Silver Shield Security Box Set

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Chapter Fifteen

  Drew cradled Janey’s naked body in his arms as she slept. It was the sweetest torture he had ever experienced. He knew she needed the rest and was willing to let her have it, even if it meant he had to grit his teeth in the process. He’d tried every mental trick he knew of, but his erection just seemed to keep swelling and getting bigger.

  He pressed the hand that was resting on her stomach. The stomach that had carried his son or daughter for fourteen weeks. He still could not wrap his head around that. What would it have been like to be a dad? His own father was cold and distant. He did not want to be that kind of father.

  He rubbed his hand slowly over that part of Janey’s anatomy. She would have been a wonderful mother. The way she tended her plants so lovingly, making sure that they did not lack for anything, was evidence of that.

  She sighed in her sleep and Drew stilled. He wished he could chase away all the shadows that haunted her. But there was a part of the woman that was always under lock and key. It was almost as though she had a layer into which she never accepted anyone.

  He had felt it at the beginning, but after spending several weeks with her, he was sure of it. He wanted Janey. Not just her body or her gentle sense of humor. He wanted that too, but he wanted more. He wanted it all.

  Lost in thought as he was, the first inkling Drew had that Janey was awake was when she moved her shapely backside suggestively against his erection. He shut his eyes and ground his teeth together, praying for control. She moved again and this time he held her waist firmly, keeping her in place.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Seducing you.” Her voice was tight with need.

  Drew ran his hands over her hip, down her thighs and back up again. He wanted nothing more than to bury his shaft into her soft center, but he needed to be sure that she was ready for him.

  Janey began to move restlessly against him. He moved his hand to her breast and squeezed. She whimpered, pressing back against him. This elicited a groan from him.

  “Please, Drew…”

  He moved his hand southward till he found her center. Gently, he circled her clit then slid one finger into her heat. She was so sleek and wet. He groaned.

  “Oh shit!”

  He reached out for the condom he’d placed beside the bed earlier. He scooted back and without waiting a moment, sheathed himself.

  “Now, Drew.” Janey reached back and caught hold of his erection. She ran her hand over it from the shaft to the tip and back to the shaft again. Then very deliberately, she guided him into her core, lifting a leg slightly to give him unimpeded access.

  Drew slid his shaft slowly into her and didn’t stop till he was buried to the hilt.

  They both moaned at the intensity of the pleasure. He waited a moment, then slid out and slid back in again.

  “Ah…Drew…” Janey moaned.

  She clutched the sheets as Drew increased the tempo, hitting her with the pent up desire that he was trying desperately hard to control. And failing.

  Janey met him thrust for thrust with the same passion and intensity he gave her. He held on to her waist as he alternated the tempo from fast and hard, to slow and drawn out. He forgot why he was holding back and gave up everything. He kissed her neck, leaving teeth marks in the process. His hands moved from her waist to cup her breasts.

  Janey moaned, calling his name as she begged for release. She did something with her waist, rocking against him in a way that almost drove him wild.

  “Fucking hell,” he muttered against her skin as he plunged into her.

  She began to shake uncontrollably. She writhed and flung her head from one side to another.

  “I can’t…Oh…too much… please.” She was incoherent.

  Drew felt when her orgasm hit. Her body tensed up, and she trembled even more. Then she let out a scream as she shook and bucked against him. Her inner walls began to clench around him, triggering his own release. Drew buried his face in her hair and pumped into her with rapid thrusts. He shouted out her name as he went over the peak.

  Afterward, Drew trailed kisses over Janey’s arm, up to her neck and then her face. She turned to face him and he kissed her lips. The kiss touched something inside and sparked a grain of fear. This thing with Janey was becoming deeper, more intense and emotional than he’d anticipated. And he had no idea how to handle it. With a last kiss, he stood up and went to handle his business.

  Janey lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. She was in way over her head. She could see herself hurtling straight into emotions she was too scared to name. It was like staring at a train wreck. Too horrible to watch, yet too fascinating not to.

  She knew that Drew had some feelings for her. No one could make love the way he did if feelings were not involved. But he was not someone who stayed.

  Taking a deep breath, she shook her head. She’d been over this before. Better to have loved and lost and all that. She felt her heart skip in fear, but ruthlessly squashed it.

  She was going to see where this thing with Drew went, and if at the end of the day, it didn’t go anywhere, so be it. She was not going to overthink things. One thing at a time, she told herself.

  Drew returned and tapped her butt lightly. “Scoot.”

  Janey groaned, “How do you expect me to move?”

  “That’s okay, I could push you.”

  She shot him a dark glare, then moved over. Drew climbed in beside her, pulled the covers over them and gathered her in his arms.

  Janey rested her head on his arm and sighed. She could hear the steady beating of his heart and it was soothing.

  “What was that for?”

  “You are exceptionally good at this.” A person would need to have a lot of practice to be as fabulously fantastic as Drew was. Lots and lots of practice.

  Okay, that was TMI. She really did not need to know about what he had done or with whom. Just that he was here with her at that moment was enough.

