by Desiree Holt
For the life of her, she couldn’t think of why she’d be on someone’s radar. She’d never considered herself anything more than average. There was nothing remarkable about her childhood, nothing different from any of her friends. If her parents were a lot more subdued, kept a lot more to themselves, well, she’d chalked it up to their personalities. She’d never had the usual conflicts her friends had with their parents, although hers did seem a little overprotective. They’d pitched a fit when she told them she was accepting a teaching position in Tampa where her best friend from college lived. Maddie wanted to spread her wings. See more of the country. They’d eventually backed off, but they called and Skyped frequently. As worried as they were, she couldn’t tell them about what was going on.
And what was going on? She hoped Hawkeye could help her find out.
At last, they pulled into her driveway. She parked in the garage, and Hawkeye pulled up right behind her, his headlights illuminating the dark interior.
“Step out of the garage, Maddie,” he called as he walked up to the open overhead door.
“What? Why—”
“Just do it, please.”
His voice, hard and uninflected, sent chills up Maddie’s spine. She walked out to the driveway and waited while he checked out every corner of the garage, even looking behind the storage cartons she had stacked in one corner.
“Okay. Wait right here for me.” He grabbed a duffel from his car, walked back to where she was standing, and told her to punch the button to close the overhead door.
“Your car is going to block mine in,” she pointed out.
“We’ll be going everywhere in my car from now on,” he told her.
She stared at him. “You planning to drive me all the time?”
“I am. For as long as it takes. Okay. You let me go inside first.”
It was an order, not a request. Truth be told, she was just as happy to do it. She got a little nervous when he pulled his gun from the small of his back. Then she realized there might be someone inside who also had one, so she stuck as close to him as possible. She followed him inside, pausing in the hallway while he lowered his bag.
“Get behind the couch.” His tone of voice left no room for argument.
She squeezed between the wall and the back of the couch, crouching there, battling a case of nerves while he checked the rest of the house.
“Okay.” He was back in the living room. “Come on out now.”
She eased out from behind the couch to find him standing in the middle of the room. He studied her with an intensity she found unsettling.
“I apologize if I scared you, but I wasn’t taking any chances.”
“No,” she squeaked, cleared her throat, and tried again. “No, you didn’t. I guess I didn’t think someone might be inside waiting for me.”
“Maddie.” He moved forward until he was so close to her she had to look up to see his face. “We have no idea at the moment who this is or what they’re after or what they’ll do. I want to take every possible precaution.”
“Of course.” She shoved her hands into her pockets so he wouldn’t see them tremble. She was safe. With him. She had to remember that, even if she’d just met him tonight. Maddie’s cousin wouldn’t have sent him if he’d thought the man wasn’t up to the task. The problem was, she wasn’t used to having strange men in her house, at least not for some time.
Please don’t let me think about my pitiful dating life right now.
“So we’re okay here?” He blew out a breath. “Forgive me. I’m so used to working with people where we could read each other’s minds. I’m not used to civilians.”
“I know that.” She wet her lips. “And I want you to know how much I appreciate this. It may turn out to be nothing more than my overactive imagination—”
“Don’t do that,” he broke in, his words sharp and edgy. “If Ghost thought that’s what it was, I wouldn’t be here. But he knows his cousin and he trusts her interpretation of things. So I’m here, and we’re going to get to the bottom of this. Find who it is and stick them in a cellar ten miles underground.”
Maddie couldn’t stop the smile at the image that conjured up. “Okay. That works for me.”
“Good.” The hard planes of his face seemed to relax an infinitesimal amount. “I know it’s late, but show me where the picture was taken from and the other things you thought were out of place.”
“B-but I fixed all of that.”
“I understand. I want to see everything, anyway.”
He walked through the house with her, a grim, silent presence, taking pictures with his cell phone. He asked questions, nodding at her answers. Finally, they were done.
“Why don’t you show me where I’ll be sleeping. In the morning, we’ll have coffee and go over some of the rules.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Rules?”
“Yes. For keeping you safe.”
By the time Maddie had settled Hawkeye in one of the guest rooms and gotten herself ready for bed, she was as jumpy as she’d been earlier. She didn’t know if it was the aura of danger hovering out of reach or the hot alpha male getting ready for bed in the room across from hers. And that definitely was the best description of him.
Hot. Alpha. Male.
A man who pushed every button in her body. Who sent her hormones such a wakeup message that, since the first contact, her nipples had been hard as stones and the walls of her sex had spasmed with need.
God! Tall, hard muscled, with a square-jawed face made all the more interesting by the thin white scar on his left cheek, he was every inch the warrior. The five o’clock scruff on his face that by now was more like midnight scruff only added to the look of danger. His body gave off the air of instant readiness, his sharp green eyes assessing every minute. She wondered if that hard-looking mouth ever smiled, or what it would feel like to kiss it.
What? I’m going crazy here. I need to be worried about my safety, not wondering about how great this guy would be in bed.
She couldn’t help it, though. Just looking at him made her nipples tingle and beg for his lips to close around them. The insistent throbbing in her sex pulsed through her body, her panties damp with proof of her desire and need. She, the calm and steady one, had to make a conscious effort to refrain from ripping off her clothes in front of him and jumping onto his cock.
