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  I clamp my mouth shut and glance back down at my cards. “How many do you want?” I ask Jasper.

  “I’ll take two.”

  I deal him two new cards.

  I look back to my semi-pathetic hand and announce that I’ll take three, so I slide three from the top of the deck. The three new cards dramatically helped my chances of winning. I smother a smile, my heart pounding at the thought of Jasper stripping off his clothes in front of me.

  “I’m in for my socks,” I say, upping the ante.

  Jasper cocks one raven brow at me, amusement shining in his eyes. God, if he’s gorgeous in his dark, brooding state, he’s flat-out incredible in this one. “Then I’ll give you my pants.”

  Hot flash!

  I resist the urge to fan my face.

  “Call,” I say.

  I spread out my cards on the smooth wooden top of the table.

  “Full house,” I announce with a smile.

  “Damn,” Jasper whispers. Then with a wink that could melt the panties off a nun, he splays out his cards and mutters, “Four of a kind.”

  My mouth drops open, whether because he just won and I have to strip or because I’ve never wanted to strip for someone so much in my life, I don’t know. All of a sudden, I can’t wait for him to touch me, for him to look at me with a passion in his eyes that blots out everything else in the world. I need that. I need him.

  “Oh,” I say breathlessly. “I, uh, I guess I owe you some clothes, then, don’t I?”

  I reach for the laces of one shoe, ready to give up my socks, but Jasper’s voice stops me.

  “Wait. What are you doing?” he asks.

  “You won. I’m paying up. Isn’t that how this works?”

  “Not in my game,” he replies. His voice is a low growl, his eyes never more tigerlike. Stalking. Predatory. Ravenous.

  I watch as Jasper rolls forward onto his hands and knees and crawls around the front of the table toward me. I don’t speak. I don’t move. I just take him in, frozen in place by the sheer want I see on his face.

  “In my game, the winner gets to take his winnings. Like any real winner would.”

  Take his winnings. Sweet God, he’s going to strip me!

  Long, strong fingers wind around my ankle and tug. In one slow, smooth motion, he drags me toward him, his eyes never leaving mine.

  Nimbly, he unties my right shoe and pulls it from my foot. Then, with deliberate movements, he slides his fingers under the elastic of my sock and slips it down my foot, easing it over the tips of my toes. The material softly scrapes my skin, the friction resounding in my belly like a caress.

  He treats the other foot to the same kind of methodical attention, leaving enough moisture between my legs to douse the fire. But not nearly enough to douse my fire. It’s just beginning to rage out of control. This time there will be no stopping. This time I will feel all of Jasper and he will feel all of me.

  When he’s discarded my socks, Jasper grabs me behind the bend of each knee and pulls me toward him again, guiding my legs to either side of his. I’m resting on my elbows, my sex throbbing like native drums, when Jasper reaches for the hem of my shirt. Rather than curling his fingers into it, however, he lays his hands flat against my stomach and starts to push the material up.

  His palms are broad, hot torture to the bare skin of my midriff. I suck in a breath and his lips turn up at the corners.

  “Easy, kitten,” he murmurs. “Don’t scratch me yet.”

  At a pace that has me nearly writhing against him, Jasper raises my shirt, his rough hands a tantalizing scrape of skin on skin, a promise of wicked delight to come.

  When he reaches my breasts, he moves up and over them, cupping them for just a second before continuing on. He turns his hands just enough that his thumbs graze my nipples with enough pressure to make me arch my back. And then they’re gone and his fingers are on my chest. At my throat.

  “Lie back,” he instructs quietly, his voice as hypnotic as his eyes.

  I do as he asks. He scoots up between my legs and leans over me, easing first one arm then the other out of their sleeves so he can pull my shirt over my head. With every movement, he rocks ever so slightly against me, the hardness of his erection straining against his pants, straining against me.

  When my shirt is gone and I’m lying with my arms by my sides and my legs practically around his hips, Jasper rests his weight on one forearm and bends to speak into my ear.

