Navy SEALs Complete Series: 3 Books + 3 Novellas (Tempting Navy SEALs) (83 page)

Past and future disintegrated. Her mind disintegrated. It melted beneath the heat and the power of release. Her release, his release. The completion of it seared her soul even as he whispered his love again. Vowed it, swore it. Kell collapsed over her, catching his weight on his elbows as his chest heaved with the need for oxygen and something inside his soul seemed to tear free. As though facing what he felt for her, facing her with it, had somehow torn free the shadows that had held him for so many years.

With his dick still semihard inside her, the first wave of hunger sated, he lifted his head from the pillow beside her and found his gaze snared by hers.

Sweet, soft sapphire. Her gaze was filled with emotion, with love. It was soft with gentleness, filled with satiation.

“Say it again,” she whispered, her fingers trembling as they lifted to his lips, touching them, like heated silk.

“I love you.” He spoke the words against the pads of her fingers, watching the tears well and overflow her eyes, the glistening moisture tracking down her flushed cheeks.

“You love me.” Her lips trembled.

“I love you, Emily.”

“No more condom fetish?”

“No more condom fetish, Emily.” He nipped at the pads of her fingers. “Just the two of us.”

He was fully erect once more, his sensitive cock surrounded by the milking heat of her pussy as he began to move again.

“Babies?” she whispered.

“When you’re ready.” His throat tightened with fear as he leaned his forehead against hers. “Be patient with me, sweetheart. A step at a time.”

“A step at a time.” Her breath caught as her eyes began to daze. “Oh God, Kell—” She lifted to him, her hips moving beneath him, churning, writhing, as her legs lifted to clasp his back once again.

She surrounded him, held him, warmed him.

“I love you,” she cried out.

She loved him.

“I treasure you,” he groaned into her neck. “With my life, my heart, my soul. I treasure you, Emily.”

As their breathing slowly returned to normal long minutes later, Kell rolled to his back, dragging Emily with him and staring down at her where she rested on his chest.

“So what now?” she asked, her gaze drowsy and replete, despite the questions he could see there.

“What do you mean?” He was almost hesitant to ask.

“It’s time to let the past go,” she whispered then. “All of it, Kell.”

He lifted his gaze from her, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully as he remembered his grandparents. The hope and pain in their eyes, the knowledge that they wouldn’t be around much longer. And Emily was right, it was time to let the past go.

“Feel like a trip to Louisiana?” he asked as he stared back down at her, anticipation suddenly filling him, a sense of rightness invading him.

Her smile lit up his heart. “Louisiana sounds wonderful, Kell.”

“I have to show Grand-père that I did indeed learn how to catch a fox.” He smirked then as he tugged at her hair. “He won’t believe me if you aren’t with me.”

“I’ll always be with you,” she promised.

And he believed because loving her meant believing. It meant trusting. And it meant life. It meant Kell Krieger was no longer alone.

I
AN MOVED THROUGH THE SILENCE
of the hospital. It was close to three in the morning, security was at its weakest now, and it was easy for him to slip into her room.

She was sleeping. He was grateful she wasn’t awake. Saying goodbye sucked. Hell, he had barely gotten to know her.

He moved to the bed, brushing the strands of black hair back from her pale face.

“I wanted to say goodbye,” he whispered as he stared down at her, his lips quirking at the faint frown that marred her brow. Hell, did she ever really rest? He was certain she didn’t.

“I wanted to tell you that I could have—” He winced. “I could have cared for you.”

She couldn’t hear him, and it was better that way. It made it easier to say the words rather than to just feel them.

“I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye,” he said softly. “Without seeing you one more time.”

A frown flitted across her brow, her fingers moved restlessly beneath his.

“Goodbye, Agent Kira Porter.”

The Chameleon. She was one of Homeland Security’s best agents.

He leaned forward, his lips touching her brow in the faintest caress before he straightened and left the room. He moved quickly down the hall. He had wasted enough time, he had a meeting to keep.

As the elevator doors opened, he came face-to-face with Macey.

The other man was leaning against the back wall, his brown gaze brooding as Ian stepped into the elevator.

“You getting out?” He held the elevator doors open, praying Macey was there to check on Kira.

“Naw. I came to see you.” Macey crossed his arms over his chest and stared back at him.

Shit. He let the doors close.

“I traced that last message,” Macey said. “It took a while. Almost two years, but I finally found you. You’re Judas.”

Ian stared at the elevator doors.

“Tell me what the fuck is going on, Ian. We’re buddies, man. Help me out here.”

Ian shoved his hands into his pockets. “Let it go, Macey.”

“I can’t let it go. Judas is one of Fuentes’s men. We know that. I just traced his fucking e-mails back to you. Tell me it was a mistake. Tell me something, goddammit.”

“It wasn’t a mistake.”

Diego Fuentes’s plane was waiting for him at the airport. A private plane sent to fly him to his
father
. Hell, it wasn’t supposed to end like this. Fuentes wasn’t supposed to ever learn he had a son. It was a promise Diego’s father had made to Ian’s mother when she left. That Diego would never know she was pregnant. For some unfathomable reason the old man had wanted to save her from Diego.

“Did you betray us too, Ian?” Macey asked then.

Ian grimaced. Hell no. He had never betrayed his country. He would never betray his friends.

“Lieutenant Richards, I asked you a fucking question,” Macey snarled.

Ian turned and faced him slowly. “Fuentes.”

“What?”

“Ian Richard Fuentes. He’s my father.”

Ian took advantage of the elevator doors opening and stepped free, his gaze locked on Macey’s face. On the betrayal in his friend’s eyes, the fury building in his face.

He had just made an enemy. The first of many.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

HIDDEN AGENDAS

Copyright © 2007 by Lora Leigh.
Excerpt from
Killer Secrets
copyright © 2007 by Lora Leigh.

