Her Lone Wolf (23 page)

The vein in Carhart’s temple practically pulsed with anger. “You were supposed to control the situation.”

“I tried, sir, but—”

“I heard you the first time, Agent Beckett. You heard a woman’s screams and had to move,” he cut in. “But I’m not buying it, and I’m not going to forget it.”

Danica opened her mouth, but whether it was to beg Carhart to reconsider or tell him to go to hell, Clayne would never know because the asswipe stormed off before she could get the words out.

“Want me to go smack Carhart around a little bit for you?” Clayne asked in her ear.

“If I didn’t know you were serious, I’d take you up on that.”

Damn, she never let him have any fun. “Carhart’s probably full of hot air anyway.”

“I’m not so sure about that. I disobeyed orders and embarrassed him. He meant what he said. He’s not going to let it go.”

“You helped catch a serial killer. That has to count for something.”

“Not enough. But on the bright side, now I won’t have to request a transfer to the DC office.” She gave him a small smile. “Come on. Let’s go see how Beth is.”

Clayne would rather not face Tony and his wife after what they’d seen, but he couldn’t avoid them forever. They were Danica’s friends. He followed her over to the ambulance where an EMT was bandaging Beth’s feet.

“That’ll do it for now, but you’re going to need stitches when we get you to the hospital,” the paramedic said as she finished up.

Beth made a face at that but didn’t argue.

“Can you give us a few minutes?” Tony asked the EMT.

The woman glanced at Clayne and Danica, then nodded and walked off.

Clayne tried to hang back, but Danica took his hand and tugged him forward. He waited for Beth to stiffen or cringe and shout, “Monster!” But she simply hugged the blanket close around her shoulders and leaned into the comfort of her husband’s embrace.

“You’re pretty damn tough, running barefoot on this terrain,” Clayne said.

“Not tough enough,” she said quietly. “He would have caught me if it weren’t for you.”

Beth looked at Tony, something unspoken passing between them. Tony pressed a kiss to her forehead, then looked up at Clayne. “Beth and I had a lot of time to talk after you and Danica went after that…thing. We both saw some stuff that didn’t make sense, but neither of us are going to say anything about that in our statements. As far as I’m concerned, you tangled with McDermott, giving me time to get my wife to safety, then you and Danica took him down.”

Beth pushed her curly hair back from her face. “And I’ll just play the emotionally distraught victim and say I don’t remember what I saw.” She took Clayne’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “You saved my life tonight. Because of that, I’ll have a lot less nightmares knowing there’s someone like you out there to protect us from someone like him.”

Clayne didn’t quite know what to say. He was pretty sure he blushed a little. Luckily, Tony saved him from embarrassing himself.

“I saw you talking to Carhart,” he said to Danica. “Everything okay?”

She recapped the conversation, adding, “I think I might be looking at a suspension.”

Tony swore under his breath. “I’ll talk to Carhart, and if I can’t get him to see reason, then I’ll go over his head.”

Danica smiled. “I appreciate the offer, but as vindictive as Carhart is, he’d probably only suspend you, too. And that’s not going to happen.”

Tony regarded her thoughtfully. “What are you going to do then? Go back to Homeland?” He glanced pointedly at Clayne. “Or whatever organization it is you used to work for.”

“I don’t know about that,” Danica said. “But now that Clayne and I are together, I am going to be moving back to DC.”

Tony exchanged looks with Beth, who grinned. “We kinda figured that.”

She looked as if she would have said more, but the EMT chose that moment to come back.

“We really should get you to the hospital, Mrs. Moretti.”

Beth sighed. “Okay, okay.” She looked at Danica. “Stop by the house before you and Clayne leave?”

“We will,” Danica promised.

Tony waited while they loaded Beth into the ambulance, then jumped in after her. Clayne watched as it drove away, then turned to Danica. Some of her hair had come loose from her bun and he had to resist the urge to tuck it behind her ear.

“Coming back to the DCO isn’t a bad idea, you know,” he said. “I don’t officially have a partner, and I know John’d love to have you back.”

“Dick wouldn’t,” she pointed out.

