by Lisa Hughey
Trust Carson to bottom line it. “Can you get me information on him? Whereabouts? Cell tracking? Anything? She and her mother have split up to keep him off balance. But I’m wondering if we’re going to have to bait traps to keep him from Stella.”
“I’ll get you the information as soon as possible.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“Keep Sunshine safe,” Carson commanded.
“That’s my plan.” Zeke hesitated, wondering if he should tell Carson about his other discovery.
Carson sighed. “Spit it out.”
“I may have run into Susan Chen.”
“What?!”
Zeke jerked his head back from the phone. He’d never heard Carson raise his voice.
“I had to make a choice.” Zeke refused to be defensive but he also wanted to explain. “Her or Sunshine. And at that moment, Sunshine was in more danger than Chen. Stanley found Sunshine.”
He mentally kicked himself, he should have called Carson right away. Obviously it had only been a few hours ago, but if he’d been thinking, he should have alerted Carson to Chen’s presence in SLO. Crap. “I guess Jamie didn’t call you.”
His emphasis had been on getting Sunshine to safety, and after he’d made the call to Jamie, he’d shoved the other woman from his mind.
“We need to find her.” Carson grumbled. “She escaped from a maximum security facility. She’s got answers we need.”
“She’s in California somewhere.”
“You need to stay away from her until we can capture her and interrogate her,” Carson said grimly.
Zeke was well aware that if Susan Chen were captured with his card on her, it wouldn’t look good for him. He debated whether to reveal what he’d done or keep it to himself, but in the end he figured he’d better come clean.
“Yeah, about that.”
“Jesus, Hawthorne, what now?”
“I may have given her my card.”
Zeke could practically see Carson drop his head into his free hand.
“Okay. Okay. It’s good that you told me,” Carson said. “Full disclosure. But you need to know that I may not be able to protect you if we apprehend her with evidence that you’ve been in contact and shit hits the fan.”
Zeke flinched. He really hadn’t thought his actions through. He’d been too anxious to get to Sunshine. He was a programmer, looking for patterns, searching for answers. He didn’t automatically think like a covert agent. Which might just be his fucking downfall. And he definitely hadn’t been thinking like a covert agent when he’d made contact with Sunshine and then followed her to SLO. He’d been thinking like a guy.
“Did she say anything?”
“No. She was terrified of me.” Zeke frowned. If only he’d had the time to talk to her, get some information from her. Just a little before he’d had to go after Sunshine. But it was too late now. And he wasn’t sorry he’d made the choice he had.
“Okay.” Carson said, “I’ll see what I can dig up on John Stanley and get back to you.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Just keep our girl safe.”
Our girl. If only.
Zeke clicked the off button and turned to see Sunshine standing in the doorway to the hotel room. He hadn’t heard the door open. Hadn’t heard her at all. Jeez, he sucked at the covert stuff.
There were so many ways this conversation could go bad.
And then she asked, “What did Susan Chen do?”
Twenty-One
I watched Zeke mouth the word, “shit,” and then tuck his phone into his Hawaiian hibiscus board shorts pocket. I had to wonder if he was going to lie to me.
Probably.
He closed his eyes, and tilted his head back. Then he squared his shoulders, shifted his head so that he looked straight at me with bleak resignation. “I can’t tell you.”
Well, it wasn’t quite a lie but it certainly wasn’t an answer either.
I probably should have asked more questions earlier but between my freak out and his tension and I’d reacted instead of analyzed.
“Time for me to go.” I blurted without thinking, reacting again. More secrets. More lies. I couldn’t take it. My stress level rose and the last twenty minutes of meditation went out the window.
He looked so discouraged, I almost backed down. But then I thought about my life. If I was truly going to take charge, I needed to actually ‘take charge’.
The truth was, I didn’t want to leave, I wanted him to give me a reason to stay.
His entire body vibrated with intensity, with unspoken need, some unspoken tension. “Go inside.” Zeke waved his arm at the interior of the hotel room. “Fuck it.”
