by Lora Leigh
He was already suffering. God knew the pain was sinking sharpened talons so deep inside his flesh he wondered if he were bleeding from it.
“I want backup.” He returned to the subject at hand. “When the meet comes down, I’ll let you know. I want you there. Nothing matters but her.” He stared back at the other man demandingly. “Do you understand that, Ian? No matter what happens, screw the others. She’s all that matters.”
Screw the Elite Ops, the organization Nik was a part of and the men who had pulled him out of hell and those who had paid a fortune to re-create him. The past ten years and the promises of faith he had made meant nothing when compared to the woman whose heart he was breaking.
“That goes without saying, Nik,” Ian promised him. “A few of the guys from the backup team are close by on leave. We were getting together for a week before we went back on mission status. We’re standing by for you. Just as Jordan is if you need him.”
Yeah, Nik’s commander would bitch and moan and cuss a blue streak, but he would do whatever he needed to do.
Nik nodded sharply.
“Anyway,” Ian stated heavily. “What did you find out from Holbrook?”
“Confirmation Kefler is indeed backing him,” Nik stated before relating details of the meeting to the other man.
“We’re still working on the financials of everyone involved, but just from what I’ve seen so far, there was a hell of a lot of money being exchanged between Kefler and Holbrook. There are some other anomalies as well, but we’re still working on those.”
“There’s something damned strange going on,” Nik agreed. “And not just with the money. I can’t fit the pieces together. If I look at it logically, Maddix has to be involved, but that alibi is going to be damned hard to break.”
Ian nodded. “Stay on Holbrook and Kefler until we turn up something on the numbers,” he advised. “You’re going to need ammunition before you go to Nelson or the members of that alibi. Let’s get our information together; then you can strike.”
Then he would kill. If Maddix was the reason Mikayla was in danger, then nothing would save him from Nik.
His fists clenched at the thought. The thought that Maddix might have used him against Mikayla, used him to make her look foolish, or like a liar, enraged him.
“What the hell do you think is going on with this, Nik?” Ian asked. “Ms. Martin’s standing in the community is exemplary. None of the teenage high jinks her brothers and friends got into. No drinking, no drugs. She’s quiet, dependable, and compassionate. And this has shed a shadow across that reputation she’s obviously worked so hard to attain.”
“Someone’s using her,” Nik stated. “The further this goes, the more apparent it becomes. To stop it, I have to find a killer.”
“It doesn’t make sense.” Ian shook his head. “Her reputation could effectively destroy a normal alibi. If it was Maddix, why use a woman with her reputation?”
Nik shook his head before rubbing at the back of his neck. “That’s one of the reasons I ruled out Maddix in the killing. He knows Mikayla. He knew her reputation. He knew she would be there. He knew she would recognize him. Why use her? Why bring me in? Until I can answer these questions, Ian, then this isn’t finished.”
“If Maddix is involved, then his alibis are involved as well,” Ian mused.
“Which could be the reason why this investigation stays stalled. The chief of police, a major business owner as well as two city council members. But why use Mikayla?”
“Exactly. Why use Mikayla? Why use anyone if it’s as simple as committing murder. He has an agenda. An agenda that includes Mikayla, and possibly includes me. He called me. He wanted me here specifically.”
“You think he has anything on you?”
The Elite Ops had pasts. They had pasts that were potentially fatal should anyone learn their secrets, or their weaknesses.
“See what you can find out.” Nik turned, staring into the darkness as he considered exactly what a relatively small-town construction owner could know about him.
“I’m already working on it,” Ian promised. “Until then, if I were you I’d not just keep my woman with me; I’d watch my back, too. There are too many improbabilities here, and that makes my neck itch.”
An itching neck was never a good thing. That primal, defensive response to danger was guaranteed to put any soldier on edge. And what more was he than simply an advanced soldier?
“I’ll take care of things here; you take care of the information end,” Nik told him. “I’ll take care of Mikayla.”
