Hold on Tight (8 page)

He looked big—bigger and more powerful than he’d looked even a year earlier.

Without her heels, she stood five foot eight and still she had to strain to look up at him and found she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

“Can I help you with something?” He sounded angry at her, which, truth be told, happened nearly all the time since Maggie had died and he’d gone out of control and Jules hadn’t known how to help.

They’d been so young. And she still didn’t have a clue as to what Chris needed. “The people you rescued—the woman, Natalie, she’s my friend.”

“Your friend should’ve stayed in the States, making movies.” Chris put both hands on the shower rod and leaned against it as he waited.

“You look good, Chris. Really good.”

“So do you, Jules. But that was never the problem between us.” Without warning, his hands moved; he worked the ring off her left hand—the product of her faked-for-the-press engagement to a fellow actor—and flung it across the bathroom and then he picked her up and brought her, fully dressed, into the shower with him.

She didn’t protest, not when he pulled her shirt up or when he pushed her leather skirt down; she didn’t care about ruined makeup or clothing or anything when she was in Chris’s arms.

He’d been so right—this was never, ever the problem. It was just so complicated between them, always so off balance.

This time didn’t feel any different and she wondered why she’d come here at all.

Nostalgia. Love, for sure, but not the kind that he could live with for the rest of his life.

Jules wasn’t the woman he wanted pressed against him; he was kissing her and picturing Jamie and that wasn’t fair to either of them.

The thing of it was, he was pretty damned sure Jules was picturing someone else when she kissed him too. It was just so familiar and comfortable. But it had to stop.

The shower was too damned small for a foursome. “Jules, I can’t.”

“Are you hurt?” When she’d first come in, she’d stared at him like she was seeing him for the first time. She always did that after she found out about one of his near-death experiences, which thankfully didn’t happen all that often. Now there was a regret in her eyes that matched the way he felt.

With her makeup washed off, she looked so much like the sixteen-year-old he’d fallen for, could still remember the astonished look she’d given him when she’d discovered him in the school’s parking lot, preparing to hot-wire her classic Mustang convertible, two weeks after first catching sight of him in the cafeteria.

“What are you doing? Are you actually trying to steal my car?” Long-limbed, tan, every high school boy’s dream, Jules should’ve been far out of his reach. She was a junior to his freshman; she barely even looked at the senior boys but Chris knew he’d try anything to be with her, as surely as he knew he had to take her car for a spin
.

“Won’t be stealing if you give me the keys,” he drawled calmly, seconds from pulling the wires out from under the dashboard. The car smelled like her—a combination of sugar and suntan lotion and wild times
.

Her neon blue eyes blazed with anger … and with something else too. “I’m not—”

“I just want a ride. Give me the keys.”

She’d handed them over, but had scrambled into the passenger side next to him. “Do you even have a license?”

“No. Never needed one where I grew up.”

“Where’s that?”

He’d turned to her and grinned. “I’ll tell you after I kiss you.”

“There’s someone else, isn’t there?” Jules was asking now.

“Yeah, there’s someone else.”

Jules simply nodded—she pulled away from him and he got out of the shower and helped her out as well.

“I’ll grab you some clothes,” he told her before he gave her the only towel and left the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

Shit
.

It was already well past seven at night. He’d slept for most of the day, woke to Nick making him dinner. He’d eaten, even though he wasn’t hungry, and then he headed up the stairs, to his own shower and his own room. Everything just the way he’d left it, except it wasn’t the same.

He grabbed another towel from the hall closet, just as Jake bounded up the stairs.

“Hey, have you seen—?”

Chris pointed toward the door.

“Ah.” Jake looked between the door and Chris, his eyebrows raised. “I’ll just leave you two alone, then.”

Obviously, Jake hadn’t sent Jules up here—but Jules being Jules refused to listen to anyone but herself. It was one of her most endearing qualities, since he and his brothers had pretty much the same philosophy. But in this situation, Chris wished she’d have listened to reason.

Still, he was going to make sure that one woman listened to reason tonight, no matter how hard Jamie protested.

“Yes. For years. She knows I work for the FBI—she wouldn’t do something like this.”

“Give me her number anyway.”

“Fine.” She’d be less one housekeeper for sure after this. Maybe that was for the best—she’d never liked that Mike had given an outsider a key to their home. Then again, Mike hadn’t ever realized just how much of an outsider to her life he actually was. “My sister’s back.”

Kevin glanced up from where he was dusting for prints. “She came to see me yesterday. I told her you were out of town. I thought maybe she’d stay here once you returned.”

