CHAPTER 7

Last, if Morgan was Brandon Ross’s fiancée, she’d be wasted on the boring, uptight bastard. Brandon would ignore the needs he didn’t understand and couldn’t fulfill, fantasies Jack would bet his eyeteeth she had. Satisfying her fantasies required someone with more balls, tenderness, and self-control than Brandon ever thought of possessing. He almost felt sorry for Morgan. In fact, he might be doing her a favor in the long run…

But pity wasn’t going to stop him from getting his overdue revenge against the asshole who’d fucked up his life.

First, though, he had to get Morgan out of the club alive.

As they hit the door at the back of the dark strip joint, he dragged her through a curtain that led to a backstage area. Abruptly, the pounding music stopped and wild clapping began. A slender brunette with large artificial breasts wriggled her hips at the crowd of men shoving bills in her miniscule G-string. Morgan stared, clearly uncomfortable with that much nudity and touching with complete strangers. Good. Despite the fact he’d been to dozens of places like this, he wanted a woman willing and eager only for him, not a whole room full of stiff dicks.

Looking away from the dancer, Jack scanned the crowd. He knew the mood of the clientele, the feel of revelers seeking hedonistic fun. Across the smoky room, a guy in jeans and a black sweater looked around the room, rather than at the stripper exiting the stage and giving the audience a prime view of her ass. A few feet from him, another in a suit lurked in the corner, wearing a watchful scowl. He didn’t fit in. The bulge inside his jacket hinted to Jack that the guy might have a shoulder holster full of weapon.

Either of these dudes—or neither—could be Morgan’s would-be shooter. But Jack knew they couldn’t afford to take chances.

As nonchalantly as possible, he turned Morgan to face him and covered their sudden stop in the crowd by pulling her against him and planting a series of kisses on her neck. She tensed.

“Cher,” he called.

Others near them would hear an endearment. Morgan’s nod told him she took it as the warning he intended. She forced the tension from her shoulders.

“I see a couple of men who look suspicious,” he whispered on the soft, soft skin of her neck. “Anyone look familiar?”

She hesitated, and Jack took advantage of her distraction and breathed in her sweet raspberry scent, brushed his lips against her soft-as-sin skin.

“I can’t think with you doing that,” she whispered harshly.

He dropped a hand down her spine, over the curve of her ass, more because he wanted to than because it was necessary. But it helped with the image that they were lovers who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves.

“You can. You will.”

Morgan breathed out a four-letter word, and Jack smiled. If her curse hadn’t told him that he was getting to her, the pulse picking up speed at the base of her neck would. The scheming part of him loved knowing he affected her. So did his sexual side. Oh, he didn’t forget that the shooter was probably somewhere near, but the asshole was too smart to shoot with so many able to see his face. And the sick jerk had no reason to believe that Morgan wasn’t Alyssa.

“I can’t see. It’s smoky, and I’m too short.”

True on both counts. Damn!

Curving both arms around her body, Jack anchored Morgan against his chest. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder, reminding him how small she was. With her big personality, her size was easy to forget.

Given her story, she’d been through a whole lot lately. He couldn’t help but admire her grit to go on, her strength to fight.

“Let’s get out of here, just in case one of them is your gunhappy nightmare.”

Morgan nodded, but he felt her trembling. Jack eased back to look at her face. Under the thick makeup, her blue eyes clearly reflected the knowledge that she was being hunted. But equal parts fear and determination tightened her lush mouth. She wasn’t giving up.

Neither was he.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he assured her. “Take my hand. Smile. Good enough. Now, follow me out the door.”

Slowly, Jack wended his way through the crowd, working the far side of the room as much as possible. He stopped to answer a greeting, endure some backslapping from frat boys he’d helped out of a scrape once, all of whom assumed fucking Alyssa would be every man’s version of paradise.

The suspicious characters cast glances over them as they neared the door. The dude with the suit kept his gaze glued to Morgan. Jack covertly watched the man assess her, eyes narrow with speculation. Running would only alert the asshole if he was Morgan’s stalker.

Instead, Jack whirled Morgan around and grabbed her. Her eyes went wide as he held her face between his palms and slanted his mouth over her own.

Right away, her softness assaulted him. After a gasp of protest, Jack sensed Morgan forcing herself to relax. To submit. At the press of his lips, she opened to him slowly, slowly, with shy hesitance that made him burn with need. A delicious uncertainty flavored her kiss, making him hard as a pike. But it wasn’t enough—either to convince the assassin chasing her or to assuage the hunger that churned like a violent storm in his gut. He couldn’t wait for more.

A growl erupted from this throat as he dove into the kiss and urged her soft lips to part wider. He entered her mouth with a ravaging thrust of his tongue. And groaned as her wet, sugary heat and hot cinnamon-spice flavor exploded across his senses. Tangled with the taste of her fear.

Morgan began to kiss him tentatively. Unfurling to him, softening. Soon, she uttered a soft moan and matched his rhythm, her tongue seeking his when he retreated. She clasped his shoulders and clung, slanting her head until their mouths fit perfectly. Gripping her tightly, he sank deeper into her. The flavor of fear on her tongue receded. She trembled—but now her reaction didn’t have a damn thing to do with fright.

Morgan gasped…then surrendered, opening completely.