by Sydney Croft
Ender pushed his own plate of tofu away and grunted. “Something’s wrong with this shit.”
“It’s not shit. And I’m fine,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, for now.” He put his head down on the table and Babs licked his face. “Christ, get this mutt away from me.”
Babs completely ignored him, probably because she knew he didn’t really mean it.
“I’ve got to go upstairs,” Derek mumbled, pushed away from the table unsteadily.
“I’ll help you,” Kira offered, but Ender was already behind Derek. No fun if the guy fell down the stairs and broke his own neck. He made sure he put an extra sway in his step.
“Do you really think it’s the food?” she asked him.
“How do you feel?” he asked as he made a show of grabbing his stomach like he was doubling over in pain.
“I feel fine,” she said as she stood. She took two steps and he noticed that her gait was slightly off, that she held on to the back of the chair a little too tightly. But she wasn’t nearly as bad as Derek.
Speaking of, there was a clatter on the steps as Derek lost his footing. Ender grabbed him and half pushed him up the stairs, even as Derek lost consciousness by the time they reached the top.
“Everything all right?” she called upstairs.
“It will be once this crumble crap gets out of our system. Dump it,” he called, and then he smiled when he heard her mutter, “Fuck you.”
He shoved Derek through the door of his bedroom, got him to the bed and checked his pulse. Guy was out cold, and would be until morning. Which gave Ender plenty of time to decide his next move.
He reached into Derek’s pocket and pulled out the cell phone he knew Derek had. It would be password protected, of course, but Ender had never known Bryan not to break a password.
He took out his own cell and connected the two, dialed a line to Bryan and beamed the information from Derek’s phone to Bryan through his. Didn’t even have to talk to the guy—the magic of spy-shit capabilities. Within the hour, Bryan would let him know the times Derek would need to check in to Itor, and the special codes Ender would need in case he’d have to be the one to do it for him.
Normally agents only had to check in once every forty-eight hours, if not less. Things like making a suspicious phone call could severely compromise any undercover operative’s mission, and he doubted Itor worked any differently than ACRO with that pattern.
Once the file transfer was complete, he wiped the cell clean of his prints out of habit, stuck it back in Derek’s pocket and did a quick sweep of the room to make sure nothing had changed, especially the small monitor he’d rigged earlier that day.
More spy-shit. Ender preferred good, old-fashioned guns.
He shut Derek’s door behind him, just in time to hear a loud crash come from the kitchen. Dogs began barking and Babs was on her way up the stairs to get him when he blew by her.
“I’ve got her,” he said, and wondered when the hell he’d started talking to animals.
KIRA LOOKED DOWN at the mess of dishes she’d dropped and wished she could peel herself off the side of the fridge. Her feet seemed to have stopped working. Her sense of balance had also become a casualty of whatever had affected Tom and Derek. Maybe the curry had gone bad.
And dammit, she couldn’t feel her face.
The sound of pounding footsteps rattled in her head, and she smelled Tom before she saw him.
“What happened?” He skidded to a stop before he plowed into the dinner dishes and the dogs helping themselves to the scraps.
“I’m feeding the dogs,” she said, and blinked because her vision had gone fuzzy. “I think the curry went bad. Need to throw it out.”
Tom bent to pick up some of the plates. “Could have been anything. How much lemonade did you drink?”
“Lemons don’t go bad, silly.” She bit her lip. “Well, I guess they do…” She dragged herself along the fridge toward the spice cabinet. Feet still wouldn’t work. “I only had a sip.”
He craned his neck to peer up at her. “A sip?”
“Uh-huh. One teeny drink. A sip. If I had a dictionary I could look it up for you. Sip.”
“It’s okay.” Holding a pile of dishes, he stood and moved toward the sink.
She took a step. Her legs went, but her body stayed. A wave of dizziness sent a flashing swirl of spots in front of her eyes, and she slumped to the floor, her back scraping the kitchen cabinets, her legs sprawled before her. Immediately, six dogs climbed into her lap.
