“What?” Jade asked after she hung up the phone. He hadn’t been paying too much attention to her and Amber’s phone conversation in the past few moments and hadn’t even realized she’d hung up.
“Nothing.” He shook his head and walked back over to the railing. The sky was being flooded with bright colors as the sun sank lower.
Jade’s arms wrapped around his waist.
“Thinking of Kaley?” she said softly.
He turned to her. “Her and Megan. I allowed my judgment to be clouded. I didn’t work on the Miami case, but… I should have noticed the resemblance before now. I could have—”
“What?” Jade interrupted him. “Let me know a few days earlier?” She shook her head. “Just as you could have stopped whoever from taking Megan last night if you’d been behind a very busy tiki bar outside instead of a busy one inside?”
He frowned. He knew she was right. “Hell,” he said, running his fingers through his hair.
“Yeah.” She smiled up at him. “My sister is alive. I have a niece too.” Then she chuckled. “Emma. That’s Amber’s middle name. I wonder if she knew that?” she said, tilting her head. “Somewhere deep in her mind, even if she didn’t remember who she was, she held onto that little bit of her past.”
“You should call your parents,” he suggested.
“Yes.” She pulled out her phone again. “They could really use the good news after earlier.”
He sat and listened to the short conversation. At the end of the call, her parents had agreed to get flights back to the States the following day. They mentioned heading there, but Jade convinced them to head to Miami instead. She didn’t know exactly where Amber was tonight, but Jade had sent her a text message with her address in the Keys. Jade forwarded that information to her parents.
When she hung up, she walked into his arms again.
He ran his hands over her shoulders. While she’d been talking to her family, he had come to the realization that he couldn’t let this continue. He wasn’t made for happy-ever-afters. It wasn’t like he could stay on the island after his job was over. He’d be shipped off to the next job, wherever that was. He had a promise to keep. To himself and to his sister. His life wasn’t his to live. He was only here to help stop other kids from being used and tossed aside like his sister had been. He had to stop being distracted.
“I…” He knew what he had to do. Yet, looking down into her eyes, he felt the pull to her. Needed her as much as he needed to take his next breath. Without another word, he leaned down and kissed her. It was as if his desire for her had taken over his body. He was just a puppet and his need for her the master.
Jade pushed herself against him and laughed while she kissed him.
“I’m so happy,” she said between kisses. “Stay with me tonight.” She started tugging him inside and he allowed her to, knowing it would be the last time. It had to be. He needed to focus. He had to do his job. But for tonight, he would take everything he wanted. Everything he didn’t deserve. Happiness.
Jade peeled his shirt off as they made their way back to her room. He removed the button-up shirt and skirt she was wearing, tossing them onto a chair by the side of her bed.
The sexy cream-colored bra and panties she was wearing made him even harder than before. He pushed her down onto the edge of the bed, spread her legs, and knelt between them. Her fingers dug into his hair as he nudged the silk aside and buried his face into her pussy.
She tasted like heaven. The sexy sounds she made as he lapped at her had him wishing that, somehow, he could make it work. That he could continue pleasing her for the rest of his life.
When he slid a finger into her, she arched off the bed and cried out his name. Smiling, he removed his board shorts, slid on a rubber, and pulled her to the edge of the bed. Without giving her a moment to recover, he embedded himself deep inside her.
Home. This was where he wanted to stay. He wanted to keep her. To be hers. To make things work. To belong somewhere.
“Mine,” he growled and didn’t realize he’d said it out loud until she pulled him down and kissed him. When her legs wrapped around his hips, he lost his heart along with the rest of his control.
“I can’t believe I’m going to see my sister again soon, when this is all settled,” Jade said with a sigh sometime later as they lay in each other’s arms. She leaned up and looked down at him. “I’ve been thinking that we need to do something drastic.”
“Oh?” he asked, running his hands over her hip. “Like what?”
“What if I put out a rumor that I have video of the perpetrator?”
“No,” he said, tensing. “You are not going to be bait,” he said firmly.
She sat up and hugged her knees to her chest. “Why not?”
“Because it’s seriously dangerous.” He sat up next to her.
“You’ll be there.”
“That doesn’t matter. I will not let you put yourself in danger.”