Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  Once she was naked save for the bra and panties, he looked up at her, telling her with his eyes how beautiful she was and how much he wanted her. He flattened a palm on her abdomen and smoothed it across the creamy soft flesh there. He would care for this child just as he cared for her … if she allowed him to. He pressed a kiss beneath her belly button and she quivered. He kissed her there again and she gasped.

  He laved her skin with his tongue, needing to taste all of her, and praying that he would have the strength and discipline to take his time. She reached behind her and released her bra, then shrugged it off. His pulse leaped at the sight of her unrestrained breasts. He kissed each one, nuzzled his face there and inhaled her feminine scent.

  She urged him to his feet and gave him the same treatment—undressing him slowly, touching and tasting each newly bared part of him until he cried out savagely. She kissed her way along the length of him, ignoring his labored breathing and his tortured groans.

  Finally, he could take no more and swept her off her feet and onto the bed. He kissed her, tasting the saltiness of his own flesh on her sweet lips. She returned his kiss with abandon. Their bodies were on fire, writhing and undulating, needing, searching for contact.

  He pushed between her thighs, going in slowly despite the urgency pounding through him with every panting breath. She made a desperate sound and wiggled her hips, arching upward. He tried to hold back, to take it slow, as he’d promised himself he would, but she was making that promise impossible.

  “Wait,” he pleaded. He didn’t want to risk hurting her. It was all he could do to hold back. His body pulsed with the need to drive into her until—

  She kissed him hard, derailing his thought. “I don’t want to wait!” she breathed, kissing him again and again until he groaned savagely.

  She was relentless, surging upward to meet him, faster, harder until he couldn’t catch his breath. He could feel her muscles tightening around him, gripping him like a hot vise. She suddenly stilled and cried out, propelling him over the edge with her. Control evaporated. He drove himself to release, bursting with it while she still clenched rhythmically around him.

  Long minutes later they lay side by side, their arms and legs entangled, both still breathing hard from the frantic coming together.

  “I don’t want to lose you again, Scout,” he said, his courage bolstered by their mating. He needed her to know how he felt. He turned to look into her eyes. “I can’t let you do this. It’s too risky for you … and the baby.”

  Scout blinked furiously to hold back her tears. He didn’t want her to take any more risks. More important, he cared enough about her to accept this baby even though he didn’t know it was his child. “Max.” It was past time to tell him the truth. Whatever the consequences, she couldn’t keep this secret a moment longer.

  He traced a path along the line of her jaw with one fingertip. “Just tell me that you’ll do as I say, and I’ll be happy.” He grinned, knowing full well that she wasn’t about to be bossed around by anyone. His expression turned somber then. “I’m serious, Scout. I don’t want you to be hurt. We’ll find another way.”

  “But—”

  He shook his head. “No buts. It’s too risky. I don’t want you in the line of fire.” He pressed a kiss next to the dressing on her arm. “This—” he gestured to the bandage “—could have been a lot worse. If you won’t do it for your own safety, think about the baby.”

  A cold, hard realization dawned on her then. If she told him the truth, he’d have her under lock and key so fast it would make her head swim. If he had the slightest suspicion that this was his child, she’d be out of here before she could blink an eye. Max just didn’t get it. She and the baby would never be safe if the enemy wasn’t nailed. She would be on the run and looking over her shoulder forever—or at least until someone came up with the antidote for K-141. Either scenario was too long. She sighed, reveling in the feel of his muscular body resting along the length of hers. She hated to do this, but she was going to have to keep her secret a little longer. or maybe she was just a coward and would use any rationalization not to tell him. That, she admitted, was more likely the truth of the matter.

  “I’m sorry, Max,” she said finally. “I have to do this. And I need you to help me.”

  Exhaling in exasperation, he rested his forehead against hers. “Do I have a choice?”

  “Nope.”

