Harlequin Nocturne March 2016 Box Set Read online

  Jase shook his head. “No. It’s all right. In my line of work, I meet a lot of people who’ve lost someone special.”

  “His name was Grant. What we had wasn’t perfect, but really, what is? Unless it’s in a story,” Chelle said with a laugh that broke a bit in the middle. “We’d been talking about moving to Arizona. We talked about a lot of things. And then, suddenly, he broke it off with me. Took his stuff, moved to Arizona without me. He broke my heart. I mean, he shattered it, Jase. Have you ever had your heart broken?”

  “No,” he said without hesitation.

  “Never been in love, huh?” Chelle laughed again, without much more humor than the first time.

  He smiled, though the truth was he hadn’t been, and that was pretty damned sad. “No. Not that lucky, I guess.”

  “I don’t know about luck. To be honest, I’m not sure what is worse, the fact he broke me apart when he left me, or the fact he did it because he wanted, somehow, to protect me.” She took up a cookie and put it on the small plate in her lap. She broke the treat into pieces, but she didn’t eat any of them.

  “Was he sick?”

  “Yes. He had cancer. Fast acting, pancreatic. By the time he found out, I guess it had spread so far they told him he had only a few months.” She wiped her fingers free of crumbs and shrugged, then winced, rubbing her shoulder.

  “Still hurts?”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “One of those things, you think it’s going to go away and then all of a sudden you’re in agony again.”

  “Kind of like a broken heart, I guess.”

  He’d meant it lightly, but boy had he overstepped. He saw that as soon as her eyes welled with tears, and then he felt like shit, all right. He’d had his share of women who used tears to manipulate him, and often the easiest way to get him to turn and run was to start crying, but now at the sight of Chelle’s crumpling expression, all he could think about was how he hated that he’d been the one to make that happen.

  She pressed her fingertips to her closed eyelids, visibly struggling. When she opened them, she shot him another stiff smile. “Sorry. God. So lame. But you know, this shoulder will heal. My heart did, too. Or it will. I have to think so, or else what’s the use in going on?”

  “Not sure I can do anything about the heart,” he told her, “but I could try a little something with the shoulder, if you want.”

  Again he’d overstepped. The startled look she gave him was enough to make him curse himself. He stood.

  “Sorry. That was... I’ll just go.”

  She shook her head. “No. Really, if you can get this knot worked out, I’ll be so grateful. Honestly.”

  “Sure. I know a few trigger points.” That was true, not just a line he used. That the trigger points were more often the sort to send someone into unconsciousness was a little fact he was going to keep to himself.

  Chelle slid around the edge of the L-shaped couch to expose her neck to him, lifting away the weight of her hair to let it fall over the other shoulder. He stopped himself from touching the soft hair at the nape of her neck only because doing that would make him a world-class creep who took advantage of a grieving woman. Yet he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about that dream or hallucination or whatever it was.

  The one in which he’d been her protector.

  He found the spot at once, the knot of muscles tight beneath his trained fingertips. He dug in a little, encouraged by her soft sigh and the way she relaxed under his touch even though it obviously hurt her. Just a massage, he told himself as her low groan of pleasure/pain sent a ripple of desire through him.

  Nothing more than that.

  CHAPTER 13

  “How’s this?” Jase dug a little deeper.

  Chelle moaned, softly at first. Then a little louder. He was finding all the right spots. “God. That’s perfect.”

  The soft hairs at the nape of her neck tingled under the gust of his breath as he leaned closer. He wasn’t going to kiss her there, but her body responded as though he had. Tight nipples. Parted lips. She held back another moan by sheer force of will. The guy behind her was a real person, not something she’d made up in a story. And he had a partner.

  Jase rubbed another minute or so, then let his big warm hands rest on her shoulders. “Better?”

  She turned to give him a smile over her shoulder. “Much.”

  They stared at each other for a long, long moment in silence. Chelle’s smile faded, her brow furrowing. She tilted her head to look at him, curious about why he looked so awkward.

  “Jase...?”

  “So...when you write,” he said abruptly, “how do you do it?”

  Surprised, Chelle scooted forward on the couch away from him and gestured toward the kitchen table. “I use my laptop. I don’t have a desk, so I sit there or out on the deck if the weather’s nice.”

  “No pen and paper?”

  She laughed. “Not usually. I have a program, actually. Grant wrote it for me. He was going to try to market it, but he never had the chance. It’s called GOLEM.”

  “Like the clay monster?”

  More than surprised this time. Startled. “Yes! Usually people would say like from Lord of the Rings, but yes, like the clay monster. You put the words—”

  “You put the words in his mouth and he does your bidding,” Jase said.

  “Wow.” Chelle smiled at him. “I can’t believe you know what a golem is. Are you Jewish?”

  “No. Just full of trivia.”

  “Do you want to see it?” she asked after another of those strange pauses. “The computer program.”

  “Sure. Yeah. That would be cool. I barely know how to use a computer,” Jase said.

  “You’re kidding, right?” she asked as she got up and grabbed the laptop to bring over to the couch. She opened the lid and poised her fingers on the keys.

  Jase laughed, leaning closer. “Nope. Reg is the one who handles all the computer stuff.”

  Reg. Right. His partner. It was a good reminder about getting all fluttery about him, Chelle thought as she tapped to open GOLEM.

  Too late she remembered that the program automatically opened up the last document she’d been working on. And that had been more of the science-fiction romance story. The sexy one.

  The one that was kind of about Jase.

  * * *

  He has knelt before few, and even when protocol required it, the scout bent out of respect and not obeisance. In front of his regent, his woman, his heart, he kneels to serve her in all ways.

  Right now he serves her with his tongue. Her sweet, hot flesh beneath his lips is better than anything he’s ever dreamed. When he slides his hands beneath the softness of her rear to lift her to his mouth, she moans. His cock, thick already with wanting her, aches.

  He has feasted on her forever and will continue until the suns turn to ash, if only to hear her make that sound again. He flicks his tongue along her folds, dipping inside to taste her honey. Then up to circle the tight knot of flesh that is the center of her pleasure. She bucks under that attention, her fingers finding his hair and tugging, hard, though not to pull him away. She rocks beneath him.

  When she says his name, he pauses in his worship of her to press a single soft kiss between her legs. He looks up at her to see her staring down at him. Her fingers loosen so she can pass a hand over his hair, then to cup his cheek.

  “You are the true treasure,” she murmurs.

  Everything inside him squeezes. He has loved the woman in front of him for as long as he’s understood what love is supposed to be. The scout never dreamed he might have the chance to make her his, and he’s not such a fool as to think that making love proclaims anything more than simple physical pleasure. She is promised to another. She is regent.

  “I want you inside me,