Troublemaker (31 page)

When he was on the job, the physical and skill training was almost nonstop. You didn't learn how to shoot and keep the same level of skill without constant practice. You didn't swim fifteen miles, not get in the water for three months, and assume you could still swim the same distance. Staying on top in skill and condition required constant training. Now that he knew about the lake, he intended to be in it almost every day, preferably with Bo here to keep an eye out because even expert swimmers could get in trouble. On the job, he didn't bat an eye at always having a teammate to back him up, but part of him rebelled at the idea of Bo possibly putting herself at risk to help him if he cramped up or something like that.

His reluctance to endanger her, even in theory, said something. He'd worked with women before and not once worried about them because they were women; he worried about the welfare of his team in general. Of course, they'd been professionals who knew the possibilities and odds. Bo wasn't in his line of work; she was one of the ones he served to protect.

He turned his head to look at her, sleeping by his side with her hand just touching him. That light touch made his chest feel too full to hold his heart; the realization was startling, and a little bit panic-making. Damn. Maybe he'd been telling the truth when he'd told Kyle he was in love with her, though he wasn't sure he knew exactly what love was or what it felt like. He liked her; he liked her probably more—no,
definitely
more—than he'd ever liked any other woman. He'd been hot for a particular woman, sure, but hot for and liking were two different things and the way they combined now knocked him for a loop.

He'd been engaged, but he hadn't been in love. He'd even been vaguely relieved when things had gone off the rails, which said a lot. Still, he wasn't a navel-gazer and he'd never spent a lot of time thinking about what had gone wrong or what he wanted in a woman, or if he would ever truly want to spend the rest of his life with one particular woman. He had the GO-Teams for money and excitement and purpose, he had female companionship when he wanted it, and sex when that was all he wanted. If anyone had asked, he'd have said that wasn't a bad way for a man to live.

Except—now there was Bo, and it mattered. All of it. If he wanted sex—hell to the yeah—he wanted it to be with her. If he wanted companionship, he wanted it with her. He liked the routine of her orderly house, the lack of fussiness with which she met life. She didn't do dramatics, she held it together, she coped. That was why her devastation at almost losing Tricks had hit him so hard. He'd have done anything to take that look out of her eyes. He hadn't been certain she wouldn't kick his ass out of her bed, considering how hard she'd been working to keep him at a distance, but instead she had turned to him so . . . well, hell,
sweetly
was the only word he could come up with to describe it. The woman was turning him into a fucking poet.

Okay, he could deal with that—as long as he got her again.

Today . . . something was different today. She was softer, more relaxed, more content. If last night had been the cause, then he'd have a great time keeping that look of contentment there, but his ego wasn't big enough for him to assume his dick was a magic cure-all. Whatever was going on with her, it was something she'd worked out for herself, and whether or not she'd ever tell him about that “something” was up in the air.

That was another thing: she hadn't wanted to rehash what had happened last night, hadn't gone over every detail fretting about what meant what. In his experience, women did, and it drove him nuts. Fucking meant fucking. End of story. But not Bo; she hadn't brought it up at all, which had forced him to do it.

Maybe it all meant something.

He wasn't worried about figuring things out; he had time. Correction: He hoped he had time. He hadn't heard from Axel except that one letter, but truthfully that had been one letter more than he'd expected. He had no way of pointing Axel in any direction, so they had to wait for the bad actors to make a move—and so far they were sitting tight. Why wouldn't they? Unless they knew he'd remembered whatever it was he didn't remember, they had nothing to lose by waiting. They wouldn't move until they had to move, which left him and Axel sitting on their thumbs.

What if he got a call from Axel tomorrow that the trap had been sprung, the assholes caught, and he should report back to the teams ASAP? For the first time ever, he didn't want to go. He wanted to have more time with Bo.

If Axel knew, he'd shit bricks. Despite some logical reasons for sending Morgan to recuperate at Bo's, mostly he'd done it out of spite, and Morgan knew it. That was Axel. He was mean and immature and vindictive to everyone he perceived as being against him, which was balanced by being very good at his job and almost pathologically loyal to “his” men. He would never have sent Morgan here if he'd had any inkling that it might cost him one of his team leaders.

