Kill List (Special Ops #8) (9 page)

Not to mention the fact that she was the only witness who could place him and she was sure he would find a way to take her out even if he were sitting in prison awaiting trial. There is no way he would let her cross the threshold of a courthouse and seal his fate. No, he would put a hit out on her so fast she wouldn’t even get through the door. Heck, she would be lucky if she even got to the courthouse. The man was lethal and she could see that in the way he handled the kill of Amber. He wasn’t honest; he wasn’t nice; and he most certainly was not a man who would show mercy. She could beg, cry and beg some more and she was sure this man would still kill her without hesitation, without regret. She was probably less than human to him. She was just another woman he had to kill to protect whatever it was he was doing that was illegal. What had all those papers and pictures been about? Was he blackmailing somebody? What?

She thought about how Chogan had responded when she mentioned the pictures and figured he had a clue, or some idea, and she wanted to know what he thought. She wanted to know when his mind seemed to be made up that he wanted a different kind of justice. Then again, maybe she was just reading something into his words. Maybe he wanted to rough the guy up before handing him over to the right authorities. She wouldn’t know if she didn’t ask him. She could speculate and assume, but assumptions weren’t a smart way of living.

“You know don’t you? You know what this man is, what he’s hiding.”

“I have a feeling I know and a feeling I’m right. Silencer, pictures, papers, and the easy kill of my sister…yeah, I have an idea what he is.”

“What?”

“An assassin,” he said flatly and she gasped. “A paid killer who got caught. Amber found his kill list. The people he still has to take out and maybe an x-mark on the pictures of the ones he had killed. Or a cross off the list type thing. He’s a hired killer and she stumbled upon the proof. She died for that and he’s going to come after you because without you nobody will know who and what he is. Without you he walks free to kill again, to finish off that list, collect his final payments, and move on to the next hired hit.”

“My God,” she gasped again, more afraid now than she was before. An assassin?—that’s who was after her now. Dear goodness she had just brought Chogan into a world of danger. She knew he was used to military combat, but was he used to this? Could he really go against a guy who was so skilled at killing and getting away with it? As easily as that man had killed Amber and made a call for a cleanup she knew he hadn’t just started doing this work. He had to be a pro. For a hotel suite like that—yeah, somebody was paying him big and as far as she would imagine, beginners didn’t get high payments. He was a pro, and he was coming after her.

“I know you’re scared,” he uttered those words softly yet the anger in his voice was clearly evident. “But I will protect you, Liv. You have to believe that.”

“I do. I just…he’s…he’s a monster. He’s done this before I’m sure, and he’s gotten away with it all this time. What if he’s…”

“Better than me?”

“That’s not what I meant.” She tried to get down but clearly he wasn’t going to let her get out of his arms. He kept walking around holding her against his chest.

“Sure it is. You’re worried more about my safety than your own. You’re worried he’ll kill me. I’ve been through hell. I’ve faced worse devils than this man. Trust me when I say I will protect you. My guys are coming. If I need more backup I can get it. Don’t worry about me.”

She sighed. “How can I not?” She loved him. She had been smitten with him since the first time she saw him, and had grown attracted to him each time Amber talked about him. She had grown to love him over time and she had kept that love wrapped up in a tight package in her heart until now. She didn’t want him to die because of her.

“Trust me,” his voice was demanding yet gently so. She did trust him. She just didn’t trust that good would always conquer over evil. This man, the beast who was after her, was pure evil. The look on his face when he killed Amber showed no remorse, no discomfort at the blood seeping out of her. He just wasn’t human and that’s all she could say about him. He was like one of those demons she read about in the Christian studies her mother had shortly entertained before deciding it just wasn’t for her and her family to be part of any organized religion.

This was going to drive her mad. The images of Amber sitting there on the floor, rearranging the emptied case files back to where they went, the look of the man pointing the gun at her head, and the fear that she felt racing through every nerve in her body just wasn’t going away. She couldn’t shake it. It wouldn’t leave her and she wanted it gone. She wanted those images to stop haunting her. She wanted those daggers of fear to stop stabbing her. But she couldn’t get that. Every time she closed her eyes, every time she sat down unoccupied, the memories flooded her mind.

