Special Ops Affair (12 page)

When one opened, they joined two other women holding shopping bags and chattering quietly together. Jag’s hand slid down to her rear.

Hot fire shot through her. Knowing they were on the way to the room only made it worse. There was no mistaking what he wanted. Maybe she shouldn’t have come clean with him. He’d still be keeping his distance. But now he seemed to trust her, and that left nothing in the way of him pursuing her.

The elevator doors opened and the two women left. Odie backed up against the wall, forcing Jag to remove his hand from her. But she couldn’t take her eyes off him. It was only three in the afternoon, but if she went to the room with him they were going to have sex.

“Maybe room service isn’t such a good idea,” she said.

“It’s a great idea.” His eyes were all smoky with desire.

The elevator doors opened. Odie hesitated before pushing off the wall. She wanted to pounce on him right there, wrap her legs around him and grind away.

He swept his hand in invitation to go ahead of him. She stepped out into the hallway. Each step closer to the room made her more breathless.

Was she ready for this?

She didn’t have to marry him. She didn’t have to pledge anything permanent with him, either. So what if they had sex. It would relieve tension. It was good exercise. So many good things…

She slid the card key into the door and opened it. Jag held it open as they entered. She heard it shut. The drapes were open and it was bright in the room. The bed was freshly made.

Facing him, she saw that he stood just a few feet from her.

“About today…” she started to say, but he tossed the rental keys on the desk and moved toward her. There was no mistaking his intent.

A flush of warmth sent her heart racing. She dropped the card key. His arm wound around her and he pulled her against him. He kissed her. His mouth moved over hers and then his lips opened and he marauded.

“Today drove me insane,” he murmured.

“Me, too,” she rasped.

Lifting his golf shirt, she ran her hands over his rippling skin. He lifted her shirt and pulled it over her head. Dropping it to the floor, he finished removing his own shirt and let it fall on top of hers. She just stood there and watched him. He unbuttoned his jeans but before he removed them, he reached around the back of her and unclasped her bra, kissing her as he did.

She kissed him back while he pulled the straps of her bra down her arms until it fell at their feet. He stepped back and sat on the bed to take off his boots. Odie sat next to him and took hers off. Kicking the second one free, she put her hands on Jag as he rolled on top of her, laying her down on the bed. Her feet still hung over the edge. He kissed her and ran his hands over her breasts, rising up to look at her. He put his mouth over one nipple and Odie dug her head back against the mattress.

“I can’t wait,” he breathed. “Today was pure hell.”

She had to agree. She watched him slide his jeans down, taking his underwear with them and kicking them to the floor. His thick erection jutted toward her. She wanted him inside her.

“Looks like heaven to me,” she said.

“Lucky you.” He unbuttoned her jeans.

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

He chuckled. “Shut that smart mouth of yours.” He kissed her there while he pushed her jeans down.

“Or what?”

“Or…” Moving down to her throat, he kissed his way to the inner curve of her breast, making his way down to her stomach.

She moaned.

He pulled her jeans all the way off.

Climbing onto the bed, he straddled her on his hands. She spread her legs, her feet still hanging over the edge of the bed, and he put his knees in the space between. Holding onto his biceps, she watched his eyes as he put the tip of his erection against her and pushed. She felt stretched and tight, but she was so ready for him that he slid all the way in without any trouble.

“Heaven, for sure,” she whispered. And then moaned again. It felt so good.

“Shh, or I’ll tell everyone your mouth doesn’t stop even during sex.”

“Be careful, they might misunderstand you.”

He chuckled seductively and slid his length almost all the way out of her and then pushed back in, bumping hips with her. He kept doing that, sliding in and out, excruciatingly slow. Odie had to close her eyes and groan.

Jag moved his arm under her and pulled her farther up onto the mattress. Then he hooked one of her legs with his arm, pulling it high and wide. Prickles of sensation rippled through her, building to delicious heights. She met his fiery eyes as an orgasm catapulted her into space.

Jag lay on her for a while and the significance of what had just happened descended on her. When she felt his body tense a little, she knew he was coming back down to earth, too.

He rolled off her and lay on his back. But Odie wasn’t ready to face reality just yet. She rolled to his side and to her relief, he curved his arm around her. The energy between them was both something to celebrate and run scared from. They definitely were a pair in the sack, but where was this going?

