Deadly Target [IAD Agency 3] (Siren Publishing Classic) (5 page)

Oh hell no, seriously?

Idiot.

Did he really think she was just going to drop her panties because he said that? Not that she was wearing any. Mikayla sighed loudly and fought back the urge to slam her head into the steering wheel. Why did shit like this always happen to her? It was a good thing she had firsthand knowledge of the irrational way men’s minds worked sometimes since she worked with a bunch of them daily, or else she might have to hurt him. Badly. “You’d have better luck with the blonde inside. Goodnight, Mr. Stark.”

“So you do know who I am.”

“Yes, I do. Which is more than I can say for you.” She started to close the door, but his large hand holding it stopped her.

“You can’t tell me you aren’t attracted to me. I see that you are. What’s your name?”

Mikayla sent him a mischievous smile. “Perhaps you should have started this particular conversation with that question. Goodnight.”

She shifted the SUV into gear and released the break just enough so the SUV pulled forward, jerking the door out of his grasp. She slammed the door closed and pulled into the street, watching as Gage grew smaller in her rearview mirror.
 

Mikayla woke to dark-gray skies after a fitful night of sleep. Sleep never came easy for her, since the nightmares always seemed to be waiting as soon as she closed her eyes. But last night had been different. Her dreams had been haunted by Gage’s piercing green eyes watching her as her body moved over his, as she was taken under him, as pleasure turned her body to liquid gold.

The stupid, arrogant bastard.

Never before had she had such vivid dreams that left her aching with hunger to be touched after she woke. But now in the daylight it was all she could do not to jump directly into the cold snow outside to chill her overheated body back to normal. Instead, she had treated herself to a hot shower, after which she changed the bandages on her leg. She dressed for the day in loose black drawstring pants and a thick purple thermal shirt before leaving the bedroom she had claimed on the main floor.

She loved this bedroom, with its gothic feel accentuated with dark, glossy wood and a king size four-poster bed covered with a bronze duvet she had picked out when Brett had initially furnished the place. Actually, she loved the cabin. Always had. Where Brett had used it as just another safe house, Mikayla had always felt like it had the potential to be a real home.

She walked down the wide hallway to the large kitchen that could have fit into any five star restaurant. It was bright and airy, with large windows overlooking the expanse of open land in the backyard. Mikayla knew the bullet-resistant glass gave those inside cover even if it didn’t seem like it.

The kitchen had a large center block with a countertop of white marble over cabinets that were so dark they almost looked black. The cabinetry along the walls was made of the same dark wood with frosted glass panes, making the room sleek and contemporary with the addition of the stainless steel appliances. The kitchen should have looked completely out of place, but somehow, with the picturesque scenery shining through the large windows, it was perfect.

Mikayla set to brewing the first pot of coffee and waited impatiently until she was sipping from a large mug. At the first sip she sighed in pleasure. She was a caffeine addict. She knew it but what the hell, everyone was entitled a vice. Coffee made her day possible and ensured she didn’t kick someone’s ass for no good reason. She stood in place at the counter until the first cup was completely finished then poured another full cup to take with her down to Brett’s bat cave.

Walking into the main foyer, Mikayla went to the wooden paneling under the large staircase. Pressing on a panel of the wood, the panel gave a soft snick of sound as it released and a large doorway slid open. Mikayla stepped into the hidden elevator and pressed her palm down on the blank panel that looked like glass, bypassing the button that would take her upstairs. The glass panel lit up and scanned her palm. She lifted her hand as numbers appeared on the screen and quickly pressed in a sequence she had memorized. The door of the elevator slid shut. With barely a jerk, the elevator sank two floors below the house without seeming to move.

The doors opened and Mikayla entered into a large lounge, equipped with a humongous TV, sofa, mini-kitchenette and bar. She ignored the room, moving down a corridor, passing a fully equipped bathroom, a large medical center with three large medical beds and a surgical center closed off behind automatic doors on the right. On the left were several guest rooms set up for those who needed to remain out of sight of the main cabin above.

At the end of the corridor she entered the security center, which was a mini-version of their command center at IAD headquarters. The room held a large conference table and multiple screens on the walls. There were three smaller desks with computers attached to the mainframe and one main station in the center of the room. She sat down at the main console and powered up the computer system. On the wall several screens showed various camera angles from around the outside perimeter of the house. No one could sneak onto the property without her knowing it.

If she did take over the property and decided to head the training division here at the cabin, at least the system was top notch. Mentally calculating, she figured she could have the place up and running in less than a month. Over time they would have to build a few other structures on the property, but that could come later.

Mikayla felt no hesitation searching through Brett’s files, looking for the one she knew he would have. When she found it she clicked on it and began to read the information Brett had put together on his neighbors. According to the file, Gage Stark was thirty-five years old. She had been right about his height, which put him at six four, and knew he had black hair and green eyes. He lived on the property just west of her location where he ran Stark Stunts Inc. with his brother, Dylan, his sister, Katherine, and their cousin Sebastian.

She took her time going through the file, learning what she could about the man that had intrigued her the night before and his family. She felt a second of guilt then brushed it off. It wasn’t like she did the search or called in a deep scan on his background. She was simply availing herself to the information that her friend had already gathered.

It was like a Google search, only better.

It was pure curiosity, nothing more. At least that was what she kept telling herself. He was not for her, and it wasn’t like she could actually start anything with her boss’s neighbor. Added to that, Roz had warned her that Gage didn’t do relationships, and from the dossier she was reading, it seemed like that was very true. Gage Stark was a wicked, wicked man. Clearly she wouldn’t be more than a warm body in his bed for a night, and that wasn’t what she wanted.

