Perfectly Exposed (Command Unit Book 1) (5 page)

A chuckle bounced her head on his chest. “No, I won’t get tired of teaching you.” Adorable in her worry that she didn’t know
“the good stuff”
like he did. Even when she was trying to break up with him he thought she was the cutest thing he’d ever seen. So responsive she drove him to his knees, her overwhelming sexuality the most beautiful gift he’d ever received.

There was silence for a while. Soft and contented, it cradled her in the dark.

Jack broke it. “Baby, you haven’t got your period.”

Hailey’s body jerked as she remembered the fact that had consumed her world before he walked in the door.

He continued. “We’ll get a house as soon as we find the right one. My apartment’s smaller than yours, so it would make sense for me to bring stuff over here so you won’t have to move twice. That work for you?”

Hailey’s head lifted off his chest so she could look at him. “Work for me?” she echoed.

Looking into her stunned face, he nodded.

Hailey’s mouth opened and closed as she tried to settle on a thing to say. It was difficult since he’d blasted the comfy sex fog out of her brain and now the sheer number of things that had to be said was overwhelming.

She asked cautiously, “Are you asking me to move in with you?”

A line appeared between his brows. “No, I’m offering to move in with you so when we buy a house you only have to do the one move.”

“Don’t you think we should do a few things before we move in together?” Hailey wanted to know, again speaking softly and cautiously.

“Like what?” His deep tone mirroring her cautious one.

“I don’t know. Perhaps be together for at least a week? Talk some? Junk like that?” Hailey suggested.

She hadn’t realized the big body she was draped over had tensed, but she felt it relax beneath her. His face transformed into a smile.

“We’re going to do junk like that, but we’ll be doing it living together.” The hand on her butt slid around between them to span her lower belly. “I’m not missing one moment of this.” His hand pressed in gently. “So move on, sweetheart. The question of living arrangements involves one of us moving clothes to a new closet while we house hunt. That’s the only option on the table.”

Jack felt the soft body lying over his tense as she looked down at him. Trying to move casually so she wouldn’t figure out his intention, he shifted his arms so he held her, one hand between her shoulder blades the other on that world-class ass. If she wanted a fight, she was going to do it right here, no stomping off and putting a door between them. And why did he find watching her work up to this cute as hell too?

“What if I squeeze the toothpaste and you roll it? Or I never shut drawers and you can’t stand seeing them all pulled out? We don’t even know if one of us wants the baby Christened and the other wants it baptized? Jeez Louise, it’s not that simple, Jack. People don’t move in together this fast. It’s…it’s just not adult.” She was shaking her head now and looking a little panicked.

“Hailey, you’re not your mom.” Jack stated as gently as he could. It probably wasn’t the right time to reveal how much he knew about her life, her past, but he couldn’t stand the painful place he was pretty sure her panic was coming from. “I’m not some guy you met in a bar two days ago. What’s between us is more than any damn thing she ever had with even one of the guys she married.” Jack paused as the big eyes regarding him blinked. “Yeah, I’ll explain how closely I’ve looked into that shit later,” he promised, “but you have to know, I’ll get you your own toothpaste, I’ll shut the draws and the baby gets Dedicated by the pastor and elders. We both agree on that.”

“You know about Mom?”

“Yeah, and all that crap she put you through is not invading our life. You can fuc— damn sure depend on me to be in your bed every damn night and sliding out of your body when I’m getting out of it.” Jack took a breath and attempted to dial back the intensity as he touched on the painful childhood he knew she’d endured. “Baby, I can’t make promises about the future because nobody in their right mind can see that, but I can offer you the evidence from my past that I’m a stable, gainfully employed man. I don’t move every year because I lost a job and my vehicle has never been repossessed.” Hailey shuddered at that but he needed her to understand that he fucking understood what she actually was worried about.

“I take care of what’s mine. I will kill and bleed to make sure any child of mine is safe, fed and clothed. You know that about me, baby. You know it,” he whispered into the big eyes that were blinking back tears now. “My woman will never be in a welfare office and my child will never miss a day of school because she’s homeless. Hailey, this is us, you and me. Not anyone else.”

Hailey’s bottom lip disappeared between her teeth as she looked down at him. Jack watched her bite that luscious bit of flesh and wished like hell he could lick it when it reappeared but this was too important. Getting through her real fears to the critical.

“That’s a lot of accurate information.” Hailey’s voice wobbled a little.

“I pay attention.”

“You’ve investigated me?”

“No, well, maybe you could call it that,” he allowed. “I’ve paid attention to the details. You’re mom crashes at your place a couple times a year. Honey, I get what comes along with you. I know about the package deal.” Jack smiled as her expression became guarded. “Angel, I’m not moving into your guest room. Wherever we live there will always be a guest room. Okay?” he promised softly.

