Dark Deceptions Read online

  “We were good together, and you know it.”

  The minute the words came out, she regretted them.

  “You don’t have to remind me, angel,” he said, taking a step closer, his gaze colliding with hers.

  She swallowed, steeling herself against the onslaught of memories. “I was talking about our business relationship.”

  “I wasn’t.” He moved closer, his breath warm against her cheek.

  “Nash, I—”

  His lips crushed down on hers. She opened her mouth, welcoming him inside, reveling in the feel of his tongue. It was take-no-prisoners contact, as much a battle of wills as an expression of emotion.

  The power of his touch almost more than she could bear…

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2010 by Dee Davis Oberwetter

  Excerpt from Dangerous Desires copyright © 2010 by Dee Davis Oberwetter. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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  Forever is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing.

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  First eBook Edition: April 2010

  ISBN: 978-0-446-55839-6

  Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  EPILOGUE

  A PREVIEW OF DANGEROUS DESIRES

  THE DISH

  To Kim, Amy, and Alex.

  Couldn’t have done it without you.

  Scíentia Potéstas Est… Knowledge Is Power.

  PROLOGUE

  Hotel Montague—Paris

  So do you think we’re ever going to feel like a normal couple?” Annie asked as they stumbled back into their hotel room, Nash’s hands cupping her breasts, his breath hot against her cheek.

  “Trust me, angel, normal is overrated.” He pushed her back against the wall, his thumbs rubbing heated circles through the soft silk of her halter top. “And anyway, I kind of like what we’ve got.”

  “Right,” she sighed, shivering as he kissed her neck. “Sex on the run.”

  “Well, it’s not like we have a lot of free time.” His mouth slanted over hers, his tongue sending fire lacing through her belly. It was always like this. Combustible. Their desire heightened by the possibility that each time could be the last.

  “Maybe we should adjourn to the bedroom?” She nodded toward the doorway of the suite, and then gasped as he pushed her skirt up around her thighs.

  “What’s wrong with right here? Right now?” He teased her with his fingers, the friction of satin against skin threatening instant explosion. She lifted her hips, but he pulled back, his slow smile taunting her. “Unless of course you’ve changed your mind?”

  “Not on your life.” She reached up to unbutton his shirt, her fingers tracing the scars that laced his chest. Twisted mementos of their life together. “Tell me what you want,” she whispered, her breathing labored.

  “You, Annie. All I ever want is you.”

  “So take me,” she taunted, anticipation coiling inside her, hot and heavy. Sometimes she thought maybe she wanted something more. Something that resembled normalcy—commitment. But not now. Not in this moment. Right now all she wanted was Nash.

  For a moment their passion stretched taut between them; and then, trembling with the sheer power of the feelings he evoked, she arched her back, welcoming his hands and mouth as he crushed her against him. This was what she craved. What she wanted. As long as she had Nash, she could endure anything.

  Anything.

  “The bed… I can’t… please.” She gasped the words as they stumbled backward, the need so intense now she thought she might die of it.

  His dark eyes reflecting her passion, Nash swung her up into his arms and in two strides they were through the door and on the bed, the cool cotton sheets a counterpoint to the heat that pulsed between them.

  Annie pressed against him, her eyes riveted for a moment on the mirror across from the bed and the image of their interlocked bodies moving in tandem. Two shattered souls desperately seeking release. She sighed, and then froze as something else in the mirror moved.

  A shadow detached itself from the wall, and Annie dug her nails into Nash’s back, instinct and training overriding passion in an instant. Nash’s muscles tightened in response, and moving with a precision gained from years of working together, they sprang apart, a bullet smashing into the headboard between them. Annie rolled to the floor, reaching for the gun she kept strapped to her thigh. In her ardent haste she hadn’t had time to remove her weapon.

  But Nash had. He’d thrown his on the table as he’d carried her to bed.

  Damn it all to hell.

  From her vantage point beside the bed, she couldn’t see Nash or their assailant. Which meant she needed to move. Popping up to fire a round in the direction of the shadow, she rolled out from the bed, diving for cover behind a chair as a bullet shattered a lamp just above her head.

  Nash was cornered between the bed and the wall, the bed giving protection, at least for the moment, but the gunman had the advantage. He stood between them and the door, with a large wardrobe to his left blocking her from taking a clear shot.

  “Well, isn’t this a pickle,” their assailant said, his accent a smooth blend of American and French. She should have known. Adrian Benoit. They’d only just been in his apartment. Looked like he was returning the favor.

  “Seems we’ve got ourselves a Mexican standoff,” he drawled.

  “Except that none of us are Mexican,” Nash quipped. She could see him now reflected in the mirror. And when he smiled, she realized he could see her as well. Which meant he had a plan.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Benoit continued. “I’ve clearly got the advantage.”

