* * *
The second time Jack woke it was because Marissa was getting out of bed, and he felt a moment's groggy panic until he realized she was heading for the bathroom, and that was a pretty good idea. Rapidly becoming a necessity, really.
Jack waited until she got back into bed, and then tucked her in the warm spot he left behind in the blankets. Marissa giggled softly and rested her head on the pillow, enjoying the very appealing sight of a naked Jack Daniels from the back. He had a great butt, and the line of his back made her fingers itch to touch it. Even so the view from the front was even better when Jack came back, and Marissa didn't have any trouble figuring out what was on his mind.
"So, sugarplum," Jack said, sliding back under the covers, "got a question for you from yesterday."
Marissa slid her arms around his neck and snuggled up to that big, warm body. "What's the question?"
Jack took a moment for a long, unhurried kiss, just the kind he liked best. "How do you feel about slow, sleepy, greet-the-morning wakeup sex?"
Marissa smiled against his lips. "Let's find out."
* * *
Hunger drove them from the bed just before noon, and Jack astonished Marissa by insisting on making them breakfast, and took possession of her kitchen with a casual competence that reminded her irresistibly of the casually confident way he danced, and fought, and made love to her last night.
"What are you smiling about?" Jack teased. He didn't let her help cook, but agreed making coffee was not technically cooking, and so she put the kettle on and ground the beans while answering questions as to where everything lived in her kitchen.
Her kitchen surprised Jack, not because it was a faithful replica of a Country French farm kitchen -all that took was a lot of money- but because it was unquestionably a working kitchen. Her pots and pans were copper and cast iron, lovingly maintained, her stove was a six-burner gas monster with twin ovens that must have dated to the fifties, and her two pantries, fridge, and cupboards were all stuffed with food. There were even braided ropes of garlic, onions and dried hot peppers hanging from the iron rack over the foot-thick maple butcher block table that dominated the center of the room.
"I like the way you do things, cowboy," Marissa said, snuggling against his side as Jack flipped the bacon and sausages. Inch-thick slices of brioche bread soaked in a cinnamon and vanilla egg mixture that smelled delicious, waiting for their turn in the other pan heating up, and a halved grapefruit sprinkled with oversized sugar crystals waited nearby.
"You surprised this old cowboy can cook, sugarplum?" Jack snaked an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.
"Not exactly... a little surprised you seem so comfortable doing it, I guess," she admitted. "Like you enjoy it."
"Aw, cookin's fun when ya got the time," Jack said, chuckling.
"Got a specialty?"
"The best chicken-fried steak and sausage gravy you ever tasted," Jack said with a wink. "But ya didn't have the right kind of steak and sausage in your fridge for that, darlin'."
"I will the next time you look in it," Marissa assured him lightly, and Jack laughed and kissed the top of her head again.
After eating and cleaning up Marissa delighted Jack by coaxing him back to bed for a nap, and indeed they did sleep after a lengthy, languorous round of making love, and if there was an inch of her body Jack didn't explore last night, he made sure to make up for it now.
* * *
When they woke mid-afternoon, Jack mildly regretted not having his phone, because he had to borrow Marissa's to order a massive amount of Thai food delivered to her house, and insisted on Marissa staying in bed when he yanked on pants and went down to the front door to get it. Jack noticed a fair number of neighbors and passerby in the park opposite staring in amazement at a barefoot, shirtless, tousle-haired man standing in Marissa's front doorway, and made a point of nodding politely to any ladies going past as he tipped the driver a hundred and collected half a dozen bags, shutting the front door firmly behind him and making sure the lock clicked shut.
Jack skipped the elevator in favor of the polished mahogany stairs in the front hall that climbed in a square spiral, and taking a better look at her house on the way up. This place had been in her family for a while, he decided, as all the fixtures and most of the furnishings dated to the previous century, and were obviously commissioned to go with the house when it was originally built. The front hallway was dominated by a three-quarter life size oil portrait of four adventurers in 1900's jungle explorer gear, three men and a woman, and Marissa bore such a striking resemblance to the woman in the portrait Jack knew she was a relative, most probably her grandmother. There was an engraved plate on the bottom of the portrait, and Jack stopped and read it, noticing on closer examination Jean-Pierre also bore a not-insignificant resemblance to one of the men in the painting.
" 'John Clayton, Paul d'Arnot, Marissa Challenger, Pedro de le Vega'," Jack read aloud. "So that's Marissa Challenger the first, eh?" Jack studied the portrait. That Marissa had blue eyes, but John Clayton's gray eyes matched his Marissa's exactly. After closer examination, Jack fancied his Marissa might be a bit taller, and Jean-Pierre greatly resembled the man in the portrait named Paul d'Arnot.
