TrackingDesire

Elizabeth
Lapthorne

Book 6 in the Urban Seductions series.

Julian Sherwyn has always been
solid, dependable, completely unflappable, even when his eyes were opened to
the magical world hidden behind the human one. Nothing ruffled him—until his
last mission brought him into contact with Olivia Congreave. Wild, sexy and the
most desirable witch he’s ever met, she fires his passions and that wicked grin
of hers has stolen his heart.

Liv is drawn to Julian. He radiates
strength, and for her there’s no more potent aphrodisiac. Working together,
forced to rely on each other, burning up the sheets comes all too easily. But
dependable though Julian may be, Liv is reluctant to trust her heart to his
hands.

A
Romantica®
paranormal erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

Olivia Congreave ran a hand through her wavy red hair as her
best friend, Kelly Robbins, checked that the waitress had their large takeaway
order correct. The two women had volunteered to go down to the local deli and
pick up an assortment of rolls and sides for the three ravenously hungry men
they had left behind in Kelly’s apartment.

It had been a very long time since Liv had seen Kelly’s
small apartment so full. Kelly had very recently hooked up with a wonderful
wizard who rocked her world, Matt Kestell. Matt was an Enforcer, the Tracker in
an elite team partially made up of other Enforcers and rounded out by a group
of the best operatives the various police black operations division had to
offer.

Kelly proclaimed herself an Archivist for the wizarding
world, but as her long-standing best friend Liv had known for most of their
lives, Kelly had an incredible talent for stealth and thieving. Matt had
tracked Kelly down for her help in obtaining a new, partially complete antidote
to a drug that had been ravaging the human population. Intoxicatingly
addictive, it incorporated magical essence into the drug itself and had been a
serious problem until Matt’s team had destroyed the manufacturing laboratory.

Kelly and Matt had made a lot of progress on sorting out
what exactly the half-worked antidote was and how they could get a sample to
run in the police or the Enforcers’ laboratory. To do it quickly and
successfully, however, they’d decided they would need a much larger
brainstorming session to figure out their next move. Matt and Kelly had
uncovered a strong lead to a mid-level player from an email they’d discovered
requesting a hundred thousand dollars of ante money to invest in the
new-and-improved antidote in Phase Two of its development.

They had discovered this by breaking into the home of a
rich, arrogant bastard and cracking his safe, then hacking into his computer
while he held a party in the lower section of his house. Since Liv was a
Retriever, Kelly had insisted that she pitch in and help them to brainstorm. At
the same time, Matt had insisted that his partner Julian be present to help them
to research and form a plan.

Rounding out their band of assorted agents was Captain Will
Allcott. As the leader of Matt and Julian’s mingled police-Enforcer crew, Will
would not usually have come to a simple planning and strategy meeting. However,
this was an important case, and one they all knew they were in the final stages
of closing. Will had decided he wanted to sit in and offer any help and
suggestions he could.

And so, with a largely bare pantry, Kelly had insisted that
the men stay behind and follow up on researching a potential suspect while she
and Liv ran down for some much-needed food supplies.

Liv watched as Kelly unconsciously wrapped a tendril of her
shoulder-length, warm-brown bobbed hair behind her ear and repeated their order
for the third time. Liv rested her hand on her best friend’s arm to indicate
that enough was enough. The harried waitress cast her a grateful look and
scurried off to get their order moving.

“Matt really wanted that extra serving of pickles,” Kelly
protested. “I wasn’t harassing the poor girl. I just needed to make sure she
knew.”

“She knew, Kelly,” Liv replied calmly as she sipped the soda
she had nabbed from the fridge and added on to their order. “I can’t believe
you’ve gone on the straight and narrow. And moreover that you’re still able to
thieve and be on the side of the good guys. You always have had the best of
luck.”

“I really am lucky, Liv,” Kelly replied more quietly. Liv
looked at her best friend and could see that she honestly felt blessed to have
what she had discovered with Matt.

Liv smiled at her friend, genuinely pleased for her. “I
know. You’ve been so restless lately. I think you needed more of a challenge
than just what you were doing by yourself. Matt seems to have been able to
round you out so perfectly—I’m thrilled for you,” she finished as she reached
over and squeezed her best friend’s hand.

