Renegade Alpha (ALPHA 5)

by Carole Mortimer

  Fucking Peter’s daughter along the way was a bad idea on so many levels.

  Lijah needed to keep his senses sharp, focused on the mission in hand, not have his judgment clouded by having a constant hard-on for Callie Morgan. Taking care of the problem in the shower hadn’t been enough, and he had no reason to suppose taking her to bed just the once would be enough either.

  Which meant he shouldn’t be starting something if he wasn’t sure how to finish it. Because he would finish it. If his family wasn’t enough of a turnoff, then attachments were a definite no-no in his line of business. And he had a feeling Callie Morgan was the attachment sort of woman.

  “Get your things together,” he instructed her abruptly.

  “I— What about the food?” She looked totally bewildered by this sudden change of plans.

  “I’ll throw it in the bin outside on our way out. Just get your stuff and let’s go.” Lijah always kept a bag packed and ready to go in the closet near the door. He never knew, day or night, when he would be called out to deal with one of the more private security issues handled by Grayson Security.

  Today was no exception, despite the fact he had already been away for six days. He would merely swap one bag for another, and the laundry would just have to keep until he got back.

  Hell, no wonder Dair had decided to go into semiretirement now he was married to Kat. This being interrupted mid-fuck was beyond frustrating.

  Being with Callie 24/7 for the next few days was going to test and strain his self-control.

  By the time the executive jet touched down at the private airfield some miles out from Washington itself, Callie felt as if she had been put through a wringer and back again.

  Just this morning, she had still been in Cornwall, then spent the day in London, and now, with the five hours’ time difference and the ten-and-a-half-hour flight, she had arrived in Washington very late in the evening of the same day. She felt totally disoriented, as if she had been traveling for days instead of hours.

  She had spent the whole of that plane journey alone in the luxurious cabin fitted out with plush leather armchairs and a bar, and being waited on by a very smiley and beautiful brunette who introduced herself as Judy.

  A woman who made Callie very aware of the fact she had been wearing the same clothes for almost twenty-four hours, and that her hair and makeup were both sadly in need of attention too. She had a brush in her bag to take care of the hair problem, but makeup hadn’t been something Lijah thought to get for her when he sent someone out to shop earlier. Toiletries yes, makeup no. She doubted it was something he was going to want to trouble himself with once they reached Washington itself either.

  And the reason Callie had spent that plane journey alone?

  Because Lijah was in the cockpit, piloting the plane.

  He had sat in the front of the car beside the driver, with Callie in the back, on the journey to the airfield, and as soon as they stepped on board the streamlined and powerful jet, Lijah had a back-slapping greeting with the copilot before the two of them disappeared into the cockpit. After takeoff, when Callie asked the brunette where Lijah was, she had been told “flying the plane”—as if she was expected to already know.

  Neither he nor the copilot had made an appearance during the whole of the flight, not even to pee. No doubt another one of those things her father had taught his men. A strong bladder was essential when they could be stuck in the same place, unable to move for days rather than hours.

  Lijah actually flying the jet was still a surprise, though—Mr. Smith was turning out to be a man of many surprises and talents.

  Not least of them being the fact he was the most physically exciting man Callie had ever known. So much so that Lijah didn’t even need to touch her for her to want him. And when he had touched her…

  She didn’t have a great deal of experience when it came to men and sex. Her first had been a boy of her own age during her first year at university, the second during her final year. Just that one brief time with Lijah had shown her that he was far from being a boy, and that he knew exactly how to arouse her.

  Damn it, she blushed just thinking of the way she’d whimpered like a child being deprived of its favorite toy when Lijah pulled away so suddenly because he had heard Lucien Wynter’s chauffeur knocking on the door. Callie had been too aroused to hear anything but the wild beating of her own heart.

  She wondered when Lijah slept?

  She’d had a full night’s sleep before going up to London, and also dozed on the plane during the long flight to Washington. Lijah admitted to having only returned from…wherever, at six o’clock this morning, followed by a full day working, and now he’d been flying a plane for over ten hours.

  She knew from her father that he and his men were trained to go without sleep as well as without peeing for extended periods, if necessary, but even so…

  “Ready to go?”

  Lijah didn’t even look fatigued, Callie noted disgruntledly as she looked up and saw he was waiting for her near the open door of the plane, whereas she—she just wanted to fall into bed and sleep for twelve hours, longer if possible. It didn’t seem fair that Lijah still looked so damned hot he simply took her breath away.

  “Don’t we have to go through security first?”

  “Already done,” he dismissed.

  Obviously, Lucien Wynter—and guests on his jet—weren’t bothered with standing in a long queue to get into the country. Oh, the luxury of money and owning your own jet.

  “To my aunt’s house?” She unfastened her seat belt and stood up to stretch her tired body.

  Lijah decided that Callie was either a bad-tempered traveler or else she was still pissed at having their lovemaking cut short earlier. As the near-lovemaking had been hours ago, he could only assume it was the former. “Not here, Callie,” he told her pointedly. “We’ll talk in the car.”

  Her feet were planted firmly—stubbornly?—on the carpeted floor. “I want to know now.”