“I know you’ll take care of her,” Ian sighed. “What worries me is your idea of the best way to do that.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Nik turned on him, his gaze slicing to where Ian stood across the back porch watching him.
“The best way to take care of a woman like Mikayla isn’t storing her in a protective area while life passes her by. Leaving her won’t save her, Nik.”
“Neither will staying.” The edge to his voice was sharp, furious. “What do you want, Ian? You think because marital bliss suits you that it suits the rest of the fucking world?”
Ian’s lips quirked. “I think it eases the demons, Nik,” he finally said. “And you have more than most. But if the demons make better bedfellows than that woman waiting inside, then that’s your bad decision, not mine.”
“Damned right,” Nik snarled. “Remember that.”
Ian’s smile was rueful and tinged with a hint of compassion that just further pissed Nik off.
“This conversation is over,” Nik informed him. “Find something else to talk about or get the hell out of here. I don’t care which.”
“I should have the information you need soon, Nik,” Ian told him, his tone somber now. “And if you need to talk later, then I’ll be there.”
Nik gave his head a hard shake as a bitter laugh left his lips. “How long have we known each other, Ian?”
“A long time,” Ian answered quietly.
“How many times have I needed a buddy powwow?”
“You’ve never asked for one, Nik,” Ian stated. “But if a man ever needed one, then it was you. What happened to Nicolette wasn’t your fault. But if blaming yourself helps you sleep better at night, then who am I to tell you different.”
Before Nik could sneer in response Ian turned and stepped back into the house.
“Hey, cutie,” Nik heard Kira, Ian’s wife, greet him. “The dresses are going to be so beautiful. All the other high-society witches are going to be so jealous of me.” Laughter filled her voice as she teased her husband, “And all the guys are going to be so jealous of you. I’m going to be hot.” She made a sizzling sound as she stepped into her husband’s embrace.
“You’re always hot,” he told her. “One of these days, those jealous bastards are going to come up missing eyes, though.”
The teasing struck at Nik’s soul, slicing through his heart with a jagged blade.
He could have that, with Mikayla. But for how long? How long before the job, his responsibilities, tore at their relationship? How long before she decided she needed a lover? … That thought fractured.
No, if Mikayla made the vows, she would uphold them. But love died when it wasn’t nurtured. He wasn’t free. The Elite Ops still had two more years of his life, and the missions were often near-suicide trips.
If he and Mikayla had a child, if an enemy found Mikayla, if she fell out of love with Nik, if she learned who and what he truly was, if she needed more than he could give …
If. So many ifs. So many that he knew there was nothing to do at the end of the road but walk in the other direction.
As he entered the kitchen, his gaze moved to her. She was just as pale as Ian said she was, and she looked tired. She needed to be sleeping rather than putting up with this. She needed to be making her dresses rather than fearing for her life.
She needed to be tucked close against Nik’s body where he’d know she was safe.
&n
bsp; Her gaze lifted to him as he stepped inside the room, her unusual eyes flaring with hunger and pain. Even after he’d hurt her, made her cry, still she wanted him.
Aching need and a fierce, almost furious desperation shadowed them now.
Damn her, she was tying herself to him. She was falling in love with him, if she hadn’t already. Dealing with that knowledge was something he found harder to do than facing terrorists. Facing the hungry need he could sense inside her was like facing a bomb. Nuclear. With the potential to destroy more than just his sanity. It had the potential to destroy his very soul.
“Now that you’re happy with your dress, we’ll head back to the hotel.” Ian grinned down at his wife as though she were the socializing little butterfly she pretended to be. The truth was, Kira Richards was probably just as dangerous as her husband. In some ways, more so, because a man wouldn’t expect it coming from her.
“I’m ready.” Kira’s gaze turned to Nik. “Take care of her, Nik; I have a feeling she and I are going to become very good friends.”
