Black Jack

by Lora Leigh

  “It’s hard to bet Bella’s and Nate’s lives on anything, Jordan,” the other man stated coolly now. “But I’m not the only one here who has had to depend on Night Hawk to pull their ass out of the fire. We owe her more than suspicion and a promise of cancellation once this is over. No matter what her commanders want.”

  “That also brings up a still unanswered question,” Nik said. “How was her cover breached? Doesn’t make sense that someone would target a call girl, no matter how exclusive she is. But they knew where to wait for her, they knew how to strike, and yet the investigation into the breach seems to have stalled.”

  Nik’s eyes were on Jordan as he spoke, the accusation in his voice clear.

  “I’m still working with Elite Command on that angle,” Jordan assured them. “Senator Stanton is particularly concerned about the matter. If the Ops is compromised, then it will jeopardize his career, and possibly endanger his daughter’s life.”

  Elite Command was a group of shadowy figures who were the financial and center of operations for Elite Ops. The only member of that section that any of them were given the identity of was Senator Stanton. A contact point, Jordan had called the senator. If all else went to hell, Stanton was a man they could depend on because his daughter was married to the team that provided backup to Jordan’s team, Elite One.

  Stanton’s son-in-law, Kell Krieger, was one of the former Navy SEALs that had provided backup on many of the missions the operatives were sent into. Discovery would reveal his family to the enemies the Elite Operatives had made over the years. Enemies that thus far had no idea who or what had taken them down. If they ever learned, then the SEALs as well as the operatives were guaranteed dead. And there would be no coming back.

  “Then we have no idea how her identity was leaked, who attempted to kill her, or what we can expect from this operation. Right?” Travis’s frustration leaked through in his voice, as well as his control. He was riding an edge with Lilly, and he knew it. Just as he knew Lilly was riding a particularly dangerous edge herself.

  “We’re hoping Lilly’s presence with her family will draw the killer out of hiding,” Jordan revealed as his gaze focused on Travis. “Have you sensed any movement or uncovered any new info?”

  Travis shook his head. “All we have is the information Noah and I found the night we wired the office.”

  That information was incriminating enough. As far as Travis was concerned, Desmond was involved in something up to his eyeballs. He just wasn’t entirely certain that something was the death of his niece.

  “There’s no information circulating among our contacts either,” Tehya stated. “We’re in the dark here. Our only hope is Lilly at this point, and that the killer is tempted to go after her again sometime soon.”

  “Third time is the charm,” Jordan said and Travis glared at him.

  “Lilly is the only operative of the entire Elite Ops organization who has been targeted in the eight years the organization has been running,” Tehya stated. “Any other hit that’s been attempted has always been in relation to an operation. That’s not the case here, otherwise chatter would reach our contacts.”

  “That doesn’t mean the Elite Ops isn’t endangered by this,” Nik said. “Whoever tried to kill her killed the plastic surgeon the Elite Ops placed her file with. Despite that safety measure, they still found her. That’s not a good thing. If they found Lilly, they could find any one of us.”

  None of them wanted that. They had left their old lives behind and had no desire to have them resurrected.

  “Morganna, Kira and I have initiated an investigation into Santos and Rhiannon as well,” Tehya announced. Morganna and Kira were the wives of two of their backup members. “So far, they’re coming up as assholes, not traitors.”

  Jordan snorted at that.

  “Yeah, well, that’s what we call Jordan on a good day, too.” Noah chuckled.

  “The responsibilities of command isn’t all fun and games,” Jordan drawled. “Santos and Rhiannon have responsibilities to their agents just as I do. And Lilly isn’t their only agent.”

  “No, she’s ours now,” John Vincent stated, his gaze turning to Travis.

  Travis turned back to Jordan. “She’s always been one of ours,” he stated.

  And that was no more than the truth. In some ways all of the girls of Elite Two were a part of Elite One. They had trained them, watched over them. Lilly’s move to the American-based operation could merely make it official. And if they survived this mission, it was a move that would definitely be made by Lilly. Travis would see to it.

  Jordan shook his head. “You’re making a mess for yourself, Travis.” Though his tone was filled with disgust, Travis detected the smallest note of something akin to envy in Jordan’s voice.

  “I’ll try to keep the mess to a minimum,” Travis promised.

  Jordan leveled a hard, aggravated look at him. “You do that, Black Jack. And let me know if she remembers anything.”

  Travis remained silent.

  “If there’s anything I need to know, Travis, now is the time to tell me,” Jordan advised him. “I’m giving you the benefit of my trust by covering her ass, so at least do me the courtesy of making certain you do as much for us.”

  He shook his head. “Her memories aren’t coming back, Jordan.”

  “Great,” Jordan muttered. “Let’s just get this over with and take care of whoever the hell has targeted her as quickly as possible. I’d like to get my commanders off my ass even if you don’t care.”

  “Where do we go from here, boss?” Nik asked as he leaned against the SUV and stared back at Jordan. “That party will have most of our players there. Hell, it’s just about the same invitation list that comprised the party the night Lord Harrington was killed.”

