Barely Breathing

Lacey
Thorn

Book eight in the Bare Love series.

Griff doesn’t know what is missing until a six-foot knockout
walks into his life. She cusses like a sailor, calls it like it is and has him
wrapped in knots from the word go. He wants her. She wants him. Only question
is how long it will take to get her naked.

Honor needs help and Midnight, Inc. security firm, comprised
of ex-Marines, Rangers and martial arts specialists, seems the perfect choice.
But their
help
has her safely tucked away with a hunk named Griff as her
bodyguard. Oh, she’d definitely like him to keep a close eye on her body. Hell,
she’d like him to do just about anything to her. One look and she’s barely
breathing. Only question is how long she can keep him.

A
Romantica®
contemporary erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

“Son of a bitch!” Honor hopped around on one foot, grabbing
at her big toe. It was throbbing since she’d slammed it against the desk in her
rush to gather her stuff. She didn’t have much time, so she forced her foot
back down and did her best to shake it off.

He wasn’t who she’d thought. He wasn’t the “nice” guy he’d
led her to believe. He was a cold-hearted bastard who wasn’t about helping
people. No, he was about using them for his own means. And now Honor was the
person he planned to use. No fucking way. She would say
over her dead body
,
but she was afraid that was exactly what he had in mind.

As if that wasn’t enough, he’d accessed her computer. How
had he breached her firewalls? Hers? She was the best. Period. But there was no
denying it. Someone had not only hacked into her system but managed to open
some of her zipped files. Files no one should ever see. Even worse, he knew
where she lived, had been a welcomed guest in her home. Correction, where she
had lived. Because in two more minutes she was out. And she knew just where she
was going. Stace.

It had all begun with her friend Stace Anders a little over
a year ago. Stace had come back from her last rescue and discovered her baby
sister Chloe missing. Kidnapped, to be precise. Honor should have worked with
her to find Chloe, but her dad nixed that. Instead he’d advised Stace to call
in help from a local group, Midnight Inc., a security company run by
ex-military people. Apparently her dad knew the owner and respected him, a rare
thing.

Honor snorted as she grabbed the zipper pouch that contained
her flash drives and disconnected the hard drive, tossing both carefully into
her backpack. Stace should have worked with Honor as she always did. But Stace
had told Honor’s dad she was ready to quit, and the crafty bastard had used it
as an excuse to force Honor out as well. He should have left well enough alone.
Then none of this would have happened because Honor would have been too busy to
try to have a “normal” life.

Now she would have to go on the move until she figured out
how to clean up this mess, a fact that thoroughly pissed her off. She wasn’t a
fucking amateur. She could do this shit in her sleep. But her dad had given her
the boot. Why did Stace deciding to retire from the rescue business make
Honor’s dad decide it was time for his little girl to retire from the handler business?
Bullshit! He raised her to be one of the guys, then wanted her to settle down,
date, get married, maybe have a grandkid or two? What the fuck? Old man was
getting bat-shit crazy in his twilight years.

She hit the door running, not bothering to lock up behind
her. He’d just break it down when he realized she was gone and she’d never be
able to come back now anyway. This location had been compromised. Her Jeep was
already packed with essentials. She put her backpack, laptop case and a duffel,
which held the few personal mementos she allowed herself, in the passenger seat
then hurried around to the driver’s door.

She was headed to some small city named Legacy. Legacy?
Really? What the hell kind of name was that? Stace was living with one Donavan
Shepard, former Ranger. Six-feet-four-inches of pure muscle. He looked like a
fucking Viking. Plus, Stace was working with him at the Midnight place now. It
seemed legit. Apparently they had pretty good firewalls as well. She’d only
been in their system for two minutes forty-five seconds when they kicked her,
infecting her desktop with a virus that gave it a hard kill. Pretty nice. She’d
like to know the mind behind that baby.

The old man had called her and said one sentence before
hanging up on her.

Leave Midnight alone, Honor.

But Stace was there and old habits die hard. She’d been
gathering intel since she’d been old enough to operate a computer. If Stace was
going to work for Midnight, Inc. then Honor was going to know them as well as
she knew herself. Stace was important to her, more like a sister than anything
else. And she was the only female friend Honor had.

