Consumed by Wrath: An FBI/Romance Thriller (An FBI/Romance Thriller ~ Book 8)

by Kelley, Morgan

  “Lyzee pulled some strings, and we still get to spend our first Valentine’s Day together, after all.”

  Okay, well that took care of one problem. Now, maybe Elizabeth could pull a rabbit out of her hat and plan the wedding too, or at least keep Cannon from going after Chris.

  She would take anything at this point.

  “We leave as soon as I get everything here handled, and then back to the house to pack.” He dropped his voice. “I really miss Christina. Her replacement isn’t up to speed as of yet.”

  Cyra felt for him. “I’m heading home to grab my gear, how about I take care of it for you?”

  He kissed her hard and fast on the mouth. “Oh, God! I would be in your debt.”

  The gentleness in his eyes filled her with warmth. This was why she fell for the man. He was sweet and very kind. It helped to remind her that they needed to be together. Already, it began coming together in her head.

  Cyra had a contingency plan.

  It might save them a whole lot of stress in the long run.

  “I’ll see you at the airport, Christopher,” she said, kissing him and wrapping her arms around his waist.

  “I love you, sweetheart,” he murmured.

  Pulling away, she blew him a kiss. Suddenly, the stress was gone. Now, she could focus on the more important things in her life, Christopher and her job. They had an assignment together and that was an added bonus.

  Chris watched her walk away and his heart skipped in his chest. This was the woman who he loved more than anything in the world, and he had to find a way to solve their problems.

  He wanted these moments to replace all the angst. At this point, he’d give away his fortune to just have peace and harmony between them once more.

  “Doctor Leonard!” someone called, grabbing his attention.

  Pushing everything else to the back of his mind, he focused on work.

  They had a job to do.

  Because duty called.

  * * *

  At the house, she found him sequestered in her old office. Elizabeth knew that he was handling most of the paperwork required to mobilize a full FBI team.

  Yet, somewhere in the back of her mind, she was still concerned. As they left the river, her husband had been quiet. Even when Callen was teasing, he didn't jump in to save her or join him. Maybe, when she punched him, she had physically hurt him.

  “Ethan, can we talk?” she asked, closing the door behind her.

  He glanced up and could tell by the tone in her voice that this was going to be a very serious conversation.

  “Sure thing, Lyzee. What’s on your mind?”

  Where he expected her to sit on the corner of the desk or a chair, she took a seat right in his lap. Yeah, the second there was contact, his body heated up. In fact, she was making it hard to concentrate.

  “What were you thinking about in the Navigator? Did I upset you somehow?” she asked, as he rubbed his hand up and down her belly. Elizabeth noticed that Ethan was focused on her belt buckle. It was the one that he had bought her when he found out that she was pregnant for the first time.

  “Do you want me to be honest?” he asked. Yeah, he was thinking all the way back to their summer home. He was concerned and worried too.

  “Yes, please.”

  “What if that’s, Doc?” he asked, referring to the remains they just found. “When our team gets here, and they find the identity, are you going to be okay if it turns out to be him? I worry about you, and the child that you’re trying to grow. I know that the last pregnancy nearly beat you into the ground, so I’m a little freaked out by all the potential obstacles.”

  It touched her heart that he was focused on her and the baby. It wasn’t surprising since Ethan Blackhawk was just that kind of man.

  “If it is him, I’ll be sad and hurt, but then I’ll know that I need to find him justice. No one else here will be able to do that but us. We would be his best shot.”

  Blackhawk stared into her eyes. “If at any time you need to walk away from this, come to me, and I’ll make it happen.”

  Already, the strong man was back, and it made her love him even more. “I appreciate that so much, Ethan. I love you for how committed you are to this, when you don’t have to be. By every right, you could be upset with me for jumping into this and putting our relationship on the back burner, once more.”

  “I absolutely have to be committed, Lyzee. The missing man was like a father to you. If I didn't want to invest my whole heart into this, what kind of partner would I be?”

