Ready (26 page)

He’d lit a candle and turned the overhead lighting off; the room glowed in soft amber light.

She looked around as he helped her into her chair. “This is awfully romantic for a mercenary’s pad.”

His smile was sensual and tender. “You bring out things in me that I didn’t know were there.”

He didn’t think love was there, either, but she was seriously hoping he was wrong and that she could bring that emotion out in him. Because if she had to say good-bye to him, she didn’t know how her heart was going to survive.

The dining room looked out on the snow-covered forest—her gaze was drawn to the stark beauty of the landscape over and over again while they ate. “This is an amazing place to live.”

Joshua nodded, relaxing back in his chair. “There is no place I would rather spend my downtime.”

“Your family doesn’t mind that you live so far away?”

He shrugged. “It isn’t that far from Massachusetts.”

“It might as well be, you living practically on top of a mountain and all.”

He slipped his arms over the back of her chair and brushed her shoulder with his fingers. “They don’t mind.”

She shamelessly scooted her chair closer and snuggled into his side, resting her head back against his chest.

“Not even Myra?” Lise had no experience of mothers, but she’d always heard they were somewhat possessive of their children, even the grown ones.

“She understands. I left home to join the army when I was still a teenager and haven’t been back except for visits since then. I like my privacy more than the rest of my family.”

“Do they visit you here?”

He sipped at his cappuccino, his silence thoughtful. “I haven’t invited them yet.”

Despite his penchant for privacy, that surprised her. “Your family is so close-knit. Don’t you want to?”

“Someday.”

“You have a lot of solitude up here. It’s wonderful. I can understand you not wanting to spoil it.”

“Most people wouldn’t like it.”

“I would love it. It would be even better than the ranch for writing outside in uninterrupted privacy.” Once the words were spoken, she realized how they sounded—like she was angling for an invitation to live with him, or at least come for a very long visit.

Embarrassed, she didn’t know how to back-pedal without swallowing her foot up to her ankle.

“You’d get a lot of work done in a place like this, wouldn’t you?” He didn’t sound offended, or worried about her motives.

“With you here?” She had to laugh. “I give it a fifty-fifty chance for the writing. You’re a pretty good distraction, even better than the whole city of Seattle.”

He dipped his head and spoke against her skin. “Am I?”

“Yep.” And how.

“In what way?” he asked in a voice laced with sensual promise.

She turned her face so their lips met and let her mouth answer the question silently.

When they broke apart, they were both breathing heavily and his expression was indecipherable.

She stood up and began clearing the table, feeling more at peace than she had in a very long time. “Can we go for a walk in the snow?”

No Nemesis lurked outside to threaten her, or watch her. Just a forest filled with snow-crusted pathways, trees missing their leaves for winter, and a star-filled sky she longed to be out under.

The freedom of breathing non-city air and tramping through trees, the only sound that of wind and wild animals, was an irresistible siren’s call to her psyche. “Please.”

He picked up the remaining dishes from the table and followed her into the kitchen to drop them in the sink. “It’s ten below freezing out there.”

She turned to face him, her heart skipping a beat at the sheer beauty of her wolf in relax mode. “Don’t tell me you’re too much of a hothouse flower to want to go tramping in the woods during the winter.”

He gave her a look that doubted her sanity. “
You
don’t have proper winter clothes.”

“So, lend me some of yours.”

That made him smile. “They’ll swamp you.”

“We’ll make do.”

And they did. He lent her a thermal shirt to wear over her own layers and another oversized parka that he once again insisted she wear over her own coat.

“I feel like a snow mummy,” she complained as he led her out of the mudroom onto the crunchy white nature’s winter carpet.

“You look like a stubborn woman who insisted on taking a walk in subfreezing temperatures when most people would be thinking about getting ready for bed.”

She arched her brow at him, realizing the gesture was probably futile, considering how little of her face was exposed to the air. “The only people thinking about bed at nine o’clock at night are cowboys on roundup and men who have libidos with more surges than the Rio Grande.”

