Live Wire (16 page)

Reality was crashing down on her fast, in more ways than one.

His jeans were around his knees. Hell, he hadn’t had his jeans around his knees since he was a damned teenager. He should have felt just an edge of discomfort at that knowledge, at this sign that Tehya affected him in ways that he shouldn’t allow her to affect him. Instead, he couldn’t help but feel the echoes of the incredible pleasure that still radiated through him.

Pulling his jeans to his hips and zipping them, he reached for her and lifted her until she was sitting on the counter before him, silent, watching him through drowsy eyes as though she expected a blow at any moment.

Hell, after what he’d done to her that last night at base, could he really blame her?

He had known Tehya should never be a one-night stand. Her emotions were too tender, her heart too easily broken. And God as his witness, he hadn’t wanted to break her delicate, loyal heart. And he had a feeling that was exactly what had happened. He had wounded her clear to her feminine core.

She hadn’t understood why he’d stated that sleeping with her was something that shouldn’t have happened. All he’d known at the time was that even then, he’d felt the talons of an addiction piercing his guts. A soul-deep knowledge that he would never be free of her, even as he’d wondered if he wanted to be free of her.

There had been a heavy, overwhelming knowledge that he couldn’t escape that undefined emotion he kept fighting where she was concerned. A certainty that if he didn’t distance himself and God forbid, something happened to her, then he’d never recover. Unlike Killian, Jordan didn’t think he could survive Tehya’s demise.

Moving back, watching her silently, Jordan helped her from the counter. Holding onto her until she was steady on her feet, he reluctantly released her.

“Say something,” she demanded, her voice ragged.

Turning away from him, she grabbed her clothes from the floor and began to hurriedly dress. There was a certain grace, an innocent sensuality, to each movement that had his cock hardening again. That had the hunger beginning to simmer in his loins and heat his blood with a swiftness that shocked him.

“Say something?” He watched as she pulled her panties up her slender legs, the sexy curve of her ass making his hands itch with the need to caress the gentle curve. But, she wanted him to say something, and he was damned if his brain was working yet. Or if he could figure out what to say. And that just flat fucking spooked him.

“John, Travis, Bailey, and Lilly will be here in about half an hour. What would you like me to order in for lunch? I’m sure we’ll be hungry before the meeting’s finished and any decisions are made.”

He fell back on what he knew, on the only defense he had left at his disposal. Distance. Distance from the confusing jumble of emotions until he could properly restrain them

Tehya straightened. Drawing her shirt over her head, she stared back at him, her gaze narrowing at the smooth drawl in his voice.

This was the commander of Elite Ops One, not the man who had showed up in her room the night before or the one who had just taken her as though he were starved for sex.

His expression was arrogantly determined, his gaze hardening, as she stared back at him. This was the man who was determined not to feel, not to get too close, and to make damned sure he didn’t love.

He was so damned stubborn he had her back teeth grinding. She could see the pure arrogance settling around him with heavy determination. The cool distance he kept between himself and the world was pushing her back now.

“You’re not leaving, are you?” Pulling her shorts on, she secured them with fingers stiff with irritation. “You’re just pushing in and taking over, no matter what I want, or what I think of it. You barge in, make me insane, fuck me until we’re both screaming and then pretend it never happened.”

His brow arched. “I would never pretend it didn’t happen as I fully intend it will happen again. As for Sorrel, his organization was so well hidden that even after authorities confiscated his estate and went through his files, they were certain they were missing high-level lieutenants. We could get lucky and capture one of them for interrogation.”

So much for cuddling, sweet nothings or time for an after-glow. Sorrel’s past associates that had been captured had been stubborn and arrogant during initial questioning. She’d learned after joining the Elite Ops that those associates had sung like canaries once Jordan had turned them over to Israeli Mossad interrogation specialists.

“Perhaps we’ll get lucky and it’s just a rumor that doesn’t pan out,” she said hopefully.

