by Zara Chase
“No, of course not. I already told you…Oh shit!” Jodie’s hand flew to her mouth. “I picked a load of things up and moved them out the way yesterday, so we had space for our coffee cups.”
Chapter Five
Milo watched the color drain from Jodie’s face. Her eyes had taken on a wild sheen and an expression of absolute horror filtered across her lovely features. If he’d doubted her innocence before now, her reaction would have put him straight. She was guilty of nothing more sinister than good intentions and a lousy choice in friends. Cynic that he was, Milo knew all too well where they could land a person. It was all he could do not to stand up, pull Jodie into his arms, and comfort her in the way that sprang spontaneously to mind—and to other parts of his anatomy.
Professionalism won out over his raging lust. Just.
“Don’t worry,” he contented himself with saying. “If your prints are on the papers, we can make a good argument for them having got there innocently.”
She sent him a glance loaded with trepidation. “Yes, but it doesn’t look too good for me, does it?”
“We’ll start fighting back first thing in the morning.” Hal reached across to touch her hand. “Fight fire with fire, that’s always been our motto. We don’t do passive.”
“By delving into the background of my friends, trying to put the blame on them?”
“You can bet your life they’ll be doing the same thing to you,” Milo said, the sympathy he’d felt for her fading, even if he did reluctantly admire her loyalty. “Besides, if there’s nothing to find, we can’t harm them.”
“I suppose.” She plucked restlessly at the arm of the couch, frowning. “Still, it seems…well, I don’t know, dirty, somehow.”
“Terrorism’s a dirty business,” Milo replied.
“And finding ways to prove you had an innocent reason to touch those papers, if you did touch them, is called creating reasonable doubt,” Hal added.
“But even if you get me off, there will still be a suspicion hanging over me. I’ll be on every watch list on both sides of the pond.”
“No good deed ever goes unpunished,” Milo told her, reaching behind him for another beer.
“I guess not.” Jodie shook her head. “Perhaps I’ve been too trusting.”
Milo frowned. “The way I see it, either one of your buddies really is up to his or her neck in this shit, got careless, and really did leave those papers on the table, or—”
“Or,” Hal finished for him, serious for once, “someone’s deliberately targeting you in order to get to your dad. Any idea who that might be?”
Jodie harrumphed. “How long have you got? He’s a politician. He makes enemies. That’s what politicians do best.”
“Cynicism at last,” Milo said with the ghost of a smile. “Ata girl!”
“Your attitude is obviously rubbing off on me.”
“It might be an idea to speak to Paul about your dad’s enemies,” Hal suggested. “See if he has any ideas. Might as well work both angles at once.”
“Good thinking.” Milo crossed one foot across his opposite thigh and leaned his elbow on his raised knee. “My money’s on the political angle.”
“I remember you being in the States years ago,” Jodie said to Milo. “You, Paul, Raoul, and Zeke and a couple of other guys hung out at Dad’s place for a long weekend.”
“And you crashed out of a tree on top of our heads,” Milo reminded her.
Hal laughed. “I’d have paid good money to see that. American and British joint elite forces crushed by a falling teenager.”
“I wasn’t quite into my teens at the time,” Jodie replied, laughing. “I was trying to get close enough to hear what you were all saying. I figured it had to do with girls, because Paul kept shooing me away when I tried to listen. Well, I wasn’t having that. I absolutely had to know what happened between the sexes. Not my fault,” she continued, shrugging. “Like I said before, I was born with an innate sense of curiosity. I like to know how things work, and the more someone told me I was too young, the more determined I became to find out.”
Hal sent her a smoldering look. “If you need any reminders.”
Milo concentrated his gaze on Jodie, wondering if she knew how adorable she looked when the devil got into her, as it had at that moment. Her eyes had lost their haunted look as she exchanged banter with Hal, giving as good as she got. Shit, but he wanted her bad! He didn’t have to ask Hal to know he felt the same way. It was a while since they’d found a woman they both wanted to share. Now they had one, living under their own roof, and Milo was supposed to keep his hands off her. Geez!
Just for a moment, he allowed his mind to drift in that direction, wondering if she’d go for it. Get over yourself. You can’t have her, and that’s an end to it. Face it, you don’t even like her very much.
“We need sustenance,” Milo said.
“I’ll go out for Chinese,” Hal said, standing. “I assume you like Chinese, babe?”
“Sure, but can’t you phone out for it?”
“We could, but we prefer to collect it ourselves. Call us paranoid, but we prefer not to have strangers seeing this place, not even delivery kids.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Anything you don’t like?”
“No, surprise me.”
“Behave yourselves while I’m gone,” Hal said, wagging a finger at each of them in turn. “Don’t forget, you’re still on detention watch, the pair of you.”
Milo shot him the finger. “You’re full of it.”
The moment Hal disappeared into the elevator Milo became conscious of a tension that hadn’t been there when his pal had been around to drive the conversation. He glanced at Jodie, who looked so different to the way she had in the police station. She had washed her hair and it now tumbled down her back, thick and shiny, defying any efforts she might have made to instill some sort of order into it. Milo was glad. He liked it just the way it was. He liked brunettes. Damn it, he liked her, despite her warped ideas about social justice and the ways to go about achieving it.