  “So what, you want us to come out with our hands up?” Nash queried, nodding almost imperceptibly toward his gun lying on the table about five feet in front of her.

  “It would certainly make things easier. But what I really want are the files you stole from my computer.”

  “And then you’ll let us go? Right. And I’ve got some swampland…” Nash’s laugh was harsh as he tipped his head slightly, signaling for her to stand ready. Annie nodded, already shifting her position.

  “Well now, there wouldn’t be any fun in letting you live, would there?” Benoit responded, anger clouding his voice.

  Annie drew a breath, rolled out from behind the chair, fired once, and then dove for the table, her hand closing aro
und the butt of Nash’s gun. “Two o’clock,” she yelled, as she chunked the weapon overhand toward Nash, still shooting in Benoit’s direction in an attempt to provide some modicum of cover. Her ploy worked, Benoit turning to return fire as Nash emerged from behind the bed in a flying leap, intercepting the gun as it tumbled through the air.

  Two seconds later and it was over. Benoit lay dead in a pool of his own blood.

  “Are you all right?” Nash asked, pushing to his feet.

  “I’m fine,” she said as they met halfway, Nash’s arms closing around her.

  “You sure?” He ran his hands down her now trembling body, double-checking to ascertain if she’d told him the truth.

  “Really. He didn’t hurt me. You were the one without the gun.”

  “Evened the odds.” He shrugged, his voice buoyed by adrenaline, his smile edged with a ruthlessness that had kept him alive more times than she cared to remember. “So where were we?”

  “I think that ship has sailed,” she said, her gaze falling on the body.

  “I suppose you’re right,” Nash said, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “We’ve got to get out of here before someone starts asking questions. Benoit was using a silencer. But we weren’t.”

  “I’ll start wiping things down.” She pulled away and reached for a pair of gloves, falling effortlessly into a pattern they’d perfected over countless operations.

  “So what was it you said earlier?” Nash called from across the room where he was packing their gear, his tone teasing, the fact that they’d just survived death—again—already an afterthought. “Something about wondering if we’d ever be a normal couple?”

  Despite the gravity of the situation, Annie smiled. She loved this man. With every ounce of her being. And the cold hard truth was that she wouldn’t change a single thing about their life. “I think,” she said, reaching down to retrieve Benoit’s gun, “that I just answered my own question.”

  CHAPTER 1

  Island off the coast of Southeast Asia—eight years later

  Get the boats under cover,” Nash Brennon said, keeping his voice low as he dragged one of the dinghies behind a pile of moss-covered rocks. “We should have about five minutes until the perimeter guard make their way back here. Everyone know their assignment?”

  It was a rhetorical question. Although sometimes personnel varied, for the most part A-Tac members had been working together for years, and they’d certainly had operations far more difficult than this one. Only difference here was that their commander, Avery Solomon, wasn’t present. The big man was in Washington. Some top brass bullshit. Which meant Nash was in charge.

  It wasn’t that he hadn’t the experience. Trained in covert operations, he was an admitted adrenaline junkie. He’d started his career as an operative in Europe��with Annie. But then after a particularly difficult mission she’d deserted him. Disappeared. Almost as if she’d never existed.

  He pushed the memories away. He’d moved on. To A-Tac. The CIA’s most elite black ops unit. Hell of a step up from European operative. He didn’t need Annie. He didn’t need anyone. And right now he had a mission, and he couldn’t afford a fuckup.

  “Can everyone hear me?” Emmett Walsh asked, his voice crackling as Nash’s earpiece sprang to life.

  “Yeah, like a freakin’ bullhorn,” Drake Flynn said with a wince. The com system was new. Emmett’s design. And even though the man was a genius when it came to playing connect the operatives, that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be hiccups. “Can you turn the damn thing down?”

  “The controls are right here,” Tyler said, tapping her ear with a grin as she looked up from a backpack full of explosives. Tyler was Nash’s second in command for the mission. An army-trained demolitions expert, she had yet to meet a building she couldn’t destroy. And she’d saved their asses on more than one occasion, disarming incendiary devices most people would never even know existed.

  “I’m patching Jason through now,” Emmett said. Jason Lawton, along with Hannah Marshall, served as long-distance eyes and ears for the team. Tonight that meant keeping watch over the operation from Sunderland in New York, which, at the moment, seemed a hell of a long way away. But at least, thanks to a couple of strategically placed satellites, they had the benefit of Jason and Hannah’s constant vigilance.

  “You’ve got two more minutes,” Jason intoned, as usual cutting right to the chase. “I’m showing two hostiles—both armed and ready to rumble.”

  “Always good to have big brother watching.” Nash laughed, signaling the team to move out. “We’re heading east. Target ETA ten minutes.”

