by Bianca D’Arc
What kind of women? The ones with a death wish?
She licked her lips. “May I ask what it is you want? Why is it so important that Rory Sullivan be killed? What did he do to you?”
Olivia thought for a moment he wasn’t going to answer her, feared that she may have gone too far when his face darkened. But it was remembered rage that colored his features, not anger directed toward her.
“Let’s just say there’s a man I want to destroy, and I’m beginning by removing everyone who’s important to him. Starting with his friends.” His lips parted in a grin. “I hear he’s fallen in love, so very soon I’ll be ready to take that away from him, too. Although”—he tapped his chin—“if she’s fetching enough, I may have to use her before I kill her.”
“You’ll kill her?” The words left her mouth before she could stop them. She bit her lip, preparing to be smacked because of the incredulity in her tone.
The smile faded from his face, and his eyes narrowed, though he didn’t lift his hand to her. “Yes. The male friends are peripheral, not enough for me to bother with personally. But a wife?” The grin returned, this time so full of malicious glee it wrapped ice around her gut. “To watch his face, the agony in his eyes as I fuck her and then kill her, with him powerless to stop me?” He nodded. “That is something I must do myself.”
Well, if he was going to use Olivia to do some of the dirty work, she damn well deserved to know why. “Who is this man? Why do you hate him so much?”
Eddy turned away from her. “Merr…” He broke off and shook his head. “He had everything—a loving family, wealth, power, and the poor sod couldn’t stand that he wasn’t normal.” With his heightened emotions, Eddy’s New York accent slipped a bit and took on a British flavor. He shook his head again. “It should have all been mine. If his father had just done what I’d asked—begged!—things might have been different.”
He trailed off, seeming to be lost in his thoughts. After a moment he shrugged. “Never mind. It’s not something you need to know.” He glanced over his shoulder at her, eyes hard. “All you need to know is that for your daughter to remain safe you have a job to do.”
Eyeing the distance between them, Olivia wondered if she could catch him off guard long enough to kill him. She could morph her fingers into claws now, just like he did. She might be able to do it.
It would only take one quick slash across the throat.
But then what about Zoe? There was at least one bodyguard standing outside her door, his bulk casting a shadow onto the floor of the hallway.
Olivia briefly closed her eyes. She’d never be able to do it. She couldn’t kill Eddy and go for the bodyguard before he could get to Zoe.
She had no other choice. She must finish the job she’d been given.
Thinking back over the last few days, she remembered her first impression of Rory Sullivan. Tall, dark and dangerous.
An earnest protector.
Sexy as hell. But…
He had to die.
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“You call that a clinch?”
Whatever it was it made Callie’s head explode. “Sure.”
“Tell me something.”
No way was she agreeing to that without more information. Hand this man an opening and he’d steer a submarine through it.
He kept talking anyway. Looked pretty relaxed in his slouch as his smile inched up on his lips. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
If he wanted to shock her…well, he did. “How is that relevant?”
“Call me curious.”
“Are you allowed to ask me about that?”
“You think there’s a law against it?”
“There should be.”
“So, you’re not going to answer?”
Not until she knew where this was going. “What does the state of my love life have to do with anything?”
“You know all about me. Only seems fair I get some background on you.”
“I need to know about your life in order to do my job.” At least that was the excuse she used when she ventured outside the file Mark gave her. She’d lost her clearance when she walked away from her job at the FBI, but she still had friends of the computer-hacker variety. In just a few hours she had all the paperwork that existed on Ben.
She had to admit her little search mission turned out to be a huge disappointment. His background was so clean it squeaked. If he hadn’t passed through screening committees and all sorts of interviews to get his current judicial position she would have thought someone manufactured his past. No arrests. No trouble. Great grades. Always within the law. For some reason she expected to find a smart guy with a bad boy past. That sounded good in the fantasy she created in her head but looked as if it wasn’t true.
“So, you’re not poking around in my life just because you’re nosy?” he asked.
No way could he know about her travels through his personal history. She’d been careful and cleaned up behind her. “I don’t poke.”
“Tell me what you want to know.”
She smelled a con. “Anything?”
“You get one question.”
She thought about his decision to leave the military and about the scarce information on his parents. She skipped all that and went with the issue at the front of her mind. “What’s going on between you and Emma?”
“I’ve already answered that. We’re friends.”
Callie snorted just to let him know what she thought of his fake deals. “I don’t climb all over my friends when the door shuts.”
“Really? When do you climb on them then?”
“Huh?”
He closed in. One minute he shot her a lazy smile. The next he stood up straight and hovered over her with his cheek right next to hers. “What do you do with your friends?”
Heat thrummed off him, surrounding her and filling her with a tingly sensation from shoulders to toes. “I don’t—”
“Do you touch them?” Ben trailed the back of his hand down her cheek. Dragged his thumb across her lips.
“I…”
“Smell them?” He leaned down and nuzzled her ear. “Do they smell as good as you?”
His mouth traveled down her neck, nipping and kissing. Hot breath tickled her skin as his fingers caressed her waist. The double whammy of touching slammed her breath to a halt in her chest. Her body strained to get closer to him as her palms skimmed up his back.
Holy crap. “This isn’t a good idea,” she said.
“Probably not but I’ve been wanting to do it all day.”
“I thought you were mad at me.”
“Be quiet for a second.”
Then his mouth covered hers. His lips pressed deep and strong and his tongue brushed against hers. There was nothing teasing about this kiss. It shot through her hot and wet, electrifying every cell inside her. She fell into the sensation of being overpowered and claimed. Her stomach tumbled and her knees dipped. Muscles relaxed as her brain shifted into neutral.
