Loe raamatut: «Sunsets & Seduction: Mine Until Morning / Just for the Night / Kept in the Dark»
Sunsets and Seduction
Mine Until Morning
Samantha Hunter
Just for the Night
Tawny Weber
Kept in the Dark
Heather MacAllister
Mine Until Morning Samantha Hunter
About the Author
SAMANTHA HUNTER lives in Syracuse, New York, where she writes full-time. When she’s not plotting her next story, Sam likes to work in her garden, quilt, cook, read and spend time with her husband and their dogs. Most days you can find Sam chatting on the Blaze® boards at eHarlequin.com, or you can check out what’s new, enter contests or drop her a note at her website, www.samanthahunter.com.
Dear Reader,
Summer is here, my favourite season, and I am thrilled to be part of this collection with Tawny Weber and Heather McAllister. In Mine Until Morning, Jonas and Tessa spend a stormy night in a Philadelphia blackout. Blackouts have a way of bringing people closer, and Jonas and Tessa become very close during their adventure.
Jonas is also suffering his own personal blackout due to his recent blindness, but being in a blackout levels the playing field as he helps Tessa cross the city of Philadelphia in order to help a friend. Jonas also has three gorgeous brothers—all of whom will have their own stories, so keep an eye out for my BERRINGER BODYGUARD books.
Animals are a huge part of my life and often appear in my books, and Mine Until Morning is no exception. I hope you enjoy meeting Irish, the feline partner at the Berringer Bodyguard Agency! To find out more about him, be sure to check out Blazeauthors.com, and learn all about our new Pet Project!
Happy summer,
Samantha Hunter
Thanks to Julie Dutt, for help in understanding
scent, soap-making, how to set up Tessa’s soap
shop, and for the great soaps she makes to go
with my books. Check her out on
Twitter: @latherati.
Many thanks to Diana Holquist and Madeline
Walsh for help with Philadelphia specifics.
Particularly thanks to Diana for info about the
Fletcher St. Urban Riding Club that matches
inner city youth with rescue horses, inspiring
the appearance of one of Philly’s Urban
Cowboys in the book.
Many thanks to Eileen at SEPTA Customer
Service in Philadelphia, for quick, friendly
responses about SEPTA Blackout/Emergency
policies and city route information.
And to Mike, much love and thanks for
everything, as always.
1
1:00 p.m. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
JONAS BERRINGER FLIPPED the Closed sign on the door of the soap shop, Au Naturel. For the ten hours that the shop was open, all he could think about was being alone with the owner, Tessa Rose.
It was a swelteringly hot Philadelphia evening, which was the norm lately. Though it was cool in the storefront, the air-conditioning making it cool where he stood. Plain wood shelves were artfully stacked with every color and scent of soap and lotion he could imagine. Small baskets of samples, lip balms and various other trinkets and testers were placed strategically where customers would find them.
It was classy, elegant and yet still somehow warm and inviting, much like Tessa herself. Aromas of what he now recognized as jasmine, sandalwood, orange and vanilla, among others, filtered through his senses.
The back room wasn’t air-conditioned, and a blast of heat hit him as he walked into the small foundry, the workroom where Tessa made her products.
It was a little bigger than the actual store and twice as pungent. He’d gotten used to it though, and it didn’t seem overwhelming anymore.
Several tubs and two stoves took up almost all of one wall, and there were shelves of wood soap molds and various containers, amber vials and tools there, as well. On the other side of the room, shelves of curing soaps lined a wall next to a refrigerated unit where more perishable supplies were kept. There was a table for cutting and wrapping next to the desk where Tessa did her accounting.
“Jonas,” she said, her pretty blue-grey eyes warming as she looked up before he announced his presence. He knew that she’d been waiting for him, too. They’d been dancing around this, around each other, for several weeks. Now, it was finally going to happen.
He closed the distance between them, oblivious to the slippery coating of lotions and oils slathered on her hands; she’d been working. He didn’t care about the mess as he pulled her up against him.
“Jonas!” she exclaimed with a laugh before he covered her mouth with his in a hot kiss that left no guessing as to how hungry he was for her. He walked her back until she was pinned between him and the table behind her. She moaned, pressing tight against him, returning his passion kiss for kiss.
