Intense Pleasure

by Lora Leigh

  Oh God, what had she done?

  Lifting her gaze, she felt a flush burn from her neck to her hairline, horror filling her at the sight of her daddy glaring at Raeg from where he stood, half in and half out of the shield of willow limbs that trailed along the ground. Behind him, Falcon lifted his head to the heavens, his eyes closing momentarily before his head lowered again and he too met her gaze.

  Arousal, satisfaction, and compassion mixed in the pale blue of his eyes.

  Still fighting to breathe, she looked from Raeg, to Falcon, then back to her daddy in horror as she struggled to her feet, feeling as though she were coming off a drunk that made no sense.

  “I…” she swallowed tightly.

  Oh God, what could she say? How could she ever explain her total lack of control? That she’d actually let her daddy catch her …

  She was completely mortified.

  “You’re a grown woman, Summer,” Raeg told her softly without looking at her. “I’d think explanations aren’t needed.”

  Her daddy just looked at him. Just gave him one of those long, disappointed looks that could make his own children feel five again.

  “They aren’t needed,” she assured him brokenly, feeling her throat tightening with tears and regret. “But a woman should have an excuse for letting a man that’s so disrespectful to her daddy actually handle her with such familiarity.”

  Her breathing hitched as she felt her hands shaking, felt the little girl and the woman standing in such conflict now that she had no idea how to handle it.

  Her daddy just shook his head before turning his gaze to her. His look was gentle but watchful, as though he suddenly didn’t quite know what to expect of her.

  As though he didn’t know her.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy.” Pushing her fingers through her hair, she glanced at Raeg’s back, then at Falcon’s hardening expression. “I’m very sorry. This was the wrong place…” She dropped her gaze, shaking her head. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, then turned and rushed from beneath the tree, unable to meet his gaze, Falcon’s, or Raeg’s.

  Oh Lord, she just couldn’t believe this. She’d never be able to face her daddy again.

  * * *

  The wrong place …

  At least she hadn’t said he was the wrong man, Raeg thought as he met her father’s gaze again, refusing to back down in the silent war that seemed to be going on between them.

  “Go after her, Falcon,” Cal ordered, his voice low. “Don’t let her cry.”

  “Yes sir.” Throwing Raeg another hard glare, Falcon turned and obeyed just like some damned pup conditioned to obedience. Was there something in the damned water here? Something that made grown men and women jump to this man’s command?

  “Aunjenue,” the elder Calhoun called out.

  “Yes, Daddy?” If Raeg wasn’t mistaken, there was the slightest bit of amusement in the girl’s tone.

  “Get your ass to the house, girl, and stop eavesdroppin’,” he ordered her firmly.

  “Yes, Daddy.” Instant fucking obedience.

  Cal leaned heavily on the walking stick he carried, clasping it with both hands, despite the fact that he stood perfectly straight and tall, his expression thoughtful.

  “If you’re waiting for an apology, it’s not coming, Mr. Calhoun,” Raeg informed the older man. “I’d say Summer just did enough groveling for the both of us.”

  Summer’s father nodded slowly. “I didn’t imagine it was,” he finally said. “A man who can’t see his woman’s love for her family wouldn’t understand why one was needed, even when it was.”

  The subtle insult wasn’t lost on Raeg, it was just ignored.

  “She’s not my woman.” The words were pushed out between clenched teeth. Deliberately. “I told you, I have no claim on her.”

  Some glint of satisfaction filled the other man’s gaze then. Whatever caused it, Raeg wasn’t certain, but he could feel his gut tightening in foreboding with it.

  “Good then,” he declared, that satisfaction filling his voice. “That’s damned good then. No hard feelings, boy. My girl has more common sense than most. You might fool her for a bit, but she’ll wake up. When she does, she’ll kick your ass to the curb and send you packing, I have no doubt. I’ll say good evening then. See ya’ll in the morning.”

  Turning, he let the limbs fall back in place, leaving Raeg standing in the darkened interior, confused, wondering what the hell that meant.

