The Temptation (3 page)

“That won’t be necessary.” John shifted his stance in a nervous movement as the words tumbled from his mouth. “Like I said, we’ll get the woman.”

“If you don’t think I’m serious, you will.” Karl gave John a cold smile. “Watch the papers over the next few days. What you will find will be my warning shot.”

Chapter 4

A little one-on-one is good for the soul

“Oh, no you don’t.” I snatched the basketball from my older brother, Evan, and went for a three-point shot.

My six-two brother blocked it, batting it away from the hoop and knocking it out of bounds. “Ha, small stuff.”

With a laugh, Rori, my younger sister, said, “You know those are fighting words with Lexi.” She picked up the ball that had rolled in front of the bottom step of my parents’ front porch. She tossed it to me and my palms stung from last night’s glass cuts as I caught it.

“Better believe those are fighting words,” I said. I dribbled the ball, dodged my brother, and went for a lay-up. I might be height challenged but I’m quick and coordinated.

The ball swished through the hoop and I raised my arms. “Yes!” I grinned at him. “One more game and you can crown me the champ.” We were one and one now.

“It’ll never happen.” Evan had a devilish gleam in his eyes.

Zane’s dark SUV pulled up to the curb on the right side of my parents’ corner house. I rested the ball on my hip as I waved to my brother and his wife, Willow, when they climbed out of the vehicle. Willow had almost been drafted into the WNBA when she graduated with her bachelor’s degree. She’d chosen to continue her education instead. I loved having her on my team when the bunch of us played basketball.

Mama stepped onto the front porch and called out, “About time. Sunday supper is getting cold.”

Zane reached the bottom of the porch, jogged up the steps, and gave our mother a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry, Mama.”

“Just get your arses in the house, wash up, and sit down at the table.” She said it with mock-seriousness as she pointed to the front door.

“Hi, Molly.” Willow reached Mama and gave her a quick kiss. Willow was a free spirit and a lot of fun. She was good for Zane who could be too serious at times.

I carried the ball under my arm as Evan put his hand on my shoulder and we headed toward the house. “You’re just lucky our game is postponed,” I said. “I was ready to kick your ass.”

Evan snorted. “You should be so lucky.”

We walked up the front steps to the porch. “Luck has nothing to do with it.” I hit him in the gut with the ball and he released me to catch it. I grabbed the handle of the screen door. “Skill, baby, skill,” I added with a grin.

Before he could say anything else, I stepped into the cool recesses of my parents’ home, the home where all seven of us had grown up—my five brothers, sister, and I.

I hurried into the kitchen, and like the others I washed up. I helped by carrying out a big platter of thick potato fries while our youngest brother, Sean, brought out the large tray of battered fish. Willow grabbed the cauliflower while Zane picked up the bowl of buttered cabbage.

Sunday supper was something we all tried hard not to miss. Mama and Daddy counted on us to be here. When Ryan was in the Marines, he hadn’t been able to very often, and Zane and I had to take off on assignment fairly often. Rori, as a flight attendant, had an unpredictable schedule, too. Today, everyone was here and my mother was beaming.

The ten of us seated ourselves around the huge table that was just big enough for my parents, brothers and sister, and me and our sister-in-law, Willow. Add any more family members and we were going to need an additional table.

“Great fish and chips, Mama.” I smiled at her.

As I looked at the pink scarf tied around her head, I tried not to think about the trials she was going through. She’d never let the cancer beat her down and hadn’t changed when it came to her ability to handle her own with her six grown children and one still at home. Sean, a late in life surprise, was still a teenager, but had turned into a different kind of challenge.

Evan, who was now a detective with the Boston Police Department, pretended to pass the plate of beer-battered fish right past Sean to Troy, who was a firefighter. In the past Sean would have complained good-naturedly, but instead he scowled. He had changed from a hyper fun-loving twelve-year-old to a brooding thirteen. Yes, he had definitely crossed to the Dark Side as Daddy liked to call puberty.

With a shake of his head, Evan placed the platter in front of Sean. “Hurry up, kid.”