John Vincent’s sources were damned impeccable though. He and his wife, a former CIA agent and heiress to billions, had built an information pipeline that spanned several nations.

“I doubt it,” and he sounded damned confident.

“There’s a first time for everything,” she replied with a flippancy she didn’t feel. “Just because someone knows where I am, or who I am, that doesn’t give them a reason to search for me, or to want to hurt me.”

She didn’t want to deal with the danger again, the fear, the knowledge that nothing in her life was secure or safe.

Looking around the kitchen, she remembered the feeling that had swept through her when the real estate agent had shown her the house and property.

A sense of belonging had eased through her that she hadn’t felt since the day she had walked into the Elite Ops base. She’d stared around the sunlit kitchen, the large open living room, and she’d known she could make a life there. It was the same feeling she’d had when she checked out the local landscaping company for sale.

The employees were willing to stay on if the owner needed them, she’d been told. It was as though fate had laid everything she needed right at her feet, and now fate was taking it away.

“One of these days we’ll have a home, Tey.” Her mother’s smile, weary and showing her diminishing hope, hadn’t reached her eyes the night she had held her daughter to her as they hid among the bridge people in New York City after one of the many times Sorrel had nearly found them.

Their clothes had been ragged, but they had been warm. Teyha had been terrified, shaking with fear, and all too aware of the resignation beginning to edge into her mother’s determination.

“Just think,” her mother had whispered as she kissed Tehya’s forehead and pulled their blanket tighter around her. “A real house. With doors and windows and electricity. We’ll have a little garden in the back.” Her mother’s hand had trembled, her voice had trailed away. When Tehya had looked up at her, a single tear had been easing down her cheek.

“Momma?” Tehya had whispered, the sight of her mother’s tears so rare, they were a frightening thing.

“You’ll have a house,” her mother had promised her, her gaze suddenly stronger, determined, as Tehya had always remembered it. “One day, Tehya, you’ll have a home.”
That memory, all but forgotten, was almost shocking. A little house with the perfect garden in the back. A place of serenity and security.

She looked around, saw the dream she hadn’t truly realized she’d accomplished until now. Until she discovered that her past was attempting to steal it from her. Until she had realized she would rather face the demons of her past than to allow them to take her home.

Jordan watched as she surveyed the rooms of her house and he saw the weary somberness that came over her expression, the sheen of tears she was fighting back. In the haunted depths of her eyes he saw the realization that she could lose everything she had ever dreamed of having. It was breaking her heart, possibly even more than he had broken it that last night at the Elite Ops base. And watching it enraged him.

Son of a bitch, he couldn’t ask her to walk away from this. He couldn’t allow her to walk away, which she may try once she realized the truth of the situation. He’d been determined to force her to relocate, to accept a new identity, a new life. But it would never be the same for her. Tehya would never be able to trust in her ability to belong again, deeply enough to lay down even the most fragile roots, if she lost this dream to a past that refused to die. A past that had taken every other dream she had ever dared to allow herself.

He had to find a way to save it for her. A way to neutralize those demons once and for all.

“When are John and Bailey arriving?” she finally sighed as he watched her closely.

“Half an hour.” He checked his watch absently.

When his head lifted again her expression had cleared, chilled, and her eyes were all but emotionless. Calm, serene. But he knew she was a volcano seething with anger and pain on the inside.

“Why are you doing this, Jordan? Why are you here? Why do you care new when you didn’t care before?”

“Do you really fucking believe I didn’t care?” he snapped furiously, not bothering to hide his anger. “Dammit Tehya, that team is a fucking family and you know it. All of us. We’d do the same for anyone of them and you know it.”

That shocked her. She shook her head. “You don’t allow yourself to get close to anyone, Jordan, except Noah.”

“I’ve spent up to twelve years with some of these men and six with you, do you really think I managed to remain that distant? Was I distant when I was fucking us both to orgasm?”

