Reckless Deceptions

by Karen Rock

  “More.” She shoved at his waist to get beneath his shirt. Her hands were like fire on his skin, making him want things he’d never wanted with anyone else. Making him need things he’d never imagined with another.

  “Much more,” she purred as his lips skimmed down her shoulder. His fingers sought the bra top’s fastener, ready to flick it open and feast, when a raised voice followed a loud knock.

  Ryan’s lust cleared instantly, his body curving protectively over Erica’s as his senses took inventory.

  Elevator, hotel, Dallas.

  Jabhat al-Nusra.

  His adrenaline leveled.

  His lust, however, surged along unabated.

  Lust he wasn’t going to slake in a damned elevator. Or anywhere. Jesus. Get a fucking grip. He needed to control himself, especially when Erica, who’d responded to his touch with the intoxicating heat and passion he’d long dreamed of, could not.

  Ryan straightened Erica’s garments and shoved himself backward. After hitting the “open” button, he hustled Erica out of the car, shielding her from view of the impatient hotel staff.

  Once outdoors, she jerked to a stop beneath the deep shadow of a rustling oak tree and flung her arms around his neck. His groin tightened painfully at the soft press of her body.

  “Erica. Stop.”

  He disentangled himself and stepped away. Moonshine pouring from a sparkling sky illuminated her slack mouth and wide eyes.

  “Why?”

  “We’re working together.”

  “You pulled me off the job, remember?” Her features sharpened. “So technically, I’m off the clock…as are you.”

  “I’m always on duty.”

  “Work. Work. Work. Can’t you ever just live in the moment?” she asked. “Go with your gut? Follow your heart?”

  “A moment ends fast, but the consequences of them last forever,” Ryan insisted, thinking of how losing Erica once nearly destroyed him, and he wouldn’t put his heart in jeopardy again. They couldn’t get involved, even for one night.

  “Coward.” Erica stepped away and hailed an approaching cab. “And you kissed me, remember?”

  How could he forget? Memories of it would torment him during another sleepless night. “Let me drive you home.”

  She held out a hand, stopping him, the same frustration crackling inside him animating her beautiful face. “You know what the problem is with worrying about tomorrow?”

  He shook his head. Life was a chess game; you had to have the discipline to think three moves ahead.

  “It robs you of the joy you might have had today.”

  And with that she hopped in the cab, leaving him staring after its taillights as it disappeared around a bend, wondering….

  Was Erica right?

  How much did he miss in the present by giving all his attention to the future—one, he suspected, he wanted to share with Erica more than he’d let himself believe?

  To win the game, had he sacrificed his queen?

  And if so, why did he feel as though he’d just lost everything?

  Chapter 7

  The discordant notes of “Chopsticks” drilled into Ryan’s ear as Erica pounded on his family’s piano the following night. He knotted the end of a balloon with a snap. What was she doing? No one had played the piano since…

  The balloon popped in his clenched hand.

  “Why don’t you join your date, dear.” His mother held out a hand for the bag of deflated balloons and nudged him toward the den. “Drake’s getting the cake ready, and Doug’s setting the table.”

  The dining room table, cleared of their roast turkey dinner, was now covered in a fresh, linen cloth. Doug plunked down cake plates and forks while Drake sank candles into a large sheet cake with “Happy Birthday, Dad” scrawled in blue gel across the top.

  Was this the last birthday party his dad would ever attend? Drake and Doug would turn forty in a month.

  The sharp slice of agony lighting up his chest told him yes. Dad looked frailer than ever at dinner. He’d stared listlessly at his plate, struggling to get his peas onto his fork. Meanwhile, his family chattered on about sports and the weather and some neighbor’s new car, all while trying not to draw attention to their father’s failing health.

  Erica, on the other hand, mashed her potatoes, stuffing, peas, and turkey together into something she laughingly called “slop.” “It all goes down the same hole,” she’d joked, and then offered to make some slop for his father.

