by Cindy Dees
“Put me down!”
“Good. Do that again.”
She pounded his chest with her fists. “I’m serious. Put. Me. Down.”
“Sorry, honey. Can’t. I really need you to come with me.”
Chapter 8
“This is kidnapping!” Jennifer exclaimed indignantly.
“Kinda sexy, isn’t it?”
Sexy? The word stopped her cold. Darned if it wasn’t sexy being around a man who could pick her up and haul her off in his private jet like this. “Damn you,” she gritted out from between clenched teeth.
He grinned down at her. “You are so hot when you’re all worked up like this.”
“Oooh!” she punched him in the jaw as hard as she could from her awkward position in his arms.
“Oww! Now that’s carrying the act a little far.” They’d reached the plane and he eased her body down the front of his in a delicious slide that stole her breath away. But his steely arm remained wrapped securely around her waist.
He called to the pilot, “Time to go. I know it’s not procedure, but we’ll be shot down if we dawdle.”
The idea of being shot down sent the copilot hurrying toward the door.
“In we go,” Jeff murmured to her.
She fought in earnest then. No way was she letting him force her into his jet. But she should’ve known better. He merely picked her up, this time in a muscular vise so tight she could hardly breathe, let alone move.
“No one’s coming for us. And no one’s going to shoot us down,” she exclaimed.
Gemma and Leland were already aboard and humiliation swamped her to have them see Jeff carrying her like this. But the two merely made a production of gazing out the windows.
Jeff dropped her into an oversize leather seat and wrapped a seat belt around her. His hands fumbling in her lap were too much to stand. She grabbed the buckle from him and latched it herself while the first engine started.
“You may be expendable to your government, Jenn, but you’re not to me. I don’t plan to stick around here and find out if having you aboard is sufficient to stop them from shooting us down.”
“Really, you’re carrying this conspiracy theory too far.”
“We’ll see.”
The second engine cranked up. The plane taxied a short distance, and raced down the runway. It lifted off, staying low as it banked over the ocean and picked up speed.
“Incoming!” the copilot called.
Jennifer looked out her window and spied a trio of wakes in the water below. Cold washed over her. The photo analyst in her recognized in an instant what she was seeing. Those were rigid-hulled inflatable boats, headed for the island. And RIBs had one mission, and one mission only. Carrying special forces operators into combat.
Holy Mother of God. Jeff was right. The island was under surveillance. The cavalry had come racing in to stop him from leaving the island. Was he also right, then, that H.O.T. Watch was compromised?
The jet turned away from the oncoming boats. It skimmed over the ocean at barely a hundred feet off the deck if she had to guess. She glanced over at Jeff, who was watching her grimly.
She grumbled, “Please tell me your pilots are military trained and know how to fly low-level at high speed like this.”
He nodded and replied, “This plane is also equipped with the latest in radar avoidance technology.”
“You won’t be able to avoid the satellites,” she warned.
“We’ll find a weather system and lose ourselves under or in the clouds,” he replied.
She fell silent. Jeff had avoided H.O.T. Watch coverage. Meanwhile, her mind raced in circles. How had H.O.T. Watch been infiltrated? Who was it? Why was the island being watched? And how come no one had told her? But no matter how many questions she asked herself, no answers were forthcoming.
Over the next several hours, the pilots took evasive action that even she had to admit would confound the surveillance capabilities of H.O.T. Watch. The plane landed in Mexico, ostensibly to refuel, but she wasn’t fooled. A plane like this could cross an ocean on a single tank of gas. She’d bet the crew was filing a flight plan under some dummy name to allow them to slip into the United States.
The sun was setting over the Rocky Mountains when the plane began its final descent. They landed and, under the cover of an airplane hangar, transferred into an armored, darked-out SUV. The drive, wherever they were going, took about an hour.
The vehicle passed through a guarded gate and Jennifer noted that the security man and his booth looked neither sloppy nor amateur. The Winstons took their privacy very seriously, apparently.
She gasped as a magnificent log-cabin mansion came into view against a backdrop of snowcapped mountains. It shouted of intense style. Limitless wealth. Its opulence was overwhelming. Rather like its owner.
Light shone through the windows, golden and inviting upon a landscape of spring wildflowers and grasses. Jeff smiled slightly beside her. “Glad to be home?” she asked him.
“You have no idea.”
“Did you think you might not make it out of that prison alive?”
He glanced over at her wryly. “You can stop trying to debrief me now. You’re off the reservation.”
She didn’t for a second think he was referring to her Native American heritage. He was using the phrase ‘off the reservation’ to refer to a spy who had gone rogue. Her. A rogue agent. It simply didn’t compute. “I’ve been kidnapped. The government’s going to come after you with both barrels.”
“It’ll take them a while to get through my lawyers and my security. And that will give me enough time to show you what I have to.”
“Jeff!” Gemma exclaimed in alarm.
Jennifer looked over at the woman with interest. So. There were secrets here at the Winston estate that the good doctor didn’t want her to see? Clearly, she had to see them, then.
Chagrin glinted in Jeff’s blue eyes. “Stay out of this, Gem. It has nothing to do with you.”
