Hidden Heat: Hauberk Protection, Book 4 (10 page)

“He’s…cute.” If you could call a twenty-pound furball with claws and fangs cute.

“Not a cat lover, huh?” She sat back on the bed and crawled over to him, pressing her backside against him.

“Don’t know. I’ve never had a pet. Always figured I’d be more of a dog lover though. Some of the police dogs are freaking clever.” Damn it, he’d lost control after all. He smoothed a hand over her behind, grimacing at the half-dozen handprints he’d left. She made a soft sound, almost like the cat had purred earlier, and snuggled closer.

Down the hall, a key jangled in the lock and the front door opened, making Troy stiffen. A woman’s giggle, followed by a man’s chuckle floated down the hall.

“Relax. It’s my roommate and her boyfriend,” Sandy murmured without opening her eyes.

Moments later, the headboard started banging against the adjoining wall, accompanied by moans, both male and female. The thought that the roommate might listen to him making love to Sandy may add to Sandy’s need for excitement, he supposed, but being watched wasn’t one of his kinks. It wasn’t as if he could take Sandy to his place. He had a roommate too. Besides, Sandy wouldn’t like his place. It was nothing like this.

A stuffed toy stared at him from the chair in the corner, a teddy so well-loved its ears were threadbare and one eye was perilously close to falling off. Dozens of photographs lined the full length of her dresser like haphazard soldiers. Almost all were of the Hallquist family through the years, a four- or five-year-old Sandy playing with a golden retriever, a teenage Sandy in a cheerleader’s outfit, one of a couple who could only be her parents surrounded by three boys, Sandy standing in front of a white frame house, a couple of boys with the same blonde hair wearing football uniforms, several of Sandy through the ages, and a college graduation photo. He smiled at the requisite prom picture of teenage Sandy in a formal gown, an uncomfortable boy with a bad case of acne in a tux beside her.

His smile faded. Had her date been Sandy’s first love? Had he been her first lover? If he had, Troy hoped he’d been a gentle and careful lover, especially for her first time. That he’d taken the time to make sure she was ready, and made her feel beautiful.

I’m not looking to settle down. I want excitement
. Women like Sandy were raised to seek security, to provide comfort and stability. To have a solid family like the one in the portrait hanging beside the dresser mirror. Yet she’d had a ménage. Obviously he’d pegged her completely wrong.

In her sleep, Sandy shivered. Troy reached down and pulled up the quilt he’d shoved out of the way in his hurry to take her. To fuck her. Upon closer inspection he realized the patchwork quilt had been hand sewn. Probably by her mother or maybe a grandmother.

She had a family who cared about her. Connections. A normal life. Everything he’d lost with the death of his parents.

His phone dinged from wherever he’d dumped his pants on the floor. He eased from her side and felt around until his fingers found his cell. A message from his second-in-command in Africa about a developing
situation
that meant he’d have to go into the office and arrange a conference call. Fucking perfect.

Guess this was as good a time as any for Sandy to get used to the fact he’d not be there most of the time. He stroked the hair off her forehead, pressing a kiss to the spot he’d bared. With a sense of regret he’d not felt in a long time, he dressed by feel, using the label at the back of his undershirt’s collar to tell him it was on the right way, the buttons on his vest that it wasn’t inside out. Not that it would matter—no one he’d run into between here and his SUV was worth worrying about. But he probably should do a quick wardrobe check before he headed back into the office.

He paused at her door, examining the lock and security of her unit. Security, he grunted. There was none. No alarm system in her apartment for starters. None in the building either. He’d gained access to the building because some asshole leaving had tried to be helpful by holding the door open for him. The deadbolt on her door was laughable. Someone with the right length of two by four could bend the frame and pop the bolt right out of the hole and be into her apartment, no muss, no fuss. There weren’t even video cameras in the hallways. Not to mention her apartment was right beside a stairwell, making her target central.

