Overcome

by Lora Leigh

  Men.

  She looked over at the counter. Hell, she had baked too much anyway.

  “Fine. A loaf.”

  “Of each kind?” Hope sprang in those golden eyes, and for a moment it made her wonder … No, of course he had eaten fresh-baked bread. Hadn’t everyone? But there was a curious glimmer of vulnerability there. One she hadn’t expected.

  She glanced at the counter again. She had four loaves of each kind and plenty of the cinnamon rolls. It wasn’t like she didn’t have enough.

  “Come on in.” She turned to get an extra coffee cup when she stopped and stared at him in surprise.

  He was taking his boots off? He did it naturally, toeing at the heels until the leather slid from his feet, and then pulling them off to sit them neatly at the door.

  His socks were white. A pure, pretty white against the dark maroon of her ceramic tiles as he walked to the table.

  He waited expectantly.

  What the hell was he? An alien? No man she knew had white socks. And they sure as hell didn’t care if they took their shoes off at the door, no matter how grimy or muddy they often were. Her brothers were the worst.

  She poured the coffee and set it in front of him before turning to get the sugar and creamer from the counter. As she turned back, she frowned as she watched him take a long sip of the dark liquid.

  Ecstasy transformed his face.

  The expression on his face made her thighs clench as her sex spasmed in interest. Which only pissed her off. She was not going to get any more turned on by this man than she already was. She was doing perfectly fine without a man in her life right now. She did not, repeat, did not need the complication.

  But if that was how the man looked when he had sex, then her virginity could be in serious danger. Strangely predatory, savage, filled with pleasure, his face carried a primal, intense look of satisfaction and growing hunger.

  For a moment, her chest tightened in surprising disappointment. She wanted him to look at her like that, not at her bread.

  Just her luck. Someone else to harass her for her bread instead of for her body. Not that she wanted him to harass her for her body, but it would be nice if someone would.

  Taking out a bread knife, she sliced into a loaf of the banana nut bread and then into the white bread. The white bread was still warm enough to melt the fresh, creamy butter she spread atop it.

  Fine. Maybe she could bribe him into hiring someone to cut and trim his lawn so he would leave hers alone. Stranger things had happened.

  • • •

  The coffee was rich, dark, and exquisite. The bread fairly melted in his mouth. But that wasn’t what was keeping his dick painfully engorged as he savored the treats. It was the smell of this woman, hot and sweet and aroused.

  That arousal was killing him. It wasn’t intense and overwhelming, but curious and warm. Almost tentative. He savored the smell of it more than he savored the bread and coffee he was trying to stay focused on.

  “So what do you do on the computer?” She was cleaning the loaf pans she had used to bake the bread, carefully washing and drying them at the sink.

  He glanced at the slender line of her back, the taut curves of her rear, and shifted restlessly in his chair. His hard-on was killing him.

  He hadn’t meant to give her the impression he worked mainly on the computer, but he guessed it was better than telling the truth.

  “Mostly investigations and research.” He shrugged, telling as much of the truth as possible. He hated the thought of lying to her. Which was strange. He was living a lie, and he knew it. He had been since his creation. So why should it bother him now?

  “Criminal or financial?” She picked up the coffeepot and walked to the table, filling his cup with the last of the heated liquid.

  He frowned at the question as he watched the way the soft, midnight silk of her hair fell forward, tempting his fingers. It looked soft, warm. Like everything he had believed a woman should be.

  She wasn’t hard, trained to kill, or living her own nightmares, as many of the Feline Breed women were. She was feisty and independent but also soft, exquisite.

  “More along the lines of missing persons,” he finally answered. “A little bit of everything, though.”

  He nearly choked on that one. He was, quite simply, a bounty hunter and an assassin. His present assignment was the search for one of the escaped Trainers who had murdered countless Feline Breeds while they were held in captivity.

  The assignment was starting to take second place to the woman in front of him, though.

  Damn that coffee was good, but if she didn’t get the scent of that soft, heated warmth simmering in her pussy across the room and away from him, then they were going to have problems.

  He could feel the growing sexual need tightening his abdomen and pounding in his brain. He wanted to shake his head, push the scent away from him in an attempt to make sense of it. He had never known a reaction so intense, so immediate to any woman.

  From his first glimpse of her outraged expression when he committed the supreme sin of riding his Harley over her lawn, she had captivated him.

  She wasn’t frightened of him or intimidated by him. She didn’t watch him like a piece of meat or an animal that could attack at any moment. She watched him with equal parts frustration, innocence, and hunger.

  And if he didn’t get the hell away from her, he was going to commit another sin. He was going to show her just how damned bad he did want that curvy little body of hers.

  “I guess I should be going.” He rose to his feet quickly, finishing off his coffee before taking the cup and his empty saucer to the sink where she was working.

  She stared up at him in astonishment as he rinsed them quickly before sitting them in the warm, sudsy water in front of her.

  He stared down at her, caught for a moment in the depths of her incredible sapphire eyes. They gleamed. Little pinpoints of brilliant light seemed to fill the dark color, like stars on a blue velvet background. Incredible.

