Ghostwalker 08 - Street Game

second floor.”
    Mack found himself smiling at the misleading nuggets of information. She hadn’t changed much. She was less sure of herself with them when it came to work. She was picking and choosing what information she wanted to give them, but she had a difficult time not falling into the old pattern of camaraderie and friendship.
    “And Kane,” Jaimie added, “I don’t use a gun.”
    Kane didn’t buy any of it and was being unusually stubborn, not letting her off the hook. “So how did you know?” he persisted.
    Jaimie curled up away from Mack, settling back into the pillow, snuggling beneath the covers. “I guess you must have been a little noisier than you thought.”
    There was a lazy note of humor now.
    “Damn it, Jaimie.” Kane was frustrated. “That’s not possible.”
    “No?” She was laughing openly at him now. “Then it had to be my acute sense of smell. Take your choice. What other explanation is there?”
    Kane’s curse was only partially muffled by his sleeping bag. Beneath his hand, Mack could feel Jaimie’s shoulder shake slightly with laughter. She had managed to elude Kane’s questions again, the same questions he and every instructor and field operative she had been pitted against had asked.
    Mack lay still, savoring the feel and scent of Jaimie. His arm curved possessively around her waist. Her breathing stopped for a moment, her body tense. He smiled to himself as she fought with herself. Which was the lesser of the two evils? Let him have this one little thing? Or provoke him into something more dangerous by protesting? She left his arm in place with a soft little sigh.
    Mack was fairly satisfied with the way things had gone. They had danced around each other, but Jaimie had missed him every bit as much as he had missed her. It was there in her eyes. She was determined to bring them to a brother/ sister relationship, to treat him as she would Kane or Javier, but he was just as determined to get her back.
    And he never stopped when he wanted something, whether it was personal or work.
    He would find a way around every argument.
    His grip on her tightened involuntarily. He had known, two years ago, he was falling deeper and deeper under her spell, but he hadn’t known how much a part of him she really was. Until he woke up one morning to find her gone. Life went from laughter and adventure to a bleak, desolate kind of hell. Oh, he had functioned, like an automaton, but the best part of him was gone.

    50

    He knew the exact moment she let go and drifted off to sleep. She slept with all the trusting innocence of child, her body warm and pliant, her face so beautiful he ached inside. Everything masculine and protective welled up in him along with very primitive possessiveness. He eased his body beneath the covers, molding around her, a kind of heaven and hell. His arm clamped around her, his chin resting on her silky head.
    Slow, smoldering desire flared into urgent demand. His body burned for her, an unmerciful, relentless, savage need. His skin crawled with it, his head pounded. The heat was a living flame until every inch of his skin was burning. Mack McKinley was a man who lived with the truth about himself. He recognized his strengths and weaknesses, he acknowledged the hidden demons he controlled with absolute discipline. He carried a kind of ice-cold rage in him, but still, this shook him. This felt out of control, beyond control even. He didn’t need the complication of fierce, combustible chemistry raging between them. He wanted to court her slowly and carefully, seal her to him for eternity. This time she wasn’t getting away from him.
    Jaimie moved in her sleep, the curve of her bottom sliding invitingly, painfully, over his throbbing, aroused body. Mack nearly groaned out loud. So, okay, this wasn’t working out the way he had planned. He rolled over, away from Jaimie, silently cursing his body’s raging need. He had been with her hundreds of times, taking her each night, almost every morning they’d been together, but the hunger had never been so strong, so urgent. Just the scent of her filled him with such a powerful need he wasn’t certain he had the strength to resist. The urge was almost animalistic. He shifted positions again, trying to ease the relentless aching.
    A soft chuckle floated tauntingly from the center of the room. “Can’t sleep?”
    Kane asked.
    “Go to hell,” Mack growled, resisting the urge to throw something.
    “I think you’re