“I am not certain I meant it as a compliment,” he pointed out with a grin.
“There was an accident reported in the paper.” She changed the subject with a little sigh. “So you said.”
“
Another
accident. A man drove his car over a cliff. The state police think he just drove straight off the road. There were no skids marks at all.”
“And the significance of this is?” he prompted.
“The man worked for Barnes. It’s just too much of a coincidence that they both died so suddenly. Maybe the drug cartel was annoyed with him over something. I’ll have to do some digging around. If I could just know for sure you’d be safe from Drake while I went out to work...” She trailed off, looking up at the ceiling as if she would find her answers there.
A slow grin softened his mouth and added warmth to his eyes. “So, you are the one keeping me safe. I thank you, lifemate, that my safety is always such a top priority with you. It shows how important I am to you.” He had successfully ended any chance of insubordination on her part over the issue of safety. If she worried about him now, he would simply bask in the knowledge.
“You would think that. You have a most annoying arrogance about you.” She sniffed indignantly. She had to pull her hands out from under her bottom to snatch up the newspaper. “I simply don’t want the publicity of some big shot like you getting murdered on my watch. I have my reputation to think about, you know.”
“Speaking of reputations, who is Don Jacobson?”
She looked shocked. “How did you know about Don?”
“You were talking to him last evening on the phone, and this rising you were thinking of him.”
“There really aren’t any secrets from you, are there?” She didn’t want to think about how often she had fantasized over Lucian. How right at this very moment she was thinking thoughts that brought a hint of color to her face.
Lucian wasn’t about to be distracted. “Who is he?”
“I grew up with him in Florida. Before Drake goes on one of his killing sprees, he always returns to where it all started. It’s some kind of ritualistic thing. He goes over the entire training course several times, camps out, almost as if he’s playing hide and seek with the new recruits. No one has ever actually spotted him, and he’s never killed anyone there, but he leaves signs to taunt them all with how superior he is.”
“Florida is clear across the country.”
“It doesn’t matter. He always starts there. I was hoping maybe he was still there when I called Don. It was a long shot, but I had to try it. We might have caught him at an airport or stopped him in a car on his way here. No such luck. Drake has scouted your royal palace, just as you expected him to. Now I have to stick around and protect you from your own arrogance.”
“I am very happy I am an arrogant man. It pleases me you have a reason to ‘stick around and protect me.’ “ Lucian reached out and cupped her face in the palm of his hand with exquisite gentleness. “You did not answer to my full satisfaction who this man Don Jacobson is to you.” His voice was very soft and intimate.
“I don’t need to explain him.” He was wreaking havoc with her insides, melting her like butter. Just looking at him made her feel weak and shaky. “It’s getting hot in here,” she complained. “You didn’t turn on the heater, did you?”
“Carpathians can regulate their own body temperatures.”
She nodded. “Of course they can. Why didn’t I think of that?”
Lucian leaned into her so that the heat of his skin touched her through the thin material of her blouse. He swept back strands of her platinum hair. “You do feel a bit on the warm side.” He was frowning as he checked her forehead. Touching her skin was addicting. The more he did it, the more he needed to do it. “Think about feeling cool, angel, and it will automatically be so.”
She pushed at the wall of his chest. Who could think about cool when he was standing so close to her? “Get away from me, Lucian, and stop looking at me that way.”
“How am I looking at you?”
“You know,” she accused and deliberately caught up the rest of the newspaper. “Go away. If you touch me again, I’m going to break into a million pieces.”
“I merely wish to kiss you,” he murmured innocently, his voice velvet soft and deliberately seductive. He lowered his head to touch the pulse beating so frantically in her neck with the heat of his mouth. He felt it jump beneath his exploring tongue. His fingertips caressed her skin, pushing aside the thin ribbed cotton of her shirt to slide along her delicate collarbone. She felt like satin to him, unbelievably soft. At once need rose, sharp and urgent. He leaned his weight into her, forcing her smaller frame back into the couch. He cupped the fullness of one breast in the palm of his hand while his mouth took possession of hers.
He breathed her in, took her scent into his body. She was small beneath his wandering hands, so perfectly formed, a miracle of soft skin and silky hair. Even as his body made its demands and he felt her acceptance, her need and willingness to assuage his hunger, he sensed her exhaustion. She was still sore. He should have taken more care with her, as small and fragile and inexperienced as she was. He had been far too demanding of her. He knew better; he had been just that little bit out of control.
“I am sorry, honey. I should have been more careful of you.” He kissed her temple, then stroked a hand through her silky hair. “I can heal you,” he offered.
“You didn’t hurt me, Lucian,” she protested immediately, blushing at the thought of what he had done, the pleasure she had experienced. “I like the way my body feels.”
As if I belonged to him . You do belong to me.
She loved that, the intimacy of his velvet voice whispering in her mind to her alone. Their secret world of heat and darkness. She would never be alone again. Never have to face the monsters in the world alone again. Jaxon knew she was looking up at him with stars in her eyes, and it irritated her. She looked away from him, pretending to find the newspaper more interesting.
Lucian laughed softly, a man’s amusement at finding his woman shy after hours of making love. Jaxon’s long lashes lifted for a moment to chastise him before she returned to her reading. Almost at once she spotted the next article, her body going ramrod stiff. “Listen to this, Lucian. James Atwater apparently shot himself in his own home. He left a note saying he couldn’t live with himself anymore after taking so many lives at the direction of Samuel T. Barnes. He actually named Barnes. No way would Atwater suddenly have an attack of conscience. He isn’t like that. This has to be a purge in the ranks. These guys must have made a mistake, and someone higher up the food chain ordered the hit. Whoever took them out did a good job to get the coroner to rule the deaths from natural causes, accident, and suicide. The reason I got on to Barnes in the first place was his association with Atwater. Atwater was a straight-up killer.”
Lucian’s hand tangled in her hair, running the strands between the pads of his thumb and index finger repeatedly. A series of small beeps sounded for a moment, then ceased. Jaxon found her pager on the coffee table. “It’s the department, Lucian. I have to call in.”
“We have not had that discussion yet,” he said lazily, following her to the phone.
He walked so quietly, he gave her an eerie feeling. “What discussion?” She was punching in the numbers quickly from long habit.
“The one where you tell me you are going to quit the force and stay home with me.”
“Oh, that one.” She laughed “Don’t count on it.”
Lucian could hear the answer on the other end, the flurry of activity, then the captain’s booming voice. At once he knew something was wrong. He moved close to Jaxon, his large frame protective against hers, his arms circling her waist. “What is it, Daryl? Just come out with it,” she said softly.
Lucian could hear the words as if the man were in the room with them. Stark. Ugly. “I’m sending you an escort to take you and Daratrazanoff to meet us at your old apartment building. Drake struck again, Jaxx, and it’s bad.”