by Dawn Ryder
Not that she could really blame him. She looked back at the screen, absorbing the harsh reality of lives being reduced to a dollar figure. It had to stop and her comfort wasn’t more important.
She looked back at Saxon and Mercer. “So where do Harley and I bunk?”
That earned her a reprieve from the team leader’s intense stare. “Third door on the right,” he answered while shooting Harley a glare. “That thing throws more food on the ground than he eats.”
“He hates to dine alone,” she shot back.
The team leader’s lips twitched before he turned away. “Your problem now.”
Zoe grabbed the cage, intending to pull it down the hallway. Harley was still on top of the cage and didn’t care for the unexpected motion. He opened his wings and beat the air while telling her what he thought about it. She picked him up and soothed him. Mercer pulled the cage down the hallway while she was dealing with the bird.
The bedroom was furnished only with the basics. A double bed and a single dresser with an overhead lamp. A door opened to a bathroom. At least the lack of furniture allowed lots of room for Harley’s cage. Zoe put him down on the perch on top of the cage to let him get used to his new surroundings.
“You’re still in custody, Zoe.”
Mercer was watching her from the doorway. He’d crossed his arms over his chest, the stubble on his chin making him look downright mean.
“I got that part,” she said.
His jaw clenched but he had his shades on so she was left wondering what his mood was.
“We’re protecting you, too.”
“I need a shower.”
The disgust in his tone from the night before was still ringing in her ears. It kept her from losing her focus and melting at his feet. Just another thing she’d wished for but wasn’t so happy to be receiving.
She eased Harley into his cage and locked the door, checking it to make sure it was secure before turning her back on Mercer.
It hurt.
It shouldn’t have.
Well, that about summed up her relationship with the man. So many things that shouldn’t be and still were. She flipped on the shower and stood under the hot water, trying to let it wash away the tension eating at her. All she ended up doing was losing the battle against her emotions. Tears slid down her cheeks, the water washing them away.
Too bad it didn’t make her feel any better.
* * *
She needed to call Bram.
Zoe woke up thinking about her brother and his call to her. Harley was greeting the morning and demanding that she take the blanket off his cage. Although with the way the windows were boarded up, the light of day was just a gray sort of haze inside the room.
“Your dad called it right. That bird does wake up at first light.”
Zoe jumped and blinked at Mercer. He was leaning against the door frame, looking mouthwateringly good again. It really should have been impossible for anyone to look so damn fine in nothing but plain blue jeans. Mercer made her heart skip a beat. She felt like the air tightened in the room. Like some sort of a switch was being flipped inside her.
“What are you doing in here?” she demanded. “Wait. How did you know my dad said that about Harley?”
He didn’t change his position or expression. She really should have been used to his over-the-top confidence but it still grated on her nerves. She was so sick of being his target while he was disgusted by her.
“We’ve got your cell phone transcripts,” he said. “It’s really for your own good.”
“Yeah.” She got out of bed, grateful for the fact that the only thing she’d found to sleep in was a man’s sweatpants and T-shirt. She was swimming in them.
But she still felt exposed.
The first ripple was startling because of the intensity. It started at her nape and slid down her spine, awakening a hundred thousand nerve endings on its way to her tailbone.
“Don’t be stubborn, Zoe.” Mercer abandoned his lazy stance in the door frame. Although it was more of a position. He never did anything as normal as leaning. The damn man was calculating to the core.
And it turned her insides to molten lava.
“I didn’t argue with you,” she said, trying to rip her gaze away from the way he moved. He didn’t really walk. His stride was more purposeful than that. It qualified as a prowl. Predatory.
And part of her was very interested in being his prey.
“I know your body language, baby.”
Arrogance edged his tone. It resonated with her, striking a target deep inside her core. Heat was surging up from her belly, twisting through her veins as she fought to control it.
“I told you … don’t call me that.”
He was closing the distance between them. She felt him bearing down on her. Turning her back on him felt impossible, but sometimes the wiser choice was to avoid contact. She pivoted and headed for the bathroom.
Mercer shot his arm out, clotheslining her. She ran straight into it. He cupped her shoulder and turned her around so that he could flatten her back against the wall.
“What’s wrong, Zoe? Afraid to be alone with me?” he asked softly.
She was caged between his arms, his hands flattened on the cream drywall. She had precious little left of her pride. Parting with it made her rebel. She worried her lower lip as she stuck her chin out at him. “Not interested in listening to you whine about me turning you on. Better retreat before I put you in the position of being disloyal to your buddies.”
He sucked in his breath, his eyes narrowing as a muscle along his neck began to throb.
“Damned if your stubbornness doesn’t make me want you even more,” he said.
Want? Yeah, I like hearing him say he wants me.
Her insides twisted, the scent of his skin filling her senses. It was overwhelming. He cupped her chin when she started to look away. One last attempt at maintaining self-control.
The look in his eyes was her undoing.
A little moan got past her lips half a second before he claimed her mouth.
