Hot Contract (10 page)

Fallon sat up, shaggy hair tangled over the
glitter in his eyes. “Go on, Liss. Push me.”

The car bumped off the side of the road.
Corlis turned in her seat, eyes hard in the light from the
instrument panel while Fallon radiated mad like a supernova.

Jen didn’t want to like any of the DalCon
operatives, but she liked Fallon. The tall Southerner reminded her
of her cousin, Tris. But where Tris was ice, Fallon was fire. He
turned away, eyes closed and Corlis drove the rest of the way with
her mouth clamped tight.

They pulled up in front of a cluster of tiny
cabins with Corlis counting the rough-hewn signs for the one she’d
reserved. The silence between the two DalCon operatives was
volatile, and more than once Jen started to say something, only to
have Keegan stop her.

“That one,” said Corlis.

Nobody said a word.

The shingled wooden A-frame was set back from
the road in a eucalyptus clearing at the very edge of the
campground. There were lights on in the other cabins, and people
moving in and out of the tents pitched around the shared picnic
tables. Music came from a group of people relaxing around a
campfire.

It was all so normal.

Jen blinked back a rush of tears. There were
families out there with kids and not a stuffed quail egg in sight.
And if somebody had a brother, they were more likely to show up
with a six-pack rather than a security detail.

Keegan let her get out on her own, standing
just to her left in case someone came running out of the bushes to
chop her head off. Jen wiped at her eyes and tried not to let it
bother her when he dumped her on Fallon and took off with his
sister, both of them walking side by side with the ease of long
practice.

Fallon herded her up the shallow flight of
stairs, checked out the cabin and held the door with old-fashioned
courtesy. “Get some rest while you can. You don’t know what all’s
going to happen. It’s clean, and we’ll be safe here until they send
out search parties.”

Jen wobbled over the threshold and fell.
Fallon caught her, his sudden movement making something slide out
from under his shirt.

Jen caught the long ball-link chain. “What’s
this?”

He flushed darkly. “Nothing.”

His heavily muscled arm set her back on her
feet easily.

“Return to sender,” Jen read. “C. Dalfrey.
They’re dog tags?”

Fallon tucked the chain back in. “I said they
were nothing.”

“They’re a statement of ownership.”

“Nobody owns me, baby.”

“If that’s what you want to believe.”

He glared at her, pain in the depths of his
pale blue eyes. “I more than don’t believe it, Ms. Stalling. I know
it for a fact.”

Jen, sprawled on her belly, one hand curled
under her cheek. There were three beds in the cabin, but she
occupied the biggest. The tiny bedroom at the back contained the
other two in the form of a couple of stripped down twins shoved in
the corner to form a lumpy square. Corlis took one look at the
amenities, threw her jacket on the floor and fell back on the
antique ticking, both arms up over her eyes.

Fallon leaned against the pine-veneered
nightstand, his expression hard to read. A mosquito drifted into
the light and floated up and down, dazed by the cold. Keegan
swatted at it and it spiraled away to land on his sister.

Fallon brushed it off. “Mosquito,” he said,
like that single word explained everything.

Keegan rubbed a hand down over his chin and
sighed. “Four hours?”

“Yeah,” said Fallon, already half-asleep. He
shrugged out of his jacket, took a blanket from the nightstand and
dropped, flat out on the bed. “Wake me.”

Keegan stepped back into the tiny hallway,
pulling the door closed behind him.

A single forty watt bulb cast a dim glow over
the rest of the cabin. There was a couch squeezed beneath the
largest window and a breakfast bar with four mismatched stools. The
loft up in the rafters held a foosball game.

So far he hadn’t done anything but react.
Time was running out. He needed to hang the Aina out to dry, and do
it fast. How well connected were they? Layers on layers. If Jen’s
father didn’t know for sure, he had to suspect. With Art's own
security compromised it made sense to create a firewall unconnected
to anyone within his corporate structure.

If Jen thought she’d walked away from her
family’s internal politics, she was wrong. Keegan dug his fingers
into his neck, trying to ease the tension that knotted his
shoulders. Deacon said the Aina had gone dormant, which meant
something had triggered their abrupt resurgence.

