by Lora Leigh
“You’re fired!” she snapped.
Kell pushed the unlatch button and glanced at the bag boy as he began loading the back. He leaned down, watching her eyes as he let his lips touch her ear.
“Coward,” he breathed softly against her ear.
Emily jerked back, staring at him as her teeth ground together in obvious annoyance. She was working her way toward a full-fledged temper tantrum that would beat the hell out of the helplessness he saw in her earlier. She was like a caged bird. The bars were made of love, guilt, and responsibility. She felt responsible for her mother leaving, for her death, and for her father’s worry.
There was a woman inside her, filled with strength and life, clawing her way toward freedom with no idea which direction to take.
“I’m not a coward,” she choked out.
“Prove it, Emily,” he dared her as his head lifted and he moved her back from the Trailblazer enough to allow her to lift herself to the seat. “Prove it to both of us.”
He closed the door before she could argue and moved to where the carry-out boy had finished loading the groceries. He was a kid in a man’s body, all arms and legs and unfamiliar muscles growing in his lanky body. Hazel eyes glared at Kell in dislike as a surprisingly firm mouth flattened in anger.
“Pouting won’t get you what you want,” he told the boy, aching at the realization that when he had been this kid’s age he had already lost a wife and child. He had already known the horror of being disowned, only to face his parents’ offer to reinstate him in the family now that the trash he had married had been taken care of.
“What do you mean?” the youth snapped.
Kell stared down at him, silently showing his strength in the look in his eyes, on his face. The boy’s gaze jumped to the side.
“Be a man, son,” he growled. “If you don’t know how, then learn how. And don’t blame your girlfriend for being impressed. I’m a man, not a kid.”
The boy glared back, but Kell could see the kid’s mind turning, and sometimes that was all it took.
“That’s your tip for the day,” he informed him. “Because you beat the cart over every speed bump on the way over here. Think about it. Better yet, practice it.”
He moved around the Trailblazer then, opened the driver’s door, and stepped into the vehicle.
“You didn’t check for a bomb,” were the first words out of her mouth. “If I’m in danger, then how do you know Fuentes didn’t rig the Trailblazer and it’s going to blow up the minute you start the engine?”
He laid his arms over the steering wheel and stared back at her in disbelief.
“You watch too much television or read too many books. I haven’t decided which yet.”
She sniffed disdainfully. “My father was a Navy SEAL. Or did you forget?”
“It would be damned hard to forget that one,” he assured her, smiling as he turned the key and the only thing that ignited was the motor.
She stared back at him balefully before turning her head and looking around the parking lot.
“Where’s your backup?”
A grin tilted his lips. She was quick as hell, and he liked that about her.
“We have two Secret Service agents following us.” He didn’t mention Ian. The Secret Service was good, but Kell didn’t trust anyone outside his group worth squat.
“Dad always said you should check things for yourself,” she stated.
“I didn’t see you lying on the ground and checking the undercarriage.”
Her shoulders lifted dismissively. “I’ve had a bit of trouble figuring out exactly how to recognize a problem. But I’m working on it.”
His eyes narrowed as he glanced over at her. “You’re trying to figure out how to tell if a vehicle has been wired?”
“Seemed like a good hobby.” She crossed her arms over her breasts. “I’m all about learning things. Research, you know.”
Lust slammed into his gut. Research. He would never hear that word again without remembering her sinuous little body straddling his lap and the sight of her panties dampening in need.
“Yeah, research.” He could feel the sweat popping out on his brow now. “We need to do something about that hobby of yours, Emily.”
She breathed out deeply. “So I keep hearing, Kell. So I keep hearing.”
THE GROCERIES WERE PUT AWAY, and there wasn’t a spare inch of space left in her refrigerator or her cabinets by time they finished.
So much for her diet. The extra pounds she had been fighting with since she was a teenager were just doomed to stay in place.
They had stopped for lunch, a nice little Italian place with loads of calories, sinfully rich desserts, and a wine so smooth and delicious she had to force herself not to buy a bottle.
She was going to have a hard enough time paying for the groceries.
Maybe she should let go of her pride in this instance and tell her father to reimburse her for the eating machine she now had living in her house. The good senator owed her that much at least. The problem was, she hated asking him for money. Hated it.
For a while, he had deposited money in her account to take care of the eating needs of his goons, but the last argument they’d had over the amount he was depositing had resulted in him depositing nothing at all. And she had been too stubborn to do anything about it.
Now, she was stuck with the object of every sexual fantasy she had ever known, and she would be damned if she knew what to do with him. She knew what she wanted to do, she wanted to lick every inch of his body. She wanted to drape herself over him and become a part of his damned skin.
And that was just so wrong. Because no man should be that damned sexy, so rough and ready that she was creaming her panties just looking at him.
AFTER THE LAST OF THE groceries were in place Emily moved around the house, staring at the closed curtains, the locked windows, and tried to fight the arousal building inside her.
Hell, she had already come in his face. It wasn’t like pretending he was a favorite treat that needed to be licked was going to hurt her good “virgin” standing.
“I can take care of cooking if you don’t like to cook.”
