Hell Bent (4 page)

Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head as she put her hands on her hips.  “You will find that shouting at me and telling me what I’m not going to do isn’t going to work any better now than it did six years ago, Cade Winters.” She sucked in a deep breath, blew it out and her sweet breath brushed his mouth making his lips tingle as she held out her hand. “Forget the lesson—you’ve taught me enough of them to last a lifetime.  Give me my pistol, and I’ll just take the ride, thank you.”

“
No
—if you’re going to insist on carrying that damned hair-trigger son-of-a-bitch, you’re going to learn how to use it!” Cade grabbed her shoulders and turned her in the booth to position her at the bar.  “Put on your protection.” 

Cade slid his earmuffs on and set his glasses on his nose, and after a second, Cecelia did the same.  She reached for the pistol, but he put his hand over hers and electricity zipped up his arm to his neck.  One thing sure hadn’t changed, feeling her heat, being surrounded by her unique scent—fucking touching her soft skin—still had the same effect on his body.  And that pissed him off, as he pulled his hand away and took a step back.

“Let’s work on your stance first.  Pretend you’re holding your pistol and about to shoot.”

Weaver stance, he should’ve known
. 

That was standard boot camp fare and fine for stationary target practice, but not for engaging multiple targets.  Cade moved up behind, closed his hands over hers on the grip of her pistol and stretched her arms out in front of her.  He used his toe to nudge her heels apart so her feet were evenly spread shoulder width.  He leaned over her back and she naturally bent forward.

“Lean into your target, and keep your arms extended comfortably.  You’ll handle the recoil better and won’t need that hair trigger to manage it.  Keep your toes parallel and even with your target.”  Cecelia bent more toward her hands as if sighting the target. “Raise your hands to your line of sight, don’t lower your head to it.”

Cade released her hand to slide his palm up the underside of her left arm to remove the bend in her elbow.  Gooseflesh raised with his touch all the way to her wrist, which told him that he wasn’t the only one still affected and that gave him a small measure of satisfaction.  Cecelia’s breath hitched when he dropped his hand to her waist and leaned close to her ear. 

“Keep your elbows straight, Brat,” he whispered, nuzzling his face against her hair, drawing a small whimper from her.  She shifted her weight to balance and her ass made scorching contact with his fly.  Electricity zipped through him, Cade bit back a pained groan and quickly released her to step back.

“Is this right?” she asked, stiffening her elbows, her face flushed and the pulse in her throat beating hard as she glanced over her shoulder at him.

No, there wasn’t a damned thing right about this situation.  His sensual torture techniques had backfired and Cade was the one paying the price here.  He’d thought himself long past that point with this woman, but he obviously wasn’t immune.  But he wasn’t a masochist, so it had to stop.  Blowing out a breath, he left her to go into the next booth to retrieve his pistol and hopefully find his composure there too. 

When he walked back into her booth, her board-straight arms shook from the grip she still had on her weapon and he couldn’t help but smile.  If there was one thing Cecelia had learned in the Army, it was evidently following orders. 

That thought led him to wonder if that willingness to please would extend to the order he really wanted to give her.

Drop to your knees, unzip my jeans and wrap your plump lips around my cock
. 

A long buried, but very vivid visual of her doing just that burst inside his brain and hot fire sizzled through his veins to converge at his cock. 

Goddamit, man, focus on what you’re doing here
. 

Closing his eyes, Cade forcefully shoved the image back into the closet in his mind from where it had escaped and hammered ten-penny nails into boards across the door.  When he opened his eyes, she stared at him over her shoulder.

“What do I do now?” she asked with agitation edging her voice.

“Relax first of all,” he barked, moving up behind her. “You’ll never hit the broad side of a barn as tensed up as you are.”

Cecelia huffed a breath and her chin fell to her chest as she released her grip on the weapon to extend her left hand and shake it.  Cade moved closer behind her and rubbed her forearm to work out the knot, and thought he heard a whimper.  He jerked her pistol from her other hand, laid it on the bench and replaced it with his.

It wobbled in her grasp, and she laughed sharply.  “No, this forty-five is why I won’t hit that barn…I can’t shoot this accurately.”  She cast a hot glance over her shoulder. “But that’s what you want, right?” she asked angrily. “To make me look like an incompetent fool?”

No, he wanted her to learn to shoot a lethal weapon, in a lethal way, instead of toting around a peashooter guaranteed to get her killed when she left a tango bigger than her breathing. 

But he was the fool for caring about that.

“Just pay attention—this is what you do if you have two or more tangos—bet they didn’t teach you
that
in boot camp, did they?”

“No, they didn’t,” she replied, as he turned her toward the targets, lifted her arms with the pistol and adjusted her grip.  He moved her aim to the space between the target in her booth and the one next door. 

“When you’re engaging multiple targets, which we’re going to assume you are in this exercise, take this stance and aim at the space between them so you’re able to pivot and easily engage either tango.”

As easily as you evidently pivoted to engage multiple men after you left me
.

Biting back a growl, Cade adjusted her stance a little more, moved in closer behind her.  Too close, he realized, when his cock settled into the heated space between her ass cheeks and his zipper went white-hot to brand his cock.  But he couldn’t make himself back away.  In fact, his arm snaked around her waist to hold her closer and her muscles went rigid.

“You’re too tense—
relax
,” he growled, splaying his fingers over her flat stomach.

Almost as tense as you were the night I teased you to your breaking point to make sure you were ready for your first time, remember?
 

Cade gritted his teeth

“Feel how balanced your body is?” he ground out, his heart pounding in his throat. 

Cecelia nodded, and Cade was damned glad she felt balanced because he felt as off balance at the moment as he’d been in years. For long moments, the only sound in the range was their ragged breathing. 

