Protector (21 page)

Trip wires rigged to a flare.

And a simple baby alarm for a door worked just as well for adults needing a little advance warning if someone made it undetected as far as the cottage.

An hour later, Chuck eased himself onto the front porch step, the wooden planks digging splinters into the flesh below the hem of his Bermuda shorts.

The freshly fueled generator hummed in the distance. Trip wires along the perimeter of the cabin reassured him. If someone beat the odds and found them, they wouldn’t slip past without warning. Meanwhile, the safety measures would buy him time to sort through the facts.

Time. Spent alone with Jolynn.

He tried not to think about her a few feet away inside the cottage. Bathing. How many more times would he have to suffer images of her naked and writhing in his arms?

Looking down at his hands dangling between his knees, he could still feel the imprint of her breasts burning into his palms. Desire for her rocked through him, shaking his concentration when he’d needed every scrap to keep himself from flying apart.

He zeroed in his focus on the mission rather than the woman. Professional instincts told him to keep her in hiding and wait for Scanlon to find them. He wasn’t exactly AWOL.

She would never know how much it cost him, facing the ghosts rattling around in the old cabin. And the timing couldn’t have sucked more after their little shower chat on the ferry. Maybe he would sit out here awhile longer. Chuck stared down the empty lane. The canopy of ancient olive trees was heavy with the humidity of summer heat.

Jolynn wanted him to talk, but after the concentrated hell of having to keep his mouth shut during weeks of torture, sometimes he wondered if talking would ever come easily to him again.

“Chuck?”

A gentle hand smoothed his wind-tousled hair. He glanced over his shoulder at Jolynn. Hollow inside, he looked away before she might see shadows in his eyes.

She settled beside him as his gaze swept the trees.

Jolynn nudged his shoulder with hers. “Nice little place you have here.”

“The cabin would probably fit in the pool on your father’s cruise ship.”

“Only if you stuck a Venus de Milo statue on the roof.” Her eyes twinkled jewel tone green. She held out a large-toothed comb. “Do you mind? My side’s kinda sore and the reach makes it worse.”

Brush her hair? Sounded like heaven and hell to him, but she hadn’t really left him any choice. Not if she was hurting. “Scoot down a step.”

She eased forward, dusting the step before sitting. He slid behind her, bracketing her body with his knees. When she leaned back, Chuck almost groaned out loud at the feel
of her, the scent. Maybe they should just have sex again so he wouldn’t have to talk.

But she’d asked him to brush her hair.

Might as well get to it. He cradled a lock and slowly worked the snarl from its spiraling length. Hands that held a gun with ease felt awkward combing the long hair. He tested the silky strand between two fingers and raised it to his face, inhaling the floral shampoo they’d bought at the little village store.

“Chuck?” Her husky voice flowed over him.

“Yeah?”

“Was it true, what you said?”

His hands paused. No way in hell did he want to return to their discussion about his time in captivity. He’d already explained why he had the scars. God, he definitely didn’t want to hash through the details of how he got them or all the surgeries it had taken to piece him back together again. If his shaking hands right now were any indication, the shrink he’d been forced to see hadn’t finished his job putting his brain in order again.

Not sure how to answer her, he simply said, “Is what true?”

“What you said about how your parents died. About growing up in an orphanage in Hawaii. Was that a part of your cover story, too?”

Prime example of Jolynn lowering his defenses and leading him into revealing too much.

“Chuck, are you listening?”

“Yeah, I’m just surprised.” Surprised and relieved. “Of all the questions you could ask, why that one? Why now?”

She tipped her face to look at him. “I’m having a hard time separating Charles Tomas from Chuck Tanaka.”

“Every bit I told you about my parents, including the part
about growing up in an orphanage in Hawaii, is true.” Chuck worked through a snarl at the base of her skull. “My father did die before I was one and my mother died when I was in the second grade, but she dumped me in an orphanage when I was in kindergarten so she could run off with her blackjack-dealing boyfriend.”

He yanked the comb the rest of the way through.

“Ouch!” Jolynn leaned forward, ducking her head out of his reach. “If you don’t want to talk about it, just say so while I still have hair left.”

“Sorry.” The word grew easier every time he said it. Chuck gripped her shoulders with gentle hands and pulled her back into the embrace of his knees. He didn’t want to think about why touching her made him feel better.

Jolynn smoothed a hand along his leg. “It must have been hard for you, growing up alone.”

Chuck grunted as he brushed her hair. “I told you before. The nuns were good people. No rulers or knuckle rapping. It was a solid, safe place to grow up. And I guess you could say I had a home full of brothers and sisters. Squadron life felt like a natural fit after the way I’d grown up, the people, the uniforms.”

She tilted her head and empathy flickered in her eyes. “Somehow I don’t think it’s quite that simple.”

“I have to admit I didn’t join the military with that intent or insight by any means. I took an ROTC scholarship because it was the only way I could get a degree. Then I realized I’d dumb lucked into the perfect career, the perfect life for myself.”

“What exactly is it you do in the military?”

He settled on the standard answer he’d been allowed to roll out in the past, part truth, the rest hidden. “I’m an aviator, a navigator actually. I worked in the military testing
world, like a test pilot, creating and fine-tuning all the latest gadgets. Or rather I used to fly before… Body can’t cooperate with that now because of a busted eardrum. So now I’m just a regular techno computer guy.” His chest went tight. “Moving on to your next question…”

Her head lolled against his knee, and she pressed a soft kiss on it before speaking. “So Chuck Tanaka is the name you were born with then.”

“Uh-huh,” he agreed, thankful as hell she’d let the other subject go. “But the nuns gave us all new middle names to give us a grounding and reminder of our lives with them.”

