Her Enemy Protector (21 page)

His arms came up around her as if to stop her from rubbing herself against him, but she groaned deep in her throat and Joe froze. The nature of the embrace changed. Answering hunger rattled in the back of his throat.

“We shouldn’t do this,” he gasped, tearing his mouth away from hers.

Gee, wasn’t that supposed to be the girl’s line? She tried to remember what the guys said to get past that particular protest but drew a blank. So she kissed him some more. And it was hot. No way would she ever get enough of this man. If she could figure out a way to inhale him, she would.

She crawled on top of him, reveling in his powerful body, rejoicing in the feeling of her breasts smashed against his hard chest. His hands roamed all over her back, up her ribs and brushed the sides of her breasts. Liquid heat sprang between her legs and she buried her face against the corded column of his neck.

“I can’t believe what you do to me,” she laughed. “You’re killing me.”

He reared up at that one, rolling her off him abruptly. But blessedly, he followed after her body with his, never breaking contact between them. His weight pressed her down into the mattress.

Desperate to have him fill her, one of her legs crept up, wrapping around his thighs in naked invitation.

“You’re the one who’s killing me, here,” he muttered.

“Then make love to me and we’ll die together,” she breathed up at him, her throat too tight to make any more noise than that.

He grinned. “Hey, that’s my line.”

“Well, you seemed to need a little help remembering what comes next.”

His eyebrows shot straight up.

She continued blithely, “I mean, seeing as you’ve had so little experience with women and all, I thought maybe I’d better help you along.”

“I don’t need any help, thank you,” he growled.

She studied him in mock seriousness. “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “Do you need me to tell you where everything goes?”

He laughed aloud at that. “Let’s see if I can figure it out for myself, shall we?”

She speared her hands deep into his hair and tugged his head down close to hers. “I’m all yours,” she whispered.

He sank into her by slow degrees, his mouth soft against hers, kissing her sweetly at first. His hands traced lightly over her skin, awakening her body, nerve by nerve. He kissed her deeply, but he was still holding back. A lot.

He was going to drive her crazy to get even with her for starting this thing. But what a way to go. She closed her eyes and savored the tingling progress of his fingertips. And when he’d finished with his hands, he began with his mouth. She had to give him credit for being thorough—he didn’t miss one inch of her body. He licked and nipped and sucked his way from paradise to hell and back, driving her steadily out of her mind with need.

And when he pushed her knees apart and sampled the sweetest fruits of her desire, she was sure she’d died. She trembled around the electrical currents building higher and higher within her, robbing her of breath. She raised her head off the pillows, her entire body taut as his tongue circled and teased her to the very edge of release.

And then he rose up over her, as dark and mysterious as the night around her, and plunged into the molten depths of her until she couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. She let out a cry as she exploded, and a great black void of nothing but incredible sensation burst over her, showering her in tingling pulsations that nearly tore her apart.

She opened her eyes, staring up in disbelief. Oh, she’d enjoyed sex before, but nothing like
that
had ever happened to her!

A slow smile broke across his face. “Do I have everything in the right place?”

She nodded, too out of breath to speak.

“Let’s see what happens when I do this.” And then he began to move again, a slow, gentle rocking that built and built until it became a hot, hard, driving thrust of flesh on slick flesh.

And the tension began to build again, stretching her out tighter and tighter until she thought she couldn’t stand it anymore. She surged up beneath him, straining toward release. She heard her own voice, husky with need, begging him for more.

And then a glittering explosion of pleasure filled the black void once more, rushing out to the very ends of her fingertips. In that endless moment, Joe buried his face against her neck and cried out against her skin, shuddering powerfully against her body. It was perfect.

She fell back against the mattress, panting.
Oh. My. God
.

How long they lay there, their limbs twisted together and their hearts pounding as one, she had no idea. But, eventually, she managed to mumble, “You’ve ruined me.”

