Keeping Watch: Heart of the Night\Accidental Bodyguard (46 page)

He hoped it came out better than that. “You just have a big heart. You trust people. That’ll get you into trouble. Others will take advantage of that.”

“But I’m not an idiot,” she challenged.

“Hell, no.” She raised an eyebrow at the curse word. He repeated himself—the way she wanted to hear it. “No.”

That tantalizing smirk blossomed into a full-blown smile. His whole body lurched as if she’d just issued an invitation. Damn. Had he ever wanted anything so badly?

He slid his hands up and down her spine, working off some of the tension that was battering inside him. If he could just taste her once. Know what it felt like to kiss a woman who wasn’t afraid to be kissed by him.

But then, that might be the very thing that would make her afraid of him. That should make her afraid.

“Jonas?” Her eyelids veiled, leaving only a glimpse of green shining through her thick, long lashes, but she was studying his mouth. “Thank you.”

Even through the thickness of his jacket, he could feel the womanly shape of her. The indention of her waist. The flare of her hips. That sweet, round, beautiful butt.

His lungs swelled painfully in his chest as he bravely fought the need to pull her closer, to feel her—skin to skin, to bury himself deep inside the most feminine part of her.

He tried to come up with something to say.
Thank you for what?
or
You’re welcome
or
It’s no big deal.
But his mouth wouldn’t form the words. All he could seem to do was bend his head and drift closer to those untinted pink lips.

Her hands started to move on him, sliding around his neck and against his hair. It seemed that this new position was less about comforting and more about… Hell. How long had it been since he’d kissed a woman? How long since he’d even considered it a possibility? Or was this warming trend just a cruel illusion concocted by his feverish hormones and wishful thinking?

He tried to distract himself. To think clearly for a minute. To misread Faith’s emotions and force himself on her would be a disastrous mistake. The kind of thing that could shatter the blind trust she had in him. The kind of thing that could send her running, straight into the waiting clutches of her enemies.

He shook his head, not liking that idea at all. “He’ll never get to you, I promise.” But he was still moving closer, catching her soft, warm breath on his own. “You have such pretty hair. Like cornsilk.” He sifted the ethereal weight of it through his fingers. He tried to think of practical things, but he still wasn’t moving away. “You’ll have to dye it. Your description’s out on the wire. On TV now, too, I guess. I bought something red. I thought it would look more natural. With your green eyes…”

He’d noticed the color of her eyes?

It was silly how such a little thing could make her feel so pretty. So curious about the man who’d noticed.

Faith wondered if her pupils were dilated with the same drugged arousal that darkened the centers of his cool blue eyes.

Cornsilk. What a sweet, sweet compliment. Simple. Evocative. Sincere.

What else had Jonas noticed about her?

She’d melted into a delicious putty, surrounded by the strength and piney scent of his coat and arms and chest. Her fears had been forgotten, soothed away by his blunt words and sheltering touch. And now she wanted more. She wanted to kiss him. And, if she could count on any of her neophyte skills with men right now, he wanted to kiss her, too. She stretched the length of her torso, tipping her head back against his hand. Reaching, encouraging.

“I hate to change the color, but…” His voice trailed away. Faith closed her eyes as his mouth drifted toward hers.

A horrendous groan rumbled in his throat. She felt two hands beneath her, one on her bottom, one on her thighs. Jonas lifted her off his lap, nearly spilling her into the desk in his haste to move away from her.

Faith’s anticipation crashed so hard, she grabbed on to the back of the desk chair to steady herself. Jonas’s jacket pooled at her feet. Goose flesh popped out all over her skin as her overheated body shivered with the unexpected jolt of rejection.

But her embarrassment was short-lived. Jonas’s big hands shook as he tore through the bag from the convenience store. This man who could stand down the barrel of a gun and the gawking looks of a townful of small-minded people couldn’t even look at her as he stalked back across the room. Her feminine intuition was slow, but not stupid. Of all the noble…

“Here’s the hair—”

Faith reached up and caught his face between her hands. Doing for him—for them—what he would not do for himself, she tugged his mouth down to hers and kissed him.

