Hidden Heat: Hauberk Protection, Book 4 (27 page)

“His death is
entirely
my fault. Oh, I may not have pulled the trigger but he’s dead because of me.”

“You were ten years old. You believed your friend when he said you should—”

Was he really going to do this? “It didn’t happen that way. I knew I was taking him to his death. I may not have consciously realized they’d kill him right there in front of me, but I think I suspected it.”

“I don’t understand.” He touched her cheek, loving and despairing that every emotion she felt was right there for him to read with not a trace of subterfuge or denial. She would never have made a good mole, he realized. She was too open. Too honest.

“There was no friend I was to meet at the park; there never was. I deliberately betrayed my own father and led him to his slaughter.” And still she looked up at him, so trusting. God, she killed him. “Da was a member of the IRA. He made bombs for them. Bombs that killed people. Innocent people. One day, my da and his mates decided to place a bomb in a room above a shop where a group of the loyalists were meeting later that day. But they hadn’t told my mum about it. She was there picking up some fish when the bomb went off.

“I heard him talking about it with some of his friends a couple nights after her funeral. They were talking about how the bomb had gone off prematurely and what he’d done wrong. I hated him, Sandy. I wanted to kill him myself. But I didn’t think I could have done it. He wasn’t a big man, but he was on guard, you know?” He could still hear his father’s thick accent, feel the weight of his father’s hand on his head.
Stop your whining, boy. It’s sorry I am that she was there, but your ma knew we do what we have to to get these feckin’ Brits out of our land.

Chapter Twenty

Sandy doubted Troy realized his accent had thickened. Or that his voice was cracking, or that tears glistened in his eyes. She’d lived such a pampered existence, while he’d grown up surrounded by violence.

He was silent for a long moment, lost in his memories. She was about to prompt him when he took a deep breath and continued, “So one day on my way home from school, I overheard some loyalists chatting. I stopped to talk to them. Told them what da had done, told them he was planning to bomb a market where there’d be more innocents killed.”

Most ten-years-olds still idolized their fathers. How hard it must have been to know your father was a murderer capable of coldly planning the death of innocent women and children.

“They asked if I’d bring my father to meet them at the park around the corner from our house.” He’d lapsed into a monotone recitation, as if he were deliberately stuffing all his emotions away. Which he probably was. “They said they wanted to try to convince him to be an inside man for them. I agreed. To this day I don’t know if I consciously knew they’d kill him right there. At that point, it didn’t matter to me. When he was lying at my feet, his blood draining into the gutter, all I could think was that justice had been served. That he deserved to die for killing Ma.” His harsh laugh didn’t fool her into thinking he wasn’t feeling guilty. “What does a feckin’ ten-year-old kid know about justice?”

More than his father
, though she didn’t voice the thought.

“After Da’s death, all his friends came ’round the house. Told me how they’d avenge him, promised they’d find the fucker who sold him out and make him pay. They promised that when I got older I could join them, that they’d teach me to shoot and make bombs so I could get my vengeance against the bloody Brits. That they wouldn’t let Paddy’s boy grow up thinking his father died for nought.

“The next day Senator Brannally showed up at the door along with four security guards and the press. He said that he’d been in contact with an uncle of my ma’s in New Hampshire. That as my nearest living relative, my uncle had appointed the senator as my temporary legal guardian and he was to take me back to the States with him.” He shook his head. “Next thing I knew I was on a plane flyin’ over the ocean with the senator telling me he’d make sure the IRA never bothered me again.”

“What happened to your uncle?”

“He died a few months later in a car accident and left my guardianship to the senator. There wasn’t much money but the senator stepped up and made sure I wanted for nothing. He paid for my education both at the Academy and later at Boston College.”

He lay on the bed and draped his arm over his eyes. “Turned out I’m my father’s son after all. I learned how to make bombs and how to shape them so they’ll kill the people on one side of a room but not the other. How to disguise them so people wouldn’t find them until it was too late. How to kill people in hand-to-hand combat without making a sound. I know what parts of the body can be hurt causing maximum pain with minimum effort. I was good at it, Sandy. I still am.”

