Taken by Lora Leigh
“Have you tried contacting anyone from the team yet?” she asked, watching one of the men, trying to pierce the shadows cast by the ball cap he had pulled low over his forehead.
He looked familiar. Something about the shape of his jaw and the way he moved made her think she had seen him someplace before.
“I’m not risking it.” Macey shook his head. “Any transmissions out of the house could be tracked at this point. I have all Internet and broadband shut down for the time being. Reno knows how to get a message to me, if one is needed. Right now we’re just laying low.”
The monitors flipped from playback to real-time view, showing the peaceful, tree-shadowed street and kids playing in the yard next door.
“Why do you live here?” She stared at him in bemusement. “I would have figured you for a man with an apartment, not the responsibility of such a large house.”
“Emerson, Emerson.” He shook his head sadly. “I’m a family-type man, I told you that. The house belongs to my parents, more or less. They moved out to the farm with the grandfolks a few years back and I watch after it. I’m not an apartment sort of guy. Too many restrictions.”
“Too many nosy neighbors?”
“You haven’t lived on a residential block, have you, sweetheart?” He snorted. “Try block parties, someone knocking at the door at midnight to borrow a tool or to stop and chat. Old guys giving you women advice and old ladies warning you not to listen to them. Trust me, an apartment would be a hell of a lot more private.”
By the tone of his voice, he didn’t seem to mind the advice or the midnight visits. That should have surprised her more, she realized; the fact that it didn’t worried her.
“What about you?” He swiveled around in his chair as she moved to the kitchen and the smell of coffee. “Why an apartment over a house?”
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Too much room for just one person. I wanted something smaller.” Too many open rooms to wander through alone would have driven her crazy, made the loneliness sharper.
She didn’t glance back at him; she couldn’t. Macey would see things she knew were better kept hidden, both for her peace of mind and for the state of her heart.
A heart that was rapidly beating out of control. She hadn’t missed the sexual wickedness blazing in his eyes when he had stared at her moments before. She could feel it now, his gaze roaming over her back, her butt, as she fixed her coffee. She would eat later, but for now, she needed a clear head to deal with Macey.
“You don’t seem to return home to Virginia a lot,” he commented as he leaned back in his chair and watched her quizzically. “The admiral seemed a little put out that your parents hadn’t seen you for a while.”
She took her coffee to the small round table and stared back at him resentfully. She didn’t want to discuss her family, but she could see the determination in his face.
“Why would the admiral mention my family?”
“He had a hard time contacting them when you were taken by those French terrorists.”
“They have a life.” She sipped her coffee and tried to ignore the hurt.
“They also have a daughter,” he said tightly.
“A daughter who, as you said, rarely returns home. Look, Macey, we don’t have family reunions; sometimes we manage to catch dinner together if I’m there on business or they’re here to see the admiral about something. We aren’t tied at the hip.”
“You don’t have to be tied at the hip to be a family,” he pointed out. “You don’t seem like the type of woman who would distance herself like that from family. You’re close to the admiral, but not your mom and dad.”
Mother and father, not mom and dad. She shook her head.
“This is really none of your business.”
“I’ve met your parents,” he said.
Emerson stared back at him directly, keeping her gaze cool. She didn’t want to hear this, but she had a feeling a family-minded person like Macey would have to see her actions in a less than complimentary light.
“They’re cold as hell.” He sighed. “It’s hard to imagine you growing up with them. Tell me they at least loved you.”
“They loved me.” In their own way. Bemused, irritated, often uncertain what to do with her, but they had loved her.
His expression tightened, then seemed to clear as curiosity took over. “What was the one thing you always wanted as a child and didn’t get?”
The shift in the conversation threw her off balance, had her answering before she thought.
“A tree house.” Regret shimmered in her voice because she couldn’t stop it. “I wanted a tree house.”
“Your parents owned a fifty-acre estate and you didn’t have a tree house?”
“Everything had its place.” Except her. She had never figured out where her place was there. “A tree house didn’t fit into the scheme of things.”
“Everyone needs a tree house,” he said softly, rising from his chair and moving to her.
Before she could move or avoid him, he was by her chair, his hand sliding into her hair, his lips stealing a quick kiss. “Don’t worry, Em, one of these days, I’ll give you a tree house.”
Sure he would. She shook her head and smiled at the thought as he released her and moved to get a cup of coffee for himself. She knew and understood promises and how easily they could be broken. Not just for children. She could have survived the broken promises as a child, gotten over them, gone on. But she had learned as an adult as well how easily even the most sincere promises were broken.
“I’ll settle for the ability to return to my apartment. Do that for me, Macey, and you’ll have my eternal gratitude.”
“That and more,” he stated, moving back through the kitchen to his computer. “I promise you, Emerson, I’m going to have that and more.”
chapter 5
he was falling for her. Three days later Macey sat hunched over his computer keyboard and tried to make sense of his own tangled emotions.
He knew he cared too much for her; hell, he had known that for the past two years. He dreamed about her, fantasized about her, and for the past two years hadn’t managed to find a single woman he wanted to fuck because none of them was Emerson.
