Uncut Bundle

by Susan Stephens

  Surely she had died of ecstasy in her lover’s arms.

  Long seconds passed. Somehow, she dragged breath into her lungs. Cam rolled onto his side with her still tightly held in his embrace.

  “My Salome,” he said softly, pressing a kiss to her closed eyelids.

  His Salome. Her heart swelled at the sound of the name that belonged only to the two of them.

  “Cam,” she said, just as softly. She cupped her hand around his jaw, felt the rough silk of his end-of-day stubble, and met his lips in a long, slow kiss. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  “I’m very all right,” he said, laughing softly.

  She smiled. “Yes. Oh, yes, you are. But I meant, I’m so glad you—you—”

  “You’re glad I what, sweetheart?”

  “Lived,” she said, her voice breaking.

  Was it her imagination, or did he pull away just a little?

  “Yeah,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Well, me, too.” A second slipped by. He cleared his throat again. “If it mattered to you—if it did, how come you never—how come you never—”

  “Never what?”

  “Never called,” he said, trying not to sound the way he felt, like a kid who’d lost everything because, damn it, without her, he had lost everything. He rose up on his elbow and looked down into her shadowed face. “You didn’t come to me, Salome,” he said roughly. “And, God, I wanted you. I longed for you. But you didn’t—”

  “I called,” Leanna said, putting her hand over his mouth to stop the flow of words. “Every day. Every night. All the time you were in the hospital.”

  Cam stared at her. “You did?”

  “I almost went out of my mind, not being with you. Even after—after what you’d said, that you didn’t love me—”

  “I was lying, sweetheart. To you and to myself. I’d have said anything to keep you in that room.” He kissed her, his mouth moving gently on hers. “And I was afraid to admit that I loved you.”

  Leanna closed her eyes, then opened them again. “I thought—I believed—”

  “Is that why you didn’t come to me all those weeks in the hospital?”

  “I couldn’t come.” She hesitated. “I was sick, Cam.”

  “Sick?” He sat up, gathering her against him. She could feel the swift acceleration of his heart. “What happened? Why didn’t you let me know?”

  “An infection, in my foot. I couldn’t let you know. I mean, at first I was too ill. And then, when I was better…” A sob burst from her throat. “I knew you didn’t want me.”

  He kissed her, and she could almost feel the love flowing from his heart to hers.

  “I wanted you every moment, Salome. Those endless weeks in the hospital, all the ones since… You were all I could think about.”

  “Then—then why…” Tears rose in her eyes. “When I knew you were out of the hospital, I let myself begin to hope. Each time the phone rang, each time the mail came— Someone would knock at the door and my heart would say, It’s him, it’s Cameron, he’s come. And—and you never…”

  She began to weep. Cam brushed his lips over hers again and again, until her mouth softened and clung to his.

  “Salome,” he said softly, “my sweet Salome. I couldn’t come to you, baby. You were my golden dancer. My Salome. My forever love.” He gave a ragged laugh. “Only one problem, sweetheart. I didn’t know your name.”

  Leanna drew back in his embrace and stared at him. “What?”

  “Your real name. I didn’t know it. That’s why I didn’t come to you. I couldn’t find you. I flew to Dubai. I hired a detective. I did everything I could think of—” he grinned “—including drive my brothers crazy.” His smile faded. “And then, when I’d all but given up hope, my old man talked me into going to a performance at—”

  “The Music Hall! I knew you were there! I felt it. Oh, Cam—”

  Cam kissed her, long and sweetly. “I’m sorry if I frightened you tonight.”

  “You thrilled me. When I realized it was you—”

  “Salome. I mean, Leanna—”

  “No.” She kissed him, her mouth curving against his. “Salome,” she whispered. “I like that much better.”

  Cam rolled her beneath him. “I’m never going to lose you again.”

  That won him another kiss. “I won’t let you.”

  “I’ll just have to keep you where I can see you.” His eyes darkened. He bent to her and kissed her throat. “In bed, with me.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Any objections?”

  “Mmm,” Leanna said again, and gently moved her hips.

  “Of course,” he said, his voice thick. “I can think of one other way.”

  “Yes?”

  “Salome. My beloved dancer, will you marry me?”

  Leanna gave him her answer with a kiss.

  Sandra Marton

  CAPTIVE IN HIS BED

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  PROLOGUE

  High in the mountains of Colombia:

  THE FOREST was dark.

  The only sound was the roar of the waterfall.

