Renegade (Elite Ops 5) (35 page)

Some guy from D.C. They were here until closing." He glanced at Mikayla. "You know how it is. We all just get together and bullshit sometimes. That was one of those nights."

"Thanks, Ryan." Mikayla smiled back at him.

"Look, sweetie, I know what you're going through. Maddix is a big fish, but I might have something that could help. It's just, ya know, I work for him, too." Ryan's hand settled on her shoulder and Nik had to grit his teeth to keep from knocking the touch away from her even as he waited for the information.

"Your name won't come into it," Nik informed him.

Ryan drew in a deep breath, dropped his hand, and looked around for a second.

"Maddix says he was at a meeting. That was in the papers. Well, I saw Maddix as I was heading here. He was at the station just off the exit before you get to the job site. Seemed kind of strange, because he was using the ATM."

Nik stared at Bhats as his jaw set in potential fury. It kept coming back to Maddix.

Each thread was slowly coming together to create a noose for the construction company owner's neck and Nik was beginning to wonder just what made Maddix think he could

manipulate this.

Hell, Nik had been as certain of Maddix's innocence as he was of Mikayla's and

learning he could be wrong enraged him. God help Maddix if Nik proved the other man had used not just him but also Mikayla to get away with murder. And as far as Nik was concerned, using Mikayla was a far greater crime.

"I think we're finished here." He rose from the bar, helped Mikayla down, and turned to Ryan Bhats. "Thank you, Mr. Bhats."

"Look, just keep my name outta this." Concern darkened the other man's eyes. "I like Mikayla. She's a good girl. But I have a job, I have a mortgage, and I enjoy my life, ya know?"

"Your name isn't a part of this," Nik promised before turning and urging Mikayla to the exit.

She was quiet, her expression somber as she glanced up at him.

He couldn't look back at her. He'd followed the line that she must have mistakenly identified Maddix. That somehow someone could have tricked her. It was beginning to look as though somehow Maddix Nelson had managed to trick him instead.

"Nik?" she questioned him as she stopped him outside the bar before they headed back to the parking lot.

God, he loved her eyes. Loved the scent of her, the feel of her. Hell, he even

enjoyed the hell out of her being with him, questioning those involved, when he knew he shouldn't enjoy it. Yet having her with him was an experience he knew he would miss when it was over.

"When I prove it, he'll pay for it," Nik swore to her. "I promise you, Mikayla, I'll make sure he pays for every moment of fear, every second you were in danger."

"He'll pay for it anyway," she told Nik. "The proof will put him in prison."

He hoped.

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"We have to break his alibi, but first I need more information," Nik told her.

"Come on; let's get back to the house. I need to get on the computer."

He needed facts. He needed to find proof, not supposition, which was all he had at this moment.

"Then let's go." Walking ahead of him, she moved smoothly and gracefully, despite the height of the heels.

Shaking his head, he started to follow her. He should have stayed closer to her. He should have never let her get so much as an inch ahead of him.

He was jumping for her as he heard the motor rev, as lights suddenly blazed,

blinding him as the car shot from a parking spot too close and with a sharp burst of speed headed for Mikayla.

His hand went for the gun at his side as his arm wrapped around Mikayla's waist

and jerked her from her feet.

The car missed them by inches. Bearing the brunt of the fall on his back as

Mikayla cried out, Nik was shooting at the car, rage coursing through him as a curse tore from his lips.

Rolling smoothly, he shielded Mikayla's body between him and a parked car

before dragging her quickly between the parked vehicles.

She rolled with him. She didn't fight him. When he pushed her against the side of

the car and came to one knee, weapon raised as the car screamed onto the main road.

The bastard had gotten away, but Nik was fairly damned certain he'd hit it at least once.

Assured there was no other threat, he turned back to Mikayla.

She was pressed against the side of the car, eyes wide, the perfect wavy updo

falling to the side, covering one cheek and smeared with blood.

