Ready (6 page)

“I think the emotions that would accompany making love to you could destroy me.”

Such honesty from a woman stunned him. However, he didn’t agree. “Sex does not have to be soul-destroying.”

Only the emotion of love could do that, and she didn’t have a thing to worry about on that score. No way was she going to fall in love with a badass mercenary, and she didn’t have to worry about him getting moon-faced. He’d learned a long time ago that he didn’t do that love thing.

She turned back to face the pond as if he’d never spoken. Pulling her light jacket close around her, she stood silent for so long, he thought she wasn’t going to say anything else. Then she started to talk.

“I married my best friend when I was eighteen years old. I would have done anything to get out of my father’s house, and when Mike asked me to marry him the night of our senior prom, I jumped at the chance.”

“What happened?”

“Life.” She laughed, but it was a hollow sound. “We didn’t have a passionate marriage. I guess you could say we just weren’t compatible in bed, but he was still my best friend and I trusted him completely. He encouraged me to pursue my writing, believed in me when I lost faith in myself, but friendship wasn’t enough. Or at least it wasn’t for him.”

“He wanted the passion.” What she was saying shocked him because Lise had been like living fire in his arms the one time they’d kissed.

“Yes, and when he found it with someone else, he asked for a divorce.”

“He had an affair?”

“No. Mike is too honest for that, but he fell in love. We loved each other, but this was different, or so he told me.”

“You still loved him.”

“Yes, and I trusted him. When my marriage ended, I didn’t just lose my husband. I lost my closest friend, the one person in the world I’d let myself totally rely on.”

Did she still love the other man, the man too honest to have an affair but untrustworthy enough to fall in love with another woman? Were leftover feelings from her dead marriage why she was so bothered by her reaction to Joshua?

“You feel passion with me.”

“It’s too intense. I don’t want to feel anything that deeply again.”

He understood. Too well. Emotion could mess up your life, but he thought she was confusing desire with love and they weren’t the same thing. He didn’t know if he could convince her of that fact, but he was pretty sure he was going to have to try.

He wanted Lise Barton and no way could he promise he would never act on that desire, no matter how good his intentions were.

Nemesis paced his one-room efficiency apartment.

Where was she?

Rain beat against the dingy windows, the gray skies making his home dark even though it was still daylight outside.

He didn’t like this wet climate, or the cold that his small baseboard heaters didn’t completely dissipate. His physical discomfort was something else to blame Lise Barton for. She’d ruined his life in every way that mattered.

She’d been gone for three days now, and he’d been unable to find credit card charges for Joshua O. Watt.

The satisfaction Nemesis had felt in discovering that Joshua’s last name was different from his sister’s had faded to nothingness in the face of his quarry’s continued absence.

The man must have used cash to pay for their hotel room, so Nemesis had no way of knowing where it was. He consoled himself with the thought that even if he’d driven her out of state to Oregon or something, they wouldn’t have gone far.

No way would she have run…not without her precious computer and the book she was working on. He’d hacked in to make sure it was still there and he’d found the book she’d been working on for the last month.

In his fury at her deviation from the plan, he had deleted it.

He didn’t regret the rash action. It would show her she could not play with him. He had a project launch schedule he was not about to let her impede.

He had to see his goal realized.

It would vindicate him and all the other men she had wronged with her meddling in affairs that were no concern of hers.

He’d reverse planned everything down to the time of day for his initial contact with her. But his plan had not taken into account this disappearance. She wasn’t supposed to leave her apartment. It did not fit her profile—he had spent a great deal of time compiling the necessary statistics on her.

He had nothing better to do with his time.

Not now.

Up until three days ago, she had behaved exactly as he had anticipated. She had waited to go to the sheriff until he broke into her apartment. It was a sign of how right his ultimate goal was that the sheriff had dismissed her complaints as unimportant.

And as Nemesis had expected, even then she had avoided going to family for help. He had encouraged her separation from her family by subtly implying he had designs on her sister-in-law and niece. Which he didn’t.

If Lise were as smart as she thought she was, she would have realized that. The innocent should not pay with the guilty.

The man, Joshua Watt, was no longer innocent.

Nemesis’s efforts had borne fruit, however, precipitating Lise’s flight to Seattle. While he had expected her to run, it had been a surprise when she’d opted to relocate to such a wet and cold climate, but he had followed her regardless. He had a mission and could not allow slight personal discomfort to sidetrack him.

Fury made him shake as he realized that she had already messed up his plans for Thanksgiving. He’d planned for them to spend it together, but she had thwarted him.

No, not her…the man. Joshua Watt.

No mere woman could hinder him—even the home-wrecking bitch. None of her efforts would have done any good if his wife had not found help from misguided men.

Despair surged through him as the memory of what he had lost tormented his agitated mind.

He must not focus on what he had lost, but on the justice he would mete out to the woman who wreaked such havoc with her horrible book.

He would see justice done on the Day of Judgment
he
had assigned.

L
ise sat on the porch swing, a throw around her shoulders to ward off the chill. Her white flannel nightgown wasn’t warm enough for the winter weather, but she had needed to be outside. She’d spent so much time hiding in her apartment the last few months that the outdoors had called to her like the irresistible sirens of old.

The stars that were invisible in Seattle’s light-polluted night sky glittered overhead and the fragrance of fresh air teased her nostrils. At three o’clock in the morning, the ranch yard was deserted. Even the dogs were sleeping. And she was thoroughly enjoying the solitude.

No stalker could see or hear her. Nemesis did not know where she was, and that would change tomorrow. So, for tonight she was determined to enjoy every nuance of the freedom she would not have again until her stalker was caught.