Okay. Finally. I went back into the hotel room. Zeke followed closely behind me.
The door swung closed with an ominous thunk.
Zeke gestured to the bed. “Have a seat.”
And he proceeded to tell me a crazy tale of abduction, experimental DNA-enhancing drugs, antidotes, suspensions, and prison escape.
I wanted to get it right. And let’s face it, the story he just shared was so fantastical that I had to clarify. “So you were illegally injected with some sort of genetic enhancement drug, abducted, had your encryption program stolen, and illegally injected again with an antidote. All by this Susan Chen?”
“Yep.” Zeke nodded. “And an accomplice.”
“When she was caught, you were suspended because you ‘gave’ her the encryption program, and then she escaped from a highly secure federal prison.”
“Yep.”
“Except you don’t remember giving her the program.”
“Yep.”
“And that was the Asian woman in Le Bistrôt Légume earlier.”
“Yep.”
“But you didn’t apprehend her…you came after me.”
That was the part I really didn’t get. This woman held the key to clearing his name. Because only she could corroborate that he hadn’t colluded with the bad guys and that his sharing of his program was because he was under the influence of Sodium Pentothal.
“Yep.”
I remembered what he said earlier, but really I had to ask another time. After all, insane weird attraction was no reason not to save himself. “Why?”
He just looked steadily at me. “You really want me to say it again?”
My heart thudded painfully in my chest as the implications of what he was saying, or really what he wasn’t saying, penetrated. I was smart, a genius really. He didn’t actually think I would buy what he wasn’t saying.
Because of me, because I was in imminent danger from my stepfather, he hadn’t chased after the woman who had the power to clear him. A woman who is supposedly a fugitive from the federal government and who is the subject of a huge, quiet manhunt by the NSA.
“Really?” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes but it was close.
How dumb did he think I was? Like most people, he catalogued my ultra-feminine skirt, the loosely crocheted sweater, and the new age potions and concoctions in Scents of the Sea, and assumed I was some free-spirited flower child chasing moonbeams and butterflies without a concrete, intelligent thought in my head. I’d thought someone that smart would be able to see beneath the surface to me.
“Believe what you want.” Zeke shrugged as if he didn’t care, but an odd vulnerability flashed over his face as he cut his gaze to the bland watercolor over the Formica desk. “But for inexplicable reasons, I seem to be compelled to help you whether you want it or not. And you were terrified of John Stanley.”
A feeling of warmth, of sweetness, spread through me. I wanted to believe him, I really did. But I’d been cynical and distrustful since my seventh birthday because of my stepfather. And truly, because of his obsession with my mother, he was the poster child for unhealthy attraction. Fortunately, Zeke wasn’t giving off a creepy stalker vibe. But thirteen years of abject cynicism couldn’t be eradicated in one simple day.
“Besides, I have my orders,” Zeke said.
>
“Orders?” I’d believe that over some completely illogical and badly-timed attraction.
He sidestepped my true question quite neatly. “Your mother asked me to look out for you.”
And that quickly my animosity deflated. Mama would have thought I needed someone to look after me. She’d needed someone her whole life, even if she didn’t really recognize that I had been taking care of her for years. I didn’t need someone to take care of me. And he may have blithely ignored the question but I knew he wasn’t talking about my mother’s request.
“I don’t understand why you would have orders to keep me safe.” I shook my head trying to reason out why anyone in the NSA would care about a pair of women with no ties to anything illegal or even of national security. The idea was preposterous.
Zeke pressed his lips together. And didn’t say a word.
“You aren’t going to tell me,” I said flatly. Unfortunately I couldn’t seem to keep the disappointment out of my voice and I could feel my heartbeat slow as I understood he was done sharing. There had to be more to this situation than my mother and I and a crazy ex-stepfather. Zeke worked for the NSA for Goddess’s sake.
National Security Agency.