He climbed higher, noting on the second floor he could see a library and a music room from the stairs, and the third floor was apparently all bedroom suites.
Marissa was out of bed and wearing a thigh-length tank top in an appealing shade of lavender, but Jack had to admit the little round table in the window alcove where she was sitting would be a lot easier to eat at than the bed, so he diverted there instead and started opening bags.
"It's lucky we got some sleep before Tiny deFlea's party," Marissa said, rolling her eyes and smiling wryly. "Because it's likely to be so boring we'll be falling asleep where we stand otherwise."
"We'll find a dark corner and make out," Jack quipped, and kissed her before sitting down in the other chair.
"Aren't you supposed to be playing company rep at this shindig?" Marissa asked, starting with the chicken tikki marsala and saffron rice. "Or is this an industrial espionage thing?"
"Counter-industrial espionage," Jack told her, amused by how close she was to the truth. "Someone's using Tiny for a front for some illegal business, and the top dog at Statesman wants to know who it is."
Marissa didn't look a bit surprised. "If that's what you're after, you might have a problem narrowing the field. Tiny's an imbecile, anyone with a good line can con him into nearly anything, but he's proved a useful idiot to any number of criminals who can launder their money through his failed businesses. He's tanked dozens." She nibbled on a satay skewer. "Do you know what kind of business they're using for a front?"
Jack was reluctantly impressed as he tackled his plate of red curry. Jean-Pierre wasn't the only one who'd make a good agent, but the idea of Marissa running that kind of risk made his heart stop.
"Pharmaceuticals."
"Hummn. That eliminates most of the Russians, the Arabs, and the Chinese," she said pensively, tapping the edge of her plate with an empty skewer. "But the EU and the Eastern European consortiums would be all over that, and I can think of a few on the Indian subcontinent who would be very interested in moving into that cover market."
That was some damn useful intel, Jack mused, he would have to pass it along to Ginger Ale when they stopped by the Statesman building so he could change for the party.
"How long do you need to get ready for this shindig, sugarplum?"
"An hour or so," she replied.
Jack snickered. "Dang, sugarplum, most women I know need an hour just to decide what to wear."
Marissa winked drolly at him. "I never have that problem. I just call Jean-Pierre and ask him."
Jack chuckled, tickled by her admission. "I mighta known you'd have a better way," he teased. The portrait in the front hallway still intrigued him, so Jack caught the opportunity to ask about it. "So how's he related to the fella in the painting downstairs?"
Marissa didn't seem disturbed he was looking around. "Oh, you saw the portrait?"
"Couldn't hardly miss it, darlin', seein' as you and that other Marissa could pass for twins."
Marissa blushed, but her eyes were dancing with suppressed mischief. "Those are my grandparents- all four of them. It was quite the horrendous scandal back in the day. The woman in the portrait is my grandmother, the first Marissa Challenger, and her three lovers. The four of them were explorers and adventurers, traveling the world and openly living together, which was unheard of at the time." She smiled affectionately; their memory was obviously very dear to her. "They loved each other so much they stayed together their whole lives, and my grandmother had one child with each of the men in the portrait. I'm the great-granddaughter of Marissa and John Clayton, Jean-Pierre is the great-grandson of Marissa and Paul d'Arnot, and you haven't met Rafael yet, he's in Brazil. He's the great-grandson of Marissa and Pedro de le Vega. We're all second cousins by blood through the first Marissa, but we were raised as siblings and that's how we think of each other."
Jack felt a wave of raw envy for those three long-dead men... not for their Marissa -his Marissa was every bit as lovely- but for the obvious love they had for each other. The strength of the bond between them was obvious even through a century-old painting.
"I look forward ta meetin' him, sugarplum."
Marissa paused suddenly and studied him closely. "Huh, that's odd."
"What is?"
"You, Rafael and Pedro- you kind of look alike, now that I think about it. You all have the same coloring and bone structure."
Jack paused and thought about it- something about the darkling adventurer in the portrait had seemed familiar, and he realized it was his own reflection when he looked in a mirror, which he honestly didn't do much other than to shave in the morning. "You know, sugarplum, you're right." He looked at the clock and grimaced. "Damn."
"What?"
"If we're going to make deFlea's party on time, we should head out soon." It struck Jack as nicely ironic -and pretty damn annoying- that after finally getting a real assignment again, all he actually wanted to do was stay home in bed.
Marissa drank the last of her tea and stood up, the movement so lissome it riveted Jack's attention instantly as she paced the two steps around the table to his chair and slid down into his lap, her arms sliding around his neck. His hands snaked out without his conscious control and around her waist, pulling her closer.
