Hard to Protect (Black Ops Heroes)

by Black, Incy

  “Yes, please, sweetheart, but only when I call the terms, time, and place.”

  White noise rushed her ears, pinpricks of light exploded the outer corners of her mind. “Bastard.”

  He levered himself away from her desk and sauntered toward the door. “Yes, I am, Angel. And that’s something you’d do well not to forget the next time you take it into your head to try and play me.”

  She waited until she could no longer hear his footsteps slapping the linoleum in the corridor. Then, ice flowing her veins, she shuffled the remaining papers strewn across her desk and set them into more neat towers, the corners in perfect alignment.

  So Berwick thinks he holds all the cards, does he?

  She marched to the hook in the corner of her office and shrugged on her trench coat, belting it tight. Hah, she’d soon show him.

  …

  “Jesus, Will,” Zac McAlister complained, falling into furious stride beside him as he crossed the stark concourse spread wide in front of the Cube. “When I persuaded that little hottie in Data Retrieval to violate a few laws and get me everything she could on Angel Treherne’s childhood, sealed records included, I didn’t expect you to hit her with the details quite that savagely.”

  He ignored the brutal twist in his gut—nothing to do with the recurrent pain he’d been experiencing. Something different. Raw disgust. With himself. “She’ll find a way to process it; she’s a survivor.”

  His friend snagged his elbow and pulled him to a stop. “You behaved like a complete dick back there. What the hell’s gotten into you?”

  “Butters ordered me to fuck her for information. When this is all over, which do you think she’ll prefer? A few emotional bruises now, or the long-term humiliation of knowing she blindly tumbled into bed with a man whose sole intent was to screw her, and I don’t just mean in the physical sense?”

  He resumed walking. Zac followed, still bitching.

  “You could have pulled a few of your punches. When it comes to games without rules, you’re an experienced player; she’s a novice.”

  “Some bloody novice,” he growled, recalling her outrageous strip tease and the way she’d pressed up against him when trying to lure him into her home. And the way she’d managed to implant herself in his dreams, naked, slick, hair down in a tangle. Breasts hot and swollen, nipples rosy and hard, her mouth busy—

  He picked up his already spine-jarring pace.

  Zac, the little bastard, stuck by his side. “You want her, Will, and don’t deny it. Angel’s a challenge you can’t resist… Just like Diana.”

  He swung around, halting Zac’s forward momentum with an aggressive chest bump. “Want to explain how Diana suddenly found her unwelcome way into this conversation?”

  “Not particularly, but if you insist,” Zac snarled, crowding him right back. “You wanted Diana, and initially, she blocked your every move on her because she knew you were the wrong man for her—”

  “You, I suppose, being the right man,” Will threw in with livid derision.

  “Maybe. I made no secret of the fact I was in love with her. But did you give up chasing her?” Zac continued, poking him in the chest. “No. Just as you’re doing with Angel, you tore right on through every one of Diana’s defenses, and look how well that worked out for her.”

  Will’s lungs compressed as if struck by a wrecking ball. “Seven years since Diana killed herself, and only now you find the balls to point the finger and hold me responsible? What the fuck, mate?”

  Zac reached forward, gripped his shoulder, his fingers digging in as much as the packed muscle would allow, and gave him a shake. Or tried to, because Will had locked rigid. “Hey, I’m not looking to level blame, Boss-man. We both loved her. We both lost her. We both miss her. Shit happens. I’m just giving you the heads up that words and actions have consequences… Often unforeseen consequences.”

  Now why did that sound like a threat? “What’s going on, Zac? You’re zigzagging worse than the switchbacks on Lombard Street.”

  Zac shrugged. “I like Angel. She’s loyal. What I don’t like is Butters bullying her. Nor the way he’s using you to do it. So I’m looking out for her. Something I would not have to do had Diana cheating on you not screwed with your head and distorted your judgment.”

  Breath-snatching body blow number two. How in the hell had Zac found out about Diana’s infidelity? “So you know about the affair. How?” Will forced out when he could. He’d examine the accusation that he was testing Angel—never.

