by Alison Kent
“Tonight…”
“Tonight was about her inexperience. Thad got shot because she’s not an agent.”
The gasp made him look around. Allie stood just outside the bathroom door, her face pale. She limped to the living room with purpose in her broken stride.
12
“YOU BLAME ME,” she said, horrified.
“Oh, hell.” Drew stood reaching for her. “No, I don’t. Of course not. It’s your inexperience.”
She backed away. “I know that I’m not spy material. Believe me, being threatened with both a knife and gun, getting sliced and seeing Thad shot makes me know I’ll never score high on the Myers-Briggs in the Secret Agent category, but I did my best.”
“Allie, I don’t blame you.” He tried to hold her, touch her, but she turned away from him, hugging herself.
“Thad’s my friend, too, Drew.” Her eyes filled with angry tears that never fell.
“I didn’t mean that it was your fault that Thad got shot.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m so used to it.” She looked at him sharply. “I did the best I could.” She limped away from him.
“Allie?”
“Don’t talk to me,” was all she said.
Drew dropped into the chair. Damn. You can be a perfectly insensitive jerk sometimes. Give him a tough situation and he could handle it without a problem, but Allie was a different kind of trouble. She’d just given him a wake-up call that maybe he’d been in the field far too long. He’d lost something of himself out there. He wanted it back.
“You’re an ass,” Jason blurted in disgust. “I think Allie pulled off almost the impossible while keeping us all alive and protecting her cover. She should get a medal if you ask me.”
“Shut up!” Drew snarled, springing out of the chair.
“I think you don’t want to look too closely at your own feelings.” Jason got right into Drew’s face.
Drew wanted to hit the punk, but instead he crowded him against the wall.
Jason went on, “You have feelings for her. You might as well admit it and go down in flames.” He didn’t flinch or budge an inch, but met Drew’s glare with one of his own.
Drew backed up and swore. The whole situation was something he didn’t want to deal with.
“I’m right, Drew. Deal with it or you’ll be the one to get someone killed.” Jason left, closing the door softly behind him.
If Drew was honest with himself, he would analyze his reaction. He would admit that Allie meant a lot to him. He would admit that he’d panicked when he couldn’t find her, when he’d seen the blood on her. It was so clear to him that she was in over her head.
He reached for the phone and punched the numbers, his gaze on the bathroom door, willing her to come back out. She didn’t.
Gillian answered on the first ring.
“More problems?” she asked before Drew could speak.
“Thad is out of surgery and will be fine. Allie was wounded with a knife, but she’s also fine. We need to make it look like Callie is still in that French hospital for just a day. She lied about Callie’s location to the Ghost’s lackey.”
“Done,” Gillian said. “Anything else?”
“Allie’s not cut out for this.”
“She’s done great so far. I’d say you’re underestimating her. You might want to ask yourself why.”
Drew ended the call. He could only concentrate on Allie, the pain in her expression, the blame she shouldered. He rubbed his eyes. You single-minded ass, he thought, and pulled out the picture he’d kept for a long time. The torn photo showed six men, all smiling, all in battle gear. Drew was front and center, Martinez beside him. He had thought that if he’d kept his distance, he wouldn’t get caught up in any type of relationship.
But, Thad, Leila and Frost were not only his teammates, they were his friends. Even Jason Kyoto had proven himself and Drew couldn’t help it—he liked the kid. He liked the kid a lot.
Jason was smart to tell Drew to examine his own feelings about Allie. Drew knew it was easier to force them back than to let them in, and he was so hard-pressed to get the mission done that he hadn’t truly considered the emotional beating she’d endured. And he’d just twisted her guilt a bit deeper with his unthinking remark.
Drew pocketed the picture, then pushed back in the leather chair and stood.
Drew rapped on the bathroom door. She didn’t answer. “Allie, I’m sorry.”
“Whatever, Drew.” Her voice was clearly clogged with tears.
Boy, he really needed to engage his brain before he engaged his vocal chords.
