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  Just as Claymore’s gruff voice crackled across the line, Leo realized that he’d gone all morning without thinking about having a drink.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Prue had never heard Owen mention anyone named Claymore. She had no idea who he was, or what he could do to help them. The sudden uncertainty played tricks on her mind, causing her to do battle with the shadows, both real and imagined.

  Whatever Leo wanted Claymore to do, would it involve digging into the past? Her past? What if Claymore found out about her and Aron King? Would he share that information with Leo? How would Leo react? Would he think less of her? Would he be mad or disappointed, like she was? Would he be angry that she’d lied to him?

  With a steadying breath, she pushed aside her troubling thoughts. What did any of that matter? She and Leo weren’t a couple. They didn’t have a future she needed to protect, and which might be jeopardized by her deception. And if exposing her secrets meant Aron was stopped from hurting more people, she’d suffer the consequences without complaint.

  Outdoors, the sun hovered a few fingers above the horizon, and this time she didn’t want to miss its dramatic plunge into the sea. Hurriedly, she finished carving up a hunk of cheese and added the slices to the paper plate already loaded down with crackers and grapes.

  On the patio, Leo lounged in a beach chair, his long legs stretched out in the sand and her computer balanced on his lap.

  She set the plate on the table between their chairs, and when he reached for a cracker, a smile pierced her heart. He hardly ate, and never seemed to think of food, except when he wanted to make sure she had enough. But she had a theory that if she placed food in front of him he’d eat it. Twice now, her theory had proven correct.

  The cracker disappeared into his mouth, and then his gaze snagged hers. The warm glow of the sunset cast him in a soft light that picked out the green in his eyes and a shadow of a smile touched his lips. With his smile, an unexpected sensation swelled inside her, a mix of joy and certainty. She’d never experienced anything like it.

  The disquiet she’d felt only moments before suddenly seemed like a distant memory. She could stay here forever—even without the Wi-Fi. With him.

  “Do you mind if I send Claymore some of your files?”

  A sliver of unease returned to her. “Which ones would you send him?”

  “Everything you have on King. As a US citizen, he’s the one we have the best chance of nailing.”

  “You think we can?”

  “Yeah, I think we can.” His eyes shone with a conspiratorial light. “With as much as you and Paul already pieced together from publicly available sources alone, imagine what the NSA and CIA must have on him.”

  “Do you think they know about his, uh, freelancing?”

  “By law, he has to tell them.” He reached for a wedge of cheese. “And if he hasn’t told them by now, that in and of itself might be a crime.”

  She nibbled on a cracker while she chewed over that information. After a moment, she realized he watched her, his expression thoughtful.

  “If you don’t want me to share your work with him, that’s okay, too,” he said softly.

  That he cared, once again, to protect her wishes soothed her worries.

  With a smile, she gave her head a small shake. “If you trust him, then so will I.”

  An odd look touched his features, but he turned away as the last slice of fiery orange disappeared beyond the horizon.

  “Does Claymore work for the NSA or the CIA?”

  In the fading light, white teeth flashed in his dark face. “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

  A laugh startled from her. She couldn’t believe she was there with Leo, and that he was making jokes.

  He pushed slowly to his feet. “I’m going to grab a water. You want anything?”

  “I’ll take a water.”

  But at the patio door, he froze. His turned his head and gazed down at the pitiful plant she’d stuck in the ground the day before.

  “It was dying.”

  His head snapped around. “What?”

  At the desperate edge in his voice, she sat forward in her chair.

  “The rose bush.” She pointed at the scraggy shrub. “I’m going to try to save it.”

  His lips parted and an odd sound eased from him, as though she’d struck him and he couldn’t catch his breath.

  But he didn’t say anything before he slipped silently inside the house.

  Four years earlier

  She’d told him early on that she didn’t want kids. Her career was taking off, and the frequent travel to the world’s most dangerous hotspots didn’t allow room for children.

  For his part, Leo hadn’t given much thought to parenthood. It’d always been a far-off concept, and without anything concrete to hold on to, not one worth investing too much energy in.

  Still, when she told him, he felt a pang of loss in the center of his chest. For in that moment, the idea of having children with her appealed. Very much. She was concrete. That something, someone, he wanted to hold on to, to belong to, finally. Forever.

  But he hadn’t argued with her, because he wanted to be with her more than he wanted kids.

  After Jim refused his request for more men, Leo made the decision to pull out. Beyond their hotel gates, the violence raged on and without the extra men, they were unable to flee through the fighting to reach the airport safely. So they waited while chaos unfolded around them.

  In the end, hundreds lay dead in the city streets.

  Raw emotion choked him. Helplessness and anger lashed at his control. The Fear took hold.

  Sitting on the floor in their hotel room, between the beds, they passed a bottle of the local moonshine back and forth between them. Lauren’s TV makeup ran down her cheeks in dark streams forged by her tears, like the hollow blackness of despair tunneling through them both.

  She took a nip from the bottle. A sharp hiss escaped her and she handed the decanter back to him.