She trembled in Chogan’s arms. There was one thing that could help her stop remembering even if only for a short time. She needed that connection to something good, something safe, something love induced. She looked up at him, his eyes staring back into hers. “Make love to me,” she whispered those words. “Please?”

“Olivia,” he used the fullness of her name which she wasn’t sure if he was getting ready to say no or lecture her on how she couldn’t use sex to make herself feel better.

“Please?” She let her fingers gently rasp over his neck, seducing him, or at least trying to. It wasn’t as if she had any experience on the art of seduction or anything like that.

“I can’t…you’re…”

“You’re good. You’re honest. You love me; at least I think you do. Maybe you don’t, but I still want to be connected to you—deeply connected to you.” She placed her lips in a trail of soft kisses along his jaw line to his ear and then down his neck.

He groaned. His actions were so swift she hadn’t had time to prepare to go nearly flailing onto the bed. By the time she got settled on the bed he already had the palm of his hands anchored to it, caging her in and staring down at her with such intensity in his eyes that it made a trembling force of passion and fear race through her. Would he give in to her request? Would he take her here and now?

His eyes raked over her body, up then down and then up again. There was such a hard look to him that she couldn’t read it. Was that desire lurking beneath his armor?

“I don’t think you understand,” the harsh tones of his voice flooded her body with a completely different kind of emotion—and it wasn’t fear. “You don’t understand what you do to me. You don’t understand how hard it was for me to see you and look at you as just my sister’s friend. You don’t understand how hard it was for me not to bend you over that picnic table at the family outing, pull your jeans down, rip your panties off and take you right there. And if you think one time with you was enough for me you’re wrong. It wasn’t enough. It will never be enough. But I can’t give you soft and gentle. If you think the other day was rough I can assure you that’s as easy as I get. I held back because I knew you were hurting emotionally and I felt kind of bad about taking you—almost like I was taking advantage of you, but I assure you if I take you now there is nothing gentle in what I’ll do to you.”

She felt her heart racing. Their first time was holding back for him? If that was holding back then what was he like at full throttle?

“I’m running on my own adrenaline rush here, Olivia.” He stressed her name with a sway in his accent that sent ripples of desire down her spine. “I’m the Marine hot off a mission and firmly entrenched in another. If you don’t want me to pound you into this bed I would advise you to stop enticing me—now.” His hand moved to her inner thigh, pushed the skirt of her dress up a little along his way and he pressed his fingers into her skin hard and squeezed with his hand just the same.

She eased up on her elbows and he moved back, standing a measured distance from her as if he were satisfied that he had made his point. He didn’t want to hurt her and she knew that, but she wanted him more now than she had before.

She pushed the hem of her dress up, gathering it in the palm of her hands and pulling it over her head. The dress was too big on her so she didn’t have to unzip or unhook anything. And he had ripped her only underwear off the last time they were together so now she sat here, naked and open to his gaze.

He growled a guttural groan. She could see his erection growing in his pants.

“I made it easy for you, Chogan.” She slid her hands to her center and swept a finger up her folds. “But I’m not sure I’m wet enough yet for what you say you’ll do.”

“And I’m not sure I can control it,” he growled as he started to tug off his own clothes. His eyes were dark with passion, with a primitive force that she couldn’t explain, yet she could feel the heat of it as if somebody had dug a tunnel full of lava in the room.

“In fact,” he said as he stepped out of his pants, “I’m sure I can’t control it.” And in his words she saw the truth in them—he couldn’t control it, but more than that, he didn’t want to control it.

And like lightening streaking across the sky and impacting the tree on the ground he was on her so fast it nearly knocked the breath out of her. He was hard angles to her soft curves. He was primal force to her docile serenity. He was her opposite and yet they fit—his power to her softness, his masculinity strong and hard to her femininity soft with an edge was so perfectly binding, meshing in complete harmony, that she felt this was right, perfect, fated. They were meant for each other. All roads in her life had led her here, to this man, to this moment, to this finality. There would never be another man like him in her life. There would never be another man who could claim her heart the way he had done. That should have scared her, but right now all she could think about was how much she wanted him, how much she needed him, and how much she would surrender to him.

