For Her Eyes Only (8 page)

“She can hit a target,” Drew said. He crouched and pulled up his trouser leg. “You can have my back-up piece.” He unsnapped the holster and handed it, along with the weapon, to her. It was smaller and lighter than the guns she’d trained with, but the weight was comforting in her hand.

“It’s a Ruger LCP 3.80. Six rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber. Single strike, double action. You’ll have to stage the trigger to fire, but it’s a point-and-shoot weapon. It’s small, but it’s accurate, and packs enough of a punch to get you out of a sticky situation. Just don’t get into a sticky situation.”

She nodded as she slid it into her clutch purse. The knots in her stomach tightened. “What about you? I don’t want to leave you vulnerable.”

Drew grinned. “Aw, Vic, that’s sweet. Don’t worry about me, my backups have backups. I’ve got a lot more where that came from. Careful, though, that’s loaded.”

Her clutch purse instantly felt heavier. “Okay,” she responded faintly.

“Right, well, I’ll get back to work and leave you two lovebirds to it.”

Heat rushed to her cheeks, and she was grateful for the subdued lighting. In answer to her earlier question, yes, her cheeks could get hotter.

“Bite me, Michaels,” Ryan said.

“No, I’ll let Vic do that.” Drew said as he turned and walked away from them, whistling.

Vicky ducked her head.
That.
Was.
Embarrassing.

Ryan started to walk in the direction of reception. “C’mon, Vic. Let’s go to bed.”

Chapter Nine

Ryan had no sense of modesty.

He slid his tie from beneath his collar and rolled it up before placing it into one of the drawers.

Vicky stared in disbelief as he undressed.
No modesty.
What.
So.
Ever
. He shrugged out of his jacket, catching it and draping it over a clothes hanger with an intimate grace that had Vicky’s mouth watering.

He hung his jacket in the wardrobe, and started unbuttoning his cuffs as he kicked off his shoes. He bent down, and his trousers pulled tight across his butt as he placed his shoes neatly inside the closet.

Stop staring.
Just...stop staring.

Vicky absently pulled the pins from her hair, trying to divert her gaze. She shuffled over to the bed to put her hairpins on the bedside table, and winced when she kicked one of those agony-inducing shoes. She still couldn’t look away from Ryan.

He unbuttoned his shirt, peeling the cotton dress shirt off his broad shoulders, revealing well-defined biceps and pecs. And a whole lot of manly, naked, gorgeous torso.

Holy sh
— Vicky stepped on the other heel, and pain stabbed the ball of her foot. “Shoot.”

Ryan lifted his head, meeting her gaze as he slowly undid his belt. “Sorry? Did you say something?”

She rubbed her foot as he rolled the belt in his hand, the leather taking on all sorts of sexy, naughty elements as it twined around his fist like a restraint. Oh, yeah, a restraint that he could...

She blinked. “What? Uh, no. Not me. Nope. Nothing.”
What?
Had she said something? She couldn’t remember, she was too distracted with ogling the hunk.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he said, and slowly, sexily lowered the zip of his fly.

“Uh-huh.” She was incapable of intelligible speech.
Stop staring at the man!

Her eyes widened when she realized he wasn’t going to stop. His hands moved to slide inside the waistband of his black trousers, and he bent slightly at the waist.

HOLY SH
— She whipped around to face the bedside table, concentrating very closely on removing her watch and bracelet. She toyed with the items on the table, trying to give him enough time to get his naked ass into the privacy of the bathroom. She heard him moving around in front of the wardrobe, the sound of hangers rattling as he hung up his pants.
Crap.
Who knew he was such a neat freak?

She tried to hum casually as she opened the top drawer of the table.
Oh
,
look
,
a
bible
. She wasn’t really looking for a bible, but anything that would make her look busy without being obvious would help. She picked up the book and started leafing through the pages. He was still moving around in the room. How long did it take to shuffle that glorious butt off to a shower? Then she realized she was pretending to read a bible while a handsome, naked man stood just feet away. She hit her forehead against the thick tome.
I
need to get out more.
And yet Ryan didn’t seem to suffer from any shyness with sharing a bedroom with her. Probably because he saw her as a friend. A mate. A bloody chum.

