Authors: Melissa James
Mitch growled an expletive.
Tim shrugged. “Yeah, I’m a bastard. But whether or not I meant it, whether or not I could have changed things, doesn’t help Lissa now.” Tim’s eyes met his. “Think about it, Mitch. You know Liss as well as I do. How many other lovers do you think she’s had to show her she’s a desirable woman?”
A home question. Oh, yeah, he knew Lissa, knew her romantic idealism, her dreaming soul, her hidden hopes and fears. So she’d been alone since Tim left. She’d gone through twelve years of thinking of herself as undesirable, unwanted by any man…and he’d never come home to her because he hadn’t wanted to see her happiness or loving sexuality with Tim.
Happiness. Sexuality? Dear God.
Tim went on with his demolition job on everything Mitch believed about the past fifteen years. “Do you get it now? I had to tell you, because the damage has never been undone. She’s never let another man within ten miles of her since I left. I sure as hell can’t fix it. So that leaves you.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Me.” Me who’s blundered from the minute I got home. Me, who thought of “perfect solutions”—more reasons to destroy her self-esteem—because I was too bloody scared to tell her the truth. And now she doesn’t trust me enough to hear it.
Tim’s hand gripped his shoulder. “I know why you’re hanging back, mate, but you have to stop it. Tell her you love her.
Show
her you want her—seduce her. Believe me, she wants you. She always wanted you, and far more than she lets on. Have you touched her? Let her know how much you want her?”
“Mind your own business,” he growled.
Tim laughed. “Good. No worries, mate. I’m outta here. I’ll head up the north coast. I’ll call you with our location—”
“No,” he said sharply. “Don’t. Don’t tell the kids the name of the place where you are, either.” He found he didn’t give a damn about Tim’s sexuality, what happened to make him realize it or what he’d done after. All he knew was that he could trust Tim with their kids. He handed Tim a card, plain and unadorned, but for eight numbers. “Call that number if you even
think
you’re in danger. Someone will be there fast. I’ll have people ready on hand between Coffs Harbour and Byron Bay to protect you.”
Tim stared at him, frowning. “Who are you, Mitch?”
He returned without a second’s hesitation, “A man who’s giving up his current life and job for his wife and kids. So keep them safe, Tim.”
“With my life. You just take care of Lissa.” Tim turned back to him after walking a few steps, his face relaxed, like a huge weight had been lifted from him. “When this is over, we’ll have to go somewhere for dinner, or do something with the kids. Sort of nice, the three of us together again. But now it’s the way it should have been from the start—you and Liss together, me the friend. I don’t regret making the mistake—we wouldn’t have Jenny without it—but I do regret like hell what I’ve done to Lissa.” He added slowly, “Jealousy’s a bloody rotten thing, isn’t it?”
He grinned in the near darkness. “I didn’t think you’d know all that much about it.”
Tim’s smile faded. “I probably know more about it than you ever will—and Liss is the one who’s paying the price for it. Call me. See ya.” Tim waved and faded into the gathering dark.
Within moments Lissa returned. Even in the soft purplish darkness that comes between dusk and night, he could see her face, pale and proud and aloof. Every line of her carefully held body read
back off.
“Let’s go.”
He climbed into Bertha’s cockpit without a word, and radioed the lile-known, barely used airstrip outside Canberra, to notify them of their ETA. Then he sent out a message to the other Nighthawks on their exclusive channel, hoping someone was out there to tell Anson what was going down.
Within moments, he got an answer. “Flipper here, Skydancer. All clear for return?”
“Extra package arriving. A real live wire. Will need supernatural briefing before recent package heads north, Flipper,” he informed Flipper, an ex-Navy diver and pilot who, with Irish, a crazy bush pilot, had been his backup in Tumah-ra. Flipper was now on recon looking for some black-market arms dealer’s lady on the run, under the guise of an investigative reporter.
“Will do, Skydancer,” Flipper answered, and signed off.
The drill would be in place in half an hour. Whatever happened to them now, the Nighthawks would be protected—and he’d protect Lissa with his life.
