Hot Package (A Hostile Operations Team Novella)(#3) (9 page)

“Faith, babe. Have some faith.”

She sat on one of the chairs and looked up at him standing there, so vibrant and strong. He was a warrior and he wasn’t giving up. But she felt like she had when she’d been a kid and her mother waltzed in and informed her they were moving again. Whichever boyfriend she’d had at the time had either walked out or kicked her out and it was time to go. Olivia had fought at first, but she’d learned to face her fate stoically over the years. It was adapt or go crazy.

But this wasn’t the kind of fate you accepted without a fight, was it? Hell no.

“Tell me what to do, Billy. I’ll be ready.”

“Just stay out of the way, Liv. That’s all you need to do.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Don’t get yourself killed, okay?”

He came over and bent down to kiss her. Their mouths met urgently, tongues tangling, regret and passion mingling.

“I love you,” she said when he broke the kiss, her hand sliding along his jaw. She wanted to touch him everywhere, wanted to lose herself in him.
 

He grinned at her and she wondered how he could be so jovial. “I love you too, Liv.”

Her heart squeezed tight. She felt such joy—and such crushing sorrow that this was the end.

“I should have trusted you, Billy. I should have stayed.”

“Yeah, you should have. But you can spend the rest of your life making it up to me.”

She tried not to laugh. “All fifteen minutes or so of it?”

“Longer than that, Liv. Way longer. I need to make you pay for leaving me.”

Her emotions were getting the better of her now. “I’m sorry I asked you to leave HOT.”

“I would have done it for you.”

She shook her head. “You don’t have to say that.”

“I know, but I mean it. I was coming home to tell you after that last mission. I’d work a desk for you, if that’s what it took to make you happy.”

She stood and wrapped her arms around him. “You make me happy. Just you.”

He kissed her and she melded herself to him, desperate for one last happy moment with him. There was a rattling at the door and she whimpered.

“Need to go to work now, babe. Step back and stay back.”

“Billy, please,” she said. “Please.”

His dark eyes sparked. “It’s okay, Liv. Trust me.”

She took a step back. The door was sliding open then. Billy leaned forward and slammed his bound hands up and then down hard, against his back. He did it again just as two men walked into the room. They were both armed.

Suddenly, Billy was in motion. He moved so fast she couldn’t quite tell what he did, but there was the sound of fists and feet hitting flesh—and then the two guys were on the ground and Billy stood over them with two guns pointed at two heads.

Olivia realized that her hand was over her mouth. She let it drop slowly, her eyes wide. He’d gotten free. And he’d taken out two gunmen.

“You could have done that at any time,” she said in wonder.

He didn’t make eye contact. “Yeah, but I did it when it was most useful.”
 

“But how? You were tied so tight.”

“Zip ties are easy as hell to break out of if you know what you’re doing. You hear that, assholes?” he said to the men on the floor. “Easy.”
 

He motioned her over. “Now get behind me and stay there.”

She did as he told her and they moved through the door. He paused to slide it shut and lock it and then they were moving down a dark corridor and all she could hear was the sound of her breath and thumping pulse. Billy was stealthy, but she felt like an elephant moving along behind him.

He stopped to listen and she fisted her hands in his jacket and waited. And then a door opened to her left. Billy was spinning toward the sound, trying to shove her behind him, when someone grabbed her and a gun jammed up into her jaw. She couldn’t see the man but she could smell his cologne. And feel the soft cashmere of his coat.

“I have nothing to lose,” Congressman Black said. “But you do. Drop the weapon or I’ll kill her.”

Billy’s jaw was hard, his eyes glittering hot and furious. She knew he could save himself, knew he could take this man out—but the risk was her, and she knew he wouldn’t do it. He would drop the weapons and wait for another chance.

And if she knew anything at all about the man holding her so tight right now, she knew he wasn’t going to allow Billy another chance to do anything. The instant his hand lowered, the Congressman would drop him where he stood.

Olivia wasn’t about to let that happen. She hadn’t been in the Special Forces, but she’d been in the Army and she had combat training. She sucked in a breath and brought her elbow back as hard as she could at the same time she brought her foot down on the Congressman’s instep.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion then. Olivia’s elbow and foot connected, Billy yelled and lunged, and the Congressman’s arm jerked. There was a loud bang—or maybe it was two—the smell of spent gunpowder, and a ringing in her ears.

Billy had her in his arms then. His mouth was moving but she couldn’t hear him. She smiled up at him and lifted her hand to touch his face. He jerked her off her feet and then he was running, running, running through the dark corridors—

He burst outside into the cold air and men appeared from all directions, dressed in dark clothes, wearing headsets and carrying weapons.
 

Bad asses. Those HOT boys were such bad asses.

That was the last thing she thought before she slipped away.

CHAPTER TEN

“If you ever do that again, Olivia Reese, I’m spanking you in front of God and the world.”

Olivia opened her eyes to find Billy hovering over her. She was lying flat on her back in a communications van. Above her, screens flickered with different angles of the warehouse they’d come out of.

“What happened?”

“You scared the shit out of me, that’s what.”

“Did I get shot?”

He shuddered. “No. But that gun went off so close to your head—” He clenched his jaw tight. “Another inch, Olivia.”

“I couldn’t let him shoot you.”

He bent over her then and fused his mouth to hers. She sighed and put her arms around his neck. But then he pulled away again. “I wasn’t going to let him shoot me. I told you I had it under control.”

“You were going to drop the gun, Billy. And he would have shot you when you did.”