  “I said in the car, damn it.” Anyone with even the semblance of a survival instinct would have known by Lijah’s tone and the way his eyes were narrowed to dangerous slits not to push him any further tonight.

  “No.”

  Obviously, Callie hadn’t yet learned that sense of survival where he was concerned.

  “I advise you to move now.” Lijah’s voice went softer, not louder, when he was really angry, and at the moment, it was barely a whisper.

  “I said—” Callie didn’t get any further, as Lijah strode down the plane to pick her up and throw her over his shoulder before marching back toward the door.

  “Thanks for everything, Judy,” he bit out before stepping out of the plane and going lightly down the steps to the tarmac.

  “Put me down you—you barbarian!” Callie’s fists pummeled against his back.

  “That’s not even original,” he came back.

  She snorted even as she continued to pummel his back. “If you wanted original, then perhaps you shouldn’t have dragged me halfway round the world!”

  “Literally kicking and screaming?” Lijah taunted.

  “You’re nothing but a fuck— What the hell?” She gave a gasp of shock as a smack landed painfully on her jeans-clad bottom. No one, not even her father, had ever laid so much as a reproving finger on her before now.

  “It isn’t ladylike to swear.” His voice was hard, all humor gone.

  “Well, that’s just too fucking—”

  “Enough.” He administered another smack, harder this time.

  Callie felt the sting of it all the way to her core. The radiating heat and the rush of juices that followed took her completely by surprise. Was her traitorous body actually turned on by that smack? Incredible as it might seem to her, yes, it was.

  “Ah, the rare pleasure of a silent woman,” Lijah mocked as he opened the back door of the waiting car and all but threw Callie down onto the backseat. “Don’t push me right now, okay?” he warned softly, hands either side of he
r body as he loomed over her recumbent form.

  “Or what?” She looked up at him challengingly, hair a dark cloud about her shoulders.

  Or Lijah wasn’t going to be responsible for what happened next.

  He was tired and irritable, and feeling slightly wrong-footed from the lack of background information he had for this mission. He hated going into a situation virtually blind. He was still physically frustrated enough not to want to deal with a sassy or difficult Callie Morgan right now either. Fucking her in the back of the car on the tarmac would no doubt come under that heading of barbarian. “Or you might not like the consequences,” he assured her.

  “Ooh, is the big and scary Lijah Smith threatening me?” Sapphire-blue eyes glittered up at him scornfully.

  He gave an impatient shake of his head. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he snapped his irritation.

  “You’re what’s wrong with me!” She struggled to sit up before pushing herself back against the opposite door. “You’ve taken over my life, refuse to explain yourself, and I don’t like it. I don’t like you!”

  She might not like him, but she certainly still wanted him. Lijah could see that desire in the brightness of her eyes, the flush to her cheeks, and the parted fullness of her lips. And unless he was mistaken, those were hardened nipples he could see pressing against her sweater.

  Showing him that Callie wasn’t angry with him because he had “dragged her halfway around the world,” she was physically aroused and frustrated-as-hell angry with him because he hadn’t finished what he’d started earlier.

  Well, that made two of them, and if he could deal with it, then so could she.

  “We aren’t going to discuss where we’re going next until I can be sure we aren’t overheard, okay?”

  “Trust no one?” she challenged.

  “No.” He straightened to rest his arm along the top of the car as he looked in at her. “Now get a muzzle on that temper, or I’ll do it for you,” he warned tautly before stepping away and slamming the door closed.

  Callie had absolutely no idea what was wrong with her.

  Well…she did, she just didn’t understand it. There were so many other things for her to worry about: her father, the him from six months ago. In the circumstances, it was totally illogical for her to be so angry with the man who was trying to help her. She really had to get control of this irrational anger she felt toward Lijah, and not because he had just threatened her, but because she knew it was the right thing to do.

  It didn’t help her frustration that he was just so damned capable and in control. So much so it made Callie feel totally inadequate.

  In just a matter of hours, Lijah had found out more about her father’s whereabouts than she had been able to do in the whole of the previous week. More than that, he hadn’t wasted any time in flying them both to Washington to continue physically searching for her father.

  So why was she so angry with him?

  Because everything Lijah did made her admire and appreciate him more.

  And she didn’t want to admire and appreciate him.

  She didn’t want to like him.

  She didn’t want to want him.

  Which was where the true problem lay, Callie acknowledged heavily. The physical desire she’d felt for him earlier had returned with a vengeance the moment he stepped out of the cockpit of the plane looking so damned hot and so male. And there didn’t seem to be a damned thing she could do about her unprecedented reaction to him.

  Which was going to make the next few days in his company absolute torture.

  At the same time, she knew she couldn’t have asked for anyone better equipped to help her find her father.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled once Lijah climbed in behind the wheel of the car after stowing their luggage in the trunk. “I’m tired and a little cranky.”

  He glanced at her in the rearview mirror as he put the car in gear and drove toward the airport exit. “Forget about it.”

  Callie felt irritated all over again at the ease of his dismissal. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?” He seemed to know where he was headed as he turned left out onto an all-but-deserted country road. It was almost midnight, after all.

