by Rie Warren
Temptation in the flesh.
“I think you’d best get some rest, Matilda.” My voice came out low but razor sharp, my words blunt and unmuffled.
If I had to be an asshole to her to maintain the necessary distance I would, because the suddenness of wanting her so damn much was painful.
And futile.
And stupid beyond belief.
“Tsk.” She waltzed into the room all bare, tan legs and warm, soft scent.
Her fingers flicked at my forehead, and I reared back in surprise.
“Tilly, Ah told you. Only my grandmother has ever called me Matilda, and she’s so stiff I think she was molded into the apron she put on after she got married in 1948. I am not a Matilda.”
First of all, I couldn’t believe she’d flicked me. Me! A goddamn ex-marine and special operative.
And second, a grin crept up one side of my mouth, but I swallowed down the laugh that wanted to follow.
“What’s that?” Tilly pointed at the notebook resting in my lap.
“Uh.” Fuck. I’d completely forgotten about the damn thing. “Nothing.” I quickly rolled it up and stashed it in my pocket. “Bullshit on pages. Gonna make a bonfire out of it later.”
I pulled out a throwing star I always flipped back and forth between my fingers. It flashed like lightning, throwing sparks of light across the room.
A much more manly pursuit.
Jesus. I am losing it.
Maybe I need some sleep after all.
I groaned.
Tilly plopped right down beside me with upraised legs, leaning the back of her head against the wall. “God, but it’s hot in here.”
Plucking at her shirt that ballooned before settling back against the firm round hills of her tits, she rolled her head toward me. “Justin, right?”
I met her eyes for a moment to see the twinkle in her irises.
“Justice.” I growled.
“Justice? Hmm. Justice what?”
“I’m not giving out that information.” I made my frown as formidable as ever, but I could tell she didn’t give a shit.
She leaned close enough her warm breath caressed my ear. “Who would I tell?”
“Chase . . . Justice Chase.” The words tumbled from my mouth.
She clapped a hand over her mouth to withhold a giggle. “Well, that’s not so bad, is it? Imagine if it was Chase Justice.”
“It’s not that.” Maybe a little. “No one’s supposed to know . . . who I really am.”
“Lawless and Justice, huh?” Her hand found my forearm, and her fingers squeezed the steel cable muscles. “Sounds like an outlaw movie. The next big blockbuster. I promise to keep your secret, Justice Chase.”
Spunky Tilly somehow lifted all the fatigue from my body, and I aimed a feral grin at her.
Her eyelashes fluttered. Her smile became a softer curve of her lips.
Her fingers traced all the way down to my wrist where a pulse pounded a heavy beat before she skimmed her hand to my thigh and down to the floor between us.
She made my body thump and my blood race. She made sensations fire like a network of heat to the center of my groin.
Maybe it was just the day, the night, the adrenaline rush that hadn't worn off and probably wouldn't. The same thing happened with every op—unleashed energy I usually slaked afterward by fucking. Fucking hard. Randomly. Anonymously.
Here there was no one to screw. Except Tilly.
There was no escaping her presence either, and, man, did I want to fuck the living daylights out of her.
I lifted one knee and casually—oh so casually—crossed a forearm over it so my hand nearly dangled in my lap, obscuring my growing hard-on from view.
“You should stay in your quarters, Matilda.” My voice sounded like gravel, and I shifted again.
“Is that a direct order, sir?”
I sensed the half smile in her voice. I’d be handing out plenty of orders over the next couple of days, many of them probably unpleasant, so I merely grunted.
She took that as the negative it was—an invitation, albeit unwilling—for her to stay, and settled more closely beside me.
Suddenly I was glad I’d washed off the soot and sweat and grime earlier. She smelled so clean and looked so . . . untouched, I felt like I dirtied her with just my presence.
Last time I’d tasted someone as fresh as her—touched, made love to, talked sweet with—had been too long ago to dig up the memories. The memories that still haunted me.