“Shit.” Tom dumped the plates into the sink and hurried to her side. “Kira? You okay?”
She blinked up at him, not entirely sure what he’d said. And wow, he had the bluest eyes. Four of them. Cool. “I’m crawling with dogs.”
“I can see that.” He settled down on his heels, lifted one of her eyelids with his thumb and peered into her eye. “Have you taken anything today?” He dropped his hand to her wrist, pressed some fingers against her pulse. “Any medication? Alcohol?”
“Nope. No, no, no.” She waggled a finger in front of his face. “I can’t. I’m like a dog.”
He swore again. He sounded so sexy when he swore. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Dee, oh, gee. Clean out your ears. Dog. My, um…metabolism. It’s like I…” She searched for the word, but she came up with things that didn’t fit. Like “typewriter.” And “hayfield.”
“Process?”
“Yes!” She clapped, startling Brutus, a three-legged yellow Lab lying across her thighs. “You’re so smart, Tommy Knight. Deaf, but smart. One of my cats is deaf. She’s not very smart, though. She’s over there.”
Kira tried to turn toward the utility room where Miss Priss liked to sleep, but her head just lolled to one side, so everything in the kitchen tilted and swayed in a psychedelic swirl of color. Groovy.
Tom’s hands framed her face and brought it around so she was looking at him. “You said something about your metabolism. What was it? Might be good to know.”
“Um…my body. It processes stuff weird. Drugs. Chocolate. I don’t catch human diseases. No colds. No flu. I got Parvo once. I have to go to the vet.” She frowned. “Did I say that out loud?”
She shouldn’t be talking about any of this, but her mouth kept opening, and words kept falling out.
“I’m, uh, going to put you to bed now.”
“Mmm, bed.” She let her finger trace his lips. “What time is it? Should I be horny yet? Because I don’t think I am. Maybe you could touch me and find out.”
“God, I hope you don’t remember this tomorrow,” he muttered.
“I remember everything.” She tapped her temple. “Like an elephant. I like elephants. They talk slow, though. So slow. They think humans are stupid. Probably because they are.”
“Come on.”
He slipped an arm behind her back, but froze when her newest acquisition, a German shepherd that had been trained for police work but had been retired due to excess aggression, rumbled low in his chest, baring his teeth.
“Luke,” she said, wrapping her arm around the growling dog’s neck and hugging him to her side, “it’s okay. Tommy’s helping.” Her gaze felt jerky as she dragged it back to Tom. “He smells danger on you. You do kinda reek of it. It’s like a mix of gunpowder and…something else. Cheese, maybe. No, not the word I was looking for.”
“Okay, Kira, I need you to focus. Can you tell Luke to not tear my arm off?”
“Oh, right.” She gave Luke a stern stare. “Do not tear Tom’s arm off.”
Luke pouted and glared at Tom as if the dog planned to win the next round but grudgingly gave him this one.
“Good boy.” Tom shooed the rest of the dogs away, and then before she knew it, she was in his arms and being carried down her hallway and to her room.
She snuggled against his chest, inhaled his scent, a pleasant mixture of grass and soil, sun-warmed skin and gunpowder. No cheese, for sure. But there was something else beneath it all, benea
th even the subtle fragrance of the sex they’d had earlier…a wafting thread of anxiety and fear. Was he worried about her?
“That’s so sweet, Tommy,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck to bury her face into the curve of his shoulder.
“What’s sweet?” He pushed open her bedroom door.
“I don’t remember. But it feels good to be held. No one holds me. It’s all I want, you know. Someone to hold me. Understand me. Love me.”
He missed a step, probably hadn’t seen the throw rug on her hardwood floor. When he deposited her on her bed, she immediately burrowed into the covers. “Do you have pajamas?” he asked.
