Taken

by Lora Leigh

  Lillian lifted her lashes and let his gaze catch hers. She felt suspended then, held between duty and desire, between the rules and a hunger she couldn’t explain even to herself.

  “Risa Clay.” She finally cleared her throat. “Daughter of Jansen Clay.”

  “The traitor who conspired with Sorrell.” He nodded. “I know of her.”

  Lillian guessed there wasn’t an Elite Ops member who hadn’t heard of her. Jansen and his ilk were the very reasons why the Elite Ops had been created.

  “There’s a contract on her head,” she stated. “Two million, and word is that Orion has taken the contract.”

  She watched his eyes then. They narrowed as his jaw tightened. It was a small reaction, but one that assured her that the search for the deadly assassin known only as Orion was still a priority with his unit.

  “Why the contract?” he asked her.

  “Rumor is, she’s beginning to remember things that someone doesn’t want her to remember. Things such as the man who conspired with her father.”

  “The man who raped her.” His voice darkened in fury.

  Risa Clay had been brutalized by her rapist, then again by her father when he’d had her drugged and institutionalized for nineteen long, horrendous months. The young woman had been freed upon her father’s death, when the truth had been revealed. But nothing, Lillian thought, would ever ease the nightmares that girl must surely have.

  She nodded at the statement. “The man who raped her. Evidently, he’s more influential than first believed. Orion will be arriving in the States within an estimated one to two weeks. He has four weeks to complete the contract by knife.”

  That was Orion’s preferred method of death. He’d been known to use a bullet, many times, but he normally liked to play with his victims, especially the women.

  “Any hint to arrival point or his identity?” Jack asked.

  Lillian shook her head. “Nothing. We’re still working on it, but we’ve been working on it for years with nothing new. I wouldn’t expect that to change in time to save her life. You know how it works, Jack. At least we have a warning this time. It’s more than we usually have when men such as he accept a job. We should count ourselves lucky.”

  And she should know. A man such as Orion had destroyed her life, had for all intents and purposes taken her life. And now, she was wondering if the price she had paid for life might have been too high. It was a price that held her back, held her silent, and forced her to deny her need for a man who was just as dead as she.

  * * *

  Travis watched the woman he had long ago nicknamed “Lady Hawk.” Night Hawk was her codename, and he hadn’t realized how much he hated code names until he’d found a curiosity for this one woman.

  Curiosity was quickly turning to desire, though. When had it started? Hell, maybe it had always been there. Staring into her emerald eyes, seeing the feminine softness, a feminine hunger, he realized it must have always been there after all.

  He stored away the information she had given him. He’d arrive back at unit command tonight and relay the message to Jordan. He wouldn’t mention a midnight car ride, or the fact that his cock was throbbing and his need to touch his contact was driving him crazy.

  Damn. She looked like a dark angel as she sat next to him in the car, staring back at him with aching loneliness. That loneliness was easy to identify, it lived and breathed inside him as well.

  “Any further information?” He forced the question past his lips. He didn’t want to talk to her about death or assassins. He didn’t want to talk at all, but what he did want was so forbidden that it could make him a dead man in truth. Maybe.

  She shook her head, her long, dark brown hair brushing around her shoulders and upper arms, drawing his gaze, his hunger. He wanted to feel that hair on his flesh, watch it fall around his face as she lowered herself to him, kissed him, breathed her warmth into him.

  “The information was sent to me directly by a contact I’ve been fostering for quite a while,” she told him. “Orion is one of our priority missions.”

  Travis nodded when he wanted nothing more than to kiss the lips that were parted, glistening as her tongue swiped over them.

  She wanted him, just as damned much as he wanted her.

  “We’ll take care of it,” he told her. “Inform your unit commander that EO-1 has accepted the information as well as the assignment that will go with it.”

  There wasn’t a chance in hell that it would be rejected by Jordan, and Travis knew it.

  She nodded slowly, still watching him. Travis warned himself that he was getting into some deep shit here. He knew he was and couldn’t seem to pull back.