  “Diana. She told me. You know I kept an eye on her whenever you went deep under cover. If she got in a mess, I cleaned it up. Looks like I’m fated to do the same for Angel.”

  There was that hint of blame again. As if he didn’t punish himself every goddamn day with the torment of knowing he’d let Diana down. Christ, she’d opted for suicide rather than marriage to him.

  Will glared at his best friend, then eased back. He didn’t want to lose someone else he loved from his life. The effort of grinning near tore his face apart. “My brutality back there? Deliberate, you idiot. Angel and I need distance from each other. Having her hate my guts is one way to achieve that, and I’m not done riling her yet. First thing tomorrow, I want her picked up and thrown into solitary confinement. Not only will that piss her off royally and put a stop to whatever game it is she’s playing, it’ll scupper Butters. Because I can hardly be expected to date a dead woman.”

  Again, Zac pulled him to halt, his face deeply unhappy. “Whoa, hang on a minute—”

  Will swiped an open hand across his face and did his best to project an I-know-what-I’m-doing glare. “Not that she’s really going to die, but I do need Angel out of sight and isolated for the foreseeable future for my plan to work. We’ve been going at this from the wrong angle. Using Angel to go after Rhys is a waste of time. She’ll never give him up. That horrific knife score on her palm? It’s cut so deep, she carries the scar on her very soul, and I’m banking on the same going for Rhys. So…we use Angel to lure him to us.”

  “Locking her up won’t bring him in.”

  “Granted, but faking her death and orchestrating a widely publicized burial for a previously unrevealed child survivor of the nationally reviled Cymion Gray will ensure a good turnout of mourners. And Rhys is sure to break cover and attend, even if only to satisfy himself that Angel is indeed dead. We flood the cemetery with undercover agents and nab him when he shows up.”

  Zac nodded. “Creative, but if you’re looking to involve the media, you’ll have to convince Butters you can contain the situation if things go tits up. Like if Rhys takes umbrage at his baby sister’s untimely death and decides to open fire on members of the public by way of twisted revenge.”

  “He’s a fugitive, Zac, not an escapee from a high security facility for the insane. Now, sod off so I can refine the details.”

  Zac directed his eyes heavenward. “You walking home?”

  “Yup. It will give whoever stole my brain the opportunity to return it.”

  “Rather you than me, mate. Looks like it’s going to piss down.”

  Which it did, the entire four-mile walk back to his former sail-maker’s loft—with only one stop for a couple of inches of brandy.

  The fortifying properties of the fiery liquid afforded him absolutely no protection against what confronted him outside his home.

  Chapter Six

  Angel sat on his doorstep, knees to her chest, her back braced against his front door. And soaking. Absolutely sodden.

  She pushed to her feet and threw her arms wide, or as wide as her tightly clinched trench coat would allow. “Surprise.”

  Surprise? Try shock. What the bloody hell side of her was this?

  The frigid, he was familiar with. The livid, too, the way she’d yelled at him to get out of her office. He could deal comfortably with both.

  The shy, hesitant, sweet girl who knew not one damn thing about flirting? Just about manageable. The vulnerable her? The heart-achingly beautiful w
oman desperate to guard a secret corner for herself? The one still living the horror of Cymion Gray? He knew to tiptoe and try and handle with care.

  But the unpredictable in her—the thrill she got from speed, the sexy abandonment evident in her little strip tease, her fearlessness in taking him on—so not like Diana—that side of her dropped him to his knees. And he could do not one damn thing about it other than hang on tight and hope he survived.

  Pray God, she was wearing any side but the wild. “Why the hell are you here, Angel?”

  “To take you up on your promise.”

  He creased his brow. Promise? He’d made no such damn thing. “What?”

  “You said when not if we fuck. I’m here to collect. Now.”

  He winced. Foul language was all wrong tripping from her lips. “Funny, I could have sworn I was quite specific about it being me who would call the shots.”

  She laughed, her hands drawing two parallel lines from her neck to her hips. “You’ll wait until I’m eighty, Will, and all this will have moved south.”