His hands were shaking as he brushed her hair back, relief searing him first as he glimpsed the long scratch that disappeared into her hair. On the heels of that relief came a rage so all consuming it nearly exploded inside him.

He was becoming sick and damned tired of these attempts against his woman.

Someone was going to pay for it. When he found Eddie's killer, he'd find her assailant.

He'd find the shooter, and by God, they were all going to pay.

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Chapter 18

As far as Nik was concerned, it took too long to call the police department, report the attempted hit-and-run, and answer the questions the uninterested detective managed to ask.

It would have been Nik's preference to take her straight to the hospital, but that wasn't Mikayla's preference. She wanted to go home. And he wanted her home. He

needed to hold on to her, just for a little while, to convince himself she was truly all right.

Kneeling in front of the prissy little chair she kept in her girly bathroom, he

cleaned the scratch gently, checked it to ensure it wasn't deep enough to require that hospital visit.

The scratch was deep, but once he'd cleaned it, he was certain no stitches were

needed.

"I'm sorry, baby," he said tenderly, as tender as his roughened, nearly ruined voice could be.

His stomach was tight with fear, with rage at the memory of the horror of

watching that car speeding toward her, the knowledge that if he didn't move fast enough, then he could lose her.

He could have lost her, just as he had lost Nicolette. Just as he had lost his life so long ago, the future he'd envisioned, he'd almost lost Mikayla as well.

Someone was desperate to see her dead. The strikes against her were becoming

closer with each successive attempt, but still she stared back at him now with such trust.

Trust and love. He could see the love in her eyes, and it tightened his chest, tore at the heart he'd never believed could be touched again, and sent hunger pounding through him.

And he still couldn't understand what made a woman so innocent, so tender, give

her heart to a man who had warned her he could have no future with her.

"Why?" He couldn't hold the question back. He had to know. "Why aren't you asking me for anything, Mikayla? Commitment? Some kind of relationship? Are you

waiting to hit me with it later?"

Hurt filled her gaze at the question. "You're my lover, Nik, not my possession.

You said you had no promises to give me. You never lied to me. You were honest from the beginning. Would it be fair of me to ask for more now? Or later?"

She was breaking his heart. Nik wondered painfully if she had any idea what she

was doing to him. She was tearing at the very foundations of the man he believed he was.

The cold, hard, unfeeling man he wanted to be, had needed to be for the past ten years.

He had no clue how he was going to manage to salvage his soul when it was time to walk away from her. God knew he couldn't stay. If he stayed, if he lost her later it would kill him.

And he knew Mikayla. She would want children. She would hunger for children.

And Nik knew he could never, ever allow himself to take that risk again.

"Nik," she whispered, her voice aching with gentleness, with emotion. "I have you now, for this moment in time. However much you're willing to give me. I don't have the 171

right to ask for more when you warned me up front that you had no more to give me."

Nik shook his head. She destroyed his defenses without even trying. She was

locked inside him and he was damned if he knew how to get her out or how to protect himself against it.

"You deserve better, baby," he told her as he fought the emotions tearing through him. "The happily ever after, the white wedding you dream about. All of it, Mikayla.

Why waste your innocence on a man who can give you nothing but his body?"

She gazed back at him with such somber love that she broke his heart.

"I haven't wasted my innocence, Nik." Tears filled her gaze, but she kept them carefully in check. "I gave it to you. And I know the memory of it will always be safe with you."

How the hell was he supposed to defend himself against her? There was a purity

about her that he couldn't fight. An inner innocence that he never wanted to see her lose.

A part he wondered if he wouldn't indeed carry inside himself now.

He'd never known anyone, anything, like Mikayla.

Lifting his hand, he cupped his fingers around her neck and pulled her to him. He

needed the feel of her lips against his, her kiss warming his soul. He ached for her in ways he had no idea how to combat anymore. The hunger for the warmth of her tore at his control and filled him with such a demand for her touch that restraining himself was impossible.