“So we get rid of him.” When she frowned, he corrected himself. “Or at least get rid of the evidence he has.”

She wasn’t sure if that would be enough.

Walking into Clayne’s Georgetown apartment was like going back in time. Two years, to be exact. Everything looked precisely as it had the last time Danica had been there, right down to the throw pillows lying on the floor where Clayne had carelessly tossed them out of the way when they’d made love on the couch the night before Dick had torn their lives apart.

She swallowed hard and turned away. Clayne was standing in the entryway, still holding their bags. She knew from the pain in his beautiful dark eyes that somehow he’d figured out what she was thinking.

“When you left, it was like half my soul was gone.” He set down the bags. “Surviving was the best I could do.”

The words brought tears to her eyes and she closed the distance between them to throw her arms around his neck and hug him tight. He hugged her back just as fiercely, a man who was finally whole again.

“I felt the same way,” she whispered.

Going up on tiptoe, she kissed him hard on the mouth, trying to express all the emotions she couldn’t find words for right now. It must have been enough for Clayne, because he kissed her with just as much passion. Suddenly, the quickie they’d had that morning before leaving for the airport to tide them over felt like a lifetime ago. Taking his hands in hers, she tugged him toward the bedroom. She wasn’t sure how it happened, but somehow they left a trail of clothing from the front door to the foot of his bed—which had been left unmade. Damn, he really had gone to hell without her, hadn’t he?

Clayne scooped her up and set her down in the center of it, then stood back and caressed her naked body with his gleaming gold eyes. The desire reflected there was almost enough to set her on fire and it was all she could do to lie there and not spontaneously combust when he climbed in bed with a low, sexy growl and gently nibbled his way up her leg.

She grabbed hold of the sheet on either side of her, forcing herself to stay still as his mouth found its way along her calf to the sensitive skin of her inner thigh and finally to her pussy. By the time he got to her clit, all bets were off. The things the man could do with his tongue.
Daaaammmn
.

“You keeping doing what you’re doing and I’m going to come,” she warned him.

Clayne stopped long enough to flash her a sexy smile. “And that’s a problem?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but buried his face between her legs again and went right back to licking her clit. Danica let her head drop back on the bed with a whimper. Clayne knew how to make her lose control like no one else, and two years since doing it hadn’t made him forget how. If anything, he seemed to be even better at it now. Then again, maybe it was because she’d been forced to live with nothing more than her vibrator for the last two years—which was no substitute for a talented tongue.

She reached down with one hand and buried her fingers in his hair, holding him right where she wanted him, though she doubted he intended to go anywhere. Clayne was one of those men who put a woman first. Making her come hard was as pleasurable to him as the great sex that would come next.

He always seemed to know exactly how long to torment her with his tongue, too. And how long to draw out her climax. Which usually meant until the sensations became so incredible that the lines between pleasure and pain blurred. Then and only then did he stop.

Her head lolled back, too heavy to lift. After an orgasm like that, she could barely think much less move.

Clayne’s mouth moved gently up and down her inner thighs, nibbling and kissing first one, then the other. When she finally found the energy to open her eyes and look at him, he was grazing his slightly extended fangs against her tender skin. The feel of them sent little shock waves through her.

“I love making you come like that.”

The deep rumble of his voice elicited an answering tremor between her legs, and she moaned. “I’m sort of fond of it myself.”

He chuckled and pressed another kiss to her thigh. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

Danica opened her mouth to say something teasing in reply, but the sight of his well-muscled ass made speaking completely impossible. While she didn’t mind the view, she did wonder where he was off to. She found out a few moments later when he came back with a condom in his hand.

She propped herself up on her elbows, watching as he slowly rolled the thin rubber over his hardness. Clayne might be impulsive, reckless, and quick to anger, but when it came to loving her, he always took his time. While that was a good thing, right now it was driving her crazy. She had to bite her lip to keep from telling him to hurry up.

“Get on your hands and knees,” he commanded softly.

He didn’t need to tell her twice. Doggie-style—or rather, wolf-style, as she liked to call it—was her favorite position. Heat throbbing between her legs, she rolled over and snuggled down low in the warm bedding that smelled overwhelmingly of her lover, then turned to throw him a sultry look over her shoulder.