Joe’s head jerked up off the pillow above her shoulder and he stared down at her. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No! But after that, I won’t be able to make love to anyone else for as long as I live.”

He frowned, looking alarmed.

She clarified. “Nobody else could ever top that. If you ever leave me, I’ll just have to swear off sex altogether. Because nothing less than that would ever do again.”

He rolled over, finally disengaging their bodies from one another. She missed the feeling of him deep inside her already.

“You may have spoiled me for any other woman, too,” he muttered, so quietly she wasn’t sure she was supposed to have heard it.

“Good thing we’re already married,” she said lightly.

Joe tensed beside her. Cursed.

She propped herself up in alarm. “What’s wrong?”

“I just may have negated our ability to get an annulment. I’m sorry, Cari. This means we might have to get a divorce when you finally get sick of me.”

She blinked a couple of times. Did he know what he’d just said? He’d just acknowledged that this was a real marriage. Furthermore, he’d said, “when you get sick of me.” Not the other way around. Was he starting to harbor thoughts of a long-term relationship with her? Could it be?

Aloud, she said fervently, “Remind me to thank Julia the next time I see her for sending you to me.”

Joe grinned. “I will. And remind
me
to thank her for sending me, too.”

A moment of silence fell. It lay there comfortably between them. A good thing, given what they’d just shared together. She figured it would either draw them closer together or send him running for the hills.

“Get some sleep,” he murmured. “You’ve had a big day.”

“What’s on the agenda for tomorrow?” she mumbled. “Can we do more of this, please?”

Joe’s finger traced her lips lazily. “That sounds like a plan.” But then he sighed. “I’d love to stick around here and find out what Eduardo plans to do with the information he’s buying, but after what we just—” he broke off. “Let’s just say, it’s more important than ever to get you out of here.”

“How are you going to do that?” she asked.

“Good question. I still have to figure out some of the features of the house’s security system.”

In other words,
butt out
. It was too late to press the issue, but tomorrow she’d demand to know the details. And, speaking of late, she was getting sleepy.

She sighed, “The only person in the house who knows more about the security system than I do is Gunter. He used to show me all the controls and how they worked. Tomorrow, you can ask me anything you want to know.”

“Answer me one thing and then I really am going to let you go to sleep. Is there a basement in this place?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she replied, already half-unconscious.

Joe went stiff beneath her. His mind raced,
finally
emerging from the spell of their lovemaking, as Cari drifted off to sleep on his shoulder. God, she felt good, curled up against him like that.

She continued to amaze him with her resilience. She’d made good progress tonight toward breaking off her dependence on her old man. It had to be hard to let go of the only parent she’d ever had.

And he was a schmuck. It was cruel to make love to her— hell, to manipulate her emotions this way. She was a living, breathing woman with real feelings and real pain, and he was playing it all like a violin to his own advantage. He was worse than a schmuck.

The hell of it was, he really did care for Cari. Even if they hadn’t just shared the most mind-blowing sex of his adult life, he’d still be concerned about the way her father was using her. He’d still worry that she had no idea what love was or how it appropriately ought to be expressed.

He was falling for this woman—hard—despite his best efforts not to. Every time he turned around, she showed him some new facet to her personality. Yeah, sure, she had some problems. She was clueless about how to stand up for herself and, although she knew sisterly love, she clearly didn’t understand parental love. Plus, the whole idea of mutual respect between a man and a woman seemed to have escaped her experience. He didn’t even want to
think
about the men she’d dated before.

It didn’t matter what wrong lessons in love they’d taught her, dammit. It wasn’t his job to fix her misconceptions.

Yeah, but if she offered him the assignment, he’d be hard-pressed to turn it down. He had it bad for her, all right. And the list of reasons not to let there be a repeat of tonight went on for miles. Topping the list was the fact that it went against all standards of proper military behavior. Right behind that was that the last thing he wanted to do was hurt Cari. And, surely he would if he let her fall in love with him.