She wasn’t sure she’d be able to walk away from this, from Jag. And that was the frightening part. What scared her more was knowing Jag probably would agree. They both felt something powerful together. But even though Jag trusted her regarding this assignment, was he ready to trust her in love? And was she ready to take on love again? She was afraid the answer to both was no.

Chapter 8

K
nocking jarred Jag from sleep. He lifted his head and looked beside him. Odie lay half on her side and half on her stomach, one leg bent and the other spread wide under the covers. Her hair partially hid her face, but he could see her full mouth and dark lashes outlining her perfectly shaped eyes.

He checked the clock beside the bed. It was late. After eleven. The evening with Odie rushed over him. After room service in bed, she’d crawled onto his lap and they made love that way, with dishes clanking and food spilling onto the comforter. Then after dozing for a while, he’d rolled her onto her back and gone a third round.

Another knock got him off the bed. Finding his jeans, he put them on.

At the door, he looked through the peephole. It was Senator Raybourne. Jag glanced back at the bed. Odie hadn’t moved. But he figured this visit was too important to put off.

“Odie,” he called.

She stirred, rolling onto her back and then propping herself up onto her elbows, looking sleepy and sexy, and very shagged.

“It’s Raybourne,” he said.

Wrapping the sheet around her, Odie woke up in an instant and trotted off to the bathroom.

Jag opened the door to a tense-looking Raybourne. But then Raybourne searched beyond Jag into the room with confusion.

“I thought this was Odie’s room,” he said.

“We’re sharing one.”

The senator sent him a startled look but quickly overcame the reaction.

“Come in. Odie will be out in a second.”

Raybourne entered the room.

That’s when Jag noticed he carried a file folder. “Something come up?” He already knew something had, or the senator wouldn’t be here.

“Yes.” He glanced toward the bathroom door when it opened and Odie emerged.

She adjusted the V of the white terry-cloth bathrobe so it covered more of her chest and then tightened the tie around her waist, seeming uncomfortable over the senator finding her in a room with Jag.

Up until now, he’d let down his guard with her. Nothing had come between them in bed, but maybe it should have. Maybe he shouldn’t have let it go this far.

They’d had sex. Okay, so it was amazing. Fantastic. The best he could remember ever having…

That didn’t mean she was the one for him. She had to feel the same and he had to be careful not to end up the one heartbroken when she couldn’t give him what he needed. He didn’t want to compete with a dead man. Just the uncertainty he felt with her should be enough to turn him away. He’d loved one duplicitous woman. He refused to be fooled again.

“Luis,” Odie said in greeting.

“I’m sorry, Odie. I would have waited, but…”

“No. It’s all right. What happened?”

When he extended the file to her, she took it. “What’s this?”

“I received it today,” Luis began. “There’s a note inside from someone named Frasier Darby.”

Odie opened the file. Jag moved to her side so he could see it, too. A handwritten letter was inside. Odie looked up at Luis.

“Who gave this to you?”

“Frasier’s wife. Someone who didn’t leave their name came to her apartment claiming he asked her to give it to me if anything happened to him.”

Jag exchanged a look with Odie. Heather hadn’t mentioned that to them, but Raybourne had said he hadn’t received it until today.

“Frasier wrote about his suspicion of Kate’s boyfriend,” Luis said, “even going so far as to say he thought Calan was involved with Kate because he knew she was investigating your father’s death.”

Jag checked the date of the letter Odie had stopped reading to stare at Luis. Just last week. Had Frasier tried to go to Roth with this? Someone must have stopped him. Was that why he’d gone to the cabin? To hide? His wife had kicked him out, but why leave D.C. and go so far away?

“Calan knew my father?” Odie asked.

Luis hesitated. “Yes.” The word sounded difficult to get out.

“How?”

Again, he hesitated. “This is going to be painful for you to hear, Odie.”

Jag looked down at her and watched her press her lips together and then take a deep breath through her nose. But she pulled her emotion back in check, closing the file folder and holding her head high.

“Just tell us,” she said.