“Is it lonely? Doing what you do? Never settling down?” Studying my face, she couldn’t possibly ignore the hard jut of my jaw, bristled with a day’s growth of blond stubble.
“No. I prefer it.”
Liar.
I liked the job well enough. Hated solo missions though. At least when Walker, Storm, Bane, and I were together as a team I was never bored. I didn’t have to talk to myself inside my head, because I could rarely get a word in edgewise with those yahoos around. Any thoughts I had ended up scrawled in ballpoint on the page.
I’d always imagined being a single child meant I was cut out for being alone. The opposite turned out to be true: sometimes in my darkest moments I wanted nothing more than my own busting-at-the-seams family. A loud house with lots of rooms filled with teasing and laughter and light and love.
But that didn’t matter.
I’d forfeited it all.
And now I sat in dark and shadows, hid my true identity behind dozens of fake ones, fucked women I’d never see again.
I lazily flipped the shuriken back and forth with every taut muscle of my body straining—tensile—toward Tilly like a cocked but unfired weapon.
“Should I be worried, Justice?”
Her hand moved back to my arm, and I knew I shouldn’t return her touch, but I laid the throwing star down and covered her hand with mine.
I gave her what little I could while keeping myself carefully guarded like a goddamn fortress against this insatiable need to do something—to fight or to fuck with all the pent up ache growing in my body.
Touching her wasn’t helping matters.
I withdrew my hand and clenched it in a fist at my side.
“You don’t need to worry until I tell you to. And when I do, you better act fast.” Placing another inch between us, I added, “And you need to be careful, Matilda.”
My words amounted to nothing more than gruff comfort coupled with a helping of cold shoulder, because I knew it was the only way to keep my distance.
She hissed in a breath when I said her real name, her full name, once again. “I’ll do that.”
Silence beat between us, and the dark of the night was too close.
Examining her profile, I took in the apples of her cheeks, the curve of her neck.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“’Course,” she answered.
“Where’s your mother?”
“My mom?”
I thought a glimmer of wetness showed in her eyes before she glanced away.
“She died two years ago.”
A lump formed in my throat I struggled to speak over. “I’m sorry.”
“Breast cancer. She fought it for ten years, but it spread.” Tilly linked her arms around her upraised knees and pressed her face against them.
Rolling her head aside, she managed to keep her tears from flowing over. “I wanted to quit grad school. Stay home with her. She wouldn’t have it. Made it to my graduation while the cancer ate through her bones and Dad took care of her, night and day.” A single teardrop, fat and round, slid down her cheek. The corner of her mouth rose sadly. “She died the week after.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated, balling my fists so I didn’t, wouldn’t, reach for her.
She wiped her face against her knees. “Me too. But she’s in a better place. The pain is done. And Dad . . . well, those years were rough on him.”
“What about you?”
“It was hard.” She swallowed and a shiver worked down her s
pine. “But I’m pretty resilient.”
“How old are you?” I couldn’t detect a single a wrinkle around her eyes that shined light green when she was amused, and I imagined she was the type to laugh a lot, despite what she’d lived through.
“Twenty-six. You?”
“Ancient.”
Not much older, but the shit I’d survived made me feel ancient next to her.
“I’d imagined so.” She lightly punched me in the stomach where nothing but hard rolls of muscle met the impact of her slight fist. “All sagging paunch.” She puffed out a laugh.
God, but it was easy being with her. Easy, and thrilling, and way too fucking tempting because she was just so damn gorgeous.
Straightening, she reached across me, carefully caressing the cold steel, Black Ronin hari-shuriken. “You use these a lot?”
I bent my face in her direction. There was little light, but I had pretty damn good night vision. Clear eyes rose to mine, and Tilly slowly pulled her hand back from the sharp-multi-bladed weapon. Her fingers rode over my hip and across my stomach.
A million hot prickles danced over my skin from her contact.
