Protective Measures

by Dana Marton

  “See that wall of monitors? Every square inch of this building is covered by pinpoint cameras. They’re set on motion sensors.”

  “The guest rooms?” His voice came out embarrassingly weak.

  “Everything.”

  Oh, man. The Colonel had seen him grope his goddaughter. Maybe he hadn’t brought him to the “dungeons” just to show him the war room. The place seemed a lot more sinister all of a sudden. Some of the nasty machinery they’d passed on the way in popped into his mind.

  “I…care for her.” Had he said that?

  The Colonel turned. “You think?”

  “I know.”

  “If you hurt her in any way—”

  “I won’t.”

  The man turned back to the console. “I’m sending you two to California tomorrow. You’ve both seen several men from the Brotherhood. Between the two of you, you might be able to ID someone.”

  Danny nodded, having expected something like this. The choppers the Colonel had sent in after Kaye and he were rescued had cleaned up the camp, but at least a dozen of the men were missing, had disappeared into the woods without a trace.

  “I could go alone.” He had quite a few faces etched into his memory.

  “She wants to go.”

  He understood perfectly. And since her going meant they’d be together for another day or two, he didn’t fight the idea. She’d be safe enough at the Secret Service command center.

  “You’ll be working with the president’s detail, watching from a safe location through video feed,” the Colonel said, confirming Danny’s expectations.

  “I guess the president is not canceling the Summit.”

  “This president?” The Colonel glanced back and gave him a look.

  “Right.” President Derickson was one tough son of a bitch who didn’t back down from anyone. He wouldn’t alter his schedule based on a terrorist threat. He would expect his people to handle it. “That’s what the Secret Service is for.” He nodded.

  From what he knew, Derickson got death threats almost on a daily basis—plenty of nutcases out there who got off by calling in. All were investigated; anything that proved to be a real threat was taken care of. Little of it was allowed to influence the president’s schedule.

  “When are we leaving?” He glanced at a printer that had started up all by itself and was now spitting out some kind of report.

  “First thing in the morning. Oh-six-hundred hours.” The Colonel glanced at the first page of the report, then looked up. “You bring her back to me safe.”

  He pinned Danny with a gaze that was as serious as he’d ever seen the man. “I won’t be around,” he added. “Kaye thinks I’m going to a golf resort in England with some old friends, but… There’s a situation. The Homeland Security Secretary asked that I lead the team personally. Things are bad.”

  They had to be, Danny thought. The whole world had to be on the brink of disaster for the Colonel to leave Kaye at a time like this. He’d seen them together enough now to know that. And he would have lied if he said it didn’t feel good that the Colonel would entrust her safety to him.

  He would not fail either of them.

  Chapter Nine

  Kaye lay in bed and listened to the noises of the night. Considering the age of the place, it was surprisingly silent. The walls were made of stone, the floors all tiled, none of the creaking of wood floors and wood houses. Only the odd water pipe gurgled now and then, and the radiators rattled on occasion.

  On the whole, the night was peaceful.

  She wasn’t.

  Tomorrow she was going to try to stop a domestic terrorist attack on two presidents. The idea seemed insane.

  She got up and walked over to the window, looked out at the moonlit garden, at the giant oaks bathed in silver. Too much was happening all at once. If she was elected to be Speaker should she accept it? Would it make her a target for the rest of her life? Cal would have been a good person to talk everything over with, but she was wishing for Danny’s company.

  He was probably asleep. She couldn’t just waltz into his room this time of the night. She moved toward her bed, but then changed her mind and ended up in the bathroom instead.

  They’d had a fun evening—incredibly normal. An excellent dinner followed by a few rounds of pool, which she’d lost miserably. Cal had entertained them with some anecdotes from his early years. They had laughed. Both men were as relaxed as she’d ever seen them, and even though she knew they were probably putting it all on for her benefit—she had noticed the hour they’d disappeared into the basement—she had forgotten about everything else for a while.

  But the night was at its darkest now, the time when the darkest of thoughts came out, too. And all of a sudden she was unsure and maybe even a little scared. This went beyond what she’d had to face daily on the Hill. This was no policy drafting, no ideas on paper to be discussed. Lives were at stake, important lives, and she was in the middle of it all.

  She tapped on the wall that separated her from Danny’s room, waited, then tapped again.

  He was coming through her door before she made it out of the bathroom.

  He closed the door behind him. “Did you need me?”

  That was a loaded question. She watched as he looked around in the room, alert, then little by little relaxed and tucked his gun behind his back. He didn’t have a shirt on, his jeans were zipped but unbuttoned.

  Moonlight washed over his chest and face, looking a hundred percent better thanks to the expert care at Walter Reed.

  She stayed silent, unable to tell him what she wanted. Ridiculous—a Speaker who couldn’t talk. She wanted him to know what she needed without her having to say anything.

  And he did.

  He came closer and wrapped his arms around her without any ceremony.

  Yes. This was it. They didn’t need to talk. Just having his arms around her, having that comfort was enough. They had been through rough times before. They’d made it out of the camp, out of the woods together. She just had to remember that.