“What if you hate her?” Hailey challenged.

“What if she hates me?” Jack countered. “Is that enough reason for you to give up on this?”

“No, of course not.” Hailey scowled at him.

“That’s all that matters to me. She’s an adult, if she chooses to make being at our place uncomfortable for you, then I’ll be discussing shit with her. Other than that, what she does elsewhere is her business. I don’t intend to be wasting effort judging my kid’s grandmother.”

“Oh my God.” Hailey’s eyes shifted sightlessly to the bed beside his head. “We’d be making her a grandmother,” she breathed. Jerking her attention back to his face, she informed him seriously, “She will hate that word.”

Jack grinned. “Probably.”

“I don’t know anything about your family. See? This is what I mean.” Hailey’s hands clenched on his chest. “This is exactly how she runs her life.”

Jack rolled them, there was a lot in what he’d just said that might piss her off. No reason to make it easy for her to exit the bed. Settling on his elbows, most of his body pinning hers, he tried to explain it again.

“This is nothing like your mother’s relationships. At the risk of getting in trouble, let me remind you how much I know about your family, baby. I’m an investigator, one of the really excellent ones. In my defense, I didn’t look beyond the publicly available information but I did look. This thing is not casual and not temporary. Anything you want to know about me I’ll tell you, or one of the guys will. You can call my dad if you want. Shit, my uncles will be happy to spill anything they think will be me in hot water. I’ll give you their numbers right now,” he offered.

Hailey was biting her lip again. Jack didn’t resist dipping to lick it this time.

“Stop kissing me,” she commanded. “We’re not done but its way too late to call anyone. Like you didn’t know that.”

“Naw, Dad would take the call and I’m going to be kissing you whenever I want. That’s one fact we can clear up right now.”

The smile in his voice rumbled across Hailey’s senses with sexy confidence.

“And seriously, you just confessed to some pretty sketchy stuff.” Hailey regarded the smug man thoughtfully, not quite sure which way she was feeling about the fact that Jack had apparently been stalking her way better than she had managed to stalk him. “I reserve the right to get back to the information hording. You know you’re bossy, right?”

“You like it.” He rolled them back to the original position of her leaning over his big, muscled self.

Hailey felt her nose scrunch up at his undeniably true statement. “Not always,” she hedged as she watched him grin what could now only be called an arrogant, man-who-knows-he’s-right expression.

The big hand between her shoulder blades pulled her down so the arrogant man could kiss her. She told herself she was letting him do it, which wasn’t entirely true. Mostly she needed a minute to adjust to the fact that she wasn’t upset at the single option he insisted was the only one available.

Really, what other plan would work for her? He wanted to commit to her. He stated they were going to buy a house. Where was a girl supposed to find the bad in that?

His kiss was gentle, deep and melted her all over him. By the time he let his lips drift up to her temple as he relaxed back on the pillow, Hailey didn’t have a worry in her head or a solid bone in her body.

“Sleep,” he murmured into her hair. “Tomorrow you can find something else to argue about.”

Again, the man spoke truth. Hailey let it go.

Jack felt her body grow heavy as sleep claimed her. Curled into him, half across his chest, she dropped off just that easily and he found it another thing about her that charmed him. As if the curvy woman in his arms needed to seduce his soul any more. No she did not.

Waiting for her to grow up, the last five years had been fucking torture. Not even in the darkest part of that time when he’d almost talked himself into just three years, had he realize what he was waiting for. No, he’d thought he knew, but the reality of her was so much more.

Jesus, he needed to get some sleep instead of lying here being awed by the woman in his arms. The op wasn’t complete but he’d come back to her because he couldn’t stay away. And that was how it was going to be for the rest of his life. This was why he had forced himself to give her ’til she was at least twenty-five.

She had to be strong enough to stand up to him because this was not something he had a lot of control over. His need to possess, protect, just fucking being with her would have overwhelmed a woman-child. Not that this was normal for him. It was just her. From the very beginning, her hold on him felt complete.

When he had realized there was no escaping his need to possess her, it had scared the fucking crap out of him. He had taken himself to the other side of the planet and still she drew him back. Accepting who she was to him and coming up with the rules to protect her, that had been agonizing. Now, her soft body in his arms, the payoff far outweighed the price.

Chapter Five

The alarm wasn’t going to turn itself off. She had made sure she got one that didn’t for the really good reason that she’d let it. But this morning her bed moved before she did. Blinking as the mattress rolled out from under her, Hailey abruptly realized the mattress consisted of a whole lot of naked man.

Jack Stone was in her bed. Amazing. Reaching over him, she banged around on the night stand until she hit the infernal alarm. Blinking, Hailey hitched up to an elbow to look at the man sprawled out beside her.