Luis nodded. “Frasier began talking to Kate, who told him that Calan was working with someone named Dharr al-Majid. And that he was in Yemen when Sage’s team was ambushed.”

Jag caught Odie’s subtle flinch. He felt like flinching, too. The last thing he needed after last night was to find out her father was, in fact, in cahoots with Dharr. And now possibly Calan.

“They were ambushed by rebels,” Odie said, her voice more hopeful than certain.

“Yes. The team was supposed to have aided the Yemen government in a rebel uprising, but the rebels had already gathered and the team was outnumbered.”

“That’s what my father told me. They had bad intel going in.”

“Very bad intel. Your father knew the rebels were tied to well-known terrorists, but he didn’t know Dharr was leading them.”

Jag’s mind reeled. “Are you saying that Calan told Dharr about the mission?”

“Yes.” Luis looked regretfully at Odie.

Her breath whooshed out of her. “No.”

“I’m sorry, Odie,” Luis said.

Although this supported her father’s innocence, it also meant Calan was behind the ambush that killed her husband.

She sat on the end of the bed. “Why?”

That was Odie. His brave Odie. Jag felt a surge of pride for her. This was hard on her but she was staying strong. He sat beside her anyway. At least she’d know he was there for her.

Luis sighed. “Calan didn’t want his connection to Dharr exposed. Your father was close to figuring it out just before he was killed.”

“But…”

Jag knew what she was thinking. Her father had met with Dharr. Calan had motive to set him up, but how had he arranged the meeting? Maybe her father hadn’t known Dharr would be at the meeting place. And the email could have been easily sent from her father’s computer by an intruder…to an untraceable email address. One not even Odie had been able to crack.

“According to Frasier, Calan was running arms for Dharr,” Luis continued.

“All this time I…” Odie shook her head. “I never thought to consider that.”

Odie hadn’t heard what Luis said. She hadn’t considered the possibility that Sage had been murdered. Who would?

Was Calan running the arms through Hersch and the Albanian export company? Luis hadn’t said so it must not have been in the letter. If the letter was genuine. Call him a cynic but he always played on the pragmatic side. He needed his own validation.

“Why didn’t my father tell me any of this?” Odie asked. “He knew about Dharr. The terrorists. The mission…” Her voice hitched.

“He didn’t know until long after the mission. A year later. It’s what got him killed. It’s what got Frasier killed, too.” He hesitated. “And Kate.”

She fell into another lapse of thought, no doubt still reeling with the discovery that her husband had been murdered.

“Calan set it all up,” she finally said, almost to herself.

It appeared that way. Jag still had some unanswered questions.

“Why did Frasier arrange for this to be sent to you?” Jag asked. Why not Roth?

“I don’t know. Maybe because of the connection to Sage,” Luis said. “Frasier’s brother was part of the team and he knew I was close to Edward.”

The senator must not know Frasier had gone to Roth. He saw Odie watching Luis, probably wondering about the same thing. Had Frasier learned something about Roth? Something that had made him turn to Luis?

“I’m so sorry, Odelia,” Luis said. “I know this is going to be like losing Sage all over again. I saw what it did to you before. I shudder to think what knowing he was murdered will do.”

Seeing her tear up, Jag felt a stab of apprehension. Odie was strong, stronger than any other woman he’d ever met and it was one of the things he liked about her most, but would she ever be able to overcome her loss and love another man the way she’d loved Sage? Once again he found himself backing away.

He didn’t want to put his heart on a chopping block again. One too many times he’d misjudged the woman he was with, misjudged the relationship. And he’d come out of the experience with more to lose. Every time, particularly the last time, he’d invested more and felt more, believing that she felt the same. Either he was lousy at detecting the problem or he was too trusting. Well, not anymore.

He didn’t have to ever forget her and how good it was with her, but he also didn’t have to love her.

Odie lifted her eyes after staring at the folder to look at Luis. “It’s been a long time. Sage is gone and I’ve accepted that. I’ve moved on.” She sounded downtrodden and unconvincing. “I’ll just be happy to see his killer behind bars.”

“My father’s, too,” she added.

“They might be one and the same,” Luis said.

Calan. Everything did seem to point to him. The way he met with Odie and didn’t reveal anything, only fished for what she knew. The way he went after Frasier and possibly killed him. His wife’s unsolved murder and the similarities to Kate’s. Dharr. It all made sense.

