Coming Undone

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"HEY, UNCLEJARED!" Esme rushed over, her face alight with her habitual enthusiasm.

"Hey, pipsqueak." He leaned down to give her a fleeting peck on the lips, but barely broke stride in his unwavering advance on P.J.

He stopped in front of her, his hands firmly in his pockets to keep from doing her bodily injury. When he'd realized she was no longer in her dressing room-that she hadn'tbeen in the room the entire time he'd been sitting guard outside of it-his gut had turned into a mass of screaming nerve endings. She'd willfully put herself in danger on his watch.

That he wasn't happy about it was an understatement. "Say goodbye, P.J."

She looked up from her conversation with Mac, meeting his gaze dismissively. "When I'm ready."

He knew that stubborn look, but he was royally pissed and that trumped mulishness hands down. He wasn't about to take no for an answer. "Say. Goodbye," he commanded through gritted teeth, hauling her to her feet.

"Jared," Esme said uncertainly and Mac's eyes narrowed. But his willingness to carry little Miss Escape Artist out the front door-thrown over his shoulder like a sack of spuds if necessary-must have shown. P.J. turned to Mac.

"Thank you for treating me to the most fun I've had all week," she said warmly, rising onto her toes to plant a kiss on the older woman's cheek. "You come see me tonight after the show." She turned to his niece. "You, too, Esme. It was so good to see you again. Tell your mama I'm looking forward to seeing her tonight, as well." Projecting her voice to reach down the hallway, she said, "You can come, too, Rocket. If you absolutely must."

John's laughter floated out of his office.

Jared said his own goodbyes, then marched P.J. out the agency door, across the porch and down the steps to the Jeep he'd retrieved on his only detour between the amphitheater and here.

Tense silence filled the Jeep as he drove them out of the parking lot. The more he thought about the worry she'd caused him, the more his neck muscles tightened. If he hadn't finally called John to admit he'd lost her, he'd probably still be tearing the venue apart looking for her.

To his surprise, P.J. broke the silence between them. He'd have sworn she'd rather choke than cave first. "Take me to the Teatro."

Okay, so it was a command rather than an attempt to escape his displeasure. Clenching his teeth against the urge to snarl, he said in a neutral tone, "You're going back to the amphitheater with me."

"No, Jared, I'm not. I'm already checked into the hotel. Take me there."

"You are not staying at a goddamn hotel," he barked. "I won't have it." Hearing himself, everything inside him stilled.

Then the nerve endings that had begun to settle down recommenced their hot, mortified dance of agitation. Jesus. He sounded exactly like his father at his autocratic worst. He might have been channeling the old man from the grave, so closely had his tone come to the one that had hounded his adolescence.

Sucking up all his ire, he stuffed it away. Then he took a deep breath and blew it out. But it didn't matter what he did, because he recognized this for what it was: one wrong comment, one sideways glance away from blowing sky high. He drew more air into his lungs.I am a glacier peak, impregnable and remote.

"We've been through this before," P.J. snapped. "Same song, same dance. Read my lips, Hamilton. You don't get to dictate where I can or cannot stay. I need a break from living with a busload of people and I'm taking one. Drive me to the Teatro. For the next few days you can consider it my home base."

What he considered was just flat out disregarding her wishes. But maybe she could read his mind, because she said flatly, "I'm tired and cranky and you do not want to blow me off. Because I'm warning you, J, I'll pick up the phone and call Wild Wind so fast it'll make your head swirl. And who do you think they'll choose if I demand that either you go or I will?"

He drove her to the Teatro.

He was so angry, though, he could barely see straight. Unleashed emotion was unlike him, and he drew in several deep, silent breaths, trying to get a handle on it. Refusing to let his temper show, he turned his car over to a valet and walked P.J. to the hotel entrance, his clasp on her elbow courteously loose.

"This really isn't necessary, you know," she said, extricating her arm as they entered the lobby. "You can leave me here."

"I need to know where your room is so I can see about getting one nearby. You may have forgotten the threatening note you received last week, but I haven't."

"Of course I haven't forgotten it. But neither have I heard another word from the whack job who sent it."

"And let's hope that continues. But we don't bet your safety on the assumption. You don't have to spend time with me while you're here." He gave her his best ask-me-if-I-give-a-damn look, the one he'd perfected on his father. Then he let his eyes go hard. "But I will do my job."

When she argued no further he accompanied her to the elevator, then down the hallway of her floor. He stood back while she slid the key card into the door slot of her room. But when he followed her inside, she sighed.

Not just your average everyday sigh, either. Awoman sigh. One of those long-suffering exhalations that only females of the species were truly good at. It was wordless, just a breath of air, really.

Yet it still managed to say,What have I ever done to deserve being saddled with this horse's ass?