Pajamas? “I think I sleep naked.” She yawned and rubbed her face on her pillow, settling in to pass out. “I’ll bet you do too. If we slept together, we’d be naked. Skin on skin. And hot. So hot…”
The sound of his harsh curse floated above her somewhere, melted into a swirl of soft farm sounds. Poor Tommy and his four blue eyes. She’d have to have sex with him later.
When she could open her own eyes.
TUESDAY 11 P.M. EST
Annika Svenson thumbed through the two dozen wigs in her closet until she found the perfect one. Long. Jet black with a blue streak at the temple. The polar opposite of her short silver-blond hair, which she’d grown out over the last few months to touch her shoulders, even though keeping it short meant an easier time with wigs.
Next, she pulled a gold lace camisole off a hanger. A cropped black leather jacket came next. An ultra-low-slung, supershort leather skirt and combat boots rounded out the goth biker-chick ensemble.
Creed wouldn’t know what hit him.
It was Tuesday night, and the ghost hunter would be hanging out in the dive biker bar on the edge of town, someplace she’d gone inside of only once, a year ago, to drag out a drunk operative who had been talking too much. She felt comfortable anywhere, though, especially when dressed for the occasion, which she would be.
Besides, tonight was all about pleasure, and as Creed had shown her several times since taking her virginity last year, pleasure could be had anywhere. Including a dark corner booth in the back of a tavern. Or on the seat of his motorcycle in a parking lot.
She hadn’t wanted to admit how much she loved their games, but if Creed didn’t believe that she was one hundred percent into something, he wouldn’t do it. He might take control when it came to sex, but everything he did was about her pleasure. He was so good to her, and a tiny part of her knew he deserved better than her. The larger, more selfish part wanted to keep him for as long as he’d be happy with a strictly sexual relationship.
Blood humming with excitement already, she pulled on a flimsy pair of black underwear that should tear with little difficulty. She considered a bra and then tossed it to the floor. Fewer clothes meant easier access, which was important when one was in a public place or too horny to take things slow…or both.
She’d just returned from a six-week assignment in Belgium, and she was more than ready to climb aboard Creed and ride him until he collapsed. To leave a ring of black lipstick around the base of his cock. To wash it off later with a fistful of soap in the shower.
Not that they’d ever made it to a shower, or even a bed.
She’d held on to her cherry for twenty-one years, and since Creed popped it, she’d been eager to make up for lost time, and he didn’t have any complaints. Which was good, since he was possibly the only man in the world she could have sex with. The only one who was immune to the massive power surge her body gave off at orgasm.
Her body flushed with heat at the thought of Creed taking her to climax over and over. Already her sex ached, her internal muscles clenching as though preparing for the erotic intrusion of his thick, tattooed shaft. Though really, could he be considered tattooed if he was born with the markings?
She shrugged, because it didn’t matter. She’d licked every one of the things that covered the entire right side of his body, and tonight she’d give him something to lick. Something besides what throbbed between her legs.
She’d had temporary tattoos professionally applied to her left leg, hip, arm and neck.
Yeah, he wouldn’t know what hit him tonight when she walked into the bar. She wondered how long it would take him to recognize her, especially if she used an accent, one complementing any of the twelve languages in which she was fluent. Brown contacts would disguise her blue eyes.
She just hoped Creed’s stupid tagalong ghost wouldn’t interfere again. That bitch had ruined more than one night with him, and Annika was seriously tempted to shock the earthbound spirit, as he called her, right out of the earthbound world permanently. Even when they did manage to get in a good fuck without Kate’s interference, Annika had a feeling Creed paid for it later, though he never talked about it.
Then again, they didn’t talk much at all. Creed tried, like she needed some sort of mushy emotional connection or something, but no way. She wasn’t some insecure twit who thought a man completed her. Gag.
A tingle of electricity skittered over her skin, reminding her to hurry up and get dressed and quit thinking about pillow talk and creepy, overprotective ghosts. Tonight she was getting laid, ghost or no.
