by Diane Saxon
“What if I hurt you?”
“You won’t hurt me for Christ’s sake, just…”
She whipped her knee up in one vicious movement. Her skirt made a loud rending noise and jerked her knee to a halt as the material restricted any further motion. Flynn already cupped the back of her thigh with his warm palm. His long fingers gave a gentle squeeze as he indicated the height of her knee, which only came two thirds of the way up his thigh. Nowhere near the site of her target.
He steadied her as she wobbled but kept a firm hold of her thigh.
“Now he has your leg. You cannot escape. He can simply tip you onto the floor, and you’re exactly where he wants you.”
He lowered her leg and the flush burned her hairline.
He studied her for a moment, and she had a strong impulse to wipe her top lip just in case it was sweating.
“Liberty.”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to break his finger.”
“Okay.” She nodded with relief.
“There are two ways.”
At her nod he continued, swinging her around so her back was to him. “First. If he comes at you from behind.” He curled his arms around her body and hovered his hands over the tops of her breasts. The heat from his palms scorched through the clear inch gap between them, past her clothes, and made her breasts throb in remembered delight. Her nipples puckered and she closed her eyes, allowing the moment to stretch out while she tried to regulate her breathing. She could only be grateful neither Flynn nor Kate could see her face.
“Concentrate, Liberty.” His growled instruction made her eyes fly open, and she wondered how he’d known. Then she heard his own erratic breathing and realized she wasn’t the only one affected by his close proximity.
“Okay, now lean back into me, like you want to be closer. I know it’s your instinct to pull away, but you need to lean into me.”
She leaned back, felt the heat of his body encompass her, and almost melted in a heap on the floor at his feet as his masculine scent snaked through her senses.
“Now put your hands on top of mine, draw them in. Press my hands against your breasts.”
“I’m not sure it’s legal.”
Liberty’s eyes flew open. Bill’s face was a picture of confusion as she leaned on the open doorway to the kitchen and cast a glance between Liberty and Flynn as they stood in a compromising position with Kate as an observer, calmly sipping coffee.
“Grab a coffee, Bill.” Kate invited. “Liberty’s just about to break Flynn’s finger.”
“Cool.”
Bill ambled over to the coffeemaker, pressed the grind button, leaned against the counter, and gave them her full attention.
Flynn’s warm breath fanned the back of Liberty’s neck to send goose bumps skittering over her flesh. Her nipples peaked beneath his palms, and Flynn’s low growl made her realize how totally in tune he was to her heightened state of sexual awareness.
“Okay.” He gave a small cough. “Caress my hands, like you’re enjoying this. Pretend.” Her knees turned to jelly; she didn’t need to pretend she was enjoying it, she was striving to make believe she wasn’t. She stroked the back of his hands, the ball of warmth in her stomach spread liquid fire to her groin, and she wondered how she was going to survive.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Yes.” A breathy whisper fluttered from her lips. She allowed more of her weight to lean against him, felt his unmistakable erection press into the top of her backside, and almost groaned.
“I’m waiting.”
“I…”
“Liberty.” His voice was a sharp reminder they were supposed to be fighting, not making love. She flicked a glance across the room, seeing the small grin on Kate’s face as she took another sip of coffee.
“I said…slide your right hand up, keep rubbing my left hand. You’re going to lull me into a false sense of security.” His lips almost brushed her ear as he whispered low enough for the others not to hear. “Yeah you can push your ass into my dick if you wish.” She instinctively tried to straighten, but he pressed his hands firm against her breasts, allowing her no movement.
“Your left hand, Liberty. Don’t get distracted. Curl your fingers around my little finger and wrench.”
She grabbed his little finger and pulled. His hands sprung free of her chest and he spun her around to face him.
“What the hell was that?”
“I…”
He waved both hands in her face.
“Why did you let go?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
He glared into her face.