Jamie didn’t respond and he didn’t press. Instead, he bagged up the fingerprinting he’d done. “I’ll have my guy run this tonight. Why don’t you come and stay with me?”

God, she wanted to say no, that she could take care of herself. That she had a weapon. But convincing Kevin to take no for an answer wouldn’t be an easy task and she couldn’t blame him. There were too many variables.

“It’s late. I’ve got protection.” They both knew that was code for
Grace won’t appreciate it
. Kevin’s wife had reluctantly taken in the girls, and while they easily thought of Kevin as a father, Grace had always remained Grace, a woman who regarded them with equal amounts of displeasure and fear.

Although Jamie had never understood what had attracted Kevin to Grace in the first place, she now understood that love—or lust—led you to strange, dark places.

“It could be Alek.” She spoke the name of the man who’d hunted her family for years—their reason for going into witness protection—and tasted the bitterness on her tongue.

“Could be,” Kevin agreed. “But that’s highly unlikely. You know as well as I do that being stalked is not uncommon for an agent. Current cases?”

“No one who’d do this,” she muttered.

“That’s what they all say, but you’re not in the business of making the people you arrest or their families happy. I want you to write up a list of your cases from the last year—flag anyone you’re worried about … or should be. I’m assigning a team.”

“You’re overreacting.”

Kevin slid his coat off. “If you’re not leaving, I’m staying here tonight.”

“I don’t need a team, Kevin.”

“You do. At least for a little while.” He motioned for her to sit and that seasick sway feeling took over again. Stubbornly, she remained upright, refusing to even grab the back of the couch to support her.

“Tell me what you’re so worried about,” she insisted.

“Gary Handler’s escaped.”

Mike’s killer. The man who shot her. “When?”

“Two nights ago, when they were transferring him,” he admitted. “You were still out of the country. Lou called me—we decided not to worry you unnecessarily. We have our best men on it. We assumed he’d be trying to get out of the country. But once you told me what happened …”

“Shit.” She did sit finally, crossed her legs in front of her in a perfect yoga pose that her instructors had told her would relax her but still felt more stressed than ever. “You should have told me immediately. I’m not a child.”

“I know that. I also know he’s got no reason to come after you. You have enough pressure, Jamie. Enough worries. This shouldn’t be one of them.”

If Kevin only knew. “Somehow, I don’t see Handler as the type to rearrange my furniture.”

“No, he definitely doesn’t fit that pattern. And for him to get your address …” Kevin trailed off. “Give me your list of suspects and I’ll run them by the profiler.”

“I don’t want Lou to know anything about Alek.”

“He won’t,” Kevin promised. He’d kept every promise he’d ever made to her, and she had no reason to believe he’d break one now.

She knew Kevin as well as he knew her—he was remaining calm for her. Agreeing with her that after all these years, this could not be the nightmare he’d hoped was behind her and PJ for good. Agreeing that Handler, actually the lesser of two evils, was a real threat.

“Kevin, it could’ve also just been someone messing with me—kids pulling a prank. Nothing was stolen,” she reasoned.

“It spooked you enough to call me.”

“I always call you—it’s in the rules.”

“Yes, you and your sister follow the rules so well,” Kevin had muttered, his hand still on his phone, ready to call in and tell them he couldn’t take the job that night.

“Look, it’s weird, yes. But let’s both try not to make more of it than it is—that would help me,” she’d told him, and reluctantly he had agreed.

And in his absence had stationed two undercover marshals outside her house. They nodded to her when Kevin introduced them to her and then went back to their post, no questions asked. She was sure they owed her foster father favors and equally sure Kevin had told them only the bare bones of her situation.

As much as she hated needing the protection, she was grateful that she didn’t have to be on full alert, not when the migraine that had been threatening since last night had gotten a full hold on her.

She’d taken Tylenol earlier in the vain hope it would help—a futile way to try to gain control over the pain. But with the pregnancy test showing positive, until she decided what to do, anything stronger was out.

Instead of putting her clothes back into the drawers, she decided to wash all of them—didn’t like the idea of an intruder touching her things. So she put in loads of laundry and she wiped down her dressers and inside the drawers and put the mirror back in place … all while trying not to think about Chris.

Yet he weighed on her mind more heavily than PJ or Gary or anything else.

Finally, the comforter for the bed was dried. She planned on spending the rest of the evening in bed with her gun and an ice pack. But before she could head toward the kitchen to grab the ice, she heard Chris calling out her name.

Chris
.

How the hell had he gotten in here?

She hated the way she wanted to run to him. She’d never wanted to do that with anyone, never needed comforting in that way. “I’m in my room.”