The problem was, he didn’t just want to fuck her. He wanted to give her tree houses.
And now he wondered: who would take Drack? That was sad. He’d had Drack since he was a boy. Hell, he loved that cold-hearted reptile and would have laughed at the idea of giving him up because a woman was scared of him. But instead of laughing, his first instinct was to find Drack a home, because his heart, his soul warned him that an anaconda had no place within a family.
Family.
Geez, the admiral would put a bullet between his eyes if he even suspected what Macey was thinking, wouldn’t he? Or had he already suspected it?
And God forbid if Emerson should suspect. But the fact was, she belonged to him. Didn’t matter what the admiral thought about it, didn’t matter the price to be paid. Though he somehow suspected the admiral was a step ahead of him here.
Emerson fit him, and he was going to make damned sure she understood that he fit her, too, before this was over.
And for the time being he was going to thank God that the admiral couldn’t get ahold of him.
Complete communications blackout meant no messages transmitted to or from the team, Admiral Holloran, favorite friends, family, or associates of the dark and shadowed variety.
The blackout meant freedom from the admiral. He wasn’t about to restrict his own freedoms, not when he needed information and he knew damned certain he was secure. And the information he was after pertained to the case; at least that’s what he told himself. He had no intentions of letting anyone know he was checking out Emerson. Especially not Emerson herself.
He turned his head toward the bedroom door again, smirked, and pulled up her FBI file. Hell, who could have guessed Miss Goody Two-Shoes had an FBI file? My my my.
Picture. Stats.
A nice Macey handful. He looked at his hand, curled it just right, and felt his palm itch at the remembered feel of silky flesh.
Whew. Blowing out a hard breath, he shook his head and went back to the computer screen while keeping a careful ear out for the opening of the bedroom door.
Okay, FBI file. She even had a low-level security clearance. He scratched at his jaw, his eyebrows lifting as he scrolled down the screen and scanned the information. She worked for Diasonis, he knew that. The high-level programming, analysis, computer design, and integrations firm was a favorite with the Bureau.
He knew her college degree was in communications, design, and integration. As he read, he pursed his lips in surprise. She was good. She’d designed several integrated programs the Bureau was currently using. Nothing compared to those on his own personal setup, but he liked to think he had equipment the Bureau couldn’t touch.
He backed out of the Bureau’s files before heading into Diasonis. That was a little harder. The Bureau’s system was well known to him, its back doors as familiar to him as his own. Diasonis was a little more complicated.
He was working his way through the first pass when he heard the door. Damn. He backed out carefully, his fingers moving quickly over the keyboard as he exited the system, not that he’d managed to get in far, and cleared the program as she stepped into the living area.
“There’s chili on the stove.” He turned, tilted his head to the stove, and reactivated the virtual war game he had standing ready.
She glanced at the monitor and moved to the stove. “What time is it?”
“Nearly eight in the evening. You slept a long time, Em. Feeling rested?” He moved his player around a tree, collected a rocket launcher, and blew a tank to hell and back. A thousand points and no sound behind him.
He jerked his head around to take a quick look, and froze.
He blinked, eye level with breasts he dreamed about, covered in nothing but one of his T-shirts. She hadn’t been close to him in forty-eight hours. She had maintained distance, kept a wary eye on him, and ignored most of his questions and attempts at conversation.
She had been hiding, if only inside herself, and he knew it. For the time being, he had allowed her to hide. The nice thing about his cave was the fact that sooner or later she was going to have to acknowledge him, him and the sexual tension, not to mention the emotional tension rising between them.
Two years he had waited, and she knew it. Two years too long.
“You’re losing your game.”
He lifted his gaze to her face, his eyes meeting her narrowed ones.
“My breasts aren’t part of your game, Macey. You just lost.”
A distant virtual explosion sounded behind him as she moved away. Macey sighed dejectedly and turned back to the computer. Oh well, the game was just there to hide his activities, not to actually win. He’d already beaten that sucker months ago anyway.
He swiveled around in his chair to watch as she moved across the room to the kitchenette. She was wearing one of his T-shirts and a pair of his sister’s cotton sleep leggings and socks. Damn, she looked too young to be here, too young for the thoughts running through his brain.
He watched her ass as she reached up into a cabinet and pulled out a bowl. His teeth clenched in an effort to maintain control as the twin cheeks bunched and rippled when she moved back to the stove and filled the bowl with chili.
When she turned, his gaze was lifted innocently to her face as he fought every male instinct to drop his eyes to those pretty unbound breasts again.
* * *
She could have him, a little voice reminded Emerson. How many times over the past two years had he let her know just how easily she could have him?
“So when can I get out of here and back to my life? Any news yet?”
“What’s the hurry? Do you have someone besides the admiral waiting for you on the outside?”
She didn’t like the tone of his voice, didn’t like the friendliness in it, or the silent invitation to spill her guts to him. She had no secrets; she had no reason to feel sorry for herself.
“I have a full life.” She shrugged easily.
