Heat Seeker (3 page)

“Hell, we’ve had it now,” he panted. “Son of a bitch, Bailey.”

Her lashes lifted until she could stare into his eyes. The deep gray was nearly black. His face was flushed, his lips swollen and damp. He looked like a sex god rising between her thighs, determined to possess her soul.

She watched as he shook his head, obviously fighting for control as she fought to help him lose it. She tightened her muscles around his cock. Her hips shifted and rolled as her lashes fluttered with the pleasure.

“Fuck me,” she whispered.

His eyes widened as a sexy grin curled over his lips.

“Say it again,” he ordered.

“Fuck me, Trent. Fuck me until I’m screaming for you.”

It wouldn’t take him long to make her scream. She was already on the verge of it. Already needing it. Her nails dug into his wrists as he began to thrust, to move. Bailey’s legs lifted, curled around his thrusting hips. She tried to lift closer, to catch that last sensation, that last moment of intense, incredible pleasure that would send her over the edge.

Each thrust tore another cry from her, sent her flying higher. Heat tightened in her pussy, in her clit. It whipped through her, raced over her flesh, and finally detonated in her womb in an explosion so intense, so soul shattering that she could only cry his name.

Her orgasm filled every cell in her body and sent ecstasy tearing through her nervous system. It stole her breath, stole her mind, and left her a creature of sensation alone as she felt him thrust hard and deep before his body tightened and his release tore through him as well.

A moment out of time. That was what it felt like. Like a moment that would never return, and she was desperate to hold on to it. To hold on to him.

She was still fighting to catch her breath when he rolled beside her and pulled her into his arms. For a moment she froze, so unused to being held by another that for the slightest second it was completely alien to her.

She lay against his chest, listened to his harsh breathing, the thunder of his heart, and gave a desperate little prayer that she could hold on to it just a little longer.

“I knew you’d blow my mind,” he finally said with a sigh.

“You would have to have a mind first,” she quipped, suddenly uncertain of herself.

What did a woman do with a man like this? Did she try to hold him? Let him go? What? God, she had no idea how to play the most important game in her life, even though she had excelled at the other games she’d attempted in her career.

“I have a mind.” He rolled her to her back, rising over her as he gave her one of those rakish devil-may-care grins. “And I used to have a heart. I think you stole that, too.” He was suddenly somber.

Bailey stared up at him, her lips parting in surprised wonder.

“Your heart?” she whispered.

“It’s very probable.” He winked down at her before bounding from the bed and striding across the room. “Showering with me?” He glanced back at her as she watched his cute, tight ass.

“Later.” She shook her head. She needed to get her bearings, needed to figure out where she was supposed to go from here.

“Later then.” He nodded. “I’ll step out and get us dinner after I shower. I have to check on a few things with a contact then I’ll be back.”

She nodded then watched wistfully as he disappeared into the bathroom. The sound of the shower seconds later had her blowing out a hard breath before she flipped the sheet over her body. A quick nap might get her equilibrium back. Besides, she was worn out, more tired than she could remember being in years.

A grin pulled at her lips at that thought. He had worn her out. Sated her. Made her feel treasured. She definitely wanted to keep him.

Long minutes later she felt the kiss on her cheek and his quiet “Be back soon, love.” The door closed behind him.

She was sliding back into sleep when hell broke loose outside. The explosion blew out the windows, shattering glass over the bed and lighting up the stormy night as Bailey screamed in horror.

Jumping from the bed, she jerked the sheet around her and raced to the front door. Flames were licking up the side of the bungalow where he’d parked his Jeep. The vehicle was a mess of twisted metal. Flames greedily consumed it and destroyed the fragile dreams she had been building.

Neighbors from surrounding bungalows were running for the driveway. Someone was yelling for help. Someone else noted in hysteria that there was a body in the vehicle. And all Bailey could do was stand there, her fists clenched in the sheet, her soul shattered.

This was what she got for wishing, for hoping. This was what Bailey Serborne got for dreaming.

JOHN VINCENT STEPPED
out of the bungalow, whistling quietly, a part of his soul lighter than it had been in years. The Australian night wrapped around his senses, a cool breeze riffling through his hair as a smile tilted his lips for a second.

As he moved off from the door, the smile eased away. A shadow stepped from the tree line and rushed across the short expanse of grass toward him.

The contact he was supposed to meet in town reached Trent’s Land Rover in the driveway, agitated and obviously frightened.

“Thank God you finally came out!” Timmons Lowen was shaking from head to toe. His limp brown hair was saturated and plastered to his skull, his normally dull hazel eyes wide and glittering with fear. “Mate, Warbucks is on to us. They’re looking for us.”

Trent grimaced as he jerked the man beneath the awning of the house and gave him a quick little shake.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Warbucks was a shadowy individual—or several individuals—acquiring and selling classified American information and hardware to terrorists. Part of that information was a list of Australian Secret Intelligence agents working with the CIA abroad. Agents who were turning up dead.

Trent’s investigation into the Australian connection to Warbucks was turning up some surprising results, and information that Trent knew was more than dangerous.

“Somehow Warbucks found out what I’ve been doing,” Timmons wheezed. “They sent a guy after me. He almost caught me in town. Listen to me, Trent, we’re screwed.”

“What the hell did they find out?” Trent felt like shaking the little man. Timmons was obviously losing his last grip on the fear consuming him. Hell, he should have known better than to use this man at the hotel where Warbucks was suspected to be meeting this month with a broker who would
sell the new information Warbucks had. But Timmons was already in place, and the best pair of eyes he had.

