Eden lay there mesmerized at his self-control. Darn. If this is the same Ky, he’s good. All along she’d thought her second sight had located him two and a half years earlier, but now she wondered why only him? Why not everyone in the world who suffered? It was time to find out.
Eden lifted to her knees, her pistol still trained on Ky. Her weapon’s laser sights confirmed his body mass. Her visual confirmed everything else about his physique, like that was hard, umm, difficult to do.
I see you, Ky Whoever-You-Are. Gentle man, not predator. Military training, yes. Mercenary, no. Heartless, never. Physically hot. Umm, I mean, excellent bone structure, yes. Ex-cell-lent. If—you really are the same guy.
Heat flamed up her neck at the errant way her brilliant mind worked, but her lips curled into a genuine smile. She squelched it. This was no happy reunion. This was work. Might even be war. She steadied her nerve to take the first shot if needed. Make that her first shot ever. Her hands trembled at the thought. She swallowed hard. She’d trained all right. Just never executed.
Wrong again. He lowered his pistol to his thigh when he sighted her. Gave up right then and there like he knew she was safe when she really meant to look lethal and intimidating.
“It’s about time,” he said, his gloved right hand extended in friendly greeting despite the weapon trained on him. “I’ve been looking for you.”
What’d he mean by that? I’ve been looking for you? Not we?
Darned if a smile didn’t tug the corners of his lips. Full lips, not thin and hard, not scarred or distorted, either, but ample as if he’d never been slapped around or beaten. Kissable, and she, the FBI’s only psychic, was completely in the dark as to why the handsome smile, or why she cared, or why her heart kicked up a staccato dance tune. She sure as heck didn’t return the cordial greeting. Her weapon trained on his full body mass didn’t seem to worry him, either. You should be scared of me. Why aren’t you? Do you remember me?
This Ky person couldn’t be the same guy from Afghanistan. Torture victims took years to recover. Some never did. Too many devolved into drug addicts or alcoholics and unless they had a strong support system, they self-medicated themselves to death. It simply couldn’t be him.
“Who are you?” she barked, her elbow locked and her left hand gripped under her right to keep it from shaking. Please tell me you served in Afghanistan.
“Agent Ky Winchester at your service, ma’am. My buddy, Agent Tate Higgins.” He nodded at Sniper Praying. “Director Strong asked us to come get you since the Bureau’s persona non grata is in Canada at the moment. You are Special Agent Eden Stark, right?”
Who else would I be? She hesitated. This was too much of a coincidence. Maybe there were two Ky Winchesters? She nodded curtly, still trying to exert one shred of FBI superiority over a common federal contractor who should be worried, darn it. “Did you serve in Afghanistan?” Okay, so it was a stupid question to lead with, but she needed to know.
A shy grin just added to Agent Winchester’s boyish charm, the charm she needed to ignore at all cost. This guy was seriously getting under her skin, and it had to stop. He was good-looking in a gentle, rugged kind of way. So? Lots of guys were cute. None of them affected her like he did, and why was her heart pounding so loud in her ears?
Just answer the question.
The riddle of his first contact shivered up her spine. If this was the same man, there was a link already between them. No name. No title or rank. Just a prayer tossed into the universe for almighty help. A prayer she’d caught somehow in her psychic web and rushed to answer.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, but me and Tate both did.” He winked. The jerk had the nerve to wink and—gah! She could’ve kissed him right then and there. Her heart turned into a cheerleader in her chest screaming, Yes! Yes! Sis. Boom. Bah. It’s him!
Striving for that whole law-and-order thing, she holstered her weapon, nodding curtly toward the deceased, still acting tough and testing the air for a lie. “Who are they?”
“You ought to know. They’re FBI,” Agent Higgins grumbled. “They had submachine guns with custom-made eighty-round sticks and enough ammo to end you. You want to tell us why?”
Do I tell? Should I tell him? The implications of pulling outsiders into obvious FBI intrigue did not escape Eden. Her loyalty to the Bureau ran deep, but they’d blundered before. Their dirty laundry had been national news way too often, but this was Ky. That Ky. And his friend. They were there, not anyone else. Not her federal brothers or sisters. They had put their lives at risk saving her from two rogue agents. They deserved to know something. Maybe the truth.
