Anything but Mine (29 page)

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For FBI profiler Caitlin Falconetti, immersing herself in her job is the only way to quell the memories of a vicious, near-fatal attack and all it cost her, including the only man she ever loved. Better to let him think she simply rejected him, rather than reveal a painful secret that she’s certain would have destroyed his feelings for her.

Investigator Lamar “Tick” Calvert is determined to clean out the corruption-riddled sheriff’s department in his hometown. While he understands Caitlin’s drive to excel at her job, it doesn’t mean he’s happy about the prospect of working with his former lover, the one woman he tried and failed to hold onto.

A rash of unsolved murders brings them together to find the murderer before another woman dies. Daily contact re-ignites the lingering attraction between them, but Caitlin won’t risk opening herself and revealing her secret. She plans to complete the killer’s profile, make an arrest and get out of town for good.

Tick plans to solve this case, too, but now that Caitlin’s back in his life, he also plans to finally dig up the truth about why she left him.

But there’s an added complication—the killer isn’t done, and Caitlin could be the next target.

Her desire-shadowed gaze lay on him like a touch and stoked his need higher. Eyes locked on his, she settled her hands on his shoulders and eased forward, her thighs straddling his. “What do you want?”

He smiled at the naughty whisper and gripped her waist, the cotton of her blouse soft against his palms. “I’ve got everything I want right here.”

From beneath her lashes, she flicked a glance at him. She trailed a slender finger down his chest, leaving unbearable excitement in its path. Her fingernail traced a circle around his navel, the muscles in his gut jumping under the soft touch, his erection growing to press against his fly with excruciating intensity. The maddening finger slid down to skim along his waistband.

She lifted her other hand to release her hair. She shook the sleek mass back and he reached up, itching to bury his hands in it. She caught his wrists, her thighs pressing harder into his.

“You must have some fantasies, Calvert.” She leaned toward him, her blouse gapping to offer him a glimpse of the sheer bra he’d dreamed of all day. She nuzzled his throat, almost purring. “Something that pushes your buttons.” Her husky voice, a dark whisper, shivered over his ear. Thumbs caressed his wrists, but continued to hold his hands at his sides. “Whatever turns you on.”

Everything she did turned him on. She’d been every one of his fantasies since he’d taken her to his bed. Or hell, if he was really honest, since that first week at Quantico, during a course on takedown methods, when she’d knocked him on his ass.

“Cait—”

“Or maybe you want me to figure it out.”

Lean thigh muscles flexed against his legs and she pushed at his chest, a light shove, until he lay flat, reclining on his elbows. He laughed, the sound emerging rusty and strangled. “We’ve been here before, Falconetti.”

“No.” She curled her fingers into his waistband, and his stomach contracted. “Definitely not here, Calvert.”

Knuckles brushing his abdomen, she popped free the metal button, and his breath stopped. The slow trace of her lowering his zipper felt like a caress. Desperate to touch her, he reached for her, intending to drag her down for a kiss.

She caught his hands. “No. You’re not touching yet.”

“Cait.” The frustrated sound was close to a strangled plea and he swallowed hard. He caught her teasing smile before her hair fell forward to shield her face. How the hell did she think he’d keep his hands from her? He was hard, straining and ready now, and she’d barely touched him.

She pushed his arms above his head again. Stretching forward, she nipped his shoulder, her breasts rubbing against his chest.

“Damn it, Cait, you’re killing me.” The words were wrung from him on a gasp when she ran her nails down his torso in a light rake, stopping just short of his open fly.

He grasped her waist and found his wrists captured in a firm grip. She held him down this time, leaning over him, her body cupping him intimately. She moved in a slow, sinuous circle against his straining erection, her low laugh doing incredible things to his nerves. “I don’t have to get out the cuffs, do I, Calvert?”

The scary thing was he’d let her. He’d let her do anything she wanted to him and enjoy every minute of it. He was hers.

Great. He was already a goner.

“Whatever you want, Falconetti.”

“Giving me control can be a dangerous thing,” she murmured against his ear. Easing his hands above his head once more, she rotated her hips into his, and he ground his teeth, aching to be inside her.

“And I told you, I don’t have a problem relinquishing control. Sometimes it can be damned interesting.”

Releasing him, she kissed him, a slow, teasing caress. “Let’s find out how interesting.”

