Deep Cover

by Moira Reid

  “I didn’t get any messages. You called me once today…”

  Butch grabbed her arms and shook his head. He stared into her eyes, sending his message telepathically. “Don’t tell him about the phone call.” She paused, her eyes wide.

  “What did you find out about Garren, Captain?”

  “UMI took him into custody this evening. He’s not Claire’s problem anymore.”

  The room grew still as Claire’s eyes widened.

  “I see. Excellent.” Butch kept his voice even. “My job here is finished.”

  “Yes, I’ve spoken with Err Yedidyah, and you’re scheduled to go home on the next flight. Better pack your gear.”

  “Going home?” Claire’s voice rose, but Butch quickly stifled it by putting his hand over her mouth.

  “Yes, sir. Going home, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “Fine work, Butch. Claire, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  The phone disconnected. Butch pressed the Speaker button once more, a sense of dread shrouding him.

  She pushed his hand off her face. “What are you doing?”

  He took a deep breath. Oh shit. “Claire, we’ve got to get out of here.”

  “What are you talking about? You heard him.”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Garren is in custody. It’s all over.”

  Butch began to pace, treading the same path Claire had covered not long ago. Where in the hell could he take her? Should they try to hole up here somehow? Damn it. He had to tell her his suspicions, but how? The old man drove her crazy, but he doubted seriously she wanted him dead.

  Unfortunately, that’s exactly what he feared.

  Butch took her hand, ignoring the heat that thrummed through her body to his. “Claire, I need to talk to you.”

  “Talk to me? About what?”

  He didn’t have any personal experience with human females in situations like this. He’d seen men notified of the death of their friends and comrades. Generally, men were quiet, contemplative, and wanted to be alone. His only exposure to this with human women had come from movies. In movies, they never behaved the same way twice.

  But he had watched enough movies to know that sitting seemed to help when humans gave each other bad news. He gestured toward the sofa.

  “What’s going on, Butch?”

  “Just come and sit with me, all right?”

  She eyed him warily, then finally followed him to the sofa. Her pheromones calmed to a dull roar as she lowered herself into the cushions, which helped him to focus.

  In the movies, humans always seemed to draw out the bad news to catastrophic effect. If they were going to get out of here with any expediency, perhaps a more direct approach would work.

  “That wasn’t your father. I believe your father is dead, and I need to get you somewhere safe.”

  Her mouth opened, but no words came out.

  “Are you ready to go, then?”

  She leaped from the sofa. “What in the hell are you talking about? That’s ridiculous!”

  “Claire, calm down.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down! Are you insane? My father isn’t dead!”

  Maybe that’s why they don’t use the direct approach. His mind clicked through his options. Grab her and shake her. Get into a shouting match. Try to reason with an unreasonable woman in a horrible situation.

  To hell with it. Holding his hand toward her, he palmed her just enough to slow her breathing and rapid heartbeat.

  “Claire, I’m not sure if he’s dead, but that wasn’t your father.”

  She slipped down to the sofa, her limbs loose and liquid. She leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder. “Of course it was my father. I heard him.” Her voice, dreamy and low, caressed his senses as she began to slide her hands around his waist.

  He straightened, took both of her hands in his, and held them still. “Your father didn’t know it was Garren.”

  She turned her head and looked into his eyes, slowly processing his words. “He didn’t know?”

  “We never told him.”

  She closed her eyes for a long moment, then opened them again. Tears slipped from their corners. “You think he’s dead?”

  “Claire.” He stood and fought off the burning urge to pull her into his arms. A palmful of calm was good for some things, but it made a mess of others. Her pheromones rolled into hyperdrive, and he clenched his teeth against the pull of his own desire. “Listen to me. You’re not safe here. Garren will show up sooner or later, and he’ll find a way to get to you. We’ve got to leave.”

  “No, we’re safe here. We have the alarm system. And I have you.” She choked on a sob. “You’re all I have.”

