“Jamie?”
She didn’t respond. The hand between his legs slipped lower to cup him. He almost gave in to the pleasure and relaxed, but something teased at the back of his mind.
She moved to another spot on his chest, and he felt another splash.
He reached out and touched her under her chin. She ducked her head away. He raised himself into a sitting position and tugged on the end of her hair. She was finally forced to look at him.
Her face was still flushed and her lips were parted, but this time it wasn’t from pleasure. Tears swam in her eyes. They slipped past her lower lashes and spilled onto her cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, confused by her reaction to their lovemaking. “Did I hurt you?”
“No. Everything is fine. Really.”
“Why are you crying?”
She shook her head. “I can’t explain. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
She bit her lower lip. “I can’t.” Her voice was a whisper.
He stroked her cheek. He hated seeing her like this. “Please, Jamie. Tell me. I want to know what’s hurt you. I want to make it better.”
She touched a mark on his chest. He glanced down. It was an old scar. Another tear slipped free. She brushed it away, then placed her damp finger against the scar.
“I wish I could make that go away. I want to make them all go away. I know what they are. I know what they felt like. This one-” she pointed to a slender line by his ribs “-this is from a knife. There’s a burn mark on your back. This is a bullet wound.” She placed her hand on his thigh.
He stared into her eyes and wondered what he’d done to deserve her in his life. Why did she think he was worth even one of her tears? Other women had commented on his scars. They’d asked where he got them, if they still hurt. Sometimes he told the truth, and sometimes he lied. But Jamie didn’t have to ask. She knew.
She knew that a knife wound didn’t hurt at all. A sharp blade slipped through flesh as if it were thick cream. She knew how much blood there was, how the shock was the worst of it until you woke up in the hospital. Then it hurt like a son of a bitch. She knew that the pain of a bullet didn’t come from the metal piercing flesh, but from the powder burn. She knew that bleeding from the inside wasn’t especially frightening because you became disoriented quickly. She knew about staring at exposed flesh and watching the blood pump out in time with your heartbeat.
She knew everything.
He shifted her until she was straddling him. He pushed her hair back over her shoulders so he could stare at her body.
A thin white line stretched from the center of her chest, just below her breasts, around to her side. “Knife wound,” he said. “Not very deep, but I bet it bled a bunch.”
She nodded.
He touched a puckered oval on her thigh. “Bullet.”
“Just missed the bone.”
“Good thing.” Flesh could survive a bullet; bone usually shattered.
She sniffed.
He cupped her face and brushed his thumbs under her eyes.
“Don’t cry for me. I’m not worth it.”
She bent forward and clung to him. “You are to me.”
He swallowed hard. She knew too much. How was he supposed to hide from someone who could see into his very soul? The urge to run away was strong, but he forced himself to hug her close and murmur her name.
She rocked against him, reminding him parts of his body were growing impatient. She shifted slightly, rising up, then coming down on him, taking all of him in one liquid movement. He arched toward her and swore violently. She smiled her pleasure.
She rode him like a rodeo queen. Head back, hair flying, breasts bouncing, body alternately yielding and pushing him to completion as her paleness slipped up and down over his engorged organ.
She reached forward and they locked hands, fingers squeezing tight. He could feel her collecting herself again. He held back, wanting to watch her, wanting to see the flush of pleasure rise from her breasts to her face.
But at the first ripple of her climax, he found himself forced to follow with her. He thrust up and exploded, ripped apart by the pleasure, caught up in a moment of intimacy so intense, so purifying, he knew he would never be the same again.
Jamie snuggled close to Zach and absorbed his heat. She didn’t know how long they’d been entwined together, sharing their bodies long after the lovemaking was complete.
She inhaled the musky scent of him and smiled. She could pick him out of a lineup blindfolded. All she would have to do was sniff some exposed bit of skin and she would know where he was. The mental image of her wearing a blindfold in front of a line of men made her giggle.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, his voice husky and sensual.
“I was just thinking about how much I like the way you smell.”
“That’s amusing?”
“Sort of.”
They lay on their sides, facing the window. Zach curled against her back, their legs tangled, his arm around her waist. She rested her hand on top of his.
“I had a great time tonight,” she said. “Dinner was wonderful. Very romantic. I liked the dancing.”
“Me, too.” His voice rumbled in his chest. She could feel it vibrating against her back. “You’re a pretty good dancer.”
“I’m perfect if all we have to do is sway. Don’t test me on anything more complicated.”
“What about the rest of it?” he asked. “You know-dessert.”
She turned onto her back and stared up at him. “Gee, Zach, we didn’t have dessert. What are you talking about?”
He raised his eyebrows and waited.
She pretended confusion for a minute, even though she knew he wasn’t fooled. “Dessert? Hmm…oh, do you mean the sex? Well, I can’t possibly talk about it.”
“But you can do it? Is that what you’re saying? What, good girls don’t actually discuss the act in polite company?”
“You’re hardly polite.”
He reached for her and started tickling. She shrieked and tried to scoot away, but he still had an arm around her waist. He hauled her hard against him and nibbled on her neck. One of his hands searched out tender spots on her tummy. She wiggled and squealed until he let her go.
He released her and smoothed the hair from her face. Affection shone from his eyes. She understood this man. She knew what he wanted and what he feared.
In his heart, he wanted to walk away from the agency as much as she did. He wanted desperately to put it all behind him, but he was afraid. Being like everyone else meant facing the demons he’d locked inside for fourteen years. He would have to deal with everything he’d done, all he’d seen.
There were stories around the agency, of old-timers who retired somewhere quiet, as they’d always planned. Some were fine, but others lasted only a few months in the woods or by the shore. They either returned to the game and died in the field or took their own lives in that gray hour before dawn.
Zach wouldn’t accept either fate. If he stayed in the game too long, he wouldn’t be the best, and that would destroy him. If he walked away, then he had to wrestle the past and win. She felt confident he would be the victor, but how did she convince him of that? How did she find that magic combination of words to give him the strength to move forward? How did she convince him she loved him?
She stared up at his familiar, handsome face. She didn’t have those answers yet, and obviously he didn’t, either. So he advanced and retreated. Played at being strangers, then lovers. Held her in his arms, all the while believing he was going to be the one to walk away when this was over.
She smiled. “I really did have a good time today. Everything was great. Our run, the zoo. Even the shopping wasn’t so bad.”
“Told you,” he said, then kissed her briefly and rolled onto his back. He pulled her along with him, settling her so her head rested on his shoulder.