by Cynthia Eden
Just for the hell of it, he decided to be honest. “No.”
And the fear came back to her pretty face.
***
Kurt Taggert paced in front of the bar. The Blade had cleared out—his men had emptied out the damn place right after Elizabeth Ward had vanished with that bastard Saxon. His nose had finally stopped bleeding—Saxon had broken it, and he’d be sure to pay the jerk back.
As soon as we find him.
The guy’s motorcycle had been found, with its trademark skulls on the sides of the ride, but Saxon had gone to ground some place in the city. The guy had a reputation for being one crazy bad-ass, a man you weren’t supposed to ever cross. Kurt normally wouldn’t be going up against him, but this wasn’t a normal situation.
He had to get Elizabeth Ward back.
His phone rang. Kurt looked down, and when he saw the number flashing on the screen, he started to sweat. “H-hey, man,” Kurt said when he answered the call. “You didn’t—”
“Is she dead?” The flat, hard voice demanded.
Fuck me. I am so screwed. “There’s been an…incident.”
Silence. “She’s dead.”
She should be.
“An insane bastard named Saxon Black took her.” Didn’t that mean she was as good as dead? Kurt figured Saxon would screw her, then eliminate her.
“What?”
“He…wanted her.” He’d seen the guy’s gaze rake Elizabeth’s body. Sure, she was pretty enough for a fast fuck, but to take down Kurt’s men? Just to screw her? Saxon really was a crazy—
“She’s not dead.”
That icy tone had Kurt’s stomach knotting. Normally, it took a whole hell of a lot to scare him, but this man—this man had power. Power that Kurt needed. If he turns on me, I’m done.
“I paid you ten thousand dollars to kill her. That’s what you do, right? You kill people.”
Kurt heard the creak of the floor behind him. He whirled around, and that tricky bastard was right there, with the phone at his ear. Kurt had never even heard the fellow walk in. He really is as good as they say.
“Killing people isn’t so hard,” the guy said as he lowered the phone. He put it into his pocket—only to immediately bring his hand back up. This time, that hand was holding a knife. “It goes something like this…”
Kurt tried to grab his own weapon, but the guy had already attacked. The knife sank into his chest and Kurt slammed into the bar. He looked down and saw the blood covering his shirt.
“See? Not hard at all.”
Kurt hit the floor. He slammed down, hitting the dirty concrete floor of The Blade face-first.
“Never pay someone for the job you can do yourself.”
Kurt’s body felt cold.
“Your screw-up won’t be tied to me.”
“The…the FBI—” That was all he could manage. The pain was burning through him.
His attacker laughed. “They didn’t see me come in. You’re the one who screwed up. You knew the FBI was keeping tabs on you—I told you that shit—and you still just brought that woman right in the back door! People saw you!”
He’d been…following orders. He’d thought the guy standing over him—the man who’d just knifed him—would help to protect him.
You really can’t trust anyone in this world.
And the bastard just left him there. With every painful breath that Kurt tried to suck in, he could feel his blood pouring out of him. He fought to hold on to life, for just a few more moments because he didn’t want to go out like this. Not on the floor, not with booze and trash around him. He was better than this. He had plans. He was so much…better.
Every second seemed to stretch for an hour. Each breath was a painful saw from his lungs. He tried to crawl forward, but his hands just slipped over the floor. He cried out, but there was no one there to hear him.
All of my men…are out hunting. I’m going to…die alone.
His heart was still beating, and with every beat, more blood pushed from his body. He was in a growing pool of his own blood, and he was so cold.
His eyes were sagging. He fought to keep them open. Then he heard the rush of footsteps. Coming fast. He tried to turn his head toward the sound, but he couldn’t move.
“FBI!” A voice blasted.
If he could have, Kurt would have laughed then at the freaking irony. He was dying, and now the FBI was coming to bust him. Too late, asshole. Too late.
“Kurt Taggert?” That voice demanded, then the guy started swearing.