  “If something is bothering you, just say it,” Drew said.

  Janey drew circles on his chest and half shrugged. “Nothing really. You are a good lover.”

  “Just good?” She heard the amusement in his voice and knew he was laughing at her.

  “Okay, great then,” she said, grumbling. “You are a fabulous lover.”

  “And you’re wondering how many women I’ve been with.”

  She stilled. Was he a mind reader now? She let out a defeated sigh. “I don’t have a lot of experience,” she said.

  Drew huffed out a laugh. “Then I can’t wait to see what you do when you have lots of experience. I might need to take out a life insurance policy.”

  She hit him mildly. “Stop teasing, Drew. I’m serious.”

  “Janey, I have been with so many women that I’ve lost count.” Janey stiffened, but Drew’s hand on her back began a light up and down stroke and she relaxed. He went on, “I can’t change my past, no matter how hard I try. But I want you to know that as long as we’re together, the only woman that will be sharing my bed is right here beside me.”

  At his words, she felt a warm glow start from the pit of her stomach and spread to the rest of her body. His words were like a declaration of intent.

  Then his words sank in. Were they together? She did not know what to think. She didn’t understand this thing between them. Well, she did in a way. It was pure, unadulterated lust between two people.

  But she’d never experienced lust like this before. It was soul-deep and all-encompassing. It felt like the undertow of an ocean, dragging her deeper and deeper, with nothing to hold on to. She was scared that at the end of this thing, whatever it was, she would be left adrift with no way back to shore.

  “I can hear your brain working,” Drew said in a sleepy voice. “Don’t overthink this, Janey. We’ll figure it out.”

  “You are mind reading,” she said dryly.

  “Not really,” Drew said, chuckling softly. She felt his breath on her hair. “It’s just that I know
you. You are extremely cautious so you’re probably wondering where this is all going and if you’ll survive the ride. Am I correct?”

  She shrugged again.

  She felt him kiss her head and closed her eyes. A simple act, but she felt so cherished.

  “You know what, I’m totally bushed, and you probably are as well. Let’s take a nap, then we talk.”

  She raised her head so she could look at him. Their gazes met and held.

  “Talk.”

  “Sure. You do want to talk about this thing between us, right?”

  She didn’t know what to say. “You don’t strike me as the type to want to talk about…” she waved her hand between them.

  He shrugged and gave a lopsided smile. “Not usually, but I love talking to you so it’s no hardship.”

  Janey melted a little more. He was gently eroding the fragile fences she’d put around her heart and she was powerless to stop it.

  She moved up and planted a kiss on his mouth. He tightened his grip around her waist and deepened the kiss. It was slow, languorous and soul deep. Different from the other kisses they had shared. He ran his hands over her back in a caress. They kissed until they both needed to breathe.

  Their eyes clashed. She was arrested by the look in his eyes. She could fall very hard for this man. Hell, who was she kidding? She had fallen for him. Hopefully, she hadn’t fallen so far that she could not pull back.

  Hopefully.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Maria Vitale loved strange and obscure news, particularly human interest stories. She spent time on her computer, often reading articles with headlines like, “She fell in love with him, not knowing that he was her biological father.”

  Weird shit like that.

  So when on one of her feeds she saw the story about a woman poisoning her lover’s ex-girlfriend with cyanide of all things, she clicked on it. She read the story with a kind of fascinated horror, one hand on her mouth.

  The woman was so pretty, with dark blonde hair and shy eyes. She liked her immediately. She didn’t know why, but she was glad she’d survived. She said a quick prayer for the woman.

  She had no idea why she was drawn to such stories. Stories of how whacked the human character could be. Perhaps it took her mind off what her life really was. Allowed her to pretend a little.

  She heard the school bus dropping off the kids. With a sigh, she got up from her computer and went out to meet them as she’d always done.

  Mike Vitale wandered into the kitchen area not long after. He’d heard his wife go out to meet the kids. He saw her laptop on the kitchen table and shook his head. She must have been reading one of her sick stories again.

  He walked past and pulled open the fridge. He just wished he could find out who that woman was. The woman who had killed his brother. His fist tightened on the handle of the fridge. How big was the fucking city that he could not locate a single woman? His men had combed through the city, but there was no trace of her.

  Fuck.

  He needed to find her. He needed to obliterate her from the face of the earth. She would feel the excruciating pain he felt, before he finally put her out of her misery. If he did.

  “Honey, did you want something?”

  The voice pulled him out of his head. He realized that he’d been standing there, staring into the fridge for a while. He couldn’t remember why he’d come.

  He shut the door and turned to his wife. He could see the fear and resignation on her face. That was another thing he owed that bitch. She’d stolen the joy from his wife. Maria used to be so filled with joy and sunshine. Such a happy woman, she’d been his world. Now she just went about with sad eyes and slumped shoulders.

  That was something else on the trigger-pulling woman.

  It didn’t matter how long, he was going to find her, and when he did…

  He left that hanging.

  “Mikey?”

  “Nothing,” he said shortly. As he walked out of the kitchen, something made him pause and look into Maria’s laptop. He froze.

