Ready

by Lucy Monroe

  “Uh-huh.”

  She mentally strained at the bond linking them so effectively. “Hotwire is a lot friendlier than either you or Nitro. Why is that?”

  Joshua’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t let that sweet Georgia accent fool you. He’s every bit as deadly as me or Nitro.”

  “I didn’t doubt it for a minute, but he’s also about as charming as a new preacher at Sunday dinner.”

  The bottle landed with a thud on the countertop behind her and Joshua’s hands settled on either side of her. “Would you rather go to bed with a man who can charm you than a man who turns you inside out with passion?”

  She swallowed and then licked her lips. “I wasn’t talking about going to bed with anyone.”

  “Keep it that way.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t start thinking about Hotwire as a potential bed partner.”

  Her hands came up to push against a solid chest that seemed to be pressing into her. “I can think of anyone I like.”

  “No.” He kissed her. It was short, but powerful to the point of leaving her weak-kneed. “You can’t.”

  Her fingers tingled from the heat of him. “Why can’t I?”

  “Because you want me and when this job is done, I’m going to show you how much.”

  “Conceited toad.”

  His smile about finished the job his kiss had started. She was pretty sure she would have slid right down the cupboard if he hadn’t been so close and practically holding her up with his body.

  “Conceit isn’t justified. Confidence is, and I’m confident the attraction is mutual.”

  “Is it?” she asked, remembering his rejection the night before.

  He pressed his pelvis into her and the hard length against her stomach answered her question before his sexy, “Oh, yeah,” did.

  He kissed her again and she hung, suspended by the connection of their two lips, until he stepped back.

  “It’s late. You need to get to bed.”

  She nodded, mute from the kiss and sensual threat of his words.

  “You can have the bathroom first.”

  “Thanks,” she croaked out.

  The shower helped relax her, but no amount of hot water or scrubbing could rid her mind of the image of her and Joshua together on a bed. After drying off, she pulled on a cranberry red t-shirt that had almost faded to pink, she’d had it so long, and a pair of white flannel pajama bottoms covered with miniature rosebuds.

  She considered her image in the mirror ruefully. Sexy she was not. She looked about ten years old. She grimaced and stepped out of the bathroom.

  Joshua was leaning against the wall.

  He looked her up and down and the expression in his eyes made her feel like she was wearing a black silk negligee. So much for looking like a child.

  “It’s free,” she said inanely.

  He said nothing, but walked past her, allowing his arm to brush hers, the contact burning to the core of her.

  She stood outside the closed bathroom door for several minutes as unwanted fantasies of his naked body occupying the same space she had just vacated teased her brain. The shower shut off and she realized she was going to be caught mooning like a love-struck calf if she didn’t get her tail in gear.

  Five minutes later, she stood, stymied, on the verge of the living room with extra bedding and one of her pillows for him to sleep with. If she made up the couch as a bed for either herself or Joshua, Nemesis was bound to realize someone else was in the apartment because part of the couch could be seen through the surveillance camera.

  A sound behind her alerted her that Joshua had come out of the bathroom and she turned. The question she was going to ask about sleeping arrangements flew right out of her head. He was wearing a pair of charcoal gray knit boxers and nothing else.

  His body could have graced the cover of a body builder’s magazine…or Playgirl.

  Not that she’d ever bought one, but if the magazine ever had a series of naked pictures of Joshua, she might.

  He nodded toward the bedding in her arms. “Is that for me?”

  “Ye…” She had to clear her throat. “Yes.”

  “Thanks.” He took a step toward her, his hand extended to take the blankets.

  “Where are you going to sleep?” she squeaked out.

  “In your bedroom.”

  “Oh.” It made sense. He was a big man and needed the big bed more than she did.

  “Where should I sleep?” she asked, as if it were his apartment rather than hers, which irritated her.

  She was not a simpering, shy innocent, even if she did have hot flashes from the sight of Joshua in his skivvies.

  “In your bed.”

  Her mouth fell open. She hadn’t considered sharing a bedroom with Joshua.

  “I’m not sleeping with you.”

  His brows rose in mockery. “Oh, you will, but not tonight. I’ll take the floor.”

  “But…”

  He didn’t wait for her to finish, but turned and went into her bedroom.

  She followed, not the least calmed by his assurance he’d be sleeping on the floor. “You won’t be comfortable on the floor.”

  “Your plush carpet is a vast improvement over many of the places I’ve slept in the last sixteen years.” He bent over and started making up a pallet.

  She’d never, ever stared at a man’s butt before, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sight of Joshua’s.

  Had Mike even had a butt? She certainly had never noticed it with a surge of lust like the one gripping her insides at the moment. An experience that made his assertion she would sleep with him one day sound entirely too plausible.

  “Is that how long you’ve been a mercenary?” she asked, trying to ignore the furious pounding of her heart as well as the direction of her thoughts.

  “No. I was an Army Ranger for six years.”

  “You must have been really young when you entered the army.”

  He shrugged, straightening. “Eighteen.”