He paused, staring down at the chipped
Formica with unseeing eyes. The tinny sound of the kitchen clock
expanded to fill the silence. Something that traumatic would leave
tracks. He needed to get back to the Project. And the only way in
was with Jen. Without someone to interpret what he saw, it wouldn’t
mean squat.

Something moved behind him. Keegan whirled,
gun out. Jen stood in the door, one end of a long paisley sheet
thrown over her shoulder. Her arm was bare. Jesus, she was naked.
He retreated behind the breakfast bar and she followed him, rubbing
at her eyes like the dim bulb bothered her.

He slipped his gun down in the holster behind
his hip and grabbed the edge of the counter. “Go back to bed.”
Please? He wasn’t just obvious; he was open for business.

Keegan glared down into the darkness between
his thighs and the table, then back up at her. She gave him a
drowsy smile and sat on one of the stools, breasts pushing against
the damned sheet. God
damn
it.

She gestured at a small bottle of
non-alcoholic champagne half-hidden by a basket of fruit and a
welcome card. “Can I have some of that?”

Keegan twisted the champagne open and pushed
it over. It was barely more than a pint.

“Don’t you want some?” she asked.

He glanced at her. “After you.”

Jen lifted it to her lips and drank exactly
half. “Fizzy grape juice? There’s a winery around here that makes
honey wine.” She passed the bottle back to him. “Have you ever had
mead? It’s hard to describe.”

She leaned her elbow on the counter and put
her chin in her palm. Keegan looked at the bottle and back at her
lips.

Just fuck me already. Please? Her hand
touched his and he almost jumped out of his skin, breathing hard
and fast, eyes narrowed on her so-innocent fingers.

“Are you all right?” she asked, holding on to
him.

“No, I’m not okay,” he said, jerking his hand
out from under hers. “I thought you didn’t like to be touched.”

She blinked in surprise. “I don’t.”

“Then don’t touch me,” he gritted through
clenched teeth. He felt crazy and out of control. Was this what
Fallon felt? How could he stand it?

She frowned. “I didn’t mean to. It just
happened. I feel...comfortable with you.”

He wanted to spread her out on the table,
pour grape juice on her and have a Jen-tini. And she felt
comfortable with him? “I don’t scare you?”

She rubbed at a drop of grape juice on the
counter, a frown twitched down between her brows. “You’re okay for
a bodyguard,” she said.

“Just neuter me already.” Keegan touched his
gun to make sure it was still there. The grip nudged his palm.

Jen dropped to her feet and glared at Keegan.
“I don’t like where this conversation is going.”

“If you don’t like it, stop talking.”

“Isn’t that just like a man,” she snapped.
“I’m not saying the right thing, so shut up already?”

“You keep touching me and talking to me,
princess, you won’t like what you’re going to get.”

She growled at him. “I didn’t realize I was
supposed to huddle in a speechless ball.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“It sure sounded like it. If you give me a
plain English translation, maybe I can follow along.”

“You want blunt?” Keegan unclipped his
holster, put it down, and stalked around the table to where she
sat.

She inched backwards until her shoulders hit
the breakfast bar and stopped, looking everywhere but into his
eyes, holding her hands out like she could hold him from her.

“Touch me,” he said, walking right up against
her, chest pressed to her palms.

Her fingers curled into the supple material
of his shirt. The thin cotton clung to her fingers, still damp from
where he’d rinsed out the blood. He pulled the t-shirt up, over his
head. If he’d been aware of her in the car this was worse, because
the way he was standing put him right up against her.

“Go on,” he said. “See what you do to
me.”

“I do?” she whispered.

She looked into his eyes and he looked right
back, letting her see the heat behind his cool gray gaze.

“What’s wrong with you?” she cried. “Can’t
you see I’m fat?”

Keegan pulled at the sheet. “Somebody did a
head-job on you, honey. But it wasn’t me.”

“There is nothing wrong with my self-image,”
she said, jerking the fabric back over her shoulders. “I know what
I look like.”

“Then drop the sheet.”

“Why? I’m ugly. It’s a fact. I’m overweight
and out of proportion because my top parts are bigger than my
bottom parts.”