  Against his better judgment, he pulled her into his arms. He had set the alarms and checked all the entrances. After she was asleep, he would call the police again and have them post a car outside. Moving her now would be too difficult anyway. Her responses would be too slow, and he needed her alert every moment from now on. Damn it, this was exactly why he shouldn’t have used the palm.

  “All right, we’ll stay here tonight. And listen, I could be wrong, Claire. He could be fine—we don’t know anything for certain. We’ll try to reach him again tomorrow. Let’s get you to bed.”

  She didn’t stop crying all the way up the stairs.

  * * * * *

  Butch removed all his clothing. He couldn’t imagine trying to get any sleep wearing a pair of those human pajamas. If there was an emergency in the middle of the night, he’d have to deal with it naked.

  He pulled back the bedspread and grabbed the pillows. He shoved one against the headboard and stacked the other on top, then lay down on the soft sheets.

  The bedside lamp cast enough light around the room for him to see the details of the furnishings. Cherrywood everywhere, expensive wood flooring, a fireplace. Hell, this was just the guest room.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The lavender and orchid of Claire’s perfume remained in his memory, but she’d not visited this room lately. Her bedroom one door away was probably filled with the sweet aroma.

  He opened his eyes and linked his fingers over his waist, pushing the thoughts aside. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about. The last thing she needed was her bodyguard lusting after her. And the last thing he needed was to give into the urge to lust after her.

  He turned out the lamp. Thinking about her perfume solved nothing. He’d better check his hard-on at the damn door and come up with a plan.

  Even if the police caught Garren, he wondered if they’d be capable of containing him. How had Garren gotten here in the first place? Ten years ago Butch had been brought to the planet in shackles with a group of convicted Viven, and they’d been monitored and tracked every moment. Somehow Garren was on his own—but how? Butch needed to get back to his apartment and contact Err Yedidyah.

  Eight hours and some breakfast and maybe this wouldn’t resemble a ticking bomb.

  Sometime later, a sound woke him from a dream of Claire standing beneath a waterfall. His eyes snapped open. A tentative footstep on the staircase brought him upright.

  Had Claire gotten up? What time was it? He slid out of bed and crept to the door, trying to see the expensive watch face in the dark. Slowly turning the knob, he opened the door a crack and stared down the hallway. For a long moment he heard nothing, then another riser creaked. He grabbed his weapon off the dresser.

  A faint glow from the hall night-light illuminated the long, open space. He could make out a tall, unmoving shape in the stairwell. Training his weapon on the form, he prayed that shape wasn’t Claire.

  When the shape retreated, he moved into the hallway.

  “Claire?”

  Racing footsteps echoed through the hallway as the shape disappeared down the stairs at breakneck speed.

  He ran toward the stairwell as the hall lights came on.

  Claire’s voice filled the hall. “What—”

  “Get back in your room!” Bu
tch shouted. “And call nine-one-one!”

  Butch raced down the staircase. With light spilling down the stairwell, he could now make out the details of the shape. A man wearing camouflage pants, a turtleneck long-sleeved shirt, and a ski mask. His heart thrummed in his chest as he took the stairs four at a time.

  He stopped and fired his weapon at the shape, the bullet ripping through the door frame inches from his body.

  The man yanked the front door open and ran like hell.

  Butch was about thirty steps behind him. When the cold night air hit his body, he aimed the gun at the man’s back, then lowered it to the man’s thighs. If he shot this asshole now, he’d have more trouble on his hands than a home intruder. Without the captain’s assistance, explaining why he’d shot someone who was no longer a threat would bring on a whole new hell of details he didn’t want to give alongside investigations that would not withstand close scrutiny by local authorities.

  Butch followed after the fleeing man for another twenty or thirty yards, but ultimately the man’s tennis shoes won out over Butch’s bare feet. The decorative gravel surrounding the house ground into his skin, and he stopped in the middle of the rocks.

