He was the one who retreated to his room, packing carefully for the trip to D.C. the next day. One small pack carried his weapons, extra ammo, and a change of casual clothes. Inside the pack, cushioned at the bottom in a waterproof bag, was an ID and credit cards in an alternate identity and enough cash to get him through most situations he might find himself in. Tucked in with it was a small case of tools that would get him into any locked door and several security systems.
He was prepared.
He packed the other weapons, his rifle, two backup revolvers, ammunition, and a dagger back into the larger duffel to store at Ian’s condo until their return.
There were more weapons stashed around Atlanta and outlying areas. Two safe houses, a bus stop safe. He was a man who’d learned the hard way to prepare for anything.
And for that reason alone he should have known better than to think he could walk into Emily’s life with nothing but lust. She was trouble with a capital T, and she was worming her way into his heart. Just as he had always sensed she would do. Hell, he had steered clear of her for the last five years for a reason, hadn’t he?
Or had he?
He hadn’t exactly stayed away. He had slipped in and out of her periphery, checking out her bodyguards, checking on her when he was in town. When he learned of her kidnapping he had just come off another assignment with a nasty little gunshot wound and more days without sleep than a man should be able to endure.
The minute he got the word, he had his pack in his hands and had talked his way onto a flight heading out to the carrier where Reno and his men were briefing for the rescue.
He had arrived just in time to join the team, pulling strings with the senator and Reno to get in position to protect Emily and the girls while the battle raged around the compound.
And by God, he had protected her. Even drugged, out of her head with arousal from the date rape drug pumped into her, she had fought. She had held the other two girls in the far corner of the shack, low to the ground, and watched him with hunger and hope.
And it was the memory of her eyes when she realized who he was that tormented him. Hope and hunger. The way she whispered his name. The way she fought to stay on her feet and to do whatever it took to aid in her rescue.
He couldn’t stop it. He wanted to stop it. He wanted to close her out of his head and his heart, eradicate the lust and need and return to being the man he had been before that night. Before he gazed into wild blue eyes and saw a need that echoed in his own soul. Before then, staying away from her hadn’t been hard. After that, he had found himself unable to stay away.
She was a woman dying to be free. Like a bird in a very pretty cage. One made of guilt-enforced bars and locked with the knowledge of a youthful indiscretion. That, and a father’s determination to see his daughter married to a man able to defend her.
Stanton might have gone about things the wrong way, and Kell had no doubt that was true, but he could see the senator’s love for his daughter. Just as he saw Emily’s love for her father.
It had been there fifteen years before when Richard had first brought him home for dinner. Only weeks after Tansy’s death. Richard Stanton and the detective Kell had worked for had been school friends and Navy buddies until the detective opted for civilian duty. One call and the then-Commander Stanton had come straight to Louisiana and picked up his charge.
That love between father and daughter had only grown.
What he also saw was the fact that Emily’s love for her father was so tainted with the past and her awareness of his pain in regards to her, that she drew back rather than fighting for what she wanted. And Richard took complete advantage of that.
That would have to stop. When he finally got his ring on Emily’s finger, it would be because she wanted it there, not because her father guilted her into it.
He froze at that thought. Hell, he was screwed for sure now and he knew it. He was going to marry the damned little vixen. He wasn’t a man prone to flights of fancy. Once it came to him, he went with it. Just as he knew that for once in his life he would be giving his grandparents what they dreamed of. A granddaughter-in-law that they approved of. And for years he had found the thought of that unacceptable.
He paced through the bedroom, into the small bathroom, and stared into the mirror at the man he had become. It was something he had avoided for years, staring himself in the eye. Because each time he had, he saw his own failure to protect those who had depended on him so long ago.
He had seen his own self-hatred. His fury. The useless blame he had placed on his parents’ and grandparents’ heads.
At one time, he had wondered if he could ever forgive them. If he could ever think of the family he had lost with something other than wrenching pain.
Tansy had been seven months pregnant when she had died. Their son had died in her womb. And Kell’s parents, his grandparents, hadn’t even come to their funeral. He had stood beside the coffin with the detective he had worked for and raged, virtually alone.
He had cried. On his knees, the last of his youth had drained out of him with the bitter tears he had shed.
He stared at himself now, and saw the man he had become. Reno swore he had never been sane. Kell took chances other men didn’t dare, even SEALs. And he saw the world differently in too many ways to be comfortable for others.
He was no longer the boy who had lost a dream. He was a man now. The emotion building inside him where Emily was concerned was a man’s love for a woman. A man who had finally accepted that no man or woman was completely safe and that too many took their safety for granted. Emily would be the woman who could stand by his side and aid in her own protection.
He was man enough to know he couldn’t continue with the loneliness that fed into his soul. He needed a home, love, a woman he could depend upon, one strong enough to understand the dangers she would always face.
And Emily was that woman.
He couldn’t have imagined wanting more than an affair a week ago.
But now, he wanted that and so much more.
Eleven
SHE COULD FALL IN LOVE with Kell Krieger.
