by Dawn Ryder
Zoe straightened her spine; she made her own choices and shouldered the load. She wasn’t going to turn into a woman who blamed her lover for everything. When she had sex, it was her choice. No excuses. No playing the blame game.
“Not tonight,” she insisted.
He frowned, looking like he wanted to argue, but he pulled a key from his pant pocket.
“Later then.”
A tiny chill touched her nape. He didn’t sound like he was saying good-bye to her, which didn’t make any sense because she could see the hunger blazing in his eyes. Hunger she wasn’t going to be satisfying.
A man like him wouldn’t have to search very far to get what he wanted. But there was something in his gaze that made her think she’d see him again. He walked toward the bike, taking a moment to strap on a helmet before swinging his leg over the machine and kicking the kickstand up. He revved the thing only once before letting the sleek machine glide across the parking lot.
He was an animal.
Zoe took a deep breath and felt her desire turning into an unsatisfied ache guaranteed to hound her for the rest of the night.
I could have gotten lucky …
She scoffed at her inner voice. Yeah, she could have thrown caution to the wind but she hadn’t. Maybe it was the wiser choice but she felt like cussing.
“Oh, tell me you did not let that man get away?”
Roni’s heels clicked on the walkway. Zoe felt her friend’s gaze on her face and watched her eyes narrow.
“I am so jealous,” Roni announced with a huff. “How did you get a kiss out of him so fast? I could barely get a once-over from those devil-dark eyes. He must taste delicious.”
“He didn’t…” Zoe rolled her eyes when she realized she was trying to cover up. What was she? Sixteen? “So he did. Big deal.”
Roni chuckled. “Oh, that man was a big deal, and I’ll just bet he is big everywhere it matters.”
“Maybe.”
Her friend clicked her long fingernails together, warning Zoe that Roni was in the mood to pick apart her responses.
“Don’t start, Roni. Even you have to admit riding off with a guy whose name I don’t know isn’t a bright idea.”
“Oh man … he offered to take you for a ride on that machine of his?”
Among other things …
Zoe dug in her pocket for her keys. “That’s it, we’re leaving. We are rapidly exiting reasonable, logical thinking land. You know, that place where we”—Zoe gestured to the pair of them—“live because we’re not pathetic enough to need to score with intoxicated dudes.”
Her friend only laughed at the disgust in her voice.
“Yeah, right, you did the sensible thing but damn he was hot.”
Zoe offered her friend a smug look. “He kisses really good, too.”
“Bitch.”
* * *
“What? No score, Mercer? I’m shocked.”
“I scored a lot closer to the bull’s-eye than you managed.” Mercer watched his commanding officer arrive. Saxon had pulled on a leather jacket for protection before riding away from the bar, but his legs were still only covered in denim because they’d needed to look different. It had been good-cop, bad-cop time and their target had gone for the leather.
She liked bad boys. Part of Mercer enjoyed knowing it. Okay, enjoyed it a lot.
The other part of him was a little wary of just how much he enjoyed the knowledge. She was a target.
Saxon frowned. “She would have warmed up to me.”
“Face it, she wasn’t interested in you, buddy.” Mercer smirked.
“Doesn’t look like she’s interested in you, either. Back of your bike is mighty empty.”
“She was interested. Just cautious,” Mercer stated with full confidence and Saxon cursed.
“Doesn’t count if you couldn’t get her on the back of your bike. The operation requires one of us to have her trust. If you don’t have the stomach for the job, I’ll call in Maddox.”
Mercer revved his bike. “I’ve got her attention; the assignment is mine. Giving her space will build trust faster than storming through her defenses.”
Saxon considered him, his expression hard. “Don’t take too long, lives are on the line.”
“I’ll complete the mission within the time frame. I wouldn’t be on this team if you didn’t trust me to follow through. What did Greer uncover at her place?” Mercer asked.