Jonas buried his face in her neck. “You like driving me crazy, don’t you?” he accused playfully, nipping her earlobe.
Tessa had always been hands off. The boss’s daughter. A woman way out of his league. But being around her 24/7 for the past weeks had pushed his control to the limit, and now all bets were off.
She sighed against his cheek as he nibbled at the soft lines of her throat, and then pulled away.
“I’ve been trying my hardest. I thought you’d never give in,” she said with a sexy smile. “You and that iron control of yours.”
“You have too many clothes on,” he said gruffly.
Continuing to smile at him in that minxlike way she had, she wiped her hands on a nearby cloth and slid the smock from her shoulders that she always wore while making her soaps and lotions.
Underneath, there was a simple yellow sundress with a halter top tied around her very graceful neck. When she reached up to hang the smock on a hook by the worktable, he could see her delectable shape outlined underneath.
He wanted to touch and kiss every inch of her.
“I’ll be right back. I need to lock up,” she said, sliding him a glance, still playing. Tempting him. Making him wait.
“I already did. We’re alone. Come here,” he said.
“You’re so demanding,” she murmured, returning to his arms.
“Desperate for you is more like it,” he whispered against her lips.
“I like the sound of that,” she purred. “And I feel the same way.”
“I can’t get you out of my head,” he confessed, his arms sliding around her.
His hands shook with the effort to slow down, reminding himself that Tessa was a woman to be cherished. A woman he cherished.
He gasped when she nipped at his lower lip with her teeth, apparently rejecting his gentle approach.
“Don’t hold back, Jonas,” she said in clear invitation, linking her arms around his neck.
He swallowed hard, sliding his hands up over her slim arms and shoulders, tugging at the halter tie. Her eyes became smoky, her nipples hardening under the thin fabric.
“I’ll give you whatever you want,” he promised, and he meant it. “Whatever you need.”
“Just you,” she said, sending his pulse racing.
He pushed the dress down until her pretty breasts were bared to his view. His eyes moved over her as if unable to completely absorb how gorgeous she was. Taking a peach-toned nipple between his fingers, he pinched gently, then soothed and pinched again, watching her head fall back, cherry lips parting, the pulse in her throat pounding.
She tugged both his hands up to her breasts and covered them with her own, squeezing. She was so openly sexual, it mesmerized him.
“More, Jonas,” she said, making his cock jerk in response.
Gentleness was forgotten in the wake of desire that took him over. Her apartment was right upstairs, her bed just seconds away, but that was too far, too long to wait. He’d take her here, as he had been fantasizing about for days.
Tugging the rest of her dress away, he pulled her up against him for a deep, hard kiss that made them both breathless, his hands everywhere. Over her shoulder, he perused the shelf of oils and ingredients, breaking the kiss to reach back for a bottle of sweet almond oil.
Dropping a light kiss to her neck as he poured the rich-smelling oil in his hands, and smoothed the slippery-soft substance over her skin. He started with her slim shoulders, strong from the work she did, but still so delicately shaped. Then he worked his hands down over the slope of her back and hips. She leaned back into him with a sigh when he slid around to her front, where he spent long minutes massaging her breasts until her head dropped forward and a small moan delivered from her throat.
She was like a piece of sensual art, a perfectly sculpted woman come to life under his hands.
“Jonas, this all feels good, but I need more,” she said, pulling away as she turned to face him. She stood before him in nothing but slight, yellow satin panties, her skin gleaming where he’d worked the oil over her. “You have no idea how much I want you,” she said, looping her thumbs into the scrap of material and sliding it off until there was nothing between them.
“I think I have some idea,” he whispered, taking off his own jeans and shirt. She walked into his arms and they were skin to skin, finally. The satisfaction of it was mind-boggling.
He ran his hands reverently over her thighs, the rounded globes of her ass, the curve of her hips. His erection jutted against her, eager and needy.
“I want you, Tessa,” he said, his breath catching as he kissed her.
“Then take me,” she invited with a sultry gaze.
He reached for an open jar of honey she had forgotten to put away and dripped golden dollops on her breasts then licked them off. As he finished, she was shuddering and straining toward him, her nails digging into his arms.
