by Lora Leigh
Her long black hair was pulled high into a ponytail that allowed heavy curls to tumble well past her shoulders. Her face was makeup free and she still looked like a million bucks. She wore faded, ripped jeans and a wrinkled camisole top and still managed to appear fashionable. But the gun at her side ruined the image of the lazy, discontented socialite.
“About time you two showed up.” Her voice was pitched low as Kell closed and locked the door behind them. “Where’s that tall, buff, and completely antisocial hunk who lives on the other side?”
Ian?
“Why is my best friend and next-door neighbor sitting on my couch, eating my cookies, and watching my TV? And why is she doing it with a gun?”
As though she wasn’t damned good at guessing. The guess was getting ready to piss her off. She had just endured more time than she considered excusable with a silent, uncommunicative SEAL. The other, Ian, had been vaguely amused but not so much that he was willing to break the silence.
Emily hadn’t gotten to sit in the copilot’s seat this time, and she hadn’t been able to flirt with the pilot or Kell. And she sure as hell hadn’t been able to relieve the frustrating pain of this suddenly cold attitude she was receiving from the man who had been her lover.
Had been. Because it was going to be—oh, at least a good couple of hours before she tried to jump his bones again. She shot him a silent glare before turning back to Kira.
“Explanations, if you please,” she suggested to Kira wearily, shaking her head as she trudged toward the bedroom. “And you can make them without grouch-ass there glowering at both of us.”
Kira rose to her feet, winked at Kell, gave him a perky little wave of her fingers then followed Emily into the bedroom.
“Well. I have to say. You have totally outlived my expectations of your ability to handle that piece of man flesh,” Kira drawled as she closed the door behind her.
Emily was certain Kell heard every word.
She snorted. “Yeah. Right. I’m handling him really well. He hasn’t spoken to me in hours and he’s so damned cold he’s about to give me frostbite.”
“Cold?” Kira paused in front of the door, her hand waving in front of her face in a brief gesture of heat. “Baby. Those eyes are burning and those jeans are bulging. Trust me, that man is ready to rock and roll in the hardest of ways.”
Emily sniffed with offended pride. “Then he can rock and roll by himself.” For a few hours anyway.
Turning her back on Kira she threw her small bag to the bed, then sat down on the mattress and breathed out heavily.
“Now why the hell are you in my house?”
“Eating your cookies, watching your television, and ogling your man?” Kira suggested helpfully.
“With a gun?”
“Oh yeah. There is that gun.” Slender shoulders shrugged. “I flew home last night on a Homeland Security flight and camped out on your couch, just to see if anyone got curious or whatever while you were gone.”
Emily fell back on the bed, stared up at the ceiling, and tried not to feel betrayed. She didn’t succeed. She did feel betrayed. She had known Kira for two years now and had never suspected that she was an agent for Homeland, or that Emily was an assignment rather than a friendship.
“You’re an agent for HS.” It wasn’t a question. “How did Dad manage to pull that one off? To get you here on such an extended mission?”
“Because he’s on the National Security Committee as well as the Drug Enforcement Committee and several oversight committees. Besides, I live in Atlanta anyway and I’ve been on leave recuperating from a wound for the last eighteen months, so it all worked out.”
Staring at the ceiling wasn’t a bad thing. Emily traced the small butterfly effect of the design above her with her eyes and reminded herself that she wasn’t young enough to be able to excuse a temper tantrum.
But she wanted to throw one. She wanted to scream and rage and demand that every damned one of her father’s minions get the hell out of her life. She’d had enough of them. Was sick to her back teeth of them.
She had that pesky friendship thing to deal with where Kira was concerned though. And that damned sex thing with Kell. She couldn’t exactly tell them to piss off, now could she?
“You’ve lived here for two years,” she pointed out to Kira.
“Yep. I have.” Kira’s weight settled on the other side of the bed before she laid back as well, her head settling against the mattress several inches from Emily’s. “Your dad suggested the condo when he found out I was looking to move from my dark little apartment in town. The rest was added extras.”