It was a hard domination. He took her lips, covering them with his own before unleashing a hard kiss that shattered her illusion of what kissing was.
But it wasn’t bruising. He held her head, framing her face with one large hand and somehow managing to control his strength perfectly. It was aggressive without being biting. Controlling without crossing the boundary into force. It set her senses reeling and her thoughts scattering.
She reached for him, opening her mouth and kissing him back with a fury that singed her.
“My baby…” he growled against her lips. He held her back when she would have followed him, holding her prisoner for one spine-twinkling moment. “Mine. All mine.”
There was a flash in his eyes that sent a jolt of anticipation through her. Zoe suddenly hated her clothing and his, too. She reached for his shirt, ripping at it until he chuckled and lifted his arms so she could drag it up and over his head. He had to slip to his knees so she could manage it. Which brought him eye level with her sex.
All she knew was that it was a relief when he hooked his hands into the waistband of the sweatpants and pulled them down her legs. He captured one ankle and lifted her foot free of the puddled fabric. He made a soft sound of male enjoyment as he lifted her leg and draped it over his shoulder. He rose back up, lifting her leg in the process and spreading her thighs in the same motion.
Yeah, it should have felt cheap.
But she was too busy gasping with anticipation. Her clit was throbbing. The first touch of his breath against her folds made her twist.
“All … mine…” he muttered before using his thumbs to spread her folds.
Her fingernail sank into the drywall but she didn’t care. All of her attention was centered on the way Mercer took to eating her out. Calling it oral sex didn’t cover what he was doing to her.
Not by half.
He sucked on her clit and drew his tongue across it. She withered agai
nst the wall, perspiration covering her skin. Pleasure was spiking through her, driven up into her core by the way he lashed his tongue across her clit. He would return to sucking it but stop when she whimpered, on the edge of climax.
“Mercer…”
Her voice was strained. Needy. Desperate.
“I’ll take care of you, baby … never doubt it.”
He claimed her clit again, sucking it hard as he pressed his thumb deep inside her. Her belly clenched, climax claiming her in a snap of brilliant ecstasy. It stole her breath, freezing her lungs as she twisted against his mouth, desperate to be closer to him.
She slumped against the wall, starting a slow slide down its surface as her body flatly refused to do anything but enjoy the pulse of rapture.
He pushed to his feet, scooping her up. He held her by the backs of her thighs, lifting her so that he could plunge his cock into her body.
“Oh yeah…” he groaned as he sank into her.
“When … when did you put the condom on?”
His lips split with satisfaction. “While you were whimpering, baby.”
He turned around, carrying her to the bed. It rocked as he lowered her onto it, following her down. She spread her thighs for him, cradling his hips between them as he drove deeply back into her spread body. It was the completion she craved. The missing component she yearned for. Details weren’t important. Only the motion of his body on top of hers. She strained toward him, needing more friction. Mercer gave it to her. As he drove deep and hard into her spread body, her cravings rose, becoming more intense, more essential to her survival. Everything settled on the point of contact between them. He captured her wrists and pulled her arms above her head, pinning them to the surface of the bed as he hammered his cock into her.
She couldn’t do anything but lift her hips to take the next plunge. It was all that mattered. Desire consumed her completely, transforming her into his willing prisoner.
Her body started tightening, an explosion beginning deep inside her.
“There it is, baby…” He was growling at her, his voice tight with his own need.
“Yes…” she hissed at him. “Yes.”
She was suddenly shattering into a million white-hot pieces, pleasure wringing every last bit of conscious thought from her. It jerked her away from reality, tossing her into a vortex that spun her around and around until she lost track of everything except him.
He ground himself into her, pumping through his pleasure as his grip tightened on her wrists, holding her in place. For a moment she was stretched out beneath him. His prize. His flesh still jerked inside her body. Satisfaction rolled through her as she filled her lungs and realized her thighs were cramping from holding him so tightly. She forced herself to unlock her legs and release him.
The bed jerked as Mercer rolled over and flopped back onto it. He ended up with a forearm across his eyes as his rapid breathing filled the room. “How in the hell do you do that to me?”
She wished she knew the answer. Wished she didn’t hear the frustration in his tone.
But she did, and she slapped back into reality.
“Yeah, I know. You hate it. Guess I’m not the only one who has to take one for the team.”
He jerked, curling up but she was already scrambling off the bed.
“Zoe—”
“Just … shut it.” She stopped in the doorway to the bathroom and looked back at him. “I guess I’ll just count myself fortunate you can get it up for me.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s as fair as you knowing everything about me and only telling me how much you hate the effect I have on you. Or that I need to have sex so I can think straight. Get out of my room.”
He was off the bed, his open fly grating on her nerves even further because it would be super simple for him to finish up their encounter. His holster was still clipped to the waistband, the dark butt of the gun illuminating just how precarious her situation was.
He didn’t want to be emotionally involved with her. No. But stress-releasing sex was fine. She was an idiot for forgetting how he thought about her.
