Love Is Danger
Club Aegis
By
Christie Adams
Blue Topaz Books
Contents
Club Aegis
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Other books by Christie Adams
About the author
Club Aegis
Aegis—the shield of Zeus, and by extension, a means of protection. The men and women who are members of Club Aegis have all played their part in protecting their country. They work hard…and they play hard. Their lives are not always easy—and sometimes they have to put their lives on the line, not just for their country but for those they love.
Available now
The Velvet Ribbon
Love Is Danger
A Wanting Heart
Passion’s Last Promise
Next in series
Winter’s Fire
Chapter 1
Stacie Matheson hated driving in the rain. She hated driving in the dark too. Even so, those two things, combined as they were now, wouldn’t normally be enough to tear her nerves to shreds. However, once she factored in the rude awakening she’d had in the early hours, it was hardly surprising that she felt on the verge of unfamiliar tears—there was only so much a person could take in one day.
As if that weren’t enough, she was in what felt like the middle of nowhere. She could no longer deny the simple fact that she was lost. She was supposed to be heading for a village in the Berkshire countryside, but she suspected that she was no longer even in the right county.
Get a grip, Stacie.
Why had she chosen yesterday of all days to update the sat nav? She’d forgotten to pick it up before leaving for work that morning—the damn thing was still sitting on the table in her apartment, when it should have been helping her to get this wreck of a car to the small hotel where she was supposed to be spending the next couple of nights. On the internet, it had appeared to be the ideal location to put some distance between herself and the selfish, womanising bastard she’d been sleeping with for the last six months—not to mention calling down every curse she could think of on his worthless, no-good head.
Thank God she’d never actually fallen in love with him. Her stomach churned sickeningly at the very idea.
A spontaneous early morning visit to Jonty’s apartment two days ago had given her a surprise she hadn’t bargained for—and exclusive entrance to relationship hell. Things had been going downhill ever since. After finding him in bed with a bimbo—and judging by the contemptuous sneer the bimbo gave her and the familiar way in which she was draped around Jonty, this wasn’t the first time they’d been together—she’d had to endure a barrage of phone calls and aggressive texts from the two-timing creep.
The grand finale of this abuse had arrived with his uninvited visit to her apartment just after two o’clock that morning. Either he’d charmed his way into the building or more likely tailgated one of the other residents—he certainly hadn’t used her intercom. God, if she’d been besotted enough to give him a set of keys…it didn’t bear thinking about.
Stacie had never been more grateful that she’d had the great good sense to resist Jonty’s precipitous attempts to move her in with him—all she’d had to do, to extricate herself from his life, had been to leave the keys to his place on the hall table as she’d stormed out. She’d never wanted the blasted things in the first place, but he’d insisted.
What she hadn’t anticipated, though, was how badly he’d react to her ending their relationship. The accusation at the time had been bad enough—apparently his involvement with another woman was all Stacie’s fault for not moving in with him. She’d had no idea that he would take it as far as he did.
At one point that morning, while he was delivering his pre-dawn tirade of verbal abuse from the other side of her front door, he’d hammered on it so hard that she’d feared he might break it down. A rather extreme reaction, she’d thought, given the relative brevity of their liaison, and one that had made her wonder if he was as high as a kite on drink. She shuddered—given that it seemed she barely knew the man after all, was it alcohol, or could it have been some other kind of substance abuse? Either way, she considered that she’d had a lucky escape.
Unable to sleep after he’d finally left, she’d thrown some clothes and other essentials into a couple of bags, ready to stow them in the boot of her car before leaving for work.
On arriving at the office, she’d asked her manager for a few days off—she’d been prepared to beg, if necessary, but fortunately it hadn’t come to that. A search on the internet at lunchtime had enabled her to find a suitable hotel, and at the end of the day she’d fled the city just as fast as she could, unable to face the weekend at home with the possibility of another scintillating encounter with Jonty.
Stacie glanced at the temperature gauge on the dashboard. Just lately it seemed to have been reading a little higher than normal. She hoped that it was just a figment of her imagination, because the last thing she needed was for the car to break down. Not just because she had no idea where she was—she’d never got around to renewing her breakdown coverage. The reason for that oversight was the stress of coping with Jonty’s suspect behaviour over the last few weeks, the prelude to the grand finale that had played out over the last couple of days.
So where on earth was she? The country lane was winding on forever, not a road sign to be seen. It wasn’t especially late, but at this time of year it was already dark. If she could just find a village with a pub where she could ask for directions to a hotel or a bed and breakfast, she’d feel a whole lot better. As it was, all she could see was the road ahead—as far as the next bend—and the trees and bushes that lined it.
Stacie huffed; this was proving to be a really stupid idea. She should never have left her apartment. If Jonty had come back again, she could have just ignored him—running off like this was letting him win. Maybe she should just turn the car around and see if she could find her way back to the motorway and go home.
“Oh God, not now!”
