Risk of Exposure (Alpha Ops Book 6) (6 page)

S
he didn’t realize that she’d killed one of the men. There was a part of him that knew he should tell her—to prepare her should the authorities get involved. But another, bigger, part wanted to keep that knowledge from her.

He didn’t know her. Maybe she’d killed many people, but he didn’t think so. Behind her brassy ballsiness lay an operative who, he thought, might not be fine with the fact that she’d killed someone. There was no harm in not telling her for now.

“Well, when you put it like that,” he said, “I guess it would be rude not to.”

“We need to get out to the site as soon as possible,” she said, looking anxiously out the window.

“Not while it’s snowing. It’s too unpredictable. I’ve known fully trained”—he wanted to say SAS operatives, but he wasn’t going to volunteer his résumé unless she asked specifically—“men get disoriented and severely frostbitten in snowstorms. The rule is, you move when it stops.”

“As soon as it stops,” she said. “It’s still early. Around seven?” Her eyes searched for the wall clock that was invisible in the darkness.

He clicked his watch. “It’s five past nine. Get some rest—I’ll take the first shift. In two hours, I’ll wake you up.” He turned back to the window and leaned against the frame, looking out into the white oblivion, not wanting to see her struggle with him taking control and wondering how he could get them all the way back to the orphanage without dying.

“Okay,” she said eventually. He heard her stomp off to the bedroom and close the door behind her. Under normal circumstances, he would follow her, convince her that it would be best if they stayed awake together and did something to pass the time. But for some reason, he found the idea of such a manipulation unsavory. Probably because too much depended on them working together. He snorted a quiet laugh. He still hadn’t entirely bought into her deductions about the sensors and the Russian invasion.

The snow had stopped swirling like an image on a Christmas card and was now coming down at an angle, reflecting just how hard the wind was blowing. One thing he was sure of: If she was going to drag him out into snowmageddon, he’d better get his winter gear from his place.

His apartment was cold and dark—unsurprisingly since he’d done no insulating with rugs or furniture. He stopped to put his computer equipment in a gap beneath the floorboards that he’d made the first week he’d been there.

As he collected his kit bag, he looked around the room again. For an uneasy moment he wondered if he was looking at his life. Barren of comfort, cold and dark. Then he shrugged. Better that than cluttered and messy. Probably.

By the time he returned to Abby’s apartment, he’d been gone maybe twenty minutes. He opened the door quietly but stopped when he heard her calling his name in a whisper. Was someone else in there with her? Was she trying to get his attention so he could help her? He stepped in, quietly closed the door, and dropped his snow gear silently to the floor. He took the gun from his waistband and peered into the darkness.

“Malone? Garrett?” her voice came again. Was that a note of panic he heard? Was she crying? Dammit, why hadn’t he paid more attention to the way women sounded when he upset them? Then she came out of the kitchen, her chest heaving beneath a kind of long, thin, misbuttoned cardigan. Her legs and feet were bare.

“What is it?” he whispered, even though he didn’t know why.

She jumped and stared at him, panic draining from her eyes. Then she dropped her eyes to the ground and took some deep breaths. “Nothing. I just needed a drink.”

No, she didn’t. She’d thought he’d left her. She’d gone looking for him and hadn’t found him and panicked. For all her tough talk…“It’s okay. I’m here,” he said in a soft voice, putting his gun on the table and advancing on her.

Her voice became more certain. “I don’t care. I was looking for a drink.”

“Sure you were, sweetheart. A drink called ‘Malone? Garrett?’” He raised an eyebrow at her, trying to provoke the fear out of her by mimicking her. He was still closing the gap between them slowly, as if trying not to startle a scared animal.

She clocked his move before he’d got within arm’s reach. She started backing away from him.

She cleared her throat. “I was just making sure you weren’t out here. I didn’t want you seeing me with barely anything on.”

“Yeah, you were terrified of that yesterday.” He shook his head. If he’d choreographed this right, she would get mad again and regain her courage.

He didn’t stop advancing, even though he could see she was about to find the kitchen wall at her back.

She found it. He stopped inches away from her.

