Street Game
Page 10
Jaimie tried to ease away from him, but there wasn’t much room, she was already on the edge of the bed, up against the wall. As she moved, Mack made a small protest in his throat, his body following hers possessively, one leg sliding over her thigh to trap her against him. His hand slid over the curve of her hip to move along her flat stomach, fingers splayed wide as if taking in as much of her bare skin as possible.
Jaimie rubbed her hot cheek into the coolness of the pillow. If she squirmed around, heaven only knew what Mack might do in his sleep. Suddenly, she was scowling darkly. Obviously, he must be used to sleeping with a woman. While she’d been alone for two years, he had found others to replace her. The thought infuriated her.
“Move over, you jerk!” Jaimie shoved at his shoulder, hissing the words in a low, furious voice.
His mocking laughter was soft in her ear, alerting her to the fact that he had been awake all along. Jaimie turned toward him in a little fit of temper, shoving at the heavy wall of his chest.
“Settle down, honey. I was only teasing you.” Both of his hands covered hers, clamped her palms to his heavily muscled chest. His thumbs moved over her knuckles, the small, intimate gesture disturbingly sensuous.
“This bed isn’t big enough for the two of us,” Jaimie said, alarmed at the breathless catch in her voice and the way her body just wanted to melt into his.
“This bed is ridiculous,” Mack agreed, “but it’s all we have.”
“It’s my bed, McKinley. It’s perfectly adequate without you in it.” Jaimie tugged at her hands to free them from his grasp.
Mack tightened his grip, black eyes glinting with humor. “Where do you expect me to sleep? Kane took the couch.”
“He fell off it, remember? Let go. You weren’t supposed to get under the covers.”
She was whispering to keep from waking up Kane.
“I was cold. Honestly, Jaimie, don’t be so hard-hearted. You wouldn’t want me to catch pneumonia.”
A faint derisive snicker came from across the room.
“My sentiments exactly,” Jaimie concurred. She was wearing herself out with the ridiculous tug-of-war over who had possession of her hands. She knew Mack in this mood. He would go on for hours; worse, she was beginning to have trouble containing her own sense of humor.
“Stay out of this, Cannon,” Mack ordered. “I have enough trouble with Jaimie here. You know how out of sorts she gets when she hasn’t had enough sleep.”
Deliberately, he tugged her body onto its side, his arms firmly around her again.
“I’m never out of sorts,” Jaimie protested.
Kane cleared his throat. “Actually, honey, that’s a bald-faced lie. If you don’t get eight hours of sleep, you’re vicious.”
“No one asked you,” Jaimie groused.
“You woke me up,” he grumbled. “What do you expect? Oh, all right, I’ll help you out. If she’s going to be so damned contrary, Mack, I’ll take the bed and you can have the couch,” Kane suggested slyly.
“It’s my bed,” Jaimie pointed out belligerently. “I didn’t offer to share with either of you.”
Mack nuzzled her silky hair, inhaled her fresh, clean scent. Like hell Kane was going to switch places. Kane knew it too. “I can’t believe your manners have disintegrated in such a short time.”
“We worked hard to teach you,” Kane added sorrowfully.
“It was the other way around. Without me, you two wouldn’t even know what civilization was all about,” Jaimie argued indignantly.
Mack took several silky strands of her hair in his mouth, tugged gently as he allowed them to slide off his tongue through his lips. He laughed softly when Jaimie took a poorly aimed swipe at him, missing by several inches. “This woman has such a temper, Kane.” Mack surrounded her arms with his own, crowding even closer, dwarfing her with his size. “So contrary.”
“I don’t think so,” Jaimie protested. She pressed her smiling mouth into the pillow. They’d always been like this. Talking back and forth and making her laugh when she didn’t want to.
“Fortunately we’ll have plenty of time to work on these little imperfections,”
Kane said.
“I’ve got a great idea,” Jaimie ventured. “I’ll take the couch and you two jokers can share the bed.”
