Deceive Her With Desire (17 page)

Ayden fell to his knees on the sandy soil, rolling Jameson off Deirdre’s lifeless body. She couldn’t be dead. Fear stung the back of Ayden’s eyes and filled his mouth with sand.
Blood
.
There was so much fucking blood. It covered Deirdre’s face, clumped in her hair and ran in streaks across her eyelids and nose. He gently pulled the tape from her mouth. She was so still.
Please don’t let her be dead
.

“Someone
call
an ambulance,” Ayden shouted at Ryan as he came around the front of the limo.

Training took over. His hands searched for bullet wounds as he leaned over Deirdre, listening for the sound of breaths. His fingers checked her supple neck for a pulse. She inhaled sharply. Her arms flailed in the air and pushed him away.

“Deirdre,
it’s
Ayden. Baby,
shh
. You’re hurt. Lie still.”

“My head, oh, my head.” Deirdre rolled to the side. The rock beneath her hair was covered in blood. She hadn’t been shot, just knocked unconscious when Jameson’s body had taken her down. The blood on her face must have been Jameson’s. Relief flooded through him.

“Ayden?”
Her eyes worked to focus in the murky light. “What the…?” He watched her face contort with confusion, the lines morphing to reveal her concern as the memories of the last few minutes worked themselves into her consciousness. “Ayden, are you all right? Jameson?” Deirdre pushed away from him, her head swiveling in all directions. “Emilio’s here. Watch out, Ayden, he has a gun.”

“Deirdre, he works for our side. He was undercover too.”

“No, not one of your men.
I mean my friend, Emilio. I think he sold drugs like Mark. I think he’s one of Jameson’s men.”

“Dee, I’m right here with Mark.” Leaning back, Emilio peeked around the open limo door.

“Mark.” She crawled to her mentor. “Oh, Mark. He’s hurt. Someone get help. We need an ambulance. Emilio,
do
something.”

“The ambulance is on its way, Dee. There’s nothing more we can do.” Emilio looked at her, tears glistening in his eyes.

“This wasn’t in the plan. Mark and Deirdre shouldn’t have been here.” Emilio’s voice shook with emotion as he pressed his hand against the old man’s chest, blood oozing around his fingers. “It must have been the first shot from Jameson’s henchman.”

Deirdre gently touched Mark’s chest, then cupped his cheek. “Hold on, Mark.”

Liquid bubbled in the old man’s throat as he drew in enough breath to
speak,
blood painting his lips a sticky red. “Did you get the scumbag?”

“Lay still, Mark.” Emilio propped the man’s head and shoulders in his lap. “We got him. Jameson’s dead. He won’t be bringing in any more drugs.”

“I’m sorry.
So sorry.”

“
Shh
, don’t talk, Mark. We understand.” Deirdre brushed hair from the man’s face.

He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Wrong. It was all so wrong.” Mark coughed, and more blood trickled out of his mouth. “I heard Emilio. I knew he couldn’t work for…that prick. I wanted to help someone…stop him.”

“You helped. You did
good
,” Emilio said.

“Mark, don’t talk.” Deirdre’s tears fell on the man’s gentle face. “It’s going to be okay, everything’s going to be okay.”

“Yeah, it is, Deirdre. I’ve done terrible things in the past few months.” Mark wheezed and coughed out the words. “But tonight, I made up…for all sins…tell my wife…I’ll see her soon.” His voice trailed away.

Deirdre lifted her head, crying into the night. “No!”

Chapter 11

“So, the Cutler police dropped all charges against you.” Ayden followed Deirdre out of the bathroom, absently rubbing the towel over his blond curls. He was happy to be seeing himself in the mirror again.

It had been over a month since everything had come together just as he’d hoped at the Jameson estate, everything except Mark Pearson’s death and Deirdre’s sudden appearance. The mission had gone off with textbook precision. His team, working with the Coast Guard, had boarded the delivery boat. His men intercepted the amphibious vehicles and seized the drug shipment. Sixty kilos of heroin would never make it to the streets. There’d been no doubt in his mind that Jameson had been behind the Miami operation or that he would recognize Ayden.

Ayden had counted on it—even asked Chief
Lafflin
to spill the information just to be sure. Cocky men make fatal errors.

“I still don’t understand how Mark got mixed up in all that,” Deirdre said.

“Turns out Jameson got to Mark through his students. He’d threatened his wife if Mark didn’t find him mules for distribution.” Ayden grabbed the end of her towel and spun her to face him as it unwrapped from her beautiful body. “DEA got that information from a couple of Delmont kids they arrested for possession.” Ayden slanted his mouth over her lips. Her naked body softened in his arms. “Drug addiction isn’t a conscious choice. It just happens.” He pulled her tighter against his body, lifting his hips to rub his stiff cock against her silken belly. Damn, she made him hard.

“Speaking of drugs…” Her fingers played with his chest hairs. “I’m not very happy you sent my friend down to Miami.”