  He’d played by the rules in his former life. He’d done everything by the book, and still, he’d lost all he’d worked for. He’d fallen back into that habit with the Elite Ops. Playing by the rules. Hell, if there was a hunger worth breaking the rules for, then it was the hunger rising inside him now.

  His jaw clenched as he lifted his hand and reached out to her. His fingers brushed over her jaw as she stared back at him, surprise flickering in her gaze.

  “How long have we been meeting?” he asked her then.

  Night Hawk shook her head. “A couple of years.”

  Three years. She had been assigned to his unit as courier and information-gatherer three years ago, and Travis had tried to make certain that he was always the one who met with her.

  “Three years is a long time,” he said softly.

  Her lips parted as the tops of her breasts began to rise and fall, her breathing becoming more uneven. In the pale light that bled into the car, he could see her nipples pressing against the snug material of her dress and saw the faint hint of a flush as it washed over the upper curves of those perfect breasts.

  “Too long?” It was a question, but not about the amount of time that they had been meeting. She was questioning the amount of time they had both wondered and had never made a move to assuage the curiosity.

  He’d always wondered if her lips were as soft as they looked, if her kiss would be as heated as he imagined.

  His hand cupped her cheek. “We’ll pay for this,” he warned her.

  “I’ve already paid,” she whispered a second before his lips covered hers.

  As his tongue licked over her lips, felt them part, felt the little hitch of her breath, and felt the hunger in her response, he knew this punishment was much worse.

  It was a fact that he would have to leave her tonight. That he’d have to walk away. That this single moment in time was the most he could allow himself.

  Then her arms twined around his neck. Her lips parted further and a small moan sizzled in the air around him. Her moan. Her need. And he wasn’t about to deny it.

  He was a dead man. He was a hungry man. He was a man about to take the greatest gamble of his life.

  cooper’s fall

  chapter 1

  ethan cooper stared out the window, his expression bland. He knew it was bland. He could feel it pulling into lines of complete blank shock.

  Fascination.

  Lust.

  He should move. He told himself to move as he clenched his fists and pressed them into the wall beside the small attic window.

  He was going to move.

  In just a minute.

  Just as soon as he came in his jeans from the sight that met his bemused eyes.

  It wasn’t his fault.

  He was excusing himself and he damned well knew it. He was just too … shell-shocked. Yeah, that was the word. Too shell-shocked to move a single muscle and drag himself away from the little window with a bird’s-eye view into the neighbors’ secluded backyard.

  Pervert! he railed at himself.

  That didn’t stop him. He was transfixed. His cock was in hell. He was practically drooling on his dusty attic floor as he watched shy little priss, Miss Sarah Fox, naked as God created her.

  Glistening beneath the sun, slender hands moving.

  He
closed his eyes. Swallowed tightly. She thought she was in the privacy of her own home. She thought that the sheltering fence she’d paid a fucking fortune to have built around her pool was tall enough to protect her. That no one could see her. That she was safe.

  He opened his eyes.

  He felt sweat bead on his forehead and roll down his temple as she smoothed her hands over her breasts. Cupped them. Rolled her nipples.

  “Christ,” he wheezed. There was a flash of gold.

  Holy hell.

  He felt his cock get impossibly thicker. Felt his balls tighten. His balls? Damn. He could barely breathe.

  Prissy Miss Fox had nipple rings. Fucking nipple rings. Beneath those staid blouses and too-long damned skirts she wore, she was wearing fucking nipple rings?

  His fists tightened as he pressed them into the window frame. He blinked back sweat, and he couldn’t drag his eyes away from her.

  Long, nut-brown, riotously curly hair fanned around her. A hell of a lot longer than he had imagined it was. And she was curved. Curved where a woman should be curved.

  And her fingers.

  He tried to swallow. Her fingers were pulling at the little gold piercings in her nipples, and her expression was filled with pleasure.