In sleep he was power subdued. The sheet had drifted low on his hips so there was a lot to look at. One arm, flung out toward the night stand, displayed the slightly lighter skin of his underarm from open palm to darkly haired pit. Something about seeing muscles relaxed in sleep and still impressively rounded lit a little fire deep in her belly.

Gaze moving across a thickly layered chest and fascinatingly ridged abdomen fueled that flame. Yummy stuff, but then there was the mind-erasing definition at his hips and belly, creating a vee of temptation that was carpeted with a narrow trail of dark hair leading right down under that sheet, which was now seriously tented.
Oh my.

“Baby, you’re welcome to do more than look at that,” he murmured.

Her eyes jerked up to his face. The glitter of his gaze under mostly closed lids was another look that lit her up. How was it even possible to wake up and look like that? His jaw was deeply shadowed and in need of a shave. The dark locks on his head looked exactly what it was, bed mussed. Every inch of him was beautiful in every way there was for a man to be spectacular. It wasn’t fair.

However, there was no way she was missing the opportunity to play in the garden of the gods.

Reverently she lowered her face to his body. Starting at his chest, exploring the undulating terrain with her tongue and teeth, she never lost sight of the prize, moving steadily down. He groaned, growled, sighed and she kept track. Big hands feathered over her hair and down her back, but other than that, he let her meander through bliss as she would.

Pushing the sheet down his thighs as her tongue mapped the flexing hip ridges, her hand finally closed around the thick base of his cock. Jack’s hips arched off the bed and he growled loudly.

Her grip loosened and moved up to give her mouth room to explore. She started at the vein climbing up from his balls and followed its path to the wide flair of the head. Feathering licks around the rim to taste every inch of it, she saved the salty pearl of his true taste for last.

Eyes closed, submerged in the taste and feel of him, Hailey’s mouth opened and she gave herself the gift of taking him in as deep as she could. Sucking the ridged, velvet-hard length, she moaned her pleasure.

Jack’s hips jerked in an aborted thrust and his arms windmilled up to grasp the headboard. Looking down his body at Hailey May taking her pleasure in his taste taught Jack something new about control. He didn’t fucking have much. Never, in this lifetime or any previous one, could there be anything more beautiful than the woman between his legs. Nothing so perfect, so unspeakably pleasurable as his woman in this moment.

She stroked him in and out, but then his girl got distracted and her little tongue drifted down around his balls. Christ! Jack’s hands tightened on the headboard to keep from reaching down and grasping her head. He wanted her doing exactly as she pleased. He wanted her doing that as long as she wanted. Looked like he was so going to die getting what he wanted.

Lazily her eyes opened and rose to meet his. As she did that her mouth moved up his cock again. Licking around the tip, she maintained eye contact. Her little mouth opened wide and sucked him in hard while her fist pumped the rest of him that wouldn’t fit in her mouth.

Jack gritted his teeth and breathed deeply in what he knew sounded a lot like a snarl. Little girl didn’t stop, and hell, he could barely think. Then he couldn’t think at all and she took him.

One hand gripped the back of her head and he really tried to keep it gentle. It was time to take her mouth and he needed her to accept that. If she had fought him, he had every intention of letting her move away. Luckily he didn’t have to find out if his intentions were as worthless as his control.

Stroking into the sucking pleasure of her mouth, Jack controlled the power of his thrusts, but that was all he could manage. She took him, her lips sealed around him and it was more than anything he’d dreamed it would be. Having imagined this pleasure so many times in the past, the intensity of looking into those big eyes as she took his cock thrusting into her mouth, it blew him away.

Her eyes fluttered and he gritted out. “Eyes to me.”

She obeyed. Jesus, she sucked harder at the growled command. Giving him that, his every fantasy, he took it. Took her. Little girl swallowed, sucking each jet down, her mouth working not to lose a drop, she took him.

Afterward she held him in her mouth, sucking softly, her body relaxed between his legs, his hand massaging the back of her head. Unsure if she remained there because his hand kept her there or if she naturally submitted in a way guaranteed to enslave him, he let her head go. She sucked tenderly as she drew away from him, the caress as he left her mouth a kiss he’d never experienced before. Sweetly drawn out, she told him she was reluctant to let him go. It was unbelievably erotic.

Her head resting on his thigh, looking up at him, mouth that little bit swollen, she once again showed him beauty like he’d never seen.

His voice was gravely, tight with emotion as he pulled his girl up his body. “Baby, I don’t have words for how beautiful you are to me,” he told her. Settling her at his side, one hand cupped her jaw, his thumb tracing the line of her lower lip. “Thank you for sharing that beauty with me.”

Big violet eyes, as unusual as everything else about her, crinkled at the corners in warmth. Leaning down into her, he took her mouth, the taste of him, the taste of her. Perfect.
His.
For fucking ever.