  She sank against him, a little embarrassed by her weakness, but comfortable enough with him not to care.

  His lips, warm and soft, found hers in a kiss that was sweet and incredibly arousing. She opened for him, gratified by his obvious need—nice to be wanted like that, with so much passion.

  She didn’t think; she simply felt. It had been a long time since she’d done that. She hadn’t realized until just now how much she could still need. She needed this moment, needed this man.

  When he pulled away, abruptly, she almost fell after him. She caught herself at the same time as his hands came to her shoulders.

  “Danny?”

  He was looking up, running his gaze along the seam where the ceiling met the wall. “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.”

  Okay, that was embarrassing. He couldn’t even look at her.

  All this time he’d done everything possible to show and tell her how much he wanted her, and now, when her resolve cracked, he looked ready to run. Maybe it wasn’t her he’d wanted after all, but the chase, the knowledge that he could have her.

  Disappointment rose in her throat. She turned away.

  “Kaye.” His hands slid to her back and stayed there. “It’s just that the Colonel—”

  She turned back to him slowly. “Did Cal talk to you about me?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  Oh, God. “I’m going to kill him. I can’t believe he did this.” She brought her hands up to her face. “Tell me he didn’t ask you what your intentions were.”

  He grinned.

  “I’m going to— What am I, eighteen?”

  “He loves you.”

  “He loves to embarrass me. He treats me like I’m a kid.”

  She moved closer to him, looked him in the eye. “I’m a grown woman, Danny. I don’t need his protection and I don’t need yours. Not from this. This is what I want.”

  He closed his eyes for a second, his dark, thick ey
elashes settling on his tanned cheek. Then he opened them and she reeled from the naked desire in his gaze. “We can’t. The security cameras—” He took a breath as if it hurt.

  “There are no cameras here. Did he tell you there were? I am going to kill him.” She went to the window. “There are cameras all around, but none inside this room. We had a talk about that years ago.”

  “No cameras?”

  The eager hope on his face made her smile.

  “None.”

  He walked to the door, slowly, deliberately, and turned the lock. By the time he came back, he was grinning from ear to ear, obviously having slipped back to the light mood they’d shared downstairs earlier in the evening.

  “Honorable Congresswoman, I move to reconvene the session,” he said.

  “Motion accepted.” She slipped into his arms.

  He could kiss. Goodness, the man could kiss.

  She felt as she had at fourteen, making out for the first time with the neighbor boy in her father’s toolshed.

  Naughty.

  Except she was almost thirty-six now. The opposite of naughty. She was a grown-up, a conservative politician, a congresswoman.

  She tried not to think of that as her hands sneaked up Danny’s chest.

  He felt good—hard muscles under soft skin with silky soft springy hair here and there—warm, steady. He was strong. A lot of other women she knew in politics were attracted to power. She wasn’t. But she was a sucker for strength. The kind of unassuming, inherent strength Danny seemed to have in spades. Combined with his humor and playfulness, it made him irresistible.

  She wanted to ask him to her bed and felt shy all of a sudden. She had never asked a man to make love to her before.

  She pulled back just enough to be able to look him in the eye. “I want you,” she said, and held her breath.

  A new grin split his face. “How much?”

  “Well, if you’re going to play hard to get…” She raised an eyebrow.

  “Can’t possibly want me half as much as I want you,” he said as he picked her up and carried her to the bed.

  They bounced, both impatient, and groaned together. He pinned her under him and trailed kisses all over her face, full of enthusiasm and playfulness. His mood was contagious.

  “You’re so—” She searched for the word.

  “What?”

  She wasn’t sure how to finish. Everything a woman could secretly desire? How pathetic did that sound? And just because he looked so cocky with that big grin on his face, so sure of himself, she said, “Cute,” just to get to him.

  His face turned serious. “I’m not. Take it back.” He rubbed his hardness between her legs, teasing her.

  For a second, she couldn’t breathe, much less talk. Her body responded to the friction. The electricity between them was dizzying.

  She took a deep breath. “Okay, what do you want to be called?”

  “Umm.” He caught her lower lip between his teeth, then let it go. “I’d prefer it if you thought of me as sexy in a very macho kind of way.”

  She smiled. “Yes, Mr. Stud Muffin, sir.”

  “That does it.”

  In one smooth move, he pulled her pajama top up and ran his hot, wet tongue over the valley of her breasts. The air caught in her throat again, then released as tingles skittered across her skin.

  He held her in place, allowing no movement beyond a harmless squirm, and bent his head, closed his teeth over a nipple.

  “Oh,” she said weakly.

  “You call that cute?” He murmured the challenge against her body.

  No, definitely not cute. She arched her back to press against him. He sucked hard, and she felt the V of her thighs grow wet.

  He let go and blew some air on her breast. “How is this for cute?” He closed his teeth over the base of the nipple while flicking his tongue over the tip.

  He wasn’t cute. He was merciless.

