Seek and Destroy (12 page)

    "Listen, that woman back there-"

    "Gabrielle, six o'clock." Charis pointed over his shoulder.

    He stopped and spun around just in time to receive a slap across the face from Gabrielle. He barely felt it, his anger hardening his senses. The little vixen's eyes flashed as she flared her temper at him. "How dare you!"

    Grabbing her wrist before she struck again, he stared her down. God
damn
her for doing this in front of Charis. In front of everyone in the lobby. Hell, goddamn her for doing this at all. What right did she have to be pissed off? He'd seen her take man after man up to her room. David was just one of the many in her revolving door of escorts.

    She pulled her wrist back and narrowed her eyes at him. Those eyes would captivate any red-blooded male on a normal day. The funny thing, it didn't feel so normal to him. He couldn't shake the image of Charis McKoy in that bathing suit, constantly fidgeting to cover up. Now
her
eyes captivated him. Hell,
she
captivated him.

    Gabrielle? Not so much. "Go away, Gabrielle."

    "No! No one walks away from me."

    "Yeah? Watch me." He did enjoy a challenge.

    "But you love me!"

    He almost laughed out loud.
Hardly
. Did she really think by slinging the "L" word at him he would cave? Where in the hell had she gotten that idea? He'd never mentioned the word
like
, let alone
love
. Hell, he'd never so much as muttered a hint of that word in years.

    If ever a fouler four-letter word in the English language, it would be love. That word did nothing but leave a path of destruction in its wake. It should have been dubbed one of the plagues.

    Gabrielle stared up at him, her eyes growing colder and colder every passing second. "Why did you take me to your bed if you don't love me?" With that, she offered him a slutty smile meant to tempt him. Instead, it only repulsed him. "Those words you whispered to me when we made love, I know you love me."

    Well shit. He stole a glance toward Charis, fully expecting her to slap him across the other cheek. Instead, she stood there holding in a grin, her pretty blue eyes dancing in silent mirth as if she was in on some inside joke. As she spiked her brow at him, he furrowed his.

    Damn it. She was enjoying this.

    "David!" Gabrielle grabbed his right shoulder. Hard. He spun around and grabbed her wrist, stopping himself from throwing her to the ground in reflex. It wasn't the pain, which had dulled to a throb, but rather the fact someone had touched him from behind, where he couldn't see them.

    Apparently once a NASSD agent, always a NASSD agent.

    Gabrielle looked up at him, clearly frightened. She started to retreat, tripping over her four-inch heels to get away from him. He released her wrist and looked back at Charis. Again, he expected her to mimic Gabrielle's actions, expected her eyes to be wide with fear.

    Instead, she shook her head as her eyes seemed to soften. He read her lips as she whispered, "Oh David."

    Son-of-a-bitch. He didn't need her sympathy. He didn't
want
her sympathy. Yet seeing her with such sorrow in those wide set eyes caused his chest to pull. Damn her.

    "I'm sorry, Gabrielle." He turned back to her, regret pinching in his chest. Her eyes filled with tears. As she blinked, they flowed freely down her overly painted cheeks.

    Her chest heaved as she cried openly. "What about
us
?"

    "If I gave you any indication we were more than keeping each other company, then I do apologize. I don't love you. I never did."

    "But all those nights together..."

    "Two nights," he corrected and held up his fingers to help with the visual. "Two. And that was a long time ago."

    "But I love
you
!"

    Yeah, right. He'd had women fall in love with him before, and they had a hell of lot more warmth in their expression when they looked up at him. This woman didn't appear to have any warmth coursing through her veins, let alone her eyes. "Then you've made a mistake. I'm not capable of love."

    Now why in the hell would he say something like that, especially right now? He firmly believed the conviction, but that didn't mean he had to admit it in front of Gabrielle, Charis, and anyone else listening in.