He was flipped over and Kurt looked up. A man with dark hair and blue eyes glared at him. “You’re going to die on me?”
Yeah, he was. At least that meant no one would be shoving him into a jail cell.
“Who did this?” The guy demanded. “Who shot you?” And the agent even put his hands on Kurt’s chest, like he was going to help him.
He was long past help. He couldn’t even feel the man’s touch. He couldn’t feel anything. Funny…he’d killed so many people and he’d never even wondered…is there anything after death?
Fear trickled through him. He tried to speak. Maybe jail wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it would be better than what waited after death. Kurt tried to tell the agent about the man who’d knifed him but…
Too late.
Chapter Three
“Where are you going to sleep?” Elizabeth asked as she stood near the too-big bed. The adrenaline high had faded from her body, and exhaustion pulled at her. But before she collapsed, she had to do one thing—make certain Saxon isn’t planning to climb into the bed with me.
His eyes, so dark and deep, drifted toward the bed. “Where do you think?”
No way. “You can’t sleep with me!”
Saxon’s lips quirked. His lips were…sexy. It was ridiculous to notice that, but she did. Sculpted and firm, his lips had fit so well against her own. Do not go there, woman! Yes, she was seriously exhausted. So exhausted that she was having crazy, sexual thoughts.
“Come on now, sweetheart, there’s plenty of room for the two of us in that bed.”
No, there wasn’t. Sure, the bed was big, but Saxon was huge. If they were both in that bed, their bodies would be touching. Legs, arms—twining. The mental images flooded through her mind, and Elizabeth felt her cheeks burn. Frantic now, she grabbed a pillow and the faded bedcover and sank to her knees on the floor. “I’ll just bunk down here then, and you can take the—ah!”
He’d put his hands under her elbows and lifted her up. The guy’s strength was really impressive—not that she was the type to be impressed. But he held her so easily, lifting her up until they were on eye level. “You aren’t sleeping on the floor.”
His voice had deepened even more. Turned to more of a growl.
She swallowed. She shouldn’t have found that growl sexy. The man was scary. Her mind should be screaming warnings at her and not slipping her little fantasies about the guy. Maybe she was going crazy.
He lowered her onto the bed. “I’m not that much of a dick, no matter what you think. Stay in the bed. I wasn’t planning on getting much sleep anyway.” Then he…he tucked her in. His hands were oddly tender as he arranged the pillow beneath her head and then pulled up the covers. She was still wearing her clothes—like she’d been going to ditch them—and his fingers skated lightly down her arms.
She thought he might try to kiss her. Try to touch her somewhere else. Try to—
“You’re safe.”
He turned off the lights.
She blinked a few fast and frantic times as she tried to adjust to the darkness. Then she saw his shadowy form lowering to the floor beside the bed. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Silence then… “Ah, there it is. I knew that, sooner or later, you’d get around to saying those sweet words.”
Tears wanted to fill her eyes because she realized that the man down there—the man who scared her—was actually her savior. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d be dead.”
“Yes.”<
br />
Well, he wasn’t pulling any punches.
“And it wouldn’t have been an easy death,” Saxon continued, his deep voice filling that dark room. “The thing about Kurt Taggert…people don’t just hire him to kill. They hire him to torture. To make his victims hurt.”
His words chilled her. Elizabeth turned onto her side and found herself inching closer to him in the dark. “You sound as if…as if you’re speaking from personal experience.”
“He killed someone I know.”
She remembered what he’d said back at the bar. “Jenny.”
More silence. She didn’t like his silence. She liked the rumble of his voice. Elizabeth cleared her throat. “He killed your…friend, Jenny?” Because Kurt had called her an FBI turncoat. And since Saxon was FBI, too—
“He hurt Jenny. He found out that she was working undercover, and he took her…before I could do anything to help her.”
There was pain in his voice. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to take that pain away. Instead, her fingers fisted around her covers. “I’m sorry.”
