None of the women possessed a security clearance from their government that could actually net any information they could find useful. The women were more or less interns.
Jacob couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something, or that he’d forgotten something vitally important to protecting Sallie. It was a nagging itch at the back of his neck, a tightening in his gut that refused to ease. What was he overlooking? What was the fog in his brain hiding?
He was missing a full week. According to John’s debriefing, Jacob had been gathering information on potential members of Forefront while John hung back to gather intel on anyone following or showing interest in Jacob’s movements. Whatever information he’d gathered that week, he’d obviously not shared.
According to John’s report, a call had come in during the early hours of that last morning to a number Jacob had given to those he talked to when looking for information, providing the location of a suspected Forefront meeting. Jacob had told John he trusted the contact, and they’d decided to check it out before calling out the team assigned as backup.
Sipping at a glass of whisky, Jacob prowled the house, frowning, a long memory separating and forming in his mind.
“What the fuck are you doing?” John hissed when Jacob arrived at the location where John was waiting for him. “That woman’s a threat and you fucking know it. You’re going to blow this op.”
“The only thing she threatens is my self-control.” Jacob snorted.
“Get your head out of your dick, Jacob.” Disbelief filled John’s expression. “She’s working you. She must be a hell of a fuck…”
Before Jacob could stop himself, he threw John against the brick wall they were using as shelter.
“That’s my woman, fucker,” he snarled. “Watch your goddamned mouth before I shut it for you. Permanently…”
The memory drifted away, but he could still feel the rage, the fury that burned inside him. She hadn’t known anything about why he was there, and she hadn’t asked a single damned question or questioned his reason for being with the embassy. She’d used the name Kyra then, her real name, Kyra Bannon, and in a matter of days she’d stolen his heart.
She’d told him who she was that first morning as she lay in his arms. A haunting loneliness had filled her voice, and despite the disgust he’d felt, he’d given John that information. And once Jacob had lost those memories and been sent back to the ranch, John had made his way to Rance Dougal’s employ within months, and within the year, he’d married Sallie and moved into her bed.
He nearly threw the whisky glass he’d emptied before he managed to stop himself. The thought of John faking a marriage to the young, innocent Sallie ripped at his guts. She’d given Jacob her virginity, let him tap into her emerging sexuality, then John had betrayed both of them, married her, slept with her.
Pushing forward he rested his elbows on his knees and ran his hands down his face.
He wanted to kill the son of a bitch in that moment. He’d touched the woman Jacob had claimed as his own, and John had known it. He’d planned it. Jacob knew the man John was, a calculating son of a bitch who didn’t care about anything but the mission he’d been given.
Sallie wouldn’t have meant anything to him, but even now, John would use whatever advantage his relationship with Sallie might have gained him. And no matter how Sallie didn’t seem to care about the man she thought she was married to, the fact that she’d been married to him gave John an incredible advantage.
Jacob would be damned if he’d allow that advantage to make a difference. Sallie belonged to him. She was back in his life now, in his bed, he’d be damned if he’d let that bastard hurt her or risk the hold he was securing on her heart. It wasn’t going to happen.
She belonged to him.
Once again that single thought had his cock iron hard, filling his jeans and pushing at the material in an attempt for freedom. Not that he’d had much relief from the hard-on tormenting him since the day he’d glimpsed her in town, three years ago. Even then, some part of his brain had pushed him to remember even as he’d felt that overwhelming sense of ownership.
Mine.
She was in in his bed waiting for him. Sweet. Hot. Silken. God, every time he took her Jacob lost himself in her. Nothing mattered but tasting her, taking her, imprinting himself so deep and hard inside her that she’d never be free of him. Not ever.
Rising to his feet, his shaft so swollen and hard that walking only made the ache worse, he stalked down the hall to his bedroom. The scent of her was in his head, the taste of her teasing his senses. He couldn’t get enough of her. He didn’t want the taste of her, the feel of her to ever slip away. He intended to make certain he never lost her again. Not from his mind or from his heart.
He paused at the door, the strip of light showing beneath it, indicating she was still awake, and for a moment he wondered if he should go to the guest room. He could jack off and get a handle on the hunger raging through him.
Yet still, his fingers gripped the doorknob and turned it. He pushed the door open and stepped inside, immediately finding Sallie where she sat in the bed, her tablet opened and resting on her lap as she made notes in a notebook beside her.
Her head lifted, her expression a bit surprised, innocent. A moment’s vulnerability flashed across her face, darkened her light blue eyes, and only fed the hunger tearing through him.
The blankets were folded to the bottom of the bed as she sat propped against the pillows. She wore one of those little shorty and tank sets. The scoop neck tank wasn’t tight, but it emphasized the firm, rounded curves of her breasts and did nothing to hide the suddenly hard peaks of her nipples.
Holding her gaze, Jacob closed the door, sliding the lock in place.
“Jacob?” He could see the feminine need as her face flushed a pretty pink and her breathing escalated, pushing her breasts tighter against the material of her top.
He didn’t speak. He couldn’t yet. Lust was rising inside him like some creature that had taken possession of him.
He stepped to the chair that sat against the wall from the bottom of the bed and began working his boots from his feet.
Drawing in a deep breath, Sallie closed out the file on her tablet then placed it and the notebook on the small table beside the bed, still watching him uncertainly.
Dropping his boots and socks to the floor, Jacob rose to his feet once again and pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it carelessly to the chair behind him. Stripping his jeans from his body, he continued to watch her, his fingers gripping the base of his cock, hoping to relieve the pressure straining the engorged shaft.
Sallie lost her breath.
The sight of the thick, heavy length of his shaft, the engorged head dark and leaking pre-cum had her juices spilling and dampening her panties as he moved around the bed to her. Her breathing accelerated; her body sensitized.
He fisted the heavy length as he moved to her, his tight abs flexing, his powerful body appearing stronger, harder.
She could barely breathe as he came to her, her heart pounding in her chest when he came to his knees by the bed. Gripping her hips he turned her, pulling her legs to the floor and gripping the waist of the thin pajama shorts she wore.
Sallie gasped in surprised as he pulled them, along with her panties, over her hips and down her legs, tossing them aside. The tank came next. Lifting her arms with one hand he gripped the top and whipped it over her head. She didn’t pay attention to where it dropped.