by Lora Leigh
No doubt she had. No one had ever accused Lilly of being stupid.
Her voice was hollow in the link. “I know where I am. I know where to turn. What to watch for. I know I’ve been here before, but I don’t remember why or when.”
“Who am I, Travis?” she asked him then.
“A partner,” he said softly, his gaze trained on the road as they took an empty exit and hit a narrow two-lane road.
The paved road soon turned into an unfinished lane, then gravel. They had to reduce their speed drastically, until they were creeping beneath the heavy branches of the sheltering trees that surrounded the lane.
Travis almost missed the turnoff to the cabin. He may well have missed it if he wasn’t following Lilly.
They parked the bikes beneath a small garage at the side. Swinging from the seat, he watched curiously as Lilly headed toward the entrance of the parking bay, reached up and pulled down the garage door before securing it to the ground.
She didn’t speak, just turned and pushed open the heavy entrance door before stepping inside.
Lilly stared around the single-room cabin. A small gas stove, which explained the gas tank in the rough garage outside. A woodstove, a table pushed against the wall and two chairs, a large bed on the other wall, and a bathroom beyond.
It was a safe house, nothing more. It wasn’t a home. It was a place to retreat and hide.
She turned to Travis, staring at him silently as he removed his helmet and set it on the small table by the door.
“Nice.” He looked around before his gaze came back to her. “Have you ever stayed in the winter?”
Had she?
She lifted her shoulders in a heavy shrug. “I don’t remember.”
She was staring around her, knowing where everything was hidden. Cash, ammo, weapons, and clothes. IDs, phone numbers, a laptop, and disconnected satellite and cell phones.
There were canned goods in a tiny, narrow cupboard by the stove. There was a fresh underground spring that fed water into a well. There was hot water, clean towels, fresh water, and a measure of safety because no one had known about it but her. And now Travis.
She pulled the helmet from her head and stared around curiously. Who was the woman who had needed this refuge?
She turned to Travis. “A high-priced call girl wouldn’t have a safe house, would she?”
She watched, her heart heavy, as he turned away and stared around once again.
“You’re not going to tell me anything, are you? Can you tell me this? Why are you here? What hound do you have in this hunt, Travis?”
She watched his lips quirk. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that phrase.”
Her father had often used it.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” she told him.
He shook his head before staring back at her, his golden eyes dark now, concerned. “I can’t answer your question.”
“Who can, then?” she asked. “Somehow, I don’t think my former employers can.”
He snorted at that. “I wouldn’t ask them.”
She nodded slowly. “I’m in danger then.”
“Someone tried to blow your head off, Lilly, what do you think?” he asked quietly. “You’re in danger, there’s no doubt about that. What sort of danger you’re in is the question.”
“And you can provide no answers?” she guessed.
“No,” he finally said, sighing.
“It’s a bloody messy situation,” she bit out with a hint of the anger building inside her now. “Everyone’s watching me, yet no one is willing to help me. What sort of threat do I represent, at least?” she demanded.
“The threat isn’t the problem, at least not yet.” He scratched at his jaw thoughtfully as he watched her.
“The assassin and the reason why he attempted to kill me is the problem then, correct?”
Travis nodded slowly. “If you remember, Lilly, if you remember anything, for both our sakes don’t allow anyone but me to know it.”
“Why you?” Lilly moved across the small room to the cabinets over the stove and pulled free a bottle of her favorite whisky.
Turning, she lifted the bottle to him in invitation. At his nod Lilly took two glasses from the cabinet, rinsed them, then poured the drinks.
“You didn’t answer me,” she reminded him as she handed him a glass. “Why should I trust only you?”
Travis stared back at her, seeing Lilly rather than Lady Victoria as she stared at him, her green eyes flat and hard.
“Because if you think about it, if you remember or suspect anything about the past six years, then you know there wasn’t a chance in hell that I was the one to betray you.”
She sipped at the whisky, her gaze never leaving his for long moments as she considered his answer.
“You suspect whoever killed Father and attempted to kill me six years ago managed to find me?”
“It makes sense to me.” Travis shrugged his jacket off and tossed it to a nearby chair. “The day before you were shot, the doctor who supposedly did your plastic surgery was killed in a fire that destroyed his office and all his records. Somehow, someone has learned too much information about you, Lilly.”
Picking up his drink, Travis watched as Lilly leaned against the counter, sipped her drink, and stared at him thoughtfully for long moments.
“Supposedly,” she finally murmured. “Does that mean he didn’t actually do the surgery?”
He inclined his head in agreement. “Certain steps were taken to ensure your identity was well hidden.”
“That’s a lot of trouble to go to for a high-priced escort,” she drawled sarcastically.
Travis merely quirked his lips in amusement. She knew as well as he did that she had never sold her body.
She had shared her body with him, though. She had given him her innocence and formed a bond between them that he still didn’t completely understand.
