Mercy

PRAISE FOR

HELENKAY DIMON

“She’s a delight.”

—
New York Times
bestselling author Christina Dodd

“Sharp writing and plenty of sexy romantic sizzle.”

—
Chicago Tribune

“HelenKay Dimon is a genius.”

—
Joyfully Reviewed

“So smart, sexy and fast-paced, I devour her stories.”

—
New York Times
bestselling author Lori Foster

“Sexy, emotional, funny . . . Dimon gives it all to her readers . . . [This] shouldn’t be missed.”

—
New York Times
bestselling author Jill Shalvis

“Dimon’s fresh new series is enjoyable, and the plot will appeal to many different readers. By turns funny and romantic, the sexual tension between the main characters is portrayed perfectly.”

—
RT Book Reviews

“The sex is steamy. The repartee is witty. There are some things in life you can just depend on, thank goodness.”

—
Dear Author

“I didn’t want to stop reading.”

—
Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

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penguin.com

A Penguin Random House Company

This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

Copyright © 2014 by HelenKay Dimon.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

HEAT and the HEAT design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-13684-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dimon, HelenKay.

Mercy / HelenKay Dimon.—Heat trade Paperback edition.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-425-27073-8

1. Women soldiers—Fiction. 2. Special forces (Military science)—Fiction. 3. Disappeared persons—Fiction. 4. Soldiers—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3604.I467M47 2014

813'.6—dc23

2013037037

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Heat trade paperback edition / May 2014

Cove image: Woman in man’s shirt © Yeko Photo Studio / Shutterstock.

Cover design by Diana Kolsky.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For Jill Shalvis, who believes even when I don’t

ACKN
O
WLEDGMENTS

Thank you, first and always, to my husband. You make every day better and never complain about my deadline stress. Every writer needs a spouse like you.

To Leis Pederson, for being a great editor and taking a chance on this one, and to my agent, Laura Bradford, for making every part of my career run smoother.

To Anne Calhoun, for reading the first three chapters and offering invaluable insights, and to Vivian Arend and Jill Shalvis, for reading the final draft and giving me confidence. You’re amazing authors and I am lucky to have all three of you in my life.

To Alison Kent, Wendy Duren, Kassia Krozser, Jill Monroe and Stephanie Feagan, for listening and making every day brighter with your emails and support. Thank you for everything.

To the readers and reviewers out there who support the romance genre. None of this can happen without you. Thank you!

ON
E

Becca Ford ducked into the alley running next to Holton Woods, the exclusive members-only supper club perched at the end of the cul-de-sac on the edge of Washington, D.C.’s Dupont Circle neighborhood. With quiet steps, she edged along the side, her back skimming the wall as she scanned the area for cameras. For once, the plan depended on being caught by security instead of dodging it.

In any other city alley the smell of stale beer and a sharp smack of vomit would have hit her the second she turned the corner and stepped behind the three-story brick building. Not here. The members—politicians, powerful businessmen and foreign dignitaries—didn’t go through the intensive membership process and pay the hefty initiation fees and monthly dues to come to just any club. No, Holton Woods once housed a private boys’ school and it retained its exclusive attitude even now.

Her gun pressed against her lower back as she stared at the double doors and obvious alarm system and lock securing this side of the property. She’d skipped the most logical choice of knocking on the front door, knowing she’d never get past the bruising bodyguard to reach the boss. The only answer was to get “caught” and dragged inside. Let the men think they’d won the round. That they were in charge. But she’d know the truth.

Still, she thought about the very lethal man on the other side of the door and calculated her chances of living through the next five minutes and put the probability around twenty percent. Not great, but the possibility of survival hovered around zero if she didn’t get inside. She’d pissed him off and he could just as easily destroy her as help her. But she didn’t have another option.

After one final sweeping glance above for cameras, she stepped closer and sensed a presence in the alley matching her step-for-step. Bright sunshine pounded down as the punishing humidity drenched the back of her thin black tank top. She kept her head forward, but her gaze traveled. On her third step she heard a distinctive click, and a shadow danced on the pavement to her right.

With all her training, standing still proved difficult. Her instincts screamed to duck or punch before someone closed in. This someone was smart enough to grab her arm and close the distance between them to keep her from lashing out or performing a back kick to his balls.

And this one definitely had balls. The attacker was a man. His broad shoulders gave his shadow a menacing look and blocked the sun streaming behind her. She could smell a subtle scent that reminded her of Earl Grey tea.

Metal pressed against the back of her head, and not with a gentle touch. This was the push of a gun by a guy prepared to shoot her then dump her body well before the club opened, hours from now. The waistband of her olive cargo pants pulled tight against her stomach as her weapon scraped against bare skin, then was gone.

She was about to turn around when the gun was shoved hard enough to knock her head forward. “Hands up, sunshine.”

