by Lora Leigh
Their gazes met.
Journey was shell-shocked. Silent.
Her gaze dropped to her fingers as they twined together and Tehya watched the tears begin to fall again.
Tears she couldn’t seem to shed. A raging pain she couldn’t free.
And the fear that nothing would ever make sense again.
*
Jordan left the warehouse behind the federal operatives who were pulling a screeching Stephen Taite from the melee that had erupted inside.
He’d had men outside the warehouse before Jordan had called for the advance. Nearly a dozen hard-core mercenary soldiers had been taken down within minutes by Killian Reece and his team.
After the years of manipulating everyone around him in order to see to their safety and their happiness, Jordan had finally been on the receiving end of it.
One of Killian’s operatives had leaked the fact that Tehya wasn’t dead to a known Sorrel associate. An associate suspected of being linked to a shadowy figure rumored to call himself The Marquis, a name French authorities had found in a single file belonging to Sorrel. The single reference had hinted at Sorrel’s fear that the Marquis would find Francine or Tehya before he did.
That someone else, according to the file, was determined to find Francine and Tehya. Just as Joseph Fitzhugh had been determined to keep him from gaining the “key” Francine Taite held.
The information Killian’s team had been working on since the death of Killian’s wife stretched back more than a decade. Killian had refused to let the investigation go, and Jordan hadn’t known about it.
Until the other man had walked into the Senator’s house just minutes after they’d realized Tehya had been taken.
“Jordan, wait up.” Killian turned Stephen Taite over to one of the authorities before moving quickly to his side.
“We don’t have anything to say, Killian,” he snapped. “Get the fuck out of my face.”
Killian’s expression registered surprise, but only for a second. His gaze darkened and then his lips quirked with somber knowledge. “I knew you loved her. I told you that when I came to base last year, didn’t I?”
Jordan jerked back. There was a part of his mind that watched, completely unsurprised as he grabbed Killian by the front of his mission shirt and slammed him against the metal shipping crate.
“You told me she would fucking kill me,” he snarled. “You didn’t trust her, Killian. You didn’t give her a safe haven. You fucking turned your back!”
Killian’s eyes widened for a second before he sighed wearily. “She always had safe harbor,” he finally said softly. “I always knew where she was, and my men were always watching her.” For a second, agony flashed in his eyes. “I lost the woman that owned my soul, Jordan. You’re the only fucking friend I ever had; did you think I would let this world take what means the most to you?”
He’d known Killian for far too many years. He’d known the other man’s demons, he’d known his rage, and when he was telling the truth.
He was telling the truth.
Jordan released him slowly.
“I had to let her think I hated her,” Killian sighed, still facing him. “I had to let you think it. If even once, she’d turned those haunted eyes on me in friendship, I’d have never been able to do what I knew Elite Command was going to have me do.”
“You could have told me,” Jordan raged.
Killian shook his head. “If anyone came to me and told me they were going to use Catherine in that way, I would have killed them before I allowed it. You would have never let it happen.”
No, he wouldn’t have.
Jordan was smart enough to admit that to himself. He would have run with her. He would have hidden with her. He would have never allowed her past to touch her in this way if he had been forewarned.
“I could kill you for not coming to me, Killian,” he rasped as he pushed closer, feeling that need for violence ripping through him. “And I wouldn’t feel any guilt. I wouldn’t feel a moment’s fucking regret. Do you know that?”
“Jordan…” Killian spoke softly, warningly.
“My fucking woman,” he snarled, the fury snapping through his mind. “She was mine and you knew she was mine.”
Killian’s brow arched, some gleam of unholy amusement in them searing the fury only growing inside Jordan now.
“You weren’t claiming her,” Killian reminded him. “You let her go. Maybe, if she was your woman, you should have given a man a clue so he’d know how to proceed.”
“I told you and every other man that came around her to stay the fuck away. I warned, I threatened, and when I had to I intimidated, so don’t fucking tell me I didn’t claim her.”
“You never said you loved her,” Killian pointed out.
Jordan’s lips parted, the stunned at the accusation that came from Killian’s lips.
God, he did love her, he realized. There was no fucking illusion, there were no attempts to deny it any longer. He’d stopped denying it the second his brain had processed the information that Tehya had been taken.
“I shouldn’t have had to say shit,” Jordan snapped. “By God, you should have known.”
“And perhaps you should have said something.”
Jordan froze.
His gaze jerked to Killian’s and found smug satisfaction quirking at his lips. An amusement tinged with a haunted pain, a memory of what he himself had lost.
He turned slowly.
The shoulder of her dress was ripped. It was dirty, streaked with dirt and smoke, tattered at the edges. She was barefoot, her stockings shredded, and her hair was in disarray around her shoulders.
And still, she was the most gorgeous creature he’d ever laid his eyes on.
“Perhaps someone should have enlightened me when I started making a fool of myself denying it,” he told her softly.
Her face was tear-stained, pale, and her gaze was still bright with unshed tears and pain.
Moving to her, he reached up, his thumb smoothing across the tears only to find others taking their place.