Finally, when he said nothing more, Lilly shook her head before finishing her drink with a small grimace.
“Then I need to find my father’s killer to find my own,” she stated. “I imagine that killer is also the person behind the embezzling Father was investigating six years ago?”
Travis nodded. “That’s what I think. I suspect the killer has been tracking you for the past six years.”
Lilly’s quick little exhalation, a mocking sound, had Travis almost grinning. That sound normally indicated a flare of irritation.
“Father drove himself crazy searching for the person responsible for the embezzling.” She pushed away from the counter and paced across the room, a thoughtful frown marring her brow. “And I have no doubt MI5 has continued the search.”
“No doubt.” Travis’s gaze focused on her ass beneath the snug leather pants as she paced. The sight of it was enough to steal a man’s breath.
“If Mother suspects I’m investigating what happened six years ago, then she’ll have me hospitalized for sure.” She shook her head, the silken strands of dark hair rippling against her shoulders, tempting his fingers.
“Did your father have any suspects?” Travis asked, attempting to pull his attention back to the subject.
“Several,” she admitted as she turned back to him. “He just hadn’t given me names. I was still being trained. Certain information MI5 was hesitant for me to have. Father followed those dictates.”
“Did you have any suspects?” he asked.
Lilly paused at that.
“Lilly, now isn’t the time to hold anything back,” he warned her.
Her arms crossed over her breasts defensively.
“There was no one person that tied into all the accounts targeted,” she answered, her expression mutinous. “My original suspicions were way off base because of that.”
“And they were?” Travis pressed.
“My uncle, Desmond, and my brother. Other than my father, they had access to the Harrington funds that were targeted but not to the other targeted accounts.”
“Your brother Jared works for a very exclusive law firm,” he pointed out. “The clients targeted were also represented by that firm.”
Jared Harrington as well as his uncle Desmond were still suspects as far as the Elite Ops were concerned.
“Yes, but not all of them. At least three other families who had no such connections were targeted as well,” Lilly said. “Besides, Jared wouldn’t have done such a thing. He especially would have never killed Father.”
“Yet you suspected him of embezzling,” he pointed out. “He and your father argued often about the business as well as about the title.”
“Jared wouldn’t kill Father . . .”
“You’re defending a man who essentially disowned you.” Anger surged through Travis at her defense of the other man. “Perhaps he wants you dead, Lilly. With you out of the way, he doesn’t have to share the Harrington inheritance.”
“Stop.” He could see the pain glittering in her eyes now. “Jared wouldn’t do it. I know he didn’t because Father and I eliminated him and Uncle Desmond as suspects.”
Travis’s lips thinned. As far as he was concerned, Jared and Desmond Harrington were still at the top of the list.
“Stop!” She lifted her hand as his lips parted to argue further. “I’m certain I can easily prove Jared isn’t involved. But to prove it, I’ll first have to gain access to the family financial vault. It should be easy enough. I know Desmond and Jared share the online financial vault. I’ll see what I can find.”
But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt to do so. Travis moved to her, the need to comfort her, to ease the confusion and pain glittering in her eyes, was overwhelming.
“Lilly.” He drew her against him, his hands caressing her slender hips. “We eliminate Desmond and Jared and then go on from there. But make sure they have no contacts with anyone listed in that investigator’s report on the past six years of your life.”
His money was still on Desmond, but Jared was in the running.
“Check files and financial reports Desmond brought with him.” He wanted her to find the information Desmond had in the office. “Go through the online vault. Get the account numbers and I can go from there. We’ll do this together, love.”
He reached up, his thumb caressing her trembling lower lip. “You know how to do this.”
“Because you trained me?” Breathy, filled with sensual awareness now, the sound of her voice stroked over his senses.
“I trained you,” he agreed.
“You protected me.” She licked at his thumb, tempting him.
“I’ll always try to protect you.” His head lowered.
He needed a taste of her. A touch. For just a moment he needed to fill his senses with her.
Though he knew a moment would never be enough.
Chapter 7
it was almost a dream.
Lilly stepped into Travis’s arms, felt them come around her, felt his lips slant across hers and the world around her go up in flames.
She couldn’t have this man, and she knew it, but she knew she already belonged to him. She had somehow always belonged to him.
Lifting herself to his kiss, Lilly let her hands grip his hair, pulling at the coarse strands to deepen the kiss as she felt a raging hunger begin to burn inside her.
That wildness she remembered fighting all her life took control, she became a woman who instinctively knew what she needed and who she needed it from.
Never had arousal taken her like this.
Pulling her head back, she stared up at him, her breathing heavy, rough. “You were my first, weren’t you?” She knew it, sensed it.
“I was your only,” he growled, possessiveness raging in his tone and fulfilling some need she hadn’t known existed within her. A knowledge, that final certainty, that she hadn’t been the woman her uncle’s report alleged.
