Rules in Blackmail

by Nichole Severn

  Thank heaven for that. “It wouldn’t bother me if you did.” Sullivan replaced the gun in his shoulder holster and rested his hands at his sides. “You’ve been through a lot the past few days.”

  “We both have.” Setting the mug on the countertop to her left, Jane tucked her short hair behind her ears. Her lean frame drowned in his clothes, but something deep inside him wouldn’t dream of dressing her in anything else. Because as he’d watched Menas haul her toward that chopper, he’d realized just how far he was willing to go to keep her safe. She’d gone up against a mercenary alone. And survived. How many of Christopher Menas’s victims could say the same?

  “Sullivan, listen.” One hand leveraged on the counter, the other on her hip, Jane rolled her lips into her mouth, a tell, he’d noted, of when she was nervous. Her gaze rose to his, a hint of pink rising up her neck and into her cheeks. “I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am for what happened at my town house. The camera...” She shook her head, eyes closing briefly as though she could undo everything over the last two days. “It was stupid. The whole thing was stupid. I should’ve told you what I was doing.” She centered on him. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you enough to tell you what I’d been planning. It won’t happen again.”

  Sullivan’s fingers twitched at his sides. He’d thought about that particular piece of information a lot over the course of the last two days as he and Elliot took apart Christopher Menas’s cover piece by piece. She hadn’t trusted him to get the job done, to protect her, but Sullivan wouldn’t let the sting sink too deep. Despite her reputation, he saw her distrust for what it really was. Survival. Jane waited for his response, her teeth digging into that split bottom lip of hers. He’d tell her the truth. “If it hadn’t been for you luring Menas in, we probably never would’ve uncovered his real profession.”

  “As a mercenary.” The words left her mouth as a whisper, as though she couldn’t believe her college boyfriend was so adept at violence.

  “We confirmed it a little while ago. Makes sense when you think about it. You said it yourself. Christopher Menas likes to hurt people. He doesn’t have any regard for authority and doesn’t believe in the justice system. The sexual assault against your roommates while you two were in college was only the beginning.” Sullivan had come across a few mercs during his time as a SEAL, had even been asked if he’d wanted to get in on the ground floor of a new private security company that specialized in Menas’s kind of work not too long ago. His brother, Marrok, saw the career potential before he’d died—he swallowed back the tightness in his throat—but Sullivan only killed to survive or protect. Not for a paycheck. “Unfortunately, clients will pay a lot of money for traits like that.”

  “I take it since you’ve added a few new security measures to the cabin you still think he’s a threat.” Jane shifted on her feet. “You were going to kill him, weren’t you? Even after I asked you to have him arrested and tried.”

  “Yes.” Plain and simple. She’d asked for the justice system to punish Menas for his crimes, but in those rage-induced seconds of Sullivan fighting for his life—fighting for hers—he’d made a choice. He took a deep breath. “Men like Christopher Menas don’t give up. They get off by making others suffer. I couldn’t watch that happen to you.”

  “I understand.” She ran a hand up and over her shoulder, where the worst of Menas’s damage had been cleaned and bandaged. The burned skin would scar but could never detract from Jane’s beauty. A weak smile sharpened the angles of her face. “I might not be able to sleep for a few days. But that’s nothing new. Christopher’s been stalking me for a while. I should be used to it, shouldn’t I?”

  Sullivan opened his mouth, wanting to assure her this was the safest place for her to be, that he could protect her from any kind of danger. But he had a sense the fears Jane talked about weren’t entirely physical. And he could relate. The brightness in her gaze dimmed slightly, and he couldn’t help but close the distance between them. He notched her chin higher to have her look straight at him. “When this is over, the nightmares will get better. It’ll just take time.”

  He studied the slim navy-blue box on the bookshelf over her shoulder, the one with the custom-made pen he’d kept after all these years. A gift from his mother. Identical to the pen she’d given Marrok when he’d turned twelve. “Someday, you’ll wake up and they won’t be the first thing you think about in the morning. After that, you won’t remember them.”

