Ultimate Surrender (3 page)

It was ridiculous, really, the way she thought about him, even now, her failure to vanquish those irritating and completely inappropriate feelings.

And as silly as it was, she couldn’t quite shake away the thought that she was not alone in the unacknowledged, unspoken, and completely unwarranted attraction. Which, given the circumstances, should have been impossible.

She knew Lucian resented her presence.

Before she’d taken the job, Damien, in one of his rare lucid moments in the aftermath of all that had happened, had told her as much. And Lucian had done nothing to make her feel welcome or disabuse her of that notion. In fact, especially at the beginning, he seemed to go out of his way to get under her skin by challenging her role.

Even still, even as they had hardened into their intractable positions, her on one side, him on the other, she sometimes caught a lingering glance from him, saw what she thought was fire in his eyes. Not responding to those smoldering looks, not giving in to the unquenchable thirst for him, took all of her discipline and resolve.

But as weak as he sometimes made her, as desperate for him as her body was, she still had her common sense, and she wouldn’t risk her job, the home and career she’d carved out, for something as fleeting as lust, no matter how intense it might be.

She slammed her mailbox closed, probably harder than she should have, though she appreciated the emphasis on the point that she had made, and she started to walk back toward her car.

The mailbox slamming closed was muffled but still audible. The sound was welcome but secondary to the crystal-clear image of Cassandra that filled the small video screen.

The sound of deep, heavy breathing filled the interior of the van, but went unnoticed, as did the other sounds, the laughter of kids enjoying the last bits of the evening, other neighbors coming home for the day. All of them, everything, was meaningless when there was a chance to watch Cassandra. The moment wouldn’t last for long, and it couldn’t be squandered.

Circumstances made it difficult to see her during the day, but those first moments, when her car approached, the sight of her stepping out of it, the chance to gaze at her as she walked from her car to her mailbox and then to her door, were always a welcome relief, an oasis in the desert that was any time spent away from her.

So they couldn’t be wasted.

However, that time passed too quickly, and as Cassandra closed the door, the sadness again descended.

Though no sound could be heard, the reverberation of the door closing still echoed, rang loudly like an audible representation of the distance that was between them.

Soon, that sound, all others, were drowned out by the shrill ring of the cell phone that was more like a leash, a tether keeping Cassandra away from where she rightfully belonged.

Ignore it
.

The phone rang even louder, as though it had heard the thought and wanted to dispel it.

Ignore it
.

The phone rang yet again. Would continue to until it was answered. There was no choice. It was answer it or lose these few peaceful moments of closeness with Cassandra.

“You still at it?” the man on the other end of the line said when the phone was finally answered. The question was heavy with derision, ridicule, and scorn. Nothing new there, though that dismissal stung.

A glance at Cassandra’s house soothed away the stinging, and even though the man still spoke, his words didn’t penetrate. Nothing could penetrate the bubble of warmth, happiness, peace that being near Cassandra brought.

The long drone of the dial tone was the thing that did manage to penetrate. The man had hung up.

Good.

He was always there, but only to hurt and belittle. Not like Cassandra who loved, cared.

The urge to go to her, the need to see her again, grew and grew and grew until it became almost uncontrollable.

Not yet. Not yet.

The admonition worked, though who could say how much longer it would.

It became less effective every day, the need to be with Cassandra always more and more difficult to ignore.

But it wasn’t time.

Cassandra wasn’t ready and there were still plans to be made.

So not yet.

But soon.

Very soon
.

“
S
o what dirtbag
am I chasing this week?” Marcus Saint asked.

“I might have some cartel work for you in Central America,” Lucian said.

“Good. You know where to find me when you have the details,” Saint responded.

Then he stood and walked out of the conference room without a second glance. Typical Saint, and Lucian was far too used to him for that to raise an eyebrow. He couldn’t say the same for the rest of his team.

“So that guy’s kind of a dick, right?” Seth Faber asked, looking at each of the men who were assembled at the oval-shaped table.