  Ryan had expected an appalled silence, but Dad chuckled. Then, wonder of wonders, he’d polished off his entire plate with a cereal spoon Erica insisted was better for “shoveling slop.” Ryan caught his mother dashing away tears as she’d hustled from the table to grab more milk.

  His father’s laugh carried from the den when Erica sped up her off-key rendition of “Chopsticks,” playing with a haphazard abandon he’d never allowed himself on the piano. When he rounded the corner, he spied his father sitting beside Erica on the bench. She threw back her flushed face and whooped, her fingers a blur on the keyboard. She finished with a migraine-inducing flourish.

  “Ta-da!” She stood and bowed, laughing. Yet she froze the moment she spied Ryan in the entranceway.

  “Don’t let me interrupt you.” His tone came off a little peevish. Was he jealous of Erica’s easy camaraderie with his father? After a sleepless night tossing and turning and aching for her, his nerves were as frayed as a live wire.

  “Your father was teaching me some piano.”

  “My father?” Ryan’s stunned gaze met his dad’s. Why hadn’t he ever sat with him and played?

  “I took lessons until my parents sent me to military school.” His dad dropped his fingers to the board and pounded the opening chords to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Da-Da-Da-DUM...Da-Da-Da-DUM.

  Erica held out a hand. She casually helped his father to his feet, as if offering Colonel Arnell comfort and aid was no big deal at all. “Sounds horrible.”

  “The piano or military school?” A twinkle only Erica and his mother ever induced in his father’s eye appeared. He lowered himself into a leather chair, and Erica perched on its arm.

  “Military school.”

  “Food wasn’t half bad.”

  “All those rules. The crappy haircuts.” Erica stopped and peered at his father’s thin, silver brush cut. “Except on you, of course. You look quite distinguished.”

  His father shook his head, smiling. “Don’t sweet-talk an old man.”

  “Who’s old?” she teased, and in that moment, Ryan felt himself teetering on a brink. One more push and he’d fall head over heels for Erica Keely again. Yesterday, he’d practically devoured her in the elevator…. Tonight, he saw another side, the open, funny, expressive part of her that drew him. She said whatever she wanted, had no filter, seemed unconcerned about convention…in short, the antithesis of his entire life approach—one she was making him reconsider the more time they spent together.

  His father brushed a shaking hand over his face. “I’m dying, you know.”

  Ryan’s jaw dropped.

  Erica’s animated face sobered. “Ryan told me. Cancer’s a bitch.”

  No “You’ll get through this” or “The Lord doesn’t give us more than we can handle” pithy statements from Erica. Nope. She came straight out with it…cancer was a bitch. Ryan envied her level of candor. Admired the hell out of it and her.

  “You got that right.” Dad’s smile looked more like a grimace. “But I’ve lived a good life. Raised four sons.”

  “That’s quite a legacy.” Erica’s eyes met Ryan’s. Despite her light tone, compassion darkened them, concern. Did she care about him? “You must be very proud of them.”

  Ryan held his breath. Would he hear his father’s first compliment? Instead of answering, his father searched out his cigarettes and lighter
.

  “You can’t smoke these!” Erica clutched the gold case she snagged off the side table. “They’ll…”

  “Kill me?” His father chuckled darkly. “Too late for that. Now be a sweetheart and give a dying man something to live for.”

  “How’s this?” Erica leaned over and kissed his cheek.

  Color chased away his father’s pallor. “No one said I’d get a pretty gal to kiss me if I stopped. Would have quit long ago. Hope I’m not making Ryan jealous over there.”

  “No, sir.” Ryan strode closer, only realizing then that he’d remained in the doorway, somehow not feeling able to join this lighthearted moment. Not welcome.

  “You were wrong to get Erica fired.” His father leaned in as Erica flicked the lighter. He inhaled, three quick puffs. The end of his cigarette glowed red.

  Ryan stiffened and halted halfway across the room.

  Dad pointed his cigarette at Erica. “This young woman loves her country.”

  “Her love of country was never in question, sir.” Ryan laced his fingers tightly behind his back.

