“After you warm up.”
He followed her upstairs to the bathroom. As the water heated, she yanked off his frozen clothes and ran her hands up and down his goose-pimpled chest to gather friction. If only he could hug her close and promise everything would be all right. But if someone had dug that deep into his private DEA files so damn soon, or if someone leaked the information, he was in some serious shit.
Everyone he loved was at risk.
Chapter Eight
Marissa forced a smileas Jason tore open his gifts. The light smoky aroma of logs burning in the hearth teased her nostrils, but the pressure twisting her insides coiled tighter. A yawn crawled up her throat. Big surprise there.
She’d barely slept withwhat ifscenarios spinning through her mind, even with Jarrett holding her close. If only he could’ve stayed with her all night, but he’d left her bed before daybreak since Jason always woke her early on Christmas morning.
“Mama! Santa got me exactly what I wanted.” Jason ripped off the last piece of shiny striped paper and beamed at the robotic T-Rex pictured on the large box. “Remember? We saw it at the mall, and you said it was too damn pricey.”
“Jason!” She scowled at him.
He shrugged and opened the front flap of the box. “Well, that’s what you said.”
“Thank Santa, sweetie. You know, each bad word is a tally on his naughty list.”
“Nah. Santa counts again in January. The rest of December is his break time. I’m good until New Year’s.”
Her mouth dropped open.
Jarrett laughed. He slid from beside her on the sofa to Jason on the floor. “Tell me what this does.”
As Jason jabbered about his new robot, Marissa stood and pulled back the blinds from a window. The sun shining from the clear sky glinted off the snow and nearly blinded her. She blinked rapidly. Had the trespasser spied on her, Jarrett, and Jason the previous day when they’d tossed snowballs at each other and built a new snowman to join the other two? He probably had a front-row seat for the hot little show she’d put on in her bedroom. Of all the damn nights for her bossy side to come out. Yet, that wasn’t the worst part. The asshole got close to her son.
“Mama, are you okay?” Jason dropped the grayish-green mechanical robot tail and leapt over discarded wads of gift wrapper and boxes to hug her legs. “Why are you mad?”
She hugged him and inhaled the scent of bubblegum from his hair. “Mad? It’s Christmas. I’m no Scrooge.” She kissed the top of his head and tickled him until he giggled. “Is Uncle Jarrett building the robot for you?”
“I’m helping. It’ll be awesome!” As Jarrett laid out all the pieces and the included tools for the four-foot-tall dino, Jason skipped to the fireplace and unloaded all the goodies from his overflowing stocking.
So much for helping, but at least she didn’t have to build the damn thing. All right, then. Time to get control of herself. No more bad thoughts. She returned to the sofa and wiped her sweaty palms on her reindeer-print pajama bottoms. The goofy, smiling cartoon faces mocked her.
“Oh, no. I forgot.” Jason dropped his new superhero action figure and rushed to the tree. He tossed aside several balls of wadded paper and crawled beneath the Douglas fir. “There you are.” He crawled out with tinsel stuck in his hair and two packages in his arms. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to forget.”