She needed more. Wanted more for herself.

Fuck that.

She
deserved
more.

Her head jerked up, interrupting her reading as she saw movement on one of the screens on the wall. She watched as a large black pickup truck drove down the long driveway, easily maneuvering over the snow-covered lane. Mikayla hit a button and the shot zoomed in on the view of the truck. Damn it, this was not good. She sat back in the chair and steepled her fingers, and her brain went blank as she saw the man driving and the dog on the seat beside him.

What the hell is he doing here?

* * * *

Gage cursed himself as his truck headed down the long driveway to Brett Michaels’ cabin.

Hell, it wasn’t a cabin. It was a fucking fortress.

He knew coming here was a mistake, but here he was. After getting no sleep the night before the last thing he needed in his piss-poor mood was to have another confrontation with that violet-eyed witch.

But something about her had gotten to him and made him want, no…
need
to seek her out.

Last night at the bar he had been playing a game of pool with his brother, cousin and a friend when he’d felt a tingle run down his spine. Over the years of being in the limelight he had developed a sixth sense when it came to people watching him. He was used to the giggling women in Serenity checking him and the other men in his family out, but this had felt…different.

Then he had looked up and saw her.

Like a fist to the gut, he had felt the power of her gaze from clear across the room. And in that single moment he wanted her so much he could barely breathe. If anyone had asked Gage if he had ever been hit with lust at first sight before last night he would have said hell no.

That had all changed when he saw Mikayla.

It had been humiliating that he had had to ask his little sister the name of the siren that had haunted his dreams. Shit, last night had been a goddamn clusterfuck of errors on his part. First, he had interrupted her conversation with his sister and Roz. Granted he had been rude about it, but he couldn’t really expect Mikayla to know that the vet was a woman who hit on him every time he went in there with his dog. Still, when she had called him out about his behavior it had both pissed him off and intrigued him.

Gage liked that she had stood up for his sister even though she had only known her for a short time. It had irritated him at the time. Fuck that, it had pissed him off to the point he had wanted to shake her. Or kiss her senseless. He wasn’t used to people talking back to him or calling him out for his shit, but she had. Then it was the incident out in the parking lot where Mikayla became the only woman in the last ten years to turn him down.

Not that he had offered her much.

Gage was used to being around beautiful women. His time in Hollywood had left him jaded and almost desensitized to the allure of a pretty face. Discovered when he was twenty-two at the University of Colorado, Gage’s life took a turn that he had never expected. A famous director had been filming a movie on campus and had grabbed Gage, asking him if he could fight. Gage had simply grinned, and like that he had snagged his first role in a movie.

From there, Gage had made a name for himself. He was a natural with lines and the camera seemed to love him. No matter how high his stardom had risen, he treated everyone on set with respect. He had become one of the highest-paid actors in the industry and had even been voted sexiest man by a popular magazine four years in a row.

Gage was known for doing as much of his own stunts as possible. He had been hit, kicked, ridden horses, repelled off of buildings, jumped from moving cars, fought with swords and done so many other things the list was too long to remember. When he won the Oscar for Best Actor people had said the sky was the limit for him. That was, until a fellow actor had rigged the car that Gage drove in a chase scene and caused the end of his career.

Gage’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as he thought back to that day. He remembered sitting behind the wheel of the sports car with the camera crew filming right next to him in the chase car as they sped down a long stretch of highway over the water in Florida. He wasn’t going extremely fast, but they had wanted to get the reaction shots with him in the car from every angle so they had him in the car, alone. He had tried to slow the car down at the director’s signal and felt the panic fill him when the brakes failed to slow the car.

Gage had pumped the brakes, but it had done nothing. He had yelled into the mic that his brakes weren’t working a second before he heard the loud pop as the wheel blew. The car had flipped, crashing into the rail where it had burst into flames. Fighting to free himself from the fiery inferno inside the car, Gage had ripped off the seat belt and kicked out the window so he fell into the water only seconds before the rest of the car exploded. He had come to in the hospital to find that he had become a monster, with burns covering half of his body that had been extremely painful to heal.

As fast as his career in the movie industry had begun, it had ended.

After several painful surgeries, the burn damage had been minimized. The scarring left would always be a daily reminder of what had happened to him, but no amount of surgery could help the scars the accident had left on his soul. When he had gotten out of the burn ward at the hospital, Gage had come back home to Serenity where he could recover in peace.

But he knew in his heart that he would never be the same.

Gage had decided that he was done being an actor. He never wanted to be on the screen ever again, but he still kept a love for the business. That was when he created Stark Stunts Inc., a company Gage ran with the other members of his family. On their large ranch they were able to train other actors in fighting, horseback riding and even took on groups that wanted wilderness training. It was a good business and enabled Gage to use his connections to the industry while staying out of the public eye.

His younger brother Dylan had always had an affinity for tracking and hunting, and was their resident computer expert. Their cousin Sebastian had ended his service in the Army when Gage had been burned. He was a skilled fighter and could basically fill in anywhere Gage needed him.

Gage himself was a proficient fighter and could handle a variety of weapons. He and Wulf were also part of the volunteer search and rescue team that operated within the area if the need came up. Together the three of them ran training while Katie ran the day-to-day operations behind the scenes. They did good business, but Mikayla’s words last night had instilled a worry in him that he was caging Katie in the isolated world he had created over the years since he’d been back.