by Cynthia Eden
She shouldn’t have come back to him.
“What, exactly, are you asking?” Jennifer turned toward him. “If I’ve committed some sort of crime? Is that what you think happened here? That I did something—and now this guy is after me?”
He had no clue about what she might have done... That was the problem. “You have a man on your trail who wants to hurt you.” No, kill her. A knife attack, an arson and a hit-and-run... That wasn’t the usual type of stalking case that he heard about. It was one hell of a lot more intense—and deadly. “Do you have a lover that you rejected? A man you turned away who might have—”
“Gone crazy without me?” Jennifer finished as she gave a hard, negative shake of her head. “No, this isn’t some rejected suitor.”
“Are you sure about that? Because people are good at concealing who they really are. Maybe you thought you were with someone safe, but the truth is...beneath his surface, your lover was as dangerous as they came.”
The hardwood floor creaked as she made her way back to him. She stopped, less than a foot away. Close enough to touch. To hold. Her voice was husky and low when she told him, “You’re the most dangerous lover that I’ve had.”
Brodie’s heart started doing a double-time rhythm as he stared down at her.
“As for secrets...” Her voice as a throaty temptation. “You might be my biggest one. The SEAL I seduced on the night I should have died.”
That night was burned in his memory. The desperate raid... Finding her bound and afraid in that dirty room... His job had been to get her to safety while his team provided cover. But the mission had been compromised because they had been given bad intel regarding just how many enemy combatants would be at that location. He’d stolen a Jeep and driven away as gunfire blasted into them.
They’d taken shelter at one of the few safe houses that he knew. And...
“I should have kept my hands off you,” he said. She’d been the victim. She hadn’t needed him to—
Jennifer laughed. “That wouldn’t have worked. Especially since I wanted my hands on you.” Her head tilted to the side. “You didn’t realize it, did you? How close to death I truly was. They’d left the room moments before you arrived so that they could get ready to kill me. They were going for the weapons...and a video camera. They wanted to record my last moments.”
No, she’d been a ransom target—
“I was minutes from death—I knew that. You came in...and changed everything. I wanted to be with you that night because I wanted to celebrate being alive.” A small pause, then that soft voice of hers continued. “And I just wanted you, the way I don’t think I’ve ever wanted another man.”
That confession was like a punch to his stomach. “Be careful.”
Her eyes widened. “Why?”
“Because we’re alone here.” Miles away from anyone else. “And I still want you, more than I’ve wanted anyone.” The chemistry between them was white-hot. One touch—incineration. He knew the risks, and his body had been far too tuned to hers from the moment she’d walked into his office.
“I...didn’t realize.” She took a step closer to him.
The woman should be backing away.
His muscles stiffened.
Her dark gaze held his. “If I remember our morning after correctly, you weren’t exactly begging me to stay with you.”
Because he’d had a job to do. He’d been in the field. The mission waited. He’d needed to thoroughly eliminate any threat to her—that had been the goal. But once he’d left the SEALs...
I looked for you.
He cleared his throat. “Are you sure there isn’t another man out there, someone who might have begged you to stay?” Someone who won’t let you go now?
“There’s been no one in the past year.”
That revelation surprised him. A woman like her? With those bedroom eyes and sinful lips? She probably had men begging for her affection everywhere she went.
“I’ve had lovers before,” she continued, her voice still husky, “but I hardly think those men would wait so long and then suddenly decide they needed to kill me.” And, amazingly, her lips tilted up in one of her slow smiles. “I really do try to only date men who don’t want to kill me. It’s a rule I have.”
But she didn’t know what was beneath the surface those men presented to her. Hell, if she knew the darkness that lurked beneath Brodie’s surface, then Jennifer would never have let him get close to her.
“I’ll give you their names,” she said. “But those men aren’t after me.” Her words held utter certainty.
He thought back to that hit-and-run. Brodie hadn’t seen the driver of that Mustang. “When you were attacked in the alley, did you see the man’s face?” Maybe that was why she was so sure the stalker couldn’t be a former lover.
“He wore a ski mask. He was big, about your size, muscled.” Her breath blew out. “Caucasian. I saw his hand—when he stabbed me, I saw the skin near his wrist. He was wearing black gloves but I saw that part of his body.”
He waited.
“His body was pressed to mine. His breath on me. I just... You know a lover’s body, okay?”
Brodie certainly knew hers.
“You don’t forget it. You don’t forget a touch.” Her breath expelled. “That man isn’t a former lover.”
Maybe he was someone who wanted to be a lover, but she’d turned him away.
“Brodie, I just want this guy found. I want this mess stopped. I thought my life was finally safe, until he came along.”
Finally safe?
She started to turn away but then stopped. “Do you ever wonder... Was it really as good as we remember?”
Her words rocked through him.
Her gaze fell to his mouth. Jennifer’s tongue swiped over her lower lip. “It was just the adrenaline, right? The danger? The whole life-or-death situation that we were in. I mean...there’s no way that we’d kiss again and—”
“Ignite?”
Her lips parted.