“I knew there was a reason I shouldn’t like you.” Emily wanted to pout, but she hadn’t really pouted in years, and the effort to remember how just seemed too draining right now.
“Yeah, you gave it a good fight.” Kira chuckled. “But I’m persistent. Besides, we are friends, Emily. I’m a good friend to have too. I know how to use a gun.”
“So do I.”
Silence met her statement.
“Cool.” It was obvious by Kira’s tone that she didn’t believe her.
“Mac Tackett’s indoor shooting range and proficiency challenge,” Emily stated.
She felt Kira’s head turn, felt her eyes watching her.
“Senator didn’t tell me about that,” Kira mused.
“The senator doesn’t know. His lackeys did. But it’s amazing how Mac can convince those big guys that they would heartily dislike losing a member.”
“Uh-huh. I know Mac.” Kira turned her head back. “Well, I was watching your back then.”
“You were following orders.”
Kira was quiet for long moments. “I was your friend as well, Emily.”
Friendship. Relationships. There was a twist to all of hers that she was finding unacceptable. Everyone loved her as long as she was agreeable. Everyone but herself. And now that she wasn’t agreeable anymore? What now?
“Don’t ever come into my home like this again,” Emily told her, feeling the resolve that began to harden inside her. “Not without my permission or my knowledge.”
Kira sighed heavily. “Unless ordered to?”
“If ordered, you better inform Dad you’re going to need hazard pay. Because next time, I’ll make you wish you had waited on the front steps.”
She should get up. She should shower. She should see about fixing lunch, because she was hungry. But she lay there instead, stared at the ceiling and tried not to think about guns, bullets, and knives coming out of the dark.
“I bet I could take you,” Kira decided suddenly. The feel of her head turning had Emily restraining her smile.
“It would be interesting to find out.” Emily nodded. “I might look like a marshmallow, but I’ve been taking some self-defense lessons.”
“Research huh?” Kira was laughing.
“Gator Jack’s Roundhouse.” She loved Gator Jack, mud wrestling, and gutter fighting. She’d learned quite a bit over the last few years while sneaking in there between bodyguards.
Okay, she might not be able to take a Homeland agent in a face-to-face fight, but there was a chance she could break a hold, and she knew how to run really fast.
“You’re scary,” Kira murmured. “Your father has no idea how scary you are.”
“Neither does Kell.” Emily smiled in satisfaction. “He got turned on by the holstered gun and knife garters though.”
Satisfaction edged through her at the memory of that one.
“Speaking of your hard body,” Kira drawled. “Why’s he mad?”
“He forgot to use a condom last night.” Emily frowned up at the ceiling. That had to be the problem.
“Did you remind him?”
“He reminded me. And I didn’t care.” She frowned at that. “Maybe I was supposed to care?”
She turned her head and stared into Kira’s surprised expression.
“Krieger did it without protection?” she fairly whispered. “That’s damned surprising. I
’ve read his file and I did some light investigating when I heard Durango Team would be on this op. He’s a fanatic about protection. Paranoid about it.”
“Uh-huh,” Emily murmured, with a sharp sigh of agreement as she turned back to her perusal of the ceiling.
“Wow.” Kira shifted on the bed, still watching her. “So, we’re still friends, huh?”
“No.” Emily shook her head. “I hate skinny bitches. I keep telling you that.”
A snort of laughter left the other woman. “And I hate curvy little pocket Venuses, but I put up with your rounded ass.”
“Bite me.”
“Not even on a dare. You might enjoy it.”
They were giggling like teenagers when the bedroom door opened and Kell stood framed in the doorway, staring at them both with a heavy frown.
“If you two can tear yourselves off the bed, Ian’s here. We need to go over plans for the next three days and get ready for the Andover party.”
“See?” Emily muttered. “Frostbite.”
