Elite Ops Complete Series

by Lora Leigh

  Touching him, being touched by him, feeling the first orgasm of her life that she hadn’t given herself, would destroy her now. Because she knew what it could be. She knew what she was losing, and it would haunt her every day of her life.

  “I need some time.” She swallowed tightly realizing his sense of responsibility wouldn’t allow him to leave her alone otherwise.

  “I can give you time.” He nodded slowly. “But not indefinitely, Tehya. The day will come soon when we’ll talk about this.”

  No, it wouldn’t. When the transportation team arrived to haul away her belongings, she would already be gone. She couldn’t stay here, couldn’t bear to see him, even another moment. If she didn’t leave before morning came, then she would beg. And God knew, she didn’t want to beg for a love he couldn’t give her.

  “Of course we will.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and turned away from him as she moved to the open kitchen. “We’ll talk.”

  They wouldn’t talk, because there was nothing for them to talk about.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” he stated.

  And Tehya nodded. It was another lie. They wouldn’t talk in the morning, he wouldn’t see her in the morning, because she wouldn’t be here.

  She didn’t hear him move, she felt him move. She felt him coming closer to her and tensed, knowing that the connection to him would be severed forever once she walked out of the base.

  It was just over. There were no more chances to capture his heart.

  She had failed. The most important dream she had ever had, and she had failed.

  His hands settled on her shoulders, his hold implacable as he turned her until he could pull her against his chest.

  “I should have never touched you, Tey,” he whispered as his lips brushed against her hair. “You’re too important to me to lose you this way.”

  Her teeth clenched. She was going to lose it. Tears thickened her throat, pooled in her eyes. The agony racing through her was tearing her apart second by second until her heart felt like a ragged wound in her chest. She wanted to scream, to cry, to beg, and she thanked God her pride held her back.

  “It wouldn’t have changed anything,” she informed him, amazed that she could speak, that she could breathe through the pain. “Just go away, Jordan. I’ll have it all together in the morning and we’ll forget it ever happened.”

  She would never forget it. She had thought that if she could force him to admit he wanted her, she would have a chance at his heart. She had never imagined it would become one night only. What a childishly romantic thought. She of all people should know better than to believe in fairy tales.

  “Tehya.” The grimace that tightened his face broke her heart.

  That expression said it all. The tightening of his lips, the chill in his eyes. Dealing with her emotions, dealing with the fact that she had expected more, was a duty he’d rather be well rid of, no matter what he said.

  She should have been thankful he had allowed her on the team. She, the daughter of the enemy who had murdered his friend, who had been instrumental in nearly destroying his nephew. She might have killed Sorrel, but she still had his blood. She was still his daughter. And she should have known Jordan would have never been able to love someone so closely related to such an enemy.

  “We’ll talk in the morning.” Her voice was thicker. She was so close to crying it was humiliating. In that moment she hated the emotions that raged through her. She wished she could be hard, cold, that she could feel only that twinge of regret that she didn’t have the emotional capacity to care for anyone outside friendship as he did.

  She watched as his head turned, his jaw tightened. Then he gave a brief, hard nod before striding to the door.

  “We will discuss this in the morning,” he informed her, then opened the door and left the suite.

  And then the tears fell.

  The sob that tore from her shocked her. She’d been certain she could hold it in. Her knees weakened to the point that she nearly fell to the floor as her hands pressed tight and hard into the clenching muscles of her stomach.

  The emotional pain hurt worse than a bullet.

  She could feel the ragged, gaping hole in her chest where her heart had once been, and the agony of it was a horrible realization. She felt as though she were dying inside. As though a part of her soul were being ripped away from her.

  She hadn’t thought it would hurt this bad.

  She hadn’t imagined it would be this hard to face.

  Returning to the bedroom, she quickly dressed in jeans, T-shirt, boots. A leather jacket was thrown over the duffel bag she had packed in the closet. A smaller backpack sat next to it.

  The moving team had the address and instructions for handling her belongings. They would be stored for the time being, because she had no place to go.

  All she knew was that there was no way she could face Jordan when morning came. That the ragged pain in her chest would only turn to anger, and she didn’t want the love to turn to hatred.

  There was nothing left to do but to leave before she was forced to face him again. Before she could push him again, before she could plead with him to love her, beg him to tell her why he didn’t.

  Before she broke down completely and a lifetime of pain and grief overwhelmed her.

  How silly of her to believe he could love her when no one else ever had.

  *

  Jordan knew Tehya was gone the second he entered her suite. There was such a sense of emptiness, of abandonment, that it was unmistakable. The effect it had on him was undeniable.

  She was gone.

  His chest tightened with a ragged pain that had his teeth clenching, his fingers fisting. The need to hit something tore through him, nearly overwhelming his self-control.

  A violent, bitter curse escaped his lips before he could cut off the sound.

  Breathing out a weary sigh, he shoved his hands in his pockets and moved through the large set of rooms anyway. Just to be certain.