Clayne groaned. “You have no idea what you do to me, do you?”

“If it’s anything close to what seeing you kneeling there like that does to me, then yeah, I think I do,” she told him.

His gold eyes gleamed even brighter at that, and a shiver ran through Danica as he climbed onto the bed behind her. He grasped her hips in his big hands, teasing her with his hardness before plunging into her. Even though they’d already made love several times since their reunion, the feel of him buried deep inside still made her gasp.

Clayne moved slowly, the rhythmic motion of his hips sending little ripples of pleasure through her with each thrust. Danica rocked back against him, matching her tempo to his and making them both moan.

Wrapping one arm around her, he grabbed a handful of her hair and tugged her head back to expose her neck. The dominant move would have been enough to make her melt all by itself, but then he leaned forward to gently nip her shoulder with his fangs. Considering his teeth were so sharp, it should have hurt, but it didn’t. In fact, the opposite was true. Dear God, she actually got dizzy from how good it felt.

That, combined with his powerful thrusts, pushed her over the edge so hard and so fast she couldn’t have stopped herself from coming even if she’d wanted to.

Clayne’s hand tightening in her hair, as well as the sinfully sexy growl in her ear, told her he’d found his own release, and the knowledge only made her own orgasm that much more intense.

It was only afterward, as they lay side by side in each other’s arms, that it hit her. She was finally back in Clayne’s bed where she belonged. And nothing was going to take her away from him again.

* * *

“The way I see it, we have three options,” Clayne said.

Danica leaned back against one of the throw pillows she’d put back on the couch and eyed him over the rim of her glass of diet soda. “Options for what?”

He reached for his fourth slice of the pizza they’d had delivered and bit into it. “Neutralizing Dick.”

Ah. Knowing Clayne, she had a feeling what one of those options was. And while she probably knew what the second one was, she wasn’t sure what option three might be.

“One, we kill him and dispose of his body where no one will ever find it,” Clayne said, ticking it off on his finger. “Two, we steal the evidence he has on me. And three, we get new identities and run away together.”

She stared at him, wondering if he was serious about running away with her. Dear God, he was. Why in the world had she ever walked away from a man like him?

“What?” Clayne asked.

She laughed, unable to help herself. “Nothing. It’s just that I’m touched you’d run away with me. It’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever offered to do for me.”

He frowned. “I thought my offer to kill Dick would have been the bigger sacrifice.”

“Considering you’d rather kill Dick than look at him again, not really.” She reached over to pull off a piece of pepperoni—one of the three meat toppings Clayne liked on his pizza—and popped it into her mouth. “If I said that was what we should do, you’d have the job done by sunrise and come back with a bag of bagels for breakfast.”

“I do like a good bagel,” he agreed. “So, what’s it going to be? If you say kill the little weasel, I’ll even grab some of that strawberry-flavored cream cheese you love so much.”

There were probably some who’d think it was sweet that Clayne was willing to do something as extreme as murdering a man so they could be together. It sounded so very Romeo and Juliet. But Danica wasn’t one of those women. While Dick might be the nastiest a-hole she’d ever met, she didn’t have a right to decide whether he lived or died.

“I think we should try to get the evidence back first. If that doesn’t work, we can consider running away. Option one just isn’t even on the table, okay?”

Clayne didn’t exactly look happy about it, but he nodded.

She sipped her diet soda. “Where would he keep incriminating stuff like that anyway? His office?”

Clayne took another bite of pizza and chewed as he considered that. “I don’t think so. It’d be too easy for someone to stumble across it there.”

“You’re probably right. His home then?”

Clayne finished his slice of pizza and wiped has hands on a napkin. “Only one way to find out. Let’s go break in.”

Danica blinked. “Now? Don’t you think we should come up with a plan first?”

“That is the plan.”

“Yeah, I know. I meant maybe we should think this out a little bit more.”

He let out a snort. “Please. It’s not like we’re breaking into Fort Knox. How hard can it be?”