“So the fuck am I. Jenny had a family. A husband who loved her. Now that husband has to bury her.” His words were growled out, his fury evident. “Jenny wasn’t made for undercover work. Some people just can’t handle it—becoming someone else for so long. She made a mistake, Kurt caught it, and he caught her.”
Her lips pressed together. I would have died if it hadn’t been for Saxon. The truth was sinking in and terrifying her now that they were cocooned in the darkness of the room. “You…you were working undercover.” Because Kurt had been afraid of Saxon when the guy first burst into that back room at The Blade.
“Yes.”
“How long have you been on this case?” A case that had obviously been designed to bring down Taggert.
“Long enough.”
That wasn’t an answer. “Is your name really Saxon?”
“My legal name? Hell, no, but legal doesn’t matter, does it? I’ve been undercover for so long, I’m not even sure I can remember who the hell I really am. Or what I really look like. My hair changes, my eyes change—everything changes with each case. Some days, I almost forget who is staring back at me from the mirror.”
She had the urge to touch him again. What was up with that? Elizabeth kept wanting to soothe him but the guy was definitely not the soothing type. “How am I supposed to repay you?” she whispered.
“You could fuck me.”
Her jaw dropped.
And he laughed. “I wish I could see your face right now.”
Her cheeks were burning again. “I’m not having sex with you as payment!”
“Good…because I don’t pay for sex.”
But he’d just said—
“Teasing you is so much fun.”
Her eyes squeezed closed. “Good night, Saxon.” Her words held an edge of their own.
“Good night, Elizabeth.”
She shivered. It was the first time he’d actually called her by name. Such a low, rough voice. A voice that seemed to perfectly fit the darkness.
“And if you get scared, just remember, I’m here.”
She kept her eyes closed and slowly, so slowly, she slipped into sleep.
***
“Victor?”
He turned at the voice and saw the two best agents on his team walking toward him. Tracy Adams and Gary Warren. Tracy had gotten out of the Academy just two years ago, but the redhead had more than proven herself on the cases she’d been given. Smart, dedicated, and not afraid to get her hands bloody, Tracy always got the job done.
In many ways, Gary was Tracy’s opposite. He’d been working for the Bureau over fifteen years, but he’d just joined Victor’s team a little less than two years ago. And field work, well, it wasn’t exactly his specialty. The guy preferred to work in the wings, hunched over a computer as he called the shots from a safe distance. He was Victor’s eyes and ears on so many of the undercover cases, thanks to all of his gadgets.
And those eyes and ears should have been watching Taggert. Victor glared at Gary. “How the hell did this happen?”
Tracy slanted a fast glance at her partner.
“All you had to do was keep the guy alive,” Victor said as his hands waved toward the stiff on the floor. “I mean, you were wired to this place. Why the hell didn’t I know he was dead?” He’d busted in the place, ready to take down Taggert, and the guy had been in a pool of his own blood.
Gary’s chin lifted and his face paled, but he held Victor’s stare. “Because someone cut my feeds. I was trying to get them back up and running, but then you pulled in and—you found him.”
Victor’s fury surged. “If someone cut the feeds, why didn’t you storm inside?” Right damn away?
Now Gary looked at Tracy.
She swallowed. “I did, sir. I did a visual sweep. The area looked secure, so I went back out and told Gary he had more time for the repair work. We were watching the front door and the back door, so the guy wasn’t going to get out—”
Victor’s hands dropped. “He was dead. There was no point in him going out.” But the killer had gotten out. Just waltzed right past them all. “Tell me you saw the man who did this.”
Tracy and Gary were silent.
“Not fucking good,” Victor snarled at them.
Gary backed up a step. Tracy’s chin lifted. She didn’t retreat, not ever. That was one of the things Victor liked about her.
“Saxon has Elizabeth Ward in protective custody now,” Victor said. Tracy and Gary hadn’t even realized that Saxon had been working the big Taggert case until about twenty-four hours ago. Saxon had been in deep cover, and his status had been on a need-to-know basis. But when it came time for Saxon to get wired up, Victor had informed the other two agents about Saxon’s role. When Victor had wired up Saxon, he’d needed to bring them into the loop.