She crawled on the bed beside him. “If it didn’t bother you, you’d still be in the Diplomatic Service.” And he wouldn’t be telling her this as if it were a confession. No, despite his denials that killing didn’t bother him, she bet he could see the face of each one of his victims. And that each one of them had deserved to die.

He dropped his arm. “I’m a killer. Don’t make me into something I’m not. After I killed Garcia? I slept as if I hadn’t a care in the world.”

She took his hands in hers and squeezed. From the dark circles under his eyes, she doubted he’d slept as well as he’d claimed. “You did what you had to, Troy. You slept because the world is a better place, a safer place, without him in it.”

“I’m no different than him. No matter what type of spin you try to put on it. I killed him in cold blood and it doesn’t bother me a whit. Is that the type of lover you want?”

Yes.
“You are different than he was because you’re sitting here having this conversation with me right now. You’re worried about what I think about what you’ve done. He wouldn’t have cared what anyone thought.”

“You keep telling yourself that.” He rolled onto his side, away from her.

After a brief debate whether to leave him alone, Sandy undressed, crawled onto the bed and snuggled against him. Though his breathing evened out she knew he wasn’t asleep, but he obviously didn’t want to talk about it, or anything, anymore.

As much as she complained about her family and her mother interfering in her love life, she still loved her family. Troy—
Colin
—had to live with the knowledge his father had killed his mother, and others. Would she have been capable at ten of dealing with that knowledge? Probably not. Yet at ten years old, he’d come up with a plan, albeit a flawed one as it had left him orphaned. Thank heavens Senator Brannally had gotten him out of Ireland. But he’d lost all family after that and had been alone.

She pressed a kiss to the spot between his shoulder blades. “You’re not alone anymore, Troy. I’m right here with you.”

Troy awoke, immediately noticing three things. First, he had to piss like a goddamned racehorse because he hadn’t hit the can before he’d fallen asleep. Second, his stomach was gnawing its way to his backbone because he hadn’t eaten since before he’d left Val Varde almost twenty hours before. Third, and much more enjoyable, Sandy lay snuggled against him. This was what he wanted to wake to every morning. Not the bladder and hunger issues, he amended, but Sandy’s warm body soft and pliable against his.

He shifted to his side so he could watch her sleep. Her hair had fallen across her face so he brushed the strand that had stuck to her bottom lip. Without waking, she rolled onto her back. The sheet fell away at her movement, baring her breasts. They were every man’s fantasy. Curvy and luscious, the nipples a soft pink matching her lips.

His stomach growled at the same time his bladder sternly informed him that any thoughts of waking Sandy with a morning woody would be out of the question. He eased from her side and padded into the bathroom, closing the door before he turned on the light so he wouldn’t wake her.

The face looking back at him in the mirror was the same he saw every day. Yet it seemed different today. Oh sure, there was two-days’ growth of beard that he seldom sported, and the circles under his eyes were a bit darker thanks to the damned jet travel. But telling her about what he’d done, who he really was?

“What’s she done to you, mate? You’re goin’ all soft over her.”

And he liked it. Leaving his reflection to ponder the changes, he stripped off his clothes and took care of the most pressing matter, then turned on the shower. Feeling invigorated, though his stomach still grumbled, he toweled himself off and walked naked to the bedroom where Sandy still slumbered.

She’d sprawled out since he’d left the bed, taking up not only her side but half of his too. Damned if it didn’t bother him a whit. He crawled back into the bed and hefted himself up on one elbow to look down at her. With the winter weather, her skin was whiter than normal, her freckles standing out against her milky skin. He kissed the bridge of her nose, half expecting to taste cinnamon. Her forehead was similarly given a kiss, followed by her chin. He worked his way down her body, placing soft kisses and caresses along a meandering path.

