Savor the Danger

Her orgasm had been so incredible, she’d wept. But she couldn’t bring herself to be that explicit. She licked her lips and, in a mere breath of sound, admitted, “Yes.”

Putting his forehead to hers, Jackson groaned like a man in agony.

Alani touched his chest. Heat, strength, safety. He was all of that and so much more. But why couldn’t he remember? “Were you sick, Jackson? Is that why you can’t remember?” Looking at the morning in a new way, she realized he’d been seriously ill.

And she’d stormed out on him.

Flushed with shame, she cupped a hand around his neck. “Are you all right now?”

“All right? Hell, no. I’m tortured by what I can’t remember.” He covered her hand with his, lifted it to his mouth to kiss her palm. “After all that time of me wanting you so bad, and you turning me down flat, how the hell did I finally manage to win you over?”

CHAPTER TWO

IT WASN’T EASY for Alani to accept that he truly couldn’t recall a single detail. She’d suffered so much angst over her gullibility, over behavior that, for all intents and purposes, no longer mattered.

Except that she wanted to do it again.

Unwilling to expose her heart, she shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“C’mon, darlin’. Something swayed you.” He tried a strained half smile. “Help me out here.”

Because Jackson looked so agonized, she tried to give him the simplest of truths. “It doesn’t matter anymore, but it was the things you said as much as anything you did.”

“Yeah?” He brought up her chin, leaving her no choice but to look into his deep green eyes. “Like what?”

He kept touching her with an implied intimacy, stroking, nuzzling. She’d just spent hours coming to grips with the idea that she’d succumbed to a one-night stand, yet he acted as though they’d just begun a long affair.

She discounted everything he’d said last night, but still…did he want more?

If so, how much more?

He trailed his fingers over her cheek, around her neck, over her bare shoulder.

She shivered. Jackson might be sick from whatever had taken his memory, but he was still the quintessential primal male. Always.

At least…that’s how he always was with her.

Was he like that with every woman? Probably. Even Dare’s and Trace’s wives had noted Jackson’s good looks and sex appeal.

Shaking her head, Alani refused to think about it. “It was just…things you said. That’s all.” Things he’d promised, commitments he’d insinuated. “I guess it’s the stuff guys say to women when they want to talk them into bed.”

That made him frown. “Like what? Compliments? Big deal. When have I ever not complimented you?”

Sure, Jackson did a lot of sweet-talking—while on the make. “No, this was different.” This had felt more genuine, wrought from emotion and not just lust.

“How?” His attention drifted to her chest. “I bet I told you how damn sexy you are.”

Resisting an eye roll wasn’t easy. Later he had called her sexy, but at that point they’d already been on a heated path to lovemaking and she’d felt sexy.

She wasn’t sure she could pinpoint the moment that she’d known she would sleep with him, but that day he’d been different. Not more intense, because that wasn’t possible. Jackson was always intense.

But from the second she’d walked in the door, he’d looked at her, touched her and spoken to her differently.

He’d spoken from his heart—or so she’d thought.

Renewed embarrassment made her defensive. “Actually, you said I’m pretty.” And that was both sweeter and more touching than claiming her “hot” or “sexy.” Those sentiments had been expressed by the men who’d taken her, the men who’d manhandled her, restrained her, touched her, the men who’d planned to—

“Hey.” As if he sensed the direction of her thoughts, Jackson pressed a tender kiss to her forehead, the bridge of her nose. Sounding much as he had last night, he said, “You are pretty, Alani. So damn pretty.” His mouth brushed her ear. “All over.”

Face warm, she shook off the remnants of old emotion, fear and desolation from her kidnapping, discomfort from her naiveté last night.

“Thank you.” Dare had killed her kidnappers, and her brother now focused on destroying all human traffickers. She wasn’t with those men anymore. She was with Jackson, and he was about all she could handle right now. “You also said I was sweet.”

His burning gaze zeroed in on the notch of her thighs. “God, I bet you are.”

Her knees went shaky, so she pushed back from him. Hoping for a few calm moments to think, she said, “We have to figure this out, Jackson, so leash the lust.”

His chin went up as he stared down at her. “Woman, you ask the impossible.”

“Do it anyway!”

Sighing, lifting his hands from her as if in surrender, he stepped back. “This is me trying.”

Though the situation couldn’t be more skewed, he remained strong and capable. She envied him that. “What do you think happened? Did you drink?”

“Doubt it.” He shook his head. “I can’t remember, but I’m not much of a drinker.” And then with a shrug, “Never have been.”

She knew that about him. It was a control thing. Her brother and Dare…they disdained alcohol because it could throw off reflexes or perception, and they were all about control—of themselves and others. If Jackson imbibed much, they wouldn’t trust him.

She didn’t know the whole story of how Jackson came to join their team, but not long after she’d been recovered from Tijuana, they’d brought him on board. Obviously they trusted him, and that meant Alani could trust him, too—at least about this.

With anything more personal, like a romantic relationship, she just didn’t know.

He watched her every move. “I rummaged through my apartment, even the garbage, but I didn’t see any empty bottles. No sign of a drinking binge on my end.”

Suspicions crowded in, but for the moment, she pushed them aside. “Did you maybe fall and hit your head?”

That insulted him. “No.” He snorted. “Course not.”

“But you don’t remember, right? So how do you know?”

Roughly tousling his own hair, he said, “See? No bruises, no bumps.” He moved in again. “In fact, other than a few scratches that I’m hoping came from you, I don’t have any marks—no bruises or cuts or anything.”

“Scratches?”

His mouth quirked sensually. “On my shoulders. Small half moons right where a woman usually holds on tight when she’s—”

“So.” Interrupting seemed the safer course. “You probably weren’t involved in a scuffle, then.”