Her Master Defender

by Karen Anders

  “Hardly interacted with the guy. He was always here. Rarely missed a day of work. Did a good job as far as I know.”

  “Why do you think he wanted to run me over?”

  “Because he had something to hide. He wanted you to stop whatever investigation you were conducting.”

  “You think he shot James?”

  “I don’t know, but you have to admit that he must have tried to run you over to keep you from finding out about something.”

  “Maybe. What I don’t get—and it’s the same question I asked you about James—is why was he up in the mountains? Why didn’t he run? Why did he go back up there?”

  “That’s a good question.”

  “We didn’t find a weapon, either.”

  “No, we didn’t. Maybe if we take a look at his house we can get more information.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t an investigator, Tristan.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re sounding like one.”

  “I care what happens with this investigation, Amber. I haven’t cared about something in a long time.”

  She wished he could say that about getting involved with her. It was stupid to think that there could be anything long-term with Tristan. Hadn’t she learned her lesson that long-distance relationships were a disaster? Maybe. She should have. But the problem was she hadn’t felt the same way about Pete that she was feeling right now about Tristan.

  It was so different. Pete was blond, shorter than Tristan and not as...big...or...broad. With Tristan’s dark hair, aching blue eyes and his big, hard body, Amber was saying...Pete who?

  Tristan was trying to resist her where Pete had jumped in with both feet. She had also gone to bed with him too fast. And she had to admit that it had probably been mostly physical with Pete.

  No surprise there. He’d gone and got himself engaged. That said volumes to her now that she could think about it rationally and not react to the duplicity or the hurt his phone-call breakup had caused.

  It was definitely more than physical with Tristan. She couldn’t deny that she wanted to get her hands all over him, but there was something...more here.

  Heat blossomed under her skin. Nope, no surprise at all.

  “Let’s go to his house and see what we can find.”

  * * *

  Randall Mayer had an apartment in the nearby small town of Colesville. Amber wasted no time. They used Randall’s key that was found in his pants discovered a few feet away from his body. As they walked inside, there was no visible gun cabinet. She disappeared into the back bedroom and Tristan looked around the living room and kitchen. Nothing out of the ordinary and nothing unusual. The guy had several hunting magazines on a long black leather ottoman coffee table. Tristan picked up one with a wolf on it gnawing on a bloody bone that was titled Predator Xtreme and another one, Outdoor Life. He threw the magazines back down as Amber came out of the bedroom.

  “No gun cabinet in there.”

  One of the magazines slipped off the edge of the ottoman to the floor. Tristan bent down to pick it up and the toe of his boot hit the edge of the ottoman. It made a hollow sound. He froze with the magazine in his hand and gave Amber a sidelong glance. Straightening to full height, he threw the magazine in his hand onto the couch, then grabbed up the others that were there and chucked them onto the couch, too. Sure enough, the ottoman had hinges. He lifted the lid and encountered a throw and a couple of pillows. He removed them as Amber crowded him.

  “What is it?”

  “It could be a gun concealment bench. They’re like decorative furniture that can hide guns away from small children or thieves.”

  As soon as the throw and pillows were removed, Tristan looked down into the obvious hidden door panel with a lock.

  “Hand me his key ring,” Tristan said, then searched for the appropriate key. Finding the right one, he inserted and twisted the key, pulling up the lid. The outer lid fit nicely into a groove specifically made to notch the lid and brace the cabinet open.

  There was a handgun, a Ka-Bar knife and ammo in a small wooden tray suspended over four gun slots. One held a shotgun; the others were two rifles, one with a scope and one a .22. There was one more slot that must have held a gun because it was worn where the stock and muzzle would have sat.

  “There’s one missing,” he said solemnly.

  “Fuel for the fire that he was the one who shot James and then tried to run me over to derail the investigation. But what I don’t understand is why try to run me over when I wasn’t even close to discovering it could have been him who had maybe shot James.”

  “Yeah, but he did work in the colonel’s office and he might have believed it was prudent to get rid of you. Something could have spooked him.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like maybe the ammo, shells or something like that. Maybe he went back up there to cover his tracks better after he missed hitting you. Maybe he panicked and then got caught in a storm up there. It’s happened before. People don’t realize how fast they can freeze to death, even sportsmen.”

  “Speaking of that, I found this renewal notice for Sportsmen Unlimited in the other room. Looks like it might be a local chapter for the organization, but I can research that more when I get back to my laptop.”

  Amber and Tristan turned at the sound of the apartment door opening.

  “It’s customary to wait for local law enforcement before you go messing with evidence.”

  The sound of Garza’s voice grated on Tristan. He looked over to where Garza was standing, one hand on his hip and the other propped casually on the butt of his gun. Another deputy stood just behind him. Tristan was well aware of the subtle threat men like Garza wanted to project. I’m in charge. You are one step away from having my gun in your face if you do something I don’t like. I’m the alpha dog here.

