by Lora Leigh
If Jordan weren’t being so fucking stubborn, she would have made just as strong an agent for the Elite Ops.
Shaking his head at the thought, he flipped open his cell phone and hit the secure line into headquarters.
“Morgan’s Meats,” Jordan answered on the first ring as John activated the added scrambler on his phone.
“Activate Black Jack,” John stated. “We’re moving.”
He cut the line before it could be traced or descrambled. To this point, he hadn’t needed backup, or hadn’t considered it important. If Warbucks was getting ready to move, then he wanted Travis in place. As his bodyguard, Travis wouldn’t be considered a threat or unknown. And if this was getting to move, then John would feel more comfortable with the knowledge that there was someone else watching Bailey’s back as well.
She might not be certain that he was Trent yet, but she wasn’t far from it. And the problem with that was, he knew he was slipping in front of her. Slipping in ways she couldn’t miss. It was almost instinctive, as if a part of him needed her to know, even though realistically he knew she would only end up hurt in the end. God knew, he didn’t want to see her hurt more.
Breathing out wearily at the problems he was facing, he turned and headed out to meet her. She looked like a fairy princess with the snow falling around her and hair lying about her shoulders like a cape.
He needed to be with her. Denying himself the pleasure of her warmth was more than he was capable of. He needed the memories when this was over. If he had to walk away from her or, God forbid, he didn’t survive this mission, then he wanted her to know he’d given her every part of himself while he could.
Moving down the stairs, he snagged his long leather jacket from the foyer closet and headed to the back of the house. Wide French doors led to the gardens and the snowy wonderland that awaited there.
He loved the snow, even the cold sometimes. Shrugging on the heavy leather coat, he moved through the massing snow, following the dim prints of her footsteps, moving deeper into the gardens toward the gazebo where she had been heading. The shelter was as large as some rooms, surrounded by latticework.
Stepping up to the doorway, he watched as she sat on the cushioned bench and stared at the open fireplace that sat in the middle of the structure.
A blaze leapt hungrily at the logs she had laid fuel to, illuminating her thoughtful face as she curled into the corner of the wide seat.
She wore a long, heavy sweater over her jeans and cashmere top. Heat radiated from the fireplace, painting a golden hue over her as her head lifted and her gaze met his.
They hadn’t discussed much other than the mission at hand since the morning before. She’d almost avoided him otherwise and she’d definitely avoided any references whatsoever to anything more personal than how to conduct themselves once they were back in the public eye.
“We have a party tomorrow night,” she told him as he stepped into the shelter. “Stephen Menton-Squire had invitations issued this morning. I received one by text. It’s formal—most of them are. His Winter Ball. His wife, Josephine, was one of my mother’s best friends. Her and Janice Waterstone.”
“Your mother enjoyed throwing parties as well,” he stated. “Your file is filled with references to her charities and the newsworthy balls she hosted.”
A small smile tugged at her lips. “Mother always grasped the opportunity to squeeze out donations to her favorite charities. Her parties were mere excuses to draw the most moneyed of her acquaintances into one place and ply them with good liquor or champagne. Then, while their defenses were down, she would sweet-talk them like the southern belle she was.”
He grinned at the thought. Her mother had been known as a kind, gracious lady who didn’t mind getting her hands in the dirt if she had to. She had planted the gardens here herself, working with a few landscapers for the heavier projects, but her hands had helped shape it.
“Mother was an angel,” she said softly. “Everyone loved her.”
Especially her daughter.
“I often wonder if the man who hired Orion to kill them gave any thought to what they were doing to someone who had most likely cared for him,” she said softly. “My mother knew the men we’re looking at, she was friends with their wives, their children called her Auntie Angie. She would have had him at her dinner table. She would have kissed his cheek and smiled at him the night she was killed.”
Benjamin and Angelina Serborne had died in a crash after leaving a party Ford Grace had hosted.
“You’re convinced it’s Ford, aren’t you?” he asked as he moved to sit beside her.
She rubbed at her forehead wearily. “He had the most reason. I didn’t know until after I returned home that Father even kept a journal. I was going through his things when I found several of them in a hidden safe that only myself and my parents knew about. The last week he was alive there were several references in his journal to business dealings he’d had with the four men we’re investigating. There was something shady about them, he noted. The last entry was titled ‘Who the Hell Is Warbucks?’ ”
He slid her a surprised look. “You haven’t told anyone else about this?”
She shook her head as she stared down at her hands in her lap. “Father never believed that any of his friends could possibly be a killer. I’ve always suspected Ford had his wife and daughter killed. Father and I argued about it often and loudly. He never believed me.”
“But you were certain,” he said.
“His wife was leaving him, and Anna went with her. Ford used to hit them. The last time, he beat them severely. Mathilda was trying to protect her daughter, and they were murdered as they tried to escape. Who else would have reason to kill them?”
“There was no evidence they had been murdered,” he pointed out. “The official report is that the car skidded on ice.”
“There hadn’t been snow for weeks.” She sighed as she leaned back and stared up at him. “Orion’s handler confirmed to me that he’d been hired for the hit.”