  “Georgetown.”

  Callie felt her tension return as she realized she had been right. They were going straight to her aunt’s house.

  Where they might possibly find her father.

  Alive?

  Or dead?

  Chapter 6

  As might be expected when her aunt and uncle were away, their town house in Georgetown was in darkness as Lijah parked the car out on the road rather than turning into the driveway itself.

  That darkness didn’t mean Callie’s father wasn’t inside, only that he didn’t want anyone to know the house was occupied.

  Lijah turned in his seat to look at her. “Wait here while I check the place out. Arguing is not an option,” he warned as she was about to do exactly that.

  “But— Don’t you need backup or—or something?” She sat forward anxiously.

  He gave a weary shake of his head. “Television has a lot to answer for.”

  Callie ignored him and persisted. “But don’t you?”

  “There’s you. And there’s me. I don’t see any backup there, do you?” He looked at her with derision.

  She bristled. “I’m more capable than I look.”

  Lijah gave another sigh. “Like you, I’m tired. All I want to do is check the place out and then go to sleep for eight hours solid.”

  “What about the alarm system?” Knowing her Uncle Jonathan, it would be state-of-the-art.

  Lijah gave her a mocking glance beneath his lowered brow. “Haven’t found a security system yet I can’t break through.”

  “Yes, but—do you have a gun?”

  “Don’t you know it’s illegal to carry a weapon in a country where you aren’t licensed to carry one?”

  “You have a gun.” It was a satisfied statement, not a question.

  “I have a gun.” He nodded.

  “Where?” Callie checked him over. As far as she could see, there was absolutely nowhere for him to hide a weapon beneath the formfitting black T-shirt or jeans. There was that bulge in the front of his jeans, of course—

  “It’s in my boot,” Lijah drawled dryly, as if he had guessed in exactly which direction her thoughts—and her eyes—were heading.

  “Oh.” Color heated her cheeks.

  “I have another one in my bag in the trunk of the car, but hopefully I won’t need to use either one of them.” He turned to open the door beside him but hesitated before getting out of the car. “Are you going to behave and stay here?”

  “Unless I hear gunshots, in which case—”

  “In which case, you’ll get the hell out of here,” he told her grimly. “Is that understood?”

  “I’m sure that tone of voice usually works on raw recruits and women who like to be dominated by a man, but my father was a major in the British army, remember, and it doesn’t work on me,” she assured him pertly.

  Lijah stared at her incredulously. Something he seemed to do a lot around this particular woman.

  Women who like to be dominated?

  What the hell did Callie think he was? He liked to be in charge as much as the next man, but when it came to going to bed with a woman, he liked the ones who gave as good as they got.

  Women who liked to be dominated?

  Jesus!

  He gave a disgusted shake of his head. “I’m not your father, and widening those big blue eyes and fluttering your lashes won’t work on me.”

  “Big blue eyes?” She spluttered. “Fluttering my lashes?”

  “Not going to work,” Lijah confirmed. “Now be a good girl and stay here like I told you to.”

  Her eyes glittered. “If someone else doesn’t shoot you first, then I might eventually have to!”

  “You can shoot?”

  “Told you I was more capable than I look.”
She gave a tight smile. “My father insisted on teaching me to shoot when I was fourteen.”

  And, as Lijah knew, Peter was a very good teacher. “You would still have to catch me first.” He gave an unconcerned shrug.

  “You have to sleep some time.”

  “Vicious little thing, aren’t you?”

  “Surprising how you seem to bring that trait out in me, isn’t it?” she came back with saccharin sweetness.

  How perverse was it that he was actually chuckling at Callie threatening to shoot him?

  Very, came the answer.

  When had he last given a genuine smile, let alone laughed?

  It had been so long, Lijah actually couldn’t remember.

  He sobered. “I’m not expecting any trouble, but I meant what I said, Callie. If you hear shots or I’m gone longer than ten minutes, then you get the hell out of here. You go to the police and tell them what happened. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, sir!” She gave him a mock salute.

  “Sarcasm too now,” he muttered as he climbed out of the car and closed the door behind him before reaching down to take the gun out of his boot; probably best to leave the .44 Magnum in the trunk of the car for now.

  He looked up at the town house. Security box on the front of the house. Painted white, blinds drawn on all the windows. Three stories high. No lights visible on any of them. Looked as if no one was home.

  But looks, as Lijah knew only too well, could be deceptive.

  Callie hated—absolutely hated—the feeling of helplessness as Lijah moved stealthily to the side of the house before disappearing as his dark clothing blended into the shadows.

  What if she did hear gunshots?

  If Lijah really thought she was going to run off and leave him here, then he was in for a shock. No matter how forcefully he might have instructed her to do exactly that. Her father had a rule for when he went in combat, openly or stealthily, and that rule was “never leave a man behind.” This might not be the sort of combat her father had in mind, but Callie had no intention of saving herself by leaving Lijah behind either.

  Lijah had said his other gun was in his bag in the trunk of the car. Maybe if she crept quietly out of the car and found the other gun, she could follow him—