Temper ratcheting another degree higher, he eyed her butt, noting how firm and round it was, how satisfying it would be to apply the flat of his palm to it. Forcefully.

Jesus, Ace.Shoving his hands deep in his pockets for the second time that day, he followed her into the suite's sumptuous sitting room without noticing the first thing about the decor. What was he thinking? Losing control wasnot in his makeup. And he sure as hell didn't manhandle women!I am a glacier peak.

Impregnable.

Remote.

"No, you know what?" he said aloud. "To hell with that."

P.J. swung around to stare at him. "What are you babbling about?"

"I don't babble. And you owe me an apology. I searched every fucking inch of that amphitheater looking for you." He crossed the room to tower over her. "And, baby, you at least told John one truth. The place is immense." He'd never felt such immediate fear as he had upon discovering she was missing. Furious to know he'd suffered that hot gut and cold sweat over what had basically been P.J. messing with his head, he crowded her against the wall. If she had a working brain cell in her head she'd be afraid.

She'd be very afraid.

"Well, boo hoo." Leading with her chin, she scowled up at him. "For the past five days you haven't had two lousy minutes to spare me-so ask me if I give a rip that you had a few bad moments trying to track me down. I've had a lousyweek and I'll be damned if I'll let you make me feel guilty about my visit with Gert. It's the first decent time I've had since-" Cutting herself off, she slapped hands to his chest and shoved. "Get out of my way. In fact, get out of my room."

He didn't budge. But neither did he put his hands on her. He wanted to, though. Man, did he want to! He'd spent way too much time the past several days reliving their time in that Los Angeles dressing room.

He wasn't stupid; he knew he never should have touched her. Getting her naked, gettinginside her, had been unethical squared.

But, damn. Merely thinking about it almost blew the top of his head off. Which just went to show that it didn't pay to jump the gun patting yourself on the back. He'd been so cocksure he could hold her at arm's length after holding her skin-to-skin close as she'd gone up in flames. And he'd done it, too, by God. Except:

All he had wanted to do, itched to do, was dying to do, beneath all that self-congratulatory restraint, was take her back to bed.

Glacier, Hamilton. Remember the fucking glacier.

But that was hard to do when the thing was evaporating like mist in the jungle, turning his brain into one big steam bath. His anger was gone, his cool shot to hell. All he had left was a raging red-hot case of lust. "Is that what you really want?" he asked her hoarsely. "You want me to leave?"

She obviously read his mood, for her eyes changed, went dark and aware. But she angled her chin up at him. "Yes, I-"

"Because I want what we had in that room in L.A." Only he'd have more control this time. He'd make her come again and again and again while staying a little bit removed. While staying in command.

"Oh,now you're interested in having sex again?" Her eyes narrowed. "What, you suddenly decide I wasn't so lousy at it after all?"

"What?"He stared down at her in shock. "Who the hell said anything about you being lousy at it?"

"You've been avoiding me ever since we did the deed, haven't you?"

"Because I'm supposed to be keeping you safe, not fucking you!"

"Which-let me guess-became a consideration only after you discovered how lousy I was in the sack."

"No, which became a consideration when I quit thinking with my little head long enough to realize how unprofessional I'd been. But you:Damn, Peej, where do you get these ideas? You are so far from lousy I can't believe the thought even crossed your mind."

"I am?" The heartbreaking hope in her golden brown eyes gave him a flashback to the thirteen-year-old he'd once known. Then she gave him another shove. "Yeah, right. You're just saying that now because you're horny."

"I'm saying it because it's true." He held her gaze, thinking surely she couldn't look into his eyes and doubt that. In the spirit of full disclosure, however, he did admit, "I confess to being horny, too, but that's hardly new territory. It seems to be a constant state around you."

She blew a short, pithy raspberry.

"What, you think I'm kidding?" Bending his head, he pressed his mouth to the side of her neck. Her skin was smooth and fragrant and he flicked it with his tongue.

Shivers raced down P.J.'s thighs, a condition that only grew worse when he moved his lips to her ear.

"You remember the night we spent in that new construction site?" he asked. "The night of the storm?"

"Of course I do." She remembered every moment of every day they'd spent together. The night he was talking about had been dark, wet and chilly, with wild displays of lightning and thunder that had scared her silly.

"We'd been cuddling to try and stay warm and you got mad when I moved away. You thought it was because I was getting ready to leave you. But you wanna know the real reason I quit holding you, P.J.?" He didn't wait for her to say yes or no. "I moved because the feel of you against me was starting to give me a hard-on."

Her head reared back, smacking the wall. "Didnot! " Fingers automatically homing in on the spot she'd just hit, she gingerly massaged the hurt away. But her attention was fixed on Jared.