Emily admitted it when she woke up to coffee and cinnamon rolls before the sun had risen the next morning. She was madder than hell at him, her sleep had been restless, her thoughts filled with their argument from the night before, but one thing had become firmly implanted in her mind.
Kell was worming his way into her heart. And he shouldn’t be. She should be as wary of him as she had been of every other man her father had sent her. She knew he was a SEAL. She knew he was dominating, in control, and had the type of personality that would make her bite her nails at any given time.
But he had been her fantasy for so long.
That, and he didn’t try to restrain her.
Not that she had actually tried to do anything that he could protest. Yet. But he hadn’t given the restlessness a chance to take hold of her either. He challenged her, confronted her, and he made her think.
He made her think about herself, her life, and a relationship between her and her father that she admitted was rapidly deteriorating.
He made her realize it was just as much her fault as it was her father’s.
The only question remaining now was, Could she survive without murdering the man in his sleep over time? The only way to answer that was to actually get in a bed with him.
The thought of that had the blood pumping through her body as she showered then drank that first cup of coffee of the day with him. And she realized she was comfortable.
“We’re meeting the Navy helicopter in a few hours.” He checked the watch on his wrist as he wrote something in the small notebook he carried.
He was left-handed, she realized. That shouldn’t have been sexy.
“And we’re flying to Annapolis before going to D.C.” She nodded.
“I want you to give me an extra change of clothes. Jeans, T-shirt, and a long-sleeved shirt as well as underthings. I want them packed in my
emergency pack in case anything goes wrong.”
She stared at him in surprise as he continued to make notations.
“Why?”
His head lifted, his green eyes intent. Not cool, but focused.
“I just told you, in case anything goes wrong.”
“Are you expecting anything to go wrong?” She didn’t feel fear. His gaze didn’t allow for it.
“I always expect something to go wrong,” he told her before returning to the notepad. “It’s called preparation.”
“It’s just a party. What could go wrong?”
“Snipers. Assassins in hiding or posing as friends. A million things could go wrong, Emily. The key to surviving it is in being prepared for it.”
“Daddy said security was flush around the mansion,” she pointed out. “How could they get past James Dunmore’s guards? They’re good men.”
His head lifted again; this time his gaze was piercing.
“Do you know all those men personally? Well enough to know to the bottom of your soul that they won’t blink or take a bribe?”
“No,” she answered slowly.
“Then you don’t trust your security to them. You trust it to me.”
“And when you’re gone?” she asked mockingly. All her bodyguards left at some point.
“Then you use the example I’m giving you and the training you’ll receive from me.” His head was lowered, missing her look of surprise. “Always be prepared, Emily. Always question others’ arrangements for your safety and always, always, trust your instincts.” His head lifted again, his gaze probing, before he lowered it and made another note.
“Why are you willing to tell me this?”
She watched his lips quirk though his eyes didn’t lift again.
“Consider it my small contribution to your research.”
Her eyes narrowed at the answer.
“That’s not good enough.”
“It’s going to have to be.” He rose to his feet, snapped the notebook closed, then hauled her from the chair before she could do more than gasp.
She didn’t have time to struggle, even if she wanted to, before his arm latched around her hips, jerked her up against his erection, and his lips stole the kiss he so obviously wanted.
She melted. Why fight it? She had accepted the night before that she was going to end up in his bed. She was panting to get in his bed, dying for more of the pleasure she had only found in his arms.
She was in his arms now. Hers twined around his neck, her fingers threading into his hair as he did the same with one hand in hers before tugging her head back farther.
Whimpers left her throat as colorful bursts of sensation exploded behind her closed eyelids. The arm around her hips lifted her closer as he bent his knees enough to notch the hard ridge of his erection between her thighs. And she was lost from there.
His lips slanted over hers and her lips parted further for him. Her tongue stroked against his aggressively, not content to allow him to set the pace of this first acceptance, this preliminary introduction to the decision she had made late in the night.
He wasn’t tameable. He would probably end up walking away long before she was ready to consider letting him go. But for as long as she could hold him, he would be hers.
“Jesus, you taste good,” he growled as he nipped at her lips before pulling back to stare down at her.
“You taste better.” She licked her tongue over the lower curve of his lips, watching as his eyes flared and lust filled them.
“You would pick this morning to go all sweet and soft in my arms,” he griped, before releasing her with a sigh. “Grab your things, I’ll put our dishes in the sink. We have to head out of here.”
“We should take the Harley,” she suggested.
There could be advantages, she thought suddenly, to letting him into her bed. Her life could get more exciting.
“Not on your life.” He disabused her of that idea quickly. “We’ll take the Bronco. It’s secure.”
“Can’t outmaneuver the bad guys on your bike then? I understand.”
“No, I can’t outmaneuver bullets when I don’t know which direction they could come from,” he informed her. “The Harley is for times when it’s safe enough to forgo protection. You’re not there yet.”
Emily paused and stared back at him in surprise.
