Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"Thanks for putting this together, Alisa."

She smiled. "Frozen pizza is one of my go-to meals. I don't have a lot of time to cook, and it's not exciting to cook for one person."

"I hear you. I can't remember the last time I made anything besides breakfast."

"Your eggs were good, so clearly you have some cooking skills. Did your mother teach you?" She paused, wondering if his mother was a touchy subject. "Sorry, I probably shouldn't have asked that. I know you lost your mom when you were young."

"She taught me how to make breakfast: eggs, bacon, pancakes. That was the meal we always had together. For dinner, she'd usually feed me, and then wait for my dad to come home to share the meal with him. Sometimes, she ended up eating alone after I went to bed. I didn't realize how lonely she was until after they got divorced."

"Did she work?"

"Part-time as a stager for a realty company. She loved getting a house ready to sell. She was very creative and artistic. At one time, she wanted to be a designer, but my dad needed her to be at home, taking care of me. He traveled so much that she didn't want to leave me with a babysitter all the time, so she compromised. After they split, and I was a teenager, she worked longer hours." He paused, shadows filling his gaze. "She was just getting her life back together when she got sick. It felt very unfair."

"It sounds like it," she said quietly, thinking that Jason had lived a far lonelier life than she had.

"I never really thought about whether she was happy until she was gone. I just took her for granted," he murmured.

"We all do that. I took my family for granted until all this started. I used to tell my parents how boring they were, and how I was going to have a far more exciting life. I never expected it to go like this. Now I think about my dad sitting there listening to me question him about why he hadn't wanted more for his life, why he hadn't wanted to travel or see the world. He just kept saying he had everything he wanted: a wife, a daughter, and a home." She shook her head. "I wonder if he ever was tempted to tell me his story."

"He knew he couldn't. And he wasn't lying, Alisa. He had everything he'd wanted. And he knew how important it was to hang on to it."

"But he was living a lie, Jason. It was all fake." That thought still made her angry.

"His life with you and your mother was real."

"Was it? Can something based on a lie be real?"

"That sounds like a question no one can answer, like if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?"

"It does make a sound because it's a tree falling in a forest," she said.

"But if no one is there to hear it…"

"We're not talking about a tree," she grumbled. "We're talking about someone becoming someone else."

"It's still a philosophical question. What do you believe?"

His questioning gaze caught hers. "I don't know what I believe, but I'm pretty sure that when my mother hears about my dad's past, she'll probably think he's even more of a hero than she thought before."

"But you don't think he's a hero?"

"It sounds like he did something heroic way back when, but I don't know about now. He still left my mom and me to fend for ourselves."

"That's true."

She blew out a frustrated breath. "Okay. What about Henry? Do you know anything about his condition?"

"He's out of surgery, but he's been placed in a medically induced coma. He's lost a lot of blood, and there's swelling in his brain. Henry fought hard to protect your dad's secret."

"A secret he should have never known, and now he might die because of it." She paused, thinking about Lauren. "I wonder if Henry told Lauren my dad's secret."

"That's a good question," Jason said. "She said Tatiana's name with a sense of familiarity. I'd like to find out more about that relationship. But that's on the back burner. The priority is tracking the vehicle that took your father from the motel."

"Is that what you're working on?"

"Along with many other people," he said.

"You should get back to it. I'll just watch a movie or something. Although it feels like I should be doing something more important."

"It's been a long day. You could go to bed."

"I'm not ready to sleep yet."

He gave her a conflicted look. "Well, I should work. That's what I do best, you know. I work. My life is my job—there's no room for anything else."

"You've said that before." She met his gaze. "I get it, Jason. Message received."

"I wasn't trying to send you a message," he denied.

"Yes, you were. You think I want something from you that you can't give me, but you're wrong. "

"I'm wrong?" He gave her a doubtful look. "I don't think I am, Alisa."

"You have no idea what I want from you, because I have no idea. I'll admit that I'm attracted to you. I like you. But everything in my life is completely messed up, and acting on that attraction wouldn't be smart. But…"

"But?" he asked.

His blue eyes glittered with a question she probably shouldn't answer, but she couldn't help herself.

"But…I don't feel like being smart," she admitted, feeling reckless and impulsive. "Or doing the right thing. Or worrying about tomorrow, because tomorrow might not come. I've been a planner all my life. Thinking I could control everything by looking ahead, but I never saw any of this coming." She swallowed hard. "But you should do what you want to do, and if that's work, that's fine. I respect that. I appreciate it. I shouldn't even be tempting you to do anything else." She got to her feet and took her plate to the sink. As she turned around to clear the table, she ran right into him, and he pulled her into his arms.

"I've changed my mind," he said, his voice husky and filled with desire. "Can I do that?"

"You can do anything you want."

"I want you, Alisa. But all I can offer you is tonight, and you have to be sure you don't want more. Because I don't want to hurt you."