His own thought startled Morgan. Would he leave the GO-Teams to be with Bo? Would he have to? Some of the team members were married, and they made it work. Some of them got married and then divorced, but didn't that happen to people no matter what kind of job they had?

Okay, double fuck, was he really thinking what he was thinking?

He looked at her sleeping face, the wide mouth relaxed and soft, her dark lashes fans beneath those big dark eyes that were closed now, but he wouldn't be a bit surprised if she opened them and smiled at him. And if she did, he knew what his reaction would be. He'd have her naked in no time, and Tricks would probably be giving them that reproachful look again.

Triple fuck, since he
was
thinking what he was thinking, he had a big decision to make: did he come clean about Axel's plan to set up him as bait that could backfire and draw some real danger here, or did he hope it never came to that? The last option was the easiest, but it was probably the stupidest.

It was his call, and he had to make it.

W
HEN BO WOKE UP, SHE GAVE A LITTLE HUM OF RELAXED
contentment, stretched, then sat up and raided the cooler for a bottle of water. As she twisted the cap off, she asked Morgan, who was lying with his arms crossed behind his head, “How long did I sleep?”

“About an hour.” His mouth quirked and his eyes glinted with humor. “You don't snore, and I didn't see you drool, but I can't rule that out.”

“Everyone drools,” she replied comfortably and took a deep drink of water. “Do you snore?” She stretched to get Tricks's water bowl and poured some water into it because Tricks had raised her head at Bo's voice, signaling that her nap was at an end too. Tricks immediately got to her feet and came over for a drink.

“Depends.” He ran his hand down Tricks's back. “If I'm on a mission, no, probably because I never go into really deep sleep. But when I get home after crossing so many time zones that I don't know what day it is, I definitely snore.”

“Huh. I guess snoring could be dangerous when you're on a mission.” She'd never thought of snoring in those terms before; how odd and disturbing and a little sad that something so human could, under the conditions he considered normal, be a threat to his life.

“Depends on where we are. Sometimes we're in a safe house in a city, so snoring isn't a big deal.”

“Can you tell me what you do?”

“Some of it. Most of it is classified.” He squinted at the lake as if considering what to say, how much he
could
say. “I'm the leader of a GO-Team. GO stands for global offensive; we get sent wherever we're needed, whether it's legal or not, which is the main reason it's classified. Maybe we have to defuse a developing situation, take a power player out of action, things like that. Don't ever Google anything I'm telling you or it could land you—and me—in a world of shit. But mostly you.”

“Promise.” She didn't ask what taking someone “out of action” entailed, but she had a good guess, and Googling anything about the GO-Teams would be an act of idiocy.

That was what his life was like, where the least thing could trigger extreme action and reaction. She couldn't imagine the pressure and stress, though probably every person who was in that line of work was an adrenaline junkie, which meant the man beside her likely was too. To test that theory she asked, “Do you jump out of planes?”

“If I have to. Not my favorite thing.”

That was kind of reassuring; she'd always wondered what brain fart drove people to parachute for pleasure.

She thought of something else. “Set explosives?”

“Got an expert who does that, but I know how.”

“Ride motorcycles?”

“
Hell
no! Those fuckers'll kill you.”

His vehemence made her burst out laughing. “And those other things won't? And, uh, are you forgetting why you're here in the first place?”

He scratched his nose. “I guess it depends on what you're used to.” Shrewdly he added, “If you're trying to find out if I like the action, the answer is: to some extent. It can be a hell of a lot of fun, kicking ass and blowing shit up. Mostly I like knowing that what I do makes a difference, but I like a lot of things about being stateside too. Plumbing that works. The food. We have the best junk food, you know that?”

He was definitely a connoisseur of junk food; his fondness for it approached fervor. “Speaking of junk food, we have Oreos.”

“Bring 'em on.”

Alerted by the rustling of the package, Tricks ran over to check out the cookies, but they were a no-no for her. Bo distracted her with a doggy treat, a nice edible chew bone. Tricks snatched the bone and returned to her towel to devote herself to its destruction. Morgan wolfed down a couple of cookies and chased them with a beer, then said, “We need to talk.”

