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Harley got on his computer and sent the names to his right-hand man, Isaiah Fuller, at his office in DC. The odds of all those people being at their old addresses with the same phone numbers were slim. His research team could look up the families in various databases and records, and provide more current contact information. That wouldn’t take long. Then he could reach out and start putting faces to the names.
By the time the weekend came to a close, he could very well be on his way to knowing who Jade’s real parents were. The remaining question of why the babies had been swapped, and by whom, might take quite a bit longer to nail down. It had been thirty years and he worried that the trail had gone cold long ago. But he would get to the bottom of this. For Jade’s sake.
Six
Jade wasn’t used to coming home to someone, but when she pulled into her driveway, Harley’s Jaguar was already there. Seeing it evoked an odd sort of feeling, a sense of home the little cottage hadn’t really had before. At the same time, her little car seemed a bit dowdy beside the luxury sports car. Sort of how Jade felt beside Harley. At one time, both she and her little four-door sedan had been stylish and desirable in their own way. Now they both had a lot of miles on the engine and dings in the paint job.
And yet no matter how many different ways she’d tried to run through the scenario in her mind from the night before, Harley had been eager to give her a test drive. At least at first. Then he’d run for the living room sofa, and any chance of igniting something between them had seemed like a fantasy.
It was just as well. Sophie might think that a hookup was the best thing for Harley and her, but Jade knew better. He was like her favorite potato chip. She couldn’t eat just one, or even a handful, and set them aside, sated. No, she’d keep at it until she devoured the whole bag. It was easier not to eat a single chip sometimes. Or not even keep any in the house. Unfortunately, this particular treat wouldn’t leave. It was about two hundred pounds of trouble she didn’t need in her life, even just for a fling.
When she went in the front door, she found the house quiet and mostly dark. She didn’t think Harley had been home very long. His messenger bag and suit coat were still sitting on the armchair in the living room and a light was coming down the hallway from the bathroom. She could hear the shower running.
Tired of her stuffy work attire, Jade headed to her room, where she could change into something less itchy and more comfortable than the pale pink tweed suit she’d worn beneath her white lab coat at the pharmacy. She quickly slipped into a pair of jogging shorts and a tank top. It was winter still, but the house was warmer than usual—or she was warmer than usual—with Harley around. She followed up the change by flipping her hair back and catching the mess of white-blond strands into a high ponytail out of her face.
She was stepping into the hallway when she collided with an unexpected wall of muscle. It was Harley, wet-haired and mostly naked, coming from the bathroom. She stumbled backward from the impact and he reached out to steady her, pulling her close to him again and wrapping her in the heat of his embrace.
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nbsp; When she recovered and was stable on her bare feet, she found herself in quite the situation. When her gaze met his, she found his serious blue eyes watching her from beneath wet strands of hair that had fallen into his face. There was an intensity there that was different than when they kissed. It wasn’t even like when he’d become incensed by her threatening letter. Harley was focused one hundred percent on her in a way that made her heart stutter and her throat go dry. He might have run off the night before, but he didn’t seem to be wrestling with his attraction to her now.
Unable to take it any longer, Jade broke away from his gaze and looked down to where her palms were pressed against the damp, bare skin of his chest. She could feel the rough curls of his chest hair that had intrigued her when she’d seen him in his briefs on the collapsed sofa bed. There was also a sprinkling of scars she hadn’t noticed before. Cuts, surgical scars, even what looked like a bullet wound. He hadn’t mentioned much about his time in the military, but it was obvious he hadn’t sat safely on an aircraft carrier, swabbing the decks.
Not that she’d ever expected him to. Harley was the kind that would jump first from an airplane. Kick down the doors of suspected terrorists. He loved the rush, which was probably why he’d made a career in this business. It was an element of his personality that had worried her just as much as a teenager as it did now. She wanted to be with someone who would come home every night, not leave her wondering if tonight was the night she’d get the call she dreaded.
Jade’s thoughts were derailed by the stirring of Harley’s desire. Her cotton shorts were slightly moist from colliding with the bath towel he had slung low around his hips. Even with the multiple layers of fabric between them, she could feel his need for her pressing against her stomach. Any questions she had about him wanting her were put to bed instantly. The bigger question now was whether she could allow herself to want him. And if so, could she manage to indulge without emotionally compromising herself? She wasn’t sure.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last, trying to move back and break the connection between them. Jade didn’t get far. Mostly because Harley still had his arms around her waist.
“I’m not,” he replied in a dead-serious tone.
Jade stiffened. She wasn’t sure what to say. Was she brave enough in the moment to take what she needed? She did want Harley, even if she couldn’t keep him. She wanted to feel what it was like to have someone desire her again. It was plain to her that he did. She needed to heed Sophie’s advice and just go for it.
She looked into his eyes, gathering every ounce of courage and seduction she had inside her. Then she slid one palm down his chest and over the hard muscles of his stomach. She could feel him tense and quiver beneath her touch as she reached for the edge of the towel. They were both holding their breath until, with a quick flick of her finger and thumb, the white terry cloth pooled on the floor at their feet.
Harley’s serious expression softened slightly as a devious smile curled his lips. “I don’t think you’re sorry, either,” he said.
She wet her lips with her tongue and shook her head slightly. “You’re right. I’m only sorry it took this long.” Then she figuratively jumped in with both feet and kissed him.
The floodgates opened the minute their lips touched. All the reasons they’d had to stay away from one another went out the window as desire trumped their good sense. Jade clung to his neck, trying to draw his mouth closer to hers even as he towered over her. His hands roamed her body, reacquainting themselves with the long-denied landscape.
Jade was overwhelmed with the sensations that coursed through her. She was barely aware of their movements as Harley guided them backward into her bedroom, until she felt the mattress press into the back of her thighs.
This was really going to happen. For a moment, she almost felt eighteen again, and as if she was giving herself to Harley for the first time. A surge of nervous energy ran through her body as he slipped her tank top over her head and threw it onto her bedroom floor. She’d been so wrapped up in him back then, and the feeling was similar now. He was the bad boy, the handsome rogue who wanted her when it felt like the rest of the world didn’t. There was no way her teenage self could have resisted those charms. She’d fallen head over heels.
This time was different, though. She was no enamored virgin with naive expectations about the future. She might not feel like she fitted in any more now than she did then, but Jade was a grown woman and knew that this wasn’t the way to solve that problem. She was simply a woman with needs that a man like Harley could fulfill if she let him.
“Damn,” he whispered in a low, gravelly voice as he looked down at her breasts. She’d always been self-conscious about them, or really, the lack of them, but he didn’t seem to mind. He cupped them in his palms, sending Jade’s head back as she gasped. They were small, but extremely sensitive. Her nipples turned to hard pebbles beneath his touch, aching for his mouth to taste them.
Jade eased backward onto the bed, shifting across the mattress as Harley’s naked body moved forward. In an instant, he was covering every inch of her with his heated, damp skin. His desire pressed against her bare thigh as he rested on his elbows and continued to tease her nipples with his tongue until she arched her spine and pressed her hips against him.
She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d wanted a man this badly. Had she ever? Even her attraction to Harley when they were teenagers couldn’t measure up to this. They had been kids then. Now he was a man. A solid wall of man that a woman like her desperately craved.
Harley pulled away long enough to grasp the waistband of her shorts and tug them down over her hips, along with her thin cotton panties. As they reached her ankles, she kicked them off and drew up one knee to hook around his bare thigh.
“Do you have protection?” she asked. It was a little late for a question like that, but she hadn’t exactly come home from work expecting this to happen.
“My gun is in the other room,” he replied, with a deadpan expression on his face.
