Renegade Alpha (ALPHA 5) (14 page)

Because he had gotten too close to the truth?

It certainly seemed that way.

It was also possible the men who had held Peter prisoner for the past few days could actually have been part of the senator’s security detail.

All still conjecture at this point. But Lijah was inclined to think Peter had been following the truth. The fact the name Callie had now given him was Stockton’s was another nail in the senator’s coffin.

Or, as it had transpired, Peter’s.

Dair had been pissed earlier after Lijah’s initial telephone call to tell him of the older man’s death. Even more so by the time Lijah called him back after Callie went upstairs to bed.

Dair was now sending over four men to help in the investigation and help protect Callie. Every man who worked at Grayson Security knew Peter, and every single one of them would want to ensure justice for their friend. Privately or publicly.

None of which helped Lijah in regard to how to deal with Callie.

She would probably have been better off right now with anyone else who worked at Grayson Security other than him. He really didn’t have the emotional hardware to deal with a bereaved daughter. He had shut down those parts of himself when he walked away from family all those years ago. The work he had done since had only hardened him more.

Except.

He liked Callie, damn it. Whether she realized it or not, he admired her too.

Callie had witnessed her boyfriend being murdered.

The safety of her family had then been threatened by the murderer.

It may have taken her several months, but she had finally moved past that, out of concern for her father.

It had taken guts to go to Grayson Security yesterday. Even more so for her to come to Washington with him, and possibly risk coming face-to-face with Hammond’s murderer—

“Stockton’s voice!” Lijah slapped his hand on his thigh in realization. “Would you recognize the voice of the man who shot Hammond and threatened you if you were to hear it again?” he prompted Callie as she looked at him questioningly.

She frowned. “I suppose I might, yes.”

“Stockton is a politician, and like most politicians, he makes speeches all the time. He made one yesterday, in fact.” He picked up the television controller, clicking through until he had brought up the relevant news section. “Sit down, close your eyes, ignore the content, and just concentrate on the cadences of the voice itself.”

Callie did as Lijah instructed.

“Concentrate hard, Callie,” he advised. “Shut out everything else but the sound of his voice.”

Callie did exactly that. The timbre of the voice was right. The accent too. There was just something— “Turn the sound down slightly,” she requested. “Muted, like it was when he whispered threats in my ear.”

The volume lowered, and Callie listened even harder, and then harder still, desperately trying to match this voice with the one at the gallery that night.

She finally gave a frustrated shake of her head and opened her eyes. “I can’t be sure. Certain things sound the same, but the tone of the voice is just so different, it makes it difficult to say for certain.”

“I don’t think Senator Stockton is in the habit of threatening the American people,” Lijah drawled as he turned the television back off. “Television also tends to distort voices slightly.”

Callie gave an impatient sigh. “Then I need to hear his voice off television.”

He raised dark brows. “How do you suggest I arrange that? Invite him and his wife over for cocktails?”

“It’s not such a bad idea,” she said slowly. “This is Lucien Wynter’s house. He could always throw a party, invite a hundred or so prestigious guests, including Senator Stockton and his wife, and then forget to turn up?”

“I think you’re getting a little punch-drunk.” Lijah eyed her ruefully. “An event like that would take weeks, not days, to organize.”

And they didn’t have weeks, Callie acknowledged heavily. They had those days at most. Before whatever trail her father had left ran cold, and they had to give up through lack of evidence and take his body back to England with them.

The thought of her father’s death earlier was overwhelming enough. The thought of transporting his body back to England, arranging the funeral and other things, going through all his private papers, was just—

“Dair and I will take care of all the details.” Lijah stood and come round the breakfast bar to take her in his arms. “Getting Peter home. The funeral. All of it.”

“How did you know what I was thinking?” She looked up at him in the semidarkness.

He lifted his hands to smooth the hair back from her face. “The lost look in your eyes,” he murmured. “Callie, the people at Grayson Security are a family. Peter was part of that family. That makes you a part of it too. We take care of our own.”

She looked up at him searchingly for several seconds. “Where’s your own family, Lijah?” she prompted.
 

His mouth tightened. “Don’t have any.”

Callie didn’t believe that for a moment. “Eton or Harrow?”

His eyes narrowed. “Both.”

A frown creased her brow. “I thought it was an either/or?”

“I was expelled from Eton.” He shrugged.

She looked up at him. “Do I want to know why?”

“You might, but I’m not going to tell you, so you might as well save your breath.”

“Oxford or Cambridge?”

“Neither.”

“Why not?”

A scowl creased his brow. “Is this twenty questions?”

“If it is, I still have a few to go.” Callie had learned more about Lijah’s background in the past few minutes than in the previous thirty-six hours.

Lijah sighed. “I joined the army instead of going to university.”

“Sandhurst?”

“Regular.”

Interesting. The names of Lijah’s schools implied he came from a wealthy or prestigious family. Children had to be registered almost from birth to be able to attend either Eton or Harrow School, and yet Lijah had attended both. That he hadn’t gone on to university afterward was intriguing.

Callie’s brow cleared. “The rift with your family occurred when you were eighteen—”

“That’s enough.” Lijah released her so abruptly, she staggered before righting herself, his eyes glittering darkly as he faced her tensely. “I have some more work to do, and it’s time you went back to bed.” He turned away.

Callie knew that tone of voice from the few occasions when she had displeased her father.

The conversation was over.

