Authors: Stephanie Tyler
Ineed to find someone,” Nick told Max, once he’d gotten onto base and into Max’s private sanctum sometime after 0500.
Max sat at a long table, rows of computer monitors in front of him and overhead. “Do I have
missing persons
stamped on my goddamned forehead?”
“Aw, come on, man.” Nick slid into one of the chairs next to the captain and held his gaze steady.
“You and your entire team owe me more favors, and you’d best be sure I’m keeping track. Got a nice little list. Between you and Saint and that goddamned brother of yours—”
“Which one?”
“You know which one,” Max snorted, and yeah, he was talking about Jake. Jake, who was seriously missing Izzy, as she was back working a short stint for Doctors Without Borders. At least work was keeping him busy.
Both Jake and Chris had gone straight to base from their night out—as previously planned—for an earlier-than-0-dark-hundred flight for Coronado with the team’s senior chief, Mark Kendall, to participate in cross-training exercises. Nick and Saint and other teammates would remain in Virginia, as Nick was finishing up training of his own, training he’d had to put aside hurriedly when his team had gotten called away months earlier.
Now Nick waited until Max stopped grumbling under his breath and finally told him, “All right, give me a few days and I’ll see what I can do.”
“I don’t have a few days.”
“Holy fuck, Devane, crawl out from my ass!” Max roared. But Nick stayed in his seat, remained unimpressed. “I don’t know where the hell you got your balls, kid.”
“This guy was Kaylee Smith’s husband,” Nick said quietly as he slid the piece of paper with Aaron’s name on it, and the request for Nick’s old SITREP, toward Max.
“Why didn’t you just say so to begin with?”
“I never did like doing things the easy way.”
“I thought you were shutting her down,” Max grumbled.
“I was. I am.” Nick stood. “Can you get me Kaylee’s address as long as you’re searching? Maybe run her plate number for me now.”
Max gave him a long stare, and then began to type the license plate number into the computer as he spoke. “You’re playing with fire on this one. You know that, right? Because you’re supposed to get this woman off your tail, not get involved in her life.”
“I’m not getting involved in her life,” Nick insisted, even as his mind flashed back to last night, the way she’d have easily wrapped herself around him if he’d pushed.
It felt like it had happened ten minutes ago, as if no time had passed, and the sensation of hard needles of cold water hitting his skin in the shower earlier had made him bare his teeth and hiss—it had done little for his hard-on, only served to make him think of the woman who had gotten him this aroused.
He needed something to fill up the silence. He wanted the loud, pounding sounds of music, of combat—of sex. Tonight, none of that would do, at least not with a stranger, not that he hadn’t considered that possibility.
Finding out that Deidre had died via a news report had thrown him. But losing himself in grief for a mother who’d never wanted him wouldn’t do shit for him anyway. Losing himself in Kaylee … that was a much different story.
He left Max’s lair and headed to his own office, was down the hall moving toward his cubicle in the quiet area the SEALs often used to strategize, when he suddenly knew someone was on his six and far too close for comfort.
He turned before the man could lay a hand on him, had his own palm poised to strike directly at the throat of whoever was stupid enough to attempt to sneak up on a military man just home from combat. Christ, they were all jumpy as hell when they got back, but with his aversion to being touched, he was the worst one of all.
He just hid that last part better than most.
It was his CO. Saint had his own palm raised and he was smiling. “Making sure you’re on your toes,” he drawled as he sauntered past Nick toward his own office.
Nick flipped him the internal middle finger. “I put in for three days of leave, starting tomorrow,” he called after him.
“Everything all right?”
“Just something I need to take care of. No big deal.”
“Take a week.”
“I don’t need a week.”
“Don’t fuck with me when I’m feeling generous,” Saint admonished. “You come back here with any part of your body in a cast and I’ll kill you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
It was well after elevenP.M. by the time Kaylee put her current story to bed and headed home. She’d been in the office from five that morning with no sleep under her belt, having fought and talked with Carl all last night and into the early morning hours. He’d finally gotten dressed and out of her apartment, without saying good-bye. He’d slammed the door behind him in frustration and all of her strain had faded away.
Free. She was free, until the thought of Aaron and his phone call weighed her down again.
She’d spent those first early hours while the newspaper office was relatively quiet following up on the symbol on the patch Nick had handed her.
The crudely stitched patch was still in her pocket now—its symbol, whose top half looked like a backward half moon, or a rhino’s horn if turned on its side, was the Akoben. After some quick research, she was able to determine its West African origins. It was also referred to as the war horn, a call to arms, a willingness to take action when necessary.
It sounded like Aaron.
She hadn’t told Nick that all the men Aaron had saved had been in Africa—the Congo, Zimbabwe. The Ivory Coast. West Africa. Maybe she should have—or maybe it held no significance whatsoever.
And she didn’t owe Nick anything more than what she’d told him. Except the mere thought of his name made her heart race as if she was a sixteen-year-old with a massive crush, and she muttered to herself disgustedly as she headed down the hall toward her apartment.
For the first time in a long time, she wished someone was waiting there for her.
Sometimes that pain hit her like a physical blow. Somehow she always found herself surrounded by more people than someone could possibly ask for and yet she could never find the comfort she sought. Aaron had been her main source of both pain and pleasure, and when he’d broken her trust, he’d shattered her for what she figured to be the final time. Irreparable.
