Under Fire Page 19

  Geez, she was losing it. She’d even told her boss not to send anyone to pick her up until morning so she could steal a little more time with Jackson. What did she think would happen tonight that had her champing at the bit to stay with him a few more hours?

  Lauren made her way back to the ladies’ restroom, pulling in a deep restorative breath.

  Just face facts. She wanted to learn more about Jackson. The biochemistry genius. The concerned father. The widower still locked in his grief. She’d come to know a man of determination and compassion. A deep thinker, a gentleman, a fighter. His own toughest critic. She wanted to unravel more of the complex layers that made up Jackson McKay. She wanted… Hell, who was she kidding?

  She wanted him naked. She wanted him hot and sweaty and tangled with her in the sheets.

  Lauren made use of the facilities then stared at herself in the cracked mirror over the sink as she washed her hands. Hair frizzing, clothes rumpled and face smudged with dirt. She looked like hell.

  Oh, yeah. She was in a great position to seduce Jackson looking like this. She snorted and spun to dry her hands under the blower when a different machine mounted on the wall caught her attention. A feminine products dispenser. Not that she needed any at the moment—thank God. What an inconvenience that would—

  Lauren did a double take.

  Condoms.

  One side of the machine sold condoms. A dollar each. It was an omen. A sign. Perhaps fate was on her side…

  Yet she wasn’t about casual affairs, meaningless flings. She wanted Jackson because…because she cared about him. There! She’d admitted it. She’d grown to care about him.

  His deep concern for Emily touched her. His stubborn machismo challenged her. His analytical mind intrigued her.

  His athlete’s body and scorching kiss made her hot and achy and pulsing with need and—

  Her emergency dollar and quarter. Old habits died hard. She kept up the practice her mother had insisted on for sentimental reasons more than practical ones. A good luck talisman of sorts for when she went on jumps.

  Working the money free of the safety pin, she fed the money in the right slot, praying the machine would take her crumpled bill. When it didn’t spit the dollar back out, Lauren wrenched the dial and listened to the whir as the machine did its thing.

  Plop.

  Lauren blinked and stared at the not one, but two foil packets that had dropped in the tray. She snatched them up and clutched them to her chest as if they were a precious gift.

  Because they were. Because she now had the means to give Jackson what she wanted most to share. Herself.

  Lauren wasn’t acting like herself.

  Or at least it seemed to Jackson she’d been acting differently since she returned from the restroom. Maybe it was his own randy imagination gone wild, but he’d swear she was intentionally licking the fudge off her spoon with more than a love of sweets in mind. She knew what she was doing. Knew it was working. The tease.

  And she was still all wrong for him. He had no business getting even superficially involved with a woman with Lauren’s dangerous job. He refused to mislead her about his intentions.

  He gulped his ice water, but it did little to cool the sizzle in his blood or douse the molten desire pounding through him as he watched Lauren suck the last of the sundae off her spoon.

  When she pushed the ice cream dish away, she stretched like a cat after a nap. Her T-shirt pulled taut over her breasts. Breasts that he’d suckled that morning.

  “Lauren—” he started, but she slid out of the booth and held a hand out to him.

  “Shall we head down to the motel now?” she asked with a glint of mischief in her eyes.

  “You’ll be lucky if there’s a room left,” their waitress volunteered as she retrieved the empty sundae dish. “The Henson family’s having their reunion tomorrow, and they probably took most of the rooms. And Raymond Carson’s boy came in town unexpectedly to visit him over at the nursing home, was in here earlier for dinner. Poor Raymond’s not doing so well these days I hear. Cancer’s just eating him up.”

  Talk of an old man dying of cancer sufficiently took the starch out of Jackson’s lust. He shoved away from the table and picked up the PG bag from the bench seat.

  The waitress shook her head. “Anyhow, if the Catch-a-Wink is full up, you’ll have to head down the highway about fifteen more miles. There’s a place in Jasper might have a room to rent.”