“Jordan,” she whispered, her lips trembling as he slowly pulled her into his arms, a wave of agony sweeping over him at the thought he could have lost her.
“I have you, baby.” His arms tightened around her. “Right here, I have you.”
“It hurts.” Her breathing hitched as her hands suddenly clutched at his back. “Don’t let me go. Please. Please don’t let me go.”
Let her go? He’d tear his own heart out of his chest before he even considered such a villainous act.
“Come on, baby.” He picked her up and carried her to the waiting car that Nik had driven in. “Let’s go home.”
Where he could hold her. Where he could hopefully help ease just a small part of the horror she was feeling.
As he passed the medi-van, in the shadows close to the opened doors at the front of the vehicle, he caught a figure moving.
The form wore the familiar dark mask, and rather than a tuxedo, he was pulling on the utility belt that went with the mission clothes he had obviously changed into.
He hadn’t known who or what Beauregard Grant was until Killian had met him at the warehouse. He’d had no idea Beau had been doing the same thing Jordan had done more than fifteen years before.
He was creating a background, an identity, and a history that would put him in place where the Elite Ops needed him most.
He was a dead man walking. But if the way he was staring at the young woman sitting on the van’s gurney with her back to him, her eyes closed, tears still whispering down her cheeks, then he was a haunted man.
Jordan could hear Stephen still screaming at Journey from the car he’d been placed in. Furious, filthy curses and accusations as the young woman appeared deaf to the words.
But he knew she wouldn’t be.
Placing Tehya in the car, he turned to Noah as he loped over and nodded to Stephen’s granddaughter. “Get her out of here. Send her to Ireland until this blows over.
Let her stay in the castle. She’s going to need time.”
“Where are you heading?” Noah tilted his head to stare at Tehya sitting silently in the back.
“Home,” Jordan breathed out, suddenly feeling the tension easing inside him. “I’m going home, Noah.”
*
As they drove away with Nik at the wheel, Jordan sat in the back, his woman cradled in his arms, thanking God for her safety.
Noah couldn’t help but grin, even as thankfulness swept through him with enough force to weaken him.
He had a feeling that for the first time in far too many years, Jordan had found home.
*
What was she supposed to believe?
Tehya watched Jordan, desperate, terrified to believe he truly loved her as he carried her into the bedroom of the suite Nik had escorted them to.
He kicked the door closed before lowering her slowly to the floor and locking the door behind him.
Her lips parted, the question she needed to ask almost falling from her lips before he laid a finger over them.
“Not yet.” His expression was fierce, demanding. “Not yet, Tehya. Let me know you’re still living, that you’re still here with me first. God, let me get that nightmare out of my head.”
His lips covered hers.
Shock vibrated through her at the agony, the pure emotion that filled his voice before he kissed her as though he were dying for her.
Deep, drugging, his arms surrounded her, enfolded her as he held her to him, his lips slanting over hers as his tongue licked at hers.
The remnants of her gown were dealt with quickly, the material falling at her bare feet as he shrugged his jacket from his shoulders.
Suddenly hungry for the feel of him, Tehya pulled at the buttons of his shirt, several snapping free and falling forgotten on the floor until she could spread the edges apart, her fingers finding warm, hard flesh.
Hunger rose between them like an inferno, blazing across their flesh, searing their emotions as they hurriedly undressed each other.
Tehya breathed out roughly as she felt him lift her, the strength in his arms making her feel dainty, helpless, and protected as he laid her back in the middle of the bed.
Reaching for him, Tehya drew him to her, her breath hitching in her chest; the overwhelming feeling of complete absorption coming from him was intoxicating.
It was different. Each touch was laced with something that hadn’t been there before. A tender possessiveness he had kept leashed until now.
His fingertips stroked along her breasts, following the curve, feathering against her nipples and tightening them further as she arched to him.
His lips sipped at hers, strong teeth nipping, catching her lower lip and worrying it before his tongue stroked over it with a hungry lick.
Broken moans filled the air as he came over her, strong knees pressing between her thighs as his lips released hers and moved down the line of her throat, following the taut arch until he laid quick, heated kisses on her breast.
His tongue licked over a tight nipple as he moved between her thighs, his fingers stroking over the wet curves of her pussy before they parted the sensitive folds.
“Jordan.” Desperation filled her as she felt the thick, broad width of his cock press against her. “Jordan, please.”
Heat speared through her, circling her clit before whipping through her body, as he began to penetrate her with tight, slow, shallow thrusts.
His lips lifted from her nipple and moved back to her face.
“Look at me, Tey,” he groaned, his voice tight, heavy with hunger. “Let me see your eyes, baby.”
Her lashes lifted, lips parting at the brilliance in his eyes.
“No illusion,” he whispered then, his tone tight, guttural. “I love you, Tehya.”
She froze beneath him.
“What did you say?”
His fingers stroked down her side to her thigh before his hand cupped beneath her knee and lifted her leg higher, over his head, he seated himself deeper inside her.
Stretching, burning, pleasure rippled through her flesh in a wave of such intense sensation she cried out with it. Arching, her legs lifting, arms holding him closer, Tehya held his gaze and let herself be taken by him.