  She’d been the same age when she’d gotten married, but his career as a soldier had lasted longer than her marriage. She sighed and looked at the bed and then back at him.

  It was king size. She’d bought it because she’d fallen in love with the headboard, which had been hand-carved to resemble a plethora of roses. Above and beyond the beauty of the piece was an inner rebellion at the idea of sleeping in a small bed simply because she was no longer married.

  “I would be a lot more comfortable sleeping on the floor than you would be.”

  “No.”

  He had a pretty deep streak of White Knight in him, no matter what he thought.

  “Be reasonable, Joshua. You’re a lot bigger than I am.”

  “We could just as easily share the bed. It’s big enough, especially considering how tiny you are.”

  Her heart started trying to pound out of her chest again. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

  Remembering the types of dreams that had plagued her since their incendiary kiss at the baby’s christening, appalled didn’t begin to describe how she felt at the prospect of sleeping in the same physical space as Joshua.

  Something must have shown on her face because his frown was hot enough to singe her.

  Lise’s horrified refusal pissed Joshua off, even though he agreed with it in principle.

  No matter how big the bed was, he wasn’t going to get a wink of sleep sharing it with her, but it aggravated him that she was so obviously appalled by the prospect.

  He was the one who had walked away the night before. She should realize she had nothing to fear from him.

  “Why not?” he demanded. “Do you think I’ll sneak onto your side of the bed, or something?”

  Her cheeks turned an interesting shade of pink. “No.”

  “I would never try to coerce you.”

  Her blush intensified. “I’m aware of that.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Why was
he arguing this? It was a bad idea, damn it. He needed someone to sew his lips shut.

  She took a deep breath, pressing her breasts against her thin cotton t-shirt. “I dream about you.”

  “You dream about me?” Now that was interesting.

  “Yes, since that time last year.”

  “Naughty dreams?” He asked it to rile her, and the way she impaled him with her eyes told him he’d succeeded. “I don’t see the problem. They’re just dreams,” he said, to push her just a little more.

  “After last night, they’ll probably only get worse,” she gritted out.

  “So?” He liked the idea of her having the feminine equivalent of wet dreams about him.

  She glared at him. “Cryin’ out loud, can’t you just accept that it bothers me to dream about you?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  She tucked the multi-toned blond strands of her hair behind her ears, her hazel eyes green with temper. “I wake up hugging my pillow.”

  He raised one brow.

  Her small hands fisted at her sides. “I’d be embarrassed to death if I woke up hugging you instead.”

  “I wouldn’t mind.”

  She looked ready to explode. “I would.”

  “You didn’t mind me holding you next to the car tonight.”

  “That was different.”

  “You didn’t mind me holding you last night.”

  She paled.

  He sighed. Enough teasing. “You’re not going to wake up with me between your legs if you hug me in your sleep instead of your pillow.”

  He was about to add that he had no intention of sharing her bed when she spun away, wrapping her arms around herself protectively. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

  He remained silent, waiting to hear what was making her feel so vulnerable.

  She turned back to face him, looking harassed. “What if I touch you like I do in my dreams?”

  Just the thought was enough to send his sex throbbing and into full mast.

  Her eyes widened, telling him where she’d been looking. “Good night.”

  “I don’t have any plans to do anything about it.”

  “That’s good.” She didn’t sound convinced, but he couldn’t tell if she was uncertain of his intentions or her own.

  Her rapid breathing and obvious fascination with the tenting in his boxers was making it hard for him to remember that she could be certain of his control, if not her own. He was the professional with a rule about no sex on the job.

  His sister’s insidious voice saying it was more than a job, that it was personal, filtered through his mind.

  Hell. “I’m glad you dream about me.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes.” At least the torment was mutual.

  “Why?”

  “Because I dream about you, too.”

  “Then you understand why I should sleep on the floor.”

  “No.” He was already in pain from unsatisfied desire—what was sleeping on the floor in comparison?

  She frowned at him. “You’re really stubborn, you know that?”

  “I’m thirty-four. That’s not going to change anytime soon.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Go to bed, Lise.”

  “I will when I’m ready.”

  “You will right now if you want to sleep alone.” His control was slipping and if she didn’t hear it in his voice, it was because she was deaf.

  He would have laughed at how fast she scurried over to the bed, but he hurt too much.

  Nemesis had been right.

  Lise Barton had returned to her apartment.

  She hadn’t been able to stay away from her computer—her writing that was so important to her. Her vehicle for filling other women’s heads with lies and immoral beliefs. She destroyed other people’s lives and she had to pay.

  He would administer the retribution. It was his destiny. She would learn to regret her desire to lead other women astray.

  His head itched and he scratched it. His hair felt greasy and his body smelled. He needed a shower, but he couldn’t take a break from monitoring her. The bitch was too inconsistent.

  What if she went somewhere again and he wasn’t ready to follow her?

  It bothered him that he still did not know where she had spent the last few days. There was no record of her flying out of either SeaTac or PDX. He’d even hacked into airline records for flights that originated as far away as Idaho and Northern California. Nothing.