She heard her front door shut, and then, “What’s going on? Why are there men guarding your house?” he called out as she turned and walked to the living room, to catch him before he barreled into her bedroom. He wore a green bandanna tied around his head, jeans, a T-shirt and on his right side a gun stuffed into his pants. He looked good. And worried.

“This has nothing to do with the case.” She grabbed the couch tightly, hoped he couldn’t see her death grip on it, even as the throbbing pain on the side of her head intensified.

“Is this about PJ?” He obviously wasn’t going anywhere until she told him what was happening—and then he
definitely
wouldn’t leave. Her own personal wall of security.

“It’s nothing; my house was broken into. My foster father’s overreacting.”

Chris’s eyes blazed. “Dammit, Jamie, just because you carry a gun doesn’t mean you should stay here like a sitting duck. Especially not now.” He muttered something to himself, sounded like he was speaking a foreign language—French, maybe.

“I’m not being driven out of my home by what could just be a break-in.”

He cocked his head to the side, not buying it at all. “If you’re staying, I’m staying.”

“No way.”

“I’ll camp out in the backyard if I have to.” He stood stubbornly in front of her, feet planted, towering over her, daring her to challenge him.

It was a magnificent sight really, and had this been any other situation, she would’ve stopped to admire him. But staying on her feet was becoming impossible, something Chris noticed before she did, because in seconds she was in his arms and being carried toward her bedroom.

Protesting further was suddenly far too much work. All she wanted to do was stay cradled in Chris’s strong arms, lying on her bed with him as his hands worked their magic. The pain eased marginally, enough for her to talk.

“You were right. About me being pregnant,” she told him as his hands massaged her neck. “I hate it that you were right, that you knew before I did.”

“I know.”

“Right, psychic. Forgot,” she mumbled.

“Nothing to do with that. I’ll be back in a second.”

He eased away from her and then she heard the water running in the bathroom. He was back quickly with a damp washcloth that he placed on her forehead. “This has some rubbing alcohol on it—it should help.”

“That feels good,” she mumbled.

“Hold it there,” he instructed. She did, remained upright at his request as he took a spot behind her, began to massage her shoulders and her neck again. “You’re still tense as hell.”

“Pain does that to a person.”

“I thought you were going to blame me, so I’ll take that answer.” He paused. “Those men aren’t FBI—I’m not getting you in trouble by being here.”

“They’re not FBI,” she agreed. But the trouble part … he had no idea. “You have good hands.”

“You’ve mentioned that before. In Africa, the first time.” He paused. “And the second time too.”

She tried to hold back a small, snorted laugh but couldn’t. The throb had receded to a dull ache but the pain still threatened to come back as bad as it had been. His thumbs dug into the soft, slightly tender flesh by her neck and it hurt, but she let him do it, knowing that by easing that tension, she would feel better.

She wasn’t sure how long he worked on her, but at some point she realized his hands were up under her shirt, palms on her bare skin.

“Better for the energy this way,” he’d murmured, not trying anything beyond the massage. And as the tension in her neck and shoulders was relieved, the pain became bearable. “How long have you had migraines?”

“As long as I can remember. They’re not from stress,” she added quickly. “People always think they are, but they’re not.”

He didn’t say anything to that. She pulled the washcloth away from her face and he took it from her and put it across the back of her neck. The damp fabric was still cool enough, the alcohol made her skin tight and tingly.

“I’m sorry for last night. I didn’t mean to slam in here and lay all that crap on you,” he said, his voice rough with leftover emotion.

“It wasn’t crap,” she said softly.

The bed dipped with his weight, and she turned to look at him. Propped on one elbow, he stretched across the mattress like a big cat taking in the sun. Relaxed, almost lazy; yet Jamie knew there was nothing lazy about him. “The pain is better. You need to leave.”

“You can’t stay alone. Who’s going to take care of you?”

“Never needed anyone to do that. I suspect you never have either.”

“That’s true. But I like being taken care of,” he said. “You took care of me in Africa. And I liked it.”

“You were hurt.” She stared at him. “You still are.”

“Little bit.”

“Most men don’t like women fawning over them.”

“Jamie, you don’t exactly fawn. You’re just capable as anything.”

“Yeah, only a headache can bring me down. God, these suck.” She put the washcloth onto the night table and shifted to lean up against the headboard. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I know that, you keep telling me that. But I do a lot of things I shouldn’t, and stopping now doesn’t seem all that appealing to me. So shut up and try to relax; you look like hell.”

“You sure know how to compliment a girl.”