  “I can feel how hot you are all the way through my jeans.” A tiny bit of blood rushes to my face. The rest pools at the very point where his body touches mine. “Tell me, kitten, can I take the rest of what I won?”

  “You haven’t won yet,” I respond breathily.

  “But it’s just a matter of time.”

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  “I’ll make sure I win. Even if I have to cheat.”

  “That’s hardly fair.”

  Jasper flexes his hips, pressing into me in a painfully slow rhythm that makes my whole body tighten. “It’s hardly fair that the only taste I crave is the inside of your mouth. It’s hardly fair that I go to bed thinking about you or that I wake up aching for you. It’s hardly fair that I want you so bad my cock feels like it’s going to explode. But, then again, whoever said life was fair?”

  “I guess you have a point,” I manage past the moan that’s bubbling in my throat.

  “Is that a yes?” he asks, the fingers of his free hand sliding under the waist band of my yoga pants to grip my hip.

  “That’s a hell yes.”

  The last thing I hear before his lips meet mine is a throaty laugh that makes the hair on my arms stand up. And then I’m lost, lost in a sea of sensation and desire.

  Jasper’s tongue slides effortlessly past my lips just as his hand turns and slides down the front of my panties. My spread legs leave me open for him. There’s nothing between him and the emptiness that only he can fill.

  He moves into my panties and I hold my breath, anticipating the first electric touch of his fingers. He eases one fingertip between my folds, unerringly finding my nub. He rubs over it in one soft sweep, bringing my hips up off the floor before he moves down to my entrance, circling it as his palm cups the rest of me. “Holy Jesus, you’re wet. So wet,” he moans against my mouth, teasing me with several more circles before pushing one long finger inside me.

  I groan into his mouth and he flexes his finger within me, rubbing me from the inside as his rough hand massages me from the outside. His lips fall gently away from mine, like a leaf might fall away from a branch and drift slowly to the ground. They descend in a sensual exploration that leaves me with boiling blood, blazing skin and, somehow, no clothes left on my body. His mouth hovers over my belly, his breath hot against my sensitive skin.

  “The night you came for me, right there in the shower, with my eyes on your face and my hands on your body, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted something as bad as I wanted to be inside you. To feel that warm gush, that hot squeeze. God, you were amazing to watch.”

  Trying to focus on his words, trying to think past what his lips and his fingers are doing only seems to heighten the sensation that I’m spinning out of control. Is this part of his game? Is he doing it on purpose? Could he possibly know what he’s making me feel? Or is it simply Jasper, the man who does crazy things to me without even trying?

  “Jasper, please,” I beg when his mouth is inches from his hand. His lips brush slowly back and forth between my legs, his moist breath more a tantalizing promise than a concrete touch.

  “Please what?” When I don’t answer, when I can’t find the air or the energy to form words, he fills in the blanks for me. “Please lick me?” he asks, pressing his tongue into my crease and sweeping me from top to bottom in the most delicious lick I’ve ever experienced. “Please suck me?” He draws my clit into his mouth, flicking it with the tip of his tongue before sucking on it until my back arches off the floor. “Please put your cock in me?” He l
eaves me for what seems like only a few seconds—the rustle of clothes, the rattle of a wrapper—before I feel him again, burning skin to burning skin. “Or please do anything you want to my body as long as you make me come?”

  “Yes! Yes to all of it!”

  “Then come for me, kitten. Give me everything you’ve got.” He groans the last just as he pushes his body into mine.

  “Unh,” I half grunt, half gasp as he stretches me painfully. He’s so big. Almost too big.

  Just before the pleasure-pain becomes too much, he withdraws, but not completely. With his broad tip still resting within me, Jasper reaches between us to rub me as he sucks on one nipple and makes shallow thrusts into me, giving me time to accommodate him. When I relax again, my body clutching for more of his thick length, he eases in farther, biting down on my nipple at the same time, creating a sensual overload. I dig my fingernails into the smooth skin of his back.

  “Oh God! Jasper!”