Lissa gazed at him, her brows lifted. “Well, I suppose ‘livewire’ is an upgrade from ‘reliable.’”
He grinned. Let her think she was the “package.” If their silent watcher was listening in, all the better. “I think so. You’ve managed to surprise me from the first day I got back,” he said, and waited for the defensiveness to begin.
She settled back in her seat and buckled up. “Good,” she sighed. “I’m glad I’ve managed to surprise someone in my life. So did Tim tell you about how he wished it was you in bed with him on our wedding night instead of me?”
He gasped, coughed, choked on air.
“What?”
he finally spluttered.
“Oh, I see. So he took the coward’s way out, told you he was gay and stuck to my more embarrassing moments in life, huh?” She peered at his face. “I can see by the stunned look in your eyes that Tim left out some of the interesting bits, like the fact that he was in love—but with you, not me. Yes, indeed, it was a strange wedding night. Both the bride and groom wanted the best man in bed with them instead of their spouse. Wouldn’t that story go down well in one of those true confession magazines?”
“Rio Delta Bravo. All clear for takeoff. Rio Delta Bravo, do you read?”
He couldn’t respond. His mind was totally blanked out and his hands nerveless, useless. Lissa picked up the receiver and said blithely into it, “Yes, we do read. Thank you very much.” She replaced it and smiled at him, sunny and unruffled. “Um…Mitch? You can take off now.”
Slow, disbelieving, turned to her. “Is that
true?
”
“Uh-huh.” She singsonged the word. “That’s why he remained in denial for so long, darling—besides feeling so obligated to stay with poor unwanted little me. He was fussier than the average guy. He wanted you, and until he met his partner, Ron, he never met another man who—to put it delicately—lit his flame enough to leave me. So at least I didn’t have to worry about diseases. He swears he was faithful to me until the day he left. Um, I think you’d better start the plane, or the control tower people will start worrying.”
He couldn’t tear his gaze from her, so bloody flabbergasted he couldn’t think. He’d always thought himself a modern, open-minded kind of guy—he hadn’t put a foot wrong when Tim told him he was gay—but he couldn’t be open about this. The thought of Tim—oh, holy Hannah, his best mate back then—Tim, who’d seen him in the buff so many times…and oh, man, he’d probably been horny, staring at his naked body like a lovesick girl. Listening to him rave on about how much he adored Lissa. And though he’d never discussed it, Tim knew he’d rejected every sexual advance from every bloody girl in Breckerville who approached him, so that his and Lissa’s first time could be together.
Oh, yeah, Tim knew him well enough to let Lissa be the one to give this juicy tidbit to him—and no wonder Tim hadn’t told him or tried anything on him years ago. He’d have thrown up, beaten the crap out of him, never spoken to him again—in essence, shown in every way an insecure and lonely teenage boy can that the answer was and would always be
no.
And if Tim had
dared
touch Lissa after that—
Was that why Tim snatched Lissa from under his nose in the first place?
Jealousy’s a bloody rotten thing, isn’t it? I probably know more about it than you ever will.
“Rio Delta Bravo, we have two crafts in line behind you. Please notify if you’re experiencing difficulty.”
Startled, he grabbed the receiver. “Rio Delta Bravo, all clear for takeoff.”
He glanced at Lissa as he started the plane in motion. She looked like a doll carved from alabaster—beautiful but untouchable, cool, not quite human. A tiny smile curved her mouth. Oh, yeah, she was enjoying this, wanting to put him on the back foot—and her use of the word
darling
was a dead giveaway. She wanted their unwanted listener to have something to think about besides how she came apart for him in bed this morning.
But she was also telling the truth—a truth that tore her world and sexual self-esteem to shreds, and left her doubting his motives for wanting her. If he told her he loved her now, she’d probably spit it back in his face—and that was leaving out the fact that she thought he was a bloody people smuggler.
Then when they were in the air, the rest of her blithe recital finally hit him. “You wanted me, too, Lissa?” he asked slowly. “You married Tim, wishing he was me? You wanted me to make love to you?”
