by Karen Foley
He took a hefty swallow of the dark stout, telling himself again that he was an idiot. He might find Sara sexy as hell, but he wasn’t stupid enough to get involved with her.
A journalist. A freaking reporter.
Go figure.
He wondered again how she had discovered his involvement in the rescue of the aid workers in Pakistan, and who her source was. There were only a select few people who knew about his role in the rescue, and aside from his own men, most of them were in the higher echelons of the Pentagon.
Rafe was in the process of taking another swig of beer when he paused, the glass raised halfway to his mouth. Sara Sinclair strode past the window of the pub, her coppery hair swinging over her shoulders, her breasts gently bouncing beneath her blue sweater. Rafe barely resisted the urge to press his face to the glass and watch her retreat down the sidewalk. Shaking his head at his own foolishness, he raised his glass again and then paused, the motion arrested by what he saw outside on the sidewalk. A man followed Sara, and as Rafe watched, he gestured to someone on the other side of the street.
Rafe’s heart rate kicked up a notch and he swiftly set down the beer and threw some money on the table. Even as part of his brain argued not to get involved, that it was none of his business, he was out the door of the pub before he’d fully realized it. The gesture had been swift and subtle, no more than several flicks of the man’s hand, but Rafe recognized the hand signals. He’d used them himself numerous times during close engagements in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Follow. Intercept. Stay out of sight.
The hand signals were used almost exclusively by the military or law enforcement, but instinct told Rafe the man following Sara was neither. Glancing down the sidewalk, he saw the first man striding purposefully along, keeping five or six pedestrians between himself and his target. Across the street, Rafe saw a second man working his way swiftly through the crowd, presumably to head Sara off.
Even as he watched, Sara turned a corner and disappeared, and the man across the street sprang into action, sprinting into oncoming traffic in order to cross to where she’d vanished down a narrow passageway between buildings. Rafe guessed she was headed for a parking lot on the next street and the alley was a shortcut through. Even if he ran, he wouldn’t be able to catch up with Sara before the two men reached her, and every instinct in his body told him this wasn’t going to end well for her.
With a muttered curse, he ducked back into the pub and headed for the rear exit, ignoring the surprised exclamation of a waitress as she came around the bar with a tray of drinks.
“Sorry,” he muttered, then pushed through the exit door onto a narrow service road and quickly orientated himself. If he sprinted, he could approach the alley from the opposite direction, but he’d need to move fast if he wanted to reach Sara before the two men did. He took off at a dead run, estimating it would take no more than ten seconds to reach the far end of the alleyway.
The lane behind the pub was blocked off and he had to scale the security fence to reach the next road, but it took him no effort to leverage himself over the chain link and drop easily to his feet on the other side. By the time he reached the alley, Sara was a little more than halfway through, seemingly unaware of the two figures who shadowed her.
“Sara,” he called, infusing his voice with what he hoped sounded like friendly relief. “There you are! I was afraid I’d missed you.”
Sara stopped in her tracks and stared at him, her face expressing her astonishment at seeing him standing there. Behind her, the two men stopped as well.
“Sergeant Delgado,” she exclaimed. The alley acted like a wind tunnel, blowing debris around her feet and plastering her hair across her face. She pushed it back with an impatient movement. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” he said, his glance flicking to the two men. They stood undecided about thirty feet behind Sara, conferring silently. Rafe put an arm around her shoulder, placing himself between her and the men while simultaneously steering her toward the end of the alley. “Friends of yours?” he asked quietly, gesturing toward the men.
Sara looked over her shoulder at the two men in the middle of the alley. A small frown puckered her forehead. “No.”
They had almost reached the end of the narrow alley. In another two seconds they would emerge onto the main street, where Rafe could see pedestrians and cars passing by. He propelled Sara out of the alley, and as they turned the corner onto the street, he cast one last look at the two men. Clearly frustrated, one of them kicked savagely at the dirt beneath his feet before they turned and retreated back the way they had come.
“So…why did you come after me?” Sara asked as they walked along the street.
“I just, ah, forgot there was something I did want to tell you, after all.”
She looked skeptically at his hand on her shoulder and then up at him, her blue eyes wary. “Really? After the way you left, I can’t imagine there’s anything you’d want to share with me. You made your feelings perfectly clear.”
Afterwards, Rafe could never be sure what made him do it. Maybe it was the expression in her eyes—a vestige of the hurt he’d witnessed at the charity ball when he’d refused to shake her hand. Maybe it was the way she stubbornly set her chin, as if by doing so she could disguise the imperceptible tremble of her lower lip. He only knew that in that instant, he needed to kiss her, to taste her.
“Well, maybe not completely clear,” he muttered, and pushed her up against the wall of the nearest building. He swept his gaze over her face. Her lips had parted on a soft “oh” of surprise, and her hands had flattened against his chest, probably to push him away. Before she could form a word of protest, Rafe bent his head and covered her mouth with his own. She went still with shock.
