Code of Honor (Special Ops Book 7) (4 page)

He understood her. This was like a lightning bolt jolt to her world. She didn’t have experiences like this; she didn’t have to worry if today would be the day she took her last breath. And now she had to worry about that. Now she had to let fear in, and if she didn’t find some solace fear would consume her sanity and burn her alive from within. He couldn’t save her from that, but he could save her from this hit man.

“I’m one of the best, Abby.”

She nodded. “I know,” she sighed as she laid her head back on the headrest. Well hell, he hadn’t expected that admission to come from her lips. He expected her to fight the entire time with those sarcastic tenors that actually fueled his hunger for her. She was his kind of woman and he knew that from the moment she opened her mouth. Strong, yet vulnerable. Soft yet a hint of an edge. Add all that to her definite beauty and he knew—this woman could rock his world into an earth moving change of circumstances. This woman could be his other, his match, the kind of woman that his father had found—the woman that made is life better than it was alone. Why did he want that now? Or had he always wanted it? Had he just suppressed it for his mission, for his quest for justice? Or maybe he just hadn’t wanted to put another person he loved into the ground. Not loving made it easier not to have to bury another piece of his heart. He told himself not to fall in anything with this woman—lust, love, any of it, but hell if he wasn’t taken at first sight for lust, and first sentence for love. God if he only could look at her as a job he wouldn’t feel anything, but he couldn’t look at her that way. In fact, he was sure his first lust moment is what tipped his mind into the chaos of saying yes to this detail. He should have said no and stuck by it. And if he hadn’t seen the softness in her eyes, the smile on her face, and that look of a woman who needed protection—his protection, then maybe he could of held his position. Since he hadn’t held it then he sure as hell better hold it now because he couldn’t get distracted. Distraction brought death and that was not an option—for either of them.

“So,” her sultry yet docile voice hit him hard yet again. He imagined hearing her scream his name as she hit orgasm and that alone told him he was in for a hard fight. He protector she woman in distress, and he needed to remember that Tarzan toned speech. Then again, Tarzan had still claimed his woman.

“So?”

“Are you…you know. Do you have a gun—with you now that is?”

“I’m always packing.” He wasn’t a man who went anywhere without a weapon, sometimes more than one actually.  For all the crazy people harping on tossing out the second amendment he wasn’t going to sacrifice his weaponry. He would be damned if he was going to get rid of his first line of defense and rely on some wet behind the ears cop to get to him in under thirty seconds to save his life. No, that wasn’t his thing. If people knew how unlikely it was for a cop to get to them in faster time then it would take for the bad guy to kill them maybe they wouldn’t get so piss poor out of shape because other people decided not to wait on somebody else to save them.

“You know how to fight? At least that’s what I think you were saying.”

“Yeah, my dad taught me. He always said though, “kid there is always somebody better than you. Don’t get too complacent with your knowledge or your skills,” and he had been right. There is always somebody better. I just hadn’t met that somebody in a life or death situation until yesterday.”

“I see,” he stated because he knew what she was saying. There was a huge difference between knowing somebody better could kill you on any given day and actually coming up against that somebody better. “You’ll be safe where I’m taking you. I hope you like Montana.”

“Never been,” she said.

“Well good, because you’re not going now either.” He laughed and she chuckled before shaking her head.

“Where are we going then?”

“You’ll see. Just wait for it.”

“It’s not like I can tell anybody you know.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “I know you can’t if I don’t tell you.”

“Oh brother,” she mumbled. “You’re going to be trouble; aren’t you?”

“You have no idea.” He switched on the radio so she could have something to keep her mind occupied—something other than conversation because the voice she had was making him want to pull over to the side of the rode and get to know the ins and outs of her body—right now his penis was more interested in getting to know the ins than the outs.

“I guess the radio means you want me to shut up now, huh?”

“Abby, if you keep talking I can’t guarantee I’m not going to stop being able to resist the urge to get you naked and get between your legs; so stop talking.”