His hand slid under her knee to pull her leg up around his hip, his cock brushing against the silky, wet flesh he wanted to bury himself in.
“Jonas, please,” she begged. “Now.”
“Not yet … let’s make it last,” he said. As much as he wanted her, something bothered him. There was something about the light in the room that didn’t seem right. He looked around, making sure they were alone.
A lingering sense of dread held him off for a few more seconds.
What was wrong?
Nothing.
Tessa moved against him, oblivious to any problem.
But it was his job to protect her. That was why he was there in the first place, her hired bodyguard. There had been some threats against Senator Rose and his family, and Jonas had been more than willing to keep an eye on Tessa. In fact, he’d found it difficut to take his eyes off of her.
He glanced around the foundry once more. Nothing was out of place. He was imagining things, and turned his attention back to the woman in his arms.
Words evaporated for long, steamy moments as Jonas gripped her hips, lifting her up completely against him so that he could plunder her mouth as he thrust forward, planting himself deep inside her welcoming body. She was hot, tight, and they fit perfectly, as he knew they would.
She pulled back, watching him as he thrust into her. He could tell when she bit her lip, her eyelids fluttering shut, long lashes brushing her cheeks, that she was close.
He found a steady rhythm and tried to focus on every nuance of her as he held her. Small sounds came from her throat that were sexier than hell, her mouth forming a perfect O as she trembled and started to careen over the edge.
He bent to suckle a breast, flicking his tongue against her hardened nipple. That small touch pushed her over. A soft scream fell from her lips, her body tensing and pulsing around him as she came.
Jonas wanted to join her, but he needed more, thrusting faster, harder, focusing on the heat of her body, how soft her skin was under his hands. Her inner muscles fisted around him tightening and releasing again as she writhed in his arms, and he moved faster.
The satisfaction he’d craved was so close it was almost torture, but he couldn’t quite get there. His body burned as he drove himself into her, precariously hanging on the edge of the orgasm of his life.
Tessa leaned back in his arms, watching him curiously, her expression serene, happy and satisfied, but somehow distant.
“My father is not going to be very happy about this,” she said, sliding her hands up over her ripe breasts, smiling at him. The room around her became hazy and unreal in a way that made him squint.
Then she became transparent, too, the tight heat of her body fading.
“No, wait, please,” he cried out, reaching for her.
The golden light around her was fading. The acute emptiness, the ache of satisfaction denied made him gasp in agony, chilled now, shivering.
He was alone. Only darkness remained.
JONAS SHUDDERED WITH cold as his eyes opened, unseeing, but awake nonetheless. He was sweating and the AC was blasting directly on him. As he rolled to the side, he swore as his foot tangled in a sheet and nearly sent him sprawling on the floor.
He was still hard from the dream, and even the cold blast from the AC didn’t seem to diminish the ache between his legs. His body jerked as he remembered Tessa’s imaginary touch. The emptiness that always followed the dream was an ache in his chest.
Providing his own release wasn’t an attractive option. It wasn’t an orgasm he craved; it was Tessa.
He had to get her out of his mind or he was going to go crazy. He supposed it was his punishment, a special little kind of hell, for letting himself get distracted from his job. He’d been assigned to protect her, not have sex with her.
He should have turned around and walked out the first time he entered the shop. When he saw her, it was like being set on fire. Jonas had had plenty of women in his life, but none that made him want at first sight. Not like Tessa.
Senator Rose was responsible for sending Berringer Security several contracts, particularly after Jonas’s younger brother had successfully prevented a kidnapping attempt on the senator a few years earlier.
James Rose had even become a friend of sorts. When he’d asked them to guard his daughter after receiving threats concerning a bill he was authoring, they couldn’t refuse. The senator had trusted Jonas to keep his daughter safe, and he’d done a rotten job of it. Not one of Jonas’s better moments.
Jonas did the usual background checks, and he knew about Tessa’s reputation going in. The senator’s “wild child,” Tessa was a free spirit, nonconformist. She was also heart-stoppingly beautiful and completely off-limits.
