Black Jack (21 page)

“Your agents are the Ops, Jordan. Perhaps you should remind Command of that.”

He turned and left the kitchen to make his way to the bedroom. His formal wear was

waiting in plastic on the king-sized bed.

He picked up the bag and threw it over his arm, checked the contents quickly for everything

he needed, then grabbed the overnight bag sitting on the floor.

Striding from the house minutes later, he headed toward the back of the property and the

rough-hewn shed that sat next to the back drive. Security was still active, ensuring no one had

gotten to the vehicle. Deactivating the security, he raised the bay door and stepped in beside

the black Viper parked there.

Sleek, powerful, like the bike that had just been blown to hell, the sports car waited like a

faithful lover. Running his fingers up the side, he pulled the keys from his pocket and

unlocked the car, opened the door, then slid inside.

Three strikes. This was the third time someone had tried to kill Lilly, and he was getting

ready to lose his patience. He didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but he was ready to

find out.

And he intended to show Lilly’s family, and their particular little social set, just how he

would ensure her protection.

Lilly knew when he entered the bedroom.

She’d left instructions with the butler, knowing her mother wouldn’t be finished dressing

before Travis arrived. She and Desmond were in their suite on the other side of the house, and

their house guests were similarly ensconced in their suites and preparing for one of the major

business events of the year.

It was one of the smallest events, but over the years, it had become one of the most

exclusive. Business deals were made or broken at this event. Company profits could be tripled

or, with a spoken word, sent to hell.

It was also one of the social events of the year. For two days the women vied to wear the

finest clothes, to ensure invitations to their own events, or to attend the events considered the

most exclusive among this particular set.

It was a fucking bitch-fest was what it was.

Lilly kept her back to the door as the draft blown in from the hall receded, signaling that

Travis had closed the door without so much as a click of the lock.

Turning to him slowly, she saw that he wore the same clothes he’d had on during the

explosion. The faintest hint of dust and smoke wafted to her sensitive nostrils as she nearly

smiled at the sight of a smear of soot just over his left eyebrow.

“The shower is through there.” She nodded to the open doors to the bathroom. “Make use

of it if you like.”

He dropped the bag to the floor and laid the plastic-covered evening clothes over a chair by

the door, then stared at her silently.

Vulnerability hit her like a punch to the gut. She could feel it washing through her system,

tearing at the confidence she felt she had never had trouble keeping intact before.

Her fingers tightened on the belt of her robe as he stepped closer, his hands pulling at the

bottom of his t-shirt and tugging it over his head before dropping it to the floor.

He paused then, sat on the end of the bed, and within seconds had the heavy boots off his

feet.

“The butler turned his nose up at me,” he drawled in genuine amusement. “I have a feeling

he didn’t think much of my dirty clothes.”

“You arrived in a Viper, though.” She shrugged. “His favorite car. He’ll forgive you for a

little soot and dirt.”

“Ahh.” He nodded. “So all I have to do is arrive in the correct vehicle?”

“Pretty much,” she agreed. “Since I had your limo and your driver, I wondered how you

would get here. Where did you have that baby stashed?”

“A small shed in the back,” he informed her as he straightened, standing in bare feet as he

dropped his socks to the floor beside the boots. “I see you’ve had your shower.”

She touched her hair self-consciously. “I have to get ready. Hair, makeup, all that crap. It

takes a while.”

She couldn’t believe she felt so damned vulnerable. Where was the smooth, confident

woman she had been hours before? Why in hell did everything inside her seem to melt when

Travis got that look in his eyes, the one that assured her he was thinking of doing some very

naughty things to her body?

And he was doing this while standing there in bare feet with a bare chest, the soft mat of

hair that sprinkled across his chest inviting her fingers to touch and explore.

“Your family’s party is turning into a hell of an event,” he stated as he moved closer,

stopping within inches of her.

“It always does,” she answered, her voice too breathy, too weak to suit her. “And the final

day it becomes a complete mess, if I remember. There are dozens of last-minute requests for

guests by invited guests.”

“Are they often accepted?” he asked as he reached up to scissor his fingers around a curl

that fell along her neck.

“Sometimes.” She swallowed tightly.

She wanted him again. God, she wanted him until she couldn’t think or feel anything but

that need.

She swore she could feel the rasp of his chest hair against her nipples, though her robe

separated them, could feel his cock pressed against her, her pussy swelling in hunger.

She didn’t give a damn about the party right now.

That thought had her stilling. She had never had such a thought before, at least not before

that last party she remembered, hours before her father had died.

She wasn’t thinking right, she wasn’t acting right. In a way she couldn’t blame her mother

and uncle for being so upset when they had to face the woman she was becoming. The

question, though, was why wasn’t she upset herself?

“Speaking of last-minute guest invitations.” His lips quirked mockingly. “Santos Bahre and

Rhiannon McConnelly have managed to procure invitations.”

She did freeze then. Staring back at him silently, unblinking, as she absorbed the

information.

“How interesting.” She breathed in hard and deep. “And what should I expect when my

former employers arrive tonight?”

It wasn’t tears that rose inside her, it wasn’t depression. She hadn’t been a call girl, but the

world would see her as one, if that report ever became public. According to Desmond, it had

taken an irrational amount of money to keep it from becoming public.

“Do you care what you should expect?” His head tilted to the side as his fingers slid into

her hair, holding her in place as he gazed back at her, demanding answers.

“I don’t think I care,” she answered despite the tremors racing up her spine. “Would it do

me any good to care, Travis? Would it make that report any easier to swallow?”

