Live Wire (3 page)

And still, he was fighting it. Still, he was trying to find ways to hold her here when he knew he had finally run out of time.

Shaking his head at the futility of the hunger tearing at his control, he pushed his hands into the pockets of his pants and finished his final inspection before leaving himself.

The next morning would see him walking away from the base, perhaps for the last time.

He had the option of returning and heading the new team, with the new commander working as his second in command. Killian Reece had no problems with Jordan assuming command of the base and operations.

It was a decision he had less than a month to make. He could go another twelve years or he could back off, find a place for himself within the world as a civilian and find a life.

The only problem was, he couldn’t imagine life outside this mountain, without Tehya running his life to some extent. Without her tormenting him with her pert smile and sassy-as-hell comebacks that made his dick harder than hell with the need to fuck her into submission.

Son of a bitch.

He shifted the hardened length of his cock as he stepped into the elevator at the end of the steel and iron walkway and pushed the button for the residential level. The thought of her leaving had that need ripping through him with a force that damned near cramped his dick. He had the urge to go to her, to jerk her to him, lift her, wrap those incredible legs around his hips and pound into her.

She would walk out those doors when morning came and he intended to ensure he never crossed her path again. But God help him, would he make it through the night without pouring himself into her?

He doubted it.

He had every intention of going straight to his own suite, he assured himself. Every intention of ensuring he didn’t tempt himself further where Tehya was concerned.

Instead, he found himself at her door. Dick hard, pulse pounding, his body tense, unrelenting, in the pure addictivelike hunger pouring through his body.

He hadn’t told her good-bye. It would hurt her if he didn’t say something before she left in the morning. He couldn’t do that to her.

He couldn’t do it to himself.

Pressing his finger to the button that would announce his presence, he waited. Rather than her voice coming over the small intercom, the metal door slid open instead.

And there she stood.

The black silk flowed over her full breasts. The long red-gold hair spilled around the creamy perfection of her face.

She was thirty years old, but she barely looked twenty-five.

Vivid emerald-green eyes watched him warily, but the nipples beneath that silk hardened, peaked, and pressed against the material as though reaching for the hungry depths of his mouth.

Damn, he should have gone straight to his own suite. He should have never stopped.

He was going to do exactly what he had told himself he wouldn’t do.

He was going to fuck her.

“Jordan.” His name was a caress on her lips. The soft, sultry sound was filled with an aching huskiness, a question, a hint of hope.

“Are you packed?”

That wasn’t what he wanted to say. He wanted to reach out and rip that damned gown off her body, push her back into the room and thrust into the sweet, hot depths of her pussy.

Damn, she would be tight. She hadn’t had a lover in the six years she had been with the unit. He knew she hadn’t. He’d kept such close surveillance on her that he would have known the second she had so much as entertained the thought.

She’d given her life to the Elite Operations, and what did she have to show for it? She had no family, no friends, no connections or roots. He was throwing her to the wolves and Jordan knew it.

“I’m packing,” she finally answered as she turned away, but not before he caught the flash of hurt in her eyes. “Is that all you wanted?”

Hell, no, it wasn’t all he wanted.

Soft, supple leather covered the couch and recliner that faced the wall-mounted combination television\computer screen. A small lap table sat at one end of the couch, the wireless keyboard and computer accessories aimed for the screen.

A colorful western throw was laid over the back of the couch. A cup of tea sat on the coffee table, still steaming, as she moved back to it.

A bookshelf filled with books covered one wall. Interspersed with the books were small figurines she’d been given over the years for Christmas or her birthday. Tiny, collectible dragons. Pocket dragons, she called them. It was the only thing Tehya collected. Whimsical, fanciful, the complete opposite of her life.

She hadn’t packed them. The books were still on the shelves, boxes in front of them with only a few books enclosed.

“You have a ways to go,” he said as he looked around.

