Ghostwalker 08 - Street Game

sex.”
    His eyebrow shot up. “It’s not?”
    Jaimie laughed and shook her head, turning to cut off his step before he made it to the stairs. She circled his neck with her arms. “I’m sorry. For earlier. For accusing you.”
    He settled his hands at her waist, his heart squeezing down hard like a vise.
    “Don’t think I won’t do it if I have to, Jaimie. That’s part of who I am. I won’t like it, but if I have to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger to save everyone else, I’d do it. You have to know who and what I am. This time, I want you to know who you’re loving.”
    Her heart jumped at the word. He rarely if ever used the L word, certainly not to her. “I know. If I told you I missed you every hour of every day, what would you say to that?”
    “I’d say you couldn’t possibly have missed me more than I missed you. You tore out my heart, Jaimie. Don’t do it again. I’m not going to be perfect at this. I’d rather you snap me out of it some way. Kick me in the shins. Punch me. Get my attention.
    But don’t walk out on me when I’m being dense.”
    She touched her tongue to her bottom lip, a sign he recognized as being nervous.
    Mack kissed her. Hard. Long. With his heart and soul. He never wanted her nervous when she talked to him. She could twist him up inside like no one else could and maybe that did set his teeth on edge, but he’d pay that price if it meant having her.
    Keeping her. Waking up every morning to her. He wanted to grow old with her. He wanted her there by his side when he died.

    178

    The problem with kissing her was it caused other much more intense reactions.
    His body immediately made urgent demands, hot and hard, and so painfully full he could barely stand the touch of his jeans. Worse, there was no way to stop kissing her once he started. He devoured her mouth, loving the velvet heat and the way she tasted.
    His hand slipped beneath her shirt to cup her breasts. “I can barely stand not touching you,” he whispered. “I love your skin. The way you taste. Your mouth.” He bit on her lower lip, tugged, and then teased with his tongue. “You’ve got me hurting like hell, baby.”
    “I do?” She reached down to slide her hand over the thick bulge in his jeans.
    “How very unfair of me.”
    He buried his face in the hollow of her shoulder. “I’m so tired, Jaimie. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I’m doing.” He whispered the words into her stillness, her peace. Jaimie was his haven, the only refuge he had, and he’d been lost without her.
    Without her quick wit and ready smile, the devotion in her eyes and her soft, sweet, welcoming body. She seemed magic and she could wipe out every ugly thing in his life. “I need you, Jaimie. Right now, baby.”
    To make him forget the image of pulling out his gun, putting it to Paul’s head, and pulling the trigger. He would have done it himself, never putting it on one of his men to carry the burden. Just the thought that he could have done it sickened him. He wanted to forget what kind of man he was. Not one who would plan the death of a friend or an untried kid on his team. He wanted to lose himself in the magic of her body and just be hers.
    Jaimie heard the need, the ache, in his voice. This wasn’t about wild, uninhibited sex. This was something altogether different. She framed his face with her hands and looked into his eyes—eyes full of shadows and guilt. She tipped her head and pressed kisses along his mouth and throat, giving herself to him. Offering herself. A gift. She opened his shirt and kissed her way over the heavy muscles, her hands on the front of his jeans, parting the material.
    She heard his soft groan as she circled the impressive girth, her fingers stroking caresses over familiar territory. Before she could kneel, he caught the hem of her shirt.
    “I have to look at you,” he whispered, that hoarse edge stealing into his tone, the one she loved. He yanked her shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor. Catching her around her back, he urged her into him, bending her nearly backward as he unhooked her bra, spilling her breasts into the night air.
    He buried his face in the soft, warm mounds, kissing her, breathing her in. He could hear the blood rushing like a drug through his veins. His heart pounded hard.
    There was no way a man like him, so dark inside, so lost, could find a way out of his own skin. Jaimie with her unreserved generosity could take him into paradise. He