There was no way that the NSA would concern themselves with our little dysfunctional, violent triangle. And I couldn’t figure out why it had taken me so long to clue in to that fact.
What were the odds that Susan Chen was here, in San Luis Obispo where Zeke was, where I was, where John Stanley was? When I thought about that I was even more bewildered.
How was it all connected? And why?
It was a puzzle that needed brain power and more information. But before I could delve into an analysis of the seemingly disconnected items and events, he interrupted.
“So what’s it going to be?” Zeke raised an eyebrow. He was attempting to be casual, but I could feel his tension even from across the room. He really did want me to stay.
He was giving me the power. The decision. Giving me the choice. Rather than telling me what to do. I wanted to say I was leaving. Getting the heck out, but the reality was, I didn’t want to go too far from home until I reconnected with my mother and Blue. And I could use a decent nights’ sleep.
At the end of the day, I needed a place to stay and he was offering. So I crossed my arms over my chest, and gave him the most vacuous smile I could while I calculated the best odds for staying ahead of my killer stepfather.
Because no matter what Zeke Hawthorne said, John Stanley was the threat to me, to my mother. But he shouldn’t be able to track us from Zeke’s license plate that quickly, which meant I would be safe for tonight.
“I’ll stay.”
His relief was unmistakable.
I eyed him as he rubbed his palms over his board shorts. “What would you have done if I’d said I was leaving?” My curiosity got the better of me.
“I’d have followed you to make sure you were safe,” Zeke replied emphatically.
A strange warmth settled in my belly. I was so used to taking care of myself that it had never occurred to me that anyone else would do the honors.
“Oh.” I smiled, it was tentative, hesitant, a peace offering and an invitation all at once. I couldn’t help my soft reply. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
Pleasure. And just like that the elephant was back in the room. I thought about those kisses. I thought about him lying between my legs. Solid and masculine. Not even twenty-four hours ago. Was it only last night?
Then I thought about how much I’d missed out on in my life.
I was tired of missing out.
I remembered last night on the beach, before the terror, after I’d pulled him from the sea like my own personal watery treasure. He was my spoils and I was going to seize this moment like a true pirate.
Zeke Hawthorne wasn’t going to know what hit him.
Twenty-Two
“Whatever you’re thinking is not a good idea,” he said almost desperately. But I was pretty sure the same thoughts had crossed his mind too.
I wasn’t about to let him stop this. Stop me.
“How would you know?” I crossed my arms, compelled to use defensive posture even though I knew it was a bad signal. The move plumped my breasts until the small mounds were lush and full and nearly spilling out the loose neckline. And what do you know, his gaze seemed drawn to my breasts. His words stalled, as he stared intently at my body. My defensive gesture had oddly worked in my favor.
I tossed my head, the movement shifted my loose braid and the tip came to rest right over my left breast, pointing down like an arrow to the tight hard bud of my nipple. I ached. I wanted his hands on me. On my body, cupping my breasts and pinching my nipples.
He still hadn’t lifted his gaze from my breasts. Which was beyond thrilling, but I wanted him to move. To touch me. To take me. I prowled to the end of the bed.
The flush on his face, combined with the obvious bulge in his board shorts, told me all I needed to know. My hard nipples and short breath hopefully told him all he needed to know.
Zeke took a step back. He was going the wrong way. I wanted him to barrel forward, haul me into his arms, and press his mouth against mine.
I knew he wanted me. It was kinda hard to deny. But as soon as he opened his mouth, I realized he was going to try and stop this. No. Way.
“Sunshine. I can’t let you do this. Making this kind of decision in the midst of the turmoil—”
Oh, he did not just say that. “Every single big decision of my life has been made in turmoil.” I dismissed that argument, and prepped for another.
He rubbed his hands through his unruly hair. “I want you more than I want my next breath.”
“Then take me.”