At first he simply stood there, his head bent low, his lips stiff beneath the pliant quest of her own.

But then, it was as if the leviathan had been unleashed. Jonas’s chest swelled with a mighty breath. Something low and earthy growled in his throat. And after that first stunned moment, his mouth opened over hers. He grabbed her hips and dragged her body against his, forcing her softer curves to conform to his hard angles.

Without any finesse or fanfare, he plunged his tongue into her mouth, deepening the kiss from sweet and tender to coarse and erotic.

Oh, yeah. He’d wanted to kiss her.

Faith caught her breath. There was nothing she could do but hang on. The instantaneous passion was overwhelming yet empowering. Jonas’s raw, sensual assault on her senses left her no room to question her initiative, no need to doubt his desire for her. What had begun as an invitation to acknowledge their mutual attraction and assure him of his welcome had become a physical expression of every hurt and fear and unspoken need between them.

Sensation after sensation pounded through her with the speed of a carnival ride. The prickle of his late-night beard stubble abraded her sensitive palms. The velvety texture of his hair soothed them. The utter hardness and sinuous strength of his chest and shoulders was a savage landscape to touch and explore. The rough need of his hands, sliding up beneath her shirt, scorched the bare skin of her back, then squeezed her bottom and lifted her up against his unabashed arousal.

Faith moaned at her body’s wanton reaction to his unfiltered sexual appetite. The tips of her breasts tightened to painful nubs that could only be eased by the friction of rubbing against him. Her toes curled, her hands grasped. And her mouth opened to grant him every driving wish of his tongue.

A tamer kiss might have given her time to second-guess her ability to take on a man like this. A man of animalistic power who could consume her diminutive size, by comparison. A man of the world who had seen more and survived more in a matter of days than she’d known her entire life. A man who belonged to no one and followed no rules except his own.

But Jonas wasn’t tame. He was the beast who lived alone on the mountain above a tiny little town that feared him. He was a man who would throw himself in front of a speeding truck or uproot his home to save a woman’s life. His manners were unpolished, his language crude and his kisses out of this world.

As his mouth drove her head back against the supporting cup of his hand, Faith didn’t see his scar or the unflattering angles of his face. She felt the power of his unleashed need throbbing at the aching juncture between her thighs. She tasted the heat of his consuming mouth. She smelled the musk and pine that radiated from his skin. She heard the urgent hunger noises in his throat.

She sensed the huge heart that lay well guarded and untapped inside him. And she forgot she was supposed to be afraid.

In her humble effort to give him everything he asked for in this wild kiss, Faith pulled her hands to the front of his shirt and worked open the top two buttons. She slipped her fingers inside, gasping at the tempting contrast of crisp hair and hot skin beneath her palms. She pushed the denim aside, wanting to learn more about his masculine textures, but her fingers jammed beneath a wad of cotton material. Frustrated, she tugged the material free and tried again, sliding her fingertips into the tight squeeze between cloth and skin before she met another dead end. Trapped again, she moved her hands to the outside to find the impediment, and brushed against the cold, smooth strap of his holster.

The ride crashed to a halt.

All at once, the hands that had held her so eagerly, so passionately, closed around her upper arms and pushed her away.

“Damn, damn, damn.”

Jonas heaved a massive breath and set her feet firmly on the floor and backed away, his voice hoarse. As Faith withered into herself, his hands splayed open, palms high, at either side of her—supplicating, surrendering—as if he’d been caught defiling a temple and was to be damned to hell.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to say— I— That shouldn’t have happened.”

“I—I’m the one who’s sorry,” she stuttered, hugging her arms around herself in a futile effort to be warm again. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“Embarrass? Crap.” He swiped the back of his knuckles across his mouth and jaw. His shirt gaped open, wadded beneath the strap of his holster and the gun at his side, exposing a mile of muscled chest and a vein that throbbed at the base of his throat. Faith looked at it instead of the eyes she could feel boring down on her. “Honey, right now I want you like hellfire. You shouldn’t give a man everything like that. It’ll make him think…”

Instead of finishing his sentence, he pinched a thumb and forefinger around her chin and tipped it up. He’d already released her by the time she jerked away from his touch, but the demand to look him in the eye had been made. She saw shadows amongst the ice. Shades of darkness that contrasted with the sharp white line of his scar and hinted at his emotions without revealing them.