  Had the sub-zero temperature not locked his jaw, he was pretty damn certain his mouth would have dropped open. Angel Treherne? Playful? Pigs had to be flying high in the night sky. “I seem to remember wanting to being a condition, too?”

  Her hand fell to one cocked forward hip, her chin notched higher. Christ, how could having her look at him down her patrician nose be such a turn-on? And what the hell had happened to the shy, couldn’t flirt for shit, her?

  “And?”

  “And what?” He braced for whatever she’d throw next. Attitude? Sass? Ice? One of those damn pigs flying in the sky? The harsh words he’s used back in her office earlier were supposed to have sent the Doc running in the opposite direction from him. No such luck. Christ, how the hell did he get himself into these situations? No, how did she get him into these situations?

  “And… How are you faring on the wanting front?”

  The way her eyes glinted hot with purpose as they settled on his groin? The way tiny droplets of water clung to her eyelashes like tiny gems? The delectable way the rain traced the contours of her heart-stopping beauty in a delta of pretty mini-rivers from her brow to her chin? The way her totally inadequate against the downpour, military-cut raincoat lay plastered against her curves?

  Him wanting her was so not an issue.

  But her seizing the initiative? No way. Her dictating the time and place? Certainly not. Given free rein, God alone knew what she would do or where she would draw the line. Beside which, he preferred to be the one in control.

  He swiped a palm across his face, flicked his wrist to shake off the excess wet, and tried glaring her into a retreat.

  Which she ignored, the corners of her oh-so-tempting mouth widening into a come-hither grin. Possibly mocking him. Definitely daring him.

  Fuck.

  Had she shivered a single solitary tremor or shown a modicum of doubt, he would have bowed to decency, stuck her in a cab, and sent her home.

  But she didn’t.

  So he pushed it. “Okay, we’ll start by sharing a hot shower.”

  Maybe his bluff would bring her to her senses. Or sober her up. Could be she’d been drinking… Absinthe, probably, given its potency—neat and by the pint.

  “Fine, just hurry and open up before we both freeze to death.”

  She held her ground even as he crowded close, leaned around her, and punched in the code to release his heavy steel front door. Then, hands on her shoulders, he turned her and gently pushed her forward. “After you. There’s a shower room straight down the corridor, last door on the left.”

  Head high, without hesitation, she cut a beeline down the long, wide space as if strutting the runway at a couture fashion reveal.

  Dropping to his haunches, he loosened his bootlaces, his eyes fixed on her back. Any minute now, she’d stop, turn around, and leave.

  He scuffed free his boots and started counting off her steps in his mind. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty… Turn around, damn you.

  Only she didn’t.

  His pulse quickened. The blood rushing his veins heated to an eager simmer. Christ, any moment now, he’d be howling like a wolf. What was he? Fourteen years old again?

  Angel glided to a stop.

  His heart stuttered. She’d changed her mind—thank God. Bitter disappointment raked his chest.

  One palm to the wall to brace herself, Angel kicked off first one high heel, then the other.

  Oh, bugger.

  Bowing forward, knee high and angled, she shimmied and wriggled. A lace-top thigh high floated from her fingers to the floor. More bowing forward, more shimmying and wriggling. A second lace-top thigh high went sailing. Then, spine straight, hips swaying, on she proceeded with her catwalk.

  Oh, fuck.

  His three half-sisters—each fathered by a different man, because his mother, Helena, had ignored all bulletins regarding the average nuclear family—would bash him about the head if he accepted Angel’s invitation.

  “Stay away from women with issues,” they’d lambasted him, while dragging him from the alcohol lake into which he’d dived after Diana’s suicide. Weeks and weeks of their highly vocal bullying. “Keep it zipped around women showing the slightest hint of wild but vulnerable.” “Stick to women who don’t need saving.” “Protect yourself, Will. Protect your heart. You’ve always been a sucker for unpredictable women.”

  He shook the echoes of his sisters’ voices from his head.

  Angel Bloody Treherne wasn’t just unpredictable. She was flat-out dangerous.