CREED SAT ON A WORN STOOL at the bar, two women on one side who’d been trying to gain his attention all night without success and a biker on the other.
He’d just downed his second shot of Jägermeister and was motioning to the bartender to pour him a third, when his skin began to grow sensitive to a sudden change in air pressure around him.
He shifted so he could see the front door better and tried not to get his hopes up.
ACRO was starting to kick into high gear this time of year—it had been a long winter in Upstate New York and spring fever was taking over fast.
For operatives not out of the country, it had been a long, cold season. But Creed had finally found the warmth he’d been wanting for years last September at Dev’s family mansion.
Even now, just thinking about that experience, an unpleasant shiver shot straight through his spine that had nothing at all to do with the memories of making love to Annika in that house. He shifted in his seat, knew that if she were here she wouldn’t be able to hide the look of concern in her eyes at his sudden reaction.
They’d discussed it the last time they’d been together, when Annika mentioned she was worried about Dev. That something was bothering their boss.
Even though it chapped Creed’s ass to play second fiddle in Annika’s life, he’d never let Dev down. Dev had known him his entire life, and Creed had far too much respect for the man to let anything happen to him.
His skin tightened again, the line between pleasure and pain narrowing, and he forced himself to turn away from the door. But when he caught sight of it opening, he couldn’t look away, and his entire body sighed in relief as the woman with the long, dark hair sauntered directly up to him, her short leather skirt showing off the greatest pair of legs he’d ever seen.
It took everything he had not to grab and kiss her. Instead, he leaned back on his stool and just watched her.
“Hey, baby,” she said, her voice low and seductive. “Love your tats.”
She’d put a hand out to trace the intricate pattern covering the right side of his face and neck, and he would’ve gladly stripped right there in the middle of the bar to let her continue her trail of touch down the entire right side of his body.
“Yours aren’t bad either,” he said.
“I have more,” she said, bared a shoulder provocatively, until the guy sitting to his right—a member of the Hell’s Angels—began to enjoy the show a little too much.
Annika always liked it when Creed played along as long as possible. It made her feel like she actually had a shot at fooling him. But he wasn’t about to let a man whose nickname was “Meat” come anywhere close to the woman he loved.
Not that he’d mentioned the love thing to Annika, because she’d freak.
“She’s with me,” he said
to Meat, who reluctantly turned back to his beer. Creed focused his full and proper attention on Annika, wished she’d take out the contacts so he could watch the normally icy blue of her eyes begin to soften when he touched her.
“How long have you known it was me?” she asked.
He let the corner of his mouth tug up in a smile, the way it inevitably did whenever she came within fifty feet of him. It might be the electricity she carried with her that alerted his body to her presence, but he wasn’t complaining. “I always know it’s you, baby,” he said, pulled her so she stood in between his spread thighs. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m not sure…do you think you’re man enough to handle me?”
“I know I am.” He’d been hard from the second he’d sensed her, and when she’d walked through the bar, her familiar strut yanked all his chains in so many different, exquisite ways.
His cock molded hard against his soft leather pants and the entire right side of his body pulsed.
“I don’t know if I can wait that long,” she said. “Why don’t we just stay here?”
“Here?”
“I already checked out the storeroom—it’s not locked,” she said.
She ran a hand across the tattoo on his neck, her palm lingering across his throat, and the fact that she could kill him with her pinky turned him on, maybe more than anything. He didn’t mind handing the reins over to the beautiful twenty-one-year-old with a body like sin and a mind to match.
If he relented right now, he’d be shivering under her touch within minutes in the storeroom, or in the alley, or on the back of his hog in the woods, but tonight that wasn’t going to be enough.
Tonight, he wanted a bed. Because he wanted a lot of different positions, and he wanted Annika where it wouldn’t be easy for her to just walk away when she was done. Because as many times as he’d tried to talk to her, she ended up stopping him by forcing him to use his mouth for things other than talking. And then she’d leave town on assignment.