Conspiracy Game
Page 29

“No, you don’t.” There was finality in his voice.
“Look, I’m not going to be stranded here with no clothes, no money, and no vehicle. I’m not a prisoner. I have to have a way to get out if it doesn’t work.”
Jack sighed, his expression bleak. “I’m not a man who argues. That’s the second time I’ve told you and I’m not going to keep reminding you.”
One minute she stood looking at him, the next she turned to run, opening her mouth to call out to her brother. Jack caught her in his arms, one hand covering her mouth hard, his arm biting deep into her body just beneath her br**sts. That fast, the heat flared, enveloping them both, the need so strong, so primitive it was all she could do to stay on her feet; her body, of its own accord, melted into his. She tried to bite his hand, self-preservation stronger than her fear of retaliation.
“Stop it,” he hissed, his mouth so close to her ear she felt his lips moving against her earlobe. “You’re going to get someone killed.”
She stopped struggling, and he removed his hand from her mouth, but didn’t let her go, pressing his body closer into hers. He was rock hard, his body without any give to it, no soft spots, and his erection seemed merciless, a thick, long bulge pressed tightly into her flesh.
“It’s not real. It’s just chemistry,” Briony said desperately. Her own body ached, dampened, br**sts too full and ni**les too hard. Lust curled through her relentlessly, thick and needful, making her body throb and her womb clench. “It isn’t real.”
“It’s so f**king real, baby, I want to pick you up, wrap your legs around my waist, and bury myself deep inside you right here. Right now.” His voice roughened. “I can taste you in my mouth. I’m breathing you in with every breath I take. Don’t tell me it isn’t like that for you. It’s real and we both know it.”
She struggled again, this time more against her own body, than him. There was no controlling the fierce physical attraction arcing between them. It was electric, all consuming, crackling in the air around them, the intensity so strong, he actually shifted her in his arms, turning her around, his mouth coming down hard on hers. She was lost, the waves of need so powerful she thought she might die if she didn’t have him.
His tongue swept into her mouth, and there was nothing teasing or gentle about his kiss. It was purely dominant, commanding, taking her over until Briony was swept into a world of sensuality as his hands roamed possessively over her body and then cupped her br**sts beneath the shirt, finding soft bare skin.
Jack abruptly jerked his head away from her, swearing eloquently. “Stop it. Stop crying. Damn it, Briony, I haven’t hurt you. Why the hell are you crying?” His hands framed her face, and he stared down into her wet eyes and spiky eyelashes before bending to taste her tears.
Even that small gesture was impossibly intimate, sexual, his mouth tracing the path of her tears. She felt the light touch of his lips on her face all the way through her body.
“Stop,” he pleaded again, more gently. “Come on, baby, you’re just tired. Maybe I was a little rough, but I couldn’t have hurt you.”
Briony hadn’t been aware that she was sobbing. She was only aware of her body, so unfulfilled, so needy. The craving for Jack was like a terrible claw scraping her raw, tearing at her insides, yet all the while her brain screamed a warning, screamed she didn’t really matter to him-or he to her. A madman had performed an experiment and they were the results. Two people in heat like animals. She was disgusted with herself.
She couldn’t blame Jack Norton, even if she wanted him to assume the responsibility-which she didn’t. He couldn’t help his reaction to her any more than she could hers to him. “Don’t you see what he’s done to us? He’s taken away everything. We won’t ever have a chance at a family. At love and marriage and all the things that matter in life. Once we’re away from one another, do you think this is going to stop? This terrible craving? It’s an addiction. He’s managed to make us into addicts for one another. You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it night and day ever since you left. He’s taken our lives away from us and made us into mindless animals.”
Jack pulled her into his arms and held her tightly against him, wrapping his arms around her head as she sobbed against his chest. The sound wrenched at his heart and wreaked havoc with his normally nonexistent emotions. Hell. The woman was going to make him into a wuss. He put his head down on hers, holding her tighter. “Stop it, baby. You’re going to make yourself sick. None of that matters right now. We’re here and we can make our life whatever we want it to be. He isn’t going to get our child.” He put his mouth against her ear to whisper. “You hear me? He isn’t ever going to take our child from us and experiment on it.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “I’m sorry. It must be all the hormones. I’m not usually such a crybaby.”
His fingers tangled in her thick hair. She looked so forlorn, her eyes too big for her face, still swimming with tears. For years he’d thought all gentleness had been driven out of him for all time, but it was there, hidden deep inside, rising as fast as his every protective instinct. Whatever Whitney had done to them might have been all about sex and coming together in heat, but for Jack, the relationship with Briony was developing into something altogether different. His feelings for her were every bit as strong and real as the need for sex. Briony had managed to slip past his guard and find that small spark of humanity, of tenderness he never knew existed.
Jack didn’t think too closely about how his emotions had become entangled with the violent chemistry sizzling between them, but he knew it was dangerous for a man like him to get attached to anyone. He wasn’t normal and he’d never be normal, no matter how much he wished it different. He’d given up wanting it to be different, until he’d walked away from Briony.
“You’re just tired,” he murmured.
