Deadly Target [IAD Agency 3] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Roma, Laurie

  A shiver of desire raced through Mikayla as she saw the heated need reflected in Gage’s eyes. No, she had never let a man come inside her without a condom before either and she couldn’t imagine allowing it with anyone but Gage. There was something about him that pulled at her. Deep down they were like two lost souls who had found one another. They both had baggage and personal issues that would make their relationship difficult, but she was willing to try.

  “I’m still not crazy about that guy staying with you.”

  “Deal with it.” Mikayla sighed at the petulant expression he shot her. She had a feeling this was going to be a very long night.

  Possessive men were hot, but they were also a pain in the ass.

  Chapter Eight

  Mikayla sat in the back of the SUV in silence, pensive for what was to come. Slade was driving, speaking quietly to Rock, who was riding shotgun, about their current assignment at Cryton Dynamics out in Denver. The pharmaceutical company they were working at recently had a series of break-ins and they were now revamping their entire security system to ensure it never happened again.

  According to their initial run-through it seemed like the thefts had to have been committed by someone who worked there. She was sure that Rock and Adrian would find whoever was guilty of the crimes, but she and Slade had also agreed to run data and help out from the IAD control room to speed up the process. She was glad to have something to work on while she was here. She’d go crazy if she spent any more days just puttering around, plus she needed something to get her mind off of her current predicament with Gage.

  Mikayla turned her head to see Adrian’s eyes were bright with amusement as he stared at her. It made her want to smack him. He must have known it because he fucking laughed in her face as she glared at him.

  “We were invited, you know. There’s no going back now.”

  Yesterday she had woken up from one of the best night’s sleep she’d had in years. It could have been the extreme orgasm Gage gave her the night before, or simply because she hadn’t had to kill anyone in weeks. Either way, the full night’s rest had done her good even though there were still issues to deal with. Gage needed to know who she really was, but it was too soon to spring that on him.

  Today would be a test of that though.

  The night at the bar after they had left the storage closet Slade had been friendly to Gage when they had come back to where he was sitting. So much so that it had put Mikayla on alert. While they had been gone Slade had met Katie, Dylan, Sebastian and Nick. The others had kept Slade entertained in the hopes that he wouldn’t go looking for Mikayla and Gage, but she knew if he had wanted to find her, nothing would have stopped him.

  Toward the end of the night Gage had leaned in close to whisper in her ear. “I have a client coming in early tomorrow. He’s paid a lot of money for some one-on-one time with me and I have—”

  “Gage, it’s okay. You don’t have to explain.”

  He had sighed. “I don’t have to, but I want to. The guy is doing a stay over. He’ll be leaving first thing Saturday morning.” Gage had paused. “I want to go home with you tonight.”

  Oh, no. No, no, no.

  Gage and Slade in the same house right now was something she couldn’t deal with. It was way too soon. Mikayla shook her head. “I don’t think we’re ready for that just yet.” Before he could argue, she had continued. “Actually, I have a couple more friends coming by tomorrow who’ll be staying the weekend. Why don’t you just spend some time with your client and I’ll see you after my friends leave?”

  Gage’s lips had tightened. He had obviously wanted to say something but held it back. “There is this thing I have on Saturday. It’s actually a family tradition we started a few years back. One Saturday a month we have a day of competition. Sort of like games that we compete in against each other. We usually do it individually when it’s just family, but if you want to bring your friends we could do a team thing. We usually do it that way when we have friends come out.”

  “What kind of games?”

  He had smiled at the suspicion in her voice. “Well, we do this target shooting competition. I know it sounds kind of weird, but it’s a lot of fun. Don’t worry. I can help you if you’ve never shot a gun before.”

  Mikayla had almost choked at his offer.

  She had given Gage a tentative agreement, saying she would talk it over with her friends and let him know. He had demanded her cell phone number before leaving the bar and had called twice the following day, once on his lunch break and another before he had gone to bed. Mikayla had been happy to see his number on the readout and she was surprised how much she missed him when she heard his voice.