“Did you ask him about your parents?” He watched her more closely now. He knew she’d made contact with the handler; he hadn’t known how in-depth that contact had been.
She shook her head. “I haven’t been able to find him. Someone hid him, and they hid him well.”
John knew exactly where the handler was, and he made a mental note to get the answer to that question. If Ben Serborne had somehow suspected who Warbucks was, then Orion would have been called in. It made sense. Just as it was beginning to make sense why Orion had been given orders not to kill Bailey.
Until she became a personal risk, she was still a part of a very elite group. A group known for its loyalty to one another. Once it was proven that Bailey would strike against them, then she would be in danger as well. If they didn’t identify and eliminate Warbucks during this mission, then she would never be safe again.
“Would he have confronted Warbucks without letting you know something was wrong?” John asked curiously.
“Of course he would have.” Her smile was sad. “Father would have never told me, because he knew I would have done something about it. He hated my job and the danger involved in it. It was something else we fought about.”
As John knew he would protect his own daughter if he ever had one.
“Your father was on to Warbucks, then. It would make sense. He was a closely knit part of the group. They could have been courting his membership if it’s a group, or his help if its an individual.”
“Or he could have been checking into something himself,” she breathed out roughly. “Father was an armchair investigator. He loved solving puzzles and he was incredibly nosy. He could have become curious about the wrong thing, or the wrong person. Which makes more sense.”
John could hear the grief in her voice, the need for answers, for vengeance.
“Warbucks has stolen so much from me,” she went on. “My dearest friend. Anna and I were like sisters. My parents.” She shook her head. “Trent.�
� Her gaze deepened as she stared back at him. “I can’t let this go, not until I find him. I won’t let it go.”
He reached out to touch her cheek, needing a connection to her, to comfort her. She had no idea how deeply she was entrenched in his heart.
“He won’t take anything more from you,” he promised, hearing the roughness in his own voice, the need. “I won’t let him, Bailey.”
It was a promise he meant to keep, even though realistically, he knew it could be beyond his own control.
She shook her head at the promise. “Tell me, John, what happens when this mission is over?”
“What do you mean?” He had a bad feeling he knew exactly what she meant.
She moved then, slowly, sinuously, like a lazy cat shifting in the sun until she was moving over him, straddling his lap as he leaned back, his hands cupping her ass until he could grind her against the hard length of his cock beneath his jeans.
“What happens when we’ve identified Warbucks and neutralized him?” She leaned forward and touched her lips to his. “You’ll leave.” It wasn’t a question. “You’ll ride off into the sunset and the next time I see you I probably won’t even know who you are. I’ll look for you in every man I meet. In every kiss I share with another. Because you can’t stay, can you?”
He stared back at her, wishing he could deny it.
“Warbucks will have taken you away from me. Because of him, you came here, to me. And once he’s gone, there will be no reason for you to be here any longer.”
Because the mission would be over. Because he had sold his soul for vengeance against the shadowy traitor.
“Don’t.” She laid her fingers against his lips as he started to speak. “No promises, John. I don’t want any. All I want is the truth. I don’t want to ever believe in something I can’t have again.”
He moved her fingers from his lips, gripped the back of her head, and pulled her to him as he took in a kiss as gentle as the soft fall of snow outside the shelter that surrounded them.
It was like being surrounded by a dreamscape. A moment out of time that existed for them alone. Here, no one could touch them, nothing could threaten them. Right here, they were simply a man and a woman, aching, needing. There was no past, no future, only the present.
“You deserve better,” he whispered as he brushed his lips over hers, then sipped at them delicately.
“I deserve what I want.” She sighed, a hint of desperation filling her voice and cutting at his soul. “I want you, John. Here. Now.”
With the firelight flickering over her, he could imagine her naked, stretched across the lush cushions of the bench, her naked body warm and inviting. The image was so strong his cock jerked in his pants, becoming so hard, so tight, it was agony.
Gripping her back he turned until she was lying back against the cushion. He lifted one leg, unlaced her boot, and removed it before taking off its mate.
Her feet were slender and delicate, the nails painted a rich, lush berry red to match her fingernails.
Lifting one, he kissed the tips of her toes, watched her eyes flare, then moved to the arch. Her feet were incredibly sensitive. He remembered that from the night they had spent in Australia. How her foot flexed, as it did now, and a low moan whispered from her lips.
That moan struck his senses like a match to gasoline, flaming through his body and erupting like a starburst in his balls. He was nearly coming in his jeans just from stroking her arch with his lips.
Lowering her leg, his fingers moved to the clasp of her jeans, released it, and slowly lowered the zipper. He wanted to undress her slowly, to bare each bit of flesh to his gaze like the most special present.
Leaving her jeans loosened but still in place, he moved to the sweater. Lifting her, he pulled her arms from the sleeves, left the cashmere beneath her, then pulled her shirt from her.
Her breasts were unbound, golden from the light tan she carried, her nipples hard and cherry red. John licked his lips with the need to taste her, to draw that delicate, tempting fruit into his mouth with greedy hunger.
