Guarded Heart (7 page)

Yes, she’d let him take it too far. He didn’t have to remind
her.

Why hadn’t she stopped him? Would she have let him do
anything short of intercourse? There was nothing in the contract about avoiding
one and not the other. She’d been in the wrong on all of it.

It wasn’t the first time a client had made a pass at her.
But it was the first time she’d wanted one to.

Why
Morgan
?

The thrill she’d experienced upon hearing him baldly profess
his lust for her and her alone hadn’t been the cause. Brook wasn’t certain when
she’d moved past derision to the land of
need
but it had been before
that. Perhaps when he’d threatened to disrobe her the next time she was in
formalwear without underthings.

He certainly hadn’t waited for her to test him.

Foolish. Stupid.
Reckless.
She’d endangered her
promotion. For no good reason.

And yet huddled in the corner, trying to ignore the
throbbing between her legs, Brook’s perception was skewed. She’d thought she
had a really good reason minutes ago.

Stupid overemotional Water witch.
No matter how hard
she tried to banish them, her emotions always plagued her.

Morgan banged out of the limo at the first opportunity. She
thanked Neptune she’d had the presence of mind to check for sentience before he
burst into the lake house without her. Then she heard it—the
click
, the
whoosh
.

And the explosion.

Too late Morgan comprehended the sound behind him. White
light blinded as heat pressed along his rib cage. He’d feel it soon. Pain would
flash across his skin—searing, horrendous pain.

And yet, it didn’t.

“Morgan!”

Brook’s shout brought him out of his frozen pose within the
kitchen—the kitchen she hated because of the windows. The windows hadn’t been
his downfall.

Though heat did flash across his body, it didn’t sear.
She’d
done something. Morgan glanced down as he clambered out of the building.
Shimmering blue coated his skin. Armor.
Water
armor. Why hadn’t he
thought of that?

Because I’ve never needed protection until now.

Before he realized he’d moved, he was in Brook
’
s arms. She maneuvered him back to the
limousine. Morgan barely noted the movement of his own feet but soon he was
half in her lap and half on the backseat. Her fingers brushed over his face,
his scalp, his neck. He let his eyelids flutter closed, enjoying her touch.

His next thought was to wonder if she would have been able
to protect herself if she’d been first over the threshold. She could have died
protecting him. He reached up, curling his fingers around her head to bring her
down. Brook didn’t fight him until his lips feathered along hers.

“Morgan,” she warned in a soft, un-Brook-like tone—one he
hoped he’d hear under better circumstances.

“You would have died,” he said.

She said nothing, instead hitting the button to speak with
the driver. “Have you called the fire department?”

“Yes ma’am. And the police,” the driver said.

“Thank you.”

Brook ran a hand over Morgan
’
s
forehead and along his hair. “We’ll find someplace to hole up once we’ve spoken
with the authorities.”

“I don’t want to speak to the authorities,” Morgan said. “I
don’t want to be around humans.”

I only want to be around you.

“I know. But whoever is after you got into your home. Though
we can’t hide you forever, we can hide you tonight. We’ll throw them off the
scent by switching to a different car. And going elsewhere.”

Tormenting lust aside, Morgan knew Irvin had been right.
Brook was the perfect person for this situation. And this time he wouldn’t
fight her on anything.

“I’ll do whatever you need,” he whispered.

Even if it meant he suffered from blue balls for the rest of
his life.

* * * * *

Brook’s adrenaline high had crashed sometime between
speaking to the fire chief and the first police detective’s questioning. She
stood in the bathroom of their rented room hours later, splashing cool water on
her flushed face. She was exhausted.

Morgan had roused from his shock halfway through the
authorities’ interrogation. He’d assisted her with weaving the story of how the
house had blown up yet Morgan had miraculously emerged unscathed—and persuading
them to
believe
it. But she’d used plenty of energy prior to his
assistance. Not to mention the magic she’d drawn when she’d held the fire at
bay for the seconds it had taken Morgan to break out of the exploding house.

He’d yet to lament his loss. Or to blame her for getting
into the situation in the first place. Curiously, his first comment had been
how
she
would have died. And he’d been pretty broken up over it.

She
’
d
understood the Ranger’s rule to maintain professionalism in a vague way prior
to this job. Now she understood it intimately. If she’d maintained control of
the situation in the car, Morgan never would have rushed off without her.

He
’
d assured
her he’d do whatever she wanted but Morgan hadn’t been the problem.
She
was. It was high time she show why she was the best Water witch Ranger in the
corps.