His head lowered again before she could voice any further questions, his lips took hers again, his tongue pushing past her lips, stroking over hers and locking her in a battle of desire that she knew she had no hope of winning. A battle she didn’t want to win. It was a triumph she wanted to share.
She was only his woman. She had shared herself with no other man, just as she had known instinctively, but the woman inside had needed more proof. She had needed the verification that only one man could give her.
Black Jack.
Her hands fell from his hair to his shoulders, then the front of his T-shirt. Pulling, tugging, she dragged at the material until it came free of his jeans.
He shrugged his jacket away, allowing the cool leather to fall to the floor before his hands returned to push her denim jacket from her shoulders.
She wasn’t moving her arms. She wanted that shirt off his back. She wanted to feel his flesh, naked and hot, against her palms.
He tore off the t-shirt then returned to her jacket, forcing her arms down and pulling the denim over it to reveal the sleeveless camishirt she had on underneath.
The slender straps cleared her head as he jerked the material from her waist, up, baring her breasts, and tossed the top aside. He filled his palms with the swollen curves, his thumbs raking over the hard tips of her nipples and sending fingers of raw sensation to attack her womb, to heat her clit.
Lilly arched into the touch, a gasp passing her lips as her back met the wall, and her palm flattened against the bare skin of his chest.
Curling her fingers, Lilly raked them down his chest, just enough to feel the flex of muscles beneath, to relish the heat and hardness of his corded body.
Her fingers rasped to the band of his jeans where she found the snap and zipper of his pants and quickly released them.
She couldn’t touch him enough. She couldn’t get enough of his kiss. She wanted to feel all of him against her at once. She wanted all the pleasure at once. She wanted to feel alive, something she hadn’t felt for six months.
Alive. Living. A woman that had no part of her missing.
In Travis’s arms, there was only the woman, there was no past, no danger, and there was nothing to fear.
“God help me, I missed you,” he groaned as his lips tore from hers and moved to her jaw, her neck. “Missed seeing you, touching you.”
A moan echoed from her chest as her heart tightened in a realization that she had missed him as well; even though she hadn’t remembered him, she had missed him, achingly.
He was making up for whatever time they had lost though. His hands cupped her breasts, lifted them. His head descended, his tongue licking over the tight thrust of her nipples as shards of sensation began to tear over her nerve endings.
It was incredible. It was the fantasy that followed her when she slept, the one she awakened from, her body dampened with sweat.
This was Travis, and denying him wasn’t something she could allow herself to do. Not this pleasure. Not this incredible, blinding heat.
Her fingers stroked into his jeans and found bare flesh. No tighty-whiteys, no boxers, just the hard, thick thrust of his cock pushing into her hand. The wide crest was hot to her touch, slightly damp. The heat of it sent a rush of pleasure flexing through her pussy as she felt his hand smooth from her breast, down her stomach.
His fingers worked her jeans loose as her hands stroked and memorized the iron-hard width and length of his cock. The more she touched him, the more she wanted.
Looking down, Lilly lost her breath as she watched his cheeks draw in, watched him suckle at the hard tip of her nipple. His eyes were slitted, staring up at her, the spark of green in the golden brown more intense now, glittering in his dark face.
/> Her knees were getting weak. Standing wasn’t as easy as it had been when she first walked into the cabin, or when she had first seen him in Hagerstown. It made her wonder what she had felt when she had first met him, six years before.
Just when she doubted she could remain upright, his head lifted. He licked her nipple, first one, then the other. His expression was tight with hunger, with sensual pleasure, as he stared up at her, need glowing in his eyes.
Then he straightened to his full height, lifted her in his arms, and strode to the large bed with its old-fashioned quilt and large fluffy pillows.
Her head fell back on the pillow as Travis’s hand moved beneath her back and cupped her shoulders, pressing her breasts firmly into the heat and hardness of his chest as his lips moved over her neck and breasts in heated, nipping kisses.
Arching beneath him, Lilly felt her blood boiling as pleasure heated her flesh and left her trembling. Within seconds he was moving down her body, removing her boots, his own. He shed his jeans, then smoothed hers down her legs, leaving her dressed in nothing but the contour-hugging soft cotton panties she wore beneath the jeans.
Standing at the bottom of the bed, he let her look her fill. He stood before her as her gaze roamed his hard body and paused at the jutting length of his cock.
Before he could come down to her, Lilly was on her knees. She saw the surprise in his face, though how he could truly be surprised she couldn’t explain. Surely he felt the wildness rising inside her, the hunger burning deep and hot?
Travis watched as she came to her knees like a sensual, sexual little cat. Her back arched, her head lifted as she crawled to him, her green eyes narrowed as she licked her swollen, sexy lips.
She was the most exquisite sight he had ever seen. The sexiest thing he had ever known.
His breath caught as she came level with his dick, her tongue peeking out, stroking over the flared head with a hot, luscious lick.
“Fuck!” One hand buried itself in her hair as the other caught the base of his hard erection.