The Duke’s Covert Mission

by Julie Miller

  “Cade? Wake up.”

  He reached for the voice. He reached for salvation.

  Before he awoke to the scrape of metal on concrete, before he felt the weight on his chest, he knew she was there.

  He struck before Ellie could even register surprise. He snagged her by the wrist and pulled her down to the floor beneath him.

  “Ow!”

  “What trick do you have up your sleeve this time?”

  He pried open one hand. Nothing. The other clutched a fistful of wool.

  Cade froze. His body went still. His blood ran cold.

  This wasn’t any demon. This wasn’t another sneak attack, unless covering a man with a blanket could be termed a life-threatening act.

  As quickly as he had pinned her, Cade rolled off her. He sat up and pulled her into his lap. “What are you doing, Ellie?”

  He massaged her wrist between both of his hands, knowing he had temporarily pinched off the feeling there.

  “You looked cold. You were shaking.”

  He shook his head at her naive consideration of her enemy. “I’ve slept through a lot worse than a hard floor and no blanket.”

  He moved his massage to her hand, alarmed at the clammy chill he felt on her skin there. He stroked his thumbs across the silky smoothness at the back of her knuckles, then drew them along the length of her fingers.

  “Like what?”

  The cold was still with him. The demon still laughed in the recesses of his mind.

  But what could Ellie Standish know about demons?

  “Like you don’t need to know.” He turned her hand over and moved his attention to the supple skin of her palm, refusing to acknowledge the persistent chill inside him.

  “When you were a soldier?” she asked. “Is that what you were dreaming about just now? It looked horrible.”

  “Yeah.” That was as good a story to go with as any. Lord knew he’d seen enough hell on the battlefield and in covert ops to give most men nightmares.

  Desert bunkers where rats and scorpions dropped in to spend the night would be nightmare enough for a sheltered innocent like Ellie. She didn’t need to know any of the gory details of the scene that truly haunted him. “A damp basement with you feels like class-A luxury compared to a lot of the places I’ve been.”

  Cade looked up, thinking he might make her laugh and steer her away from whatever concerns had drawn her to his side in the first place.

  But there was no laugh this time. No hint of a smile.

  Ellie’s big eyes had turned into sorrowful pools of tender pity. She looked at him as if the pain he’d endured had been broadcast across his face, as if his pain mattered to her.

  “You’re still shivering.” The compassion in her voice cut through his carefully shielded don’t care armor with laserlike precision.

  Cade frowned and looked away, wishing that insidious need to connect with Ellie would just go away. She was the victim here. She had no business offering him any kind of comfort, be it a blanket or sympathy or the naive goodness in her untried heart he craved.

  “Move your fingers for me,” he ordered before she could say anything else to add to his guilt.

  Dutifully, she waved her fingers, showing that he hadn’t inflicted any permanent damage. “You didn’t hurt me.”

  “Of course I did.” He caught her hand and pressed it to his chest, holding it flush over his heart with his right hand and gently kneading and poking and prodding his way up to her elbow with his left. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  “No.”

  He slid his fingertips across her cheek and traced the cool skin up to the goose egg that marred the classic line of her cheekbone. She flinched beneath his probing touch and Cade shook his head, feeling only about a half step higher on the evolutionary ladder than lowlife Jerome. “I should have brought an ice pack for that. You’re damn lucky he didn’t break your jaw or something worse.”

  “Don’t you want to talk about what happened?”

  He returned his attention to the inside of her wrist, ignoring her request and keeping himself in the present moment with her. If he hadn’t known it was her and held back, if he’d simply reacted to the threat that had disturbed his sleep, he could have snapped her arm in two. As it was, he’d left a red mark that would eventually turn into a bruise.

  Without thinking, without having a sufficient means to apologize, he bent his head and pressed a kiss to the spot.

  Her pulse was warm beneath his lips. It beat an erratic tattoo as he followed the path of heat up to her palm and lingered to taste the tart sweetness of the juice from the orange that had dried on her hand.

