Cold Pursuit

Twenty-Three

Elijah sat on his favorite chair in front of the fire while Jo was in the tub, probably, he decided, not contemplating her options for the night so much as thinking about assassins. He took her choice of the bathroom just off his bedroom as a sign of where she meant to sleep.

She’d warned him not to peek while she was in the tub. Since she’d come with toothbrush, bath salts and her Sig, Elijah was heeding the warning.

He dialed Grit’s number. When Grit answered, Elijah gave him what he had on Melanie Kendall, Kyle Rigby and Thomas Asher.

“Bruni could have been hit by some senator late for a hair appointment,” Grit said.

“What about your reporter friend?”

“She has a personal stake in whatever’s going on. Something with her and the Russian, this Andrei Petrov your new friend told you about.” Grit spoke as he always did, without a lot of fanfare or emotion. “But I think Myrtle’s one of the good guys.”

“Or?”

“Or she’s the one running the thing and she’s just playing me. Moose is no help. He likes her.”

Elijah made no comment.

“Whatever Myrtle’s agenda is,” Grit said, “she’s crusty and knows how to find the right rocks to turn over.”

And Grit would turn them over. He was single-minded, and he needed a mission. “We’re not law enforcement,” Elijah said. “We don’t have to worry about building a case.”

“Jo Harper? She’s a federal agent.”

“I’ll handle her.”

“Ah.”

“There’s no ‘ah,’ Grit.” But there was, and Elijah knew Grit was already onto him.

“If the veep’s kid doesn’t ruin her career, you could.”

“Not my problem.”

He heard the bathroom door open. In two seconds, Jo was there in an oversize red-plaid flannel nightshirt his grandmother had given him for Christmas one year. He’d stuffed it in the linen closet and forgotten about it.

“Cameron?”

“Jo just got out of the tub.”

“Uh-oh.”

“She looks like a female version of Paul Bunyan.”

“Just your type, mountain man,” Grit said and hung up.

Elijah got to his feet and didn’t bother with niceties. “Jo, if I don’t make love to you soon-”

“That’s what I was thinking in the tub.”

He kissed her softly, then scooped her up as he had so long ago and carried her back to his bedroom. It was cooler in there, away from the woodstove.

She draped her arms over his shoulders. “I can’t fall in love with you again,” she whispered, not taking her eyes from him. “Except I’ve never been out of love with you. Elijah…”

“Shh,” he said, and lowered her onto his bed. “Let’s love each other right now.”

His mouth found hers again, and he held her and closed his eyes, pretending for a moment that the past fifteen years hadn’t happened and he was nineteen again and loving her, making promises that he’d keep. He skimmed his hands over her slim body, remembering all her curves, the places she liked to be touched.

She went still, then held his face in her hands and lifted his mouth from hers. “Open your eyes, Elijah.”

He did so and smiled. “Jo. Damn. It’s worth opening my eyes just to look at you.”

But she wasn’t buying it. “We’re not teenagers anymore, and you’ve never been one to go backward.”

“I would if I could. Just not to hurt you.” He kissed her nose, her forehead, her cheeks, wanting nothing more than to love her. “Ms. Secret Agent,” he whispered, trailing more feathery kisses along her jaw as her hands slid down to his upper arms and dug into his flesh. “You’re something else.”

“Elijah.”

There was a little catch in her voice that he liked. A tightening of her grip on his arms. He kissed her throat, even as he eased his hands up under her nightshirt along the bare, smooth skin of her thighs. She squirmed beneath him in just the right way.

And he said her name again and again as he had in countless dreams.

How had he let her go?

He felt the quickening of his pulse and hers as he curved his palms up along her hips and stomach to her breasts and caught a nipple between his fingertips. He’d been her first love, remembered her cry of pain and ecstasy as he’d plunged into her, trying to be careful, trying to hold back for fear of really hurting her. But she’d urged him on, tears flowing as she’d promised to love him forever.

A long time ago.

His hands skimmed back down along her sides and over her hips, feeling the last of the airsoft welts. She was strong and fit, and she’d been loved by other men-she’d gone on with her life as he had with his.

