Born Into Fire (17 page)
She transferred the glass to the marver. Erion laid the paper on the table, stepped up behind her, and wrapped his arms around her waist.
She relaxed against him. “Buy the tickets today, Erion.” She shifted her hips. Erion gripped her tighter and ground his cock into the crack of her ass. She gave a contented sigh, and he thought he would come right there.
“There’s something you never told me,” she said.
“What’s that?” He reached around the front of her jeans, opened the snap, and lowered the zipper.
“What Alal means.”
The bright room fell away, and Erion again stood outside his cabin that night three weeks ago with the Drakaura, when he thought he’d lost Kenna forever. He still had to find out why they had come to her as a child. He buried his face in her neck and breathed deeply of her scent. Then slowly, he slid his mouth to her ear and whispered, “Destroyer.”
About the Authors
KyAnn Waters
Award winning and multi-published author KyAnn Waters lives in Utah with her husband, two children, and two dogs. She spends her days writing and her evenings with her family. She enjoys sporting events on the television, thrillers on the big screen, and hot scenes between the pages of her books.
Visit KyAnn at
www.KyAnnWaters.com
Tarah Scott
Award winning author Tarah Scott cut her teeth on authors such as Georgette Heyer, Zane Grey, and Amanda Quick. Her favorite book is a Tale of Two Cities, with Gone With the Wind as a close second. She writes modern classical romance, and paranormal and romantic suspense. Tarah grew up in Texas and currently resides in Westchester County, New York with her daughter.
Visit Tarah at
www.TarahScott.com
To chat with KyAnn & Tarah and other Wild Rose Press authors of erotic romance, join us at www.groups.yahoo.com/group/thewilderroses.
Also Available
Double Bang
by
KyAnn Waters & Tarah Scott
Sara Martin has a problem. And it’s not the attraction she has for her co-worker Devon Curran…or the lust she feels for her sexy neighbor, Rigg. Yes, those are problems. But she has bigger issues. There’s been a security breach in the impenetrable computer system at work. Suddenly Devon doesn’t look happy. And that is a gun in his pocket!
Devon is working undercover…and Sara is about to blow his case. He’d rather she blow him. She’s as smart as she is beautiful. But he’s lied to protect her. What will she do when she discovers he works with a partner? Tonight, they are going to keep her close…very close…in their protective custody.
Chapter One
“Oh, my god.” Sara Martin stared at the computer monitor. What she saw wasn’t supposed to be there.
The slowing of her computer had been so slight, she’d almost dismissed it. But she’d initiated the secondary scan—something she’d never had to do in the two years she’d worked for J&R Ltd. Import and Export—and found the kernel-mode rootkit. The powerful malware had evaded the nightly scans, concealing its purpose from the active processes.
No ordinary spyware could penetrate the state-of-the-art system. That meant someone had hacked into J & R Ltd’s system.
“This is so not good.” Her heart began to pound and the hairs at the nape of her neck tingled. Her internal warning system sounded an alarm. The network security for the import and export corporation was the best in the world. Maintaining secrecy for the high profile clients who spent millions of dollars on rare antiques was the company’s top priority. Her boss, Bradley Jackson, built his clientele by making sure their business transactions were safer than the gold at Fort Knox.
But he’d been wrong. Someone had installed a backdoor client on his impregnable virtual fortress.
She glanced at the clock in the corner of her screen. Five minutes to eight. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” Bradley was in a meeting with a wealthy Japanese client and they would be in full negotiations by now. She grabbed her cell from the desk, slid it open, and sent a text.
911.
Not that he’d see the message as an emergency, not with a million dollar deal on the line. Sara considered texting the details but didn’t. Their system had been breached. God only knew who might be monitoring communications. “I should just go to him. He’ll know what to do.”
Sara jabbed the monitor button. The screen went blank, and she grabbed her purse from inside the lower right hand drawer of her desk, then rose. Three steps forward and she froze.
“Shit.” She should unplug the computer system. Her terminal was the hub for all activity on the company’s intranet. Anyone high tech enough to get into her computer could possibly bypass her system and access another. Pulling her chair away from her desk, she tossed her purse on the cushion and dropped to her knees. Her fitted skirt rucked up her thighs and hips as she shimmied underneath the desk. She felt along the wall to the plug, grunted when she didn’t readily locate the plug, then stretched until her fingertips reached the cord. A hard jerk pulled the line free.
“I should just call the police,” she mumbled as she wiggled back out from under the desk…and bumped into something solid.
Sara squeaked and jerked, banging her head hard on the underside of the desk. “Damn,” she cried, clamping her hand over the small knot forming on her head. She glanced to the left. Black polished wingtips stood directly behind her. Her heart jumped and little quiver started in her belly. Devon Curran, the man who made her warm in the most unprofessional way, was standing above her—staring at her ass, which was still nestled against his legs.
“This is an interesting variation to the way I pictured you on your knees.”
The drawled words spoken with deep male appreciation sent a rush of awareness flowing through her, settling in the places she had imagined his hands and mouth. And he’d pictured her on her knees? She closed her eyes and swallowed.
Over the last couple of weeks, Devon had flirted shamelessly and she’d enjoyed his attention. But this was beyond unbearable. Heat bloomed in her cheeks. Not the ones he was staring at, but the ones on her face. Just because she’d entertained the idea of asking him to her place after work, of feeling his weight press her into the bed, holding her down as he fucked her with a slow screw and eased the ache between her legs, she wouldn’t. This was work. Devon was her office infatuation…and taking him home would pose problems of another kind.