  “Cade.”

  When she said his name on that husky catch of breath, something awoke inside him. His good intentions fled in the wake of the bristly awareness that sensitized every pore in his body, making him hyperalert to the delectable weight of Ellie nestled on his thighs. The delicate pressure of her hand imprinting his chest. The lure of her mouth mere inches from his when he turned to face her.

  “What are you doing to me, Ellie?” From the depths of those big blue eyes he saw the healing warmth that eluded him.

  He’d known women who had set his body on fire. Women who could distract him from his own private hell for a few moments or maybe a few nights at a time. Women who could make him forget.

  But no woman had ever made him want to remember.

  No one had ever reached inside his soul, into that frozen well of jaded mistrust and guilt and forgotten dreams, and made him believe he had a purpose in this world. No one until this pure-of-heart virgin had ever tempted him to believe in much of anything again.

  He had no explanation for the turmoil inside him, but Ellie did. “It’s your instinct to protect. Not to hurt me. I think deep-down inside somewhere, you’re a good man. Why do you fight your instincts?”

  He didn’t pause to interpret the meaning of her words. He only understood that in her hushed, steady tone she was granting him permission to be something more than the man she thought him to be. Something more like the man he wanted to be.

  “I’ll show you instincts.” He breathed the words against her lips before sealing her mouth with a kiss.

  At first it was nothing more than a gentle press of lips, a chance to reacquaint himself with the shape and texture of her mouth that sat heart-stutteringly still beneath his.

  “Is this okay?” he asked, knowing he’d stop if she pushed him away.

  The damn fool nodded, instead of saying no.

  Cade tunneled his free hand into the silky fall of her hair. He bunched the toffee-brown cascade of it in his palm, then let it slide through his fingers. The curls were a rich candy that drew his lips to her temple. He nuzzled his nose there, breathing in the faint scent that was uniquely hers.

  “Such pretty hair,” he said. “Such soft, pretty hair.”

  He let go of her hand at his chest and feathered all ten fingers through her hair, cupping the elegant shape of her head and bringing her mouth back to his, seeking her heat. She kissed with her eyes open, her curious gaze darting from his lips to his eyes. She was boldly studying him, asking a silent question as she tilted her nose first one way, then the other.

  But the question wasn’t why? It was how? He could taste it in the nervous flutter of her orange-stained lips, feel it in the sway of her shoulders, moving in, pulling away.

  Cade retreated a bit, framed her jaw between his hands. He smiled, as gently as his unshaven, weatherbeaten face would allow. He felt the puff of her nervous breath against his cheek as he stroked his thumbs along the pliant curve of her bottom lip.

  “Open your mouth for me.”

  Her pulse quickened beneath his fingertips, keeping time with his. He dipped the pad of his thumb between her parted lips, stroked it across the softness inside, then smoothed her own taste across her lips. Her blue eyes darkened at the provocative touch. He liked how she watched him, as if she wanted to learn everything he could teach her, as if she didn�
�t want to miss a thing. Neither did he.

  Cade put his lips where his thumb had been, tracing the same path with his tongue, then slipping inside her mouth. He took a little bit for his hungry soul, gave a little more. He waited for her to touch her tongue to his, then twirled his around hers. The rhythm of his breathing got mixed up in the gaspy, guttural sounds that came from her throat. He kissed her again and again, losing himself in the slow, seductive heat of this shy-bold woman.

  Finding himself in her embrace.

  Ellie’s response was like the sweet and tart taste of her late-night snack on her lips. She was gentle, hesitant, unsure with each new foray of his mouth and tongue. But then she’d lean into him, lift herself into his kiss, do the same delicious things back to him and insist on learning more.

  “Cade?”

  Her hands fisted against his chest but didn’t push him away. They batted back and forth in the distance between them, looking for something to hold on to, afraid to hold on to anything. Ellie trembled in his lap, and her frustration joined the fever that burned along his thighs.