  Her entire body was sheened with oil. He forced his eyes from her nipples. Down.

  “God have mercy.” He was breathing fast, hard.

  Fine. He was a fucking pervert. He unzipped his jeans, dragged free his dick, and curled his fingers around the shaft, palming it, stroking it.

  Because she was moving again. The fingers of one hand were trailing down her stomach, to her bare, waxed, glistening …

  He leaned his forehead against the little circular window, stared, fought to breathe. There was gold there, too. Just a flash. Just enough to assure his very trained eye that Sarah Fox had a piercing at the hood of her clitoris.

  And she was playing with it. Pulling at it. Stroking her clit with glistening fingers.

  She didn’t writhe. She wasn’t arching or giving him a show. She was a woman, lost in her own fantasy, her own touch. Her teeth clenched her lower lip, perspiration beaded her skin. Oil shimmered on it. And she was stroking herself. Slowly. Enjoying it. A woman who liked to be teased. Who liked the buildup. A slow hand.

  He timed the strokes on his cock with the slender fingers moving between her thighs. Fine, he was fucking hard-core into watching the coolest little piece of flesh in town touching herself.

  Damn. It was good. Who knew?

  He stroked his cock, feeling her fingers on his flesh, slick, oil slick. He palmed the thick crown, feeling the steel that pierced the head of his cock, stroked down the shaft, and felt his chest tightening with the release building inside his balls.

  And still she played.

  His gaze narrowed on her. Her expression was almost distressed. Her fingers were moving faster now, stroking. His fingers stroked. His thumb raked over the curved steel beneath the head of his cock as he imagined the piercing in her clit.

  Ah hell. Damn. He couldn’t handle it. He watched. Her fingers, her face, the sweat that ran into her hair, and then he blew. He felt the ragged growl that tore from his throat, the blistering curse as his cum exploded from his balls, splattering against his fingers as Sarah’s hips arched and her expression twisted.

  In disappointment.

  Her hand slapped the cement beside her. She sat up, pushed her fingers through her hair, then jerked to her feet and stalked back into her little house as Cooper stared at her in shock.

  His cum was cooling on his fingers and Sarah had been left disappointed?

  He blinked down at the pool area as he absently grabbed an old T-shirt and wiped his fingers clean of his release, then his still-hard cock.

  Fixing his jeans he stared out the window, narrowing his eyes. Most of the houses in the area were single story, with privacy fences built around them. It just so happened Cooper’s was just a little bit taller than most to allow for a taller attic. Just tall enough, the window positioned just right to look down into her pool area.

  For some unknown reason, there were few of the houses built on the same line in the little Southern Texas town. Just so happened, his was built just right.

  He grinned at his luck. Then he frowned as he readjusted his jeans and moved to the door of the long attic and down the spiral metal stairs that led down to the kitchen. Damn if Miss Fox hadn’t just given him the release of the year or something.

  The thought of her—disappointed. Wet. Pierced.

  Fuck. Pierced. Sarah Fox. The woman he assumed was a staid little virgin. At least, that was the rumor. Virgin? With those piercings? Not likely.

  Satisfied was another thing entirely, and as much as he would have liked to, helping Miss Sarah find her release wasn’t going to become his aim in life.

  Ethan Cooper was the bad boy, and he knew it. He owned the local bar, a sometimes biker hangout and generally ill-reputed establishment. And he liked it that way.

  He was ill-reputable. The local troublemaker turned bar owner after returning from the Army, where he’d served more than eight years. A bullet to his knee had put him out of the Rangers, but it hadn’t put him out of life. A few scars and heavy pins in a reconstructed knee weren’t enough to kill that untamed, sometimes dark core inside his soul.

  The Army had honed it. The Rangers had sharpened it. Life itself may have darkened it further. But it was still there. He was still dangerous. He was still dark. He was still footloose and fancy-free. And he intended to stay that way.

  Sarah threw the towel on her bed, pouted, and stomped to the shower. She washed the tanning oil from her body beneath the spray and sighed in exasperation at the need that still throbbed between her thighs.