  “Mmmm, that’s right. Give me your claws.”

  With that, he pulls out and then slams back into me, hard and deep. My body stretches around him and then squeezes in that divine way that I feel in my every bone and muscle. When he withdraws again, he pounds back in deeper still, but not completely. I know the moment he’s fully seated within me. He flexes his hips in one last thrust, one more delicious push that sends me falling over the edge. I’m thrown onto a wave of ecstasy and then carried out to sea by a million more.

  I’m so enraptured that I hardly hear his feral grunt when he stiffens against me, but I feel it when he lets go. I couldn’t not feel it. He pulses within me, each throb so strong it tosses me right back into the fray of my orgasm. And this one, we ride out together.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Jasper

  I carried Muse’s limp, naked body from the living room floor to her bed. She asked me to lay with her. For some reason I agreed. Now she’s resting quietly against me. Her head is on my outstretched upper arm and she’s facing me, her fingers drawing lazy circles on the cool sheets between us.

  I don’t open my eyes. I don’t look at her. I’m sure she knows I’m not asleep. Even if I could sleep in the room with another person, I couldn’t do it right now anyway. I can almost feel her mind spinning, like vibrations of unrest in the air around me. Stirring. Churning.

  I smile into the dark when I hear her voice. I knew she wouldn’t be able to stand the silence for very long.

  “Jasper, where are we? Whose cabin is this?”

  I sigh. Always with the questions.

  “It’s mine.”

  “Is this your house? I mean, where you live all the time?”

  “I don’t live anywhere all the time.”

  “But do you live here some of the time?”

  “What if I do?”

  I feel her shrug. Even with my eyes closed, I can picture it in my head. The way the corners of her mouth dip in. The way her eyebrows rise just a little. The way her hair moves against her shoulders. I can recall with absolute clarity nearly every small detail about her. Just like I’ve never really felt much guilt, I’ve never really been haunted by someone I’ve met on one of my missions before either. But Muse . . . she is one who will haunt me, I think. Forever.

  “It’s fine if you do. I just . . . It seems . . .”

  “It seems what?” I prod gently, enjoying the residue of pleasure that’s still softening my muscles.

  “It doesn’t seem to reflect you. Like, I don’t see things that make me think of you, ya know? Is that weird?”

  It’s my turn to shrug. “I don’t know. I guess I don’t really pay much attention to décor.”

  She turns the nervous attention of her fingers to my ribs, tracing each one, starting from just beneath my arm. “What about this place or what piece of furniture or what knickknack says something about you? About the real Jasper?”

  She’s clever, trying to get to know me this way. As someone who most often employs deceptive, devious or covert means to get information that people wouldn’t normally divulge, I can appreciate it. Her method doesn’t surprise me. She’s an intelligent woman with a curious mind. I like that about her. What does surprise me is the ease with which I decide to tell her what she wants to know. It comes with a pang of guilt and melancholy, though. I know why I’m going to take advantage of the first person I’ve felt close to in a long time and tell her some personal things about myself. It’s because she won’t be a threat to me. She can’t be.

  “There’s a white china dish in the master bathroom. Right beside the sink. I see it every time I wash my hands, brush my teeth, whatever. It was my mother’s. Since I was a little kid, she kept her hair ties in it. When I take the lid off, it makes the whole room smell like her.”

  Muse’s voice is hushed, tentative when she asks, “Is she . . . is she gone?”

  “She might as well be.”

  I don’t know why I even give her that answer. I know she won’t be satisfied with it. Muse is the type of person who wants to know everything about the people in her life. What they love and hate, why they do the things they do. What makes them tick. She’s that much like her father.

  “So she’s not dead?”

  For about a tenth of a second, I ask myself if I really want to do this. Let someone in. Take the risk. But then I remind myself that there’s no risk at all. And for whatever reason, that bothers me more than if there was.

  “No, she’s very much alive.”

  “But you don’t see her?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “She thinks I’m dead.”

  Muse lifts her head off my arm and her hand stills. “Dead? Why?”