  “Was that how it was for you?” Nothing but the pure need of reassurance radiated in her eyes. “After what happened with your dad?”

  Yes. Violence left a stain, one that took a long time to bleach out. That single incident at age fifteen had changed the course of his life. It’d taken every penny he owned to have a new identity forged. He’d had his birth name declared deceased and gone into the military a few years later, desperate to get away. Joined the SEALs. Founded Blackhawk Security. Dropping his hand to his side, Sullivan focused on the warm, far too intelligent woman in front of him. He wasn’t about to tell that particular story. Because it wouldn’t end the way she hoped. “You should eat something. Get some rest. We have a lot of work ahead of us.”

  He turned away.

  “You asked me to call you Sebastian in the hospital. Right after you...” She inhaled sharp and clear, the feeling of his hands on her smooth skin still so clear. “Do you remember that?” Soft footsteps padded toward him, and before he was ready, she slid her long fingers over his bare arm to turn him around.

  “I remember.” He remembered everything since setting sights on her in that damn hospital bed. The way her eyes lit up at the sight of him. The way her lips had creased when he’d slipped his thumb over her mouth. The undeniable rage to tear Christopher Menas to pieces as he’d traced her injuries. Another round of tension stiffened his muscles. No man had the right to hit a woman, but Menas wasn’t a real man. He was a gun for hire. Any kind of morality had gone out the window long before their run-in on Seward Highway.

  Sullivan closed his eyes. Heat ran up his fingers and into his shoulders. His skin tingled where she touched him. Desire stirred in his gut, kicking up speed the longer Jane held on to him. He turned toward her, nothing but her vanilla scent in his lungs. How could she possibly still smell so good after what she’d been through? “You think I’m not that man anymore.”

  “Am I wrong?” Jane maneuvered her hand over his chest, her heat tunneling through his T-shirt and down beneath his sternum. Down to the spot where his soul resided. “I read the papers. I know you were only a teenager when you—”

  “Killed my father for murdering my mother and eleven other women?” There. He’d said it. He’d drawn blood at the tender age of fifteen and hadn’t looked back. Not even for his younger brother. Sullivan squared his shoulders. “Release of that information might lose me the business I’ve built from the ground up, but the Anchorage Lumberjack was a serial killer who started with women who wouldn’t agree to his advances and ended with my mother. So if you’re looking for some kind of guilty plea, you’re not going to find it, Counselor.”

  “I’m not looking for a guilty plea.” Jane fanned her fingers over his chest. “I just want to get to know the man taking on an entire mercenary ring for me.”

  Get to know him? This woman wanted to face off with years of his personal demons? A laugh rumbled deep in his chest. Having her this close, with nothing but honesty and desire in her expression, Sullivan couldn’t back away. As he should. Never mind that she’d blackmailed him into this mess in the first place, but Jane had single-handedly brought down the only family he’d had left.

  But she hadn’t forced his brother to commit suicide, had she? Marrok had pulled the trigger himself. And the blackmail... Well, he was a SEAL, damn it. He had held live grenades in his bare hands, had prevented an attack on civilians in the Middle East, could hold his breath for more than three minutes without releasing a single bubble und
erwater. Blackmail didn’t compare to the last twelve years of nonstop training and missions he’d successfully completed. If anyone could battle the monsters hiding in his closet, the Full Metal Bitch had the best chance of survival. “Are you sure you can handle it?”

  “I’ve faced dangerous, military-trained criminals every day of my career, survived two attempts on my life by a mercenary and dragged your deadweight through the Alaskan wilderness by myself.” Her mouth turned up into a gut-wrenching smile that clenched his insides and destroyed his excuses. “Why don’t you give me a challenge?”

  * * *

  WHY DID HER heart insist on getting involved in things it had no business interfering with? Its job was to pump blood. That was it. Get to know the real Sullivan Bishop? That should’ve been the last thing on her mind. But at the moment, Jane couldn’t remember why. His eyes had settled on her, and the pain, the exhaustion, the alarm bells sounding off in her head all disappeared.