Maybe it was the long dry spell that did it. Or maybe it was easier and safer to fantasize about her new protector than to drive herself nuts trying to figure out who was after her and why. She pulled on her sleep shirt, washed her face and brushed her teeth, and climbed into bed.
And lay there with her eyes wide open.
Damn!
What was the matter with her, anyway? Someone or several someones were trying to intrude into her life, and not for any good reasons. She was grateful both to Gretchen and her cousin, and she felt a lot safer with a Delta Force operative across the hall. She just wished she could stop fantasizing about him.
She slept fitfully, her sleep disrupted by dreams. Dreams of an alpha male with a thin scar on his face, sculpted muscles, his mouth a hard line. In her dreams, he was naked, his magnificent cock standing out from his body, surrounded by a thick nest of curls. He held out his hand to her, and she reached for him, and—
Maddie sat up in bed, yanked from the erotic dream she was having. Damn this was no good. She shuffled to the bathroom to get a glass of water then crawled back into bed, scrunching her eyes shut. But, in the morning, when her alarm went off, she felt as if she hadn’t slept at all.
*****
Hawkeye took advantage of Maddie’s single serving coffee maker to brew a mug for himself as soon as he hit the kitchen. She had told him she was usually up by six o’clock, so he’d gotten himself up earlier to call Ghost. He took his coffee and his phone out on the patio and punched in the number.
“Is it something or nothing?” were Ghost’s first words.
“I’m pretty sure it’s something,” Hawkeye to
ld him. “Maddie Winslow doesn’t seem like the Nervous Nellie type. I don’t think she’s seeing goblins where there aren’t any.”
“I figured. Gretchen’s got a good head on her shoulders. She wouldn’t bother me for some nut job.”
“She’s definitely not that,” Hawkeye assured him.
“What’s your assessment?”
“She’s, ah, nice.” Shit! Nice didn’t begin to describe her. He made his voice as noncommittal as possible. “Did you know she’s the teacher who talked that kid with the gun out of shooting his classmates?”
“No. Gretchen left out that little fact. So she’s got smarts.”
“Yeah. I’m going to call Grey Holden this morning. He’s got a hotshot computer genius over at The Omega Team. I thought I’d see if they could give me a hand checking into that kid’s background just in case there was something wonky there. Then I want him to pull everything on Maddie Winslow there is, here and in outer space.”
Ghost was silent for a moment. “Does she know you’re doing that?”
“Yes. I told her in the beginning, and explained why it was necessary. I don’t think this is random, so there is no telling what’s tucked away in her life that was the catalyst. I’ll have them pull everything on her since she’s been in Tampa, but, more than likely, it’s something from her past she doesn’t even think of.”
“And she’d not pissed about it?” Ghost asked.
“I think it’s more important to her that she stay alive. What’s your schedule today?”
“More training exercises. I’ll give you a call when I get a break.”
“Good enough. Later.” He disconnected the call.
Maddie Winslow had definitely been a surprise to him. Maybe he needed to get rid of his stereotypical idea of a teacher. No, what he needed to get rid of were the erotic thoughts of her that had plagued him all night. Images of her naked in front of him, her lips wrapped around his cock, her tongue caressing his thick shaft. Her sitting astride him, his shaft buried deep inside her hot, wet pussy, her hands cupping her breasts as she offered them to him.
For fuck’s sake, he was a Delta. He had discipline. He was on assignment here. He needed to use his big head, not his little one.
As early as it was, he knew someone always manned The Omega Team phones. Grey Holden might not be in yet. Hell, he might not even be in town, but at least Hawkeye figured he could get a message to him.
“Omega.” The voice was abrupt. “State your business.”
Well, okay then. No wasting time.
“This is Hawkeye St. John calling for Grey Holden. It’s important. Please have him call me back. He recited his number twice before he disconnected. He couldn’t do much else besides wait, so he decided to check out Maddie’s house again while waiting for her to get up. He’d done a complete circuit inside and out last night, not happy with what he found. Repeating it in the daylight didn’t make him any happier.
Her small house had a lot to recommend, but safety and protection weren’t on that list. No alarm system, but he hadn’t really expected one. No fencing around the small yard. Entry doors in the front, the back, and the outside wall of the garage. Lots of windows. Thinking about what would have to be done to make it safe for her gave him a headache. He’d have to go to Plan B, whether she liked it or not.
When he went back into the kitchen to refill his mug, he heard sounds from the bathroom indicating Maddie was up. Just as he lifted his mug, his phone chirped at him. The readout said simply Omega.
“St. John here.”
“Hawkeye.” Grey Holden’s deep voice rumbled over the connection. “Did you decide to tell me you’ve finished your tour and are ready to join Omega?”
Hawkeye’s laugh had a rusty sound to it. “Not quite yet. But I do have a big favor to ask.”
As succinctly as possible, he outlined the problem.
“What can we do to help?” Grey asked without hesitation.