He wanted her mouth. He also wanted to show her that he could be more than the rough SEAL she’d known before, but playing the gentleman wasn’t exactly his starring role.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Ignite.”
Hunger, desire pulsed through him. “You should walk away now.”
He’d said words like that to her before. Another time, another place.
She’d been hugging him, her body trembling. He’d tried to do the right thing. Tried to warn her away.
You should walk away.
But she hadn’t walked away then. She’d stood on her tiptoes and put her mouth against his.
And now...now she was walking toward him, stopping only when their bodies brushed.
“Are you...are you seeing someone?” she asked as her head tilted back.
“No.” The one word sounded like a growl. Mostly because it was.
“Neither am I, but I guess I already told you that, huh?” Her gaze was on his mouth. “It can’t be as good as I remember.”
How many times had he told himself the same thing?
“One kiss...just to find out?”
Brodie didn’t know if he’d be able to stop after one taste of her.
“One kiss...because I don’t want to be afraid tonight.”
His hands had curled around her waist. He’d pulled her even closer to him. “You should have walked away.” Then he did just what they both wanted. What they both needed.
A kiss.
To see if the memories were wrong. To see if that white-hot connection, the electrifying need, could possibly be real...and still there.
He began softly, slowly. His head lowered, and his lips brushed over hers. Her lower lip was full and plump, her top a sensual tease. He kissed her lightly, a brief caress.
Then her lips parted more for him. His tongue swept inside and—
They ignited.
Her hands rose and wrapped around his shoulders. Her nails sank into his skin as she rubbed her body
against his. Her tongue met his, her taste drove him to the edge, and the desire he’d tried to keep in check broke through his control.
With a rough growl, he pushed her back against the nearest wall. Brodie caged her there, pinning her with his body. His mouth grew rougher and wilder on hers as the flood of desire deepened within him.
This was the way it had been before. One kiss and nothing else had mattered to him—nothing but taking her, claiming her.
He licked her lower lip, a sensual swipe of his tongue, and she gave a moan that he caught with his mouth. He loved the sounds she made. Loved the way her body rubbed against his.
He loved it even more when she was stretched out before him in bed.
But...
But her hands pushed against his chest.
Brodie forced his head to lift. He stared down at her and watched those long lashes of hers lift.
“It is the same,” she whispered.
No, she was wrong. It was even better. The desire even stronger. Brodie knew that he was on the edge of an abyss then, and if he didn’t pull back—right at that moment—he’d fall over the edge. And he’d take her with him.
“Why is it this way between us?”
“I-I don’t know.”
They had a combustible chemistry that was off the charts. He wanted to push her, to get her right back into his bed instead of in the guest room, but...
Some maniac is terrorizing her. She needs safety, not—
Well, not what he wanted to give her.
He sucked in a deep breath, and his hands rose from her. Instead of touching her, Brodie pressed his hands into the wall on either side of Jennifer’s body.
“Brodie?”
“Give me a second.” Longer than that. Every breath he took tasted of her.
His hands shoved into the wall, and he pushed away from her. Took one step back. Two. “The guest bedroom,” he said again, voice gravel rough, “is the second door on the right.”
She slipped past him and headed toward the hallway.
“My door—” he shouldn’t tell her, but he did “—is the first one on the right.”
The floor creaked, then her high heels tapped as she walked down the hallway. Brodie looked down and saw that his hands had clenched into fists. A door shut—somewhere down that hallway.
He rolled back his shoulders to glance at the clock. It was nearing 1:00 a.m. now. They’d stayed around her hotel room long enough for the cops to arrive—then they’d been grilled by the uniforms Shayne had sent over.
Jennifer needed to crash, and so did he.
But instead of sleeping, he sure would rather be tangled in the sheets with her as they let the adrenaline and desire churn through them both.
Brodie waited a few more moments. Then he turned out the lights in the den. He marched toward the hallway to that first door on the right. He opened the door slowly, aware that he was holding his breath. But...
Jennifer wasn’t in his bed.
His breath expelled in a rush. Hell. Maybe he’d be taking a cold shower before he crashed.
* * *
JENNIFER HEARD BRODIE’S door open, then close. Her heart was racing so fast that she thought it might burst right out of her chest.
Did he realize that she’d almost gone into his bedroom? Her draw to Brodie was too strong. She hadn’t counted on that. Desire was supposed to be easy to control, but when she was with Brodie, her mind and body couldn’t seem to remember that important fact.
She just reacted when he was near.
Glancing around the room, Jennifer’s attention fell on the big bed. A heavy wrought-iron bed. She stripped but kept on her underwear and bra since she hadn’t exactly come equipped with pajamas.
Jennifer climbed in bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. The ranch house creaked a bit around her, and the wind howled as it hit the windows.
Brodie’s home. A place of joy for him, and a place of incredible sorrow. She’d done her research before running to him—she’d needed to be sure the SEAL she’d known before hadn’t changed over the years.
He had changed, though. He’d become harder, and now, sadness flickered within his gaze, a sadness that seemed to haunt him. Oh, he did a good job of wearing his mask, of pretending to have no emotions, but she could see right through his facade.
