He could only hope Polly would be able to handle the emotional as well as physical toll it would take on her. It shamed him that he had to continue to push her physically, and evaluate and record every action and reaction she had to every situation that arose.
He felt like a slug. She didn’t deserve what he was doing, what he was forced to do. The only thing that made him feel a little better was the fact that she had responded as she should have. That in itself was an incredible relief. But that was gut reaction. Once she had time to process what was happening would she be able to handle it? And what would he do if she couldn’t?
Even worse. What if she actually figured out what was really going on? He was dead meat. And likely, not the only one she would take out, if they didn’t take her out first.
There was no way, after meeting her, after falling for her, he’d let them take her out. He’d idolized her from afar ever since learning the barest details of her illustrious career. The sacrifices she’d made both physically and in creature comforts for her country was a testament to the woman’s character. Sure, she had a mouth on her and could be a major pain in the butt, but who wouldn’t have developed an attitude after what she’d been forced to endure.
To have had a sick-o serial killer in her grasp, be completely hand-tied to do anything about it, and then have the bastard take her down because she was just following orders would be enough to turn anyone around. But the extent of the perp’s crimes and the subsequent situation had done more than turn her, it had spun her out of control of her otherwise impeccable facilities. And the Agency was determined that he spin her back.
He had, in fact, joined The Agency with helping others in mind. He’d expected to be trained as a field agent, but he’d tested strongly in math and science and they’d wanted him to train in a medical field. He chose physical therapy to help field agents who needed to recover from injuries since it was a way to serve, and also gave him a degree of freedom.
As it turned out, the career was a perfect fit. He’d met some incredibly wonderful, self-sacrificing individuals who had needed his skills to mend mind, body and sometimes even spirit. But Polly was special. She was so very special. And was becoming more so all the time.
And that in itself was a problem. He wasn’t supposed to become so emotionally involved. Not to the extent of falling, at least he was somewhat certain he was falling, in love with a client. A client he would be forced to kill if he failed.
Shit!
There had to be a way out of this. He had to think. He had to come up with a way to make this whole situation disappear. But of course he couldn’t. Once he’d offered a medical evaluation and had suggested a way of snapping her out of the funk she’d allowed herself to fall into, he committed not only himself but her to The Agency’s iron-clad decisions. So they would move forward. She as the lead investigator and negotiator and he as her assistant.
He just hoped she didn’t find out the truth before he was allowed to confess. If he was ever allowed to confess.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Catcher lifted her chin to study her face, his gaze lingering on the scars. “Looks pretty good. In the next few months, a year, they’ll fade some more.” He glanced into her eyes, and then grinned devilishly as he stared at her nose.
“What?” she asked, desperately wanting to kiss lips that were a little too close to her own, and completely irritated her thoughts took such a turn. She hadn’t expected to have romantic needs ever again, and lately that was all she could think of.
And given what they were all going through that was totally inappropriate.
Sheesh!
“You have bats in the cave.”
Huh? Understanding dawned and she slapped her hand over her nose. When he started laughing, she jerked the round makeup mirror lying on the bed beside her and held it in front of her face. She glared at him. “I do not!”
Catcher backed away, still laughing. “I know. I just wanted to see if you were girly enough to care about a few boogers.”
So much for romance. She restrained herself from throwing the mirror at him, but just barely. “I’m still slow, but I’m getting stronger, Stevens. Eventually I’ll be able to kick your sorry butt.”
Catcher bit his bottom lip in an obvious attempt to stem the grin he usually wore. Then his eyes sobered, as she knew her own did. They had become playful with each other over the time they’d spent together. He was a tease. She was a smart ass. And they both had come to enjoy that from the other.
But current circumstances…a child missing, a madman lose, frantic parents and a town on full alert made everything she was feeling wrong. Worse still, she was about as useful as a schooner run aground with its sail flapping ineptly to handle the chaos that had suddenly taken over their world
But she still wanted him. Needed him. And it had nothing to do with her injuries.
It would have been so much easier to ignore his effect on her if he hadn’t been so friggin cute—hell, sexy. He always looked like sunshine on steroids. His cheerful demeanor, his hot body, sunny smile, and smell! Good grief, the man was sin on a breeze.
He was so damned adorable it was ridiculous. She couldn’t even believe she was interested in cute and adorable when her taste always ran to dark and dangerous. And her looks were gone. It was just that simple. If there was a time his ornery young butt could have been interested in a sexy older woman, that time was no more. That woman was no more.
Men had come and gone in and out of her life with little impact. There had been the affairs, well, only two really, but those two had not impacted her life in any significant way, except when she’d had to convince them not to make her have to kill them, in order to get them to exit her life with a little grace. Men, it seemed, had a hard time understanding she was serious when she said it was over.
There were the one-night stands the job demanded. Though all of those men were dead before the sex happened, so they probably didn’t even count. And then there was Lloyd Smith, a fellow agent who she thought maybe, just maybe, might result in a real relationship. Until his wife came to the office one day, demanding to know who the bimbo was that he was sleeping with. Since she’d been the bimbo in question—though they technically hadn’t passed third base—she quickly kicked his ass to the curb both literally and figuratively. The son-of-a-bitch had told her he was divorced. If that wife of his had any sense, she’d make his lie a reality.