Jazz rolled onto her stomach. It had been a while since her body ached in all the right places the way it did at the moment. She reached out on her left side, expecting to find Mitch’s warm body only to find his spot empty. She fumbled for the lamp on her bedside table. Hadn’t that been on before? Huh. He must have turned it off.

“Mitch?” She squinted toward the bathroom. Nope, the light wasn’t on. Not that he might not be taking a whiz in the dark, she’d done it after all, but…

Ah, shit, don’t tell her he’d crept out without saying good-bye.

She padded out of the bedroom, grabbing her robe from the hook on the back of her bedroom door. “Mitch?”

Mitch sat on her couch, his laptop open, frowning at the screen. “Be right with you, Jazz baby.”

“Whatcha doin’? Because if you’re watching porn, I gotta tell you, I prefer to be the star in any sex scenes that get you off.” She curled up on the couch beside him, only catching a glimpse of the control panel screen.

“I couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to disturb you. So I figured I’d catch up on some work while I had the time, but I can’t get onto the net. Your router’s got a password.”

“Oh, the password is SandyandJazzrule—all one word—304.”

“Thanks.” He opened the network connections box and typed in the password, then checked his email. When she snuggled closer, he lowered the lid until it was only open an inch and set it on the coffee table.

“Hey, did your roommate get a chance to download those photos we worked on off my flashdrive? I need it back.”

“Yeah, I think so.” With a sigh, Jazz unfurled herself from the couch and searched through the papers on the desk.

Mitch joined her, poking through the desk drawer. When he picked up Sandy’s notepad and thumbed through it, Jazz snatched it from him. “Yeah, that’s not something you need to see.”

He shrugged. “Just looked like a bunch of addresses.”

“Yeah, and it’s not mine.” She shoved it back into the drawer and shut it firmly with her hip. “Look, I don’t know where your thumbdrive is right now. I’ll check with Sandy in the morning and get it back to you when I see you again.”

“I guess.” he palmed her breasts and tweaked her nipples. “Since we’re both awake, how about we try out those nipple clamps you said you’d bought?”

Chapter Seven

By the time Troy freed himself from the meeting and headed out to his car the sun was already over the horizon. As he pulled out of the parking lot he hesitated, wondering whether to turn left and head to Sandy’s place or right and head home. If he went back to Sandy’s, it was likely she’d be late because there was no way in hell he’d be able to keep his hands off her. Of course that meant not seeing her with sleep-heavy eyes and tousled hair. That was almost worth making her late. Except that would get her in trouble with Sam.

He turned right.

The track on his iPod changed from a Corelli sonata to a requiem by Mozart. Where normally it would have calmed him, this morning he found it depressing. He stabbed the radio button and set the system to scan until Jay-Z thumped from the speakers with an obscene amount of bass.

How had Sandy managed to fool so many people, even him, into thinking she was a shy virgin? Well, not a virgin, that might be a bit of a stretch. But she sure as hell had everyone convinced she was demure. Reserved. Modest.

Beneath that façade, he’d discovered a molten sensuality that had set him back on his heels.

She was an enigma. A conundrum. Innocence and artlessness hiding a quicksilvered, sexually charged pixie. A pixie, he snorted at the image. If anything, she would be right at home wearing a dominatrix outfit, complete with leather flogger and thigh-high boots with stiletto heels.

Scott was turning on the coffeemaker when Troy returned to his apartment. His roommate smirked when he snagged a mug and stood waiting impatiently for the machine to finish brewing. “I take it your date went well?”

“She’s…surprising.”

Scott’s smirk widened. “I figured she would be. Some of those farm girls are a lot more adventurous than city girls, you know?”

He didn’t. But he was planning on having fun finding out. The coffee brewed, he filled a cup and took a sip. “You could have knocked me over with a frickin’ feather. Anyway, according to her she wants excitement, in the bedroom and out.”

“Told ya.” Scott shoved him out of the way and grabbed his own mug from the cabinet. “If you bring her here, give me a heads-up and I’ll stay out of your way.”