His tone, his expression, both made her uneasy. She looked down at her cookie to hide her foreboding. Experience told her conversations that began this way were never good; that was how her ex-husband had begun his explanation of how he needed more than she could provide, how a stepfather or two had said good-bye, how her mother had announced her first remarriage. Was now when Morgan told her not to get too attached, that anything they had was temporary and he'd be going back to his exciting job when the time came? She knew that; he didn't have to spell it out. And knowing it was one thing, but she didn't want to
hear
it, she didn't want him to say, “We'll have a good time, baby, but then it's
adios.”

“
No, we don't,” she said briskly. “I get it.”

“Trust me,” he growled. “You don't.”

She rolled her eyes. “So this isn't the part where you tell me you'll be leaving—”

“I want to—”

“—and that's good because I really don't want to hear it!” she ended, the words clipped off hard and flat.

“Bo. Shut up.”

At his hard tone she looked up, her eyes flashing with temper, but he seized her by the back of the neck and kissed her, his mouth hungry and fierce. For a second she held herself stiff, not responding, but he wasn't having any of that and dragged her across him so her butt was on the quilt between his thighs and her legs were draped over his. He tilted her head back and kissed her until she softened a bit; she still didn't kiss him back, but she was accepting his mouth. His hand delved under her shirt and closed over her breast, deftly pinching her nipple until it formed a
tight bud, the sensation sharp but not quite painful. Pleasure arrowed straight down between her legs, making her tighten and clench as if he were inside her, damn him.

She didn't want to flash back to how all of that had felt, but she couldn't stop the memory or her response. She had wanted him all day—not a gnawing need but a constant low heat. She had wanted to touch him, to feel his weight pressing her down, the heavy sensation of him pushing between her legs and into her. She hadn't indulged because waiting was its own sort of perverse pleasure, feeling the craving slowly grow. She liked the anticipation, the knowledge that when they finally came together again the pleasure would be more intense for the waiting.

And the way he was kissing her now . . . She began to think that perhaps the “This is temporary” talk hadn't been on his mind after all. His mouth was too hungry, his touch too . . . possessive? She'd never had anyone feel possessive of her before, so she wasn't certain.

She bit his lip and murmured, “Don't tell me to shut up,” mainly because she didn't want him thinking he could get away with it.

He drew back a little to look down at her, his eyelids heavy and color deepening the sun bronze on his cheeks. “If I do, will you bite me again?” he asked, and bent to nuzzle her temple.

“You bet.”

“Shut up.”

The air between them changed and sizzled. She laughed and bit him, and ended up flat on her back with her shirt jerked up and his mouth clamped over her nipple. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, sinking and floating in the sharp, prickling sensation that pulled at her. He slid his hand between her legs and cupped her through her jeans, rubbing the heel of his palm against her clitoris. Bo's eyes flared open and she stared up at the bits of blue sky she could see through the gently swaying tree limbs. Her gaze was unfocused because all of her attention was focused inward, on her body and what he was doing.
I'm going to come,
she thought dimly, then she said it, and then she did it.

He fought her out of her jeans while she was mostly comatose, unable to help him because her body was limp and heavy and still faintly
pulsing. He didn't get her shirt off, but it was shoved up under her arms anyway. He hooked his hands under her thighs and pulled her legs up and apart, settling solidly between them. The light breeze briefly cooled her hot damp flesh, then he was there, reaching between them to set the thick head of his penis against her opening and stretching her as he slowly pushed inside. He made a rough sound deep in his throat as he lifted her legs once more so he could seat himself as deeply as possible. Bo roused enough to wind her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his back, and held on as he began thrusting.

He didn't take long, about a minute, but it was a tumultuous minute. The heavy push and drag of his shaft inside her just did it for her, so fast and so hard that within that minute she was feeling the coil of desire again. His orgasm hit and he bucked and shuddered through it, then slowly sank down on her until she was bearing his entire weight. Almost immediately he struggled up onto his forearms so she could breathe, but his head hung down so his forehead rested against hers. “You kill me,” he muttered almost soundlessly. “Bo.”

Was that good? she wondered woozily, because he made her feel drunk, drunk on pleasure, on him. She smoothed her hands up and down his sweaty back, either to soothe him or to satisfy her own need to touch him. Maybe the two were mixed together; maybe somewhere along the line her needs and his had stopped being so defined and separate.

