by Vremont, Ann
The train’s automated voice announced Washington Heights. Vance coaxed me onto my feet. I would need to switch to the red line for the next part of my trip home. I looked at the video map on the wall and pinpointed my stop at Van Cortlandt Park. Vance tapped the screen, enlarging the location.
Holding me to him, he brushed my cheek with his lips. I heard the anticipatory pull of air into his lungs before he spoke.
"Let me come home with you tonight, Morgan.”
I nodded and warned him. "It’s just a crappy little one-room walk up.”
The doors opened and he stepped out, his arms circling my body as he pulled me from the subway car. The same possessive light that had brightened his eyes in the cube still shone, but the words we had just exchanged softened its intensity.
He dipped his head, kissing me once before leading me toward the escalators.
"So long as you’re in it, love."
Curve Cover
Black SUVs with tinted windows patrolled the quiet subdivision of Lawton Hills, Maryland, with a tactical precision. Major Amanda Child -- five months retired from the Pan-American Army -- counted four of the oversized beasts, their reconnaissance led by a more discreet but equally black sedan. She spotted the first SUV as she entered the subdivision, saw the second one two blocks later, with the other vehicles running two or three blocks apart.
She knew a federal search grid when she saw one, particularly with each of the SUVs sporting an infrared dish and whip like signal antennas a few feet long. She couldn’t tell which agency, but after the hairs on the back of her neck settled down, the team’s presence faded to a point of curiosity. She only cared that they weren't there for her. If they had been, her face already would be pushed into the asphalt. So it wasn’t her turn to disappear into the back of a black SUV with a hood over her head.
Not today at least.
Distracted, she almost missed her street and had to take a hard right onto Abingdon Lane. Six drives down, she pulled into the small, two-bedroom ranch that had become home after her divorce. She pressed an on-dash button and the garage door opened, the overhead light illuminating the interior. She scanned the area, pulling inside only after she determined its state was as clean and orderly as when she departed that morning.
She remained in the car with the motor running while the garage door closed. Shut inside, she waited another five seconds before she gathered her briefcase and cell phone and stepped from the car. Five feet forward and to her left, a door led to the kitchen but she stood outside the vehicle and waited for its gentle ticks to die out.
Amanda inhaled, slow and deep. With the hydrogen cell vehicle, no exhaust fumes tainted the air in the garage. Otherwise, she would not have noticed the faint, but new, scent of bleach in the air. She walked over to the washing machine and knelt down.
Keeping one eye on the door that led from the garage into the kitchen, she ran her fingers around the cap of the bleach bottle and pulled them back wet. Pulse jumping, she felt the warm rush of blood to her skin as she confirmed someone had been in the house while she was gone.
That, or she was as paranoid as her ex-husband claimed.
Scowling, she slipped her heels off and moved to the covered air vent next to the house door. Her ex, Ronnie, could go fuck himself -- preferably with a grenade. She’d found evidence of at least a half dozen visits to her home since her forced retirement.
This was the first visit so fresh she could still smell the intrusion.
With a stealth that came only from long hours of practice, she noiselessly popped the air vent's cover and reached inside, her hand unerringly closing around the grip of a small caliber handgun, its holster duct taped against the top of the shaft.
She removed the gun, turned the safety off and chambered a round before easing open the door to the kitchen. This time of day, with the window facing the back yard, the kitchen was the brightest room in the house. The living room was heavily draped, the curtains drawn. So were the den and back two bedrooms at the end of a short hallway.
Amanda padded soundlessly to the counter, noting that the kitchen window was intact and locked. Glancing at the butcher’s block, all of its knives in place, she opened the utility drawer and checked for the box cutters and a heavy set of scissors.
Unless the intruder had found her second stash of weapons, he had brought his own toys to the game. Which meant he was a professional and not some high school kid playing cat burglar. Moving toward the living room, she stopped at the edge of the carpet and listened intently while her eyes adjusted to the change in light.
With nothing more than the faint hum of the refrigerator and low vibrations of electricity, the house sounded empty.
She knew better.
The bleach scent cut a trail across the room toward the back of the house. Exercising caution, she cleared the living room first, checking the empty space behind the couch before inching her way down the hallway.
The door to the den was open, just as she’d left it that morning. So too were the doors to the spare bedroom and the bathroom. Her bedroom door was half shut -- the intruder’s second mistake.
She slid further down the wall until she could peek into her bedroom. The drapes were drawn, making it too dark to see inside. She froze and listened again, hearing only the almost imperceptible whisper of her own breathing.
Amanda considered her options. She could enter the room or slowly back out of the house, call the cops and let the government take care of it. She didn't like her choices any better than her odds. She would bet every last credit she had that the government already was in her home. She just didn’t know which part of it had been playing cat and mouse with her this last year, ruining her career and shredding the remains of an already fragile marriage.
Mentally, she didn't think she could take much more subterfuge without becoming as crazy as the government asserted during the private hearings that had finally expelled her from the Army.
Right -- she could go o out babbling or blazing.