  He kissed her, just the briefest meeting of lips, but she felt the tenderness and sweetness all the way to her heart. “All right. We’ll do this your way.”

  He looked deeply into her eyes. “But when this is over, we do things my way.”

  “Deal.”

  Scout knew then and there that she could spend the rest of her life right here in his arms without ever looking back.

  She prayed she would get the chance.

  “YOU’RE SURE THE LOCKET was never out of your sight?”

  Scout was damn tired of answering the same question over and over. She glowered at Max. “I told you it was never out of my sight other than when Alexon kept it while we were in isolation.”

  “No other time?” Max pressed.

  “No … other … time,” she said succinctly. She never took off the locket. Her father had given it to her when she was sixteen. She’d worn it ever since. The three weeks they’d been in isolation at Alexon was the only time it hadn’t been on her person.

  Max paced over to the wall of windows and stared out at the inspiring view offered by Simon’s elegant home.

  “But,” Ryan Braxton countered from his relaxed position on the arm of the sofa, “you do sleep. The bug could have been planted while you were sleeping.”

  She shrugged, tired of this game of twenty questions. She wanted to do something. Sitting here was driving her crazy. She’d felt so guilty about not telling Max the truth about the baby that she’d been irritable all day. It was almost two o’clock now. She wanted to act!

  “Sure,” she admitted. “I suppose someone could have done it while I slept.” Her uncle Harold had spent the night at her place in Houston a couple of times, just as she’d stayed over with him a time or two. But he was dead, wasn’t he? Just to be certain, Cooper was checking with the medical examiner as well as the mortician to see if photos of the body were available. Her stomach roiled. She wasn’t sure she was up to looking at pictures of her uncle’s dead body, or anyone else’s, for that matter. Besides, why would he hurt her? He’d loved her … hadn’t he?

  “Someone planted the tracking device in your locket, and that’s how they’ve known where you were no matter what precautions we took to spirit you away.” Max braced his hands at his waist and turned to face her. “As much as it goes against my initial hunch, all evidence points toward Alexon.”

  Ryan nodded in agreement. “Motive, opportunity, means—it’s all there.”

  Max shook his head. “But it just doesn’t feel right. Maybe it was your old friend Kimble.” He tossed out the suggestion, his tone icy.

  “Gage has nothing to do with any of this. You just don’t want to believe it’s Alexon,” Scout argued, taking umbrage at his innuendo. “I know it’s them. I was there, being held hostage. I know what I went through.”

  She was right. Max couldn’t argue with that. He was pretty sure Alexon—Brandon—was hiding something. But to assume the company had orchestrated all this just didn’t feel right. He preferred to focus on Kimble. Mainly because he hated the guy.

  “Here.” He offered the necklace back to Scout. “We’ve taken care of the bug.” They’d also taken another step that she didn’t need to know about. She took the delicate chain and locket from him and immediately placed it around her slender neck. Max looked away. He wanted her again … desperately. With extreme difficulty he forced his attention back to the matter at hand.

  The beep of the security system warned that someone was coming up via the elevator that opened directly into Simon’s apartment. Cooper, most likely since Simon’s wife Jolie w
as in Atlanta visiting her father. Still, tension radiated through Max. He didn’t like where this was heading. Scout was determined to go through with the whole baiting scheme, but another plan was already underway. She might not go along with it, but he would try his best to convince her.

  The elevator doors slid open and Cooper stepped into the foyer. He shook his head at their expectant gazes. “The mortician didn’t take any photographs, although he did look at the photograph I showed him of Harold Atkins and said that it could have been the body he prepped for burial.”

  “Could have been?” Scout stepped forward. “He didn’t make a positive ID?”

  Cooper shook his head again. “He said it wasn’t possible, considering the gunshot exit wounds to the face. Besides, officials from Alexon ID’d him.”

  “Harold was shot once in the chest.” Scout was the one shaking her head now. “That can’t be right.”

