Tempting SEALs 03: Hidden Agendas

by Lora Leigh

  She was right, Kell admitted as he watched her expression turn from shock to amazement, he was insane. He should be running from this woman as hard and as fast as possible. Instead, he was standing here, staring down at her, watching the flames of anger simmer in her blue eyes as the temper he had been waiting for began to rise to the surface.

  That red hair was hiding a hellion and he knew it. He shouldn't be encouraging her—hellions could be dangerous— but damn if he wasn't anticipating the fireworks.

  "Do you know what I really, really hate about SEALs?" She suddenly snarled, eyes narrowing, a little quiver of anger working over her body.

  Kell arched a brow mockingly. "We're always right?"

  "You are always so damned egotistical. You think you're so right. So in control. You think the whole freakin' world revolves around you, don't you, Kell?"

  "This one does," he amended. He made certain of it. "It's called training, sweet pea."

  He didn't expect the flash of hurt in her eyes when he said that.

  "Yes, it's called training," she bit out. "It's called being free, Kell. It's called being given control."

  "You want control, Emily?" He shook his head. "I don't think it's something you want. Because if you wanted it, you would have taken it years ago. Let me clue you in on SEALs, baby. We know how to read strength, but we also know how to read weakness. If your daddy controls you, then it's only because it's what you wanted. You want control? Then show him who the boss is. Be a woman who can back down a SEAL, sugar, and he'll give you the respect you're looking for."

  Emily stared back at him in shock. He had no idea what went on with her and her father.

  "You do not understand—"

  "I don't have to understand, only you do." He shook his head firmly. "You're woman enough to stand up to any SEAL. Just because it's not what your daddy wants doesn't mean you can't have it."

  She was ready to scream. She was ready to throw something at him. Where in God's name had her father found the one man guaranteed to make her want to kill?

  "I never imagined it did," she snapped, a flush working from her neck and over her face, the dark pink color rising to her hairline and making an interesting contrast to her auburn hair, creating a fiery image as her eyes glittered a furious blue. He had never seen anything so gorgeous in his whole damned life.

  "So, we going to make use of that bed or make use of the stove? I could be getting hungry."

  His gaze assured her that the hunger could go either way. Impossibly, she felt the anger sparking the desire as lust beat a hard-driving rhythm in her womb and anger surged through her head.

  "We're going to make use of your gun," she choked out furiously. "One nice, neat little hole in the middle of your empty forehead."

  Kell sighed. "Let's wait till after dinner. I'd hate to die on an empty stomach."

  "You think you know so much!" She had to fight to keep from screaming, to hold back the inner rage driving forward. "You think you have all the fucking answers, don't you, Kell?"

  "No, Emily, I don't," he answered forcefully, hating the pain he saw in her gaze now. "I don't have all the answers. I only have what I see and what I learned from those dipshit bodyguards you've had in the past. Do you know what I see?"

  She flinched. "I don't care what you see."

  "I see a woman who loves too fiercely. One who is too aware of others' pain and others' heartache, and who doesn't demand the same respect from those she loves. I see a woman who has remained a virgin, a virgin, Emily. An incredibly passionate woman dying to touch and be touched, and she's doing without it so she won't have to hurt her father. So she won't have to explain to him that whoever she marries and whenever she marries is her own damned business, and not his."

  There was no censure in his tone; if there had been, she could have fought him. She could have railed back in turn.

  "You're wrong," she whispered. "I've remained a virgin not because I didn't want to fight him. Because I didn't want others to pay for my fight with him. If you don't believe me, give Charlie Benson a call. I have his number if you need it. He was an Annapolis graduate and my first boyfriend after I turned eighteen. When Daddy caught him sneaking out of my bedroom and I refused to marry him, Daddy destroyed a damned bright naval career. Daddy destroyed a man for my decision, Kell. And I won't forget that. Maybe it's something you should remember."

  There was no escape from here. She couldn't stalk outside, she wasn't about to spend the rest of the summer in her bedroom. That left facing him, fighting him.

  But despite the humiliation she could still feel at remembering Charlie's fate, Emily realized she enjoyed sparring with Kell. He didn't raise his voice, he didn't yell, he became forceful. And that forcefulness challenged something inside her, brought it to the fore and demanded that she challenge him in return.

  "Benson was sneaking in to your bedroom, Emily." Kell laughed. "You were barely days past your eighteenth birthday and he was already in his twenties. He deserved what he got."

  "Daddy had him kicked out of Annapolis."

  "He was messing with an officer's daughter; he knew the risks."

  "See?" she yelled back. "You're just like Dad. Charlie was young. He was being romantic."

  "He was being horny." He crossed his arms over his chest arrogantly. "He was all dick and no brain. You deserved better."

  "And I guess you have a brain hiding in that head of yours?" she mocked in angry response.