I wanted him. Bad. Even though I’d had a weirdly sheltered upbringing, it wasn’t like I lived in a convent. I’d had some sexual experiences, but no boy had ever tempted me to throw away all caution and share my body. No man had ever made me feel the way he did when he’d been between my thighs, mostly-clothed, last night. And he hadn’t even been trying.
My pulse thudded and my nipples tingled just from his gaze on my body.
I wanted it all. I wanted the experience. I wanted the rush of sexual arousal. I wanted his body, thick and hard and over mine. I wanted his cock inside me, and he’d barely even touched me.
Something about our chemistry, as if he were vinegar to my baking soda, the two of us together caused an immediate, explosive result. I nearly combusted at his caresses.
“I don’t want you to regret anything.”
“Right now, there’s nothing to regret,” I snarked, impatient with his delay tactics. I wanted him, now.
And in the middle of my life-altering, taking back my power decision, Zeke laughed. He threw his head back, and I found myself salivating over the corded muscles of his neck and the tight bunch of his pectorals beneath the thin t-shirt.
“My stepfather stole my childhood and my teen years from me. I’ll be damned if I let him continue to fuck up my life. I want this. I want you, Zeke Hawthorne. And I’m going to have you.” I let everything I was feeling, heat, desire, yearning show. So he could see all the emotion and longing that boiled inside me.
He wasn’t laughing any longer.
I knelt on the side of the bed, arms at my sides. Waiting. I’d just laid it all on the line for him. I needed Zeke to make the next move. And if he didn’t I’d just quietly die of embarrassment.
Then, he burst into action. Zeke strode to the side of the bed, and cupped my face. The small hotel room was redolent with the scents of the ocean, sand, salt, fresh air, and cucumber as if my warm, aroused body had diffused my essence into the air and wrapped us in a sensual haze.
Zeke burrowed his fingers in the hair at my nape. His thumbs brushed my cheeks, and I lit up like a lightning strike.
“You’re sure?” Zeke asked one more time.
I rested my palms at his waist. Desire rose between us thick and viscou
s, as I pressed my body against the straining proof that he wanted me right back. I glanced down, my gaze fixed on the large bulge of his erection beneath his shorts, and my breath caught.
Goddess, he was big. I knew that a woman’s body was meant to yield to the intrusion of cock, but a band tightened around my chest as I contemplated how he was going to fit.
Still, I nodded yes and licked my lips.
Zeke let out a silent groan, and searched my gaze. I tried, hard, to send the right message, ‘please, please have sex with me, show me that there’s even more to what I’ve been feeling.’
“Have you done this before?”
My heart nearly stopped. Oh hell no, I was not confessing my virginal status. I didn’t want any reason for him to stop.
So I went for distraction. “Would you shut up and kiss me, please?” I curled my fingers around the waist of his shorts and pulled him against me. His hard chest pressed into my softer breasts and his firm biceps curled around my back. His cock, thick and long, rubbed against my softer giving belly and my body clenched as if already trying to pull him into me. He surrounded me, overwhelmed me.
Then finally, finally his mouth was on mine.
***
Zeke wasn’t stupid.
She hadn’t answered his question. But at her urging he tilted his head and slanted his mouth over hers, as she clutched his waist. Her nerves were apparent in the tight set of her shoulders.
He knew what it was like to want something so badly that your entire body vibrated with hope. Adrenaline and pheromones flooded his body. He understood her wariness and her impatience. The contradictions drew him as much as her plump lips and lush curves. He needed to handle her with care even as he strained to dive into her sweet, eager body.
Zeke didn’t want her nervous. He wanted her turned on and anticipating the entwining of their bodies. So he set about making that happen.
Her mouth was soft and enthusiastic beneath his as he kissed her top lip, then each corner, left then right, and finally her bottom lip.
He thought he’d known, thought he’d understood the power of sexual need, but ever since he’d lain between her thighs last night, an urgent, overwhelming lust had throbbed below the surface. Under the layer of his conscious mind, need for her pulsed steady and unrelenting.