In that moment she didn’t fight the power of his heat. She gave in to it, embracing it fully and allowing his force to control, to entangle, to empower her and consume her. In that moment she gave a promise to herself—nobody else would ever share this part of her body, her heart, her life. Nobody but Chogan could consume her like a supernova, and guard her like an uncontrollable force of nature. This man was her match in every way, and in this moment she had made that promise to herself that he, and he alone, would claim the rapture of her heart.

Chapter Four

C
hogan looked at the soft woman spooned against his body. He had taken her relentlessly as if he were some primal beast claiming and conquering. He was never the play it soft kind of man—in the bedroom or out of it—but how he took her surpassed even him. Something about her felt like a drug that he got one taste of and craved more. He hadn’t taken her just once, or twice; he had come inside her all night. Ride ‘em hard was an understatement. He had taken her long, deep, and overpoweringly so for hours until he collapsed on top of her unable to move to do more than lick, kiss and nip her neck.

She had come. He knew she had enjoyed it because she had come each time, moaning, gasping for breath and even screaming out his name. And the way her walls constricted on his penis fueled his furry even more. She was the match and he was the gasoline waiting to set the forest on fire. One moan from her, one inhaled breath, pushed him harder, made him drive deeper. Control was not an option. And now she lay here with him, her hair disheveled and falling across her shoulders and over the curve of her breasts. Now she lay here sleeping peacefully with his cum drying on her skin and working its way through her on a mission—he wanted a baby with this woman. He wanted a family with this woman. More than that, he wanted a life with this woman. This woman was his and he would be damned if he let anybody take her from him.

His disposable phone buzzed. He reluctantly twisted out of his hold on Olivia. She squirmed a little but drifted right back into a sated slumber. He reached his pants still in a puddle on the floor, sifted through the pocket and pulled out the phone. One text awaited him, ‘ETA STE,” and that told him all he needed to know. Skip was coming in sooner than expected which meant he was probably nearing the place and would be there in less than an hour. Chogan felt a slight twinge of loss for their private moment, but he got over that. His mission was to find this man, save Olivia, and then he could enjoy all the private moments with her he wanted. That thought hit him hard. What was he thinking? He would be plucked out of the States as soon as another mission required him and the team. With the state of the world affairs he was sure that mission would come sooner rather than later.

He looked over to her still naked body and then crossed the floor to grab the blanket they had brought with them. He draped her with the cover to keep her warm and then he went back to his room to shower and change. Some corner of his mind told him to take a rag and wipe some of their leftover lovemaking away from her body, but another part of his mind liked that she was still wearing him on her skin.

He pulled the door closed and went downstairs to keep watch. When he saw Skip pulling up while tripping off a few of the sensors he had set up and connected to the computer, he opened the door with his gun still in hand. He was always cautious and never lackadaisical while on a mission—or any other time for that matter.

“Marine,” Skip pulled three bags from the car, checking his surroundings just as much as Chogan was still watching the area. When he came inside he dropped the smaller bag on the floor, cautiously set down the case with a light clunk due to the fabric mesh he had it hidden in, and then there was the big, made for a month long vacation bag. Chogan eyed the setup.

“What’s in there?” He pointed to the larger case. “Did you think we were going into a war the size of China or something?”

Skip laughed. “Well you never know if this guy has hired help, but no; that there is for the lady.”

Chogan’s eyes went wide. “She’s not going to be here forever.”

Skip shrugged. “I didn’t go shopping for all this stuff. The tag did—and what a tag she was. Luscious coffee and cream colored skin, gunmetal gray eyes and the sexiest pixie cut I’ve ever seen on a woman. Yep, I’m going to have to get back to D.C. real soon.”