  She couldn’t speak, since the emotion was welling up inside of her.

  “If that is Doc, he deserves the best, and he has it with you on the case.”

  She ran her fingers down his cheek, as if memorizing the lines. “Yes, he does, and I don’t just mean me. I’m a very lucky woman, Ethan. I get a second chance with an amazing man. I would be lost without you, and I can attest to that for the last four months.”

  Slowly, she brought her mouth to his in a searing kiss. It shared every bit of emotion that was in her body. Beneath her, Elizabeth could feel him coming alive. It always made her crazy when he reacted to a simple touch or caress of fingers.

  “God, I want you more and more each and every day,” he whispered, as her mouth shifted to his neck and did truly wicked things to his earlobe.

  When she whispered what she wanted to do, he tightened even more. “Alone?”

  Elizabeth nodded enthusiastically. What they both needed was some private time. “We can go in the closet.”

  Who was he to argue?

  Who knew when they would get to spend any time alone in the next few days?

  Letting her pull him up, he followed her to the closet. She had been using it as a storage area, but now it was going to be a place for a little secret rendezvous.

  Pulling him inside and locking the door, her hands went to work on his clothes. The urgency crashing through them both was making her wilder and wilder with need. There was only one priority at that moment, and it was to feel Ethan buried in her body.

  Like any good woman, she was going to go with it.

  He gasped as she yanked his dress pants down and pushed him back onto the bench in the corner. Apparently, his wife was in the mood for a very rough ride.

  Who was he to complain?

  He watched his wife strip down fast and move towards him. All the nerves in his body fired and his brain began celebrating prematurely. She wasn’t even touching him and he was going crazy.

  Hopping onto his lap, she straddled his body. She wanted to give her Cowboy one more memory that they could share for the rest of their lives together.

  As her body sheathed his, he moaned in sheer ecstasy. There was nothing like a little Lyzee break in the middle of the day.

  Or the morning.

  Possibly before bed too.

  As she began a punishing ride, and her nails dug into his shoulders, he was lost in the sensation of it all. Here was his woman, giving him so much pleasure. Now, he just needed to feel all of her.

  Running his hands up her torso, he was enthralled by the naked treasure bouncing in his lap.

  “I love you, baby,” he muttered, trying to hold on a little longer. When he focused on her and found her biting her bottom lip, it made him wild.

  Ethan wanted to wrap her around his body and never let her go.

  Elizabeth gasped as he pulled her mouth down to his in a steamy kiss. That alone was enough to move her closer to the edge and the upcoming tumble. When she slipped, and began the fall, she could hear him shout her name in release.

  Apparently, the quickie in the closet did it for both of them. This was something to keep in the back of her mind for future reference.

  As reality came crashing back, there was a knock on the closet door. “You both realize we’re in the house alone, and you didn't have to hide in here,” Callen said, laughing. “There is a perfectly good bedroom upstairs.”

  “Maybe I always wanted to accost
a man in a closet,” she quipped back. “It could be on my bucket list, so don’t judge me.”

  Ethan just snickered as he left more kisses across her shoulder. “I was definitely accosted. I don’t have words for what just happened in here.”

  She whispered in his ear. “I do. It’s called love.”

  He stared into her eyes and ran his thumb down her cheek. “Yes, it certainly is unbreakable, endless, bottomless love.”

  “We need to talk game plan,” Callen yelled through the door. “Sex fest is over, kids.”

  Ethan rolled his eyes. “We created a monster. All those weeks of being in charge, and he actually thinks that he’s the boss.”

  “I heard that.”

  She found that entertaining. “Please, can I be the one that breaks the news to him that the real control freak is back in the building and now on duty?”

  “After that display of manhandling, hell yeah you can,” he replied.

  Elizabeth slid off his lap and began getting dressed. “Thank you for that little interlude, love bug. I feel much better now,” she stated, winking at him.