She eased the nightmares inside him, as well as the ice he'd allowed to build in his soul since the death of his family. She filled him, she made him believe in fairy tales, and God alone knew how dangerous that made her to him.

His hands smoothed down her arms, feeling the softness of her silky flesh, the

warmth of her against him. He needed her. One more memory to hold inside him, to store against the lonely nights to come.

Trailing his fingers up her arms once again, he stopped at the silky straps of her dress and eased them slowly down her arms.

He had to restrain his hands from shaking. Leaning back, he stared at the smooth,

unblemished mounds of her swollen breasts as the material eased over them. Candy pink nipples were tight and hard, tempting him to taste them, to feel them against his tongue.

Lowering his head, Nik let his lips trail down the side of her neck, then the sweet curve of her breast. The taste of her filled his senses. It left him almost shaking as hunger and lust raced through his system.

How the hell was he supposed to ever survive walking away from her? The

memory of her, the touch and taste of her, would forever haunt his memories.

Opening his eyes, he stared up at her as his lips found a sweet, hot nipple. He

watched her face, watched it transform with pleasure as he let his tongue lick over the hard tip.

Amethyst eyes blazed with heated arousal. They were darkening, turning almost

purple as she watched him. Her abandonment to the pleasure, to his touch and his hunger, never ceased to amaze him. Never ceased to humble him.

As his tongue caressed the delicate nipples, first one, then the other, his hands

gripped the material of her dress and drew it to her hips.

She lifted for him, as though she felt the unspoken need to remove the dress.

Removing the dress, his hands pressed between her thighs, spreading them, letting his 172

fingertips caress her flesh as he drew ever closer to the heated folds of her pussy beneath the black silk panties.

A little moan echoed around him as he gripped the band of her panties and pulled

them free of her body as well.

Drawing back, he stared at the sweet perfection between her thighs. Soft wheat

blond curls glistened with the juices from her pussy, darkening the curls.

"Look how pretty you are." His fingers brushed against the wet folds, his fingertips grazing over the honey that spilled from her. "Sweet and hot. Intoxicating."

Glancing up at her, he watched as her teeth caught her lower lip, her lashes

lowering over her eyes as slumberous sensuality took hold of her.

His lips moved to the light rise and fall of her stomach. He licked at the sweet

flesh as he moved lower, so desperate to taste her he was about to begin shaking with it.

Soft, curl-shrouded folds drew him, tempted him. The light glaze of her feminine

honey was an addiction he refused to deny himself. The tight, swollen knot of her clit greeted his lips and tongue as he moved lower.

The sweetness of her exploded against his tongue as a groan tore from his lips.

Heaven help him, he had no idea if he could hold on long enough to give her the pleasure he was aching to give her.

Parting the swollen folds of her pussy, he licked through the juice-soaked slit as she whimpered in pleasure. Her fingers threaded through his hair, holding him to her as he stroked his tongue along the intimate flesh, moving closer to the snug, juice-filled entrance he ached for.

Gripping her ankles in his hands, he lifted her delicate feet as she rested against the back of the chair. He placed her feet in the seat, opening her further, watching as the folds of her pussy parted, revealing the sweet, pink, glistening flesh.

He needed her. He was dying for her.

His tongue licked around her clit before he sucked it gently into his mouth, laved it, caressed it as her hips lifted to him, offering him more.

And he needed more. So much more.

Licking lower, drawing more and more of the honey to his tongue, he stroked,

tasted, until he reach the snug entrance to her pussy.

And he lost his senses, lost his control. Thrusting his tongue inside her, he licked delicate flesh, stroked against the smooth walls of the sweetest pussy he'd ever known in his life.

His dick was so hard he was dying with need. His balls were drawn tight, pre-

come dampening the tip as he fucked her with his tongue, groaning at the taste of her, the need that had her hips thrusting back at him until he felt her explode.

He felt it.

Her pussy clenched and tightened around his tongue. Heated spicy-sweet juices