Here. Where her walls had been painted in soft pastels and were adorned with pictures of her family, his were unadorned stretches of builders’ beige even though he’d owned it for three years now. Strange how he’d never noticed it before. Then again, considering he spent more nights in hotel rooms in other countries than here in D.C., it hadn’t mattered.

A whistle from Scott brought his attention back to find his friend looking at him with a bemused expression. “I was saying if she is looking for excitement you could always reserve one of the guest-house suites up at the Rouge. See if that lights her fire.”

“That’s a thought.” Is that what it would take to keep her happy? Playing D/s games. What would she do if he brought out a flogger and tried to use it on her? Although given how she’d enjoyed him spanking her, perhaps she would enjoy it. Despite his exhaustion, his body jonesed at the idea of turning her pretty ass red with the tails of a flogger. Of having her completely obedient to him. His.

Scott waved a hand in front of his face. “I asked how far in advance do you have to book the place?”

“Depends. This time of year, probably a couple weeks. I might be able to pull a few strings to get an earlier date, but considering I’m not a paying member, I doubt I’ll be put high on the list.”

“A couple weeks is good. It’ll give you a chance to find out if things will work between you two.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Troy considered his friend as Scott poured himself a cup of coffee. “So how’s your newest assignment going?”

Satisfied their friendship had survived, albeit a little bruised, he excused himself and went into his bedroom. Once he’d stripped and was lying in bed, he stared at the ceiling, worrying both about Chad’s decision to put Scott back in the field, and his own decision to get into a relationship with Sandy. He hoped both decisions were right and wouldn’t end up with either of them hurt.

Sandy grinned as she peered through the peephole of her apartment door and saw Troy standing on the other side. Instead of looking back at her he was staring down the corridor, one hand inside his coat on his holster. Was he even aware he did that every single time he’d come over? She turned the deadbolt and opened the door. Two weeks of dating and he’d never once been late. And he’d never failed to complain about the security in her building even after he’d had the alarm people install an alarm system on her doors and windows.

“If you’re expecting someone to attack you, I can pretty much guarantee it won’t happen here. It’s a quiet building with very little drama.”

“Drama can happen anywhere, sunshine.” Once he was inside and the door closed and locked to his satisfaction, he settled his hands on her hips and drew her against him. “Never hurts to be prepared.”

“My brave Boy Scout,” she murmured as he claimed her lips. “Always prepared.”

Her complaint when he broke off the kiss evaporated as he trailed his lips down the curve of her neck. Her skin broke out in goose bumps, the exact opposite of the heat sizzling beneath.

“You buy extra condoms? Because you’re gonna need them tonight.” She grasped the bottom hem of her T-shirt and prepared to pull it over her head.

To her surprise, he stopped her. “How about we go out for dinner first?”

She tilted her head, considering suggesting take-out. But from what she’d overheard at the office, he ate out a lot. There was something different about him tonight, a seriousness in the way he looked at her. Come to think of it, he’d been looking at her like that for a couple days now. Why? Was he regretting dating her?

Shit. If he was about to dump her, she’d rather not be dumped in front of an audience. “How about we eat in tonight?” She forced a smile and bounced her breasts in her palms. “Besides, we’ve eaten out three nights this week. If I eat any more restaurant food, I’ll blimp out and I’ll be able to smother you with my cleavage. My mom sent me some tomato sauce she’d bottled last summer—I could make spaghetti.”

He barked a laugh. “Spaghetti with homemade sauce sounds great. As for your cleavage…” He covered her hands with his and squeezed, his eyes filling with heat. “I’d manage to fight my way out. And enjoy it while I do.”

Going up on tiptoes, she recaptured his lips with hers, tasting the coffee he’d probably been sucking back all afternoon during yet another meeting about the latest hack attack. Maybe that’s why he was serious. Maybe there was something at work bugging him. “Why don’t you sit down while I get dinner?”

He shucked off his jacket and tossed it on the arm of the couch. Xander immediately jumped up on the couch and stretched out on the jacket.