She turned around quickly, staring across the room at him as he moved from the pantry and the small chest freezer stored back there.
His jeans rode low on his hips, a wide leather belt cinching it. Long muscular legs encased in denim drew her eyes, and the bulge between them made her mouth water before she jerked her gaze up to his amused green eyes.
“I don’t mind cooking.” She pushed her hands into the pockets of her Capris as she watched him move through the kitchen.
Muscles rippled in his arms and chest, emphasized by the snug fit of the T-shirt and the jeans that had seen one washing too many. They cupped his butt and his crotch like loving hands. The way she wanted to cup them.
She whirled away and stalked toward the patio doors only to turn back when she realized they were locked. She was in danger. She couldn’t just stalk outside because she was in a snit.
She closed her eyes as something whispered through her mind. A shadow of a memory, perhaps? A voice she knew she should remember from that time Fuentes had held her in captivity.
“Do you think you can catch him?” she asked. “Fuentes, that is?”
“We’ll catch him.” Supreme confidence filled his expression and glittered in his cat’s eyes as he watched her. “Him and his spy.”
“Dad didn’t tell me much about the spy.”
“Fuentes has a spy, very high up in the government, that’s supplying him with information. If we catch the spy, Fuentes will tip his hat in a game well played and leave you and your father alone.”
“He will?” she asked suspiciously. “Now, why do I have trouble believing that? That was what he was supposed to have done when you and your team rescued us after the kidnapping.”
Of the three of them, Emily had fared the best. One of the girls, the youngest, was still in a near-catatonic state from the
drugs she had been given. The other, Senator Bridgeport’s daughter, had died within days.
“Extenuating circumstances. Our information suggests that Fuentes’s spy demanded this hit.” Kell opened the freezer and pulled free the beer he had slid in there earlier. “All we have to do is keep you and your father safe until the rest of the team tracks down the spy, then you’ll be okay.”
“I don’t remember you being there.” She rubbed at her forehead, frowning as she tried to delve into the dark space in her mind where those memories lay. “I should have remembered you being there.”
He twisted the cap off the beer and tossed it to the trash with a tight flip of his fingers as his lips flattened angrily.
“You were drugged, Emily. Whore’s Dust affects the memory. It was designed to do that.”
“It makes the victim beg for sex.” She tightened her fists in her pockets as she faced him. “Did I beg you for sex, Kell?”
He stared back at her with level, calm eyes.
“Did anyone else see me?” she whispered worriedly. “Did I embarrass you?” Or herself.
His head shook once as a wry smile tugged at his lips. “You didn’t embarrass me, Em. And you didn’t beg me for sex. Didn’t your dad tell you what I had in my report?”
He hadn’t.
“He just said that I was brave.” She shrugged helplessly. “I’ve wondered what he meant by that.”
“Exactly what he said,” Kell told her softly, his gaze softening with approval. “You were very brave. You gathered the other girls together where I told you to, and you trusted me to get you out of there. You let me do my job.”
A swell of pride infused her. He wasn’t lying to her. She could see it in his eyes. For the first time in two years something inside her loosened, relaxed.
“Thank you.” She cleared her throat uneasily then, suddenly uncertain amid the tension thickening in the room. “I couldn’t ask Dad—”
He nodded quickly before lifting the beer and taking a slow drink, as though he needed something to distract himself with.
“Richard should have given you my report,” he said as he lowered the beer.
She crossed her arms over her breasts, hugging herself against the chill that seemed to invade her at the realization that her father held back much more from her than she had realized.
“I told Dad, when he accepted that position on the oversight committee, that it wasn’t going to be safe for either of us.”
“What did he say?”
“That he would protect me.” Emily rolled her eyes.
“And he’s making sure you’re protected,” he said softly, his expression too intent, his gaze too probing as he brought the beer to his lips again and drank.
It was sexy, watching his lips pull the liquid from the glass bottle, the way his tongue flicked over his lower lip when he was finished.
He hadn’t shaved that morning, so his cheeks were still covered with the overnight growth of beard. It gave him a rakish, piratical look that made him seem darker and more dangerous than ever before. Sexier. More primal.
“Oh yes.” Her lips twisted mockingly. “He’s making certain I’m protected.” She crossed her arms over her breasts now. “Tell me, Kell, what are you going to do if you end up in my bed and Daddy finds out? When he pulls you aside and gives you the rules to this little game. You’ll marry his daughter, and keep her out of trouble, or your career and all your dreams are shot to hell.”
“Won’t happen. He just lets you think it will happen.”
Her eyes widened in amazement. “I thought you knew my father better than that, Kell? You evidently have no clue how bad he wants me married and knocked up.”
“Oh, I can safely say I know your father’s plans as well as anyone.” He grinned mockingly. “But I know how to be careful, Emily.”
“You’re just like him.” She could see the same arrogance, the same determination stamped on his features that she often saw on her father’s. “So certain you’re right and that you can have what you want the way you want it. I’m not a prize, Kell, and I’m not a plaything to relieve your boredom.”
His smile was blatant male confidence and sexual intent.