“Oh, yeah. I was even sillier over you than Tim was.” She turned to look at him, her eyes bright with self-mockery, the hatred of unresolved grief turned inward to anger. “You were my white knight, the man who’d save me from the biggest mistake of my life. My gallant flyboy hero, whom I adored so blindly it felt like sacrilege when my fiancé touched me.” She laughed, and he knew this conversation had become personal—way too personal. She’d forgotten about their silent listener, and she’d probably hate him again for that later. “You wanna know how dumb I was? Even after you left for the Air Force, I had the stupidity to hope you’d fly back for me, and we’d fly away together. Then I was romantic enough to hope you’d come home to stop the wedding. Then when you came home and did nothing, I prayed you’d stop it at the last minute. Oh, God, how I prayed you’d object, tell me you loved me, and marry me yourself. What a dumb jerkhuh? I begged God for years that one day you’d love me as much as I loved you. You have no idea how much I worshipped you back then.”
Hoo, boy, was this a day of stunning revelations.
Both
his best friends in love with him? Unable to take it in, to realize or truly believe what she was saying, he said, “You
loved
me back then? Not like a friend? Like a woman loves a man?”
A light, bitter laugh. “Oh, yeah. Dog-like devotion on tap. From the moment I saw you, you could have snapped your fingers at me and I’d have followed you to the ends of the earth. If you’d held out your hand to me at the wedding I’d have left with you without a second thought.”
“Then why the hell did you marry Tim? Why did you go out with him in the first place?” he demanded, scraped raw with betrayal. More than fifteen years of their lives wasted! All the love he’d needed from Lissa—the true sexual romantic love he’d spent his life hungering and craving for—had always been there, and he’d never seen it. He’d missed every sign, blind to her need, and he’d thrown it all away. And why? Because—
Because you never had the guts to tell her, either.
He flicked a glance at her and saw anything but love in those soft, dove’s eyes. They glittered with her own sense of betrayal—the unhealed fury of a rejected woman, an unseen love turned sour. “Because he
asked
me to his school formal, his special night, and you didn’t. Because, like any normal girl, I wanted a boyfriend. I was sick of waiting for you to make a move on me. I kinda figured after two years or so that it was never going to happen for us. So when Tim asked me, I thought I may as well get on with life.”
She shrugged. “I married him for the same reason. Because he seemed stable and secure, and he wouldn’t take off on me. But in the end he did. Just like you—except you left me for a plane, and
he
left me for another man.” She laughed, but the sound grated harshly. “Funny how a few years thinking about that rubs the glamour off silly childhood dreams. There is no knight on a white horse, no hero to love me and no happily ever after.
“This is a beautiful view,” she suddenly said, watching the Sydney skyline beneath them. “You know, I never flew anywhere before today.” She smiled and patted his cheek. “Don’t look so stunned. Like I said, I got over my stupid dreams of you years ago. We can be friends, lovers, get married—whatever. It doesn’t really matter.”
“Like hell it doesn’t matter,” he snarled. “I never rejected you in my life!”
“True.” She laughed, that pseudo-cute, bloody irritating tinkle of sound—irritating because it meant she didn’t believe a word he said. “You just never wanted me—until now, it seems. Who cares? We’re grown-ups. Let’s just enjoy what we have now.”
He opened his mouth and slowly shut it. The last half hour had been too filled with shocks; his brain felt scrambled. If he said anything now, it would only come out wrong, words that would alienate her more.
But there was no way he’d leave it like this for long.
The rest of the trip to Canberra passed inif Lissa thought she’d escaped his questions by turning it all around on him, then maybe she didn’t know him as well as she thought, either.
The moment he cleared security with Anson—and made sure their listener couldn’t hear a thing—reckoning time would come…for both of them.
A
sleek sedan waited for them when they landed at the hidden airstrip in the quiet, dark countryside just outside Australia’s capital city. Lissa watched in silence as Mitch felt under the license plate and came up with a set of keys
. Then he glanced to the right. A set of headlights flicked on, then off.