  “Thank you.” He finally forced the words past his lips. “For the coffee and the bread.”

  She swallowed tightly. The scent of her wrapped around him—a nervous, uncertain smell of arousal that had his chest filling with a sudden, animalistic growl.

  He throttled the sound firmly, clenching his teeth as he backed away from her.

  “You’re welcome.” She cleared her throat after the words came out with a husky, sexy tone of nervousness.

  Dammit, he didn’t have time for such complications. He had a job to do. One that didn’t include a woman he knew would run screaming from him if she had any idea of who and what he was.

  She had wrapped the loaves and set them out on the counter by the door for him. He jerked his boots on quickly and picked up the bread, opening the door before turning back to her.

  “If you need any help.” He shrugged fatalistically. “If there’s anything I can do for you …” He let the words trail off.

  What could he do for her besides complicate her life and make her regret ever meeting him? There was little.

  “Just stay away from my yard with your gadgets.” Her eyes glowed with humor. “At least until you learn how to use them.”

  The woman evidently had no respect for a man’s pride. A grin tilted his lips.

  “I promise.”

  He turned and left the house, regretfully, hating it. There was a warmth within the walls of her home that didn’t exist within his own, and it left him feeling unaccountably saddened to leave. What was it about her, about her house, that his suddenly seemed so lacking?

  He shook his head, pushed his free hand into his jeans pocket, and made his way across her neatly trimmed backyard to his own less-than-pristine lawn. And his less-than-content life.

  • CHAPTER 3 •

  A cold winter rain fell, not quite ice, but close enough to chill Tarek’s flesh as he stood in the shadows of his porch late that night.

  He wasn’t certain what had awakened h
im. But something had. He had come instantly alert, his senses rioting, the tiny, almost imperceptible hairs raising along his body as he slid from the bed and dressed quietly.

  Now he stood within the concealing darkness, staring around the backyard, his eyes probing the night as his unique vision aided him in seeing through the moonless night.

  In his hand he carried a powerful ultralight submachine pistol. It rested at the side of his leg as his opposite thigh held the weight of the lethal knife tucked securely in the scabbard he had strapped there.

  The hairs along the back of his neck prickled, warning him that he wasn’t alone in the darkness. His eyes scanned his yard and then turned to Lyra’s.

  Her upstairs lights were on; every few minutes he could see her pace past her bedroom window. She needed heavier curtains. Something hardened in his chest, became heavy at the thought that whatever stalked the darkness could be a threat to her.

  His jaw tightened as he lifted his head, drawing in the scents surrounding him, and quickly, automatically separating them.

  Something was out there; he knew it, and he should be able to smell it. It made no sense that the answers he sought weren’t on the air around him.

  He could smell the scent of Lyra’s brothers. They had shown up that evening, carrying bread when they left. Damn their hides. He had considered mugging them for one insane minute.

  He could smell the lumber they brought, sitting in her backyard, and the smell of charcoal on the air from the steaks they had grilled for dinner. But there was no scent of an intruder.

  He flexed his shoulders, knowing the rain could be distilling the smell, knowing he was going to have to venture into it and hating the thought.

  He moved silently from the porch, careful to stay in the shadow of the small trees he had taken the time to have planted before he moved in. Most were firs of some type, evergreens that never lost their concealing foliage. They were spaced at just the right distance to provide the concealment he needed as he made his way along the perimeters of his property.

  There.

  He stopped at the far corner, lifting his head to breathe in roughly, feeling the rain against his face, the ice forming in the sodden length of his hair. But there was the scent he was searching for, and it was on Lyra’s property.

  He turned his head, and his eyes narrowed, searching for movement that wasn’t there, yet the scent of it was nearly overpowering.

  Where are you, bastard? he growled silently as he made his way to the stack of lumber, using it to conceal himself from the back of the house, allowing him a clear view of her back porch as he thumbed the safety off on the powerful weapon he carried.

  Icy rain ran in rivulets down his hair, his arms, soaking the flannel shirt and jeans he wore. He pushed the chill and the feel of wet fabric out of his mind. He had trained in worse conditions than this for years.

  He breathed in again, sifting through the scents until he could determine where this one was coming from. The wind was blowing in from the west, moving across the house and through the small valley the housing development was situated in.

  The scent was definitely at the back of the house. It was too clear, too thick with menace to have been diluted by the shrubbery in the front yard.

  The moonless night left the yard nearly pitch-black, but the DNA that made him an abomination also made him capable of seeing much more clearly than the enemy stalking the night with him.

  It wasn’t a Breed. He could smell a Breed a mile away. But neither was it a harmless threat. He could feel the menace in the air, growing thicker by the moment.

  Moving from the concealment of the stack of lumber, he edged his way closer to the house. Even more important than locating the threat was keeping Lyra in the house and safe. She was so damned feisty, if she even thought anyone was in her backyard she would be out there demanding answers and ignoring the danger.

  He moved around the little wooden arch that held the bench swing, carefully sidestepped the beginnings of a flowerbed he had seen her working in days before, and slid along the fence that separated her property from her neighbor on the other side.

