Navy SEALs Complete Series: 3 Books + 3 Novellas (Tempting Navy SEALs) (101 page)

“I hate a liar.” He sighed, his eyes narrowing on her as he tugged at her arm, dragging her back to the middle of the bed with him. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, Kira. You couldn’t have had the information you did to be in that warehouse last week without help. Where did you get it?”

She rolled her eyes before leaning toward him, allowing her hair to cascade over the side of her face and enclose them in a partial curtain of darkness. No lies. No games. Just the two of them, the truth, and her silent promise to protect him.

“Martin Missern’s soldiers like to party,” she whispered suggestively. “Ricardo Desoto likes to talk when he gets drunk. He talked.”

Desoto was one of Missern’s personal soldiers within his main security force. Tall, suave, a Latin charmer with all the sophistication of an alligator on the prowl.

“And you were there?” Something angry flashed in his
eyes as he tugged her close, his other hand gripping her neck and holding her in place, her breasts pressing into the tense, muscled forearm.

“She was there, Ian.” The Chameleon.

Kira let her lashes drift partially closed, her voice lower sensually. “I poured his rum, smiled nice and sweet, and ran my nails down his arm as he told me everything he knew. Everything. Even Martin and Josef Missern’s propensity to take Sorrell’s rejects as lovers before disposing of them very quietly.” Her teeth clenched as she drew in an angry breath. “And Sorrell’s suggestion to them that Diego Fuentes would be much easier to handle if you were no longer a part of his little world.”

Ian’s lips tightened, though he released her, slowly, before rolling to the edge of the bed and sitting up. Her hands gripped his forearm, frustration eating at her that he could contain her so easily. They both knew he could shake her off like an irritating gnat if he chose.

He didn’t. He stilled, his back tightening, as she inched closer, pressing her nipples against the smooth flesh and laying her lips at his ear. She could feel the sexual tension rising inside him then, as it always did when they touched, when they challenged each other.

“You want answers, Ian? You want to know why I’m here? Tell me, why did you slip into my bedroom in Atlanta? Why did you hold me down in my bed and let me glimpse heaven without the satisfaction of touching it? Did the big bad SEAL get scared of the little woman?”

She slid her arms over his shoulders and he reached up to grip her wrists.

“You want me,” she reminded him. “And you hate it. Don’t you, Ian?”

She knew he did. She had glimpsed that in Atlanta. His anger, the irritation and frustration in his expression each time they were around each other. The knowledge of it still held the power to hurt her. It twisted inside her and tugged stingingly at her emotions. Which she thought was totally
not fair. After all, if he had to affect her so severely, why couldn’t she affect him in the same way?

“You’re a complication.” He unwrapped her arms and rose to his feet, naked, aroused. “Nothing more.”

She sat on her knees on the bed, watching him in the dim light of the rising sun as he turned and glanced at her over his shoulder.

“I’m heading to the shower,” he said. “I’ll meet with Deke in the sitting room while you get dressed. We need to talk before heading down to breakfast.”

“About what?” Rising to her feet, Kira paced over to the robe that a helpful maid must have left lying over the cushioned chair at the bottom of the bed. Shrugging it on, she belted it before glaring back at him.

“Your role in this little debacle of an operation,” he grunted in disgust. “I still can’t believe I was stupid enough to be played so easily by Missern.” His narrow-eyed glance of irritation wasn’t lost on her.

“Oh yes, this is going to be such a hardship for you.” Her smile was all teeth. He better watch out, because she knew how to bite too. “Why didn’t you just ignore him, Ian? Martin may have almost gotten the first hit in, but I promise you, I would have gotten in the last.”

She knew how to deal with bastards like Missern. It was men like Ian she had always had problems with.

“I should have ignored it.” He shrugged, turning from her again. “As you stated, you know how to take care of yourself. But the damage has already been done.”

He gave her his back and strode off, naked and buff and so male she would have creamed her nonexistent panties if she weren’t so damned pissed off.

“The damage has already been done?” She rushed for the bathroom door, then turned, mortification flaming across her face as she saw him poised at the toilet. “Jeez, Ian.”

She heard his smug chuckle a second before the door slammed at her back. Then the snick of the lock. The son of a bitch.

