Connor (11 page)

"Yes. Having a room full of them staring at me. I could barely keep going, towards the end. It was like they sucked the life right out of me."

"You did well, Lyss. And now we have a chance to get close to a member of the Inner Sanctum. We've been trying to get evidence on this bastard for years, but he keeps his underhand activities very close to his chest. Quite literally. Rumour has it that he keeps the only copy of his most damning projects on a flash-drive housed in the medallion he wears around his neck.

"Can't it be cloned?" Allie asked with interest. She'd kept abreast of most of the latest spyware. Cloning digital files from a distance was a common enough technique.

"It's been tried. But unless it's in close range, I mean a half inch or less, it can't be done. Then of course there's the encryption. But Caleb is a gun with encryption, so that's not an issue."

"So you have to get someone up close and personal?" Allie spoke her thoughts aloud.

"Exactly. Or get to the medallion when he's not wearing it. But from what we've heard, he wears the thing in the shower, in bed, and even when he's having sex."

"What about sex… What if you got a prostitute to wear a small cloner in a pendant? During sex, the medallion and pendant would come into pretty close contact…"

"He doesn't use call girls. He has a series of mistresses, all of them well-vetted by the Guild. At the moment, there's no one. We thought his interest in Lyss might have been sexual, but I wasn't getting that vibe off him tonight."

"I was," Connor growled.

All three sets of eyes turned to him. He growled again and hunched his shoulders.

"Allie?" Colt asked in surprise.

Connor jerked a nod. "Both Hall and Rothmen were way too interested in Allie. I think it was started by Cameron's interest, but I don't know. All I can say is that my cat was on high alert most of the night from all those covert glances and interested stares."

"I thought it was just Cam you were reacting to." Allie was stunned. She hadn't picked up any sexual interest coming from either of the older men. But then, she wasn't expecting to, so she hadn't been looking for the subtle signals.

"He was just the last straw. I felt like you were the All You Can Eat Buffet and those guys were lining up for as many helpings as they could get."

Allie laughed at the image. "You do have an obsession with eating in connection with me, don't you? And yet you didn't avail yourself of that particular activity when you had your chance. Unless you count those quick bites on the neck."

Connor's eyes turned metallic as he looked down at her. "Yer want me to show yer my obsession with eating and yer? Always happy to oblige, lass." His voice was a low, sexy growl.

Blood flooded her cheeks, heating her up from curling toes to the top of her head. Why did she poke at him when she knew he'd bite back? The idea of him eating her made her suddenly weak with desire. Which was just what he intended from the smug look on his handsome face.

"So maybe if Allie could get close to Rothmen she'd have a chance…" Colt suggested cautiously, only too aware of the tinderbox sitting at Allie's side.

"Feck that. First yer want her playin' at being Cameron's mistress, and now yer want her seducing Rothmen? She's not a whore, for feck's sake!" Connor's accent suddenly intensified even more as his cat fought to get loose.

"You know full well she's not going to be Cam's mistress, and she won't have to sleep with Rothmen either. She can get close and then we'll pull her out before things get…out of hand. That's if Allie is willing to try."

"Gee, someone is asking me? How novel." She grimaced with a huff. But as three sets of eyes stared at her expectantly she knew there was only one answer. No matter how much she hated the idea, if getting close to Rothmen meant unearthing damning evidence of his crimes, then she would do it.

"I'm in. Though I think Connor is over-reacting. The guy probably only glanced my way. I know this dress is a stunner, but..."

Alyssa laughed properly for the first time. "It's not the dress that's a stunner, girlfriend. Do you have any idea how many male heads turn when you walk by?"

Allie knew she was a hot babe when she wanted to be. But tonight she hadn't turned on her sex appeal because she wasn't trawling for a hook-up. The idea that she could be 'stunning' without trying seemed ludicrous. But Alyssa didn't seem the type for flattery.

Connor growled again, and she looked up at him impishly. "I thought I just looked fine."

"Yer do."

"So maybe you don't see what these other guys do, huh? If Alyssa is right and I'm
stunning
."

