Out of Time Read online

  “I would have done the same thing in your position.”

  He meant it. It also made him realize just how desperate she’d been and how much she feared for her family if letting her sick father think she was dead was her best choice.

  She attempted to smile, but it wobbled. “Thanks. That means a lot.”

  She was standing too close. Their bodies were almost brushing. He could feel her warmth. Smell the faint feminine scent. And when she looked up at him, those big sad brown eyes cut off his breath. Everything in his chest seemed to come to a sudden halt. He had that itchy feeling. That feeling that he would do just about anything to make it better.

  So much so that he found himself saying, “I could have Kate make a few inquiries. She’s good. She won’t leave a footprint if anyone is still watching. And it might help you put your mind at ease about your father until this is all, uh, sorted out.”

  In other words, until he decided what the fuck to do.

  She sucked in her breath. The erotic sound was bad enough, but it also made her lips part invitingly. Enticingly. He could almost taste the sweetness on his tongue.

  She betrayed you. She lied. She put the job that meant everything to you—that you’ve dedicated the last fifteen years of your life to—in jeopardy.

  But the reminders didn’t seem to be packing the same wallop. They barely penetrated the haze that was descending on him like a lead curtain.

  “You would do that?” she asked sweetly, having no clue what she was doing to him.

  He nodded, unable to breathe. The rein on his control was taking everything he had to handle it. The temptation to lower his mouth, to cover the lips of the woman who had haunted him for months . . .

  “Oh, Scott! Thank you!” She threw her arms around his neck and pressed her body to his in an innocent, grateful hug.

  Almost instantly she pulled back in shock, realizing what she’d done, and realizing, no doubt, that every muscle in his body was pulled as tight as a bowstring. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to back away. “I didn’t mean to—”

  She didn’t get the word out. With a sharp growl—or maybe it was a curse—he dragged her into his arms and did what he’d been wanting to do since the first moment he saw her on the town steps.

  His mouth covered hers in a deep groan. The intensity of the sensation—of the relief—overwhelming. His heart slammed hard against his rib cage just as it had done the first time he’d felt the incredible softness . . . the warmth . . . the honey-sweet taste.

  He felt her surprise and then her almost instant response. Her almost instant surrender as her body melted into his. Her arms went around his neck and the soft weight of her dragged him down a black hole of an indescribable need—of a craving that seemed to pull from his very soul.

  His tongue was in her mouth, wrapped against hers, stroking deeper and deeper. His hands were in her hair, on her breasts, on that curvy ass that had been driving him crazy.

  And her hands were on him. On his arms. His chest. His back. Pressing. Clenching. Digging. Trying to bring him closer.

  The subtle press of her hips against his already throbbing erection was too much to take. He spun around, leaning back on the sink to wrap her leg around his hips and lifting her up on him so she was right where he wanted her. He circled, pressed, and slid up and down, mimicking a thrust as he let her feel the long thick length of him.

  She responded with a gasp of pleasure that went right to the tip of his cock and a press of her own hips that increased the friction. The madness. The desperation.

  It felt so damned good, and knowing that he was going to be inside her in the space of a couple of buttons and she would be riding him for real was pushing him over the edge. Fast.

  They’d never been much on foreplay for the first time of the night. And almost four months of built-up pressure seemed to have only made it more explosive.

  He was right there. And if the increasingly demanding sounds coming from her were any indication, so was she.

  The kiss was out of control. They were devouring each other. Her moans mixed with his groans in a firestorm of passion. The frenzy egged him on. It was as if they both wanted to get there before something—

  A buzz in his shorts jolted him. His phone was vibrating. For a moment, he kept kissing her. But it was too much reality to ignore. With a curse, he released her leg and broke the kiss. She was still plastered against him, but slowly he stood and let her find her feet as he fumbled around to dig his phone out of his shorts, the effort hampered by the size of his erection making them about two sizes too tight.

  He glanced at the number before answering, seeing that it was Kate.

  His heart was still hammering, his blood was still pounding, and other parts of him were still protesting as he bit out a terse “What’s up?”

  “Thank God,” she said. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you. Didn’t you get my message?”

  He could tell right away that something was wrong. “I hadn’t had a chance to listen to it yet.” He’d been too busy nearly having sex with the woman he was supposed to be bringing in to clear his name. “What is it?”

  “Colt found Travis.” There was a pause where he could guess what she was going to say before the words were out. His stomach dropped. “He’s dead, Scott. Travis is dead!”

  Twelve

  Scott felt as if he’d taken another bullet—this one in the gut. He’d thought that Travis might have run into some kind of problem, but dead? The news Kate had just imparted cut his legs out from under him.

  What the hell had happened?

  Aware of Natalie’s gaze on him, Scott turned and walked out of the bathroom into the hall. The heat and the passion of a few minutes ago had turned numb and cold.

  “Scott, are you there?” Kate asked.

  “I’m here.” He paused, his voice tight. “How? When?”

  “A bar fight in Alaska two weeks ago. Colt said there was a verbal argument over a pool game—some guy accused Travis of pool-sharking—that spilled out into the parking lot later. Colt got someone to pull the security tapes for him, and they showed two guys jumping Travis just after one in the morning when he was heading back to his car. One of the guys hit Travis over the head with a bottle, breaking it, and then the jagged glass ended up in his jugular when the second guy struck him and he fell back.”

  Scott wished he could believe that it was a coincidence, but there were two things wrong with the story: Travis sucked at pool, and he was a SEAL. A tier-one, best-of-the-best SEAL. Two guys—two normal guys—wouldn’t have been able to get the jump on him or do that kind of damage. He didn’t need to see the tape to know that they had to have been trained.

  Scott could tell from Kate’s voice that she didn’t believe it, either. “Let me guess,” he said. “The two guys weren’t local, no one had ever seen them before, they’ve disappeared, and the police have nothing.”

  “Yep, they checked into a hotel two days before and seem to have left that night. They didn’t check out.”

  “Fake ID and cash to rent the room?”

  “How did you guess?”

  “Photos?”

  “Nothing clear on any of the bar security cameras. Colt is having someone pull the street, ATM, and nearby building cameras.”

  “Descriptions?”

  “A couple. Travis was with one of the guys he worked with, and the guy was pretty shaken up, but he got a good look at one of the guys. He had some pretty elaborate neck tattoos that might give us a lead.”

  But Scott already knew where it would lead: back to the Russians. Mick must have been able to pass on the information about other survivors before he was killed—the timing was right—and the Russians were hunting them down, picking them off one by one.

  It wasn’t over.

  A wall of conflicting emotions hit him at the same time: denial, r