Rogue Alpha (Alpha 7) (9 page)

“Seth?”

He hated the underlying fear he could hear in Diana’s voice as evidence she had obviously heard that rustling noise outside too. Fucking hated it.

As he’d hated her fear last night when she thought he was going to physically retaliate for her having questioned his motives regarding the alcohol they had both consumed. If Moore had still been alive, Seth would have taken great pleasure in killing the other man. Slowly. For ever causing this woman a moment’s pain or fear.

“Seth, there’s someone—”

“I know.” He stepped aside and quickly began pulling his boxers and jeans back on before grabbing his gun.

Just in time, as the back door swung open and a man stood silhouetted in the doorway.

Diana screamed.

Chapter 6

“You might have told me,” Diana hissed, eyes snapping with accusation as she glared across the kitchen at a totally relaxed Seth.

He gave a shrug as he picked up and returned the gun to the waistband at the back of his fastened jeans. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“Don’t you mean
you
don’t work that way?” She eyed him impatiently. “Your friend Jonas terrified the life out of me when he came bursting into the kitchen that way.”

“For one thing, despite his size,
he
doesn’t burst anywhere,” Seth said testily. “For another,” his voice hardened, “we either do this my way, or we don’t do it at all.”

“You are such an arrogant bastard,” she muttered agitatedly.

“I’ve never made a pretense of being anything else.”

No, he hadn’t. Arrogant. Bossy. Dangerous. They were all adjectives that fit this man perfectly.

“You still should have told me we weren’t on our own in Paris,” she maintained stubbornly.

“Why?”

Diana knew from Seth’s puzzled expression that he seriously had no idea what her problem was. She added
infuriating
to that list of adjectives.

“You do both realize I’m still here?” the man called Jonas drawled as he leaned back against a kitchen unit waiting for the pot of coffee to finish percolating. “That’s quite a pair of lungs you have there, Mrs. Moore.”

“Diana,” she answered him distractedly, still shaken by the fact that, instead of the fight for their lives she had been expecting, Seth and the bronzed giant who had walked into the kitchen minutes ago had actually grinned at each other as they shook hands and then thumped each other on the back in greeting.

Seth had introduced the other man to her as Jonas Grayfeather. A Native American, from the way he looked and his accent, although she would guess from the blue of his eyes he wasn’t completely Native American. He was breathtakingly handsome, his skin a deep red-bronze color, his shoulder-length hair blue black. His face looked as if it had been carved from stone: high forehead, sharp cheekbones, a chiseled jawline, sculpted lips, and his eyes were that deep blue of fine sapphires.

He also stood at least six inches over six feet tall. His shoulders and chest were massive, his body lean and honed in faded jeans and a black T-shirt. A black leather duster completed the outfit. It had been the latter that made him appear so intimidating as he stood framed in the doorway a few minutes ago.

It seemed he had also, on Seth’s instructions, followed them to Paris on a domestic flight. The plan, apparently, was for Jonas to follow whoever was following them.

Yet another thing Seth had forgotten to mention to her.

No, he hadn’t forgotten. But he didn’t feel the need to explain himself, to her or anyone else.

So much for any feelings of awkwardness after the intimacy they had shared mere minutes ago; Diana could quite cheerfully punch Seth on his arrogant nose for the scare she had received when Jonas Grayfeather let himself into their safe house.

She really had feared for their lives at that moment, believed that one or both of them were about to die at the hands of this giant of a man.

Instead, after that initial greeting and introduction, Jonas had calmly set about unpacking the bag of groceries he was carrying and then made a pot of coffee. All while Diana glared her frustration at an unconcerned Seth.

What if Jonas Grayfeather had entered the house only a few minutes earlier? While we were still— While I was—

God…

She couldn’t even look at Seth right now. “I apologize for screaming, Mr. Grayfeather—”

“Jonas,” he corrected in his low rumbling voice.

She nodded. “If Seth had bothered to share your presence in Paris with me, then maybe I wouldn’t have reacted so—”

“Hysterically,” Seth put in helpfully.

“Emotionally.” She shot him a censorious glare.

“I think you’re allowed a scream or two,” Jonas dismissed. “Putting up with Seth is enough to rattle anyone’s nerves, and you also have a wrecked hotel room and apartment to deal with.”

“Very funny.” Seth scowled.

The other man grinned unapologetically, the two men obviously at ease in each other’s company.

“You know about the hotel and my apartment…?” Diana eyed Jonas uncertainly.

“Sure do.” He handed her one of the mugs of coffee before handing another one to Seth. “Seth called me earlier.”

“Of course he did.” She remembered Seth making a couple of telephone calls while they were at her apartment, but he hadn’t shared—did he ever?—the information of who those calls were being made to. He really was the most infuriating man she’d ever met.

“Is there a reason you aren’t wearing your shoes and socks, or did you feel a sudden urge to cool your feet?” Jonas arched one dark and mocking brow at Seth.

Seth narrowed his eyes at the other man, knowing from the laughter he could see glinting in Jonas’s eyes that he already knew the answer to his own question. Not surprising when the fusty dusty smell of the kitchen now had an underlying smell of sex and cum.
His
cum.

He was still trying to get his head around what happened before Jonas arrived. He wasn’t easily surprised—hell, he had seen and done most things in his life, so much so that cynical could have been his middle name—but having Diana half undress him before sucking his cock, right here in the kitchen, within minutes of their arrival at the house, had definitely taken him by surprise.

She
had taken him.