He smiled—not his typical wide grin but close enough to make her want to reach across the space between them and stroke his cheek. Just being near him was helping her pain—she wasn’t sure why or how, but she wouldn’t knock it.

“We’ve finally got a bed and I can’t make good use of it.” His voice was husky, low and sexy—and half-joking too, but not really.

Disappointment coursed through her, because yes, between the headache and the men planted outside the house, coupled with the investigation, it was all impossible.

Six feet nearly seven inches of impossible lying close enough for his hand to reach out and rest on hers.

There was so much between them—time spent together in Africa, that first trip that bonded them more quickly than she’d ever have thought and the investigation now that threatened to tear them apart as fast.

She should be telling him again to get out of her house, that she was in danger in so many different ways—that she
was
danger—but she didn’t say a word beyond his name, a whisper she wasn’t sure he heard.

He did, moved close to her, and she cupped his neck to bring his mouth to hers.

The kiss was soft but threatened to go to maximum implode within seconds. And one small tilt of her head was enough for her to feel a warning throb of pain return.

He sensed it, pulled away and murmured, “I can give you some more relief, baby—for a few minutes, at least.”

She’d take anything at this point, especially if he could continue to simply touch her … but she never expected what he did next.

He climbed behind her so his back was against the headboard and eased her against his chest with her body between his legs. She immediately felt his arousal and she wondered how it was possible for her to feel so crappy and so turned on at the same time.

“In Africa, on the plane, you looked so goddamned sexy, with your shirt all hiked up and your hair down …”

His hands traveled along her T-shirt as he spoke; he pushed the soft cotton up around her breasts, baring her still flat belly, and then one hand continued downward, slipping under the waistband of her shorts and between the juncture of her thighs. “And then, when I held your hands over your head and got you naked, and you tried to tell me you hated me …”

“I was lying.”

“I know.”

She licked her lips, which were suddenly very dry. “We connected then, you know that.”

“Yeah.”

Her brain screamed,
Stop him, stop this
, but her body had turned traitor and it wasn’t going back. She held her breath for a second as his fingers moved to the cleft between her legs, began to stroke the warm, wet flesh with a persistent pressure that threatened to make her forget everything. She let a small moan escape, the one that had been drumming up in her throat since his hands began their exploration of her body.

He heard it too, pressed a kiss to the side of her neck, and for several blissful minutes she was pain-free. Her skin was warm and damp and while his fingers touched her, she imagined he was naked next to her, skin to skin, and nothing else was in their way—not the headache or the investigation or her past.

“So pretty, Jamie … you look so pretty right now,” he murmured as his free hand danced over her nipples, which felt ripe and taut under his caresses. The combination of pain and pleasure nearly proved to be too much and she screwed her eyes shut and tried to jerk out of his grasp.

“Give it a minute, baby—I promise, this will help,” he told her, his fingers working her toward the ultimate pleasure. Her belly tightened, her thighs attempted to close on his hand and finally … finally her orgasm washed over her, taking the pain and worry with it as Chris pushed her further still.

“Chris—please … oh …” His fingers still worked her sex, and she pressed her hips up to meet his hands as the wave of her climax hit a second time and she felt like they were the only two people in the world.

“Let it go,” he said, and she did, shuddered through a long series of contractions.

She was still quaking from the aftershocks when he whispered for her to “Sleep now.”

It came more easily than she’d thought, lying spread, with his hands on her, content.

When she woke, he was still behind her and it was still dark out and her pain was a dull ache instead of unbearable. “How long did I sleep?”

“About an hour. Here, drink this water.”

She did so, noted that his palm was splayed over the bare skin of her belly, where her shirt had remained pulled up. She tried to imagine her belly big with child and a life with Chris that didn’t include worrying about witness protection, but she couldn’t.

“We don’t have to talk about this now,” he said when she pulled her hand away with a quick jerk, and she hated that she was so transparent to him. “But your headaches will be worse for a little while—the hormones.”

“Great.” She pushed away from him, sat up and hugged her legs to her chest. “How did you know that would help?” she asked, well aware that her cheeks flushed as she spoke.

“It’s cute that you blush.” He ran a finger down one side of her face. “I read up on migraines.”

“Because of me?”

“Yeah, because of you. You had them in Africa and I figured now you wouldn’t be able to take meds. The orgasm thing—it’s just a theory, but it sounded like the most fun to try out.”

She bit her bottom lip lightly and then, “Someone’s been inside my house. That’s why the men are here. It happened two days in a row, I think. He moved my things around. But there was no forced entry. My foster father set up the security.” She peered up at him. “Why did they let you in?”