It was him.
He stared at the ground beside his foot for a second, and then slowly turned around. His eyes dragged up my feet, my legs, my stomach, my chest. Everywhere he looked, flames ignited in my veins. His eyes met mine, his deep brown irises almost black in the low light.
“Sadie.”
My name on his lips was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. I squeezed my thighs together as the timber of his voice made my body thrum with desire. I wanted to run to him, to feel those big, powerful hands on my body. I wanted him to rip my clothes off and push me up against this dirty wall. I wanted his hands, his mouth, his everything.
I didn’t feel like myself. This wasn’t me. I’d never even been with a man! I didn’t like touching myself. I was basically a nun.
But now…
My mind whirred as I tried to make sense of what had just happened, of who he was, why he was here.
His tongue slid out and swiped across his lower lip, and I nearly died. He was more man than I’d ever seen. He was insanely attractive, the kind of man that made you weak in the knees, even at a distance.
His body was big, and hard, and I knew I wanted him. I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anyone before. I was engaged, but for the first time, I wished I wasn’t. I wanted everything with him.
Zane took a step towards me and my breath hitched. With every step he moved closer, my heart beat harder. When his chest was inches from mine, he brushed my cheek with the back of his hand.
A growl rumbled in his chest, and my panties were ruined.
“Sadie Blanchet.” His voice was husky, like hot whiskey and honey. “You’re all grown up.”
3
Zane
She recognized me. Fire bathed my body as I watched her. She was still panting, looking up at me with those unforgettable emerald-green eyes. In the dark hallway, I could just make out the dusting of freckles across her nose.
She was definitely all grown up. More than grown up. She was fucking perfect. No woman I’d ever had would stand a chance next to her. Sadie bit her lip, catching my hand in hers. She gave it a squeeze.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
An arrow went through my chest, and the anger that had carried me through the past fifteen years dimmed for a split second.
It wasn’t what I was expecting.
I wasn’t expecting the wild red curls tumbling over her soft cheeks. I wasn’t expecting her soft, supple body to do these things to me. I wasn’t expecting my cock to be straining against my pants at the sight of her.
I thought I’d be able to walk away from her and focus on ruining her father.
I was wrong.
This was a mistake. A very, very big mistake.
She recognized me, which means she could blow my cover. If she spoke to her father about me, it could trigger his memory, and he’d know it was me with the Russians. How could I be so fucking stupid? I let my curiosity about her and my rage for her father lead me to her house, and then I let my cock bring me the rest of the way here.
I laughed in the face of fifteen years of training—both in the Marine Corps and the fucking CIA. And I did that just to see a girl that was nice to me when she was a tween?
What the fuck was wrong with me?
Sadie squeezed my hand again.
“Where have you been?”
“Around.”
I pulled my hand away as if she’d burned it. She practically had. My fingers throbbed from her touch, and they weren’t the only thing about me that was throbbing.
Her big green eyes dimmed a bit, and I knew I hurt her.
Fucking deal with it, princess.
I wasn’t going to be the one to treat her like political royalty. She had a gaggle of idiots around her for that. I nodded down the hall.
“I’ll get you a cab.”
She glanced at me, her eyebrows drawing together. She nodded, trotting after me in silence. When the warm summer air washed over me, I breathed a sigh of relief. I waved a cab down without looking at her.
When the taxi came to a stop in front of us, she slid her hand over my bicep. My cock strained against my zipper and I cleared my throat.
“It’s good to see you, Zane. You look…” Her eyes swept over my body. “You look good.”
“You shouldn’t be out on your own, Sadie.” Fuck, I loved saying her name. It tasted so good in my mouth, and I’m sure the rest of her would, too. “Don’t you have a protection detail?”
“I needed a night away from it all.” Her lower lip jutted out in a sexy little pout, and all I wanted to do was suck it between my teeth.
I took a step back. She was making me lose control. Losing control was dangerous. Mistakes could cost me my career, or my life. “You could have been hurt in there.”
“But you saved me.” Her chest rose and fell with her breath. Sadie’s perky little tits strained against the fabric of her black dress. Despite my best efforts, my tongue slid out across my lower lip at the thought of sucking one of them.
“I won’t be there next time. Go home to your parents.”
I opened the cab door for her. She gave me a long, lingering look, and then got in the back of the cab. I closed the door and walked away without looking back.
I felt better that she was going home but leaving her was harder than I wanted to admit. I didn’t remember the drive home after I put her in a cab. I just pulled up to my three-story townhouse, my mind still reeling from the encounter.
I looked at the big house. When I found out about my parents, I also found out they’d been hiding a surprising amount of money. I’d made a few good investments over the years, and now I was a very wealthy man. I bought up this townhouse and the two on either side. They looked like three separate houses from the outside, but I’d renovated the whole thing to be one connected unit. I wasn’t one to flaunt my wealth. Plus, I liked the privacy.
When I pushed my front door open, I grunted at the sight of Berkeley sitting in my living room. My boss was shorter than me by a few inches, but he exuded leadership. His face was shaded in the dark room, and all I could see was a bit of light reflecting off his shiny bald head.
