06 Double Danger Read online

  Unerringly his fingers found the nub that marked the center of her desire. He circled it lazily, still sucking at her breast, her hair draped around his head like a curtain.

  Then with a final kiss, he shifted back to her mouth, two fingers sliding deep inside her, his tongue mimicking the rhythm. He fed on her pleasure, relishing the movement of her body against his as she strove to find release.

  His mouth and hands possessed her, and she cried in frustration when he released her, but he just smiled, his eyes locked with hers as he knelt beside the table, pulling off the rest of her clothes, and then pushing her knees open. Her eyes widened, but then, with a sigh, she leaned back to brace herself on her elbows.

  He lifted her left leg over his shoulder and softly kissed the tender skin of her inner thigh. With a soft cry, she reached for him, urging him forward.

  She tasted both sweet and salty, and he relished the power he felt in taking her to the edge of the precipice. He drove his tongue deep inside her, feeling her contract against him. He tasted her, drinking her in, his hands caressing her as his tongue moved in and out, driving her higher and higher until she lifted off the table, crying his name.

  He stood then, gathering her trembling body in his arms, realizing that he, too, was shivering. But hers was from climax, his was from white-hot need. She rained kisses on his face as he carried her into the bedroom, her body rubbing tantalizingly against his erection as they moved.

  He released her, letting her body slide against his. She stood for a moment, then softly smiled, holding out her hand, the gesture a reflection of the night before—their roles reversed now—the invitation hers.

  He reached for her, and she closed the distance between them, pulling his pants from his hips, her fingers still trembling. He covered her hand with his. “You’re sure?” he asked, repeating his earlier question, even as his mind rebelled against the possibility that she’d say no.

  “From here on out,” she whispered, reaching up to brush her lips against his. “Nothing between us but honesty.” It was a new beginning. A covenant. And with a groan, he pulled her hard against him, accepting what she offered, raising the ante with the fervor of his kiss.

  They backed farther into the room, arms locked around each other, her hands sliding along the muscles of his chest, the contact setting his synapses on fire. She teased him then, running her tongue along the edge of his nipple, laughing softly when it tightened under her touch. Then she dropped her hand, stroking first the ridge of his stomach and then the hard length of his penis, squeezing and stroking in a way that threatened to unman him on the spot.

  “Jesus, Jillian.” The words ripped out of him on a sigh.

  And she laughed, tightening her hold, the strokes longer now, faster. And he pulled away, swinging her into his arms again, his mouth slanting over hers for a kiss.

  He reached the bed, and they fell back against the sheets, legs tangling together, as she straddled him. She leaned down, her hair tickling his neck, her lips caressing the rough beginnings of his beard. Then she was everywhere, kissing and exploring, leaving nothing untouched, unloved. She paused when she reached his scar, and, without meaning to, he held his breath. Then she reached out to tenderly stroke the injured muscle, bending down to press her lips against it, her touch almost reverent.

  Trembling with the sheer power of the feelings she evoked, he rolled over, pinning her beneath him, wanting nothing more than to feel himself deep within her heat. Catching her gaze, he waited, poised above her. And she nodded, opening to him, and with one swift move, he buried himself deep inside her, the contact beyond all imagination.

  There was passion reflected in the depths of her eyes, passion and something else, something so tender it almost took his breath away. Slowly, almost languorously at first, he began to move, each slow thrust tormenting and delighting them both.

  With a moan, she arched upward, driving him deeper, the storm reaching a crescendo. They moved together faster and harder, each stroke ratcheting them higher.

  Simon closed his eyes and let himself go, surrendering to the moment. Together they moved in a sensual spiral, higher and higher, until they found release, the climax more amazing than anything he’d ever believed possible.

  And in that moment of ecstasy, he held on to the fact that it was his name she called, his body she clung to—his soul she held in her hands.