He heard the gasp as he looked over at her blushing cheeks. The look in her eyes told him she was contemplating the same kind of getting to know each other even if she was trying to hide it. He was a good read of people, their emotions, their body language and everything about her now crossed legs told him he had just unleashed an urge in her that was setting her on fire from within. He had done this and quite frankly once they had a few days, at best, of getting each other situated in the private house he was taking her to, he planned very much to temporarily put that fire out with a special kind of liquid of his own. He wasn’t thinking temporary because he knew for what he had planned once would never be enough for either of them.

Chapter Three

“Trouble,” Abby mumbled to herself as she lie in bed looking up at nothing but the ceiling. She wasn’t just talking about the fact that somebody seriously wanted her dead over something she didn’t even know about either. She was talking about the man sleeping across the hall from her. Rhys was hotter than hot in her mind. All this time she had spent focusing on work, a little bit of school and pretty much making every possible effort to make sure she was not becoming the social butterfly, had also meant she avoided falling in lust with a man until now. God was testing her; that was all there was to it. She was being tested and she was failing miserably.

He had pulled out the contacts he wore when he picked her up and what she saw was a beautiful shade of emerald that had her knees going weak just looking in them. Somehow they seemed even more deadly than the blue he’d sported earlier. She also noticed his nose looked straighter now. If she thought he was cute before now was definitely the knocked on the floor effect because the man was gorgeous.

He had told her she was the first in a long time to really see what he looked like and that he didn’t go around working with his real aesthetics without making a few changes. Usually, he had said, he had more time to put a new look into effect with a world class facial mask that looked natural, but he got the call too close to the job.

He looked good—very good, and her body had most definitely realized what it had been missing with just another look at him. She couldn’t sleep now because she was thinking about how hot her protector was.

She groaned. “Tea,” she sighed as she pulled herself out of bed. Tea would make everything better. She slid her hands over her tank top and caught a glimpse of herself in the dresser mirror. Whoever packed for her had to be a man seeing as though they packed plenty of the lace panties and decorative bras but seemed to forget the pajamas she had right there in the drawer next to the underwear. Granted those pajamas had Tweety Bird and flowers on them, but they were comfortable to sleep in. It’s not like she had to impress anybody with sexy night clothes or anything like that.

She shook her head, padding on bare feet out to the hall. Well it wouldn’t be nice to just go start making tea in the man’s house without asking if he wanted any, she figured so instead of going down the hall she walked across it and right through the already opened door. He was sleeping in bed but somehow her mind had convinced her to get a little closer to the barely covered man. The sheets were tucked around his waist and leg, but his chest was exposed and that chest was muscular and golden tanned like a Latin man.

She walked softly closer to him. Her mind kept pushing her feet farther while another recess of her brain kept trying to tell her a sleeping man did not need tea.

She hadn’t even gotten her hand stretched out when he grabbed her and swiftly threw her onto the bed before straddling her body and pinning her down. Her heart raced like a jackrabbit on speed as she stared up at him. The only light coming into the room was from the moon cresting through the window, but she could still see the lethal look in his eyes.

“I…I was just going to ask if you wanted some tea.” She felt her breath coming in short pants. It wasn’t just the fear or the fact that his weight was pressing down on her. It was the fact that she now realized the man slept naked—completely naked and now, the only thing keeping certain intimate parts apart was her royal blue lace panties.

“You thought I was sleeping; correct?”

“I just—”

“Correct?” He bit out the word as he clutched her wrists above her head in one of his hands while leaving one hand palm down on the bed beside her head so that he could moderately support his weight.

“Correct,” she said sheepishly feeling her heart increase in the rapid staccato beat.

“Do you think a sleeping man wants tea?”

“I…I guess not.”

“Do you think a sleeping man—a Marine—wants a woman in her underwear to come calling in his bedroom in the middle of the night for tea?”

She bit her bottom lip as she felt him put more of his weight on her body. “I…I guess not.”