Sean loaded his plate then passed it to Troy who took his share. Mama always made a truckload of food for her bunch. It was a wonder they’d been able to feed all of us as poor as we’d been growing up. Somehow there was always good Irish food on the table. We’d lived on potatoes, cabbage, and whatever meat happened to be on sale. As far as we were concerned when we were kids, we ate like kings.

Rori was the only one of us who picked at her food. A flight attendant, she was always on a diet even though she was slender. Rori and I had similar features and we both had dark hair. We were exact opposites in personality, though, and she was four inches taller than my five-four. Somehow in our family of giants, our older brothers all over six feet, I’d ended up with the short straw. Even Sean, our baby brother, was getting close to our older brothers’ heights.

Zane was also a RED operative like me, and he’d recently recruited Ryan, a former Marine, into the organization. No one else in our family knew about RED. They thought Zane was still with the Secret Service, that Ryan had become a bodyguard, and that I was an interpreter—I speak multiple languages and dialects. The secrecy was necessary to protect the rest of our family.

Our family could be a pretty raucous bunch and today was no exception. Mama looked on in pride where Daddy acted as if he was grudgingly putting up with all of us, but I know that secretly he loved it as much as Mama did.

I think Mama loved the normalcy that we worked hard to keep up. Her breast cancer had been a shock to us all, but she was a strong woman and wasn’t about to go down without a fight. If she could raise seven rowdy kids, she could put up a hell of a fight when it came to cancer.

As our family laughed, talked, and ate, I did my best not to think of Nick. It was nearly impossible to keep my thoughts from wandering to him. He was back, if only for a short time.

He’s back.

I stared at my plate and couldn’t help but think about the way he’d looked when he walked through the door of the nightclub. Fierce, brooding, dark, and dangerous. And then the way he’d studied me last night after he kissed me. Sensual, gentle, loving.

“Unless you’re willing to give me your heart, I can’t do this, Lexi.”

The memory of his words sent a sharp pang though my chest. Why couldn’t it be like before? Why did he have to push me into something beyond what we’d had?

And I was going to have to see him again tomorrow at work.

“Lex.”

I looked up from my plate and met Troy’s gaze. “Where were you just now? Mama asked you a question.”

“Right here.” I turned to Mama and gave her a smile. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

“Will you be here for supper next Sunday?” she asked.

“I hope so.” I gripped my fork. “I never know when I’ll be sent out of town on a job.”

“Mama’s making sorrel pie next Sunday,” Rori said. That was the one thing that Rori would break her diet for.

“Yum.” I grinned. “I’ll plan on it like I always do and hope that something else doesn’t break my plans.”

Mama nodded. She smiled but she looked tired. She was too thin from the chemo before the surgery. She’d had surgery not that long ago, but the doctors weren’t sure they’d gotten it all so now she was taking radiation treatments. She always put up a brave front but I could see it in her eyes.

Mama started to get up. “Time for dessert after we get these dishes cleared from the table.”

“You sit down.” I put my hand on her arm. “You have seven kids, eight counting Willow. We’re more than capable.”

We’d always had to argue with her to let us do all of the cleaning up, but she always insisted on being in the middle of it. This time she nodded. “Dessert is in the fridge.”

The fact that she gave in so easily told me she wasn’t feeling well and it made my belly twist. But I only smiled and squeezed her thin arm. Always a robust woman, my mother had never been thin or frail until now, and it was hard to see her that way.

We cleared the table in seconds. Within ten minutes, the bunch of us had the dishes, pots, and pans cleaned and put away, the counters wiped down, the floor swept, and dessert on the table.

Mama had made two huge pans of wicked good apple dumplings and that was gone in no time.

I leaned back and put my hand over the diamond piercing in my bellybutton and the tattoo that surrounded it as I gave a happy sigh. “Thank you, Mama. That was amazing.”

She beamed at all of us. “God gave us the lot of you. That is the greatest blessing Keegan and I could have.”

“And we’re fortunate to have parents like you.” Rori smiled at Daddy them Mama.

“As much as we all pulled growing up, it’s incredible that they let us live,” Ryan said with a grin.