She juggled takeout and her bags and worked the key in her lock. She lightly kicked the door open, cursing as some of the bags slipped, and she froze when she heard a low, rough laugh.
Nick was waiting for her. Inside her apartment, which had been locked and alarmed.
She really had to be careful about what she wished for, even as her belly twinged with a secret thrill at the sight of him there.
The door had still been locked, the alarm was still armed. Her place was on the fifteenth floor, and she wondered if he’d climbed up the side of the building and gotten in through a window she’d forgotten to close.
The alarm buzz continued as she stared at him.
“Are you going to turn that off?” he asked.
“How—”
He pushed past her and punched in a code—
her
code—and the buzzing stopped. He also closed the door behind her and slid the lock into place. “You curse worse than a sailor.”
“What the hell is going on here?” she finally demanded, giving up the fight and dropping her bags on the floor.
“You wanted me.”
“I wanted your help, not you breaking into my apartment.”
He hadn’t moved, and was tall, so much taller than she was. “You’re going to have to be more specific about things next time.”
“How did you know where I live?”
“I ran your plates through the DMV.”
“That can’t be legal,” she said. He didn’t answer, gave a small smile. “I don’t understand—are you here to help me, then, with Aaron?”
“
This
has nothing to do with Aaron,” he told her before he brought his mouth down on hers, swept her into his arms—and the surge of desire was enough to make her knees buckle.
The man tasted like sin, something she shouldn’t need or crave or want. Something she couldn’t resist. Her hands fisted in his hair as he brought his mouth down on hers, and the fire between them lit the same way it had when she’d borrowed his car.
He’d take her here, right against the door, and it was all too fitting for what she suspected would be a quick escape route for him once the sex was over.
She broke the kiss, yanked away from him and stared into the incredible green eyes that continued to watch her intently.
“You want to go for a ride?” he asked.
“You’re going to let me drive your car again?”
“I wasn’t talking about cars.” His thumb brushed her cheek, moved down to trace her jaw.
His touch was like a truth serum. “I told you that I was seeing someone.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that. Do you want me to go, Kaylee? Because you should tell me that now. Right now.”
“I’m not seeing him anymore.”
“That was fast.”
“Things have been happening that way for me lately.”
“That’s not always a bad thing.”
Her hands were on his chest. “Happened after I met you. Time for a new start.”
“Sounds impulsive. Like stealing my car.”
Yes, it was. She hadn’t managed her personal life that way for a very long time. Not since she’d married Aaron on the spur of the moment. She’d gone for a much different kind of man after him. Non-military. Law-abiding. No troubled past.
She hadn’t wanted another military man in her life, but here he was, in her apartment. Breaking and entering in order to see her. Kissing her.
She could feel the sheer strength in his body, pulsing in waves while still giving a sense that he could stay like this, silent, steady, powerful, for hours.
His training would have added to that skill, but this was a man cut out for the job since forever, rough and ready enough to make her heart pound crazily from the second she’d opened the door to find him there, sitting in her favorite chair, in the dark. As if he belonged.
She wanted him to belong here, while at the same time she wondered if Nick could or would ever allow himself to belong to anyone.
Could she? She’d always told herself that she’d do anything in order to find the right man.
There was no reason to play coy—she knew what he wanted. More so, she knew what she wanted. The fact that he was here told her what she needed, and she didn’t want him here for Aaron, would’ve been disappointed if he’d been here for anything but her.
“I wanted to kiss you last night,” she murmured, feeling incredibly bold. “Wanted to lay you back on the hood and take off your clothes and just take you, right there…”
“Why didn’t you?”
Good question. As she mused, he began unbuttoning her shirt, easing the fabric aside as he worked. He pushed it off her shoulders and undid the front clasp of her bra with one finger—and oh, God, what a skill that was. Her nipples, already hard from his touch, grew taut when the air hit them, and as he worked down her pants and thong, Nick studied her, a small smile of appreciation breaking across his typically reserved features as he gazed at her body.
She expected him to say something, to give her some kind of compliment, but he didn’t. Not with words anyway, but he held her hips and put his mouth down on one nipple and it was all over.
Before she knew it, her clothes were in a puddle on the floor and she was naked in his arms, her bare body rubbing his fully clothed one while he kissed her again. It felt so dirty, so right, with her nipples taut from the delicious friction of his leather jacket and cotton T-shirt.
She responded by kissing him back, then losing herself in the way his mouth took possession of her taut nub, his tongue stroking and sucking, and God, she wanted that tongue everywhere.
She clawed at his shoulders, managed to yank off his jacket and began to pull his shirt up as well. He took his mouth off her nipple only long enough to let her pull the shirt over his head before he was teasing her again. In that brief space of time, she’d taken careful note of the bruises and scratches that ran along his chest—they hadn’t been there last night. And although they didn’t appear to bother him, she still tread more lightly as she stroked her hands over his broad shoulders.
He pulled away from her touch almost immediately.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I want to feel you, Kaylee. Really feel you. It’s not going to happen like that.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Hurt me. Or at least try to,” he rasped. “Dig your fingers in… yeah, like that. So I know you’re touching me.”
Her hands gripped him tightly on his shoulders, yanked him toward her, and he responded by kissing her again, hard, fast, taking her down to the floor in a quick and surprisingly gentle movement. The carpet tickled her back as his weight pressed her, his jean-covered thigh working between her legs in a firm back-and-forth motion until her hips rocked to his rhythm.
“Do you like that, Kaylee?”