Jesus, he had never experienced anything like it. Never been as aroused as he was looking down and watching Diana take his cock into her mouth. As for the heat of her… It was like being enveloped in fire, intensifying his pleasure to an almost unbearable degree. Almost, he acknowledged self-derisively, knowing that if it hadn’t been for her fingers gripping him tightly at the base of his shaft, he would almost certainly have cum as soon as she sucked him deep into the back of her throat for the first time.

He was thirty-five years old, had been sexually active for at least seventeen of those years, and he would say that his sexual appetite was as healthy as the next man’s. Possibly higher than some. He’d fucked blondes, redheads, brunettes, too many to count, but he’d never, not once, even come close with any of them to spilling like some callow kid experiencing sex for the first time. Even when it had been his first time.

Diana had done that to him, without even trying.

She was a dangerous woman.

Beautiful and courageous, sexy as hell, and he responded to her in a way he never had with any other woman.

Dangerous.

For her, as much as for him. His parents’ marriage had soured him on the subject of permanent relationships. It wasn’t for him. Not now, not ever. He liked his life exactly as it was, thank you very much. No ties, no restriction on anything he did or didn’t do. A wife, possibly kids, would require he change that way of life. Not only was Diana vulnerable as hell, she was also the sort of woman who expected a ring and forever.

She thought she had that with Moore, and look how well that turned out.

Maybe. But Seth didn’t want her getting the wrong idea about what had happened before Jonas arrived—

“The question really wasn’t that complicated,” Jonas drawled.

Seth’s jaw tightened as he sensed the other man was still mocking him. “Maybe I’m communing with nature.”

“Is that what you’re calling it now?”

“Fuck off—”

“Will Jonas be staying here with us?” Diana interrupted what she sensed was developing into a potentially embarrassing conversation for all of them. She was almost certain Jonas Grayfeather knew exactly what had taken place in the kitchen shortly before his arrival, but that didn’t mean she wanted to talk about it. Or for these two men to do so in front of her either.

Bad enough that she was now questioning her reckless behavior. It had been what she wanted at the time, what she needed, now not so much…

Seth grimaced. “That would depend on what he has to report so far.”

All humor left Jonas’s face as he straightened and became all business. “Well, you’re definitely being followed, Mrs.—Diana. Not that you needed me to tell you that,” he added dryly. “Seth sent a photograph to my mobile of your sketch of the man you suspected. I flew over on the same plane he did. The guy then got a cab to your apartment, stood outside until you both left in a cab. He managed to follow the two of you as far as the Gare du Nord, but he lost you when you left by another entrance. He backtracked on himself for a while, obviously hoping to pick up the trail again. When he didn’t, he left.”

“To go where?”

“Montmartre,” Jonas said with satisfaction. “He’s taken a room in an inexpensive
pension
there.”

“In the name of?”

“Eduardo Garcia. He looks the part, is slightly swarthy, but the chances of that being his real name are pretty slim.” The tall American grimaced.

It was obvious to Diana, from their conversation, that these two men had worked together before. Often.

“I suggest we make and eat dinner,” Jonas rumbled on. “Then afterwards, Seth and I can go out and have a little chat with Mr. Garcia.”

Diana gave a shiver as she envisaged what form that “little chat” might take. Seth carried a gun in the waistband at the back of his jeans, and from the slight bulge visible at the back of Jonas’s long coat, he did too. Neither man gave the impression those guns were there only for show.

Diana felt sure they weren’t. “You aren’t going to kill him, are you?”

“What purpose would that serve?” Seth scowled his irritation with the question.

No denial, only a questioning of what purpose there would be in killing the only person who had the information they wanted.

Reminding Diana—if she had needed any reminding—of exactly what sort of man Seth Armstrong really was. “I’m coming with you,” she decided determinedly.

“No—”

“Yes.” She raised her chin stubbornly.

“It’s probably not a good idea, Diana,” Jonas told her with a grimace.

Her eyes flashed aqua blue. “If the two of you think I’m staying here while you go off to confront and then question the man we now have confirmation has been following me for days, then you’re both mistaken.”

Seth added
stubbornly reckless
to those other attributes he had given her earlier today. And reckless could get her killed.

The same recklessness that almost blew the top of my head off when she made love to me?

Seth had seen this rush of adrenaline reaction to danger before. Hell, he had felt it dozens of times and liked nothing more than a good fuck himself before or after returning from one of the more dangerous assignments he did for Grayson Security. It was one of the ways the mind and body had of dealing with that adrenaline high.

He didn’t fool himself it had meant any more to Diana than a response to the danger that had been dogging her every move for weeks.

What did it mean to me?

Seth still had no idea what the fuck had happened to him earlier. Yes, Diana was beautiful. And yes, she was sexy as hell. But his response to her was—well, it was unprecedented. So much so that Seth had no idea what to do with it. With her.

“Seth?”

He turned to look at Jonas, frowning as he saw the curiosity in his friend’s expression. Understandably so. He and Jonas had known and worked together for years, and as such, Jonas probably knew him better than anyone. Knew that Seth never allowed any woman to get under his skin, let alone distract him in the way he was now distracted by Diana Moore.

Originally, this had only been another job to him. Going to the aid of a lady in distress. He had no idea what the fuck it was now, except to know he wasn’t going to deliberately allow Diana to put herself in the path of danger. None of them knew how tonight would go down. For all any of them knew, the little rat who had been following her could feel cornered and come out with guns blazing. With Diana caught in the line of fire.

He straightened. “You’re staying here,” he told her flatly.

Her shoulders tensed. “Make me.”

Jonas gave him a look that clearly said
oh shit,
at the same time as he leaned back against the kitchen unit and folded his arms across the broadness of his chest, obviously in preparation for watching the show
.