It had been everything she could do to hold herself back, to remain in those shadows. Past lessons were too ingrained, though: to stay hidden, to keep everyone at a distance, to protect those that an enemy might strike at if they couldn’t strike at her.
It was best not to have friends, but she had neighbors, and she enjoyed that. She saw the same people everyday and the routine was treasured.
The block she lived on was peaceful. It was quiet and serene. In the six months since she had moved into the house she thought she may have felt a part of her soul healing.
So what the hell had her senses on high alert?
Sliding from the car, she closed the door softly before moving to the entrance leading into the kitchen through a connecting door.
The security wired into the house had dim lighting flipping on as she opened the door. She hated coming into a dark house. She hated coming into an empty house.
Maybe it was time to get a cat. Or better yet, one of those little toy dogs she had always wanted. Because if this was paranoia, then she was going to end up driving herself insane.
Locking the door, she reset the security alarm before turning and staring around the open kitchen, dining, and living area of the neat little ranch she had bought.
Hell, she had bought a house. Teylor Johnson had a mortgage. She couldn’t run. She had a business, with employees and responsibilities. She didn’t want to run. She didn’t want to revisit the time in her life that had been a living hell.
She wanted to live for a change.
It had taken a while to decide the type of home she wanted, where she wanted to live. The minute she had seen this little house with its nice little enclosed patio, she had fallen in love with it.
She had come to Hagerstown because of Journey. Tehya had been keeping an eye on the young woman ever since she had come to Maryland from England to attend college. It was a Taite family tradition to send their sons and daughters to the best colleges in America for additional schooling before they married.
Tehya had watched, she had waited, knowing the girl would be arriving. Journey had arrived in Hagerstown from England just before the Ops had been disbanded, moving into the apartment her family had provided, and unlike other Taite daughters, she had immediately set out to find a part-time job. She’d never had a job, she’d told Tehya, when she applied for the opening after Tehya bought the company.
Journey was family. It was something Tehya had never had. Not that she had expected to ever have a relationship with Journey. She hadn’t so much as entertained the idea of seeking her out. It was Journey who had found her. She had applied for a job the week Tehya had taken the small landscaping company over and Tehya hadn’t been able to resist hiring her. She hadn’t been able to resist getting to know the girl, becoming friends with her, and worrying daily that the friendship could endanger the other girl. She had to admit, Journey was a damned good designer. She and Tehya often drew out the landscaping plans together before Tehya worked up the cost, then supervised the implementation
They made a hell of a team. Tehya hated the thought of losing Journey’s talent, as well as her friendship if her family learned she was working.
She gave a weary sigh. It hadn’t been just Journey that had drawn her here, though. One of the Ops former agents and his wife lived here. Others visited nearby D.C. often. Tehya had wondered if perhaps one of them would contact her. But they hadn’t called. No one had called, and she had too much pride to make the move to call them first.
Breathing out heavily, she moved across the ceramic tile of the kitchen floor, to the gleaming hardwood of the open living room and dining room. The warm colors never failed to welcome her, even on nights such as tonight when it seemed she would never be free of the fear that had followed her most of her life.
The warm autumn colors of the couch, sofa, and recliners went perfectly with the earth tones of the pillows and light throws draped over them. Colorful rugs were scattered over the floors and vibrant drapes pulled closed to ensure prying eyes couldn’t spy on her. It was her home, and losing it might kill her.
Tonight, she didn’t stop to watch television or grab another beer. She didn’t stop at the computer to check her e-mail. A quick glance to the telephone showed no messages or missed calls.
God, what a pitiful life she was living. In the six months she had lived there she hadn’t made many friends or acquired a lover, and every instinct she had was screaming at her to run, even as another, more vital part of her demanded she stay and fight. Tehya just wished she knew what she should be fighting.
Stepping into the bedroom, she began unbuttoning the white silk sleeveless blouse she had worn with the leather pants. Her mind was on a shower and ignoring the hard, almost panicked throbbing of her heart. It was racing so hard she could barely breathe as panic began to edge through her. The almost nightly attacks were beginning to fray her nerves.
She should have heeded the warning.
As she moved into the bedroom the lights suddenly went out, blinding her with darkness as the door slammed closed behind her.
Seconds. She had only seconds to escape, or reach the weapon on the other side of the room.
She was ducking and rolling as hard fingers glanced her shoulder obviously intent on restraining her. Kicking out in the direction the attack came, she was rewarded with a solid thump, but not a fallen body or a groan of pain. Dammit.
Rolling across the room, she came to a crouch, straining to see through the pitch-blackness of the room to catch a shadow of movement, the gleam of a weapon. She wasn’t close enough yet to the nightstand where her own weapon was hidden.
Cold determination replaced panic. There was no fear. She had stopped feeling true fear years ago, long before she had joined the Elite Ops, even before she had put a bullet in her brother’s and her father’s chests. She had always sensed she wasn’t truly free, and this no more than affirmed it.
