Sweet Seduction Surrender (7 page)

What? I threw an incredulous look over my shoulder and watched the light dance playfully in his eyes. Chocolate, but not just the soft, deep and dark chocolate I'd seen before. This one was more complex. Multiple tans and mahoganies and siennas competing with each other. How had I ever thought his eyes were just plain brown?

His face softened further, the smirk I was used to seeing touched the edges of his lips, but wasn't quite all there was to marvel at either. With the complex shades in his eyes and the softness to his whole façade, this was a Jason I hadn't yet met. He kept surprising me. He wanted me to be the one who kept him on his toes. But I had no hope in hell of keeping up with Jason. He was an enigma, multi-layered. A mystery I was desperate to solve.

There was more to him than I had ever thought possible. And I liked it. I liked it a lot.

I turned over completely to face him and reached up a hand to run fingers down his cheek, over his roughened stubble, to finish in a smooth glide across his kiss plumped lips. He flicked out his tongue quickly, licking my finger and then sucking it into his mouth in an obviously sensual move.

I rolled my eyes and let a huff of air out at the same time.

"What?" he said overly innocently, eyebrows raised, mock incredulity on his face. When I just kept staring at him, not providing a verbal response, he leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the lips - short, abrupt, very Jason Cain. "Get in the kitchen and cook me my lunch, woman," he ordered, making me roll off the bed with an exaggerated sigh.

"So demanding," I complained, half heartedly. I
was
hungry after all.

"This is only the beginning, Kate." He spoke softly, from his now sitting position on the side of the bed.

I flicked a glance over my shoulder as I slipped a satin kimono robe on and took a step towards the door to the room. There was more to those words than the obvious. Of course they sent a thrill through my body. The implied meaning; the start of something between us, making my body shiver in delight.

But there was darkness there, something Jason was trying hard, but in the end, futilely, to hide. I hesitated on the threshold while he held my gaze. A steady, challenging look in his eyes.

And like I have done so many times in the past, I refused to take up the challenge that he offered, refused to take the risk and destroy the moment we had just shared.

As I turned back to exit the room I swear I saw disappointment cross his handsome face.

And it left a heavy weight inside my heart.

Lunch was going to be a casual affair. I could have gone all out and cooked a quiche, but aside from that taking too long, it would have set a precedent. One I was sure Jason would have gladly taken advantage of. Just because he demanded I
cook
him his lunch, did not mean I had to jump at his command. He may have expected his soldiers to follow his directions to the letter, but he didn't take his soldiers to bed.

I was hungry, so refusing to make something for lunch would be ridiculous, but that didn't mean I was going to do exactly as he instructed. So I hauled out fresh bread and meats and salad ingredients and laid them all on the table, and was just in the process of placing condiments alongside everything else when he walked in the room. No shirt, just jeans and ASI belt essentials, and a the most glorious tanned, well defined chest and arms.

I expected Jason to have scars, even a blemish would have made him seem more real. But his skin was smooth and unmarked, perfect. With an upper body like that, he should go around shirtless every day.

"Like what you see?" he drawled, reaching into the fridge for some ginger beers. His muscles rippled with the action, I wondered if he was doing it on purpose or not.

It was hard to tell with Jason. He made everything seem like a simple movement to effect a certain action, but Nick's words of warning still hung menacingly in my mind. Could Jason be so shrewd?

Still, no use lying to the man about this.

"Very much. In fact I'd like to declare a rule. You must never wear a shirt when in my house."

His eyebrows rose slowly up his forehead, bottle of ginger beer halfway to his lips.

"Is that so," he murmured. "Well, if you get a rule, I get one too."

My heart skipped several beats and my breath stalled in my throat. I swallowed and forced myself to stop fussing with the utensils on the table and stare into his eyes.

"What would that be?" I asked in my best attempt to sound in control. I'm unsure if it worked, his smirk may have been there since I started talking. Or not.

"You never wear underwear when in my home."

There was a lot in that short sentence to get hung up on. Of course my oversexed brain skipped the whole going commando issue and fixated on the
when in my home
part of the statement. As if Jason had every intention of taking this, whatever it was we had going on here, to the next level.

"You say that like you expect me to be in your home." And there, I said it. And here he was thinking I couldn't take risks.