His mouth quirked.

Jen eyed him suspiciously. “Are you laughing
at me?”

“It’s just the way you put it. Your top
parts.”

“Laughing,” she said, hugging her sheet
tight.

“Dying,” said Keegan.

He pulled her sheet-wrapped body into the
circle of his arms and touched his mouth to hers. The sheet drifted
down around her feet. They were skin on skin and mouth to mouth.
The thin satin of her panties caught on his zipper and tore.

“Take it off,” whispered Keegan.

“I am not getting naked with you.”

“You won’t be naked with me. I’ll have my
pants on.”

“Not for much longer.”

“No,” he said. “Not for much longer.”

“I’m confused.” The last and only man she had
ever been with hadn’t enjoyed the sight of her body, and had forced
himself to continue even when it wasn’t something he’d wanted to
do. It’d been creepy and disgusting, and he’d slobbered over her
breasts even while he’d hurt her, using her body like an object
instead of a real person. Her stomach squeezed. “It’s not going to
hurt, is it?”

Keegan froze. “Someone hurt you? Tell me who
it was.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fine.” He lowered her to the couch. “We
won’t.”

His arm stayed around her, and his face
remained buried in her hair. There was nothing between them but his
pants and her underwear. Her breasts were right there between them,
and he wasn’t grossed out or freaked that they were so big.

She could see down the length of their bodies
to where his hand rested against her belly. His hand slid down
under the elastic of her panties to touch her, slow and easy,
letting her have plenty of time to get used to him. The side of his
hand brushed between her legs and settled into her crevice, rubbing
gently. She sucked in a sharp breath.

“Easy,” said Keegan. “Tell me if I do
anything to make you uncomfortable.”

He opened the top button on his pants and put
her hand against him, leaving the zipper closed. It was up to her
to make the first move. She explored him curiously, fingers sliding
over his hard length and finally looked up into his eyes, holding
the zipper pull.

“Your choice,” he whispered.

Jen wiggled the pull and eased the zipper
down. Keegan made a strangled sound and threw his head back. She
tentatively pressed a kiss to the hard line of his jaw, and the
muscles of his chest contracted and almost jumped from under his
skin. Initial panic gave way to pleasure as he kissed her for the
first time, nipping at the closed line of her lips.

She groaned deep in her throat and he took
the sound for his own, pressing her for entrance. She’d been
kissed, but never like this. Keegan took her uncertain fumbling in
stride, coaxing her to meet him thrust for thrust, tongue sliding
and touching as he tried to eat her alive.

His hand slipped over her ribcage and circled
the taut rise of her nipple. Jen froze, eyes wide open. His mouth
followed. It was hot, wet and totally unreal. The sharp drag and
slide of his tongue had her drumming her heels against the
stool.

She knotted her fingers in his hair. “Again,”
she breathed.

He caught her nipple between his teeth and
her instinctive wince vanished in a mind blowing rush of sheer
pleasure.

“Yes,” she gritted out, arching up against
him. She wanted to shove herself into his mouth, not just the
little bit he had between his teeth but the rest of her too.

He touched her again, a quick pressure that
left her wanting more and returned to stroke her, deeper this time.
“You’re tight,” he said.

She gathered the rags of her dignity, hard to
do with Keegan’s finger buried in her and wriggling around. “I
don’t do this often.”

“You’re doing great,” he breathed.

Jen slipped her hands down the smooth muscles
of his back, and hooked her fingers in his waistband. She wanted to
touch him the same way he was touching her. “Off!” she
demanded.

He grinned when she whispered into his ear,
and smiled when he slipped her underwear off and sent it flying
across the room. Then his pants were off and he was hot, smooth and
heavy in her hands. He had absolutely no problem with being naked.
He was right out there for anyone to see, naked. Talk about scared.
Just the thought of someone happening by to see her in all her
naked glory was enough to make her want to run and hide.

Keegan shook his head. “No you don’t,” he
said. “I can see what you’re thinking and honey—you can’t run where
I can’t find you.” He kissed her again, the growl rumbling up from
the depths of his throat feral.