“And you are?”

“Charles Gabriel Tanaka.” He felt her smile against his skin. “They liked the angels.”

“That was nice for you and whoever got Michael and Raphael.” She wrapped her arm around his leg and rubbed his shin absently. Or on purpose? “But I feel a little sorry for whoever got stuck with the fourth archangel, Uriel.”

Chuck smiled down at her in spite of his crappy mood as she dispersed the ghosts with her laugh. “Pretty impressive. Not many people could come up with all four names.”

“I spent a lot of years in parochial school.” Jolynn traced patterns on his calf with her fingers.

He struggled to control his breathing. Her bare arm hooked around his legs. Caresses turned to a firmer touch, more deliberate, and he realized she had more than talking on her mind. Maybe she’d even used the question about his childhood to show him she wasn’t going to push on the other topic. Maybe she understood his need to leave that part of his past alone. He’d done as much as he could to come to grips with what had happened, with all he’d lost. He just wanted to move on.

And right now, moving on by losing himself in sex with the hottest woman he’d ever met sounded like a damn fine idea.

Except this time, he wanted to take it slow. To see every nuance of her arousal played out on her face, on her bared flesh.

A rush of adrenaline rivaling any burst from the past few days powered through him. He lifted the veil of her hair and exposed the vulnerable patch of skin. Ravenous with a hunger he suspected he could never fill, Chuck pressed a kiss to her scented flesh. Her heartbeat throbbed beneath his lips, and her body stilled. The pulsing against his mouth increased.

He traced the outline of her face with the backs of his fingers, trailing from her forehead, over her delicate ears, along her jaw, and meeting at her chin. Her skin felt so soft against his roughened calluses.

Chuck circled the pad of one finger around her parted lips, before tapping her upturned nose. Her breathy gasps flowed over his palm in waves of heat that permeated his skin and coiled within him. Chuck brushed the fingers of both hands across her eyes, closing her lids with gentle strokes.

Skimming his hands down her arms and back up, he nudged aside the dress, baring her shoulder. Her head fell back and her cheek brushed against his as he feathered kisses against the softest skin ever made, skin that tempted him to explore every inch.

He absorbed the feel of her, like a dried-up river soaking the rain after a drought. He cupped her breasts through the cotton fabric. Memories from the ferry exploded through his senses. As his thumbs stroked, he could feel her cresting, and he yearned to toss away her clothes.

Her gentle moan provided all the encouragement he needed.

His hands met at the tiny buttons along the front. Her lids fluttered open, unveiling mossy green eyes darkening
with desire. She shifted in his embrace until she leaned against his leg. Her hair brushed over his knee. Already he could imagine it tangled around him in the big brass bed inside.

She gripped the front of his shirt with a typical bravado he recognized as signature Jolynn, and tugged him to ward her.

Jolynn clenched his shirt in her fist and jerked him toward her. She was taking charge this time.

She stopped a hair shy of contact, puffing a breath over his cheek. His pupils dilated in response. He moved closer. She inched back, pressing her fingers to his lips.

“Red?”

“Chuck, I want you.”

“Good, because I want you, too.” He angled his face to kiss her.

She leaned her head back. “I know you do.” She could feel his desire throbbing against her stomach, but she didn’t trust that his logical mind wouldn’t scavenge some last-minute excuse to remain honorable. “Are you done ignoring me today?”

“I just brushed your hair and spilled my guts, for crying out loud, woman.”

Refusing to let him dodge the real question, she held his eyes with hers. “I’m talking about the moody silent treatment
you gave me in the car and the way you shrugged me off once we got here.”

“I was securing the perimeter. I was keeping you safe, damn it.” Chuck kissed her hard and fierce, scorching her with a heat that surprised her.

Had he been holding back before, even in his kisses? His hands fisted in her wet hair, his body tense and urgent against her.

He ended the kiss abruptly and pinned her with his eyes. “You have every reason to question me based on how I kept the truth from you in the beginning.” He brushed her hair away from her face with unsteady hands. “But I only did what I had to in order to keep you safe. Is that so hard to understand?”

The sad reality of it all swept over her. “You were just doing your job.”

He muttered a curse. “You’re more than that to me.”

“Am I?” How much did she want to be?

Stubbornly, she pushed aside the thought before it led her to places where she could be hurt.

His hands tightened, almost painfully. “You can’t begin to imagine the pure evil I’ve seen. The thought that any of it might touch you scares the hell out of me. Since the moment we tangled on the floor of the casino, you’ve tied me into so many knots I can’t think straight. If I can’t think,
you die
.” His eyes burned like twin molten hot flames. “Can I make it any clearer than that?”

Awed into silence by his heated speech, she merely shook her head. If that’s what happened from his storing words, she could only imagine what a flow of emotions from Chuck would entail. What would it feel like to have such strength, such power wash over her?

The composed man faded, and she saw his very human need, not just a physical need, but a yearning for her.

She pressed a kiss to his lips, his beautiful eyes, over his jaw, and journeyed back to his mouth. Without breaking contact, he backed her up the steps as their kisses grew more frenzied. His tongue delved deeper as they pushed through the front door of the one-room cottage.

The place was small, but quaint and surprisingly well equipped. His legs tangling with hers, he kept dance-walking with her, past the kitchenette, farther by the leather sofa in front of a stone fireplace, an old upright piano against the only full wall, and finally, finally to the wide brass bed. He lowered her onto the gold-and-white woven spread, the mattress giving as he joined her.

Chuck slanted his mouth over hers, stealing her breath as his hands slid between their bodies. His calloused fingers snagged along her skin. He released two more buttons on her dress. The bodice slid free, hooking on her elbows as she struggled with his clothes.