“You are so wrong!” she gritted out after the sound of the toilet flushing.

Not that he paid any attention to her. The sound of the shower finally came through the doors, causing her to pace away from the bathroom door to the closed balcony doors. She pulled them open, stepped out to the balcony, and proceeded to the doors that led to the room Daniel was staying in.

She paused outside the glass doors, peeked in, and caught Daniel’s eye where he was sitting in a chair lacing his boots. Glancing to the door of the bedroom, he rose quickly, jerked his shirt from the back of the chair, and shrugged it over his shoulders before opening the door and going out to the balcony.

As the door closed behind him, Kira was in his face, hissing. “Is Durango team on the island?”

Daniel’s eyes narrowed, his hand moving to button his shirt lazily as he stared down at her.

“How would I know?” he asked coolly.

Oh hell yes, he knew. She recognized that look on his face and that tone of voice.

“How long have they been here? And before you step over the line and lie to me, I’d remember who signs your paycheck, Mr. Calloway.”

She was furious at the thought that Daniel would go behind her back and contact the team. She was even angrier to realize that he would have had to go behind her back to find out enough about this operation to think they were needed.

He blew out a hard breath. “I don’t lie to you, Kira, so can the ‘Mr. Calloway’ crap and the threats. I suspect they’re here, but I don’t know where, and I’m not bothering to find out. Extra security wouldn’t hurt any of us.”

“You suspected and you didn’t tell me?” She glanced quickly back to the room she shared with Ian. “He knows they’re here, Daniel. And if they’re here, there’s only one reason for it. To take him out.”

“Has he gone rogue?” The question was a legitimate one, she knew.

“Hell no, he hasn’t gone rogue, nor is he a traitor. Ian doesn’t have a rogue bone in his body and you know it. But that’s not the point. The point is, he can’t afford even the slightest hint that he isn’t rogue. What the hell are they thinking to come in here like this?” She kept her voice low, so low that she knew Daniel was reading lips more than actually hearing the words. “Do you think DHS isn’t covering his ass? I knew it when they sent me in to protect Diego. They won’t admit it, but trust me, Daniel, Ian is sanctioned.”

“Have you seen them?” he asked her carefully.

She shot her bodyguard an irritated glare. “You know better than that.”

“Has he?”

She shook her head quickly.

“Then don’t worry about them. If they’re here, they’re here for their own reasons. Let’s see what happens.”

And he had still kept from saying, one way or the other, if he was in any way involved in their arrival.

“Warn them.” Her smile was icy. “To make damned sure they don’t put him in harm’s way. Damned sure, Daniel. Or a lot of heads are going to roll. Do you understand me?” His would be one of them. “Anything happens to Ian, and I swear to you, as God is my witness, they’ll pay for it.”

His lips quirked, and in that flash of amusement she could almost see why his wife thought so much of him. Almost. Right now she was too damned mad to make the effort.

“You’re like a lioness protecting a cub.” He folded his arms over his chest as he leaned against the balustrade of the railing. “He’s a fully grown male, Kira, he can take care of himself.”

“That’s not the point.”

“It’s very much the point. Keep trying to protect and control him, and he’ll turn on you.”

She stared back up at him in shock. “I’m doing no such thing.”

For a moment, his expression was hesitant, then it smoothed out and became determined, assured.

“Yes, you are. And he won’t like it. He’s pissed you’re in this to begin with. He believes it’s his job to protect you. To keep you out of harm’s way. This isn’t a man who can accept the danger you live with. Remember that. Ian will always believe it’s his duty to stand in the line of fire and your duty to patch up the wounds whether you like it or not.”

And she didn’t like it, not in the least, but she had a feeling Daniel was right. Ian wasn’t very accepting at all of the fact that Martin Missern had attempted to do no more than strike her the night before. Hell, she had taken worse than that on a New York City street by a would-be mugger.

Her lips pressed together firmly as she crossed her arms over her breasts and stared at the wooden floor of the balcony before lifting her head and giving him her lips to read as she whispered. “If you know where they are, you better warn them. He knows they’re here.”

And he knew. He hadn’t outright lied to her, but she knew him well enough to know he would continue the evasive double-talk to protect that knowledge.