Then things went to shit when we saw Taggert dragging Elizabeth Ward into The Blade.
But, hell, at least they’d managed to save the girl. “He got her out, and I set them up in the Moontree Motel.” He knew they’d both know the place. His team had used the location before because it was so very good at being an off-the-radar spot. “But we need to help Saxon. We need to find out why the hell someone is after Ms. Ward.” They had to find out and stop the SOB.
Gary nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m on it,” Tracy said.
They rushed away, and Victor turned back as Taggert was hauled out in a body bag.
***
Saxon stretched out on the floor. His hands were behind his head, the only cushion that he had. He’d spent the night in much worse places. Much better ones, too.
Elizabeth was asleep. Her breathing had finally evened out, and she’d escaped her fears as she sank into her dreams. He wondered if she’d have good dreams or if nightmares would come to haunt her.
Saxon had one dream. The same dream he’d had for years.
Yeah, I do…I want to get the hell out of undercover work. I want to stop looking over my shoulder every moment and wondering if I’m going to blow my cover. I want something good. Something not tainted by evil…something that is mine.
The flash of headlights illuminated the motel room, and he tensed. A car door slammed a few moments later, and he heard the thud of approaching footsteps. But those steps didn’t stop at room number thirteen. They kept walking, and some of the battle-ready tension eased from his body.
He shifted his position a bit, and Saxon closed his eyes. He should try to get a little sleep, too. Victor would be checking in soon, and then their time at the no-tell-motel would be at an end. It would be—
The floor squeaked, the faintest sound that could have just been the building settling. It could have been nothing, but Saxon knew the squeak for the threat it was. His eyes shot open and, in the dark, he could just make out the shadowy form that had slipped through what should have been a locked connecting door to the room. That figure was rushing toward the bed.
>
You don’t even see me on the floor, do you, asshole? That was the guy’s mistake. Saxon yanked out the knife from his boot, and he threw it. The blade sank into the fellow’s shoulder and he let out a pain-filled yell.
The sound immediately woke Elizabeth and she jerked up-right with her own scream.
But Saxon was already moving. The knife hadn’t taken out their unwelcome visitor, and the guy was lifting his weapon. Saxon launched his body at Elizabeth and they rolled right off the bed even as the blast of gunfire filled the room.
When they hit the floor, he was on top of Elizabeth, their bodies pressed intimately close. “Don’t move,” he ordered, but he didn’t have time to make sure she obeyed. Keeping low, he rushed back toward the jerk who’d snuck into the room—the jerk who was way too damn trigger happy. Saxon moved fast and used his strong night vision to his advantage. When the guy tried to swing his weapon toward Saxon, it was too late. He grabbed the guy’s wrist, twisted until he heard the snap, and the gun fell to the floor. Then Saxon yanked the knife from the guy’s shoulder and put it at the fellow’s throat.
That move stopped the idiot from fighting him.
“Who the hell are you?” Saxon demanded.
The lights flashed on around him. What the hell?
He glanced back over his shoulder. Elizabeth had moved. She was standing up, and she’d been the one to turn on the lights.
The guy in his grasp started laughing. “Doesn’t matter who I am. You’re the dead one. Dead, dead—”
Saxon yelled, “Get down!” to Elizabeth at the exact same moment he yanked the laughing bastard in front of him, using the guy as a human shield. A second later, gunfire erupted, littering the motel room. The man’s body jerked against Saxon when the bullets hit him. Bullets that had been intended to kill Saxon…and Elizabeth.
When the gunfire stopped, he dropped the guy. The man was still alive, but Saxon wasn’t sure how long that would be the case without medical intervention. Saxon crawled for Elizabeth as fast as he could. Be alive. Be alive! Once the gunfire had erupted, he’d heard no sound from her.
The lights were still on. Too bright. Giving whoever was outside too much of an advantage. The thin shade would be no help—any watchers outside would be able to see right through it with those lights blazing.