As he drew back, he watched in amazement as her hands lifted. She cupped her breast, her fingers gripping the hard points of her nipples as her hips arched and her face flushed with arousal.
“You’re so damned beautiful,” he groaned as he practically tore the leather coat from his shoulders and tossed it aside.
He jerked at the buttons of his jeans, tearing the metal disks from their moorings before jerking his own shirt over his head without bothering to unbutton it.
He could feel the sweat beading on his forehead as she moaned with lush hunger and caressed the tight buds of her breasts.
“Feel good?” he asked her roughly.
“Not as good as your hands.” She sighed in longing. “Do you like watching me?”
“God, I love watching you,” he groaned. “I could watch you for hours.”
A sensual smile twisted her lips as one hand lowered from her breast, her fingers trailed down her abdomen. John watched hungrily, with mounting excitement, as those delicate fingers pressed beneath the jean material, moving for the sweet, wet flesh beyond.
He gripped the waist of her jeans and pulled them over her hips. He nearly lost what was left of his mind as he watched her fingers circling the damp bud of her clit. The glistening little pearl peeked between the folds of her pussy, gleaming with arousal as she rubbed at it, stroked it.
He managed to get the denim off her legs, jerked a condom from his back pocket, thanking God that he’d pushed one in there earlier, just in case.
Oh yes, he remembered how sweet and hot Bailey could get. How many times in Australia had he missed out on that sweetness because he hadn’t been prepared?
Rising to his feet, he toed his boots from his feet and stripped his jeans, barely aware of the chill in the air as the heat from the fireplace licked over his flesh and the heat of lust licked inside him.
As he lowered himself to one knee between her spread thighs, his gaze was glued to the journey her fingers were making from the tight bud of her clit to the slick entrance beyond.
He could barely breathe for the need striking inside him. His muscles were clenched from the effort to hold on to his control as he watched, his fingers massaging the muscles of her thighs as he watched her fingertips sink inside the delicate opening.
“Beautiful,” he whispered, his voice guttural.
Pulling her fingers back, her juices glistening on the tips, he watched as she lifted them and stroked her lips.
Lust tore through him like a punch to his gut as he watched her juices glisten on her lips a second before her tongue swiped over the lush curves.
He could barely breathe now. He could feel the need for oxygen tearing at his chest as he panted, fighting to retain the mental capacity to hold on to his control.
His fingers were shaking as he tore open the condom and worked it over his cock. The flesh was so swollen it was painful, so hard it was like iron. The need to thrust inside her was a primitive, primal response that he could barely hold back.
Leaning over her he licked over her lips, moaning at the sweet taste as he let his fingers move between her thighs to tangle with hers. He stroked the silken flesh to feel the heat of her. He dipped his fingers into the tight entrance, stroked and caressed her as her hips arched to him and her moans filled his ears.
Her fingers gripped his wrist while her thighs fell farther apart, welcoming his fingers into her as a strangled cry tore from her chest.
She was burning alive beneath him. Sweet and hot, stealing his mind as he fought to hold back. Just a few more minutes. Dear God, just enough to imprint the memory of this into his mind forever.
BAILEY STARED UP AT JOHN, watched the firelight flicker over the dark, savage features of his face, and felt her heart expanding in her chest. There was nothing so sexy, so completely filled with driving lust and sensual excitement as this man.
As he kissed the arch of her foot, she saw Trent. As his lips
grew heavy, his gaze flickered with need, and his expression tightened in the lines of a man intent on mating, she saw the lover she had thought was dead forever.
This was Trent, yet he wasn’t Trent. He was different, harder, hungrier, but still the same man she had loved for five long, lonely years.
A part of her was crying out in joy, another part filling with pain. He was alive. He hadn’t died. He had deserted her instead.
No matter the pain, she couldn’t pull away from him. This memory, this short time spent with him was all she was going to have. She couldn’t bring herself to make him stop. She couldn’t bring herself to deny him.
As his lips came to hers in a kiss filled with passion and torrential need and his fingers began to slide inside her, filling her, stretching her, she knew that a part of her would always belong to him. A part of her would never let go of the lover who had stolen her heart so long ago.
“You make me insane to have you,” he groaned against her lips as she arched closer, driving his fingers deeper inside her.
“Not insane enough,” she panted. “You’re not taking me.”
“Are you sure?” Two blunt male fingers thrust inside her, sliding through the slick juices that eased from her pussy and pushing past clenching, desperate tissue.
“Oh God. John.” She was ready to scream out in need. It wasn’t enough. She needed more of him. She needed all of him.
His fingers weren’t enough, his kiss wasn’t enough.
As his lips moved from hers to her jaw, her neck, and then lower to her breasts, she could feel her temperature rising, the need growing inside her to an inferno level. Her hips arched closer as his fingers began to fuck inside her with steady strokes and his lips closed over a too-sensitive nipple.
The suckling heat of his mouth, the lash of his tongue against her nipple, and the smooth, driving strokes of his fingers fucking inside her were too much. The pitch of excitement was rising, growing to a degree that she couldn’t bear the sensations. Her stomach contracted, her muscles tightened and she could feel her orgasm growing, just out of reach.
