Live Wire (6 page)

As though that thrust were a breaking point, Jordan gave a harsh groan before lowering himself to her, his lips covering hers as his hips began to move with a smooth, steady rhythm.

Tehya fought to hold on to him, to meet each stroke as pleasure seared her senses and flamed through every cell of her body. Her nails dug into his upper back as she thrilled to the bunching of powerful muscles beneath toughened flesh.

Electric heat sizzled through her, fingers of it raking through her womb, her clit, her nipples. Her body was screaming for release. Each thrust of his cock rasped through her pussy, caressing the sensitive flesh with rapid-fire strokes as the agonizing pleasure surged higher, hotter.

As Jordan’s head lifted her gaze locked with his; she was mesmerized by the brilliancy of the blue, held in thrall by the hunger and the need reflected in them.

A hunger and need that tore through her, that rose with each thrust, with each forceful entry into the clenching flesh. It was more than lust. She swore she could see more there. It had to be more. The intensity of the pleasure was just too deep to be physical only. To just be lust.

“Tehya.” Her name seemed torn from his lips as her legs wrapped around his hips, her nails digging into his arms. “God yes, baby. Fuck me.”

His voice was harsher, thicker. He sounded tortured, as seeped in the agonizing pleasure as she was.

Tehya felt the waves of sensation gathering in her womb stealing her breath. The clenching tightness that echoed to her pussy, spasmed through it. Her clit swelling it further, tightening it until the pleasure and pain mixed with erotic desperation.

She could feel his cock, thicker, harder than before, as each thrust began to tighten, shorten.

Sensation began to burn in her clit, her pussy. Her breaths became moans, rising with each shocking burst of pleasure as she felt the pressure tightening inside her, burning, flaming out of control until it suddenly exploded like fireworks gone wild.

His name became a wailing moan as her hips arched. She felt her pussy tightening, clenching on his thrusting cock a second before the world melted around her.

Ecstasy began to thunder through her. A storm of sensation exploded through her in rapturous bursts, arching her body, shuddering through it as she felt Jordan thrust in hard, deep. He jerked her against him, his hard, muscular body rippling with pleasure, and he began spilling inside her.

Spurting deep and hot, his release swept through her senses as her own release seared her nerve endings and left her gasping at the intensity of her orgasm.

She didn’t know if she was breathing. She didn’t care if the world itself rained down upon them. Nothing mattered but this pleasure and the white-hot mix of sensation and emotion rising through her.

Emotion.

She had sworn she would never love, but she had known in Aruba, two years before joining the Elite Ops that it was a promise she would end up breaking.

She loved Jordan Malone.

*   *   *

He’d just destroyed both of them.

Jordan stared at the ceiling above him as he held Tehya in his arms and knew the mistake he had made. He hadn’t fucked her. He’d intended to, but he hadn’t. No. Hell no. He’d come much too close to making love to her.

He’d fought this for years. Fought it and sworn he’d never give in to it, because he knew it had no future. That
he
had no future with her. He couldn’t risk his soul to that point. If he kept her, if he gave into his need, then he’d never be able to let her go. He would allow himself to give in to that illusion that lasted forever, when he damned well knew love was the illusion, and forever didn’t exist.

And even if he was wrong, even if she was the home-and-hearth type, and the illusion could be maintained there was always the risk that his enemies, those made before his time in the Elite Ops, would find him. And when they found him, they would find his weakness.

Tehya.

She was the weakness. She was the one woman capable of breaking his control.

“Nothing to say?” she whispered from where she lay against him, obviously awake. It was too much to pray she had gone to sleep.

When he said nothing, she moved. Jordan had to force himself to let her go, to refrain from pulling her back to his chest. Where she belonged.

Rolling from his side she rose from the bed, and slowly, wearily, she collected her gown from the floor and pulled it over her head. She looked defeated. That realization tore at his concience, leaving him steeped in regret and guilt.