She was soft and pliant, warm. Inviting. Her breathing changed from its regular slow breaths of a deep sleep, telling him she was awake even though her eyes hadn’t opened.

Though he knew she expected him to go straight to her pussy, he took his time, continuing his exploration of her body, kissing his way down one long limb. He paid special attention to her toes, his thumbs rubbing her sole, careful not to tickle. His trip back up the other leg was just as slow, taking extra special time at her knee and the tender skin of her inner thigh. Once again he knew he surprised her when he bypassed her mound and headed back up her body.

Her fingers threaded through his hair, tightening in a futile attempt to stop him when he approached the ticklish spot above her hips. He lifted his head and watched her eyes open. Oh yeah, this was exactly the way he wanted to wake up every morning. Moving ever so slowly, he touched his lips to the tender skin of her belly. “Morning, sunshine.”

“Someone woke up full of ideas.” With a tiny wiggle, she lifted her hips, adjusting the angle so his erection slipped through her folds. Heaven couldn’t feel any better than it did to be nestled in her moist heat, her breasts pressed against his chest, her lids sleep-heavy over smoky blue eyes that promised more than great sex.

“Couldn’t help it.” His hips retreated and thrust, so his shaft pressed against her clit in an erotic caress. “Woke up and you were right here beside me, all pink and soft and inviting.”

He dipped his head and caught one of her nipples, laving and nipping at it until she was panting. When the head of his cock accidentally brushed her opening, she frowned and pushed at his shoulders. “Condom, big boy.”

“Yup, in a minute. Got to do this first.” Instead he moved down her body and licked the smooth skin over her mound.

Something had changed yesterday with his confessions. The intimacy of her opening herself to him, accepting him despite knowing who he was, what he’d done, left him humbled. A sense of worship enveloping him, he parted her labia and indulged in a long slow sweep with his tongue.

She’d started off stroking his shoulders, but with each pass of his tongue, her fingers slowed, digging into his arms, her hips lifting to meet his mouth. He reveled in each gasp, each tremor he brought her. Her thigh muscles tightened around him and her back bowed. Still he drove her up, losing himself in the essence that coated his lips and his tongue. Her essence. He craved it like a crack addict, would never get enough.

Despite the sharp pain when her nails dug into his biceps as her orgasm crested, his cock ached and his balls drew tight to his body wanting to be buried inside her, to share that completion. To feel her heat surround him with no latex barrier. To be completely with her, part of her. Not just today. But forever.

As her orgasm faded, Sandy stroked Troy’s hair. Her heart rate spiked when he lifted his head to look at her. No trace of the smugness she’d expected to see filled his eyes. The heat was there, but so was something else, something she couldn’t define.

God, he looked so sexy with that two-day growth of beard, and his hair all spiky and wild. Instead of the bright pink she would have turned under Val Varde’s sun, his skin had darkened to a tawny color. Not tanned exactly but darker than her pasty white. Healthy. She couldn’t resist running her fingers along his forearm, loving the way the dark hair crinkled beneath her fingertips. He even smelled like the ocean and its salty breeze.

She stretched over to his nightstand and plucked a condom from the box. “I’m not done with you yet.”

To her surprise, he hesitated. “You’ll be late for work.”

“Yeah, well, I can always claim I was in negotiations with one of my managers.” At his frown, she winked. “Come on, we’ve still got time. And you owe me for leaving me alone on the weekend. You’d promised two days and three nights of non-stop sex, remember?”

He rolled to sit back on his heels. “I’m sorry I wrecked your weekend but I had no control over when the op went down.”

Damn it. She’d spoiled the mood. “Hey, I know that. I’m not complaining, all right?” She tore open the package and held out the condom. “I intend to make up for lost time.”

“Sandy.”

If he wasn’t going to put it on himself, she would. She scooched down the bed and kissed his cheek while her hands wrapped around his still-hard shaft. “Ssssh. Let me.”