“You going to nag me?”
“Convince you to change your mind, using my excellent powers of verbal persuasion.”
“Save your breath. Hawkeye doesn’t need to squander its resources on me.”
Hawkeye Security. The company they all worked for was named after the man who’d founded it, a man she, and most others, had never met. Wolf, she’d heard, was one of his closest advisors.
With their highly trained men and women, Hawkeye provided world-renowned protection. They recruited former Special Forces operators, ex-cops, bodyguards, lots of IT people, and other brainiacs, including some who worked remotely out of small, private offices. The higher the stakes, the likelier it was that Hawkeye would be the firm of choice.
Her teammates were the best in the world. She was proud to be one of them. “Hawkeye brought me in as well,” she reminded him. “Maybe he would go to these extraordinary lengths for any one of us, but maybe he wouldn’t. All I can say is he obviously considers you important.”
Stone struck a match, filling the room with the sharpness of sulfur. “My mind is made up.”
“But—”
“I told Hawkeye not to send anyone. I meant it.”
“You can have a heart, just until the weather clears. Then you can go back to your regularly scheduled…” She stopped short of saying assholeishness. “Grumpiness.”
His mouth was set, brooking no argument. “Let it be.”
Huge splatters of rain hit the floor-to-ceiling windowpanes.
Wolf might be able to sleep at night if he left his comrade out there, but she would toss and turn with worry.
Decision made, Kayla crossed to the hallway closet, pulled open the gigantic golden oak doors, and took out a raincoat. She also grabbed her gun and checked it before tucking it into her waistband. She snatched up a pair of compact binoculars and a compass and was shoving her arms in the sleeves of the yellow slicker as she walked through the great room on the way to the back door.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Exactly what you said. I’m saving my breath.” Kayla spared him a glance. “I decided not to argue with you.”
“Stop right there.”
He spoke softly, but his voice snapped with whiplash force. Despite herself, she froze. She’d faced untold danger, but this man, unarmed, unnerved her. A funny little knot formed in the pit of her stomach.
Kindling crackled as fire gnawed its edges.
“Turn around.” His voice was terrifying in its quietness. “Look at me, Fagan.”
Struggling not to show the way she was trembling, she turned.
He stood. “I will be very clear, Ms. Fagan. You are here at my pleasure.” He took a single step toward her. “I will not be disobeyed.”
His statement was loaded with threat.
Wildly she thought of the room in the basement, the one with crops and paddles hanging from the walls. The one she’d been forbidden to enter, and the door she’d opened the first time he’d left the house.
She locked her knees so she didn’t waver. “I’ve never been much for obedience.”
“Nathaniel Davidson is far from helpless.”
“He’s a fellow member of Hawkeye. I’m not allowed to leave him out there. And I won’t.” She met his gaze and ignored the fury blazing there. “Really, Mr. Stone, I don’t care if it gets me fired.” Or worse. She pivoted and walked away.
The wind whipped at the door, nearly snatching it from her hand.
She turned up the collar of her ineffective raincoat. There was never anything friendly about a Rocky Mountain storm.
She’d grown up in Tucson where torrential rains were common during the monsoon season. They cooled the weather to bearable seventy-degree temperatures, but this—it was freaking like winter.
Fortunately, she didn’t have far to trudge. From her conversations with headquarters, she had a pretty good idea of where the insertion was supposed to happen. And in less than fifteen minutes, the ground beneath her sizzling with electrical ferociousness, she saw a streak of orange.
She grinned.
Members of her team were smart. Nate had donned a reflective safety vest. That would, at least, stop friendly fire.
“Davidson!” When she got no response, she called out a second time.
He started toward her. “Come to rescue me, have you?” he shouted above the roar of the wind. “Bet Stone told you to come.”
“He sends his regards and invites you to sit next to the fire while he pours you a cognac.”
Nate laughed. “How much trouble are you in for coming after me?”
“He didn’t threaten to flay the skin from my hide.”
“Doesn’t mean he won’t.”
“Thanks. That’s a comforting thought.”
“He doesn’t know?”
“Who I am? No.” She shook her head. “He thinks Hawkeye sent him a physical therapist.”
Nate grinned. “Do you know enough about that to do no harm, doc?”
“Uh… I watched a special on the internet.”
Thunder crashed.
“I ought to write both of you up.”
Wolf. Her breath threatened to choke her. How much had he overheard? It shouldn’t have surprised her that he’d followed, that he’d effortlessly covered the same ground she had in far less time. The man was in shape, and he kept himself sharp, the same way he had when he led American troops in the Middle East.
Over the lash of the summer storm, his voice laden with command, he said, “Both of you, back to the house.”
The wind snatched a few strands of hair and whipped them against cheekbones that could have been sculptured from granite. His jaw was set in an uncompromising line. Out here, in the unforgiving elements, he appeared even more formidable than he had in the house.
Nate glanced at her. “Maybe I will get a cognac after all.”
“No fucking chance,” Stone fired back.
Cheerfully, as if he couldn’t have been happier, Nate whistled and gamely started down the mountainside. No one should be happy about this kind of reception.
“Move it, Fagan,” Stone instructed, leaning forward so he could issue his command directly into her ear.
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you say something?”
She blinked innocently.
His arched brow told her he hadn’t bought it.
Steps short but sure, she followed Nate, leaving Stone to bring up the rear.
Minutes later, the mean-looking sky unleashed a torrent. Earth became mud. Rocks became as slick as ice.
She lost her balance, and Stone was there, wrapping an arm around her waist, pulling her up and back, flush against the solidness of his body.
The sensation zinging through her was from him, not the streak of lightning. “I’m good. Fine.”
He held her for a couple of seconds, his warm breath fanning across her ear. What would happen if she leaned back for just a bit longer and allowed herself to be protected in his strong arms? To feel his cock against her? To surrender to the fantasies that kept her awake at night and her pussy damp, even now?
And what fantasies they were.
Last night’s sight of his semierect dick had driven her mad.
After he returned to his own room, she’d thought of the crops and paddles in his downstairs room. She’d pictured him using them on her while she gasped and strained, and ultimately surrendered to the inevitable. Turned on and needy, she’d pulled up her sleep shirt and parted her labia to find her clit already hardened.