Hearts Aflame Collection III: 4-Book Bundle
Copyright © 2014 by Melissa F. Hart. All rights reserved worldwide.
No part of this book may be replicated, redistributed, or given away in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written consent of the author/publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental
http://www.melissafhart.com/
Table of Contents
Exposed
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Heat in the Kitchen
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Negociation
Forests Dark and Deep
Exposed
Synopsis
Jeanine is a private assassin for a secret government organization. She and her partner Liam, who is also her sometimes lover, are tasked with killing a Saudi official. However, they are intercepted before they can complete their mission, yet still framed for the murder. Both are sent to prison and disavowed. Liam manages to escape, but is unable to rescue Jeanine.
John, Jeanine’s first love, reads about her situation in the newspaper. He’s been looking for her for ten years, ever since he broke her heart and she ran away from him. He visits her in prison and promises he can help her escape. Can Jeanine let go of her old anger and resentment toward John and accept his help?
Chapter One
It was a cold night; not the coldest of the season, but definitely cold: you know, that residual freeze you get in Washington DC around mid-February. As I stood out in the street, my teeth chattering, goose bumps growing on the skin underneath my leather stealth suit, I imagined somewhere, someone was having a nice dinner. I imagined a family of four sitting in the warmth of a DC townhouse, enjoying a pot roast in front of their fire. There might have been music playing in the background, the Jazz kind that dads usually liked to play. Or maybe not, maybe Dad liked soft rock from the 80s. Or maybe he liked complete silence.
Sitting across from Dad at the other end of the table was Mom. She loved conversation, but could never introduce a topic interesting enough for Dad's approval. So, instead of asking little Sally, or little Eric, how their kindergarten school day was, she ate in silence. She scooped her mashed potatoes, taking care not to scrape her spoon against the plate, because she knew Dad hated the noise. He hated the screech and the scrape. He hated the extemporaneous humanness of it all.
Dad, in fact, would have rather eaten his dinner completely alone. The satisfied smirk on his son's face when he passed gas in that silent but deadly way and assumed no one at the table noticed, pinched at Dad's last nerve. He hated children, hated the sight of them, hated the fact that they were so spontaneous, so uncontrollable. He wanted them to be sterile. He wanted sameness. He set his gaze on Sally who sat next to Eric. She used her knife to cut out each piece of meat, meticulously folding her small fingers around the handle of each utensil. She wanted to be proper so that Daddy would notice.
She wanted to put a smile on Daddy's face, and she fancied she was only a moment away from witnessing his true happiness. She stared at her mother, at the way she sat in her chair, folding her legs together, barely scooping the plate with her spoon, making herself as small as possible. Even as a child, Sally could see the pain in her mother's eyes, could feel the dejection in her stare. She could never make Dad happy; she was too sad herself. She was too helpless and hopeless. Her frail fingers looked as if they would crack under the weight of her utensils. Her eyes seemed as if they would fry under the glare of the light above the table. Her pale skin looked as if it could melt off of her bones at any moment. Sally gazed at her mother, a hateful look in her eye. She knew, with more certainty than she had ever felt in the eight years of her life, that she never wanted to be her.
“Stop,” I muttered. That was enough of that. I tore my eyes away from the lone lit window on the third floor of the high rise towering up in front of me. In the cold dark night, it could have been the warmest place anyone had ever been in. I envied whoever stayed there, even if it was just a dysfunctional family of four.
I sighed, shifting my weight from my right foot to my left. A draft of cold air passed in between my arms. I shuddered at the impact of it. A quick look at my phone told me it wasn't time yet. Five more minutes of this hell.
The silence was a pressing force, an ominous being. It penetrated every part of me until I began to imagine sound for the sake of preserving my own sanity. I imagined a rat scurrying at the base of my foot, weaving in and out of the two dumpsters I stood between, looking for so much as a mere crumb to take home to his family. I imagined the muffled roar coming from a nearby dwelling as a new bottle of champagne was opened in order to celebrate a 75th birthday. Sharp giggles echoed off the walls of high rises as a drunk couple approached the alley. A male voice murmured things followed by the amused screeches of his date. The sound increased as they approached, then began to decrease as they walked away. I held my gaze on the empty wall in front of me.
It could have been anything; a secret passage, a hiding place, a mirror. I fancied if I looked hard enough, I could see my reflection amongst the black concrete. I imagined the sharp hairline made by my red hair pulled as far and tight back as it could go, my plump lips, made all the more plumper by my choice to use bright red lipstick, my high cheekbones, and full body.
I looked away.
The sound of a truck passed by, the increasing roar of its approach, followed by the decrease of it as it disappeared farther and farther down the road.
I gulped, swallowing what little saliva I had left. My fingers curled and uncurled, the skin on my palm slick under a thin layer of cold sweat. I blinked back the dry tears forming in the edges of my eyes, telling myself it was only the wind, when I knew it was much more than that.
