Another few minutes pass and a man comes out to talk to us. He insists Giada needs to sit through a class, which is doubtless of Kayden’s or Adriel’s making.
“I’m going to shoot while you learn,” I say, ignoring her grumbles and making my way to another room, and it’s not long before I have goggles, hearing protection, ammo, and my own booth.
I unload a round, and the fact that my memories of my father teaching me to shoot feel more like everyday thoughts than flashbacks feels huge. I’m just reloading when I get a tingling sensation on my neck. Cutting a discreet sideways look, I catch the reflection of a man in one of the glass panels separating me from another booth, and he is familiar. He steps in my direction and I turn and aim my weapon at Mr. Tall, Dark, and Deadly himself.
“Wow, sweetheart,” he says, holding up his hands. “If I was hitting on you, this would be a major turnoff.”
“But you aren’t hitting on me. We both know that.”
“No,” he agrees, removing his shades so I can see his eyes. “I prefer redheads, but don’t tell my wife.”
My blood runs cold. “Who are you?”
“Your friend Sara hired me to find you.”
“Sara hired you?”
“Yes. And you weren’t easy to find. We can call her.”
“No. Sara can’t be involved in this. She needs to stay away.”
“I know. I told her husband—”
“She’s not married.”
“She is now, to a very powerful, famous man who spent boatloads of cash to find you. And for the record, it gutted her not to have you at her wedding.”
“Damn it, Blake,” a female voice says. “This is not a friendly approach.”
“That would be my wife, Kara,” Blake says. “You’d never know I’m the bossy one.” He calls out, “I was friendly. She’s trigger-happy.”
“If she were trigger-happy, you’d have a bullet in you already.”
At the sound of Kayden’s voice, Blake curses. “Holy fuck. This is not going as planned.”
Kayden steps to my side. “Was the plan that I not be here?”
A pretty brunette steps to Blake’s side. “Yes, it was. Because frankly, we wanted to know that she’s safe.”
“Can we put the gun down?” Blake asks.
“Put it down,” Kayden tells me. “I have the entire staff here on payroll.”
“Of course he does,” Blake grumbles, eyeing me. “You’re still holding the fucking gun, and you seem to follow orders about as well as my wife.”
I keep the gun aimed at him. “How do I know Sara sent you?”
“Let’s call her,” he suggests again. “She won’t know where you are. She just needs to hear your voice.”
Kayden’s hand comes down on my back. “Ella, sweetheart. If she did hire him, he can fill in the blanks you want filled in. And you can give Sara her peace of mind.”
“You believe him?” I ask.
“I believe I do,” he says, reaching out and taking my gun while telling Blake, “There’s a room upstairs where we can talk.”
“That works for me,” Blake says. “Not my wife.” He eyes Kara. “Wait outside and if I don’t come out alive in an hour, I guess start the funeral arrangements.” He grabs her and kisses her.
“Don’t say things like that. They aren’t funny.”
“Yes, wife.” He turns back to us. “I’m ready.”
Kayden talks to the man at the door who’s now watching us, then to Blake. “He’ll take you there. I need to talk to Ella for a moment alone.”
“Understood.” He starts to walk away.
“Blake,” Kayden says, halting him. “If you are who you say you are, you have my protection, and so does your wife. But if you’re not—”
“Protection it is,” he says, turning away.
Kayden turns me and removes the goggles I didn’t even know I still had on. “You okay?”
“I have these weird, crazy emotions going on that I can’t even lock down.”
“That’s understandable. I can talk to him alone.”
“No. I want to do this.”
“Well, then,” he says, placing Annie in my purse and zipping it up, “let’s go see what he can tell us.”
Five minutes later, Kayden and I are sitting at a round table with Blake in a small room.
“First,” Blake says, “who I am. My brothers and I run Walker Security. I’m former ATF, my older brother Royce is former FBI, and Luke is a former Navy SEAL. We not only have our own team, we also worked with a group of local investigators to get here today.”
“How did you find her?” Kayden asks.
“I’m a damn good hacker. She was on the grid and she disappeared. When she disappeared, I knew we had trouble. When I couldn’t find her despite my skill, I knew we had big trouble.”