"Cowboy?" Her lips found his mustache and brushed kisses over it, sending shivers down his spine and a bolt of lightning to his groin.
"Something you want, sugarplum?" Jack murmured, his hands sliding under her cotton shirt and finding the bare skin underneath, feeling it heat under his palms.
"Let's be fashionably late." And her mouth found his.
* * *
Jack rather thought they would be more than fashionably late, but Marissa was as good as her word, and after another round of lovemaking centered around Jack's hands all over her body, she was showered, dressed, styled, and ready to go in an hour.
Jack was well aware he was rapidly becoming obsessed with getting his hands on every inch of her body, and where the hell he was getting the stamina for all this he had no fucking clue, but he could not have cared less.
When consulted, Jean-Pierre recommended a slinky, slithering cocktail dress of silver-shot bluish green silk that flowed like water over her body whenever she moved, and reminded Jack irresistibly of the sight of her kneeling at his feet in the shower, water streaming over her. Backless and coming only to mid-thigh, it was terribly distracting, and while she would be a wonderful distraction while he searched the yacht, Jack was uneasily aware his country-mile-wide jealous streak would react amazingly badly to anyone putting the moves on his sugarplum, even if he was pretty darn sure she could take care of herself.
It was, however, the perfect match for the bracelet and earrings Jack almost forgot he bought, and as Marissa was checking her reflection in a full length mirror, he extracted the two boxes from his coat pocket and removed the contents.
"Almost ready?" he asked casually.
"Almost," she replied, craning her neck to look over her shoulder, "are my stocking seams straight?"
Jack surveyed her from the back- Christ, she was wearing a lace garter belt and what he was willing to bet were real silk stockings with fine silver seam lines running arrow-straight up the backs of her legs. And dammit, those silver seams led the eye right up her legs and under the hem of that slinky dress, making anyone looking itch to trace those lines with a fingertip right up to... It took real control for Jack not to drop to his knees and trace those seam-lines with his damn tongue, knowing the nectar he could taste if he followed where those lines led.
"Straight as a plumb-line," Jack assured her. He wandered over and put his arms around Marissa from behind and rested his chin on her shoulder, looking at their reflection together in her mirror. "Close your eyes, sugarplum."
"What?" Marissa said, puzzled. "Close my eyes? Why?"
Jack grinned wickedly at her in the mirror. "Humor me."
Marissa gave him a 'what the heck are you up to now?' look, but complied.
Jack lifted her wrist and fastened the bracelet around it, but the earrings took him a moment longer, threading the tiny wires through her ears without hurting her. He studied her reflection in the mirror when he was done, and was more than pleased. His gifts not only harmonized beautifully with that slinky dress, they suited Marissa herself to a tee.
"Open 'em up, sugarplum."
Marissa's breath caught when she looked at her reflection in the mirror, and when she lifted her hand to touch the earrings and saw the bracelet, her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
Startled, Jack's arms tightened around her. "Don't like 'em, sugarplum?"
The truth tumbled from her lips before Marissa could stop it. "I love them! They're beautiful! But... Jack, you've known me two days, you shouldn't be buying me expensive presents like this! I'm..."
Jack silenced her with a kiss, and no small one either; a deep, hungry, passionate kiss that bled long years of loneliness and desperation around his raw need for her.
"Don't you dare say you aren't worth it, or you don't deserve it," Jack muttered, his voice hoarse with emotion. "Don't you dare... sugarplum, I damn well meant it when I said you're the best thing to happen to this old cowboy in forever. I don't care if it's only been two days, I know what I'm feelin', an' I damn well don't wanna stop feelin' it. I love you, sugarplum, and I know I keep rushin' things, but I want you so much, and I don't ever want to lose you."
Jack took a deep breath and let the old, omnipresent fear out. "I was married once before, sugarplum," he told her, the old anguish still tearing at him the way it always did, the way it would until he died. "My high school sweetheart, and she was pregnant with our son when a couple methhead pieces of shit gunned her down in a lousy convenience store robbery."
Marissa's breath caught again and the tears that filled her eyes this second time were for him, for his lost ones. "Oh, Jack."
"I never thought I'd ever love anyone again, sugarplum." His grip on her tightened even more and the anguish on his face tore at Marissa's heart. "But I found you, and darlin', I dunno why you even looked twice at this old cowboy, but goddamn if I don't love you so much it hurts. I know how fragile life is, and I don't wanna miss a second with you, 'cause I know how fast it can all go away."
Marissa turned around in his arms and kissed him with a desperation that matched his.
"I love you, Jack Daniels," she breathed, and overwhelmed by the flood of emotion those words caused in his heart and mind, Jack kissed her, as the tears he hadn't shed for twenty long years finally came.