Saxon’s expression tightened. “Her home system is encrypted so complexly, we’d be risking watching all evidence fry if we try to trace the intel back to source through it.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly,” Saxon agreed. “Which means we need to hook her.”
“I’ll do it.”
Mercer pulled away, leaving his team leader behind. He didn’t need Saxon drilling him or doubting him. The mission objective was clear enough, even if he didn’t personally care for the method of achieving their goal. But he didn’t have a better suggestion, so he’d follow the plan.
It was still just another mission. One vital enough to have Saxon’s team assigned to it. He needed to keep his mind focused on the fact that men could lose their lives if he didn’t succeed. Just because he was operating in civilian territory didn’t change that aspect of the mission.
Either Zoe Magnus was an innocent being used as a mule by her brother to move classified information into the hands of the enemy or she was his accomplice. If she was innocent, he was her only chance at clearing her name.
He pushed the bike faster, enjoying the feeling of his body flying through space. Zoe’s face invaded the moment. Looking into her eyes had shaken him. At first glance, they were brown, but up close, when he could smell the fresh scent of her hair, those orbs were a kaleidoscope of brown, green, and topaz. Full of life. As if the woman inside was rarer than he’d ever suspected possible. He’d seen his share of attractive women. Honestly, his reaction to her didn’t make any sense. He should be able to keep her under the label of “target” and hold the mission line in his head. Instead, he was recalling the way her lips curved when she was calling his bluff.
Bitterness filled his mouth, and he pushed the bike faster.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been challenged by a mission, even if it was the first time his duty had included cozying up with a civilian woman. If she was a spy, he wouldn’t care if she got hurt. That was the risk she took by involving herself in espionage.
It was obvious he had more experience with sex than she did. But doubt gnawed at his resolve to see the mission through.
Her kiss had lacked practice, lacked the calculated motion he’d encountered in professional female spies. Part of him didn’t care for overwhelming her, even when he suspected she had it coming. Zoe Magnus didn’t use her body like a weapon. Of course, that might be a clever ploy. One employed by her brother—choose a mule who was sweet and innocent. That much better to cover up his crimes. If she was a mule, Mercer might end up feeling bad.
Try feeling like shit.
They had plenty of suspicions but no real evidence yet. Once he thought again about getting in her bed, that bitterness rose again. Part of him was trying to come up with another option. He needed to be in position to obtain the data, both physically and mentally. Bugging her system wouldn’t be too hard but they needed more. Needed to hear personal conversations that might just hold the key to unlocking the case. There was a chance he’d prove her innocent, too.
But that didn’t stop him from feeling like crap over the method. He wrestled with the problem but still came up dry of other solutions. If Zoe was guilty, it was possible she had her hard drive rigged to dump every megabyte of evidence the second someone failed to navigate her security. So someone had to witness her retrieving the stolen information. Saxon liked his cases airtight, and so did Mercer.
Yeah … well, the facts weren’t helping him detach his feelings. Zoe was a military brat. Her family well respected. It was striking too close to the heart. But that
was more of a personal problem. Being an operative on civilian ground meant taking the risk of colliding with emotional entanglements. Fancy, polished words that did little to soothe his guilt, though they did reinforce his dislike of undercover operations. He grinned ruefully. Circumstances had decided he wasn’t going to be on the front line any longer. But he wasn’t going to just hit the civilian world and settle in, either. Honestly, he wondered if he was headed straight toward being just another veteran who failed at returning home. Joining Saxon’s team was an attempt to find his feet now that he was back on American soil. A place where he could still be himself, because locking his gun up in a safe wasn’t his style.
Give him a straight-out fight any day.
Getting into Zoe Magnus’s bed? Well, that was going to be a walk through fire.
* * *
The hallway light came on when she pressed the garage door opener. By the time Zoe pulled into the three-car garage and turned off her engine, her father’s parrot was squawking at her from his cage in the kitchen.
“Yes, Harley. Your sister is home.”