That statement was enough to send frissons of alarm scattering down his spine, but he gave her a tight nod anyway. He held back the awareness in Kira’s statement that he’d always have a tie to Mikayla. Kira would keep up with her. She would keep Mikayla safe.
That didn’t help him sleep at night, though.
Holding Mikayla in the darkness hours later, Nik smoothed his hand down her back, over the light, sleeveless gown she wore, as his eyes closed in agony.
There were few times in the past ten years that he had allowed himself to remember the fact that once he had loved his deceased wife. That he had trusted her, laughed with her. That he had lain in bed and dreamed of the future they would have together.
But it hadn’t been the same, Nik admitted. There had always been a part of him that had wondered if his wife’s affair with Anton had been fully dead.
Anton Vileski.
Nik’s jaw clenched. She had been sleeping with Anton before Nik met her, but he hadn’t learned of the affair until after their marriage. An affair that had supposedly been over before she met Nik.
He’d always wondered, though. He’d loved her more than he’d ever loved another woman at that time, but a part of him had always feared that his position inside the Russian federal government had been the reason she had married him. That she had married him for her lover.
Nik had never doubted Nicolette was his own, though. From the moment of her birth, staring into her pale, pale blue eyes he’d known that tiny scrap of screaming humanity was his. And he had adored her. Cherished her.
And he had lost her.
Stroking his hand lower, his fingers met bare flesh where Mikayla’s gown had ridden up above her hips. She was naked. There were no panties covering her, just sweet, warm, feminine flesh.
Memories of his deceased wife retreated beneath the warmth of Mikayla’s bare flesh. The need to touch her became more important than the need to push back the unfamiliar emotions crowding inside him.
Those emotions he was finding only amped the pleasure, though. As his fingers moved over the curve of her rear to find the damp, slick folds of her pussy, they tightened his chest, his muscles, allowing nerve endings to pulse closer to the skin, to experience each nuance of touch.
As his fingers slid over the plump folds, he felt the heat rising inside him. His cock became immediately erect, pulsing, throbbing with an unsated hunger impossible to control as Mikayla shifted slowly awake beside him.
Without saying a word, she flowed against him, lifting, her hair falling around her to spread out around his face, her lips lowered to his.
It was a drowsy, sleepy kiss. One filled with slow, lazy hunger and heated need as one slender leg slid over his hips.
What she did next rocked him clear to his soul. Lifting above her, her hips moved, shifted until the hot folds of her pussy cupped the engorged head of his cock.
As she pressed down, the snug tissue parting, flexing around the sensitive crest, electricity began raging over his flesh. From the top of his head to his toes, sensation traveled like flames through him. It thundered through his veins. It raced through his chest.
Her pussy gripped his cock like a tight, sensual glove, milking it, loving it. Like the tightest little mouth sucking him deep and strong, she drew him into her.
Gripping her hips with his hands, Nik thrust powerfully against her, parting the tender tissue as she cried out above him and burying into her to the hilt.
It was fast, glorious. It was a rush of flames searing his flesh as he began powering inside her, driving her fast and hard into an orgasm that had her shaking, shuddering against him.
As he felt her pussy flexing and gripping him, Nik gave in to his own need. As his seed spurted inside her, Mikayla collapsed against him, breathing hard, trembling in his arms.
“I love you, Nik. I love you so much,” she whispered. “So much.”
The words exploded inside his head, fractured inside him, and tore one last, torturous jet of come from his cock. That final burst of pleasure shattered his senses as her words had shattered his soul.
She loved him.
CHAPTER 22
Had she actually whispered those words the night before? Had she told him that she loved him, or had that simply been another dream?
The next day, as Nik and Mikayla entered the parking lot to Holbrook Construction, Mikayla fought to remember what was real and what was simply a dream.
It wasn’t as though it was the first time she had dreamed of taking Nik, riding him to completion as she whispered her love for him.
Nervous tension ratcheted inside her at the thought that she could have revealed that secret to him. She hadn’t even wanted to admit it to herself until now. Until there was the danger that she had dared to whisper those words to Nik.