  The operation was simple in conception. Destroy a communications array and its accompanying computer systems. The property of an Asian terrorist group known as the Red Sword, the array was used to coordinate organizational efforts within the region as well as operations abroad. Taking it out would severely cripple if not completely destroy enemy operations.

  Unfortunately, the island’s heavy jungle undergrowth impeded movement, rendering the straight line between points A and B anything but. The moisture-laden air was heavy and oppressive, making every breath an effort. The team had fanned out, Nash on point, Drake keeping back, making sure they weren’t being followed. Even with Jason and Hannah watching over them, Nash didn’t like taking chances. And there was no one he’d rather have at his back than Drake Flynn.

  A specialist in CIA extractions, Drake had been with the team just over a year. Rumor had it that before A-Tac he’d been with one of the CIA’s D units. Operations even more off the books than A-Tac. Not that the man ever talked about any of it. Hell, Drake didn’t talk seriously about much of anything. But he got the job done, and at the end of the day, that’s all that really mattered.

  Something rustled in the bushes next to him, and Nash signaled the others as he spun, gun ready. But it was only a bird, eyes glowing red in the moonlight. Focusing again on the barely discernible trail, he moved forward, careful to keep Tyler flanking him on the left. She nodded toward an opening in the trees, and together they moved forward, Emmett following a pace or so behind on the right, with Drake still bringing up the rear.

  The jungle opened out on cleared space below them. Tall grass mixed in with stands of bamboo and a few straggling trees led up to a concrete wall enclosing four buildings. Off to the left, separated from the rest of the compound by about fifty yards, sat the array. It was small—just three dishes—but Nash had learned long ago that small packages could be just as lethal as larger ones, and the members of Red Sword weren’t prone to wasting time with empty platitudes. They were far more interested in terrorizing innocents under the guise of some perverted cosmic justice.

  Only not for much longer.

  “What have we got?” Nash whispered as he dropped to his stomach, using infrared glasses to scan the area below. “Any surprises?”

  “Everything looks pretty much as we expected,” Drake’s voice echoed in his ear. “You can see the surveillance camera mounted above the wall near the entrance. And if our intel holds true there should be additional units every fifty feet or so.”

  “With a blind corner to the southwest in the back, thanks to an uprooted jackfruit tree,” Emmett added.

  “What about the array?” Nash frowned as he studied the compound. He’d seen satellite photos, and rendered maps, but there was nothing to beat firsthand observation.

  “Three sixteen-foot dishes on machined counterbalanced mounts,” Tyler said, her goggles trained on the array. “Should be easy enough to destroy. I’ve just got to get close enough to rig the explosives.”

  “Don’t worry, Nash and I will get you in,” Drake assured. “Piece of cake.”

  “Maybe not so much so,” Jason said, his tone grim. “I’m showing at least eight hostiles inside the compound.”

  “Son of a bitch. There were only supposed to be two.”

  “Sorry,” Hannah Marshall said, her voice cracking in transmission as she took the com-link from Jas
on. “Looks like some kind of an impromptu meeting. I’ve got three boats moored off the pier. No way we could have predicted this.”

  “So what do we do now?” Jason asked, patching through another com-link. “Abort?”

  “Depends on where this little meeting is taking place,” Nash said, sorting through the alternatives. “Can you verify location?”

  “Yeah. Hang on,” Jason said, his voice moving away as he shuffled through something on the other end. “I’ve got five in the building farthest north. And two more in the guardhouse at the entrance.”

  “And the eighth?” Drake barked.

  “Give me a minute. He’s moving.” Silence stretched, tension building. “Looks like he’s heading back to the north building.”

  “Can you confirm the location of the communications computers?”

  “Little building closest to the array,” Hannah said, her voice coming in on a whisper. “The one without windows.”

  “I see it.” Nash nodded, even though she was thousands of miles away. “So if our hostiles will just stay put we ought to be able to get in and out without notice.”

  “And if they don’t—well, that will only make it more of a challenge.”

  “This isn’t a game, Drake.” Emmett’s tone bordered on harsh.

  “Hell if it isn’t.” There was laughter in his friend’s voice, and despite himself, Nash smiled. Nothing wrong with kicking a little Red Sword ass.

  “All right then, we’re agreed. We’re going in.”

  “We’ll watch your back,” Jason said.

  “I don’t know…” Hannah started, only to be cut off by Tyler.

  “No guts, no glory.”

  “It’s not up for discussion,” Nash said, his tone brooking no argument. “We’re going in. But first we wait for the perimeter guard to pass. If I’m marking it right, they should be showing up about now.” As if to underscore his words a jeep with two armed men turned the corner onto the rutted road that ran in front of the compound. It continued as the guards drove in front of the wall, slowing momentarily at the gate and then proceeding south. At the corner, the vehicle turned into the jungle, presumably heading back toward the beach and the outer edge of the island.