck, he whispered, "I love how hot and wet you are."

His fingers continued manipulating her intimately while his mouth moved from one breast to the other, giving each equal attention. A consummate lover, Jake knew how to bring a woman to the brink rather quickly. When she came, the explosion wild and fierce, Jake covered her mouth with his and captured her cry of satisfaction.

As she lay beneath him, panting and tingling while aftershocks rippled through her body, Mariah caressed his bulging sex through his pants. Jake eased off her and down on the bed beside her. When she turned over, she immediately reached for his belt buckle. No sooner had she released the buckle and unzipped his slacks than a loud knock pounded on the door.

"Hey, Doc, why have you got the door locked? You're not doing any unlawful experiments on our prisoner, are you?"

"Damn, it's Lester!" Mariah hissed the name through clenched teeth.

Six

"It happen to already be in my pajamas," Mariah responded. "Is there a reason why you've come upstairs to bother me?"

"Burgess is homesteading in the John, so he asked me to check on you before bedtime to make sure everything is okay with Ingram."

Jake shot off Mariah's bed, smoothed his shirt and plopped down on his bed, then handcuffed his wrist to the bedpost. Mariah undressed hurriedly, unconsciously giving Jake a quick striptease. He was already hard as a rock, and seeing her naked, no matter how briefly, made him break out in a cold sweat. If he didn't already want to rip Lester in two, the guy interrupting them at the worst possible moment—or was that the best possible moment?—was enough to bring out Jake's killer instincts.

After Mariah pulled her pajama bottoms up and jerked the top over her head, she glanced at Jake. The tension radiating between them was all but visible. Sexual energy charged the air. Mariah sucked in her breath, released it and headed toward the door, her bare feet padding softly on the wooden floor. She snapped the lock on the doorknob and cracked the door just enough to peer out at Lester. The little creep put his face up to hers and grinned. She jerked back in time to avoid their faces actually touching. If Lester had tried to kiss her, Jake figured she would have whipped his butt.

"Report back to Burgess that I have everything under control," Mariah said. "And tell him that I hope he feels better soon."

Lester grabbed the edge of the door. "You never did say why you locked the door."

"For privacy."

Lester grunted. "If Ingram got rowdy and you needed our help, we'd have to bust the door in, so how about keeping it unlocked?"

"Only if you swear to knock first and wait for me to open the door before you come barging in."

"That hurts my feelings, Doc. You're implying that I'm not a gentleman."

"Suffice to say that I'd never use your name and the world
gentleman
in the same sentence."

"You like talking all highfalutin, don't you? But I know an insult when I hear it.'' Lester shoved open the door, almost knocking Mariah down in the process. When she took a defensive stance, he paused just after crossing the
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threshold. "Maybe you prefer Ingram's company to mine since he's a genius and some sort of new and improved human being." Lester glared at Jake. "Hell, for all I know, maybe his John Thomas is twice the size of mine."

Jake wondered how long it would take before Mariah lost all patience with this jackass and put a couple of big knots on his thick skull. He could tell by the tense way she stood, her eyes narrowed to mere slits and just a hint of color in her cheeks, that she was ready to explode.

"Lester?" Mariah said his name in a sultry, feminine tone.

"Huh?" He snapped around and stared at her, melting into a puddle of white-trash desire.

She walked toward him. Slowly. A smile on her face. Then before Lester knew what had hit him, Mariah grabbed his arm, twisted it behind his back and added just the right amount of pressure.

"You're leaving this room." Forcing him into motion, she escorted him out into the hall. "You're going downstairs and you're not coming back up here tonight. Do you understand?"

Lester glowered at her. She increased the pressure on his arm. He struggled for half a second before the pain got the best of him and he yelped his surrender. "Okay. Okay. Don't break my friggin' arm."