“And an empty bed.” His voice lowered, the black velvet tone stroking over her senses as he moved toward her.
“My bed is none of your business, Macey. When I want a man there, I have no trouble filling it.”
And how many times had she had done that? Too few. And they had been gone too quickly.
“Why are you so defensive with me, Em?” he asked then, his tone too soft, too knowing, too sexy. “You snap and snipe at me as though I’ve done something to hurt you. If I have, I’d be more than willing to kiss it and make it better.”
He was teasing. That playful, come-hither male sexiness that she found so hard to resist. That she had to resist. Otherwise, there would be no way she could hide the feelings she had for him. Feelings that went beyond scratching a little sexual itch while they were confined together.
“If I’m so hard to be around, why did you take this job?” she asked.
“Why did I take this assignment?” He leaned close, his lips curving into a smile, his dark eyes gleaming with sexual intent. “I took this job to finally get into your pants, Em. To get you under me, around me, and to get so deep inside you that the last thing you think about is pushing me away. That’s why I let your godfather maneuver me like the good little SEAL I am. Now, answer my question. Why, Emerson Delaney, do you try to push me away every damned time I get close enough to do that?”
“I don’t know, Macey,” she snarled. “Maybe I don’t want to join the Macey’s Castoffs club. Sorry, Lieutenant, but being part of the crowd never appealed to me, and being a part of your crowd appeals even less. So why don’t you stop trying to seduce me, get on your handy-dandy made-for-spying computer, and find me a way out of this. Otherwise, we’re going to end this little fiasco as enemies, rather than the fragile friendship I thought we had managed to maintain.”
His brows lifted, amusement filling his expression.
“Do you let all your friends suck your hard little nipples in your godfather’s study, Em? If you do, I think I’m going to need to spank you.”
Flames raced through her body. Warning alarms were clanging through her head. But when his head lowered, his hand sliding into her hair to hold her still, feeling his lips on hers again, she was lost. Lost in the touch of a man she knew she could never hold, and unwilling to break free, because nothing, at no time in her life, had ever felt as right as Macey’s kiss. Macey’s touch. As belonging to Macey, if only for this moment.
chapter 6
he wasn’t stopping this time.
Macey eased over the back of the couch, keeping his lips on Emerson’s, tasting the wild passion and honeyed sweetness of her kiss, her tongue, letting himself become trapped in her pleasure and his own.
This was the snare, and he knew it. A pleasure unlike any other that he had known in his life. For the first time, he could feel his lover’s pleasure as well as his own, and he was trapped within it. He wasn’t touching, stroking, giving pleasure in the hopes of having that pleasure returned. Hell no. Hearing her pleasure, feeling her tremble with it, the sound of it echoing in her shaking moan, that was pleasure.
He stroked his tongue over Emerson’s lips, felt them tremble as he took another short, drugging kiss. He let his hands move over her shoulders as he tried to sate himself with the sweetness of her lips and her inquisitive little tongue.
But there was no sating himself and he knew it. Had known it since that first kiss.
“Come here, Em.” He lowered her to the couch as her velvety hazel green eyes opened and she stared back at him with pleasure.
“Macey.” She licked her lips, and he followed suit.
He let his tongue run over them before taking another hard, quick taste of her.
“Don’t think, baby,” he whispered. “Let me touch you. Have yo
“Macey.” She blinked drowsily, sensually, her hands fluttering to his shoulders. He watched the hunger overcome the hesitancy in her eyes. “Why?”
“Because I can’t fight it any longer.”
“But you’ll break my heart.” He heard her breath hitch as his lips became distracted by the long, slim line of her neck. “You know you’re going to break my heart.”
He jerked his head up, his eyes narrowing on hers. “I take care of what’s mine, Emerson. Every part of it. And whether you end up liking it or not, sweetheart, you’re mine.”
Her arms curved around his neck, and he set out to mark his territory. The primal need to possess had him by the balls now, and he had a feeling it wasn’t going to release him anytime soon.
As his hand flattened beneath her shirt on the bare flesh of her stomach, a moan slipped past Emerson’s lips into the kiss he was stealing from her soul. Callused and warm, the tips of his fingers stroking her flesh had her nerve endings howling in pleasure.
They strained together, hips arching, bearing down, the thick length of his cock pressed against her saturated core as her hands curved around his back, her nails digging into the material of his shirt.
It wasn’t enough, she needed to touch his flesh, needed to feel it against her. She tore at the cloth, tugging it upward to his shoulders, revealing the tough skin and hard muscles of his back. Pleasure whipped through her palms as she stroked his flesh and felt him tense tighter against her.
“Get naked,” he growled, tearing his lips from hers, lifting just enough to jerk his shirt from his body, then her shirt followed. A dark, almost black patch of chest hair arrowed along his hard abs and into the band of his jeans.
Her hands tore at the belt cinching his waist, pulling it free as his hands worked on the metal snap and zipper.
She tugged at the material, pulling it over his hips with one hand as she parted the front edges, pulling the snug boxer briefs from the thick length of flesh they covered, and felt her mouth go dry.