“Don’t pretend you’re all sweetness and light, Ms. Barton. Who was it that went down on me after I specifically said it wasn’t a good idea?”

“It didn’t hurt me.”

“It about killed me.”

“Want to get close to death again later?”

Her only answer was a low groan. She grinned, feeling pleased with herself.

She loved every second they spent outside, even though her nose turned red from the cold and her lungs felt frozen from the frigid air. The heady freedom of open space and no peering neighbors was a fizzy cocktail to her system.

Joshua carried Lise back inside over his shoulder.

He’d realized he had no choice the third time he suggested returning to the house and she answered with a request to investigate just one more
little ole path
.

She pounded his back, laughing. “I just wanted to see where the rabbit tracks led.”

He patted her bottom, caressing the curve with a lot more interest than he felt for following any rabbit tracks. “If you’d had your way, we would have hiked all the way back to the landing strip.”

“Could we? It seemed like a pretty long ride on the snowmobile.”

“The footpath is more direct. The snowmobile is too wide to fit between some of the trees.”

“Oh. Can we walk down there tomorrow?”

He shook his head. This woman was a nature baby to her sexy little pink toes. “We’ll see.”

“You sound like somebody’s cranky grandpa.”

He squeezed the pliant flesh of her bottom. “I don’t feel like a grandpa.”

She squealed and reared up, trying to wiggle out of his arms. “Stop that.”

He tightened his grip on her legs at her knees and let his other hand slip between her legs, so he could tickle her inner thighs.

She squirmed and laughed, now pounding his shoulders. “You stop that.”

“Can’t help myself. I like touching you.”

“You’re tickling me!”

“Am I now?” he asked, imitating her Texas drawl.

Whatever she was going to say got lost in the moan she gave when he caressed the juncture of her thighs with sure fingers.

He let her body slide down the front of him until she was cradled against his chest, oversized, puffy coat and all. Nuzzling through the fur lining of the parka hood, he found her lips and kissed her. The feelings thrumming through him felt a hell of a lot more tender than lust.

When they got back to his bedroom, he took a long time peeling away the layers hiding her body from him and made love to her with all the softness and slow touching he’d wanted to earlier. This time, she made no effort to go wild, but trembled and shook with a need that went too deep for words.

So they were silent.

He kissed and caressed her, his body vibrating with torrents of desire that her touching released while the room seemed to whisper with their breathing, the words going unspoken.

But when he reached for a condom, she shook her head. “Not this time, please. I want to feel all of you.”

The mere thought of entering her without barriers was enough to make his groin ache. “I could get you pregnant.”

“It’s the wrong time of the month.”

“There’s always a risk.” As he’d told her before, they were so physically compatible, he wasn’t sure hormonal cycles would matter if she let him pour his sperm into her womb.

“Life’s full of risks, but some of them are worth taking.”

There was a deeper message in her words than a simple invitation to enter her body unprotected by a condom, but he wasn’t going to analyze that right now. He wanted to feel that naked, hot, silky sheath all around him as much as she wanted to accept him without barriers.

He slid his finger into her pulsing wetness, teasing himself with the possibility. She clutched her vaginal muscles around him and whimpered. “Please, Joshua.”

He pulled his finger out and brought it to his mouth to suck the essence of her off of it. She gasped and watched him, her mouth moving as if she wanted to talk, but couldn’t.

“You taste good, honey.”

He touched her again, just lightly and then put his finger against her lips. “Here, taste.”

She let him slide it inside her mouth and as she sucked on it, he settled between her thighs, nudging the head of his penis into contact with her slick and very swollen opening. Her eyes glazed over and he pulled his finger from her mouth to kiss her. She responded with a white heat that burned him to the depths of his being.

And he made love to her, drawing each thrust out until they were both shivering with the need for release.