  “What…Who is that?” he asked harshly as he pointed to the screen.

  “Nothing, Mikey. Just a story. Nothing…” she hurried to the table where the laptop was resting and tried to push down the screen.

  “Leave it!” he growled.

  Maria’s hand froze on the laptop. Slowly she withdrew it.

  He walked to it and opened the screen. It was her. There was no mistaking the hair and those eyes. He had caught sight of them just once, but they had been burned into his memory. There was no way he could miss them.

  He studied the face. She was younger in the picture, but it was her alright. His hands clenched at the sight of her. The killer. The one who had torn his brother away from him.

  He leaned closer to see where she was. The article was written about someplace named Broken Arrow. Where the hell was that?

  He tapped the keys and got the exact location. He tapped the keys a few more times.

  All over Chicago, several phones went off as they received the picture of a nice-looking woman. There was only line in the message:

  We’ve found her.

  But all those who received the message knew exactly what it was about. It was time to go mete out justice.

  **

  Drew sat at the edge of the bed and watched Janey sleep. She slept on her side, with her hand cradling her face. She had dark smudges beneath her eyes and he felt guilty about that. He felt even guiltier about the fact that he needed to wake her up.

  He thought about the message on the Silver Shield private feed. The software was developed by Rusty, the only one among them who was a former IT engineer with the military intelligence corps. It was how they exchanged confidential information and also how they communicated with each other while on a mission.

  He thought about letting her sleep a few extra hours, but this was about her. She would never forgive him if she discovered that he had that information and didn’t tell her immediately.

  He brushed her hair from her face, then leaned down to gently place a kiss on her cheeks.

  Janey murmured something incoherent and went back to sleep. She was so cute. He could not help the smile on his face.

  “Janey, darling, you need to wake up.”

  “No…tired…” she groaned.

  “I know, baby, but this is important.”

  He trailed his hand over her shoulder, till he got to the sensitive spot just above her shoulder blade, then he tickled her.

  “Stop…” she moaned with a half-giggle.

  Drew tickled some more.

  Janey giggled again, then opened her eye. She gave him a death glare. “Why?”

  “You have to wake up.”

  “This had better be important,” she said, rubbing her eyes. Then she took in his fully dressed state and her expression changed. “What’s the matter?” She held the sheets to her chest as she sat up.

  “I got a message from HQ,” he said, referring to Silver Shield headquarters.

  Janey watched him without saying a word, her eyes wide and fearful.

  “We need to leave.”

  She stilled, then cocked her head to the side, a frown on her face. “We?”

  “Yeah, we.”

  The immediate relief in her face made him realize what an ass he was. Of course she would think that he was leaving. He met her eyes head on. “I’m not going anywhere without you,” he stated baldly.

  He saw the vulnerability in her eyes before she masked her expression. “It’s okay if you have to leave.”

  Anger flared within him. “Is it really?”

  She heard the anger in his voice and her head came up, surprise written on her features. “I don’t want to keep you away from your work.”

  Drew stood and turned his back to her. Running his hand over his head, he let out a string of swear words. He couldn’t believe it. She was still holding back, trying to pretend that they had not already crossed that line.

  “What the h
ell are you swearing at me for?” she snapped.

  He turned back to her. “So you’re willing to just see me walk out like that? After everything?” Drew didn’t know why that hurt so much, but it did.

  “Drew…”

  He shook his head. “Forget it.”

  Janey crawled out of the bed, tugging at the sheets until she was modestly covered up. She got right in his face. “You are too damn touchy, Campbell!” she yelled.

  Drew’s eyes widened in surprise. “What the hell?”

  “What on earth is wrong with you? You want to know the truth? If you left now, it would devastate me, but I’m not selfish enough to tie you down here when I know how important your job is. How someone’s life could be at risk simply because you’re not there. You have a problem with that, deal with it!”

  She was so damn hot. Drew felt his lips quirk. Seeing the death glare she was giving him, he tried to contain his amusement. Okay, so he’d misunderstood her. And he was sorry about that.

  He snagged a hand around her waist and pulled her close until her body was flush against his. “I apologize,” he said humbly.

  Janey huffed, the nodded. “So why do we have to leave?”

  Drew lifted her into his arms, sheets and all, then sat on the bed with Janey in his arms. “The thing is, we got word on a woman who was found several months ago at the C&O Canal in DC. She’s been in a coma all the while and only just woke up last week.”

  Janey became tense. “Who is it, Drew?”

  He heard the anxiety in her voice and smoothed a hand over her hair. “She matches the description of your sister.”

  Janey did not say anything and he thought maybe she hadn’t heard him. He placed two fingers beneath her chin and lifted her head. Tears were silently running down her face.

  “Janey, honey.” Her tears unmanned him. “Please don’t cry.”

  She shook her head. Then drew in a deep breath and using the back of her hand, dashed away the tears. “I’m scared to hope,” she whispered.

  “Tamika has gone with Ryan to check it out.”

  She nodded. Then frowned. “Does Ryan work with you guys?”