  Fixing himself, he did too.

  “Just for future reference, does this mean that the baby hormones are kicking up the sex hormones? I just need to know so I can plan out the next seven months.”

  She stared at him and couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Seriously. We can move your desk into my office, just in case you need me,” Ethan teased.

  “I thought you weren’t ever having sex in the workplace again,” she replied, grinning wickedly as that little memory flooded back.

  Blackhawk thought about it. “When he took me, I swore if I ever got back to you, I wouldn’t worry about the little things.”

  Her heart skipped in her chest and she couldn’t speak. He had caught her off guard with his admission.

  “It’s back on my bucket list, as is anything else that involves you.”

  “I love you, Cowboy.”

  Ethan ran his fingers down her hair, enjoying the sexiness of it. “Back at you, my little closet nymph.”

  When they were both put back together again, Ethan and Elizabeth walked out hand in hand. They found Callen sitting in the spare chair watching them. There was nothing but amusement in his eyes.

  Elizabeth crossed to him and dropped down into his lap. When he wrapped his arms around her body, she got comfortable. “Sorry we took so long, Director,” she stated, teasing him.

  Callen didn't mind in the least. He knew that this whole trip was about his brother getting better. If it took them running off for some dalliance in a closet, so be it. While back home, when Ethan was emotionally distant, Callen had plenty of alone time with Elizabeth. They often sought each other out to find comfort when their hearts were heavy.

  “I just figured you would want to control freak the rest of the day to death,” he said, pointing at Ethan. “What’s on our schedule?”

  Ethan leaned back in his chair. “Well, bringing a team here is a mess. Salem has one place to board them all, and it’s a roach coach. Every other place is thirty minutes outside of town and our last option. I really hate doing either of those choices to them, since our people work damn hard.”

  There was no doubt in her mind that the team wasn’t going to be happy at ‘The Wayfarer’. “There really isn’t anything we can do,” she reassured Ethan.

  “True, but we have another problem. It’s not going to hold everyone. When you came in, Lyzee, I was trying to find a place for the overflow.”

  Callen knew this was a problem. “How many more do we need to place?”

  Ethan held up two fingers. In the back of his mind, he already had a plan. “I have a solution, if you’re up for it, Elizabeth.”

  She was willing to at least hear what he had to say. “Okay, Cowboy, shoot.”

  “We can put two here with us.”

  All three of them valued their privacy, and normally he wouldn’t even suggest something like that, especially after the last field case. When they found out Patrick Parrish had stalked them for months, it creeped them all out. From that day on, they closed ranks and made sure that they were even more careful. Now, they were faced with the dilemma. He preferred to keep the team in one location, and his pregnant woman at his side.

  “Okay, we can put Chris and Cyra here,” she offered. “Since he’s at a director level, and has the seniority, no one will say anything about it. Besides, he’s our ME and she’s the agent with seniority on duty.”

  Ethan and Callen were both okay with that. They trusted Chris explicitly. The man had proved his friendship while they were in Circle Rock. Before he was Elizabeth’s friend, now he was part of the family.

  “Plus, it will give them a bit more privacy than at that motel. I like them too much to make them live that hell.”

  “You know the Natives will be restless over this,” Callen warned. There was going to be epic bitching and moaning.

  She figured that would be happening. “If that happens, I have a contingency plan, boys. You know me. I like to be prepared for anything.”

  They waited to hear it.

  “I’m going to toss out that I’m pregnant, and that should make them distracted enough to be focused on the next baby pool.”

  Both men groaned at the implication. This meant screwing with the team and trying not to slip up and give it away. It never seemed to work out the way they planned. The last time, Callen slipped in front of a clearing full of techs. Word circulated back to the hive so fast, that everyone switched their bets and no one was the winner.