“Emilio?
They’re going to love him down there. He’s great. No one will suspect a mechanic who works for the good guys. Jameson didn’t.” Ayden cupped her breast and grazed his thumb over her pebbled nipple, enjoying the rush of her breath hot on his chest. “Besides, I needed to get rid of my competition.”

Deirdre laughed. Her hands fluttered between their bodies, sliding down his torso to fondle him. “He wasn’t your competition. Now Rachel, on the other hand…”

He lifted her up and dropped her on the rumpled sheets of the four-poster bed, covering her body with his. “She’s not competition. You want her to join us? Be my guest.
Two gorgeous women in my bed?
That’s every man’s fantasy, babe.”

“Not on your life, Ayden. You’re all mine.” Deirdre massaged his ass, lifting her hips so his erection nestled in the slick heat of her folds. “I’m not sharing you with anyone.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“We may need to dig into that box of toys under my bed again, Ayden. I’m fairly certain we finished the condoms during our last go ’round.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. How would you feel about going without one?” He cocked an eyebrow.

Her brows knit in confusion.

He cupped his hands behind her neck. His thumbs grazed the tender flesh under her chin, and he tilted her face so she would look into his eyes and see everything he wanted to give her. “I know it’s not even two months since we met, but I love you. With all my heart, I love you.”

“I love you too, Ayden. I hear
a
but
in your sentence.”

“But, nothing,” he whispered into her ear, nipping her lobe between his teeth. “My transfer came through to the Bangor office.”

“Oh, Ayden, that’s fantastic. No more long-distance relationship for us.”

“What would you think if we made this one permanent?”

“Like you move in here? Oh, that would be wonderful. There’s plenty of room and—”

His
mouth hungrily took possession of hers, his tongue plunging in to taste and conquer
. When he pulled back, her lids hung heavy.
“Deirdre, stop talking.
I’m asking if you want to make babies with me.”

“Babies?”

“Yeah, we could start before or after our wedding.” In a tender gesture, he laid his forehead on hers.
“If you’ll have me.”

She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.
“Until the end of time, Ayden Scott.
Only until the end of time.”

Author’s Bio
:

Award-winning erotic romance author, Nina Pierce, grew up in a house full of readers. So becoming enamored with books was only natural. She discovered romance stories in her early teens, falling hopelessly in love with knights in shining armor and the damsels who saved them.

Eventually,
reading
about alpha males and the journey to find their happy-ever-after endings wasn’t enough. She needed to pen her own stories of fated loves and soul mates. Nina’s discovered the passionate side of romance with her sexy stories. For her, it’s all about the sweet scent of seduction mixed with the heartwarming aroma of romance.

Nina resides in the northeast with her high school sweetheart and soul mate of twenty-seven years, their three grown children and several very spoiled cats who consider her “staff”.

Nina enjoys hearing from her readers. You can reach her at
[email protected]
. You can also keep up with all her newest releases on her website
http://www.NinaPierce.com
or by following her on Twitter
http://www.twitter.com/NinaPierce
and
Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/NinaPierce

Blind Her
With
Bliss

Cheat Her
With
Charm

Dangerous Affairs

Invitation to Ecstasy

Maid for Master

Mating Bonds

Bonded Souls

Bonded by Need

A Touch of Lilly

Healer’s Garden

Divine Deception

Ripe and Ready

Tilling Passions Series Book 3

Chapter 1

Meghan
Tilling’s
body quaked with fear and the bone-chilling thirty-eight degrees of the cooler where she was trapped. She pressed her forehead against the icy metal of the door, her palm caressing its pebbled surface, trying to fight the panic lurking like a sinister shadow and threatening to overwhelm her in despair.

How ironic that the annoyance of driving in a Maine snowstorm had kept her at Tilling Gardens and Plants, the business she co-owned with her two sisters. Finishing the shop’s holiday arrangements and festive decorations had seemed a better alternative to a white-knuckled drive home in the heart of a nor’easter. Except now, instead of being stranded in a ditch on the side of the road with a chance of being rescued, she was going to freeze to death alone in the walk-in cooler that was the lifeblood of her business.

Her fingers had gone numb as she’d alternated between fiddling with the finicky latch and banging on the unmoving door. She had no idea how much time had passed since she’d watched the stool holding the door tip over. Unable to remain open on its worn out hinges, the cooler door had swung shut in the sickly slow motion of a nightmare. The click of the latch had been a thunderous noise, punctuated by the absolute darkness that dropped down like an unwelcomed curtain before she’d been able to get out.

Unfortunately, the automatic light switch seemed to be fully functional—unlike the door.

Panic hadn’t set in until she’d tried the inside latch and found it jammed. The release bar wasn’t moving no matter how much pressure she applied. Everything stood frozen here in the dark. Her throat burned from her desperate screams and she sank to her knees defeated by her situation.

Her fiancé, Peter, wasn’t even home to wonder why she hadn’t returned—a state of affairs that had become the norm rather than the exception.
Damn that promotion.
Peter’s work responsibilities seemed to have tripled over the last several months demanding he travel for one project or another and keeping him out late most evenings.

She missed her fiancé, plain and simple.