Maybe Sean was really pissed about the whole stinger thing. He was definitely not the sort of man someone got the better of, not without retribution, anyway.
One look at Taser confirmed her theories. The Ghost Team was giving him a hard time of it. The idea almost made her smile. So few were capable of getting close enough to plant a thorn in Taser’s thick hide. The very thought that Sean might be looking for her – that he cared enough to do so – sent a thrill down her spine, even if he probably did want to kill her. She quashed the thought immediately, returning to the defense of her teammates.
“It’s irrelevant,” Taser said, halting Nicki’s argument before she could get going properly. “Fisher and Brookes are currently deployed elsewhere. You’ve got a new partner. One who I know will be able to keep you in line.”
The back of Nicki’s neck prickled, a natural response to the suggestion that anyone was capable of such a thing. Nicki answered to no one. Well, except Taser. But that was by her own choice. The man had literally saved her, both her life and her sanity. Maybe even her soul, but she didn’t like to think too closely about that one. She still wasn’t entirely sure she had one, or if she did, how much of it was intact.
“Who?”
His mouth twitched. “You’ll see soon enough.”
“Prick.”
“God you’re hot when you talk dirty, Nix,” Taser chuckled, completely unfazed. Nicki rolled her eyes.
The soft whir of nearly silent chopper blades had Nicki looking up sharply. “Ah, good,” said Taser. “He’s here.”
Nicki stood and put her hands on the rail post, squinting for a better view. A sleek black helicopter suddenly appeared over the tree tops and prepared to land right in the clearing in front of her. She watched as the pilot expertly maneuvered the craft, touching down as lightly as a feather. Whoever her new partner was, he was one hell of a pilot.
The engines were cut, and the soft whir grew fainter over the next several minutes as the blades slowed and then finally ceased moving. Only then did a familiar figure swing gracefully out from the pilot’s seat and begin walking toward the cabin.
Sean Callaghan. She’d know that confident, stalking gait anywhere. Images of those broad shoulders, muscular chest, and lean hips were hardwired into her brain. Nicki glanced back at Taser, he met her gaze head on. She swore his eyes were actually glowing.
What was he up to? Had Sean proven to be too much of a threat? Had Taser tricked him here to this remote, God-forsaken location using her as bait? Did he expect to eliminate two birds with one stone?
No, the sane part of her said. Not even Taser would be that arrogant. To take out Sean he’d have to take out the entire Ghost Team, and while the Chameleons were good, they weren’t that good.
Nicki turned back toward Sean. She watched him close the distance between them, stopping only a foot in front of where she stood.
“Meet your new partner,” Taser said from behind her, amusement lacing his voice. “Nix, Sean Callaghan. Sean, Nix Milligan.”
Nicki wanted to turn around and scowl at him, demand to know what game he was playing at, but she couldn’t. It was impossible to turn away from Sean’s icy blue gaze. Without touching her, Sean held her as captive as tangibly as if he’d bound her head to toe. His expression was fierce, but the reasons behind it were undeterminable. Was it hunger? Anger? Resentment? Relief? Need? Or, like her, did he feel all those things at once?
They stared at each other forever, or at least it seemed like it. Time didn’t flow around Sean Callaghan like it did everywhere else. It might have been a few seconds or a few minutes. Then, with the suddenness of a cobra strike, Sean pulled her into his arms and commanded her mouth.
Nicki’s head swam with the taste of him as her body ached against him. Was he bigger, harder? Or was her mind playing tricks on her? The thought of fighting him never even entered her mind. Sean assumed immediate and absolute control of her heart and body, with her mind chasing behind yelling “wait for me!” For those few moments, there was nothing else in her world.
“Ah, I’d forgotten you’d already met.” Taser spoke up, and Nicki felt, rather than heard, the growl in Sean’s chest at the blatant interruption. Had Taser not reminded them of his presence, Nicki was sure Sean would have taken her right here on the steps. Even worse, she would have let him.
