Black Jack (15 page)

fire that destroyed his office and all his records. Somehow, someone has learned too much

information about you, Lilly.”

Picking up his drink, Travis watched as Lilly leaned against the counter, sipped her drink,

and stared at him thoughtfully for long moments.

“Supposedly,” she finally murmured. “Does that mean he didn’t actually do the surgery?”

He inclined his head in agreement. “Certain steps were taken to ensure your identity was

well hidden.”

“That’s a lot of trouble to go to for a high-priced escort,” she drawled sarcastically.

Travis merely quirked his lips in amusement. She knew as well as he did that she had never

sold her body.

She had shared her body with him, though. She had given him her innocence and formed a

bond between them that he still didn’t completely understand.

Finally, when he said nothing more, Lilly shook her head before finishing her drink with a

small grimace.

“Then I need to find my father’s killer to find my own,” she stated. “I imagine that killer is

also the person behind the embezzling Father was investigating six years ago?”

Travis nodded. “That’s what I think. I suspect the killer has been tracking you for the past

six years.”

Lilly’s quick little exhalation, a mocking sound, had Travis almost grinning. That sound

normally indicated a flare of irritation.

“Father drove himself crazy searching for the person responsible for the embezzling.” She

pushed away from the counter and paced across the room, a thoughtful frown marring her

brow. “And I have no doubt MI5 has continued the search.”

“No doubt.” Travis’s gaze focused on her ass beneath the snug leather pants as she paced.

The sight of it was enough to steal a man’s breath.

“If Mother suspects I’m investigating what happened six years ago, then she’ll have me

hospitalized for sure.” She shook her head, the silken strands of dark hair rippling against her

shoulders, tempting his fingers.

“Did your father have any suspects?” Travis asked, attempting to pull his attention back to

the subject.

“Several,” she admitted as she turned back to him. “He just hadn’t given me names. I was

still being trained. Certain information MI5 was hesitant for me to have. Father followed

those dictates.”

“Did you have any suspects?” he asked.

Lilly paused at that.

“Lilly, now isn’t the time to hold anything back,” he warned her.

Her arms crossed over her breasts defensively.

“There was no one person that tied into all the accounts targeted,” she answered, her

expression mutinous. “My original suspicions were way off base because of that.”

“And they were?” Travis pressed.

“My uncle, Desmond, and my brother. Other than my father, they had access to the

Harrington funds that were targeted but not to the other targeted accounts.”

“Your brother Jared works for a very exclusive law firm,” he pointed out. “The clients

targeted were also represented by that firm.”

Jared Harrington as well as his uncle Desmond were still suspects as far as the Elite Ops

were concerned.

“Yes, but not all of them. At least three other families who had no such connections were

targeted as well,” Lilly said. “Besides, Jared wouldn’t have done such a thing. He especially

would have never killed Father.”

“Yet you suspected him of embezzling,” he pointed out. “He and your father argued often

about the business as well as about the title.”

“Jared wouldn’t kill Father . . .”

“You’re defending a man who essentially disowned you.” Anger surged through Travis at

her defense of the other man. “Perhaps he wants you dead, Lilly. With you out of the way, he

doesn’t have to share the Harrington inheritance.”

“Stop.” He could see the pain glittering in her eyes now. “Jared wouldn’t do it. I know he

didn’t because Father and I eliminated him and Uncle Desmond as suspects.”

Travis’s lips thinned. As far as he was concerned, Jared and Desmond Harrington were still

at the top of the list.

“Stop!” She lifted her hand as his lips parted to argue further. “I’m certain I can easily

prove Jared isn’t involved. But to prove it, I’ll first have to gain access to the family financial

vault. It should be easy enough. I know Desmond and Jared share the online financial vault.

I’ll see what I can find.”

But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt to do so. Travis moved to her, the need to comfort her,

to ease the confusion and pain glittering in her eyes, was overwhelming.

“Lilly.” He drew her against him, his hands caressing her slender hips. “We eliminate

Desmond and Jared and then go on from there. But make sure they have no contacts with

anyone listed in that investigator’s report on the past six years of your life.”

His money was still on Desmond, but Jared was in the running.

“Check files and financial reports Desmond brought with him.” He wanted her to find the

information Desmond had in the office. “Go through the online vault. Get the account

numbers and I can go from there. We’ll do this together, love.”

He reached up, his thumb caressing her trembling lower lip. “You know how to do this.”

“Because you trained me?” Breathy, filled with sensual awareness now, the sound of her

voice stroked over his senses.

“I trained you,” he agreed.

“You protected me.” She licked at his thumb, tempting him.

“I’ll always try to protect you.” His head lowered.

He needed a taste of her. A touch. For just a moment he needed to fill his senses with her.

Though he knew a moment would never be enough.

it was almost a dream.

Lilly stepped into Travis’s arms, felt them come around her, felt his lips slant across hers

and the world around her go up in flames.

She couldn’t have this man, and she knew it, but she knew she already belonged to him.

She had somehow always belonged to him.

Lifting herself to his kiss, Lilly let her hands grip his hair, pulling at the coarse strands to

deepen the kiss as she felt a raging hunger begin to burn inside her.

That wildness she remembered fighting all her life took control, she became a woman who

instinctively knew what she needed and who she needed it from.

Never had arousal taken her like this.

Pulling her head back, she stared up at him, her breathing heavy, rough. “You were my

first, weren’t you?” She knew it, sensed it.

“I was your only,” he growled, possessiveness raging in his tone and fulfilling some need

she hadn’t known existed within her. A knowledge, that final certainty, that she hadn’t been

the woman her uncle’s report alleged.