He’d been in the CIA over twenty years. He was the first African-American director of the Special Activities Division, and I’m sure he’d put up with more than his fair share of shit. The way he was looking at me, I knew he was about to dish some shit my way, too.
“When did you get a key?” I grunted, dropping my wallet on a console table near the door.
“You should upgrade your security system.”
Instead of answering, I walked past him to the kitchen. Berkeley stood up and followed me. I flicked on the lights and plugged my phone into a charger, ignoring him. I dropped my keys in the drawer below the charger and went to the refrigerator.
I had two beers out for us when he finally spoke again.
“We need to talk about the meeting between Ivanov and Blanchet. Why the fuck would you remove your earpiece?”
I slid a bottle of beer across the marble island towards him. He caught it without looking down at it, his dark eyes steady on mine.
“I’ve had too many close calls in those meetings. They sweep for bugs almost every time.”
“That earpiece is undetectable.”
“That’s what people keep telling me.” I crack my beer open and take a sip. Two years ago, I saw Mikhail Ivanov shoot a man in the head when he found a wire strapped to his body. He’d done it in his own living room, casually, as if he’d done it a thousand times before.
He probably had done it a thousand times. And I knew one thing for sure: I wasn’t going to end up as a blood stain on anyone’s carpet.
Berkeley sighs. “Blanchet was fucking there, Zane!” He smacked his hand on the marble in frustration. “We could have had him!”
“We need more than recordings. We need him in the room with the guns.”
“But he was there.”
“You got pictures of him leaving, yeah?”
/>
“It’s not the same as a taped meeting with the fucking Russian Mafia kingpin, and you know it.”
“Yeah, and it’s not the same as catching him handing over crates of weapons.”
“You know who his dealer is?”
I shook my head. “Won’t spill. I hate to say it, but he’s too smart to do that before the Senate vote.” Once the trade bill went through Senate and he brokered the deal, he’d be a very rich man. If he divulged his weapons manufacturer too soon, Ivanov wouldn’t need him at all.
“The vote is in a month.” Berkeley shook his head.
“We’ve got time.”
“A month is nothing, Zane. We can’t be fucking up like this. If Blanchet and Mikhail fucking Ivanov are in the same room together, we need eyes and ears on them. Non-negotiable.”
“Understood.”
“Where were you tonight?”
“Out.”
I turned away from him, stalking towards the living room. His head already looked like it was going to explode about the earpiece incident, I wasn’t going to go and tell him that I’d followed Blanchet’s daughter… or that she recognized me.
Then I’d have to explain that I knew Blanchet, and my career would be over. Blanchet would slip through my fingers and I would be no closer to making that fucker pay for what he did to my parents. He’d walk free, and I would lose everything.
That wasn’t going to happen.
Berkeley sat across from me, holding his beer bottle with both hands. His elbows were resting on his knees, and he shook his head.
“This isn’t the time to fall apart, Zane. Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been on edge lately.”
“Just getting near the end of the operation. High stakes.”
Berkeley grunted. We sipped our beers in silence, and the tension between us dissolved. My thoughts drifted back to Sadie. To her pink lips, pouting at me in the dark hallway. To her delicate fingers, sliding up my arm before she got in the cab. To her curves, her legs, her fucking pink panties.
I could still smell her.
I was in trouble.
“Is everything in order with Georgetown University?” Berkeley was staring at me and I shifted on the couch, nodding.
“Yeah. I’ll be lecturing three times a week starting Monday. Well, Dennis Norton will be lecturing.”
“Good. Did you see the calendar Hailey sent through?”
“Yeah, fucking fundraisers and networking events every fucking weekend for the next four months. It’s all bullshit, Berk. You know that, right?”
“It’s what prestigious, Georgetown Law professors do, Zane.” He rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “Don’t make me regret this. You’ll have access to Blanchet at these ‘bullshit events’ as you call them—nearly every weekend. And no Russians to sweep for wires. You’ll be able to talk about the deal and gain his trust. That’s the only way we’ll catch him.”
“I understand the purpose, Berkeley, I’m not a fucking idiot. I’m just not one for small talk and fucking tuxedos.”
“I’ve noticed.” He grinned at me and took another sip of beer. He glanced around my living room and shook his head. “You’re quite the minimalist, Wolfe.”
“I don’t like clutter.”
“You don’t like anything, apparently. Why don’t you put something on the wall, brighten the place up a bit? It looks like an asylum in here.”
“I like it like this.”
Colors, art, paintings—it just reminded me of my mother. When she died, art died with her. There were no more late nights talking to her in her tiny ‘studio’, which was really just a shed in the back of the Blanchets’ estate. No more new paintings to find room for on the walls, no more splashes of paint on all my clothes.
My house was blank, plain, and empty. Just like me.
Berkeley finished his beer and nodded. “Thanks for that. Don’t fuck around anymore, Zane. We need you all-in for the next month.”
I grunted. He stood up, straightened his suit jacket and walked out. How the man managed to wear a full suit in this heat was beyond me, but he did.
I waited until he was gone before grabbing my laptop from the desk. It wasn’t my work laptop—that one was monitored all the time. This laptop, I used for my own purposes.