But that was it. That was the sum total of her romantic relationships. And it was so sad to realize she was hitting the big four-o in less than a month and she had no family, no home, and a hideous job she was no longer capable of doing to show for it. Worse still, she’d lost the assets that would make a man interested in starting those things with her now. And for some reason, Catcher Stevens was the one making all these ridiculous thoughts cloud her brain at a time when she needed it clearer than ever.
Whenever he was near, her hormones went wacko. During her pain-filled workouts, which should, by all rights, have made her hate his guts. When they verbally sparred, which should have made her a lot madder than it did. Damn, if she was honest, she enjoyed his smart mouth. And when he pushed her beyond what she believed were her physical limits, as he did constantly. No matter what he did, how he did it, or how much she should hate or resent it, he made her horny. Which was a major problem.
She’d already had enough time during her recovery to think of all the things she could have been doing with her life. Like finding a man to love, honor, and cherish. Like starting a home where there was laughter and love and, yes, even the occasional fight. All those things she had decided she didn’t want following the murder of her parents were the very things she craved now. Mostly, she craved a man to love her, no matter what. One who would be willing to overlook her past, one who wanted to reshape her future with her. A partner. A friend. A lover. For life.
She turned her head away from Catcher and blinked the sudden moisture from her eyes. She wasn’t going to make a fool of
herself. Love from him was not an option. After all, Catcher had no interest in loving her, or even making love to her. She was nothing more to him than a broken cog in a very large machine, and he was head mechanic. Which sucked. Really sucked. But it was a reality her brain seemed to forget with irritating frequency.
Every time he touched her, heck, he didn’t even have to touch her, but just enter a room, she felt that revving in her lower gut. She wanted to reach out, just once, and pull his delicious mouth to hers just to test the waters, just to see if he kissed as well as she was fantasizing he did. The chemistry was already there, obviously, but if he would just stink at kissing this endless need to taste him would go away.
She seriously needed it to go away!
In the morning they would drive up to the newly renovated cabin donated by the endlessly generous Brad Matthews family. No matter what was asked of them, and The Agency was asking plenty, they gave what was asked without hesitation or complaint. Besides taking over the Bed & Breakfast, agents were piling into the lodge, according to Catcher. A couple of agents were setting up in another of the Matthews’ chalets a quarter mile down the mountain from where they would stay. With the kidnapper’s demand that only she and Catcher move into position to receive instructions, they had to make sure the presence of the other agents went unnoticed. She hadn’t seen any herself, but Catcher kept her apprised of their activities.
The problem was, for the most part, she and Catcher would be alone. Biding their time until the kidnapper contacted them. The expectation was that he would make them wait. Make them sweat. And give them plenty of time with no one or anything to intrude on the fact that they were sharing a small log cabin which held a loft bed.
According to Suzie Matthews, one very large, very cushy feather bed.
Just the thought made her hot!
“Let’s get this shirt off so I can check the rest of your injury sites.”
Polly complied quickly, then closed her eyes when she looked down and realized her nipples were pebble hard beneath the thin material of her sports bra. She quickly snatched her shirt and held it to her chest.
“Say a word and I’ll blow your head off.”
She felt more than heard his chuckle, but refused to look at him.
“Lay back and let me look to make sure you haven’t reinjured yourself.”
She slid a glance to his face. “Just keep your eyes where they belong, Stevens.”
“Move the shirt, Chapman, and let me do my job.”
Polly slid the shirt to reveal the puckered scar beneath her breast.
“These are looking good.” He smiled at her. “You’re almost healed, agent.”
Agent. Polly hated the word these days. She really did feel like she was recovering rapidly now, and knew she’d have to make a decision soon about approaching her boss with her intentions of leaving the agency. It was scary knowing they could refuse to break the contract she’d signed with them all those years ago. She really didn’t know what she would do if they wouldn’t let her go.
Planning to run as a rogue agent if the need arose and actually doing so were two entirely different things. It wasn’t the life she wanted, would in fact prevent her from starting the life she did want to lead, so in the end it could come down to the lesser of two evils.
She sighed as Catcher helped her into a sitting position. “Thanks, Stevens.”
His cell phone beeped and he pulled it from his back pocket, flipped it open, then read whatever was on its screen. After snapping it back closed, he turned to her, seemed to searched her face, his own unusually somber. “Don’t thank me yet.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“This is beautiful!”
“Yeah.”
Polly took in the room, delighted by its coziness, relieved the trip up the mountain hadn’t been fraught with awkwardness. She’d had a good talk with herself, and with Suzie and Lilly. Though they thought she should just give in to her desires and jump his bones at the first opportunity, she knew that it would never happen, which made things easier. Now that she had her head on straight, she was going to do her job and not only work her butt off to complete the healing process, but also to find little Caleb alive and get him back to his family.
