Cody Walker's Woman
Read Cody Walker's Woman Online
Authors: Amelia Autin
Working undercover with the last man she should trust…
Rescuing a “civilian” blew his latest undercover op—but when Special Agent Cody Walker next met the damsel in distress, he was astonished to discover she was a fellow agent! Now they are assigned to the same task force to track down a terrorist cell that has a personal connection to Cody’s past….
While Keira is grateful to Cody, she’s determined to prove she can handle herself professionally. But their sizzling chemistry is making it hard to keep things quiet. And as they hunt down the would-be terrorists, they are getting closer—and more personal—than ever….
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Kissing you again.” He didn’t give her a chance to escape.
She resisted at first but then surrendered.
Desire flooded him as her body softened against his. The yearning, the aching need, rose to the top, and he pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her.
He wanted. Needed. Yearned. His hands clasped her hips and pulled her closer so she couldn’t help but feel his desire.
He wanted to lay Keira down in a field of grass with a breeze rippling through it, the wide, blue Wyoming sky arching overhead and the sun warming their skin. He wanted to stroke her skin, to caress her until she cried his name and pulled him close, needing him as he needed her.
But all he could do was kiss her. Endlessly.
Dear Reader,
When I wrote
Reilly’s Return
years ago, my editor, Mary-Theresa Hussey, told me that Cody Walker was such a strong secondary character he deserved his own book. So who better to write about when I finally sat down to start writing romance again?
The problem was, part of Cody’s appeal was that he was so deeply in love with Mandy Edwards, the heroine of
Reilly’s Return
. How could I find a woman to replace Mandy in Cody’s heart? I reread
Reilly’s Return
until I finally found the clue to the kind of woman Cody needed. Someone very different from Mandy, and yet who in one crucial way was
exactly
like her—a woman who would kill or die to protect the man she loved.
Enter Keira Jones. I hope you’ll agree with me that Keira is the
only
woman who could penetrate the shell guarding Cody’s tender heart. And I hope you enjoy reading
Cody Walker’s Woman
as much as I enjoyed writing it.
I love hearing from my readers. Please email me at
[email protected]
and let me know what you think.
Amelia Autin
CODY WALKER’S
WOMAN
Amelia Autin
Books by Amelia Autin
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
Cody Walker’s Woman
#1822
Silhouette Intimate Moments
Gideon’s Bride
#666
Reilly’s Return
#820
Other titles by this author available in ebook format.
AMELIA AUTIN
is a voracious reader who can’t bear to put a good book down…or part with it. Her bookshelves are crammed with books her husband periodically threatens to donate to a good cause, but he always relents…eventually.
Amelia returned to her first love, romance writing, after a long hiatus, during which she wrote numerous technical manuals and how-to guides, as well as designed and taught classes on a variety of subjects, including technical writing. She is a long-time member of Romance Writers of America (RWA), and served three years as its treasurer.
Amelia currently resides with her Ph.D. engineer husband in quiet Vail, Arizona, where they can see the stars at night and have a “million dollar view” of the Rincon Mountains from their backyard.
For my editor, Mary-Theresa Hussey, who told me years ago that Cody deserved his own book.
Tempus fugit.
And for Vincent…always.
Contents
Prologue
“S
cream.”
Keira Jones pushed the hair out of her eyes with both hands and stared in incomprehension at the man who’d just dragged her kicking and clawing all the way from the other room into this one. His hold had been brutal, crushing her bones as he’d thrown her onto the filthy bed in the corner of this room before moving to shut the door behind them and lock it.
And then nothing. Nothing except that one word uttered in a harsh undertone—
scream.
“What?” she gasped.
He held one finger to his lips, pressing his ear against the wooden door. He cast a sharp glance around the room, grabbed a rickety chair and propped it under the door handle. Then he moved purposefully toward Keira.
She scrambled off the bed and backed away from him, away from what she thought was coming. If she was going to be raped, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. She looked frantically around the room for something, anything to use as a weapon, but he was on her before she had a chance.
“I said scream, damn it!” His angry voice was pitched to carry no farther than a foot away as he plastered her body against the wall with his muscular frame.
But she couldn’t. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and her breath was coming in rapid pants, but no sound emerged from a throat dry with terror she refused to betray.
