Intimate Knowledge (4 page)

She really needed to get a grip of herself. Saul would be there soon. He’d promised her he was already on his way so she couldn’t have gained that much speed on him using the Underground.

Pulling her beanie down over her ears, she wished for a moment she had a compact or hand mirror. She must look a wreck. Patting her hair, then fiddling with her scarf she kept a close eye on the people who wandered by. Various street lights cast orange and yellow glows along the footpath. The sound of traffic was close, though out of sight in the mammoth gardens.

Jennifer wrapped her arms around herself and tried to not let her nerves betray her.

“Jenn!”

Whirling around, she caught sight of Saul heading towards her. Relief crashed through her, almost strong enough to have her knees wobbling.

“Saul!” she called out, racing to him.

He grinned widely, his teeth flashing white against his dark skin. Black eyes seared into her and never had he looked as large, solid or safe as in that moment. Jennifer threw her arms around him, embracing him fiercely, clinging as if she never wanted to let go.

Saul returned the embrace and they stood melded to each other for a long minute. Warmth seeped through her chest. Jennifer wanted to think her friend imparted the heat from his own body, though she knew it was likely just the adrenaline and overwhelming feeling of security he radiated that heated her. Saul’s arms were strong, thickly muscled and steady as a rock around her body. He lifted her slightly off the ground and she chuckled, tempted to wrap her legs around him and cling like a barnacle.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured against her hair.

She tightened her hold and buried her face in the crook of his neck where it met his shoulder.

“You must be freezing, you’re not dressed for this,” she mumbled next to his soft skin.

Saul wore thin, black suit trousers and a long-sleeved shirt with a thin red tie. A scarf was tied around his neck, but was too short to be a man’s item. “You stole that scarf from some poor, unsuspecting female, didn’t you?” she teased him.

“A lady wants to throw her scarf at me, it would be ungallant for me to refuse,” he said, laughing.

Jennifer chuckled and loosened her hold on him, only stepping a few inches away, leaving their arms linked together.

“Plenty of ladies throw far more than their scarf at you,” she replied. “It doesn’t look like something you’d buy yourself.”

Saul was sinfully handsome, and not just because of his sleek, muscular physique. His shaved head gleamed in the glow from the lamps. His eyes were frequently alight with laughter and mischief. And his grin…that wicked, knowing smile would have a bashful virgin shimmying out of her white cotton knickers faster than a regular bloke could snap his fingers.

He oozed a friendly, rough-and-tumble sex appeal that most women found enticing and addictive. He turned those dark eyes onto her and Jennifer found something low in her stomach unfurling, heat wrapping its way up to her chest while simultaneously her clit throbbed with the desire to be stroked.

Saul took her hand in his, laced their fingers together and pressed a warm kiss to her knuckles.

“I borrowed it from a co-worker,” he said.

Jennifer blinked, having lost the thread of the conversation. Oh yes, the scarf. Looking around them, she realised for the last few minutes she hadn’t even thought about the men who had tried to kidnap her, hurt her. Just being with Saul had already given her peace of mind.

“We should get out of here,” she insisted, fear creeping back into her words. Jennifer glanced around. A part of her worried, but now he was here it was too late to focus on that. “I don’t want you out here, exposed if they find me. Maybe we should—”

“We’re safer here in the park, where we can see them coming,” Saul insisted, though his tone was kind. “I’ll be fine for a while, let’s go and sit over here on the grass and you can tell me everything.”

Jennifer frowned, though she didn’t resist when Saul led her away from the path and into the gardens proper. He found a tree with a wide, flat radius of grass beneath it, presumably where he could see anyone coming towards them. He circled the tree slowly. Saul’s gaze roamed over the area with an intensity that made her think he scouted for ambush points. Seeming satisfied with a particular spot, he leaned against the tree, drew her up to his body and wrapped his arms around her in a protective and defensive manner.

“Okay, babe, what’s happened?”

The events of the last few hours come crashing down on her. Tears threatened to fall. She gulped, determined to not bawl like a baby.