Brook examined her outfit. The silky gown was wrinkled and
stained with sweat. It was all she had. Her belongings—everything she claimed
as hers in this world—had gone up in the explosion. Dismay twisted her insides
when she thought of the photographs she’d lost. Memories were all she had of
her mother now.

But Brook was alive. And so was Morgan.

Her lids slipped shut upon recalling the recent horror. That
telltale
click
from within the building had stopped her heart. The hot
flash had struck her blood as surely as lightning arcing into a rod. The
thought present in her mind hadn’t been her lost promotion. No, she’d thought
of how she’d never again see Morgan’s eyes darkened in desire. Instinct had
wrapped him in armor. She’d hardly realized she’d done it. And then as he’d
stood still, Brook had nearly gone after him despite the danger it would have
brought to them both. While she could hold armor for one amidst an exploding
building, she wasn’t certain she could have handled two.

Fortunately it hadn’t come to that. He’d stumbled out. Into
her arms. She’d not cared about the vows, the rules or her promotion. Brook had
cared only that she could feel his chiseled cheek, whole beneath her fingers,
and that he still breathed.

She opened her eyes, gazing at the figure in the mirror.
Determination stared back. Brook had acknowledged her feelings. Now she would
bury them so she could focus on the job.

Recklessness had nearly cost them both. It wouldn’t happen
again. No matter how she wished it would.

Morgan sat on the end of the bed staring sightlessly into
the mirror behind the tube television. His bow tie hung unfastened about his
neck. The white shirt was rumpled and sooty. He’d removed the tux jacket the
moment they’d stepped into the room. That was as far as he’d gone.

He didn’t trust himself to remove more.

Even though Brook had saved his life and he’d vowed to do
everything she said, he still wanted her. Not a minute had passed since then in
which he hadn’t contemplated how he could twist the situation to suit his
needs. So much for the vow he’d made to himself hours ago.

With a low groan, he dropped his head into his palms. It was
insanity but he didn’t want the investigation to end. His home had been
destroyed. Three times he’d come close to death. He should want the situation
wrapped up. Yet he understood why he clung to an illogical wish. When Brook
discovered who had tried to kill him, she would hop on the first plane out of
Indiana.

She’d pulled her empathic link back when she’d searched out
the collection of humans around the cottage. It was the only way he’d been able
to keep anything from her. She’d better keep her magic to herself tonight or
they’d be in for a long, sleepless block of hours.

His head came up when the bathroom door clicked open. Brook
stepped out, barefoot and pink. She’d washed her face but little more. Without
her makeup, clad in wrinkled satin and sporting unruly hair, she was painfully
sexy. It didn’t help that he knew what the navy fabric hid. His cock stirred
uncooperatively.

“You can have the bed,” he said in his gruffest voice.

“I sleep better on the floor.”

It was matter-of-fact. Spoken without glancing at the
generic hotel furniture. Did she truly prefer the floor? He couldn’t imagine
the carpet would be comfortable. Yet she’d not complained while she’d stretched
out on his floor for two nights.

“You don’t have your mat,” he said.

Brook walked for the door, hiding her features from him. “I
don’t need it.”

Dismay.
He didn’t know how he knew it. It hadn’t
colored her steady reply. And he didn’t have a link to her. Yet he knew. She
was dismayed about something. He desperately wanted to know what.

“About what happened in the car—”

“It’s over,” Brook said as she unlocked and relocked the
door’s three bolts. “Let’s move on.”

He didn’t want to move on. He certainly didn’t want
her
to.

Morgan spoke to her shoulder blades while she checked the
door’s upper casing. “I almost died today.”

“You almost died last week as well.”

She wasn’t helping. Especially not when she crouched,
checking the space beneath the door—for what, he couldn’t guess. Certainly not
when he imagined what her ass looked like beneath that gown.

In that pose, with her rump thrust up, he’d get a teasing
glimpse of her passage—if she flipped the skirt up like he’d fantasized she
would. Need flared within him as hot as the explosion that had nearly destroyed
more than his home.

He opened his mouth. “Near-death experiences make a witch
think,” he emitted hoarse words.

A languid motion brought her upright. Gracefully she twirled
until she faced him. “You’re still coming down off the rush. You need sleep, a
shower, a change of clothing and a good meal. Tomorrow you can tell me what a
witch thinks after a near-death experience.” With a flick of her finger, she
said, “Lie back.”

