“Think being the operative word here. Running around like a couple of chickens with their heads cut off won’t gain us anything. We do this the smart way, which means I tap into my resources. First and foremost among those is Stand Up For Kids in Denver.”
“What’s that?”
“An organization that gives aid to runaways and street kids. I’ll give them a call and fax them Jared’s photograph so they can be on the lookout for him when they do their outreach in Skyline Park Sundays and Tuesdays. Kids learn quickly where they can score a free meal and some toiletries, so if Jared’s in Denver, he’ll likely show up at Skyline sooner or later. I’ve worked with this organization before and they know they can trust me not to return a kid to an abusive situation. And in return, I can trust the Stand Up counselors to give me a call as soon as they spot him.”
“Then we go to Denver?”
“Then I do, anyway.”
“If you think I’m sending you off to collect him all by yourself, John, think again. Jared’s bound to be scared to death, and he doesn’t know you from Adam.”
He gave her shoulders a tiny squeeze. “What do you say we wait until we actually have a useable lead before we argue this to a standstill?”
The commonsense suggestion made her realize the silliness of standing here arguing about it now and she couldn’t help but smile. She gave him a poke. “Deal.”
Surprisingly, instead of treating her overture as the tension breaker she’d intended and returning a smile of his own, John frowned. “Dammit, Tori, I wish you hadn’t done that,” he growled. “Now I’ve got no choice but to get an answer to the question that’s been driving me nuts ever since I landed on your doorstep.”
“What question is tha—?” The query hadn’t fully left her mouth before she was caught against his long, hard body. One strong arm slipped down to wrap around her waist and his free hand tunneled beneath her hair to grasp the back of her neck.
She stared up at him in surprised disbelief as his body heat began to permeate every inch of her he touched. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Miglio—?”
John’s mouth, firm, hot and confident, covered hers, cutting off her demand.
For a moment, sheer astonishment held her immobile. Then she absorbed the taste of him, felt the slide of his tongue and with her heart thundering in the outraged fear that she’d never be able to hold herself aloof from this man, she slapped her hands against the solid wall of his chest and gave it a firm shove.
He didn’t even budge and she suddenly recalled his strength, remembered the way it used to intrigue her, titillate her. She remembered, too, the way it had once fulfilled the until-then-unacknowledged little girl inside of her who’d always longed for someone to stand between her and the world. Somebody to keep her safe.
Well, she’d buried that child the day she’d learned to accept once and for all that the only person she could depend on protecting her was herself. And assembling all the resistance at her disposal, she once again flattened her hands, which within seconds of her reintroduction to the warm, wet silk of Rocket’s persuasive kisses, had softened from a shove to a caress against the rigid muscles of his chest.
Even with steady pushing on her part, though, he held her with ease. He displayed not the slightest hint of roughness, yet his determination to hold on to her was unmistakable. And he kissed her with an expertise that sent her resistance down the drain. His mouth was talented and his kisses were sultry. Forceful.
Familiar. God, so familiar. She knew these lips. She’d kissed them before, studied them as they’d shaped words, slipped bites of food between them with her fingers. It had been six years, but some things a woman never forgot.
Every last defense disappeared and she felt herself start to melt at the knees. For one wild, reckless minute, suffused with a blistering pleasure she’d only known once before in her life, she kissed him back fiercely. She reveled in his hot, rich taste, in the slick inner lining of his mouth that she lapped with her tongue, in the tensile strength that supported her weight so effectively as she plastered herself against him in a futile bid to climb right inside his body.
Then before it even occurred to her to muster the will to pull away, John jerked up his head, released her, and took a giant step back.
“Damn.” He brushed the back of his hand against his bottom lip. Then, dropping his hand to his side, he dabbed his tongue against the lip he’d just touched and eyed her sourly. “It’s still there, isn’t it? I’d hoped it was gone, or at least one of those memories I’d blown all out of proportion over the years. But you’re still every bit as addictive as you used to be.” His hot-eyed regard slid over her from the top of her head to her crimson-polished toes. “Christ. You’re like cocaine in a red bra.”
It didn’t exactly thrill her that her first reaction was a sheer, fierce pleasure in knowing he’d been as affected as she. But she’d put sex behind her over the years, had assured herself that she was beyond all that—at least for the time being. The few times she’d actually stopped and thought about it long enough to realize she didn’t even particularly miss it, she’d simply assumed it was because she was too busy with motherhood and making a living. Somewhere in the back of her mind, though, she’d always believed she’d one day introduce it back into her life. Only she never had, and it horrified her to realize now that the reason she’d rarely been tempted by the men she’d dated was because none of them had been him.
Considering she had serious doubts he’d been similarly celibate, his admitting she’d left an impression seemed the least he could do.
She pushed his unexpected revelation aside until she could analyze it more closely at a later, less befuddled time. Giving the shirttails knotted at her waist a tug, she cleared her throat. “We seem to have retained the chemistry, all right,” she agreed, pleased to hear her voice emerge with commendable coolness, considering she felt like one huge, hot, frazzled nerve ending. The only sign she could see that he might feel the same was the hot color burning high on his cheekbones. “So where do you propose we go from here?”
“To our respective corners, where we keep it nice and professional.”
Victoria wondered how that would work with Esme part of the equation, but she gave him a curt nod. Because he was right. Sex was the last thing they needed clouding an already volatile and confusing situation. Keep the physicality out of the picture and they could figure out the rest as they went along. “Great,” she said with frigid composure. “Fine. Works for me.”
She caught him eyeing her legs again, but he yanked his gaze up and lanced her with the blank-eyed military stare. “Yeah. Dandy,” he agreed. “That’s what we’ll do then.”
GOOD GOING THERE, Ace. John stalked back toward the house with angry, long-legged strides. What are you, a fucking moron?
Tori had always been different from any other woman he’d ever known. Right from the beginning she’d been different, and he should have known better than to get within kissing range of her again.
Most people had a milestone or two in their lives, he imagined. One of his had been the day he’d discovered his dick was more generously proportioned than the average guy’s. Up until then, he’d merely been that skin-and-bones sorry-ass kid of Frank Miglionni, the U.S. Navy’s biggest screw-up.