  If she had taken anything with her, it wasn’t much. Perhaps a few changes of clothes, he thought as he checked the closet, only to see stacked boxes within them marked “Clothes.” He found the same thing throughout the rest of the suite. Boxes neatly packed, closed and taped. Tehya’s life reduced to less than a quarter of the capacity of the moving van arriving to relocate her.

  He found himself swallowing tightly, his throat oddly blocked at the realization of how little Tehya had amassed over the years. Unlike the other agents, she had no secondary home, no family to go back to, no other house in which to store her belongings. She’d had nothing but the Elite Ops.

  And now, she had no one.

  A hard grimace contorted his face before he could control it, a result of the hard ache that clenched his chest. Fuck, he missed her already. Her laughter, her shy smiles, her almost innocent sensuality and affection for him.

  He should have never taken her. Or perhaps, after taking her he should have taken her again, and again. until she was too tired to run

  Turning, he strode from the suite and headed for the garage area, wondering which vehicle she had taken.

  Standing in front of the empty slot where his favorite had sat, he almost grinned. She had chosen the black Viper over the many more expensive performance vehicles available. His favorite. The one he had driven more often and had claimed over the years.

  Had she taken the Viper because it was the only part of him she could leave with?

  She had taken much more with her than she guessed. Already he could feel the empty ache, the dark, brutal core of unrequited need throbbing in his soul.

  But she was alive, he told himself as that ache threatened to roll over to grief. She wasn’t in his life, but she had a chance to have a life now. A chance to live rather than hide from the past that had haunted her.

  That didn’t stop that ragged hole in his heart from bleeding, though, and damn if he had expected that. He’d expected regret, hell, he’d known he would miss he
r. But the ache radiating in his chest wasn’t just regret. He didn’t just miss her.

  His nostrils flared as he breathed in hard and turned sharply from the parking area to stride back to his own suite.

  He had let her go; holding on to her wasn’t an option. Whatever he was feeling would eventually go away, he assured himself. She had been a part of his life for too long, tempting him, trying to draw closer to him, wiggling her way inside him despite his defenses.

  And it fucking hurt to lose her.

  But he had lost before. Friends, lovers, coworkers. The violence that permeated the life he lived had taken them from him.

  He contented himself with the fact that Tehya was alive, she was breathing, and one day she would love someone. She would laugh with him, sleep with him. She would have a life, she had never had the chance to have one before.

  He had made certain she would have that chance now.

  And it was too late to turn back now.

  CHAPTER 1

  Nine months later

  Alpine, Texas

  “She’s been located. Hagerstown, Maryland, identity Teylor Johnson, age thirty. Current owner, Landscape Dreams. Someone’s tracked her and a team’s been sent to the area.”

  Jordan stared at the horizon while the sun set behind the family cemetery as Travis “Black Jack” Caine finished the unexpected report.

  Jordan could feel a sensation akin to a fist in the pit of his stomach as instinct warned him more was coming. Behind him, he could feel his nephew Rory’s gaze suddenly trained on him, sharp, suspicious.

  “Who?” Who did he need to kill to protect her?

  A heavy breath of frustration came over the line. “Ira Arthurs and Mark Tenneyson, former Sorrel associates. They received a message Sorrel’s daughter did not die in that explosion in Afghanistan. No word yet on origination of the message. She was identified as Tehya Fitzhugh, daughter to Joseph Fitzhugh, formerly known as Sorrel. A team is being dispatched from France tonight to verify the information, and her location.”

  “What tipped them off?”

  “I can’t get that information,” the former agent answered. “All I have is someone sent the message from the U.S. An interested party aware of the interest in the truth of her death and-or her location. And supposedly neither can the two men sent to check the report that the explosion was a setup. I have men trying to track the origination of the message, but they’re not certain it can be done.”

  The explosion the Elite Ops had set up had been staged to appear as though Tehya Fitzhugh had been eliminated by several of her father’s associates, who were dead now as well.

  “Did you verify her location?” Jordan finally asked as the sun dipped farther behind the marble gravestone that marked his mother’s grave.

  “The location is correct,” Travis reported. “I checked it out myself. She’s there, living quietly, making no waves. She bought a small landscaping design and construction company just after arriving there. The report I have says a team is being prepped to head out tonight to verify as well as acquire her for an ‘interested party.’ Details are sketchy, but there’s no doubt she’s at risk.”

  “Why?” Jordan bit out. “Sorrel’s dead and his organization disbanded. Why the fuck does anyone care?”

  “More information I can’t uncover,” Travis informed him with a frustrated bite to his tone. “I’ve been working on this twenty-four hours straight, and I can’t find out anything more from any of my sources. I’ve tried contacting her, but her phone goes straight to voice mail and she doesn’t return the calls. I tried tracking the sat phone, but for some reason it’s not turning up a location and she doesn’t have a landline or another cell phone in operation that I’ve been able to discover. Do you want Bailey and me to head to Hagerstown ourselves?”

  Jordan wiped his hand over his face slowly. “I have a team,” he finally told him. “I want to get out there first and access, but contact Heat Seeker and the others. You’re on call. If her identity is in question, then we could be up the creek here.”