Everyone laughed. After we cleaned up the dessert dishes, we headed out for our usual after-dinner family basketball game.

As we walked out, I slugged Rori’s arm and she winced and rubbed the spot. “Watch it,” she said.

“Just wanted to see if you’d tip over,” I said with a grin. “You’re too thin.”

Even though we didn’t have a lot in common, I loved my sister and it was fun teasing her.

“Now you sound like Mama.” Rori frowned but I knew she was taking my kidding in stride.

I walked with her out onto the porch. Willow, Ryan, Zane, Evan, and Troy were waiting for me. Sean had disappeared like he normally did these days. Inwardly I frowned. He’d always wanted to be in the middle of things from the time he was just a little kid. Hopefully he’d grow out of this moody stage soon. Rori never played basketball with us. Might break a nail.

“Come on, Lex.” Zane dribbled the ball. “You’re holding up the game.”

I jogged down the stairs and Zane snapped the ball to me.

It was good to be home. It was good to have family who would always be there for each other.

And now I was going to kick some ass.

Chapter 5

Charles

Charles licked his lips as he stared at John. He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep John from noticing that they were shaking. Charles looked at the U.S. flag behind John and the photos of the man with various dignitaries.

To the left a flat screen television showed a major news station, but the sound was turned down.

“I want her,” John was saying. “I want you to serve her up to me. If you don’t get her, I’ll have your life and—”

He tossed eight-by-ten black and white photos on the table.

Charles felt blood drain from his face as he looked down at the pictures. “Where did you get these?” He barely managed to get the words out.

 “The Man had them sent over as a little insurance that you’ll do your job.” John gave a tight smile. “To keep guys like you in line who might double-cross him or me.”

Charles’s throat worked as he stared at the photos. Each one of them showed him with a different prostitute. In the first photo, he was wearing women’s lingerie and in the others he was bound and gagged while any number of things were done to him. In one he was being flogged, in another he was hogtied, and in another he was taking it up the ass by a prostitute with a strap-on dildo while he was sucking the nipple of a second prostitute.

“Do you want these released?” John asked with a cool expression.

“Please, no.” Charles shook his head. “My wife, my kids—”

“Not only will your wife know, but so will everyone else.” John shoved the photographs closer to Charles. “I will release them if you don’t get me that woman.”

Charles swallowed hard. “How do I get her?”

“Doesn’t matter how you do it.” John sat in his luxurious leather chair, leaned back, and steepled his fingers. “I let you know what I want, and you figure out how to get there.”

Charles’s gaze fell on the photograph of John shaking hands with the President of the United States. Charles wondered how he’d ended up in this office at the beck and call of such a powerful man, a man who knew the President on a first name basis.

It was women of course. John had learned of Charles’s weakness and had brought him in, supplying him with women who fulfilled his fantasies. He loved to be tied up and at the mercy of a strong female. His wife would never have believed he had these secret desires much less a fetish for wearing women’s lingerie.

And here he was, facing exposure if he didn’t deliver.

“Is there a problem?” John asked, his lips tight as he began gathering the photos and putting them into a large manila envelope.

Charles shook his head.

John slid the envelope across his desk to Charles. “Keep these as a little souvenir.”

He reached out and grasped the envelope, his heart beating fast.

“And just so you know,” John said, “those aren’t the only copies.”

Bastard. Charles clenched the envelope, likely warping the photographs. They seemed to burn through the envelope to his hand.

Out of his peripheral vision, he saw something on the TV that caught his attention. When he looked at the screen shock made his skin prickle.

Along the bottom of the screen ran a ticker:

Randolph Eckstrom, head of the NSA, dead at fifty-one.

“Turn it up,” Charles said, his throat dry.

John was already holding the remote and he increased the volume.

“…found dead in a hotel room,” a female newscaster reported. “Sources say that Eckstrom was bound to a bed and gagged in what appears to be a case of bondage with a prostitute gone bad.”

Charles shuddered and glanced at John who had blanched. “His warning shot,” John muttered so low that Charles wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.