Vendetta (5 page)

He frowned. “Don’t change the subject.”

“You’ve told me how you feel and why you’re staying away—I get it.” She turned and walked to the one of the chairs in front of his desk and took a seat. “I would rather have you home with me. Just because you’re not there doesn’t mean something bad can’t happen.”

“I know,” he agreed. “I’m working tonight and I’d rather come back here after I leave that cesspool—at least for a little while longer. Once we get things wrapped on this I promise I’ll come home and we’ll make love for days.”

“Well now we can’t do that because I’ll have to work,” she reminded him as she tried to keep the hostility out of her tone. If he thought he could just crawl back into her bed whenever he felt like it then he was—well, sadly he was right. She smiled. “So, what else?”

“I found out something about George Marlan. I don’t think you should take him on as a client, but if you do decide to take him on then know that I’m going to be watching over you.” He sat down on the corner of his desk and told her what Shawn had conveyed to him. He hadn’t had time to do his own research because he needed some sleep first. A couple hours were enough to rejuvenate him.

“But he’s friends with a senator.”

“Yeah…and we both know how honest and loyal they are.” He said sarcastically. She couldn’t argue there. Thomas knew more about crooked politicians than she did, but even she knew the extents somebody would go to for money.

“Do you think he killed his wife and daughter?”

“I don’t know. It got swept under the rug fairly quickly. I just don’t trust him.”

“Then I won’t take the project.”

“I understand if you—wait; what?”

“I won’t take the project.”

“You never give in that easily.”

She shrugged. “I wasn’t that comfortable with him either. And when he brought up my mother’s case…I just wasn’t that at ease with the situation, so it’s not a huge loss emotionally—financially maybe, but not emotionally. Besides, I have the charity groups coming today so I might take one of those.”

“You’re taking on a lot.”

“Not really. But I have to take at least one of them if I’m going to use that as my excuse not to take Mr. Marlan’s project on.”

He pulled her up from her chair, reversed their positions and lifted her so that she could now sit on his desk. He pushed her legs open and came to stand between them. “I’m so glad you decided not to take it,” he brushed his fingers along her cheek.

“Well I didn’t do it because of you.” On some level she had. Thomas’ gut feelings were always right and she trusted him completely. Mostly, she trusted herself and lately she had just been getting bad vibes that she couldn’t ignore—last night was one of those times when she started to wonder if taking on the project was a good idea. The money was good, but money was of no use to a dead woman.

“I missed you,” Thomas placed tender kisses on her forehead, cheek and neck before working his way over to her lips and letting his tongue trace a feather line along them.

“I missed you too. If you can’t come home tonight maybe I can just wait for you here.”

“Uh, uh,” he shook his head no. “I’m keeping you safe at all cost.” He kissed her. She wondered if the “all cost” part meant he would risk the relationship they had as well. She didn’t like that idea, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it because the moment she started to think about it was the same moment he slipped his tongue inside her mouth and possessed it completely. Each thrust of his tongue heightened her arousal.

“Thomas, we cannot start something that we won’t be able to finish.”

“Why won’t we?” He unbuttoned her pants, lifted her from the desk and yanked the fabric down her legs to pool at her ankles.

“The windows…Janet…” she felt herself rambling as his hand slipped between her legs. Janet was outside the office door which meant she would hear them if they even went where Thomas was trying to take them. And he had floor to ceiling windows in a mostly panoramic view. They so couldn’t do this here in his office.

“She won’t hear us,” he assured her. “Great installation, three feet thick walls, and a very solid door.”

“We heard her when she came back that one time.”

“Intercom,” he said before slipping his fingers in the waistband of her panties and tugging them down. “But,” he turned her swiftly and lifted her to his desk. Her naked behind felt the coolness of the wood beneath her. “As loud as you come for me sometimes I think I’m going to have to take you this way so I can muffle the screaming you’re going to do.”