  Twenty-four years old. She was twenty-four years old and still a virgin. And as though everyone in this little town she had moved to knew it, she was still known as Miss Sarah. And she was tired of it.

  She washed quickly and dried her hair vigorously before combing through the tangles and leaving the long, loose ringlets hanging to the middle of her back, then moving back to the bedroom and breathing out roughly.

  She’d tried everything to make herself fit in here, in this little Texas town.

  Well, everything but walking into a bar and just picking up a man, and she just couldn’t bring herself to do that. Just as she hadn’t been able to bring herself to let one of the drunken frat boys from college heave and moan over her.

  She grimaced at the thought of the parties her sorority sisters had dragged her to while in college. There had been a few boys who hadn’t been drunk. Who had flirted with her, seemed interested. In a quick little screw.

  She sat down on her bed and glared at her bedroom wall. She should have moved to a larger town. She made a damn good living as a Web designer and computer programmer. She worked for an excellent company. She had good benefits. She’d been damn lucky. She didn’t have to do the nine-to-five rush and could relax. She could afford to move to Houston or Dallas. The thought had her breath trapping in her throat. So many strangers. So much noise and fear. It was quieter here in Simsburg. A little, almost unknown town outside of Corpus Christi. She could relax here.

  Hide away.

  Shaking her head, she rose from the bed and headed to the closet. She pulled one of the sleeveless dresses from the closet and slipped it over her head before buttoning it nearly to her neck.

  She went back to the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror. She unbuttoned the dress, spread it back from her chest, and stared.

  The faint white lines were still there. She should stay out of the sun, she told herself as she let her fingers trace over the thin white scars. Tanning made them worse, she reminded herself. Made them easier to see. Harder to hide.

  She let her fingers trace over them. There were half a dozen, long, narrow, very thin. But they were there. They had been there since she was sixteen years old. Sixteen and stupid.

  She rebuttoned her dress befor
e moving back to the bedroom and pulling on the bronze lace panties she took from her dresser. She slid her feet into sandals, twisted up her hair, and secured it in a smooth twist at the back of her head before heading to the kitchen for her purse.

  She locked the house quickly but securely as she stepped out on the front porch a few moments later. Even here, in the quaint little town, amid the little houses and friendly citizens, she didn’t take chances. She kept her doors locked. Her windows locked. She kept her car locked.

  Head down, she dug her keys out of her purse, raising her head just in time to see her neighbor driving into the driveway right beside hers.

  The powerful steel-gray four-by-four rumbled with power as he drove into the driveway. Parking, he moved from the vehicle, then stopped and stared.

  God, he was a poster boy for big, bad, and dangerous. Six four. Jeans and boots. A T-shirt that did nothing to hide the snake tattoo wrapping around his bicep.

  And he was staring at her. He stopped by his pickup, folded his arms on the top of it, and just stared. Hooded dark eyes, thick lashes. Black hair, dark flesh.

  She stared back, feeling her chest tighten as it did every time she saw him. She could feel her breasts suddenly swelling, her nipples pressing against the thin material of her dress. She could feel heat skimming over her body, as she felt pinned in place, held by his gaze.

  His lips quirked. The lower lip was a little fuller than the upper. It was sexy, sexual. It was a wicked smile that promised he knew her secret fantasies. And knew he starred in them.

  Sarah felt held. Caught. Her fingers gripped her keys, and as a breeze whispered around her, she was sure she felt his gaze like a caress. Licking over her bare legs. Up her dress.

  Her breath caught.

  “Miss Sarah, how are you doing today?” His voice rumbled and stroked her senses with wicked fingers of desire.

  God, he was incredible.

  “Just fine, Mr. Cooper. And your knee appears to be doing quite well.”

  He had returned from the military wounded. Sarah had done the neighborly thing for a year. Fixed soup and cookies, and a few times made certain to pick up fresh vegetables or light snacks from the store for him to eat.