Retrieval (2 page)

“Fall out, and get to the ground floor. We don’t have a choice but to find them. Meet back at the house in two hours. Morrissey, you track the women, and see if you can get a lock on their location. Rover, your ass is with me. Bleak, you’re with Morrissey.”

He was their leader then. Sebastian. She didn’t have time to stand around. She’d heard all she needed to when she’d heard that bastard’s name.

Smythe-Ward.
Screw what a lady would say. Fuck, shit, and damn!
It was time to pack up, and leave Chicago. Sky needed to grab her book from its hiding place. She hoped Kinsey was already at the house. Once they had her book and her errant sister, they were good to go.

“Well, ladies, you heard him. The bastard either sent them to bring us back, or they’re on some kind of mission for Uncle Sam. Either way, they’re a danger to us, and our time is up. Let’s get the ‘F’ out of Dodge,” Sky said in a near whisper.

“You don’t have to whisper, ya know. They can’t hear us,” Raina said in a mocking whisper herself.

“Yeah, yeah, smart ass, I know I don’t have to whisper. Let’s jet.”

All of the women turned and ran in the opposite direction of the men. Skylar slid past them but stopped as she passed by the man they’d called Sebastian. He couldn’t see her, she was shielded, but something in his expression led her to believe he knew exactly where she was. He was locked onto her for those few seconds. She forced herself to shake off an unfamiliar longing and turned to catch up with her sisters. As soon as she was far enough away from the danger they represented, she released the men.

God help them all if they met up again. Would she be able to walk away from him a second time?

*

The woman was a complete surprise. If he’d had proof that his objectives were capable of doing what he’d been told they were, Sebastian would’ve let this entire mission pass. Realist that he was, he’d told himself nothing like what Dr. Dolan Smythe-Ward had told them was possible. Surely not from the petite, extremely sexy woman he’d just seen.

Damn if she hadn’t given him and his men the slip. One minute she and her sisters had been in the hallway, and the next they, or rather a pretty picture of them, were boarding the elevator. Neither he nor his men had been able to move to catch them. She hadn’t restrained them physically. Oh, hell no. He could’ve fought that. She’d prevented him from being able to command his body to movement. That was unacceptable. His men would want to discuss it later. He felt a headache inching its way up the back of his skull. He was disgusted with the entire situation.

She’d stopped him in his tracks, and that was before she’d looked at him in the cafeteria like she wanted to inhale him and dive in for seconds. Nah, it’d happened weeks ago, the first time he’d seen her picture while making the decision to take this job.

Damn!
When he’d seen her walk into the lunchroom, his entire body had gone on alert. Deep inside of him, need had taken root. It was the closest he’d physically been to her, and he’d not been prepared. Lust of that magnitude was beyond his scope of experience.

She was short, no more than five feet two inches. That put her more than a whole foot shorter than he was. One look into her eyes, and he’d wanted to stand over her, protect her from the world that was fast closing in on her and her sisters. Was she in danger now?
Yeah, she’s in danger. She just stopped your ass cold. She can probably take care of herself.

Fine-boned, creamy golden skin and deep auburn hair that held shades of the darkest night and the noonday sun, she surpassed beautiful. Her eyes, slightly upturned like a cat’s, were the purest whiskey-gold color he’d ever seen on a person. Her mouth was a perfect coral-pink bow, and when she’d licked her lips after drinking that damn juice earlier, he’d almost lost his mind. She was lush, curvy in all the right places, and she loved to laugh. Out of all the things that attracted him, it was the woman’s laugh that kept him hard and up all night. Through the bugs they’d placed outside her residence, he’d listened to her talk to her sisters for hours. They argued, debated, and made jokes. Her laughter gutted him, but at the same time it was the ultimate high.

It made him uncomfortable.
She
made him uncomfortable. There was something about this woman that drove him to another level of awareness. When their eyes met earlier, and she’d begun moving toward him, he’d felt an inexplicable pull toward her. The want had been a textural strand between them. It had taken his entire fifteen years of combat training to keep him rooted in his seat. He’d wanted to meet her ass halfway, tackle her to the floor, and claim her—for hours. It’d been a really close thing. His control had been seriously tested.