"Did so. You were only thirteen and I felt like a perv, but I had a boner a cat couldn't scratch." Brushing her hair aside, he resumed kissing her neck.

Heat shot down her spine and she jerked skittishly. "What are youdoing? " She batted at his shoulders. "Two seconds ago you were giving me your big screwing-you-is-unprofessional spiel. What happened to that?"

"It went up in smoke." He took the step closer that brought their bodies together and bent his knees until their eyes met. "And you know what? I don't care. Hell, I pretty much patterned myself after Rocket and he slept with my sister when he was working for her. It didn't seem to hurt his professional image any."

"Yeah, well, weren't they pretending to be engaged? You plan on sacrificing yourself on the altar of matrimony for the sake of a little nookie?"

"No." He stepped back smartly. "Uh-uh, no, ma'am. Listen, Peej, you were everything to me as a kid and you're more special than any other woman I know. But I'm not the marrying kind. Trust me on this-I don't have the chops to make a woman happy for more than a week or two running."

Somehow she doubted that. He was handsome, he was rich and he was rock steady. Looks and money might disappear over time, but the steadiness, his sexy competence:thatwould be with him forever. It would always make a woman feel safe.

Still, all the places made warm by having his body pressed against hers felt downright chilly with the distance he'd put between them. And who the hell asked him to marry her anyhow? "Do Ilook like I'm dying to have you drop to your knees and propose?"

His eyebrows met above the thrust of his nose. "No." He sounded almost surly, as if she'd offended him or something. But that was ridiculous-he could only be insulted if he wanted her to marry him, and he'd just made a huge production out of telling her otherwise. So how needy did it make her that she was reading nuances into a matter where none existed?

She scowled. "Then get over yourself. Maybe you should just lay out what it is you do want."

His expression underwent yet another transformation and he stepped forward again. Looking down at her with sexual heat in his gaze, he bowed his head to bring his lips to her ear. "Well, for starters-" the gravelly purr insinuating itself down the whorls made the short hairs on her neck stand on end "-I want to lick you all over."

Luckily the wall at her back was holding her up because her knees turned to Jell-O. Locking them, she gave him her coolest appraisal. "Maybe I don't want to be licked by someone who, by his own admission, can't produce the goods for more than a week or two."

That amused him, apparently, for she felt his lips curve against her ear. "Oh, I can produce, baby. The question is how long good sex will outweigh my defects in your eyes." He swiveled his hips against hers and his erection was a hard, heavy ridge pressing the folds of her skirt between her legs.

She lowered her lids to prevent him from seeing her eyes cross. "Well, I'll tell you what." Proud of how composed she sounded, she tugged his T-shirt from the waistband of his jeans. After a second spent admiring the hard, flat planes she'd exposed, she looked up to meet his gaze. "Why don't you shoot for a brand-new personal best here? I'm happy to do the wild thing with you, but only if you try to keep those defects to a minimum until the end of the tour. The last thing we need is a big breakup in the middle of it. I don't think I can take the drama of having to work with someone I've just dumped."

"Yes, ma'am." He unfastened the long row of tiny pearlescent buttons down the front of her aqua top. "I'll do my best to keep you pleased." Wrapping his hands around her hips, he straightened to his full height, lifting her against the wall.

Then he kissed her, full-tilt boogie.

Adrift in an immediate maelstrom of sensation, she anchored herself by wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

He slid his hands beneath her skirt and grasped her bottom, his splayed fingers so hot through the fragile satin of her panties that she wouldn't be surprised if they melted beneath his touch. Snugging her to the steely length of his penis, he rocked against her with carnal intent. He was the barest fraction off-target and, crossing her ankles behind his back, she lifted the millimeter it took to make that hard ridge hit just the right spot. "Oh!" she whispered against his marauding mouth, her fingers biting into his shoulders. "Oh,please. "

And please her he did-until she hurtled off the edge of the universe.

"God." He continued grinding against her, prolonging her orgasm. "Thatsound. You squeaked just like that when you yawned outside the dressing room earlier." She went limp against him and he stepped back, gathering her in his arms before she could slide bonelessly to the floor. He carried her over to the bed, laid her upon the coverlet and came down on top of her, bracing himself on his forearms. "I'd been trying like hell to stay away from you," he said in a rough voice. "Then you made that I'm-coming sound and it damn near erased all my hard-won resolve. I wanted to nail you right there against the door in the amphitheater corridor."

"Ah." Her heart gave a mad thump, but she nodded sagely. "That explains your hotfooting it down the hall for a chair when there were probably a couple in the dressing room. Which I appreciated, by the way, since it allowed me to make my escape."

"Don't remind me. We're going to talk about that:but not right this minute." He slid down her body, divesting her of clothing as he went. "I've still got that licking fantasy to fulfill."