Mac’s arm muscles tightened perceptibly as he clamped her to him. “I’m not about to share this dinky little bed with that shaggy bear,” Mack objected. “He kicks like a mule.”
“He wakes up throwing punches.” Kane imparted the information with relish. “I refuse to be anywhere near him.”
“The arrangements are just fine.” Mack was emphatic.
His fingers brushed her breast and she wasn’t smiling anymore. Just like that her body flooded with heat. She was certain it was an accident, but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t do this, slip back into the old patterns so easily, teasing each other and feeling the fire sweeping through her body, hot and wild and so tempting. She felt alive again and that scared her so much that for a terrible moment she couldn’t think or breathe. Her heart slamming hard in her chest, she leapt from the bed, right over the top of Mack, landing like a cat, crouched on the floor, and then scrambling backward, away from him.
“Jaimie?” Mack sounded troubled. “Are you all right? We were just teasing, honey.”
She forced words past the sudden lump clogging her throat. “I’m okay. I still get claustrophobia at times.” She was hyperventilating, just as she had all those nights for months when she woke up alone without Mack beside her. She could feel sweat beading on her forehead, dangerous now, because both Mack and Kane could smell fear. Cursing under her breath, she moved to the window, staring out over the water.
The sea always calmed her. That was a good part of the reason for her chosen location. She wasn’t an anchor and the chaos of people could cause severe damage.
The sea helped block the waves of energy coming at her, or maybe it just drowned out the worst of it. Whatever. She didn’t want to think about what Whitney had done and what she’d become thanks to him. She couldn’t lose herself, not when it had taken her so long to build her self-esteem and courage. Mack couldn’t just come back and steal it all away. She wasn’t that same innocent girl.
When she was with Mack, he overshadowed her. She knew she was intelligent, more so than both Mack and Kane, yet she never felt strong around them. They had a different kind of strength and for some reason, she could never quite feel equal to them. She couldn’t blame Mack for treating her as someone he had to take care of when she didn’t act like a partner, but she had stood on her own and she liked herself.
She didn’t want to go back.
A tingling awareness crept down the back of her neck and she took a breath.
“Who do you have watching me, Mack?” There was accusation in her voice.
Mack glanced at his watch. “It’s Gideon’s shift. In another hour Jacob will take over on the roof. We’ve got a ship coming in around eleven and the boys will be coming off that and securing residences around the neighborhood. We made certain the rooms we wanted were open. You’ve got someone watching you across the way. He’s got to be a GhostWalker, or he’s a damn good terrorist. We didn’t even get close to him. He won’t go back to his room, so we’ve got people going through it. If he left anything behind, we’ll find it.”
“If he’s that good, there won’t be anything,” she said with a sigh as she swung around and leaned one hip against the windowsill. If Mack was right, her warning system had definitely failed. She shook her head. Everything had been right. Good.
And now, in one moment, she was back into something she couldn’t handle. Mack and Kane had turned her life upside down just like they always did.
Jaimie turned back to the window and stared down at the water, her fingers twisting together, betraying her agitation. “Maybe you’d answer a question for me, Kane.”
“Does it have to be tonight?” Kane asked easily. “Or rather this morning?”
Mack sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Both Jaimie and Kane sounded tense in spite of their deliberately casual tones. He knew them both too well.
The muscles in his belly knotted uncomfortably.
Jaimie didn’t turn, but stood unnaturally stiff, hands linked behind her back like a soldier—waiting for bad news. “Now would be a good time.”
“So shoot.”
“What do you think the odds are on you and Mack chasing a shipment of explosives halfway around the world and ending up in San Francisco at the wrong warehouse?”
“Jaimie, I told you.” Mack stood up and padded across the room on silent feet to stand behind her. “Do you think I would lie about this? Lie to you?”
“Let Kane answer me,” Jaimie suggested quietly. “I think it’s a legitimate question, don’t you, Kane?”
Mack shook his head. “I took the order from Sergeant Major, not Kane. I made the mistake, didn’t adequately check things out.” Mack hastened to defend Kane. “We were so close to catching them after following the shipment and I didn’t want to delay even a few minutes.”