She kept sending him sideways glances, as though she could sense the tension as well. Did she know it was sexual tension? Shit, he should have been the one to go for food. It was a seriously bad idea to remain here alone with her.
Since leaving the SAS three years previously, Milo had found it hard to settle to anything. So, too, had Hal. They missed the action and camaraderie, but not the bureaucracy and political in-fighting that hampered everything the squad was required to do. He and Hal had run through a string of women since getting out, but none of them had held their attention for long. The thought of being tied down when they were both free spirits at heart had made sure of that.
But there was something about Jodie that was different. He could look at her and not experience his usual commitment phobia. He found that deeply disturbing, because he definitely didn’t like her or her campaigns. She was looking at him, probably unaware there was an age-old question in her eyes. In an effort to disabuse her of any ideas she might have picked up from the charged atmosphere, he spoke with a deliberate edge of indifference in his voice.
“Being arrested isn’t exactly a walk in the park,” he said. “Perhaps the experience will make you choose your causes more carefully in future.”
Jodie glared at him like she couldn’t believe her ears. She cursed beneath her breath and leapt to her feet, sloshing wine over her hand in her haste to put her glass aside.
“Of all the arrogant, high-handed, patronizing…what gives you the damned right to lecture me?” She shook a fist of him. “What precisely have I done that you find so offensive? Do tell.” He opened his mouth to tell her, but she didn’t give him the chance. “I didn’t ask to come here, you invited me. But my presence clearly offends. If you’re just planning to look down at me all the time, and denigrate the things I believe in, then I’ll make alternative arrangements.”
Her reaction stunned him, partly because she was right. He had overreac
ted and now found himself on the back foot. “Honest truth?” he asked.
“That would be refreshing,” she replied caustically, resuming her seat with apparent reluctance.
“Okay, here’s the way I see it. You had a tough time of it as a kid, being dragged all over the globe by an ambitious father. I get that part, really I do, but a lot of other kids have a much harder time of it, and don’t grow up with massive chips on their shoulders. I’m betting you never went hungry, or without the latest must-have gadget, or without the best education money could buy. I’m betting you were never abused, or exposed to the seedier side of life that a lot of other kids have to endure.”
“And your point is?” she demanded, her eyes shooting daggers at him.
“You pick your causes, telling yourself you believe in them, but all you really care about is getting back at Daddy dearest.”
“Ah, so you don’t think the Syrian refugees aren’t worth bothering with? It’s their mess, let them sort it out for themselves.”
“I didn’t say that, but there are better ways to go about it. The major charities are all in there, doing what they can through official channels.”
“It’s not enough.”
“It’s never enough, but it’s the way the system works. If you carry on with your high-profile demonstrations, it will put more pressure on American and European countries to intercede.”
“Duh, well that’s kinda the point.”
“You want our troops to go piling in, involve themselves in a fight that doesn’t concern them?”
“Well, yes.” But she sounded a little less certain of herself. “It will bring it to an end a lot quicker.”
“Oh, honey.” Milo shook his head, wondering if there was a time when he’d ever been that naïve. “Look at Iraq. Look at Egypt.”
“It just doesn’t seem right that all those innocent people—”
“Have you ever been to a war zone?”
“No, and I’ve never been to a famine-hit country either, but I know they exist.”
Milo didn’t know where to start with her. His bedroom was the most appealing option, but that wasn’t going to happen. “I hate the system as much as you do, but sometimes it’s better not to tinker.”
“Just bury your head, and pretend all these atrocities don’t occur?” She sent him a scathing look. “Get on with our privileged lives here in the West and forget all the heartache and suffering that goes on elsewhere?”
“Don’t use world politics to get back at your old man,” Milo shot at her.
Jodie jumped to her feet again, pushing her face close to his. “You might think you know all there is to know about wars, but you know nothing about me, so don’t be so quick to judge.”
“Then tell me,” Milo replied, his words intended as a stark challenge. “Help me to understand what landed you in jail today.”
She moved away and stood with her back to him, staring out at the river, but probably not seeing it. “Paul’s fifteen years older than me,” she said, so quietly that Milo had to strain his ears to hear her. “I was definitely a mistake,” she added bitterly, “and an inconvenience. I was never made to feel any other way. By the time I was old enough to realize I had a brother, he was away at college, back in the States. Dad had his career all mapped out for him. He would go into the military, and naturally he would excel.”
“I thought you got along with your brother.”
“Oh, I do. But he’s more a friend than a brother. Dad’s proud of him, because he did as he was told and became one of the youngest colonels in the US Army. That looks great on Dad’s resume,” she added bitterly.
“And what did he have planned for you?”
“Oh, an Ivy League college, a suitable career, and then an even more suitable marriage to a man he approved of, and who would have been of use to him. Hell, he probably had him already picked out.”
Milo’s contemptuous stance softened. “But you rebelled, and wrecked it all.”
“Yep.” She turned to face him. “I’m the first person I know of who’s ever stood up to him and come out on the winning side.”
