That snuffed her humor real quick. Suspicious, she asked, “What did you do to him?”

“Not enough. And now he’s gone, even though he’s somehow got a role in this whole shit storm tonight.”

“Your language is deteriorating.” She put her arms around him and rested her face on his bare chest. “In the future, I will try to concede to your expertise and do as you ask—but only if you ask. No more orders.”

“I’ll do my best on that.” He couldn’t make any promises. “Don’t crucify me if I slip up now and then in the heat of the moment, okay?”

She nodded. “Actually, if I hadn’t heard Marc, I would have stayed tucked away. I’m not stupid. But I peeked out and you two were chatting so…amicably, I thought it was all a big misunderstanding or something.”

“Nothing amicable about it.” Apparently she hadn’t seen him punch Tobin. “The bastard said he had some half-ass plan to scare you back to him, but I’m not buying it.” Jackson related the conversation to her, then said, “You actually told him what happened to you?”

“No. Not all of it. Just that I’d been briefly kidnapped. He thinks it was for my brother’s money, not so I could be—”

Jackson didn’t need her to say that she would have been sold for sex. “He knows about Trace?”

“Marc never met him, but since Trace backed me when I started up my design business, most everyone knows I have a wealthy brother. Trace drops in at my office sometimes, and we’re out to lunch together a lot.” Her fingers moved up and over his pec muscles. “Of course, he doesn’t know what Trace does for a living, or anything like that. When he kept pressing for us to get…closer—”

“When he wanted in your pants.”

“—I felt like I had to tell him something, so I said I’d been held for ransom.”

Jackson mulled that over. “And he thinks Trace paid?”

“Yes.” Her eyes closed and she kissed him, just above his right nipple.

The brush of her lips on his skin drove him to distraction.

“None of that, woman. I’m working.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She smoothed his chest. “You’re just so…edible.”

God. He cupped her nape and turned up her face. “Trace is on his way. We have to move out of here tonight, soon as he gets here.”

“I thought you insisted on being with me because we weren’t supposed to bother my brother.”

“Unnecessarily.” Her safety was very necessary. “You’ll be able to grab a few things, but not a lot, so start thinking about what you’ll need.”

She nodded, licked her bottom lip, then bit it. “Where will I go?”

Jackson had an easy answer for that, and despite the circumstances, it filled him with satisfaction. He kissed her, quick and to the point. “You go with me.”

If not always, at least for now.

CHAPTER TWELVE

IT HAD TAKEN no more than a perfectly aimed kick to throw off the shooter’s aim, sending the shot wide of the mark. Firing a bullet near his head had kept him from attempting retaliation.

That shot had missed on purpose; who wanted to deal with splattered brains and lengthy justifications? It’d be tough to stay anonymous if there were dead bodies to explain.

The shooter was gone. But for how long?

The scant light of stars and moon weren’t sufficient for using the binoculars. Jackson had wisely killed the lights in the house and yard, and the neighbors were far enough away that their lights didn’t reach. The only activity visible was the arrival of headlights from a car.

So Jackson had backup. Figured. There was no reason to stay out in the humid, bug-happy night.

Before packing it in, the spot was cleared so that few would know what had transpired. Only someone highly trained would detect any evidence of surveillance—and Jackson more than qualified as highly trained.

Would he put the puzzle pieces together? Not yet. Not completely.

But he would know he had a shooter on his tail.

Time to go. For now. When the time was right…then they would start this all over again.

TRACE ARRIVED WITHOUT DARE, which was one small blessing. When the three of them got together, their machismo was enough to choke a body.

Dealing with Jackson on his own was enough to tax her wits. She didn’t need the testosterone in triplicate.

Trace came because he loved her, she knew that. Yet when he arrived, he was all business and barely spared her a glance once he saw her unharmed.

Unlike Jackson, who kept a gun in a holster at the small of his back, Trace wore a shoulder harness over his T-shirt. It bisected his body and emphasized pronounced muscles. Around his waist he wore a heavy utility belt laden with…stuff—nylon cuffs, a deadly knife, a stun baton, extra ammunition…

She’d never before seen him like this. It unnerved her a little. Jackson took it in stride, as if he’d seen Trace so heavily armed plenty of times.

“We’ll get Tobin,” Trace said to Jackson. “I already have someone on it.”

“Not Dare?”

Trace shook his head. “He was driving straight home to Molly after leaving your apartment.”

Fascinated, Alani said, “So you guys have other people working with you?”

Both men stared at her as if she’d grown an extra head. Trace had an arrested look on his face. Alani thought he might have been weighing the odds of telling her the truth versus covering up with a fabrication.