He looked at the ceiling, resting his head on the top of the sofa, to avoid looking at her. She could sense his confusion and turmoil. Was he always like this or did she just bring out the worst in him?

"Stop playing with the poor guy, Allie. He doesn't know which way's up right now. Cut him some slack."

"I can remember Connor telling me exactly that when you were behaving like an ass," Alyssa said with a cheeky grin.

"My point exactly. You girls don't know what this mate thing does to us. We're not usually in touch with our feelings and stuff. This falling in love scares us shitless."

"It's not love…"

"It's not love."

They had both spoken the same words at the same moment, hastily trying to correct Colt's misunderstanding. But when she realised what they'd done she looked at Connor in surprise. Why was he so damned keen to make that clarification? Was he okay about her being his mate, but not about the possibility of loving her? Why did that hurt so much?

She grunted in disgust. What the hell was she doing going all girlie again? She didn't want to be the Irishman's mate or his love. She'd have sex with him, because that was something they both agreed was good between them, but they didn't have anything exclusive going on. Certainly not something exclusive and permanent. She was still up for a threesome with Cam, when they got the chance. That hardly implied a monogamous, committed relationship.

But for all that, a niggling little pain had started up in her heart. He was horrified by the idea of loving her. Was she really that unlovable?

"An interesting turn of events," Karl Rothmen said, pouring himself a healthy amount of fifty-year-old single malt scotch into his glass.

"How so?" Randolph Hall asked, sipping his own barely touched drink.

They had cloistered themselves away from the gathering in the study, and it felt good not having to deal with the inane nonsense such social situations required. Hall rarely bothered with such functions unless one of the Inner Sanctum was present. And in those circumstances, like tonight, he used it to improve his position with the elite of his people. Being the Chairman of the Board supposedly made him equal to the Inner Sanctum members; acting as he did as the conduit between the two bodies. In reality, he was made to feel as if he was simply a messenger boy with no power in his own right.

That he planned to change.

"Getting that little singer to agree to join me on my boat. Her and that new friend of hers." Rothmen smiled smugly.

"That new friend is in my employ. I hadn't expected her to be so resourceful. All I'd asked her to do was keep track of Haversham Smythe, not get herself invited to an event he'd be attending. Beautiful and smart, a fatal combination."

"She is that. Both women are appealing, but she has something special… I'm not sure what word to use to describe it…Spunk? That American word seems appropriate for an American, don't you think?"

Hall smiled too, but with pride. She was in his employ, following his orders. That made her his. It had been a long time since a thought had held such appeal.

"I'm going to
have
that spunky American on the cruise. Make sure that she
is
part of the singer's entourage. But get rid of the boyfriend. Those two brothers are dangerous. One is more than enough to have around. And dealing with a possessive, overly protective lover, while I seduce the girl, would be annoyingly inconvenient."

"What about her surveillance work for me?" Hall couldn't help resisting this surprising development. Wunderlund was his. Sharing her with this bastard was not on his agenda.

"Your prospective son-in-law appeared rather interested in the girl. Handled right, she could not only warm my bed but provide us with in-depth intelligence on that up-and-coming half-breed. Your daughter has not gained his confidence, maybe because she is your daughter, but a mistress… Well men often tell their mistresses highly inappropriate things."

Rothmen paused to study the amber liquid in his glass before continuing more thoughtfully. "Gregorov is taking credit for Akabar's demise, but my sources tell me that another was responsible. Someone who is collecting favours from influential men. I wouldn't be surprised if your daughter's fiancé turns out to be that someone."

"You should have let me remove the upstart when he made his move on Meredith." How it galled him to have been forced to not only allow the relationship to continue but arrange a position on the Board for him, once he was married to his daughter. Why couldn't that stupid bitch just do what she'd been bred for: marry a suitable Guild member and breed true? Instead, she'd rebelled and become involved with that half-breed who now threatened his power-base.

Collecting favours owed. Was that half-breed clever enough for such an audacious move?

"It wasn't me who was against that. Alpha wanted it so. He believes having another Guild member in the House of Lords will suit us well."

