Free Sealed with a promise by Mary Margret Daughtridge

dowdy image disappeared. He’d had his hands on her shapely curves, and now he saw them rather than the boxy jacket intended to hide them. The ways of sexual chemistry were strange, but now the reaction of Old Stupid didn’t seem quite so stupid. Who cared what she wore? There was no doubt she was a real woman-and when she was where he wanted her, she wouldn’t be wearing clothes at all.
      And no doubt, she was fighting considerable pain. “You ought to be home resting that shoulder with an ice pack on it.” He released his own seat belt then felt for hers on the other side of the console. His fingers encountered her heat, brushed the soft top of her thigh.
      Quite deliberately, he let his hand linger a second longer than it had to before his thumb found and released the catch. With certainty, he knew he would eventually run his hands across every inch of her.
      No sooner did he think that, than just for a moment he could see his hand traveling over the white skin of her belly. Not in a wish-fulfillment type fantasy-it was a transposition in time. Every sense he possessed told him it was real. As quickly as it flashed before him, the image was gone.
      Some people had flashbacks. Sometimes he had flashes of how things were-or how they might be. Flashes forward. It was more than a canny ability to extrapolate from minimal facts. It was knowledge he shouldn’t have known, but he did. Do-Lord wished he could talk to someone about what had just happened.
      Jax knew about his talent. Shoot, Jax knew because he had talent of his own-he knew what people could do. Jax didn’t plan a mission without asking Do-Lord to “take a look at the map.” Sometimes he saw more than the map showed. The synergistic interactions of their skills had cemented their unlikely friendship, and yet they had never discussed it. Jax didn’t deny it, he just had zero curiosity. Other guys in the platoon got a little weird if he tried to talk about it.
      Ah! Suddenly he knew what the flash was trying to show him. The plan was taking shape in his mind. He’d agreed to assist Emmie only knowing: you do a favor, you’re owed a favor. And she had access to the man he was looking for. Now he saw the plan more subtly and longer-term. He saw himself and Emmie giving off body signals that they were a couple.
      He didn’t have to settle for just an introduction to Calhoun. Once upon a time, he’d been defeated by the layers and layers of people who insulated men like Calhoun. As part of a couple with Emmie, he could bypass all the sentries and be taken straight into the heart of Calhoun’s intimate territory.
      Once he was an insider, he would find the areas of Calhoun’s vulnerability, what it would hurt him most to lose. Then he would strike. It would take time, maybe a long time.
      Not a problem. He had time. He was seventeen when his mother died. He’d already waited fifteen years.
      He glanced at the Tara look-alike. He was going in, and she was his passport. That he knew he would enjoy going in with her was icing on the cake. Long-term payoff plus intermediate rewards. That was the kind of plan you had to like.
      Do- Lord opened the truck door and turned back to Emmie. “Wait here. That sling makes you plenty memorable, and a big, heavy box will really make us stand out. I want to do a sneak and peek. I’ll find a side entrance where we’re less likely to be seen coming and going.”
      In a moment he stood underneath a high coved ceiling from which depended a massive chandelier in the country club lobby. This was Calhoun’s natural habitat. Slender Doric columns marked the openings to wide lushly carpeted hallways. Groupings of wingback chairs and satin-covered benches with curly legs dotted the area.
      A temple of money and power, Emmie had called this, and he had to grin at the accuracy of her observation. There was a hushed reverence hanging over the heavy formality, and as evocative as incense, some