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She turned to stalk back to her last refuge, her only refuge, her bedroom.
And she almost made it. She was at the door when he caught her, pulling her around and pressing her against the wall as she stared up at him in surprise
Surprise, because his expression wasn’t playful anymore. It wasn’t filled with amusement and lust. It was pure lust. It was heavy-lidded, wicked, dark, and sensual lust.
“Struck them off your list did you, chère?” The Cajun accent was heavy now, flavored with sex and rich with hunger. “Then you best be putting this SEAL right at the top of the candidates, ’cause I promise you, my little vixen, this SEAL is gonna get that pretty cherry you been saving. And he’s going to relish every taste, every cry, every thrust. You can bank on it, eh.”
Emily stared back at him in shock. This wasn’t the cool, self-possessed, overly confident Kell Krieger she had come to know, though some was still there.
This was a wild man. This was a man who knew every flavor of sex and it showed in his expression, in the brilliant depths of his eyes. It echoed through her body, burning her with the memory of his lips on her pussy, his tongue thrusting and licking inside her.
She tried to breathe evenly. Tried to push back the response that surged inside her, as instinctive as breathing, as old as lust itself.
Her wrists were gripped in his hands, pressed against the wall, restraining her with the strength of the muscular arms behind them. His hips pressed into hers, his cock thick and hard beneath his jeans, his intent clear, just as he stated. He intended to have her.
“Not on a bet.” She almost winced at the breathless quality of her voice. It was smoky, sensual. A beckoning dare.
“We’ll see about that.” The accent dissipated, smoothing from his voice as the devil-may-care smile returned. “That, darlin’, we’ll just have to see about.”
Ten
HE WAS LOSING HIMSELF TO her, Kell could feel it. He forced back the lust, the hunger that had no place in the mission he was on. He put distance between himself and the fiery woman who stole reason from his mind.
He was the one who retreated to his room, packing carefully for the trip to D.C. the next day. One small pack carried his weapons, extra ammo, and a change of casual clothes. Inside the pack, cushioned at the bottom in a waterproof bag, was an ID and credit cards in an alternate identity and enough cash to get him through most situations he might find himself in. Tucked in with it was a small case of tools that would get him into any locked door and several security systems.
He was prepared.
He packed the other weapons, his rifle, two backup revolvers, ammunition, and a dagger back into the larger duffel to store at Ian’s condo until their return.
There were more weapons stashed around Atlanta and outlying areas. Two safe houses, a bus stop safe. He was a man who’d learned the hard way to prepare for anything.
And for that reason alone he should have known better than to think he could walk into Emily’s life with nothing but lust. She was trouble with a capital T, and she was worming her way into his heart. Just as he had always sensed she would do. Hell, he had steered clear of her for the last five years for a reason, hadn’t he?
Or had he?
He hadn’t exactly stayed away. He had slipped in and out of her periphery, checking out her bodyguards, checking on her when he was in town. When he learned of her kidnapping he had just come off another assignment with a nasty little gunshot wound and more days without sleep than a man should be able to endure.
The minute he got the word, he had his pack in his hands and had talked his way onto a flight heading out to the carrier where Reno and his men were briefing for the rescue.
He had arrived just in time to join the team, pulling strings with the senator and Reno to get in position to protect Emily and the girls while the battle raged around the compound.
And by God, he had protected her. Even drugged, out of her head with arousal from the date rape drug pumped into her, she had fought. She had held the other two girls in the far corner of the shack, low to the ground, and watched him with hunger and hope.
And it was the memory of her eyes when she realized who he was that tormented him. Hope and hunger. The way she whispered his name. The way she fought to stay on her feet and to do whatever it took to aid in her rescue.
He couldn’t stop it. He wanted to stop it. He wanted to close her out of his head and his heart, eradicate the lust and need and return to being the man he had been before that night. Before he gazed into wild blue eyes and saw a need that echoed in his own soul. Before then, staying away from her hadn’t been hard. After that, he had found himself unable to stay away.
She was a woman dying to be free. Like a bird in a very pretty cage. One made of guilt-enforced bars and locked with the knowledge of a youthful indiscretion. That, and a father’s determination to see his daughter married to a man able to defend her.
Stanton might have gone about things the wrong way, and Kell had no doubt that was true, but he could see the senator’s love for his daughter. Just as he saw Emily’s love for her father.
It had been there fifteen years before when Richard had first brought him home for dinner. Only weeks after Tansy’s death. Richard Stanton and the detective Kell had worked for had been school friends and Navy buddies until the detective opted for civilian duty. One call and the then-Commander Stanton had come straight to Louisiana and picked up his charge.
That love between father and daughter had only grown.
What he also saw was the fact that Emily’s love for her father was so tainted with the past and her awareness of his pain in regards to her, that she drew back rather than fighting for what she wanted. And Richard took complete advantage of that.