I heard the footsteps before I saw the man. “Hey, you got a cig?”
I glanced in his direction, committing his dark tennis shoes, faded jeans, and brown leather jacket to memory. He raised an eyebrow in expectation, ready for my affirmative answer, and, no doubt, for me to give the cigarette away. There was something about his confident lean, or the invasive gleam in his dark eyes that made me say, “No,” even though I had just finished my fourth one.
His smile widened as he nodded at me, taking a step in my direction. I tilted my head to the right, not a retreat, but a negative response. “Come on. Don't be like that.”
“What?” It was my turn to raise an eyebrow.
He grimaced. As far as he knew, he was alone with a girl in a dark alley. He couldn't reason with himself why I could possibly be challenging him, why I was so confident.
His confusion amused me.
“Why are you lying?”
I folded my lips into a mock frown. “You shouldn't make judgments like that about people you don't even know.”
“I can smell the smoke on you,” he breathed.
“So can I,” I replied, trying not to look uncomfortable under his gaze.
He narrowed his eyes. “Give me a cigarette.”
I shrugged, a vacant smile on my face. “Mother told me not to give things to strangers.”
“I don't t
hink it works like that.”
“Oh, I'm sure it does.”
He tilted his head back and forth, stretching out his neck.
I lifted my chin, pursing my lips together in a stance of defiance. I had decided the moment he approached me with that confident smirk that I wasn't going to give him what he felt like he was entitled to.
He lifted one large finger to my face, stroking my cheek. “Why are you provoking me?”
“Awe. I'm sorry you feel provoked,” I whined in a mocking voice.
He continued to stroke my cheek. His thumb rubbed the other side of my face. I flicked my chin, brushing his hand off.
“Well, you have to give me something,” he murmured.
I scrunched my nose at his sharp, smoke-infested, rancid-tuna breath. “I'm sorry, but you're going to be a little disappointed.”
He grabbed my chin with his hand.
I blinked twice, taking care to suck in deep breaths from my mouth.
“I don't like being disappointed.” His grip tightened as he said this.
“That sounds like a personal problem.”
He grunted, thrusting his body into mine. I huffed as my back hit the dumpster with a thud. A gust of wind bit my face. I pressed my hands against the dumpster, trying to make my body as small as possible in order to get away from him. In the next moment, I could feel his left hand snaking up my leg.
“What are you doing out at a time like this dressed in a body suit?”
I furrowed my brows in an effort to get a coherent sentence out under the pressure of his hold. “You'd like to know, wouldn't you?”
“You're going to tell me, aren't you?”
I winced at his sharp hold on my thigh. “I'm not really a fan of questions.”
Through the dark shadows, I could see his eyes harden. His thin lips hung open, releasing the warm breath of a man in heat. The foot of air in between us had solidified until it was beyond malleability. Beads of sweat sprouted on my forehead as my heart began to race, my pulse chasing itself around my body. My fingers tingled in anticipation. And yet, I wanted him to go farther.
“That's too bad,” he murmured, drawing in a deep breath.
I frowned, drawing in shallow breaths as he pressed his lips against mine. They were sharp, yet wet at the same time. I didn't kiss back, but left my lips hanging limp against his aroused, one-sided struggle. I could feel the hesitation in his grip, sense the confusion in his tongue.
“Five minutes,” I murmured as he went up for air.
“What?” he snapped, too wrapped up in his own ecstasy to wonder why he didn't have to force sex from me.
“Your five minutes are up.” I examined him as I said this, taking in every square inch of his confused frown, his bushy, furrowed eyebrows, his unkempt, fuzzy chin. His false sense of confidence made him all the more vulnerable.
A smile played at my lips as I felt his hands fiddling with my stealth suit, desperately looking for the point of entry I knew he wouldn't find. “This is quite an outfit,” he murmured.
As I brushed his hands off, he gripped my fingers, squeezing them in between his large rough hands. I narrowed my eyes as a sharp pain traveled through my arms. He continued to claw at my legs. Even through the thick leather, I could feel the tips of his nails raking at the skin underneath my suit.
“You're not getting in,” I whispered into his ear.
He struck me. I gasped as the blow ripped a tear in my cheek. A loud bang echoed through the alley as my head hit the side of the dumpster. Sensing the scream that would follow, he immediately covered my mouth with his hand. I banged my fist against the dumpster in agitation at this, shaking my head in an attempt to escape his grip. He continued to fiddle with my suit despite my feeble protests, removing his hand from my lips only to force his lips onto mine and his tongue into my mouth. As he kissed me, I drew my face back, maneuvering my lips around his. Once his tongue was firmly in between my lips, I bit, clenching my teeth together. He let out a short wail of pain then drew back, covering his mouth with his right hand.
“I don't approve,” I muttered, a smirk on my face. I watched with amusement as the hurt in his eyes hardened, as his pained frown became an angry sneer. I had him exactly where I wanted him.