Maybe it was easy for her because she was so used to wearing a mask of her own.
She knew that his parents had died in this house. They’d been murdered, shortly after her own rescue by Brodie in the Middle East. If the accounts she’d read online were true, Brodie’s younger sister had been at the ranch during the attack, but she’d escaped.
Some folks thought that his sister, Ava, wasn’t just an innocent victim.
They thought she might just be a vicious killer.
The pipes rattled a bit, and she could hear the thunder of water coming from the room next door. She had a sudden flash of Brodie in the shower.
Jennifer swallowed. Getting involved with him again should not be on her agenda. If he found out the truth she’d been keeping from him, then any personal involvement would just make him feel more betrayed.
She didn’t want that. Brodie McGuire was her safe port in this storm. A man with an impeccable record, and a man with deadly killing skills.
Before this nightmare was over, she might just need those skills.
Brodie had been very wrong when he’d asked if a former lover was the one after her. The few lovers she’d had in the past didn’t know her secrets. This man—this man who hunted her so relentlessly, he did.
I know. The picture in her luggage wasn’t just some random shot. It had been taken right after her last meeting with her government contact. Taken on the day when she’d finally bid farewell to a life that wasn’t really hers.
She’d always feared that life might destroy her, but Jennifer had never expected that destruction to come just when she was finally free of the thick web of lies that had twined around her for so long.
But freedom had a cost in her business, and that cost... It might just be her life.
* * *
A FAINT SOUND woke Jennifer hours later. Her eyes flew open just as she heard the creak of her door’s hinges.
Someone was coming into her room.
“Brodie?” Her voice was soft, uncertain. She yanked the covers up to her chest. It was so dark in the room, and her eyes were frantically trying to adjust. She could barely make out a large looming shadow in the doorway.
The shadow was roughly as big as Brodie, because his shoulders seemed to stretch and fill that doorway but... “Brodie?” she said again.
Jennifer was pretty sure the shadow shook its head.
He found me. And if her stalker had gotten through the security at the ranch, what had he done to Brodie? Fury and fear pumped through her as she jumped from the bed. Jennifer grabbed for the lamp on the nightstand. She didn’t waste time screaming. She threw that lamp right at the shadow that was now staggering toward her.
The man swore as the lamp hit him, but he tossed it aside. The lamp shattered when it crashed into the floor. Even as that lamp smashed into a hundred pieces, Jennifer was already launching herself at her attacker. She went in fast and hard, just as she’d been trained, going for his weak spots. Right for the eyes with her thumbs even as her knee aimed for his groin.
But the shadow had been trained, too. He grabbed her, swearing, and he shoved her up against the nearest wall. Her head immediately rammed toward him as she tried to break his nose.
“Jennifer!” That roar came just as the lights in the room flashed on.
Jennifer froze, her head bare millimeters from her target. Her gaze jerked to the door. Brodie stood there, clad in a pair of jeans, his chest heaving, his eyes glaring—at the man who held her in a too-tight grip.
“What the hell is happening?” Brodie demanded as he rushed into the room. “Davis, get your hands off her!”
Davis? Her gaze jerked back to her attacker and Jennife
r’s breath caught in her throat. The man she was staring up at—he had Brodie’s face. Brodie’s unforgettable eyes.
“Just trying to stop her from ripping off my head,” the man—Davis—muttered.
Davis’s hair was a little longer than Brodie’s, and, though their eye color was the exact same, Davis looked...harder, rougher than Brodie. There was something there, a darkness that lingered in the depths of his eyes.
“If I let you go...” Davis drawled, his Texas accent a bit more pronounced than Brodie’s, “do you promise not to throw another lamp at me?”
She wasn’t going to make a promise she couldn’t keep. “How about you just promise not to try sneaking into my room during the middle of the night?”
“Davis.” Brodie grabbed his brother’s arm and yanked him away from Jennifer. “Why are you in here? With her?” He took up a protective position right next to Jennifer.
Davis rolled his shoulders and exhaled on a long sigh. “I’ve been up for over thirty hours, bro. I just got in town an hour ago. I stumbled home, and all I wanted to do was crash.”
“Your room,” Brodie snapped, “is on the other side of the house.”
Jennifer glanced over at Davis once more, and she found his gaze sliding over her body. Appreciation was in his stare. “The view on this side of the house is much better.”
Swearing, Brodie put his body in front of hers. “She’s not an option for you. Forget that now. Go find your room. Crash there and make sure you stay away from her.”
Jennifer craned her head and saw Davis put his hands up as he backed away. “Easy. I didn’t realize you had a girlfriend spending the night.”
Brodie stiffened. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
For some reason, those words stung a bit. But he was right. She wasn’t his girlfriend. Former lover? Was he about to reveal—
“She’s a client, and she’s here so she can have protection, not so she can be terrified by you in the middle of the night.”
Davis stopped his retreat. “I didn’t know.” His voice was a rumble. “Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Her breath rushed out. “I...” What? “It’s fine,” she mumbled.