“So I ask again,” Kayden says, “how did you find her?”
He keys his iPad to life and flips a photo around to show us. “That’s Ella crossing the Italian border. That was our first big break. I then hired a group called The Jackals, who gave me a lead that brought me here.”
“Fucking Jackals,” Kayden bites out.
“You know them?” I ask, glancing up at him.
“We’re Treasure Hunters,” he says. “They’re the pirates I fired.” He eyes Blake. “They’ll sell her out.”
“They were paid well.”
“Pirates never get paid well enough. What do you know about David?”
“A doctor with nothing remarkable in his background,” Blake says. “Pretty average. He vanished with Ella, and I haven’t gotten a ping on him at all.”
“He’s dead,” I say. “Don’t ask details; I can’t remember how. I just remember that I ended up with no passport or money.”
“I actually know that part of the story,” Blake tells me. “And that you ended up with a man named Garner Neuville. He told our people that he spooked you and you ran. He’s been looking for you.”
“And he can’t be allowed to find her,” Kayden says. “But The Jackals will help him in two seconds flat. So you, Blake Walker, are just good enough to find her, and just bad enough to get her in trouble.”
“I’m good enough to save her ass, just like you. The Jackals don’t know I found her. I’ll redirect them back to France.”
“Do that,” Kayden says. “Do it now.”
“Consider it done.” Blake flips to another screen on the iPad and hands it to me. “Sara’s wedding.”
Tears instantly form in my eyes at the sight of Sara in a gorgeous rose lace dress, next to a man in a tux. “She looks gorgeous and he’s hot.” I swipe at tears, and Kayden squeezes my leg. I hold his hand and ask Blake, “Who is the man? Is he a good man? Does he love her?”
“Chris Merit is his name, and he’s a world-famous artist who’s passionately in love with her.”
“Artist.” A memory comes back to me. “Did I . . . Was there a storage unit?”
“Yes,” he says. “You bought it during summer break to make extra money, and it had artwork and several journals in it. Sara took it over when you eloped, and it led her to Chris.”
“Summer break. You’re saying I was a teacher?”
“Yes.”
Memories ebb and flow. “I was teaching. . . . But that isn’t me. Something doesn’t add up.” A thought hits me. “Do you have photos of my parents?”
“I do,” he says, taking the iPad and showing me a shot of my mother.
I smile and show it to Kayden. “My mom.”
“Swipe,” Blake says. “The next one is your father.”
The fifty-something, balding man in the photo is the one I remember being in my mother’s hospital room, long after my father died. “That’s my bastard, drunk, asshole stepfather. Not my father.”
“Sorry about that,” Blake says. “Swipe again.”
I swipe and inhale at the sight of a red-haired man with strong features. “That’s him.” I show it to Kayden.
“Mr. Badass h
imself,” Kayden says. “I wish I could have met him.”
“Interesting that you call him a badass,” Blake says. “He was CIA and at such a high level that I can’t get to him—not by hacking, or with my contacts. And that’s saying a lot.”
My gaze jerks to his. “CIA? Not military?”
“No, not military.”
“I’m not a schoolteacher,” I say, certain of it.
“You were one.” Blake reaches for his iPad. “I snagged your records before they were deleted.”
“I know I was teaching when I left for Paris—but it’s not who I really was.” I consider that for a moment. “I think I was CIA. I took a time-out, or was suspended.” I glance at Kayden, suddenly afraid of what that means for us. Then I turn back to Blake. “Can you find out?”
“There’s no record of you being CIA,” he says. “None. Nothing that indicated a hiccup in your record.” He pulls a thumb drive from his pocket and slides it over to me. “That contains everything I have, but I’ll dig further.”
“Be careful,” Kayden warns. “Garner Neuville is a problem that we can’t have erupt.”
“I’m always careful.”
“The Jackals,” Kayden replies. “That’s all I’m going to say.”
“I’m handling them.” Blake sets a phone on the table. “This is a disposable phone that we can destroy after we use it. I’d like to call Sara and put her on with you.”