  She knew the Stark family games were a mistake but thought it might be the push she needed to open up to Gage about who she really was. As soon as Adrian and Rock had arrived that night she had told them about the offer over dinner. Slade and the brothers had quickly agreed. Hell, they had looked forward to today with fucking glee. So here she was, heading out to the Stark Ranch where the four of them would be participating in the Stark family games.

  God help them all.

  “So, what’s this Gage Stark like?” Rock asked from the front seat of the SUV. “Is he going to piss me off?”

  “You’re always pissed off,” Slade said then shrugged. “So far he seems cool. Lynx isn’t serious about him yet, so I haven’t had to break bad on him.”

  “What if I am serious about him?” Mikayla asked quietly. The silence in the car was deafening.

  Slade shot her a look through the rearview mirror. “Then that would be a different story. He doesn’t know you yet, Lynx. Not the real you. And you don’t know him.”

  “Brett did a background check on him. He is a neighbor, after all.”

  Slade had snorted. “Hon, if you really are serious about this guy then that is the least of what we’ll do.”

  “That’s sort of what today is about. Isn’t it, Lynx?” Adrian asked from beside her. “You gonna read this Gage guy in, or what?”

  Mikayla knew what he was asking. He wanted to know if they should hold back or be themselves. No, there would be no holding back today. If Gage wanted her, then he’d have to deal with the real her. “No holding back.”

  “Sweet. You sure you want to show up your lover boy, Lynx? I mean finding out your girlfriend is a bigger bad-ass than you can really damage a guy’s ego. Not that I would know or anything since, hey”—he pointed to himself—“biggest bad-ass there is.”

  “More like just a big ass. Jesus, you’re starting to sound like Finn now,” Rock said to his twin, talking about one of the other agents they worked with who had an extremely twisted sense of humor.

  “Shit,” Adrian murmured, appropriately horrified at the thought.

  “We go hot,” Mikayla confirmed then took a deep breath.

  The SUV pulled to a stop in front of the building the Starks used as a training center. Mikayla and the other agents got out of the car. She looked over at her friends dressed casually in workout gear, glad she had won the argument they’d had earlier that morning. Rock and Adrian had wanted to dress in the specialized combat gear of black pants and shirt that all IAD agents wore out on missions. The combat gear was made of a material that was practically impenetrable, but it was also highly recognizable as military-grade and would lead to a whole shitload of questions she wasn’t willing to answer.

  “Oh my god! Are you insane? No, hell no!” Mikayla had exclaimed.

  “What?” Adrian had asked innocently. “We’re a team, right? Think of it like our team uniform.”

  “We are not showing up looking like a fucking hit squad. No!”

  Slade had been on her side when she’d nixed the idea. Mikayla knew the twins hadn’t been serious. Or at least she hoped they hadn’t been.

  Mikayla sighed again as the door swung open and Katie came out barreling out to welcome them. “Hi, Mikayla! Hi, Slade! Gage told me to come and—” Her eyes went wide and she froze in
place as she got a good look at Adrian. “Oh wow! I really do need to start hanging out with you more, Mikayla!”

  Mikayla shook her head in exasperation as Adrian picked up the young woman’s hand to press a kiss to her knuckles. “And who might you be, lovely lady?”

  “Too young for you,” Mikayla murmured as she strode forward to pull Katie’s hand from Adrian’s grasp. She didn’t think it was possible, but Katie’s eyes widened even more as she saw Rock.

  “Twins!” Katie breathed out almost reverently.

  Mikayla sighed, pulling the younger woman with her back into the building while the men chuckled. “Sorry, Katie. I don’t think either of them would be a good idea for you.”

  “But I can look,” Katie whispered. “Are they all yours?”

  Oh, dear god. Mikayla had to hold back another sigh. “No, they’re just—”

  “Yeah, we’re hers,” Rock confirmed, his voice a low rumble. Mikayla turned to glare at him and saw the amusement shining in his usually serious green eyes.

  Yeah, this was going to be a really long day.