  It was more than their asses going into the fire, though. It was Tehya. He’d promised her the fear of the past was over, and that no one would know who she was, or where she was.

  “That was my thought as well,” Travis answered. “I’ll put the call out.”

  Jordan disconnected before turning slowly and staring at the nephew that had somehow grown harder over the years. Rory, named for Jordan’s father, Riordan Malone Sr. At thirty-two Rory had finally grown into himself. His body had matured, his blue eyes hardened, his face acquired strong, lean lines. Hell, he was almost a replica of Noah before the reconstruction to his face.

  He’d been working with the Elite Ops backup team in conjunction with a group of army Rangers whose commander Jordan had worked with several times.

  Ethan Cooper and his team of Rangers had been deemed unfit for service because of various physical injuries. They were a highly fit fighting force, though, and often worked as “assets” to various agencies until Jordan had picked them up to work with the Elite Ops backup team.

  Rory had somehow managed to insert himself into that team, despite Jordan’s objections.

  Rory straightened from his position against the post, his blue eyes narrowed as he glanced around, nearly causing Jordan to smile.

  They all did that. Him, Rory, and Noah Blake. They were checking to be certain their grandpop was nowhere close, listening.

  “He’s at Dad’s,” Jordan informed his nephew.

  Rory’s lips quirked for a second before his expression once more became all business. “They found Tey?”

  Jordan gave a short nod. “I need to follow up with a few sources before I go to her. I want you to contact Turk and the two of you meet up in Hagerstown asap. I’ll have Travis forward the information to you. Watch her, nothing else. Don’t take your eyes off her, Rory. If she’s taken, then just follow until the team can get there. You’re my only link to her if her father’s enemies snatch her before I can get there.”

  “I’m calling in Iron and Casy,” Rory decided. “They can back us up if needed. Two men on this may not be enough. I want two sets of eyes at all times and we can relieve each other that way.”

  Damn, Rory was turning into a hell of a covert operative for a team of men who weren’t even supposed to be in service any longer.

  “Head out.” Jordan gave him a sharp nod as he mentally began going over the checklist of preparations needed. “I’ll call this evening with an update on my arrival. I should be only hours behind you.” He paused, and almost grimaced before his lips parted with words he had no idea how to speak. He couldn’t find the words to tell Rory how important this was.

  His lips clamped shut again.

  “No fears, Jordan.” Rory took pity on him. “I understand. She’s like Sabella, right? Priority.”

  That was what Sabella had been when word had come through that her first husband, Nathan Malone, was dead. Jordan had known better, but he couldn’t tell Rory that at the time. He’d simply told the boy that Sabella was priority. They were protecting her for Nathan, because that was where Nathan’s heart survived.

  Jordan wasn’t going to look into the fact that Rory had picked up on something where Tehya was concerned. He sure as hell wasn’t going to search that mishmash of fucking emotions he couldn’t seem to get a handle on in his own soul.

  All he knew was that nothing could happen to Tehya. He hadn’t had a chance to figure out what he felt yet. He hadn’t had a chance to decide the pros and cons of a decision he knew he’d been making for the past nine months. He hadn’t had a chance to see her smile again, laugh again, or piss her off again. He hadn’t had the chance to make love to her again.

  And he’d be damned if he’d allow anyone to take those chances from him.

  Especially not a past that should have been dead and buried eight years before at the same time her father, Sorrel, had died.

  Hagerstown, Maryland

  The back of
her neck was itching.

  Tehya rubbed at her nape, her fingers pushing beneath the heavy fall of rich red-gold curls as they cascaded down her back. As she glanced around the narrow confines of Friendly’s Bar, her lips thinned in irritation.

  Nine months away from the Elite Ops wasn’t nearly enough, it seemed. The paranoia that had been part of the life she had lived before Jordan had taken her into the group had returned now.

  She had officially been free for nine months. It felt like yesterday.

  “Your turn there, Tey.” Voice slurred, body weaving, the customer she was shooting pool with called her attention back to the game.

  “Got it, Casey,” she murmured, the music from the jukebox covering her response as she sank the eight ball and shot him a teasing smile before snapping up the wager they had on the game.

  “ ’Nother game,” Casey announced, glaring at the table as though it were the table’s fault rather than his own that he’d lost the small wager.

  “Not tonight, Casey.” She gave a quick shake of her head as she glanced around the room once again. “Sober up first.”

  She swore she could feel eyes watching her, someone stalking her. She’d felt that way for weeks now. No matter where she went or what she did, she had that feeling of impending danger stalking her.

  There couldn’t be any danger, though. She was as careful, as cautious, here as she had been most of her life. She never caught anyone tailing her or managed to glimpse anyone tracking her. No one seemed unusually interested in her, and no one appeared to be lingering where they shouldn’t.

  The security systems attached to her car as well as surrounding her home never caught anyone sitting in surveillance. No one attempted to break in, nor did they attempt to slip onto her property.

  The back of her neck was still itching like hell, though. That primal survival instinct was in high gear, making her restless and ill at ease.

  Crossing the small, empty dance floor, she headed back to the bar and ordered another beer as she laid several dollars on the scarred wood slab.