“Do you need to use the bathroom?” Ryan’s deep, velvety voice whispered across the room to her.

She jerked her head up and stared at the abstract painting above the bed. “No, I’m fine, thanks.”

Moments later the click of the bathroom door echoed through the suite. Her shoulders sagged, and she dropped the bible.
Okay.
Sexy nude man gone
.

She turned around and listened. He was whistling.
Oh
,
yeah.
He was just as caught up in the sexual tension as she.
Not
.

A moment later she heard the faucets turn, the sound of water running. He was stepping into the shower. She swallowed. All well-toned, muscled, six feet and three inches of him. Butt naked. Sexy. Wet. Images of what he’d look like, stepping under the spray, water running down that sexy chest, over the taut stomach and...further, flashed through her mind. She smacked herself lightly in the forehead with the bible again. She was drooling over Ryan. He was her friend, for crying out loud, and she just wanted to fling open that door and join him in the shower. She was not being a good friend, at all. Very naughty, in fact. She sighed. What she wouldn’t give to get naughty with Ryan.

And he’d probably want to run as soon as the shower curtain opened.

Damn
.

She only had a few minutes before he would finish in there and return. Ryan might like walking around the room without a stitch on, but she didn’t want to get caught in the buff. She hurried over to the tallboy to look for something to wear.

She opened a draw and burrowed through it. Bras, panties, and some sort of shapewear that Jessica had told her was a must for some of the chosen outfits, flew over her shoulder as she hunted through the cavity. Her fingers finally encountered something soft, silken. She pulled it from the drawer and held it up, her jaw dropping.

It was a nightgown. Of sorts. The bodice was all peek-a-boo lace in a midnight blue color, while the skirt of the gown was in a matching silken fabric—what little there was of it. Jessica must have thrown it in.
Oh
,
no.
No way.
She could
not
wear that in front of Ryan. It was too sexy. Too...revealing. Too obvious. She stuffed it back in the drawer and rifled through the garments until she found what she was looking for.
Ah.
Much better
. She pulled out her black Betty Boop boxer shorts with matching racer-back cami. Cute and concealing. Just like her.

The water in the bathroom stopped, spurring her into action. Twisting her body this way and that, she finally managed to unzip her gown and wriggle out of it. She stripped out of her underwear, kicking panties and bra off to the side before almost skipping into her pajamas. She hurried over to the dressing table and smothered her face in make-up removal cream before grabbing tissues and wiping the mess off her face. Her eyes stung and teared up as she got some of the product in her eyes. She threw the tissues in the trashcan underneath the table, and slapped on some night cream—at least she hoped it was night cream. Everything was just a little blurry.

She staggered over to the bed, and tripped again over those bloody shoes. Clutching her toe and hopping, she finally fell back onto the massive bed. She rolled over and over until she made it across the diagonal and could pull the edge of the covers back. She jackknifed so that she could slide her legs between the expensive, cool cotton sheets and wriggled down. She tugged the top pillow until only her nose remained outside of her linen cocoon.

Crap
. She’d left the light on. She threw the covers back and scurried across the width of the bed. She jumped from the bed and ran to the light switch, flicking it off. A lamp on a coffee table in the living area gave a golden glow over the sofa that Ryan had selected to sleep on. They’d made it up with pillows and blankets upon their return from dinner. She bolted back to the bed. She leaped onto massive mattress—ooh, bouncy—and slid under the covers, tugging them up over her ears just as the bathroom door opened.

She squeezed her eyes shut.
Pretend to sleep
.

She tried to even her breathing, a hard task when her heart was pounding from the mini-Olympics she’d just run.

She heard him moving about the room, his footsteps padding down the three steps that separated the bedroom area from the living area.
Pretend to sleep
.

She cracked her eyes open, just a little.
Oh
,
wow
. He wore some sort of fitted boxer briefs, and his skin glowed golden in the lamplight. She sighed. He was gorgeous. How was she supposed to get any sleep with him lying just a few yards away? There was no way she’d be able to relax.