  “That’s normal.” Jordan sighed. “We’ve been watching the Harrington parties for years now, an operative from one of Elite’s teams has always been in attendance. We’ve learned nothing. Whoever killed Lord Harrington did so quietly and without a trace. Except for his daughter.”

  “It’s a damned miracle Lilly wasn’t killed.” Nik grunted. “If Travis hadn’t been at that party that night, then she wouldn’t have had a chance.”

  Jordan’s smile was vaguely mocking as he shrugged negligently. “We were lucky.”

  “And now she’s at risk again,” Micah stated as an uncomfortable silence descended on them. “The assassin will be waiting for another opportunity. There’s no doubt of that.”

  “Why hasn’t he tried yet then?” Tehya piped up again. “He’s had every opportunity, why is he waiting?”

  “I’ll be certain to ask him once we catch him.” Travis snorted. “Until then,” he checked his watch with a grimace, “I have a party to prepare for.” He turned to Nik. “As do you.”

  Playing Travis’s bodyguard was often more amusing for Nik than true work. The bastard had a morbid sense of humor and he never failed to make use of it whenever he had the chance.

  “Roll out.” Jordan nodded to the open doors. “The backup team has kept an eye on your exit, but we have to be careful here, too many people know Ian and Kell. Speaking of which, I believe they’ll be at your little ball along with Senator Stanton.”

  Just what Travis needed—a member of Elite Command breathing down his neck. But if someone had to be there, at least it was Stanton. He could halfway make sense of the senator’s motives. Sometimes.

  Lilly was waiting for him when he pulled into his garage nearly an hour later and shut off the Harley. Lounging back on the breastplate of her own cycle, her legs crossed and dangling over the back, she pushed the dark sunglasses down her nose and watched silently as he swung off the machine with slow, lazy male grace.

  Damn, he was sexy as hell in black leathers. Lean, powerful legs flexed and spread as he faced her, causing the bulge between his
thighs to become more prominent. A dark t-shirt stretched over his chest beneath the leather jacket, and heavy riding boots covered his feet.

  He hadn’t worn a helmet and his hair was windblown, and the short, neatly trimmed growth of beard on his face gave him a sexier, more dangerous appearance. His eyes narrowed as she continued to watch him silently, and he crossed his arms over his wide chest.

  “What’s on your mind, Belle?”

  “Leaving so soon, Belle?”

  She saw the hotel room, knew where it was, saw the man, naked, sprawled out in the bed, his eyes narrowed, his expression somber.

  He was her lover. He had been her first lover, and as she stared at him, she wondered why was he the only man she ached for?

  “It’s time to go, Black Jack.” She had to fight her tears. She didn’t want to leave the nice warm bed, the even hotter man, or the sense of security she found in his arms. “Nothing lasts forever, does it?”

  She opened the door and stepped out. The plane was waiting for her. She had a vacation coming, just a few short days, and she wanted to go home . . .

  It was gone. As quickly as the slow play of the memory began in her head, it stopped. But unlike previous memories, this one stayed. It didn’t tease her. It didn’t erase itself just as quickly as it had flashed in her mind.

  But she remembered the emotions, the tears she had fought to hold at bay. How she had been torn between staying with Travis and going off for a few short, miserable days of hiding, of watching the family she had lost during the short vacation she had been given.

  “Lilly? Are you okay?” She still stared at him as he tilted his head, his gaze so penetrating, as though he were trying to see inside her head, to track whatever thoughts were shifting through the shadows of her mind.

  “I’m fine.” She shot him a quick, sexy glance as she fought to cover the lapse in her control. “You have a rather odd habit of making a girl want to live in a fantasy forever.”

  She shrugged her own leather jacket from her arms. She hated riding without it, but suddenly, the temperature in the garage was stifling.

  Not that shedding the jacket helped. As the leather fell to the seat of the cycle, Travis’s gaze flared at the sight of the camisole top she wore, minus a bra.

  Her nipples were tight and hard, the full curves of her breasts suddenly swollen and sensitive. They ached for his touch. She ached for his touch. There wasn’t a cell on her body that wasn’t suddenly clamoring for the feel of him.

  As though that memory and the aching loneliness she had felt within it needed to be soothed. She never wanted to feel like that again. She never wanted to be torn between the need to feel his arms around her and the need to spy on a family she couldn’t be with.

  She had to fight back the tears now. The family she had ached for, that she had missed with such desperation, barely spoke to her. There was a wall between them. Her mother looked at her and they didn’t see Lilly; her mother didn’t see her daughter, she saw the call girl the report said that she had been.

  And her brother. She had idolized her brother, Jared, yet he had turned his back on her at the hospital and hadn’t spoken to her since.

  She moved closer to Travis, to the warmth and acceptance she had always felt from him. He had never asked her to be anyone other than whoever she wanted to be at any given moment.

  That knowledge was there as she watched him, as he watched her, and the silence grew between them. It wasn’t a memory, it was simply something she knew.

  As her breasts brushed against his chest, his hands lifted, stroked from her shoulders to her elbows and back. Lilly couldn’t help the slightest breath that expelled from her lungs, or the pleasure that raced through her arms at his touch.