“I don’t even know where to start,” she said, feeling helpless.

“Just go over everything in order. Begin from when you walked up to your door after work this evening,” he replied patiently.

Jennifer nodded, took a deep breath, then as calmly as she could manage began to repeat—again—the bizarre and terrifying events of earlier.

Saul had always admired Jennifer’s courage. Always. At school one of the jealous girls in her class had spread a nasty rumour about Jennifer and how she was easy with sexual favours. The entire story was rubbish, of course, but even back then she had been a beautiful girl, blossoming into a stunning woman.

Her long, honey-blonde hair had a faint curl to it—something he knew Jenn ruthlessly straightened every morning. Her warm blue-green eyes could reflect laughter and the inner joy she found in so much of the world around her, lit with an innocent happiness even back then, which Saul had cherished and loved. His response had been to want to pick a fight with the bitchy girl and punch her in her too-perfect nose.

Jennifer had held him back, rising above the whispers. Saul had shown her how to punch and defend herself. A few well-placed kicks to the groin and two broken noses later, a couple of men who had tried it on with her had at least learnt Jenn was not a loose woman and neither seduction nor coercion would be welcomed by her. The whispers had turned in another direction and life had moved on.

Yet he’d never forgotten the spirit and courage this woman showed ran right through to her core. She was stunning to him, and not just in the willowy, slender build of her body, the pert perfection of her breasts or the luscious softness of her long hair. Jenn had a purity of spirit he craved like a drug, and an optimism that had seen him through many a dangerous, depressing situation.

Knowing there were women like Jenn out there—innocent, happy, normal women—was one of the main reasons he’d joined The Agency. Fighting the good fight, trying to rid the world of evil and people who would happily destroy the very foundation of what Jenn believed in. Discovering Jenn being dragged into the shady nastiness of the world he inhabited scared Saul to the depths of his soul.

He listened carefully as Jenn outlined again the events as they had unfolded. A hot, angry flame of rage licked inside his heart as she repeated Ginger’s words as best as she could recall them. Saul desperately wanted to find this man and tear strips of his flesh from his body—but that would only appease the fury within him for a short time. He needed to find the root of what had started these events.

Jenn looked at him, worry clear in her beautiful eyes. Saul reminded himself despite their long years of friendship and the fact he’d let her closer to his heart than any other woman alive, there was much of him Jenn didn’t know of. He’d never confessed the true nature of his work—though he felt certain that was about to change very soon—but more importantly she had no idea of what his job entailed. The things he had done, would continue to do. She was not a part of his life in that manner. Neither did he want her aware of it.

He couldn’t bear it if she looked at him with fear, or worse, revulsion. He was far from a saint, but he had always been the protector for her, the knight errant. Saul didn’t want that to change. He teased Jenn that she was the only normal person he knew, and in so many ways that was the truth. More than that, though, when he was with her he could pretend—even for a short time—that he was normal as well. It was just another thing he cherished about his friendship with this woman.

“I know I probably should have called the police,” Jenn said, finishing her story. “But…I don’t know. I know you, I trust you. And if you think we should go to them, I will. But it’s such habit, to turn to you for help, for protection. You were the only person I could think of to call and rely on without any questions.”

Warmth crept from his chest up his neck. Saul smiled. He loved her with all his heart. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her slender body into the safety of his own. He pressed a light kiss to the edge of her temple. A stray strand of her hair tickled his cheek.

“I’m glad you called me,” he replied, his tone rumbling with emotions he struggled to contain. “I’ve told you often enough you can always call me, depend on me, no matter what the circumstance.”

“Bet you’re thinking I’m not so normal anymore,” she joked.

He knew her well enough to understand, despite the attempt at jovial teasing, a lot of strain lay under her voice. He wrapped his other arm around her, hugging her tightly.

“You are still, far and away, the most normal person I know, Jenn. Never doubt that. You’re an island of sanity in my crazy world. Believe it.”

Jenn huffed out a disbelieving laugh and shook her head. She looked up at him, her gaze roaming his face, clearly expecting him to be teasing her or telling her pretty lies to make her feel better.