"Kate," he admonished, placing his bottle of drink down on the bench beside him. The purposeful movement made me still. I felt a little like I'd been sighted by a predator who was preparing for their next hunt. "I see no point denying that I want you. Here. In my apartment. In the car.
On
the car. Wherever I can get you, I want you. And since we've got that out of the way, then I have no hesitation in admitting I want you ready for me, available to me, in my home. I want to know when you cross my kitchen and stand at my dining table, that all I have to do is bend you over the surface and sink myself inside."

Oh dear Lord I was getting wet again. The image he created was entirely too good. I hadn't been to the loft since he moved in. It used to be Genevieve's though, so I know the layout, I know her furniture, her long table is still there. I can picture it all, down to the colour of the stain on the surface, the shape of the edge of the table top, the height it sits at. I can picture everything. I can feel everything.

I closed my eyes slowly, leaned back against my table for much needed support and breathed through the sensations his words created.

"You like that, don't you?" he whispered.

His words came from directly in front of my face. I didn't open my eyes. I couldn't yet. I was still in his loft, spread across his table, being taken by him; no holds barred.

"Does it make you hot, Kate?" I nodded in answer, unable to voice a word right then. My eyelids still closed, heat washing up my cheeks. "Turn around," he demanded in a gruff voice.

I jumped slightly at the instruction, my eyes flicked open to peer into his. Chestnut stared back back me, dark and rich and filled with wicked thoughts.

"This is me, Kate," he said, still whispering, as though any increase in volume could shatter the moment.

I blinked up at him, unsure what he was getting at. He saw my confusion. A smattering of regret crossed his features. There one second and gone so quickly the next, I was unsure if I actually saw it. Then the Jason Cain smirk came out in full force.

"I'm hungry," he said, moving past me and throwing himself into a chair. "Worked up an appetite."

I'd missed something. Something vital to understanding Jason, to understanding what we could be. I'd missed it. And a part of me new that there was no way to undo the damage from the failure to grasp what Jason had been trying to convey. Granted he'd been his usual obtuse self, but the gravity of what had been missed, left a weight in my stomach and a heart that was filled with only empty air.

Lunch was a non-event after that. Oh, we ate, but pretty much in silence. Afterwards Jason checked in with Eric at ASI while I cleared the table and tidied the kitchen. I took more care than I needed to, ending up disinfecting my entire kitchen bench, shifting appliances and cleaning behind recipe books; something I only do about twice a year.

It wasn't until I was returning all my cookbooks alphabetically to their rightful places that I registered I had an audience. My head twisted to look over my shoulder and my eyes captured the amused ones of Jason's.

"You're hiding," he pointed out. It wasn't accusatory, just a statement of fact. I shrugged in reply.

He stared at me for a long drawn out moment.

"You scare too easily," he added, and this statement felt like it had been hurled right at my face.

We stared at each other for several seconds longer and then both of us jumped a mile in the air when a knock sounded out on my front door.

"Jesus," Jason swore, his hand going automatically to his hip and the holstered weapon there. He shook his head, looking disgusted and angry. I was thinking he was disgusted and angry at himself for lowering his guard, for not hearing a visitor approach the house. For being too wrapped up in psychoanalysing me.

He took a few steps into the lounge to peer out of the front window.

"Who is it?" I asked, from my vantage point at the dining room threshold. I knew from experience with Nick that at times like this I did
not
offer to open the door.

"Courier," Jason shot back over his shoulder, checking I wasn't coming closer, I think. "You expecting a delivery?"

I nodded. It would be the signed contract from Mrs Montgomery-Smith. "Yes, some documents from a client."

Jason nodded, gave me a glare that obviously meant 'don't move,' and headed to the front door. I watched from my vantage point further back in the lounge as he pulled his gun from its holster and held it at his side hidden, while he reached forward with his free hand to open the front door. I'd already catalogued how close a hidden knife was. It would take me two seconds to be armed. I decided that time-frame was acceptable, given the chance of this being anything other than the contract delivery was slim.

Jason greeted the courier driver, signed the electronic receipt machine with his non-dominant hand making it seem natural, while his gun hand held the weapon ready but out of sight behind the half opened door. Then he took the envelope and watched as the courier walked back to his van sitting on the street. Once he was sure things were as they should be, he shut and locked the door, and turned back to me.

He did not look happy.

"Tell me how Nicholas Anscombe's sister could be so stupid?" He'd spoken slowly, articulating each word as though it pained him.

My head shot back on my shoulders feeling like he'd slapped me.