  “Then she should have been allowed to keep serving it.” His father exhaled a steady white stream. “We need every patriot we’ve got on the front lines.”

  Front lines? Since when did his father think Ryan’s “spy games” were “front lines”? Erica’s effect, no doubt…. He braced for Erica’s full-throated indictment of him when she chimed in to agree with his father.

  “Your son is extremely patriotic.” Erica flashed Ryan a glance, then leaned forward to peer directly into his father’s face. “He follows every protocol and does his duty, even when it came to my hearing. They’d asked for his professional assessment, and he followed orders.”

  Ryan’s hands fell to his sides. His mouth slackened. Had he heard her correctly? Was Erica defending him?

  “He’s generally been obedient,” his father grumbled, as if the words were pulled from him like an extracted tooth. “Arnells have always been Marines, though. None of this 007 BS.”

  Ryan swallowed the huff of exasperation swelling his cheeks. So Erica was on the front lines battling terrorists while he sat around sipping martinis, shaken not stirred.

  “Ryan’s definitely a guy you want in the foxhole with you.” And with that, Erica launched into a lengthy story about a time they’d been ambushed and pinned down for almost eighteen hours in the hard-packed Syrian desert outside Homs. They’d been outnumbered and outgunned with little cover except their Humvees. As he listened to her retelling, he saw himself through her eyes, a serviceman who’d risked his life to grab a downed soldier and pull him to safety. A leader who’d rallied his flagging group as the hours ground on. A sniper who’d managed to pick off the terrorists’ gunmen methodically, keeping them at bay until US troops arrived to extract them.

  “How come I never heard this story?” Dad stubbed out his cigarette without sparing Ryan a glance.

  “We don’t talk much about tactical work in intelligence,” Ryan said crisply, his tone belying the strange whirling in his head. Was Erica exaggerating for his father or did she really see him as a patriot? A hero? A good man to have in the foxhole? With her?

  And what’s more, had she convinced his father, a decorated war hero, to see Ryan that way as well? His eyes lit on the empty shelf that’d once held his father’s glass-encased Medal of Honor. An idea seized him. Maybe there was a way to connect with his father before it was too late.

  “Cake’s ready!” his mother shouted from the dining room.

  His father waved off Erica’s hand and heaved himself from his chair. As he passed Ryan, he stopped and patted his shoulder clumsily. “Well now. That was a fine story.”

  And with that, his father shambled from the room, leaning on his cane. Erica paused before Ryan, and a smile swept across her beautiful face. “He’s so proud of you.”

  Ryan opened his mouth, but only silence emerged. With a wink, Erica swung away to catch up with his father, and he was left staring after them, wondering….

  Was his father truly proud of him?

  Was Erica?

  It surprised him how much he wanted the answer to be yes to both questions.

  * * * *

  “Nice hair,” Ryan commented the following evening.

  “It’s just a little something I threw on.” Erica’s fingers rose to fiddle with the blunt ends of the jaw-length black wig she’d donned for tonight’s undercover mission.

  Despite Ryan’s teasing smile, she shivered in Medina’s high-ceilinged dining room. Her silky black pantsuit was not the best protection from hypothermia. What temperature was it set to? Meat locker? Antarctica?

  She couldn’t blame the sub-zero temperatures for the goose bumps rising on her bare arms, though. The hunt for a possible government traitor, one who might be colluding with Jabhat al-Nusra, was the cause. Any minute, a hostess would usher Speaker of the House Richard Hatcher, his aide, Greg Pullman, and Emir Fahad al Saud to the secluded corner table diagonal from the spot she and Ryan occupied.

  Erica’s gaze strayed to the table as she chewed. Earlier, Ryan had impersonated a member of Hatcher’s staff when he’d phoned in to request the table. After their hostess had pointed them to their seats, they’d feigned confusion, sat at the Speaker’s table, and planted a recording device beneath it. Their FISA warrant covered Greg Pullman and any incidental intelligence collection picked up while surveilling him.

