Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

“ C aroline, go back upstairs. Please.” Jack kept his voice gentle but he wanted to growl in exasperation. The unheated basement was dank and damp and cold. It would take him at least another half hour to get the piece of shit Caroline laughingly called a boiler going.

She was standing next to him anxiously, eager to help though she couldn’t distinguish a lug wrench from an eyebrow pencil, shaking with the cold. Her nostrils were pinched and white and her hands were milky blue even though she surreptitiously tucked them under her armpits when he wasn’t looking. He couldn’t stand seeing her like this.

“No,” she said, through chattering teeth. “That’s okay. I want to help.”

“You know what would help me?” He put the screwdriver down and pried away the backing plate. “You’d really help me if you went back upstairs where there’s still some warmth left. Your teeth are distracting me. They sound like castanets.”

“Sorry.” She clenched her jaw.

He sighed. “That was a joke. Obviously not a very good one.” He wrenched the plate open and contemplated the rusting wires and leaky pipes with disgust. “Please go up, I can’t stand seeing you like this. I mean it.”

“If you can stand it, I can. I mean you’re a soldier. Were a soldier. Don’t soldiers stick together?” She edged closer to peer past him into the bowels of the boiler, as if looking into the face of a long-despised enemy. “So that’s the inside of the beast? Doesn’t look like much, does it? I mean considering how much damage it causes.”

Jack clenched his own jaw. No, it didn’t look like much. It was the worst, oldest, crappiest boiler he’d ever seen and he couldn’t believe she was trusting this piece of shit to keep her warm. It should have been tossed on to the garbage heap ten years ago.

“You need a new filter.” And a new casing and a new feedwater drum.

“Tell me about it.”

“You’re spending more in fixing it than a new one would cost. And you’re just guzzling up electricity.”

“Uh huh.”

“And you’d save even more money if you bought?—”

“A condensing boiler,” she finished for him. “I know. Believe me I know. I’ve been told all of this, repeatedly. What can I say? I don’t have the money for a new filter and—trust me on this one—I certainly don’t have the money for a new boiler. Maybe some day. But definitely not now.”

Jack gritted his teeth. He was going to buy a brand-new filter Monday and fit it while she was out. Mack the Jerk was never going to touch her boiler again, so she’d never know. He’d give his eye teeth to be able to buy a new boiler for her, but it would be hard to install on his own, and she’d notice.

Fuck! He hated this! He hated to see her pale with the cold, shaking and frightened that she’d be without heat. It was insane that Caroline had to spend even one more second without money when he had so much. What the hell did he have money for if he couldn’t make her life easier?

But how to get the money to her? A sudden dump of a million dollars in her bank account two days after he showed up would raise too many red flags, though he was tempted to do just that. Fuck it. Just transfer a million, maybe two, so her money problems would be over permanently. God knows he’d have plenty left.

It was such a tempting thought that Jack gritted his teeth against it as he took apart the filter from hell, cleaned it, and reassembled it.

Caroline wasn’t meant for this life. She wasn’t meant to live in a shell of a home, however beautiful that shell was, without rugs and paintings, whose walls needed painting, with an unreliable heating system in the dead of winter. She wasn’t meant to pinch pennies, have a continuous frown of worry between her brows, a slightly sad cast to her face.

Jack wanted to drown her in comfort. He wanted to buy her things—useful things and foolish things. Pretty baubles that would bring a smile to her face. Clothes, jewelry. Rugs, artwork for the house. He wanted her to be able to bring Greenbriar back to what it had once been.

It was going to be hard getting her to accept the money, but he’d manage. He was going to be in her life from now on. They were already having sex. He was going to keep her in bed as much as he could this weekend. There was nothing that forged a bond like sex, at least for a woman like Caroline.

She hadn’t had many lovers and it had been six years since the last one. She’d been as tight as a virgin and it had nearly blown his head off. She wasn’t an easy woman. Her body had told him she was picky. And by God, she’d picked him.

Jack knew why she’d picked him. Because he’d been there, at a low moment in her life. The taxi driver had said that her parents had died on Christmas day. Her brother had just died. It was her first Christmas completely alone and she’d been sad and upset.

It didn’t bother him that he’d caught her not because of his charm—he didn’t have any charm that he knew of—but because he’d been in the right place at the right time. As a soldier, Jack had ruthlessly used any advantage he could get, even if it was only a slight elevation above an enemy soldier, the wind blowing in the right direction, or the cover of night.

He was going to just as ruthlessly press his advantage this weekend too, bedding her until by Monday she’d be his.

