Elite Ops Complete Series

by Lora Leigh

  Kira watched as Micah picked one of the eight-by-ten black-and-white pictures that had been snapped of Risa during their surveillance of her in the past week. Black-and-white did nothing to compliment her, but Micah’s expression was…entranced?

  “Her eyes sparkle when she finds a reason to be happy,” he murmured. “And even saddened, there’s a light in them that assures me she will fight to live.” He touched the face in the photo. “Why do you think she doesn’t see herself as pretty?” He lifted his gaze back to Kira as he frowned. “Her smile is filled with warmth, and even in these pictures you can see the need for laughter, for passion, lighting her features.” He tossed the picture back to the table. “How could a father be so vile, Kira? So evil?”

  Kira almost smiled. When she looked at that picture, she saw it, too. She saw the life on Risa’s face that Micah had picked up on. She saw the curiosity in Risa’s eyes; she saw the latent passion. She had missed it all before, and seeing it gave the girl a prettiness that couldn’t be denied.

  Hell. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder; she had always heard that. In this case, perhaps it was more true than she had ever known.

  CHAPTER 7

  NIGHTFALL CAME too soon. Risa had never realized how much she’d hated the earlier winter nights until that night. When she was faced with the prospect of getting ready to go to bed with Micah.

  She couldn’t do it. Every time she thought of it, she remembered being in his bed the night before, and that farce it had turned into.

  But it was dark. She always went to bed early. She got up early. If she managed to sleep at all. Last night, she hadn’t slept, and her body was demanding rest.

  Her mind was another matter entirely.

  “You’re worrying too much,” he stated as she found herself staring at her computer screen, the numbers in the accounting program blending in front of her eyes. “You’re tired, Risa. Get ready and go on to bed. I’ll come in later.”

  She hated that tone. That compassionate let’s-pamper-the-baby tone. She didn’t need him to pamper or patronize her.

  She turned slowly in her chair and glared at him. He was sitting back on her couch as though he owned it, the television blaring some news program as those black eyes flicked over her body before coming back to her face.

  As though he was remembering the night before. How did he remember it? she wondered. As the total failure it had been on her part?

  “Why would I want to do that?” she asked carefully. “It’s barely ten.”

  His lips seemed to thin. God, those lips were so gorgeous, and they could kiss like a dream. Like a particularly hot, wicked, sensual dream. She knew. His lips had been on hers, licking at her lips, nipping at them. He had kissed her as though he had meant to devour her.

  “You’re so exhausted, you’re close to falling asleep at the computer.” He frowned back at her. “You should be well aware by now that I’m not going to hurt you. Sleeping in the bed with me won’t be nearly so traumatic as fucking me in one, surely.”

  Her face flushed. Risa felt the rise of red-hot color washing over her features as she stared back at him in furious amazement.

  “That was completely uncalled for.” She jumped from her seat, outraged. “If you can’t keep a civil tongue in your mouth, then don’t speak.”

  She fell back on her grandmother’s antiquated superiority. God, was she so lacking that she couldn’t even bear hearing the word from his lips? Fucking. They had fucked. He had fucked her. She wanted to cover her ears in the hopes of blotting out the thoughts. Because she didn’t find it nearly as distasteful as she wanted to. The implications of the word brought to mind the sweaty, slick movements of their bodies together. Her cries. His groans. The touch of his hands, the thrust of his cock inside her.

  She nearly had to clench her thighs together to hold back the overpowering lust.

  Whore’s Dust, was it? She couldn’t imagine it. Nothing had felt so natural as wanting Micah.

  “You go to bed if you’re so tired,” she finally snapped. “I’ll be in later.”

  He grinned. That sensually full, mobile mouth curved into a grin of sheer male confidence and superiority. The kind of grin she had seen her friends’ husbands give their wives when they were determined to get their way.

  “I’m very tired,” he informed her. “A little minx kept me up well past my bedtime last night, then skipped out on me and forced me to follow after her. I stared into her window like a lovesick Romeo pining for her attention.”

  “Or a covert agent hoping she hadn’t managed to get herself kidnapped before you could capture her murderer,” she snarled back in reply. “Orion matters so much to you that you were willing to fuck someone you didn’t even know to get to him?”

  His brow arched. “Such language, Risa.” Amusement glittered in his black eyes. “Be careful. You’re liable to give me a hard-on talking that way. I’d be extremely uncomfortable sleeping if you did.”

  She almost lost her breath at the thought. Micah, aroused, in her bed. A shiver worked up her spine before she managed to turn away from him and stomp to the window on the opposite side of the room.

  She stared into the park across from the apartment building, fighting to make sense of her response to him rather than any other man.

  Not that there had been men to choose from, unfortunately. But Micah was like the epitome of men. Look in the dictionary for “male” and there most certainly would be a picture of him staring back.

  He was tall, dark-skinned. Jeans hugged his ass. A white cotton shirt emphasized his leanly muscled shoulders. And he wore boots. He was wearing boots. Cowboy boots that were well worn, faded, and scarred. The perfect kind of bad-boy boots.

  “Risa.”