Rolling them in the kiss, he moved over her. Covering her, holding her in the cradle of his body was a need. Not to fuck, no, it was a much deeper need than that.

Hailey’s eyes opened slowly when he finely let her lips go. Sluggishly, and pretty much by accident, her gaze drifted over the clock face.

“
Oh my God!
” she screeched, her hand suddenly pounding at his chest above her. “We have to get up. Now! Now!”

“Jesus, baby. What?” Jack rolled off her. She was up and actually running into the bathroom.

“The time! I’m late!”

“So?” he called after her, stretching out on the bed, watching the bathroom door.

“Meeting. Very important,” he heard as the shower came on.

Jack closed his eyes and smiled. Eventually she wasn’t going to work and he was looking forward to that. Then he remembered that Brad, close buddy, hadn’t wanted his wife Julie to work, either. A frown settled on Jack’s brow as he thought about how that worked out for Brad, who was arguably an even more dominant male than himself, who’s wife worked part-time. Still.

The smile returned with the knowledge that Hailey May most certainly had not started her period last night. He would get his way on the work thing.

His mind moved on to the problem of the almost closed case. Something about the whole operation was not settling right in his gut. It wasn’t that the takedown was too easy. It was that it happened at all. Only one member of Yatzic’s crew was missing, but that in itself wasn’t the red flag. It was a nuisance though. How had that nobody escaped? Luck didn’t seem to be the answer, though it was the obvious choice. Jack wasn’t comfortable consigning the man to that level of lucky.

Hailey, dashing around her room dressing, was a welcome distraction. They made plans for dinner after work.

At nine ten in the morning, grabbing a coffee to go and a bagel, Hailey was out the door, thirty minutes after sliding out of bed. His girl looked conservatively sexy as usual
,
Jack was impressed. Dragging himself to his apartment, Jack showered and dressed, his mind half on the case, half on the housing market.

Twelve fifteen Jack called his girl, wanting to know what she was doing for lunch since he knew her breakfast had been him and a bagel. Heat zipped up his balls as he smiled on that thought and waited for her to pick up. It went to voice mail.

An hour later he tried again. Voice mail.

Ten minutes later he called the museum and asked for Hailey. The slightly miffed voice told him she was off again today, could he leave a message?

“No, she went in this morning,” Jack corrected. “Are you sure she isn’t in one of the conference rooms?”

“I’m positive since she missed a huge meeting with a collector who wants to—” Jack hung up.

Turning, he strode out of the detective’s office he was temporarily using for the operation and grabbed his Dade County liaison on this case, Detective Phil Cruze.

“I need this morning’s accident reports,” Jack demanded urgently. Phil got the vibe instantly and sat down at a terminal.

“What we lookin’ for?” Phil’s hands were already logging in his authorization.

“’08 Sentra, burgundy.” Jack rattled off her plate number and Phil typed. What came up was bad.

“Hit and run, vehicle abandoned. Driver missing, investigation ongoing.” Phil read but Jack was already gone. The spot the accident happened was around the corner and six blocks from the apartment complex. Her route to work in the opposite fucking direction from the one Jack drove to get to the precinct this morning.

Jack was in his truck on the way to the site, calling his real boss. Brad Marks had talked him into to working for the good guys in a whole new capacity after his honorable discharge. By design, the organization did not have a name but pulled badges from Homeland Security when needed. Brad’s title, if you could call it that, was simply Command.

Brad picked up on the first ring. “Jack, yo.”

Jack didn’t bother with greetings. “Boss, got a problem,” he opened and continued in rapid fire. “Hailey May Lindale left her apartment at nine ten a.m. Her vehicle was hit around nine twenty a.m. She is missing from the scene. No further information on the hit. I’m in transit to her vehicle, fifteen minutes to site.”

Brad’s calm voice responded in operation mode. “Call me at site. I’ll get into ground chatter. We’ll get your girl, Jack,” Brad finished and clicked off.

Jack narrowed his focus, ruthlessly refusing to consider anything but the facts and his current destination. He couldn’t afford speculation, fear or any other damn thing besides getting to Hailey. That Brad knew what Hailey meant to him wasn’t a surprise. Living where he did, the amount of time he spent watching her at social events, it didn’t take a genius to figure his shit out. Brad was one of the most dangerous, powerful investigators who ran an organization of the same. It was going to be good. Somehow.

A tactical, mission-focused genius, Brad was a man whose loyalty was written in blood. The rest of the group only added more of everything deadly to that.

Pulling out his badge, Jack stalked past the onsite LEO to her car, crushed all to hell. The vehicle had been pushed off the road by a larger, stronger machine. At the driver’s door the grab was written in the broken window and cut seat belt. There was some blood on the scene but not enough to be life threatening. She’d been taken, hard and fast.