  Jackson thanked the woman for her suggestion, not bothering to tell her they’d be stranded if the Catch-a-Wink had no vacancy. Like Lauren said, no sense borrowing trouble.

  Chapter Seventeen

  As he toweled off after his shower, Jackson heard the dulcet murmur of Lauren’s voice drifting into the motel bathroom. He wrapped a towel around his waist and stepped into the next room, wondering who she could be talking to.

  “I promise I’m okay. No, I’m not lying to spare your feelings, Mom. I just didn’t want you to worry if you heard something on the news—” Wearing the sheet off one of the two double beds, Lauren glanced up and took in Jackson’s dishabille with an appreciative gaze and a sly grin. She held the phone tucked between her shoulder and ear while she combed her damp hair. The lamp on the bedside table shone a golden light into the room that danced on the auburn highlights in her hair.

  She motioned to a pile of toiletries on the end of the bed and mouthed, “I called the front desk.”

  Jackson surveyed the cache of items. Toothpaste, two toothbrushes, a razor, a small deodorant, and—

  Jackson picked up one of two foil packets and gaped in disbelief. Condoms? She’d asked the front desk for condoms?

  Her grin broadened, and she wiggled her eyebrows at him. “Yeah, Mom. I’ll call you again when I get home. Love you too.”

  “Since when did small town motels start providing condoms to guests?” he asked as soon as she replaced the receiver.

  “Actually…” She rose and crossed to him, swathed in the bed sheet. “Those came from the bathroom at the diner. Three cheers for Mom and her lesson in carrying emergency cash.” Her eyes twinkled with amusement.

  Okay. So if he had any doubt, he now knew for certain what she hoped would happen tonight. Jackson tightened the towel around his waist and sighed. “Lauren, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  She scowled. “What’s not? The toothpaste? The razor?”

  He rocked his head from side to side to stretch the muscles in his neck. The painkillers he’d taken at the sheriff’s office had eased the ache in his shoulder enough that he’d discarded the arm sling. But in the face of Lauren’s intentions, the tension the warm shower had helped loosen at the base of his neck came back in gangbusters. “You know what I mean. The condoms.”

  “That’s funny.” She propped her hands on her hips, and the sheet slipped to expose the upper curve of her breasts.

  His pulse stumbling, Jackson jerked his gaze from the tempting view.

  “This morning you put me off because we didn’t have any protection. Now we have condoms, and they’re a bad idea?” The light of challenge in her eyes told him she knew exactly what he was saying but was going to force him to say the words rather than beat around the bush.

  He drew a deep breath and blew it out slowly. The scent of shampoo and motel-provided lotion wafted to him from her skin, teasing his senses. Sexual energy hummed through his body despite the denials screaming in his brain. “I can’t sleep with you, Lauren.”

  Her jaw tensed, and she squared her shoulders, drawing attention to the smooth skin over well-toned muscles in her arms and back. “Why not?”

  He balled his hands at his sides to keep from touching her, to keep from tracing a finger along her collarbone…and lower. The urge to hold her, to lose himself in her touch and escape the realities of his situation crashed in on him. Desire and logic battled for supremacy. All the good reasons he’d amassed for staying away from her fled his mind, and he scrambled for justifications, for distance. “Beca
use you and I are different. Because…I don’t know what will happen tomorrow and…”

  She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes as if listening intently to his arguments. But behind that facade was a nice-try-big-guy-but-I’m-not-buying-any-of-this expression. An arched eyebrow, a dismissive snort.

  Heat gathered low in his belly, and longing pounded through his blood. One certainty fought its way through his lust-induced dementia. He couldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t give her false hope like the asshole professor who’d bashed her self-esteem and crushed her heart.

  He sighed. “Lauren, I can’t give you any promises. I can’t give you anything beyond tonight. All hell could break loose tomorrow. I have no idea how all this will end. I don’t want to hurt you, and I can’t—”

  She tugged the sheet free and let it drop to the floor.

  Heart thundering, he stared at her glorious naked body and couldn’t find his voice.