  She jumped as his face joined hers in the glass of the window; then his hands fell on her shoulders as he pulled her back, allowing the curtain to fall into place once again.

  Risa shuddered at the warmth of his hands even as she pulled herself away from him and turned to glare at him.

  “What?”

  He watched her, his eyes no longer amused, but somber instead.

  “You should stay away from the curtains,” he said. “A direct line of sight will allow certain devices to hear anything you’re saying. The heavy curtains over the windows and the interference of the television would otherwise block it.”

  Oh.

  She stared at the television, then back to the window as dismay washed over her. She’d spent so much time in a perpetual shadow during the months she had been in the clinic. She loved the sunlight. She loved having it shine through clean windows and brighten the rooms that she lived within. Just as she loved staring into the black velvet night as well.

  “I see.” She hugged her arms over her breasts before turning away from him once again. “I’ll go shower. Or something.”

  She wanted to sit in the middle of the floor and start wailing in fury. Where was it fair? She had endured enough; she didn’t need a killer adding to the nightmares she already knew.

  “Risa.” His hands gripped her shoulders again, this time refusing to allow her to jerk away. “We’re going to keep you safe. I promise.”

  “Of course you will,” she said faintly. Did she have any other choice but to believe it? “Tell me, Micah, has he ever failed?”

  She knew he hadn’t. The man the federal attorney had told her about was nothing short of a perfect assassin. He had never been caught. He had never been identified. He had never failed to kill the person he had been hired to kill.

  “His past has nothing to do with our present. We know who he’s after; wherever he gets his information whenever he’s investigating a victim won’t know about us. We’re not a part of any government, nor are we part of a traceable agency. He’ll see us as a nominal threat. When he makes his move, we’ll be here, and we’ll capture him.”

  His hands kneaded her shoulders, his head lowered until his lips were so close. Until she could almost taste them.

 
“And then what?” She shook her head against the rising need. “Someone else takes his place?”

  “Then he’ll talk.”

  Risa almost flinched at the icy tone of his voice. Pure menace glittered in his eyes.

  Her lips parted, and she almost believed he would.

  “You’ll kill him before he can talk,” she whispered, suddenly knowing that whoever or whatever Orion was, Micah hated him with a passion that most would reserve for love.

  But he shook his head. “No.” His thumb touched her lips. “I won’t kill him until I know who threatens you. Then yes,” the word hissed between clenched teeth. “Oh yes, Risa. Then, I promise you, I’ll kill Orion, then I’ll kill the bastard who dared to think he could continue to torment you.”

  She didn’t have to tear herself away from him this time. He stepped away. The shadows on his face gave him an almost cruel, faintly savage look. A foreign look, for just a space of a moment.

  Risa swallowed tightly.

  “Go shower,” he told her, his back to her as he headed for the kitchen. “It’s nearly bedtime.” He stopped at the doorway and turned back to her. “And you will learn to sleep with me, starting tonight. If by chance he manages to get into this apartment to lay another listening device, then there will be no doubt in his mind that you’re not sharing a bed with me. There will be no doubt in any man’s mind, Risa, whose woman you are.”

  MICAH WATCHED the widening of her eyes before he turned and moved into the kitchen. He paced to the sink, ran a glass of water, and drank it down as though the fire that raged inside him could be quenched so damned easily.

  It couldn’t be. Lust for Risa. Hatred so overwhelming it was barely contained for Orion.

  His jaw clenched as an image flashed before his eyes. His mother, so delicate, so white. She’d been bled dry, her wrists slashed. And she would have suffered. Orion had stripped her of her clothes and of her life, but he hadn’t stripped her of her dignity. Of all his victims, only Micah’s mother had been found with her eyes closed, a serene expression on her face.

  Knowing she had died as she had lived gave Micah no comfort, though. Ariela Abijah had been the epitome of female strength. It had been in her eyes, in the way she held her head, in her love for her husband, her son, and her country.

  His fingers dug into the counter as he gripped the edge with lethal force. He imagined Orion’s neck there, feeling the life slowly ease from his body. Watching his eyes. The hatred that filled Micah couldn’t be contained. It burned like a black flame inside his soul, corrupting it. Staining it with the dark emotion.

  Then, the image of that faceless enemy was erased. Instead, Micah saw Risa’s image. He saw her as they danced, her expression filled with wonder as she experienced her first taste of passion. Her face flushed with lust, her blue eyes darkening with it as she fought to reach her orgasm, then pulled herself back from the brink.

  He saw her, so filled with a quiet beauty that asked for nothing. He saw the strength in her beautiful eyes, the struggle to survive, the determination to fill her life with more than nightmares.

  His head lowered as he grimaced at the hunger that rose inside him, as fast, as hard, perhaps more so than the hatred he had for Orion.

  He had believed nothing could be as all-consuming as his need to kill that bastard. But he had learned in the past twenty-four hours that something could rise inside him with the same force and knock him on his ass.

  Lust. A hunger for one woman, not just any woman, a need for Risa that bit into his balls like sharp teeth and left him almost shaking in his need to touch her.

  And tonight, he would be sleeping with her.

  He reached up to wipe the sweat from his brow at the thought of that.