The room was incredibly neat. Even the packed boxes were stacked in neat little piles awaiting morning and the team that would load her belongings and transport them to the storage facility she had requested they be taken to.

“I’ll be ready on time.” She shrugged.

Those wild green eyes flicked over him, making his cock harder, reminding him of all the things he couldn’t have. All the things he refused to allow himself to have.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t have her. He could, and God knew he wanted her until his body felt on fire from the need. But he knew he would only end up destroying both of them if he took her, if he allowed the dominant possessiveness that rode him to have free rein.

“What do you want, Jordan?” she finally asked as she sat down on the couch, one leg tucked beneath the other as she wedged herself into the corner of the cushions. “You’re standing there as though you should be doing something. There’s nothing left to do anymore.” And the regret in her voice echoed through his entire being. As did the loss. He could hear it, feel it. The loss of something neither of them had been allowed to experience.

No, there wasn’t anything left to do.

He felt his jaw tighten as he fought back the need to go to her, to push her back along the leather cushions as he came over her.

Five seconds, he thought. He could have her laid out on the couch, that piece of nothing gown she wore pushed to her hips and his dick buried between those luscious thighs in less than five seconds.

And he would be making the biggest mistake of his life.

She was essentially a coworker. He was her superior, even though the Ops were, for the moment, disbanded. She was a woman that needed more than he could give her, more than he could allow himself to give any woman. She already had more of him than he was willing to admit to.

“Jordan, if you don’t stop standing there staring at me as though you’re ready to strangle me, then I just may begin to worry.”

She didn’t sound in the least worried. She sounded irritated, restless, a bit frustrated. But worried wasn’t in there.

“Do you need help packing?” he finally asked.

He wasn’t ready to walk away. Come dawn, the transport detail would be here to load her belongings and ship them out. She would be following behind in whichever of the expensive, fast little sports cars was still parked in the base garage. He’d given her a choice of the vehicles, something he hadn’t offered to the other members of the unit.

“I don’t need help packing.” There was a snap to her voice now, a sense of impatience and frustration that threatened to light a fuse to his already short temper.

“You’ll leave it to the last damned minute and have the transport detail packing boxes and running late while you bark out orders,” he ground out as that frustration began to eat at him, to get the better of him. “Dammit, Tehya, they’re on a schedule.”

“As if I’m ever late getting anything done.” Her eyes narrowed, an assessing, curious light glittering in them as she watched him. “Tell me a single instance in the past six years that I have ever been late.”

He hated it when she stared at him like that. As though she suddenly glimpsed something in his gaze or in his expression that was another piece of a puzzle she was putting together.

He wasn’t a damned puzzle. He was a fucking horny man and he was trying damned hard to keep a handle on the lusts raging through him.

What the hell did she expect from him?

“Do you want me to help you pack?” His arms folded over his chest as he glared at her now, channeling all the frustrated lust into irritated anger.

Anger was a hell of a lot easier to deal with than a redheaded little rogue determined to drive him insane.

“No. Actually, I don’t need your help.” She came to her feet slowly, like a cat unwinding from a favorite bed.

She didn’t stretch, but she didn’t have to. Laziness wasn’t a part of her demeanor at the moment.

“You need someone’s help,” he growled as he stared around the living area once again. “What about the other rooms? Are they ready to load?”

Her eyes narrowed further. “Everything but the living room. Would you like to check, daddy, and make certain I’m following orders?”

The sweetness of her voice almost had his balls shrinking. Intimidation from a five-foot-four piece of dynamite? It shouldn’t be possible.

But he knew this little piece of dynamite could pack a wallop when it wanted to.

Unfortunately, common sense didn’t seem to be his forte tonight.

“Don’t call me ‘daddy,’ Tehya. I’m well aware of your feelings when it comes to fathers.”

She distrusted them. She even watched the men she had worked with for years with a suspicious gaze once they’d become fathers.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Jordan,” she replied with a cute little drawl that in no way detracted from the danger glittering in her gaze. “I have no feelings one way or the other where fathers are concerned. I never had a father, so how should I know how they’re supposed to act? Sperm donors don’t count.”