  “I’m not asking for promises, Jackson. I have no illusions beyond tonight. And as a smokejumper, I’ve learned how fragile and precious life is. Anything could happen at any moment to snatch life away. You have to live for the present.”

  Anything could happen. Her words reverberated in his head.

  God, how true. How frighteningly true. He’d lost Janine in an instant. Could still lose Emily just as fast.

  And tomorrow morning, Lauren could walk out of his life for the last time. Suddenly, the idea of losing even one minute with Lauren gouged a deep pit in his soul. Stole his breath.

  She slid her arms around his neck, lifting a gaze that was warm and understanding and full of sweet promise. “I know what I’m doing, Jackson. My eyes are wide open. Give me tonight, and we’ll let tomorrow take care of itself.”

  She glided in for a kiss, her naked body grazing his, her mouth hot and commanding.

  His body answered even before his mind surrendered. Heat flashed over his skin, and his sensitized nerve endings crackled. With a groan he pulled her closer, sinking his fingers into her bottom and hauling her up against an erection so stiff he ached.

  She loosened his towel and let it drop to the floor. The full body contact, skin-to-skin, rocked him to the core.

  His returned kisses had little patience for a slow seduction. His tongue parried with hers, and he feasted on her lips. She tasted like fudge sauce and vanilla ice cream, and he savored her as he would any sweet treat.

  Lauren moved, a little shuffle-step almost like a slow dance that turned them without breaking body contact. She guided him with precision to the edge of the bed where she pushed him down on the mattress and climbed astride him. Her aggression fired new levels of hunger and impatience in him.

  Having come to admire her determination and confidence as they hiked, seeing her similar assertiveness in sex was an incredible turn on. The woman knew what she wanted and went after it, no holds barred.

  Jackson sank his fingers into her hair and captured her lips again, growling his approval. He’d let her run the show for a while before he took the lead and had his way with her.

  Lauren settled on him. Her cleft rode his sex. Hot. Wet. Ready for him. He swallowed a moan as she gyrated and stroked him with her heat.

  He cupped each of her breasts and thumbed her budded nipples to even tighter peaks. With a purr of appreciation, she arched her back and thrust her chest toward him. He drew one taut nipple into his mouth, lashing it with his tongue, sucking.

  “Oh yes…” she murmured, writhing on him, rubbing her legs along his, and driving him crazy with the delicious friction of her body against his.

  She nudged his chin up to capture his lips then made love to his mouth with her tongue. Slowly she moved her kisses down his chest, licking, nibbling, arousing him almost beyond endurance. The wild, frenetic pace she set was a double-edged sword. Her passion was undeniably arousing, but he wanted more than a quick, frenzied bang from her.

  Rolling to the dominant position, he treated her to the same delicious torture she’d subjected him to.

  His hands roamed over her skin from head to toe, while he trailed nibbling kisses from her breasts over her navel, along the curve of her hip to the back of her knees. As he worked his way back up her inner thighs, she arched into his kiss, opening herself to his questing tongue.

  “Oh Jackson. There…right there,” she moaned. He lapped her womanly essence, dipped his fingers inside her until she cried out. When she fumbled on the bed for one of the foil packets and ripped it open, anticipation spiked in his blood.

  “I want you now, Jackson,” she panted. “I want to come with you inside me.”

  Just hearing those words from her could have done him in, but he inhaled deeply, fighting for a last thread of control. She sheathed him in the condom with trembling hands, shoved him down on the bed and climbed on top. With one sure motion, she sank onto him, burying him deep in her body like a warrior throwing himself on his scabbard.

  Jackson groaned as lightning bolts of sensation streaked through his blood. Lauren bucked and rode him then cried out as her body began rhythmically contracting, pulsing around him as she climaxed. But for all the eroticism of their coupling, he knew deep in his gut something elemental was missing. Something his soul cried for.

  “Jackson! Come with me,” Lauren begged. “Now, Jackson. Oooh!”