  He let go of her hands to explore the other breast then the rest of her body. He was no longer holding her down, but it was too late. She had lost the ability to move.

  It wasn’t fair. She was out of practice. She had forgotten—

  His fingers found the waistband of her shorts.

  Okay. Move. She had to do something. She couldn’t lay there like a stupid doll.

  She tried to gather her scattering thoughts. Focus. Hands to his shoulders. She wanted to touch him, to feel him. But then his finger dipped inside her and all she could do was to hang on to him.

  “I wanted you from the second I saw you at that awards gala.”

  She remembered him watching her from across the room.

  At the time she had felt threatened by his apparent strength. Now she was comforted and aroused by it. He was squarely on top of her, but she didn’t feel smothered. She felt sheltered in his arms, safe enough to be playful.

  She ran a few tentative fingers up his side.

  “I’m not ticklish,” he said, a tad too bland-faced.

  “Oh really?” She slid her fingers higher up.

  He twitched. His lips trembled slightly.

  “Not even if I do this?” She circled the spot.

  He bit back a laugh and flipped them so she was sprawled on top. “Okay. You found my weakness. You win. Do with me as you must.”

  He threw his arms and legs wide, offering himself to her without defenses.

  It had the odd effect of disarming her. She sat up, straddling him, both of them still dressed. But even with their clothing between them, the feel of his hardness against her opening was almost more than she could bear. Now. She wanted him now, but she wanted to stretch this moment out, too, make it last forever.

  She stayed still and just watched him for a second or two, drank in the sight of him. Laughter danced in his eyes and on his face, a lightness that drew her, that made her feel as though she didn’t have a care in the world, that anything was possible.

  She smoothed her hands over the rolling muscles of his chest then down his flat abdomen.

  She’d thought that some day in the future she might make a friend. And maybe after they had years of becoming really comfortable, the friendship would quietly slip into something more. She had thought of a tender, healing kind of love.

  She had never expected to be here on a bed, laughing and playing tickle with someone she’d met less than a week ago. She stilled for a moment. Where was her grief? Was she betraying Ian?

  Danny watched her and grew serious. “Are you okay?”

  He lifted his hands to her waist, his warm palms heating her through the fabric of her pajamas. His eyes held a sea of tenderness, openness. He understood.

  Her body hummed with the desire he had awakened in her.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” she said. And she was.

  He was an unexpected turn in her life, but he was also right. She would have been lying to herself if she said otherwise.

  She bent to him slowly and touched her lips to his, felt them stretch into a smile.

  “Fair warning. To the winner go the spoils,” she murmured against the corner of his mouth.

  “Well then, if you must.” He sighed dramatically. “Take me.”

  She did.

  “I don’t suppose you have any protection,” he asked sometime later when they were both naked and ready to explode.

  She shook her head. “I decided a while ago that I would probably never have sex again.”

  “That’s a good resolution, Congresswoman.” He dipped his head between her legs and sent her over the edge.

  “But I think between the two of us,” he said after he came up, while she was still contracting deep inside. “We should be able to come up with one that’s much better.”

  By morning, he had made love to her just about every way he safely could, and he promised to do the rest at the earliest opportunity.

  And she was pretty sure that what Daniel DuCharme promised, he would deliver.

  “You know, men fall in love differently than women,”
he said as she was taking her time waking up in his arms.

  “Mmm.” Her brain was still swimming in a haze of pleasurable dreams.

  “It’s more of an instant thing, left over from the hunting-gathering days. A guy saw a deer, wanted it, went after it until he got it—instant decision-making.”

  “You want to go hunting? You should ask Cal.”

  “I’m talking about love.”

  That woke her up. “No,” she said and pulled away. She wasn’t ready for that discussion. She had to figure things out for herself first.

  “I want to play it straight. I could see myself falling in love with you, Kaye.”

  Her heart tumbled. She panicked. “You can’t. It’s a crush.”

  “I’m a man, not a teenager.”

  Didn’t she know it. “I can’t handle this right now.”

  He watched her for a long time. “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?” she asked, bewildered, as she scampered out of bed with the sheet wrapped around her.

  “I’m not going to push. I’m willing to wait,” he said, then added, “to a point.”

  KAYE WATCHED the half dozen Secret Service agents who manned the room, each responsible for the feed of four security cameras. They kept a close eye on their split screens, talking into their headsets now and then. There were more agents on the receiving end, the ones who carried the hidden cameras through the crowd and moved in closer if anyone at command center requested.

  “That’s pretty good,” she said. Of course, it had to be. Historically, one out of every four presidents had been attacked, one out of ten killed.

  The large room had been set up by the advance team just for this day, on the sixth floor of a hospital that had gone out of business a year ago. In the back corner, there was still an X-ray light box on the wall. With the exception of a handful of relics, the rest of the room was jam-packed with top-of-the-line surveillance equipment.

  “I suppose you can see pretty much everything from here.” She spoke evenly, impersonally, as she would have to anyone. But her body was very much aware of Danny’s nearness, of every little move he made.