“I said those things to you because I was…” Say it, he urged himself. Just say what you mean.
She threw open the door, her eyes red and her face flushed. “You think I’m impressed by all this cloak-and-dagger crap? I’m not.” She pushed past him into the hall, then stopped, delivered a wounded glare and said, “Finish your sentence.”
“I was out of my mind with worry and panic. When I saw the blood on you, I wanted to…” The dark side of him wasn’t a side he wanted her to see. But Allie wasn’t some shallow blond bimbo. She wanted to know, but he was afraid to let go and expose her to the ugly side. Still, she deserved to know who he was, really know after all that she’d been through. She’d committed herself to this mission and bonded with his team. She cared deeply or else she wouldn’t have been crying.
Intimacy was about baring something deep inside him, something hidden sometimes from himself. Locking her out would effectively drive her away.
“Please, Drew. Tell me.” She bit her bottom lip, her eyes pleading.
It was more than he could take. His heart squeezed hard in his chest. “I don’t want you in my world. Talking about it is just as bad.”
“So you keep everything bottled up inside? Covert operations dictate you have to keep all your emotions undercover. What kind of way is that to live?”
He captured her eyes with his gaze, thinking, if I don’t cage her, she’ll run from my words. “You really want to know who I am? It will give you the same nightmares.”
“No, it won’t. I’m stronger than I look.”
“I do what must be done, whatever it is, and I stay until the job is done. Hell, I’ve been in and out of the U.S. so much I don’t even own a home here. I got most of the scars on my body from an ambush when I was a Ranger along the Afghan/Pakistani border. Tough terrain, but the toughest problem is figuring out who to trust. Our Afghani guide was a Taliban agent and he led us to an ambush. We were pinned down in crossfire and every single one of my teammates died, including Ray Martinez. He was a close friend.” It was the first time he’d said it and a knot released in his chest. “They left me for dead.”
Allie wrapped her arms around Drew and squeezed. “Ohmigod.” She absorbed his words, trying to take in his pain.
“I once promised to protect the citizens of this country in any way I possibly could. Even though I’m no longer in the military, I still embrace that oath.”
His brutal honesty settled deep inside her. He was a man who found it difficult to admit to any weakness.
“I come from a military family, Allie. And the military came first in every way, including emotionally. My father taught me to withhold emotion for the people we met. For me, it became a badge of honor.”
And that honor is what drove him now. Of course, he would see his inner fears and insecurities as inadequacies in himself.
“I’ll do anything in my power to see the mission succeeds.”
“You’ve done horrible things.”
His face closed, his eyes shuttering. “I told you this wouldn’t be pretty.”
When he looked up at her she could see that he thought she was judging him. He dropped his arms, started to turn away.
“No, Drew.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his rigid body against hers. “I wouldn’t ever judge you.” He was what she’d thought he was from the moment she’d met him. A warrior whose significanc
e had got lost in the bigger issues, in the fight against evil and oppression. Allie now had the personal story of one such warrior, seeing firsthand what lengths he’d gone to and would continue to go to, to make a difference.
Stopping the Ghost would keep devastating weapons out of the hands of America’s enemies. It represented one link in a very long chain that stretched all the way to Afghanistan and Iraq. Drew had given up everything to face that threat and defeat it. His courage alone was almost unfathomable.
He was self-sacrificing, but she was selfish enough to want him for herself.
He tried to pull away, but her arms tightened around him. “I’m not judging you,” she repeated, “I’m not,” she said when he tried to pull away again. “I’m just trying to understand all this. Trying to understand you. It’s important to me.”
He went still against her as if he couldn’t believe what she was saying. Obviously he thought it was impossible for her to care about a man so deeply entrenched on the dark side. With a soft groan, he buried his face in the hollow between her neck and shoulder. “Allie, oh, Allie.”