What did that mean? That Mitch’s mysterious boss wanted to see him immediately? Or that the car was clean, safe from bugs or bombs? Or no one was nearby to follow them? Well, well. Whatever organization Mitch was involved in, she couldn’t accuse them of being sloppy.
He opened the passenger side for her, still in grim silence, and she wondered, with a grin, if he was still in shock. Hmm. She’d better leave any further revelations until tomorrow, or he might run them off the road….
Never underestimate a woman. Especially not this woman.
He appeared to drive with total certainty, turning without pause from the airstrip into one street, into another then another, onto the Federal Highway, taking back roads from there through Queanbeyan and into Canberra city, all in darkness.
“I think you forgot to put your headlights on, Mitch,” she said softly.
He swiveled around to look at her. She nodded.
We’re alone. No one’s following us.
He nodded to her handbag.
There’s a directional device as well as the two bugs in your bag.
But he said, “Oops, so I did,” and switched the lights on.
Oops indeed. The bag was bugged; she’d known it and still botched their cover. And she thought she was so clever taking the initiative, checking for signs of a car tailing them, making the decision they’d be better off looking like normal motorists. She’d only made it easier for the gray man to find them now.
She blew out a breath. It seemed she had more to learn before she started doing Mitch’s job for him, but she wouldn’t leave him to it, either. For the first time she was right in the middle of Mitch’s world. After a quiet, dutiful, merry-go-round life, she was finally riding the roller coaster, right in the front seat…and she intended to enjoy every moment of the ride.
At the next light he turned her face to his.
Swap seats as fast and quiet as you can.
“One kiss,” he groaned, and rolled beneath her while she slid over to the driver’s seat, making a moaning sound. By the time the lights changed, they were ready.
Were they fooling the gray man? Was he nearby? Adrenaline hit her in a rush. If he could see them, he’d know they’d changed seats. But could he get here so fast?
At the next lights he breathed in her ear, “Next right, and keep going around the block slow, but don’t stop. Pretend we’re lost.” He handed her a small tape recorder. “Press Play when I’m gone, and follow my prompts. Don’t stop driving.”
She nodded and watched Mitch wind down his window. “Where are we?” He sounded frustrated. “I thought we were on—there’s a kid on the crossing!” Lissa slowed the car with a squeal of brakes, and Mitch vaulted out the window without a sound.
Heart hammering, she drove on and pressed Play on the tape. “Can you see the turnoff for Braddon?” His voice came from the little speaker. “I booked into a hotel there, and we’ll lose the booking if we’re not there by eight-thirty.”
“Um—I think we just passed it. These roads in Canberra are so weird, aren’t they? Everything goes round in circles. Maybe we should double back to the last turnoff.”
“Okay. Good idea,” the disembodied voice said a few moments later. “Let’s do it.”
He’d known she’d think of something to say. Her heart soaked in warmth. He trusted her, at least that far.
If only she could trust him at all.
When she came back around, she slowed at the crossing, and he emerged from a shrubby bush carrying a case. He vaulted straight in, as quick and quiet if he jumped into moving cars every day.
Maybe he did. What would she know? He’d disappeared from her life for years and then reappeared like magic. Seeming so much like the Mitch she’d loved with all the depth of her romantic girl’s heart—yet a stranger. A man with edges. Secrets. Edges of danger that excited her…secrets that scared the living daylights out of her. And an untamed sexuality she suspected she’d only glimpsed so far.
How could a man like Mitch, always on the fringes of risk, leaping from the brink of a cliff, want
her?
At first, yeah, for the family he’d never had; she’d understood that even as she hated it. But now? Dared she believe him when he said he wanted her, only her? He seemed to be burning alive for her, but as she’d found out over the past few weeks, nothing with Mitch was what it seemed.
Like it had been with Tim.
Yet with Mitch, finding out the lies beneath the secrets wouldn’t just break her heart—they would change her world forever.
So find out if he’s really one of the good guys. Oh, Lord help her if he turned out to be in organized crime, an adoption ring or people smuggling. The men who ran those gangs were absolutely ruthless. People who got in the way of their schemes tended to disappear without a trace.