Surely if she had said them he would have mentioned it. Been angry, unnaturally cold, or something. He was so determined that she not love him, that he not love her, that surely he couldn’t have ignored it.
He wasn’t acting any differently, though. He was acting as though it hadn’t happened. As though nothing were any different between them than it had been the night before.
She was very well aware of the fact that Nik didn’t want her love. So where did that leave her?
At least she was with him, she thought wearily. He hadn’t argued over her accompanying him; he hadn’t suggested she hide at the shop instead. That was his normal suggestion as they started each day.
“Holbrook isn’t known for his control over his temper,” Nik warned her as they moved toward the entrance. “Stay behind me, watch, and listen. If you think of anything, then get my attention and we’ll discuss it where he can’t hear it. Let’s not give him the chance to one-up us.”
“Do I ever mess up?” she asked.
“Never.” His surprising admission nearly had her pausing in shock.
Gripping the door, he swung it open and stepped inside before drawing her to him. With his hand riding low on her back they moved to the receptionist’s desk.
The blue jean–clad young woman sitting at the desk glanced up from a movie playing on the computer, her brown eyes widening as she stared at Nik warily.
The small nameplate on her desk read: “Tabitha Holbrook.” Nepotism didn’t always pay. Then the girl grimaced in distaste as she stared back at Nik.
That surprised Mikayla. She’d been in Maddix Nelson’s office building several times, and never had she seen this.
“What do you want?” the receptionist’s voice squeaked.
Mikayla nearly winced at the complete lack of protocol.
“Nik Steele. I’m here to see Reed Holbrook,” Nik informed the receptionist, his dark, rough voice as casual as Mikayla had ever heard it.
It was obvious he was trying not to frighten the young girl.
The receptionist pressed a button on the call pad before speaking into the headset she wore. “Yeah, uh, there’s a Nik Steele here to s
ee Uncle Reed—” She blinked up at Nik as the person on the line obviously spoke. Mikayla could have sworn she paled.
“You want me to do what?” she hissed as she ducked her head. “Look, you want him told that, then you tell him. Not me. He’s scary.”
Mikayla glanced at Nik, noticed his frown, and hid a smile. Actually, she thought he looked pretty damned sexy.
“You tell him … ,” Tabitha repeated.
Nik leaned forward, placed his hands flat on the desk, and Mikayla almost giggled when he scowled down at the receptionist, causing her to jump back in fear.
“Holbrook. Now. Tell him Senator Stanton advises him it’s in his best interests to speak to us.” Pure male dominance transformed Nik.
It reflected on his face and in his voice.
Pure arrogance. A force of nature. It was going to kill Mikayla to lose him, but what she was learning from him she would never forget. Determination, arrogance. And how to navigate more anger than she could have imagined she would have to face.
Nik used the senator’s name, a calling card he’d debated leaving unused for this meeting. The senator had left a message on Nik’s phone that morning that his name would get Nik in to see Holbrook if nothing else could.
Stanton was part of the founding Elite Ops organization. Though his participation wasn’t known outside the secret group of agents, his power was still far-reaching.
Nik was still glaring into Tabitha Holbrook’s frightened gaze when the doors behind her pushed open.
Reed Holbrook’s personal assistant, Arlene Dayton, was harried. Shoulder-length black and gray hair was disheveled, dark gray eyes filled with irritation as her overly red lipsticked lips were thinned and held an angry line.
Mrs. Dayton was a far cry from Alison Chenkins, Maddix Nelson’s personal assistant. There was clearly no professionalism here, no business protocol.
“Mr. Steele.” Arlene Dayton’s tone was just as harried as her appearance. “Mr. Holbrook has a very tight schedule, but he can give you five minutes if you’ll come with me.”
Nik straightened and turned back to Mikayla, his hand reaching out for her. She didn’t hesitate to take it. The move clenched his chest even as he fought against the reaction and resulting emotions rising inside him.