  She’d reached the last door on the left. Eyebrows near to her hairline in query, she subjected him to a full body scan before, on his nod, forging into his luxury shower room—salon size, sleek, no dividing walls, showerheads embedded flush with the ceiling and walls, the experience when the water fell akin to standing in a monsoon—his pride and joy.

  His heart at full thud, gritting his teeth, he hurried after her. And had to duck as her black raincoat sailed across the shower room’s threshold and hit the corridor wall with a soggy slap.

  Jesus.

  Using the control unit by the door, he activated only the showerheads embedded in the ceiling at the far end of the slate tiled space, setting the water to run hot, in rainforest downpour mode. Steam immediately curled into the room.

  Christ, he hoped he was up to this. A guilty conscience wasn’t the best sexual stimulus. Guilty, because though she’d instigated this little game and, damn straight, he’d play it through, he couldn’t rid himself of the nag in his head that he’d provoked her, practically dared her, into revealing the wild she usually buried far behind her icy front.

  Angel turned around, her fingers already busy with the buttons on her blouse, those gray, gray eyes of hers brightly lit with a challenge not even the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse could drag him clear of accepting.

  She may have opened this play, but he’d be damned if he let her be the one to control how it closed.

  He shrugged his jacket from his shoulders and let it fall.

  Unbuttoning the cuffs, the sleeves smoothly sliding her arms, she lost her blouse.

  Eye contact maintained, like in a schoolyard game of “Chicken” waiting to see who’d flinch first, he released the button on his jeans and lowered the zipper.

  She shimmied free from her skirt.

  He hauled off his T-shirt.

  She unclipped her bra, one arm closing across herself to hold it in place. Then, dancing her shoulders to free the straps, she let it fall.

  His breath hitched.

  Her panties—naughty snippets of navy lace to match her bra—fluttered from her hips, down her never-ending legs, and joined the rest of her clothes on the slate tiles.

  He locked his knees. Angel Treherne favored naked—as in shaved naked.

  That he’d be up to this was no longer an issue. He was so up he put the damn Washington Monument to shame. And it hurt. He’d never felt pleasure like it.


  “Sorry about the scars. I won’t be offended if you close your eyes,” she said, giving him her back and stepping under the spray.

  Scars? What scars? He hadn’t noticed any. Too bloody mesmerized. She was Aphrodite, and every inch of her called for the lick and curl of his tongue.

  He dropped the T-shirt clutched tight in his fist and dispensed with his jeans, briefs, and socks in one move.

  She’d won. He cared not one fuck about losing.

  Joining her under the spray, he smoothed his hands over her hips and pulled her close, muttering a curse when she flinched. Should have warmed his icy hands first.

  He nuzzled her neck, tasting her skin. His straining erection, resting perpendicular in the cleft of her perfect arse, pulsed its gratification. Rocking hell, their bodies fit perfectly.

  But… He steeled himself for what was to come.

  Stretching past her, he flicked the control dial to cold. As he’d anticipated, she shrieked and spun round in his arms, desperate to escape the shockingly icy flow. He immediately readjusted the downpour back to hot. “I prefer my women willing and responsive, Doc. You’ve withdrawn so deep into that hardcore shell of yours I was beginning to doubt life. If you’ve changed your mind, just say so.”

  That was the last chance he’d give her. If she didn’t turn tail and run, she was his. No regrets. No guilt.

  “I haven’t.”

  Christ, he hoped his thank-you-baby-Jesus relief wasn’t writ too large across his face.

  Feline eyes, deep gray and as still as a lake un-trespassed by man or beast, stared at him unblinking. But she still hadn’t loosened that damned French braid. Her security blanket? Whatever.

  His palms tingling, he raised his hands, his fingers searching out the tortuous hairpins. Which he casually flicked over his shoulder one by one. “Well, I bloody well might change mine if you don’t relax a little.”

  “You sure it’s not the scars?”

  He frowned. “What, these?” He leaned back and peered at the fine line of faded crisscrossing snicks tracking the left side of her abdomen, tracing each one with the pad of his thumb.