Ky crossed his arms over his chest, that relaxed and completely unintimidating smile testing his lips, taunting her as if he had something on his mind. Maybe a—kiss?
Flustered at the way her second sight wasn’t working while her hormones seemed to be overly stimulated, she went for broke, striving to stay on task. “Yeah, I know who they were. You guys just took down FBI Agents Mika Koenig and Arthur Shields. You’re right. They were sent to kill me, but not by Director Strong. Sorry about the gun, guys. I needed to be sure you were safe.” Eden meant what she said and she put every last ounce of her not-so-tough persona into it.
Agent Winchester studied her, his lips pursed and his smiling eyes sparkling. She couldn’t help but notice they’d literally skated down the front of her goose down jacket to her knocking knees, taking in every shred of her false bravado like he could see right through her. Maybe like he could see through Ralph Lauren, too, and all the way to her... gah! The way her mind was working!
“You’re holding back. Where’s the pilot? What’s really going on?” he asked, his tone rife with suspicion and something else that vibrated the air molecules between them with genuine concern and tension. Sexual tension. Lots of it.
No, I’m not holding anything back. Well, okay. Maybe I am. A little. Darn. You’re good.
“Charlie Sweets is dead. I buried him.” Eden blew out a deep breath, shaken that she was so close to losing her composure to this man. Agent Higgins didn’t frazzle her in the least, but Agent Winchester? It took all her concentration to retain a hint of professional decorum.
This wasn’t her. She might have grown close to her victims before those missions ended, but not once had she gotten this emotionally involved, and never on first sight. Whatever connection started between them two and a half years ago had just sprung back to life with a vengeance. She wanted to climb into Ky’s muscular arms like a little girl, to cover his handsome face with kisses while she ripped that jacket off his broad shoulders and proved he was the same man from Kabul. She wanted to trace her fingertips over that USMC tattoo on his chest and the scars, and kiss everything better. She wanted to comfort him now the way she’d comforted him then, but in person.
Instead, Eden drew in a deep breath of FBI control and nodded toward the bodies like she did this kind of thing every day. Like she wasn’t hyperventilating and sweating up a storm in Ralph Lauren. She growled in her deepest voice. Darned if it didn’t come out breathy and seductive instead of threatening. “If I’m right, these guys were duped into volunteering for Dr. Zaroyin’s twisted idea of national security. His cybernetic enhancement trials. Once he got hold of them, they lost all control. All freedom to choose. Everything.”
Agent Winchester cocked his head, maybe not yet believing, but still smiling.
How could she fight that coaxing, little-boy charisma? Eden gave up the fight for superiority. “You see, Agent Winchester, it’s like this.”
Chapter Four
Ky let her talk. Make that, he needed her to talk. The moment she’d stepped forward, his soul seemed to reach out to her in recognition. To zero itself. All she’d rattled on about was her pilot and the crash and what sounded like a bizarre 007 movie premise, something about a mad CIA scientist and his plan to take over the world, yet Ky’s heart had stilled, and he could only focus on one thing—the sultry melody drip
ping off her sexy lips. His hunger for a woman’s mouth awakened for the first time in years. FBI bullshit had never sounded so good.
He couldn’t place where he’d met this charming woman in a fluffy fur cap before, but there was something damned familiar about the inflection to her voice. Something kindred. He’d heard it once before, just couldn’t place precisely where or when. She harbored a western accent without the annoying twang. Maybe West Coast? A lilt of some ethnicity he couldn’t nail down lent a musical quality to her words, like the wind chimes on his mother’s porch that rang out the tones to “Pachelbel’s Canon.” It was rich and deep. Not grating. Not squeaky. If anything, her voice tended toward masculine. Throaty. Hearty.
He’d never felt such a potent reaction to a woman’s voice before. She enticed a strong physical response in him that reminded him of—something. Warmth and comfort. Satin sheets and sweaty bodies. His and—hers. Heat surged under his skin, lighting every last damned male receptor. All of them. Even the dormant ones that hadn’t lit up in years. Yes, even that one.