  He was going to have to slide into that bed beside her, sleep beside her, and hold back his lust. Because if he didn’t, he could very well ruin the delicate plan he was laying in place for her. Something far different from using her to catch his.

  No, Micah wanted Risa for much more than the fact that she was the only lead they had to Orion. He wanted her because her warmth reached into him. For the first time in his life, someone had touched a part of his soul that he didn’t know existed. A part reserved solely for her.

  His father had once told him that every man knew when he found his mate. That one woman who could change a man simply because he loved her. Whether he could actually have her wouldn’t matter, Garren Abijah had warned Micah. What would matter was that loving her, knowing her, would make him a better man.

  He feared Risa would be the one woman whom walking away from would destroy the man he was now. He sensed it, like a wolf sensed his mate. Like the flower sensed the sunlight. Like a dead man sensed his ultimate destruction, he thought darkly.

  Because he couldn’t have her, not forever. She would never carry the false name he had taken, she would never know what they could have had, because he could never let her know of the feelings that rose inside him whenever he saw her.

  He hadn’t just seen her last night.

  No, he had seen her before. Many times. Leaving her friends’ homes as he was arriving in the past year or so. The few times he had gone out of his way to find her during the times he had worried that he hadn’t seen her in a while.

  Yeah, he’d done that a time or two. Watched for her. Waiting for her. Always knowing, like a damned buck in rut, whenever she was near.

  He pushed his fingers through his hair and blew out a hard, weary breath. He was damned tired himself, and sleeping next to her tempting heat was going to be hard.

  “Hard” didn’t come close to describing it. And even worse? Damned if he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  He took a moment to adjust his stiff cock in his jeans before moving around the apartment. He checked the door and the dead bolts, then the windows. The security system the apartment used was state of the art, but John and Nik had added a bit before Micah arrived at the apartment with Risa.

  The advanced electronics now installed would detect a fly if it managed to slip past the seal.

  Pursing his lips, he blew out another silent breath before he headed for the bedroom door. She’d finished her shower long minutes before. She was either in the bed or hiding in the bathroom attempting to come up with an argument that would keep him out of her bed.

  There was no argument sane enough, he thought. Because the hunger to sleep next to her wasn’t in any way logical.

  He opened the door, his eyes quickly adjusting to the dim room and finding her shape in the bed.

  Closing the door behind him, he moved to the bed and sat gingerly on the mattress to pull off his boots.

  “You didn’t get your pajamas,” she informed him, her voice trembling a bit.

  Micah closed his eyes. Did she have any clue how much he hated doing this to her? Could she sense in any way his reluctance to frighten her, or to force her to face her demons?

  “I don’t sleep in pajamas, sweet,” he said quietly as the last boot dropped to the floor and he picked it up to set it next to the other before pulling off his socks.

  Rising to his feet, he shucked his jeans and underwear first, then his shirt.

  “I don’t think I can do this.” She sounded breathless but not frightened. She sounded aroused, and fighting it oh, so hard.

  “Do you have a choice?” He didn’t give her time to think.

  Flipping back the sheet and comforter, he moved into the bed beside her, almost grinning at the small amount of space the bed afforded both of them.

  He pulled the sheet over his hips, adjusted the pillow, and closed his eyes. He didn’t have to see her to sense her. He didn’t have to look at her to feel the warmth of her body next to him.

  She was stiff, silent. Micah could feel the tension moving around her, and that tension would keep her from sleeping.

  “Are you so frightened of me, Risa?” he asked quietly. “After last night, isn’t there some semblance of trust that will allow you to share this bed with me? Someth
ing that tells you I would lay down my own life before I’d harm yours?”

  There was nothing, no one, that could convince him to harm her. That could make him further wound the spirit that fought so desperately to survive within her.

  “It’s not a matter of trust,” she finally whispered into the darkness.

  “Then what’s it a matter of?” He turned to her then, letting his hand uncurl, allowing his fingers to curve over her hip despite the flinch that jerked through her body. “Tell me, Risa. Why deny yourself when you don’t have to?”

  She was still and silent, her breathing jerky.

  “Because,” she finally whispered. “The night will come that you won’t be here any longer. And then I’ll have to face reality rather than the illusion. And I don’t think I want to face either.”

  Strangely enough, he understood that comment. The reality that he would leave, the illusion that he could stay. Yes, facing either would hurt them both. But Micah was a man who never allowed himself illusion. He knew only the reality, and the reality involved one simple fact.

  “Memories can warm you in the cold of the night,” he told her softly. “I know this well, sweet. If you want to make those memories, you have only to let me know.”

  SHE HAD ONLY to let him know.

  Risa stared into the darkness for several more long moments before she turned slowly to her side, feeling his hand lift, only to return to the opposite hip as she faced him.

  There was a sliver of light falling from the bathroom, just enough to make out his shadowed features. He was just as roughly handsome in the dark as he was in the light. His strong jaw was clearly defined, the fullness of his lower lip prominent despite the thinner, brooding upper curve.

  And he had the rasp of a beard covering his face.

  She wanted to touch it, yet she was too frightened. She wanted to run her fingers over it, feel it against her palm.