“I don’t know if I’ll need backup down the line, but right now, I could sure use the skills of your magic computer genie.”
Grey chuckled. “Magic is the word, alright. So let’s have it.”
“If she could do a search for everything surrounding that major episode at Maddie’s school. I can’t imagine how that would prompt anyone to do any of this stuff, but you never know what prompts a crazy.”
“What else?”
“I also want a complete background search on Maddie. There’s a reason the picture of her folks was taken, and I want to know what it is. Every little detail you can find—her, her parents, any relatives you dig up.”
“We’ll get on it. I’ll need to get some information from you first, though. The kind of stuff that can make our job a little easier.”
“Like what? Name it, you’ve got it.”
“Everything she can tell you about herself,” Grey told him. “I mean, from the time she was a kid all the way through every boyfriend she can remember.”
Hawkeye looked at the phone, frowned, and put it back to his ear. “You think this is some guy after her? I can’t imagine this woman getting tangled up with a man who’d do this kind of stuff.”
“You never know. Believe me when I tell you that. Hold on a sec.” Hawkeye could hear Grey talking to someone in the background. “Text me your email,” Grey told him when he came back on the line. “Okay, you can do some of the simple stuff yourself. Jacquie, the computer queen, is going to send you a couple of links that will help you and the passwords to get into them. We’ll start digging for the tougher stuff.”
“Thanks.”
“It could take us a day or two, depending on how deep we have to go to find anything even slightly logical,” Grey went on. “Jacqui has a project to clean up that will take her a couple of hours. Anything you can dig up on your own—names, dates, situations, whatever—will be a help. Ask Maddie to go through her life with you, see if anything comes up.”
“Done and done. And thanks for this.”
“How soon can you start putting the info together?” Grey asked.
“I’m taking her to work pretty soon, but I can ask her questions on the way. And get her to meet me for lunch, too. And keeping an eye on that school to see who might be interested in her.”
“Okay. Watch for Jacquie’s text.”
In less than a minute, the text came through with the links, password, and email address. Hawkeye sent back a thanks and said he’d answer after he took Maddie to work. He had just slipped his phone into his pants pockets and stepped back into the kitchen when she came into the room. He stopped, needing a moment to look his fill at her.
Hawkeye had been with a lot of good-looking women, but none of them had invaded every molecule of his body the way this one did. Today, she had her hair up in some kind of twist, leaving her graceful ears and slender neck exposed. She wore minimal makeup, but he sure didn’t think she needed any. Nothing could improve on her gorgeous smoky-gray eyes or the thick lashes framing them, or the full lips with a tiny dimple in one corner that winked when she smiled.
He was gripped with an insane desire to run his tongue over those lips, to kiss that dimple, to taste every inch of her. To sink his now painfully swollen cock deep into her hot pussy, feel her walls grip him as he rode them both to an explosive climax.
Swollen. Cock.
The words jabbed his brain like twin spears. He’d need every bit of self-discipline to get through this without embarrassing himself. He, a hardened Delta Force team member known for his icy control. With a supreme effort of will, he clamped down on his fantasies. He wondered how the hell he would manage this until the gig was over. And why it was he could sit motionless for hours or move with the stealth of a cat with no problem, but shutting down this unexpected, intense attraction to this women challenged his sense of discipline.
He had to get himself under control. Building a relationship with a woman was not on his horizon, at least not while he was in Delta Force. In his mind, it was the rare couple who
could make the strain of the situation and the long separations work. He’d be wading in some deep waters here if he wasn’t careful.
Pulling himself together, he gave Maddie a lopsided smile. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” She smiled, and his body sent him an urgent message.
“How about some coffee?” he asked. “Even I can work one of these machines.”
“Thanks. I can get it.” She set her mug in place, stuck a K-cup in the pod holder, and pressed the button. Then she pulled a clear plastic box out from its place beside the coffee machine and took two small plates from the cupboard. “I’ve got great muffins from a bakery near here. Chocolate chip and macadamia nut.” She grinned. “My weakness. Here. I don’t share with everyone.” She plated a muffin and handed it to him.
Hawkeye wasn’t much for sweets, but the muffin did look good, and she seemed anxious for him to take it. Right now, he’d do whatever it took to make her less on edge. And when he bit into it, he had to admit the muffin was almost a religious experience. He hoped it gave her enough of a warm feeling so she didn’t give him a hard time about what he wanted to do.
He rinsed his plate and mug and stuck them in the dishwasher. “Before we leave, remember I want you to pack a suitcase. I’d say bring enough with you for a week or so, and anything else you’ll need. Laptop, stuff like that.”
Maddie stared at him. “That long?”
“I’m guessing but this place is not safe for you, and I want to keep you safe for however long this takes.”
She set her empty mug down carefully then turned back to him.
“I-I guess I didn’t think about a time frame.”
Hawkeye wished he could pull his chain-of-command routine on her, but she wasn’t in the army.
“I thought about how susceptible this house is to break-ins,” he told her. “Especially if someone is determined to get at you. We have no idea yet who is behind this or why, and I want you in the safest place possible.”
He watched the play of emotions across her face as she tried to absorb everything.