  Simon sat in front of the fireplace, wondering if Avery’s well-stocked safe house ran to a pile of wood. Then rejected the idea as too much trouble. Instead, he poured himself another glass of whiskey. It was late and dark, the moon having set hours ago. He’d come downstairs to think. Needing the space. Trying to absorb everything that Jillian had told him. While it might not affect the way he felt about her, it totally changed everything he knew to be true. Ryan had been his best friend, and yet, clearly, he’d never known the man. Which didn’t say a lot for his powers of observation.

  Jillian had been crying out for help, and he hadn’t seen a thing. In fact, he had gone to extremes to avoid being alone with her. His pride had left her vulnerable in a way he would never have imagined.

  And Ryan. Who the hell had he really been? Certainly not the hero everyone was making him out to be. And yet, even as he had the thought, Simon knew that it was more complicated than that. But if Ryan had hurt Jillian then there was no forgiving the man. Which was a stupid thought. Ryan was dead. What the hell did he care if Simon forgave him?

  Which, for a moment, illustrated the precarious feelings Jillian had been dealing with for years. And his heart ached for her, some part of him wanting nothing more than to erase all the pain. But he knew that it wasn’t possible. So he was sitting here, feeling impotent. No matter the reason, he’d lost a friend tonight. A man he’d thought he’d known.

  Then, to top it all off, there were his feelings for Jillian. Tonight when they’d made love, it was different from before. The connection stronger, deeper than he’d ever imagined possible. And yet, she’d made it more than clear that she wasn’t ready for a relationship. Hell, she might never be ready. Especially with him. After all, he, more than anyone, stood as a reminder of the past.

  Not to mention the fact that he lived life straddling the line between good and evil. Fighting to keep the world a safer place. It sounded noble. But it wasn’t. The truth was that he was an adrenaline jockey. A man who loved living on the edge. And Jillian had spent every day with the fallout from that kind of life.

  God, it was screwed up.

  Or maybe he was just making it so. Relationships had never been his strong point. If nothing else his past with Jillian proved the point.

  He drained the glass and started to reach for the bottle to pour some more.

  “I see you’re having trouble sleeping, too,” Avery said, his big body filling the doorway of the parlor. “Want some company?”

  “Sure. Grab a drink.” He waved at the bottle on the table in front of him. “I was just about to have another.”

  “Anything particular on your mind?” Avery asked, as he poured for them, then handed Simon his glass. “I know you well enough to know that you’re not the type of man to lose sleep over a mission. So what gives?”

  “What would you do if you discovered someone you thought of as a friend, someone you thought you really knew, was in fact something else altogether? It changes everything.”

  “And nothing,” Avery said, with a shrug, his words sounding cryptic. “You know that we had a mole inside A-Tac.”

  Simon nodded, taking a sip from his glass, the whiskey bitter against his throat. “He killed another team member. Hannah’s friend. Right?”

  “Yeah. But the hard part of it all was that he was our friend, too. My friend. I cared about him every bit as much as I did Jason.” Avery paused, swirling the golden liquid in his glass. “So when he betrayed us, it was almost impossible to accept. Either we’d all been fools. Or he wasn’t the villain he seemed.”

  “So how did you deal with the cont
radiction?”

  “Well, on the surface, there was no question that he’d become the bad guy. Hell, he murdered Jason.”

  “Which made you fools,” he stated, not really liking the direction the conversation was going.

  Avery smiled. “In part, I suppose. But as with most things, the answer isn’t black or white. It lies in the middle somewhere. And it was only when I allowed myself to accept both sides of Emmett—the part that had been my friend and the part of him that turned against us—that I was able to come to terms with it. The Emmett I knew wasn’t the same man who betrayed his friends. Somewhere along the line, something changed. It doesn’t make what he did all right, but it makes it easier to live with.”

  “So you’ve forgiven him?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not that big a man,” Avery said, twirling the gold ring he wore on his little finger. “But I’m working on it. And you should, too. What happened between Ryan and Jillian wasn’t your fault.”