She wasn’t really any different from him. She wanted to be accepted for who she was in light of all the things she’d done in her life. She moved away a bit so he would look at her. She cupped his face in her hands and slid her thumbs rhythmically along his cheekbones. “Everybody has secrets, Drew. Yours are safe with me.”
Drew slammed his eyes shut, tipped his head back and, for a moment, he held his breath. “Safe, sure, but accepted. What I’ve done…”
There was an odd catch in her voice as she moved her arms to his waist and laid her head on his chest. “Protect and defend—it’s enough for me.”
DREW BRUSHED a kiss on her cheek. “Enough.” He squeezed her tightly, aching inside. He’d never trusted a woman enough to reveal even this much and he knew he never would again.
She pressed her face directly into his chest. It brought a smile and he was profoundly moved by the comfort she found before he found the same comfort in her. He pressed his mouth to the top of her head, rubbing her spine.
She let out a long sigh. “We’ll seal it with a kiss.”
He smiled slightly as his gaze traveled over her face, the fall of her hair, just noticing the dark flecks of midnight blue in her eyes. Her expression was at once innocent and sexy. A hell of a combination. Drew wasn’t much on centerfold types; pretty was good, but most times after a couple of months he didn’t like what he found beneath. With Allie, he already knew what lay beneath, aside from a zany sense of humor.
She pursed her lips and made kissing noises.
“One kiss? That’s all? Sorry, that’s not enough,” he murmured, brushing her lips with his own.
“We can start with that. Who cares where we end up?”
His mouth captured hers on a breath of laughter that echoed in the high-ceilinged loft. Something he couldn’t name fractured inside him. It wasn’t immediate, it’d been there, dormant—in that place where he’d compressed most of his emotions—the need to connect to her when he’d been going solo for so long. He deepened the kiss and the wall inside him crumbled, releasing what was trapped there, and it howled free.
Allie felt a definite change in him. His mouth went from patience to possession, marking her as his, branding her with the fire of his need. He knew she’d deny him nothing of herself.
He was right.
His hands splayed against her back, driving up her spine as his warm mouth moved over hers with edgy desperation. She felt him tighten his control, beating back his desire to conquer and plunder. She lost all sense of time, her thoughts centered on only one thing. More. She wanted more with this man.
Drew gave. “You know where we’re going.” It wasn’t a question.
Yet her answer spoke in her tongue sliding into his mouth, in her hips rising to mesh with his. Drew nearly roared, his control slipping another notch. His hands followed her contours, and she moaned a delectable, tiny sound that nearly tore through his fraying control.
Impatiently, he gripped her at the waist and lifted her to the table. She gasped as the cold wood hit the backs of her bare legs.
His mouth covered hers in a swoop of heat more frantic, more demanding.
She pulled away, ducked seductively, made him come after her with a growl. Drew felt strung out, manipulated by the strings she had on him. He let her play him. Her life was in danger and she wanted control, wanted to command something, and he let it be him. She nipped his neck; a hot, desperate need filtered down to his heels. He wanted her, right now, on the table, and the image made his dick harden like rock. When she broke the kiss, it was to peel off his shirt. Her hands scraped over his skin and she dragged her tongue across his nipple and then suckled.
It left him trembling, and he gripped her hips, wedging closer. His hand slid upward, over the silk covering her, along her ribs, teasing the underside of her breasts. Her kiss intensified.
His gaze roamed down her body, and everything between them seemed to go still for a moment. By increments she leaned closer, the soft material of her dress grazing his chest. Then she did that arching thing that was so amazing. She just lay back and he pulled the dress over her head and off her body.
The removal of the dress left her in nothing but a lacy, hot-pink bra and matching panties. He fought for patience when he was craving her like air, his body flexing with need.
He reached for the strap at one of her shoulders. “I want to see you.”
He reached around her and undid the bra and pulled it off, dropping it on the floor.
His chest was inches away from her breasts. Allie was panting, the rise and fall of her nipples so close that it was torture. He leaned closer. That first press of flesh to flesh held a sort of euphoria, crossing the line of intimacy. Nothing in life compared to the single moment when you invited someone this close.