When they climaxed it was like a supernova engulfing them both, showering their senses with the heat of an exploding sun.

“I love you, Joshua.” She clasped his body with her arms, her legs, and her woman’s flesh. “
I love you
.”

The words went through him like white lightning, finding a way into a heart he’d thought impervious to a woman’s love.

Afterward, they collapsed together, panting and sweaty.

She didn’t repeat her avowal of love and he didn’t say anything, his mind too numbed by what had just happened between them.

Nemesis closed the laptop, satisfaction coursing through him.

Joshua Watt thought he was so smart, but he wasn’t as intelligent as Nemesis. Not even close.

Nemesis knew more about him than he would ever begin to guess. Like that he was former Special Forces. He’d left the army after one tour, but it had been a tour as a Ranger. He was an adversary Nemesis would have to outsmart.

Brain over brawn.

Not that Nemesis wasn’t strong, but only an idiot faced a trained killing machine in an equal battle. He had to stack the odds in his favor. He picked up his copy of
The Anarchist’s Cookbook
and flipped it open to the section on napalm.

It was a well-read section, but he couldn’t risk forgetting anything important.

It would be so much easier if he could take his vengeance now. He had surprise and anonymity on his side. But he could not kill Lise Barton until his marriage was officially dead. An eye for an eye.

There was still a chance for a reprieve.

He’d called his wife last night and reminded her that marriage was supposed to be for a lifetime, that even though she had betrayed him, he still loved her. She had cried.

He didn’t like remembering his marriage, his life as Ed Jones. There was too much pain there. Too much loss, but justice was not justice without the letter of the law being adhered to. Until his divorce became final, he could not follow through on his plans for Lise Barton.

His wife had seemed softer toward him last night. Had even said she missed him, but she had not agreed to come back home. She’d said she didn’t know when the divorce would be final. Perhaps that meant she was considering withdrawing the petition.

If she didn’t, he would have the right to do to Lise Barton’s life what she had done to his.

Destroy it.

Then he would have to consider what to do with his wife. She could not be left free to marry another man. It would be wrong. No matter what the legal decrees said, she was his. Could only ever be his.

Should he let Lise Barton know he knew where she was?

The thought tempted him. She thought she could get away from him, that she could run away with Joshua Watt and disappear, but he would always be able to find her.

Nemesis could not be escaped.

Before dawn, Joshua climbed out of bed, careful not to disturb Lise. He’d woken her up several times in the night to make love and she deserved her rest.

She’d told him she loved him twice more.

The first time she’d said it had about poleaxed him, and each subsequent time hadn’t been much better.

The sex between them was better than good—it was the most amazing thing he’d ever experienced. Could she be confusing the overwhelming physical pleasure with something much deeper?

Much like being the first man a woman made love to, he’d been the first one to give her real pleasure. Her marriage had not been a passionate one, but their relationship gave the word new definition. They were more than sexually compatible; they were combustible, and how much of the feeling she had for him was wrapped up in that fact?

Women often mistook sexual love for the real thing. Hadn’t his ex-wife? For that matter, hadn’t he?

It made sense that Lise would think she loved him. After all, she’d been in love with the only other man she’d ever had sex with.

But he knew how impossible that scenario really was. Unlike a lot of people, Lise actually knew what it meant to be a mercenary. Because of her interviews, she understood the shadow world he lived in better than even his family did, but she’d been living inside of a tight box of fear for months.

He’d made it possible for her to break out of that box. Wasn’t it far more likely that she was grateful to him than that she had fallen in love with a hardened mercenary?

A man who had killed, who had seen things he would never tell another soul about.

With her imagination, she might have created a hero in her mind and pasted it over the true man. However, she was too discerning not to see through the illusion eventually and realize what she’d thought was love was only gratitude mixed with intense desire. He would be setting them both up for heartache if he took her declarations at face value and let himself believe in a fairy tale he’d given up as fiction long ago.