Covert Intents: A Branson Family Novella (6 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

They’d
taken the metro back to campus so Seth could get his car and drive her to his apartment which was on the outskirts of D.C. This wasn’t the place he planned to stay forever, but it was fine for now.

“So you actually live here in D.C.? You’re not from out of town?” Rachel walked through the door he opened for her. He was conscious of the boxes still lying around everywhere.

He slid one out of the way with his foot. “I relocated here from San Francisco about six months ago. New job.”

“But you can’t tell me who with.”

A thought struck him. “Are you concerned I’m not who I say I am?” It would not be an unreasonable fear for someone in her position.

“No, I believe you’re law enforcement. I can’t believe I didn’t put it together before.”

He took the bag that held a change of clothes for her and a few toiletries. They’d barely been able to salvage that from her bedroom and bathroom. He put the bag on his kitchen table.

“Oh yeah?” Seth wondered what had given him away.

She shrugged. “You were always too aware of what was going on around you. Too… I’m not sure what the word is. Forceful, maybe?”

“That’s not good in term of me blending in. I was trying not to draw anyone’s attention. My undercover skills must be rusty.” Which could get him killed if he wasn’t careful.

“I don’t think it was obvious to anyone else. I was just more in tuned with you than most people, I think.” Her face flooded a bright red before she looked down and away, her face covered by her long brown hair.

He reached out and touched her arm. “Rachel…”

She didn’t look at him. “No, it’s fine, Seth. I understand. I was part of some undercover work. A job. Whatever happened last night with that kiss was just part of your cover.”

“It wasn’t.”

Rachel shook her head, and peeked up at him with those gorgeous brown eyes, obviously not believing him. “Seth, I get it. Really I do. I may have my nose in a book most of the time, but I know how the world works. Someone like you would not be interested in someone like me under normal circumstances.”

Seth’s eyes narrowed and he felt his body tense. He slipped off his jacket and hung it over the kitchen chair, trying to give himself time to recover. To back down from what he knew he was on the verge of doing.

Proving to Rachel Branson how wrong she really was.

Damn it, he should walk away. Make a joke. Ease her down gently about how the job really was important. Seth was good with people. Good with words. He should be able to do this.

But he couldn’t. Not this time. He wanted Rachel too badly. Had for two months.

“You know you’re an incredibly smart woman,” he said gently, softly, giving away none of the predatory instincts coursing through him except to take a slight step toward her.

But she could feel the danger instinctively. Not that he would hurt her, but that he was coming for her. She backed up a step.

“It doesn’t take a genius to know that you and I are on two different playing fields, Seth. Look at me.”

“Oh, I am, Rachel.” He took another step toward her. A sexual wariness flashed in her eyes. She couldn’t figure out what was happening. Poor sweetheart. “But you didn’t let me finish. You’re an incredibly smart woman to say something so dumb.”

“What?” She took another step back and ended up against his refrigerator.

“You think you don’t have much to offer a man, but you couldn’t be more wrong.”

“What?” she parroted again.

He took another step closer to her. “I have been keeping away from you, for many reasons. I am on an undercover mission. I didn’t want to bring any danger your way, although it seems to have found you anyway.”

He’d stayed away for other reasons too —like her cousins pounding him into the ground if they knew what he was about to do her— but he didn’t mention that since she didn’t know they worked in law enforcement. And because it wasn’t enough to keep him away anyway.

Nothing was.

Another step. He was right in front of her now. “But none of the reasons I’ve kept my hands off you for the last two months have anything to do with me not being attracted to you.”

“It doesn’t?” Her statement was barely a whisper.

He eased himself against her body, trapping her between himself and the fridge. He reached down and trailed his fingers from her hands all the way up her arms to her shoulders until he was framing her face.

“I’m attracted to damn near everything about you.”

“But—“

He didn’t let her finish her thought. He kissed her to shut her up, but found himself pulled under by the kiss. Just like last night the heat took over. He pressed up against her, tilting her head back so he could have complete access to that full mouth.

Rachel was still for a moment before her arms worked their way around him, her fingers clutching at his back. She gave every bit as good as she got with the kiss.

The soft moan she breathed into his mouth was almost his undoing. He slid his hands into her hair and nipped at her full bottom lip before soothing the slight sting with his tongue. What was it about this sweet, quiet woman that had him so twisted in knots?

He knew he should slow down, take things more gently, more easily. But he didn’t know how. Not that it seemed Rachel would let him, even if he could find the strength to do it.

“I want you right here against this refrigerator,” he murmured against her mouth. “And we’ll get to that. But right now, I want you up in my bed where we can do this right.”

He reached down to swing her up in his arms.

“No, Seth, put me down. I’m too heavy—“

He kissed her again. She didn’t weigh enough for it to even be a factor.

“Like I said, for a smart woman, Dr. Almost, you can say some pretty dumb stuff,” he said against her mouth. “Everything about you is attractive to me. Your gorgeous body, your stunning mind, your beautiful face.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed her way down his chin and over to his ear as he walked her back to his bedroom and lowered her to the bed. When he felt her untuck his shirt and slide her nails up over his abs and chest he groaned.

“I can’t believe I stayed away from you this long,” he said.

“Then you better make up for it.”