She was at a disadvantage, though. She was wearing white, and whoever was in the room with her was obviously dressed in black. Fighting an enemy she couldn’t see was a bitch. The only positive note was that evidently they didn’t want her dead, or she would already be bleeding from a gunshot wound.
She could barely glimpse a shadow if it moved. Damn, she hated being played with and whoever was there was obviously enjoying their game.
She inched closer to the nightstand and the weapon hidden beneath.
Her fingers reached a folded towel she kept there, less than inches from the gun, when she saw a shadow moving swiftly toward her. No warning, just a quick, silent attack.
A hard kick against the thick carpet and she launched herself away from the attacker, almost making it. Hard fingers gripped her ankle as she twisted and kicked out, breaking the hold and rolling to the side before a hard, heavy male weight suddenly came over her. She was pinned to the floor nearly immobile as she began to fight for freedom.
Her fingers curled into claws and moved for his face, only to have her wrists caught and jerked over her head as hard, muscular thighs trapped her legs. In that instance, something familar, some sound, scent, or sensation warned her of what was coming.
“You’re wearing white, baby. Didn’t I teach you better than that?”
Jordan.
She froze. For a second, Tehya felt her heart stop just before it began to pound with a hard rush of adrenaline and sexual excitement. The cold, hard determination to survive changed. It rushed through her system, became brilliantly hot, sensitizing her flesh, rushing through her and burning away the chill that had been wrapped around her for the past nine months. As though her body were suddenly jerked from deep freeze and infused with vibrant life, making her feel again. And just that fast, she felt too much. She was too hot. Her flesh was too sensitive. Her hunger for this man was too strong.
Jordan’s fingers tightened on her wrist as she suddenly bucked against him, the urge to survive suddenly morphing into something she didn’t understand. Into a hunger, a need, an anger t
hat terrified her.
“Get off me!” she hissed, uncertain if it was fury or lust suddenly raging through her. “What the hell are you doing here?”
His lips cut the furious words off, covering hers, slanting across them and stealing her anger with the sudden overflow of need that left her helpless to do anything but take the kiss and demand more in return.
Her eyes flared open, then drifted closed. Sensual weakness began to race through her body, surging through her bloodstream with a punch of heat so brilliant it felt blinding. Pleasure wrapped around her and held her in thrall as their tongues met, stroked, then dueled in an erotic dance of delight.
Suddenly, she was starved for the taste and the feel of him. Dying to take back the months she had been so alone, drifting, uncertain what to do or how to feel, because she no longer had his presence to hold onto, or a day filled with at least the sight of him. She arched to him, whimpering need tearing through her, a desperation to get closer to him overwhelming her common sense.
As his hands loosened around her wrists, one hand cupped her face and his tongue possessed her, licking at hers, and a groan vibrated against her lips. She was starved for him, desperate. The world could explode around them and all that would matter would be his kiss.
Tehya arched against him, her legs parting as his hips lifted, and she moved to press against his thighs as he settled between them. The hard ridge of his cock rode against her sensitive cleft, pressing the seam of her leather pants against her clit and stroking it sensually.
Nine months of restless nights, tortured fantasies, and the memory of a touch she sometimes believed had branded her soul, had all but destroyed her. And now in one brilliant second she could feel the life pouring back into her.
Heat wrapped around her, a wonderful, building warmth that bloomed through her belly and rushed to wrap around her swollen clit.
The instantaneous switch from survival to arousal clashed through her. The abrupt halt of one, the rapid-fire emergence of the other. She was thrown headlong into an inferno of sensation that completely overwhelmed her.
She had dreamed of his touch. She’d awakened some nights crying out for him. Now, Oh God yes, now, just one more time. His body was hard and demanding above her, his cock a thick wedge beneath his pants as he ground his hips between her thighs.
The strokes of the hardened ridge of his shaft over the sensitive bud of her clit sent hunger tearing through her. Her tongue stroked against his, her fingers tightened in his hair to hold him to her, and she prayed it wasn’t a dream. She was desperate to implant each sensation into her memory, into each cell of her body, for the day when it would be gone. To remember even the smallest detail, the slightest touch to help warm her when the nights grew cold.
He wouldn’t stay, even she knew that. For whatever reason, though, he was here now. He was holding her, touching her, kissing her with the same desperate hunger that had plagued her for so many nights.
His hands were tearing at the blouse, popping buttons to drag the material from her pants as she jerked at his, baring tight, hard abs. Hard, heated, his palm flattened against her lower stomach before smoothing up to the front closure of her bra distracting her from the need to explore the flesh she had found beneath his shirt.
The bra clasp released smoothly, the sheer cups falling away from the swollen mounds of her breasts. Tehya’s eyes drifted open as Jordan eased back from the kiss. Harsh, labored, the sound of their breathing filled the room as their gazes met in the darkness. Then his head lowered, lips parting, then covering the hard, needy peak of a swollen breast.
