Free Midnight Fire by Lisa Marie Rice

amazing. She’d been incredibly sweet and after that first little shock at her virginity—who the hell was a virgin at eighteen at Harvard? How the fuck could he have known?—it had been absolutely great. If Jack could rewind the clock, knowing what he knew now, he’d have grabbed onto Summer with both hands and never let go.
    But—he’d been twenty-two and full of hormones and the party was never going to end. And then 9/11 and the CIA had come calling and his life had split into two.
    But that week with her...it had been really great. His eyes roamed down her slim, straight back, from her strong shoulders to the ridiculously tiny waist to the full hips. God. He’d held her down while he—
    Summer sniffed and wrinkled her nose, turning her head slightly to glare at him. “What’s that
smell
?”
    “Homeless stuff, sorry.” He held up his gym bag. “Never leave home without it.”
    “Well put it in the trunk when we get into the car.”
    “No can do, sorry.” He shrugged. “Have to keep it with me at all times. The best I can do is keep it on the backseat but I have to be able to reach it quickly. I can put on the piss-soaked jacket, beard and wig fast. Fourteen seconds. I practiced and timed it. Takes me fourteen seconds to get my homeless on.”
    “Oh.” Her voice softened. “That might have saved your life. If Blake would go after Isabel who is harmless, he definitely would have come after you if he suspected you’d survived the Massacre.”
    Jack nodded. “I’m not easy to kill, but yeah. If I hadn’t gone underground, if I’d openly investigated the Massacre, I’d be dead. Arranged traffic accident, mugging gone bad...these guys don’t fuck around.”
    “No.” Her beautiful face tightened. “They’re willing to kill hundreds of people and plunge the country into near bankruptcy. They don’t play around.”
    The elevator stopped with a soft ping and the doors opened onto the garage. Summer didn’t move. She stared ahead then turned and cupped his bristly jaw with a soft hand. “I’m glad you’re still alive, Jack.” And then she walked out.
    Well, damn. What the fuck was he supposed to say to that? Did that mean she still—no.
Don’t read too much into it.
She was a good person and of course she was glad he hadn’t been shot in the head or nudged off a cliff. Though considering how he’d treated her in college...she’d have been justified to shoot him in the head herself.
    She was halfway across the garage and some primitive instinct made him hurry to catch up. He’d long ago learned how to cover ground fast without running. He was at her side in an instant.
    Nobody knew he was here but it wasn’t lost on him that if someone knew he was alive and that he was with Summer, she wouldn’t be safe. And that was like a cattle prod to the chest. The idea that someone could hurt Summer...God. Because whoever was behind this conspiracy, both in the CIA and in China, if it originated there, whoever was pulling the strings, was ruthless. Would kill without hesitation and Summer’s beautiful light would be blown out. Jack shivered and caught up with her, stepped past her and opened the driver’s side door without thinking.
    “Thanks,” she said and slid in. “You’re riding shotgun.”
    He had to clench his jaw to keep it shut. He wanted to drive. Needed to drive. But it was her car, her rules. Jack thought briefly about taking his car but it would stand out in Blake’s neighborhood.
    “Of course,” he murmured, walking over to the passenger side, sitting down and pushing the seat back as far as it would go. Her car wasn’t made for tall people. He placed his bag in the footwell behind Summer, where he could reach it fast.
    “How long do you think it will take to get to Casterly Blake?” The Delvaux kids’ term for the Glades, Blake’s over the top mansion, given to it the summer everyone read
A
Game of Thrones
. Blake would have made a great Lannister. He’d been all about