  He longed to feel her body dissolve into his the way she had at the lake. He longed to know the exquisite sensation of those breasts pillowed against his chest.

  “It’s okay to touch me.” He breathed the words at the corner of her mouth, assuring her welcome and begging her exploration at the same time. “However you want to. I won’t break.”

  Oh, but he might just explode from the sweet heat of her curious hands. A slight brush here, a needy tug there, and he was on fire. She ran her hands across his chest, discovered a taut nipple with a flick of her thumb. At his involuntarily hiss of breath, she hesitated. With a kiss he reassured her that the zap of electricity that had pulsed through him had been pure pleasure, not pain. A quick student, she found the nipple and teased it again.

  Class was in session.

  Her fingers ran along his shoulders, then across the stubble on his neck and jaw. She repeated the caress, pressing harder, moaning low in her throat as she reveled in a sensation that gave her particular delight.

  Cade took the cue from her and did some exploration of his own. He slid his hands under her shirt, stroking the cool, smooth skin of her stomach, cupping the generous flare of her hips, skimming along the strong arch of her spine. She trembled beneath his fingertips at every touch, fueling his need to learn more about his willing pupil.

  He spread his legs so that she slid between them. Then he scooted closer, pulling her to him until he could feel the straining peaks of her luscious breasts branding him through his shirt, making him ache to move faster, to complete her education and expand his own.

  Her arms circled his neck as he lifted her, all the while teaching her with his mouth and his hands. All the while feasting on her willing lips.

  He laid her gently on the floor and followed her down, lying half on top, half beside her. He unhooked the buttons on the black shirt and then reached for the hem. A drumroll of excitement pounded through his veins as he pushed the shirt up her torso, revealing her figure inch by tantalizing inch. Beneath the man-size, functional cotton, he feasted his eyes on the divinely feminine contrast of her black bra, embroidered with twisting lace vines and adorned with a tiny silk bow between her breasts.

  Pulling the shirt off over her head and tossing it aside, he began the next lesson in how to drive himself mad. With just the tip of his finger, he traced each curlicue in the pattern of black lace over her left breast, working his way closer and closer to the straining peak.

  Her eyes locked onto his as he watched with helpless fascination each rise and fall of her chest, as her breaths came quick and shallow. The skin above the soft globes turned pink with just a look, just a wish.

  He kissed the bow nestled in the hollow between those two glorious mounds. “Beautiful,” he whispered, barely able to speak. “I never knew you were so beautiful.”

  When he palmed a breast, she cried out. Their legs tangled together, and when she squeezed her thighs convulsively around his, he groaned against her mouth and held himself still, fighting the inferno that threatened to overtake him.

  “Ellie.” That croaky voice was reason trying to assert itself over instinct, compassion trying to be heard above the passion pounding in his veins.

  He raised his head and looked down at her flushed skin and swollen lips. Her big blue eyes were lakes of liquid desire, untutored, uncensored—all his. If he wanted.

  That was the problem.

  He wanted to kiss her. Wanted to touch her. Wanted to be inside her. He desperately wanted to get Ellie Standish out of his system. But every kiss, every touch only made him want more.

  And he couldn’t do that to her. He was taking advantage of a very tricky situation. He was a man of the world; she was an innocent. He was her jailor; she was his prisoner. He knew exactly where this was going, and she was just learning to enjoy the ride.

  He focused on his breathing, tying to slow things down. In. Out. In. Out. But the breathing only made him think of other things, things he could not, should not, would not do to this woman.

  “You’re so sweet, Ellie.” He allowed himself one more kiss. “You make me crazy.” One more touch couldn’t hurt. “I want to go slow. I don’t want to scare you.”

  He didn’t want her to think this was the same kind of retribution Jerome had been after. He wanted—no, he needed—Ellie to want him. To accept him.

  To forgive him.

  He skimmed his hand down past her waist, seeking something besides bare, soft, tempting skin to hold on to. She was breathing so hard her breasts kept rising and caressing him with each inhalation. He needed to move farther away or he’d be lost. He let his hand linger with possessive satisfaction on her hip.