  Tristan had spent his whole life around control freaks, men who needed to exercise their authority over other men, which was exactly what made up the military. There were role models, leaders and then the guys who got off on lording it over others weaker than them. Tristan guessed that Garza had been a bully as a kid and it only escalated when he became a teenager. He was the kind of guy who also got others to do his dirty work.

  Egomaniac was a mild description for the deputy. The other was that he thought Amber was his conquest and that made Tristan shift and suddenly feel proprietary and protective of Amber, who straightened away from the gun closet.

  Garza caught her frown, and her eyes blazed. She turned and marched up to him, pulling out her badge. She shoved it into his face and said, low and strong, “You see this badge? This is an NCIS badge. I am a federal special agent in the Naval Criminal Investigative Service of the Department of the Navy and any navy or marine anywhere is under my jurisdiction. I don’t need your permission or your sanction to investigate a crime against navy or marine personnel that I deem necessary. This badge gives me that right. Are we clear, Deputy Garza?”

  “Whoa, you are feisty when you’re in official capacity, Special Agent Dalton. But the sheriff’s department would like to be kept abreast of the situation if that is agreeable with you.”

  “Just as long as you understand I don’t answer to you or the sheriff.”

  “Got it, Special Agent Dalton,” he bit out.

  “Good. Now tell me what you know about Randall Mayer.”

  It took all of Tristan’s control not to smirk, but damn. She was something else. This was a side of her he hadn’t seen, and he realized that she could have dismantled him the first time they met. If there was one thing he’d learned about her it was that she could hold her own.

  But she also could melt in a man’s arms. He hadn’t really wanted his mind to go that route, but he couldn’t help it. She had made him laugh and actually participate in a snowball fight, s
omething he hadn’t done since he’d been a carefree kid with his brother, Thane, and his twin sisters when they’d been young children.

  “We are looking for his car, but so far, no luck.”

  “Anything else you know about him?”

  Garza shook his head.

  “All right, pull all his licenses for any of the guns he owned. Confiscate these and have them cataloged as evidence in this investigation. And I want the autopsy results on James Connelly today, or I’ll officially take possession of his body and ship it to my own medical examiner. I’m not waiting anymore for that report.”

  “Yes, ma’am. What is that in your hand?”

  “Looks like he belonged to Sportsmen Unlimited and there’s a local chapter here in town. I’m going to see what they know.”

  Garza nodded. Without another word, she watched them collect evidence. As soon as the door closed on the two deputies, Tristan hauled Amber against him and planted his mouth over hers. He had no idea he was going to do it. It just happened.

  Her startled sound of pleasure only fueled his desire more. Ramped it up. He pushed her against the wall. She pushed him right back against the opposite wall. They parted and she said, “Either you liked the way I chewed up and spit out Garza or you’re trying to do some alpha, I’m-claiming-this-female caveman thing because he is so overtly sexual to me.”

  “How about both? Is that a problem?”

  “No.” She pressed her mouth to his again. He sent his hands through that thick head of blond, silky hair, over and over again, letting the strands trail through his fingers. He rubbed his fingers against her scalp and held her tantalizing, velvet mouth to his.

  His perception clouded. He felt her tugging at his uniform shirt and then the T-shirt beneath until her palm was on his waist.

  “Hmm,” she murmured curiously as if she’d just encountered a puzzle.

  Hmm, hell.

  “Sweetheart,” he cautioned, reaching around her with his free hand and gently disentangling her fingers from the material.

  “What is this dang thing called?” she asked, obliging him by letting go of the T-shirt and smoothing her hand across the muscle curving over his hip and down to his groin.

  “Dangerous,” he replied with a grimace, catching her wayward hand before he lost it completely and let her do whatever she wanted to him.

  “You are being a tease,” she said.

  “I’m being prudent and smart. I know my limits and, sweetheart, I’m already right there.” He let go of her and quickly shoved the tail end of his T-shirt back in his pants, only to have her pull it back out.

  He huffed out a laugh. “Amber, be reasonable.”

  “Nope. I don’t want to be reasonable. You’ve been flaunting your great big beautiful body for days.”

  “I have not.”

  “Yes, you have. You were out shoveling snow with those amazing broad shoulders.”

  “I kinda needed them to...you know...heft the snow. My arms are attached.”

  “Flaunting.”

  “What about you with—”

  “Oh, no, we’re not talking about me.”

  He laughed again as he tried to grab her hands, but the woman was determined.

  “And the first night I’m under the same roof with you, you were completely bare-chested and your pants were unbuttoned.”

  “They were? I didn’t notice.”

  “Sure. Right. I’m a trained observer and I noticed. Oh, man, did I notice. So, admit it.” She kissed over his face, down his throat, and he got totally distracted by the feel of her mouth on him. “When you broke the glass, you were also bare-chested.”

  “Is this a cross-examination?”

  “Yes, and you’d better have a good defense. Men get to walk around half-naked and then don’t think they’re being teases. I’m calling you out.”

  “Come on, Amber.” He tried to capture her hands again but this time failed. His T-shirt came free again, and he swore under his breath. “Well, I’m an enlightened male. I wouldn’t have any problem with you being half-naked.” His voice was compressed. “Equality and all that.”