The scarlet-winged macaw parrot shook his head and fluffed his feathers now that he had light to see with. He lifted one foot and waited for her to dump her purse on the kitchen table. Then she opened the door and offered him her arm.
Ignoring him was out of the question. As in very-bad-idea sort of decision. Harley never let inattention go without giving her a piece of his mind. In terms of sheer volume, parrots could be heard for nearly a mile. Harley was definitely in the category of overachiever.
But he was also a big cat at times. Once in her arms, he purred softly as he turned and nuzzled against her chest. Zoe rubbed him as she walked over to the answering machine sitting on the kitchen counter. The message light was blinking. She pushed it and continued to rub Harley as the messages played.
She ended up frowning at the modem noise coming from the machine. It would cut off after thirty seconds, and then the next message would start up with the same annoying nonsense.
Telemarketers.
She held down the DELETE key before moving back toward Harley’s cage. He gave her an opinioned squawk.
“We have a full day tomorrow,” she told him.
The parrot wasn’t very interested in anything that didn’t involve a long cuddle session. Zoe turned off the kitchen light to get him to step off her arm and into his cage. Parrots didn’t have the ability to see in the dark. Harley clicked his beak at her but settled in for the night as she locked the cage door, checking the lock twice to make sure it was secure, and covered the cage. One of the kitchen chairs bore the marks from one of Harley’s escapes. The lower leg was gnawed for a foot. She kept his cage well supplied with toys to feed his chewing need, but there was nothing like the forbidden fruit of the furniture as far as the parrot was concerned. Escape was always on his mind.
She made her way upstairs, checking every room before going into her own. Her father’s house rules, which she kept even though she was on her own now.
“’Night, Dad,” she muttered as she passed the picture of him hanging on the wall in the upstairs hallway. Her brother’s picture was there, too, both of them looking stern in their service portraits. She went toward the two smaller bedrooms the upper floor offered. One was her bedroom and the other her home office. Something was on the floor of her office. She peered through the doorway at the lump. On closer investigation, it was her jacket, the one normally draped over the back of her chair. Suspicion prickled along her neck as she picked it up.
I’m just jumpy because of Bram’s call.
That was likely so. She might have knocked the jacket off the chair when she left. Just because she didn’t remember doing it, didn’t mean she hadn’t.
Mr. Untamed had gone to her head.
She smiled on her way across the hall to her bedroom. It felt a little emptier tonight.
Ha! He’d have cleared out before sunrise.
Definitely not something she needed to deal with. An encounter like that would be mind blowing and it would also leave a huge crack in her self-esteem. All the self-directed lectures about making her own choices would be worth about two cents if her “choice” for the night wasn’t interested enough in her to stick around.
It would suck donkey balls.
Ah yes, the flip side to being a modern, professional woman who didn’t need a man to make her happy. Sometimes that meant she had to make the choice to be alone.
She settled into the bed and turned the lights out. Her lips tingled, the memory of blistering-hot kissing following her into slumber.
Well, it had been a night to remember.
* * *
“Yummy.”
“Can it, Thais.”
Thais pouted at him. The woman had an unfair knowledge of how to affect the opposite sex. Every motion she made was alluring. From the way she shifted her eyes to the motion of her lips. Nothing was ever normal with her. She oozed sex appeal. “Why the shutdown? Shouldn’t I be allowed to admire you on your way to charm another female? You deserve some attention for your effort after all.”
Mercer reached down, clasping the femme fatale by her forearm and pulling her off the arm of the sofa she was perched on. She appeared delicate and feminine, which normally touched off all the right impulses inside him. Today he was remarkably unaffected, which gave him the opportunity to toy with her. “You’re not the target, honey, and I’m a little too busy at the moment to indulge you.”