  “How did you…” He trailed off, not sure that he was really surprised. It wasn’t the first time Avery had seemed to be omniscient.

  “When someone comes into the unit, I make it a point to know as much about them as possible. Jillian has done a good job of keeping her private life just that. But I can be pretty determined when I have to be. Maybe that’s the lesson I learned from what happened with Emmett.”

  “Or maybe sometimes even you can’t know everything.” Simon took another sip, staring down into the bottom of the glass. “I just don’t know how to process it all, you know? I thought I knew Ryan so well. How can I have missed something so monumental?”

  “We see what we want to see.”

  “Only now, she’s back in my life, and everything I thought was true turns out to have been a lie. Finally it’s my goddamned turn with her, but things are so fucked up I don’t know if it’ll ever be the right time. He hurt her, Avery, and I just stuck my head in the sand.”

  “Did you know it was happening, Simon?” Avery asked, his big voice gentle.

  “No. Of course not. If I had, I would have stopped Ryan. Taken her away. I don’t know—done something.”

  “Well, then you don’t have anything to feel guilty about. You weren’t there. You didn’t know. And you just said that you’d have done something if you did.”

  “But she tried to tell me, and I blew her off.” God, he sounded like a total jerk.

  “It isn’t the same. You couldn’t have known.”

  “But what if it’s too late?” he asked, realizing that he was terrified that the words were true. “What if it’s all just too much?”

  “Then you’ll have to learn to live with it. But from what I’ve seen, that’s not what Jillian’s feeling at all.”

  “I don’t know,” Simon said. “Maybe I’m the one who needs the space. To sort all of this out. To figure out how I really feel in light of what’s happened. It’s not like I was looking for a relationship. It just sort of fell in my lap.”

  Avery absently turned the ring on his finger again. “I didn’t have very long with my wife, Simon. We’d only been married a few months when she was killed. And I’d give anything to be able to turn back the clock and skip over all the bullshit and insecurities and just tell her I loved her and wanted to live my life with her. We’d have had years instead of months. So don’t make the mistake I did. Don’t let fear dictate your actions. Celebrate what you’ve got. Revel in it. Because you never know when it could be taken from you.”

  “Where have you been?” Jillian asked, her eyes fluttering open as she felt Simon crawling back into bed. “I woke up, and you were gone.”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” he said, his eyes turning silvery in the starlight. “And I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re back.” She smiled as she reached for him, realizing that she meant every word. “The bed felt empty without you.”

  He settled in beside her, framing her face with his hands, and then his mouth slanted over hers, the moment before contact seeming to last an eternity. Finally, their lips touched, and something inside Jillian combusted, a fire blazing with the frenzy of unbridled passion.

  It was almost as if it were only the two of them, bound together by the kiss. She threaded her hands through his hair, pulling him closer, opening her mouth, delighting in the taste of him.

  He dropped his hands, one sliding to the small of her back, urging her closer still, the other cupping her breast, rolling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, the exquisite pressure triggering ripples of heat, pooling between her legs. And then his lips were everywhere, her eyes, her cheeks, her ears and her neck, licking, stroking, his tongue setting her nerves on fire.

  She grabbed his head then, forcing a kiss, her tongue sliding deep into his mouth, wanting to possess him as he had possessed her. They rolled over until her body was beneath his, his penis hard against her belly. Fumbling in her need, she wrapped her legs around him, opening herself for him as he thrust into her, each time deeper, the two of them struggling for rhythm, striving for release.

  Pleasure surpassed itself until it bordered on pain, every muscle responding to her need. He kissed her face and breasts, biting her nipples, and using his hands on her hips to thrust harder—and then harder still.

  She screamed his name, certain now that she was riding a wave of pure passion, and then the world split into white-hot light, and she forgot where he ended and she began, wanting only for the pleasure to go on forever.