He knew he should pull away, but in the same instant that he realized they were drawing attention from passersby, his brain registered the incredible softness of her lips and the subtle scent that filled his nostrils. She smelled like ginger and honey and he wanted to eat her.
He deepened the kiss, pressing past her lips until he found her tongue with his own and stroked it. She made a small sound in the back of her throat and her fingers no longer splayed flat against his chest. Instead, they curled into the soft leather of his jacket and drew him closer.
She tasted faintly like the hot chocolate she’d drunk earlier, and he angled his head to explore her mouth more fully, feasting on her lush lips. Her mouth had driven him crazy from the first moment he’d seen her at the charity ball, but the reality of kissing her exceeded all of his lustful imaginings. He hadn’t meant to kiss her, but he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation of her mouth, and what he’d intended to be a brief brushing of their lips had turned into something…more. He needed to regain control of the situation. With supreme effort, he dragged his mouth from Sara’s and sucked in a lungful of air.
“Oh,” she breathed, and released his jacket, smoothing the bunched leather with her fingers.
Rafe took a step back. Several people walked past and smiled at their public display, no doubt thinking he and Sara were lovers. The woman was safe. Mission complete. If he was smart, he’d turn and walk away—but he made the mistake of looking at Sara. As he watched, she raised her hand and touched her lips with her fingertips, as if she could still feel him there. She appeared dazed, and her hair was tangled from where he’d buried his hands in it. Her breathing was uneven, and she looked exactly the way Rafe felt.
Unbalanced.
“I’m not sorry,” he finally said, his voice sounding a little rough. “I’ve been wanting to do that since I first saw you at the charity ball.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened just a bit, and then she pushed herself away from the wall and stepped past him, continuing along the sidewalk. “Is that why you followed me? Because you wanted to kiss me?”
Rafe knew he should tell her about his suspicions that the men in the alley had wanted to harm her, but something made him bite his tongue. He had se
en the troubled expression in her eyes when he had directed her attention to the two men, and he suspected she knew why they had been following her. Even now, she couldn’t prevent her eyes from scanning the street. Her involuntary response, more than anything else, convinced him that she was in danger. And she knew it.
“Yeah, something like that,” he muttered.
She gave a soft sound of disgust. Rafe fell into step beside her. She ignored him as they crossed the street toward a parking lot. He felt her glance flick over him.
“So what is it you really want?” she finally asked, coming to a stop next to a small silver sedan and turning to face him. “After what you said earlier, I have a hard time believing you came back just to—to do that.”
Rafe had a hard time believing she had no idea how appealing she was. “There was another reason,” he finally said, lying through his teeth. “I’ve reconsidered doing the interview.”
She peered at him, clearly suspicious. “Why?”
He shrugged. “If you know I was involved, it stands to reason that others do, too. It’s only a matter of time before some journalist decides to run the story, so I’d rather have it done in a way that gets the facts straight while protecting the lives of my men.”
He saw the skepticism on her face. “Really? You’re willing to let me do the story?”
He paused, considering what he had witnessed earlier. He was convinced the two men following Sara had wanted to hurt her, maybe even kill her. They were probably still lurking somewhere nearby, waiting for an opportunity to finish whatever it was they intended. Sara wouldn’t stand a chance against them.
“Yeah,” he finally responded. “I’ll give you the story—on one condition.”
“What is it?” Her voice was wary.
“You need to shadow me 24/7 for the next week. If, after the week is over, you still want to write that story, then I’ll tell you everything that happened in Pakistan.”
Sara stared at him as though she thought he’d lost his mind, which apparently he had. He didn’t want to get involved with this woman, didn’t want to get to know her or care about what happened to her. But his gut told him that unless he kept her close, something very bad was going to happen to her.
She tipped her head and considered him doubtfully. “What do you mean…24/7?”
He didn’t dare meet her eyes for fear she would see the wolf that lurked just beneath his skin, because he realized that suddenly, he desperately wanted her to accept his offer. So he looked out over the parking lot, keeping his expression bland and his voice neutral. “It means for the next week you’re with me day and night. You go where I go.”
Her eyebrows shot up and an astonished laugh escaped her. “Why? I don’t see any benefit to that. None.”
He turned his gaze back to her and shrugged, forcing a nonchalance he was far from feeling. “I just thought that if you spent a week shadowing me, you’d see what I really do, and you’d realize that I’m no hero. Besides, how could you write a story about someone you know nothing about?”
Sara’s lips compressed. “How do I know this isn’t some devious plot to get me alone so you can—you know.” She gestured back toward the alley. “Kiss me.”
“You don’t.”
Considering that he’d just waylaid and accosted her on a public street, the question was more than valid. He could just ask her if there was any reason why someone would want to follow her and perhaps hurt her. But if there was one thing he’d learned in his years of hunting the bad guys, it was never to trust anyone—especially not pretty women with big, blue eyes—without first knowing all the facts. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t step in to keep her safe.