He lunged at me, cupping my face in both of his hands. Before I could catch a grip of anything, he drove my head into the dumpster twice. The dark night swirled around me and his face became blurry in my own dizziness. A deep ache rang through my skill, as each neuron, completely on edge, burned in the flames of my own pain.
I decided to go with the most basic of defenses to start off with and stomped on his foot. My stealth cleats easily penetrated his comparatively thin shoes. His grip loosened a bit around my face as he stepped back. I took advantage of this, ripping both of his hands from my face. However, as soon as I had accomplished this, he took a step toward me and struck me again. I winced as his hand caught in the blood that I was sure splattered my face. I drove a punch straight into his nose, smiling internally as I heard the sharp crack of cartilage and felt his bones give way to my hard fist. He huffed in pain, then immediately drove his fist into my torso. My lungs screamed for air as I held my mouth open, feeling more and more suffocated with each shallow breath.
As he pinned my arms to the dumpster, I could feel his hard cock against my leg. I lifted my foot, driving my cleats into his package. He wailed in pain, ripping his body away from me. I chuckled in triumph, slipping from in between him and the dumpster. The wind brushed against my face, drying sweat and blood as I ran, my legs carrying me farther and farther away, my feet propelling me forward through empty air, the ground becoming nearly non-existent as I flew.
One
Two
Three.
Sure enough, I felt something yank at my ponytail. My eyes widened as my neck whipped backwards. A smile played at my lips, as, once again, my predictions were correct. I raised my hand, grabbing his arm and ripping it away from my hair. In one motion, I had twisted it behind his back.
In the silence of the night, I could hear his panting echoing off the walls of the narrow alley. I could practically feel his wheezing breaths from in between my grip. By sheer will and strength, he was able force himself out of my hold. As soon as he was upright, he drove another punch into my torso, in the exact same spot. I winced at the second contact on my bruised stomach but laughed at his predictability.
I lifted my foot, drawing the compact pocket knife from inside the small compartment above my foot, and immediately mounted his back. He instinctively thrashed against me. I winced at the burn of his hands chaffing against my arms as he tried to force himself out of my grip. This time, it wouldn't work. I had the height advantage. In light of this failure, he began to hit his back, and subsequently, me, against the cemented wall of the high rise. I grunted at each impact, forcing myself to breathe right through it.
One
Two.
Three.
The fourth time, my hair caught on an uneven point in the concrete. I snagged on it and had to let go of him, for fear of losing my entire ponytail. I fell to the ground with a thud, once again breathless. He stood over me, then paused, his posture erect as he tried to enjoy this moment. I took the opportunity to drive the knife into his shin. He screeched in pain, tumbling to the ground next to me. I allowed myself two deep recovery breaths before bounding up next to him. A quick look at my phone told me I still had thirty seconds to spare. I reached into a small pocket in between my lower thighs, pulled out an entire half pack of Lucky's. Through the blood covering his face, I could see two deep-set, angry eyes glaring at me. I threw the cigarettes at him and left the alley.
Chapter Two
“You're late, Kitty.” His voice reached me before he did.
“That's not my name, Liam.” I replied as we fell into step together. I struggled silently to keep my breath as we power-walked through the cold night to our destination. I was starting to regret my fun little encounter.
“What happened to your face?” he demanded, referring, I assumed, to the blood that must have been dripping down it, or the bruising from the man's strong grip.
I glanced at Liam's sharp cheekbones and strong jaw with a smile. “Nothing. What happened to yours?”
“Nothing.”
“Exactly.” We turned our last corner, ending up at a side entrance of the Saudi Embassy.
I stood there for a moment, gazing up at the structure as Liam pulled out his backpack and began to remove all the supplies we would need to scale the building.
“You know, I'm getting really fucking tired of having to climb things all the time,” he muttered, his German drawl becoming more apparent in his agitation.
“I think you're just getting pretty damn lazy,” I scolded as I flexed each of my ankles back and forth in order to limber up more.
“You're one to talk. You never carry the damn supplies.”
I paced back and forth, squeezing my eyes closes, trying to shut out the memory of that man's tongue in my mouth. My fault. All my fault. Don't complain about it. You could have just given the guy a damn cigarette. I pushed my own anxieties away and chuckled at Liam's comment. “Man up,” I hissed, slapping his ass for good measure.
He perked up. “Done.”
“Awesome,” I muttered, pursing my lips and stretching out my neck one last time. As I stood there, he took the liberty of securing the harness around my waist himself, lingering around my hipbone. I huffed as he brushed his hands across my butt. As he reached the last strap across my shoulder, I felt the soft peck of his kiss on my neck. My flesh tingled at his touch.
“What really happened to your face?” he asked as we began to climb.
I pursed my lips in concentration, having to expel extra effort because my muscles had been weakened from the fight. “Eh. The usual.”
“Is there such a thing as usual with you?” he demanded in that condescending way.
Hearts Aflame Collection III: 4-Book Bundle Page 1