Wiping his hand over his face, Jordan rose as well, sitting on the edge of the bed as he watched her broodingly. Son of a bitch, this was one of the reasons he hadn’t taken her to his bed. Tehya wasn’t a one-night stand, and he had known it. Fuck, hurting her was killing him.

Hurting Tehya was something he had tried desperately not to do over the years. In all his life there had never been anyone he wanted to protect more than he wanted to protect Tehya. There had never been a woman so hard to let go.

Something he had known from the beginning that he had no choice about.

*   *   *

Tehya promised herself she wouldn’t cry. She fought back the tears but she couldn’t fight back the pain clenching her chest and throbbing through her heart.

She had always assumed a broken heart was more figurative than literal, but she could feel it ripping in half inside her chest. Even her bones ached, her ribs felt too tight, under pressure, as though the emotions tearing at her heart were going to burst from her skin, as well.

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Those eyes. That brilliant, almost neon blue stared back at her somberly.

Irish Eyes, her friend Jordan’s sister-in-law, Sabella Blake, had told her once. Jordan had Irish Eyes; any woman lucky enough to steal his love would have a true window into his soul. Sabella had told her how she had once “seen” the horror of her husband’s torture when he was kidnapped by a drug cartel owner. That she had felt his pain, dreamed of his screams.

Tehya had always wondered what such love would feel like. She had fantasized about possessing this man’s love in such a way. A fantasy. That was all it was. A fantasy she had to let go of now.

“I have to finish packing.” She heard the hoarseness of her voice and knew she wasn’t hiding her emotions as well as she had hoped. She didn’t want him to feel responsible, or guilty that he couldn’t love her. Hell, her own father hadn’t loved her, why would any other man?

“Tehya, I don’t want to lose your friendship, either, not because of this,” he said as he pushed his legs into his jeans then rose and pulled them over his muscled legs, his gaze somber as he watched her closely.

“Are we friends, Jordan? Were we ever?” She had never felt friendship with him. Friends was the last thing they would ever be. She felt too much for him, hungered too deeply for his touch.

She couldn’t define exactly what she had felt from him over the years. She knew her own emotions had been in conflict more than once, but friendship had never been the definition she would used to describe their relationship.

“I hoped we were.” That edge of regret in his voice tore at her.

She could almost feel the pity coming, and she really didn’t want to have to shoot him. If he dared to feel sorry for her, then that would be the least of the problems he would have.

Giving her head a quick shake, she turned and walked from the bedroom. She couldn’t handle this tonight. She couldn’t stand here and discuss friendship, see the pity on his face, or confront the fact that the years of dreams had been wasted effort.

God, it had been so long. Ever since that night in Aruba when she had come to Ian Richards to help him capture Sorrel. It had been too damned long. Suddenly, she felt far older than she actually was, and far too tired to fight with herself or with Jordan any longer.

“Tehya?” Jordan followed, standing in the bedroom doorway as she moved to the pile of empty boxes and protective paper stacked next to the shelves she hadn’t yet begun to pack. Because packing meant leaving, and leaving was killing her.

Each of the trinkets had been collected over the years. There were pocket dragons, fairies, expensive little keepsake boxes. And there were pictures. Pictures of the team she had worked with, their wives, and a few included the children of those men. In some, there was an unsmiling Jordan. In one, he stood next to Tehya, an arm around her shoulders, as they stared back at the camera.

These were the past six years of her life.

She picked up the picture of her and Jordan first, wrapped it, packed it.

“Why do you think I hadn’t taken you to my bed before now?” he asked from the bedroom doorway.

She had always known why. Because once he did, she would have no choice but to leave.

“Why don’t you leave, Jordan?” She didn’t look at him, she couldn’t.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream, and she wasn’t about to do it while he was standing there watching her as though waiting for her to break apart.

Before she knew it, he was next to her, his hands gripping her upper arms as he jerked her around.

She saw the anger then. His eyes were bright with it, the blue snapping down at her, his expression tight with regret.

“I didn’t want to hurt you!”

