Black Jack (27 page)

again. He was always kissing her when there was something he didn’t want to deal with. He

was always stealing her senses, her resolve, by throwing her into a maelstrom of pleasure that

she couldn’t deny.

The pleasure was as fierce as ever, but the tears fell anyway. Silently, slowly, Travis felt the

salty warmth against his lips, tasted it against his tongue.

Pulling back, he stared down at her still-too-innocent eyes, and watched as the pain built in

her eyes, the tears dampened her face.

“God, Lilly,” he whispered. His thumbs ran beneath her eyes to wipe away the wetness as a

small sob shuddered in her chest.

Leaning his forehead against hers, he stared down at her and breathed out heavily. “I can’t

give you what you want. Not because I don’t want to. Because I won’t. I won’t risk you to

that point.”

She had no idea how dangerous the information was that she wanted. There was a chance, a

slim one in his opinion, but a chance that she could hold on to her life here.

The tears fell faster as she trembled in his arms, pain and confusion sweeping through her

with a force that lanced his soul. “I’m going to die anyway, Travis. Whoever is determined to

kill me will succeed eventually. Without the truth, I have no way of defending myself.”

She didn’t want to die. She wanted to live, to laugh, to love Travis. She wanted to hold on

to him forever, but she wanted to know about the life she had lived, the enemies she had

made.

She was vulnerable right now, and she knew it. She was too vulnerable.

“I won’t let anything happen to you.” His arms tightened around her, his hand pressing her

head against his heart, where she wanted to stay forever.

“You can’t stop it.” She knew it. “There’s so much I don’t know, Travis. But I know I can

protect myself.” She fought the wrenching sobs trying to tear from her body. “I know I can.

Just as I know . . .” Her fingers dug into his flesh as she fought to hold on to him. “Just as I

know you’re going to leave.”

She couldn’t hold on to him forever. Agony resonated through her at that realization. It was

like a dagger, tearing holes in her heart, shredding her hopes. She was living day to day and

she knew it, just as she knew she would be living a fool’s dream if she let herself believe

otherwise.

“I won’t leave you in danger.” She could hear the promise in his voice. The sincerity.

“Unless you’re ordered to do so!” Anger was burning inside her along with the tears,

tearing at her, driving a wedge through her soul and splitting it apart.

Jerking away from him, she swiped at the tears on her face before turning to face him. “Tell

me who I was. Tell me what I was.”

Let me be able to trust him. The knot of hunger in her stomach was only building, the need

to trust someone, anyone, was ripping her apart.

His nostrils flared as she watched the struggle on his face then.

“You’re asking me to sign your death warrant,” he finally said softly.

Lilly shook her head. “I’m asking you to save me, Travis. I can’t live like this. I can’t

stumble around blindly any longer. I can’t live without trust, without someone to turn to, and I

can’t live without understanding why I dream of blood and death and a fucking rifle in my

hands that I know I’ll use to kill.” With each word her voice was rougher, more strained, the

rage bleeding through until her fists were clenched, pressed into her stomach as she fought to

hold back the agony resonating through her.

“Lilly Belle was trained to work with covert ops.” Travis’s voice was strained now, his gaze

tormented. “You know that, Lilly, it was in the report provided by the investigator.”

“According to that report she was a high-priced call girl trained to protect herself and the

agent she was fucking.” She sneered at him.

That hurt the worst. Knowing there was a chance, no matter what he said, that the world

would see her as a whore.

“Don’t lie to me,” she whispered as his lips parted. “I know I wasn’t a call girl. I know I

wasn’t there to provide a little secure entertainment for whatever bullshit agent needed a

friendly fuck at the time. But that’s how the world will see me if that report is revealed. At

least give me the truth, allow me that much.”

“No, you weren’t.” He breathed in deeply, Travis raking his fingers through his hair and

glancing at the water running in the shower.

“Then what was I?” Desperation clawed at her chest then. If she couldn’t trust Travis, then

who could she trust?

He moved closer. “I am the only friend you have in this situation,” he warned her, his voice

so dark now, so rough she flinched. “You have no other allies. You have no one else you can

discuss this with, do you understand me, Lilly? To the bottom of your soul, understand me or

you will die. You will die and there will be no way in hell I can save you.”

Her lips parted, fear and hope slamming through her now as she stared back at him, her

gaze still hazy from the tears.

“I already knew that.” She tried to stop her lips from trembling. “I’ve known since the

second I awoke in that hospital six months ago that every breath I draw could be my last.”

“Only if you fuck up,” he growled. “Only if I fuck up. Lilly Belle was a private contract

agent that worked with a select group of agents both private and government. She wasn’t

trained to fuck, Lilly. She was trained to provide a distraction or to back up operations. And

you were one of the best.”

“I killed,” she whispered as another tear fell.

His thumb eased the tear from her cheek. “You killed, just as I have, to save lives. That rifle

you used covered my back more times than I can name, and each time, you saved my life. You

kept me alive, Lilly. And as God is my witness, there are times you kept me sane.”

“I’m not the real Lilly Belle, am I? She enjoyed killing, Travis. I read the whole report. She

killed for sport.”

He shook his head. “You’re not the real Lilly Belle. But the real Lilly Belle was the only

identity available that could be used at the time. She was killed in Beirut six months after the

crash you were rescued from. That cover worked perfectly. She wasn’t well known, she

wasn’t seen often. Many of her jobs coincided with training exercises your father sent you on

while you were learning to work with MI5. So it was the identity you were given.”

She shook her head slowly then. “You’re not the real Travis Caine either.” Pieces of the

puzzle were beginning to fall into place now. Memories were slowly shifting, revealing

themselves as he spoke. Bits and pieces, shards of memory not yet whole.