A forty-minute drive and one look at Dick’s upscale apartment building proved Danica’s point.

“There’s no way we can get in there,” she told Clayne.

“Sure we can,” he insisted.

Clayne was good at a lot of things, but skulking around wasn’t one of them. “You’ve never slipped past anyone in your life. Bash them over the head, yes. But stealth past someone? I don’t think so. And what if he has the stuff in a wall safe? What are you going to do, rip it out and carry it down in the elevator?”

He let out a heavy sigh. “Okay, maybe you’re right. But Ivy could do it.”

It was Danica’s turn to frown. “Ivy Halliwell?”

“It’s Donovan now. She got married. But yeah.”

Danica knew the feline shifter from her days at the DCO but didn’t remember much about her. “If we ask for her help, we’re going to have to tell her everything, including what Dick has on you. Are you sure we can trust her?”

“Besides you, she’s probably the only other person I trust.”

After calling Ivy to let her know they were coming, Clayne brought Danica up to speed on what had been going on with the cat shifter since Danica had left. It turned out that the feline shifter had a new partner now. The previous one—Jeff—had ended up being even more of an asshole than he seemed. According to Clayne, Jeff had tried to sexually assault Ivy while on a mission. After getting fired from the DCO, he promptly joined up with some guy named Stutmeir. Long story short, Ivy and her new partner—who later became her husband—found Jeff when they were sent to take down Stutmeir, and Ivy killed Jeff in self-defense.

“Wait a minute,” Danica said. “The DCO allows partners to get married now?”

She really wanted to know more about the mission and this Stutmeir guy. At the moment, however, she was more interested in the DCO’s no-fraternization policy.

Clayne shook his head as he pulled into the underground parking garage near Ivy’s apartment building.

“Hell, no. Ivy and Landon are just much better at hiding their relationship than we were. Besides me, Kendra is the only other person at the DCO who knows.”

A tall, good-looking, dark-haired guy answered the door when Clayne rang the bell. He glanced at Danica curiously before his gaze went back to Clayne. “Hey.” He opened the door wider. “Come on in.”

Clayne put his hand on Danica’s back, urging her ahead of him. “Sorry to come by so late, but I need to talk to you and Ivy. Is she here?”

“Yeah, she’s in the bedroom.”

The man gave a shout to let Ivy know they were there, then turned back to give Danica another curious look.

“Oh, sorry,” Clayne mumbled as if realizing he hadn’t introduced her. “Danica, this is Landon Donovan, Ivy’s husband. Landon, Danica Beckett, my…old partner from the DCO.”

Surprise flickered across Landon’s face again, but he quickly hid it as he held out his hand. “Ivy’s mentioned you. Nice to meet you.”

She smiled. “Same here.”

Danica turned to see Ivy saunter into the room. She was definitely a cat shifter, no doubt about it—that slinky walk was a dead giveaway.

The other woman’s eyes went wide at the sight of her. “Danica?” She threw a quick look at Clayne, then swung her gaze back to Danica. “I didn’t know you were back.”

Danica wasn’t big on hugs, but Ivy didn’t give her any choice. One moment the feline shifter was standing three feet away, the next she had her arms around Danica like they were long-lost college roommates.

Ivy pulled away to give her a thoughtful look. “God, how long has it been?”

Before Danica could answer, Ivy leaned close again. Only instead of hugging her this time, the feline shifter sniffed her. Danica was so startled she didn’t have a chance to react. By the time she recovered, Ivy had turned her focus on Clayne. Something unspoken passed between them before he finally nodded.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Ivy asked.

Clayne gave her a sheepish look. If Danica didn’t know better, she’d think he was blushing. “It was complicated.”

Huh?

Danica glanced at Landon to see him staring at his wife with an expression of total confusion.
Join
the
club, buddy.

He looked from Ivy to Clayne, then back again. “What am I missing here?”

When Ivy didn’t answer, he looked at Danica for help. She could only shrug.

“Were you two sleeping together back when you were partners?” Ivy asked Clayne.

Danica blinked.
How
the
hell?

“Yeah,” he said. “Unfortunately, we weren’t very good at keeping it a secret.”