He nodded slowly before asking in a soft voice, “What are you going to do when he sends me packing, Kira?”

“Accept it.” Ian’s voice was throttled with fury.

Kira whirled around, staring back at his shirtless body framed in the balcony entrance, his dark eyes lit with burgundy depths, his expression tight, controlled.

“Daniel isn’t going anywhere,” she informed him as he stepped out, pacing closer to them, dressed in nothing more than white slacks and anger.

Muscle rippled beneath dark flesh, flexing powerfully as he stepped closer to her, his gaze hard.

“He leaves today or you risk his life,” he informed her coldly. “There are no neutral parties here, Kira. Do you understand me?”

“Daniel’s loyal to me, Ian,” she snapped. “This is not negotiable.”

“You made it negotiable when you stuck your nose in my
business,” he growled, his eyes going to Daniel. “I want you to leave.”

“Ian—”

“No, Kira, he’s right.” Daniel laid his hand on her arm, his expression suddenly somber. “Your loyalty might not be questioned, but mine will be. I won’t be accepted here.”

It wasn’t the first time she had been forced to work without her bodyguard, it wouldn’t be the last, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

“He would be an asset here, Ian,” she gritted out.

He shook his head slowly, his gaze coming back to hers, his eyes cold. “He would be a witness. Those aren’t tolerated. Do you understand me?”

And she did understand. The servant that had been killed in the Fuentes household that week, her body buried, forever out of sight, reminded her of it. Diego Fuentes had killed a child because she had betrayed Ian, and ordered the death of another. One whom Ian had had slipped quietly off the island and to the States. One had betrayed, the other had been a witness and a danger to the Fuentes cartel that Ian knew would never survive on her own.

Tracking the rumor of the death and learning the events behind it hadn’t been easy. Ian covered his tracks too damned well. And he was covering Diego’s just as well now.

S
HE FELT HER HEART RACE
in her chest, a chill chasing up her spine as she searched his eyes and fought against the truth of the life he was facing.

“I’ll return to the villa,” Daniel said softly. “You can reach me at any time on the secure cell if you need me.” His hand gripped her shoulder as she stared up at Ian, barely feeling his comforting touch. “I’ll let Jase know you’re okay.”

“Keep him away from here, Daniel.” Ian jerked his gaze back to the bodyguards. “Far away from here. And while
you’re at it, keep any other friends or alliances you might have out of my sight. I don’t have time to separate suspected enemies from true enemies. And I have all the friends I need right now.”

With that, he reached out, gripped Kira’s arm, and jerked her to him, away from Daniel’s touch. She bounced against his chest, pressing her hands against the solid wall of muscle as she stared up at him in surprise.

“No other man touches you.” The muscle in his jaw flexed in fury. “As long as you sleep in my bed, you belong to me.”

Possessiveness sizzled in his voice, shocking her even more than the move to jerk her to him had. Shocked her, and strangely, aroused her.

The research she had on him hadn’t indicated a possessive nature with women. He rarely had close relationships, and chose his lovers with finicky precision for their submissiveness and lack of possessive tendencies.

Her head jerked around and she stared back at Daniel. He stood silently, watching them, his gaze narrowed thoughtfully.

“Tell him to leave, Kira.” Ian was adamant.

She breathed out heavily. “Go back to the villa,” she told Daniel. “I’ll be okay.”

“Get out of Aruba,” Ian ordered.

“Ian, that’s not necessary,” she hissed.

“Disappear, Daniel.” He ignored her protest. “Do you understand me?”

The threat in his tone was clear. Shocking.

“Ian—”

“You chose me.” Ice formed in his voice and in his expression. “You chose to side with me. That choice comes with a price, Kira. I won’t accept more innocent blood on my hands than I have to. Do you understand me?” His eyes moved back to Daniel.

Daniel nodded slowly as he flashed Kira a warning look. “I understand, Ian.”

“This is insane. No one will believe he just deserted me.” She whirled on Ian furiously. “You can’t just order him away like this. What about backup?”

“Do you want him dead?” Ian snarled. “Stop arguing with me, Kira. Here and now. Because as God is my witness your life just might well depend on it. There’s no backup here for a reason. Do you understand me? It’s too fucking dangerous.”