“See how this position would work better than the one you were using for a multi-tango engagement?” 
Have you engaged multiple men at once, Brat?

He wondered if she might have heard his unspoken words because he could swear her hips were making needy, purposeful little brushes against his cock.  But Cade was too hard to tell, because his fucking jeans were strangling him.

With a little whimper, Cecelia set the pistol on the shelf and turned in his arms.  She put her hands on his chest then slid them up to his shoulders.  Her eyes turned to liquid crystals as her lower lids dammed back tears.

“Cade, we need to talk—” she said, raising a shaky hand to his face.

The door into the range opened and Cade’s body tensed.

“Where are you, Ceese?  Let’s get this weekend started, sweet thing,” a deep male voice said loudly.  Cecelia’s eyes went wide, the clouds in them cleared and a little smile kicked up the corner of her mouth as she pushed away from Cade to squeeze by and walk into the aisle.

“
Kee
gan!” she squealed, and Cade flinched as sickness swirled in his gut. 

It boiled when Cade stepped out of the booth to see her fly into the outstretched arms of a heavily tatted and muscled guy, who looked to be a biker if the chains, leather and spiked hair were any indication.  Their bodies collided, the man’s hands gripped her ass and she tiptoed to press a kiss to his mouth.  Pushing back, she looked up at him and put her hand on his cheek, much the same way she had Cade’s a moment ago and the bile in his stomach turned to a brick. 

“I didn’t think you’d be here until tonight!” she said happily.

A smile kicked up the corner of the man’s mouth as he stared down at her.  “Couldn’t wait to see you, babe.” He swooped in for another kiss.  “I’ve missed the hell out of you.”

“How’d you find me here?” she asked with a laugh.

He smiled wider showing a row of perfectly matched teeth, his expression reminding Cade of the smile the big bad wolf probably wore when he met Little Red Riding Hood.  “I’m pretty damned good at recon, remember?  I will
always
find you, baby.”

“You’re pretty good at conning information out of people is what I remember, SEAL boy.  Like my phone number at that bar,” she replied.

“You’re right,” he confirmed with a laugh.  “I wanted to surprise you, so I stopped by your office, and Logan, who I assume is the asshole older brother you told me about, gave me directions here.”

A SEAL
?  To him, the man looked more like a Hell’s Angel in his white tank and well-worn leather vest.  The way this guy looked, Cade was damned surprised that Logan told him anything—especially info on where he could find Cecelia. 

Like Delta guys though, basically SEALs peers in the Army, they were given plenty of slack in their appearance.  That way they could blend in better at a moment’s notice for a mission.  Even past the tats and chains, Cade had worked with SOF operators enough to recognize the man’s quiet tenseness, the intensity in his eyes which said it was true.  Logan probably recognized that too and was the only reason he gave him the information. 

Well not the only reason. 

If this man could take Cecelia off of his hands, Cade was sure Logan would thank him.  It was obvious to him that Dave did not want his sister working at Deep Six Security.

Over Cecelia’s shoulder, their eyes met and held as the biker studied him intently.  Yep, definitely an operator.

“Let me get my pistol and we can go.” She patted his shoulder as she stepped out of his arms.  “You want sushi tonight?  I found a good place not too far from my apartment.” 

The man’s eyes left Cade’s and he smiled down at Cecelia again in a way that made Cade want to take that chain hanging at his waist and choke the bastard with it.  The second thing that made him want to strangle him was the realization that Cecelia made it sound like he would be staying at her apartment while he was in town. 

“Sushi sounds great.  As long as it doesn’t come in a tin can or a plastic bag, I’ll be a happy man. I’m tired of roasted camel and MREs,” he said, and Cee Cee laughed.

Anger and jealousy surged up to choke him as a memory of the conversation he’d overheard between Cecelia and Taylor Kincaid about the Navy SEAL she’d dated last, and how he was a
real
man compared to Cade.  He had no doubt he was staring at that SEAL who she considered a
real
man. 

Fucking Squid was about as close to a real man as—
no,
Cade was not going there.  He was not going to indulge the jealousy that was trying to get a toehold inside of him.  Who this woman dated was not his business. 

Goddamn, though, why had he come back home just to put himself face-to-face with it?
 

Cade needed to get the situation with his sister resolved and get the hell out of here as soon as he knew she was safe.  He should’ve never come back to Texas.

He’d been back two months now, and so far not a thing had happened to Ronnie.  Not a death threat, or even a peep from the Sovereign Soldiers group.  He didn’t wish it would happen, but he sure wouldn’t mind that situation coming to a head so he could deal with it and get on with his life knowing she was safe.  He wanted to be here when the baby was born but didn’t know if he’d last another three months sitting here on his ass. 

The longer he stayed, though, the more unlikely it was he’d be able to reestablish his cover ID to walk right back into his job with the agency.  Domingo Blanco had disappeared too fast from Columbia, right after Tovar was assassinated and the feds moved in.  Because Cade had been so firmly embedded in the cartel, with his hasty exit they would highly suspect he was an operator.  Word spread fast through those organizations, and there could be a bullet with his name on it if he went back.  Since the agency planned on being there for several more years taking down ancillary branches of the drug cartel, he would be useless to them.

Unless Jolly agreed to allow him to work in operations admin, or on a different mission until the Columbia job was over, Cade might have to be the mercenary he told his family he was to stay employed. 

God, he wanted his life back. 

It was a good life that included plenty of money from his salary, hazard pay and bounties, hot fucks with beautiful women in exotic locations all over the world, women
much
hotter than the little scrap of muscles and fluff that was Cecelia Logan. 

That was the life he knew, where he belonged.