  He could feel the intruder. The itch along the back of his neck was growing more insistent by the moment. He paused, bending low beside an evergreen bush as he scanned the area again.

  And there he was. Crouched at the side of the house and working his way to the porch. Dressed entirely in black, the bastard might have escaped notice if Tarek hadn’t caught the movement of the whites of his eyes.

  He was good.

  Tarek watched as he made his way to the electrical box at the side of the house. Too damned good. Tarek watched as a penlight focused a minute sliver of light as the intruder worked.

  When he was finished, Tarek bet his incisors the security system had somehow been canceled. The lights were still on, and not even a flicker of power had been interrupted. But there was an edge of satisfaction in the way the black-clad figure now made his way to the back door.

  It wasn’t happening.

  Tarek moved quickly, raising his gun, aiming, only to curse virulently as the figure turned, jerked, and raised his own weapon.

  Tarek rolled as he heard the whistle of the silenced weapon. Expecting, foolishly perhaps, for the assailant to turn and run, he came to his knees, aiming again, only to be slammed back to the wet grass as the gun was kicked from his hand.

  He rolled to the side and jumped to his feet. His leg flew out to connect with a jaw, and he heard the grunt of pain as the other man went backward, flailing for balance.

  Tarek whipped his knife from its sheath, prepared now as the other man came at him. He kicked the gun from his hand, turned, and delivered a power kick to his solar plexus, snarling as he flipped around to see the bastard coming for him again, armed with a knife as well.

  At the same time, the back porch light flared, blinding him for one precious second as the assailant made his move. Pain seared his shoulder as the knife found its mark before he could jump back.

  A gunshot blasted through the night. The sound of the powerful shotgun made both men pause, breathing roughly before the assailant turned and ran.

  “Like hell,” Tarek snarled as he rushed after him, his feet sliding in the muck beneath his feet before he found traction and sprinted behind him.

  He almost had him, dammit. He was within inches of throwing himself against the other man and bringing him down when another silent shot whistled past his head, causing him to duck and throw himself to the side instead.

  The sound of a vehicle roaring down the street shattered the night. Tires screamed as the car slammed to a stop, voices raised demandingly, then it peeled from the front of the house as Tarek raced to get a glimpse of it.

  “Fuck! Fuck!” His curse filled the night as the black sedan, no plates of course, roared away.

  The assailant was well trained and obviously came with backup. The suspicion that it was the Trainer he was searching for filled his mind. But why go after Lyra? The man was smart enough, well trained enough that he could never have mistaken which house to attack.

  On the heels of that suspicion came the knowledge that he, the hunter, could very well become the hunted. And it looked as though Lyra had been drawn into the middle of the war playing out between the Council and their now-free creations.

  “The police are on their way,” Lyra screamed from the back door. “Tarek, are you okay?”

  At least she was still in the house.

  A growl vibrated through his chest as he turned and ran back to the yard, locating the knife and illegal machine gun from the now-muddy yard.

  The back door was open, and there she stood, dressed in a long gown and matching robe, holding that fucking shotgun like it could protect her.

  He snapped his teeth together as he heard the sirens roaring in the distance and stomped to the house.

  “Do not mention me, do you understand?” he ordered as he stopped in front of her, staring into her wide, shocked eyes as she blinke
d up at him.

  “Do you understand me, Lyra?” he hissed impatiently. “Do not mention me. After they leave, I’ll come back. Do you understand?”

  He reached out to grip her arm, pulling back at the sight of the blood trickling to his hand. Fuck, his shoulder burned.

  “You’re hurt.” She swallowed tightly.

  The sirens were getting closer.

  “Lyra.” He bent close, breathing in her scent, her fear. “Did you hear me?”

  “Yes. Why?” Her breasts were rising and falling roughly, her pale features emphasizing her large, dark eyes.

  “I’ll explain later. I promise.” He grimaced painfully. “As soon as they leave, I’ll be back. I swear, Lyra. But don’t tell them what happened.”

  His cover was shot to hell if she even hinted at him. The police would converge on his house, and he would be forced to tell them exactly who he was. Good-bye assignment, good-bye Trainer.

  She nodded slowly, glancing back into the house as the sound of the sirens echoed around them.

  He nodded fiercely before turning and disappearing into the night. The cut to his shoulder wasn’t life-threatening, but it was deep. He was going to have to take care of that first.

  He disappeared into his house as the police units whipped onto the street and skidded to a stop outside Lyra’s house. He locked the door quickly, taking precious seconds to pull off his boots before moving through the dark house.

  What the hell was going on?

  He stripped off his clothes in the laundry room, dropping the cold, soggy clothing into the washer before taking a clean towel from the cabinet and wrapping it around his arm. Damned blood was going to stain everything.

  He strode quickly upstairs, moving through his bedroom to the bathroom where he could take care of the wound to his shoulder.

  As he cleaned and carefully stitched the wound, he sifted through the earlier events, trying to make sense of them.

  Why had someone attempted to break in to Lyra’s house when it was clear she was home? Burglars waited until their victims were in bed, most likely asleep, or gone. They didn’t break in while lights blazed through the house, and they sure as hell didn’t hang around after they were clearly caught.