“And what is this, exactly?” Jennifer asked him under her breath.
“Patience. All will become clear soon. I promise.”
Except she didn’t feel particularly patient when she discovered she’d been locked in her luxurious suite of rooms, and the home’s construction was fortlike. She’d never break out of here.
As night fell and stars began to twinkle outside, she stood by the floor-to-ceiling window and enjoyed the view. Although the granite Rockies were not her native red sandstone, the mountains still spoke to her soul.
Her door opened and she spun to face the threat. A tall, vaguely familiar man advanced cautiously into the room. She started to ask who he was, but then she caught sight of his eyes. Blue with flecks of silver and ringed by dark blue…
“Jeff?” she asked incredulously.
He flashed her an abashed smile. “Thought you might appreciate it if I got a shave and a haircut.”
Wow. He cleaned up, umm, well. “You look like your pictures now,” she mumbled, suddenly uncomfortable around his Ivy League good looks. Abruptly, he and his home felt foreign to her, far removed from any reality she could relate to.
“Had a dossier on me, did you? Did it say anything interesting?”
“What it didn’t say was more interesting.”
He strolled over beside her to gaze out at the stars. He smelled lightly of shampoo and expensive aftershave. It was intoxicating. Seriously? She didn’t get light-headed over the smell of a man, thank you very much. It must be the altitude getting to her…at the exact moment when he walked into the room. Right. Altitude. She swore under her breath.
“What was so interesting by omission in my dossier?”
“How’d you go from spoiled rich kid to…this?”
He glanced sidelong at her. “‘This’ being what exactly?”
“You tell me. Who are you? What are you? What makes you tick?”
He turned to face her, and she was struck by just how large and powerful a man he was. She literally ro
cked back on her heels at his flesh impact. She wasn’t so shallow that the mere fact of his godlike beauty made her suddenly hot for him. But the man was easy on the eye with all that Tarzan hair gone.
“Jennifer, I owe you my life several times over. And I’m eternally grateful for that. I also think you’re one of the most attractive women I’ve met in a long time, and I’d love to do something about that if you’re interested.”
Her brain hitched like a broken wheel at the idea that her fantasies actually had a chance of becoming reality. And then it hit her. A) he hadn’t answered her question, and b) the man could manipulate her thoughts like no one she’d ever met before. Belatedly, she realized he was speaking again.
“…some things about me and my life, however, that I cannot and will not share with you. Ever.”
She knew the feeling. CIA field agents’ lives weren’t exactly open books, either. She considered him thoughtfully. “Do your secrets have to do with those injections the good doctor gives you?” She glanced down at a new bandage on his arm that announced he’d had another one of Dr. Jones’s shots recently.
“If I asked you to quit asking questions and just accept me at face value, would you do it for me?”
“Why should I?”
He closed the gap between them and she sucked in a sharp breath. He reached out and, with a single finger crooked under her chin, tilted up her face.
“Because of this,” he whispered.
His lips touched hers. Desire imploded within her, and she gasped as Jeff responded by sweeping her up against him, her feet dangling off the ground as he crushed her body effortlessly against his. It was as natural as breathing to wrap her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck as he supported her weight easily.
“I’m not hurting you, am I?” she asked breathlessly.
“Nope. Doc Jones’s shots are doing their thing, and she gave me more of the pain receptor blocking stuff. Miracle drug. Winston Pharmaceuticals is going to make a fortune on it.”
“You’re not just saying that to be nice, are you?”
He laughed quietly. “I’m a lot of things, but nice is not one of them.”
“Really?” she asked, surprised.
“Really. Gemma says I’m too blunt to be nice.”
Jennifer hadn’t worked in a male-dominated profession for a decade for nothing. She smiled up at him. “I truly do prefer honesty.”
“Then I honestly want you to kiss me. Right now. And nothing you can do will hurt me.”
“Promise?” she whispered.
“Promise.”
She speared her hands into his silky hair and tugged his head close to kiss him deeply. And, oh, my, how he kissed her back. She’d never hungered for any man like this. If she could crawl inside his skin she would, so badly did she want to be with him. Her entire being strained toward him. And if the way he all but inhaled her was any indication, he felt the same way about her.
Her grandfather used to tell the legends of her ancestors, and she’d never understood the ones that talked about gods giving up their immortality for love. But this pull she felt toward Jeff, she could see giving up eternity for a little more of this. It felt right.
He groaned and turned to carry her somewhere. She didn’t care where as long as he didn’t let go of her. She felt small and fragile and safe in his arms and it was the most wonderful feeling in the world. He laid her on the bed and she clung to him as he followed her down. He propped himself up on one elbow, but she didn’t want even that small distance between them.
“I want you, Jeff,” she gasped against his mouth.
“I’ll crush you,” he muttered.
“I won’t break.”
“But you don’t understand—”
“You jumped on me in Africa and I survived.”
He grinned down at her. “Remember that, do you? It made quite an impression on me, too.”
She stared back in surprise. “I thought you were going to kill me.”
He kissed her lightly. “I thought you were going to kill me, too. But you didn’t. You fired over my shoulder and got me out of there.”
“The way I recall it, you pushed me out of the way of the bullets and then bodily dragged me out of that firefight.”
