Seduced By The Enemy

The expression in his gaze rattled her. “So you’ve already said.” She struggled to come to terms with the fear banked within the depths of his eyes. Fear for her? Or for himself when they caught him?

She pulled in a shaky breath and let it out slowly. The sooner she found out what he wanted, the sooner she could return to her life. To her safe existence, where beige was an exciting color.

“What’s going on, Jared? If it’s help you want—”

“Help?” Hardness replaced the anxiety in his eyes and he gave an abrupt bark of humorless laughter. “Oh, you’d help me all right. Straight into the gas chamber.”

She shook her head. “You’re not being fair.”

He planted his hands on his hips and glared down at her. “Fair? You want fair?” His angry voice dripped with sarcasm. “How fair were you when you turned me over without even waiting to hear my side of the story?”

No, the night he’d come to her, she hadn’t given him a chance to explain. If she had, they would’ve used whatever he’d told her against him. Her arms slid from the table. She balled her hands into tight fists, then stood and returned his glare with one of her own.

“They didn’t give me a choice.” The bitter taste of betrayal hadn’t waned one iota in three years. “What did you want me to do, Jared? Risk being disbarred? Lose everything? After what they put me through, I think I paid a high enough price.”

He let out a rough sigh and reached for her. “Look, I’m sorry.”

Whether he was apologizing for being a jerk or for what her involvement with him had nearly cost her, she didn’t know, and quite frankly, she was too ticked off at being kidnapped to really give a damn. She sidestepped him and made it to the nightstand to snag her keys. “It doesn’t matter. I’m leaving. Don’t waste your breath trying to change my mind.”

“It’s too dangerous for you now.”

She faced him, anger and frustration still brewing inside her. “The way I see it, the only danger I’m in at the moment is a result of having been kidnapped by a fugitive. It’s safer for both of us if I leave and pretend tonight never happened.”

He narrowed the space between them. “It’s not going to be that easy this time, Peyton.”

The unexpected and sudden gentleness of his tone stroked her like a physical caress. Sweet, caring and way out of line. Damn Jared, and damn the memories swamping her. “It wasn’t the last time, either.”

She spun to leave, but before she took a single step toward freedom, he had her by the arm and used care to turn her around to face him. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close.

The feel of the long length of his body pressed against her was instant electricity. The urge to wreathe her arms around his neck and pull him down for a long, hot kiss overwhelmed her.

Now who’s out of line?

“Let me go, Jared.” Her nipples beaded and rasped against the lace of her bra, making a mockery of her demand.

That lopsided grin made an appearance, taking the edge off the hard angles of his face. “I remember a time when you didn’t mind so much.” The sensual darkening of his gaze matched the low, husky timbre of his velvety-smooth voice.

The insides of her thighs tingled in response, along with the first sensual tug of need pulling in her belly. “That was a long time ago. A lifetime ago.” Obviously not long enough for her body to forget that heaven could always be found with Jared.

Oh, this was bad. Real bad. She had to get away from him. The last thing she needed was to complicate this mess any further. Stirring up wicked fantasies was not an option. Or worse, caving in to the desire weaving through her body. She set her hands against his shoulders and pushed.

Instead of letting her go, he tightened his hold, urging her body even closer. The soft denim of his jeans brushed against her legs, turning the tingling between her thighs to a demanding throb. Feeling the hard ridge of his fully erect penis pressing against his fly was like laying a match to a fuse of dynamite.

“Then why does it feel like I held you this way only yesterday?”

Probably because it felt that way to her, too, but she kept the traitorous thought to herself. “Why did you bring me here?”

Why did you have to come back into my life, even for a few hours?

“Answer me, Peyton.”

She wasn’t going near that one, even if her life was in danger, as he claimed. “No. You answer my questions. You said once we were somewhere safe you’d tell me everything.”

He lifted his hand and smoothed his thumb along her lower lip. “Your mouth has haunted my dreams for far too long.”

“Jared,” she replied. Whether in protest or invitation, she couldn’t be sure. She wanted it to be protest, she really did, but the way her body was humming with anticipation, invitation was closer to the truth.