  "I'm not a kid," he assured her, his green eyes filled with his own self-confidence. "The fact that I knew what to do when I got my head buried between your thighs should have assured you of that."

  "This is not about sex." She pushed her fingers through her hair, gripped it and wondered if pulling the strands would pull the frustration out of her.

  She was ready to scream. He was impossible.

  "No, it's about a hell of a lot more than sex. It's about us, Emily, and your precious daddy has no dog in this race. You can tell him to keep his nose out of it or I will."

  "You wouldn't!"

  "He won't catch me slipping out of your bedroom window. He pulls his normal stunts and he'll catch me in your bed. You can deal with it before that happens, or after. Your choice. I'm an officer, sugar, and he's not in the Navy any longer. He can't touch me."

  "You are not getting in my bed!" she yelled. She couldn't help it. He was outrageous. Demented.

  "Sugar, one kiss." He held up one finger. "Give me one kiss to prove otherwise. I'll have you flat on your back and penetrated before you know it's happened. Test that one out for size. Better yet." His expression shifted, became hungry, sexual. "Try me on for size."

  Oh, my God! She lost her breath. She was certain she'd lost her womb too, because the miniexplosions that detonated inside it couldn't have been good. And then there was the melting sensation in her vagina, the liquid heat and contracting pleasure that had her catching her breath.

  "Not on your life. Sorry, Kell, but I crossed SEALs off my list years ago. I'll just keeping looking if it's all the same to you."

  She turned to stalk back to her last refuge, her only refuge, her bedroom.

  And she almost made it. She was at the door when he caught her, pulling her around and pressing her against the wall as she stared up at him in surprise

  Surprise, because his expression wasn't playful anymore. It wasn't filled with amusement and lust. It was pure lust. It was heavy-lidded, wicked, dark, and sensual lust.

  "Struck them off your list did you, chère?" The Cajun accent was heavy now, flavored with sex and rich with hunger. "Then you best be putting this SEAL right at the top of the candidates, 'cause I promise you, my little vixen, this SEAL is gonna get that pretty cherry you been saving. And he's going to relish every taste, every cry, every thrust. You can bank on it, eh."

  Emily stared back at him in shock. This wasn't the cool, self-possessed, overly confident Kell Kreiger she had come to know, though some was still there.

  This was a wil
d man. This was a man who knew every flavor of sex and it showed in his expression, in the brilliant depths of his eyes. It echoed through her body, burning her with the memory of his lips on her pussy, his tongue thrusting and licking inside her.

  She tried to breathe evenly. Tried to push back the response that surged inside her, as instinctive as breathing, as old as lust itself.

  Her wrists were gripped in his hands, pressed against the wall, restraining her with the strength of the muscular arms behind them. His hips pressed into hers, his cock thick and hard beneath his jeans, his intent clear, just as he stated. He intended to have her.

  "Not on a bet." She almost winced at the breathless quality of her voice. It was smoky, sensual. A beckoning dare.

  "We'll see about that." The accent dissipated, smoothing from his voice as the devil-may-care smile returned. "That, darlin', we'll just have to see about."

  Chapter Ten

  He was losing himself to her, Kell could feel it. He forced back the lust, the hunger that had no place in the mission he was on. He put distance between himself and the fiery woman who stole reason from his mind.

  He was the one who retreated to his room, packing carefully for the trip to D.C. the next day. One small pack carried his weapons, extra ammo, and a change of casual clothes. Inside the pack, cushioned at the bottom in a waterproof bag, was an ID and credit cards in an alternate identity and enough cash to get him through most situations he might find himself in. Tucked in with it was a small case of tools that would get him into any locked door and several security systems.

  He was prepared.

  He packed the other weapons, his rifle, two backup revolvers, ammunition, and a dagger back into the larger duffel to store at Ian's condo until their return.

  There were more weapons stashed around Atlanta and outlying areas. Two safe houses, a bus stop safe. He was a man who'd learned the hard way to prepare for anything.

  And for that reason alone he should have known better than to think he could walk into Emily's life with nothing but lust. She was trouble with a capital T, and she was worming her way into his heart. Just as he had always sensed she would do. Hell, he had steered clear of her for the last five years for a reason, hadn't he?

  Or had he?

  He hadn't exactly stayed away. He had slipped in and out of her periphery, checking out her bodyguards, checking on her when he was in town. When he learned of her kidnapping he had just come off another assignment with a nasty little gunshot wound and more days without sleep than a man should be able to endure.

  The minute he got the word, he had his pack in his hands and had talked his way onto a flight heading out to the carrier where Reno and his men were briefing for the rescue.

  He had arrived just in time to join the team, pulling strings with the senator and Reno to get in position to protect Emily and the girls while the battle raged around the compound.