    Her shoulders rose and lowered as she labored her breathing. Ah shit. Her eyes shined with a fresh batch of tears. "I think it is you who is making a mistake, David."

    "The only mistake I made was accepting the invitation up to your room in the first place. Now go home."

    "Should I leave you two alone?" Charis cut in, clearly amused.

    "No!" he answered.

    "Yes!" Gabrielle answered at the same time.

    "Come on," he said and pulled Charis away toward the elevators. Gabrielle would eventually stop following them around the entire resort.

    "My father will hear about this!" she screamed at him. Others still in the lobby stopped what they were doing and turned to watch the commotion. After waiting for his reaction and receiving none, he caught sight of Gabrielle spinning on her four-inch fuck me pumps and wobbling away.

    Finally. Maybe this little incident would be the one thing she needed to move past her infatuation with him. Love? He chuckled inwardly. They'd spent two nights together. Why would a woman fall in love after only two nights?

    He threw Charis a look out of the corner of his eye. Now, if he had the chance to spend two nights with this one, he may have to rethink his position on the matter.

    Slamming his mind shut at that thought, he stared straight forward as he pulled her toward the elevators. He'd successfully kept his vocabulary free of anything like an "L" word in close to ten years. Why in the hell, after only a total of about half an hour with her, would he be pondering something so ridiculous, so fucking implausible as love?

    Lust. Now that was a word he'd grown accustomed to. Another four-letter word, but one that didn't leave such a trail of destruction in its wake.

    He waited for her to say something. Condemn him. Tell him what an ass he'd been for scaring Gabrielle.
Something
. No, instead she chose that moment in time to remain silent.

    "Listen," he started after the need to explain overwhelmed him. "About what happened back there."

    She brought her hand to stop him. "I don't care."

    Ah hell. He blew his chance with her. And, for some reason, it mattered to him. Her impression of him, her reaction to the situation, the way she would now look at him. All of that mattered to him.

    He refused to let it go, refused to ignore the churning in his gut. "The whole thing was her idea. She asked me up to her room. It was a long time ago."

    "David," Charis started after they stopped in front of the double doors to wait for the elevator. "You don't need to explain anything. We hardly know each other. I'm not about to fill you in on any of the assorted details of my love life, as few as there are. You have every right to have a life." As an afterthought, she added, "We both do."

    The thought of her having any lovers before him made him tense. Yes, he knew how ridiculous the thought sounded, but for some unexplainable reason he wanted her all to himself. He wanted to possess her, to hold her body flush to his, to make sweet, hot love to her like no other. He didn't want to think any other man had ever touched her, loved her the way he wanted to. When he buried himself deep inside her, he wanted to know he'd been the first, the only one who'd ever touched virginal nerve endings.

    What the hell? He was actually jealous of the fact she'd had previous lovers, despite his less-than-celibate track record. Well, he told himself, he'd just have to find a way to make her forget all her previous lovers. He'd do things to her she'd only imagined-no, fantasized-could be done. He smiled at the thought.

    Losing his smile, his mind nagged him to focus on something other than the raging hard-on he had throbbing between his legs, aching to be released, aching
for
release.

    Like how in the hell did NASSD find him? He hadn't sent them any postcards, no forwarding address. He had a hard time believing her when she said she followed a hunch. He didn't leave a trail. No way did she spontaneously determine he'd planted himself at a resort in Maui. How did she know he'd landed at this resort, precisely? And the Weber's weren't much help. Hell, he hadn't even had contact with them since he left the agency.

    He ignored the slight pinch in his midsection at that thought. So he hadn't contacted them, so what? They were parents by now. They had their own issues to deal with. Shitty diapers. Sleepless nights. No more sex life.

    He shuddered. It sounded like Hell on Earth. And, despite that fact, he'd always wondered what it would be like to have a wife who actually
wanted
to carry her husband's baby, to be ripe and round with his child.