Thais didn’t lose her composure so close to him; there wasn’t even a slight widening of her eyes to betray uncertainty. Instead she trailed a lazy finger along the open collar of his buttondown shirt, sending a tiny ripple of sensation across his skin with a perfected touch. For all that she felt delicate in his embrace, he knew she was anything but. Her lean body was trained to lethal perfection. Thais could knock him senseless with more than her feminine wiles. One moment of inattention and he’d wake up on the floor with a splitting headache.
“Off to the grammar school for a parent–teacher conference?” she mocked. Thais drew her hand down his forearm before moving away from him. The caress was perfect, too, but it just didn’t unleash the same amount of sensation he’d sampled last night. In fact, he was a little annoyed by her pushing into his space.
Obviously he was focused on Zoe, because Thais could arouse a marble statue.
“That little shirt-and-slacks combo is sure to win points with the carpool moms.” Thais swept him from head to toe before shaking her head.
“I need to work on the trust angle with our target.”
“So you put your leather away? Pity,” Thais muttered. “From what I saw last night, you were making progress with your bad-boy persona. She was … sniffing the bait. Tasting it.”
Her voice had turned husky and he felt the back of his neck heat.
Mercer turned on his CO. “I didn’t need surveillance last night, Saxon.”
Saxon dropped the touch pad he’d been holding. “This is a team operation. As in, no ‘I’ in team. The target is a female, you’re on point, and Thais got surveillance detail.”
Saxon surveyed him with a look Mercer knew too well. His commanding officer was calculating the mission. Assessing Mercer’s word against what he’d seen on his data spreadsheet.
“This case won’t be solved so quickly. Why’d you bring me in if you can’t handle waiting a few days for me to establish my position? This is a little different from crossing a hostile zone with fifty pounds of gear on my back to set up my position for a kill shot. She’s not an easy mark. If she were, she’d be callous enough to separate sex from emotion and inserting me into her bed would be a waste of time.”
“Some men like that in a girl,” Thais purred, earning herself a hard look from their team leader. She blew him a kiss in response. “Relax, boss man, I’d be little use to this team if I had any delicate sensibilities. Even a trace of them.”
Thais knew how to disguise her emotions, but there was a fa
int hint of disgruntlement in her tone from the slap of reprimand no one in the room missed. She made her way to another desk and sat down, providing Saxon with her back. Their team leader stared at the back of her head for a long moment, awarding the point to Thais.
The tension in the room increased while their only female member ignored the intense stare of her boss. Thais filled the void with the faint sound of her typing. She knew Saxon was watching her. Thais had an uncanny ability to get under Saxon’s skin, but their leader proved his worth by ignoring it. When it came to Saxon, he kept business separate from personal matters at all times. Still, Mercer was betting on Saxon’s patience running out at some point. There were cracks appearing in their solitary team leader’s shell. Part of him wanted to see the explosion.
Part of him wanted to be nowhere near it.
Saxon turned on Mercer with a hard look that warned him against watching him and Thais. Just a momentary flicker in his eyes before his expression became guarded again.
“I’m not giving you past the weekend. Get into her bed or I’ll let Maddox take a shot. We need to witness the interception of the next shipment of data. Intel says the buyer is moving cash, that something is incoming.”
Mercer felt his muscles tense. Getting his mind back on the facts was the way to go. Sometime during the night, Zoe’s face had invaded his dreams. He needed to shake that emotional response off. She was the target. Allowing himself to label her any other way would interfere with clear thinking.
Something like that could get a man killed.
The sort of intel being sold from Zoe’s brother’s location was the kind people died over. Locations of bases and operations. One shoulder-held surface-to-air missile could take out an entire unit if the enemy knew the flight path of a mission. Apache helicopters went out as air support on all missions so the enemy had turned to using small, one-man missile launchers that could be buried in the sand when they knew where a mission was going to land. Ambush-style warfare with modern missiles. Mothers were getting flags and someone was raking in the money earned with the blood of Mercer’s comrades. Guilt aside, Zoe was the most likely point for that information to be smuggled out of her brother’s secured location.