“Devon,” she scolded, scooting back. She had to get to the restaurant. “I don’t have time for bantering sexual innuendo.” He didn’t move. She was forced to bump her ass against his immovable legs. “Move.”
He laughed. “Not if you keep doing that.”
“Now!”
He sighed and stepped out of the way.
Sara scooted the rest of the way out and stood. Heat from his gaze bore into her back as she shimmied her skirt into place. She grabbed her purse. “I have to go.”
Sara whirled and got a mouthful of muscled chest beneath a starched white shirt. She snapped her head up, and her gaze locked onto Devon’s deep blue eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Strong fingers grasped her shoulders. For a heart-stopping second, neither of them moved. The slow caress of his hands down her arms thickened the sexual tension. “You’re trembling.”
And she was betting it was from the nearness of this man and
not
the break in security. He stared down at her with such heat that her insides liquefied. Warmth pooled in her pussy and her nipples tightened. Devon joined J & R Ltd two months ago. He had turned out to be a distraction she was still learning to deal with. Just hearing his voice down the short hallway that separated them conjured visions of the treasures hidden beneath the linen shirts and pressed trousers that fit him to sinful perfection. His angled face, dark hair, blue eyes, and muscular body made him the perfect GQ model.
“Sara.” The way her name slipped off his tongue caused a shiver to slide up her spine. “What’s going on?” He frowned. “You’re scared.”
“Hell, yes, I’m scared. There’s an intruder in my office.” And she wasn’t referring to the one that had her panties damp and her heart thundering.
A corner of his mouth twitched. “Is that what I am?”
“Right now, yes.” With those damn sexy dimples highlighted by a five o’clock shadow, she wanted him to intrude on her personal space—intrude intimately. She shrugged free of his hold.
He propped a hip on her desk. “How about I take you to dinner?”
She pictured dinner in a dimly lit restaurant, them alone in a private corner where he could reach under the table and slip his hand beneath her skirt and into her curls. “Devon, I’m going downtown. I have to talk to Bradley. I sent him a text, but this can’t wait until he decides to reply.” She considered discussing the breach, then realized neither of them could make a decision without talking to Bradley. “This is bigger than you or I can handle.”
“I think you can handle anything.” He wagged his brows. “Regardless of size.” His voice lowered and his lips tilted into a mischievous smile.
“Devon! This is serious.” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you drunk?”
“Completely sober…and hungry.” He grinned. “I’ll go with you and we can grab dinner.”
“I can’t. We have a network breach. My gut tells me something is very wrong—beyond the security of our system. We have records of shipment dates, our warehouse locations. If anyone decided to intercept a shipment or break into a warehouse, we would never find the merchandize.”
He stood. “Okay, calm down. I’ll handle it.”
“You?”
“I admit it. I’m a Tom Clancy junkie. I’ve always wanted to find myself embroiled in some high action espionage with a beautiful woman. So how about it?”
“How about what? You need to take this seriously.”
“I am, but the system is practically impenetrable. A security breach would have to come from the inside, and Bradley is too thorough to let the wrong person close to his business.” Devon cupped her elbow with his palm. “But I’ll take you to Bradley, then we’ll go to dinner.”
“Not tonight.”
He didn’t move. Sara shot him a deprecating look, then turned sideways and sidled past him. Her pebbled nipples brushed against the linen shirt stretched taut across his chest. She held her breath until her shoulder brushed his and she was past him, then started for the door. He seized her wrist. She jerked her gaze to the fingers that held her in a gentle but unbreakable grip, then frowned.
“What did you text to Bradley?” he demanded.
“What?”
“This will be easier if you tell me what you know.”
Apprehension skimmed the edges of her consciousness. “I know I need to go.”
He stepped in front of her. “No.”
The intensity in his stance and the directness of the single spoken word sent a frisson of fear crawling along her skin. “Devon, you’re scaring me.” She tried to push past him.
His arm banded around her waist, and he yanked her against his solid body “We’re going to calmly walk out of here—together.”
She froze. Bradley was thorough when it came to who he let close to his business. Before she’d been hired, she’d undergone a background check that rivaled an FBI investigation. Devon would have undergone the same check. Was it possible the wrong person had slipped past Bradley’s security? About as possible as someone hacking into their system.
“Don’t make a scene.”
The cold note in his voice sent a prickle down her spine.
“You’re absolutely right,” he said. “This is bigger than you and me, and I’m not about to let you fuck up my operation.”
Blood roared through her ears. Devon, gorgeous Devon had to be involved with the system breach. Whatever she’d stumbled onto was going to get her bound, gagged, and thrown into the trunk of a car until the cops found her dead body. A whimper escaped her lips.
“Relax, Sara. I only want to talk.”
“Talk?” Panic raced to the surface. She drew in a sharp breath with the intent to scream.
Devon’s lips crashed down on hers. He hugged her in a breath-stealing embrace and lightheadedness weakened her knees. She pounded on his chest. Her hip dug into something hard and her stomach tumbled. The hard steel pressing into her wasn’t the cock that had fueled her fantasies, that hard heated shaft driving into her while she drowned in his mesmerizing blue eyes. No, this bulge was at waist level. He had a gun strapped to his side. Tears burned the corners of her eyes, and a wave of terror buckled her legs.
Bang! Bang! You’re dead.
Devon caught her to him. “Goddammit, Sara.” He almost sounded repentant. “Let’s go.
Now
.” He propelled them toward the door. “Not a word. Understand?”
“Are you going to kill me?”
He gave a snort. “Of course not, but if you don’t do exactly what I say, I
will
paddle your ass.”
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