My abs contracted beneath her touch, and her lips parted on a rush of air.
Her fingertips drifted to the other side of my black shirt where the bones of my ribs were padded by thick muscle. It tickled. It made me steam under the collar and in my tightly conforming pants.
I cleared my throat as her hand stilled on me.
“That’s right. You’re something of a markswoman, aren’t you?” My deadly low voice rumbled from the depths of my chest.
Tilly concentrated on her fingers she drew off of me with a flirty tilt of her eyelashes. “Well, occasionally mah aim is off, but this time Ah don’t think so,” she drawled with just the hint of suggestion.
“Maybe I’ll show you how to use it sometime,” I said with a predatory grin.
“It?” She looked up, biting into her bottom lip.
And we both knew what she was talking about. Not the silver weapon, but the hard cock barely concealed by my black combat pants.
Voices interrupted the strained moment, and I jumped to my feet on instant high alert.
Foreign words echoed toward us beyond the vault-like door, from far away in the tunnel outside.
With a finger to my lips, I cautioned Tilly.
She stood at my back as I tested the soldered shut door and listened.
They weren’t close. The tunnel had collapsed after us. They’d have to mine through that fucking rubble to reach us.
But that didn’t mean they couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. Given time.
Turning back to Tilly, I ushered her from the room. I walked her down the hallway to her quarters, just to be safe I told myself.
“Are they close?” she whispered.
“No. We have time for now.”
She stopped outside the door, and I hovered behind, looming above her.
In an oddly intimate moment, her low voice crept out. “Goodnight, Justice.”
And her apricot-colored hair brushed my bare arm.
“’Night . . . Tilly.”
Her breath caught before she disappeared into the blue-black shadows beyond.
One intimate moment in a life lacking so many—in a completely incongruous and increasingly complicated situation.
Tilly Lawless.
Chapter Nine
Hooked and Gaffed
NOTHING HAD COME OF the voices in the tunnel that night. I’d escorted Tilly to her room, watched as she’d closed the door.
I’d stood outside for four countless seconds while sharp longing lifted the poison of the past from my veins.
My hand had stroked down the door, and I heard soft shuffling inside. I’d bent my forehead to the frame, curling my fingers against the wood.
I wanted things I couldn’t have. Always had.
Marching back two steps, I’d rounded on my feet and strode back to the bunker.
I didn’t hear the voices again. But that was little comfort. We were trapped. And I needed to find a safe way out.
I’d woken Storm to take over an hour before dawn lit the sky we couldn’t see. He’d rolled up, instantly awake, fight or flight in his eyes, wary tension winding through his muscles.
Patting his arm, I’d reassured him then warned him about the possible tunnel situation. Alert within seconds, he’d dressed for combat and carried his weapons out of the room.
With Storm on rounds, I’d parked myself on the floor beside Walker and Bane—both of them sleeping hard—and forgot the day, the night, the explosions. The danger, the worry, this FUBAR situation.
I didn’t forget Tilly, because she was unforgettable. Her image lined the insides of my eyelids when I shut them, and the often-missed comfort of a woman came fast with her in my mind. Sleep wafted down like a warm blanket, a fine mist of first memories: her anger, her stubbornness, her freckles. Her flirtation. Her capability. Her loneliness that called to mine.
Her body.
I was dredged from slumber only once, when Bane and Walker rustled up and dressed and gathered their weapons.
Sinking back, I dreamed of good things.
I dreamed of Tilly.
****
Hours later, I rolled from my pallet to my feet. I scratched at the stubble on my jaw and switched from the form-fitting combat gear I’d sacked out in earlier in the day into clothes that weren’t exactly mission-oriented. Loose nylon shorts and a sleeveless black muscle shirt.
Heavy from sleep, I performed a quick check of the area, soundlessly stealing through the rooms and looking in. Everyone was present and accounted for, and I spent less time glancing at Tilly, who drifted around the otherwise empty gym, than I did ascertaining the whereabouts of my men and Ambassador Lawless.