  The rippling pulse of her orgasm milked him and sent him over the edge. He sank deep inside her, careening into a climax that shook him from head to foot. He plunged into the release with a shout of pleasure, her name tumbling from his lips. He’d never experienced anything so intense in his life. Not even with Janine. God forgive him…

  The last of his strength sapped, Jackson exhaled a cleansing breath. Lauren untangled her limbs from his and slid to the bed beside him.

  She gave him a lazy smile. “Wow. That was…pretty incredible.”

  He brushed the hair away from her face and captured her mouth for a couple quick kisses. “No, you…” He tapped her nose for emphasis. “Are incredible.”

  Her smile brightened, and an endearing flush stained her cheeks. “Is your shoulder okay? Things got pretty crazy for a little while there, and I hope I didn’t—”

  “Nary a twinge.” When she lifted an eyebrow, he added, “Well, maybe it hurt a little, but nothing I couldn’t take considering.” After giving her one more soft kiss, he rolled to his back and sighed his fatigue and utter satiation. “I’m not even going to ask where you learned some of those moves.”

  “I just let the moment guide me. What feels good, what feels right. No fear, no second-guessing. Just…let go.”

  For several moments, he studied her drowsy expression, saw a peace in her that stirred something inside him. “That’s how you do everything, isn’t it? Live for the moment. Never afraid. Then charge in where angels fear to tread.”

  “I never said I don’t get scared sometimes. I just meant I don’t let the fear win.”

  “Like jumping out of airplanes despite your fear of heights?”

  She shrugged. “It’s my job.”

  “Someone else could do it. You could do something else. Something safer.”

  She snorted. “My mom would love that.”

  “Then why don’t you?”

  She propped up on an elbow, giving him an enticing view of her peaked breasts. “It’s not me. I’m a smokejumper. A good one, and I love it. I have no reason to give it up.”

  And he had no reason to expect her to give it up. Why should he? He’d known her a matter of days. They’d go their separate ways tomorrow.

  Even Janine had balked at his request that she leave the police force or take a desk job when Emily was born.

  Now Emily had no mother.

  When a familiar hollow ache plucked at him, he swung his legs off the bed and headed for the bathroom. He didn’t want anything in his expression to give her a hint of where his thoughts had gone. She already read him so well.

  “Jackson?” she called to his retreating back.

  “B
e right back, babe. Just cleaning up a bit.”

  Jackson took the opportunity while he was in the bathroom to shave, regretting that his beard had likely chafed Lauren in their frantic sex-capades.

  Babe. He stared at himself in the mirror as he rinsed his face and sighed. That’s what he’d called Janine too. For the endearment to have slipped out told him all he needed to know. He’d grown to care for Lauren as more than just a partner for wild sex. More than someone he owed a debt of gratitude to for her courageous assistance in his time of need. More than a friend who’d shown him compassion, buoyed him with her optimism, lent an understanding ear.

  More. God, so much more.

  He was in deep trouble.

  Rick stuffed another pillow behind his back and leaned against the headboard of the motel bed as he watched the baseball game on TV. The folks in the room next door had finally quieted down after a thorough, rowdy fucking.

  He took a long drag on his cigarette and thought about the waitress at the diner whose none-too-subtle hints about what time she got off work promised a good lay of his own if he wanted it.

  Naw. Sex was a distraction he didn’t need. He had to regroup. Focus on how to rework his plans and pull his mission out of the toilet.

  Rick cracked his knuckles then grabbed the remote and flipped off the TV. He hoped to God the horny couple next door held the noise down the rest of the night. He needed the quiet to think, form a strategy, prepare.

  He stubbed out his smoke and closed his eyes.

  He refused to give up. Pop would have his revenge.

  When Jackson returned to bed, Lauren had snuggled under the covers. He slid in next to her and pulled her into his arms.

  “Tell me about your wife,” she whispered.

  Jackson’s heart lurched, and he forced a laugh. “Isn’t it bad form for me to talk about another lover after we just…you know.” He tweaked her nipple and felt her shiver.