Hmm, Milo had met men like that before. They hated to be beaten, which made him wonder if he really had given up on Jodie. He certainly wasn’t in any big rush to contact her and make sure she was okay. That said a lot.
“That must have taken courage.”
She shrugged. “I guess I’m too much like him in some respects. I don’t like anyone telling me what to do, or how to live my life.”
“You’re not good at taking orders?” There went Milo’s fledgling hopes of getting her to play with him and Hal. Not that it had been a serious consideration, had it?
Jodie emitted a hollow laugh. “Depends what I’m being ordered to do, and whether I want to do it.”
“Sounds like a challenge.” And I bet I can make you want to. I’ll just love seeing you begging on bended knees to be fucked. “Presumably your father has finally seen the light, and knows he can’t control you.”
“Hardly. He’s still at me to return home.”
“Why?”
“To stand at his side and help him with his campaign, of course. He wants to show himself as the down-to-earth, patriotic family man with his colonel son on one side, and his obedient little daughter on the other.”
Milo frowned. “What about your mother? You haven’t mentioned her at all in any of this.”
“I was getting to her.” She tossed her head, tears glistening in her lovely eyes. “Trust me, the story of my life just gets better and better.” She met his gaze and held it. “My earliest memory of my mother is of her pouring vodka over her cornflakes at the breakfast table. Well, not literally, but you get the picture, I’m sure.”
“Oh, shit!”
“That about covers it.” Jodie crossed her arms around her torso and hugged herself. “Not that I blame her for her addiction. I guess it’s about the only way she could cope with living with a control freak like Dad. He never would have given her a divorce, you see.” Jodie blew air through her lips. “Far as he’s concerned, Mom signed on for better or worse, and there’s nothing more to be said.”
“Who raised you then?”
“A series of nannies. I learned to be self-sufficient at a young age and made the best of my own company.”
“Did your mom ever get help for her alcoholism?”
“Oh yeah, she’s been into rehab so often they ought to name a wing of the Betty Ford clinic after her. She’s probably paid for one. She comes out sober, but it never lasts. She manages to hide it well, but I don’t think Dad wants to risk her being on the campaign trail too much. She copes pretty well in small social situations, in her own home, where she feels in control. She’s from a good Southern family, and manners are second nature to her. You’d have to know her real well to realize she’s totally wasted half the time. But when it comes to the realities of modern-day campaigning, I don’t think Dad trusts her to stay sober enough to help him.”
“Hence his need to have you back.”
“Yeah well, my being arrested has blown that ambition to smithereens.”
Milo sent her an assessing, sideways glance. “Sure you didn’t make the arrangements for your arrest yourself?”
“Just a goddamned minute!”
She swirled to face him, tears leaking from eyes that radiated hostility. Milo had spoken flippantly, trying to lighten the mood. He definitely hadn’t meant to upset her even more. Her expression—the loneliness and fear he could detect beneath her brash stance—was his undoing. In two strides he covered the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. Her body collided with his. Hard. His arms closed around her, and he felt her breath peppering his cheek as she let out a startled little oath.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, darling,” he said softly. “That was a poor attempt at a joke.”
“Your sense of humor needs some work.”
He brushed escaped strands of hair away from her brow, along with a co
uple of errant tears that had slid down her cheek. “So I’ve been told.”
“Okay, you can let me go now.” But she didn’t try to struggle free.
“Not a chance.”
“But you don’t like me.”
“I might have been a tad hasty there.”
She blinked up at him. “Did I hear you right? Was that an apology?”
“I jumped to conclusions without having all the facts. Hal will tell you I don’t usually do that.”
She was still looking up at him, her eyes now smoldering with a luminescence that hinted at a deeply passionate nature. “Then why this time?”
“I wish I knew. There’s just something about you that brings out the worst in me. Still, there’s one thing I’m absolutely sure about.”
Her breathing hitched. “What’s that?”
“If I don’t kiss you, I’m gonna go out of my frigging mind.”
When Jodie opened her mouth to gasp—whether in protest or acquiescence, Milo couldn’t have said—he seized the opportunity to cover her lips with his, invading her conveniently open mouth with his tongue. A mewling sound slipped past their fused lips as Milo tightened his arms around her and deepened the kiss, causing longing, and raw carnality to heat his blood. His rigid cock painfully tested his zipper as it pressed into her belly. His hands drifted to her arse, pulling her harder against his erection. She kissed him right back, somehow still moaning and mewling as their passions ignited and any lingering doubts about the wisdom of his actions fled Milo’s brain.
“Well, well,” said an amused voice behind them. “When I said play nice, I wasn’t sure this is quite what I had in mind.”
Chapter Six
Jodie felt a white-hot rush of anticipation consume her. Every nerve ending in her body sprang enthusiastically to life as she lived through yet another erotic dream of Milo. This one was more realistic that usual. She could actually feel his lips, firm and demanding, fusing with her own. She savored the taste of his tongue as it explored her mouth with a lazy expertise that left her quivering with need. And no one would convince her that his capable hands weren’t actually roaming over her body, making her cry out with need as he agitated her passions, and caused burning liquid heat to course through her veins.