“We can’t all be Miss Congeniality like you, princess,” Adam Reins said. “Some of us are actual soldiers.”

“Like Saint. He’s one of the best you’ll ever meet,” Duarte Cruz added.

“Yeah, but he’s kind of a dick, right?” Seth said, completely ignoring the others.

Lucian interjected. “Glad you all are so fascinated by Saint, but we have actual work to do.”

“Can’t imagine there’s anything worthwhile to do in a fuckin’ boardroom,” Adam said.

Lucian ignored him too and began presenting potential upcoming missions. “We have the cartel thing in Central America that I’m going to put Saint on. Some rumblings out of Indonesia that Adam and Seth are on,” he said.

“Hoo-fuckin’-ray. I get to babysit,” Adam said.

“And I get to hang with my elders,” Seth shot back.

“And, Cruz,” Lucian said, ignoring Seth and Adam, “I’d like you to keep an ear to the ground for any rumblings here in the Pacific Northwest.”

“Anything in particular?” Cruz asked.

“Given the political climate, our friends in D.C. have asked us to keep our ears open. No actionable intel as yet, but they’d appreciate any warning we might be able to give,” Lucian said.

“Got it,” Cruz said.

None of the others protested Cruz’s relatively plush assignment. His first child was due to arrive any day now, and Lucian knew he would appreciate staying close to his wife, Nola.

“In the meantime—”

Lucian cut off short at the knock on the conference room door.

“Come in, Sloan,” he called, and a moment later, the door opened and Sloan entered.

“Sloan!” Seth called and smiled at her, and she returned the expression and then walked over to high-five him.

“Cruz, how’s Nola?” she asked as she walked toward Lucian.

“She’s about to pop, but excited,” he said, a prideful smile on his face.

“Tell her I’ll call tonight,” Sloan said as she walked past Adam without acknowledging him.

“Of course,” Cruz said.

Sloan extended the file she held to Lucian once she reached him, a smile still on her face, but this one different than the one she had given Cruz. Lucian knew exactly what that meant.

“From Cassandra, I take it?” he said, plucking the file from her fingers.

“Yes. She asked me to hand-deliver it,” Sloan said, smiling bigger now.

Lucian risked a glance at Cruz, Seth, and Adam and found matching smirks on their faces, which he ignored for the moment.

“Tell her I have it,” Lucian said, putting the file aside without even opening it.

“Oh, I will,” Sloan said, lingering for a moment as she looked at Lucian expectantly.

He pointedly ignored her too and stayed silent as he watched her leave.

“Not a word,” Lucian said when she had finally left.

“Silver, what are you talking about?” Adam asked.

“Fuck off, Adam,” Lucian said, which earned him one of his old friend’s rare full smiles and got laughs from Cruz and Seth.

“I think that’s our cue, gentlemen,” Cruz said, standing from the table. “I suspect Cassandra will be here in the next thirty seconds or so, and we want to give them their privacy.”

“I should fire all your asses,” Lucian said.

His only response was more laughter as the men left the room. It never failed to shock him how juvenile the best mercenaries money could buy could sometimes be. Nor did it fail to amaze him how much pleasure they took in needling him about Cassandra. In fact, Cruz had taken it easy on him today, and Adam and Seth hadn’t even joined in, for which Lucian was grateful.

They all had something. Adam gave Seth unrelenting shit about being the youngest. Seth returned with barbs about Adam’s “advancing age.” Lucian never let up on nice guy Cruz, and Saint was simply Saint. So Lucian supposed their fixation with Cassandra was the same, a part of the bond that held them together.

It wasn’t the team’s fault if their words hit a little too close to home, which they did.

Even now, his blood was thrumming with the anticipation of seeing her again, sparring with her again. He could guess what the conversation would be about, a continuation of yesterday’s aborted chat undoubtedly, but he didn’t actually care. It was enough to know he would see her, hear her voice, get to watch the flash in her eyes. And, yeah, at some point, she’d enrage him, but as far as he was concerned, that was simply the cost of admission and a price he’d gladly pay for a few minutes in her presence.