  And the satisfaction in the older man’s gaze? He was damned glad Raeg had no intention of claiming Summer. Happy even.

  Raeg’s fists clenched at his side, his jaw aching because his teeth were clenched so tight.

  He’d be damned. Caleb Calhoun Sr. didn’t think Raeg was good enough for his pretty little daughter. Now, didn’t that just beat it all?

  * * *

  Summer left her parents’ home well after dark and returned to her own house, her brother following her until she disappeared into the house and locked up. She was mortified her daddy had caught her in such a compromising position. Why, if she even thought she’d nearly caught her momma and daddy getting so personal, she’d just die.

  Having her daddy actually catch her? It was so shameful she could barely face him when she’d left her sister’s room to head home and met him at the bottom of the stairs.

  Thankfully, he acted as though it had never happened. No lecture. No disappointed looks. He’d kissed her cheek and called for her brother to walk her home before telling her good night.

  Fog was already beginning to gather at the darkest edges of the wetlands beyond the house where swamp and marsh came together to create the unique mystery of the land she’d been born to.

  Cypress dripping with moss, marsh grass growing alongside it in some areas before disappearing beneath the deeper, darker waters teaming with a variety of life. Gators bellowed into the dark, joining the other sounds of the night to create a symphony that could be found nowhere else.

  Closing the door, she leaned against it for a long moment, eyes closed. Her life was simply becoming a mess, she thought, shaking her head as she straightened, her eyes opening.

  She narrowed her gaze into the darkness of the living room then, her lips tightening at the knowledge of who watched her silently.

  “I’m sorry, Summer.” Raeg stepped from the darkness of the living room, a drink in one hand, the other rubbing at the back of his neck. He was apologizing, but there was no regret in his voice or in his eyes.

  She walked in, staring back at him heavily for long moments.

  It wasn’t just his disrespect of her father and her relationship with him that bothered her. It was the fact that in all the years he’d known her, he hadn’t even suspected that she wasn’t the cold-hearted agent, the killer, and social barracuda she’d played in DC.

  Even god-daddy and her dearest friend in the world, Alyssa, had known better. Hell, even Falcon knew better. But Raeg hadn’t even suspected.

  Because he hadn’t wanted to know.

  “Don’t worry about it, Raeg,” she finally told him, sliding her hands into the pockets hidden at the seam of her dress. “Daddy’s fine. He didn’t feel offended at all actually.” She shrugged helplessly. “I was the one who was offended.”

  He frowned back at her. “How the hell did I offend you?” he demanded. “For God’s sake, Summer, what we did together with Falcon in that bed upstairs didn’t offend you, but kissing you under a tree did?”

  His complete lack of a sense of decorum in such situations simply astounded her, she thought, staring back at him in disbelief.

  “That’s my daddy, Raeg,” she tried to explain. Just this one time, she was going to try. “I knew that was his favorite tree, but I still let that happen. And I found it in very poor taste that you should think I shouldn’t be embarrassed that my daddy caught me letting a man handle me. That was simply unacceptable from both of us.”

  His eyes widened for a second before he blinked and shook his head as though he
couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.

  “Dammit, Summer. You’re a grown woman, not a teenager,” he cursed, which just made her mad all over again.

  She wasn’t going to argue with him though, she told herself again.

  “In my own home, I’m a woman,” she informed him, lifting her chin and glaring back at him. “What I do behind closed doors is my own damned business. But I will always be a little girl to that man who caught you bein’ so intimate with me, and it’s simply unacceptable that you don’t understand that.”

  Oh, she knew him so well.

  Her arms crossed over her breasts defensively at the look on his face. She so was not going to like whatever he was preparing to say.

  “The same man that let some bastard nearly rape you when you were twelve?” The glass he held slapped to the sideboard next to him, his knowledge of that shocking her. “Where was he when Margot and Davis Allen flew out here and took you out of his home because he was too goddamned drunk to protect his daughter?”

  Summer flinched.

