Rules of Re-engagement

He moved his hand from the pendant, stroked the curve of her neck, his skin rough against hers. Her knees went weak and her brain went completely blank.

He bent his head, his lips almost touching hers, his breath warm and soft as a feather. “I need your help,” he whispered. “It’s a matter of national security—” He sighed deeply. “Do you know how much I’ve missed you…how I’ve missed this…” He slowly pressed his lips over hers, covering her mouth completely. Heat melted her belly. Her breathing became ragged. She was incapable of pulling away.

He moved his lips gently over hers as he reached around her waist and slowly drew her body against his. He was giving her time to fight back, to jerk away. He was making this her decision as much as his. Yet she could feel his body shaking, his muscles straining to hold back the raging hunger that surged through him. He still wanted her, badly, and her body was burning in response to his.

The man she’d loved with all her heart was back in her arms. Holding her, kissing her, hard with need for her. Emotion imploded through Olivia. Tears burned her eyes, spilled freely down her cheeks, washing away the years. So many, many lonely nights, she’d dreamed that one day she’d feel his lips over hers, melt under his touch again. Suddenly nothing mattered but this moment.

Her thoughts spiraled into dizzying blackness as he increased the pressure on her mouth, filling her with his tongue, his movements growing rougher, harder, urgent, the salt of her tears mingling in their mouths as their tongues tangled and her heart twisted.

He tasted wild, foreign, dark—yet familiar. Her heart pounded. She leaned into him, opening to him, a raw hungry force driving her. She touched his face, guided him deeper, closer…and suddenly she felt the rigid line of his scar under her fingertips.

Reality exploded sharply through her brain. She stilled. She slowly traced the line along his cheekbone to the corner of his mouth. He felt the question in her touch.

“The bear,” he said simply, covering her hand, drawing it away from his face and pulling her back to him.

The bear that was supposed to have killed him.

This time she resisted. “No…no, Jack. Please…. I…I don’t know what just happened. I…I don’t want this.”

She forced herself to take a step back. He let her, his eyes watching her intently, arousal etched into his rugged features.

Her breaths were coming light and shallow. Her lips still burned. Her body was still hot, her hair a mess. She felt awkward, confused. And more than a little afraid—of him, of herself—of what had just happened.

“What…what do you mean, you need my help? And what about national security?” She nervously twisted the new ring on her finger as she spoke. “Does this have something to do with Grayson?”

His eyes followed her hands. When he saw what she was fiddling with, his expression changed instantly. A small muscle began to pulse at his jawline.

Olivia suddenly felt absurdly embarrassed to even be wearing the ostentatious cluster of diamonds. She had no intention of keeping it. The only reason she had it on right now was because she hadn’t had the guts to hurt Grayson’s feelings in front of all those people.

She covered the ring, pressed her hands against her stomach, trying to quell the tempest of emotions roiling inside her. Why should he be making her feel guilty? He was the one who had betrayed her. He was the one who left her. He let her think he was dead all these years. Why should she feel even vaguely compelled to explain why she was wearing Grayson’s ring?

He lifted her eyes to hers. “We have a lot to talk about, Olivia. May I come in?”

“You are in.” In more ways than one.

“I need you to invite me, Livie.”

She stared at him—powerful, deeply tanned, his dark hair cut aggressively short and shot through with the silver of time—and hurt filled her. In all these years he hadn’t bothered to let her know he was alive. He had destroyed her when he’d fled, he’d left her to bleed. He’d stolen her youth. And now here he was, standing very much alive and healthy in her hallway. Anger whispered quietly around her pain. And she let it come. She needed answers.

“May I come in, Olivia?” he said again.

She held her hand out to her apartment. “Sure. Please, come in. Please come back from the dead, Jack. Please walk right back into my life, into my home.” Tears threatened again. She blinked them angrily away. “Why don’t you come right in and mess with my life all over again. It’s not like you didn’t get it right the first time.”

Something hot and dangerous flashed in his eyes.

But the bitterness growing inside wouldn’t allow her to stop.

“Would you like a drink, Jack? How about sitting on my sofa over there and telling me where you’ve been for sixteen long years, and why you’ve really come back to mess with me.”

“A drink would be nice, thank you,” he said, shrugging out of his coat. He walked right past her, into her apartment. He draped his massive black coat over her white chair and moved straight to the window. He lifted her curtain slightly with the back of his hand and peered down into the rain-drenched street.

She stared, dumbfounded. What on earth was he doing? She took in the expensive cut of his elegantly tailored black pants, his white silk shirt. He looked as if he’d walked straight off one of Europe’s fashion runways. But while his clothes gave him an air of global sophistication, they did little to tame the wild ruggedness that literally pulsed from him. Who was this man? Who had Jack become?

She glanced at the phone on the wall.

“You’re free to call whoever you like,” he said without looking at her. “But I wouldn’t advise it, not until you’ve heard me out.”

She stared at him blankly. She should run. Now. Get out while she had access to the door. She should alert the police. Yet a desperate curiosity rooted her to the spot. He was once her lover, the man she’d was going to marry. And he was here, back in Manhattan, in her apartment. She needed to know why, where he’d been. She pushed her hair back from her face.

She could do this.

She could handle Jack Sauer. She’d handled way worse in international courts. And once she had her answers, she’d call whoever she needed.

She cleared her throat. “You still drink scotch?”

“Yes.”

She retrieved the purse she’d dropped at the door, and moved over to the drinks cabinet, her heart thumping. She positioned her back to him as she slid her slim cell phone out of her purse and slipped it into her pocket. She wanted to be ready to call 911.

She removed the stopper from a decanter and began to pour whiskey into a crystal glass. That’s when she realized how badly her hands were trembling. She closed her eyes for a moment, steadied her nerves. Then she poured a drink for him and one for herself. She needed it.

She picked up a glass in each hand, sucked in her breath and turned to face him. And her resolve crumpled instantly.

He was watching her so intently she almost forgot how to walk. She tried to force her legs to move smoothly across the wooden floor, tried not to trip over the white rug. She held a glass out to him. He took it, his fingers brushing slowly over hers as he did, his eyes never leaving hers. He lifted the rim to his lips, slowly sipped, eyes still locked with hers.

Something hot and foreign and dangerous slipped down into her stomach again. She put her own glass to her lips, took a gulp.

“Who’s tailing you, Olivia?”

She choked on her sip. “What?” Her eyes watered as whiskey burned down the wrong way.

“Who’s following you?”

“No one’s following me.”

“Take a look,” he said, lifting the edge of the curtain for her. “See that silver sedan there, across the road?”

She edged forward, wary of touching him again, afraid of what would happen to her body again. She peered down into the street, conscious of his expensive scent, the quiet powerful energy vibrating from him. “Where?”

“Under that oak, right across from the park.”

She saw it. “Don’t be ridiculous. That car’s not tailing me. No one’s tailing me.”

He remained silent, watching her, trying to read something. It made her nervous.

“It…it’s probably someone looking for you. The FBI maybe.”

He ignored the gibe. “That sedan came in right behind the Secret Service vehicle that dropped you off tonight, Olivia. After your dinner with Forbes.” His eyes searched hers for reaction.