  But instead of cupping softness, he felt a sharp, hard corner. Instead of woman, he felt a cardboard rectangle in her pocket.

  His innocent hostage had deceived him once again.

  “Where the hell did you get this?”

  She didn’t realize she’d been found out until he slipped his fingers into her pocket and pulled out a slim black notebook. She must have picked his pocket sometime before covering him with the blanket. Maybe right before. Maybe this whole teach-me-to-make-love schtick was just an elaborate distraction to keep him from noticing that Lenny’s book was missing.

  Cade shook his head and swore. He’d fallen for the oldest decoy in the book—a sexy, irresistible woman.

  Ellie snatched at his wrist when he pulled the book out, but she was no match for his strength. Anger gave him a quick shot of adrenaline, clearing his head.

  “I’ll never learn a damn thing with you, will I?” he accused, blaming her for far more than a stolen notebook. He still hovered over her supine figure, pinning her in place before she could summon the strength to struggle.

  Their passion cooled like unfinished dessert. But as Cade swelled with his anger, Ellie retreated into herself. She hugged her arms over her chest in a defensive shield and shook her head slowly from side to side. “I can’t believe I let you kiss me.”

  “You kissed me back, Princess.”

  “You started it!”

  “You said yes!” His lips curled into a tight-lipped smile that felt as raw as the rest of his sensitized, unsatisfied body. “I can’t believe I bought that whole tenderhearted-virgin routine.”

  She shoved at his chest and Cade gladly moved away from her and this condemning conversation. She rolled onto her side and sat up, facing away from him, snatching up the shirt to cover herself and rubbing her mouth with the back of her hand as if she wanted to wipe away the touch and taste of him from her body. “I don’t do things like that. I’ve never let a man touch me like that before.”

  Cade stood and plowed his fingers through his hair. He could still feel the pull of her body, feel the wrench of her innocence inside his jaded heart. “I could tell.”

  “You…?” Her cheeks flushed crimson, then faded to cold, pale porcelain. She pulled her knees to her c
hest and hugged her arms around her legs. “I was that awful?”

  Even Cade wasn’t that cruel. “No, Ellie. That’s the problem.” He flashed the notebook in front of her face. Nightmares and salvation were forgotten in the face of their present reality. “Remember where you are, and who I am, and what’s going to happen if you don’t start cooperating.”

  Instead of showing fear, she tilted her chin at an indignant angle and rose to challenge him. “I didn’t know stealing from a thief was a crime. Does Lenny know you have that?”

  “Don’t you get it?” Cade wrapped his fingers around her upper arm and gave her a warning shake. “You keep pulling crap like this, and I can’t give you any privileges. No chocolate. No outhouse—”

  “There’s only one privilege I’m interested in.”

  Freedom. It was there, written on her face as clearly as the promise to deny that request was etched on his.

  Ellie pushed up her glasses on her nose and turned away. She buttoned the shirt up to the neck, as if that prim defense would keep him from remembering the tempting treasures that lay underneath. “I thought the book might be something important I could use to barter for my freedom. I don’t know why you’re so worked up over a bunch of shorthand and symbols, anyway.”

  The petulant defeat in her flat voice and downturned face made him reach out. He lingered above the crown of her head, longing to touch those silky locks just one more time. She must have sensed his presence. Ellie jerked away, crossed to the far side of the stool and curled into another touch-me-not posture.

  Cade sucked in a lungful of damp, dusty air and knew he’d need a lot more than fresh oxygen to work Ellie out of his system. He walked a fine line with his conscience already. Tonight, feeling her in his arms, tasting her, erasing Jerome’s foul imprint from her body and claiming it for his own, he knew he’d crossed that line.

  Nothing like complicating an already impossible mission.

  He jammed the notebook back into his pocket and crossed the room. Thank God she hadn’t gone for his gun or knife, or he’d be a dead man. Or more likely, with his instinctive reflexes, he’d be without a hostage.