“Hey!” She was not that loud…okay, maybe she could be sometimes, but not all the time.

“Next time I’ll take you from behind. Lately I’ve been thinking about bending you over this desk and taking you.” He ran his tongue along her collarbone and she moaned with pleasure. “Kick your pants off, baby.”

She had to kick her shoes off first, but the moment they were off she kicked the pants off to the floor too.

“I hope you’re not in a hurry to get to work,” he pulled back and looked in her eyes, “because I’m not planning to let you out of this office for a couple hours.”

“A couple hours,” she gasped as he slipped his hand beneath the hem of her blouse.

“I miss my home inside of you, baby, and once I get back in there I don’t plan to leave again anytime soon.” He placed one gentle hand on her shoulder and eased her down onto the desk. She watched his heavy lidded eyes as he unfastened his own pants. Her heartbeat pulsed wildly when he let his pants and underwear fall to the floor, releasing his engorged penis. She knew what was next and she wanted it, craved it, desired it so much that she didn’t care where they were, she just wanted him inside her.

In one, swift, but fluent, motion he entered her; pushing inside her and taking her to the heights of pleasure and beyond. And she knew, in that one moment in time they could have forever if he would only let her share it with him.

Chapter Four

~ June ~

T
hena had been distant for the past four weeks. Things had seemed to get better when he wrapped up work on the case he had been working on. It had only taken a couple more weeks before he had the proof Shawn and the BPD needed to crack down on one of the biggest child pornography rings in Boston. The police department had been barred from performing any investigations themselves because the FBI claimed jurisdiction. Yet the FBI hadn’t done anything worth anything in the two years they had the case file. Fortunately, Captain Mallard wasn’t the kind of man to continue to stand by and wait for action. Thomas would do anything for his old squad. He had been on SWAT with that department and he knew those guys were above board on all levels; so it didn’t bother him that he was stepping on federal toes to help the BPD out. Fortunately they came out the victors and the heroes. Despite the federal uproar over jurisdiction, nobody was going to make a scene on such a high profile case. If the feds had then they would have come off looking worse than they already did.

When the case ended he thought he and Thena would go back to what they had before he started the intensive surveillance, but something had changed. Emotionally she seemed unavailable and stressed. On top of that, she was pushing herself to extremes. She took on two new charity builds while still dealing with the company business, the construction work, the landscape design portion of the business and then she took on her own architectural dreams. He couldn’t read her, and maybe that’s what bothered Thomas most. Thena was always so open with him. She wore her heart on her sleeve and he never had trouble telling when something was wrong, and then getting her to talk about it. Lately, the tables had turned and every time he asked her what was wrong she made up some excuse to go back to whatever design she was working on. Well, he was tired of it and it was going to stop.

That call from Valencia had been a turning point and he knew he didn’t have time for the evasive games Thena was dead set on playing. He needed to set things straight before he left because while he hoped he was going to be the victor in this mission he also knew that Sabian might win—he might end up dead and if that happened he didn’t want her to spend the rest of her life living with regrets for how they left things. He was going to have to pull out day after tomorrow. After Valencia and Drake arrived in Boston they were going to meet Gavin and Mike in Texas. He had told Sully not to come. Alaina was pregnant again, this time she was having twins and she was only a few weeks out from her due date. Sully needed to be there for that. He had to be there for his family. He already had Teagan before he met Alaina, and somehow the life of the military man worked for him, but now he was officially retired. Alaina had already had their first child, which surprised everybody by being a boy instead of the girl Sully’s mother and the doctors had assured Alaina she was going to have, and now she was pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl. There was no way in the world he could ask Sully to leave her behind when she was about to deliver any week now.