“I want Kane to answer my question, Mack,” Jaimie insisted, her voice very low.
Kane’s sigh was audible. “No, you don’t, honey, you already have your answers and a closed mind.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“What are you accusing Kane of, Jaimie?” Mack demanded.
Kane ignored Mack and posed his own question. “What are the odds on you training nearly three years, topping everyone in every drill, and freaking out on the first mission?”
Mack stiffened, instant rage coiling in his gut. “Damn you, Kane, you’re going too far.” He looked from one to the other. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but stop.”
Jaimie’s fingers curled around Mack’s forearm, silencing him. “No, Mack. I want him to continue.” There was no mistaking the accusation in her voice.
Mack turned to look at his oldest and closest friend, the man he considered a brother. Kane remained lying on the couch, his legs stretched out, his fingers linked behind his neck, his eyes staring up at the ceiling as he spoke.
“What are the odds you would have a terrible fight with Mack and me, when we never had a fight before?” Kane’s voice was very even, almost unconcerned. “And what do you think the odds would be, Jaimie, on you taking off, checking into a hotel you picked at random in a city you picked at random, and running into your old college professor?”
Jaimie’s nails dug into Mack’s skin. He didn’t think she was aware of it. “That isn’t an answer, Kane. It’s like you to try to throw me off the track, but I’m not going to let it happen.”
“What good is this?” Kane demanded, the coolness abruptly evaporating. “We’re here with you. Does it matter what brought us here? You had all the time in the world to figure things out. You didn’t want to know. Why the hell do it now that we’re here with you? Why care now how it all came about?”
“Maybe I can accept manipulation better than I can accept betrayal.”
Mack swore and yanked her around. “What the hell does that mean, Jaimie?”
She blinked back tears and met his furious gaze. “Kane knows what it means. Am I being set up, Kane?”
“Well, damn it, Jaimie.” Kane sounded astonished. “You’re my family. You’re Mack’s woman. Why the hell would you get it in your head that I’d do anything but protect you?”
“This doesn’t feel like protection to me.” Jaimie moved away from Mack with a small, defensive gesture.
Jaimie rubbed her hot cheek into the coolness of the pillow. If she squirmed around, heaven only knew what Mack might do in his sleep. Suddenly, she was scowling darkly. Obviously, he must be used to sleeping with a woman. While she’d been alone for two years, he had found others to replace her. The thought infuriated her.
“Move over, you jerk!” Jaimie shoved at his shoulder, hissing the words in a low, furious voice.
His mocking laughter was soft in her ear, alerting her to the fact that he had been awake all along. Jaimie turned toward him in a little fit of temper, shoving at the heavy wall of his chest.
“Settle down, honey. I was only teasing you.” Both of his hands covered hers, clamped her palms to his heavily muscled chest. His thumbs moved over her knuckles, the small, intimate gesture disturbingly sensuous.
“This bed isn’t big enough for the two of us,” Jaimie said, alarmed at the breathless catch in her voice and the way her body just wanted to melt into his.
“This bed is ridiculous,” Mack agreed, “but it’s all we have.”
“It’s my bed, McKinley. It’s perfectly adequate without you in it.” Jaimie tugged at her hands to free them from his grasp.
Mack tightened his grip, black eyes glinting with humor. “Where do you expect me to sleep? Kane took the couch.”
“He fell off it, remember? Let go. You weren’t supposed to get under the covers.”
She was whispering to keep from waking up Kane.
“I was cold. Honestly, Jaimie, don’t be so hard-hearted. You wouldn’t want me to catch pneumonia.”
A faint derisive snicker came from across the room.
“My sentiments exactly,” Jaimie concurred. She was wearing herself out with the ridiculous tug-of-war over who had possession of her hands. She knew Mack in this mood. He would go on for hours; worse, she was beginning to have trouble containing her own sense of humor.
