Renegade Alpha (ALPHA 5) (7 page)

Not nearly far enough, in Lijah’s opinion. He never thought about his family anymore. As far as he was concerned, they didn’t exist. Not his too-handy-with-his-fists father or his too-weak-to-defend-her-own-son mother. They could rot in hell together for all he cared.

“I’m not hungry.” He dropped his fork onto his plate and pushed it away. “Not for food, anyway.” He eyed Callie speculatively as he slowly stood.

Callie had no idea what Lijah had been thinking about the past few minutes, but he’d gone from being his usual economically terse self to a man whose eyes now glittered with a cold intensity.

An intensity that appeared to be centered on her as he stepped purposefully around the table. Callie swallowed, her gaze on a level with that noticeable bulge at the front of his jeans.

“Lijah?” She pushed back against the chair as she looked up at him.

“Say no now, Callie, because I won’t give you a second chance,” he warned gruffly as he grasped hold of her arms and easily pulled her to her feet to stand in front of him.

The difference in their heights meant she had to tilt her head back in order to look him in the face. She wasn’t in the least reassured by what she saw there. The darkness of his gaze was fixed on her slightly parted lips, and there was a ruddiness to his cheeks, and those chiseled lips were curled into a humorless smile of intent. The muscles in his arms and chest were also tense. As if he was preparing to pounce.

Callie ran her tongue nervously across her bottom lip, her breath hitching in her throat as that indigo gaze darkened even more as it followed the movement.

Was it wrong of her to want to feel those sensuous lips against her own? To want that hard and aroused body pressing into her softer curves, if only for a few minutes?

Was it wrong of her to want another man, this man, when Michael had only been dead for six months?

Lijah’s eyes narrowed to dark slits. “There’s no room between the two of us for anyone else.”

Callie flinched at how easily he had been able to read her guilty thoughts.

She had been well on her way to loving Michael when he died, but she hadn’t yet been
in love
with him. Whereas in just a few hours of being with Lijah, watching him in action, she had definitely fallen
in lust
with him.

Was it wrong of her to feel this way?
 

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Lijah growled as his arms moved about her waist and he pulled her in tightly against the muscled contours of his body, crushing her hands against his chest. “This is real, Callie.” He deliberately ground the hardness of his erection against her. “I’m here, you’re here, and you sure as hell can’t fuck a ghost.”

She flinched, both at his words and the underlying anger in his tone. “That was completely uncalled for.”

He shrugged. “The truth is the truth.”

“And you’re big on the truth, are you?” she accused.
 

“Yeah, I am, as it happens.”

Callie believed him, could clearly see the dangerous glitter in his eyes. Lying to this man wasn’t an option.

“What’s the problem, Callie?” His face had hardened. “And don’t say it’s because you don’t want me, because I’ve seen the way you’ve been watching me all afternoon.”

Her cheeks blazed with guilty heat. She hadn’t been able to stop herself from watching him. She also hadn’t known he was aware of it. “You’re quite impressive in work mode,” she came back defensively.

“I’m quite impressive in a lot of modes,” he assured her dryly.

Callie already knew that too, had realized it from the moment Lijah emerged from underneath the Stetson that this man had the power and expertise to absolutely wreck a woman on a physical level. Knew he would claim and give absolute pleasure, while revealing nothing of himself. “Michael and I weren’t lovers.”

He stilled. “Why the hell did you tell me that?”

“Because you were making assumptions that simply aren’t true.”

“Perfectly natural ones in the circumstances, I would have thought,” he drawled, eyes narrowing. “What was wrong with Hammond?”

She drew in an indignant gasp. “There was nothing wrong with him!”

“Then why didn’t he— Was he was of those gay artistic types?”

Callie was rendered almost—almost—speechless. “How dare you?” she managed to burst out. “Michael was a gentleman, and he certainly wasn’t gay.”

“And I’m so obviously neither one of those things.” Lijah eyed her mockingly. “You want me anyway.”

Callie could feel that want now, pulsing, heating,
arousing
as it clawed at her insides wanting to break free. And she so wanted to forget the horror of these past months—and the ordeal to come—and lose herself in the promise of pleasure she could see glinting in Lijah’s eyes as he looked down at her.

She wanted his strength, his possession, if only for a brief time, to breathe in and lose herself in his body and that hot male musk that had curled its way into her senses.

As Lijah was now breathing her in, his face buried against the column of her throat, lips nuzzling, tongue tasting as it licked against that sensitive flesh.

“Yes…” Callie acknowledged achingly, giving a shiver of pleasure even as her neck arched in silent invitation.

“Better.”

“You want me too.” The evidence of that was all too obvious.

“Never said I didn’t.” His breath was hot against her skin. “So, we have time for food, or we have time to fuck. Which is it going to be, Callie?”

Despite those early years spent on army bases with her father, Callie knew she had never met a man as direct as Lijah before. At least ten years older than her, with those bad-boy good looks that tempted a woman into sin, he didn’t even attempt to pretty up his intention with compliments or seduction, or a claim of having feelings for her. He stated exactly what he wanted: sex without false emotions or promises.

They could eat, or they could fuck.

All Callie had to do was choose which one.

Chapter 5

“Maybe a little hors d’oeuvre would help to make up your mind,” he murmured as his lips grazed across her jaw on a path toward her lips.

Callie couldn’t breathe, certainly didn’t have the willpower to resist.

She wanted Lijah to kiss her. Wanted so much more than kisses. Had been wanting them—him, for hours now.