“You’re not going to fu…” Kate’s loud tut drew him up short, and he scrubbed his fingers through his short hair, grasping it for a moment as if he was about to rip it out of his own head.
“You are not going to hurt me, Liberty. You are going to hurt him, I hope.”
“Who?” Bill asked.
“Buddy.”
“Little shit. I broke his nose when I was sixteen for feeling me up. Never came near me again. You want me to sort him out?”
“No!” All three of them almost shouted, and Bill’s big brown eyes widened in surprise.
“Liberty has to be prepared. She needs to be able to deal with Buddy if he catches her unawares.” Kate’s soothing tones filled the room.
“She needs to smack him in the nose and break it again,” Bill sulked.
Flynn hung his head and heaved a sigh.
“She’s only five feet tall—she’s too short.”
“Five foot two,” Liberty insisted.
“Five foot two,” he conceded reluctantly. “Let’s try again, this is the second way. If he approaches from the front, same technique.”
He positioned himself in front of her. His gaze met hers as he stretched out his arms and spread his fingers wide half an inch from her breasts. She closed her eyes so the heat in his gaze didn’t incinerate her.
“Ready?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
She opened her eyes to meet the unexpected arctic chill of his.
“Now,” he snapped, shooting his hand forward to give her nipple a sharp twist.
She instinctively screeched, and grabbing his little finger, she wrenched as hard as she possibly could, rejoicing in his yelp of agony as his legs collapsed. His knees smacked with a loud thud on the tiled floor, leaving him kneeling helpless at her feet.
“Fuck. Fuck. Okay, let go now Liberty. Let go baby.”
“Good to see she’s brought you to your knees.” Jack’s dulcet tones came from the opposite doorway.
“Almost as effective as kneeing him in the balls, and not as messy as a busted nose,” Bill said admiringly.
“Yes!” Liberty let go, punching the air with a celebratory whoop. “I did it.” She grinned wild and feral into his face and almost swooped in for a kiss, but at the last moment smacked the heel of her hand against his forehead and sent him sprawling on his back to the floor. As he lay at her feet, she did a little hippy chick dance, wiggled her hips, and bounced on her toes, her arms punching the air.
Bill crossed her arms over her chest and looked slightly unimpressed.
“I didn’t hear a bone crack. Did she break your finger?”
Unmoving, he lay at her feet on the floor. At his groan, remorse set in and Liberty flung herself to her knees at his side to grab his injured hand, eliciting a further moan from Flynn.
“Oh God, oh my God. Did I break your finger?” She slapped her hand across her mouth as a wave of lightheadedness washed over her, sending small black clouds to float across her vision with tiny pinpricks of light.
“No baby, no. You didn’t break it,” Flynn soothed, lifting his hand to stroke the hair back from her face. He struggled into a sitting position, wrapped an arm around her, and hugged her close, his breath coming in short, sharp pants.
“Oh Flynn, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Are you okay?”
“Sure, b
aby. I’m fine.” He took a deep breath in and held it, her arms wrapped around his expanded chest.
“Hell, Flynn. She didn’t break it, but she sure as shit dislocated it,” Bill pronounced proudly.
“Oh God no.”
Liberty glanced down at his swollen and misshapen hand and almost fainted. She slumped against his hard shoulder, and guilt swamped her as she realized she should be comforting him, not the other way around. She simply didn’t have the ability to do it; her muscles had gone completely lax, and she was losing the ability to focus.
Flynn removed his arm from around her and let her relax against him. She felt his movements and couldn’t look as he grasped his damaged hand with his other one. He gave a sharp move, his chest jerked, accompanied by a sickening popping sound and a low grunt as Flynn sat upright to catch her as she flopped against him.
“It’s okay, baby. Look, no harm done. It’s back to normal. You just put it out for a moment there is all. It’s okay now. Hush.”
Cool fingers touched the pulse at the side of her throat, and Liberty forced her eyelids to open and stared into Kate’s amused eyes.