His fingers tightened in her hair for just a second as something hard and brutal flashed in

his gaze. There was a glimmer of rage, carefully banked but not hidden. He didn’t like that

report any more than she did, possibly less.

He had been her first lover, he had been her only lover, but there was a part of her that was

terrified to trust him. A part of her desperate to trust him.

Believe in me, Lilly. His voice whispered through her mind now as it did in her dreams. No

matter what, Lilly. Trust in me. But she was terrified to trust anyone.

“The report doesn’t matter,” he growled. “Do you hear me, Lilly?”

“Unless the international news stations get hold of it.” She felt her lips tremble and fought

to stop it.

She was not a crier. Her father had taught her she wasn’t a crier. She kept her chin high, a

cool smile on her face, arrogance gleaming in her eyes. She was royalty. Well, distant royalty,

but royalty nonetheless.

Or she had been.

Travis watched her eyes, he always watched Lilly’s eyes. Once, they had been a pretty, clear

hazel. They had been filled with innocence and ideals. She had been young, sweet, and lying

through her teeth whenever she had played the sweet, curious little cat.

She wasn’t lying now, though. He could see the humiliation that flashed in her eyes at the

thought of the investigator’s report, at the thought of those she believed to be her former

employers showing up at her family’s party.

There was no fear in her eyes, but there was pain and confusion. And a hunger for

something more than sex.

“I promise you, Santos and Rhiannon don’t want that report revealed any more than you

do.” He wanted so desperately to tell her the truth, to at least hint at the fact that she had been

playing a role, that she had never been a woman for hire.

“Isn’t that reassuring.” She moved to pull away from him.

Travis refused to release her hair, knowing it would hold her there, hold her in place. She

had never moved whenever he caressed her hair, let the tips of his fingers caress her scalp.

She stared back at him, but her gaze still had that edge of steel, that cynical distrust that

gleamed beneath the still-present arousal.

“It should be very reassuring,” he promised her. “Lilly, no matter what you fear, there is no

one who wants to see the past become a risk to your life now.”

He released her hair, let his fingers trace down the side of her cheek, to her jaw, as his

thumb caressed her trembling lips. The woman he had known as Lady Victoria Harrington

had been soft, gentle. She had been a true lady. The woman known as Night Hawk had built

herself a new life. She had trained, she had learned. She’d gone from mission to training and

back again. She had never stopped, she had never rested.

“That past is still a risk,” she informed him. “If it’s true, then I’ll never be free of it, will I,

Travis?”

If it was true. She was pressing him, asking, testing him.

“You will never be free of that past, Lilly,” he agreed.

Before she could say anything more, ask him anything that could, at this moment, endanger

them both, he let his lips cover hers, let his kiss steal the questions from her lips.

They weren’t safe here. She had been betrayed by someone within this house.

He let the hunger overwhelm her for a few precious moments. Lips to lips, tongue to

tongue, his hands caressing beneath the robe, stroking satiny flesh, tracking the few scars her

body held. At her thigh, her hip, along her shoulder. He found them, caressed and stroked

them, and stoked the fire beginning to rage between them.

It was always there, just below the surface, awaiting him. A fire hot enough to burn through

the coldest night and to warm the hardest heart.

Stroking his hands back to her thighs, he let his palm slide between them, felt the soft,

silken curls, the rain of sweet juices that slickened the plump folds.

It was like a rain of honey meeting his caress. Her thighs shifted apart as her breathing

became hard, jerky. Sliding into the dew-rich slit, he found the plump swollen nubbin of her

clit, so sensitive she arched and moaned in hunger as he caressed a tight circle around it.

Locking her to him, he let his fingers stroke over the tight little bud, rubbing to the side as

he knew she liked, stroking the thin little hood over the delicate, sensitive bud.

Her head fell back, her hips arched forward, and Travis could have sworn her clit swelled

tighter, harder, as she began to tremble in his arms.

She was so close to release. This fast, this easy, for him. She responded to him, she

trembled in his arms, ached only for him.

His lips covered hers once again, his fingers parting the plump lips of her pussy further to

circle the clenched, snug entrance that drew him like a magnet.

He circled the heated, slick entrance again, then dipped slowly inside.

He had to tear his lips from hers and grit his teeth as the tight muscles of her pussy gripped

his finger, rippled around it and tried to milk it in deeper. It was the sweetest, hottest flesh

he’d ever known in his life.

“Finish this,” she moaned, her knee bending, leg lifting along his thigh, to open herself to

him.

He slipped a second finger inside her, feeling the tender tissue stretching around the

impalement. It was the sexiest feel he had ever known. Lilly wasn’t the first woman he had

touched so intimately, but damn if she wasn’t the most responsive, the sweetest. She was the

one that made the blood boil in his veins, in his dick. She was the one that filled his nights

with fantasies and kept his hungers on a sharpened edge day or night.

“Travis, you’re torturing me,” she moaned, a whimpering little sound that drew his muscles

tight and left his balls throbbing with the need to get his cock inside her.

She was making him crazy for her. When Lilly was around, even the mission took a back

seat to the woman.

“I need you,” she cried. A soft little wail had his fingers driving deeper inside her, feeling

the snug flesh suck at his fingers as her hands tore at his pants.

God, if he didn’t fuck her he was going to die from the need. He had to get inside her. He

had to fill her, pump inside her, feel the pleasure that exploded into complete nirvana when he

came inside her.

Her silken, deft fingers stroked his cock, holding it firmly as it hardened to painful

intensity.

Dragging his fingers from the tight grip of her pussy, Travis gave a desperate growl as he