She already was his, only she didn’t know it yet. And he’d take good care of her. All his life he’d only wanted two things—to do right by his Dad. And Caroline .

She was surreptitiously hopping up and down, trying to keep warm, her breath a little cloud around her face. Damn! Taking care of her did not entail her freezing that pretty tail off.

“Caroline,” he began, putting down the wrench.

“Don’t,” she said, teeth chattering. “I’m staying here and keeping you company until you get that blasted thing going—and if you do, I’ll personally nominate you for the Nobel—or you give up. Whichever comes first.”

“Listen, it’s fu—freaking freezing.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll catch your death of cold.”

“Yes.”

“ So go up.”

“No.” That pretty, pointed chin went a notch up in the air.

It was a real surprise enamel wasn’t shooting out his ass, he was grinding his teeth so hard. Jack bent back to the boiler, trying to work double-quick before he ended up with a gorgeous corpse.

Fifteen minutes later, he tightened the last screw and flipped a switch. A red light came on and a second later, with a great shudder like an ocean liner taking off for a trip across the Atlantic, the boiler creaked into life.

Caroline had had her arms wrapped around herself for warmth, but her arms suddenly dropped. “ Oh my God,” she whispered, eyes huge in her pale face. “You did it. You fixed it.”

“Yeah.” Jack put the tools away neatly, eyeing the boiler with loathing. He’d fixed it with the equivalent of chewing gum and duct tape, but it goddamned well better hold until Monday when he could get a new filter in, or he’d rip the fucking thing out of the wall with his own hands. “Whoa.”

Caroline had walked straight into his arms, laying her head on his chest, her arms hugging him tightly. “Thanks,” she whispered. She looked up at him, tears on her eyelashes. “Oh my gosh. Thanks so much. I can’t tell you how I was dreading being without heat all weekend.”

His hands came up, one around her head, one around her waist, holding her tightly, looking for words, though none came.

Brand new emotions, ones he didn’t have names for, coursed through him, fierce and raw, emotions he didn’t know how to handle.

No one had ever looked at him like that, certainly no woman. Women looked at him with lust, greed or indifference, never with the warmth and admiration he could clearly see on Caroline’s beautiful face.

“It was nothing,” he said gruffly. And it wasn’t. Jesus, he wanted to shower her with pearls and diamonds. Coddle her and spoil her, take care of her problems for her. Fixing her boiler didn’t even register on the scale.

In answer, she turned her head and kissed his chest. He didn’t feel it through his sweatshirt, but the gesture stunned him. It was an unmistakeable gesture of … of affection.

He’d lusted after this woman for most of his life, it seemed. The sex they’d had yesterday hadn’t even begun to get her out of his head. He was okay with sex. It was what he knew, so he could deal with lust, and the thought of fucking her as long as he was physically able .

What he saw on her face nearly unmanned him. He wanted to put it back on a sexual footing, right now, so he wouldn’t have to deal with all those … things roiling around in his chest like huge hot boulders. He was bending to kiss her when she shivered.

“Out,” he said harshly. If he could have reached his own butt he’d have kicked it. Jesus, keeping her in the cold damp basement was not a good idea. What was he thinking? He’d actually flashed on pushing down her pants and taking her, right there, on the freezing concrete floor.

What was the matter with him? He wouldn’t even treat a casual sex partner like that—and this was Caroline .

With a hand on her back, he ushered her up into the kitchen. This wasn’t any good. In the half hour it had taken him to fix the boiler, the house had cooled down noticeably. He was okay with it, but Caroline would find it uncomfortably cold. Only one place to go—to bed.

Oh yeah. Get her between the sheets, start fucking. Get rid of that…that prickly feeling in his chest.

Jack kept his hand on the small of her back. “Keep on going up.” Caroline looked up at him, startled. She blushed when she saw the heat in his eyes and smiled faintly.

“Okay.”

Her bedroom had big windows, with no double glazing. The heat had simply leaked out and it was already close to freezing. Condensation had iced the windows over, forming giant star patterns on the pane. Their breaths were making clouds around their heads. Undressing Caroline slowly like he wanted to was out of the question .

He bent down and kissed her softly, reaching past her to pull down the covers. “Don’t undress, just get in.”

“Okay,” she whispered, toeing off her shoes and lying down. She scooted over, watching him. She’d left a big empty space on his side of the bed, an invitation as clear as if she’d engraved it on a card.

Jack undressed, watching her eyes. There was a little trepidation, a little shyness, but there was also welcome.