  The moon had risen, a fat, ivory globe that seemed suspended in the leafy branches of the trees. Its light illuminated the clearing and the jewel-like pool.

  Illuminated Mia, standing naked under the frothy liquid veil of the waterfall.

  He stood on the edge of the clearing, watching her and searching deep within himself for the discipline by which he’d lived his life, but that was the trouble.

  He had no discipline when it came to her.

  He’d searched for her, found her, then lost her.

  Now, he had her trapped. She was his… Except, she wasn’t. She’d made that clear. She had left him for another man. A man who’d wanted her back even though he said she had betrayed him.

  Then, why would you want her? Matthew had asked, at the beginning.

  It was an honest question. He’d understood that the woman would be beautiful—the man had shown him her photograph—but the world was filled with beautiful women. What made this one so special?

  The man had looked embarrassed. He’d given a little laugh and said he wanted her back because she was more than beautiful.

  She was, he’d said, everything a man could ever hope for.

  Matthew felt his body quicken.

  It wasn’t true. She wasn’t everything a man could hope for.

  She was more.

  He knew that now because, for a little while, she had belonged to him. She was Eve, she was Jezebel, she was Lilith reborn. She could be as wild as the summer lightning that streaked the hot sky or as sweetly gentle as spring rain.

  Just looking at her was enough to stir a man’s soul.

  Her face was oval, her eyes wide-set and dark above an aristocratic nose and a mouth made for sin.

  Her hair was long and dark as coffee. It tumbled down her back in a mass of curls that begged for his touch.

  She was tall and slender, but her breasts were full and round. His breathing grew uneven at the thought of how they’d filled his hands.

  And her legs…her legs were meant to clasp a man’s waist. He could still remember the feel of them as he parted her thighs and sank deep, so deep into her heat.

  Matthew shuddered.

  God, was he losing his mind?

  Who was Mia Palmieri? What was she? Was she his woman or Ha
milton’s? Had everything been a game?

  All he knew right now was that she was a temptress.

  But he was a warrior.

  She swung toward him.

  Matthew held his ground. She couldn’t possibly see him. He was still dressed in black, the kind of stuff he’d worn on night maneuvers in Special Forces and then in the Agency. He knew that he blended in against the tangle of night-shadowed forest behind him.

  Did she somehow sense his presence?

  Was that why she was tilting her head back, lifting her face to the curtain of water? Why she was raising her hands, cupping her breasts as if she were offering herself to the gods?

  Offering herself to him?

  He was hard as stone. So hard that it hurt.

  Once, he had promised to return her to the man who’d sent him to find her.

  Tonight, his only promise was to himself.

  Slowly he stepped forward into the patch of moonlight that swathed the little clearing. He waited, muscles tensed, willing her to look toward him again. Why? Why not just call out and let her know he was here?

  The answer was a cold whisper inside his head.

  Because he wanted to see what she did when she saw him. Would she run to him? Throw herself into his arms? If she did—God, if she did…

  But she didn’t.

  Her reaction was like a kick in the gut.

  Her eyes widened. Her lips parted on a little exclamation of surprise. She flung one arm across her breasts, the other over her feminine delta in an age-old gesture of modesty.

  He knew damned well it was reflex action and nothing more, knew he had all the answers he needed… the answers he hadn’t wanted.

  “No,” she said.

  He couldn’t hear the word but he could see her mouth form it. “No,” she said again, and Matthew felt the swift rush of adrenaline as it coursed through his body.

  His lips drew back in a predator’s smile. He toed off his running shoes, pulled his shirt over his head, unzipped his trousers and stepped free of them.

  Stood still, letting her see the full measure of his arousal.

  Then he dove cleanly into the dark jungle pool and went for her.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cartagena, Colombia, two weeks earlier:

  MATTHEW KNIGHT sat at a table outside the Café Esmerelda, drinking a bottle of Colombian cerveza and wondering what in hell he was doing in Cartagena.

  Years ago, in what he sometimes thought of as a different life, he’d left here and vowed he’d never return.

  He’d even been in this café before, at this table, probably in the same goddamned chair, his back to the wall and his eyes sweeping the busy square, trying to spot trouble before it bit him in the butt.

  Old habits died hard. So did memories that drove you from sleep in the middle of the night.

  Better not to think about that now.

  It was hot but then, it had always been hot in Cartagena. You came down to it, nothing had changed. The smells, the traffic. Even the crowd jamming the square. Soldados and policia, touristas loaded down with enough jewelry, wallets and cell phones to keep the pickpockets happy…

  A man had to watch his ass in Cartagena.