  He drank deeply, relishing the lick of fire burning down his throat to spread through his roiling stomach. Regretfully, he eyed the container. There wasn’t nearly enough alcohol remaining in the bottle to offer anything close to oblivion.

  “After this is over and we’re back home, I want to have a baby.”

  Her softly spoken words hit him like a punch to the gut. A sharp longing stole his voice.

  “I know it’s not what we talked about. It’s just—” She ducked her chin and her light hair shimmied with her head shake. “I don’t know.”

  He swallowed hard to dislodge the lump in his throat. “I know why.”

  Her head came up. “You do?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then tell me, please, because I don’t understand any of this.”

  He paused, searching for the words. “After so much death, you want to create life.”

  Silent tears flowed down her cheeks. Curling her legs under her, she crawled to him and collapsed into his side.

  She buried her face in the crook of his neck. “I want to go home, Leo.”

  He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “We’ll need to buy a house.”

  She drew back enough to look up at him. For the first time in days, her eyes shone with something other than her devastation. “Where should we live?”

  “Anywhere you want.”

  “I don’t care as long as you’re there, and the baby.”

  “We’ll need a big yard, for the kids.”

  Her head on his shoulder moved with her nod of agreement.

  “Is there anything else you want, Lauren? Name it and I’ll get it for you.”

  “Someplace quiet. Not in the city. Maybe with a view, if we can afford it.”

  He knew the perfect place.

  Leo jerked from sleep. Sweat clung to him, and his heart thumped inside his chest cavity.

  In the dark room, he reached for the bottle of liquor that’d been a mainstay on his nightstand for year
s. But there was no bottle, and he managed only to knock his cell phone off the table.

  He dropped back on the pillows. Flopping an arm across his forehead, he stared at the ceiling.

  The last couple of years hadn’t been pretty, but at the very least, he’d managed to grow some scar tissue. But since being back in this house, the old wounds ached, like an embedded sliver finally working its way to the surface and breaking through the healed over skin.

  He couldn’t go back to those days when all he did was bleed. He wasn’t strong enough.

  A noise brought his head instantly up off the pillow. With a soft creak, his bedroom door cracked open. His muscles bunched. The gap grew several inches wide, then halted.

  He waited, and then Arlo launched himself onto the bed, landing in the blankets with a soft trill.

  Leo collapsed back on the pillows. But before his heart rate had returned to normal, the door budged again. It slid open and Prue tiptoed into the room.

  He didn’t speak or move, or even dare to breathe, as she crawled beneath the sheets and snuggled as close as to him as was possible without actually touching.

  What the hell was she doing in his bed?

  Again?

  He should send her back to her own bed. Tell her that while fucking her wasn’t a problem, sleeping together went too far. It was too personal. Too intimate. That’s what he should’ve done.

  But he didn’t.

  He rolled to his side, turning his back to her. Hadn’t he made it clear to her that there were boundaries? Did he need to draw a big red line around his bed? He frowned at the wall.

  He never should have agreed to her outrageous proposal. But it was too late for that now. Now, he had to summon the resolve to guard against her.

  Behind him, she cuddled closer.

  All the pent-up angst inside him escaped like the air in a leaky car tire. There was no way he was getting out of this nonrelationship without hurting her. Likely, it was already too late.

  The only right decision he could make was the one that involved sending her back to her bed. Alone.

  Of course, sending her away would hurt her, but not sending her away would hurt a thousand times worse. It’d hurt him.

  As good as it’d felt getting lost in her sweet little body for the last twenty-four hours, somehow, inexplicably, it’d torn him apart. The pleasure stung like the cutting gash of a betrayal. A betrayal of his friend’s trust. A betrayal of their memory.

  A betrayal of Prue’s non-trust.

  Even if he didn’t care to protect himself from her, he owed it to all of them to shield her from him.

  So why was she still in his bed?

  And why did he let her stay?

  Twisting toward her, he wrapped his arm around her waist and held on tightly.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Better. Do it again.”

  Prue drew back her elbow, then drove her fist into Leo’s chest.

  He shook his head. “Center your hips.” Moving to stand behind her, his hands clamped around her hip bones. “Again.”

  She punched the air. It was becoming her thing, taking swings at ghosts she couldn’t see.

  After his odd reaction to the rose bush, he hadn’t returned to the patio, and she’d spent the rest of the evening wondering what she’d said or done to upset him, her heart aching at the return of his cold disposition.

  But in the night, the sounds of his nightmare had dragged her from sleep, and she went to him. Soothing him in the dark, her wounded anger morphed into merciful anguish.

  She didn’t know what demons haunted him, but she couldn’t escape the sense that his battle was becoming hers.

  When morning dawned, his fierce scowl eclipsed the sun’s bright light, and an hour of training hadn’t taken the bite out of his mood.

  “Okay, that’s good,” he said. “Let’s work on something else.”

  “Making coffee?” she asked hopefully.

  His hands moved to her shoulders. “I want to show you some things you can do if someone grabs you from behind.”