“Somehow, I don’t think you’re ready for world domination yet.” She smiled into Liberty’s face and smoothed cool fingers over her forehead.
“I hurt him.”
“That was the idea.”
“But I don’t want to hurt Flynn.”
“No, sweetie, I know. It will be different if you need to do it to Buddy.”
“Okay.”
She struggled into an upright position and glanced around at the concerned faces.
“I’m sorry, I’m not terribly good with violence.”
“Evidently.” Bill grunted, lifting her to her feet and towering over her. “You’ll be fine, sugar. Nothing to it.”
“I think you should come and lie down for a little while Liberty.” Kate’s soothing tones reached her as her body seemed to glide out of the kitchen, her arm limply linked through Kate’s.
“Okay.”
•●•
“One question.” Bill squinted into the distance, and then slid a glance at him.
“Yep.”
“If she’d been your enemy and not some cute little bubble of fun you happen to be having sex with, would you have let her hurt you?”
He flexed his hand to feel the natural glide of bones. No damage done. He couldn’t make the connection in his head to even imagine hurting one hair on the sex kitten’s head, but he understood what Bill wanted from him.
“Possibly, but my enemy wouldn’t have lived more than twenty seconds after achieving it.”
He glanced between Jack and Bill, both of them with cool eyes and serious faces, thinking the same thing as him.
“Fuck. Even if she breaks his finger, wranglers are tough, and he has years of experience. Likelihood is, if he does come after her, she’s in trouble.”
“Yup. It’s what I figured,” Jack agreed. “You’re just going to have to make sure she isn’t left alone, Flynn. Stick to her like glue. It’s not as though you don’t have a good excuse to hang with her.”
Embarrassed, Flynn rubbed the back of his neck and squinted at the other two. “Technically, Liberty and I are no longer an item.”
Bill’s jaw dropped. “You’re shitting me. After what I witnessed in Jack’s kitchen?”
“Yeah, well. Liberty says it’s all off. So, it’s all off.”
Jack’s mild contemplation made Flynn wriggle with discomfort.
“Why?”
He shrugged and scuffed his feet, feeling like a kid again.
“Just some shit she thinks I need to deal with.”
“Uh-huh.” He raised his head and met Jack’s hard stare. “Maybe you should speak to Dominic. Like the lady says—deal with your shit.”
“Pfff, Liberty didn’t say that. She doesn’t swear.”
“No, but I bet she recognizes avoidance when she comes across it. Flynn, speak to Dominic. In the meantime, we’ll set up something so Liberty’s never alone.”
Flynn lowered himself onto one of the deck chairs to watch Bill and Jack climb into the police vehicle and drive away. With a long, weary sigh, he rubbed his face and stared into the distance while he contemplated talking to Dominic. It wasn’t like he had anything against the guy per se; in fact Dominic had been brilliant. He simply hadn’t spoken to him for over two years, and ringing the psychiatrist up out of the blue seemed defeatist to him.
He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the ladies hadn’t come back into the kitchen, drew his cell phone out of his pocket, and stared at the screen for a moment before selecting Dominic’s number and touching Call.
“Professor Salter.”
“Hey, Dominic. It’s Flynn.”
There was short pause, quite typical of the Professor’s speech pattern, before Dominic responded.
“Hello, Flynn. Strange you should phone. I was about to contact you myself.”
“Really? What can I do for you?”
“No. You first, what can I do for you, my friend?”
Flynn raised his head and blew out a soft breath. He could hear the ladies returning to the kitchen. He glanced over his shoulder before getting to his feet and taking a few steps away from the house, conscious of the poor cell signal if he moved too far away.
“I need to talk.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve met a woman.”
“It sounds like good news.”
Flynn knew Dominic’s silence was an invitation to continue, but he found he couldn’t.
“Look, uh. It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m free later this evening. Ten o’clock.”
“Well…”
“You’d be doing me a favor too. I need to speak with you about an agent we believe may be about to go rogue.”
