Two Passionate Proposals (2 page)

She moved along the bed to find the shirt
she’d taken off a few hours earlier. She folded it into a pad, then pressed it
against her shoulder, hissing as pain stabbed through her. She needed to get
the bullet out, but she couldn’t tend to the wound by herself, and she couldn’t
start healing the wound until she removed the slug.

She looked back at him. “They sent a major.”
She perched on the edge of a table. “They must really want me dead.”

“Can you blame them? A captain of the S.U.
seduced by Chaos? Did you think they’d just let you go?”

For a moment, she didn’t trust herself to
speak. The hate in his eyes burned through her like liquid metal. She began to
shake. It was worse than she’d thought. “How many of you?” she managed to say
finally.

“The whole army’s after you, Imogen. I just
happened to find you first.” He smiled wryly. “It’s not going to end well. Why
don’t you let me finish it here, now? Wouldn’t it be better if it were me?
Surely, you don’t want some stranger to terminate you? Come on, for old time’s
sake.” He indicated his bound hands with his head. His eyes glinted silver.

Imogen pressed her shaking hand to her
lips. All this time, the months she’d spent hiding, she’d dreamed he was
waiting for her. She’d imagined he’d somehow known what had happened to her,
that while she was lying in the grimy, dark motel rooms as she slunk her way
across the world, he was lying there too, in England, dreaming about her and
the day they’d be together again.

How naive she’d been. Of course they would
have got to him. Who better to track her than the best hunter in the S.U.? And
how would they have gotten him to track her other than by convincing him she’d
turned?

She glared at him. “Is that what you think?
You really believe I’ve gone over to the darkness?”

He shifted again, wincing as his arms
strained at the vines, which only tightened as he struggled. “That sounds like
something a renegade witch would say.”

“I suppose it does.” She got up and walked
over to the sliding glass doors. Outside, past the weak light illuminating the
path, darkness shrouded the park. Were there others out there? She closed her
eyes, sending out a pulse of energy across the grass. He shivered in response, but
she ignored him. The pulse found nothing, not for a few hundred yards anyway.
He was alone. He wanted her for himself. But they wouldn’t be long. If he was
right and the whole army was after her, he would only be a few hours ahead of
the others, at most.

Was her long ordeal finally over? Tiredness
washed over her. She’d thought herself safe here, for a while, at least; now
she knew she would never be safe again. He believed she’d betrayed him; he
would hunt her down, and one day he’d catch her off guard, and then he would
kill her. And if he didn’t, one of her other comrades would.

Her hands clenched. They’d all turned on
her. Was it so easy to believe she’d betrayed them?

“Tell me.” She let the curtain drop and
turned back to him. “Who gave the order? Hellerman? Ross?”

“It was Walker herself,” he said, naming
the major-general. “Right from the top.”

Imogen laughed.

He frowned. “What?”

“Of course it was.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She sighed, thinking back to the day Surina
Walker called her into her office. “It was the major-general who sent me on the
mission.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.

“What mission?”

“The one that took me away from you.”

Hawke surveyed her, eyes narrowing. “What
are you talking about?”

Imogen walked up to the bed. She knelt on
the mattress and, ignoring the pain in her shoulder, leaned forward on his
chest, looking into his eyes. “You may be right, this may be it for me, this
may be the end of the line, but I’m not going until you know every little
detail, until you know what they did to me. When you know it all, if you still
want to kill me, well then, I may let you. But may it ever be on your
conscience that you’ve killed an innocent woman.”

Hawke looked at her, his eyes dark and
smouldering, but said nothing. He flexed his hands again and glared at her with
a strange mixture of hate and desire. And Imogen caught her breath, something
stirring in her stomach, transported back to the moment she first saw him.

*

She’d been on the training ground, running
circuits. Rain fell in sheets, plastering her uniform to her body. A typical
south Devon spring day. She belly crawled through the mud, sliding under
several lengths of barbed wire, then looked up as another member of her platoon
nudged her and pointed across the field. She stopped moving and glanced at the
tall figure standing to one side of the circuit. He didn’t move or beckon her
over, but she could see him staring at her. His aura pulsed with blue, and she
cursed, recognising the command.

She crawled on her front until she cleared
the barbed wire, then got to her feet. Walking across the field toward him, she
studied his smart, black uniform, dry under his umbrella. Running a filthy hand
through the wet hair that had escaped its clip, she sighed at her sweat-and-earth-stained
T-shirt and mud-splattered combat trousers. Her appearance wasn’t something
that usually bothered her, but she must look a complete fright. Screw it. She
lifted her chin as she approached him. She was a soldier; if she’d wanted to
look like a fashion model, she would have gone to work for Vivienne Westwood.

As she approached, she saw his insignia. He
was a major. She saluted smartly, conscious of his critical gaze.

He returned the salute. “At ease, Captain.”

She stood in the classic soldier’s pose
with hands behind her back. “You wanted me, sir?” Her chest heaved from
exertion, her breath misting in the fresh air.

He studied her for a moment, considering
her words. Drips from his umbrella splashed onto her top, but he didn’t
apologise. His gaze slid down her body to her muddy boots, then meandered up to
her earth-streaked face. She flushed, aware she was cold and her nipples were
standing out like buttons.

“You look like you need a bath, Captain,”
he said.

His deep voice ran an ice-cube up her
spine. He towered over her, intimidating and, frankly, quite scary, and this
coming from a witch who’d once fought an alpha werewolf hand-to-hand.

“I’m sorry, sir.” She frowned. Why was he
criticising her? “I was training, and it’s a wet day.”

“So I see.” He surveyed her with serious
eyes. “Do you need someone to scrub your back?”