Like a good red wine, he wanted to roll the taste of Agent Stark around in his mouth and savor her until the bottle was dry. Until he licked the rim and tasted every last drop of—
God. I’m losing my mind. Where’d these asinine thoughts come from?
But wasn’t she the pretty thing? Agent Stark had nerve approaching two armed men right after one helluva shootout. Sure, he’d smiled and offered his hand. That shaky pistol in her gloved grip might have accidentally gone off if he’d done anything else. He estimated her at five-three, a little on the plush and plump side of feminine if that padded jacket stretched tight across her chest and hips was any indicator. Either that, or she had something hidden in her bra. Maybe I should frisk her. Handle her—it. Them.
He kept his hands to himself and continued watching. With every word, she projected a ‘tough chick’ attitude—just not very well. There was no way this little thing was the FBI’s finest black operator. Her pretty eyes were too soft, too wide, and too innocent. Eden Stark might be professionally trained, but Ky pegged her as an innocent caught up in something FBI-related. Maybe a secretary or a file clerk. Definitely not a regular field agent. No way. She wasn’t dangerous enough.
“Trust me. They won’t be the last,” she ended her monologue with a self-righteous chin lift that did something to his manhood, to that white-knight complex that tended to get him into trouble. The need to serve others had helped him get his life back together, but the inherent need to rescue those who needed rescuing also took a hard toll on a guy. He had the scars to prove it.
Her eyes flashed with annoyance just as his brain switched back to I-should’ve-been-listening mode. “Excuse me?” he asked lamely.
Damn Tate for noticing and grunting.
Agent Stark took a half-step forward and glared up at Ky. Her dainty brows furrowed with disapproval, her hands on her hips. Tangled blond hair slipped from her fur cap. Frost crystals clung to this wannabe-tough little gal’s lashes. She scrunched her nose, and he was ten kinds of smitten and way over his head.
Hell, what was a guy to do? Agent Stark couldn’t weigh more than a hundred twenty pounds dripping wet, but she’d turned into an ice princess with a temper. Cutest thing ever. Maybe it was the simple fact that he outweighed her, but the urge to throw her over his shoulder and test her sass flared to life.
Everything about her incited the sexual side of him that had been asleep for years. He’d come back to work, but he’d been damned careful not to get involved with any woman, on the job or off. The men and women on The TEAM were his family. They understood. They got him. And until now... that had been enough.
“Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said?” she asked, her voice sharpened like a shard of ice with a sizzling-hot edge. “Zaroyin followed me to Hawaii. Then he followed me to Alaska. I think he knows where I am right now. I don’t know why he’s doing it, but—” Her eyes widened, her gloved hands fluttering up the back of her neck. “That bastard. I’ll kill him if he... he wouldn’t!”
Ky guessed that he did. “He wouldn’t what?”
“Yearly physical. Bureau policy. But I didn’t go to him for mine. I went to Dr. Penn, only...” She tossed her fur cap to the ground. Billowing dark-blond hair coursed over her shoulders, lighting up those pesky male receptors again and taking his breath. Ky’s heart kicked into second gear. What is it about long, silky hair that stirs a guy’s soul right down to his cock?
“He did something to me. That bastard! I can feel it.” She peeled off her gloves and they hit the snow next. She’d no more than raked her fingers up and over the back of her head when she stamped one booted foot, also hot-damned cute. Petulant, but sexy. But then her eyes rolled back and... oomph. Down she went. Out cold.
Ky rushed to catch her before she hit the snow. “What the hell?”
“Check her over. See what’s broke,” Tate suggested, seemingly unaffected by the charms of the fainting female in their midst. “Probably just a concussion.”
Ky’s throat went dry the second she’d landed in his arms. Panic at holding a delicately built woman for the first time in years kicked his blood pressure up through the roof of his skull. Either that or he really was seeing stars—the last thing he needed.
He’d known he’d probably have to do some triage on this trip, that both victims might need serious medical assistance, and he’d brought enough gloves in case he had to handle people. He was prepared for that, but a fainting woman? All of her? In his arms, the cushion of her breasts pressed against his chest? If not for the padding between them, he’d have set her on the ground and backed away from Agent Stark. Holding this woman was really—nice.
