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As his lips brushed over her sensitive skin, Caroline’s fingers curled into the blankets, and she had to struggle to keep her thoughts straight. “My father’s neighbor puts out an ad for a housekeeper, and Marisola applies. Now she can watch my father’s house. She knows when he’s home, and when he’s not. Even better, nobody questions her presence in the neighborhood.”
“You got it,” Jason purred and tugged the fabric down, until her breast sprang free. He devoured her with his eyes. “She blended in. She and her brother did the same thing when they came here. She dressed as a housekeeper, and her brother dressed as the gardener. Nobody thought twice about it or even noticed them.”
“Hiding in plain sight,” Caroline gasped as Jason dipped his head and drew her dusky nipple into his mouth.
He skated his mouth along the side of her neck and gently bit her earlobe before soothing the area with his tongue. “She waited for him, hiding in the shrubbery until he came home, and then she simply walked up to his front door and rang the bell.”
“He probably didn’t even recognize her,” Caroline said. “He simply saw a woman in a housekeeping dress, and probably thought she needed help. He was always helping people.”
Jason raised his head and looked down at her, his eyes filled with empathy. “Yes. But your father is going to make a full recovery, and Ms. Perez is going to get the help that she needs.”
“What a tragedy,” Caroline murmured. “I remember reading the case file and thinking that it didn’t seem fair for the hospital to get off scot-free. Why did my father rule in their favor?”
Jason made a sympathetic sound. “Without knowing her medical history, there was no way they could have predicted what would happen on the operating table.”
Caroline shook her head. “I’m glad she’s been caught, but I can’t help feeling sorry for her. She lost her daughter.”
“And I almost lost you,” Jason growled. “Don’t feel too sorry for her.”
“All this time, we thought it was Eddie Green or Sanchez. But it was a grieving mother.”
“You did try to tell me that our most likely bet in finding the shooter was to examine the malpractice cases.” He kissed her chin. “Sure you want to become a child welfare advocate? You’d make a great private investigator.”
“Hmm.” Caroline pretended to consider, winding her arms around his neck. “My powers of deduction are exceptional. Like right now, I know how much you want me.”
* * *
HE DID WANT HER. He’d spent most of the day thinking about how very differently this whole thing could’ve gone down, and how close he’d come to losing her. Even before Marisola Perez had attacked Caroline, Jason had decided there was no way in hell he was letting her go. He’d done that once. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. He’d spent the entire day in court, listening to the preliminary testimony so that the judge could make a ruling on whether or not there would be a trial. When all the facts had been presented, he’d been a little horrified at how close he’d come to losing the two people he cared most about in the whole world.
As he’d driven back to the beach house, knowing that the judge would recover and that Caroline was waiting for him, he’d felt like the luckiest son of a bitch on the face of the planet. He didn’t deserve to have so much happiness. He didn’t deserve to have his life turn out so freaking good, but he was long past the point where he would question his own good fortune. He’d grab on to it with both hands and be eternally grateful for it.
Now Jason brushed his mouth over Caroline’s, their breath mingling as he drew his free hand slowly over her body. “What would cause you to believe that I want you?”
“This,” she replied and reached down to cover him with her hand. He was already hard. “And this...”
Leaning into him, she pressed her lips against his in a kiss that made his toes curl. He’d been aroused since he’d opened the bedroom door and spotted her in the bed, looking like a sugary confection in her little blue nightie. He wanted to lick her everywhere.
“God,” he muttered against her mouth, “you drive me crazy.”
He felt her smile, and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss and explore the damp silk of her mouth with his tongue. He captured her moan, fusing their lips together as she held his head in her hands.
With supreme effort, he tore his mouth from hers and bit a tender path along her jaw to where her heart pulsed erratically against the base of her throat. She gasped and arched upward, then slid one hand to the small of his back to urge him closer. Bracing his weight on one forearm, he lifted himself away from her enough to grasp the hem of her short nightgown and drag it upward. She helped him, pulling it over her head and tossing it aside until she was gloriously bare beneath him.