He made a sound of frustration deep in his throat. He held her squirming body captive with his while his powerful hands gripped the lapels of her cotton blouse and ripped it open from top to bottom. Then she screamed. And screamed again when one hand groped her breast through and beneath the fabric of her bra while the other moved to the juncture of her thighs.
She clawed at his face. He ducked, but she had the savage satisfaction of seeing her fingernails make contact with his skin and leave four red welts before he captured her flailing hands and pinned them both to the wall over her head with one iron hand.
“Damn it, I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered in that same deep undertone.
Blood was oozing from two of the scratches on his face, but he ignored it. And to Keira’s shocked amazement he didn’t follow up on her physical helplessness. In fact, he turned away from her, listening intently to the sounds emanating from the other room.
Now Keira could hear it, too, over the rasping sound of her own breathing; coarse male laughter and guttural catcalls, as if Keira’s screams were entertainment for the men in the other room.
“What—” she began, but he covered her mouth with his free hand.
“Shh.” He pressed his lips to her ear, but not in a mockery of a kiss. “We have maybe five minutes to get out of here,” he breathed. “Unless you want me to leave you behind to be gang-raped by them,” he said, tilting his head in the direction of the other room, “or worse, promise me you’ll do
exactly
what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it. You got that?”
She swallowed as her panicked brain assimilated what he was saying as well as what he was
not
doing. Then she nodded. His hand came off her mouth but hovered close, as if he didn’t trust her not to ask questions in a voice that could be heard from the next room. But Keira wasn’t stupid. She knew in a flash that instead of trying to rape her he was trying to rescue her.
She didn’t know why he was risking his life this way, but she didn’t care. Going with him was infinitely preferable to the fate in store for her if she stayed here. And if she was going to die, as she had feared from the moment she’d been kidnapped from beside her car, she’d rather die running, fighting, anything except submitting meekly to being raped and murdered.
“Okay,” he whispered. His lean, muscular body was suddenly gone, and Keira sagged for a moment, her own muscles barely able to hold her up. Then she got control of herself and watched him move across the room.
For a big man he moved with incredible stealth. He had seemed to tower over her earlier, but now she saw that, while he was well above six feet, he wasn’t a giant of a man; his strength had fooled her into envisioning him as bigger than he actually was.
He was clean shaven, and while his angular features weren’t pretty-boy handsome, they were attractive in a masculine way. His sun-streaked blond hair was close-cropped, though not in military fashion. And the snug jeans he wore left no doubt that he was in perfect physical shape. The kind of man, in fact, she thought with hysterical abstraction, most women would give a second—and third—glance at if they passed him on the street.
He was trying to open the single window in the room, but it resisted his efforts, and Keira could tell he wasn’t using his full strength because he was trying to get it open without anyone in the next room hearing, and if he pushed too hard the glass might shatter.
She started toward him to help, but before she got there he reached down into his boot and came up with a wicked-looking six-inch steel-blade knife. He grimaced, as if he hated to sacrifice his knife in this way, then inserted the blade between the window and the frame and exerted downward pressure.
With a slight creak of warped wood, a crack opened up, then widened enough for him to get his fingers underneath. Then Keira was there, and together they got the window open far enough for them to climb through.
“Tie up your shirt,” he breathed next to her ear, and all at once Keira realized it was gaping open, all the buttons gone from when he had tried to make her scream. And her bra was awry, too, from when he’d mauled her. She quickly adjusted her bra and pulled the ends of her blouse together, knotting them beneath her breasts. It wasn’t neat, but at least she was decently covered.
“You go first,” he said in a whisper. “I’ll let you down nice and easy. Try not to make any noise when you move away from the window.”
She nodded, not trusting her voice. He put his hands on her waist and lifted her effortlessly, high enough for her to slide her feet through the window embrasure. He balanced her on the window sill for a moment while she ducked her head under the window, then his hands slid beneath her armpits and he lowered her to the ground.
Keira carefully backed away to allow him room to clamber out, trying not to brush up against anything that would rustle. Then he took her hand in his and looked down at her. There was barely enough moonlight to see a few feet in any direction, but there was enough light to see his determined expression as he whispered urgently, “Trust me.”