“I haven’t worked for the department in three years. I don’t think I could be of any help.”
“We believe you could. You know the agent very well. Or you did.”
A strange feeling of disquiet filled his chest. It had been a long time, and he had very few connections, but there were some he would never forget, some he owed his life to.
“Who is it?”
“I can’t say.”
“It’s a secure line, Dominic. Who the fuck is it?”
“Barbara Lynn Perry.”
“Fuck.” He’d known. There’d always been the possibility the woman would go rogue; she’d been hanging on by a thread for as long as he’d known her. “I haven’t seen her since…” He stroked his fingertips over his face and knew Dominic would understand without even seeing the gesture. “How can I help?”
“We believe she’ll come to you.”
“Okay.”
“And when she does, we need you to take her out.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
Thick, oily nausea filled his stomach, but he knew if he didn’t do it, they would find someone else. Possibly someone less able—or less caring.
“Okay.”
“Come and see me tonight, usual place. We can talk, then I can give you your authorization.”
“Tonight at ten, usual place.” He stabbed his finger on the touch screen harder than he needed and raised his head to see Liberty walking away from him into the kitchen. She’d heard. He had no idea how much, but he knew she’d heard something.
•●•
It wasn’t any of her business who Flynn was meeting, but it didn’t stop the ball of hurt forming in her stomach to think it might be another woman. Especially after all the shenanigans in the kitchen, when it was pretty evident the chemistry between them was still burning hot. Kate had pointed out the sexual tension pulsing off the pair of them wasn’t worth giving up on without another shot at resolving Flynn’s issues.
Hopeful, she’d started to approach him to see if she could persuade him to have another try and his voice had lowered, virtually to a whisper, as he’d agreed to meet someone he had obviously met before�
��regularly.
It appeared Flynn had alternative plans.
She beat a rapid retreat to Kate’s kitchen, gave her excuses, and took off back to the lodge as fast as she could, her chest constricted with hurt.
Chapter Nine
Liberty glanced at her watch and sighed. She’d been out too long gathering samples because of her late start and the whole beating up on Flynn exercise. The stables were dimly lit and the horses blew and stamped, settling down for the night. She’d caught sight of a couple of men on her way in, but other than the horses, she didn’t think anyone else was around.
With a private smile, she stroked her rainbow hat, placed it back on her head, picked up her tray of sample jars, and wandered toward the entrance of the stables, choosing to ignore the small tingle up the back of her neck warning her someone was watching. She put it down to the overstimulation and dramatization of the day.
The moment the cowboy stepped into her path, she knew she should have taken notice of those tiny hairs prickling the back of her neck.
“Hello, Buddy.”
“Lady Liberty.” The slight slur indicated Buddy’s consumption of alcohol. Liberty hoped it was enough for his coordination to be off, but having already suffered his drunken advances, she seriously doubted it was going to help.
“I’m just going to see Kate. She’s expecting me.”
“I don’t think so. Jack’s out and Kate’s gone to bed. At least all the lights were turned off about ten minutes ago.”
“Miss Liberty, is that you?”
“Jacob.” Her voice came out in a breathless gasp, and frustration flowed over her at her display of weakness.
“What are you doing here, boy?”
“My granddaddy sent me to see to Miss Liberty’s horse.”
“It’s done. Now fuck off.”
A spike of fear shot through her, rapidly followed by annoyance. How dared he speak to young Jacob like that? How dared he stand in her way? She took a confident step forward, chin raised, shoulders back.
Absolutely expecting Jacob to leave in the light of Buddy’s aggression, dread filled her at the thought he may not, and instead he might try and stand up to Buddy, his younger, lesser frame no match to the seasoned wrangler.
“Jacob, thank you. Please, let your granddaddy know I’m okay. Buddy’s with me, and I’ve seen to my own horse. Go on home now and tell your granddaddy Buddy is with me.”