It was only then she realized the enormity of her own risk, the depth of the abyss she stood near. If he was using her for a respectable cover and the gray man had blown it, Mitch could be taking her somewhere now to kill her. He could have seduced her, filled her head with lies and doubts, turned her around with her own body’s betrayal and was just waiting for the opportunity to—
“You were right. Here’s the turnoff.”
She started, put on her indicator and braked for the road Mitch indicat heart pounding and her scalp crawling where sweat trickled. Her hands shook so badly she could barely turn the wheel. The road wasn’t the turnoff for Braddon, a well-lit, safe and respectable suburb of Canberra.
Where were they going?
Did she dare ask? Or should she now be grateful the gray man had slipped those devices in her bag? If Mitch tried to hurt her, she only had to scream and—
Was the gray man even in the Canberra region yet? Or was he listening from a safe distance—safe for him, but too far to save her if her risk blew up in her face?
Trust me, Lissa.
Her chest ached so bad it was hard to breathe. If there was one thing she’d always been sure of, it was that Mitch would never hurt her. Now, in a darkened city street with a man she no longer knew, she had nothing, no certainties, not even seeing the sunrise tomorrow, or be with her beloved kids again.
What was it with her, that she always went for the wrong man? First she married Tim, who never wanted her at all, and left for another
man.
Then Mitch, the man she’d always hungered for, had in his absence become either a spy or an international criminal—and to find out which, she’d put her own life in deadly danger. She had to keep faking the intimate act she’d only ever wanted to do with Mitch. If only she’d had the guts to throw herself at him all those years ago, he’d still be
her
Mitch, a respectable Air Force Squadron Leader, not—
She shuddered as the cold sweat ran down her back.
She jumped as he touched her arm, gentle and nonthreatening. “Oops. I just went past the place,” he said very softly.
She bit back an apology, did a screeching U-turn and blinked at the long, beautifully lit driveway before her, leading to a lovely house on a large, fenced acreage. A very pretty Tudor-style house, which proclaimed itself to be a B&B.
Illogically she felt reassured. Would he kill her in such a nice, respectable place as this?
No, but he can seduce me into believing his story, then—
Then what?
Nothing. Not if he couldn’t seduce her. And it’d be a cold day in North Queensland before he’d get her to fall into his arms so easily again. Not until she knew beyond all doubt that Mitch was one of the good guys. Not until he’d proven his claims about the gray man to be true.
And told her what his real job was, what it was for, and why the gray man had dragged her into it.
Mitch booked them in as Mr. and Mrs. Kendall, holding on to the case and their overnight bag like grim death. The woman who signed them in and showed them to their room was chatty, yet somehow it seemed a false brightness. Her glance kept flicking to her, as if she couldn’t understand why
she
was there with him.
Did the woman know Mitch? Had he stayed here before—and with whom? Another woman or just other spies or other criminals? Maybe this place was near a casino. She’d heard crooks laundered their money through casinos and expensive hotels.
Their room was quiet, quaint, dainty, with an enormous bathroom and sath. It had upper class and big nightly rates written all over it.
Whatever Mitch did, he must get paid well, at least.
The woman closed the door behind them, and they were alone. And for some weird reason, when it should have escalated, her fear evaporated. She felt only nervous excitement, the adrenaline of anger and the unknown bubbling through her bloodstream like dry ice. “Well, this is very nice,” she remarked, her tone mild, slightly nervous—making her expression cold and sarcastic.
He was already watching her, had seen the challenge. He nodded, apparently accepting her mistrust. “Beautiful. The spa’s fantastic. Come and try it with me—there’s nothing like making love in hot bubbles.”
She lifted her brows. “I can hardly wait,” she breathed, as she walked over and swiftly, silently frisked him.
Good girl.
He did the same to her, his eyes gleaming with cool approval. Still holding the case, he took her handbag, put it on the bed and held out his hand to her.