Being drawn to the swing could be attributed to having spent so many evenings of her childhood curled up on it, telling stories in her head and avoiding the coldness of the ranch house. Only she wasn’t remembering her childhood, or telling herself a story in her mind, or even plotting her next book.

Instead she was reliving the volatile feelings she’d had in Joshua’s arms last year on this very swing before she’d come to her senses and rejected him. Those feelings had been so different from anything she’d experienced with Mike, she’d been terrified. And she’d run.

Just as Joshua had accused her of doing, but tonight she could not run from the memory. She didn’t know why…perhaps because she’d realized today that Joshua still wanted her and while that desire frightened her, it also exhilarated her.

His wanting her confirmed her femininity in a way she was beginning to see she needed very badly, even if she didn’t want to explore the ramifications of it.

But knowing he wanted her impacted her senses almost as much as the kiss had and she was filled with unwanted sexual excitement. If she closed her eyes, she could almost taste his lips again.

Remembering the moment when his mouth had laid claim to her own made her nipples pebble with a stinging sensation against her nightgown. Had she ever wanted Mike this way? She didn’t remember it if she had. Pressing against her swollen breasts with the palms of her hands, she tried to alleviate the growing ache. It didn’t do any good. Between her legs throbbed and she clamped her thighs together, moaning softly.

This was awful.

She was not an overly sexual being. The coupling of male and female flesh did very little for her. It was a pleasant way to connect on an emotional level, but that was all.

This consuming ache was not pleasant, nor did it feel particularly emotional.

She was a physical animal, in touch with primitive needs she’d been certain she didn’t have.

In a reflexive move, her hands squeezed her breasts and she cried out softly, unbearably excited by the simple stimulation.

A harsh sound to her left caught her attention.

Her eyes flew open.

“Joshua…”

He stood a few feet away, sexual energy that matched her own vibrating off of him in physical waves that buffeted her already overstimulated body. He was just as he’d been on the night of the christening. Only this time he remained where he was, staring at her instead of joining her on the swing.

His face was cast in grim lines, his naked chest heaving with each breath of air he sucked in. The black curling hair on it tapered to the unbuttoned waistband on his jeans. The shadowy opening hinted at his maleness.

She wanted to lean forward and lower the zipper so she could see it all, which would be incredibly stupid.

Only right that very second, she could not quite remember why, not with her fingertips tingling with the need to act.

She watched in mesmerized fascination as a bulge grew in the front of his jeans. A large bulge.

“Lise…”

She looked up.

A gaze so hot it burned to her soul flamed her. They remained like that for several seconds of hushed silence, their eyes speaking intense messages of need while their lips remained silent.

The past ceased to exist.

The present consumed her.

Her reasons for caution melted away as her fear turned to a firestorm of desire. His presence devoured everything around them, leaving nothing but male and female communicating on the most basic level.

He took the steps that brought him within an inch of the swing. If she moved it, she would bump his legs.

She shivered at the thought of even that slight touch.

Dropping to his knees with a grace that spoke of leashed power, he knelt in front of her so they were eye level.

Neither of them spoke.

She couldn’t.

He reached out and put his hands over hers where they pressed against now throbbing, turgid peaks. The heat of his skin seeped into hers, making her burn with unnamable longing.

When his head lowered to let their lips meet, she met him halfway. She wanted his kiss, desperately.

She concentrated on each individual sensation of his lips slanting over hers, his beard stubble prickly against her chin, his taste…like the most irresistible nectar, the heat of his mouth, the warmth of his breath fanning her face. She had never known the intense pleasure she found in his mouth, the conflagration of her senses she experienced when they touched.

Part of her was still cognizant enough to know she should stop him for the sake of her own sanity, but it was a tiny voice lost in a hurricane of physical sensations.

Joshua felt like he was going to explode in his jeans and he hadn’t even touched her naked breasts, but he was going to.

Oh, yes…he was going to.

He began undoing the long row of buttons on her nightgown, until he could spread the opening wide, gently brushing her hands away from herself in the process. She would never know what it had done to him to come outside to check on her and find her sitting in the swing, moaning and touching herself.

If she’d had her hand between her legs, he would probably be buried there himself right now.

A man only had so much control and when he was around Lise, his was pushed to the limit.

He broke the kiss to dip his head so he could see the pale beauty of her perfectly formed breasts in the moonlight.

The nipples were swollen and turgid, their color dark with the blood that had rushed into them in her arousal. And she
was
aroused. He could smell the tantalizing fragrance of her humidity along with the sweet scent of her skin.

Tomorrow, he would fly her back to Seattle and the job would begin, but tonight, she was his.

He leaned down and kissed each dark nipple softly, then began to lave one with his tongue, reveling in the taste of her skin as much as its petal-softness.

She groaned and pressed herself against his mouth.

It was an invitation too sweetly given to ignore. He took her nipple between his teeth and teased it with the tip of his tongue in the heat of his mouth.

Whimpering, her breathing grew increasingly erratic and he gently nipped her.

“Oh, yesssss…”

He pulled her nipple and the surrounding aureole completely into his mouth and started suckling her.

“Oh, my gosh…Joshua,
that feels so good
.”

He loved the breathy quality of her voice.

Concentrating all his expertise on pleasuring her breasts, he moved from one to the other, savoring each until she was writhing against his mouth. Her hands were buried in his hair, trying to tug him closer. Something primitive held him back from touching her more intimately just yet.

He wanted the mystery of her breasts. Wanted to give her the ultimate in pleasure from touching them alone this first time. And he knew he could. She was so responsive, incredibly beautiful in her passion.

She writhed on the bench, alternately pulling his hair and pushing his head against her curves.

“Joshua. Please. It’s too much. You have to stop.”

A pirate’s laugh rumbled in his chest and he suckled harder.