  “They are my friends,” Mikayla stressed.

  “Of course! I didn’t mean…I meant…” Katie gasped then lowered her voice in a whisper. “Does Gage know? That you’re friends are all big, buff sex gods?”

  Adrian let out a low laugh. “Sex gods? Come on, Lynx. Are you sure we can’t keep her?”

  Mikayla felt Katie’s pulse speed up under her hand wrapped around her wrist as they continued down a hallway. She glared at Adrian. “Behave.”

  Adrian held up his hands in appeasement as Dylan came through a side door dressed in navy- blue sweats and a white shirt with the logo of their company on the front.

  “Hey—” Dylan began then gawked at the group coming toward him. “Well, shit! When you said your friends were coming we thought you meant other women, not…” His voice trailed off as he waved a hand at Rock and Adrian. Dylan was a fit young man at twenty-six. He was almost as tall as the twins, but they both outweighed the younger man by a solid fifty pounds. And Slade, well, Slade towered over poor Dylan making him look tiny in comparison.

  Yeah, she bet Gage thought her friends were women. Mikayla made the introductions then they all followed Dylan into the building.

  “Now that I’ve seen you guys, I’m not sure we should have challenged you in the games,” Dylan said with a chuckle. “You can wait for Gage in the main gym. We just got rid of a client this morning, but some producer dropped by unannounced wanting to set up a pre-production training camp for an upcoming movie and came here to beg personally. Gage is just finishing up and Sebastian will take the producer on the tour and stuff while we get started, then he’ll join us. Since we don’t know how long that’s gonna take we called in Nick to join us. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all. Nice place you guys have here,” Mikayla said, looking around as they entered the main portion of the building. She had been curious about their facilities and was pleased that the building looked like an expensive, high-tech gym, similar to what they had available at IAD. It was clear that Gage had spared no expense when he had created his business.

  “Thanks,” Dylan said with pride. “We really love this place.”

  Dylan and Katie led them into the large, comfortable room that looked like a living room. “Dylan and I will go set everything up in the other building. Gage should be in soon, and we’ll be right back!” Katie said, already heading out the door as her brother followed at a more sedate pace.

  Slade waited until the siblings left the room before speaking again. He pulled out his cell phone and tapped in a few keys. “We’re good to go. I’m picking up standard security. No listening devices or other markers except for basic cameras I’m guessing are set for safety more than anything.” He looked up to make eye contact with Mikayla. “Looks like this is just a legit day of kick-ass fun.”

  “This is going to be fun,” Adrian said. “And boy, do I love to see Lynx packing heat.”

  “Why does everything you say have to sound perverted?” Mikayla asked with a roll of her eyes, making the men laugh.

  “Ah, you’re here,” Gage said as he walked into the room with Nick. He came to an abrupt stop, eyes narrowing as he took in the sight of the big men flanking her. “Mikayla.”

  From that one simple word she could tell Gage was pissed. Well, too bad. These were her friends, her family. She stepped forward and was pleased when Gage also stepped forward to meet her halfway. Gage wrapped a possessive arm around her waist, pulling her tight into his side. She tried to ignore the smirking looks her friends shot her at the move. “Gage, Nick, these are my good friends, Adrian and Rock Savage.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Gage said coolly as he eyed the twins. Mikayla pitched his thigh hard and watched as he tried to hold back a wince. He seemed to get the hint because he released her and moved forward to shake their hands.

  When all the greetings were done Gage moved back to Mikayla’s side as Nick shook his head in amazement. “Gage, when you invited me out to join in today you didn’t tell me your lady called in some ringers. Jesus, these guys are big.” Both Nick and Gage were big, muscular men, but next to the IAD agents there was no comparison. “Well, at least we know you guys don’t have criminal records if you work for Mac Securities,” Nick groused as he eyed Mikayla and her friends.

  “Don’t worry. We won’t hurt you, much,” Adrian said with a grin.

  “Shit…”

  “You’ve got a nice setup here,” Rock said as he studied Gage. “So, what do you do here, teach pampered actors how to fight without hurting themselves?”