Father and daughter had a tumultuous relationship, to say the least. From what Jonas had seen at a distance, Tessa looked like one more spoiled rich girl who liked to rub her father’s nose in her exploits. He’d known plenty of that particular type over the years.
Tessa had made several questionable choices in relationships, among other things, that seemed more about thwarting her father’s control than anything else.
However, Jonas discovered that the view up close was somewhat different. For one thing, Tessa wasn’t a girl anymore, but a mature woman who ran a successful business. As he got to know her, he couldn’t help but see her in a different light, though he knew her relationship with her father was still troubled.
Getting in between the senator and his daughter was dangerous. Jonas had to pick one side or the other, and he chose the side that paid the bills. Besides, he knew too well how that kind of slip could come back and bite you in the ass.
Guarding Tessa had been a little more intense than his usual assignments. They’d been around each other 24/7 for several weeks, almost constantly together. He didn’t let her out of his sight, day or night, as per the senator’s orders. It made it harder to control the heat that had flared between them.
Tessa wasn’t big on control, and she tempted his from every angle she could. One night, when they’d returned from a party, he’d given in, right in the parking lot behind the store.
He’d watched her all evening, dancing with friends in a dress that had been molded to her, what there was of it, anyway. A few of the friends she’d danced with had been male, and it made Jonas want to claim her as his in a very basic way.
Ridiculous, but true.
Her sharing even an innocent dance with another man had driven him crazy, and by the time they’d returned home, he couldn’t hold back any longer.
He was so distracted that he hadn’t noticed someone watching them from a dark corner of the lot.
The guy had approached from behind while he had her in his arms. A hard slam to the head had knocked him out. Tessa had fought back and, admirably, had taken out the intruder with a bat she kept in the back seat of her car.
Jonas had awakened at the hospital later, completely blind.
The senator’s aide, Howie, was the first voice he heard after the doctors told him about his condition; apparently Rose wasn’t available.
From what Howie said, it was clear Tessa had told them that Jonas had screwed up big time. He was off the job. Worse, she’d made it sound as if he had been pursuing her, and that he had seduced her that evening, instead of keeping his eye on the target.
She’d clearly used him to piss her father off for sending a bodyguard in the first place. He’d known she wasn’t happy about the idea—the senator had warned him—and she hung him out to dry. He should have seen it coming. That he’d fallen for her added insult to injury.
Jonas had never liked Howie Stanton, but Howie was a Washington insider and had been with the senator for years. Jonas had noticed on more than one occasion when the senator had come to Tessa’s shop how Howie’s eyes followed Tessa. His expensive suit and high-profile position didn’t make him any less of a lowlife.
But Howie had made the senator’s wishes clear to Jonas: stay away from Tessa, or there would be consequences. Jonas could hear in his tone that the aide relished delivering the news.
Jonas did as the senator requested.
He hadn’t seen or talked to Tessa for a month since the attack, and he didn’t plan to. He’d played the fool once, and it wasn’t worth the risk to Berringer Security’s reputation. The senator could do them a lot of damage if he wanted to.
Feeling for the edge of his bed stand, from which he knew it was about seven steps to the window, Jonas found the AC unit. After a brief struggle with the curtain and the controls, he managed to turn it down to low.
After getting a cup of cold water from the kitchen, he found his way back to the bed. Traffic was busy down on the street, people going about their normal lives. The apartments on his floor were quiet, everyone gone to work.
He picked up the basic clock that one of his brothers had bought him and removed the glass cover so that he could feel the hand positions.
One o’clock in the afternoon. He’d always been an early riser, but now he slept whenever he could and woke at odd hours.
His brothers, Garrett, Ely and Chance, were running the business without him until his sight came back. Doctors said his sight would return, but it hadn’t.
What if it didn’t? What if they were wrong? The chill that ran over him had nothing to do with the AC.
The hard hit to the back of his head had left him with a concussion and severe bruising to his optic nerve, causing temporary but complete blindness. The duration of “temporary” was unknown. Doctors had no idea when his vision would return. He’d seen four specialists, all offering the same fuzzy explanations of the mysteries of the brain.
Be patient, they’d said.