  He shouldn’t have touched her in the hospital. Because now all she could think about was having those hands on her again. And, hell, if that didn’t send her thoughts on tangents everywhere but where it should be: on bringing her stalker to justice.

  The shadows across the rough ridge of his nose shifted as Sullivan closed in on her. The action, so simple, set off an explosive chain reaction that stole the air from her lungs. Skin heated, heart racing, her fight-or-flight response kicked into high gear. He’d almost kissed her back in the hospital, but this, the desire raging in his gaze, was something completely different. Like he’d finally come to a decision about her.

  Long-dormant longing flooded through her, but she stepped out of Sullivan’s range. She had been fed, had rested, felt safe here in his cabin, everything that said she was supposed to be ready for an intimate relationship according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but she couldn’t do this. At least, not with him.

  Take care of the threat. Get her life back.

  Mind over matter. That was all it’d take.

  They’d only known each other for four days—albeit four of the most intense days of her life—but people got hurt when they insisted on staying in her life.

  “Jane?” Confusion chased the desire from his expression. “What’s wrong?”

  Good question. She’d been with a handful of men in the past. Nothing serious. But it was like riding a bike, right? Except this bike was inexplicably protective of her, had taken on a group of mercenaries to save her life and stared at her as though he intended to devour her. Sullivan was a good man. And despite her original intentions when she’d broken into his office, she wouldn’t let him throw away his life for her. Because guilt was the unwanted gift that just kept on giving.

  “Everything.” Jane ran a hand through her hair, then crossed her arms over her stomach and leaned against the back of the couch for support. Her knees locked to keep her upright when all she wanted to do was collapse into Sullivan. All the oxygen disappeared from the room. The three small lines between his eyebrows deepened, and she clenched her jaw to keep herself in the moment. Why was her chest so tight? “I blackmailed you into helping me, Sullivan, but after what happened with Christopher... I have no idea how to get you out of this.”

  “Get me out of this?” Sullivan widened his stance, crossing his arms over his chest. “What gave you the idea I’m looking for a way out?”

  “You beat Christopher Menas until he was unconscious to save me on the highway. In my experience, mercenaries like him aren’t going to forget about something like that and move on. He’s turned you into a target, too.” She inhaled deep, savoring his masculine, clean scent. “I know what you said about taking care of yourself before, but people who’ve gotten close to me over the years always end up hurt. And for some stupid reason, I don’t want that to happen to you.”

  Silence stretched between them, a living, breathing thing.

  Slowly, dangerously, Sullivan stalked toward her, a predator closing in on his prey. Before Jane had a chance to escape, he caged her between his massive arms against the couch, just as he had back in his office. The ice in his gaze melted, warming every inch of her body. “Do I look like the kind of man who’s willing to back down from a fight?”

  Not in the least.

  “Stop looking at me like that.” Jane straightened—at a loss with him practically wrapped around her—but she didn’t get far. Didn’t he understand? Nothing could happen between them. Ever. Christopher wasn’t going to stop. He’d hunt her down until he got whatever kind of revenge he sought from her. There was nowhere she could go that didn’t put them both in danger. Clearing her throat, she stood up against him. Fine. He wouldn’t back down voluntarily? She’d make him see reason. “You should hate me for what happened with your brother, for what I did to force you to help me.”

  “I tried. It didn’t work.” The cage he’d constructed around her disappeared. The muscles in the right side of his jaw ticked off a steady beat. “Do you want me to hate you? Is that it?”

  It would sure make them going their separate ways easier after they finished with Christopher and his friends. But what if they never found him? She’d have to leave her job with the JAG Corps. Change her name. Move again. Jane exhaled hard, but the tightness in her chest didn’t lessen. What if her stalker got to her again and Sullivan wasn’t around the next time? Rapid flashes of what’d happened in the factory took over, and the burns across her back tingled. Without Sullivan, who knew what would’ve happened to her had Christopher gotten her onto that chopper. Dread curdled in her gut. She didn’t want to think about it.