“Do you think a naked man with only flimsy fabric keeping him from taking a beautiful woman hard and deep really needs a woman coming in his room testing him?”

“But I wasn’t testing you.” But then again maybe some small part of her brain was. Did she not really believe the man wouldn’t be on high alert since he was the protector in this situation? Yes, she had to know trying to silently walk into his bedroom at night was not going to go unnoticed to a man like him.

She felt his weight come down on her completely as he moved his free hand from the bed beside her and stopped using it to decrease his body’s weight. Now he was using that hand to brush down her waist and to the waistband of her bikini cut panties that hugged her hips.

“I told you not to test me, Abby.” He slipped his fingers underneath the side of her panties and then one long finger brushed against her clitoris. She gasped and arched beneath him with a wave of heat, desire, and craving.

“Remember these words,” he said as he slid a finger into her while his thumb massaged her tiny button of an erogenous zone. “Do. Not. Test. Me. Because next time you come into my bedroom I can guarantee you it’s going to be something larger than a finger I push inside you.” He gave one more thrust of his finger and stroke of his thumb before pulling back from her completely. She was so close to orgasm she whimpered at the lost of his heat and his touch.

“Go,” he said sternly. “Get your tea. I don’t want any.”

Right now she didn’t need tea. Right now she needed a cold shower. She let her eyes drift over his naked body and she realized she very much liked the package she saw. When he let out a primitive groan that had heat pooling between her legs again she looked up to his eyes. Realizing she was still sprawled out on his bed with her legs open she closed them swiftly and got up. “I’m…sorry.” She bolted out of his room and back into her own as she heard the frustrated groan come from him.

She closed her door behind her and rushed to her bed before sitting on it. “Oh, Abby,” she sighed as she sat there still shaking with need. She was contemplating finishing the job for herself when her bedroom door swung open and a still naked Rhys stood there looking at her.

“I thought I told you no closed doors in this house.”

“Unless I’m getting dressed…I know. I just…never mind,” she said as she realized she was still explaining and apologizing. The man had her brain all flustered. This wasn’t good. Nobody had ever had this level of impact on her and the fact that he did was both turning her on and pissing her off.

“Good night,” he turned and walked away. Her eyes followed his form and she realized the back of the package was even better naked than it was covered in cloth.

She sighed and shook her head at herself. She didn’t even know this man. He had picked her up just days ago seeing as though he had driven straight through without stopping for a night of sleep. She hadn’t known him long and to be honest she would say she didn’t know him very well at all—heck she didn’t know the man at all. But here she was wishing he had taken her and made good on his promise to put something other than his fingers inside her.

She fell back on the bed. “Not good,” she whispered. She wanted him and clearly he wanted her too. the fact that he wasn’t abiding by some Marshal Code of Honor to not bed the witness under his protection told her the man wouldn’t refrain from taking her to the precipice of orgasm and pushing her over it should he decide to do so. She really should think smarter and help him not feel the need to do just that, but she wanted him to do it. This was the first man in all her life that she actually wanted to have sex with and she didn’t even know him.

Trist Maloney ran his hand through his dirty blond hair. That woman was the woman of his friggin’ sex dreams. He had been looking at her since he got the first picture with clear instructions to wait before killing her. They, his payers, wanted to make sure they knew what she knew and who she talked to, so they wanted to wait on the kill. He knew it was coming; he just didn’t know when. Killing the gamer design guy had been easy but not fun. They wanted it to look like an accident so he made it look like one when in reality he would have preferred a bare hand kind of kill.

He hadn’t gotten the job to kill the senator though and a part of that had pissed him off until he found out why. They wanted him to do her and by do her he had his own vivid imagination on how he would do it.

Abigail was one delectably gorgeous woman. He had a penchant for the darker ebony ladies but she, in all her light skinned beauty, was his own kind of blasian sex dream. What he wouldn’t give to have bedded her sooner. No, he was supposed to just keep an eye on her without making too much of a dent. That had been easy. The woman was so into her music on her morning jogs that she was easy to watch unnoticed.