He gathered her in closer to get her better situated on his lap and off the frozen ground. It was a lucky catch. Kind of. She did have some seriously gorgeous hair—not what he’d expected from a Fed. She puffed tiny frozen breaths into the air, drawing his attention to the perfect bow of her lips. To his compulsion to taste those lips. Just once...
Ky shook off his intense reaction and deferred to his training. Assess. Stabilize. Extract. And always keep your damned gloves on and your hands to yourself. That last rule was purely a Winchester add-on, but he had no choice. Not tonight. He’d have to make physical contact to assess this woman’s medical status. Tate was watching.
Swallowing hard, he manned up. He bit the tip of his gloved index finger and pulled the leather glove off, letting it drop onto Stark’s jacket. On her breasts. Okay, so they were tucked nice and tight beneath her zipper and a lot of padding, but still...
He was a man. He knew right where they were.
Tate grunted. Ky stalled. His greatest fear and his greatest desire rolled into one eternal torment. Touching another person. A woman. Skin to skin.
Agent Stark sighed one of those breathy, whimpering female sighs, and...
Oh, for hell’s sake. How tough could it be? Ky swallowed hard, forcing his customary reactions to run in the opposite direction and into man-up mode. This FBI asset was not the depraved Taliban banker known as Nizari. She hadn’t tortured anyone—neither was she one of Nizari’s depraved soldiers. Honest to God, she was a little thing, and she couldn’t hurt him if she tried.
Ky still struggled with his predicament. This would be the first time in years he’d laid a finger on a female gender. What if she moaned when he handled her? What if she sighed? Worse—what if he liked it? His pulse raced. Rapid breathing kicked in. His body turned clammy with sweat.
This is really stupid, his logical mind insisted.
I know, his irrational fear snarled back like it always did, because Nizari’s despicable shadow still hulked over him. He’d followed Ky home, damn him, and some days, the bastard of Kabul still won.
Ky gritted his teeth. He had to get this done before he lost control or before Tate took over her care, and that just plain was not going to happen.
A familiar whiff from long ago drifted up into his flared nostrils. He
lowered his head to Stark’s breath and sniffed again, wanting more. Make that needing more. There it was again, that soothing scent of menthol and camphor, and what the hell? It came from her? Nah, it couldn’t be her, the angel of his dreams. Could it? Nah. It had to be all that evergreen scent from the chewed up trees. That made better sense, and yet his pulse slowed the same as it had years ago. His rising panic lost out to calm—just like two and a half years ago.
“Well?” Tate asked grumpily, his top lip lifted in his perpetual half-sneer.
“Don’t rush me,” Ky retorted a little too quickly, still trying to catch his balance around the little gal in his lap. He got down to business. He ran his bare fingertips over her forehead. Oddly, that contact didn’t sting or burn. It didn’t create panic. He didn’t need to run. He could breathe.
Ky drew in a deeper breath. He tunneled his bare fingers beneath the silky tresses spilling across his arm and knee like a river of liquid gold. Gently, he probed her scalp for swelling or a goose egg. A concussion would explain her fainting.
The white knight in him rose to the surface. Instead of a cut, the pads of his fingertips encountered something beneath her skin behind her right ear. The bump had nothing to do with the Cessna falling out of the sky, not with the distinct edges and what felt like a small cut to the side of it. He lifted the swatch of her hair out of his way, peering into the shadowy depths.
“Found something, but I can’t see what it is. Let’s make camp and get her out of the cold. Start a fire. We can report in then, too.”
Tate grunted, pointing into the dark. “I’ll put the tent up by the wreck.”
“Sounds good.” Now that he had a good hold on Stark, Ky lifted her hood over her head. She was still out cold, huffing in short breaths, a good sign.
He tucked her face under his chin, needing to keep her warm and liking the rare feel of a woman up close and personal. The simple contact of her lips on his bare skin soothed him, as if she’d lit an ember inside a stone-cold wood-burning stove. Something flamed to life way down deep in his gut, something warm and irresistible.
Ky (In the Company of Snipers Book 13) Page 5