The sound of Taser’s voice brought Nicki back to reality, or at least cut through some of the Sean-induced fog to which she seemed so susceptible. “He’s my new partner? How... how is that possible?”
Sean’s eyes sparkled like blue diamonds. He had released her lips, but his arms kept her tight against him – and his massive arousal – in a cast iron grip.
“Call it a collaboration, if you will,” explained Taser. “A joint venture between the Chameleons and the Ghost Team.”
Sean’s eyebrow arched at the reference. “The Ghost Team? Is that what you call us?”
Taser shrugged. “Blame her. She’s the one who came up with it.”
“What kind of collaboration?” Nicki asked suspiciously. As Sean’s heat and need seeped into her, she grew stronger. It was odd, she thought, how his presence both controlled and empowered her at the same time.
At Taser’s suggestion they moved inside to continue the conversation. Nicki made a move to take a seat next to Taser, but Sean tugged her down next to him. He refused to let go of her hand, even for a moment.
“Think of it as a transfer of sorts,” Taser said a while later, after he had outlined things. “Technically, you still belong to me - ” Sean growled audibly at this “- but your assignment is to assist the Ghost Team. Sean will be responsible for you during this time.”
“Don’t I get a say in this?”
“No.” Both men answered emphatically at once.
Nicki frowned. “For how long?”
“Indefinitely,” answered Taser, though it was Sean’s whispered answer she heard more clearly: “Forever.”
Nicki was quiet as her mind whirred along at the speed of light, trying to process everything she’d learned in the past hour. Talk about a mind-fuck. In her wildest dreams she wouldn’t have envisioned the direction this day would have taken. Hell, she hadn’t even expected to see another day. But something didn’t make sense.
“You’re outsourcing me. What do you get out of it?” Chameleons never worked with others outside of their own. It was one of their most basic rules of operation. They were spooks, and no one ever saw them in action.
“Besides getting you out of my hair? Lowering my blood pressure? Reducing my risk of stroke?”
“Yes,” she said through clenched teeth. “Besides that.”
Taser exchanged a look with Sean. “I get the cooperation and assistance of the Ghost Team when I need it.”
Nicki’s jaw dropped. As anal and exclusive as the Chameleons were, the Ghost Team was even more so. To be a member of that team was a blood right, outsiders definitely not welcome. A collaboration between the two? Unheard of. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Not kidding.”
She looked at Sean. “Why would you do this?”
His eyes blazed for a moment before they softened. His thumb made little circles over the back of her hand. “Don’t you know?”
Nicki suddenly felt paralyzing fear. He couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying, could he? “But the team – it’s all your brothers, too. Why would they...?” She left the question hang, blinking against the sudden moisture that seemed to be filling her eyes.
“Because,” he said, reaching into his pocket as he slid to bended knee. “Once you accept this, you become part of the family.” Nicki blinked furiously, certain that she was hallucinating. That couldn’t possibly be a diamond ring - the most perfect, clearest, most radiant diamond she’d ever seen, flanked by stunning blue sapphires on either side and set in antique white gold intricately carved with Celtic symbols.
She brought both hands up to her mouth and they quickly became soaked as her
tears poured freely over them. Her body shook involuntarily as she struggled for breath.
“Nicolette Milligan, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
It was too much. Way, way too much. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She tried to expand her lungs, and nothing happened. And then, for the first time in her life, Nicki Milligan fainted.
Chapter Twenty
“If I’d known that would shut her up, I would have tried it years ago.” Taser’s voice cut through the fog. She was lying on something soft; a bed, she realized. Her body listed to the side a bit, as if something heavy weighted that side of the bed. A human something if the heat it radiated was any indication. Something cool was draped over her forehead and eyes. She was grateful for that. It gave her a reason not to open her eyes and face them just yet.