She was still, waiting for his touch, watching his hands come toward her and when they covered her breasts and kneaded the tender buds of her nipples, she covered his big hands and arched. Drew kissed her, loving her moans, her eagerness.
He wouldn’t last long.
Not with her small hands clutching at his shoulders, sliding over his hair. He bent, his gaze locked with hers as he closed his lips around her nipple. She watched it, the erotic slip of his tongue over her flesh and he felt her muscles tighten.
Then he moved lower, across her stomach; carefully he spread her legs, moving between.
“You okay?”
“I won’t be if you stop.”
He held her gaze as his finger followed the edge of her inner thigh. He found her and her gasp lit him on fire as he stroked her. At eye level, he missed nothing. Her tight grip, the way her hips started to move with his hand, her scent.
She hung on. “Drew, damn you.”
He thrust his fingers inside, and she came off the table, but he pushed her back till she lay flat, then his mouth was on her, tongue laving, and Allie shrieked and squirmed.
“Oh, damn. Damn that’s good.”
He flicked her clit, then circled it, over and over as his fingers slid in and out. He watched her writhe, draw her legs up and move her hips in a way that almost made him come. He wanted to be there, and he would be, yet Drew held her still, a testimony to his will when he wanted to slam into her and fuck her silly. But this was different. She was different.
She sat up and climaxed in his arms, clinging to him, her hips thrusting, her expression startled and so unlike any before. Transformed in ecstasy. A little wild, a little innocent. And he held her as she rode the wave of pleasure.
When she settled, went limp, Drew wrapped his arms around her. Cupping her behind, he pulled her off the table. Her legs went around his waist and she met his gaze, blushing. He felt the heat of her through his pants as he walked, taking her where he wanted her. To the bed. He lowered her legs to the floor, and her hands splayed over his chest. Drew knew what people saw when they looked at him—a scarred warrior—but
that wasn’t the way Allie looked at him, admiration and desire shone in her eyes as she opened his pants wide.
She met his gaze, smiling smugly as her fingers dipped inside and enclosed him. He closed his eyes. His chest rose and fell hard.
“You really are the man of steel.”
Hurriedly, he toed off his boots. “Maybe there, but my restraint is crumbling.”
She took a long look, her hands following her gaze sliding over his cock. He groaned.
“You’re making me insane,” he said, pulling her hand free. She gave him free rein over her body. He took it, feeling the sleek turn of her hip, the soft warmth he wanted to enfold him. He insinuated his knee between her thighs, teasing her, rubbing and thrusting till she squirmed with need. Then he eased back, one knee on the bed to pick her up and place her in the center of the bed.
Allie grinned, watching him come closer. He reached across her and got what he needed out of the drawer, but before he could open the packet, she grabbed it out of his hands, pushed him back onto his haunches and straddled his thighs.
The heat of her sex burned him as she rolled the condom down. He smoothed his hand over her glorious hair and kissed her.
Anticipation rocketed through him as she eased his erection down, the tip teasing her sleek core. Drew gripped her hips, dragged her close and slid into her in one smooth stroke. Eyes locked, they both breathed hard.
Her nipples barely touched his chest, and he cupped her jaw with one hand, driving his fingers into her hair and tipping her head back. It was possession, pure and simple. When she rocked, his kiss deepened. His hand slid down to close over her breast, his thumb making lazy circles while his other hand guided her, urged her. She never broke eye contact, her body undulating with seductive movements.
Drew swallowed, glancing down to see himself disappear into her body. He fought for command, to keep words he probably shouldn’t say from spilling, but planted deep inside her, his body wasn’t listening. He leaned in, kissing her, easing her to her back. He withdrew and thrust, and Allie bowed beautifully beneath him. She begged him to come closer, but he’d crush her so he grasped the headboard, one hand under her hips, giving them quick motion.