When they could manage the effort, silently they pulled apart and cleaned up with the napkins she'd brought, and some of the water. Morgan gave a low growl of laughter because Tricks had turned her back on them while she finished off her chew bone. When they were dressed again—halfway, at least; she had on her shirt and underwear, and he had on his jeans—he pulled her to sit between his drawn-up legs and wrapped his arms around her. “Now,” he said. “We talk. I have something serious to tell you, about me being here.”

She thought about that a minute. “Will I like it?”

“Probably not. But if you and I are going to do this thing we've got going, then I'm going to be straight with you. You might kick my ass to the curb, but that's a chance I have to take.”

Okay, so it definitely wasn't a don't-get-serious-because-I-have-one-foot-out-the-door talk. Bo leaned her head back against his shoulder, laid her arms on top of his where they wrapped around her stomach. Her mind raced, trying to think what could be so dicey about his situation here, which led her immediately to Axel. “Damn it!” she said irritably. “I knew I should have been more suspicious of Axel. He's behind this, right?”

“Mostly right. I have my share of responsibility. The deal is this: what he told you was correct, as far as it goes—”

“But, because he's Axel, he didn't travel too far down the truth road, did he?” She felt like growling. Any time Axel was involved, her irritation level shot through the roof. She didn't like him, didn't trust him, and so far her instincts had been dead on the money.

Morgan grunted. “He has other priorities, and they're damn important priorities. Likely he chose to send me to you partly out of spite, because that's Axel. But he had other criteria for choosing you, such as the relative isolation of the town, the small population that would make it easy to spot strangers, the relatively short distance to D.C. He was setting a trap.”

Bo absorbed that, rapidly sorting through and discarding scenarios. She wasn't schooled in subterfuge, but she was intelligent and observant, and this additional information clicked in a way Axel's original argument hadn't. Oh, she'd been swayed—by Morgan's condition, by the money Axel had offered, by the surface logic of what he'd said. The logic even went deeper than one layer because of the probability that their organization had been compromised from the inside. And yet . . . she should have been more suspicious.

She asked the most important question first: “Is it possible anyone in town could be in danger or hurt?” That had been one of her original concerns, and she'd been fool enough to believe Axel when he'd denied it. The town and the people in it were her responsibility; more than that, the people were her friends. If anything happened to any one of them—she didn't know if she'd be able to get past that. On the one hand she appreciated that Morgan was telling her the truth, but on the other
hand this was so potentially big that she didn't know if she'd be able to handle it. How ironic that she'd been so worried he might leave, and now she might
make
him leave. But she would hear him out, and she wouldn't make a hasty decision. There were a lot of things to consider, circumstances to weigh.

He sighed and rested his chin on top of her head. “My guess? Almost zero. But anything is possible. We don't know who we're dealing with. The idea was to hide me away in a place that was safe but not inaccessible, leak info that I'm recovering my memory, and trigger the bad actors into making another hack—but this time with a trigger on the information so we'd know who was doing the hack.”

“And if that fails, Hamrickville is small enough, isolated enough, that it would be easy for us to spot an outsider,” she finished. “There's a flaw in that, though; the town is small, but it's also big enough that I don't know everyone, or even have a good idea who at least half the population is. It's four thousand people; a stranger wouldn't necessarily stand out.” People who lived in large cities seemed to think everyone in a small town knew everyone else, but that just wasn't so.

“But there aren't a lot of roads coming to Hamrickville, so intercepting someone would be more feasible than if you were on an interstate. Hamrickville was a secondary consideration, and a convenient one. Axel's money was on catching the hacker and following the Judas twig all the way back to the Judas tree.”

“Except nothing has happened, despite his ‘leaks.'” Normally she loved for things to be calm; drama wasn't in her wheelhouse. But in this instance, she thought her reaction should be more . . . forceful, more angry, yet going off half-cocked wasn't her way. She was angry, yes—at Axel. He was a champion asshole. He hadn't turned a hair at possibly endangering the townsfolk, or herself, come to that. His sole consideration was finding and eliminating the threat to the GO-Teams specifically and to Morgan as a . . . well, Morgan had said it perfectly himself: he was a secondary consideration. Maybe that was why she wasn't throwing a total fit at Morgan, why she wasn't screaming and telling him to go screw himself the next time he got a hard-on.