Or maybe, she’d just hit rock bottom. Both options were pathetic to say the least.
Nitwit.
She stuck her finger toward the door.
“Out. Now!” She scooped his discarded T-shirt off the floor and chucked it at him. The soft fabric made a very unsatisfying missile. “You’ve done your rounds for the morning.”
“We’re not finished.”
She went over to the bedroom door and yanked it open. “Out.”
There was no way the other team members didn’t hear her. Mercer’s jaw tightened in response.
“Enjoy everyone knowing your private business for a change.” It was a pissy thing to say but completely deserved.
“You win this round, Zoe.” He buttoned his fly and shrugged into his shirt, moving across the space between them as she hid behind the door to cover her nakedness. He stopped in the doorway.
“But you can bet there is going to be a rematch.”
There was hard promise in his voice. He sent her a look that reinforced his words before passing through the doorway.
Like hell there was. She was withdrawing from the game.
All she had to do was figure out how to get in touch with her brother. That would be a match point Mercer wouldn’t see coming.
* * *
“I’m Servat.”
Bram started to cut the man a salute but a tiny shake of his head stopped him. Bram ended up tugging his shades off his face to cover the aborted motion.
Servat offered him his hand. “Civilian ground, Captain. We like to blend in around here.”
Bram clasped his hand and shook it. “Right. I’ll adjust my thinking.”
Servat shook his hand before pointing to the SUV behind them. “I don’t have any good news to tell you.”
Bram held his frustration in check as he tossed his duffel bag into the backseat of the vehicle and got into the passenger side of the front seat.
“The team that we believe has your sister has gone off grid.”
“Someone knows where they are.” Bram cut to the heart of the matter. “Or you wouldn’t be referring to them as a team.”
Servat held his silence as he pulled into traffic. “They are capable of safeguarding your sister.”
“Assign me to them.” Bram didn’t spare a thought to what branch of the military any of them were. Special assignments meant working with the best resources.
Servat shook his head. “No one goes in or out. We’re close to nabbing our perpetrator. Can’t afford to spook him. You and I have our own objective to be concerned with. Colonel Decains needs us to be in position in case the point team can’t handle things.”
Bram wasn’t happy. His jaw was tight as he struggled to maintain his professional detachment. He knew the ground rules for this type of operation. Emotional entanglements wouldn’t be tolerated. His only chance to find Zoe was to work through the system.
And that wasn’t going to be easy.
“I hope you’re not going to tell me I flew halfway around the world to sit on my duff drinking coffee.”
Servat cracked a grin. “Would hate to see you suffer like that, Captain.” He slid him a look, one designed to assess him. “We need to box this dude in. Come up behind him while he’s busy trying to get to your sister.”
“Sounds good.” Except that it didn’t. Bram held his silence through years of discipline and a dash of desperation. He didn’t need to hear that his sister was a target of any kind. But his personal feelings were going to have to wait.
“What’s our first step?”
Servat chuckled ominously. “We need to start a fire and see who runs from it.”
* * *
“I need the room, Ms. Magnus.”
Saxon didn’t even look back at her when he spoke.
Zoe bristled, earning a hard look from Mercer. She shot it right back at him. “I’d li
ke to stay and hear what sort of plan there is for clearing this mess up.”
Saxon turned to look at her. “Terrible idea.”
Those two words seemed to be his way of dismissing her. She glared at him but Mercer stood up.
“You don’t carry a shield, Zoe,” he said as he crossed the room toward her. “This is a classified operation.”
“Sitting around and waiting hasn’t produced a resolution so far. So…” She walked farther into the work area. “Time for a new approach.”
Thais looked her way, a soft smirk curving her lips. Greer simply shook his head and looked back at his computer screen. Mercer was leaning against a desk. He crossed his arms over his chest as he waited to see what his … well, whatever Saxon’s title was would say to her.
“You don’t want to try me, Ms. Magnus.”
“My feelings exactly,” she countered. “Except you sent someone after me and he brought me home. But hey, if you’re sick of me, I’ll be happy to take my dad’s bird and go.”
Saxon surprised her by chuckling. He stood up, the motion making the shirt he was wearing ride up, giving her a glimpse of his shoulder harness with his gun sitting in it.
“Need to get back to your partner?”
Time had clearly thickened her hide. She stared straight back at Saxon without flinching.
“Can the scare tactics,” she said. “I’d already be discussing my plea options with my lawyer if you had a case against me.”
“Don’t be so certain that little scene won’t be happening,” Saxon continued.
“I’m feeling pretty confident it won’t.” She stood her ground. “So what are you planning to do about catching the real thief?”
“As I told you, classified.”
“Fine.” It really was about the farthest thing from fine there was, but she turned on her heel and headed back down the hallway. Harley squawked when she opened the bedroom door.
“Greer…”
Saxon had called out the name. Zoe hesitated with her foot in the air. She turned to look back at the dining room as Greer turned around and went to join his teammates.