His voice was hard. “I wasn’t going to drop it. I was going to drop
him
.”

“While he had a gun to my head?”

“I wouldn’t have missed, babe.”

Olivia shivered, both from the cold and from how lethal this man was when he had to be. She’d known the military fighting machine was inside there, but she’d never seen it in action before. “So I guess I passed out, huh?”

“Shock.”

She pushed herself up until she was sitting. She was embarrassed and relieved all at once. “My heart was beating so hard. I’m surprised I didn’t pass out sooner.”
 

“You did really good, Liv.”

She reached for his hand and threaded her fingers in his. “So what happens now?”

“We wait for HOT to clean up.”

She remembered that swarm of black-clad men right before she’d passed out. “How did they know where to find us?”

He looked a touch sheepish. “Tracking devices. I put one in your coat, one in mine. Just in case.”

She blinked. “You thought we might get grabbed?”

“No, but I believe in being prepared. When I didn’t answer my phone at check-in, the guys pulled us up on satellite.”

“Wow,” she said softly. “You really do think of everything.”

“It’s my job.”

Olivia pulled her knees up and put her arms around them. “I can’t believe Congressman Black was involved.” It occurred to her then that she’d heard two shots instead of one. “Did you kill him?”

“No. But he might be missing a few fingers.”

“What about Tom? And Alan?”

Billy let out a long breath and she knew the news wasn’t going to be good. “The police found Alan Cooper a couple of hours ago. His car was parked in a townhouse garage over in McLean. The radio was on and the phone he called you from was with him. The battery was drained.”

“Is he dead?”

“Yes. A neighbor noticed the smoke coming from under the garage and called the police. It was too late to save him by then.”

Her eyes filled with tears. She hadn’t known Alan well, but he’d seemed nice enough. On the other hand, he’d known about the technology and he’d waited to do anything about it.

Even then, he hadn’t come forward himself. He’d involved her when all he’d needed to do was call the Pentagon.

“Did he kill himself?”

“I know it might make it easier if he had, but no. Someone knocked him over the head and put him there. He must have come to just long enough to try and phone someone. It’s also possible he fell against the phone and it dialed you by accident.”

Olivia shivered. “God, that’s awful. What about the files? Was there anything there? Anything to stop the deal?”

“The Pentagon confiscated his computers. If it’s there, we’ll find it.”

Had they gone through all this for nothing? It made her furious to think so. “What about Congress and the vote?”

“After tonight, Titan Technology won’t be selling anything to the Pentagon. The lead engineer is dead. Tom Howard’s going to jail, and the Congressman will be joining him. No one’s going to vote to approve a technology associated with a scandal like this one. And don’t forget we still have Alan’s notes. Those tests will be duplicated. If the results are what he said they were, everyone will know it.”

Olivia let out the breath she’d been holding. “I knew it was a good idea to come to you for help.”

He reached out and ran his fingers over her jaw while her skin tingled in response.

“You can always count on me, Livvie.”

***

The Christmas tree sparkled in the night, its white lights painting the living room in a soft glow. Outside, the snow was coming down again, but in the house the occupants were tangled together inside a sleeping bag on the floor.

It was still Christmas, but barely. Another fifteen minutes and it would be midnight. Billy rolled Olivia beneath him and sank into her body while she arched up to him and kissed him. This was home. Right here with her, beneath the tree, deep inside her, his body on fire with longing and lust and love.

“I love you,” she said as he thrust into her and she convulsed around him, her inner muscles squeezing him tight as she fell over the edge.

He loved it when she came, when her head went back and her throat arched up and her breath caught and then spilled in those soft sounds of pleasure that he adored.

He nipped her throat, sucked a nipple into his mouth and tugged just enough to make her cry out again.

“Billy, oh Billy…”

And then he slid into her again and again, harder and faster, until he reached his own peak, until his eyes closed and his head went back and he lost all sense of time and place. It felt so damn good with her. So right.

He collapsed beside her and drew her in close, curling around her from behind. “I love you, Olivia. Everything about you. I have from almost the first moment we met.”

She turned in his arms then, until she was looking up at him with wide green eyes. He could see the sheen of tears in them. “You don’t have to say that.”

“I know I don’t have to. But from the first time we made love, I knew it was different with you.”

Her lashes dropped down over her eyes. “I nearly ruined it, didn’t I? Demanding you quit HOT, disappearing while you were out in the field.” She sighed then. “I’m almost as crazy as my mother.”

He tipped her chin up. “You aren’t crazy. And we’re here together, aren’t we? That’s all that matters. We’re together. It’s Christmas. And I’m not letting you go again. If you walk out, I’m coming after you.”

She laughed. “And I know you could find me no matter where I went.”

“Damn right.”

She spread her palms over his chest. “It was rotten of me to leave you like that, knowing what your mother did.”

His heart pinched. “Your mother taught you that men couldn’t be relied on. Mine taught me that people who’re supposed to love you the most leave you. But we aren’t them. We make our own choices, Olivia. And I choose to be with you.”

Her mouth turned down in a little frown. “I don’t want you to leave HOT. Not unless it’s something you decide to do because you want to. Don’t ever give it up for me.”

“Marry me, Livvie.”

Her eyes grew wide. Her pink lips fell open. She gaped like a fish. “Are you serious?”

He snorted. “I’m naked in a sleeping bag under a Christmas tree with you and I’ve just told you that I’ve loved you from the first. Would I ask you if I wasn’t serious?”

“You didn’t ask, actually. You kind of stated it.”