“I’m not going to argue with you, Emily. I always have a reason for saying no. Realize that now. Because the day could come when I won’t have time for explanations.” A grin tugged at his lips as she watched him closely.
“I’ll try to do that.” She finally nodded as she wondered who the hell Kell Krieger was, and why he was so different from the bodyguards her father usually managed to acquire.
“Do more than try. Find enough control to make it happen. I have to be able to trust you when things go from sugar to shit, darlin’. Let’s make an effort to ensure I have that trust if that time comes.”
She watched him closely then. Seeing more than the man she wanted to sleep with, seeing more than the hired muscle her father had brought in to protect her. She saw a man. She saw shadows in his eyes and realized how often she had caught the flash of hidden demons lurking beneath the surface.
What had made him a man strong enough to realize that she didn’t want to be patted on the head and put on a shelf?
“I’ll do that,” she finally answered. “I’ll make the effort.”
He nodded abruptly. “That’s all I ask. Now grab your gear and let’s get on the road. The pilot flying us into Annapolis has his own schedule that he can’t deviate from. So we need to accommodate him.”
She was already moving, heading to the bedroom for the large overnight bag she had packed with a change of clothing. While she was there she grabbed the other change of clothes he had requested before pulling her purse from the dresser and heading back into the living room.
He was waiting for her. He took the change of clothes, stuffed them into a plastic bag then secured it with waterproof tape before shoving it into the black pack he carried along with a regular-sized duffel bag.
“Your neighbor, Ian Richards, is riding in with us,” he announced as he led the way to the door.
“My neighbor Ian?” She stopped and stared at him in confusion. “The blond in the back condo? The one who likes to flash his hard abs at Kira? Let me guess. He’s your partner?”
“That’s the one.” His voice rasped with a hint of male displeasure. “You’re not supposed to notice my partner’s hard abs.”
“They were hard to miss.”
His eyes darkened, his brows lowering, as he deactivated the alarm and unlocked the door. He looked . . . jealous. Emily felt a surge of excitement at the prospect. She hadn’t anticipated that.
“So, was your partner Daddy’s idea too? And was it Daddy’s idea not to tell me he was there?”
“He’s additional protection, nothing more.” He shrugged.
Emily sighed. “At least he’s nice looking. If I have to have trained escorts it helps if they’re good eye candy.”
“Eye candy, huh?” he muttered as he motioned her out. “I’ll have to smash his face a little and fix that.”
Emily looked at the face in question, attached to the hard body dressed in jeans and a cotton shirt, and turned to smirk back at Kell.
“Shame on you,” she said, pitching her voice low enough that only he could hear. “I promise I won’t molest him. You don’t get the same promise.”
“Vixen,” he accused her roughly as he reset the alarm and closed the door as he stepped out. Locking it quickly, he turned back to her, let his hot gaze rake over her. “I might have to spank you for being so insolent.”
She grinned as she tucked the handle of her overnight bag over her shoulder and winked back at him suggestively.
“Spankings only make me worse.”
“That’s what I was hoping.” He grinned smugly. “That just makes it a hell of a lot more pleasurable to give it, sweeth
eart. Didn’t you know that?”
“Pervert.” She laughed, feeling something lighten inside her as she headed for the Bronco where the other SEAL waited.
“Wench.”
This was going to be fun.
But hours later, she wondered if it would be nearly as much fun as the flight from Atlanta to Annapolis had been. She had ridden in a Black Hawk. Not just any Black Hawk, but the newest model, which her father had informed her was supposed to be radically more efficient and militarily progressive.
She was still flying when they landed and the pilot gave her the thumbs-up.
“Ma’am, thank you for providing support.” He flashed her a bright smile as she sat in the copilot’s seat, and she had to keep herself from bouncing. “I’ll give you back to Lieutenant Krieger now.”
The door beside her opened, and Kell stared up at her with that almost hidden smile of his, his expression rueful as he gripped her waist and lifted her to the tarmac.
“Did you see me?” She squealed, bouncing, certain she was still flying as her hands gripped his shoulders and she laughed with a vibrancy she hadn’t felt in years. “That is so incredibly cool, Kell. He even answered all my questions about the instruments and everything. Can you believe he let me sit there?”
She hugged him. She couldn’t help it. But his arms returned the embrace, strong, powerful arms that surrounded her with warmth and approval.
“I saw, little fly girl,” he said, laughing back. “Come on, the limo is waiting and Lieutenant Greary has places to go.”
He saluted the pilot before closing the copilot’s door and maneuvered her so that he and Ian seemed to surround her clear to the limo.
Ian moved into the front with the chauffeur as Kell opened the back door and helped her in, staring around the Navy yard with narrowed eyes.
Getting into the limo, he closed the door, raised the partition between the driver and the back, and watched Emily with a hunger that immediately had her breath tightening in her chest.
She was exhilarated from the flight but the look in Kell’s eyes drove that excitement from her and replaced it with a sudden, overwhelming hunger nearly impossible to resist.