  The pain that struck her went clear to her soul. It burned and razed through her with a force she didn’t bother to fight. Not because of what might have happened or almost happened. Or because her daddy might have been weak for a single moment during his entire life.

  “Where he was doesn’t matter,” she cried, pointing a shaking finger back at him furiously. “Don’t you ever, ever question him again. You don’t have that right. You don’t know him and you damned sure don’t know me, and we’re both well aware you have no desire to. Why don’t you just go home instead of staying here, when everyone can tell you damned sure don’t want to be here, Raeg? Why are you putting both of us through this?”

  Turning, she rushed to the stairs and ran up them, anger and pain building inside her, pride and need warring inside her until she felt it tearing her apart inside.

  Reaching the top of the stairs, she came to a hard stop at the sight of Falcon standing silently, his expression somber in the doorway of the room closest to the stairs. No doubt he’d heard every word.

  “You’re just as bad,” she told him raggedly. “And I’m no better. Maybe both of you should just leave. I’d rather deal with Dragovich myself than to have my heart shredded like this.”

  Rushing past him, she promised herself she wasn’t going to cry. Neither one of them deserved her tears.

  Tonight, she’d never felt less like the agent, the killer Raeg thought she was, or the woman she’d showed to the political elite she socialized with.

  There had been days she’d been sickened by the life she’d once thought she wanted so much. An agent, kick-ass adventures by the dozens, she thought mockingly as she slammed her bedroom door behind her.

  And she hadn’t been able to stand herself by the time it was over. Standing in a chapel, staring at the woman she’d killed, the woman she’d thought was a friend, Summer had known she was finished. Because she’d been so determined to be someone she wasn’t, to fit into a life she’d already known wasn’t hers, she hadn’t been able to see the truth of who and what she was allowing to happen to herself.

  And she wouldn’t let it happen again.

  Never again.

  She wouldn’t be the woman Raeg thought she was just so he and Falcon would be comfortable with her. She would not be less of a daughter, less of a sister or a friend, just because he wanted someone that didn’t exist.

  She was Summer Dawn Calhoun, she was not Summer Bartlett. And Raeg was just going to have to accept there wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to get what he wanted. She never wanted to be Summer Bartlett ever again.

  * * *

  Falcon made his way downstairs, his heart heavy at the thought of the pain he’d seen in Summer’s face as she raced past him. He’d be angry, he acknowledged, if he wasn’t very well aware of the conflict also warring inside his brother.

  “Don’t start,” Raeg warned him from where he stood next to the French doors leading from the living room to the wide wraparound porch.

  Moving to the bar, Falcon poured a drink in the dim light, took a fortifying sip, then walked to the opposite side of the door frame, looking out onto the drifting tendrils of fog.

  He’d been watching the emerging impatience Raeg was feeling where Summer was concerned for a while. It had begun coming to a head in DC the year before, while Summer had been at the Hampstead estate to help protect her friend, Alyssa, the senator’s daughter.

  Summer and Alyssa had been friends since they were five. Alyssa’s mother Margot had actually been instrumental in Summer’s training and her eventual placement in the CIA. Not that Summer had really fit in with the agency. She hadn’t. In the space of eight years she’d gone from the CIA, to the FBI, the DEA, and then to the private security firm Falcon headed. But even in that less-structured atmosphere, she hadn’t found what she was looking for—and hadn’t realized it was the very thing she’d left behind in Georgia.

  With maturity, Summer had begun missing home. Falcon had seen it, acknowledged it, despite the fact that he hadn’t wanted to. It was Raeg who still couldn’t see it, Raeg who hadn’t yet realized the woman he was determined to protect, even from them, was the only woman who was going to complete either one of them.

  But Falcon had to admit that acknowledging it didn’t make it easier to accept the fact that they’d have to let her go when this was over. They simply didn’t have a choice.