“Matt is everything I could ever want or need in a wizard,”
Kelly agreed. Liv caught the sly glance Kelly sent her way before she
continued. “And you seem to be getting along splendidly with Julian. I could
hardly breathe for all the sexual tension and crackling energy sparking between
you.”

Liv snorted and shot her friend a repressing look.

“Don’t you dare start,” she cautioned. “I have an absolutely
wonderful time flirting and teasing with Julian, but it’s not going to go
anywhere. Short of mildly flirting back, he hasn’t shown the remotest interest
in me. While I might be a bit of tease sometimes, I’m not going to throw myself
at some guy just because he has a body like a Greek god, a face a sculptor
would despair over ever doing justice to and piercing gray eyes that would make
a nun spread her legs and lift her habit.”

“You’re not a tease or easy,” Kelly stated firmly. “You love
to flirt and you’re a bit wicked, sure, but you make it sound as if you’re some
good-time party girl with a different wizard on her arm every other week. I can
count on
one hand
the number of men you’ve gone home with over the last
year. That doesn’t make you anything remotely resembling easy.”

Liv spent a moment thinking back over the last number of
months and with a bit of surprise had to acknowledge Kelly’s point.

“Damn,” she muttered as she took another sip of her soda. “I
must be getting old. Back in our twenties I
would
have had a different
guy every couple of weeks. What the hell happened to me?”

Even though she was only half serious in her question,
Kelly, ever the loyal friend, had a logical answer for her.

“You grew up, Liv.” She snickered and patted her shoulder as
if she were a kid who had just realized Santa Claus didn’t
really
come
down the chimney to deliver presents. Of course, Liv knew full well Santa
didn’t come down the chimney. As Kelly had insisted most vehemently when they
were both eight and starting to disbelieve, they both
knew
he picked the
lock on the window and came through that way, just like any sane wizard would.

Liv shook her head and threw a grateful look at her best
friend.

“I can’t possibly have grown up,” she insisted. “I’m not
even thirty-five yet. And everyone knows a witch is still in her prime long
after she reaches forty. It’s all this damn Retrieving and trying to keep up
with the old boys’ network. It’s eating my life away.”

“I keep telling you that you’re working too hard,” Kelly
protested, a little indignantly.

Liv winked at her. “All work and no play makes me a very
boring gal. I know. Maybe I should seduce the hell out of Julian just to keep
my hand in. I’d be doing us all a public service.”

“You’re already half in love with the man.” Kelly snorted.
“But if you need a reason to seduce him, you keep telling yourself that,
honey.”

Liv stuck her tongue out at Kelly and tried to ignore the
warm feeling she got in her chest whenever she thought about the gorgeous blond
man. Tall, slender and human, he was handsome enough that she would have given
him a second look—and quite possibly a third—no matter where she had met him.

But to turn up with his partner, Matt, at her office to ask
a few pointed questions about items Kelly had stolen and she had Retrieved had
certainly been one way to get her attention. The man had appeared soft-spoken
and calm, logical and rational and even a tad withdrawn, but she had instantly
been able to see below his surface.

He was a rock, emotionally and physically. Since that first
meeting she’d discreetly—she hoped—pumped both Matthias and Kelly for every
tiny scrap of information possible about the man. Always the back-up team
member, it was he whom they trusted to watch their rear. Last man in and last
man out, Julian Sherwyn was the anchor that held the crew together and made
sure they didn’t get too far in over their heads.

Ever the classic hothead, Liv was the sort of person to leap
in, guns blazing, knives drawn, ready to cut a swathe through everything and
anything. More often than not it got her into trouble
way
out of her
depth. She, more than almost anyone, understood the importance of someone you
could trust to yank you back by the collar and tell you it was time to cut your
losses and move on.

Liv had gone through dozens of Retrieval partners over the
years. As a group they tended to be impulsive, hotheaded and as stubborn as
mules. When two or more of them got together, things could be terribly off
course before anyone realized the situation was not as it seemed. She
understood the importance of the role Julian performed, and to a degree even
envied Matt and their team for having him there as such a steadying, dependable
presence.