  Shaking now from the sheer joy of it, she drifted slowly back to reality, his skin hot against hers, his breathing ragged, their bodies still connected.

  Then, gently, he rolled to his side, holding her close, as if she were the most precious thing in the world. His kisses now were almost reverent, his hands and his lips moving over her in a leisurely exploration that sent spirals of sensation dancing through her as her body reawakened to his touch, the banked heat beginning to build again.

  He kissed her shoulders and the soft skin along the inside of her arms, stopping to leisurely suck on each of her fingers. Then he kissed his way across her belly, giving equal attention to her hand resting there, then up the other arm with tiny kisses that led to her ear, his tongue tracing the whorl, then drawing her earlobe into his mouth, the gentle sucking sending her squirming against the bed.

  With a smile, he slid lower, kissing the tender skin of her feet and ankles, moving ever so slowly upward, ratcheting her need with every stroke, every kiss, his hands clearing the way—massaging, kneading, exposing nerves she hadn’t even known she possessed.

  And then just when she thought she couldn’t possibly feel any more—when she was certain he’d satiated every part of her—he pushed her legs apart, his hair tickling the skin high on the inside of her thighs. One minute she closed her eyes in anticipation, and the next she was arching off the bed, his hands holding her hips in place as he sucked her tender nub, each stroke of his tongue sending her closer and closer to the edge.

  She threaded her fingers through his hair, urging him onward, her mind splintering with her rising desire. Burning hot color formed behind her eyelids. She was close, so close… and then he was gone.

  The cold air taunted her.

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he was there again, thrusting inside her. She lifted, taking him deeper, wanting nothing more than to be a part of him, her need for him overriding everything else. They moved together, the friction unbearable, her pleasure and his coming together into a crescendo unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

  For a moment, she was afraid, frozen on the edge of nothingness. And then she could feel his fingers linking with hers, and she let go, the world disappearing into the fury of their climax. She closed her eyes, letting sensation carry her away. And just for the moment, she forgot about her doubts, allowing herself to believe that as long as they were together, they could overcome anything.

  The pounding seemed to match the throbbing pain in his leg. Simon stret
ched, trying to alleviate it, but nothing seemed to help, the sound growing louder and louder. And then suddenly he pulled through the misty cotton of sleep, coming fully awake as he realized someone was knocking on the door.

  Beside him, Jillian’s eyes flew open, her face still foggy with sleep. “What is it?” she asked, her voice coming out a hoarse whisper as she pushed to a sitting position, the sheet held chastely over her breasts.

  “I don’t know,” Simon said, already out of bed, pulling on his sweats. He crossed the room and opened the door to find Hannah on the other side, her eyes reflecting something just this side of panic.

  “I’m sorry to bother you guys.” She shot a regretful look over his shoulder at Jillian, who was standing now, still wrapped in the sheet, her face mirroring his concern. “But this can’t wait.”

  “What is it?” Jillian asked, coming to stand beside him as if it were the most normal thing in the world for the two of them to be in bed together.

  “The air cannons,” she started, her words coming out in a tumble, “at the baseball game.”

  “The confetti?” Simon asked, his mind racing at the expression on her face.

  “Yes.” Hannah nodded. “It was laced with anthrax. There are already at least ten reported cases. And we’re expecting more. You guys were there when they went off. So you were exposed. You need to get to the hospital to get tested as quickly as possible.”

  “You never know when it could be taken from you.” Avery’s words from last night rang in Simon’s ears as his gaze locked with Jillian’s, his heart twisting as the full ramifications of Hannah’s news hit home.

  CHAPTER 21

  The overhead light in the hospital containment room was blinking on and off with annoying regularity. Dressed in scrubs, Jillian paced back and forth, watching out the windowed door for some sign of activity. The doctor had told her they’d be back in half an hour, and it had already been well over an hour. And she was going crazy. Isolated without any way to contact the rest of the team.