  And by God, he had protected her. Even drugged, out of her head with arousal from the date rape drug pumped into her, she had fought. She had held the other two girls in the far corner of the shack, low to the ground, and watched him with hunger and hope.

  And it was the memory of her eyes when she realized who he was that tormented him. Hope and hunger. The way she whispered his name. The way she fought to stay on her feet and to do whatever it took to aid in her rescue.

  He couldn't stop it. He wanted to stop it. He wanted to close her out of his head and his heart, eradicate the lust and need and return to being the man he had been before that night. Before he gazed into wild blue eyes and saw a need that echoed in his own soul. Before then, staying away from her hadn't been hard. After that, he had found himself unable to stay away.

  She was a woman dying to be free. Like a bird in a very pretty cage. One made of guilt-enforced bars and locked with the knowledge of a youthful indiscretion. That, and a father's determination to see his daughter married to a man able to defend her.

  Stanton might have gone about things the wrong way, and Kell had no doubt that was true, but he could see the senator's love for his daughter. Just as he saw Emily's love for her father.

  It had been there fifteen years before when Richard had first brought him home for dinner. Only weeks after Tansy's death. Richard Stanton and the detective Kell had worked for had been school friends and Navy buddies until the detective opted for civilian duty. One call and the then Commander Stanton had come straight to Louisiana and picked up his charge.

  That love between father and daughter had only grown.

  What he also saw was the fact that Emily's love for her father was so tainted with the past and her awareness of his pain in regards to her, that she drew back rather than fighting for what she wanted. And Richard took complete advantage of that.

  That would have to stop. When he finally got his ring on Emily's finger, it would be because she wanted it there, not because her father guilted her into it.

  He froze at that thought. Hell, he was screwed for sure now and he knew it. He was going to marry the damned little vixen. He wasn't a man prone to flights of fancy. Once it came to him, he went with it. Just as he knew that for once in his life he would be giving his grandparents what they dreamed of. A granddaughter-in-law that they approved of. And for years he had found the thought of that unacceptable.

  He paced through the bedroom, into the small bathroom, and stared into the mirror at the man he had become. It was something he had avoided for years, staring himself in the eye. Because each time he had, he saw his own failure to protect those who had depended on him so long ago.

  He had seen his own self-hatred. His fury. The useless blame he had placed on his parents' and grandparents' heads.

  At one time, he had wondered if he could ever forgive them. If he could ever think of the family he had lost with something other than wrenching pain.

  Tansy had been seven months pregnant when she had died. Their son had died in her womb. And Kell’s parents, his grandparents, hadn't even come to their funeral. He had stood beside the coffin with the detective he had worked for and raged, virtually alone.

  He had cried. On his knees, the last of his youth had drained out of him with the bitter tears he had shed.

  He stared at himself now, and saw the man he had become. Reno swore he had never been sane. Kell took chances other men didn't dare, even SEALs. And he saw the world differently in too many ways to be comfortable for others.

  He was no longer the boy who had lost a dream. He was a man now. The emotion building inside him where Emily was concerned was a man's love for a woman. A man who had finally accepted that no man or woman was completely safe and that too many took their safety for granted. Emily would be the woman who could stand by his side and aid in her own protection.

  He was man enough to know he couldn't continue with the loneliness that fed into his soul. He needed a home, love, a woman he could depend upon, one strong enough to understand the dangers she would always face.

  And Emily was that woman.

  He couldn't have imagined wanting more than an affair a week ago.

  But now, he wanted that and so much more.

  Chapter Eleven

  She could fall in love with Kell Kreiger.

  Emily admitted it when she woke up to coffee and cinnamon rolls before the sun had risen the next morning. She was madder than hell at him, her sleep had been restless, her thoughts filled with their argument from the night before, but one thing had become firmly implanted in her mind.

  Kell was worming his way into her heart. And he shouldn't be. She should be as wary of him as she had been of every other man her father had sent her. She knew he was a SEAL. She knew he was dominating, in control, and had the type of personality that would make her bite her nails at any given time.

  But he had been her fantasy for so long.

  That, and he didn't try to restrain her.

  Not that she had actually tried to do anything that he could protest. Yet. But he hadn't given the restlessness a chan
ce to take hold of her either. He challenged her, confronted her, and he made her think.

  He made her think about herself, her life, and a relationship between her and her father that she admitted was rapidly deteriorating.

  He made her realize it was just as much her fault as it was her father's.

  The only question remaining now was, Could she survive without murdering the man in his sleep over time? The only way to answer that was to actually get in a bed with him.

  The thought of that had the blood pumping through her body as she showered then drank that first cup of coffee of the day with him. And she realized she was comfortable.

  "We're meeting the Navy helicopter in a few hours." He checked the watch on his wrist as he wrote something in the small notebook he carried.