He’d left her no other choice.

He felt the tremble in her fingers as she eased them down his arms and over the tops of his hands and held on, raising herself up just a little from the bed. “Elijah. I can’t…wait.” Her turquoise eyes held his with an intensity, a fire he’d long thought he’d never see again. “I’ve been hiking up and down these damn hills for two days. I can’t-Can you please take your clothes off? And get this nightshirt off me while you’re at it?”

He laughed. “With pleasure.”

“Good, because I…” She gave a sexy little shudder. “I need to conserve my energy.”

“I’ll get your nightshirt off first,” he said with a wicked smile.

“I thought you might.”

It was only a matter of whisking the nightshirt over her head and casting it onto the floor. But he couldn’t jump right into disrobing himself. He gazed at her, his throat tight with want and emotion and a need that reached right to his soul.

“Jo,” he whispered, kissing her, soaking in the taste and the feel of her. “You’re beautiful.”

She slid her arms around his neck and drew him onto her, deepening their kiss, writhing erotically under him. But she wouldn’t be distracted. “You’re still clothed,” she said, her voice ragged, her body hot and soft.

“So I am.”

He dealt with that problem in seconds, flinging his clothes onto the floor, floor lamps-wherever-he didn’t care. When he rejoined her, she was breathless, eyes wide open as she took in the sight of him.

“Your scar,” she said. “Are you okay now? A femoral artery injury is dangerous.”

“It didn’t affect anything vital.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Just your blood supply.”

“There was that. But I lived,” he said, pushing back a sudden image of that night. He paused, staring at her, and repeated himself. “I lived.”

He settled himself on top of her, figuring the feel of what mattered would distract her from his scars, and she responded with a small cry of surprise, delight-memory.

“I’m glad you lived,” she said. “Elijah, I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d lost you. You’ve always been out there, indestructible…”

“No one’s indestructible.”

“I love you.” She parted her legs, settled down into the soft bed. “I always have.”

“I know.”

“The rest-”

“Shh.”

“Love me now, Elijah. No more waiting.” She lifted herself up and clutched his shoulders. “You won’t hurt me.”

“Good,” he said, “because…damn, Jo…”

He entered her, slowly at first, trying to savor the feel of being inside her again, but she fell back and wrapped her thighs around him, and pulled him in hard and fast and deep. He responded, driving himself into the depths of her. She cried out and threw her hands behind her head, giving herself up to her own heat and need. He could see the desire in her eyes, and it fueled him. He didn’t relent and let the sweet ache he’d known only with her take him to the edge.

All this time-all these years. There’d only been one Jo.

She clasped his hips and held him inside her, caught her breath as their bodies fused even more tightly together, until finally she wriggled her hips and that was it. He peeled her hands off him and pinned them to her sides as he thrust into her over and over, faster and faster, until he felt her release-and then his own.

When he collapsed next to her, she drew the covers up over them. “The heat here’s better than in my cabin, but it’s not great.” Her voice was ragged, her body still slick and hot from their lovemaking. “I don’t want you to get chilled after you cool off.”

He propped his head up on one arm. “Who says I’ll have a chance to cool off?”

She smiled. “There’s that,” she said, easing in close to him, lifting his arm over her shoulders. “I hear an owl.”

He kissed her hair. “Maybe it’s a son or daughter of the one we heard fifteen years ago.”

“Or a grandchild,” she said, and was quiet for a while before turning to him and touching his right thigh where he’d been shot. “Your father feared for your life, and maybe he had a premonition of the danger you were in. But that’s not why he died.”

“Jo…”

“If he built his own cabin on that old cellar hole, he had shelter. Good shelter. Better than trash bags. He could have survived the storm.” She eased her fingertips gently along Elijah’s scars, as if trying to imagine the pain, the blood, how close he’d come to death. “He didn’t go up the mountain with a storm on the way to die. He knew what he was doing.”

Elijah didn’t speak.

“Someone killed him, Elijah.”

He slid his arms around her and drew her to him. “I know.”