"He's not there yet. His father is hale and hearty."

"That can be remedied when the time is right. For now, Alpha wants Haversham Smythe on the Board. But I want to know more about his activities. The ones that might get him into the Inner Sanctum, despite his breeding."

"You
are
joking, of course. It's one thing to have him on the Board, another to have him move into the elite, to be our equal. No, that's impossible. I won't be a party to that."

Rothmen barked a laugh. "Do you think you have a say? What the Alpha wants the Alpha gets. Even
I
do his bidding."

Hall fumed silently and took a much larger swallow of his drink, barely tasting the fiery liquid as it washed down his throat and sent a warm wave through his system. He didn't like intoxicants, preferring to have his mind always clear and alert. But in moments like this, when he felt as if his life was out of his control, good whiskey served to take the edge off his impotent fury.

"So my girl provides us with intelligence on the half-breed. I will recruit her immediately. She can start seducing him on the cruise."

"No. I'll do that once
I've
seduced her. And with your jealous daughter underfoot, there's not much chance he'd do more than lose his fiancé. No, any seduction must be covert and well away from Meredith's watchful eye."

"Aren't you worried what your wife will say about your attempts at seduction?" Hall couldn't keep the acid out of his voice. Was he jealous? No, just frustrated that his toy was being confiscated by a bully.

"My wife could care less where I stick my cock, as long as it isn't in her. And I'm in complete agreement with her. There's not enough lubricant in the world to make that dried up c*** enjoyable."

"I could ease your way with her…" Hall suggested, wanting to maintain at least the illusion of ownership over Wunderlund.

"You're not referring to my wife, I assume. No thank you, Hall. I have that matter in hand. Power is an aphrodisiac to women. Little Alice will be putty in my hands. You just make sure that muscle-bound ape she's fucking disappears. I don't care how you do it."

Connor was a damned dog chasing its tail. Every thought circled back to the woman in front of him. He'd brought her back to her accommodation and now stood like a teenager on his first date at her bedroom door. Exhausted from the world-changing day, he still couldn't bring himself to leave her. Not yet.

"You didn't have to walk me to the door. Now you have to find another cab," she said, turning the key in the lock and pushing the door open.

"No problem," he muttered indecisively.

She walked into the dark room and made no move to shut the door after herself. Was this an invitation to stay? Was she up for more mind-blowing sex? He hadn't been able to get the image out of his head of her spread like a smorgasbord before him. Oh aye, eating and Allie were intimately tied in his mind now, just as she'd cheekily suggested.

He loved that about her: the way she challenged him, knowing full well that if she pushed, he'd push back. And in this instance the pushing might very well lead to more enjoyable activities.

But not tonight. He had too much to think about and she looked ready to collapse where she stood.

"Goodnight then. I'll see you some time tomorrow when we have more deets on this Caribbean trip. You don't have to do it, you know. Just because you
can
, doesn't mean you
have to
play Mata Hari."

She laughed softly, clearly worried about her neighbours. But neither of them had been speaking above a whisper anyway, simply because they could hear just as well that way.

"I've always had fantasies about being a spy. You can't do this job and not have dreams of being an agent. But I was never bright enough for the job. Now…"

"You
are
bright enough. Where'd you get the idea you aren't?" Reluctantly, he entered her room and shut the door behind him. He shouldn't have started this conversation. He should have just said goodbye and left.

"I never did all that well at school. Mostly, I was just too shy to ask the teacher for help when I didn't understand something. And once you start to fall behind, it’s a slippery slope to the bottom. I finished high school but not with grades to get me into a good college. So I chose work that suited my personality. A job where I could stay hidden. Most people think being a PI is exciting and dangerous. It isn't. Except maybe when you're slip-sliding around on icy roads on a motorbike, trying to keep up with your target." She pulled a funny face and sucked her bottom lip nervously.

He frowned, trying to see how the cocky, little spitfire in front of him suited being a P I. He still couldn’t get his head around the idea that she was too shy in high school to ask for help. There was nothing shy about the girl he knew.