Travis shook his head slowly. “I’m not the real Travis Caine.”

Lilly stilled. She could feel a part of herself flooding with hope now, emotions surging,

demanding to race through her body at this tentative proof of trust.

If he trusted her, he loved her. A part of her knew that what Travis had just admitted would

seal his own death if she ever revealed it. Not just at the hands of his enemies, but those he

worked with as well.

Shadows shifted now and raged through her brain. Pain struck at her temples as she fought

to pierce the shield between herself and her memories.

She could feel them closer now than they had ever been before. As though this small

measure of trust from him had weakened whatever wall had been placed inside her head to

keep the memories at bay.

“Who are you?” Her hand lifted, her fingers trembling as they touched his lips, felt the

warmth there, remembered the passion. He touched her as she knew no other man could have

touched her, emotionally as well as physically.

She needed him to trust her completely, just as she had done with him.

She had trusted him with her fears, her knowledge; would he do the same? Would he give

her a piece of himself that she knew he would have given no one else?

His head lowered, his lips moving to her ear.

“I’m Lord Xavier Travis Dermont,” he whispered. “I’ve danced with you and once watched

your eyes fill with dreams, and in that second knew I had taken the wrong woman to wife. I

knew, Lilly, because that was the moment I first fell in love with you.”

A gasp passed her lips a second before his covered them. Filled with life, trust, and truth,

the feel of his kiss shot straight to her soul, clenched her heart, and tore away the control that

held back her tears.

Her hands speared into his hair to hold him closer to her. Her lips parted, her tongue

stroking against his as it sipped from her, tasted her.

For the first time, they were meeting as equals. As two people who trusted, perhaps two

people who loved, she thought as his arms pulled her closer and lifted her against him.

He shielded her with his body as he had always shielded her with his protectiveness. A

sense of something falling into place inside her moved through her as she heard herself cry

out, felt the crumbling of the wall that had surrounded her heart.

“You’re mine, damn you,” Travis said as he lifted her and placed her ass on the counter

behind her. “You were always mine.”

She had truly always been his, because she remembered that dance. It had been her

eighteenth birthday, when her hopes and dreams had been so strong. She remembered dancing

with Lord Dermont and feeling the magic that had surrounded them. The same magic that

surrounded them now, that fueled their kiss as his lips covered hers once more, magic that

fueled each touch as he quickly removed the remainder of their clothes with desperate, eager

hands.

It was as though the walls that had come down between them had released something far

more than just the truth. It had released emotions held in check too long. A hunger they had

been unaware had been banked.

As he shed his jeans, Lilly’s hands were there. She gripped the thick shaft as she slid from

the counter to her knees, staring up at him, allowing her tongue to flick out and lick the

heavily engorged crest.

“Fuck. Lilly.” The sound of his voice fueled this particular hunger. It began to rage through

her, to boil in her veins and cause her mouth to water for the taste of him.

Staring up at him she painted the heavy crest with her tongue, flickering over it, licking

beneath it, teasing him with the touch of her lips as his hands buried in her hair.

“How bloody damned beautiful you are,” he whispered, the proper aristocratic English

accent slipping past his lips. For her. He was giving her all of himself. In this moment, she

held parts of Travis that no other woman ever had and probably never would.

The agent as well as the aristocrat. The man that had, for a few years, helped shape a nation

publicly as well as covertly. The one that now only had the option of working behind the

scenes.

Except in her arms. No part of him was dead now.

As her lips parted and sank over the engorged crown of his cock, Lilly knew that in this

moment, she had all of him.

“Sweet, pretty Belle,” he growled as the hardened flesh seemed to thicken more, to tighten

until it seemed as hard as iron. Like silk covering steel, thick enough that her lips stretched

around it, hard enough that they felt almost bruised as he began to thrust in shallow strokes

past them.

Her hands gripped his thighs, feeling the response of his body as she sucked, licked. The

muscles tightened, flexed. A heavy groan passed his lips as she rubbed her tongue against the

ultrasensitive spot beneath the head.

His fingers tightened in her hair as she moved one hand from his thigh to his balls. There,

her fingers played wickedly, stroking the roughened sac, cupping it, flexing around it.

Oh God, it was so good. The feel of his cock filling her mouth, thrusting past her lips and

heating her tongue, was incredible. She felt every response to the pleasure she gave him.

There was no guesswork. It was there against her lips and tongue, just as the moans were

filling the room, his as well as hers.

Travis stared down at her, watching as she sucked his cock into her mouth and laved it with

her tongue. It was the most incredible pleasure he had ever known. Nothing could be so good

as this, as watching her take him with such intimacy, such hunger that flushed her face and

hummed in her throat with desperate moans. The vibrations of her sounds of arousal echoed

on the stiff flesh of his dick and sent spiraling fingers of sensation to attack his balls.

It was like being immersed in pleasure. His entire body vibrated with it and he clenched his

abdomen desperately with the effort to hold back his release.

Eyes closed, face flushed, her expression showed such sensual pleasure that Travis could

barely hold on to his own control as he watched her.

Her silken lips, the wet heat of her mouth, the flickering of her satiny tongue combined to

shred what little control he had left after committing himself fully to her.

He was hers. As surely as she belonged to him, he belonged to her now.

Groaning at the need to hold back just a little longer, he clenched his teeth against the

ecstasy pounding through his body and realized that he was slowly losing his grip on the

tightly held trigger of release.

“God yes,” he moaned. “Sweet Lilly. Your mouth is so damned good.”

Too good. He was going to come. Damned if he could hold it back much longer. It was