  “Ooh, good defense.”

  Her hand slipped up around his back, her palm smooth, warm, intimate.

  Her mouth was now in the hollow of his throat and she kissed him so gently. It had been such a long time since a woman had done that, he closed his eyes, getting lost in the sensation.

  But his eyes popped open when her hand slipped lower and curved around the globe of his ass.

  He grabbed for her hand and she licked him. It galvanized his balls and his dick leaped and tightened.

  “Amber, the manhandling party is over.”

  “Tristan,” she whispered. “Stop thinking all the time.”

  When had he ever ordered a woman to take her hand out of his pants? Ah, that would be this side of freaking never.

  He captured both sides of her face in his hands. “I know I started this, but we’re...somewhere...and...and I just needed to...damn...get my mouth on you.”

  “See, tease,” she said, amusement sparkling in those deep green eyes.

  She didn’t wear makeup. He hadn’t noticed that until right now. She didn’t need it. Her lashes were thick and dark, her mouth soft and pink. Her hair was wild, absolutely wild, as if she’d been dragged across the pillows and rolled over on a mattress, the way a guy might, if he was...crazy or lucky or simply out of his ever-loving mind.

  He knew better than to kiss her again. Knew it like he knew how to sight down a rifle and pull off a shot that most men couldn’t make.

  Knew it with all that was in him as a man.

  He was losing his perspective. The one he’d had the night he’d kissed her and sent her back to her room. The night when he’d sprawled on his bed and taken the edge off, thinking about her while he pumped his hand over his rigid dick.

  He moved his hand up to cup her cheek and smooth his fingers over her skin.

  Hell, he was sure that this was going to happen, even though he was trying to resist. Then she’d taken Garza apart limb by limb and set him firmly in his egomaniac place. It was worth the price of admission.

  Yeah, he knew better than to do this and let her hand roam over his body like this, but he did it anyway—just let go of every freaking thing he’d believed in for fifteen years, tilted her face toward his and brought his mouth down to hers.

  Heat, as pure and simple as anything he’d planned, washed through him. He groaned with the pleasure of it, gave himself over to it. Her skin was damp, and he was breaking out in a sweat, and he suddenly knew it didn’t matter where they were. This ache in him for her went beyond mere walls.

  She removed her hand from his backside. The other one slid through his hair, across the nape of his neck and up toward the top of his skull, holding him for her kiss. His brain was fogging. Her mouth was wet. He reached for her leg and drew it up around his waist, settling in the hollow of her pelvis, getting her closer, reveling in the tease of the silken softness he’d encounter between her legs.

  Then that tantalizing, wayward hand was back against his waistband, heading south, driving him wild, and he knew—he knew she was going to take him in her hand, stroke him, get him even harder than he already was, and he was going to let her. Oh, man, was he going to let her.

  “Tris,” she moaned, her hand sliding the last few inches home. Oh, damn, her palm was so soft, her fingers so delicate, her leg wrapping around his waist, her hand doing the same to his cock—and he was dying...dying. But it was the sound of her voice that turned him on. Her shortening his name like that. As though they had already been lovers. He knew he was in trouble the moment he laid eyes on this woman. He couldn’t breathe and he thrust into her hand, trying to find his brains in the right head.

  She wan
ted him, and deep, deep down inside, in a dark place where he’d locked, bolted and chained the door, and thrown away the key, his emotions stirred. They stirred hard and fast, like the faster-than-the-speed-of-sound bullet that issued from the muzzle of his rifle.

  He never heard her coming.

  One shot to his heart, one kill. A perfect hot zero.

  Ooh-rah.

  Chapter 8

  Amber opened her mouth wider, took him deeper, and it still wasn’t enough—not even close.

  She was doomed. Nothing should be this hot, this fast, and nothing ever had been, not in her whole life, except Tristan Michaels. She’d come to MWTC for a mission—an expected short mission.

  She needed to check all these loose ends, like Randall Mayer and why James Connelly was up on that mountain, where he had been for two whole days.

  She hadn’t come here to kiss him.

  She had not come for this. But ever since she’d met the man, her heart hadn’t stopped racing. It was crazy. She knew it—but God, she was a professional, and everything should have been kept at that level. Except Tristan had taken it to a different place.

  The way he felt, the way he smelled, the angle of his jaw, the nape of his neck, the way he held her in his arms, his strength—with his mouth on hers and his arms around, she never wanted to let him go.

  And, damn, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. She had her hand down his pants and that was not at all professional!

  But she couldn’t help it. What she said was true: the man was a tease, a sensual tease. All six feet plus of warm, smooth skin and ironbound muscle. He was so beautiful, a warrior with black hair and blue eyes and a face stripped of all pretense. He was what he was, and he was the first man she’d been unable to resist.

  A need was building in her, totally irresistible, damnably inevitable.

  Doomed.

  She held his face in her hands, covering him with kisses, and he slid his hand over her buttocks and pulled her against the erection she’d just had her hand wrapped around. Yes was all she could think. It was too easy with him and hard all at the same time. She wished she could understand him better.