Naked to the waist, he unzipped his jeans and hooked his thumbs in the waistband. Hesitating, he finally just shucked them and the briefs off, taking socks and boots with him. Caroline’s eyes widened when she saw him.

He didn’t have to look down, he could see what condition he was in from what was in her eyes. And he could feel how swollen he was. He was hard as a club, already weeping from the tip, the drops of moisture cool against the tip of his cock. It was the only place where he felt cold. The rest of him was so hot he didn’t feel the cold at all, though he was naked. All he had to do was look at Caroline, and know that he was going to be inside her very soon, and a hot flush swept over his body.

“You’ve been thinking about this,” she said faintly, when he got into bed.

“All morning.” His weight made the bed dip and tip her towards him. Jack reached for her, rolled on top of her.

“All—” she gave a half laugh. “Even when you were fixing the boiler?”

Oh God, she felt so goddamned good, warm and soft, skin like satin. He rested his upper body on his forearms and looked down at her, smiling, as happy as he’d ever been in his life .

“Not then, no.” Down there in the basement, his only thought had been to get the damn thing up and running and get Caroline to somewhere warm. “But before. And after. And especially now.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“Feel it.” Suddenly, Jack wanted her hands on him, like he wanted his next breath. He levered himself off her, to the side. He took her hand, soft, slender, long-fingered and curled it around his dick. “Feel me,” he whispered. “Feel how much I want you.”

Her fingers flexed under his, once, then closed around him. He hissed as a surge of blood rushed through him, straight into his dick. He’d pulled the covers up and tucked them around her shoulders, so Caroline couldn’t see what she was doing. But even if she couldn’t see it, she could sure feel what she was doing to him. Fisting her hand around him, she brought her hand down to the base, then slowly back up, smoothing a finger over the head of his cock. One pump of her hand, and it was weeping again. She could feel it, the little witch. The shyness was gone, and a smile of pure seduction was on her face.

She could feel everything she did to him, how his stomach muscles clenched when the back of her hand ran over them. The hand not holding his dick was on his chest, over his heart. She could feel how his breath shortened, how his heart raced.

Jack usually had a clock running in his head, and it was accurate to the minute. But now he lost all track of time in the quiet room. It was so sullen and overcast outside it was hard to tell what time of the afternoon it was, and there were no outside sounds.

There was only them, and the noises they made in the quiet room.

His rough breathing, the rustling of the sheets. The quiet slither of her clothes dropping by the side of the bed as he undressed her under the covers. The creaking of the bedsprings as he finally mounted her.

The slow ahhh sound she made as he rolled back on top of her and positioned himself, barely inside her, feeling if she was wet enough. She was, not completely primed like he was, but wet enough. More foreplay would have to come later, when he’d had her—oh, maybe a thousand more times and had cooled down a little. Right now, if he waited even a second more to enter her, he’d come on her stomach, or his head would explode, so he slowly pushed his way in. Pushed his way home.

It felt like a homecoming.

There was no mistaking it—the welcome her body gave him. Tight as she was, there was no resistance, just the wet warm sleekness of the tissues of her little sex, parting to make way for him. He didn’t have to hold her thighs open, she’d lifted her legs herself and opened them wide, heels hugging the backs of his thighs, arms tight around his neck, arching into him.

It all felt so good he stopped when he was fully embedded in her, savoring everything about being inside her. It was so luscious here, so warm, he never wanted to leave. Pulling out to start thrusting seemed insane, when she was wrapped around every inch of his dick, and he’d have to give some of that up.

No.

Jack ground his cock in her, digging his toes in the mattress to give him more leverage, and rocked in her. Tiny little movements that gave him the friction he craved but didn’t require him pulling even partly out.

He circled his hips, round and round, reaching even further inside and with a small cry, arching her back so her perfect breasts were pressed even more tightly against him, she began coming. Sharp little contractions of her sex, pulling at him, squeezing. She came with her whole body, arms and legs tightening around him, mouth seeking his, tongue deeply in his mouth, stroking his tongue in time with her sex…

God! Without moving, just from being inside her, Jack came, in great streams of come, shaking and sweating, heart pounding, bright pinwheels of light behind his eyelids.

He couldn’t move, he could barely breathe, it was so intense, so mind-blowing. Caroline was moaning in his mouth, arms and legs holding onto him tightly as if to keep him from leaving. He loved it that she was holding on tightly to him, but it wasn’t necessary. Why would he leave? Not while every cell in his body was swamped with pleasure, so acute it bordered on pain. No, leaving would be impossible.