They knew her dad. At least well enough to call and tattle
on her. Sons of bitches. Not cool, using the dad card. So she’d gone a more
roundabout route to find out what she wanted to know. She had files on everyone
who worked for Midnight, complete with photos and as much background as she
could manage. There was only one she’d had a hard time finding anything on.
Michael Chetan Donavan. The man was like a ghost. Interesting.

She glared at the GPS and took a left turn. It would take
her almost the entire day to get to Legacy. Which just pissed her off more. She
should be back at her cabin, perfectly safe, digging into a new case. But no.
She was running from some fucking psycho who had a hard-on for her dad. As far
as she was concerned, her dad should be here now, saving her ass. But he was in
the wind, just as he’d been for most of her life.

She’d have to see if she could manage to speak to the little
clairvoyant chick, Allison St. John, aka Ally Samms, soon to be Ally Summers.
Honor had a few things of his. Maybe this Ally would be able to help Honor the
way she had helped Stace find Chloe. Ally was engaged to the local fire
marshal, Blake Summers. He was another six-feet-four-inch behemoth. What the
hell did they feed the local guys to grow them so big? Honor had to admit she
was intrigued though. It would be nice to be around people she didn’t tower
over like the Jolly Green Giant. Men always seemed to get their dicks in a
twist when she came around. Wasn’t her fault she was close to six feet. It was
genetics, plain and simple.

She thought about Vince. If it was too good to be true, then
it usually was. Her dad had drilled that into her head. So how had she
forgotten? Vince had been suave, a perfect gentleman. She’d been thinking about
having sex with him. She shuddered. It was bad enough she’d kissed him and done
some heavy making out. It just made her feel dirty and used. Which is exactly
what he’d done. Used her.

She would have remained completely clueless too, if she
hadn’t overheard the conversation. He’d stepped outside to take a call. She’d
gone out front to water a freaking plant and just decided to walk around the
cabin instead of going through it. She’d heard him mention her father. Vince
had said the old man would learn he didn’t get to call all the shots. Then he’d
laughed at whatever the other person had said.

“Nah. I’ve found his weakness. When I’m done playing with
her, she’s going to die nice and painfully. Let him see what it’s like when
you’re not around to protect the ones who mean the most.”

Those words would haunt her for the rest of her life. She
hoped it was a long time. She wasn’t stupid though. She’d been cautious, but
not enough. Then there was the fact he knew about her connection to Stace. She
should be running as far in the opposite direction as she could. But damn it,
her dad was gone and she needed someone she could trust to have her back. Vince
had others helping him. She was smart enough to know she needed help too. She
couldn’t do everything. Besides, her strong point was gathering information.
She had been taught how to handle and fire a gun, the proper use of a knife,
plus hand-to-hand combat. But she’d never been in a combat situation. Shit
tended to go wrong when it was real.

Her hands were shaking. Stace was all she had. Her and
hopefully the new pals she hung around with. She would be willing to help them
out in any way that she could if they’d just help her with this little mess she
was currently in. Obviously they knew her dad. And she’d done enough research
to know they were decent guys.

She should have done the same with Vince. But, no, she’d
been trying to be
normal
and just go with the flow. Fuck that. She
wouldn’t make the same mistake ever again. Bottom line was that her normal was
just different from most people. She’d been lonely, and when Vince came along,
he’d said and done all the right things. He’d probably had someone put together
a file on her. The thought had her seething as she drove. She purposely turned
her thoughts to Stace’s new friends and coworkers. One guy in particular had
caught her eye and made her catch her breath as well.

She recalled with perfect clarity the profile she’d put
together on one Griff Daniels. He was six-feet-six-inches of lean muscle. Long
black hair in a ponytail and blue eyes as bright as a sunny sky. She bet he had
all the girls swooning over him. She snorted, probably had an ego the size of a
small country. Guys who looked like him tended to like dainty, helpless girls.
There wasn’t a single thing helpless about her. She could kick ass with the
best of them. And as for dainty? Well, her pinkie was small. Sort of.