One day soon, this mission would end and he’d walk away from her. The next op would beckon and he’d be out the door to God knows where for God knows how long with no guarantee of returning alive. He couldn’t ask her to wait for him. Her life was already too unstable. She needed someone she could depend on. Someone who’d be there for her every day and every night.

Hell, he’d drive himself crazy with jealousy if he left a girl as beautiful as Cari behind every time he went on the road. He’d seen so many long-distance relationships crumble between soldiers and the girls back home that he couldn’t count them all. It took a special woman to wait alone on the home front and remain loyal through all the long absences his line of work dished out.

A little voice at the back of his brain nagged at him. How could he be so sure Cari wasn’t that special a woman? She’d shown him a hell of a lot of character so far. The kind of fortitude a guy could come to believe in and trust for the times apart.

Maybe making their marriage the real deal wasn’t so farfetched an idea, after all….

Cari shifted against him, mumbling in her sleep and draping her leg across his thighs. Her arm settled across his chest. Inexplicable panic speared through him.

Trapped.
He was trapped.

He had to get out of here. And where was “here,” exactly? Was he freaking out about getting away from the irresistible lure of Cari, or was his sudden and overwhelming claustrophobia a result of being trapped in his enemy’s home? It didn’t matter. Either way, he couldn’t lie here one more second.

He eased out from under Cari and breathed a sigh of relief as she slept on. Silently, he changed into the black pants and turtleneck he’d worn earlier. Time to go have a look at the basement.

He cracked open the hallway door. Thank God. No guard standing outside it tonight. Everyone must have figured that he and Cari would have the good sense to stay in for the rest of the night after their disastrous excursion earlier.

He moved quickly down the hallway. In his exploration of the house so far, he’d determined that there weren’t many security cameras in the public areas of the interior. He had found them only around doorways leading in and out of the house. He guessed that the majority of the cameras were reserved for the guest bedrooms and Cari’s room, of course. It was the great weakness of the home. The place was wired to keep intruders out but not to keep intruders
in
.

He paused, crouching, at the end of the hall. He watched the foyer for a couple of minutes. He knew that guards roamed the house and grounds all night long, but he had no idea what their routine was. He was working blind here. And that meant he had to go slow and be extra careful.

He waited until a guard passed through the entry hall downstairs. The guy was walking slowly, looking around, bored. Definitely the patrolling duty guard. Joe gave the guy a couple minutes to move on and then raced on ballet-dancer-light feet down the sweeping staircase.

His best guess was that the basement entry would be near the kitchen. From the blueprints that they had gotten from a classified source he recalled a couple of pantries and a small office were off the kitchen. Charlie Squad had always assumed that office was where Eduardo’s security men were based. But now that he was inside the mansion and saw the true extent of the operation here, that office wasn’t nearly big enough to house all the electronics, let alone the other monitors and gadgets that had to go with this fortress’s security system.

Besides, if he got caught by the kitchen, he could always claim to be on a refrigerator raid. In fact, he probably ought to grab a snack to act as his cover. He glided across the expanse of the commercial kitchen and opened the big stainless-steel refrigerator. He spied a plate of individually wrapped subs. Perfect. He grabbed one.

Now, to find that basement. He headed for the office next to the kitchen and stopped in front of the closed door. A faint light seeped underneath it. No noise. Impossible to tell if there was someone on the other side of that door or not. His best bet was probably just to open it right up and act like he was snooping if there was someone there.

He unwrapped one end of his sandwich and, armed only with the hoagie, threw open the door.

Nada.

There was a small desk with a newspaper spread out across it. A monitor was perched on one side of the desk. Right now, it showed a view of the dark swimming pool. This must be where the roving guard parked between circuits of the estate. And beyond the desk, bingo.

An open door with a downward staircase. Footsteps slapped on the kitchen floor behind him. The guard returning to his post! Joe bolted for the stairwell and ran most of the way down before he stopped and lay down on the steps to reduce his profile.