“They found out about it,” Timmons cried. “That I was watching for you. Who you are. All of it, Trent. Warbucks knows everything.”

Trent paused. “How did they find out?”

Timmons shook his head desperately. “I don’t know, mate. All I know is that it was from the agency. While he was in the bar looking for me I trashed his car and found an agency ID and pictures and info on us. We’re tagged.”

He had to get Bailey out of there. Glancing around, he watched the sky light up with lightning, felt the power of the storm, and knew he had to get Bailey as far from this mess as possible.

“Take the Rover.” Trent dug his keys out of his pocket. “I’ll met you at the safe house in Paddington in three days. Stay there, Timmons. Don’t poke your nose out the door. Hide the Rover in the garage and play dead.” He shoved the keys in his hands and pushed him to the Land Rover.

“The safe house. God, Trent, I knew I could depend on you.”

Trent jerked the driver’s door opened and pushed Timmons in the seat.

“Don’t call me, don’t call anyone,” he ordered him. “Just lay low and don’t open the door for anyone but me.”

There was only one person who knew the details of the information Trent had been working on, as well as Timmons’s part in it. His partner, Guy Warner. Even Bailey hadn’t known who Trent’s contact was or that he was tracking the connections in Australia to Warbucks.

Timmons jammed the key into the ignition as Trent backed away. The ignition started as Trent turned away to run back to the bungalow. Then the night exploded around him. Trent felt himself being catapulted through the air, his body landing hard enough to drive the air from his lungs as he bounced into the mud and muck of the swampy canal that ran past the bungalow.

The night was ablaze as another explosion rocked the night, sending more fragments of the vehicle hurtling through the air.

He fought to breathe through the pain, to make sense of the blinding light and pyrotechnic colors that danced in front of his eyes.

He could hear screams. A woman’s screams, Bailey’s. The sound of her cries tore through the night as he dragged his eyes open and fought to roll to his side.

He struggled to turn, blinking against the mud that covered his eyes and rain that poured over his face. As his vision finally cleared, he focused on the hell that had been the driveway, and saw his partner, Guy Warner.

He was racing from his car to the Land Rover. The agent had a curiously smug expression on his face. And there was Bailey, wrapped in a sheet, screaming for Trent.

It was too late, Guy had already found him. He fought past the constriction in his chest, tried to think, to find the closest route to Bailey when he saw Guy move to her. She threw herself in his arms.

Trent blinked as his vision began to blur. He fought to refocus, then watched as another agency vehicle pulled up and one of the American SEALs who had worked this last op with himself and Bailey moved into view.

Jordan Malone.

His gaze blurred again even as he fought it.

The night began to close around him, to smother him in darkness.

“Easy there, Trent.” He was caught before he hit the ground and struggled to get free.

“Hold up,” a dark male voice hissed. “We’ve got this one covered, buddy.”

Trent tried to shake his head, to make sense of what was going on. He recognized the voice, he just couldn’t place it.

“Bailey,” he groaned.

“Bailey’s covered. Let’s move out.”

He couldn’t see. His vision swam with colors that didn’t
make sense. His skin burned like fire, like acid. He felt singed from the inside out.

“Bailey.” He groaned her name again as he fought the hands that forced him to move.

Bailey. He’d left her there. He’d promised to return. The first woman he’d ever promised to return to.

“Bailey’s safe.” Reno. That was his name. Reno Chavez. Navy SEAL. Part of the SEAL team working within the joint American–Australian operation they had conducted.

Dizziness washed over him again. Darkness covered him like a layer of ice. He couldn’t fight it this time. He couldn’t halt the tide of nothingness that washed over him and dragged him under.

He could feel death moving over him despite his battle against it. The breath stilled in his chest, fury rocking through him. Warbucks. The bastard had managed to defeat him before the battle had ever begun.

Atlanta, Georgia

Five Years Later

Bailey Serborne fought until she was gasping for breath, until breathing actually seemed exhausting, uncertain. She jerked against her bonds, screaming through the gag and she refused to cry.

She’d been captured tracking the international terrorist known as Orion, but she hadn’t been captured by Orion. Oh no, even Orion wasn’t this damned efficient. She had been captured by the team of unknown men guarding Orion’s target, Risa Clay. The young woman had been marked to die by the bastard who had raped her eight years before. She was remembering who her rapist was: He had aided her father, Jansen Clay, in his white slavery operation and the kidnapping of a senator’s daughter.

Bailey had tracked Orion to Atlanta, tracked him to a small group of the wealthiest men in America and had been working tirelessly to connect the dots among Orion, his employer and the deaths of her own family members.

She had gotten so close, so very close, only to be captured by the unknown suspected agents currently protecting Risa. Agents who refused to share information or to allow her in on an operation that she could benefit.

The men were known in underground circles simply as ghosts. The research she’d managed to do, the answers she had come up with concerning them didn’t make sense. Among those men there was a former Navy SEAL, a former drug lord, an arms dealer, and a suspected terrorist. Of the five men she’d managed to identify, none was known as a good guy, but they were all surrounding Risa Clay. Which made her wonder at their covers.

Instead of getting answers, though, she was tied, gagged, and blindfolded as she was transported from the apartment building she had been in to an unknown location where she would be “interrogated.”

Her own agency, her boss, a man who had been a friend to her parents, had betrayed her. He had given them the secret to breaking her, to stealing the information she was refusing to give them.

As though she wouldn’t know that the men she was investigating were the same ones holding her. She’d been close enough to hear each of their voices. She was good at voices, good at identifying agents despite covers or alterations.