She knew the voice, all rough and angry. Wade Royer, club manager, six-foot-three enforcer to the boss and a suspected criminal. To her, more than suspected, which was why she had worked to have this guy arrested eight months ago. Worked and succeeded. She’d brought him in, despite the odds. She’d done her job. The prosecutors failed to do theirs . . . or collected big checks not to. Either way, she took the fall, or that’s what seemed to be happening to her life right now.

With her hair in a ponytail, his hot breath blew across her exposed neck. “The boss has been watching you skulk around out here and wants to see your pretty face up-close.”

She fought off a tremble, but not from Wade’s closeness. With the scruff over his chin and dark stare, he screamed scary, and terrified men twice his size, but she could handle him. She’d shot, stabbed and outrun men like him for years. The phone would buzz with an assignment and she’d go wherever the order said and do whatever she was told. If caught, she was on her own. If killed, no one would care. That was the job.

But the idea of seeing Wade’s boss again rattled her resolve. The memory of his piercing eyes had her stomach bouncing, partly from unwanted excitement but mostly from a churning dread of his power over her. Even though it had been the plan to confront him, just knowing he’d been watching her roam around outside his building trapped the air in her lungs like a giant, choking fist. She coughed to find her breath but nothing came.

The image of the boss’s face had barely rumbled in her brain before one of the back doors swung open. An eerie blackness loomed in the opening right before a figure filled the space.

Jarrett Holt, tall, dark and so deadly his competitors literally disappeared. He stood there in a black suit that matched his black heart and an ocean-blue tie that highlighted the eyes he once told her he’d inherited from his whore of a mother. Not prostitute. No, Jarrett referred to the woman who gave birth to him as a whore, as if the rough word condemned her more than Jarrett’s harsh upbringing.

In some respects he looked like any other serious D.C. business owner fresh from a conference with a list of wealthy contacts on speed dial. But Jarrett was not like any man she’d ever known. Black hair he wore longer than was fashionable, until it grazed his collar, and a permanent shadow of stubble low on his cheeks and chin. He hid his millionaire status as well as he hid the secrets of how he amassed his fortune and gained his power.

He possessed the toned build of a long-distance runner, which he was. He had broad shoulders and loomed over her by a few inches, even though she stood just shy of five-ten. But his strong hands grabbed her attention. They could bring a woman to shuddering orgasm after only a few knowing touches.

He’d wielded a hold over her that straddled the thin line between pleasure and panic, never physically hurting her, but all too willing to shake her equilibrium until she fell at his feet. He’d enjoyed dominance and demanded full control over her body. And he was her only chance at staying alive long enough to figure out how to convince her former employer to leave her alone.

“Rebecca.” Jarrett was the only man who ever used her full name, though he usually saved it for their time alone, in bed, right before he entered her.

She blinked away the memory before it sidetracked her or he read a hint of it on her face. “I need to talk to you.”

“Last time we talked you were on your knees with my dick in your mouth while your team broke in and arrested me.” Before she could say anything his cold gaze flicked to Wade. “Did you check her for weapons?”

“I have her gun.”

“She’ll have others.” Jarrett stepped back and tipped his head for Wade to bring her inside. “To my office.”

As Jarrett reset the lock on the back door, she walked through a storage room filled with stacked boxes and down the dark hallway to the door she recognized at the far end. No light filtered through. That’s how Jarrett liked it. He moved in shadows and did most of his business at night.

The backrooms of the club would be the perfect place for him to unleash the vengeance he’d promised as Elijah Sterling dragged him away in handcuffs that day eight months ago. Out of spite, Elijah had refused to let Jarrett zip his pants before opening the front door and letting the media come crashing in. Cameras flashed and the headlines branded Jarrett as a sick pervert who ran drugs on the side of his legitimate but secretive business, all while Elijah ducked out of sight to maintain his cover.

Then a few days later the bad press stopped as fast as it started, and the headlines talked of a setup and Jarrett walked free, pants zipped this time. The doors to Holton Woods reopened to members that very night and had been open every night since.

Members didn’t get to see the inner workings or parade through the back hallways, but that’s what was happening to her. Wade had both of her hands clamped in one beefy fist and the gun trained on her skull with the other, but Becca didn’t try to run. This was exactly where she needed to be, inside and behind the protective wall of Jarrett’s security team and expertly wired building.

Thanks to a series of cameras and the attentive service of the mostly female staff, he had information on every man who walked through the club’s doors. No matter how much Jarrett denied it, Becca suspected the club’s services extended past food, cigar smoking and business talk. There were private rooms for gambling and meetings, with personal female attendants assigned to each door.