  “Now this sounds promising.” Craning her neck, she looked up at him over her shoulder, hoping to catch a glimpse of his dimples.

  Instead, he gripped a fistful of her hair.

  “Reach back with both of your hands.” He spoke near her ear.

  When she obeyed, he guided her so that one hand held on to his wrist while the other encircled his thumb.

  “Now it’s all a matter of physics,” he said. “Try to bend my thumb back while holding my wrist in place.”

  When she struck, he moved with her. “That’s it. Keep going.”

  She ducked under his arms and with a controlled wrench, twisted free of his grip.

  Facing him, a startled laugh burst from her. “I can’t believe that worked.”

  “That was good,” he said, a huskiness in his voice. “Let’s do it again.”

  Prue turned her back to him as he repositioned himself behind her. His fist tangled in her hair, and she reached over her head to grip his wrist. Stretching, she arched her back and her bottom brushed against his hardness.

  At the evidence of his erection, a triumphant thrill shot through her veins. She did that. Prudish Prue Lockhart made Leo Nolan hard.

  She wriggled slightly, pretending to adjust her stance. “Are my hips centered?”

  “Prue….” Her name held a warning.

  But she was tired of his warnings, and his grumpy faces. She wasn’t afraid of him, or the darkness inside him. Not anymore.

  Her fiery hunger emboldened her, prodding her to draw his shadows out into the light so that she might have him all to herself, at least for a little while.

  She leaned against his chest. “You know, I might not fight you off if you wanted to bend me over the—”

  His possessive growl rumbled in her ear, and then he was corralling her toward the sofa. She lifted her arms as he raked her T-shirt up her body and over her head. The flat of his palm pressed between her shoulders blades and he bent her over the arm of the sofa. He yanked the waistband of her shorts and panties down, and cool air prickled over her skin a moment before his heavy shaft brushed against her backside.

  A tremor of fear snaked through her.

  Standing behind her, his hand ran down her spine and smoothed over her bottom, then slipped around her waist to her stomach. He wrapped his body around hers and his hot mouth took nibbles of her shoulder, her spine, the back of her neck.

  Fear faded, driven away by the clever play of his fingers between her legs and the tender brushes of his mouth across her skin. At first teasingly elusive, his fingers soon probed her boldly in a slow, repetitive rhythm. Seeking all her secrets. As her body yielded to his touch, her breath came in short gasps and she clawed at the sofa cushions.

  He pressed his legs between her thighs, widening her stance, and centered himself. Her awareness zeroed in on the place where his body invaded hers with an unhurried thrust, filling her in one long, smooth glide.

  He was moving inside her and with every delicious push, her heart expanded to swallow his demons. She tilted her hips, exposing her sex to him.

  “Prue, Jesus—”

  He lifted her from the sofa and turned her, pinning her against the wall with his body. His hand hooked behind one of her knees and then the other, and he wrapped her legs around his lean waist. Gripping her bottom with both of his large hands, he parted her with his thick length.

  Too soon, her inner muscles clenched around him.

  While she came, he pumped into her with fierce, wild thrusts, and she flung her arms around his neck, holding fast as he drove his darkness into her. His mouth burned her lips. His touch seared her skin. When his heartbreak became hers, tears prickled behind her eyes.

  “I love the way you fuck me, Prue.” He throbbed inside her. “I love everything about you.”

  At her startled gasp, he froze.

  The terror filling his eyes broke her heart. “Prue… I….”

 
; If he spoke, she feared what he might say, so she wriggled against him.

  He gasped and closed his eyes. “Maybe we should stop.”

  “We don’t have to stop. I know you didn’t mean it.” Her weak laughter rang hollow. “I love the way you fuck me, too.”

  His frown conveyed his doubt. “Even if Owen would let me near you, I can’t….”

  She rotated her hips in a slow circle.

  With a moan, his head dropped to her shoulder. “I’ll never be the guy you want me to be.”

  If that were true, then why did her heart hurt every time he put up barriers to keep her out? And why did the thought of leaving him in a matter of days or weeks, when all this was over, make her want to cry?

  But she didn’t argue with him. Words would never change his mind, or his heart.

  “Okay, Leo.” She rose up and dropped down the length of his hard shaft.

  A guttural groan tore from him, and his hips started to move inside her once more. “Just… don’t forget that. Please.”

  “I won’t, Leo. Please don’t worry.”

  His palms hit the wall and he plunged into her. After a series of hard, furious thrusts, he growled and ground against her, holding deep with his release.

  He gripped her nape and captured her mouth for a savage kiss, his puffy lips flavored with desperation.

  When he broke away, his chest heaved with his labored breathing. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “I didn’t mean to be so rough with you.”

  She touched his cheek. “I liked it, Leo.” I like you.

  Cupping her face with both hands, he brushed the pads of his thumbs across her cheeks. His expression somber, he searched her eyes, and she braced for the apology that’d break her heart.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She tried to bite back a smile, but it was no use. “You’re welcome.”

  He withdrew from her body and set her carefully on the floor. Then he plucked her T-shirt off the sofa back and handed it to her.