However he wanted to take her.
With his body. His hands. With deep drugging kisses as her lashes feathered over her cheeks and she lost herself to each sensation.
The hard, powerful thrusts of his hips, the wicked, heavy strength of his cock impaling her, taking her, marking her in ways she couldn’t have imagined she could ever be marked.
There, in the darkness, their moans rising, heat building between them until felt herself exploding in such intense ecstasy that she could only cry out his name and hold tighter to him.
“I love you, Tey,” he groaned at her ear as he fucked her, thrusting deep a second before she felt the hard flesh tighten further and the eruption of his release suddenly filling her.
As though her soul opened and he filled it, light flooding her entire being as she cried out in his arms.
She was home.
For the first time in her life, Teyha was home.
Her eyes opened, lifting languorously to stare up at him.
Perspiration beaded along his forehead, his shoulders. His gaze was drowsy, black hair falling over his cheek and forehead.
“Jordan,” she whispered, her heart racing, suddenly terrified she hadn’t heard what she thought she had heard.
“I love you,” he whispered again. “I’ve always loved you, Tehya.”
The warmth was brilliant, racing through her, flooding her being.
“I love you.”
The dream she hadn’t wanted to admit to was suddenly real. It was there, in his gaze, his touch, his kiss.
For the first time in her life, Tehya belonged.
Alpine, Texas
Riordan Malone, father, grandfather, Irish stock, and a man who longed to join the woman who held his soul, sat at her graveside and stared into the night.
He could feel it. His Erin had always laughed at him when he looked at her and told her when he felt his sons and his grandsons.
He blinked back his tears and reached out a gnarled hand to touch his wife’s headstone, feeling the warmth of the marble as he fought to imagine it was the warmth of his beloved Erin.
She’d made him swear that if she went before him, he’d stay long enough to see her babies wed and happy.
There would be another wedding soon, he thought, then he’d just have to wait on his namesake, young Rory, to find his future.
Damn, that boy could be slow, though. He’d never been one to move fast on anything, and he didn’t seem to be in a hurry to settle down anytime soon.
“What are we gonna do with him, my Erin?” he sighed into the night. “He’s too slow, and I’m tired of waiting. I’m ready to come home.”
Home. Back to his wife’s loving arms.
And God he missed the warmth those arms held. The gentleness, the acceptance.
He missed his Erin.
Bending his head he kissed the top of the stone, touched his forehead to it for a moment, then rose from the bench he’d placed there.
He was getting too damned old to kneel the way he used to. But he couldn’t miss saying good night to his laughing lass. To the woman who had completed him.
“Good night, my love,” he whispered. “We’ll work on young Rory soon, I promise,” he sighed. “Just a little more time to finish growing the boy into the man, then I’ll be comin’ home to ya. Ah my Erin, I can’t wait to come home to ya.”
He patted the stone, turned, and walked back to the small home he’d shared with her, the one he’d raised his boys and his grandsons in, where he’d grown old, grown tired, and now, moved ever closer to leaving to his boys.
Soon, he could go home.
EPILOGUE
Two years later
Alpine, Texas
The house was full.
Jordan watched as his nephew, Noah “Nathan Malone” Blake and his wife Sabella laughed over the antics of their two-year-old daughter, Mira Paige, while their eight-year-old son, Noah Nathan, rolled his eyes at his sister and his parents. Little Noah was content being the “big brother,” but told anyone who would listen that she just simply refused to listen to her elders.
Micah Sloane stood beside his wife, Risa, their younger son exchanging an animated conversation with little Noah. Nik Steele and his wife Mikayla sat close by, a delicate little blond girl perched on his knee as she watched everyone shyly, obviously entranced by the antics of the boys a few feet from her.
Travis Caine’s other half, Lilly, sat beside her husband, holding her child. At eight months old, the surprise package still had the power to bemuse her parents.
Likewise, the son John Vincent and his ex-CIA wife had given birth to almost a year before, was often regarded as a miracle by the parents who had believed they would never be so blessed.
The men of the Elite Ops had come full circle, from “dead” men without lives, to men who enjoyed living far more than they had ever imagined they could.
Joining them were the men and women who had followed them through eight years of operations and two years of learning how to be simply husbands. Simply men.
They were all there. Laughter filled the room as the children, Joseph McIntyre, Kyle and Elissa Chavez, Jessica, Laine and Little Macey March, along with the much younger Lincoln Richards joined in to create a laughter-filled, harmonious event.
The christening of Erin Elizabeth Malone, the newest addition to the extended family, who watched the world with bright, Irish eyes.
His daughter.
Jordan stood behind his wife of two years, Tehya Malone, and couldn’t help the smile that curved his lips or the pride that filled his soul.
And the love.
This was no illusion. It was no desperate attempt to justify anything. It was pure, rock solid, and it filled every particle of his being.
He was a husband, a father, a friend. He was a man that awoke each morning to the warmth and the pleasure of the one woman who completed him as nothing ever had in his life.