His head lowered again before she could voice any further questions, his lips took hers

again, his tongue pushing past her lips, stroking over hers and locking her in a battle of desire

that she knew she had no hope of winning. A battle she didn’t want to win. It was a triumph

she wanted to share.

She was only his woman. She had shared herself with no other man, just as she had known

instinctively, but the woman inside had needed more proof. She had needed the verification

that only one man could give her.

Black Jack.

Her hands fell from his hair to his shoulders, then the front of his T-shirt. Pulling, tugging,

she dragged at the material until it came free of his jeans.

He shrugged his jacket away, allowing the cool leather to fall to the floor before his hands

returned to push her denim jacket from her shoulders.

She wasn’t moving her arms. She wanted that shirt off his back. She wanted to feel his

flesh, naked and hot, against her palms.

He tore off the t-shirt then returned to her jacket, forcing her arms down and pulling the

denim over it to reveal the sleeveless camishirt she had on underneath.

The slender straps cleared her head as he jerked the material from her waist, up, baring her

breasts, and tossed the top aside. He filled his palms with the swollen curves, his thumbs

raking over the hard tips of her nipples and sending fingers of raw sensation to attack her

womb, to heat her clit.

Lilly arched into the touch, a gasp passing her lips as her back met the wall, and her palm

flattened against the bare skin of his chest.

Curling her fingers, Lilly raked them down his chest, just enough to feel the flex of muscles

beneath, to relish the heat and hardness of his corded body.

Her fingers rasped to the band of his jeans where she found the snap and zipper of his pants

and quickly released them.

She couldn’t touch him enough. She couldn’t get enough of his kiss. She wanted to feel all

of him against her at once. She wanted all the pleasure at once. She wanted to feel alive,

something she hadn’t felt for six months.

Alive. Living. A woman that had no part of her missing.

In Travis’s arms, there was only the woman, there was no past, no danger, and there was

nothing to fear.

“God help me, I missed you,” he groaned as his lips tore from hers and moved to her jaw,

her neck. “Missed seeing you, touching you.”

A moan echoed from her chest as her heart tightened in a realization that she had missed

him as well; even though she hadn’t remembered him, she had missed him, achingly.

He was making up for whatever time they had lost though. His hands cupped her breasts,

lifted them. His head descended, his tongue licking over the tight thrust of her nipples as

shards of sensation began to tear over her nerve endings.

It was incredible. It was the fantasy that followed her when she slept, the one she awakened

from, her body dampened with sweat.

This was Travis, and denying him wasn’t something she could allow herself to do. Not this

pleasure. Not this incredible, blinding heat.

Her fingers stroked into his jeans and found bare flesh. No tighty-whiteys, no boxers, just

the hard, thick thrust of his cock pushing into her hand. The wide crest was hot to her touch,

slightly damp. The heat of it sent a rush of pleasure flexing through her pussy as she felt his

hand smooth from her breast, down her stomach.

His fingers worked her jeans loose as her hands stroked and memorized the iron-hard width

and length of his cock. The more she touched him, the more she wanted.

Looking down, Lilly lost her breath as she watched his cheeks draw in, watched him suckle

at the hard tip of her nipple. His eyes were slitted, staring up at her, the spark of green in the

golden brown more intense now, glittering in his dark face.

Her knees were getting weak. Standing wasn’t as easy as it had been when she first walked

into the cabin, or when she had first seen him in Hagerstown. It made her wonder what she

had felt when she had first met him, six years before.

Just when she doubted she could remain upright, his head lifted. He licked her nipple, first

one, then the other. His expression was tight with hunger, with sensual pleasure, as he stared

up at her, need glowing in his eyes.

Then he straightened to his full height, lifted her in his arms, and strode to the large bed

with its old-fashioned quilt and large fluffy pillows.

Her head fell back on the pillow as Travis’s hand moved beneath her back and cupped her

shoulders, pressing her breasts firmly into the heat and hardness of his chest as his lips moved

over her neck and breasts in heated, nipping kisses.

Arching beneath him, Lilly felt her blood boiling as pleasure heated her flesh and left her

trembling. Within seconds he was moving down her body, removing her boots, his own. He

shed his jeans, then smoothed hers down her legs, leaving her dressed in nothing but the

contour-hugging soft cotton panties she wore beneath the jeans.

Standing at the bottom of the bed, he let her look her fill. He stood before her as her gaze

roamed his hard body and paused at the jutting length of his cock.

Before he could come down to her, Lilly was on her knees. She saw the surprise in his face,

though how he could truly be surprised she couldn’t explain. Surely he felt the wildness rising

inside her, the hunger burning deep and hot?

Travis watched as she came to her knees like a sensual, sexual little cat. Her back arched,

her head lifted as she crawled to him, her green eyes narrowed as she licked her swollen, sexy

lips.

She was the most exquisite sight he had ever seen. The sexiest thing he had ever known.

His breath caught as she came level with his dick, her tongue peeking out, stroking over the

flared head with a hot, luscious lick.

“Fuck!” One hand buried itself in her hair as the other caught the base of his hard erection.

He saw it in her now, felt it in her. She was as wild as the wind, the sexy, sensual creature

he had known existed inside her.

Holding her firmly, he restrained that fire, controlled it, and watched it burn brighter inside

her as her lips opened over the thick crest and took it into the burning heat of her mouth.

Clenching his teeth, Travis only barely held back the groan of complete ecstasy as the

inexperienced wonder on her face held him entranced.

Innocent though she might be, she knew how to drive him crazy. Her tongue stroked around

the too-sensitive head as she sucked at his cock hungrily. The heated licks were a hot

counterpoint to the firm sucks, to the warm moisture he was delving into as she took as much