Chogan shook his head. “I’m sure you’ve gotten a piece of this tag already.”

“Nope. Not that I didn’t want to, but man, she’s a lady. My military status didn’t make her crawl all over me like some women do. And I couldn’t even pull out the Cubin flare on her because she still wasn’t trying to jump my bones. Not that I didn’t want to jump hers but I’m on a mission here. So what do you need me to do?”

Get focused on the mission was what they all liked to do. Get things solidified and focus. Now that Skip was here he could get him updated on the problem a lot better than he already was because when he had the call sent out he hadn’t exactly said the details, just that it was one man, but a lot of work.

“I don’t think this guy would hire anybody. He’s an assassin and I’m sure he takes pleasure in the kill.”

“Your sister was on a hit list? Who put it out because I will take care of that for you?”

“No, she wasn’t on the list. She was cleaning the room of the man with the job and knocked his case over. Long story short, she found his kill list—she probably didn’t even know it.”

“So who are we protecting? Autumn didn’t say—just that it was of the upmost importance to guard her.”

“Remember that woman I told you about.”

“Legs you wished you had wrapped around your body—her?”

He shook his head. Some things really should have been left unsaid, but he was thinking about her and each of the men knew that distant look in his eyes when they got a near back to back assignment that meant they weren’t going to get home on leave. “Her,” he said. “She was helping Amber clean the room. She…she saw the kill. She hid, got out, called in the 9-1-1 to make sure Amber’s body wouldn’t go missing or end up being labeled a different kind of murder. And…well, cops are involved on this.”

“What?” The stern look in his eyes told Chogan that Skip knew just how deep the bomb went on this because step wrong and they would be the ones going six feet under instead of the bastard who deserved to be there.

“Yeah, she heard him calling and asking for two officers to be sent for cleanup. I don’t know which cops are in and which are out, but I know I do not trust any of them right now.”

“Then you have two enemies here. The beast you know, and the one you don’t.”

“I don’t know who this guy is yet.”

“You know what he is and you’re more than capable of assessing how skilled he’ll be with his kill. The man will be more methodical, and will stalk until the prey is ripe for the killing. The cops, the ones you don’t know, are like a live wire. Those are the ones you have to worry about. Those are the ones more likely to pull a favor with somebody who wants to stay out of jail.”

“She doesn’t know who they are.”

“But she knows cops are involved. The man this guy called is going to not want an investigation hitting his house—you know that and I know that.”

Chogan tossed his head back and stared up at the ceiling. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Because he was too busy thinking of how much he needed to protect Olivia from this assassin that he hadn’t thought anything about the cops who might be running wild coming after her too.

“Chogan,” he heard the soft voice as Olivia rounded the corner. Thank God she had been wrapped in the blanket or she would have been sharing her glorious body with Skip and Chogan didn’t like the thought of that at all. Of course her being draped in his Native blanket had a different image in his head, a long, spacious, wilderness kind of image where he hunted for food and came back to taste her before cleaning the animal itself. Of course she was mostly vegetarian, as Amber had said, so he would have to be more berry and vegetable gather he guessed, but that hadn’t changed the fantasy his mind was conjuring up.

“Oh, I didn’t realize.” She took a step back. “I’ll just be um…upstairs.” She waved to Skip as she exited by swiftly backing out the room. He could see the flush of embarrassment in her reddened cheeks and widened eyes.

Skip chuckled softly. “Mission accomplished I see,” he snickered more as Chogan rolled his eyes.

“I’m going to take the clothes up to her.” He shook his head. Yeah, mission accomplished—one of them anyway because he had his woman; now he needed to keep her alive and safe. Eliminate the threat was what he was good at—what they all were good at.

He grabbed the bigger bag and took it upstairs. The clothes came just in time because now she could walk around in something other than a dress that showed off her bare breasts from different angles, or just the blanket. She would also have panties, and while those would get in his way, he couldn’t deny he didn’t want her commando while the men were here. Why was he being so primordial in his thinking? He trusted her. He trusted his teammates in action—but maybe, just maybe, he didn’t fully trust them to keep their paws off his woman. They were probably still on a high adrenaline rush from their last mission and knowing they had something Stateside helping out a member of the team had probably amplified the rush. She was the only woman within reach and he knew they better keep their hands off her.