I glance at Kayden. “Is it safe?”
“If we destroy the phone, yes.”
“But I don’t know if I can ever see her again. Neuville will never stop coming, and—”
Kayden cups my head and kisses me. “Neuville is going to expire. He’s a temporary problem, and remember what we talked about. He doesn’t get to own you or your friend.” He glances at Blake. “Make the call. Ella, this is as much for you as for Sara.”
My heart starts pounding as Blake dials the phone. Then I hear, “Chris, it’s Blake. Listen. I need you to prepare Sara for good news. I have someone for her to talk to.” A pause. “Yes. She’s alive, but hiding. Right. Yes.” He hands me the phone. “He’s prepping her, so it will be a minute.”
I reach for it with a trembling hand and put it to my ear, standing and walking to the corner, listening to the silence. Kayden steps behind me, his hand at my waist. “Blake and I are going to step into the hallway. Talk as long as you like, but—”
“Less is more.”
He kisses my temple and walks away, the door closing behind them.
Another beat of silence follows, and then I hear Sara’s excited voice. “Ella!”
I start grinning and crying. “Yes! Yes, it’s me!”
“Oh my God. Oh my. God. Oh. My. God. Why can’t I stop saying ‘Oh my God’? Chris, it’s really her! I can’t believe it’s you, Ella!”
“Well, I had amnesia, so I wasn’t me for a while.”
“You’re in danger.”
“Yes, but I met a man and he’s amazing and—”
“Not David or Garner, right?”
“His name is Kayden. And I hear you have a sexy painter now. I saw his picture. He’s hot.”
“He’s so hot,” she says. “I’m so lucky. I wish you could have been at my wedding.”
“One day I’ll meet him, and you can meet Kayden. Tell me about him.”
“There’s so much I want to tell you about! About the storage unit, and Rebecca, the girl who owned it, and Chris—”
“I want to hear about Chris.”
She starts talking, and I talk, and we talk forever. Finally, though, it’s time to hang up. We say teary goodbyes, and I promise to call again. I break the phone open and pull out the chip inside, running it under water and then breaking it. And I know how to do that because I’m CIA. Or something that could mean I was after the necklace for my own reasons. And maybe I was investigating The Underground. Or Garner Neuville. Or both.
I walk to the door and open it, and the minute Kayden sees me he pulls me into his arms. “We are not enemies,” he says.
“But the CIA—”
“I have allies in every agency.” He cups my face. “And I’ve said it before and I will say it again. We choose if we are enemies.” He kisses me, and in that kiss there is demand. So much demand. And his demand is that I refuse to be his enemy.
To be continued in Surrender. . . .
Keep reading to see where it all started. The storage unit. The journal. Sara and Chris.
Start Sara's story with If I Were You—book one in the Inside Out series—now in development for TV with acclaimed producer Suzanne Todd (Alice in Wonderland).
If I Were You
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One
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Dangerous.
For months I’ve had dreams and nightmares about how perfectly he personifies the word. Sleep-laden, alternate realities where I can vividly smell his musky male scent, feel his hard body against mine. Taste the sweet and sensuous flavor of him—like milk chocolate with its silky demand that I indulge in one more bite. And another. So good I’d forgotten there’s a price for overindulgence. And there is a price. There is always a price. I was reminded of this life lesson on Saturday night. And I know now, no matter what he says, no matter what he does, I cannot—will not—see him again.
It started out as any other erotic adventure with him. Unpredictable. Exciting. I barely remember where it all went wrong. How it took such a dark turn.
He’d ordered me to undress and sit on the mattress, against the headboard, my legs spread wide for his viewing. Naked before him, open to him, I was vulnerable and quivering with need. Never in my life had I taken orders from a man; most certainly I had never thought I would quiver with anything. But I did for him.
If Saturday night proved anything, it was that once I was with him, under his spell, he could demand anything of me, and I’d comply. He could push me to the edge, to unbelievable places I’d never thought I would go. Exactly why I can’t see him again. He makes me feel possessed, and what is so disconcerting about this feeling is that I like it. I can hardly wrap my mind around allowing such a thing, though I burn for it. But when I saw him standing at the end of the bed Saturday night, all broad and thick with sinewy muscle, his cock jutting forward, there was nothing but that need.