  “If that doesn’t work,” she began, “I’ll remind them how bitchy I get when I’m expecting. Their cranky moods won’t even come close to pregnancy hormones. Rarely does the team question me when I’m not pregnant, but carrying Baby Blackhawk? They wouldn’t dare.”

  She had a point. No one really wanted to risk being chewed up by a pregnant boss. They were all smarter than that.

  Ethan got that warm fuzzy feeling when she referred to his child as ‘Baby Blackhawk’. It made it feel so tangible.

  “Okay, now that we handled that, what’s on our personal schedule today?” Callen asked, glancing down at his watch. He was guesstimating that the team would be landing in about two hours.

  “When Chris and Tony get here, we’re going to divide up. We need Doctor Magnus to get on those bones and Doctor Leonard to dig into the ME files. As for us, we have to talk to the mayor yet, and the team needs to get to work.”

  They both knew that when it came to authority in town, the mayor was going to be an issue, especially since they called in their team without warning.

  They had only one ace in the hole on this one.

  “Mayor Santana shouldn’t be too bad, since he used to be my deputy. Then again, one never knows. I never thought that Tony would be sheriff. That’s just a clusterfuck waiting to happen,” she stated. “Whoever appointed him should be taken out back and whipped within an inch of their life.”

  “Yeah, I have my reservations about working with him at all,” stated Blackhawk. “And those reasons don’t even have anything to do with me wanting to rip his arms off for always having to touch you either, Elizabeth.”

  She started laughing.

  “Okay, so that wasn’t exactly the truth. It has everything to do with him always putting his damn hands too close to what’s ours.”

  It was good to see him back to being possessive and crazed. Oddly, she missed it and was NEVER going to complain again. When you lost something, you never took it for granted if you were lucky enough to get it back.

  Callen agreed. “If the man was stupid enough to dump you, God only knows why, then he needs to suffer.”

  Ethan jumped in before Elizabeth could even say anything. “She didn't put out on prom night, and he tossed her aside.”

  It was hard to not stare at Elizabeth openmouthed. “You didn't put out? Wow… I mean… just wow! Are you sure that we’re talking about the same woman?” he asked,
pointing at the babe sitting in his lap.

  She gave him the warning look.

  “Elizabeth ‘I have no inhibitions’ Blackhawk didn't give it up to her prom date?” Callen grinned wickedly.

  Elizabeth sucker punched him hard for that one. “I’ll have you perverts know, that before you both, I didn't go around having copious amounts of sex. In fact, I didn't have sex with anyone before Ethan, for about a whole year.”

  Both men tried to not look guilty.

  “Can either of you two upstanding gentlemen say that?” she pointed at Callen. “You used to chase women all the time and couldn’t pick out a lady if she landed under you, and you,” she pointed at Ethan and paused. “Never mind, Callen was far worse.”

  Blackhawk roared with laughter, especially when he saw his brother’s face. Elizabeth knew that he was in a relationship before her. Ultimately, he had called it off once he began having dreams about his mystery woman, but that was something only she was privy to, and it appeared that her lips were sealed.

  It was more proof that she had his back.

  Callen sputtered and pushed her up from his lap. Without warning, he picked Elizabeth up in his arms and headed to the door.

  “Wait! Where are we going?” she yelled, squirming in his arms as she tried to get free from his strong grip.

  “You said that I couldn’t pick out a lady if she landed under me. I plan on testing out your theory, since we have some time to spare before heading into town.”

  “Ethan! Help!” she called, laughing as Callen carried her towards the stairs.

  He followed them out. “Well, I was satisfied after the closet, but if you want me to help him find a lady, who am I to argue?” he offered, grinning wickedly.

  Elizabeth just laughed as she knew this was one fight that she wasn’t going to win.

  And she was okay with that.

  ~ Chapter Seven ~

  As they all sat on the jet, there was chatter between the techs. Everyone was incredibly excited to be working an assignment on this side of the country, and word had travelled that this was Elizabeth’s hometown.