He shook his head at himself. The guys would never cross that line and he knew it. Man, he was in trouble if the thought of them here with his woman had sparked this kind of heat in his protective mode. “Focus on the threat,” he had told himself, “not on the team you know would give their life for you.” He mentally admonished himself.

“Hey,” he dropped the bag on the floor on the side of the bed. “Skip brought clothes.”

She nodded. “Thanks—for everything.”

“Always,” he said as he kissed her forehead. He would have loved to kiss her lips but with what he was feeling right now he knew a taste of her lips would make him do something else with that naked body beneath the blanket. “I have to go do some work.”

She nodded. “I’ll get showered and put together. I’ll come down and cook something for you all.”

“Thanks.” Normally he would cook, but he really needed to get in on this and get a plan completely solidified. The sooner they got this guy the sooner she could go back to feeling one hundred percent safe, and the sooner he could get the legal side of their union taken care of.

Olivia showered first and then, wrapped in a towel, searched through the bag of clothes. This tag that Chogan had spoken of was definitely a stylish woman. The clothes were exactly what she would have bought if she could have afforded them. This is like the style she wore while she was economically fit. Not that her clothes lacked grace and beauty now, just that she spent more time in the uniform getting to and from work than she did out of it these days.

She pulled on the skinny jeans and the soft coral shade knitted sweater. She was thinking of pulling on one of the dresses, but given the situation she wasn’t sure if she was going to have to be ready to run fast. Not that she couldn’t run in a dress. She had done a lot more than run in one. Kind of like her uniform dress where she ended up sliding down the dirty laundry disposal shoot. Yeah, she could move in a dress, but these jeans with the sweater, underwear that actually fit her and boots that were stylish and would keep her feet warm felt right.

She pushed her hair up in a classically retro protective up-do like she had worn for years now. She used to wear her hair down more than up but had gotten into up-do styles while in her college later years. A challenge to wear protective up-do styles for three months had gotten her used to the look and she found herself staying with the style even after the challenge ended. Although when she was around Chogan she had a tendency to let her hair down. In fact, whenever he was in town and she knew she would be around him she made a point of either straightening it out or wearing it with soft curls loosely flowing down her back to just at waist length.

She smiled to herself. She was always trying to impress the man even if she didn’t admit that ever so openly; she knew she was trying to impress and seduce. She wanted to catch his eye, and clearly she had managed to do that. If it hadn’t been for recent events she wondered if they would have ever connected.—Probably not seeing as though he never even gave her a hint of a sign that he saw her as anything more than his little sister’s friend.

She went downstairs to the kitchen and started the breakfast meal for them. Chogan had food already in the place and fortunately he remembered she didn’t eat meat so there was some fruit there as well. Breakfast would be done with the same flare for beauty and delicious taste that her father and mother had raised her with. Her father was the master of the kitchen, while her mother had conquered etiquette and proper table settings that could give even Martha Stewart a run for her money. When she finished cooking she set everything up on the table, turkey bacon in one dish, turkey sausage in another, eggs were in another bowl with aluminum foil over it to hold in the heat. The toast was in a basket and the butter was on the butter dish. Everything was set. She went back to the office-like room where the men were and told them to come eat.

“Thanks, beautiful,” the other man said and Chogan growled. “Well she is beautiful and we haven’t exactly been introduced yet.” He eyed him with a glare to let him know proper introductions were his job.

“This is Olivia, Liv to me,” he said in a way that told her he expected these men not to call her Liv. “Liv, this is Skip.”

“Howdy,” he tipped an imaginary hat and she laughed.

“Hi.” She looked at his light golden sun kissed, but naturally so, skin. “Where are you from?”

“All over,” he avoided giving too much detail. “But I’m from Cuban heritage—first generation American.”

She smiled. “Nice ancestry there, Skip.”