He hid so much, she’d always been aware of that. It was another facet she had learned about the man she couldn’t help but love. But she was learning these things too late. He should have given her this chance years ago. At the latest, nine months ago.

Perhaps he would be as protective with the others, she thought, but it didn’t change the fact that she hated seeing her friends, the men and women she had protected from base for six years, now risking themselves for her.

“I need to change.” She indicated the revealing clothes with a slight wave of her hand along the front of her body as she tried to adjust to too many changes in her life, too fast. “Order pizza or something. I don’t have the supplies on hand to cook for more than one, and honestly, I’m really not in the mood for it.”

She turned away and strode to her bedroom as Jordan stared at her back in surprise. Hell, he had no idea Tehya knew how to cook. She’d sure as hell never offered to cook for him.

Taking the satellite phone from the clip at his side, he pulled up the local pizza places that delivered before calling and giving the order.

He hadn’t told her exactly why Travis and Lilly were arriving. He had hoped Lilly would talk Tehya into leaving, but he knew that the moment the other woman comprehended the depth of pain Tehya would feel at leaving, she would pull back. Just as Jordan was now pulling back as well.

That was the problem with having women on the team, he reflected with a sigh. They thought of more than simple safety. Security had a far different meaning to them than it did to the men whose only thought was protecting them.

At least Tehya had been trained to understand, and to help in the areas required to protect her. And having her involved had the benefit of her knowledge of Sorrel’s organization.

He’d envisioned a far different outcome to this meeting with her. He’d assumed that after nine months she would have had a lover at the very least. That possibly she had begun a new life that included dating in her agenda.

He hadn’t expected her to have bought a home and a business. To have begun putting down roots, since she had never taken that risk when she was younger or while she had been in Texas.

It made the operation more complicated, but perhaps it was for the best. Hiding her didn’t ensure revealing whoever was determined to find her, and it didn’t ensure her safety in the future.

At least this way, when he walked out of her life, one of two things would be a certainty. She would be safe, or they’d both be dead. He was opting for safe.

*   *   *

It was actually closer to an hour before John, Bailey, Travis, and Lilly arrived at the house. Slipping in through the patio doors, the four made their entrances at different stages.

Dressed now in jeans, T-shirt, sneakers, and a bra that did little to hide her still-hard nipples, Tehya prepared another pot of coffee.

She remembered the amounts of hot, rich caffeine the men went through while preparing for an operation while they were all at base. Those planning sessions could take days. Determined to hammer out the first stages and acquire all possible information, they rarely slept until it began affecting their ability to reason. And then they only napped for a few hours before awakening and heading first to the coffee, then back to the meeting room.

When she went to the grocery store, she would have to buy enough to keep them going. She’d better stock up on food as well, she thought in resignation. And there was no way in hell she was cooking from scratch for this crew. She would be cooking night and day. Sandwiches and canned soup would have to work for them. She was making that list of supplies as Bailey and Lilly slipped into the house ahead of Travis and John.

“No wonder we couldn’t get a hold of you. I’m sorry, Tehya, I never thought Killian could be such a bastard,” Bailey said as she moved around the counter and gave Tehya a quick hug. Lilly followed behind her, both women frowning at her. “He needs his ass kicked.”

“At the very least,” Tehya murmured, though in all fairness, she didn’t think she could blame him. What wouldn’t she herself have done to protect her friends, the people she thought of as her family? Killian had done no more than she would have done herself.

“Well, no fears, dearest,” Lilly stated with an arch of her brows and a quick smile. “I’m certain it will be taken care of at the earliest convenience.” She glanced at Jordan as he, John, and Travis spoke in low tones on the other side of the room.

The two women were as different as night and day in both mannerisms and temperament, but they were dead ice when it came to a mission, and when it came to protecting friends. She had seen that over the years. Along with Kira Richards, they had kept the base running smoothly, and the men centered, in ways Tehya knew they wouldn’t have been without that feminine presence. They had claimed the women being there kept them human.