She was limper than a plate of overcooked fettuccini by the time he finished with her more than an hour later. "You've gotta quit doing that," she murmured into the chest she lay half draped over.

"Doing what?" He stroked her from the top of her head to the base of her spine.

"Giving me too many orgasms."

His hand stilled. Raising his head and tucking his chin, he stared down at her, his eyebrows elevated. "Is that even possible?"

"You wouldn't think so, would ya? Yet it is if you only get one and I get, like, a bazillion."

"So coming a lot is a bad thing?"

She blew out a breath and found the energy to lift her head long enough to stack her hands on his warm chest. She propped her chin on them. "'Course not. But if it's such a good thing, then why are you only having one to my many?"

"Hello!" He circled a hand over her bottom. "Women-multiple orgasms." He made the same gesture over his sex, which currently lay dormant upon his thigh. "Men-recovery time."

"Fine. But I'm an equal-opportunity lover. And I'm sure you could manage to get it up twice. You took an hour with me before you even dropped your pants. And maybe you could cut my orgasms down to, oh, say, four. That way you'd be ahead one hundred percent, and I-well, maybe I might be able to summon the energy to move in something under an hour. Right now I've got spaghetti bones."

He laid his head back on the pillow and resumed stroking her. "Well, okay. But I gotta warn you, once I cut back I might not be willing to pick up a heavier load again. So don't come whining to me if you want more and I say no."

"I'll try my best to keep a stiff upper lip," she said dryly.

"See that you do."

Eventually they had to get up and get dressed, but P.J. retained her ultra-mellow mood during the drive back to the amphitheater and all through sound check. Walking over to the bus to grab a couple items to take back to the hotel with her, she gave Jared a lazy smile. "Man. I feel amazing. Usually I only feel this relaxed after a shot or two of Wild Turkey."

"I'm glad to be of assistance." He hooked an arm around her shoulders and looked down at her. "Not to rain on your parade, but we have to talk about you ditching me this morning."

"Must we? I told you, I needed a break and you were just adding to my stress level."

"I'm sorry about that. But I'm being paid to see to it that you don't go off by yourself. Trust me, you don't want to be on your own if the whack job, as you called him, makes a return appearance."

"Oh, please." She stopped at the door to the bus and looked up at him. "Do you honestly believe he was anything but a one-shot deal?"

"I hope to hell he was exactly that. I really do. But as I told you before, I'm not betting your safety on it."

Because she understood what he was saying on an intellectual level-even while the thought of constant surveillance felt stifling on an emotional one-she let it go. "Hi, Marvin," she greeted the driver as the door swished open and she boarded the bus.

"Hiya, Miz Morgan. I put your package on your bed."

"Thanks," she said absently, thinking ahead to what she needed to grab. She strode straight toward her stateroom.

"What package?" Jared asked.

"The one the security guy said Miz Morgan told him to give me to put in her room."

"Is that true?" he called after her. "Were you expecting something from last week's shopping trip, maybe?"

"Hmm?" She greeted Hank as she passed him lounging in an open-curtained sleeping berth reading a James Lee Cooper book, then entered her room. "Oh, look!" she said, dropping her purse on the built-in counter and crossing to the beautifully wrapped package on her bed.

It was fairly large, about the size of three stacked boot boxes. She reached for the iridescent ribbon.

"Don't touch that!"

She gaped over her shoulder at Jared as he burst into the room. "What?"

"Did you or did you not ask a security guard to deliver this to your room?"

"No. Of course not."

He squatted down to inspect the package. "Well, that's what the man who delivered it told Marvin." He pressed his ear to the side of the package. "And you don't open unexplained gifts without a few precautions."

"No, I suppose not. Is itticking? "

"No." He looked up at her. "Go stand outside the door."

"What? No."

Jared rose to his feet, grasped her by the shoulders and backed her out the door. "Stay there."

"I'm not going to leave you to deal with that on your own."

"Stay there!" he barked. "Dealing with it is my job."

Hank rolled out of the berth behind her. "What's going on?"

"Unexplained package," Jared said succinctly. "See that she stays out of the room."

"You got it."

"Hank," she protested, but he merely wrapped a sinewy arm around her shoulders and hugged her to his side. She watched with her heart in her mouth as Jared went back to the package.

He examined it up, down and sideways, then reached for the tips of the ribbon.

She held her breath as he untied it, but nothing happened. Nothing happened when he carefully unwrapped it, either. But she saw his back stiffen when he lifted its lid free with a ballpoint pen.

"What?" she demanded, pulling against Hank's hold. "What is it?"

"Shit," Jared said.

She broke free and crossed the room, but stopped dead when she saw what the package contained. Her lips drew back from her teeth in revulsion.

For uncoiling out of the box, tongue flicking and head weaving, was a big orange and gold snake.