Sitting back down on the couch, I logged into Dennis Norton’s fake Facebook profile and typed a name in the search bar: Sadie Blanchet.
Within a couple milliseconds, I’d found her profile. My heart thumped as I flicked through her photos. I shook my head as I scrolled down her profile—a politician’s daughter should really have better privacy on her social media. I flicked from picture to picture, looking at her perfect lips and her flaming red hair.
A picture from this summer came up of Sadie and her cousin Mags in Mexico. She was wearing a tiny black bikini, posing on a beach. Her skin had been covered in freckles from the sun.
My cock throbbed. I took a deep breath, staring at the photo for a few more seconds before slamming my computer closed. I tossed it beside me on the sofa and brought my hands to my face. I groaned.
Only one thing was certain: I needed to stay the fuck away from Sadie Blanchet. She knew who I was, and she could blow this whole operation wide open.
Fifteen years of planning, three years undercover, and a lifetime of anger and resentment could be annihilated by those pink, pouty lips.
I wasn’t going to let that happen.
4
Sadie
I got the taxi driver to drop me off near the back gate. I texted Mags from the cab to make sure she knew I was okay, and then I turned my phone off. I felt empty and exhilarated all at once. My thoughts kept drifting back to Zane.
He was here.
I remember when I started getting feelings for him. They weren’t real feelings—I was 12 or 13 years old. But he was older, handsome, and he had that same dark and mysterious vibe that he had as an adult. Seeing him again was… I didn’t really know. It was exciting and heartbreaking. He was just as unavailable as when I’d been a kid.
When his parents left, Zane had stayed for a few weeks, and then he’d disappeared too. I’d cried for two weeks, with only my dog, Dart, to comfort me.
I glanced up at the big house and sighed. It felt like that all over again. I trudged up the back alley towards the garden gate. The car that had been parked behind our estate was gone. I didn’t even try to hide when I walked back towards the house. I just slid the back door open and made my way up to my room.
No one stopped me.
No one was there.
It had been silly of Mags and I to think we had to sneak out. It’s not like my family cared enough to actually notice that I was gone. The bodyguards weren’t exactly the cream of the crop, either. I could hear snoring coming from the front room, and I suspected it was one of them.
I sighed, pulling my ankle boots off and running my fingers through my hair. I went straight to my bedroom and stripped my sweaty clothes off. They smelled like stale alcohol, cigarettes, and body odor. I padded on the smooth floorboards towards my big ensuite bathroom and turned on the shower.
I needed to clean myself—wash the concert, the fear, the sweat off my body. I needed to wash Zane off, too. He made my body feel electric. Being close to him was like being close to a six-foot-three wall of dynamite. If I wasn’t careful, it would explode and take me out right then and there.
Even though he made me feel alive, he was cold. He’d brushed me off, turned his back on me and walked away as soon as I was in the cab. He saved me from the mosh pit and then looked at me like I was the dirt under his shoe.
I know he recognized me before I called out his name, so why didn’t he say anything? The depth of pain in his eyes shook me. I wanted to know what had caused it. I wanted to know why he disappeared fifteen years ago, and why he was back.
I wanted to taste his skin and smell his scent. I wanted to press my body against his and hear that growl rumble through his chest again.
Standi
ng under the shower, I closed my eyes and imagined him. I pictured him in that concert venue, burning the image of him in my mind. I needed to be able to call up his face whenever I wanted to. I might never see him again, and I needed to remember what it was like when his eyes roamed over my body and I felt alive.
Washing myself slowly, I tried to imagine what it would feel like if Zane were here. If his big, muscular body was next to mine in the shower. If it was him running soap over my breasts. If he slipped his fingers inside me.
I shivered, squeezing my eyes shut. I worked my fingers between my legs slowly, tentatively. I’d never truly masturbated before, but tonight, for the first time, I felt like I needed to. Panting, I let my imagination take over. With one hand between my legs and the other gripping the shower wall, I thought of Zane. His lips, his hands, his—
I blushed.
Gosh, I couldn’t even think about his penis without blushing. Would it be as big as the rest of him? Would that… would that hurt?
I blushed again, shaking the thoughts away.
I was engaged to another man, for crying out loud. I had promised my life to Thomas, a handsome and successful man who wanted to marry me. And up until tonight, I’d been mostly happy about it. I had my reservations about the lack of passion, sure, but I’d wanted to marry him.
…I’d never imagined him like this, though. Sex was unknown, exciting, and scary. No one except Mags knew I was a virgin—all my peers had lost their virginity ages ago. I’d never had the chance. I’d grown up with freaking bodyguards all around me! That’s not exactly conducive to teenage debauchery.
It was too embarrassing to ask about, so I’d spent many nights in bed googling the answers to my questions.
It was supposed to hurt the first time. I was nervous—that would be my wedding night. As I turned the shower off and wrapped myself in a towel, I thought about my first time. I flopped down on my bed and closed my eyes, wanting to see Thomas but thinking about Zane.
The Protector: The Complete C.I.A. Romance Series Page 3