Whiskey-Eyed Woman (Soldiering On Book 5)

by Aislinn Kearns

  Would he push her away? Pull her closer? Her heart clutched in anticipation and dread.

  He moved so suddenly she was flipped on her back before she knew it, Duncan looming over her. He pinned her hands above her head, his heavy weight pressing her back into the mattress. Between his boxers and her sweatpants and t-shirt, they weren’t touching skin-to-skin, but it was still the hottest moment of Mandy’s life.

  His erection settled at her core and she shifted her hips, rubbing herself against him through their clothing. She gasped in pleasure and he growled, though whether in equal pleasure or in annoyance, she couldn’t be sure.

  She couldn’t stop her triumphant grin.

  But she wasn’t smiling for long.

  Duncan lunged forward and took her mouth in a fierce kiss. She gave back as good as she got, using her lips and tongue and teeth to plunder his mouth as he was doing to her.

  She pushed against his hands where hers were pinned, desperate to touch him, but he ignored her unspoken pleas.

  Instead, he rolled his hips, pressing his erection against the tight bundle of nerve endings at her core. She gasped against his mouth, bowing upwards until her breast rubbed against his chest. Her nipples peaked at the friction, begging for his attention.

  He kissed his way down her neck; wet, open-mouthed kisses that trailed fire in their wake. He was hampered by the t-shirt she wore, and growled in frustration. He moved both her hands so he could hold them down with only one of his, then used his spare hands to ruck her t-shirt up above her breasts.

  The cool air of the room brushed over her sensitised flesh, overwhelming her with sensation. Then his mouth was on her breast, almost rough with his urgency. She cried out in pleasure, her core pulsing with need, both from the feeling of his mouth on her and the evidence of his own strong desire.

  He flexed his hips again, pleasuring her with his erection. Even between two layers of clothing it was enough to bring her close to orgasm. She was so worked up, she knew she’d come any second, but she wanted him inside her.

  “Duncan,” she moaned, but it was all she could get out. He increased the pace and the pressure until she panted, and then he took her mouth again in a rough kiss.

  It only took a few more rolls of his hips before she came on a gasp, and Duncan didn’t stop moving his hips until her orgasm faded.

  Their eyes locked, their breaths mingled. Mandy felt heavy with spent pleasure, but she still wanted—needed—him inside her.

  He shifted, his hand settling on the waistband of his boxers.

  He winced, gave a sharp groan of pain, and then rolled away from her until he lay on his back beside her.

  “Duncan…?” she tried.

  He set his jaw. “Don’t.”

  He stood, paused for a brief second, then limped from the room, leaving her bereft in their bed.

  Chapter 5

  Duncan didn’t return to bed—to Mandy—and instead spent an awkward night draped over the small couch. He didn’t get a wink of sleep. His own fault, really. He should never have let her touch him. He never should’ve touched her.

  If his leg hadn’t reminded him of how broken he was, they would have made love, he knew. Having to live with the knowledge of what it felt like to touch her, taste her, was bad enough. But if he’d been inside her, he knew he could never let her go.

  She deserved so much better than what he could offer her. Someone young and whole, rich and handsome, and everything he wasn’t. Someone from her own world.

  He groaned in relief as the sun finally made an appearance, giving him an excuse to rise and ready himself for the day. He took a long shower, washing away the remnants of Mandy from his skin. He was almost sorry, knowing he’d never allow himself to touch her again, and wanting to revel in it for as long as possible. But it was better to make a clean break, and pretend last night had never happened.

  As if he could forget.

  He dressed in some spare clothes he found in the same cupboard he’d found clothes for Mandy the night before. Worn jeans and a t-shirt from some band he’d seen in a dirty back room of a bar forever ago.

  He was toasting more of the frozen bread and figuring out how to make a latté with the coffee machine and some long-life milk, when Mandy made an appearance. She was in her suit skirt from yesterday, which had come out of their adventures largely unscathed, and wore another of his t-shirts tucked into the skirt, and somehow looking like she stepped off a runway. Except for the sneakers on her feet—an old pair of Sam’s that she'd kept in the car for emergencies and thankfully fit Mandy well enough.