Imogen stared at him, eyes widening. He
didn’t smile. Had she misheard him? She glanced at the badge on his shoulder,
seeing now the hammer and anvil of an iron warlock above the crown denoting his
rank. Warlocks trained in the lore of metal were extremely unusual, and she
knew immediately who he was—Cameron Hawke, the infamous captain who’d been
promoted after an assault on a vampire lair in Soho. He’d led the raid, risked
his life to rescue the dozen prisoners the vampires were keeping in the
basement, single-handedly fought off daemon reinforcements threatening to
overwhelm his squad, and brought his whole team and all the prisoners back to
the base unscathed. Every female officer in the S.U. was talking about the
tall, dark-haired maniac who was allegedly the most powerful warlock the army
had ever had. And here he was, asking her if she needed someone to scrub her
back.

She cleared her throat. “Why, sir, are you
offering?”

“Goodness me, Captain, personal
relationships are completely forbidden in the British Army, you know that.”

“Absolutely, sir, prejudicial to good order
and discipline.”

“That’s right.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m glad we understand each other.”

“Definitely, sir.”

“Good.” He nodded to her formally. “Now, I’d
like to see a copy of the report you wrote on training for an invasion in the
Brecon Beacons.”

“Yes, sir. Shall I go and get it now?”

“No, Captain, you may continue your
training for the moment.” He studied her thoughtfully. “Bring it to my room at
twenty-one hundred hours.”

“Twenty-one hundred hours… Yes, sir.”

He nodded, and she thought she saw brief
humor light his eyes before he walked away casually, twirling his umbrella,
pausing as he watched a group of new recruits being put through their paces.

Imogen watched him go, a small smile
curving her lips. Cheeky bastard. Ordering her to come to his room! A small
part of her wanted to refuse, to see what he’d say, but the other
ninety-nine-point-nine percent of her—mostly located below her navel—shouted it
down. So what if he only wanted sex? She hadn’t had any for,
oh my God
,
over eight months, and, frankly, she was worried it was going to go rusty down
there. She certainly wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to go to bed with
Major Cameron Hawke!

So she went to his room that night prepared
for nothing more than a blissful half hour or so of sexual release with an
extremely hot, hunky warlock, no strings attached. She’d taken a quick shower,
getting rid of the dirt from the field, but wasn’t sure what to wear. They
weren’t exactly going out on a date, after all, and she knew she had to make
herself as unobtrusive as possible so she didn’t draw attention as she entered
the building. She ended up choosing a knee-length grey skirt and white shirt,
prim but hopefully still sexy, undoing the buttons a little lower than usual.

She made her way to his building as
stealthily as she could before nine and managed to get right up to his door
without bumping into anyone. She’d just knocked, however, when voices came
around the corner of the corridor. Damn it. She knocked again, desperate not to
be seen. She didn’t want to be sent away before she’d completed the mission!

Turning the handle, she pushed hard on the
door. She stumbled into the room and would have fallen flat on her face if
Hawke—who’d apparently been opening the door at the same time she’d pushed—hadn’t
caught her. He pulled her inside and closed the door with his foot as the two
officers turned the corner and walked past.

They stood motionless for a moment as the
voices passed and faded away, and then Imogen looked up into his amused eyes
and burst out laughing.

He grinned, locking the door, then looked
at the piece of paper in her hand. “Is that the report, Captain?”

“Yes, sir.”

He took it out of her hand and threw it
behind him, smirking as it fluttered to the floor, then picked her up and
wrapped her legs around him, making her gasp. She held onto him and lowered her
lips to his, her heart thumping as he returned the kiss fiercely. He carried
her over to the bed, bumping into the table as he passed and knocking a pile of
papers and pens to the floor. Laughing, he fell forward, half squashing her in
the process. She tried to catch her breath as he kissed her passionately and
pressed himself against her, leaving no doubt in her mind that he had little—if
any—interest in her report.

Lifting his head, he surveyed her for a
moment. Her chest rose and fell quickly against his, and her cheeks were warm.
She could feel the heat in his blood, the molten magic flowing through him, and
shivered as his gaze lingered on her mouth.

“I’m being very rude.” He brushed her lips
with his. “Do you want a glass of wine or something first?”

Keeping her eyes on his, hot with desire,
she shook her head. “Nuh-uh.” She hooked her free leg over his and moved her
hips, pressing against his hard length. She was rewarded with an intake of
breath, and his eyes lightened, the black pupils turning silver. He was
absolutely gorgeous, and yearning shot through her. She moved her hips again,
suddenly desperate to have him inside her.

“Be careful, Captain.” He glowered like a
panther poised above its prey as she squirmed underneath him. “You’re stoking a
fire that won’t be extinguished easily.”

“Sir, yes, sir.” She pulled his head down
for a kiss.

He growled, rolled so she was on top and
pushed her up so she sat astride him. He ripped her white shirt apart with both
hands, popping the buttons in all directions. She squealed. How was she going
to walk back to her own room now? Laughing, she made a fake attempt to smack
him, but he caught both her hands and pulled them above his head so her breasts
were level with his face. He covered a nipple with his hot mouth, and she
struggled to catch her breath as his tongue played across the lace of her bra. “Oh
my God. . . .”

He laughed, released her hands and slipped
her shirt off her arms, then deftly flicked open her bra clasp with one hand
before letting that article of clothing slide to the floor too. He covered her
breasts with his warm palms, making her sigh with pleasure as he rolled her
nipples between his fingers.

The bang on the door made them both jump,
and she shot upright, instinctively covering her chest with folded arms.

“What?” he yelled, glaring at the door as
someone rapped knuckles on the wood.

“You all right in there, Hawke? Someone
reported a crash.” Laughter ensued, followed by hasty shushing.