She expected his kiss to be hard and demanding. Instead, his hands moved to cup either side of her face as he tilted it up toward his and those chiseled lips claimed hers in soft exploration. Testing her response as he sipped and tasted, giving a low groan in his throat when her lips parted tentatively beneath his and her hands glided up the warmth of his chest, fingers grasping hold of his muscled shoulders, nails digging into his flesh as she silently pleaded for more.

Maddeningly, he continued those slow and tempting kisses as the heavy weight of his erection pressed and rubbed against her, his hips arched into hers.

“Lijah, please,” she pleaded between those frustrating kisses that really were only that starter he had suggested, a promise of what was to come.

His teeth nipped at her jawline. “You haven’t said yes yet,” he reminded, voice dark and smoky from his restrained desire.

They could eat, or they could fuck.

It was an offer so raw, so utterly basic, and with absolutely no suggestion of his ever wanting anything else from her. Lijah wasn’t even asking for her to like him, only that she want and desire him.

The desire was a given. And she did want him. Over her. Inside her. Claiming her. Pounding into her relentlessly as he took them both into mind-numbing, pleasure-filled oblivion.

She needed this.

She needed Lijah.

“Yes or no, Callie,” he encouraged throatily, gaze holding hers as his hands moved slowly down and then up her sides to hold the weight of her breasts in his palms, fingers caressing, finding and then gently squeezing her hard and aching nipples.

The pleasure of those caresses shot directly to her core, the lips of her labia swelling, relaxing in readiness for him as they became slick with her juices—

“No.” Lijah was the one to groan in harsh protest.

“What?” Callie looked up at him in bewilderment as he straightened abruptly, his expression bleak, the lust having faded from those dark indigo eyes. “What’s wrong? I didn’t say no. I didn’t say anything!” To her shame, her voice broke emotionally as Lijah stepped away from her, removing his reassuring heat and the promised pleasure in that hard, aroused body.

“Didn’t you hear someone’s banging on the fucking door?” Anger darkened his face as he turned to glare in the direction of the door through which they had entered the warehouse earlier. A door within the much bigger door that had obviously once moved up to allow deliveries into the warehouse.

Callie hadn’t heard anyone knocking on the door. She hadn’t been aware of anything except Lijah and the pleasure of having his hands, lips, and eyes on her.

“Stay here,” Lijah directed distractedly, glaring his displeasure as he turned to stride toward the door.

No one—absolutely no one—came here. No one was ever invited here. No one was
allowed
to come here.

But someone was definitely daring to invade his privacy. Lijah felt so pissed, he wanted to open the door and rip the head off the shoulders of whoever was standing out there.

And not just because they shouldn’t be here.

His cock was once again pounding in a painful, demanding rhythm. He had been so close, so damned close to carrying Callie upstairs to his bedroom, and now this.

Whatever—whoever, this was.

He wrenched the door open with such aggression and a scowl on his face that the man standing outside took an instinctive step back. “Who the hell are you?” Lijah growled in challenge.

The man wore a nondescript dark suit and plain white shirt with a neatly knotted dark tie, which did absolutely nothing to lessen the bulging muscles beneath.

Lijah knew he had never set eyes on this man before.

The other man seemed to gather himself together as he straightened. “I’m Mr. Wynter’s chauffeur. I’m here to drive you and your guest to the airport.”

How the fuck did Lucien Wynter know where he lived?

Strike that question, Lijah. Lucien Wynter is a powerful unstoppable force, and he will make it his business to know whatever the hell he wants to know.

And right now it seemed he wanted to know where Lijah lived.

“Wonderful,” he accepted disgustedly.

“Is there a problem, Mr. Smith? I can come back later if—”

“Just wait outside in the car, and we’ll join you in a minute.” He closed the door in the other man’s face before he had a chance to reply.

Great. Just fucking great. He invited Callie into his home for a few hours, and now the whole damned world and its
chauffeur
thought they were invited in too.

Not that he didn’t appreciate the ride. It would save him having to leave his own car at the airport. But it would have been nice to be consulted, asked, rather than having that arrogant bastard just assume—

Lucien Wynter was Dair’s cousin. What else did Lijah expect? No doubt the two men had talked on the telephone after Lijah spoke to Dair, and the two of them had decided on this one together.

“Lijah?”

He turned to glower across at Callie. The woman he had fully intended taking to bed just a few short minutes ago.

So maybe you should be thanking the chauffeur for the interruption rather than wanting to rip his head off his shoulders?

He never allowed a mission to become personal, couldn’t afford to do so when lives were at stake. He couldn’t let this one become personal either.

Any more personal than it already was, when it was Peter Morgan he was going to the States to find.

Fucking Peter’s daughter along the way was a bad idea on so many levels.

Lijah needed to keep his senses sharp, focused on the mission in hand, not have his judgment clouded by having a constant hard-on for Callie Morgan. Taking care of the problem in the shower hadn’t been enough, and he had no reason to suppose taking her to bed just the once would be enough either.

Which meant he shouldn’t be starting something if he wasn’t sure how to finish it. Because he would finish it. If his family wasn’t enough of a turnoff, then attachments were a definite no-no in his line of business. And he had a feeling Callie Morgan was the attachment sort of woman.

“Get your things together,” he instructed her abruptly.

“I— What about the food?” She looked totally bewildered by this sudden change of plans.

“I’ll throw it in the bin outside on our way out. Just get your stuff and let’s go.” Lijah always kept a bag packed and ready to go in the closet near the door. He never knew, day or night, when he would be called out to deal with one of the more private security issues handled by Grayson Security.

Today was no exception, despite the fact he had already been away for six days. He would merely swap one bag for another, and the laundry would just have to keep until he got back.