He met her eyes steadily, silently warning her they were getting dangerously close to truths he wasn’t sure he wanted her to know. Despite the awfulness of her evening so far, this was not even close to the insane situations he’d often faced in his work.

His world could be insane, filled with terrorists and a level of paranoia high enough to send most people into an asylum. Locks and codes, encryptions and double dealings, not being able to trust anyone implicitly in case double speak backfired or other agents were listening in, industrial espionage and inter Agency in-fighting. All this wasn’t even scratching the surface of the world he lived in. Saul had long ago built walls, impenetrable defences where nothing was taken at face value and everything was to be questioned. It was a reason he was one of the best agents around, and still here to tell the tale about it.

“You don’t have some boring desk job working for Her Majesty, do you?” Jenn said in a soft tone, clearly reading some of the truth in his eyes, possibly for the first time.

He shook his head.

“I’m probably in deep shit here, aren’t I?”

“I’m not sure, babe,” he replied honestly. “Has anything strange happened around you lately? Any odd phone calls or people following you? It’s possible someone connected to you through me, that this leads back to my door. If that’s the truth then I will never be able to forgive myself, but it sounds like these men thought you had something, that you knew where this ’thing’ they’re searching for is. They weren’t asking about me, or a person, but a thing. Think, Jenn. Is there anything weird that’s happened lately?”

Jenn surprised him, and not for the first time this evening. She leant back against his chest, rested her head in the curve of his neck and frowned in thought. Her body pressed along his with an ease that startled him. They’d been friends forever, yes, but never physically intimate, or close in this manner. Hugs, kissing each other’s cheeks, certainly. But never invading one another’s personal space.

Saul found he liked the feel of her in his arms, pressed warmly into his body. He could become addicted to it, easily.

He wrapped his arms tighter around her, protectively but also relishing the solid reality of her in his embrace. She fitted there, so perfectly it was as if they were made for one another. He wished it hadn’t taken them so long to reach this point. He burned to kiss her, to taste her lips under his. He itched to brush his hands over the smoothness of her skin.

Saul had seen her body enough times, swimming at the beach or in skimpy clothes mid-summer, to know what she looked like, but still his imagination took flight. He could all but feel what her skin would be like beneath his fingertips, taste the salty tang of her sweat on his tongue as he thrust his cock deeply inside her clenching, tight pussy. Her back would bend, her hair falling down onto his pillow as he pounded inside her, pushing her towards climax. She would press her head back, her neck arching as she screamed and—

“Saul?”

The worry in Jenn’s tone snapped his attention back. She tilted her head up to search his face, her mouth turned in a small frown. She cupped his jaw, forcing him to look at her.

“Are you okay? What were you thinking?”

“I’m not sure you really want to know,” he hedged. Desire ran him hard, but he couldn’t find it in himself to deny her if she truly wanted to know. For years he’d wanted to confess his feelings, but had been reluctant to drag her into the misery and often destructiveness of his world.

Now she was here of her own volition, however, he couldn’t find it in him to deny either of them much longer. Jenn’s gaze searched his and she reached her thumb out to caress over his lips. His breath caught, his heart fluttered like a callow youth’s. Desire had his shaft hardening. It would be all too easy for her to seduce him right there out in the public gardens, and to hell with the rest of England.

He pitied the poor fool who would try to hurt her. Saul would happily die to keep her safe, would undergo any risk, or perform any feat necessary to keep her whole. He cherished her above everything else. No one could hurt her or take her from him.

“I’m a big girl,” she said. “I’m not afraid of you or your thoughts, Saul. I just feel…it’s strange, but despite the fact we’ve known each other for most of our lives, it’s like I’m seeing you for the first time tonight. Really seeing you.”

“And what do you see?”

“A warrior, a protector, a hero,” she replied even more softly now. She continued to touch his face, stroking his lip with her finger. “My hero. It’s like you’re every comic book super hero come to life right here for me now, to keep me safe and slay the dragon.”