Scents of beach grass and ocean breezes filled his nostrils
as his legs pushed him flat onto the bed. She’d lassoed him with a new empathic
link. Morgan could fight it. He was the more powerful witch.

“Close your eyes,” her voice soothed.

His lids fluttered closed.

“Sleep, Morgan.”

He slept.

Brook had stripped Morgan of choice. He’d make her pay for
it. But the man had been exhausted prior to the explosion. He never would have
admitted he needed the help. She’d deal with his anger. Tomorrow.

First she needed to get some rest of her own.

Her action had nothing to do with not wanting to hear what
that heartfelt voice was about to say. Better he be alert and angry to tell her
whatever it was he’d meant to share. Even better would be if he forgot he’d
intended to share something at all.

Secure that he’d sleep all night but insecure in the rented
room, Brook stretched out along the edge of the bed. Anyone gunning for the
regional priest would have to go through her first.

Her confidence was shaken on many levels. At this point in
an investigation she typically had more than a few hunches to go on. But in
this case she was still in the dark despite several days of scouring bank
transactions of prominent area members of the Underground. Now her computer
access had gone up in flames.

She allowed herself a few moments to observe Morgan. The
steady rise and fall of his chest was promising. He’d not fought her persuasion.
Perhaps he’d wanted her help after all.

His pose flat on his back in the formalwear didn’t look
comfortable but he wouldn’t notice it. However… Brook gently tugged at the bow
tie hanging from his neck. It could catch on something and strangle him.

And the collar rubbing his collarbone would be an irritant
he
would
grumble over in the morning when he noted the raw, red ring it
would no doubt cut. She popped to her knees and worked the top button through
its hole. Her fingers dropped to the second. And the third, all the way to the
one stuck halfway beneath his slacks. Brook pulled at the garment, ignoring the
way the upper portion spread, revealing golden skin. Final buttons unfastened,
she pushed the shirt to either side of his body.

White fabric contrasted with smooth, golden muscle. He was
just the right combination of soft and smooth—no hard edges and deep crevices
of a muscle-bound jock but also no lumpy deposits beneath the skin of someone
with a love of junk food.

Pale hair sprinkled his pectoral muscles before it arrowed
down to where her hands hovered. If the shirt would dig into his skin, the
slacks would too. And he’d be happier if he didn’t sweat the night away in his
only clothes.

Brook’s fingers trembled above his zipper. She was being
ridiculous. It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a male nude. Rangers weren’t
celibate. They were merely discreet. Besides, Morgan had on boxers, briefs or
something
underneath. He wouldn’t be nude.

Now she needed to know which. For scientific reasons.

He was an uptight kind of guy. He’d wear uptight
undergarments. She’d bet herself twenty bucks that was the case.

Brook brought the zipper down, peering between the placket
for the answer.
Science
, she silently reiterated as she tugged the
waistband down his hips. Science and his
comfort
. Moments later the
unconscious figure of Morgan Seaton lay half nude atop his shirt.

Boxers. She owed herself twenty bucks.

Better still, they were
silk
boxers. She’d never have
guessed that. Maybe she ought to owe herself
forty
.

Damn. He was a fine-looking male. He’d been a cute kid. Age
suited him. Morgan would be one of those frustrating males who only got better
each year that passed.

Good for him.

Brook folded his slacks so they could be set aside where
he’d find them once she allowed him to wake. She added the bow tie to the
stack. Carefully she rolled him to one side so she could tug the shirt from
beneath him. One more roll to the opposite side freed the garment.

She hung the clothes in the closet near the bathroom. Upon rounding
the corner, she was struck by how gorgeous he truly was. The shadowed room
darkened his sculpted cheeks. In sleep his features were relaxed—innocent the
way she often imagined he was.

But he wasn’t untouched by life and its hardships. Someone
had tried to kill him, three times. And yet he’d persisted in protecting
everyone else around him first. Innocence was not Morgan’s flaw. His was an
unfortunate faith in the goodness of others.

Brook wasn’t good. If she were, she wouldn’t contemplate
taking her pleasure from him in his vulnerable state—the state
she’d
put
him in. She wouldn’t consider abusing the trust he’d placed in her to satisfy
urges she shouldn’t experience. No, if she’d deserved the faith he had in her,
she wouldn’t want to strip the rest of his clothing from him like he’d done to
her in the car.

Yet, he
hadn’t
had faith in her. Brook was the one
individual Morgan had always disapproved of. Only the unfortunate circumstances
he found himself in had softened his opinion of her. When she captured his
attacker, Morgan would put her in her place.