Kira sighed in commiseration. “I had hopes for ya, girlfriend.”
“So did I. So did I.”
HE WAS FURIOUS WITH HIMSELF. Furious with Emily, and fighting back the need to do a little private hunting. The type of hunting that found a SEAL with a sniper rifle and Diego Fuentes’s forehead in his sights. Fuentes and his unknown fucking spy. God help the bastard if Macey ever figured out who he was, because Kell swore he was going to gut him himself.
He enforced his self-control, restrained the need to shift, to stretch the muscles that seemed to itch for action beneath his flesh, and to use the erection torturing him.
Use it on one stubborn, independent, willful little redheaded fox who was close to driving him insane.
God, he felt sorry for the bodyguards who came before him. Those men must have spent untold hours packing heat and fighting to keep up with Emily all at once. It just wasn’t possible.
She was like the wind. Wild. Free. Her presence caressed his flesh even when she wasn’t touching him and that was damned dangerous. Especially now.
His glance slid along her body, touched on her rounded little belly, and his heart did that melting thing in his chest again. Where it got hot. Where it raced. Where it clenched with emotions he suddenly found himself unable to deal with. Emotions that had torn through his soul the minute he had pumped his seed inside her.
She was unprotected. The chances of getting her pregnant would only grow if he continued with that madness. He couldn’t allow it to happen again. He couldn’t take the chance. God help him if the pregnancy test he intended to get for her before that damned party came back positive. Because he didn’t know if he could go through with it. If he could let her risk her life and their child’s life, no matter the situation.
Now, he watched her as she moved back into the living room with Kira. The sight of her lying back on that bed, giggling with the other woman, had filled his guts with irrational jealousy.
He wanted to be lying there with her. He wanted to hear her laughter, feel the warmth that was so much a part of her, that heated the icy reaches of his spirit that had so long been alone.
And yet, it was his own fault he hadn’t been there beside her. The need to defend against what could happen was ripping his insides apart. He had to push it back. He had to control it or he would forever destroy whatever fragile feelings she was developing for him now.
He needed her love. He was certain he had been winning it until this morning. Until he forced back the emotions pushing at his soul in order to do the job he knew he had to do.
He had to let his woman aid in her own defense. The very thing he had been so certain he needed in a woman. Her ability to face adversity. To help him protect her. To be strong enough to stay alive if he wasn’t with her. Because there would be times he wasn’t with her. Times when he would be doing his job. She would have to do hers. Protect herself and their children.
God, what the hell had he been thinking?
His fists clenched at his side at the insanity of having a woman as frighteningly independent as this one. She was never going to stand behind him. She would always stand beside him as he fought to keep her from stepping in front of him.
“Ian,” Kira drawled when neither he nor Ian spoke.
The other man lounged against the bar separating the living room from the kitchen. His elbows were braced on the bar behind him, his tall, leanly muscled body appearing relaxed. But like Kell, he had been anything but relaxed once Kira stepped into the room.
“Kira.” Ian nodded, his expression faintly mocking. “I like the black hair. It suits you better than the other colors I’ve seen you wearing.”
She grimaced and rolled her eyes as Emily watched with interest.
“So, what do you two big strong boys have planned?” Kira asked as she stepped past Ian into the kitchen and moved to the refrigerator.
She pulled a bottle of beer from inside, twisted off the cap, and brought it to her lips as Ian turned to watch her.
“A steel cage, whips, and velvet restraints,” Ian drawled, surprising Kell with the fact that Ian was dead-stone serious.
“For us, I imagine.” Kira smirked. “Keep wishing, sailor, and you might get as close as a dream.”
Ian snorted.
Emily shook her head as she moved to the couch and curled into the corner.
She was tired. He could see it in her face, the shadows beneath her eyes, the paleness of her skin. He had kept her up long into the night. Though he had forgotten the condom only once, he had been by no means sated.
He still wasn’t sated.