He kissed down the side of her face to her neck and bit gently, feeling her sigh as she pulled him closer. “Oh, I plan to.”

#

Seth
couldn’t keep his hands off her the rest of the evening. When her stomach eventually growled —loudly— at nearly ten o’clock he finally let her out of bed and led them both back to the kitchen.

Even then he could barely stop staring at how darn sexy she looked wearing just his shirt, sitting at his table, clutching a glass of iced tea.

“I am really only good at making breakfast food. Is an omelet okay?” he asked, barely able to keep his eyes from sliding down to look at her form in the shirt again.

“Sure, sounds great. Want me to help?”

He got out what he needed for the omelets. “No, you just sit there looking all gorgeous and keep distracting me.”

He reached over for a kiss, but soon realized his mistake. Every time he kissed her he wanted to take her back up to bed. Fortunately, her stomach growled again.

“Food. Right.” He turned back to the stove.

“So you moved here from San Francisco. That’s a long way.”

“Yeah, I was with the FBI for eight years.” That part wasn’t a secret, but the covert operations division of Omega was more clandestine than the Bureau. Most people didn’t even know it existed. “I’m now with another federal law enforcement agency, but I’m not really at liberty to talk about that.”

“I understand. But in the FBI you didn’t work undercover much?” Her voice was soft, sweet. Like the woman. “You mentioned that you thought your undercover instincts might be rusty. That’s why I asked.”

“No, not much undercover work there. I was an agent — did whatever was necessary. Profiling, investigating, examining intelligence.” He put the egg mixture he’d blended into the pan.

“Did you leave for a promotion?”

Being recruited by Omega would definitely be considered a promotion. An honor that the organization would want him given their reputation for only bringing the best into their folds.

“Yeah, it was a promotion.”

“But it was more than that.”

Seth turned and glanced at Rachel. Mind-blowing sex and a woman who really listened to not only what he did say, but to what he didn’t.

He might really be in trouble.

“My long-term partner at the Bureau —Conner Perigo— recently got a… new partner.”

How did you explain that your partner had fallen in love and married someone who had an uncanny ability to read a criminal’s intents and feelings? Adrienne’s gift was almost impossible to believe and Seth had seen it up close. Explaining it to someone else made it sound like hocus-pocus.

“A woman?”

“Yes, they’re married now. Adrienne has a gift, it’s difficult to explain. The best way is just to say that she is an incredibly skillful profiler. It became obvious in the last year that she and Conner made a perfect team within the Bureau.” He flipped the omelet with a spatula. “So when this new job came along in D.C., I took it.”

“So no family here or anything?”

He set a plate in front of her and sat down with his own. “No, none. How about you?”

“Both my parents died a few years ago when I was in undergrad. I don’t have any brothers or sisters. I do have four cousins I’m pretty close with.”

Seth forced himself to keep chewing his food as if she wasn’t talking about people he knew, people he worked with, and had asked him specifically to keep an eye out for her. He was pretty sure eating with her nearly naked at his kitchen table after spending most of the afternoon and evening making love was not what they had in mind.

“Three of the four live in the D.C. area,” Rachel continued between bites. “You’d like them. As a matter of fact…”

When she didn’t continue, Seth prodded, even knowing he was in dangerous territory. “What?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head. “You just kind of remind me of them. I don’t know, in how you act, carry yourself.”

Seth almost spewed his tea. “Oh. Are they in law enforcement?”

“No. They’re in regular jobs… sales, accounting.”

Seth was struck with how much he liked just being here with her. For the last two months he’d enjoyed getting to know her at the university, her wry humor and kindness.

But with her words he realized that this relationship, o
r
potentia
l
relationship really had nowhere to go. It wasn’t just a matter of his cover and identity in Omega Sector being blown if things got serious with Rachel. It was that he would blow the cover of three other agents if he had a serious relationship with Rachel: the Bransons.

The first time Rachel brought him to a family event would they all just pretend not to know each other?

Seth realized he didn’t want to lie to Rachel. Didn’t want to have untruths between them —even for the best purposes— if they were going to move forward. But that wasn’t a decision he could just make on his own. Rachel would have to be given clearance before she could be told about Omega. Clearance Seth couldn’t give her.

But he would have to worry about that later. Right now he had to worry about keeping Rachel safe and figuring out who was behind the microchip issues.

His phone buzzed on the table. Speak of the devil. It was Cameron Branson.

Seth very definitely could not let Rachel overhear this conversation with her cousin.

“I’m going to take this out in the hall, okay?”

She nodded, albeit wearily.

“This is Seth.”

“Hey man, this is Cameron.”

“Hi. How are you?” Seth knew he couldn’t say Cameron’s name. Not right after he had just been talking to Rachel about her cousins.

“Everything okay? You in trouble?”

“No trouble, just an unsecured line.”

Cameron was smart. All the Bransons were. “Ah. Is Rachel there?”

“Yes.”

“We heard about what happened at the office and her house.”

“Yes, Rachel Branson was held at gunpoint at the university and then her house was broken into. Although I think her house was ransacked before the incident at the college, to be honest.”

“Is she okay?”

“She was shaken up, and I decided to bring her home with me, since I wasn’t sure who I could trust.”

There was a long silence on the other end. “Is she staying there tonight?”