If he wasn’t careful, he’d lose objectivity. He’d much rather be on the trigger end of a gun than looking down the barrel of one. She boggled his mind. Maybe he’d be better off just calling quits on this job right now.

He’d innately known that the women remained in the corridor. His neck had prickled, and his gut had tightened. If he were a betting man, he’d have laid odds that Morrissey, Bleak and Rover had felt them too. But with an inability to actually see them, he could only get himself ready for tracking them down. He’d felt her turn back toward him, and his entire body had tingled for a few seconds before her presence retreated. He really did not need this crazy shit in his life right now.

He and Rover made their way to the exit to begin the hunt. God help them all when they met up again. He wouldn’t allow her to leave him a second time.

Chapter 2

“I hate to keep saying this, but I got nothing.” Raina’s voice rang with frustration as she scoped out the area around their house.

A couple of dogs barked in the quiet, affluent neighborhood. Other than that it was a normal spring night. There was no unusual stillness, or silence that would cause unease. The streetlights illuminated the area well, but those men from the hospital had knowledge. Sky worried her bottom lip as she scanned the area surrounding the house.

“Is Kinz around?” Piper asked before settling on her haunches to touch the grass.

“Nope. I forgot to tell you with the buzz from earlier, she hit me up; she’ll just wait at the safe house.”

“One thing off the to-do list. Just gotta get the book, and we’re good to go. So, um, Piper, you gonna make that jump with me or what?” Sky asked. A smile played in her tone.

“Um, Sky? Hell to the naw. You
like
jumping. Me? Not so much. Besides, I think if I’m not mistaken, it’s Raina’s turn, right?”

“Your piehole, Piper? How ’bout you shut it. Sky, just go get your book, and let’s get out of here before the men from the hospital show up.” Raina encouraged with a fake smile as she nodded her head affirmatively.

“You two are the biggest pansy-assess I know. I’ll jump and be back out in one minute. If I’m not, hightail it to the safe house. I’ll be there when I can.”

Wind wound through the trees around the house, and the grass swayed in the sudden breeze. Static electricity arced through the air, and their hair crackled with it. She was already drawing on the energy around her. Jumping consisted of matter manipulation. Energy would pour through her, giving her the power to break her physical body down into the smallest possible particles of matter. She could then travel and re-form wherever she wanted.

Energy and matter manipulation was a risky thing, but in the grand scheme of things this was nothing more than a parlor trick in a bag full of potent magic.

“Pull back, ladies. I’m out.”

Her body shimmered, a mirage in desert heat, as she went transparent and dissolved into tiny mist-like particles. A stream of silver and red, she moved rapidly in the direction of the house. Raina and Piper held their breath and concentrated on tamping any potential threats that might prevent Sky from getting where she was going.

The entire process took seconds, and when she materialized inside her room, her senses flared. Something wasn’t right. She dropped into a crouching defensive position, peering through the darkness. She sent a mental signal for the bedside lamp to come on.

There he sat, on her favorite cream-colored plush lounger. He gazed back at her with a raised raven eyebrow, and a look of complete disbelief on his face.

“What? You’ve never seen magic?”

Taunting men who were double, maybe even triple, her size hadn’t ever really been her thing. Piper’s maybe, but not hers. She was more of a passive, let’s-slip-on-through-life-without-anyone-noticing kind of gal. Her behavior with this man was screwy on all levels. And that was taking into account the intense attraction she felt for him. This need to touch him and be touched in return had her body going liquid, and she’d been in the room for under a minute.

“What the hell are you?” he asked her in hard voice rife with distrust.

“Why do I have to be a what? Why not a who?”

He had soldier written all over him. He’d invaded her domain, caused her body to overheat without even a touch and was now looking at her like she was a freak of nature. Which she technically was, but she wasn’t in a semantics type of mood right now.

“Hey,” he raised both hands in a placating gesture, “I didn’t mean to piss you off. No offense intended. Come on, you can understand how I’m at a loss for words after watching you, and I’m borrowing your term here, ‘magically’ appear in the room.” His voice held a wry note that had her cocking her head.