  “Because I wanted her to think I’m dead.”

  “But why on earth would you do that to her? To yourself?”

  “Because she’s better off not knowing what I am. This way, she got to mourn the boy I used to be. That’s better than hating the man I’ve become.”

  Muse’s gasp is soft, but I still hear it. It’s like a slap in the dark. “But why? What’s so wrong with the man you’ve become?”

  “He’s too much like my father.”

  “In what way?”

  “In every way. He’s cold and heartless. Ruthless. He destroys everything he touches. She wouldn’t be proud of what I’ve become, so I let her keep the boy she loved. Besides, it’s safer for her this way. To the world, her son is dead. There would be nothing for anyone to gain by hurting her.”

  “I don’t . . . I don’t understand. You’re a bounty hunter. Why would people be after your mother?”

  I open my eyes and roll my head to face Muse. Her eyes are dark in the low light, dark and confused. “The people I hunt don’t want to be found. And they certainly don’t want to be found by me.”

  I see the wheels turning behind her narrowed gaze. I see the exact moment she begins to process what I might mean. Her eyes go from slim slits to wide, stunned orbs. “What are you saying, Jasper?”

  “Probably just what you think I’m saying. I’m saying that I do the things few other people have the stomach for.”

  She sits up straighter, pulling the sheet over her naked torso, like she’s suddenly uncomfortable. But not with her nudity. More with our intimacy. And I can see why. Most people abhor what I am when they get an inkling of it.

  “Wait. Dad said that he knew you’d bring me, that he knew they’d send you. What does that mean? That meeting you was no accident? That you were sent to . . . to . . .”

  I shouldn’t hedge. I should lay out the cold, hard truth for her, but something in me can’t stand seeing the look of hurt and disgust on her face.

  “I knew him. Quite well, actually. They knew if anyone could find him, it would be me.”

  “So you weren’t going to—”

  I interrupt her. “Your father knows that he needs to get me some information and that he needs to do it fast. He knows that as long as I have you, he’s under no threat from me. I have no reason to hurt hi
m because he has every reason to comply. You are his reason to get me what I need.”

  “So I’m like insurance?”

  I seesaw my head. “Sort of, if that’s how you want to look at it.”

  “You keep me until he delivers?”

  “Yes.”

  Her brows knit together. “Why would he keep that from me? Why wouldn’t he just tell me? He has to know that I’d go along with it if it meant keeping him out of danger, out of trouble. I mean, hell, I left South Carolina and moved across the country to keep him safe.”

  “At least that’s what he wanted you to think,” I add. I probably shouldn’t get involved in their arrangements, but she might as well know that he did it all for her.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Think about it. Is the Colonel really the type to let his daughter uproot her entire life and move away from him just to keep him safe?”

  She pauses to think. “I knew it didn’t really seem like him, like something he’d do, but . . .”

  “But you trust him. I get it. And that’s good. He’d never do anything to hurt you, so your trust isn’t misplaced.”

  “No, but he obviously thinks nothing of lying to protect me.” There’s an angry set to her jaw, an aggravated angle to the tilt of her chin.

  “People do that for the ones they love.”

  As she looks at me with those big, exotic eyes, I see the anger fade into a curious sadness and I know before she speaks that she’s turning her attention back to me. I admire that she’s always ready to throw herself so completely into the life and trust of another person. It’s inadvisable as hell, but I love the haphazardness with which she lives. It’s the absolute antithesis of everything about my life.

  “Like you did for your mother.”

  Leave it to Muse to go there, to take what I’ve told her and paint me as some sort of martyr. But she’s wrong and I can’t let her think otherwise.

  I meet her eyes, baring all the coldness my soul possesses for her to see, driving home my point before I even open my mouth. “Don’t mistake me for a good guy, Muse. My motives were purely selfish. I didn’t want the pain of my mother’s disgust. I didn’t want the heartache of her being captured or tortured because of me. Letting her believe me to be dead was anything but a selfless act.”