He would see her leave every morning and for a while he had just watched her from the windows the same way when she returned, but then he got it in his head to give her a view of what was soon to come her way. He didn’t even bother putting on pants when he went out to smoke his cigar. Every morning she came by. The first time he had made a feigned attempt at saying he had just stepped out and didn’t expect anybody to be coming by. She had blushed and looked away swiftly as she told him to have a nice day. He watched her behind so nice and round and looking perfectly firm as she walked toward her unit.

He had enjoyed her bashful blush so much that he did it again, and again. She started trying to avoid looking at him by pretending to turn up the volume or fish for a song on her MP3 player. Oh yeah, he was unnerving her just a little and he didn’t care.

He knew her schedule as if he were her personal assistant. He had gone into her apartment, had ran his hand over her underwear in the drawers and even went through her dirty underwear. She had a delicious kind of smell to her down there that set his erection to high rise. He had even jacked himself off in her panties every day. His fluids mixing with her dried previously worn but not yet washed panties had set him to blaze. He had even done it lying in her bed. He had planned to leave a present for her in a pair of her clean underwear and stick it back in the drawer, but sadly he had gotten the call and the call was the one that told him to make the kill and finish the job. He had gotten that call the morning she went out for her run. He had watched her leave while he talked to the guy on the phone and got the go ahead. Then, he knew that day had to be different. He had to get her in there, get inside of her and then finish the kill. Sure, he could have killed her some other way, but the reality was he had many a night’s dreams about coming inside of her and he planned to fulfill that dream.

He knew everything about her training, enough to know she had weak spots he could easily take advantage of and get the drop on her. He also knew even if she hadn’t had weak spots he could still take her. He was that good. What he hadn’t planned on were the Marshals showing up. He was so busy watching her that he didn’t realize somebody was watching him too. How had he missed that?

“Maybe you didn’t miss it,” he mumbled to himself. “Maybe they were watching her because of her connection to the senator. Maybe she just got lucky.” Yeah, that was it because he sure as hell hadn’t gotten sloppy.

He thought about her beauty. Toffee was what the guy at the coffee shop had said about her while Trist sat in a corner unnoticed. He heard the kid talking about her and how much he wanted her, how he was going to make a move on her. Trist wouldn’t have that. This woman with the fire red hair and hazel eyes was his. He thought of killing the kid but he noticed Abigail wasn’t looking at him at all so he figured he’d let the kid live.

Three months of jacking off thinking about her and the kill had gone south. Yeah, he had heard about the disappointment but fortunately they weren’t fully blaming him given the Special Conditions team watching the area. They did, however, want this fixed fast and he had assured them he could, and would, do it swiftly. He hadn’t told them he still planned on getting inside her while her body was still warm. He wanted to be the last face she saw and the last body she felt on top of her. he wanted to be the last to come inside her. He wanted her to look into his brown eyes and beg him to let her live while he rammed his shaft inside her. He wanted that, and he was going to have that. Never give a man three months between the hiring and the killing because an idle mind would create its own playground and his playground involved her body. He didn’t do dead women. He would take her while she was still breathing and then, maybe, just maybe, he would take her again and kill her during.

He reached into his glove compartment and took out the red lace panties he had taken from her home two days before he got the kill order. He had taken them right out the dirty clothes hamper and stuffed them in his pocket as a souvenir. He knew he could always take another pair, but he liked the red ones. The red ones were different—boy shorts, that he was sure hugged her hips in delicious ways. He knew she would miss them, but he also thought she would assume she sacrificed them to the dryer gods or something like it. He knew her washing schedule because he had seen her go up to the laundry facility on site. She still hadn’t replaced her washer that broke three months earlier.

He laughed at the thought of the washer breaking—a washer he had permanently and expertly covertly mucked up so it wouldn’t work again. He had heard his girl, yeah, she was his, talking to another woman near the pond area and she had said she was waiting because she was hoping to move once her lease was up in six months and it would be two less items to have to try to get moved.