  Butch listened to the neighborhood dogs bark like possessed wolves as he stood naked in Claire’s yard. If any of the neighbors emerged to investigate, he’d have even more to explain. He couldn’t afford to be the topic of conversation at the next homeowners’ meeting.

  He jogged back over the sharp rocks and bounded up the steps he’d taken in one single leap on the way out. Darting inside the open door, he ran into Claire in the shadows of the foyer.

  He grabbed her by the shoulders to steady them both. “I told you to get back in your room and call the police!”

  In the semidarkness, she stared up into his eyes, hers wide in shock, her mouth hanging slightly open. “Was that him?”

  The first answer that sprang to his lips would have helped no one. This was his fault. He should have listened to his instincts and gotten her out of here. Lame-ass human alarm systems. He looked back out through the open door to the police car parked in front of the house. The driver was sound asleep and snoring loudly.

  “Claire, why don’t you just go back to bed?”

  Her entire body shook as she stared up at him, her lips moving as if trying to form words, but no sound came from her throat. She looked like a fish gasping for air after falling out of the small, safe tank she’d lived in her whole life.

  His first impulse was to pull her into his arms and hold her until she calmed down, but he fought it with everything inside him. She hadn’t grabbed a robe during the melee, and she wore a barely there negligee. Standing in the front foyer naked holding her in his arms was not a good plan. Being here naked with or without her was not much of one either, but he couldn’t just leave her standing here.

  The point became moot when she wrapped her arms around him and began to cry against his chest. He slid one hand up her back and cupped her head to his thrumming heart. Butch reached behind him and swung the door shut.

  “It’s okay now. He’s gone.”

  She snuggled more tightly against his body and lifted her face to his. His cock stirred with the movement.

  “Butch.”

  Claire’s lips trembled as she looked up at him with those huge green eyes, her blonde hair wrapped around her face like a soft, curly halo. He disengaged her body from his and purposefully took a step backward, folding his hands in front of him, hopefully not so obviously trying to hide his body’s instant response to her nearness.

  “Claire, go back to your room.”

  And I’ll come with you, his mind shouted, but he ignored it and clenched his teeth together. All the fantasies he’d let wander through his mind earlier were back to taunt him. This was exactly why bodyguards didn’t get involved with people they were supposed to be protecting. Didn’t even let themselves imagine what it might be like, because one day you could be standing inches away from them naked and sporting a rock-hard woody. And they might look at you exactly as she was looking at him now.

  “That was him, wasn’t it?”

  Her voice was full of something like resignation and surprisingly not loaded with accusation the way he’d expected. Did she forget that he was here to stop that from happening? It might be an easy thing to forget, considering she’d been stalked three times and nothing he or her father had done had made any difference.

  “Go back to your room, Claire,” he said again, because it was the only thing he could think to say. He had no comforting words, no answer for the question in her eyes. All he had were more questions, and the middle of the night barely dressed didn’t seem like the right circumstance to ask any of them.

  Her arms hung down by her sides, and she looked for all her height like a small child after a particularly harrowing nightmare. Her next words, however, did not incite in him the type of comfort he would have given a child.

  “Would you come with me and stay with me until I fall asleep?”

  Sounds good to me was the first thought that sprang into his mind, followed quickly by the second: that’s a terrible idea. He decided to act on the third. He would sit beside her bed and hold a gun on the door all night if he had to. Garren might make it back into the house, but he wouldn’t set one foot over her threshold before Butch blew him away. Tomorrow, he would find them a place to stay until he could figure out how to get this bastard.

  “Yes, I’ll join you in a minute. First, I just want to have a talk with that cop outside.”

  She stepped back into his arms, and clutching her body against his, she shook her head against his chest, the soft tendrils of her hair like strands of silk over his bare flesh. “No! Don’t leave me here alone.”