She shook her head. She was lonelier than she realized if
she was fantasizing over a stranger. She shouldn’t have kept herself so
isolated these past few months. She should have gotten out more, dated, had
one-night stands and casual sex. But that just wasn’t her life. Never would be.
When your father hunted bad guys for a living, you grew up seeing the worst of
society. It made it hard sometimes to remember decent people existed. She
sighed. And look what happened when you tried to disregard that simple fact and
think the best of people.

She focused on the road, cranking the radio up and singing
along. The sooner she arrived the better she’d feel. She’d called her dad a
dozen times. She knew better. Knew if he didn’t answer then he was in the
middle of something and would get back with her as soon as he could. And when her
dad was in the middle of something it usually involved life and death. But she
hadn’t been able to stop herself from calling. She worked behind a computer,
not in the field. She wasn’t used to having her life threatened, at least not
that she’d ever known about.

Her phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. She glanced down
at the screen on her console. You had to love the integrated phone systems
available in cars now. Of course she’d tinkered with hers a bit to get it just
the way she wanted it. It was easy to get exactly what you wanted when you were
the one installing it.

She sighed with relief. It was her dad. Maybe he was done
and back stateside. She could just go to him. He’d take care of it.

“Sir.”

His sigh came through her radio loud and clear, as if he
were in the car with her.

“Can you ever just call me dad?”

He spent her entire childhood informing her when she spoke
to him it was “yes sir” or “no sir” and now he wanted her to call him dad. She
sighed. Yes, he was going bat-shit crazy.

“Yes sir. Hey, Dad.”

Silence. Dead silence and she knew she’d hit the mark with
that one. Bull’s eye.

“Where are you?”

“On the road.”

“Why? Did something happen?”

“I decided to take a road trip, that’s all.” Now that she
thought about it, did she really want to tell him about Vince? Did she want to
hear the disappointment in his voice when he learned how gullible she’d been?
And what if something happened to him while he was trying to protect her? What
if that was exactly what Vince wanted? Could she live with the fact that she
had been the one to bring down the mighty Zachariah? She decided to take a page
from his book.

She stayed silent. Dead silent. Two could use that card. The
apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

“Honor.”

“Yes sir?”

“Where are you headed?”

“Don’t know yet. I’ll contact you when I do. Until then use
this number to reach me. My cell phone is secure.”

“You called a dozen times, Honor.”

“I apologize, sir. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Exactly. You always think. What’s going on?”

She said nothing.

He sighed again.

“I know you put together dossiers on the group at Midnight
Inc. More important at the moment is they know as well. I doubt the head of the
company is real happy about it.”

She held her silence. She never meant to piss people off. It
just seemed to be another skill she possessed.

“The head of the group is Jack Madigan,” her dad stated as
if she didn’t already know.

“Midnight himself.”

“He’s not a man you want to tangle with, Honor.”

She’d put together his file. Did her dad not think she’d
read it? She knew what all of the men were capable of. And, as far as she was
concerned, Midnight wasn’t the most lethal of the group. They were exactly what
she needed right now.

“Are you listening to me?”

“Yes sir.”

“Damn it, Honor!”

She softened, just like she almost always did.

“Yes, Daddy. I’m listening.”

Okay, so Daddy was a sneak attack. The word got to him like
nothing else could. She found it funny how he’d brought her up to be the way
she was and now wanted to change her.

“You can’t go waltzing into their turf and expect them to
play nice. Not with them knowing you researched them.”

“It’s important to research prospective employers.” She
hadn’t really thought about a job, but it might be just what she needed.

“Over my dead body.”

“You fired me remember? You can’t get mad at me for job
searching using the only skills I have.”

“One phone call and you won’t make it in the door.”

“One phone call and you’ll never hear from me again.” Most
likely because she’d be dead. She wasn’t going to share her stupidity with him
though.

“Are you threatening me, little girl?”

She snorted. Yet, another habit her dad had taught her that,
now, he took offense to.

“I was taught never to make a threat you didn’t plan to back
up.”

He sighed again. He seemed to sigh a lot when he talked to
her. “Think hard about the choices you’re making right now. Be sure you can
handle the consequences.”

She just wanted to be alive to handle them. She decided to
try to bluff her way out. He wasn’t here. He didn’t know for sure where she was
going.