“You shouldn’t have your nose in my business. Trust me—you don’t want any part of what I’ll do to you if you don’t leave,” she responded, and the truth of her statement echoed around them.

He was tall, a good foot taller than she was, with broad shoulders, lean hips, long, strong legs. His black hair was close-cropped, though not shorn to the scalp. His skin was tan, as if he spent a lot of time outdoors, and his eyes—good Lord, his eyes could make a saint weep. They were a bright and clear blue that called to the wildness within her. She could make out the hint of a tattoo that ran the length and width of his enormous biceps, but she couldn’t decipher what it was. She’d like the opportunity to further examine it with more than just her eyes.
Maybe another day.

Then she could concentrate on nothing but his scent as he moved quicker than she was prepared for. He turned her, bringing her back flush with his front. He wrapped his arms around her, catching her wrists in his giant hands.

“Wha—” she stammered as she futilely tried to wrest her arms from his iron grip.

It didn’t hurt. Oh, no, nothing that easy. His touch overwhelmed her. It caused her brain to short circuit for a few seconds—long enough for him to slap flex-cuffs on her. His face brushed against her hair.

“Don’t make threats you don’t have the ability to see through,” he warned against her ear, easily overcoming her efforts to break his grip.

“Please, whoever, you are, don’t do this,” she half warned, half pleaded with him.

“Why? Am I hurting you?”

His body stilled behind her, his voice at her ear sending seismic tremors through her body. Tendrils of her hair caught on the whiskers of his face as he leaned even closer.

Yeah, not hurting. Completely the opposite of pain. Is he sniffing me?

“Who sent you?” She tried hard to ignore the way his heat enveloped her. She also tried to ignore that his hands moving over her arms had become more caressing than restrictive.

He didn’t answer her.

“I’m going to give you one more opportunity to answer my questions,” she told him breathlessly. “And quit sniffing me for cripe’s sake!”

“Or what?”

It made her wet, that taunt.

She was rendered mute when the tip of his tongue flicked her earlobe, and he blew on it. His breath wafted across her nostrils, and her body tightened in the most intense need she’d ever experienced. She was a sexual novice. There was no way to sugarcoat twenty-six years of virginity. But right now she wanted to turn around in this man’s arms, climb up his body, and seat herself on the ridge of flesh she felt prodding at her backside. The shock of how right that hardened flesh felt seated against her, even while they were clothed, eclipsed sanity. Before she could stop herself she’d turned and pressed flat against his body.

Sebastian was not the neophyte she was, not by a long shot she was willing to bet. But the intensity of this desire with her was a new thing for him. The fire snapping in his eyes told the truth of it.

“What are you going to do now?”

His voice was low. It moved her, rearranged her heart somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach.
I have no idea.
Rational, sane thought wasn’t on her agenda. Nope it was more of a feel-feel situation right now.

“Um, just a quick taste or sniff or whatever, just bend down please.” She urged as she pulled her arms free of his hold, adjusted them around his neck, and pulled herself even with his face.

He grabbed her hips, helped her lever herself up. His face seemed cut from granite.

“This shit is crazy,” he murmured.

She let reason fly out the window and buried her face in the strong column of his neck.

“Mmmm,” was all she could mumble as the kaleidoscope of his essence speared her midsection. He smelled even better than he looked.

Her mind was throwing back-the-F-up signals left and right, but her body had melted against his. She inhaled his scent once more as she lifted her face and encountered his diamond-hard stare.

He descended lightning fast and took her mouth voraciously. Teeth gnashed, and tongues dueled. He was a freaking master kisser. His tongue curled around hers and delved into the recesses of her mouth, drawing hers in a dance that sent pleasure spiraling through her. He tasted of the darkest chocolate, bittersweet and tempting.

He lifted her, pressed her more firmly against his impressive erection. Her breasts tingled, and her core clenched. Her legs tightened reflexively and squeezed his hips. He continued to knead her bottom, alternately patting then pressing her against him as he pushed against her mound.

“Shit, you’re wildfire, lady,” he ground out between kisses.