She had had little more than a sperm donor. One that had kidnapped her mother, impregnated her, then attempted to raise Tehya to become a brood mare for her half brother.

“You’ve had weeks to prepare for this,” he reminded her. “You should already be out of here.”

Something flashed in her eyes then, something he could have sworn was grief.

If it was, then it was the same grief that seemed to be growing inside him as well. A well of furious denial where it came to walking away from her. She cast him one of those cool little looks that warned of retribution as she stood facing him.

“I dare you,” she suddenly stated, her eyes narrowing as she stared back at him.

Every muscle in his body tightened dangerously.

God, no. Don’t let her dare him, not when he could sense where that dare was going.

“Excuse me?”

“Are you not hearing so well, Commander Jordan?” A red-gold brow arched slowly as her arms crossed over her breasts, pumping the delicate mounds up, making so damned tempting a sight his mouth almost watered.

“I dare you to actually touch me,” she explained, that note of anger in her voice causing his jaw to clench in determination. “You’ve been a complete prick for six years now, alternating between ignoring me and ordering your men away from me until it’s made me ready to pull my hair out. Be a man, Jordan. See if you can handle it. See if you can handle me or get the hell out of my room.”

There were some challenges a man couldn’t ignore no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he wanted to. This was one of those challenges.

Be a man?

She had no idea who this man was she was tempting.

“Don’t push me,” he warned her, his fingers curling to fists at his sides. “You may not like the consequences.”

“Or you may not,” she replied with an edge of pain-filled mockery. “What’s wrong, Jordan, afraid you can’t walk away from me as easily as you’ve walked away from the little bimbos you’ve been fucking for the past six years?”

That flare of contempt that lit her gaze had his jaw tightening, but it was the pain in her voice, that tore at him. He hated hearing the pain, even that blurred edge of it. He’d seen that aching need, that hunger for something more, for years now. Too many years. He couldn’t stand hearing it in her voice now.

“I can walk away from any woman, Tehya.” He tried to keep his tone soft, gentle. God knew he didn’t want to fray those ragged edges further.

Soft lips tightened as the sharp blade of her nose lifted. Emerald-green eyes sharpened to gem brightness, but not from tears; no, Tehya didn’t cry easily. Hell, had he seen her cry at all in the many years he had known her? Definitely he hadn’t seen her cry for herself.

“Can you really?” Her head tipped to the side. “Isn’t that nice, Jordan, to be so certain you need nothing, no one. How superior you must feel to the rest of us mortals.”

Sharp, biting, her voice cut straight through the icy disdain he would have shown any other woman. The problem was, with Tehya, there was simply nothing but raw lust and shadowed emotions. That was the reason he stayed as far the hell away from her as possible.

He couldn’t project an icy disdain that simply wasn’t there. What he did have was a dick so damned hard he could pound iron with it.

“I don’t feel superior, Tehya.” Frankly, he felt lacking. During the past years, as he watched the happiness that filled men who had once been cold, hardened warriors, he’d finally realized what he’d lost in his life.

It was a loss he had accepted long ago, he reminded himself. He couldn’t make the same mistakes he had made in the past. The blood and rage that stained the darkest days of his life were never forgotten.

“The hell you don’t.” Anger filled her voice, but naked need filled her eyes. “You stood above your men daily, staring down that sharp, arrogant nose of yours as though they were recalcitrant children in need of discipline for actually daring to love. You were mockingly amused at the lot of them.”

Surprise burst inside him. Was this what his men thought? What his nephew thought? That he considered himself better than they because they loved?

He’d be damned if that were the truth. He was aware of the choices he had made, just as he knew that his men were in a far better position than he. They had someone to hold on to at night, someone to ease the aching loneliness. He had only the loneliness to keep him company.