All of a sudden, the engine temperature shot off the top of the scale, attributable no doubt to the steam billowing out from under the bonnet. At least, Stacie hoped it was steam. She guided the car to the side of the road, came to a halt and switched the engine off…and couldn’t stop the stupid, useless tears that wouldn’t get her anywhere.
After the last few days, this was all she needed. What the hell was she going to do now?
Cam Fraser guided his Jaguar off the motorway and onto the exit road. It had been a shit week, he was running late, and it was pissing down with rain. Again. Bloody brilliant. He tried to console himself with the fact that within half an hour—maybe less, if he was lucky—he’d be getting intimately acquainted with a single malt, in the company of his old friend Alex Lombard and Alex’s gorgeous wife Beth. The weekend away from the manic pressure of London was going to be a long one, the highlight of which would be the party Beth was hosting to celebrate the imminent publication of her second novel.
He was also going to explore with Alex the possibility of the other man returning to Spectrum Security, the company they’d started together when they’d left the military. His friend had been avoiding this discussion for far too long. Cam reckoned that Alex had been resting on his laurels for long enough after
selling his own business for a not-so-small fortune—it was high time he got back into some gainful employment, did something useful, and stopped basking in the glow of his wife’s well-deserved success.
Cam was a frequent visitor to the Lombards’ stylish home, a large spacious property in rural Hampshire. He’d known Alex for around half his life and Beth for well over four years now, ever since Alex had taken her on as his executive assistant. After a rather fraught situation about a year ago, when the repercussions of an incident in Alex’s distant past had been in danger of costing him his life, Cam’s relationship with the couple had grown considerably closer. Earlier that year, in spring, he’d been the best man at their wedding.
Consequently, Cam knew the route to their house with his eyes closed, but it was just as well that he was concentrating. When he rounded the next bend, the sweep of the Jaguar’s headlights revealed a car pulled up at the side of the road some distance ahead of him. The hazard lights were flashing—the vehicle appeared to be in no state to go any further.
Oh shit. He could feel his Good Samaritan gene kicking in, overruling the clamour of his aching, stress-knotted shoulders. He knew he wasn’t going to drive past without stopping—it just wasn’t in his nature—but if fate was on his side, he’d find that the driver had already called their breakdown service and was just waiting for a mechanic to arrive.
Cam pulled in ahead of the aged vehicle. The aged hideous vehicle. He could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of orange—orange, for Christ’s sake!—cars he’d seen in his life. While he was no expert, he didn’t like the look of the vapour that was escaping from under the bonnet. Grabbing the flashlight out of the glove compartment, he ducked out of the car, snatched a rag and his fluorescent waterproof jacket from the boot, and ran back to the other car, grimacing against the rain.
The driver was still behind the wheel and looked to be resting their forehead on the rim of it. Cam experienced a glimmer of disquiet, wondering if whoever it was had been taken ill. A sick driver and a sick car—could things get any worse?
Don’t answer that!
It didn’t do to tempt fate.
As he neared the vehicle, the flashlight illuminated long, rich blonde hair—the driver appeared to be a woman, and she had a white-knuckled death-grip on the steering wheel. He hoped that the lack of a response to the light wasn’t a sign of a more serious, possibly health-related issue. After a moment’s hesitation he tapped lightly on the window…and was rewarded with an ear-piercing shriek. What the hell was he getting himself into now? Positioning the flashlight so that it would illuminate his face, he motioned to the driver to lower the window. It descended about an inch.
“Are you all right?” he called through the crack. “Do you need any help? It’s okay, you can trust me—I was a Boy Scout.” He turned on the smile that usually obtained the desired result.
The window descended a little more. Cam angled the flashlight again, so that it shed a little light on the car’s occupant without blinding her, and found himself looking into tearful storm-grey eyes. They were set in an absolutely stunning face framed by that tumbling cascade of golden waves. His stomach lurched, as if he’d taken a physical blow.
Grabbing his libido by the scruff of the neck—there was a time and a place for the thoughts that suddenly whizzed through his mind, and this wasn’t it—he figured he’d better take control of matters, starting with an introduction. “My name’s Cam—Cam Fraser.” He dug out his driving license as proof. “Do you need any help?”
If he’d been hoping for a glib reply that would have sent him on his way with a clear conscience, he’d have been sorely disappointed. It was just as well he hadn’t set his sights that high, because what he got was the frozen stare of a deer caught in the headlights of a car.
In that instant, Cam realised two things—firstly, he couldn’t get much wetter, and secondly, he wasn’t going to get dry any time soon. The situation was going to require some finesse. He crouched down, resting one knee on the tarmac, so that he was on a level with her. “It’s all right, honey,” he said softly, slipping easily into Dom mode and adopting the tone he’d use with a novice sub in need of reassurance. “I won’t hurt you, I promise. Have you called anyone to come and take a look at the car?”