So why shouldn’t she look?
He
had looked at her.
Morgan had taken greater liberties with her body than she intended with his.
They would be even if she stripped off the last of his garments.

Justification resolved, Brook stalked across the room to the
edge of the bed. She settled her hands to the narrow band circling his hips.
And pulled.

Morgan moaned in his sleep when the fabric tugged at his
member. She didn’t allow herself to look until the silk fell to the floor
beside the bed.

Rather like the rest of him, he was neatly made—not large
but neither could he be called small. Flaccid, he claimed several inches of
pink skin. She imagined how he’d look with a full-on erection. The image was
incomplete without his pale gaze holding hers, lids languid with desire. For
her.

Brook wasn’t sure how long she’d stood staring. But his
quiet sigh and the shifting of his body to the left sent her retreating back to
the bathroom. This time she was the one in need of a cold shower.

Only unlike Morgan, there was no one she could call to
soothe her need.

* * * * *

He was nude. Morgan had been fully clothed when he’d fallen
asleep. Now he was sprawled on the hotel bed in the buff.

Cautiously he lifted his head off the pillow to verify what
he already knew. There were no other emotional signatures in the room. He was
alone.

Though there was an indentation on the opposite side of the
bed, the covers hadn’t been thrown back. He glanced over the sides of the bed
to make sure Brook wasn’t reclined where she’d insisted she slept better. There
was no indication of anyone having slept atop the beige carpet.

But his boxers were on the floor. As if he’d slipped them
over his thighs before he’d dropped. He hadn’t.

Had he?

Morgan would remember sex. He would
not
forget sex
with Brook Lochlan…Brook
Calder
. He checked his cock. It was as clean as
he recalled it being.

No, there’d been no sex.

Just what had happened? And where was Brook?

Morgan glanced at the clock. Twelve after seven. He padded
to the window. There he checked for the rental car Brook had said she’d get in
the morning. What he found instead was the sun in his eyes, from the
west
.
It wasn’t seven in the
morning
. It was seven at
night
!

He stalked to the bathroom and relieved himself so he could
dress. He
’
d go in search of her if
she wasn
’
t back before he
finished. Morgan had shoved his hands beneath the faucet’s warm stream when the
phone rang. The room phone. He twisted the knob, snatching at a towel as he
ran.

“Hello?”

“You shouldn’t be answering the phone,” Brook said.

He ignored the scold because she’d known he’d answer it or
she wouldn’t have bothered calling. “Where are you, Brook?”

“Getting the car.”

“Why did you let me wake if you weren’t here?”

“I didn’t let you wake.”

Morgan stared at the bed’s indentation where she’d no doubt
slept. Inches from him. For hours. In that gown that would have brought lusty
thoughts to any man. “Then how did you know to call me?”

“Don’t leave. I’ll be back soon.”

“Brook—”

“And stay away from the windows and doors. I don’t need you
picked off by a lucky shot.”

The line went dead before he could protest. His jaw set in
familiar frustration. Morgan dropped the phone onto its cradle and then plunked
down onto the bed. He rolled onto his back, drawing his knees up with a sigh
that brought his stomach into his spine.

She’d kept him asleep too long. True, he’d needed to catch
up. But his covens no doubt wondered what had happened to him. Morgan needed to
reassure them he was fine.

His stomach rumbled. He’d not eaten since dinner last night.
But it wasn’t food he craved most. Maybe it was good Brook hadn’t been in the
room when he’d woken.

He started for the bathroom, already knowing what he’d do
next. She’d mocked him for it last night. Given her behavior after he’d nearly
fucked her in the back of the limo, he was certain she’d prefer he take the
edge off while she was gone.

Beneath the steamy water, he fantasized what he’d do to her
when she returned. How he’d hear the door open when he stepped dripping from
the shower. And how he’d slam her against the wall, rasping in her ear that he
owed her a magical manipulation. The threat of forcing her to magically submit
would be enough of a tease that he wouldn’t have to actually go through with
it. She would stand motionless while he kneaded her breasts beneath the satin
gown he’d never forget. Her eyelashes would flutter and she’d moan as she had
in the car.

He came against the tub surround with surprising force.
Reality soaked in.

His vow. Her job.

He soaped the rest of his body with efficient motions.
Minutes later he was dry and clad in the tuxedo pants and loose dress shirt. He
took one of the cushioned chairs to the left of the bed and then flipped on the
television for a bit of mindless entertainment.