The contractions died down, slowly. The biting, harsh, deep kisses softened, became a slow, languid meeting of lips while Caroline’s muscles relaxed, the breath leaving her on a sigh.

One last intense pulse and his climax was over, too. Jack sprawled on her, muscles like water. He was too heavy, he knew that, but he couldn’t have moved if someone had put a gun to his head. His face was buried in her hair, one golden red lock tickling his nose. It smelled of roses—that smell zinged its way to the most primitive part of his brain, the one that would always associate the smell of roses with Caroline, with sex. He hardened inside her and she gave a shaky little laugh.

“Not yet, cowboy. I need to regain my strength.”

Jack smiled. They’d have sex again, and soon. As far as he was concerned, they would have sex for the next thirty-six hours, stopping only to eat and shower. But though his dick was getting harder again by the second, he didn’t move because where he was—was perfect. The feel of her, the smell of her, above all the relaxed sense of closeness. It was almost as good as the sex, and it was something he’d never had in his entire life.

It was the one perfect thing in his imperfect life.

New York

Waldorf Astoria

If you have enough money, you can get anything you want, even at Christmas. Deaver took a cab to Chinatown where he bought himself an entire wardrobe from the skin out, thanks to Axel. Two excellent faux Armani suits, a gray cashmere overcoat, two khaki pants, five white dress shirts, five flannel shirts, two sweaters, ten silk boxers, ten silk undershirts, two pairs of expensive boots and a fake Vuitton suitcase. That was for Deaver’s new life, just as soon as he tracked that fucker Prescott down.

For what had to be done in the meantime, he bought two cheap black suits, five white drip and dry shirts, two pairs of jeans, two sweatshirts and a sixty-dollar parka. That all went into a gym bag.

He needed some walking around money. There were forty thousand dollars stashed away in a safe in his house in Monroe, but he had no idea if Prescott had alerted the local police, so that was out.

Right now, his staging base had to be here, in New York, where he could disappear while trying to find where Prescott had gone. Drawing cash from Axel’s card on an ATM was impossible without the PIN.

But he had an ATM card on an account in the Caymans he’d opened in the name of Nicholas Clancy. The money came from a very lucrative deal in military arms sold to a rebel Ossetian group and the bank catered precisely for people like him.

The bank was essentially a server in a high rise on Grand Cayman. Its customers never visited. The bank knew what it was there for and what its customers needed, so that bank gave its customers a ten thousand dollar a day limit on its ATM withdrawals.

Axel’s Platinum card was enough for a suite at the Waldorf for however long it took to formulate his plan. Platinums usually topped out at $50,000 in one month. Even a month at the Waldorf wasn’t a hardship.

Everything about the Waldorf was pure pleasure, starting from the doorman in livery handing him out of the cab. Deaver pressed a fifty in his hand, figuring the word about big tippers would spread. The doorman, dressed like a Ruritanian general, handed the Vuitton and the bag to a bellboy and ushered Deaver into the huge marbled lobby as if Deaver might actually have some problems walking through a door all by himself.

Damn straight. He’d been living rough and hard all his life. Time to change all that and the Waldorf was just the place to do it, to turn his life around. Ten very pleasant minutes later, he was being shown into his room, about three times the size of most of the quarters he’d lived in as a soldier, and about ten times the size of the trailer house he’d grown up in.

Plush carpeting, antique furniture polished to a high gloss, a big, high four poster bed, a desk, deep burgundy armchairs, a bowl of shiny fruit, a tall flower arrangement. The Sun King wouldn’t have felt out of place.

His suitcase and bag were neatly up on a foldup holder. He stepped further into the room, letting the door close behind him, breathing deeply. Christ, the place smelled rich! It smelled of lemon polish, freshly laundered bed linens, the sweet smells of the flowers.

Yes, this was a perfect place to set up headquarters to hunt Jack Prescott down and get his diamonds back.

In the luxurious shower it took him half an hour to wash Africa and the long plane trip out of his system, but he had more toiletries to do it with than he’d ever bought in his entire lifetime.

The sullen winter sky was turning dark when he emerged in jeans, sweatshirt and parka, exiting fast and hailing a cab a block down so the doorman wouldn’t link the sleek businessman who’d arrived an hour before with the ordinary man in ordinary clothes. By the time he came back, there’d be another doorman, and then after that it wouldn’t be a problem.

Because Vince Deaver, roughneck soldier, was about to disappear forever.