  “But you had to make a run for it, correct?” Max said, instinctively moving closer to her. He couldn’t bear the hurt she was being forced to relive. “The same shooter or even one of the other men could have fired more shots after you were out of there.”

  She scrubbed her hands over her face. “I suppose. I don’t know. A shot was fired, Uncle Harold went down … I ran.” She shrugged, the slump of her shoulders giving away the guilt she still felt at surviving when her uncle hadn’t. But she’d been protecting the baby. “I don’t know what happened after that.”

  “According to the mortician there were two shots to the back of the head. But you haven’t heard the strangest part,” Cooper said, drawing their attention back to him. “The M.E.’s file on Harold Atkins is missing.”

  The tension in the room rose to a new level.

  Max and Braxton exchanged a look. “That news certainly adds a fresh twist,” Braxton commented offhandedly. “Either Harold Atkins is still alive or—”

  “Someone wants us to think he is,” Max finished for him.

  “Why would someone want us to think he’s alive?” Scout demanded, emotion making her slow to comprehend the possibilities.

  She looked confused and tired, and Max wanted to hold her and assure her that it would be all right. But at the moment he had to keep his distance. It was the only way he’d ever be able to deny her what she wanted when the time came.

  And even then it wasn’t going to be easy.

  “What about Kimble?” It was Braxton who raised the subject this time. “How does he play into all this?”

  Max tensed. Even the sound of the guy’s name made him want to break something, specifically the jerk’s neck. “I think he may be involved,” he allowed, knowing full well that the statement was partly motivated by his hatred for him.

  “I don’t see how,” Scout countered. “We dated for a while once but that was months ago. We broke up and that was it.”

  Max’s gaze connected with hers and she looked away. He wanted to ask about the baby. He wanted to grill her until his ego was assuaged where the other man was concerned. Instead he forced himself to calm down. Losing it on the subject of Kimble wasn’t going to help.

  “How did the two of you become acquainted?” Braxton prodded. He stood and stretched and headed to the bar that separated the living room from the kitchen.

  “He was a new SF recruit under my father’s tutelage,” she explained as she stepped forward and accepted the bottle of water he offered.

  “By SF you mean special forces?” Braxton twisted off the top of his own bottle and took a long swallow.

  She nodded and did the same.

  Max kept his mouth shut. He was too close to this and he knew it. Braxton knew it, too. That’s why he had taken the lead. Max didn’t mind Braxton’s move; it was the right thing to do. Though Ryan Braxton preferred working the research and evidential side of cases, his presence now was definitely welcome. What Max did mind was his own inability to separate his personal feelings from the job.

  And why wouldn’t he have trouble?

  He was in love with the woman.

  Everything inside him stilled as the knowledge echoed through him. It was true. He’d been in love with her from the beginning. Four months of separation and a pregnancy hadn’t changed anything.

  “My father brought him home a few times when he was on leave.” She shrugged. “I never saw him again until almost a year after my father died. Gage was devastated by the news. He stayed around the Texas area for a while and we … dated. Things got a little serious for a while.”

  Max clenched his jaw and forced himself to look anywhere but at her. He didn’t want to hear this part, but he had no choice. They had to determine Kimble’s involvement, if any. His showing up twice now was pushing the probability of coincidence.

  “And then he disappeared again,” Braxton suggested.

  She sipped her water and said, “Yeah. I didn’t see him again until a couple weeks after Max and I were released from isolation at Alexon.”

  And they’d had dinner, Max added silently. Dinner and sex. His heart drummed against his sternum as his mind conjured the images that accompanied the thought. Hurt stabbed deep into his heart and very nearly paralyzed it. That was the past, he told himself again. He would not hold the past against her or the baby she carried.

  He forced himself to look at Scout … to see nothing but the woman he loved. The other images and thoughts evaporated like water on a sun-scorched rock. Now was all that mattered.

  “Did he, to your knowledge, have any dealings with your uncle?”