But there were still so many unanswered questions. Why had Odie’s father kept Calan a secret? What was Roth not telling them? And who was Frasier’s lover? Three of many more he still had.

Odie yawned and stretched. They’d been parked in front of Hersch’s sprawling two-level house for hours, and it was shaping up to be an uneventful night. Before coming here, they’d stopped by Heather Darby’s house. She’d confirmed a man she didn’t know had delivered the letter and asked that she pass it on to Senator Raybourne. What had Frasier learned that had stopped him from going to Roth? The answer was locked in Hersch.

She scanned the arms dealer’s property from their vantage point across the street. There was no fence around his home, but it was on about a five-acre forested lot. Odie could barely see the structure through the maze of tree trunks and leafy vegetation. Hersch had two other houses, one in Florida, and the other in California. For a government contractor, he sure was loaded. She wondered how no one had noticed before now.

Jag rubbed his eyes beside her. Being with him was both a comfort and a bother. Aside from needing his support, she went from fighting urges to climb onto his lap to berating herself for allowing things to have gotten to this point. He’d withdrawn since Luis had left their hotel room. She hated that she couldn’t enjoy the aftermath, savor the glorious feelings she’d had all day and into the evening. It had been a long time since she had felt as sated as that, or felt more deeply. Emotionally powerful. The way she’d felt with him overwhelmed her. With Sage it had taken more time to find that connection. They had spent more time getting to know each other before having sex. With Jag, it sprung up all at once, and led to gripping intimacy.

She didn’t understand it and she needed to. Did he feel the same? Why had he withdrawn? The letter exonerated her father and pointed to Dharr as his killer. Yes, she’d destroyed the email and photo, but those had been planted to shift blame off Calan. He had no reason to not trust her now. Unless something Luis had told them opened his eyes. Something about Sage? It had to be obvious that she loved him. Did Jag wonder if his murder would prove too much for her? Maybe he wasn’t comfortable going against the love she had with Sage. Maybe he was afraid he wouldn’t measure up. His failed marriage made him skittish, that was for sure. So, let him be careful. She actually admired that about him. He wasn’t going to dive headfirst into a relationship with her. She didn’t want that, either.

How many times had she thought about this since they’d had sex? Every time she always circled back to what he’d said the night they were at the cabin, that he wasn’t going to do this kind of work much longer, that he wanted to open a bakery. A bakery of all things. She smiled. She could see him doing that. He was another he-man that TES employed, but he was also…well…normal. A nice guy. And there was something sexy about a man whose masculinity wasn’t threatened in a kitchen.

She leaned her head back on the seat and looked at him across the car. He turned to look at her, too.

“What are you smiling about?” he asked.

She didn’t realize she was still smiling and she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Does your dad still run a bakery?”

It took him a few seconds to respond. She supposed, to him, the question had come out of the blue.

“No. He sold it and now he and Mom live in Denver. Retired.”

“Really?” The idea of him having a close relationship with his family was another anomaly in her perception of him as a he-man op for TES.

“It’s one of the reasons I agreed to work for TES. I could live close to them.”

Her attraction to him grew a little more. She already knew he had a house in Denver. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? Maybe she’d been too busy locking his operative side out of her heart to allow herself to care. Well, she cared now.

“Do you have any brothers and sisters?” she asked.

“A sister in Durango, and a brother in Dallas. They both have families.”

She rolled her head to look through the windshield. Thinking of him at family gatherings, nieces and nephews climbing all over him, was charming. She’d never had many family gatherings. Her father had worked so much and she was an only child. Christmas had always been quiet. After the presents were opened and dinner was out of the way, her parents would sit and read. She’d get bored and go find her own thing to do. As an adult she’d spent the holidays either skiing or with military friends.

“Do you see them much?” she asked.

“Every year, at least. I talk to them on the phone, too.”

The sound of his deep voice warmed her as much as his words. She was in danger of really falling for him. Unsettled by that, she focused on the driveway with an elaborate gate and guard shack. Every once in a while she spotted other guards patrolling the property. They were pretty regular. Predictable.

“What about you? Do you see your mom much?”