He shook his head, running a hand through hair that he’d let grow too long. It bugged him, especially in the heat, but he didn’t feel like hearing the questions and sympathetic comments from his barber or anyone else. So he’d holed up here, mostly, waiting for life to return to normal.
Jonas reached to the left, groping to find his cell phone, and he held it in his hand. Thankfully, his was an older model with a hard keyboard that he could still use, though he sometimes hit the wrong button.
He still had the number for Tessa’s shop on speed dial, number two, second only to the office, and he ran his thumb over the button, as if tempting himself. He should erase it, but couldn’t quite do it.
Cursing, he put the phone down and found his way to the shower. As much as he wanted Tessa, he’d get over it eventually. His blindness made things worse, blowing his attraction to her all out of proportion. He was frustrated and bored. When he had his sight back, he’d be able to move on, get his own life back.
Maybe the hit on the head had kept him from making an even bigger mistake. At least the attack had happened before they were both naked, out in the open for anyone to see.
No sooner had he turned on the water when he heard a knock on the front door—soft, but he could still hear it. He’d always had sharp senses, even before he was blind. You didn’t survive in his line of work without them.
Still, there was a noticeable uptick in his perception that would have been kind of cool if it weren’t at the expense of his vision.
“Keep your pants on, I’m getting there,” he said as the knock sounded again, harder this time. He wrapped a towel around his waist and shut the water off. It had to be one of his brothers, come by to pull him out of bed, no doubt. He had another doctor’s appointment that afternoon. It galled him not being able to go anywhere on his own and that he required help for everything.
It had to be Garrett, who had been fussing around him like a mother hen since the attack. Jonas made his way to the door, opening it and turning to walk back into the room.
“I know, I slept late, but the appointment isn’t for another hour. Give me a chance to clean up, then we can go,” he said.
“Jonas?”
He stopped in his tracks, frozen. He wasn’t dreaming now. He didn’t think so, at least.
“Tessa?” he said, his voice choked and not sounding like his at all. He turned toward her voice, knowing this was real as the familiar scents of honey and almond filled the room. His heart slammed in his chest.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“WELL, THAT KIND OF greeting sure makes a girl feel welcome,” Tessa Rose countered with no small bit of sarcasm, hoping to cover her nerves.
She took a deep breath, in part for courage, and in part because seeing Jonas for the first time since the night of the attack had knocked the breath right out of her.
He’d lost some weight, his dark hair grown out from military short to longish, brushing the tops of his shoulders. He was clad only in a very small white towel, slung low on his hips and slipping lower. She found herself licking her lips, and tried to push back the lust that always erupted when she looked into those dark eyes.
Something was off, though.
He’d looked right at her when he’d opened the door and then turned away, talking to her as if he had expected someone else. That told her the worst of it.
“You’re blind,” she whispered, her voice stolen by her surprise.
“Yeah.”
She saw the change in his body language, the way he tensed as he turned his face away from her, his jaw tight. He was wounded and embarrassed about it. Ashamed to be caught this way, exposed and vulnerable.
“I didn’t know.”
“Your dad didn’t tell you? Oh, right, I guess you pissed him off royally, so he’s probably not confiding in you these days.”
She drew back at the bitterness in his tone.
Tessa had resisted the notion of having a bodyguard at first. It was reflex for her to resist her father. He was a great politician, she knew, but a total control freak, and he liked to control her life more than he should. It was an understatement to say they hadn’t gotten along, and they still had their problems, though things had changed a bit since her mother had passed away two years before.
The senator manipulated everything to the benefit of his image, a necessity of his political career, he always claimed. Tessa had grown up resisting his control, and she’d be the first to admit that she hadn’t always done that in positive or productive ways. But then again, her father hadn’t always played fair, either.
As she got older, they had hammered out a truce of sorts, but mostly because she lived in Philadelphia where she ran her business—and her life—the way she wanted to, and he stayed in D.C. They got together on holidays, and it was enough.
When he said he was sending a bodyguard to her shop, they’d argued, but she’d relented when she sensed he was really concerned. He seemed to think this particular threat was very serious—and it had ended up that way.
She’d expected some stiff in a suit, but then Jonas had walked in the store, over six feet of muscle, brooding eyes and sensuality all wrapped in well-worn jeans and a bomber jacket.