She chewed her lip, considering his words, and then began rummaging in her purse. “Can you give me a moment, please? I can’t just commit to spending a week with you. I have a job, a life! You have no idea what you’re asking.”
He waited while she punched a number into her cell phone and turned partially away from him, muttering something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like “I must be nuts.” He had to agree with her.
He heard snippets of her conversation and guessed that she was talking with her editor, mostly arguing why spending a week in his exclusive company was a bad idea. A very bad idea. But he could tell by the resigned stiffening of her slender shoulders that he had won. She hung up the phone and turned back to him.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll do it. When does this one week start?”
He smiled grimly. “Right now.”
5
SARA NAVIGATED THE STREETS of the capitol, acutely aware of the dark sports car that followed her. This had to be the nuttiest thing she’d agreed to do in her entire life. Just the thought of spending the next week in Rafe Delgado’s company caused a wild churning in her stomach. She’d called Lauren to tell her that she could get the interview, but that it would require her to meet Rafe’s unorthodox conditions. Part of her had hoped that Lauren would balk and tell Sara that they didn’t need the story that badly.
And part of her had hoped that she wouldn’t.
In the end, Lauren had insisted that Sara do whatever she needed to in order to get the story, adding that the additional time in Sergeant Delgado’s company would help give the article an authentic, personal touch. Instead of looking triumphant over his success, Rafe had looked grimly determined.
“The agreement is for you to be with me 24/7,” he’d reminded her. “No exceptions.”
“Yes, I understand,” she’d said stiffly. “But I’ll need to go home and pack a bag and at least let my neighbor know that I’ll be gone.”
And now she found herself driving to her apartment with a dark, dangerous Special-Ops soldier on her tail, and something told her that even if she had a change of heart, she wouldn’t get rid of him so easily.
As she turned onto her street and parked on the curb by the front entrance, she wondered what Sergeant Delgado would think of her tiny apartment. Washington rents were obscenely expensive, and even living in a rundown building on the outskirts stretched her finances. A fourth-floor apartment in an old brownstone might not be glamorous, but Sara considered herself fortunate to have it.
She’d moved to the nation’s capitol after college, leaving her family and Pennsylvania for the first time in her life, determined to follow her dream of becoming an investigative journalist. Her parents visited every few months, and Sara returned home for most holidays. But the more time she spent in Washington, the less connection she felt to her small hometown. She realized that now Washington had become her home. She’d made friends here. She had a routine, a life. Someday, maybe, she’d be able to afford more than her small apartment, but for now it was sufficient for her needs.
“This is it,” she said to Rafe after he pulled in behind her and stepped out onto the sidewalk. “My apartment is on the top floor. There’s no elevator.”
His eyes gleamed. “I think I can handle four flights of stairs.”
Looking at him, Sara had no doubt he could handle forty flights without so much as breaking a sweat. The guy was in supreme physical condition, and if the way his jeans molded his thighs were any indication, he was pure muscle.
“Okay, then,” she said.
She was acutely aware of him behind her on the narrow staircase, and found herself a little winded by the time they reached the top.
“Here we are,” she said unnecessarily as they reached the fourth floor. Sara stopped outside a door at the top of the stairs and knocked lightly. Seeing Rafe’s questioning look, she whispered, “I just want to let my neighbor know that I’ll be gone, otherwise she’ll worry.”
The door opened a crack, and a tiny woman peered out at them, her gray hair in frazzled disarray around her head. When she saw Sara, she smiled and opened the door wider.
“Hello, dear.”
“Hi, Mrs. Parker.” Sara gestured toward Rafe, who stood just behind her. “This is Sergeant Delgado. I just wanted to let you know that I�
�m going away for a few days, and I was wondering if you might keep an eye on my apartment for me.”
“Why, of course.” The woman cast an appraising look at Rafe and her faded blue eyes grew brighter. “Are you going on a romantic getaway, then? If you ask me, it’s been far too long since you’ve been on a proper date.”
“Mrs. Parker,” Sara protested with an embarrassed laugh, “I’m sure Sergeant Delgado has no interest in my love life.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” mused Rafe, his dark eyes gleaming as he considered Sara. “I think the subject might be…revealing.”
“Trust me,” she muttered, “you’d be bored to tears. Thank you, Mrs. Parker. I expect I’ll be back in a week or so, but you have my cell phone number if you need to reach me.”
Once the older woman had closed her door, Sara proceeded down the hallway to the next apartment and fitted a key into the lock. “Here we are,” she said, pushing it open.
She deliberately kept the door open, partly because she felt so jittery being alone with him, mostly because his sheer size made her tiny apartment feel even more cramped and claustrophobic than usual.
“Make yourself comfortable while I throw a few things together,” she invited.
She was unaccustomed to having guests, and the sight of Rafe prowling through her small living room gave her a distinct sense of unease. She paused in the doorway of her bedroom and watched as he stood in front of her bookcases and studied the titles there. Did her collection give him any insight into her personality? Her books tended to be a mixture of classics and biographies, with a smattering of self-help titles.