He lay on the lounge and pulled the blankets over himself. He punched the pillows a couple of times, and her mouth went dry as she watched his biceps flex. He rolled to his side. Then to his back. Then turned to face the back of the sofa. He sighed. He reminded her of the cartoon where the kitten kneaded the dog’s back before settling down to sleep.

A long arm reached up and turned off the lamp. “Good night,
Cassie
.”

“Good night,
Pete
,” she responded automatically, then squeezed her eyes shut.

Damn.
So much for pretending to sleep
.

* * *

“Hang on!”

Ryan jerked awake at the cry. He listened for a moment. The sheets rustled on the bed upstairs, as though someone was wrestling with them. He sat up, blinking, trying to peer through the darkness.

“Please, wait. Don’t die.” Vicky’s cry was low and tortured, and Ryan realized she was dreaming.
Orla
.

“It’s okay,” he whispered through the darkness.

A whimper, followed by a shuddering sigh, had him sitting up on the sofa. More sheet rustling. She sounded like she was fighting the linen.

He flung off his covers and rose, his first steps uncertain. Was she awake yet? He didn’t want to disturb her, but he also didn’t want her to suffer in her sleep. Or say something that could blow their cover to the person on the other end of the listening devices. He crossed the room and padded silently up the steps to the sleeping area.

“Shh, it’s okay.” He kept his voice low. She thrashed a little on the bed, trying to kick off the comforter. His eyes were adjusting to the dark, but he still couldn’t figure out if she was awake or not.

“Hey, it’s okay. She’s okay,” he whispered as he approached the bed. She whimpered, turned toward his voice. “She’s going to be okay, darlin’. Relax.”

He knelt by the side of the bed, and gently brushed her hair off her face. He could make out the sheen of tears on her face, and an unfamiliar warmth bloomed in his chest as he stroked her hair. “Shh,” he whispered, trying to comfort her in her sleep. His hand trailed down to her shoulder, covered by the thick blanket, and he felt her shudder. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

She moaned a little, and burrowed into the comforter. His lips tightened. She’d seemed so calm, so determined at the meeting, and at every moment since that he’d shared with her. She hadn’t hinted at the pain she was carrying over her friend’s attack. She’d hidden it behind a brave face, and he’d just assumed she was getting on with the job, just like him. He shook his head as he continued to stroke her shoulder through the blanket. He should have known, should have realized.

His best friend was hurting, and he’d not even considered how she might be processing what had happened to her friend, and her friend’s father.
Damn
.

She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t have been there when he found Orla, either. He would do anything to wipe that memory from her mind. He hadn’t realized how jaded he’d become. He’d seen Orla, cut and broken, and hadn’t really looked at her as a person. Just a victim. He’d seen worse. But he should have made the effort to see it from Vicky’s point of view. He’d been in Vicky’s position, once, when he’d found someone he’d cared about, broken and dying. But he hadn’t reacted with a fraction of the grace with which Vicky had dealt with her painful situation.

He wondered if that drove her present need to be active in the field. He gazed down at her face, watching as breath by breath, she slowly slipped into a deeper, more restful slumber. He could understand her need to track down this couple, hold them responsible for their actions. Hadn’t he done the same, in her position?

Well, okay, maybe what he’d done had been much worse.

He sighed as he stroked her hair. She didn’t wear it loose very often. He toyed with a curl. It was smooth, silken to the touch. Soft. Just like Vicky, despite all her bluster.

He lowered his head until his lips were level with her ear. “I will keep you safe, Vic,” he whispered almost silently. “No harm will come to you, not on my watch.”

He pressed his lips to her cheek in a soft, reverent kiss and sat back on his haunches, content to watch over her for a while, soothe her if she needed it.

The door that led to their private terrace rattled softly, and Ryan snapped around, senses on red alert.

The rattle came again.

He rose, taking the steps down to the living zone in one long, silent leap before racing through the dark suite.
That’s not the wind.