He had told Mike to stay put in Texas too, because he, too, had a child. The last thing Thomas wanted to do was see another child grow up without a father because of Sabian. Those men on his team, the ones Sabian betrayed and ultimately murdered with that betrayal, had families, children, somebody waiting for them at home. He couldn’t forget them, or the families they left behind and he didn’t want to inflict that pain on anybody else. If he could have done this mission on his own he would have, but he knew he needed help. Beyond that, he knew his brother, Gavin, wasn’t going to sit tight in South Dakota running the adventure tour business he and London had combined with the B&B while his brother was off potentially getting himself killed. Telling Drake to stay put would have been futile because Drake never turned his back on a friend. And of course, where Drake went into battle, Mike was sure to follow if the circumstances permitted, and this time they did. Thomas had told him to stay behind. Zenya was also pregnant, with a little boy this time, and it just made sense to have the men without children fighting this battle.  Mike clearly didn’t agree. Thomas had told him to stay in Texas and Mike had obstinately declined. Admiral Caine was back home now so Zenya could spend some time with her parents and they would help her take care of things while he was away. She was only six months, he had said, and he was sure they would all be back home before the baby was born. Thomas hoped he was right.

He shook his head. Everybody seemed to be having babies and getting on with their family life. Drake and Geneva were still without children, just as Gavin and London were, but he was sure it would only be a matter of time before both men announced some baby news of their own. He wanted a family, but this mission, this had to be taken care of first. He wouldn’t settle down in marriage and children until he had justice. He told himself this was the only way, the best way.

Right now he was worried about two women in his life. He was worried about Thena because she was aloof. He was worried about Eve because her way of dealing with Adam’s death was throwing herself into dangerous journalistic pursuits and he hated that. Adam’s death had been a wrench in all of their hearts, but more so in hers. She loved him more than she loved life itself. Losing him the way she did, after only a little over a year of marriage, had broken her. He wanted to help her. He tried to help her, but she just didn’t want to deal with anything. She pulled away from all of them so she wouldn’t have to.

When he got that call from her, when she told him that Adam was in ICU, that his parachute didn’t open on a routine jump and that she didn’t know if he was going to make it, he got on the first plane out to California to be with her. Then the doctors held out hope to her. Adam’s vitals were improving. He was stabilizing, and he just might pull through. He was busted up really bad and they didn’t know the full extent of the long term damage, but they told her, “he’s going to pull through.” That was all the hope she needed. She allowed herself to believe and for two days he did seem as if he would pull through. She sat by his side day and night. Then that morning, when he arrived at the hospital he saw her sitting outside Adam’s room, crying the most heart wrenching wail he had ever heard and he knew Adam had died. He held her in his arms, right there in that hallway and rocked her, trying to comfort her the best he could. He knew it would be hard; he knew coming back from that devastation would take all of their strength to help her survive and he made sure the others knew they needed to board the first plane. He didn’t care what was going on in their life, their baby sister needed them.

He tried to convince her to move back to Boston. Chase Carrigan told her she could stay in Vermont with their mother while Trent Carrigan refused to say much more than a simple condolence to her. Everybody was hurting, but Trent made it seem like Adam’s death was Eve’s fault somehow. As if she should have convinced him to move to Vermont. He imagined Trent thought she could have because telling Adam she wanted to be close to her brother in Boston would have made him go there instead of California and if he had, that accident would have never happened. A freak accident that nobody could explain had claimed the life of a young, heroic man and a good husband. Eve was devastated.

She had Adam’s body sent back to Vermont to be buried in the family plot, but the day after the funeral she left. She said she had to close up the house in California, put things in storage somewhere and get things together. They offered to help and she refused. The only help she did accept was London’s offer to let her store their things at her place. She even secluded a cabin for Eve to live in. Everybody was trying to keep her close to the family, but instead of moving closer to their mother in Southern California, or going to Arizona and staying with Alyssa, or going to South Dakota to stay with Gavin, or even coming back to Boston to stay with him, she decided to throw herself into work. Wherever there was danger she went, and he hated that. He hated that he couldn’t help her heal, and that she wouldn’t let him help her.