  Millions of years of instinct could not be overridden simply because this was his job. The words coming from this woman who didn’t want him anywhere near her yesterday, this woman who prided herself on her independence, still made perfect sense. A near brush with death brought a person around to wanting someone heavily armed nearby, even a stone pillar of strength like Claire. There was nothing quite like having a woman want you to protect her to turn a guy on.

  He didn’t need the extra help. Protect her, he reminded himself. A desire to be her hero should have nothing to do with it.

  Stroking his hand over the back of her head, letting his fingers tangle in the soft blonde curls falling over her shoulders, he held her body against his and tried to ignore the brush of her belly against his erection.

  “Claire, let’s go.”

  She released him just enough to enable them to walk side by side up the staircase back to her bedroom. Her arms clasped around him, she merged her body against his side, making it difficult to walk. He considered for a moment picking her up and carrying her up the stairs, and his erection twitched again.

  The image of her in his arms headed toward her bedroom was not something he needed in his head right now. Danger and near-death experiences brought on surges of adrenaline and caused people to do things they had no business doing. They had a tendency to react to their baser impulses, and his impulses at the moment were about as base as they could get. Giving in to them was not an option.

  As they reached her open bedroom door, he disengaged her arms from his body and gently nudged her into the room toward the bed. She stood with her arms hanging limply at her sides, as if she’d lost all will of her own and waited for him to tell her what to do. This diverged so greatly from her behavior yesterday, he should have been concerned.

  Instead, the one impulse millions of years of evolution had not changed was winning. He was completely turned on. As he stood naked before this woman who was waiting for him to put her to bed, wanting him to remain with her as she fell asleep, the situation was almost more than he could possibly be expected to walk away from.

  He pulled the covers back from the bed and pointed toward it. “Get in,” he said through gritted teeth, struggling to hold on to the desire pumping throug
h him. Damn it, why couldn’t she have been ugly? Or stupid? Or a guy?

  She sat down on the bed, slid her feet under the sheets, and lay down on the pillow, staring up at him with those enormous, great eyes. He saw no desire in her face, only fear and confusion. He wanted to sit down beside her on the bed but fought the impulse like the soldier he was.

  “Close your eyes.”

  Telling her this was obvious but served two purposes. One being that he wouldn’t see her eyes anymore, and two, she wouldn’t see his enormous erection.

  “I’ll be right back.” He reached for the blanket and covered her shoulders, careful not to touch her skin. He turned and walked from the room. From now on he was going to sleep in pajamas, whether he liked it or not.

  * * * * *

  Claire lay in bed with her eyes closed until she heard Butch close the door. Then she sat up and turned on the bedside table lamp. Her entire body was still shaking. Her blood pumped in her head, bringing the headache she’d suffered with all day long once more to the forefront.

  Was she shaking from a fear or something else entirely? Yes, she was afraid, but the touch of Butch’s body against hers had brought on a new kind of trembling, the kind that was every bit as dangerous as an extraterrestrial killer in her house.

  She heard Butch’s bedroom door close and him moving quickly around in the room. The image of him standing naked in the front foyer flashed back into her mind, causing her head to pound even more fiercely. His body was something she needed to get out of her head, and now. She had to focus on the problem at hand. Her father was missing, maybe dead.

  No. She would not allow herself to believe that. Until she had verifiable proof, she would not believe it. Her father had survived two stints in Vietnam and countless years fighting for his country in dangerous jobs. He could not be so easily killed by some insane extraterrestrial. No, he was not dead.

  Time to get a grip on herself and assess the situation rationally. She was in her room, it was two a.m., and her bodyguard was next door right now putting some clothes over his magnificent body.

  Danger from Garren was one thing. The urge to climb out of her bed, go into Butch’s room, and climb into his was quite another and astonishing in its intensity. She pushed the covers aside and placed her feet on the floor, clutching at the bedspread with her fists to gather herself. It had been so long since she’d had any feelings of this nature, she hardly knew what to do with them. “It’s fear,” she said. “Adrenaline. That’s all it is.”