“I’d like to tell you I’m sorry about the pregnancy. I should have been careful. It never occurred to me I could be intimate with anyone, let alone lose my ability to think about something so important as protection. I had no idea the birth control pills weren’t the real thing.”
Jack felt relief sweeping through his body. Her being intimate, even thinking about being intimate, with another man might have gotten that man killed. He took a breath and let it out slowly to keep his thoughts from going in that direction. He ran his finger down her face just because he had to touch her. “The idea of you being intimate with another man is something I’m not willing to entertain.”
Briony hesitated, frowning. “I can’t be around many people without it really affecting me physically. I can’t seem to develop the barriers other people have to filter out sounds and emotions, and I’ve really tried.” She tilted her head back further, staring up at him, blinking back the last of her tears, determined to regain control. “When I’m with you, it’s much easier. My mind can rest. I’m trying to understand what Whitney did to me, and I’m hoping you can explain it better than the file did. I didn’t understand half of it.”
“It definitely helps that I’m an anchor and can filter everything for you.” So was his brother. The thought that Ken could filter for her just as well came unbidden, and he was ashamed of the rush of adrenaline surging through his body that fast. Whatever Whitney had done to push them together was potent-and dangerous. “I draw the emotions and sounds away from you to me.”
“But how? I’ve tried all kinds of exercises because I had to perform with my family in public, but it was so painful. I end up with terrible headaches. If I can figure out how you do it, maybe I can teach myself to get above the pain before the baby comes.” Her brief description didn’t begin to describe the agony she was in after every performance, and it was frightening to think that if she had a baby, she wouldn’t be immune to the child’s distress.
Jack brushed back stray strands of hair from her face. “You’re looking tired now. And you have a headache, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “Crying like a baby didn’t help. I was confined in a small space with Jeb for hours. He was really afraid for me and it was coming off of him in waves.”
She’d spent hours on an airplane as well, Jack realized. And she was incredibly honest with him. He hadn’t expected her to be so forthcoming. She didn’t trust him-or herself. The shadows in her eyes told him that. Every time he touched her, she stiffened just the slightest bit, although she was trying to hide how uncomfortable she was.
“Let’s get you back to the house,” he urged.
Briony pressed both hands against her stomach protectively. The baby was the only person she had left, her only ally, only family. Already she could find comfort in the presence of the child.
Jack’s hand tightened around her wrist. “I like that you’re telepathic.” He loved the intimacy of communicating with her. It was familiar to him. Jack and Ken had been using telepathy as long as he could remember and it meant family to him.
She twisted her hand, a subtle attempt at getting him to release her. He didn’t appear to notice. “I’m a lot of things,” she said. “Right now, tired is the number one thing I am. I need to rest.” She needed desperately to be alone.
He turned back toward the house, tugging at her wrist to get her to follow him. “Stay on this path.”
“You have your property booby-trapped?”
He shrugged. “I don’t like visitors.”
“That’s ridiculous. Some camper could accidentally stumble onto your land not realizing it isn’t part of the national forest.”
“Because they wouldn’t notice the two hundred signs Ken put up everywhere?”
There was a hint of humor in his voice, but his features remained expressionless.
She flashed a small smile up at him. “A lost child?”
“If a parent loses their child all the way up here, the kid’s better off without them.”
“Better off dead?” She stood absolutely still, studying his face, her heart beating too fast. If he really believed that…
Amusement might have crept into his eyes briefly, but it was gone so quickly she wasn’t certain she’d seen it. “Nothing lethal. Just some fun ones to sound the alarm and slow down any neighbor wanting to borrow tools.”
Relief swept over her. “I’m sure that happens often. Don’t tease me like that.”
Other than Ken, he hadn’t ever teased anyone that he could remember, but it felt good. Just having her there felt good.
“Jebediah told me Ken is your identical twin. Is he much like you?”
“No.” Jack’s voice turned gruff. It was almost as if she could read his mind even with his barriers up. “He’s much nicer. You’ll like him.” His gut twisted again. He spoke the truth. Ken was tough, but he’d always been the social twin, the one who was thoughtful and kind. People naturally gravitated toward Ken, and he was much more sensitive than Jack. Jack respected and admired few people; Ken was at the top of his list. He just hadn’t considered that Briony might put Ken at the top of her list.
He actually hesitated, stopping abruptly on the trail leading up to the house. He couldn’t feel jealous of his own brother. He couldn’t conceive of such a thing. Briony was messing up his thinking if he was that far gone.
What is it? Ken reached out to him the way he’d done since they were in diapers. When one was in trouble, the other knew it immediately.
I don’t know. I’ve got some things to work out.
You upset over the baby? Are you absolutely certain it’s yours?
Jack looked at Briony’s face. She looked far too young. Too innocent. She hadn’t been with another man any more than he’d been with another woman-and now it wasn’t ever going to happen for her, because he couldn’t allow it, even if it was the right thing to let her and the child go. It’s my baby. There was utter satisfaction in his voice. It resonated in his mind so strong his twin couldn’t fail to feel it. “Can you feel what I’m feeling?” he asked Briony aloud.