“Just because I wanted you to see me naked yesterday doesn’t mean I want you to see me naked today.” She put her hands on her hips.

It worked. She overcame whatever crisis he’d walked in on, and now she was back to her annoying self. “Very true.” He stepped away so that she knew he wasn’t a threat, but as soon as he’d taken a step back, she grabbed the front of his shirt, screwed it up into her fist, and yanked him toward her. Heat rushed through him as her lips met his.
Alrighty then
.

“You…are the most…annoying person…I’ve ever…met,” she said, punctuating her words with kisses.

“Pot, meet the kettle,” he murmured back. The wafer-thin cardigan she was wearing was driving him insane. He could feel the heat of her skin, but the material was slightly rough. Rougher than her skin anyway. He pushed her back against the wall and took a breath. He was being a wanker again. Fucking the boss’s daughter like it was okay.

It wasn’t okay.

“Are you sure you’re…”

“Jesus, spare me the bleeding heart, Malone. I want what I want. Right now, I want you. If you’re up for it, do something. If you’re not—”

He licked the whole length of his palm slowly, cutting off her words as she watched his tongue. Then he plunged his hand in her panties and dragged his fingers through her wetness, making her gasp and hold on to the wall like it would hold her up.

He used all his fingers to stroke different parts of her. “Does this ‘something’ work for you, love?” he growled, pressure building in his pants.

She moaned in response, the sound reverberating through his soul.
Jesus
.

He took his hand away and slung her over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” she gasped as he strode toward her bedroom.

“I’m not going to fuck you against a wall again, sweetheart. That might work for you…”

“It does work for me,” she said, he voice coming out in time with his strides.

“I know.” He opened the door and lowered her gently to the floor.

Immediately her fists went to her hips again. He was too turned on to argue, so he just pushed her back. She fell onto the bed with a small squeal.

“You might want to get screwed against a wall, but if I’m…
servicing
you, you’re going to fucking look at me. You’re going to see me making you come. I’m not an anonymous dick.” He had zero fucking idea why he was suddenly so passionately against anonymous sex. But apparently he was.

He stood at the foot of the bed. “Strip,” he said.

She hesitated.

“Get your fucking clothes off.”

When she’d gone looking for him because she couldn’t sleep, she’d imagined they could look at maps and make a plan for when the snow stopped. But when she’d found him gone, she slipped into an unfamiliar state of fear and trepidation. He’d left her.

Suddenly she’d had doubts that she would be able to get to the border by herself in the drifting snow before the Russians or, yes, maybe a guy on a tractor. This was her job. As soon as she’d realized that maybe she wouldn’t have to do it herself, that maybe he’d be able to help her, she’d subconsciously decided that she
couldn’t
do it by herself.

What was
wrong
with her?

And while her body was flooding with stage one hysteria, he’d come back. And thirty seconds later she was here, standing on her bed—a bed that had seen no action in over six months—deliberating whether to do a silent striptease.

Who knew when she’d get laid again? Who knew when she’d meet a sufficiently hot man who was also annoying enough that she wouldn’t want to get close to him?

“Take them off, or I’ll take them off for you,” he said in a challenging voice.

“You can try…,” she said, and readied herself for combat.

But he didn’t grab her, didn’t jump on her and rip off her clothes. Unexpectedly, he stood up on the bed with her, taking her hand to steady them on the bouncy mattress. He brushed hair out of her eyes and kissed her. Deeply, slowly, like he was truly in love with her. An unrecognizable emotion crested over her, sending waves of warmth pulsing through her body in time with every touch of his tongue.

Her muscles loosened as the kiss continued. One of his hands pulled her hair back, like he’d done the previous night, but gently, insistently, until she presented her throat to him. He kissed down her neck; the chill of the air in the room fanned over the moisture he left on her skin. She shivered.

He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, as if to warm her. She let him wrap his body around her. She couldn’t tell if his proximity was making her light-headed or if the mattress was definitely not solid ground.

In one slick movement, he pulled her cardigan from the bottom and drew it slowly up her body. Goose bumps followed his hand as her skin was introduced to the night air. He pulled it over her head, the material scratching her nipples in an almost unbearable way.