This time, she shook her head—progress of a sort, he supposed. He wasn’t ready to give up just yet, though. “Would you like to call someone? Your breakdown service? You can use my phone.”
“I—I’m sorry,” she gulped. “It ran out and I forgot to renew it. Stupid of me, I know—”
“Don’t say that.” Cam’s voice was sterner than he intended, shocking her and surprising himself. Maybe he’d better tone down the orders a bit in favour of ramping up the charm. “Shit happens, but it’s nothing we can’t deal with. If you open it up, I’ll take a look—can’t promise anything, though.”
Cam lifted the bonnet. It didn’t look good—in fact, it reminded him of the time the cylinder head gasket failed on the clapped-out wreck that had been his first car, back in his teenage years. If that was the problem now—and he was pretty damn sure it was—not even a breakdown service could get this vehicle moving tonight. He dropped the bonnet back into place and returned to deliver his verdict.
“This car’s not going another foot tonight without serious help,” he said. “Now, where were you heading for?” With luck, she was visiting friends or family in the local area who’d be able to help her out in the morning.
Not friends, not family—she was heading for a destination far enough away for a quick bit of mental arithmetic to tell Cam he’d be lucky to make the Lombards’ house by midnight, if he were to give her a lift there. This called for an alternative strategy.
Cam came to a decision. He couldn’t just leave her stranded there, nor could he find it in himself to dump her at the nearest hotel for the night, leaving her to deal with her car problem alone—that just wasn’t his style. To him, the answer was obvious—she was going to accompany him to the Lombards’. Good thing she didn’t look like a psychotic murderer—God knows he’d encountered enough of those in his previous military life.
“There’s no chance of you getting there tonight—” He broke off, realising that he didn’t know her name. He tilted his head, asking her the question with his eyes, curious to see whether she would respond, and respond accurately.
“Stacie,” she supplied, without missing a beat. “Stacie Matheson.”
The name suited her. “Well, Stacie, I have an idea. I’m on my way to visit some friends of mine. Their house isn’t far from here, and they have plenty of room for visitors.” Time for the Dom voice again, if this was going to go the way he needed it to. “Why don’t you come with me? Have something to eat, get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning we’ll figure out what to do about your car. You can trust me, Stacie—Scouts’ Honour.”
A mixture of hope and relief brightened her face briefly, and then it was gone. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I don’t know you.”
A good point. “That’s right, you don’t know me, Stacie, but you can’t stay here all night, either. It’s already dark, it’s going to get colder, and even if you do stay here—which, from a personal safety point of view, I wouldn’t advise—you’ll still have the same problem in the morning. Let me take care of you, Stacie.”
The ball was in her court now. Cam stood up and waited, oblivious to the rain that was now starting to run down the back of his neck in icy rivulets. He’d known worse. His concentration was on Stacie, willing her to agree to his proposition. A couple of seconds later the car door edged open. He took hold of it, slowly pulled it wider, and offered the young woman his hand.
Even in the light cast by the flashlight and with her long hair starting to hang in disorderly rats’ tails due to the rain, her grace and the sense of beauty flowing from her left Cam fleetingly stunned. He suppressed the urge to praise her as if she were a sub responding to instruction—instead, he focused on the
job at hand. “Give me your keys, Stacie, then go and sit in my car—the door’s unlocked. Do you have a bag?”
“In the boot.” She pressed the keys into his palm. “Just the small one—it’s all I’ll need for tonight. And…thank you.”
Cam smiled his approval, and through her gentle touch realised that she had allowed herself to relax…even if it was only a little.
A stranger’s hand was warming her chilled skin, yet for some unaccountable reason Stacie felt as if her own hand were where it had always belonged.
Although the man’s—Cam’s—flashlight was quite powerful, she hadn’t been able to get much of an impression of him beyond height and breadth, short hair that could have been any shade between brown and blond, and a flash of penetrating blue eyes. And that touch that felt as if it could hold her safely for the rest of her life. She was clearly having some sort of delusion. Stress—it had to be stress. Or maybe anxiety. Something…like that. In the circumstances, who could blame her?
Common sense was screaming at her to snatch back her keys, get back in the car and lock all the doors, but overriding that was something more powerful and elemental—and it had nothing to do with seeking shelter from the weather. She was responding to this man in a way that was all primitive instinct, and although that reaction confused her at a fundamental level, she didn’t want it to stop.
As she ran towards his car—a brand-new Jaguar convertible that looked frighteningly expensive—she stopped to glance back, hoping that he wouldn’t catch her looking at him, only to find him watching her. The nod he gave her was strangely calming, so she continued to the passenger door of the sleek, dark car with the lighter soft top. She froze in her tracks when she opened it.
The dashboard wouldn’t have looked out of place in a state-of-the-art jet, but it was the pristine ivory leather seats staring her in the face that made her draw back, along with grey carpets that were a shade too light for her peace of mind. There was no way she was getting in there.
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