  No record of Lise Barton flying anywhere.

  She couldn’t have gone incognito, either. Not with today’s security-conscious travel identification requirements.

  Knowing he had prevented her from spending Thanksgiving with her family mitigated his fury a little at being deprived of his original plans for the holiday. She didn’t deserve to spend the day with her people when she had made it impossible for him to spend it with his family.

  Though he knew where she hadn’t been—Texas—he didn’t know where she had been. He couldn’t even be sure she’d spent the time away from Seattle with Joshua Watt. The man had dropped her off at her apartment, but had not stayed, which told Nemesis exactly nothing.

  And that was precisely what he’d been able to find out about Joshua Watt. Nothing. His family was from the East Coast, but Nemesis had been unable to find out exactly what Joshua did for a living or where he lived.

  He didn’t like that.

  That sort of hole in key information was exactly what could mess up a launch schedule. Although Watt had gone away, Nemesis would not make the mistake of assuming he wasn’t coming back this time. He’d been fooled once. He would not be again.

  Therefore he needed more information about the man.

  Damn the broken audio transmitter. He had only limited visual on his video transmitter. Unlike in her apartment in Texas, where the speaker had given him a view of all the common living areas and the entry to her bedroom, he now could only see parts of her living room.

  It had been enough to verify her arrival home and that she’d stayed there, but he wanted to hear what was happening in the rest of the apartment. He needed to replace the transmitter somehow. He was tempted to install another video unit at the same time, but it would be safer to try to put an external tap on her phone line than to try to replace the bug.

  However, he did not have a plan in place for such an eventuality.

  Which infuriated him.

  Agitated, he jumped up from his chair in front of the video monitor. His schedule was slipping. Even after spending all of yesterday restructuring it. There were activities he would have to remove from his plans in order to be ready for the final launch when his sign came.

  He’d spent fifteen years as a project manager and he knew how to finesse a schedule, but there were some things that simply could not be taken into account. Things that could throw a plan completely off.

  Joshua Watt’s interference was one of those things, but Nemesis refused to allow the other man to get in the way of meting out justice to Lise Barton.

  Soon, she would pay the ultimate price for her home-wrecking ways.

  Then, maybe he would be able to sleep at night and the loss that haunted him would not hurt so much.

  Lise woke up, her entire body throbbing from what she’d been doing with Joshua in her dream. She could feel wetness between her legs. She reached down, sliding her hand over her stomach to the dewy curls at the apex of her thighs. Just the light touch made her shudder and she gasped. Then she slipped a finger between the folds of her labia and touched herself.

  Her flesh was slick, like silk, wet and swollen.

  She pressed downward and her body gave an involuntary jerk. She yanked her hand out of her pajama bottoms and stared up at the darkly shadowed ceiling, panting. She could just barely hear Joshua’s quiet, even breathing from the floor beside the bed. She would die if she made noise climaxing from touching herself.

  She was not a sexual person. Or so she h
ad always thought. Intimacy with Mike had been more emotionally fulfilling than physically stimulating. She’d never really bothered with the whole self-pleasure thing because climaxes weren’t all that exciting. A lot of work for a short burst of muted pleasure.

  So, what was with her total preoccupation with her sensuality?

  She didn’t want Joshua to wake up and find her in an embarrassing situation, but temptation to wake him up in order to create a situation of another type entirely rode her like a cowboy breaking a new horse.

  The only thing stopping her was the absolute knowledge that making love with Joshua would be a huge mistake. She was already connecting to him on a dangerous emotional level.

  If they made love, how would she deal with the aftermath when he moved on? And he would move on. Joshua wanted sex from her, not a commitment. Not even a relationship.

  But as her body lay there, throbbing with a need she could not deny, she had to wonder if she would have the strength to resist her own yearnings.

  Chapter 6

  Joshua stretched. Low-level illumination from the streetlights outside filtered through the bottom edge of the curtains on Lise’s bedroom window, verifying that it was still dark outside.

  Hard and aching, Joshua had to wonder how intelligent his choice had been to stay in the apartment, much less sleep in the same room as Lise. Her even breathing indicated sleep, but he knew she’d had a restless night just like he had. He’d heard her tossing and turning and he was positive it wasn’t because she’d been thinking about her stalker.

  At one point she’d even uttered one of those little moans that sent his hormones through the stratosphere. It had taken reciting the entire Army Ranger creed in his mind to keep from responding to the sexy sound.

  He flicked the Night Glow function on his watch. Four-thirty A.M. was a little too early to be waking Lise, but he could get up and start working.

  He stood up and headed for the door. When he opened it, light filtered in from the hallway and an impossible-to-ignore compulsion had him turning back to see Lise in her bed.

  Dark blond hair spread across the burgundy pillow, she looked small and fragile in the middle of the huge bed. He almost laughed at the thought. Small, maybe, but the tough little Texan was anything but fragile. She’d withstood the mental stress of being stalked by a nutcase and hadn’t even fallen apart after he’d shoved her into traffic.