“Stay out of this, Cannon,” Mack ordered. “I have enough trouble with Jaimie here. You know how out of sorts she gets when she hasn’t had enough sleep.”
Deliberately, he tugged her body onto its side, his arms firmly around her again.
“I’m never out of sorts,” Jaimie protested.
Kane cleared his throat. “Actually, honey, that’s a bald-faced lie. If you don’t get eight hours of sleep, you’re vicious.”
“No one asked you,” Jaimie groused.
“You woke me up,” he grumbled. “What do you expect? Oh, all right, I’ll help you out. If she’s going to be so damned contrary, Mack, I’ll take the bed and you can have the couch,” Kane suggested slyly.
“It’s my bed,” Jaimie pointed out belligerently. “I didn’t offer to share with either of you.”
Mack nuzzled her silky hair, inhaled her fresh, clean scent. Like hell Kane was going to switch places. Kane knew it too. “I can’t believe your manners have disintegrated in such a short time.”
“We worked hard to teach you,” Kane added sorrowfully.
“It was the other way around. Without me, you two wouldn’t even know what civilization was all about,” Jaimie argued indignantly.
Mack took several silky strands of her hair in his mouth, tugged gently as he allowed them to slide off his tongue through his lips. He laughed softly when Jaimie took a poorly aimed swipe at him, missing by several inches. “This woman has such a temper, Kane.” Mack surrounded her arms with his own, crowding even closer, dwarfing her with his size. “So contrary.”
“I don’t think so,” Jaimie protested. She pressed her smiling mouth into the pillow. They’d always been like this. Talking back and forth and making her laugh when she didn’t want to.
“Fortunately we’ll have plenty of time to work on these little imperfections,”
Kane said.
“I’ve got a great idea,” Jaimie ventured. “I’ll take the couch and you two jokers can share the bed.”
Mac’s arm muscles tightened perceptibly as he clamped her to him. “I’m not about to share this dinky little bed with that shaggy bear,” Mack objected. “He kicks like a mule.”
“He wakes up throwing punches.” Kane imparted the information with relish. “I refuse to be anywhere near him.”
“The arrangements are just fine.” Mack was emphatic.
His fingers brushed her breast and she wasn’t smiling anymore. Just like that her body flooded with heat. She was certain it was an accident, but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t do this, slip back into the old patterns so easily, teasing each other and feeling the fire sweeping through her body, hot and wild and so tempting. She felt alive again and that scared her so much that for a terrible moment she couldn’t think or breathe. Her heart slamming hard in her chest, she leapt from the bed, right over the top of Mack, landing like a cat, crouched on the floor, and then scrambling backward, away from him.
“Jaimie?” Mack sounded troubled. “Are you all right? We were just teasing, honey.”
She forced words past the sudden lump clogging her throat. “I’m okay. I still get claustrophobia at times.” She was hyperventilating, just as she had all those nights for months when she woke up alone without Mack beside her. She could feel sweat beading on her forehead, dangerous now, because both Mack and Kane could smell fear. Cursing under her breath, she moved to the window, staring out over the water.
The sea always calmed her. That was a good part of the reason for her chosen location. She wasn’t an anchor and the chaos of people could cause severe damage.
The sea helped block the waves of energy coming at her, or maybe it just drowned out the worst of it. Whatever. She didn’t want to think about what Whitney had done and what she’d become thanks to him. She couldn’t lose herself, not when it had taken her so long to build her self-esteem and courage. Mack couldn’t just come back and steal it all away. She wasn’t that same innocent girl.
When she was with Mack, he overshadowed her. She knew she was intelligent, more so than both Mack and Kane, yet she never felt strong around them. They had a different kind of strength and for some reason, she could never quite feel equal to them. She couldn’t blame Mack for treating her as someone he had to take care of when she didn’t act like a partner, but she had stood on her own and she liked herself.
She didn’t want to go back.
A tingling awareness crept down the back of her neck and she took a breath.
“Who do you have watching me, Mack?” There was accusation in her voice.