  “I missed you,” she whispered as she leaned her head against his chest, suddenly seized by emotions she didn’t quite know what to do with. “Why have I missed you so desperately, Travis? Were you truly such an integral part of my life?”

  She asked the question, but she sensed the answer.

  “Things stood in the way, Belle,” he whispered, affirming what she had known to be the truth. “There are still things that stand in our way.”

  “Yet you’re here, now.” Lifting her head, she stared back at him and wondered if she should hide the emotions tearing through her. Wondered if she had done so before. Had she hid herself? Could she have given herself to him while still maintaining a shield between them?

  “I’m here now.” He cupped her face, his palm warm and rough, his fingers callused and so very strong. “I’ll always be here when you need me, Lilly.”

  “I need you now.” Her hands lifted to the edges of his jacket, pushed until it slid over his shoulders and fell to the cement floor beneath their feet.

  Running her hands to the band of his jeans, she pulled and tugged at the t-shirt until it came free, then pushed it over the hard contours of his tight abs before her fingers moved to the snap and zipper of his pants.

  He was watching her. Was he wondering what she would do? Had she always been so daring, so adventurous with him?

  She must have been. She could feel a hunger that she didn’t want to attempt to control, that she had no power over, rushing through her. Like a tidal wave, it washed away the protests in its path and left all but the raging hunger crumbling in its path.

  Parting her lips as his head lowered, Lilly watched his eyes, watched the darkening pupils, the hunger that filled them. She wasn’t alone in this need. It lived there inside him as well, almost an entity all its own and impossible to deny.

  His lips covered hers, a hungry growl passing them just before that first second of contact and infusing the heat beginning to burn inside her.

  Her fingers slid past the parted edges of the leather pants. The broad, heated shaft of his cock met her fingers, overfilled her palm and had her thighs clenching in need.

  Her pussy rippled in hunger, as she remembered the feel of the heavy shaft stretching her, filling her, pulsing arrows of incredible sensation striking at the very heart of her sex. Her clit was swollen, her juices running thick and hot to coat the swollen, intimate folds.

  Pleasure rolled over her in waves, one right after the other, as his kiss fueled an already naked hunger. His hands weren’t idle either. As her fingers stroked and caressed the silk-over-iron shaft of his cock, his fingers had lifted her top, bared her breasts, and played her nipples like a master musician.

  It was incredible. It was always incredible. Each night she came to him, each night he touched her with such deft, sure strokes of his hands, Lilly found herself becoming more and more entrenched in the ever-deepening emotions that roiled through her.

  She was falling in love with him.

  No, she had already been in love with him, she just hadn’t allowed herself to realize it, or to accept it. There had always been a tie, a bond that had been unbreakable between them.

  Her head tilted back as his kiss became harder, hungrier. His tongue swept past her lips, played with hers and sent her senses spinning out of control.

  Looping her arm around his neck, she held on for dear life as the kiss seemed to sear to her very soul. Flames licked over her flesh, tortured her nipples where his fingers stroked, plucked, plumped the tight tips.

  The sensation of his fingers on her nipples raced straight to her womb. Electric pleasure surrounded her clit, whipped around it and shot rippling fingers of destructive need into the heart of her pussy.

  Her fingers tightened on his cock just enough to drag a strangled moan from his throat as his hips shifted and fucked the hardened flesh against her grip.

  The thick, heavy crest was damp with precum, sliding against her fingers, slickening the head of his cock and heating her fingers.

  Lilly swore she could never live without more of him. There was a dark, hungry core inside her
that consisted of nothing but the aching need for his touch. His hands cupping her breasts, his thumb and forefinger pulled at her nipple as his lips jerked back from hers and moved to her neck.

  Tilting her head back, Lilly couldn’t stop the whimpering little moan that came from her. His lips were so heated, his teeth raking sensation upon sensation against flesh that suddenly seemed much too sensitive.

  Her nipples hurt, they needed his touch so desperately. They were swollen and hard, pushing toward him, the gnawing hunger to feel his mouth drawing on them tormenting her.

  “What do you want, baby?” he groaned, his lips caressing the valley between her breasts. “Tell me, Lilly, what do you want?”

  “You know what I want.” Her fingers speared into his hair, gripped and pulled until his lips were poised over her nipple, so close that the feel of his heated breath over the tight peak sent shivers racing down her spine.

  His tongue peeked out, licked, and then they both froze.

  They moved in sequence. The training Lilly knew but didn’t remember kicked in instinctively at the acrid scent of explosives flaming behind her.

  She tried to turn to confront the assailants, but found herself thrown to the side, Travis’s hard body covering hers, as the explosion suddenly ripped through the air.

  Her motorcycle.

  “Move!” Travis was scrambling, his fingers brutally tight on her arm as he dragged her the short distance to the entrance of the garage. A line of flames was licking at the sleek black frame of his own ride.

  They fixed their clothes hastily, their hearts racing, adrenaline pumping through their bodies.

  There was no time to get to the cycles or to stop what was coming. Wild-eyed, Lilly was on her feet, choking on the fumes as the garage door opened slowly, too fucking slowly. She watched as the greedy flames licked at the gas tank of Travis’s cycle now, the interior of the garage, moving higher.