“And you haven’t.” She wasn’t backing down from him but she was damned if she would cry for him. She wouldn’t do that to either of them.

He hadn’t done this to her, he hadn’t asked her what she felt. And how many times had he pushed her away, done everything but told her that it couldn’t happen? She had been the one that pushed for it, that dared him. She had broken her own heart.

It had been her own stubbornness, her own stupidity, that had led her here. She had known better. At least she should have known better.

Sex wasn’t love, and she could see now what he had tried to save her from. Sex couldn’t change him and sex wasn’t going to make him suddenly realize he couldn’t live without her.

Yet the anger was there inside her, as well. A feminine fury she couldn’t escape.

“Tehya, we’re friends,” he ground out furiously. “If you ever need me…”

“I didn’t need you before I came here, and I won’t need you after I leave.” Jerking away from him, she stalked to the far side of the room and faced him where the sheer power of his presence would hopefully be diluted. “It’s been fun Jordan, thanks for the memories and the sex, but you can leave now.”

“God, Tehya!” He raked his fingers through his hair, the long, silken strands falling around his face with such male, sensual disarray that she had to clench her fingers at the overwhelming need to run them through it again.

“Don’t do this, Jordan.” She had to get away from him, she had to hold back the tears. “Don’t make this harder for me than it already is. For both of us. Just leave.”

Over the years, that was all she had done, held back her emotions, held back her dreams, hell, she had held back her life in the hope, the dream, that something more than blood could fill her future.

She had obviously been so wrong. Her time here was over. The Elite Ops was shutting down and the new team coming in didn’t need her. They had their own people, their own specialties. No one needed the daughter of a white slaver. A woman who had no true specialty, no family, and no longer a reason for being there.

She had no special training. She had no true education. She was an outcast, plain and simple. Unlike the other members of the team, she didn’t have a happily-ever-after waiting for her when she walked out the doors of the base.

There would be no family waiting for her. There were no friends she could look up. She had a new identity, but she had no idea what the hell to do with it or where to go with it.

She watched as he shrugged his shirt on and buttoned it with quick, angry movements. She couldn’t miss the anger, it glowed in his eyes, tightened his body. There was nothing she could do to alleviate it either.

“I don’t want to lose contact with you.” He seemed to be forcing the words out.

He was placating her and she hated that. The last thing he would want would be to stay in contact with a woman he pitied.

She nodded slowly. “I’m sure we won’t. We have friends in common. Hell, you can always call, right?”

She doubted he would, despite the fact that he had given approval for the team members to keep the satellite phones they had been assigned, as well as the numbers.

As she stared back at him, the only other dream she had left rose in her mind. A life that she could build with the new identity she had been given, and maybe, just maybe, there was one other person in the world that she could connect with. The cousin who didn’t know her, who wouldn’t recognize her. But a cousin she might be able to build a friendship with.

She still had that fragment of a dream. The Elite Ops had at least given her the ability to walk away safe.

“Tehya.” The sound of his voice, the regret returning, was tearing her apart.

She didn’t want this. She should have never pushed him, she should have walked out of here and kept the dreams rather than the reality.

Touching him, being touched by him, feeling the first orgasm of her life that she hadn’t given herself, would destroy her now. Because she knew what it could be. She knew what she was losing, and it would haunt her every day of her life.

“I need some time.” She swallowed tightly realizing his sense of responsibility wouldn’t allow him to leave her alone otherwise.

“I can give you time.” He nodded slowly. “But not indefinitely, Tehya. The day will come soon when we’ll talk about this.”

No, it wouldn’t. When the transportation team arrived to haul away her belongings, she would already be gone. She couldn’t stay here, couldn’t bear to see him, even another moment. If she didn’t leave before morning came, then she would beg. And God knew, she didn’t want to beg for a love he couldn’t give her.

“Of course we will.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and turned away from him as she moved to the open kitchen. “We’ll talk.”

They wouldn’t talk, because there was nothing for them to talk about.