  She looked more refreshed than he felt, and her cheeks flushed red as their eyes met. His blood flowed south as the memories of the night before danced between them.

  “Toast?” he asked as he wrenched his gaze away.

  “Sure.” She slid into the same seat she’d sat at the night before. “Are we seeing Shep this morning?”

  “As soon as it’s an acceptable hour,” he replied. He finally got the coffee machine working, and used the latté-making as an excuse not to talk to Mandy. He got some butter from the fridge—checking the use by date before plonking it on the table with the toast.

  The caffeine from the latté strengthened Duncan, until he could at least look at Mandy again with some semblance of his usual, controlled self.

  “About last night,” she began, shattering his illusions of control.

  He clenched his jaw. “Let’s not talk about it.”

  “But—”

  “It was a mistake, nothing more.”

  Hurt brimmed in her eyes, and he thought he saw a sheen of tears. But she blinked and nodded, looking down at her plate.

  Regret instantly swamped him, but he clamped his mouth shut. It was better if she hated him, so neither of them would be tempted into a repeat performance of the night before.

  They finished their breakfast in silence and a distinct lack of enthusiasm. When done, they avoided each other until it was time to leave. Mandy grabbed her purse, and Duncan grabbed a few extra guns from the sideboard, then they made their way out to the car.

  “How do you know where Shep lives?” Mandy asked curiously.

  “Paul and I went there. After you and I interviewed her, she said she needed her own machine to do what we needed her to, she couldn’t do it with ours.”

  “Huh.” They lapsed into silence once again.

  Duncan parked around the back of the tall apartment building that unknowingly housed a world-class hacker and all her equipment. They got out of the car and Duncan led the way to her apartment. The inside of the building wasn’t particularly well-kept, with concrete floors and dirt-smudged walls. He noted Mandy was careful not to touch anything.

  Duncan knocked on the door, then pressed his ear against it to listen for a reply. None came.

  “Shep! It’s Duncan Pierce. Open up.”

  They waited for a full two minutes before they heard any movement on the other side of the door.

  “You know the drill,” said a woman’s voice.

  Duncan moved back until he stood directly beneath the security camera mounted over her door. He dragged Mandy into the frame with him and gave a reluctant wave, then stepped out of reach of both Mandy and Shep’s door.

  The door slowly opened, and a tiny woman with short blue hair blinked in the light.

  “What’re you doing here?” she asked owlishly.

  “That’s not the welcome I expected.”

  She narrowed her eyes, but didn’t dignify his teasing with a response. He sighed.

  “I need your help.”

  “You know my rates.”

  “Sure, but I’m hoping you might give me a discount, considering I just need the same information you got me before.”

  Shep assessed him for a moment, then turned her gaze to Mandy. “Hey.”

  Mandy stepped forward. “Hi, Shep. Nice to see you again.”

  Shep smiled. “It is. You guys better come in.”

  The apartment
was just as Duncan had remembered it. The space looked smaller than it was because it was crammed with desks which groaned under the weight of screens, drives, keyboards, and all manner of complicated computer equipment that was beyond his ken.

  Empty packets of junk food littered the remaining space, and clothes were strewn over the only couch in the studio apartment. Even the bed was covered in computer equipment.

  Duncan didn’t dare look at Mandy to see what she thought. He focused on Shep as she closed the door and threw herself into a comfortable-looking swivel chair.

  “So what can I do ya for today?” she asked with a huge grin.

  “You know how I asked you to destroy all the evidence on Beaton you found for us?” he asked.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Yes.”

  “Did you?”

  “Of course. I always do what a client asks of me.” Her face was a picture of innocence. Duncan didn’t believe her for a second.

  “Hypothetically, if you didn’t do as I asked, how much would you charge me for the information again?” He raised his eyebrow in question, and she smiled a cunning grin.

  “I destroyed all the information. I’d have to hack in to get it again.”

