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“Then you should have listened,” Jack said. “When I say I’m going to take care of something, and I want you to stay safe, I mean it.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to punish me, won’t you?” Her voice still carried an edge of irritation, but there was heat in her eyes—heat that made him want to push her dress up around her thighs the moment the elevator doors closed.
Once again he wondered how she managed to straddle the line between innocent virgin and sinfully sexy vixen, a combination that kept his jaw dropping and his cock as hard as steel.
His dick stiffened more as he imagined how he would show her who was in control. The way he would bring her to the edge with his mouth between her legs, but deny her release until she was begging him to get her off and swearing she would never disobey a direct order again.
Damn, she turned him on like no one else. Not an hour ago he’d been a heartbeat away from burying himself deep inside her, and now he was here again, in this unfamiliar, agonizing place of wanting her like nothing he’d ever wanted before.
“Hold the elevator,” Valentine called, just as the doors were about to close.
Jack reached out, opening the doors for the officer to slip through. Probably for the best. Being alone with Eva right now didn’t seem like the best idea. He needed to regain control, to rule his emotions instead of the other way around.
On the way up to the apartment, Valentine filled Eva in on the particulars of the case. The higher the elevator rose, the deeper the crease of worry on her forehead became.
As the doors opened on the twelfth floor, the officer said, “Unfortunately, there have been a rash of burglaries in the area. It’s nothing new. We’ll just make a list of what’s missing and hope he gets careless next time.”
Jack frowned as they made their way down the hallway to her home. What kind of plan of action is that? And what about the fact that this man went to all the trouble to rob someone on the twelfth floor, where it would be harder for him to make his escape?
At her door, Eva took a bracing breath before turning the key and stepping inside. Jack followed her and was immediately enveloped in the welcoming energy of the apartment.
Even in pretentious Tribeca, this was just the sort of place that he’d expect Eva to have—homey and warm, with touches of her family everywhere. The shelves teemed with books, and the overstuffed couch was draped in the same colorful homemade blankets that had littered Antonio’s bed when they were in school—Jack couldn’t recall a time when he’d seen Mrs. Fiorini without her knitting needles. Family photos adorned nearly every inch of available wall space.
As Eva walked to the middle of the room, two fluffy gray cats emerged from beneath the couch to curl around her ankles. She picked one of them up and stroked behind its ears, still looking around. “Everything looks okay in here.” She pointed down a small hallway. “May I…?”
The officer nodded. “Of course. We’ve already made sure it’s clear, and we’ve dusted for prints.”
As Valentine followed her down the corridor, with Eva’s fuck-me heels clicking on the wooden floor, Jack couldn’t help but remember the way she’d walked toward him, nearly naked, and how perfect her tits had felt in his hands. He ached to touch her again, and not simply because they’d stopped seconds from the main event. He needed to hold her, to banish the stress from her eyes with his hands, his kiss, his mouth against hers, promising that she was safe as long as she was in his arms.
A moment later he heard Eva say, “It’s all fine in here, too. My jewelry, my computer, my iPad—everything’s here, even my grandmother’s pearls, thank God.”
Jack turned back toward the living room and found himself facing a picture of a younger Eva, when she was probably eight or nine, wearing a riding habit and straddling a giant black horse. She held a blue ribbon, and an ear-to-ear smile brightened her face. Beside her was her family, all of them now deceased: Mrs. Fiorini, who died when Eva was in high school; her father, Pietro, who’d died in a boating accident a few years ago; and her brother, Antonio, who’d been struck by a hit and run driver last year.
Once upon a time they’d had it all—love, money, success, happiness. There had been a lot to envy about them.
And now, Eva was the only one left.
Cursed. Jack had heard the whispers after Antonio’s funeral. The only family I know of that has worse luck was the Kennedy clan.
But Jack didn’t believe in luck or curses or coincidences.
And he sure as hell didn’t believe in sitting tight and waiting for the man who had broken into Eva’s apartment to strike again.
When Eva drifted back into the room a moment later, her eyes wide and her fingers anxiously scratching her cat’s furry neck, he realized there was no way he was letting her out of his sight. Not for the foreseeable future, anyway.
She swallowed and asked Valentine the same question he’d been thinking. “So what do you think the man wanted, if he wasn’t here to rob me?”
“Oh, I’m sure he was after your valuables,” the officer answered, “It’s likely the alarm just got tripped and scared him away before he could.”
Jack went over to the front hallway to study the elaborate panel on the alarm system. It looked like something out of the space shuttle. If that wasn’t enough of a deterrent, the warning signs on the door that said This Home Is Protected By American Security should have been. He remembered how proud Antonio had been when he’d had the thing installed. Let them come, he’d challenged with a glint in his eye. This alarm system makes NORAD look like child’s play.
Despite what the officer thought, Jack knew one thing for sure: this was no run-of-the-mill burglary.
The officer began another round of meaningless assurances as Jack paced behind Eva, itching to take action. As she and Valentine grabbed spots on the couch to run through the particulars of the phone call from American Security, Jack excused himself to the hallway to check the front door.
The doorknob was perfectly intact, without a scratch, and there was a fingerprint scan required to gain access. If the man had entered through the front door, wouldn’t the lock be damaged? How else had he gotten in without a print scan?
Frowning at the buzz in his pocket, Jack slid out his cell. He had a text from Stella, asking if he was still alive. Just the person he needed to talk to.