Cover photo © Shirley Green

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

ISBN: 0-312-93993-0
EAN: 978-0-312-93993-9

Printed in the United States of America

St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / July 2007

St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

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eISBN 9781429917285

Praise for bestselling author Lora Leigh and

Hidden Agendas

“Treachery and intrigue combine with blistering hot sensuality in this chapter of Leigh’s SEAL saga. The title of this book is particularly apt, since many of the characters are not what they seem, and betrayal can have deadly consequences. Leigh’s books can scorch the ink off the page.”

—Romantic Times

“An evocative and captivating read.”

—Romance Junkies

Dangerous Games

“A marvelous novel of suspense and raw passion.”

—Romance Junkies

“Lora Leigh ignites the fire . . . with steamy heat added to a story that makes you cheer and even tear up.”

—Fallen Angel Reviews

“Leigh writes . . . tempting, enchanting romance[s] that readers are certain to devour.”

—Romance Reviews Today

To all my co-conspirators,
I couldn’t do it without you.

S
LIPPING INTO THE ICU UNIT
of the private military hospital wasn’t an easy task. It would be considered insane from most men’s point of view. Even a SEAL’s. But that was exactly what former Lieutenant Ian Richards of the Navy SEALs did.

Under the cover of night, he managed to slip into the hospital, make his way to the ICU, and wait until the guard at Nathan Malone’s door dozed off before he slipped in, in the guise of an orderly.

His first sight of his friend nearly stole his breath.

Sweet Jesus. Nathan was in so many damned casts and wrapped in so many bandages he looked more like a mummy than a man. But it was a far sight easier on the eyes than the naked, ravaged SEAL they had dragged out of Fuentes’s compound four months before.

Tortured, beaten, sliced and diced. His face had been so disfigured it was hard to tell he was human, let alone the friend Ian had known for the better part of his life.

How the hell Nathan had survived the nineteen months in Fuentes’s care, Ian couldn’t even imagine. Drugged constantly on the powerful date rape drug known as whore’s dust, and encouraged repeatedly to rape the women brought to him, Nathan had lived in hell. The reports they
had gathered indicated he had never taken one of the women locked in the cells with him, but the doctors and psychologists working with him said he might never recover from the amount of drugs pumped into his system.

Ian knew better. Nathan was strong. Too damned strong to let Fuentes win like this. But he had to be certain.

Even after the months Ian had been away, been considered a betrayer, a Judas to his friends, and marked as a deserter by the U.S. government, Ian had had to return to assure himself Nathan would survive.

Ian moved to the bed, sliding between it and the curtain that had been pushed back to allow the guards to see all but a very small section of the area. Right by Nathan’s head. His covered, wrapped head.

“Damn, buddy, do you think they have you wrapped up tight enough?” he asked his friend, knowing Nathan couldn’t hear him. Wishing he could.

Hell, somehow he had gotten used to being on the inside of a team, rather than fighting alone to survive. He had gotten used to the men he fought with, had grown to trust them, only to learn at the end of it, he was fighting alone once again.

Long ago, Nathan and his family had saved Ian and his mother’s life. On a cold desert night, with only his screams of rage surrounding him, a boy and his father had found him, saved him and his dying mother, and given Ian a friendship he had never known before that.

And now, when his friend awoke, he would believe that friendship had been betrayed.

He grimaced at the thought of it, his jaw tightening in rage at the situation he had been forced into. Because of blood. Because sometimes, a man could do nothing about where he came from, he could only control where he went. And where Ian was heading, Nathan or Durango team couldn’t go.

Ian could only go alone.

“We had a wild ride huh, bro,” he whispered, his voice nearly silent, but the breath of the words easing a part of him.

Nathan was unconscious, comatose, but somehow, knowing the words were whispering past his lips eased Ian. Maybe, just maybe, his friend would hear a part of them, know, understand, that beneath the near silent whisper was the truth. It had been a wild ride, and now it was over.

He reached out, let his fingers touch his friend’s shoulder as a grin tugged at his lips.

Nathan “Irish” Malone. All smiles and wild blue eyes, a man who as a boy had saved his life.

“Hell of a way to repay you,” he breathed out softly. “But what’s that old saying? Blood will tell?”

That was what Nathan used to say. When the chips were down, when everything was going from sugar to shit, he would flash that reckless smile, look at Ian, and laugh in his face. “Blood will tell, ole son.” And they would go out fighting hell-for-leather because Ian’s blood might be tainted with evil, but his heart was one hundred percent red-blooded American Navy Seal. That was Nathan’s belief in him. What would he believe when he awoke? Ian wondered.

“Get strong, Irish,” he said then. “You always were the wild card of the group, show ’em you’re tougher, stronger than what put you here. Then look me up.”

He tightened his fingers on his friend’s shoulder, then slowly eased the grip, his head lifting as the hairs along the nape of his neck stood up in warning.

The sound was no more than a breath. Just enough. Not a shuffle, no more than cloth against flesh in the most subtle flexing of muscle.

His teeth flashed in a grin as his weapon dropped from the sleeve of his jacket to his palm. And it didn’t whisper. There was no catch of metal over flesh. It was silent. Still.

There were some people that a man just had to give credit for trying. This was one of them. He knew where the body stood now, that subtle shift had been all he needed. He knew where and he knew who. Instinct and something more. A part of a man that knew a woman in a way that made no sense. An underlying certainty, as though a part of
him knew a part of her no matter where they found each other. No matter the disguise she used.

Of course, it didn’t help her cause that Ian had recognized something about her that no one else had. A delicate turn of pretty ears, a particular slant and curve of pretty earlobes. If a man wanted to take the time to memorize every shape and turn of her face as Ian had before that first mission where he met her, then he would have seen it.