Confused, she let him lead her into the bathroom, watched him put the case down and run the water. “If you think I’m going to make love in there with you—”
He twisted his face to her and grinned. “Well, a guy can always hope,” he said softly with erotic meaning. “But if not, our being in here together has a couple of good purposes.”
“Which are?”
“One, since we’re both clean, any listening device he has aimed at us or hidden in our stuff won’t transmit clearly over the water; two, it gives him time to search our room if he’s here, and we’ve given him a good reason why he can’t find a way to be alone with you tonight.”
Chills raced down her spine. The gray man, going through her personal things—getting her alone…
She was alone with Mitch but felt no fear. Did that count for anything? Could she trust her instincts, or would he only make a fool of her, then betray her?
“Get in the water, Lissa.”
She started. He already had his shoes and socks off. “What?”
“We don’t know what he might have on us from outside,” he answered, his voice soft yet heavy with strange sorrow. “If he’s really ASIO, or with some criminal organization, he could have access to more sophisticated hardware than he’s used so far. He could be watching us through night goggles outside the window. He could have heat detectors on us I haven’t found yet. We said we were going to make love in here, so let’s give him another show.”
She felt the blood leave her face. She swayed. “I can’t do this. Mitch—”
“Trust me, Lissa. I won’t hurt you.” He unzipped his jeans, stepping out of them to reveal his long, strong legs. “This has been a bloody hard day for you. It’s been a hard few weeks for both of us. Neither of us wants our first time to be some stupid jerk’s private peepshow. I know, baby. I understand. This is work only.” He shucked his T-shirt, still watching her, the act sterile and erotic at the same t
She searched his eyes, uncertain. Terrified. Yearning.
Slowly he lifted her hand to his mouth, kissing the palm. “Lissa, one day you’re going to realize just what you mean to me—what you’ve always meant to me. But now’s not the time or place. When this is over and I have you safe, we’re going to make this real. So real you’ll never doubt how much I want you ever again. But for now, trust me—at least in this. I respect you too much to make you subject to a lousy Peeping Tom.”
After a long, hanging moment filled with tense waiting, she nodded. “All right.”
“Thank you.” He slipped each button of her sundress from its sheath, one after the other, until the dress pooled at her feet on the floor and she stood before him clad only in simple cotton bra and panties. A sight she saw every day. Nothing special.
But Mitch dragged in a harsh breath, his gaze glued to her body. “Dear God, you’re lovely,” he whispered, and unhooked her bra, letting it fall on top of the dress, revealing her naked breasts. One hand lifted to her, then fell. “Beautiful. So beautiful.” His voice came out strangled with need.
He’d already forgotten they were supposed to be putting on an act. His hands were shaking and he was hard, so hard and big through his briefs there was no way she could doubt the reality of his words.
He wanted her so bad he was shaking….
She bit her lip, fighting her own need galloping away with her, a stallion let free on a wild mountain, no fences or boundaries. “Mitch, you said we won’t—we can’t—”
“I know,” he groaned quietly, reaching out to lay his hand gently over her breast, caressing with exquisite care. “Just one kiss. Just touch me once, Lissa, one real touch, and we’ll start our stupid game. Please, baby. I want you so bad.”
He stood before her, all but naked, this big, magnificent male animal, in anguished arousal for her. For
her,
Lissa Carroll, who’d never known how to arouse a man in her life.
Caught in the dark, throbbing wonder of returned hunger, her fears flown on the night wind, she found the courage to do what she’d wanted to for more than half her life.
She removed his last barrier and hers. She stepped into the spa with him and then pulled him to her. She slowly caressed him, taking his hardness in her hands, exploring, feeling his heat, his need for her. Drinking in the hoarse cry he gave, his bucking motion into her hands, the agonized pleasure in his voice, in his face.
She’d never known desire this intense, or felt the urgency to touch a man so fiercely. Giving Mitch sexual pleasure was the headiest magic she’d ever experienced. Hungry for more, she cupped him, leaning forward to kiss his chest, nip his ribs, his stomach, with the surging of the hot, wet, soapy bubbles caressing their skin—