There was no reason she couldn’t be professional about this. She would do what she had to do and she would do it to the best of her ability and somehow, she would do it without letting emotions or physical needs distract her. She’d been able to do those things once, and she would do so again.
She slid a glance to Catcher, refusing to acknowledge the sadness that settled into her chest. Determined to ignore him, she took in the room. The entire living and kitchen areas were approximately twelve hundred square feet. The space was separated at its center by the open, backless steps leading up to a loft, which she knew held the bedroom. Suzie had filled her in on the floor plan and amenities, which meant the single bathroom was located at the back of the house to the left of the kitchen, and double French doors led to a balcony to the right. She’d raved about the over-the-mountainside view, so Polly headed to the French doors first.
She wasn’t disappointed. The view of the lake and Legend Township in the distance was beyond anything she could have imagined. The sparkling water, the geometrically laid out town, and clean mountain air almost made her forget why she was there.
Almost.
She turned to find Catcher standing behind her, his gaze on her, not the magnificent vista they had to behold. “I hate that man.”
He blinked, lowered his gaze, shuffled his feet, before looking up, past her right shoulder. “Me, too.”
Polly frowned, studying him as he looked at anything but her. He was doing that more and more lately. At first she thought maybe he’d started liking her, but, embarrassingly, figured she’d misread everything.
Something felt wrong. Something besides the kidnapping. She’d had the same feelings of unease since the child disappeared. These thoughts weren’t related to the child, or the horrible animal that took him. It was something else. But she no longer trusted her instincts, had in fact decided she no longer had any.
She shook those thoughts off and studied Catcher. The late morning sun was overhead warming her, radiating off his California surfer looks. Just looking at him made her want. Need. Desire.
It wasn’t fair. Her entire life was geared to helping others, a job, no, a destiny she’d never questioned. Yet here she was. On a mission to do what she’d once done better than any other, and she’d rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, but still, she would want this beautiful man to be those other places too, doing those other things with and to her.
She exhaled loudly. His distant gaze sharpened onto her face. He took a slight step forward, seemed to check himself, then pivoted and reentered the cabin. Polly stared at the open French doors for a moment, wondering if for just a split second his eyes flashed reciprocal desire.
She bit her lip, somehow comforted by the slight tug and barely perceptible pain. It reminded her of what the madman cost her, what he could even now be costing an innocent child. She turned back to look down the mountain’s side, over the lake, and over the town that had raised her to be a model citizen until that fateful day.
Legend, Tennessee, was her home. It was the haven she’d sent more than one desperate person to, to start a new life. For the most part, it was a town of virtue. Filled with decent, God-fearing people. It was America at its finest. And no one was going to destroy it. Not while there was a breath left in her body.
Polly pivoted and marched—as much as her slight limp would let her—into the cabin. She searched the kitchen/living space for Catcher. A flicker of fear that he’d left fled immediately when she heard footsteps overhead. She climbed the stairs slowly, her heartbeats increasing with each step. The sight of him, wearing only his designer jockey shorts, sent that heart into overdrive.
He turned, surprise on his face and khaki shorts in hand, and she knew what she had to do—talk or no talk
—whether it was right or wrong. “We need to get this out of the way.” She stepped up to him, took his face in her hands, and pulled his lips to her own.
Immediately his arms were around her, holding her close, yet gentle. His mouth was less polite, attacking hers, nibbling, tugging, seeking entrance, then ravaging. Her mind exploded, thought impossible, need an all-encompassing force. She’d meant only to exercise the demon of curiosity, but found that demon was no match for the one that had taken over.
Sparks lit behind her eyes. Moans built in her throat. Desire, raging, rioting, overtook reason.
Catcher broke the kiss, his ocean blue eyes now dilated black, his firm muscular chest frantically moving in an out, grasping gasps of air. He lowered his head and took her lips this time, consuming her, moving her towards the hand-carved bed, cushioning her fall with his own body as they landed on the handmade patchwork quilt.
Need shook her violently, a lustful inferno. Deep rolling sounds vibrated within her throat as she desperately scratched at his back then grasped his soft blond curls to pull him even closer. A beep sounded but held no meaning while lips locked lips and tongues swirled. Pain collided with erotic sensation as her body came alive in a basic, primitive, dance. Nothing, not one thing in her life had prepared her for this perfect moment.
Clothing was tugged off, disposed of. Frantic grasping, tasting, touching, disheveled quilt and sheets. Laughter built in her throat when he took her rock hard nipple into his mouth, then she was moaning, writhing, needing him to move lower.
As if he’d read her thoughts, he licked his way down the finely defined indention of her hard won abs to her tummy, stopping there to swirl his tongue in her navel. Her legs buckled as she giggled, but he held her down as he slid further toward his goal.
Anticipation was a delicious agony, one he indulged in as he took his time, kissing, sucking, and nibbling at her inner thigh before parting her feminine lips. The first touch took her breath as her body reacted by jerking off the bed. He chuckled as his fingers and mouth took her. Teeth and tongue were working a magic that blurred thought and everything became one incredible sensation she could do nothing but ride.
Unforgettable Heroes II Boxed Set Page 58