He didn't wait for an answer. "Didn't it occur to you that in a lock-down
everything
is locked-down? Including anything coming in, as well as out?"

Oh.

"The whole premise of a lock-down is that those being protected remain cut-off from any potential harm. To do this
everything
is cut-off, because how can we tell what will be harmful and what won't? Do you think King would not stoop to using a courier" - he held the envelope above his head then and shook it for emphasis - "to exact his revenge?"

I bit my lip, entirely flustered and embarrassed and unable or willing to think of an excuse. He was right. I should have known better, and Nick would be ropeable right now if he knew what I had allowed to happen. I should have had Mrs Montgomery-Smith send the contract to my postal box address. I could have then picked it up tomorrow when the lock-down would no doubt be lifted. I felt like a fool, and Jason's glaring attitude only made me feel worse.

"It was a mistake," I whispered, unable to find my usual volume right then.

"A mistake that could have cost you your life," he pointed out, not quite finished with the reprimand it seemed.

I nodded, accepting the telling off as it was deserved and then walked over to hold out my hand for the envelope. I stood there with my arm suspended between us and waited for Jason to calm down and give me the delivery. He stared at my hand, as though it was a grenade about to go off.

"You are not opening this," he ground out.

"It's just a contract," I explained, still holding my hand out. "I need it."

His head shot up to look at my face. "You need a hell of a lot more than this!" he practically yelled.

"What does that mean?" I demanded, my fists now going to my hips. At least I wasn't holding a useless hand out in the air anymore.

Jason took a step toward me, bringing his chest up to mine. The envelope got held behind his back, making me want to reach for it like a child in the school yard. I had a momentary flash of me jumping up and down trying to reach for something he held behind his back, while he taunted me. It was entirely ridiculous, but when I'm nervous my mind wanders, and I can picture almost anything in my head.

"Fuck, Kate!" Jason growled, right in my face as his free hand came up and grasped my ponytail, holding my head still so I could look at him and nowhere else... like say, behind his back where I wanted to start reaching. "You think this is a game? Is everything a game to you? How old are you, twelve?"

Oh, he did not just say that.

Jason had a lot of different things on his belt, much like Nick does and all of the other operatives at ASI do. Taser, stun gun, cellphone, pistol. And a knife. In a sheath, but still, how many times have I unsheathed a knife in training? How many times has my trainer made his students unsheathe knives from different angles, in different circumstances, for any number of different reasons? It was one thing to know how to handle a knife when it was in your hand, but you couldn't use it unless you held it. Disarming an opponent and using their weapon against them was part of the advanced training I'd received only last year.

I licked my lips purposely, hoping Jason would catch the movement and I could use his distraction to unsheathe the knife at his waist. For a moment I thought he'd ignore it, too angry to contemplate a 'seductive' move like that. In my frustration I began nibbling on my bottom lip instead, and for some reason that's what did it. His gaze darted down, his hold on my hair loosened marginally and then he licked his own lips. Just once. I didn't even get to see the colour change in his eyes, I had his knife unsheathed and held against the side of his torso in the next second. The very sharp tip digging in ever so slightly.

His eyes darted up to mine and held them. Neither of us moved. I had no intention of using the knife, it was a message, nothing more. Just what message I was sending to the man assigned to protect me, I don't know. But he'd made me mad with that last statement. Twelve, indeed.

"You going to gut me, Kate?" His words from yesterday, said in a level and calm voice.

"No," I replied instantly. No way did I want to slice him, but he would know I wasn't a pushover when this was all said and done.

"Then why the knife in my side?" he asked, casually.

"Because you wouldn't have expected it."

He sucked in a breath, his eyes darting all over my face; cheeks, jaw, lips, nose, hairline, eyes, back to lips.

"You are an intriguing woman, Kate Anscombe," he said, his voice lower than before. "But you have no idea what you're playing with."

I wasn't afraid of the implied threat. It was all Jason. Words used as weapons, designed to throw me off balance.

It wasn't working. Well at least not the way he intended. I found him utterly kissable when he got all growly like a bear.

"What am I playing with, Jason?" I said, leaning forward until my lips were a mere inch away from his. The knife was held steady at his side.

He blinked slowly. The moment seemed to hang thick and heavy between us. Then the sound of the envelope hitting the floor broke the spell and his free hand came up to cup my chin firmly. His fingers dug into skin down either side of my jaw, not so much that I wanted to complain, but in a way that let me know he meant all business.