The choice suddenly clear, Amanda tightened her grip on the gun. Pushing the door with her foot, she eased into the room, elbows bent so that the barrel tip hovered chest high and a foot from her chest.
She had walked through the house blindfolded a hundred times over, memorizing each exit point, light source and obstacle. Two steps to the left would bring her to the light switch. Taking the first one, she came up against a hard body.
A hand instantly seized her gun wrist, the steely fingers exerting pressure on the nerves and tendons to neutralize her control over the weapon. She tried to bring a knee up. He slammed her against the wall. His other hand darted forward, snatching the gun from her weakened grip and tossing it.
She heard it bounce once on the bed.
"Stay calm. I’m not here to hurt you."
Stay calm. Don't make a fuss or we'll grind you to dust.
She had no reason to trust a government operative and a man with the kind of training he had just demonstrated couldn't be anything other than an op. In the dark, she assessed the hard body that pressed forcefully against her soft flesh.
The man stood at least a head taller. Broad, powerful shoulders balanced a thick chest and muscular arms. With the smooth, even sound of his breathing, she doubted he had broken a sweat in maneuvering her into position.
Strong, fast and expert in hand-to-hand combat -- the man's talents exposed him as a trained killer. She tensed, a moment's fear overcoming her capacity to reason.
"Shhhh…" He dipped his head and she felt the rough brush of stubble against her cheek. "I promise I'm not here for you."
It wasn’t the words so much as the rich voice speaking them that eased enough of the tension from her that logic could flow back in. Either he was lying and the search grid outside was a complete coincidence or part of a mind fuck to throw her off, or he spoke the truth.
Knowing she needed more information to decide, she played along. "Are you the one the SUVs are looking for?"
&
nbsp; "SUVs?" Continuing to pin her against the wall, he lightened the pressure bearing down on her plump body just enough that she could breathe without pain. "How many?"
"Four black ones, tinted windows, plus a sedan. Infrared dishes and signal antennas on the SUVs..." Her voice trailed off, waiting for him to say something. He still had his hand around her gun wrist and his lower torso pushed into her heavy breasts and rounded stomach. They could have been dancing partners as close as they were, except that his right leg and hip pushed forward to abort another attempt to knee him in the balls.
"You knew I was in here." Low, contemplative -- he had the kind of voice she could listen to all night. He probably wasn’t trying to sound sexy, probably was busy thinking about the signal antennas on the SUVs and wondering whether the vehicles were close enough to pick up their conversation.
"I knew someone was in here...the bleach."
He chuckled, the reaction unexpected.
"Yeah, you interrupted me." He edged her closer to the dresser then leaned to the side and slapped the snooze button on the alarm clock. As the sultry jazz sound of Amy White’s In My Bed started to fill the room, he bent his neck until his lips were against her ear. "Why didn’t you call the cops?"
She couldn’t respond at first -- not with the warm stirring of his breath against her neck. "I’m not exactly on speaking terms with the government anymore."
There was a slight shake to her voice, fueled not by fear but by the hard body pushing into her, the deep fuck-me-now timbre and the masculine scent of his skin rising up to eviscerate the last traces of bleach.
She had no idea who he was, but her body’s reaction was anything but fear.
"You could have called someone else -- a boyfriend or a husband..."
"Ex-husband -- I’m not on speaking terms with him, either."
He chuckled again, acknowledging her point. Amanda reached out, slowly, to the light switch. When he made no move to stop her, she turned on the overhead light.
Squinting against the sudden glare, she angled her view until she could look up at him. His eyes were shut, permitting her to study his face without censure.
She sucked in a breath. He possessed a pussy-drenching kind of face, with a bearded, chiseled jawline and near-black brows topping eyes that were heavily fringed with thick lashes. His pale red slash of lips had an obstinate set to them. The strong nose, broken at least once, divided everything into perfect halves crowned with thick dark hair, a little longer than a soldier would wear and swept to one side.
He was younger than her forty-six years, too, perhaps by as much as a decade.
"I’m not as safe as I look." He smiled when he said it, the curve of his lips like a gut punch.
"You don’t look safe at all," she shot back. "But I won’t know until I can stare you in the eyes."
He complied with a slow lifting of the lids, the effect the same as if he’d been peeling off the tight black t-shirt hugging his broad chest.
Blue eyes. Not just any blue -- she knew the color, had seen it twice before piloting covert rescue ops. Three years apart she had pulled a team out of remote, dangerous terrains. One male, one female each time, with identical blue eyes on the men. Those eyes had haunted her sleep ever since, populating fantasies in which they descended below the horizon of her stomach as the man's hard uncompromising mouth fastened against her clit.
Slowly, she rotated the wrist he still held. The texture of the skin on his hand was unmistakable, like a rough velvet nap. She’d missed noticing it until she had looked into those eyes, but the texture provided further confirmation.
"I know what you are." The words were out before she could think to call them back.
His mouth curled to the right in a weary smirk. "What am I?"
He tilted his head as he asked and she could tell that he listened for something. Memories flooded to the front of her mind -- the men’s enhanced vision and hearing, a crazy grip you couldn’t shake off and blue eyes that bled to black when they clicked into some kind of battle trance.