She could consider herself dismissed.

Chapter 10

Lijah’s tiredness went right down to his bones as he walked wearily up the stairs a couple of hours later. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had time to rest, let alone slept.

His heart sank as he neared Callie’s bedroom and heard the soft sound of her crying behind the closed door.

His survival instinct said to open his own bedroom door, close it behind him, and then fall facedown on the bed for eight hours.

Another part of him said he couldn’t just walk away from Callie.

He wasn’t sure which part, and he didn’t want to know either. He just knew he couldn’t just ignore her and go to bed. Not when he knew Callie was crying as if her heart was breaking just feet away.

Only a complete and utter bastard would do that.

No doubt everyone he’d ever worked with would agree he was a cold bastard, but he wasn’t a complete and utter one.

Peter’s death was raw to him, and Lijah couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must be like for Callie.

Possibly because he would gladly see his own father six feet under. Might even dance on top of his grave afterward.

Maybe, but that didn’t change the fact that Callie was in that bedroom grieving.

It probably hadn’t helped that Lijah had been so terse with her earlier.

She had been getting too close, damn it. Wanted to know too much. About things he would rather not talk about.

No excuse, Lijah
.

No, it really wasn’t.

Lijah didn’t bother knocking before reaching for the door handle and slowly turning it to push open the door. There was no light on inside the bedroom, just the moonlight shining in through the sheers over the windows.

“Go away!”

Ah. “Still pissed with me?” He heard what sounded like a cross between a sob and a laugh. “Do I hear an undecided?”

“Go away, Lijah!” was accompanied by a pillow flying across the room toward his head.

He easily caught it in midair before it made contact with his face. “Now that just isn’t nice.”

She gave a definite snort this time. “If you want nice, I suggest you go elsewhere.”

“I’m happy where I am, thanks.” Lijah walked over to the side of the bed to look down at Callie huddled beneath the bedclothes, cuddling a second pillow. “Like your other pillow back?”

“Thanks.” She held her hand up without looking at him.

Lijah struck, bringing the soft pillow lightly down on top of her head.

“What the hell—”

“Fair’s fair, Callie.” He sat on the side of the bed. “I just happen to be a better shot than you are.”

“Must be all those years you spent at boarding school.”

“No doubt.”

“Did you know I went to boarding school too?”

Of course she had. There had been no mother at home to leave Callie with when Peter went off on missions. Lijah had a vague memory of Peter leaving her with other families on base when she was younger, but then Callie had gone off to boarding school when she was about twelve.

He eyed her warily. “Does that mean you—”

“Yes!” Callie rose up in the bed so suddenly and so quickly, Lijah had no time to think about defense, other than putting his arms up as she began to beat him over the head with the same pillow he had just handed back to her.

He was finally able to grab up the second pillow and retaliate, and the fight continued in earnest. Five minutes later, they were both breathing hard, Callie’s face was flushed and her eyes shining brightly.

Lijah realized it wasn’t really a question of a battle of the pillows. This was more about letting off emotional as well as physical steam. Callie needed this. Needed to hit something, someone, if only in play. A couple of her hits certainly hadn’t been in the least playful.

“Let’s call it a draw,” Lijah finally called out.

“We can call it what you like, but I still won!” Callie deftly landed a blow to the side of his face.

“Hey, you don’t hit an undefended man.” He reached out to grasp both her wrists as he held her and the pillow away from him.

“Strange, I was taught that’s exactly the time for a woman to attack,” she came back challengingly.

Lijah gave an appreciative grin. “Then you have no reason to complain when the man counterattacks.”

Callie eyed him warily, not altogether sure of that predatory look in those dark blue eyes, and very aware of how he held her wrists prisoner above her head. “Lijah?”

He quirked a mocking brow even as his head began to move toward hers.

Callie sank back on the bed the moment Lijah’s lips claimed hers.

No questioning exploratory kiss, but a full-on parted-lips-and-a-questing-tongue-into-her-mouth kiss—thank God she had thoroughly cleaned her teeth after being ill earlier. Her body immediately went into sexual overdrive as she returned the heat of that kiss, arching her body up into Lijah’s, at the same time as she entwined one of her legs around and over the back of his.

Maybe this was what she had wanted all along?

This emotionally charged heat of arousal, blocking out everything and everyone else but Lijah from her mind and her senses.

She absorbed and returned each deep penetrating kiss, even as the heat coursed through her body—the first warmth she had felt for hours—and blossomed between her thighs in a fierce demand for satisfaction.

Lijah pulled roughly away to look down at her in the moonlight. “Are you sure you want this?” he growled. “I warn you, I’m too wound up and too tired to be in the least gentle.”

“I don’t want gentle,” Callie assured him fiercely.

“It’s going to be hard and fast,” he warned through gritted teeth.

She nodded. “As hard and fast as you like.”

He lifted up even farther, the hardness of his cock pressing into her as he raised her T-shirt and exposed her breasts.

The coolness of the air-conditioning immediately caused her already aroused nipples to pucker and harden.

Lijah licked and bit down the length of her throat before using his free hand to cup her breast and lift her nipple into the heat of his mouth and suckle. Hard.

Callie groaned as her body was assaulted with a plethora of sensations: the tight gripping pleasure pain of her aching and heavy breasts, her skin so sensitized, every touch was an agony of arousal, and the burn of molten fire between her thighs as her juices flowed hotly.