What the fuck was wrong with him?

That wasn’t a question he had long to consider. As Cruz had predicted, Cassandra soon arrived. “Lucian?”

Before his mind could tell him otherwise, his body responded to the sound of her voice, the soft and husky noise instantly conjuring thoughts of heated caresses in dark rooms, warm, heavy breaths, the way her voice would hitch when skin touched skin.

For a moment he allowed himself to enjoy the sound, the images it conjured, but only for a second. His eyelids had lowered, but he lifted them and finally let his gaze settle on the room’s newest occupant.

“Have a seat, Cassie,” he said, deliberately using that name and the predicted flash of anger in her eyes to create some distance between him and the heated thoughts that would overtake him if he didn’t.

After a moment’s pause, Cassandra strode into the room and settled into one of the conference room chairs. He kept his gaze on her face and didn’t let it drop. Instead, he took in her full lips, just this side of pouty, the only hint of softness in her otherwise icy expression. Strong jaw, feminine but not soft, sculpted cheekbones, rich brown eyes topped by a smooth brow.

Though he had been determined not to allow himself to look, Lucian felt his eyes begin to drift down, over the kissable brown skin of her neck and lower down the trail of skin that led down into her blouse. That was Cassandra, entirely put together, wrecking his equilibrium without effort.

Lucian looked into her eyes, saw a flash of something there, and then, despite his intention to remain cool, felt a shock of heat rush through him.

Attraction, anger, some combination of both probably. Lucian prided himself on his distance, his reserve, but they were meaningless when it came to her. Cassandra demanded a response, and Lucian hadn’t yet figured out how to keep from giving her one.

He caught a flash in her eyes, anticipation, preparation for what was to come, he knew. Cassandra had come here for a reason, one he expected she wouldn’t have a problem sharing.

She didn’t disappoint. Hadn’t, not once in the twenty-five months she’d worked with Silver Industries.

Her amber-brown eyes brightened and then lasered on him before she finally began to speak.

“My name’s Cassandra,” she said, her voice coming out a little deeper than usual, a husky bedroom voice Lucian wasn’t immune to though he knew quite well the bedroom was the furthest thing from her mind.

“Can I help you with something, Cassandra?” Lucian asked.

“I’d like to finish yesterday’s conversation, and I have a few other questions besides,” she said.

Lucian stayed silent for a moment, preparing himself. Cassandra’s “few questions” almost always blossomed into hours-long conversations, she and Lucian going back and forth on topics that ranged from mundane to major, neither he or Cassandra willing to give on any issue.

The low-level tension that had been present since she arrived notched higher, and Lucian prepared himself.

She smiled, the expression lifting her features in a way that gave her beautiful face a softness that was absent only moments ago. The calm before the storm, Lucian knew, something Cassandra proved when she again spoke.

“You know Vietnam was a fiasco, don’t you?” she said, her tone calm and easy, yet at odds with the words she’d said.

For a moment, he marveled at her, not at her attractiveness, which he couldn’t pretend he didn’t notice, but at the breezy way she delivered her little bombs. She didn’t blink, and she certainly never hesitated, instead simply delivering her statement as if it were entirely true.

“A fiasco?” Lucian said a moment later, feeling the tension notch even higher. He’d seen fiascoes, but his team was the best, and even when a mission didn’t go according to plan, they always did the job as best it could possibly be done, so her assertion put him on the defensive. “A little harsh, don’t you think, Cassie?”

She quirked her brow, about as exercised as Lucian ever saw her, no doubt her response to his second use of her hated nickname in as many minutes. But she quickly recovered.

“Harsh?” Her voice was still easy, though it dripped with Cassandra’s special mix of disbelief and scorn. “No, Lucian. I don’t think it was harsh at all,” she said.

“Care to explain?” he asked, though he knew she didn’t need an invitation.