  Scout shook her head. “They’d met once while we were dating, but didn’t act as if they knew each other. My uncle never mentioned him and vice versa.”

  Braxton considered the information for a time, as did Max. “His lack of recent commitment or involvement in your life makes him an unlikely participant,” Max said, taking the lead again now that his emotions were back under control. “But his sudden appearance in the middle of all this prevents me from being able to completely rule him out as a suspect.”

  Scout splayed one hand, palm up. “I can see that. His abrupt appearance is suspicious to me as well. But he’s strange like that.” She frowned. “I noticed it when my father first introduced him to me. You never could tell exactly what Gage was thinking. He’s too good at hiding his feelings.” She chewed her lower lip a moment. Max remembered vividly the taste of that succulent lip. She went on, drawing his attention back to the discussion. “Maybe it was part of the covert training he received in the military or something. He’s impossible to read.”

  Max, too, had noted Kimble’s ability to keep his expression unreadable. He was quite good at acting. But Max had worried that his dislike for the man had affected his reasoning.

  “So, we move to the next phase of the strategy,” Braxton offered.

  Scout’s head came up at that. “We have a plan?” She looked from Braxton to Max. “No one mentioned a plan to me.”

  This was going to be the hard part. “I talked to Cooper while you were sleeping,” Max admitted, knowing she would be as mad as hell.

  Sure enough, a look of fury stole across her face. “And you didn’t bother mentioning it to me.”

  “When Cooper called and explained your dilemma,” Braxton interrupted when Max would have spoken, “Simon Ruhl made the final decision.”

  Startled, Max gazed at Braxton. He was taking the heat off him, allowing Scout to consider Simon himself the culprit. Simon had, in fact, made the decision. Manuevers this dicey weren’t made without approval from the next level. But Max had been willing to suffer the repercussions. Relief speared through him now. He would owe his colleague a huge debt of gratitude if they pulled this off. Knowing how stubborn Scout could be, Max had seriously worried that he wouldn’t be able to talk her into seeing things his way. Now he didn’t have to.

  “Max will call Alexon and set up a meeting to negotiate the conditions of your cooperation—”

  “Who said I’m cooperating with them?” Scout snapped. She shot Max a
look. “Was that your idea?”

  “The goal,” Max explained, “is to make them think we’re willing to negotiate, to draw them out. If they’re planning to make a move against you, they’ll do it then. We need to know if Alexon really is the enemy.”

  Scout relaxed marginally. Okay, she could see that. She wanted to draw out the enemy himself. She’d just expected to be in on the planning stage as well as the execution. That she’d been left out stung her ego. After what she and Max had shared last night, she’d expected him to be open and honest with her. She stopped herself midthought. How could she expect that from him, when she hadn’t been completely honest in turn?

  “If Alexon is on the up and up, the meeting will go without a hitch,” Ryan commented. “If, however, they aren’t, we’ll know by their actions.”

  “So, what time are we meeting them?”

  Max and Ryan exchanged another of those looks, then Ryan said, “It would be in your best interest to stay clear of the heat.” When she would have told him what she thought, he quelled her tirade with a look that made her want to take a step back. “If you truly want to protect your child, you’ll stay out of harm’s way. Think about where your priorities lie, Miss Jackson.” He said the last with a pointed glance at her bandaged arm.

  All the fight drained out of her then. They were right. She couldn’t take any more chances with her baby’s life. She’d been a fool to think she could bring down Alexon on her own or even with help. That would only put her health and that of her child at risk.

  She nodded reluctantly. “Agreed.” The next hour was a whirlwind of activity. Unbeknownst to her, the meeting with Alexon had already been arranged. Nicole Reed Michaels would again pose as Scout and accompany Max. Ryan Braxton would provide backup. Cooper would keep Scout company in the penthouse, where she would be safe. She and Max had discussed the extent of her cooperation, present and future, with Alexon, if any.