"I want tonight," she said with a certainty that took her by surprise. Because that really was all she wanted.

"Then let's start with this," he said, crushing her mouth under his.

The sparks that had been simmering between them since they'd first met caught fire with their kiss, and everything else fell away.

Kissing Jason was nothing but pure pleasure, a heady mix of excitement and comfort, danger and security. The trust they'd built and the bond they'd forged through fire and fear, created an emotional connection as well as a physical one.

She'd wanted to feel swept away, and that's exactly how she felt now. There was nothing but the two of them: kissing, touching, and taking off their clothes on the way out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

Jason stopped in the bathroom to grab a condom out of the drawer while she stripped off the rest of her clothes.

When he came back to her, she said, "Should I turn out the lights?"

"No. I like looking at you," he said in a way that made her heart jump against her chest and her body flood with desire. His arms wrapped around her as he kissed her lips, her neck, the valley between her breasts, sending more fire shooting through her.

She groaned with delight as every taste and touch sent her nerves tingling. And when they finally made it to the bed, she was more than happy with the light because she enjoyed looking at him, too, at his beautiful, muscled, fit body, at the dark hair that spread across his broad chest.

He was strength and power, and she wanted all of it, all of him. He was eager to give her that and more as they made love with a passionate abandon she'd never experienced before.

Not thinking about the future was more freeing than she would have ever imagined. There was no darkness here, not with Jason, not with how good they were together. It was all light, and it was all amazing, and she would never forget it.

Jason laid back against the pillows with a satisfied breath as Alisa settled into his arms, her head on his chest, her heart pounding against his. He hadn't planned on going where they'd gone, but he was damn glad he had. A small voice told him he might not feel that way later, but he pushed that voice out of his head, not wanting anything to mar the moment.

Closing his eyes, he drew in another breath and slowly let it out, feeling nothing but pure satisfaction and a strange feeling of contentment. It probably wouldn't last long, but he had it now, and it was something he rarely experienced.

It felt a little terrifying to be that content, that happy, in the middle of so much drama and danger. But they were in their own bubble right now, safe in each other's arms, not just physically safe, but mentally and emotionally. She wasn't thinking about her family, and he wasn't thinking about his. He wasn't even thinking about the job.

He frowned as the word job came into his mind, because now he was thinking about it, and he didn't want to.

Alisa lifted her head and gave him a sweet and sexy smile that drove away all thoughts of work. He brushed her dark-brown hair away from her face so he could see her better.

"Beautiful," he murmured as his fingers caressed the side of her face.

"If that's my new name, I'm good with it," she said with a smile.

"It's what I've been calling you in my head since we first met."

"I was calling you Blue Eyes because you have the most striking pair of eyes I've ever seen. Sometimes they're a light blue, sometimes they're dark, but they always hold my gaze. I have a hard time looking away from you."

"Same here."

"Do you get those eyes from your mother or your father, or both?"

"My mother," he said. "But we don't need to talk about family."

"You're right. Family is not the best subject. Let's talk about how amazing that was. I mean, wow. We're good together. "

"Yes, we are," he said, feeling a sense of bittersweet emotion at the thought. Because it had been good. But now it was over.

"Oh, no, not that tone…" She shook her head and gave him a look that told him not to go where he was going. "It's not even eleven yet. We have lots of time before tomorrow, before reality comes back, right?"

"Right," he agreed.

"So, we have time to be good together again."

"Definitely. We have all night."

"And I want to take all night, Jason."

He laughed. "You have some high expectations."

She gave him a playful punch. "I wasn't just talking about that, although, I do want to do that again. But I was thinking we could do something else."

"Like talk?"

"Well, maybe not talk. I have a feeling if we talk, we'll start talking about things we don't want to think about right now."

She rolled off him and grabbed the TV remote from the nightstand. "Let's find an old movie on TV, something funny, something we can laugh about."

"Okay," he said as she turned on the TV and then cuddled up against him in a way that did not make him want to let go of her. "You pick."

She flipped through the channels, pausing now and then.

"What are you looking for?" he asked

"Something silly."

"Like a romantic comedy?"

"Maybe. I was thinking more like something old and funny." She paused. "Here we go. This is a good one."

" Meet The Parents? " he said with a laugh.

"Are you good with my choice?" she asked, planting a kiss on his chest.

"I'm good, but if you keep doing that, you're not going to see much of the movie," he teased .

She gave him a wicked smile. "We have all night, Jason. There are lots of things we can do."

Sleep should probably be one of those things, but that was his rational, put-the-job-first kind of thinking, and tonight he didn't want any part of that, not with Alisa curled up next to him, her soft body already stirring him back into action. But it was also nice to watch the movie with her, to hear her laugh, to see her with no fear in her eyes. It was a good break for both of them…

He just wished the break didn't have to end.