  Duncan rolled his eyes. “We’re ninety percent sure they knew you were there last time. Chances are they’ve destroyed all the evidence you found.”

  She tilted her head. “So why were you so careless as to lose it?”

  Duncan stared at her, not sure how much to say. In the end, Mandy made the decision for him.

  “Most of it was sitting on a drive in our office when someone set off a bomb in there, nearly killing us both.” She said it emotionlessly, but her hand trembled faintly, giving her away.

  All Shep’s cockiness melted away, replaced by empathy. “Shit.”

  “Agreed,” Mandy said with a wobbly smile.

  “I liked those offices.”

  Tears sprang to Mandy’s eyes. “So did I.”

  Duncan cleared his throat. “So, did you keep the stuff?” he asked. His own grief at losing the company he’d worked so hard for would have to wait until people stopped trying to kill them.

  He and Mandy had worked so hard over the last two years to make the company into what it was. It had just found its footing, and then it was destroyed, sending them back to square one. All of their investments—the weapons, equipment, training facilities they’d rehabbed—all gone. Insurance would cover it, but it would take time and energy, making them lose the momentum they’d built.

  He hoped they could rebuild, but perhaps Mandy wouldn’t want to—not with him. He wouldn’t blame her. He hadn’t treated her as well as she’d deserved, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if she used this opportunity to leave him behind.

  His heart ached at the thought.

  “Look, you never know when information like that will come in handy,” Shep said defensively.

  Duncan grinned. “So you do have it?”

  “I do,” Shep admitted.

  Mandy stepped toward her. “What were you planning to do with it?” Mandy asked curiously.

  “Look, I hate Beaton as much as any ex-contractor of theirs does, maybe more. They’ve got a hell of a lot of skeletons in their closets. And they have deep pockets—almost endless.” She shrugged.

  “You planned to blackmail them,” Duncan said with a smile.

  “Blackmail is a harsh word,” she protested, then paused. “But, yeah, I was.”

  Mandy laughed, and Duncan joined in. Shep grinned at their amusement.

  “So, what did you two do to get Beaton to plant a bomb in your office? That’s pretty brazen, even for them.”

  Mandy’s eyebrows shot up. “You know, that’s a very good question. Why did Beaton decide to come after us now?”

  Heat creeped into Duncan’s cheeks, and he cleared his throat. Mandy’s gaze zeroed in on him.

  “Duncan?” she prompted.

  He sighed. “I might’ve done a bit of blackmailing myself,” he muttered into his chest.

  Mandy’s eyes bugged. “You what?”

  He ran a finger over the desk, avoiding her gaze. His finger came away with a light dusting of orange powder—Cheetos, if he had to guess.

  “Look, he was threatening you, and I could see how much it stressed you out.” He glanced up and met Mandy’s gaze, then let his eyes fall elsewhere. “I told him if he didn’t stop, then I planned to release what information we had on them publicly.”

  Mandy barked a laugh of disbelief. “You seriously threatened the people threatening me?”

  He gave a one-shoulder shrug, glad his dark skin hid the blush he could feel heating his cheeks.

  Shep eyed him. “That’s cute. Stupid, but cute.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Duncan said. “Can we have the info or what?”

  He peeked at Mandy from the corner of his eye to see her looking at him with fond amusement. His heart flipped in his chest even as his blush deepened. He turned back to Shep.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Though you’ll owe me a favour at some point.”

  Duncan was about to agree, when he saw the deadly serious expression on her face.

  He eyed her suspiciously. “What kind of favour?”

  She shrugged. “Whatever I want, whenever I need it. I’ll make sure it’s in your wheelhouse, though. Won’t ask you to make me a croquembouche.”

  “A what?”

  “Exactly.”

  Duncan held her gaze for a long moment, but Shep didn’t flinch.

  “Deal,” he said eventually.

  Shep nodded, pleased, then spun her swivel chair around so it faced a screen. She tapped away at the computer with one hand, while her other opened a desk drawer and chose one USB among the hundred or so that filled it. She plugged it into a USB hub and waited a few minutes while the files transferred over.