    He thought about the impervious Dan Weber-a daddy. And it scared him to no end knowing JT had a little 'mini-me' now. The world barely handled one female Weber. God help them all now that there were two.

    He stopped mid-thought. He didn't even know
if
the baby was a girl. It might be a boy. That thought made him smile inwardly. Another Dan? Holy shit. And he thought a mini-JT scared him.

    He squelched that gnawing sensation most would call regret. He didn't regret his decision to leave the agency. He didn't spend his days on the beach thinking about his life as an NASSD agent, wishing he had it all back. One shot. One goddamn bullet and it changed his life.

    He eyed McKoy. Was she here to recruit him into ICE's folds, using NASSD as a disguise? What a waste of time. Why did they send
her
of all agents? ICE and NASSD didn't usually work in conjunction, so why send ICE in to retrieve an ex-NASSD agent?

    Unless NASSD didn't consider him a threat. That thought had entered his mind, but he kicked it back out. After everything he'd done in the name of homeland security, the last thing NASSD would do would be to underestimate one of their own.

    McKoy stood rigid in front of the elevator doors, her eyes focused on the numbers as they lit up indicating the elevator's lazy descent. Her apprehension displayed in her body language, and she attempted to appear casual even though her pulse had to be close to one-twenty. The rapid heartbeat at the base of her neck gave her away.

    Now there was a woman he couldn't figure out, which said a lot since he usually had them pegged within the first five minutes. Why did she keep winking at him? She said one thing. Her body said another. Then she'd wink and throw him off completely.

    She kept him guessing. He hated it. He loved it. She was the first real company he actually wanted to spend time with since escaping to the beaches of Maui over a year ago. Working at the resort's bar during the week gave him the social release he craved, while at the same time giving him a chance to feel out the people without ever raising a suspicious brow. But it didn't give him someone to actually
talk
to. Why he wanted to talk to Charis, to share things with her, didn't settle well with him. But it didn't change the fact, either.

    He first spotted her in the bar about a week ago. She had on a little floral number that left him begging for release, the coil fisting his cock unyielding. He couldn't even express coherent thought after that. He broke three glasses that night, and screwed up so many drinks he'd lost count. She came in every night after that wearing something just as delicious, and just as arousing. Seeing her in those tantalizing dresses made him want to take her behind the bar and drive deep inside her tight pussy until the volcano boiling in his balls erupted and relieved the pressure binding him.

    When she sat down, the dress rode up just enough for him to see the upper part of her thigh, to imagine his fingers tracing the hem before moving up to the warmth of her inner thigh. He'd run his fingers against the barrier of cloth she'd have on separating him from the recesses of her slick heat.

    If she even wore panties.

    Ah shit. That thought, along with the mental foreplay, kicked his hard-on up about ten notches. He smiled inwardly at the way she drew reactions out of him. She had no idea the power she had over men, over
him
.

    His mind scrambled to find where he'd screwed up, how he'd left a trace for them to find him. He'd spend all week searching his mental bank, trying to recall something, anything. Even now, he couldn't figure it out.

    Maybe she'd come to Maui to relax. Maybe she wanted to get away from the mainland. He'd almost convinced himself of that as he watched her come into the bar night after night, teasing him into a painful erection at the sight of her.

    Then he saw her today by the pool. She'd kept herself hidden during all of the other days, so he knew something had to be up. When she performed her little show for him, he knew.

    She'd decided to make her move.

    Looking back at her, he focused on her eyes. They were a darker blue than he remembered them to be, which bothered him. That would be the second time he'd lost details due to her. But then he cursed himself for caring what color they were in the first place. She winked again, sending a slight joggle through his system. It didn't matter. He planned to bring her up to his room for one reason and one reason only.

    But now he didn't know if he wanted to follow through with it. Did he want to really have a one-night stand with her? She'd be gone in the morning, no doubt. Why else would she agree to spend the night with him? She didn't seem the one-night stand type. And why else had she decided today of all days to make her move?