“The Andover party takes place in less than three days,” Kell reminded them all. “We’re all together and we know who is who and what is what.” He looked between Kira and Emily. “We can’t leave anything to chance. This is Emily’s last party of the season and it’s a big one. Our contact says Fuentes won’t wait any longer. It’s a definite that the man he sent to do the kidnapping will be there.”
He watched as Emily’s face seemed to pale further, but she lifted her chin defiantly as her gaze glittered back in anger.
“Jansen Clay and his wife, Elaine, will be there. Their daughter was one of the girls kidnapped the last time as well. Has Dad let him know what’s going on?”
Jansen was one of her father’s friends from his SEAL days and once a part of the elite covert operations team the senator had led.
“We’re not informing anyone.” Kell shook his head firmly. “The only thing anyone knows outside the team, your father, and the admiral, is that you’re going to be at the party. Period.”
Emily nodded. It had been years since she had seen Jansen. He was several years younger than her father, and very influential within D.C. and the Pentagon. His work with the CIA and Homeland Security also made him a very good friend to have. He would be hurt when he learned her father was conducting an operation without him. But then again, so would the rest of her father’s team who were still alive.
She watched Kell, letting her gaze be caught by his as he continued to stare at her. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her since she had returned to the living room.
“Ian, return Miss Porter to her condo and bring her up to speed on where we are now. Get your information together and we’ll meet back here tomorrow evening to figure this out. Emily’s too tired for this.”
Too tired, her rear. He was horny, that was why he was sending Ian and Kira away. He obviously thought she cared about that steel-and-iron rod he was carrying around in his jeans.
“Gotcha, Kell.” Ian’s smile was knowing, while Kira just shook her head and winked back at Emily with heavy suggestiveness before she followed Ian to the door.
“Girlfriend, good luck.” Kira waggled her brows suggestively. “And remember, man candy is hard to come by. Enjoy it while it’s willing.”
Enjoy it while it’s willing. Emily snorted at the thought as she flashed Kell an irritated glance. It would be okay if the willing cand
y was just a tad bit easier to get along with when he got his own shorts in a wad. It wasn’t like she had forgotten the rubber.
As Ian and Kira passed through the door, Kell caught it with his hand and closed it with a bang. Emily’s brows arched as he turned his back to her, set the alarm, then faced her once again.
He crossed his arms over his chest and a dark brooding frown creased his brow. Oh yeah, willing man candy. How could she have missed that one?
“You know, you could save yourself all this ill temper quite easily,” she told him mockingly.
His nostrils flared and his frown deepened. “And how would you I suggest I do that?”
She lifted her shoulders in a dismissing shrug. “Don’t forget the rubbers next time; then you won’t have to worry about all your powerful little soldiers roaming around untended.”
Emily didn’t think his expression could have darkened more. But it did.
“You think I’m upset because I forgot to wear a rubber?” he grated out.
“What else would I think?” She uncurled her legs and rose to her feet. “You’ve been like an ill-tempered bear all day. To my knowledge the only thing I could have done to piss you off was my inability to say no while you were buried inside me.”
His gaze flared. Darkened.
“I’m not angry over the condom.” A muscle flicked in his jaw. “Not that I’m pleased with my own lack of self-control.”
She nodded as though in understanding. “Yeah. I can see where that would bother you.”
“I’m in love with you, Emily.”
“Control would impor—” She stopped. Blinked. “What did you say?”
“I’m guessing I’ve been in love with you for years.” He gave his head a hard, furious shake. “You think your father spied on you over the years? You should have seen me skulking around your apartment and then this condo. Following you to the library and to school and back and telling myself it was just because I didn’t have anything better to do. And knowing all along that I was lying to myself.”
Emily suddenly felt off balance, as though she had stepped into a reality that made no sense to her. This was the same Kell she had known for so long. The one she had lusted for, ached for, fantasized about. The one she had fallen in love with, and suddenly he was the man she had dreamed of.