“I don’t know, Wings. When a woman blacks out and pitches forward like that in response to a proposal, is it a good thing or a bad thing?” Taser laughed. From the sound of it, he was not the one sitting on the bed. “Maybe it was a swoon. Or maybe she found the idea of marrying you so horrifying her body locked down in self-defense.”
“Go ahead. Yuck it up, T-man. And I’ll do my best not to remind you of that pretty little senorita who had you by the short hairs in Honduras.”
Taser stopped laughing immediately. “You wouldn’t.”
“Don’t push me. I’ve got the scars, and Shane still has nightmares.”
Wait. Wings? T-man? They knew each other?
“Hey, I think she’s coming around,” Taser said. “I’m outta here, dude. Good luck. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Try not to level my cabin in the meantime, will you?”
Nicki didn’t hear him leave – Taser was the original spook – but she sensed that he had gone.
Sean lifted the corner of the cloth and found herself staring into two perfectly beautiful, crystal-blue eyes that crinkled when he smiled at her. “You okay?”
She blinked. “You know Taser,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
Sean sighed. “Timothy? Yeah, I know him. We went through BUD/S together, ended up in the same SEALs unit. Haven’t seen him in years. Now I’m thinking I should have shot him when I had the chance.”
She blinked again. “You knew? About me? About the Chameleons?”
“No,” he answered honestly. “It was Ian who figured it out. I didn’t know T was involved until negotiations began.”
“Negotiations?”
He put the cloth to the side and pushed a lock of hair from her face. “To get you back.” He spoke as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “Where were you hurt?”
Nicki blinked again. “Hurt?”
“That prick, Marscone. Where did he get you?”
“How did you - ”
“Mick picked up traces of your blood in the bedroom at the house.” At Nicki’s glare of disbelief, he shrugged and added, “He’s a genius.”
Nicki’s hand went to her abdomen. Sean lifted her top, his face hardening as he saw the angry red line beneath her navel extending from one side to the other. He seemed to grow right before her eyes, getting larger, harder, meaner. But when his fingers traced the line, his touch couldn’t have been gentler.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered huskily. “I should have protected you. I should have known.”
Nicki was floored. He was blaming himself for what happened? One look into his eyes and the pain she saw there confirmed it. In that moment, she completely lost the few remaining pieces of her heart, and she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, she was being given the opportunity of a lifetime. She sure as hell wasn’t going to waste it.
“Yes.”
“Yes what?” He looked at her with tormented eyes.
“Yes, I will marry you.”
Sean’s eyes darkened to that lovely sapphire she loved so much, the color that told her he was feeling especially strong about something. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
* * *
Sean’s heart exploded in his chest, so powerfully did her words affect him. He hadn’t realized until that point just how unsure he was of her answer. If she had said no it would not have stopped him from trying that much harder to get her to see the error of her ways, but it was much easier this way. She was his croie, he was hers, and they were meant to be together.
Suddenly she was in his arms. He needed to feel her, to hold her, to possess her until she was incapable of forgetting to whom she belonged. She’d said yes, agreed to become his wife. There would be no take-backs, no second thoughts.
She kissed him back so passionately it literally stole his breath away. His hands tangled in her hair as she gave him hers. When her heart pounded so forcefully against his chest, his rose to the occasion and matched hers, beat for beat.
“Mine,” he growled, dropping down to lave kisses down her jaw, nipping at the delicate skin on her neck and delighting in the little whimpers that escaped her. Her hands roamed restlessly through his hair, across his shoulders, up and down his arms as the rest of her body arched up, envious of the attention.
He licked her collarbone, and she shivered. What was it about this woman that tested his control so desperately? He realized she couldn’t care less as his hands found the neckline of her shirt. In one swift tug he tore it in two, baring her to him.
Sean growled against her chest, a deep, animal sound that made her whimper and thrust her breasts out in demand. “You are never to go braless around another man again,” he rasped, taking one stiff peak into his mouth. Nicki arched clear off the bed. Her response pleased him.