Not that any of the twentysomething women looked like they conducted lap dances on the side. No, Jarrett carefully chose his female employees and each possessed the intelligence and language skills one would expect from MBA candidates. He kept their uniforms sexy rather than sleazy. Slim black skirts, spiky heels and stockings with seams up the back. White shirts unbuttoned to show the lacy black bras underneath.

Thanks to the services he provided and the manner in which he did it, his tentacles extended and grew every day, touching bankers and businessmen, politicians and police. In a city filled with powerful people, he sat at the center of it all.

Wade passed Jarrett’s office door and jerked her to a stop while Jarrett opened it. He walked inside without looking back, showing the calm assurance of a man who commands loyalty and knows he’s protected.

Her gaze traveled over the room. Little had changed. The big desk and leather chair that telegraphed he was in charge sat dead center of the room. Thick drapes hid large windows, keeping the light out. Piles of papers covered his workspace and flat-screen monitors lined the walls, showing scenes from the club floor and the outside areas around the building. Those last ones were new but explained her quicker-than-expected capture.

Jarrett waved his second-in-command off without even glancing up from the piece of paper he’d picked up from his chair. “You can go.”

Wade hesitated at her back. His large form didn’t move, but the grip on her wrist eased. “Do you want me to search her first?”

Jarrett looked up with his gaze touring her body from head to foot then back again, stripping her bare without touching her. “I’ll take care of it.”

With a grunt Wade left. The door clicked shut as Jarrett lowered the document that had snagged his attention only a moment before. With slow, sure steps he walked around to the front of his desk and leaned against it. He folded his arms across his chest as he stared her down. The move pulled the material of his shirt tight across his biceps.

Her gaze lingered on his impressive arms then slid up to that face. She’d churned through every other possibility in her mind. She was on the run without an identity or any funds. Movies that showed operatives moving here and there without trouble, all while finding hidden bank accounts and weapons stashes, were pure Hollywood. When your black-ops employer wanted you terminated, it created a firestorm. Nothing survived, not a single scrap of paper. The people at the top left nothing behind, not even the decaying bodies.

She was determined not to end that way.

Since her hands shook, something that hadn’t happened to her since her initial training outside Berlin years ago, she clasped them together behind her. “I need—”

“Take your clothes off.”

The hollow words echoed through the quiet room and skidded into her. “What?”

But she knew. In some ways this wasn’t even a surprise. This was a power play, one of many he’d likely subject her to before he decided whether to kill her or help her.

“I want everything off.” He didn’t move. Didn’t even blink.

Blood rushed through her veins and thundered in her ears. “Why?”

“Weapons.”

With her hands in the air, she bent down. Careful not to spook him, she slid a knife out of the side of her ankle boot and dropped it on the floor in front of him. The small gun tucked by her opposite ankle came next. Metal clanked against the hardwood. She usually carried more, but most of her stash sat in an apartment she couldn’t return to.

She stood up with her hands raised. “That’s all I have.”

Still, he didn’t move. “You’ll understand if I don’t trust you.”

“You did before.”

“Back when we were fucking?” The only sign the meeting affected him at all came in the way he clenched his hands into fists then relaxed them only to do it again. “Every last piece of clothing comes off right now or I put you back on the street without the weapons.”

That would mean her death. Humiliation she could handle. She’d signed up for that in coming here, and he could do so much worse to break her spirit.

She’d push down her pride and swallow it back. But something else ate at her gut. The idea of being naked with him filled her with a confusing mix of dread and yearning. In their months apart she’d tried to stamp out any stray bits of attraction to him by repeatedly reading his case file, burning the reports of his sins in her mind. None of it worked to fully erase the memory of his hands and mouth sweeping over her skin.

“Now, Rebecca.”

The rough edge to his voice had her reaching for the hem of her tank. With a tug she pulled it out of her pants and whipped it over her head. She started on the pants next. Her belt buckle clanked as she undid it. The rip of her zipper streaked through the room.

As she kicked her boots off, she glanced over at him. His laserlike stare focused on her hands. He’d loosened his arms and let them fall to his sides. When she stripped her pants down and off her legs, he gripped the edge of the desk on either side of his thighs.

She stood up again, facing him in a simple white bra and panties. The sheer fabric, soft a second ago, now scratched her skin as his gaze swept over her, lingering on her breasts then dipping below. They’d slept together for months, but she never felt so raw, so exposed.

“Keep going.” His voice stayed even, but in an almost imperceptible move his jaw tightened and his knuckles whitened from the force of his hold on the desk.

“I’m clearly not hiding anything.”

“And you’re clearly not understanding me. I want you naked.”

Dragging as much air into her lungs as possible, she centered her mind again, swiping it blank for survival. With a weight pounding on her chest, she reached around and unhooked her bra. Her breasts spilled over the edge then were free. Without looking at him, she leaned over and skimmed the panties down her legs, forcing them off inch-by-inch.