Cassandra leaned back in her executive chair, the movement enough to draw Lucian’s gaze down to the roundness of her luscious breasts. He looked at her face quickly, not daring to risk lingering, let alone giving in to the impulse to look lower, to the curve of her waist or her full hip. He knew danger when he saw it.

She opened the leather folio that laid on the conference table in front of her, and Lucian watched as she made a show of lifting the sheet of paper that laid on top and reading it.

“Let’s see,” she said, eyes scanning the sheet, “Silver Industries ran an illegal military operation in a foreign country, violated only God knows how many international laws, and had an employee executed by a foreign government.” She dropped the paper and again met his eyes. “Sounds like a textbook fiasco to me.”

“Ex-employee. And we didn’t violate any laws. Many laws,” he corrected after she again quirked her brow.

That wasn’t entirely accurate.

Lucian could think of at least fifty laws that some part of the Vietnam operation had violated, but he couldn’t let himself get lost in the finer points with Cassandra. It was a losing proposition, and she would press the advantage. She took her role very, very seriously, and would use any whiff of potential wrongdoing by Lucian and his men as a tool against him.

His brother Damien had chosen well when he had selected Cassandra, though it still pissed Lucian off he’d hired her at all, pissed him off that his family had been forced into the position of having to take on shareholders because it was the only way Silver Industries could survive.

Cassandra watched him, silently daring him to contradict her. Still, he was reluctant to get into the details with her, so he took a different approach.

“We did a good thing,” he said, gaze not wavering from hers. “We took down an organization that trafficked in nearly extinct animals. Exposed a dozen corrupt military officials from four different countries. Not to mention that ex-employee was a traitor, one who put the team, not to mention Cruz’s wife’s life, at risk.”

Lucian continued to watch Cassandra after he’d spoken, the long table that separated them keeping physical distance between them but doing nothing to decrease the intensity flowing between them.

“Lucian,” she said, her voice changing in a subtle, almost imperceptible way. There was something like understanding in the sound, but Lucian knew he hadn’t won her over. Cassandra confirmed as much with her next words. “You have to be careful. The world doesn’t work the way it used to,” she said.

Her words set Lucian on edge, lit the ember of anger that had been brewing on a low simmer in the background. “I don’t need you to tell me how the world works, Cassie,” he said, letting edge bleed into his voice.

She gave no outward sign she had noticed the change in his tone, but he knew she had. “Don’t you?” she said.

He held her gaze and she his, and for a moment they sat in ever-thickening silence.

Finally, her expression softened, only a little but enough that some of the anger that beat at the back of Lucian’s mind began to fade. “You did a good thing. I’m glad Cruz could break up that animal trafficking ring, that he found Nola. But you guys just can’t go traipsing around, doing whatever, and messily, I might add,” she said.

“Of course we can. It’s a messy world, Cassandra. I suppose it’s easy to forget with the nice office building and civilized conference room, but we’re mercenaries. That is exactly what we’re supposed to do,” he said.

“That you think so is exactly why your brother hired me,” she said.

Lucian didn’t show how her words rankled, nor would he admit that there may have been a shred of truth in what she said. His team worked by the book to the extent possible; they were good guys, but the world was complicated, far more than he had recognized when he’d joined his brother’s merry band of mercenaries. But he didn’t exactly appreciate Cassandra’s or the shareholders’ interference.

“Look, Lucian,” Cassandra said, her voice even softer with actual understanding this time, “I get it. You have a job to do, and I know you do it well and with the best of intentions.”

“But,” he said, knowing that there was a “but,” and hating that her lack of confidence in him hit him so hard.

“But we have to be careful,” she replied with finality.

“We do, but I’m not going to be hamstrung or interfered with,” he said.

“You know I have no interest in doing either,” she said.

Lucian let the short, barked-out laugh emerge, that sound conveying what he thought of that better than words would.

She gave him a grudging smile. “Clearly you disagree, but I don’t. However, I won’t hold my tongue if you aren’t running operations appropriately,” she said.

“Meaning?” he asked, leaning back in his chair and overlooking her grating use of the word “appropriately.”