  “You know,” he murmured quietly, “her father hasn’t had a drink since the night Davis Allen and Margot flew out of Georgia with Summer all those years ago.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, remembering well the night Margot had told him about the fact that Summer couldn’t identify who had tried to rape her. “Caleb and the boys were given a month’s leave when the senator made a few calls. But when they got home, Cal was sober as a judge. He’s not had a drink since.”

  “Fuck him,” Raeg snarled. “She was a baby, and he was passed out fucking drunk, his wife out God only knows where, and Summer nearly paid the price…”

  “Shut your fucking mouth, Raeg!” Falcon’s voice never rose, it deepened, became savage in the guttural growl that filled it. “And keep your opinion of her father as well as her family damned quiet or risk destroying a woman who does not deserve it. One who will gladly force us to leave her home, and leave her undefended against Dragovich, if you continue to insult her father. Should she do that, and if anything—anything!—happened to her, I don’t know that I’d survive it.”

  Raeg could only stare back at him in shock. No threats, no demands, simply that. The admission, finally, that she was more to Falcon than any other woman had ever been.

  “I’m not going to threaten you to stay,” Falcon said several minutes later, his voice still low, though not as enraged. “I know your reasons for striking out at her, I know the horror you alone faced, and nothing can change that for you. You’ll always be my brother, Raeg, and I don’t want to change that. But if you can’t protect her without hurting her like this, then I ask you to go, and I will find someone who can help me without striking at her over what cannot be. I understand,” he said softly, compassionately. “Go. No harm, no foul. I’ll find someone to watch our backs. Summer has enough friends that such will not be hard to do.”

  As he spoke, Falcon watched as Raeg seemed to stiffen from his heels to his hair. It was kind of amusing to watch when his brother got all worked up inside like that.

  “The last time the two of you went off to save God and country alone, she almost ended up dead, and you would have died beside her if you couldn’t have gotten her out of there,” Raeg bit out in disgust as he pointed a finger at Falcon furiously. “I can only imagine what would happen if I leave the two of you alone here with her crazy-ass family.” He gestured outside with the hand holding his drink before bringing it to his lips.

  It was tearing Raeg apart inside though, and Falcon knew it. Regretted it.

  “I won’t have her hurt in such a way again, Raeg, I’
ve already warned you about that. Just because you’re my brother doesn’t mean I’ll put up with it,” Falcon snapped. “Get your head out of your ass and at least give her, give us, a few memories to hold on to when this is over. Something that will ease the pain of losing her instead of making it worse.”

  Raeg’s gaze met his, the dark, golden brown gaze reflecting the emotions and his battle against feeling anything more for Summer than he’d felt for any other woman. And Raeg simply didn’t understand that it was far too late to stop it.

  “She doesn’t belong here—” Raeg snapped.

  “Yes, she does,” Falcon broke in firmly, surprised his brother hadn’t realized it long before they had arrived in Georgia with her. “That’s what’s pissing you off so much. You’re sensing what I already knew. Summer’s home, and you hate it. But you refuse to see why.”

  Because they couldn’t keep her, they couldn’t stay here with her. When it was over, they’d have no choice but to walk away, and Raeg was fighting that, even though he knew it to be the truth.

  “And I guess you have all the damned answers,” he snarled, his rough-hewn expression angry, suspicious. “Why don’t you just tell me what you think I don’t know, Falcon?”

  Oh, he knew exactly why his brother hated it so damned much, and why he refused to acknowledge it. So many of Raeg’s emotions were trapped inside him, buried so damned deep that now that they were trying to emerge, his brother simply had no idea what to do with them.

  “What do I think you don’t know?” Falcon chuckled. “What I know, Raeg, is this. Each year since we first met her, the need you have for her has only grown. Just as mine has. It’s because of our past, our legacy, that we can’t have her, and like me, it’s eating your guts alive. But I won’t allow you to eat her alive because of it.”

  “For God’s sake, could we at least keep things on the edge of reality, Falcon?” He sighed in disgust. “Just this once?”

  Rather than simply telling Falcon he was right, that he ached for Summer just as desperately as his brother did, Raeg used the same line he’d been relying on for years.