  Ryan topped off Erica’s wine, then settled into his high-backed chair. “And those glasses…”

  She slipped her tortoise frames back up her nose. “I didn’t know you were into librarians.”

  “Women who read are sexy. I have the T-shirt to prove it.”

  “I’m the one who gave it to you.” It’d been a birthday present, a date they’d celebrated with a candlelit rooftop picnic on a sultry Cairo night.

  “I remember.” His comment was mild, but the look in his eyes was hot. In that second, they were back in the prince’s hotel’s service elevator and Ryan was kissing her all over again. His mouth had been demanding and possessive, claiming hers. And hell, she’d wanted to be claimed…and to possess him right back.

  Her gaze dropped to his lips, then skidded away.

  Stop obsessing about Ryan.

  Yet watching him interact with his father last night had showed another side to the confident intelligence officer, an approachable, appealing side. The vulnerability on his face, the naked hunger for his father’s approval, touched her deeply…. So deeply she’d defended him when she’d had the perfect opportunity to blast him to a sympathetic listener.

  Worse, she’d found herself believing every word. Even if she didn’t agree with Ryan, she was beginning to see his side.

  She lifted her wine with shaking hands, sipped it, and peered around the dimly lit restaurant. The soft notes of live piano mingled with muted conversations among well-heeled patrons. The relaxed atmosphere failed to soothe the jittering awareness, making her shift restlessly in her seat. In a fitted black suit accentuating his broad shoulders and amber eyes, Ryan was debonair, devastatingly handsome, and pushing every one of her buttons.

  “Nice ’stache.” Heat pooled in her belly as she imagined its soft tickle against her skin. He’d set her on fire last night. “Very Matthew McConaughey in that undercover PI movie…”

  “White Boy Rick?”

  When she nodded, his sexy mouth quirked, and his golden skin crinkled. “Maybe I should grow one.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  Their gazes tangled for a breathless minute. Her heart stopped beating. His gaze had a hypnotic, paralyzing effect.

  Erica cleared her tight throat. “They should be here already.” She glanced around the converted warehouse space, automatically noting the exits in its restored brick interior. Ambient light cast by flickering, tabletop candles provided the sh
adows needed to pull off tonight’s stakeout.

  “Fahad’s got a reputation for keeping people waiting.” Ryan reached for his wine glass. “My guess is Hatcher and Pullman are waiting at the bar.”

  Before Erica could scooch back her chair, Ryan held up a hand. “And no, you’re not going to talk to the Speaker…not yet.” His deep voice oozed authority.

  Folding her arms, she planted her elbows on the table, staring him down. Always the waiting game with Ryan…. “I could pull him aside. Warn him.”

  “Of what? Pullman’s met with weapons dealers who may or may not be cooperating with Hatcher’s congressional investigation into the Amman bombing.”

  “And he was at the prince’s birthday party.” Erica held Ryan’s stern, unwavering gaze.

  A speculative expression crept across his striking features as he appeared to consider that. “An invite extended out of good faith, perhaps.”

  “What’s tonight about, then?” She stabbed a succulent pink shrimp with a tiny fork and dipped it in cocktail sauce.

  “We’ll find out. Anything new on Pullman?” Ryan swirled his wine then downed it.

  “He eats peanut butter from the jar with his fingers. Seriously. Does this guy have any redeeming qualities? That’s got to be enough to lock someone up.” She shuddered.

  Ryan laughed, and the warm, masculine sound lit her up inside. “Sounds like probable cause to me.”

  Their eyes clung. For a fleeting second, he let his professional guard down. It was there in his eyes: stark sexual desire, hungry as a bear in spring.

  Hungry for her.

  Her mouth opened, because she’d been preparing a dismissive laugh, but the sound caught in her throat. “He watched Casablanca last night,” she blurted after a beat.

  “Must have viewed it on the same channel I did.” Beneath the table, Ryan pressed his large foot against hers. “After I dropped you off.”

  A hot flush stole over her cheeks, spreading way, way down. “Then we watched it together…like old times.”