“No, you’re a habitual virgin who’s too frightened to take what you want.” He lifted the beer, drank again, and his eyes gleamed with amused certainty.
“Are you insane?”
“I’m horny.” He shrugged. “So hard for a taste of that sweetness you were rubbing in my face at that strip club, I can barely walk for it.”
“So that makes it okay?”
“That makes it more than okay, sugar. That’s going to make it a certainty. Because I might be harder than hell, but right now, I bet you dollars to doughnuts your panties are wet again. Shall we put it to the test?”
He was insane. He was crazy. He was the most impossibly confident man she had ever laid her eyes on. He was totally unlike the bodyguards. He didn’t bother to hide his lust and he didn’t give a damn what anyone thought of it.
Her gaze raked over his tall, muscular body. She paused at his thighs, seeing the length of his erection beneath his jeans. The impressive bulge was a temptation in and of itself.
“You think you can handle me.” She smiled slowly. “I can see it in your face. You think all you have to do is get me addicted to your touch, to touching you, and everything else will be a piece of cake.”
His lips quirked in response.
“You are so deluded.” She dropped her arms and moved closer, watching his eyes narrow as she brushed against him, stopping a breath from his hard chest as she let one hand drift across his tight abs.
“Am I?”
“You are.” Her fingers brushed over his belt before she began to slowly loosen it. “I could become addicted, Kell. So easily.” His eyes narrowed as the belt came undone and her fingers tugged at the metal button holding his jeans. “I could do all the things I’ve researched, hungered for, dreamed about.” The second button came undone. “I could go crazy with you in my bed.” The third button, the fourth.
His jeans parted beneath her fingers, revealing the snug white briefs he wore and the heavy ridge of flesh beneath.
“Teasing, sugar?” he dared her. His voice. His eyes. They sent out a challenge she couldn’t resist.
Carefully she eased the material of his briefs over the hard flesh, catching her breath on a silent moan as the thick, heavy wedge of flesh was revealed. Dark, pulsing with blood and strength, the head engorged, flushed nearly purple with arousal and heat as a creamy drop of semen beaded at the flushed crest.
“I don’t tease,” she whispered.
She had known what she wanted as she came to him, and she had been certain he wouldn’t allow it. That he would steal control, that he would take her as he wanted, not as she wanted.
But he stood still, his body growing more tense by the second.
Emily could feel the hunger rising inside her now, beating at her brain, searing through her bloodstream. Her mouth watered with the need to taste him, to put to action all the research she had done on going down on a man.
“Take your shirt off.” She meant to whisper the words, she hadn’t meant to make it a command.
But the shirt came off. Slowly. Too slowly. Revealing tighter than tight abs, a rippling chest, and powerful arms.
She had to touch him. She didn’t have a choice. Bronzed flesh filled her vision as her hands, pale against his skin, pressed against his stomach and eased upward, scraping over the sprinkling of black hair that bisected it. Feeling the rush of heat from his flesh, the pounding of his heart. The prickle of the small hairs against her palms was electric.
“How long since you’ve touched a man, Emily?” he asked her then. “Since you’ve let your senses be captured?”
She shook her head slowly, dazed, mesmerized by the pleasure building in her palms and rushing through her body.
“Too long.” She could barely breathe, could barely remember. “So long.”
> Her fingers curled against his chest as her head lowered. She wanted to taste him. Her tongue touched flesh and he jerked beneath the caress. But he didn’t touch her. He didn’t hold her. He didn’t force her to do what he wanted.
The taste of his flesh exploded through her senses. Dark, male, clean. There was nothing artificial. Just stark earthy male. Slightly salty. A hint of musk. Addictive. So addictive she let her teeth grip the flesh over his breastbone as she licked again.
“I just want to touch,” she moaned, shaking now with the power that seemed to whip around her. “Just once. Just this time.” She was out of control. Her lips smoothed over his chest, her tongue licked, her teeth scraped, and her senses became drugged, dazed, weakened by the incredible freedom she could feel moving through her. “I’ve dreamed of touching you, Kell. For so long.”
“Touch, sugar.” His voice was a breath of sound, a dreamy rasp over her senses that urged, encouraged, that gave her license to do as she needed. As she dreamed. “You can touch me all you want to.”
Freedom. It surged through her, arcing through her body and mind until nothing mattered, nothing made sense but the taste of him. The feel of him. The wicked, liberating sense of holding the reins on this powerful sexual beast.
Eight
WHEN A MAN SET OUT to tame a vixen, he didn’t grab her. He didn’t manhandle her. That was a surefire way to lose a finger. And the vixen. She was cunning, she was wily, and she was as free as the wind. But she loved touching. She was affectionate and playful, tempting and teasing, but she wanted to be caressed and held.
The man who was determined to capture a vixen learned patience early. He learned control. And he learned to let the vixen set the rules. At first.
Kell’s fingers tightened on the side of the bar as Emily’s hot little tongue licked over his chest. The pleasure was exquisite. Heated little electric shocks raced over his flesh and drew his muscles tight. Staring down at her, he became absorbed in the small glimpses of her expression, the slow, steady immersion of her senses into the freedom of touch he was giving her.