She had never wanted anyone the way she’d wanted Brendan. Because she’d known she never would, she hadn’t gotten involved with anyone else the past four years. She’d focused on being a mother and a teacher and had tried to forget she was a woman.
She remembered now. Her hands trembling, she unclasped her jeans and skimmed them off along with her simple cotton panties. Brendan reached between them and stroked his fingers over her red curls.
Her breath caught. And she clutched his shoulders as her legs trembled.
“You haven’t changed completely,” he murmured.
He continued to stroke her until she came, holding tight to him so that she didn’t crumple to the floor. But then he laid her down on the couch. And he made love to her with his mouth, too, his fingers stroking over her breasts, teasing her nipples until she completely shattered, overcome with ecstasy. But there was more.
She pulled him up her body, stroking her hands and mouth over all his hard, rippling muscles...until his control snapped. And he thrust inside her, filling the emptiness with which she’d lived the past four years.
Their mouths made love like their bodies, tongues tangling, lips skimming, as he thrust deep and deeper. She arched to take all of him. A pressure wound tightly inside her, stretching her, making her ache. She gasped for breath as her heart pounded and her pulse raced.
Then Brendan reached between them; his fingers stroked through those curls and his thumb pressed against that special nub. And she came. So she wouldn’t scream, she kissed him more deeply as pleasure pulsed through her.
He groaned deeply into her mouth as his body tensed and he joined her in ecstasy. Pleasure shook his body, just as hers still trembled with aftershocks. But even once their bodies relaxed, he didn’t let her go. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, holding her close to his madly pounding heart.
And she felt safe. Protected. For the first time in nearly four years.
* * *
FOR THE FIRST time in nearly four years, Brendan didn’t feel so alone. Josie had had their son; he had had no one. No one he dared get close to. No one he dared to trust.
Part of that had been her fault. After her subterfuge, he’d been careful to let no other woman get to him. But he suspected that even if he hadn’t been careful, no other woman could have gotten to him.
Only Josie...
Maybe Charlotte Green was right. Maybe he did love Josie. And maybe he should trust her. He hadn’t noticed any articles she’d written showing up in her father’s papers. Maybe she’d stepped away from the media world. Not that her articles had been sensationalized. They had been brutally honest, stripping the subject bare. That was why he would have recognized anything she’d written—her style was distinctive.
But maybe becoming a mother had changed her priorities. Maybe she cared more about keeping CJ hidden than exposing others.
He stroked his fingers over her shoulder and down her bare back. “Your skin is so soft.” He’d thought it was because of fancy spa treatments she would have had as American princess Josie Jessup. But with the new lifestyle the marshals would have set up for her, she wouldn’t have been able to go to expensive spas.
She would have had to live modestly and quietly, or else she would have been found before now. Because someone was looking for her.
Why?
To get to him?
She was his only weakness. Hurting her would draw him out, and maybe make him careless enough for someone to get the jump on him.
Had she had to give up everything—her home, family and career—because of him? Then she deserved to know the truth.
“Josie...”
“Hmm...” she murmured sleepily.
He looked down at her face and found her eyes closed, her lashes lying on the dark circles beneath. And her body was limp in his arms, relaxed. He couldn’t wake her. After everything she’d been through that night, she needed to rest and recuperate. Because their ordeal wasn’t over yet. It wouldn’t be over until he discovered who was trying to kill her.
But they were safe now, here, wrapped in each other’s arms, so he closed his eyes.
He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep when the alarm sounded. No, the piercing whistle was not from a clock but from the security panel in the den.
“What!” Josie exclaimed as she jerked awake in his arms. “What is that?”
“Security has been breached,” he said, already reaching for his clothes and his weapons.
There