“God, yes,” he mumbled when their mouths lifted on gasps of harsh breaths.
He dove back in. His lips met hers over and over again in a kiss that had her winding her arms around his neck and pulling him close.
Him. Her. Touching. Nothing else mattered. Pleasure crashed over her, drowning out everything around them. Fingers searched and sculpted. Her hands swept into his hair while his pushed against her lower back, easing her closer to the juncture between his thighs. She heard the grumbling moan in his chest and the deep breaths from her own.
She lifted her head in an attempt to get some air. “Ben…that…”
“You taste so good.”
His mouth found that sensitive spot right at the slope of her chin. Her kryptonite. A few nibbling kisses and she wanted to strip that conservative shirt and tie right off him.
She dropped her head back to give him greater access. “Right there.”
W
hen his mouth found hers again, lights exploded in her brain. He kissed like he worked, with an intensity that sent her common sense screaming in wild defeat. The touch of his lips was all she dreamed about and everything she feared.
But her mind shouted out a red light warning through the sensual haze. She had a job and he had a girlfriend.
Callie pulled her mouth away, letting her forehead rest against his cheek as she struggled to breathe without wheezing. “We have to stop.”
“God, why?” He mumbled the question against her hair.
“Emma.” Callie now hated that name.
With the gentle touch of his palms, he lifted her head and stared down at her. The gaze from deep brown eyes searched her face. The rapid beating in his chest thumped against her as his eyes grew soft.
“I don’t cheat,” he said in a husky whisper. “If I were with Emma I wouldn’t be kissing you.”
Callie knew she should pull back, but she rubbed her hands up his back instead. “But, I saw—”
“Evidence of a lifelong friendship.” He traced her cheekbones with his thumbs. “That’s it.”
“You’re not—”
“No.”
“Does Emma know that?”
His chuckle vibrated against her from everywhere their bodies touched. “Definitely.”
Relief washed through Callie. She balanced her head on his chin as she tried to figure out what it all meant. “Now what?”
“You invite me to your house.”
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“I didn’t invite you in, T.J.”
He just smiled.
He was built as solid as the mountains that had shaped his life, and frankly had the attitude to go with it, the one that said he could take on whoever and whatever, and you could kiss his perfect ass while he did so. She’d seen him do it too, back in his hell-raising, misspent youth.
Not that she was going there, to the time when he could have given her a single look and she’d have melted into a puddle at his feet.
Had melted into a puddle at his feet. Not going there…
Unfortunately for Harley’s senses, he smelled like the wild Sierras; pine and fresh air, and something even better, something so innately male that her nose twitched for more, seeking out the heat and raw male energy that surrounded him and always had. Since it made her want to lean into him, she shoved in another bite of ice cream instead.
He smiled. “I saw on Oprah once that women use ice cream as a substitute for sex.”
She choked again, and he resumed gliding his big, warm hand up and down her back. “You watch Oprah?”
“No. Annie was, and I overheard her yelling at the TV that women should have plenty of both sex and ice cream.”
That sounded exactly like his Aunt Annie. “Well, I don’t need the substitute.”
“No?” he murmured, looking amused at her again.
“No!”
He hadn’t taken his hands off her, she couldn’t help but notice. He still had one rubbing up and down her back, the other low on her belly, holding her upright, which was ridiculous, so she smacked it away, doing her best to ignore the fluttering he’d caused and the odd need she had to grab him by the shirt, haul him close and have her merry way with him.
This was what happened to a woman whose last orgasm had come from a battery operated device instead of a man, a fact she’d admit, oh never. “I was expecting your brother.”
“Stone’s working on Emma’s ‘honey do’ list at the new medical clinic, so he sent me instead. Said to give you these.” He pulled some maps from his back pocket, maps she needed for a field expedition for her research. When she took them out of his hands, he hooked his thumbs in the front pockets of his Levi’s. He wore a T-shirt layered with an opened button-down that said Wilder Adventures on the pec. His jeans were faded nearly white in the stress spots, of which there were many, nicely encasing his long, powerful legs and lovingly cupping a rather impressive package that was emphasized by the way his fingers dangled on his thighs.
Not that she was looking.
Okay, she was looking, but she couldn’t help it. The man oozed sexuality. Apparently some men were issued a handbook at birth on how to make a woman stupid with lust. And he’d had a lot of practice over the years.
She’d watched him do it.
Each of the three Wilder brothers had barely survived their youth, thanks in part to no mom and a mean, son-of-a-bitch father. But by some miracle, the three of them had come out of it alive and now channeled their energy into Wilder Adventures, where they guided clients on just about any outdoor adventure that could be imagined; heli-skiing, extreme mountain biking, kayaking, climbing, anything.
Though T.J. had matured and found success, he still gave off a don’t-mess-with-me vibe. Even now, at four in the afternoon, he looked big and bad and tousled enough that he might have just gotten out of bed and wouldn’t be averse to going back.
It irritated her. It confused her. And it turned her on, a fact that drove her bat-shit crazy because she was no longer interested in T.J. Wilder.
Nope.
It’d be suicide to still be interested. No one could sustain a crush for fifteen years.
No one.
Except, apparently, her. Because deep down, the unsettling truth was that if he so much as directed one of his sleepy, sexy looks her way, her clothes would fall right off.
Again.
And wasn’t that just her problem, the fact that once upon a time, a very long time ago, at the tail end of T.J.’s out-of-control youth, the two of them had spent a single night together being just about as intimate as a man and woman could get. Her first night with a guy. Definiitely not his first. Neither of them had been exactly legal at the time, and only she’d been sober.
Which meant only she remembered.
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Copyright © 2010 Cristine Martins
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