Every bad-girl instinct she had surged to the fore.
The feeling she had when she was with him was like that zing of perfect chemistry that she always experienced when she made a new scent.
Scent was the most primal of the senses. Complementary scents attracted or enhanced a relationship, and the wrong scent repelled. It was the most basic principle of natural chemistry, the basis of most elements of survival. She and Jonas were a perfect combination, she could tell from the moment they locked eyes on each other.
Jonas obviously hadn’t agreed. He kept his distance, his treatment of her businesslike to the nth degree, but she saw the desire in his eyes when he thought she wasn’t looking.
That only upped the challenge. Tessa didn’t give up when she saw something she wanted. To that extent, she was very much like the senator. She wanted to make her bodyguard lose that rigid control. It proved to be more of a challenge than she thought, until that night in the parking lot.
She’d met her friends for a birthday celebration—not hers—and she’d worn the sexiest dress she owned. Jonas didn’t think she should go, but she told him that she was going, and if he wanted, he could tag along. In truth, she’d dressed for him. Danced for him. Tempted him in every way she knew how. And she’d almost given up—the man seemed to be oblivious—until they arrived home. He didn’t say a word the entire drive back, but then hauled her against him as she’d stepped out of the car and kissed her until she couldn’t breathe.
When she’d felt the hardness of his chest pressed against hers, she didn’t back away. He didn’t, either.
His wonderful hands had been sliding up underneath the sheer fabric of her gown, holding her backside against his hardness, his masculine scent surrounding and seducing her like a drug, when it had all gone wrong.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he’d whispered against her neck as she’d let her hands explore him the way she’d been dying to for weeks. He was a big man, in more ways than one, and her body craved him.
“Maybe that’s why it feels so good,” she’d replied, and she would remember the lust that had burned in his eyes until her dying day.
They were completely wrapped up in each other when the attacker hit Jonas from behind. He’d dropped from her arms to the pavement, leaving her to face her attacker, a political extremist who clearly was willing to cross the line to protest her father’s work. Tessa still could feel the icy fear of that moment, thinking Jonas had been killed and that she was next.
She’d gotten very, very lucky, remembering the bat she had in the back of her car from summer softball games with her friends. Adrenaline served her well in fighting the man off.
She figured at first, when there was no word from or about Jonas, that he was just laying low. Staying out of the limelight, since the story had been all over the news, at least insofar as her and her father were mentioned. The Berringers might not have existed, which is what she supposed made them effective.
From her experience, some protective details, she knew, were all about the flash. They wore Armani and soaked up the media attention that guarding famous or powerful people granted them.
Berringer wasn’t like that. They were serious security who put the client first. When she tried to find out about Jonas on the web, she’d found next to nothing; there were a few news articles from when he was on the police force, and the agency web page, which offered a minimum of information.
The Berringer brothers in the background, keeping their clients quietly safe.
It soon became clear that Jonas wasn’t just laying low. He didn’t want anything to do with her.
Her father was caught up in business on the Hill when the attack happened, and Tessa kept her distance from Howie, who was holding court in her father’s absence. Tessa didn’t ask Howie anything about Jonas, since she didn’t want to encourage her father’s aide. Howie had come on to her a few times, and she’d made it clear that she wasn’t interested, but the guy didn’t seem to understand the word no.
Jonas’s brothers wouldn’t tell her anything, either. She assumed that they all blamed her for distracting him and almost getting him killed. Rightfully so. She’d tracked him down now, intent on apologizing, but she hadn’t expected this.
“I’m so sorry, Jonas,” she said on a raw whisper as she dragged her attention back to the present.
He looked fierce as he closed the space between them. He might be blind, but Jonas honed in on her with no hesitation, his hands clamping hard over her shoulders.
“Stop it, Tessa. Sympathy is the last thing I want from you, or anyone.”
“What do you want, then?” she asked, her mind trying to grasp the new discovery.
“What I’d really like is for you to go, and don’t come back,” he said harshly.
She lifted hands to frame his face, and he flinched, but she didn’t draw back. No way was she leaving.
“What happened between us that night, Jonas, it—”
