Someone To Watch Over Her

“Do you have any enemies of your own?”

“No.” The very idea was ludicrous. “I’ve lived a very sheltered life, Mr. Waters. All I’ve done is go to school and study.”

“My name is Marcus,” he said, his low voice strumming across her nerves. “And it looks like you have some enemies now.”

“Yes, it does.”

She was caught in his gaze, held like a deer in the headlights of a car. She couldn’t get away, and she wasn’t sure that she wanted to. Her heart stuttered in her chest and sped up, and butterflies danced in her stomach.

What was happening? She had never felt like this around a man before. The realization that she was attracted to Marcus Waters both thrilled and frightened her. She had no experience with men, let alone a virile, sexy man like Marcus. She had no idea what to do.

To change the subject, she plucked at the T-shirt she wore. “What happened to my clothes?”

“They were covered with sand and salt. They would have irritated your skin, so I took them off and gave you a bath.”

She swallowed, her skin burning beneath the thin shirt. “You gave me a bath?”

“I couldn’t let you stay in those clothes.”

She was uncomfortable, knowing that he had seen her naked. Heat flared in his eyes as he watched her, and she knew that he was thinking about the same thing. A flush started at her feet and swept up her body.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, but she could see that he wasn’t sorry at all. And suddenly, shockingly, she wasn’t sorry, either. Blood pounded in her head, and desire swept through her veins. “Don’t be,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”

What was wrong with her? She shuddered, then buried her face in her hands. It must be the shock of what had happened. She had never felt like this before, never ached for a man to kiss her. For God’s sake, he had seen her naked, and rather than being upset, she was thrilled at the thought!

“It’s all right,” Marcus murmured, and he wrapped his arms around her. “You’re safe now.”

His tenderness, and the comfort she drew from his embrace, opened up a hidden place in her heart. “I hated being so helpless,” she said fiercely. “I’ve never been helpless in my life.”

She could feel him smile into her hair. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” he said.

She raised her head to look at him. “You’ve probably never felt that way. I’m sure you’re always in control.”

The smile faded from his face. “You’re wrong,” he said quietly. “That’s how I know how you feel. You’re only in control when you can’t be hurt. And I was hurt once, a long time ago, by someone I loved. I felt just as helpless as you do now. And that’s one of the reasons I didn’t call the police. I wanted you to know that you were in control again.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you.”

For a moment she saw need and vulnerability deep in his eyes. Then they hardened. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not a thoughtful person, Jessica.”

But he was. She had seen the careful way he’d moved around her, trying not to alarm her. She’d noticed how he always left her an escape route. From the moment she’d woken up, he’d tried to set her at ease.

She shuddered, remembering her fear, and he wrapped his arms around her. He held her gently, but her skin burned where he touched her. Her stomach lurched and her heart jolted in her chest. Instinctively she stiffened against him, but he smoothed his hand down her back and held her more closely.

“You’re shivering again. It’s all right, Jessica. It’s just the adrenaline. No one can hurt you now.”

He thinks you’re upset about being kidnapped. She told herself to push away from him, to tell him the truth. She was upset about the way she was reacting to him, a total stranger.

But he wasn’t a stranger any longer. He had rescued her and taken care of her. He was willing to help her. No, Marcus Waters wasn’t a total stranger.

And even though she told herself to move away from him, she leaned into his embrace. He stroked her hair and murmured in her ear, and she quivered in his arms. He was trying to comfort her, and she was becoming aroused.

He would be appalled if he knew, she thought. But just as she told herself to move away, to put some distance between them, she felt the tension in his arms, heard the thundering of his heart against his chest. Was it possible that he was feeling what she felt?

She raised her head to look at him and was stunned at what she saw in his face. Need, naked and raw, glittered in his eyes. For her. She drew in a sharp breath, unable to look away.

The look in his eyes changed to one of fierce possession. He held her gaze for a moment, then bent his head to hers.

Chapter 3

The first brush of his mouth was tentative. She could feel him holding back, hesitant. And she knew that the smart thing to do was lean away from him, murmur thanks for all he’d done, then slip quietly away from Marcus Waters.

But a part of her she didn’t recognize, a wild, untamed part that had lain dormant for all of her twenty-one years, pushed aside the rational voice in her head. Instead, Jessica curled her arms around his neck and pressed against him.

He felt solid and tough, his chest and legs hard and unyielding against her softness. It felt as if his heat would consume her until there was nothing left of her but the aching at her core. She felt helpless in his arms, completely overwhelmed. But she trusted him, she realized. She had connected to Marcus on some level, and she didn’t want to move away. Instead of frightening her, his heat and desire thrilled her, increasing the throbbing deep inside her. She twisted against him, not sure what she wanted but knowing that she wanted more.

He groaned and crushed her lips beneath his, devouring her mouth. When she gasped with surprise, he plunged into her mouth, tasting and caressing her with his tongue.

She tightened her arms around him, and he groaned again. Pulling her closer, he pressed her more tightly against him until every part of her was touching the hot, hard length of his body. Pressure coiled deep inside her until she squirmed against him, searching for something she couldn’t name.

“Jessica,” he groaned, tearing his mouth away from hers. “Tell me to stop.”

“I don’t want you to stop,” she whispered. She wanted to be joined to him, to know everything possible about Marcus Waters.

He swept his hand down her back, lingering at her hip, shaping the curve of her buttocks. She could feel his hand tremble against her. “I want you,” he muttered. “I don’t want to stop, either.”

“Then don’t,” she said recklessly, throwing all caution to the winds. She was lucky to be alive tonight. And suddenly she wanted to know what she had been missing all those years she’d spent in the lab doing nothing but working and studying. Knowing she might have been killed, she wanted to know what it felt like to be fully alive.

He pulled back a little, and she felt him staring at her. She opened her eyes with an effort. The desire that glittered in his blue eyes made her feel drunk with power. She had done that, she thought. She had made this man want her. And holding his gaze, she reached up and kissed him.

He kissed her with his eyes open, watching her, seeing her response to him. And as he kissed her, as his hands roamed over her back, she saw his eyes darken, felt his muscles harden even more. He reached up and brushed the hair out of her eyes, and she realized he was trembling.

Suddenly he picked her up and laid her on the bed. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured as he leaned above her. He traced the curve of her cheek to her neck, and his hand lingered at the top of the T-shirt. “I didn’t bathe you very well, you know.”

“Why not?”

He stared at her, his eyes hot and dark. “Just looking at you made me hard. By the time I put you in this bed, all I wanted to do was touch you.”

Jessica swallowed. “You can touch me now,” she said, her voice husky and low. She hardly recognized herself. This wasn’t Jessica Burke, the woman whose middle name was cautious, who had never had a serious relationship.

The neck of the T-shirt gaped between her breasts, and he let his fingers linger there, sending fire shooting through her veins. “Are you sure, Jessica? It’s not too late to say no.”

“I don’t want to say no.” A part of her was appalled, but her body throbbed wherever his fingers slid over her. And the ache inside her was too urgent, too all-consuming to be denied.

He watched her for a moment, then bent his head and pressed his mouth to her collarbone, his hand still between her breasts. His lips and tongue tasted her, teased her, until her hips moved restlessly beneath him.

When he lifted his head his eyes gleamed. “You taste wonderful. But I’ll bet there are other parts of you that taste even better.”

Slowly he pulled the neck of the T-shirt down until her breasts were exposed. She jerked when she felt the cool air brush across them and instinctively reached to cover herself.