She stared, mesmerized, as he slowly dipped his head. The keys slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor. Oh, mercy, he was going to kiss her. She knew she should stop him, but somewhere deep inside, some part of her that still clung to traitorous old memories ignored the necessary protests and outrage that would quickly put an end to the resurrection of the past. Instead, the second his lips brushed hers, her eyes closed and she welcomed the pressure of his mouth on hers.

She’d expected gentle. Maybe even tentative. But what began as the tender brushing of lips quickly evolved into something deeper and hotter and wetter than she’d experienced in a very long time. The last thing she anticipated was for need and desire to tear through her, causing every possible point of pleasure to pulse and throb.

As if the last three hellish years had never existed, she clung to him and gave herself up to the insistent pounding of desire as she slid her hands over his torso, exploring familiar territory. As if undressing Jared was still second nature to her, she quickly undid his shirt and smoothed her hands along his bare skin. The enticing flex of muscle and sinew beneath her fingertips had her sighing into his mouth.

An invitation didn’t come any more engraved.

He responded by moving her backward until her bottom came in contact with the textured wall. His heat surrounded her, engulfed her, and burned slow and hot, catching her completely off guard with its intensity. As though they’d never been separated, her body responded to his with the building of pleasure so overwhelming she knew she never wanted it to end.

His tongue stroked hers in a hot, erotic dance of seduction, sending tiny little tremors of pleasure dancing beneath her skin, igniting a hot flame that seared her from the inside out. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew allowing them to continue was wrong, yet even the knowledge that she was charging down a forbidden path did nothing to stem the insistent need where she craved his touch the most. As much as her conscience screamed at her to push him away and put an end to this erotic nonsense, her heart yearned for the single moment in time where she could forget the past three years of loneliness, of longing for what could never be, of steeling herself against the hurt she’d seen in his eyes the night she’d betrayed him.

The kiss ended all too soon and he backed away from her. He shoved a hand through his hair and stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. Or maybe he was remembering another time, a time when they’d been in love.

Cool air brushed her skin, sending a chill down her spine. The desire to slip back into his arms, to feel the heat of his body pressing against hers, to reassure herself she wasn’t suffering from another dream where she’d wake up to nothing but darkness and a deep ache in her chest, stunned her. She didn’t know whether to weep with frustration or shout for joy that he was standing in front of her, holding her, kissing her, making her forget the horrendous pain after he’d run from the feds, leaving her behind to cope with the emotional and physical aftershocks from events that had spun out of control.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” he said, turning his back to her while he buttoned his shirt. “I apologize.”

She shouldn’t have let it happen, for a whole series of reasons, but she hadn’t let it stop her from enjoying every second she’d been in his arms. It was only the shock of seeing him again, of knowing he was alive. Yeah, that made sense. She’d plastered herself all over him and kissed him as if it was the most natural thing in the world, just to reassure herself he wasn’t a ghost of her imagination this time.

Now there was an argument she could never hope to sell to a jury.

“But it did happen,” she heard herself saying. “And dammit, Jared, it felt right.”

Was she insane?

Obviously.

He spun around to face her and stared in disbelief. “Right?” he said, after a half-dozen heartbeats of dead silence. He took a step toward her and snagged her left hand, lifting it until the engagement ring Leland had given her was between them. “Take a good look at that and then tell me again how right it felt.”

There wasn’t a single thing she could say in her defense, so she kept her mouth firmly shut. The absolute truth of it was she hadn’t given Leland a solitary thought when she’d been wrapped around Jared. Did that make her a bad person? Maybe. Probably. But would a jury convict her because she’d lost her head for a moment in the arms of the man who’d once touched her soul?

Without a doubt, she thought. She’d slipped. Made a mistake. Her emotions were running in high gear and she’d been momentarily rendered conscienceless. No matter how right her heart and body had felt being in Jared’s arms, she wouldn’t let something like that happen again.

She hoped.

He let go of her hand. “That’s what I thought,” he said, and moved away from her as if he couldn’t stand to be near her. He dropped into one of the vinyl chairs at the round table and leaned back, lacing his fingers together over his stomach. “So who is he?” he asked, his tone conversational, as if he was asking whether rain was expected in the forecast.

She bent to pick up the keys and set them on the nightstand before answering. “Leland Atwood.”

She returned to the table and sat across from Jared. To someone who didn’t know him as well as she did, his impassive expression just might have been believable, but there was a hardness in his eyes that belied the boredom he attempted.