“You are everything pretty and perfect and pure that I can taint. And I couldn’t forgive myself if I did.” He made a chore of buttoning his shirt and arranging the weaponry he carried. “You can call me a son of a bitch for going after you like that. I don’t deal with women much—with anyone… Hell. Temptation doesn’t normally drop into my lap, and it’s hard to resist when it does. But it shouldn’t have happened. It
won’t
happen again.” He braced his hands on his hips, his chest heaving in and out with an energy that seemed to have been drained from her. “I’m sorry,” he stated finally. “This has nothing to do with you.”

But it felt like it did. She was cold. Shocked. Shaking. Her body was aching with unsatisfied need. Her senses were still spinning, her equilibrium shattered. Her heart and soul left hanging wide-open.

“You can hit me if you want. Tell me to go to hell.”

The offer startled her from her lost stupor. Faith blinked and studied the expression on his face more closely. He was serious.

She clutched the shirt she wore in a fist at her collar and hugged herself more tightly. She shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t do that.”

Why would he think such violence would be the answer?

“You’re too nice for your own good.” It sounded less like a criticism than a sigh of regret. But he gave no explanation. He spun around in his tracks, spotted the box of hair dye where it had fallen beneath the desk, snatched it up and thrust it at her.

“Here. I’m going outside for a walk. I expect you to be a redhead when I return.”

She took the box and nodded.

He slammed the door behind him and entered the chilly autumn night without his coat.

Faith stood in the darkness for several moments, contemplating the extremes of compassion and passion, confusion and curiosity that filtered through her mind and body.

Had she ever thrown herself at a man like that before? Ever ached so much to have a man hold her? Ever hurt so much for another human being?

Were the strenuous events of the past two days making her behave in a way she never would have in her quiet, predictable former life? Or were they bringing out a part of her that had always existed—a woman who took risks and cared deeply, and either paid the consequences or reaped the rewards?

Her old life made sense.

Her relationship with Jonas didn’t.

A glimpse of her old life might set things straight again. And it might alleviate some portion of her guilt.

She turned on the light over the bathroom sink and set the hair dye on the counter. It added just enough illumination to the main room to allow her to clean up the broken lamp and retrieve her purse. She pulled out her cell phone. Jonas had warned her not to answer any call, but he’d never said anything about making one.

Still, she kept her eye on the door as she punched in the number to her uncle’s home in Missouri. The phone rang and rang. Each ring made her a little more nervous. What if her family didn’t answer? What if someone else did?

When the answering machine clicked on, she sighed with a mixture of regret and relief. It was heartening to hear Wes Monroe’s no-nonsense baritone voice again, even if it was only on tape. When the machine beeped, Faith spoke. “Hi, Wes. Gran. It’s me. I miss you. I wish I knew that you were safe. I’m…” She couldn’t truly say
okay,
not after what had just happened. Not with all that had been happening. “I’m safe. I love you. Bye.”

Faith disconnected the phone and headed for the sink. Her relationship with Jonas Beck might not make any sense. But right now, it was the only one she could count on.

J
ONAS SAT
in the veil of darkness and listened to Faith sleep. Toss and turn was more like it. After her soundless
good night
near 11:00 p.m., she’d climbed underneath the covers. Exhaustion had claimed her quickly, judging by the hushed, even breathing from her side of the room. But less than an hour later, a nightmare was tormenting her slumber.

The chair in the corner was too cramped to sleep in, and the motel’s idea of reading material was a listing of local restaurants. He’d untucked and unbuttoned his shirt, and set his gun on his lap and his knife within easy reach, should anyone manage to get through the bolted steel door or double-paned window. But guilt would have kept him awake, anyway.

He was helpless to sit there and listen and damn himself for causing any bit of the grief that troubled her. But he couldn’t go to her, he could only watch over her.