Mack glanced at his watch. “It’s Gideon’s shift. In another hour Jacob will take over on the roof. We’ve got a ship coming in around eleven and the boys will be coming off that and securing residences around the neighborhood. We made certain the rooms we wanted were open. You’ve got someone watching you across the way. He’s got to be a GhostWalker, or he’s a damn good terrorist. We didn’t even get close to him. He won’t go back to his room, so we’ve got people going through it. If he left anything behind, we’ll find it.”
“If he’s that good, there won’t be anything,” she said with a sigh as she swung around and leaned one hip against the windowsill. If Mack was right, her warning system had definitely failed. She shook her head. Everything had been right. Good.
And now, in one moment, she was back into something she couldn’t handle. Mack and Kane had turned her life upside down just like they always did.
Jaimie turned back to the window and stared down at the water, her fingers twisting together, betraying her agitation. “Maybe you’d answer a question for me, Kane.”
“Does it have to be tonight?” Kane asked easily. “Or rather this morning?”
Mack sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Both Jaimie and Kane sounded tense in spite of their deliberately casual tones. He knew them both too well.
The muscles in his belly knotted uncomfortably.
Jaimie didn’t turn, but stood unnaturally stiff, hands linked behind her back like a soldier—waiting for bad news. “Now would be a good time.”
“So shoot.”
“What do you think the odds are on you and Mack chasing a shipment of explosives halfway around the world and ending up in San Francisco at the wrong warehouse?”
“Jaimie, I told you.” Mack stood up and padded across the room on silent feet to stand behind her. “Do you think I would lie about this? Lie to you?”
“Let Kane answer me,” Jaimie suggested quietly. “I think it’s a legitimate question, don’t you, Kane?”
Mack shook his head. “I took the order from Sergeant Major, not Kane. I made the mistake, didn’t adequately check things out.” Mack hastened to defend Kane. “We were so close to catching them after following the shipment and I didn’t want to delay even a few minutes.”
“I want Kane to answer my question, Mack,” Jaimie insisted, her voice very low.
Kane’s sigh was audible. “No, you don’t, honey, you already have your answers and a closed mind.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“What are you accusing Kane of, Jaimie?” Mack demanded.
Kane ignored Mack and posed his own question. “What are the odds on you training nearly three years, topping everyone in every drill, and freaking out on the first mission?”
Mack stiffened, instant rage coiling in his gut. “Damn you, Kane, you’re going too far.” He looked from one to the other. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but stop.”
Jaimie’s fingers curled around Mack’s forearm, silencing him. “No, Mack. I want him to continue.” There was no mistaking the accusation in her voice.
Mack turned to look at his oldest and closest friend, the man he considered a brother. Kane remained lying on the couch, his legs stretched out, his fingers linked behind his neck, his eyes staring up at the ceiling as he spoke.
“What are the odds you would have a terrible fight with Mack and me, when we never had a fight before?” Kane’s voice was very even, almost unconcerned. “And what do you think the odds would be, Jaimie, on you taking off, checking into a hotel you picked at random in a city you picked at random, and running into your old college professor?”
Jaimie’s nails dug into Mack’s skin. He didn’t think she was aware of it. “That isn’t an answer, Kane. It’s like you to try to throw me off the track, but I’m not going to let it happen.”
“What good is this?” Kane demanded, the coolness abruptly evaporating. “We’re here with you. Does it matter what brought us here? You had all the time in the world to figure things out. You didn’t want to know. Why the hell do it now that we’re here with you? Why care now how it all came about?”
“Maybe I can accept manipulation better than I can accept betrayal.”
Mack swore and yanked her around. “What the hell does that mean, Jaimie?”
She blinked back tears and met his furious gaze. “Kane knows what it means. Am I being set up, Kane?”
“Well, damn it, Jaimie.” Kane sounded astonished. “You’re my family. You’re Mack’s woman. Why the hell would you get it in your head that I’d do anything but protect you?”
“This doesn’t feel like protection to me.” Jaimie moved away from Mack with a small, defensive gesture.