I gave myself props for that.
Under any other circumstances I’d have been tempted to kiss her last night before she returned to bed. Kiss her and much, much more.
That couldn’t happen.
In the deserted kitchen, I helped myself to a large mug of coffee that was aromatic and thick enough to sprout new hairs on my chest. Lowering into a chair at the table, I ground my way through a packet of trail mix and a cup of yogurt that looked about as big as a thimble in my hand. I ate robotically to fill some of the hole in my stomach, dreaming about the big farmer-style breakfast I’d have once this op was over. Fluffy eggs—maybe six of them—sunnyside up with runny yokes I could mop of up with warm, flaky biscuits.
I briefly wondered if Tilly knew how to make buttermilk biscuits from scratch, southern woman and all that. I might be a misplaced city man, but I had a country boy’s endless appetite for all things, and that included days filled with fresh unclouded air and nights sweltering with hot passionate sex.
Sex.
And I thought more on Tilly, chewing slowly.
A body like hers, she was probably wild as a lioness in the sack. Unleashed, I bet she could use me up all night long and still come back for more.
Beg for more.
I stopped eating altogether. Food was the farthest thing from my mind. A hot heavy sensation dragged to my groin, and a new erection filled my cock until it lay, firm and pulsing, along the inside of my thigh.
Back to breakfast. Bacon and sausage and . . . maybe I’d have pancakes, too, running with rivers of thick maple syrup.
And toast. Toast with apricot jam.
Apricots.
I shook from that thought, nearly bending the spoon in my hand in half.
Fuck. Less than twenty-four hours with Tilly and I couldn’t even remember the name of the last woman I’d fucked two hours before Blaize had given us our marching orders. Much less what she’d looked like, or felt like, as I’d seduced her with a smoldering look matched with a handful of words.
It’d only taken five minutes to convince her to spread her legs for me. And she’d been more than eager, easy to fire up, more than satisfied by the time I’d finished with her.
Jamie?
Lanie?
Erica?
“You slept a long time.” Tilly’s voice spread over me like the warmth of sunrays.
I knew I shouldn’t look at her. Answer her. Hell, even acknowledge her presence. Her appearance made me feel even more restless, sewed into my own tight skin until the seams might burst wide open.
But I looked anyway. Couldn’t help myself.
Well, I’d been right about one thing at least.
I shouldn’t have checked her out.
I didn’t know how many hours of sleep she’d gotten, but though two smudges formed slight crescents beneath her eyes, any other outward fatigue didn’t show.
Just the opposite. Her hair was bouncy, loosened over her back and shoulders. Her cheeks were apple fresh, and her skin—beneath the sprinkling of freckles—was creamy. She wore an old T-shirt with the collar and most of the shoulders hacked off. Tight, faded, fringed, and holey jeans clung to her hips and legs.
I didn’t understand how an innocently bared shoulder could be more enticing, more sexual, than a practiced come-on.
That hard heat thumped in my cock again, pressing like a hot, aching barrel against my thigh. Pulling my seat closer to the table, I placed my gun on the surface and dragged my gaze from the image she presented—innocence and youth, seduction but with only a hint of suggestion.
The Heckler was fully loaded, and so was this moment between us. So was something else, insistent in its drilling pressure where it lifted the loose leg of my shorts. Ignoring Tilly, I tried rebuilding my defenses against her that had dropped way too quickly while we’d talked quietly last night.
I chugged coffee that burned my tongue in order to guard my words. “I knew the guys had everything in hand, or they’d wake me if they didn’t.”
Speaking of, fuck. Where was everyone else? I needed backup. Goddamn battlements. Something. But I’d just tumbled from bed half an hour ago, and Tilly looked so warm and welcoming, ready to tumble to bed again.
“I checked in on you,” she said, maintaining that cocked-hip posture in the doorway.