Metal clinked before the cold circle closed around his right wrist. He jerked, and the other cuff rasped shut on his left wrist. His fingers brushed the heavy wood post on his coffee table, and surprised, he stared into green eyes near black with passion and mischief. She rested her hands on the floor, either side of his torso, a smile quirking at her mouth, and excitement burned in his gut.

Interesting wasn’t the word.

She didn’t speak, but blazed a trail of kisses down his abdomen. Her fingers curled in his waistband again and she tugged downward, jeans and boxer briefs sliding over his hips. At the rush of cool air, his dick twitched, and he caught another glimpse of her wayward smile. She pulled the garments free of his body and tossed them aside.

Tracing a design on the inside of his thigh, she tilted her head. “You said something about giving me control?”

Considering he was the one naked, incredibly aroused and handcuffed, he figured she already had it. “It’s…interesting.”

Her fingertip moved up his leg, eased over his scrotum in a featherweight caress. Uncontrollably, his back arched, his eyes slid closed. “God, precious.”

She skimmed the finger along the length of his erection, the light touch shivering through him, sending sparks to every nerve.

The lush wetness of her mouth closed around him. He bowed again, his stomach clenching, the cuff chain rattling against the table leg.

“Holy hell,” he gasped, his breathing coming in uneven bursts. More than anything, he wanted to touch her, the smoothness of her skin under his hands, and he could do nothing but give himself over to the pure sin of her mouth.

She had him completely at her mercy.

Marisa Clyde wants nothing to do with the soldier acting as a temporary bouncer in her uncle’s tavern, even though the stoic, six-feet-of-smoldering hunk rescued her during a tour gone bad in Mexico. While those few short moments sent their sexual tension screaming off the charts, a devastating hurt in her past now blocks her willingness to surrender to him. He’ll only be in town a month. If she can just wait it out, he’ll soon be out of her life.

Sometimes a man wants more than a woman is willing to share…

Jake Sullivan watches Marisa like a hawk, well aware his need to protect is messing with his mind and making him care way more than he should. Priding himself on clinical detachment in the game between man and woman, he figures once he’s slept with her, she’ll be out of his system for good. But that’s before he experiences her at a deeper level—and learns she just might be in danger again.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Private Maneuvers:

He took Marisa’s hand as she stepped off the old tour bus. Huge fingers and a big palm wrapped her much smaller hand. Her body shivered as warmth flickered in her stomach. In fact, her entire body quaked.

He looked like rescue.

He looked like safety wrapped up in one sexy, strong, powerful package.

She could blame it on the events of the last twenty-four hours. Danger and fear could rattle a person. Or just perhaps, it could be this man and the power he emanated.

Maybe the long, thick lashes framing the onyx eyes staring down into hers influenced her senses to scatter. She was nuts to go completely ga-ga over the man standing in front of her when she
refused
to find a military man attractive ever again. Maybe she could blame her reaction to him on the heat wavering upward from the washboard surface of the road and the relentless sun beating down. Or perhaps the humidity level coming from the Mexican jungle all around them had steamed her brains. Of course, the fact that her ribs had taken a bit of beating didn’t help. Every time she breathed, a dull ache radiated outward from her left side.

Not what she expected to experience on a vacation, but she’d made it through worse and lived to tell about it.

As her Uncle Dexter back in Clarksville, Wyoming would say, the pucker factor for the last day had escalated way off the charts. She had a right to feel disoriented, hungry, and exhausted. A smear on her glasses irritated her, but she didn’t bother to try and clean it. Face it, a smear was so not that important when she’d just survived what would amount in the news to an international incident.

Her ribs panged, and she winced.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” the soldier asked, his deep voice a husky sound that brushed along her senses like a feather tickling all her erogenous zones.

She couldn’t answer him. Through her tiredness, her hormones registered that he stood around six three or four, his muscular build apparent through the camo wear. He wore no rank or insignia that could identify him.

His military short obsidian hair gleamed with blue highlights under the fierce sun. He topped the charts into unbelievably gorgeous.
No. Not exactly.
Dark and dangerous, a huge cliché, didn’t explain the unique mix-and-match hardness in his features that added up to one handsome visage. Yet dangerous certainly described his aura, a kick-butt-and-don’t-bother-to-take-names presence. His angular face defied description—his jaw formed a solid frame around his hard mouth. His nose was a smidgen crooked. Those intriguing, mysterious eyes didn’t hide anything. Did he know how his feelings gleamed so starkly in his gaze? Probably not. Right now his eyes narrowed, as if he wanted to read her mind and excavate answers.