  “We’ve gone up against some of the most violent men in existence, Jane. Men most people would run from. But you...you held your ground. You’ve fought like hell for yourself and for me since you broke into my office.” Sullivan stared down at her. “You might be the Full Metal Bitch, but I can’t hate you.”

  Her insides warmed, relaxing her muscles.

  This should’ve been easy. She’d planned everything down to the letter. She’d blackmail him into tracking down her stalker, the police would take over and she’d have her life back. Sullivan wasn’t supposed to take on a clan of mercenaries for her. She wasn’t supposed to consider what might happen to them after the job was done.

  Oh, no. No, no, no, no. She did not have feelings for him. She couldn’t. First rule of blackmail: don’t fall in love.

  Jane inhaled deep, swiping her tongue across her bottom lip. Her heart pounded loud in her ears. She couldn’t get enough air. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves, but it didn’t help. “Then where does that leave us?”

  “Jane, my brother made his own choices. I honestly don’t know what kind of man Marrok turned out to be, or whether or not he assaulted those women, but I do know you. I left that life behind—I left him behind—and while I will regret that for the rest of my life, I have every reason to believe you did your job.” Wrapping his strong, calloused fingers around her upper arms, Sullivan slid his thumbs over her skin in comforting circles. Goose bumps prickled down her arms, the combination of cold and hot fighting for her senses. “You might’ve brought up the charges against Marrok, but nobody forced him to eat his gun. And—” his wide, muscled chest expanded on a deep inhale “—from what I’ve learned about you over the last few days, I don’t think you’d do something like that without cause.”

  Jane blinked. “You don’t?”

  “No,” he said. “Because we’re a team, and I do everything in my power to back up the people on my team. And if you can believe it, that even includes Elliot.” His smile vaporized the knot of apprehension that had set up shop in her chest.

  Jane sank into him, setting her ear against Sullivan’s chest. The steady thump of his heart settled her fried nerve endings, but the silence before the storm wouldn’t last long. Christopher was still out there, still hunting her. Sullivan slid his hands up her back, thankfully avoiding the burns acr
oss her shoulder blades. “Someday, when all this is over, you’re going to have to tell me what Elliot did to land in your good graces.”

  “Only if you tell me how you got into my office.” He set his lips against the crown of her head.

  “Did you think it would be that easy?” A laugh escaped from between her lips. How could she have wanted to push Sullivan away? The man was a SEAL for crying out loud. He took on the most dangerous threats to the United States with green paint on his face and a motto on his lips.

  All in, all the time. For her.

  Chapter Ten

  Splashes of pinks, greens and purples wove intricate designs overhead. Aurora borealis. One of the most beautiful things he’d had the privilege of experiencing in his life. But nothing compared to the woman next to him. Three days ago, she’d survived what would probably be the most brutal attack of her life, yet here she sat, stunning as ever.

  Puffs of air crystallized in front of his mouth as Sullivan exhaled. The temperature had dropped significantly over the last fifteen minutes, but he didn’t dare move. Not with those vibrant colors lighting up the snow before the heavy tree line, and not with Jane bundled this close into his side.

  “I’ve never seen the northern lights this clearly before.” A fresh mug of steaming coffee gripped in her hand, she stared up at the sky. Her pupils lit up as the shifts in color played across her face. She huddled deeper into her coat, setting her head against his shoulder. “Never thought I’d get the chance to sit here and enjoy it. It’s nice.”

  Sullivan took a sip of his own black coffee, every high-strung muscle relaxing one by one. There was something about watching the northern lights, enjoying a cup of coffee, feeling a woman’s heartbeat against his side that washed the tightness from his chest. When was the last time that’d happened? A year? Two? A decade? There’d been women. Nothing serious. But this—Jane—was different.