As the garment hit the floor, the air—so cold around her—rendered her skin impossibly taut and tender. She expected him to ravish her, but no, still so much restraint. She didn’t know if she liked him this way—it felt personal, as if he were establishing a connection with something inside of her. Except she knew he wasn’t that type. He didn’t seem to be that type.

He held her gaze as he swept a foot out and took hers out from under her. She fell on the bed, a half gasp, half laugh escaping as she bounced. He wasn’t that type.

“Oldest trick in the book, babe,” he said, pulling off his own shirt. He jumped off the bed effortlessly and undid his pants, pushing them down so he could step out of them.

All she could see was his erection. “You’re the oldest trick in the book.” She grinned as she held a hand out to him.

He ignored her hand and sat next to her. She propped herself up on her elbows.

“You’re fearless,” he said, running a hand over her stomach.

Clearly he hadn’t registered her near panic when she’d thought he’d left her—and her country—high and dry. “No one’s fearless. It’s too dangerous,” she said.

“I don’t mean on the job. I mean here. With me. You barely know me, and you’re not embarrassed, or scared, or anxious about me being here, seeing you naked when most people feel the most vulnerable.”

She frowned. “I don’t feel vulnerable. Should I?”

“Most women would,” he replied, running his index finger lightly around her nipple.

“I’m not most women,” she said, almost arching into his touch.

“You’re not. You’ve been trained.”

She knew what he meant. He’d clearly been through the same training. Do what you have to do to protect your country’s interests. Decide how far you’re prepared to go. Know you can handle yourself if things go wrong. Give your body if you have to but not your emotions, not your thoughts, definitely not your love.

“As have you. You know who trained me. Who trained you?” She wondered if he was MI6, or maybe MI5 before he’d joined her father’s outfit.

He paused, his eyes searching hers. “The Regiment,” he said simply.

She forced herself not to react. “The Regiment” was insider code for SAS, the British Special Air Service. The black-ops unit so hard-core that she’d heard that people died just trying out to attend their training course. She was elated that she had someone so qualified to help her, and concerned too. What if she was being played? She knew people in black-ops divisions often had questionable morals and bendable ethics.

“I don’t know if I’m scared or turned on,” she said honestly.

“You should be both, love. I was in for a long time.” He stroked her gently through her panties.

She wanted to question him further. In fact, she had a duty to her country to find out what she could about him, but it wasn’t that that was driving her curiosity. It was a desire to know him. And she had to fucking squelch that feeling immediately. She grabbed his hand and held it against her panties. She held his gaze. “I want to talk about that. But not now. Right now I don’t want to talk about anything. I don’t want to think about anything. I just want you.”

“I think it’s sweet that you think I’d tell you anything about my previous job, but I take your point.” He wasted no time in getting rid of her panties. Instead of lying beside her, he yanked her legs open and knelt between them.

She sank back to the pillows.
Yes!

His tongue wasn’t shy. She felt its hard stroke through her whole body. He pulled her legs farther apart and slipped his fingers through her folds to her wetness. The heat of his tongue and the cool of his harder fingers sent her whole world into a tailspin. Her fingers tangled in the bedcovers as the tip of his tongue probed her. God, she needed this. This utter release from rational thought, rational feeling.

Heat zipped through her body, not just from his mouth and hands, but also from the feeling that she was opening herself to him without having to talk. Without having to actually open herself mentally. It was bliss. She shut off thoughts of Russia, thoughts of the SAS, and thoughts of her CIA masters frothing at the bit because she was alone in a snowstorm.

Wave after wave of freedom and heat and desire washed over her—her conflicting thoughts and emotions fading away in an ocean of need.

He slipped a finger inside her, and she bucked against him. As his tongue assaulted her clitoris, she gasped and struggled to let herself go. The sensation drove her insane. Heat accumulated in her shoulders, flashing through her as if she were attached to an electrical outlet. His hands and tongue worked magic. His fingers curled inside of her, triggering tremors throughout her body, and his tongue circled her clit until her breaths came in pants, and then gasps as she urged the wave of orgasm to crash over her. It did, taking rational thought and feeling with it as her body arched from the bed almost as if it thought it would make the sensation last longer.