When she didn’t answer him, his gaze turned dark, serious and concerned. “Ma’am?”

“Poor dear is a bit shocky,” Ida Hambly said behind her. “She’s had quite an ordeal.”

“I’m fine,” Marisa said. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Right. Nothing wrong. You’ve just made it through a bombing, a robbery, and a broken down bus. All in a day’s work for an accountant?” Ida leaned heavily on her cane, and when the soldier saw Ida hesitating on the bottom step of the bus, he released Marisa’s hand and helped the elderly woman down and over to where Marisa stood. “And then the cavalry rides in on white horses and saves our butts. I’d say that’s enough to rattle your sweet young cage.”

Marisa smirked. “Ida, your sense of humor kept me sane.”

That, and maybe Freddie Bodine. Freddie stood clasped in the arms of her boyfriend, another one of the soldiers who’d come to the rescue. Apparently he’d traveled from the U.S. after putting together this team of army men to look for Freddie when the tour bus went missing and didn’t report back to the hotel.

Freddie’s head pressed against her boyfriend’s shoulder, and his hand cupped the back of her head. He touched his lips to the top of Freddie’s head in a tender gesture. He looked drained with relief.
What would it feel like to have a man love me that much?

Ten other soldiers who’d first appeared earlier like ghosts from the jungle entered the bus. People chattered in excited, relieved voices and the soldiers hurried to extract them from the vehicle.

Trauma of the last day worked into her sore body. The back of her neck ached, muscles in her lower back protested. She stretched and arched her back, as she sighed. She felt grungy, her long hair frizzing in the humidity, her khaki shorts and plain blue T-shirt rumpled. She regretted the movement as pain arched through her side again.

Damn it.

“You should have seen how Marisa and Freddie convinced those bastards to take nothing else but the cash,” Ida said to one of the soldiers. “It was truly amazing.”

Marisa’s legs started to tremble, and her temples throbbed. As if he had radar for her emotional or physical changes, her soldier’s gaze flicked her way and he frowned as he eyeballed her. He spoke into a satellite phone and ordered another person to bring their transportation. She rubbed the back of her neck and allowed her eyes to slip closed.

The soldier’s voice rumbled nearby, and she opened her eyes to find him within her personal space. So close she should have rebelled. She never let men get this close—until now. He gripped Marisa’s upper arm as if he expected her to collapse any minute. She’d never felt this fragile before, hanging by a single thread combined of liberation and leftover fear.

“Ma’am—Marisa, would you like some water?” He handed her a small water bottle.

It took her a few seconds to respond. She irrationally wanted to tell him to call her Miss Clyde or ma’am because she wanted the distance and formality.

Instead she said, “Thank you.”

She took the water and slammed back a huge swallow. She knew better than to gulp the lukewarm liquid, but thirst compelled her to slug down half the bottle. Immediately her stomach lurched in protest.

“Whoa. Slow down,” he said.

She glared at him. “I’m thirsty.”

“Drink too much and it’ll make you sick.”

“I know.”

She almost stalked away. Not because she found him repulsive. Nope. She found him way, way too intriguing.

She heard the rumble of vehicles and two large vans turned the corner and progressed their way. Tension shot up her back.

“There’s our transport,” her soldier said.

Good.
Lethargy weighed her down, as if she sank into her athletic shoes a few inches, quicksand sucking her into blessed darkness.

His voice sounded too far away, and then as her head seemed to float and her legs turned rubbery, she managed to whisper a plea, “Wait…”

He moved toward her quickly. “What’s wrong?”

“I—I don’t think I can—”

Her eyelids fluttered and suddenly his powerful arms encircled her. “Easy. Are you hurt somewhere and just not telling us about it?”

Marisa clutched at his shoulders. “My ribs. One of the bandits slung me into a seat.” She touched her glasses, held together in the middle by some tape Ida had found in her voluminous tote bag. “That’s how I broke my glasses.”

“Son of a bitch.” Her soldier growled the words under his breath.

He lifted her in his arms, and she said, “No. I mean, I’m fine. It’s not that big a deal.”

He carried her toward the vans. “Sergeant Clearwater! We need a medic.”

Freddie, Ida, and Freddie’s soldier followed, Freddie’s and Ida’s concerned voices echoing in her ears.