Amanda shrugged. She didn’t have a name for what he was -- no agency tags had been placed on the mission. She tilted her head and listened with him, finally hearing a familiar double whir. "Toran LH-67, single seater, urban reconnaissance."
Out in the open, the small helicopters were quiet until they approached within a block of a person. Her intruder had detected it at least half a minute before she had, all with Amy White moaning in the background.
"SUV out front..." He hesitated, lifted one dark brow. "Make that two."
Looking at his eyes, she saw the first fine strands of black start to bleed from the pupils into his irises. He glanced over his shoulder at the pistol on her bed.
She placed her free hand flat against his chest. "You don’t have to run."
When he didn’t move, she eased from where he had her wedged between his body and the wall. Reaching into the top drawer of her dresser, she removed two sets of handcuffs.
"Take your shirt off and get on the bed."
The command surprised him enough to instantly restore his irises to their bright electric blue. She opened one of the cuffs’ bracelets and shook it in his direction as she explained her plan.
"I’m Army Major Amanda Child, five months retired, and you..." She pointed at the bed. "You are my boy toy. You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. So peel that shirt off now or I'll have to punish you."
When he still didn't move, she touched his face, cupping one side as she matched his steady gaze.
Experience told her that he would annihilate the agents gathering outside -- regardless of what they were packing in those SUVs. She had pulled the first team out during the final stages of California's Second War for Independence. The man and woman had mowed through more than thirty heavily armed combat troops with nothing more than handguns and their bodies to reach the rendezvous point.
And that was what they were capable of when injured and after a week of low rations.
"It’s six p.m." She stroked her thumb across his cheek. "Families are arriving at their homes...kids will be running from cars to the house, some stopping to play in the yard. How many deaths do you want to be responsible for today, soldier?"
A slow blink signaled his acquiescence. Head dropping, he moved toward the bed, stripping the t-shirt off as he went and tossing it casually onto the floor. Reaching the mattress, he pushed the handgun under a pillow and settled with his back against the wrought iron headboard, his arms held up and his wrists touching the cold metal as he awaited the shackles.
She attached one bracelet to the headboard. He caught her hand before she could slide the other bracelet around his wrist.
"Are you sure you can sell this?"
Amanda looked at his bare arms, the ripped abs and hard planes of his chest with their small, lickable nipples. Blushing, she finished her inspection. "Yeah, I can sell it."
It was asking a lot, not just that she could convince anyone knocking at the door that they were interrupting a little early evening sexing, but that she wasn’t purposefully handcuffing him to make his apprehension all the easier.
Releasing her, he let Amanda secure his hand. She circled the bed, attached the second set of bracelets to the frame but didn’t lock the cuff. In case he needed to escape, she placed the key to the other cuff in his palm.
"Give me a name, Amanda." He rubbed his cheek along her sleeve to hook her attention. Even with the fabric separating them, the gesture sent fire racing across her skin.
Her chest tightened at the way her name sound falling from his lips.
Trusting…intimate.
"Let me think for a second." She slid her belt off, tossed it on the floor. Leaving her pants buttoned, she unzipped them then crawled onto his lap. She watched his face while she proceeded to unbutton and re-button her blouse, intentionally mismatching their placement.
When she was done, she threaded her fingers through his hair. A heavy knock sounded on the front door, au
dible over the music still playing on the clock radio. She leaned forward until their foreheads touched.
Dark, dangerous.
"Loren," she whispered. She brushed her lips against his, her thoughts only half on the infrared dish likely pointed at the house at that moment. "Sit tight."
She made her way to the front door, stopping to turn a table lamp on in the living room as she yelled at the knocker to hold his damn horses. She yanked the door open, chain off.
"Not buying, move along to the next house." She started to shut the door but a size twelve, black patent leather shoe blocked her.
"Major Child?"
She followed the line of the shoe all the way up to its owner’s face. Slick suit, shades, ear piece.
She knew the type all too well.
"This a recall or something?" She had a hand on her hip, her gaze daring him not to notice the disarray of her clothes.
"No, Major."
"Then come back later." She pushed on the door, giving his foot a squeeze. "Kinda busy now."
Bringing his hand up, he pressed back. "Ma’am, are you alone?"
He knew she wasn’t. And a quick records check on the computers undoubtedly running inside the SUVs would have told him she lived alone.
Relaxing her grip on the door, she poked a hip in his direction. "Just me and my toys, lover."
"We believe there’s someone else in the house, Major."
She closed her eyes and let a wistful smile play over her face. "How does that contradict what I just said? Look, he’s handcuffed to the bed and I don’t want him getting cold or lonely...or starting without me."
The suit put his hand to his ear, someone else feeding him orders. He nodded, then offered her a flat smile. "Sorry about that, Major. You have a good evening now."
"I plan on it." Amanda let the door close on her return smile. She locked the bolt, secured the chain then sauntered back to her bedroom musing that the agents outside likely didn't want to make a scene before they were convinced the man they searched for was inside. There had been a few too many events like that on the news these last six months.