Julian’s loyalty, brains and strength had an integral part
to play in their team. And deep in her most hidden, secret heart, Liv knew
beyond a shadow of a doubt that she craved and could love a man exactly like
him. They might flirt, and she might tease him mercilessly, but she knew this
was a man it would only take the faintest of pushes for her to fall irrevocably
in love with.

And her heart was not something she was prepared to blithely
offer and not have returned. It had been broken a few times. After the last
time, Liv had made the firm decision that she would no longer give it away to
anyone
whom she could not be positive would treasure it—and her—as she needed.

Her brain knew she shouldn’t be flirting with Julian.
Playing with the proverbial fire was something she could logically recognize
and understand was not the smartest of moves. But even knowing all that, she
just couldn’t help herself.

All too soon, she knew, he would return to his crew and she
would return to her macho, testosterone-riddled Retrievers’ office. She might
not be able to have an affair with Julian—she honestly didn’t think her heart
could survive letting him go after that—but she sure as shit could enjoy
flirting with him in the short period of time they
did
have left
together.

As Liv struggled to find a snappy comeback to Kelly’s
comment, the waitress came back with two large plastic bags full of their
orders. Liv felt immense relief at this and quickly took one of the bags. Kelly
took the other and together the two witches left the deli.

“I know you think it can’t work between you,” Kelly said as
they started the brief walk back to her apartment.

Liv sighed, but she’d known better than to think that the
subject had been dropped. Kelly had been her best friend since they were little
witches together, lost in a sea of newbies in the classroom. No one knew her
better.

“But I think you’re shooting yourself in the foot,” Kelly
continued. “I’m not bamboozled by your brave face, nor that cheeky vixen
attitude you put on like a protective mask. I know you’re looking for something
deep and real. I don’t know Julian nearly as well as I know Matt, but they’ve
been partners for months now. From what I can gather about the man, I think
Julian is exactly what you need. He’s reliable, loyal and unflappable. He’s the
sort of person you can be yourself with and never shock or upset him. I think
he’d be good for you.”

“You don’t think he’s after some little woman who’s prepared
to sit at home meekly waiting for him to come back from the big mission and
cook him a three-course sit-down meal?” Liv replied with surprise. In the past
she’d dated men who—on the surface at least—appeared exactly like Julian.

Most of them had been Enforcers of some description, or
working in some aspect of law enforcement relating to that, and despite their
enjoyment of a quick, heated fling, at heart they had been looking for someone
solid and placid who was happy to sit at home and tend to their kids. While
passion and erotic games had been well and good for a fling, they had neglected
to mention that for a
serious
relationship they were looking for
something entirely different.

“I think,” Kelly said after a moment’s thought, “that Julian
is interested in you. I also don’t think he’s the sort to play funny buggers
with a girl’s heart. If he is, I’ll happily help you to stomp a huge hole in
his chest.”

Liv snickered at the image that played in her head. At five
five, she was two inches shorter than Kelly, and while Liv was curvier than her
slender friend, neither of them would be winning an arm-wrestling match with
Julian. Or Matt, for that matter.

“And when Matt protests that we’re beating the shit out of
his partner?” Liv asked impishly, with a good idea of what Kelly’s reaction to
that would be. As expected, her friend waved a hand, carelessly brushing aside
the inquiry.

“If Julian toys with your heart and hurts you, Matt will
either understand my need for physical violence or he and I will be having a
very
serious discussion on the importance of loyalty to one’s friends,” she replied
instantly.

Liv laughed. “I hate to break it to you, but Julian
is
Matt’s friend,” she pointed out logically. She adored Kelly and loved the fact
that—much like herself—she often acted without necessarily thinking the
consequences through first.

“Hmm.” Kelly conceded the point, a frown marring her face.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to trust Matt’s judgment of Julian and what I have
already seen of him myself. I really don’t think he’s the sort to play with a
person—not with the energy and lust between you all but drowning the room. I
still think you should go for it.”

Liv sighed, torn and unsure which side of herself to
believe. She struggled internally as they entered the apartment building and
climbed up to Kelly’s unit. As they reached the second floor and walked down
the corridor to Kelly’s apartment, neither woman was breathing very heavily
despite the exertion of climbing the flights of stairs.