He was magnificent. Really, truly the most gorgeous man I’ve ever known. Instant lust exploded inside me. I wanted to feel him close to me, to feel him touch me. To touch him. But I know now not to touch him without his permission. And I know not to beg him to let me.
I’ve learned my lesson from past encounters. He enjoys the vulnerability of a plea far too much. Enjoys withholding his pleasures until I am nearly quaking with the burn of my body. Until I am liquid heat and tears. He likes that power over me. He likes full control. I should hate him. Sometimes, I think I love him.
It was the blindfold that should have warned me I was headed toward a place of no return. Thinking back, I believe it did. He tossed it on the bed, a dare, and instantly a shiver chased a path up and down my spine. The idea of not being able to see what was happening to me should have aroused me—it did arouse me. But for reasons I didn’t understand at the time, it also frightened me. I was scared and I hesitated.
This did not please him. He told me so, in that deep, rich, baritone voice that makes me quiver uncontrollably. The need to please him had been so compelling. I put on the blindfold.
I was rewarded by the shift of the mattress. He was coming to me. Soon I knew I would come, too. His hands slid possessively up my calves, over my thighs. And damn him, stopped just before my place of need.
What came next was a shadowy whirlwind of sensation. He pulled me to my back, flat against the mattress. I knew satisfaction was seconds away. Soon he would enter me. Soon I would have what I needed. But to my distress, he moved away.
It was then that I was sure I’d heard the click of a lock. It jolted me to a sitting position, and I called out his name, fearfu
l he was leaving. Certain that I’d done something wrong. Then relieved when his hand flattened on my stomach. I’d imagined the sound of the lock. I must have. But I couldn’t shake the subtle shift in the air then, the raw lust and menace consuming the room that didn’t feel like him. It was a thought easily forgotten when he settled heavy between my thighs, his strong hands lifting my arms over my head, his breath warm on my neck—his body heavy, perfect.
Somehow, a silk tie wrapped around my wrists and my arms were tied to the bed frame. It never occurred to me that he could not have done this on his own. That he was on top of me, unable to manipulate my arms. But then, he was manipulating my body, my mind, and I was his willing victim.
He lifted his body from mine, and I whimpered, unable to reach for him. Again silence. And the whisk of fabric. More strange sounds. Long seconds ticked by, and I remember the chill that snaked across my skin. The feeling of dread that had balled in my stomach.
And then, the moment I know I will die remembering. The moment when the steel of a blade touched my lips. The moment that he promised there was pleasure in pain. The moment when the blade traveled along my skin with the proof he would be true to his words. And I knew then that I had been wrong. He was not dangerous. Nor was he chocolate. He was lethal, a drug, and I feared . . .
• • •
A knock on my apartment door jolts me from the seductive words of the journal I’ve been reading to the point I darn near toss the notebook over my shoulder. Guiltily, I slam it shut and set it back on the simple oak coffee table where it had been left by my neighbor and close friend Ella Ferguson the night before. I hadn’t meant to read it. It was just . . . there. On my table. Absently, I’d opened it, and I’d been so shocked at what I found that I hadn’t believed it could really be my sweet, close friend Ella’s writing. So I’d kept reading. I couldn’t stop reading, and I don’t know why. It makes no sense. I, Sara McMillan, am a high school teacher, and I do not invade people’s privacy, nor do I enjoy this kind of reading. I’m still telling myself that as I reach the door, but I can’t ignore the burn low in my belly.
I pause before greeting my visitor and rest my hands on my cheeks, certain they’re flaming red, hoping whoever is here will just go away. I promise myself if they do, I won’t read the journal again, but deep down, I know the temptation will be strong. Good Lord, I feel like Ella seemed to feel when living out the scene in the journal—like I am the one hanging on for one more titillating moment and then another. Clearly, twenty-eight-year-old women are not supposed to go eighteen months without sex. The worst part is that I’ve invaded the privacy of someone I care about.