* * *
It was an odd feeling, pulling the Corvette into his parking spot at Statesman's New York office building. Jack pulled into this slot a thousand times before, often with a beautiful woman in the passenger seat, but this was different. Instead of being amused by how she reacted -good or bad- he wanted to Statesman to make a positive impression on Marissa... but instead when they reached the security station, he got the rug pulled out from under his feet so fast it nearly knocked him on his ass.
There were two security guards on duty, both older men who had worked for Statesman for years, and they gave Jack a friendly wave as he entered, but when they saw Marissa by his side, twin broad smiles broke over their faces. Both men stood up politely, and the guard captain in front greeted her by name.
"Welcome back, Ms. Rissa, it's good to see you. How've you been?"
Jack had to work to keep his jaw from dropping. What the hell? How did they know his sugarplum?
Marissa smiled warmly at him. "Fine, Nick, how's the family?"
The guard captain, Nick Bradburn, positively beamed. "Couldn't be better. Lisa, she got accepted into Rutgers!"
Marissa clasped her hands together in front of her mouth in shared delight. "Oh, wonderful! You and Alice must be so proud!"
Nick grinned sheepishly. "We sure are. She'll be the first in the family to go to college, and seeing me and Alice so over the moon about it, now Zack and Jenny both want to go too."
Marissa giggled. "Oh, my. Nick, I absolutely insist you make Lisa apply for one of our scholarships."
Nick looked even more sheepish, and ran a hand through his thinning hair. "Heck, Ms. Rissa, I was gonna ask if you thought she'd qualify."
Marissa rolled her eyes. "Nick, I am the approval committee! I'm telling you right now she'll get the scholarship; you just have to get her to apply for it. Got a pen?"
Nick produced one and a post-it, and with Jack watching over her shoulder -completely thrown by this- Marissa jotted down a web address he promptly memorized.
Marissa handed Nick the slip. "Have Lisa go there and fill out the application, Nick, and we can waive the in-person interview because I already know you."
Nick looked like he wanted to kiss her, and that managed to jog Jack out of his stunned state.
"Hey now, partner, you keep those lips to yourself," Jack warned, and got an even bigger shock when Nick and the other security guard gave him identical hard looks.
"You takin' up with this cowboy, Ms. Rissa?" Nick asked. "He's a wild one, ya know."
"Got a wandering eye, too," the other guard grumbled under his breath. "You best keep that one on a short rein, Ms. Rissa," he added in a louder tone.
"Now just a dang minute!" Jack objected, stung. "When did I become a bad guy?"
"Ms. Rissa's a lady, Daniels," Nick said severely. "You just remember that." He smiled down at Rissa paternally. "This cowboy gives you any trouble, Ms. Rissa, you let me know, and he can 'accidentally' get stuck in an elevator for a few hours to think better of it."
Marissa dissolved into giggles. "I'll remember, Nick. Take care, Eddie." She blew both guards a kiss and steered Jack toward the elevator.
As the doors closed behind them, Jack caught Marissa in his arms and pulled her close until they were nose to nose. "You wanna explain that to me, sugarplum?" he demanded, trying to sound severe and barely managing not to laugh.
Marissa gave him her most winsomely innocent look. "Statesman's a multinational company, Jack. Is it so surprising I might be doing business with them?"
Jack wasn't having it. "I know every company that does business with Statesman whiskey, sugarplum. You telling me you own one of them?"
Marissa stretched up onto her toes and kissed him. "Impress me, cowboy. Figure it out for yourself."
Jack's grip on her tightened, his grin widened, and his head dropped until his mouth was a hairsbreadth from hers. "Was that a challenge, Challenger?" he breathed against her lips.
"It was," Marissa replied fearlessly, her eyes sparkling with equal parts mischief and delight, and Jack kissed his acceptance.
The elevator door opened on the residential floor, and Jack was face to face with Agents Lancelot and Ginger Ale, about to step into the elevator. Both women stepped back, startled, and Jack tipped his hat with Kentucky charm as they went by.
"Evening, ladies. Can't stop to talk, or I'd introduce you to my new lady friend. Another time."
Marissa winked at Ginger on the way by, carefully out of Jack's line of sight, and to her credit Ginger managed to keep a straight face until the elevator doors closed before bursting into a fit of giggles.
"What?" Roxy demanded, completely lost even though she caught that knowing wink. "Who was that with Whiskey?"
"Holy crap, where did Jack meet her?" Ginger got out through her giggles. "Roxy, that was her, the one I was telling you about yesterday! That's Marissa Challenger- the head of the Challenger Company!"
Roxy stared down at the floor in shock as the elevator rose higher. "Bloody hell!"
* * *