  Mandy stepped forward. “Shep, be careful, won’t you?”

  Shep looked at Mandy over her shoulder with a quizzical expression. “Why’s that?”

  “If Tulane finds out you’ve seen this information…Well, he blew up our offices to destroy it, and it’s only luck both of us weren’t there when it happened. In fact, he might have intended us to be. So just keep an eye out, won’t you?”

  Shep gave Mandy a long look. “This place is like Fort Knox,” she said. Before Mandy could press for a promise, Shep held up her hand to interrupt her. “I’ll keep it in mind, up my security a little. It never hurts to be careful.”

  Mandy smiled and nodded.

  Shep turned back, unplugged the USB, then handed it to Duncan. “Look after this one, won’t you?”

  “You bet. Thank you.”

  They said their goodbyes, and then Duncan and Mandy were on the road, a USB containing the fate of their lives burning a hole in Duncan’s pocket.

  Chapter 6

  An awkward silence settled over the car as soon as they were alone, so Duncan turned on the car radio. He didn’t bother picking a station, he didn’t really care what they listened to as long as it wasn’t his empty thoughts.

  They drove towards the safe house. When they were halfway back, the hour ticked over and the radio sounded the stinger for the local news bulletin.

  “Our leading story today is the missing socialite Amanda Lennox. You may remember her office building burnt down yesterday, but so far no bodies have been recovered from the building. It’s believed she’s still alive, as is her business partner that went missing at the same time. All other workers in the building have been accounted for. Police are looking for any information about either Ms. Lennox or the blaze.”

  Duncan glanced at Mandy, and she gazed back with a stricken expression. “How did they find out so quickly?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Not sure, but maybe Destiny can tell us what she’s heard around the bull pen.”

  He drove for a while until he found a gas station with a peeling sign indicating they had a payphone. He parked the SUV and the two of them found the payphone and used coins fro
m Mandy’s purse to call Destiny.

  “Hello?” she answered.

  “Hi,” said Duncan. “I’m alive.”

  She laughed delightedly. “I know, but it’s still nice to hear your voice.”

  Duncan grinned. “I guess you found the note?”

  “We did. We’re all here at Zack’s trying to figure out a next step. We were here last night, too, after we heard, but didn’t get very far.”

  “Okay, Mandy and I will be there as soon as we can. Since Tulane will suspect we’re still alive, we’ll have to be a bit more careful.”

  They said their goodbyes, and Duncan and Mandy hopped back into the car. They made it to Zack’s in good time, despite Duncan’s manoeuvring to make sure no one followed them. They knocked on the door and Destiny answered seconds before she threw herself into his arms for a relieved hug. He squeezed her back, then waited while she hugged Mandy, too, before heading back into the house.

  It was a nice home, and Zack had put a lot of work into it himself. Wooden floorboards, wood panelling on some of the walls, and high ceilings made the open plan living-kitchen area feel spacious and homey. A lot of the chairs people currently sat on had been handmade by Zack, as had the other furniture.

  They often met at Zack’s for social functions because it was one of the few houses any of them lived in that was big enough for all of them. But even still, it was a little crowded, with all of the core Soldiering On crew, their partners, Destiny, and now Duncan and Mandy.

  A commotion rose as soon as Duncan and Mandy entered the room. Sierra was in front, wrapping her arms around Mandy with a squeal. Their team enveloped them in a series of hugs, and it took a long while before everything calmed enough to start a conversation.

  Duncan turned to Destiny. “How did the press find out so quickly that we weren’t in the fire? The fire investigators shouldn’t even have gone in yet.”

  She made a face. “Mandy’s father.”

  Mandy’s head whipped around. “What about my father?”

  “He showed up on the scene and made noise about how people weren’t doing their jobs. He called some senator friends, who threw their weight around…Anyway, it pushed the schedule forward. He convinced them to use all the expensive toys they don’t often bring out—drones and other monitoring equipment—to search the building for your bodies. They weren’t happy about the expense, but he and his money are apparently quite convincing. He also did a lot of press, if you haven’t seen the interviews yet.”