  “Something like that,” Gage replied, his voice cool. Mikayla pinched him again, harder this time so he did wince.

  “Is it true…what they say about you doing your own stunts and shit in your movies? Or did you have someone else doing the heavy lifting?”

  “Rock…” Mikayla warned.

  “No, it’s okay. I get asked this a lot,” Gage assured her with a smile. “I did most of my own stunt work, but some of it wasn’t allowed due to insurance issues.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” Nick cut in. “You did most of that crazy shit in the Maximum Force movies. Personally, I thought that director was trying to kill you.”

  “All five of those movies were awesome,” Mikayla agreed. “Don’t let these guys fool you. They dragged me to the theater to see every one of them.”

  Gage’s arm tightened around her waist. He didn’t like thinking about her going to the movies with any man but him. Even if it was his movie. Jealousy was eating away at him, searing into him and, damn them, Mikayla’s friends knew it by the smug looks on their faces. Gage knew that being with her was a mistake. She was forcing her way into his heart and he felt powerless to stop it.

  But not being with her was worse.

  He was damned either way.

  Katie and Dylan came back into the room, both of them smiling. “Everything is set up in the other room. So, are we ready to begin?” Dylan asked.

  “Before we start, I wouldn’t mind a brief tour of the place,” Slade said.

  “Sure!” Dylan said, looking at Slade with no small amount of hero worship. “I’ll take you around. Everyone started for the door, but Gage held Mikayla back so they were behind the others.

  There was a large workout room with various weigh machines and cardio equipment behind wide-paned windowed walls. It pleased her greatly that even though the gym itself was well kept, the new shine was no longer present, showing that the facilities were well used. Across the wide hallway was a large open room with a large boxing ring in the center and training mats perfect for sparring with partners on one end, while the other side had a glossy wooden floor.

  As they walked through the large building, Gage stopped Mikayla in the hallway, brushing her hair out of her face with a gentle hand. “I missed you yesterday.”

  She felt her heart flutter at his words. “Where is Wulf?”

  “We
left him at the house. He doesn’t like the noise.”

  “Ah, gotcha. How did it go with the client?”

  “It went well. All he really needed was a few pointers how to get him through his scenes for the pilot of this new series.” Gage grinned at her. “He’s the new Hercules.”

  Mikayla’s eyes widened. “Chaz Phillips was here? That’s who you were with yesterday?”

  Gage’s grin instantly turned to a frown. “He’s an old friend. How did you know I was talking about Chaz? Are you a fan?”

  The accusation in his voice was enough to make her want to hit him. Instead, she simply rolled her eyes. “I’ve see the stupid updates about the new show every time I log onto the Internet. Get real, Gage. It’s not like I was going to run over here and beg him for an autograph.” Her eyes widened. “Is this why you didn’t want me coming over here yesterday?” The way Gage’s jaw clenched confirmed that she had hit it on the nose. “You are unbelievable.”

  “I didn’t say that. Don’t put words in my mouth,” Gage snapped.

  “Then tell me. When you called me yesterday you made it sound like your client was a pain in the ass. Now you’re telling me it was a friend.”

  “I didn’t lie to you,” Gage said defensively. “I said I was busy and I was. Besides, you were the one who tried to put off seeing me again until your friends left.”

  “Yes,” she said coolly. “Because I was worried they’d kill you.”

  “Lynx has a point there,” Slade interjected from where he was standing with Adrian a few feet away from them.

  “Do you mind?” Gage snapped at him.

  Slade shrugged his shoulders then went back to listening to Dylan talk about their facility. Adrian, however, continued watching them, fascinated by the conversation between the two lovers. Gage glared at the other man and took hold of her arm and pulled her further down the hall, away from the others.

  Mikayla pulled her arm away. “I told you they were my friends and that I worked with them. Have I given you any reason to believe that I would hit on one of your friends or act inappropriately? Can’t you see how insulting that is? Are you trying to piss me off?”