"What? You look like you swallowed a fly or something." She gave another laugh, this time more nervous than amused.

"Just trying to imagine you as shy and retiring. You must have changed a lot since then."

She shrugged. "I'm okay with people I know, and when I put on the
hot babe
. But otherwise I'm still pretty shy. I copped a lot of crap when I was a kid and that made me nervous about attracting attention. By the end of high school I'd sort of created this wise-cracking mask I could use to cover the nerves and panic attacks. If I couldn't hide, I'd deflect with jokes, like being a graduate of the John Wayne School of Drama. "

"Put on the
hot babe
?" He found himself lounging across her bed, not sure how he'd gotten there. His focus had been totally on the girl in front of him, now only illuminated by the streetlights beyond the window.

Allie shrugged self-consciously, and for a moment seemed unwilling to explain herself. Then she pulled a funny face and smiled.

"I like to get laid regularly, so to achieve that with the best results possible, I put on the
hot babe
mask. It's not me, but attractiveness has more to do with attitude than looks, I've discovered. And I can put on a hell of a lot of attitude when I want to."

"I've noticed."

"No, you haven't. I haven't put on the
hot babe
for you. It's kind of redundant given the mate thing you've got going on there."

He hated having her discount the mate bond that way. Sure, it wasn't love, but it was something. It meant something. And he wanted it to be a two-sided something.

"What's it going to take to get you to accept my claim?" he asked, not really wanting to sound that needy, but knowing no other way to find out.

She laughed again, and turned away to look out the window. "You can't stand the idea of sharing me with Cam, can you?"

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Well, see, I'm not a one man kind'a gal. If you want me to commit to this biological imperative, then I want something in return. I want Cam, too. Ever since this morning I've been thinking about that threesome. So, yeah, that's my deal. You want me for more than a casual hook-up, I get Cam too."

She had said all this while looking out the window. He was glad. That meant she didn't see him go cat as fury rose so fast and hard he had no hope of controlling it.

"I don't share," he managed to get out, but as soon as he heard the familiar words he was reminded of Meredith. She'd had the same attitude, and he hated the very idea that he was anything like her.

Allie turned to face him then, her dark eyes glowing cat. So he hadn't been able to hide his change from her. She'd mirrored him automatically. Didn't that mean they were mated? Why the hell couldn't she accept the fact?

"Then you don't get me as your mate. Simple. And just so I'm clear. I'm not talking a permanent ménage with Cam. Or him and me hooking up without you. I just want to try it for a while. What would you think of having twins in your bed?"

"Been there. It's wasn't as much fun as having two very different women in my bed. Variety, you know."

Her eyes flew open in surprise and he was sure he saw jealousy written in them for a moment. Then she blinked and shrugged.

"Most guys have the twin fantasy. I've got the chance to make it real. Something I want to cross off my bucket list…"

He was on her in a split second, pinning her to the wall next to the window, the curtain almost pulled down on top of them both. "You do that kind of shit when you're not serious about someone. Not with a mate."

Lowering his head to graze his teeth along her neck, he felt her arousal spike. "Don't you dare bite me while I'm wearing this dress. Blood won't come out. You hear me?"

"Easy fixed." He spun her around and unzipped the back and unhooked the halter. The dress pooled on the carpet leaving her stunningly naked, just as he'd known her to be all night.

Before he could think better of it, he dragged her back into his arms and clamped her cheeks, dragging her up against his hard cock where he needed her to be. Fuck having to share her with Cam. He'd have her as a casual hook-up if that was all she was willing to give him without the threesome. At least this was something.

As he ground himself against her belly, he bit down on her shoulder, this time closer to her neck. This was the third time in one day he'd tasted her blood, and it grew more intoxicating with every bite. How could she ask him to share this with anyone else? Didn't she realise what it would cost him to have another male anywhere near her? The price was too great.

But as she moaned in ecstasy, the sweet scent of her arousal in his nose, he wondered if any price was too high to have her permanently in his life. He'd known her for such a short time… less than a day… and yet he could barely imagine life without her now.