Electricity surged from the contact as he drew the stiff flesh of her nipple into his mouth. Sizzling pleasure attacked her womb, her swollen clit, drawing her hips upward in a tight, involuntary thrust, as she pressed her pussy tighter against the outline of his cock. Pleasure flooded her system, tore through it, burning past her defenses as though they didn’t even exist. Against Jordan, there were no defenses. There was only the searing, addictive pleasure of his kiss, his touch—his possession.
Wicked heat surrounded her nipple as he drew on it, his tongue lashing it with damp fire as he plumped the flesh with his fingers. Sucking with deep pulls of his mouth, each draw sent a rush of electrifying sensation straight to the depths of her cunt.
The feel of him sucking at her, his big body covering her, dominating her, was exquisite. For the first time in nine months, she felt alive. She felt warm and safe. She was a woman again, rather than an automation pushing through the days
“Jordan.” Arching against him, Tehya whispered his name with hungry demand. “Oh, God. Harder. Do it harder.” She needed more. She ached for that fiery edge of pleasure and pain that he had given her before.
Instead he gave a heated kiss against her nipple, his head lifted, the glitter of his blue eyes barely discernible in the darkness of the room.
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded, demanded. “Damn you Jordan, don’t tease me.”
“Witch,” he growled, his voice dark, thick with arousal, and she felt the short growth of a beard as it raked against the curve of her breast.
Arching her neck, lifting closer to him, her eyes closed as need burned hot and rich inside her. She wanted to touch him. She wanted the feel of him against her, his hard body stroking against her softer one. The heavy heat of his cock filling her.
Memories of the one night she had spent with him tormented her, haunted her. She wanted one more night. Just one more night she told herself. One more memory. Surely then she could find a way to live without him.
As she arched, her hands ran over his back, his shoulders. Moving lower, her fingers went to grip his waist, and one hand gripped his weapon instead.
Tehya froze, as Jordan’s quiet curse seemed to echo through her head. Along with it was the knowledge that it wasn’t this Jordan had come for.
Jordan only wore his weapon when on a mission. He didn’t wear it for looks, it wasn’t a personal accessory. It was for protection only.
She felt him go still against her, his lips pressed to the curve of her breast, before he moved slowly, his head lifting, his eyes glittered down at her through the darkness. She stared back at him in weary resignation. She should have known he wasn’t there for her.
She felt it then, that trembling panic that originated in the pit of her stomach. The restless urge to run, to hide, to change her name, her face, her location. That horrifying knowledge that the instinct warning her of danger wasn’t just paranoia.
“Why are you here?” she whispered, hearing the trembling of her voice and hating it. “I think we both know it wasn’t for me.”
Tehya released the weapon when he rolled away from her and sat up next to her on the floor. He sighed, a sound of weary regret.
“I’m here for you,” he denied.
“But not for the little play date we’re having on the floor?” she bit out with angry sarcasm.
“No,” he finally admitted. “That wasn’t what I was here for.”
Gripping her hand, he pulled her up. “Stay low,” he ordered when she would have gotten to her feet. “Get a bag packed, you’re leaving.”
Jordan couldn’t see her face, her eyes, but he didn’t have to. He could feel her tension settling in the air around him and he thanked God he couldn’t see her face. Sometimes, a man just knew when there were certain emotions he couldn’t face.
Seeing the fear flash in her eyes, or watching her expression change would have brought that familiar tightness to his chest, that regret that he didn’t know what to do with or where it originated from. She’d been hurt too damned much already. Adding to her pain, her fear, felt like a fucking sin.
He didn’t have to see it to feel it. He knew it was there.
“Why do I need a bag?” Vulnerability and fear filled her voice, something he had never heard when she spoke before. As though her time away from the Ops, her time as a regular person had softened her.
He hoped it hadn’t softened her too much
to fight to survive.
“Because you’re out of here,” he told her quietly. “It’s time to move you, Tehya.”
“No!”
For the briefest second, Jordan had to admit he was shocked. Damn, it had been more years than he cared to admit since a woman had managed to shock him. Hell, since anyone had managed to shock him. And he had to admit he hadn’t planned for this.
He always had a plan to cover every contingency. Now found himself at a loss.
He was so damned surprise he couldn’t think for the briefest second.
Which explained how she managed to jump to her feet before he could stop her and flip on the low lamp sitting on the table next to the bed. So much for the order to stay low and keep the lights out.
She was naked from the waist up, her breasts swollen and flushed, her nipples hard and such a sweet candy pink his mouth started watering for the taste of them again. Hell, she nearly derailed all thoughts for safety as his cock throbbed hard and painfully.
Rather than wrestling her back down to the floor, though, he rose to his feet, watching as she pulled a black T-shirt from the dresser and jerked it over her head.
Slender, small boned, fragile. She looked as delicate as a china doll with all those strawberry and gold curls tumbling down her back and those wide green eyes glaring back at him. The black T-shirt, black leather pants, and four-inch-heeled black leather boots suited her, though if she were trying for a dangerous look, she was failing. She looked like dynamite. A sexual goddess ready to rumble. Or ready for a sexual tumble. She sure as hell didn’t look like a threat to anything but a man’s libido and his piece of mind.