He laughed quietly. “How about we call that one a mutual save, then?”
She smiled up at him. “Deal. If you’ll shut up and get back to kissing me.”
“As the lady wishes….”
To say she crawled all over him wouldn’t be inaccurate. How could she not? He was so delicious and so very unbreakable. As he continued to be relaxed and not wince or gasp, she lost all fear that her strength and training would accidentally hurt him. For the first time in her life she felt free to do exactly what she wanted to without editing her desires at all.
Although when she reached for his belt buckle, he caught her hands and brought them to his mouth, kissing her knuckles regretfully. “As much as I’d love to see where that thought leads us, we have places to go and things to see this evening.”
A whimper of distress actually came out of her throat. He groaned in response and kissed her deeply. Then he mumbled against her mouth, “Do you have any idea how tempting you are?”
“No, but I know how tempting you are.”
He laughed in what sounded like pain. She took small satisfaction from the sound, though, because it mirrored her frustration.
He kissed her one last time, lightly, with regret at having to stop. “I like you enough to take this slow. And for what it’s worth, I’ve never said that to a woman before.”
She looked for the truth of it and found it in his open expression. Warmth filled her. She shoved back the loose tendrils of hair that had worked free from her braid during their passionate embrace. Lord, her cheeks were hot. What on earth had he done to her to cause such a violent flush? The wantonness of her behavior the past few minutes struck her forcefully. At the first opportunity that wouldn’t cause him screaming pain, she’d thrown herself at him like a complete hussy. Thing was, she didn’t throw herself at men. Ever.
He stood and offered a hand to her. She took it and floated to her feet like a feather. He pulled her into his arms and she went willingly, plastering herself against him, addicted to the feel of his body. So much for self-control. Apparently, she had none when it came to this man.
He groaned. “You’re so damned delectable.”
“Says the pot to the kettle,” she grumbled as he resolutely stepped back from her and tucked her arm under his elbow.
“Come on. I promised to show you something. And so I shall.”
The mansion was as impressive inside as out. It was outfitted with the latest in technology and lights went on in front of them and dimmed behind them automatically as they moved through the house. He led her through a great room à la hunting lodge decor that would rival any major hotel lobby in size and comfort. The rustic materials and touches of nature reminded her of home.
“Is this where you live most of the time?” she asked curiously.
“Yes. But don’t get too comfortable. I’m betting the Feds will show up here momentarily looking for you. I’m frankly surprised they weren’t waiting for us when we arrived.”
“They’ll move cautiously around you and your grandfather. You’re powerful men and not good to tick off.”
“Leland’s the real mover and shaker.”
“And you’re the heir to the throne. You’re still a force to be reckoned with,” she retorted.
He smiled over his shoulder at her. “I can live with that, I suppose.”
The house’s technology was carefully disguised—dark touch pads blending in with the knotty pine paneling, a willow basket disguising a pile of remote controls. And a recessed, carved wood panel that turned out to hide a stainless steel elevator. Jeff stepped inside and held the door for her.
“Are we headed down to your secret sanctum?” she asked playfully.
“Actually, yes.”
&n
bsp; She blinked in surprise.
“Winston Enterprises is a global conglomerate with assets and interests that span the planet. We need to have our finger directly on the pulse of world events, and the facility I’m about to show you is designed to do that. The public is not aware of its existence, and I’d appreciate it if it stayed that way.”
She pursed her lips, noting that the elevator was still going down. How deep underground was his secret sanctum? “You’ll show me your hideout, but you’ll have to shoot me if I tell anyone about it?”
His eyes glinted in dark humor. “Something like that.”
The door opened and he stepped out, gesturing for her to join him. She took a single step forward and stopped in her tracks. It wasn’t an exact duplicate of H.O.T. Watch headquarters, but it wasn’t a far cry from it. The room was brightly lit, although the charcoal-colored walls, floor and ceiling prevented any glare. A jumbo video display—black at the moment—dominated one wall, and a half-dozen men and women sat in front of state-of-the-art computer displays with multiple wide-screen monitors at each station. Frankly, the surveillance and intelligence setup she was looking at was better equipped than H.O.T. Watch’s.
A chorus of voices called out welcome-homes to Jeff. A good-looking red-haired woman wearing yellow-tinted glasses came over and gave Jeff a hard, brief hug. “It’s great to see you in one piece, Jeff. You gave us a heck of a scare.”
The mood in the room shifted in an instant to one of grief and loss. Jennifer watched on uncomfortably for the next several minutes as the staff offered Jeff their condolences on the death of his team. She knew all too well how it felt to lose men—the guilt and second guessing, the sleepless nights going over and over the mission and wondering what you missed that could have saved them.
With all Jeff had been going through personally, it was easy to forget he’d suffered a terrible loss just a few months ago. It hurt her to see the haunted look in his eyes as he accepted his people’s offerings of sympathy and to know there was nothing she could do to fix it. Some hurts never quite healed.
As the staff finally wound down, Jeff introduced her to the woman with the funny glasses. “Sammie Jo, this is Jennifer Blackfoot. She’s the CIA agent who pulled me out of Africa.”