  He’d known that the first time. He’d thought he was pretty good at it, too, but if he had been good at it—if he had been—

  Damn it, he wasn’t going there. The past was dead.

  So was Alita.

  Matthew drained the last cold drop of beer from the bottle.

  He was here now as a civilian, not as an operative of an agency where black was white and white was black and nothing was ever meant to be what it seemed.

  And, at thirty-one, he had the world by the balls.

  He was in his prime, a hard-bodied six-foot-four-inches with the chiseled bone-structure of his half-Comanche mother and the emerald-green eyes of his Texan father. A razor-thin scar angled across one high cheekbone, a souvenir of a winter night in Moscow when a Chechnyian insurgent had tried to kill him.

  Women went crazy for that scar. “It makes you look so dangerous,” a little blonde had whispered to him just a few nights ago, and he’d rolled her beneath him and, to her delight, showed her just how dangerous he could be.

  And he was rich.

  Fantastically rich, and not a penny of it had come from his old man. When your father had spent years ignoring you—except for the times he told you that you’d never amount to anything—that was one hell of a fine achievement.

  What had made Matthew rich was Knight, Knight and Knight: Risk Management Specialists, the company he’d founded with his brothers. A year apart in age, they shared the same tough history.

  A mother who’d died when they were young. A power-hungry father. Teenage rebellion, a few semesters of college followed by Special Forces and the Agency. Life became one long adrenaline rush. Danger and beautiful women became Matthew’s drugs of choice, though the women never lasted.

  A warrior never let his emotions control him.

  “¿Otra cerveza, señor?”

  Matthew looked up and nodded. The beer was the only thing he still liked about Cartagena.

  Five years ago, the Agency had partnered him with an undercover DEA agent and sent them here to infiltrate a drug cartel. Their cover was that they were lovers, looking for some money to set themselves up. They weren’t, but Alita liked to tease him and say if she ever got into men, Matthew would be at the top of the list. And he’d say, yeah, yeah, promises, promises…

  Somebody sold them out.

  Four armed men snatched them off the street and drove them to a falling-down shack in the jungle. They beat Matthew until he lost consciousness. When he came to, he and Alita were tied to chairs.

  Now you will learn how a man gives a woman pleasure, gringo, one of their abductors said, sending all four into gales of laughter.

  Alita showed the courage of a lioness. Matthew fought the ropes that bound him but he was helpless to stop what happened.

  When it was over, two of the killers dragged Alita’s body outside. The third went with them, saying he needed to take a piss after such hard work. One man remained to guard Matt. He grinned, showed a mouthful of brown teeth and said he was going to prepare for the next round of fun.

  He was bent over two lines of white powder just as Matthew finally freed his wrists.

  “Hey, amigo,” he said softly.

  The man turned and came toward him. In an instant, Matthew had his hand over the man’s mouth and his arm around his neck. One quick twist and he was dead.

  He killed two of the others with the dead man’s weapon but only wounded the fourth. The guy ran into the jungle. Fine, Matthew thought coldly. A jaguar would make a feast of his flesh before the day ended.

  He had other things to do.

  Like burying Alita.

  It was tough, not because it was difficult to scratch a grave in the fecund soil but because his eyes kept blurring with tears.

  Standing over her grave, he vowed to avenge her.

  He drove their abductors’car back to Cartagena, then to Bogotá. The embassy spook-in-residence debriefed him, expressed regret…and told him there would be no search for the killer who’d gotten away. When Matt demanded answers, his boss ordered him back to Washington.

  Sheer luck had Cam and Alex in D.C., too. Over a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, the brothers shared their disillusionment with the Agency.

  Risk Management Specialists was born. Based in Dallas, the Knights provided their clients with solutions to difficult problems—solutions that were always moral if not exactly legal.

  The Agency, and Colombia, became a memory…

  Until now. Until Matthew’s father asked him to meet an old friend with a problem. As a favor, he said.

  Avery, asking a favor? Cam’s recent brush with death had changed things. Matthew didn’t entirely trust the change. Still, he’d agreed to the meeting. He’d listen to the guy’s problem, maybe offer some advice. No way was he going to take on some
thing that would keep him—

  A man was coming toward him. Matthew took in the salient features. North American. Early forties. Good physical shape. Undoubtedly military, though he was in civvies.