“You... don’t... own... me,” she breathed.
He stopped, pulling away with her nipple still between his teeth. “Yes,” he said, his voice deep and low. “I do. Just as you own me.”
“So,” she gasped, gripping his head and pressing him back to her, “you’ll stop wearing those wife-beaters around the garage?”
He chuckled against her breast. “Only for you, baby.”
Her nails raked against his scalp, over his shoulders, down his back, leaving trails of fire until he thought he would melt from the heat of it. He placed his hands reverently on her belly, gently kissing her scar. He already knew from Taser that Nicki was not pregnant; and, seeing the remains of the damage that had been inflicted, he was glad for it now. His children would grow here someday, but he could wait. He wasn’t quite ready to share her yet, anyway.
Sliding between her thighs, he hovered just enough to relieve her of her shorts. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. He removed his shirt, needing the direct contact with her silky warmth. Slowly, tenderly, he kissed the crease where her legs joined with her body. First one side, then the other, until he paused above her sex.
“I have dreamed of tasting you again,” he told her. “The hunger gnaws at me until I can barely stand it.” He dipped his head and gave her one long, slow lick between her folds.
Nicki moaned and fisted her hands in his hair. Another slow lick, and her heels pressed into his upper back coaxing him deeper. Sean was only too happy to oblige. He wrapped his arms beneath her legs and held her in place at the hips, burying himself in her sex from nose to chin.
She couldn’t move, pinned by his superior strength. He nibbled her sensitive spots, penetrated her with his tongue, licked her flesh until she couldn’t stand it anymore.
“I need to taste you, Sean,” she gasped. “Please, please, let me taste you, too...” Sean quickly removed the rest of his clothes. Then, in one smooth move, he lifted her up and twisted her so that his back lay on the bed and she was on top of him. Another deft maneuver and she straddled his face, her mouth poised above a very thick, engorged erection.
There would be no subtle seduction, not this time. He was okay with that. They had a lifetime for that. He needed her here, now.
She drew him into her mouth, sucking hard and fast, putting her hands to immediate use. She stroked the base in rhythm with her lips and tongue, fondling his
balls and tugging gently.
Sean sensed her rapidly rising climax, doubling his efforts. Licking, sucking, nipping until she could hold out no more, shattering with a heart wrenching cry of his name.
Sean pinned her to him, extending her orgasm as long as possible while trying to contain his own. When he was satisfied that he had wrung as much from her as he could, he released his iron grip and lifted her. She fought him like a little tigress, unwilling to relinquish him.
As much as he loved her sweet mouth, he needed something else. “Baby, please,” he pleaded. “I need to be inside you.”
She growled, and had he not been so consumed with desire he might have laughed at the very perfection of it. She gave him one last long, lingering pull that nearly did him in before rotating on his chest.
“Ride me, woman,” he commanded, lifting her above his straining erection. She obeyed instantly, without hesitation. She placed her hands on his chest and impaled herself upon him so forcefully he sucked air between his teeth and cursed. For a moment she remained suspended, letting her body adjust to his generous girth and length.
Then she looked down at him and smiled wickedly. “Mine,” she told him, lifting slowly, contracting her inner muscles as she did so, erotically milking his cock until only the tip remained inside her.
His eyes widened; his hands gripped her hips as her nails curled into him. Then she slammed down again, another perfectly executed impalement, using the speed and force to rob him of his breath.
“Jesus, baby, that is so fucking good,” he moaned as her slow, squeezing ascent had him drawing blood from his bottom lip.
“Don’t fight me, baby,” she crooned, her voice low and feral. “Give me what I want.”
Another swift penetration, so thorough he felt the entrance to her cervix. “Take it,” he choked out. “Ah, God, baby, just take it before you kill me. It’s so good... it’s so fucking good...”
Seeking Vengeance: Callaghan Brothers, Book 4 Page 19
