Crossfire

“Ow!” the man protested, but didn’t release his hold on her like she’d planned. “Christ, Elizabeth, that’s a hell of a way to say thank-you.”

She went very still. Absolutely, completely, deathly still. Even the trembling stopped. She had to remind herself to breathe, and when she did, the woodsy masculine scent brought her senses surging violently to life.

No. Dear sweet God, no.

Her heart slammed hard against her ribs, bringing with it a rush of denial. She didn’t want to look, to see, to know, but knew she had no choice. Very slowly, very deliberately, she forced herself to turn toward her captor.

And saw those hot burning eyes.

She blinked hard, stared, but the harsh face inches from hers never changed.

“Hawk.” His name came out on a shattered whisper, all she could manage through the tangle of shock clogging her throat.

He smiled then, slowly, that mouth she’d never forgotten curving into the insolent smile he had down to an infuriating art form. “Expecting someone else?”

“Dear God.”

His lips twitched. “Sorry to disappoint you, sweetcakes, but you got me instead.”

The world, the chaos behind her, faded. Words failed her. Two years had passed since she’d seen her former bodyguard, shouting wildly as two security guards removed him from her parents’ home. It had been cold and wet that night, as well. She’d tried to carve the memory from her mind, but seeing him now, here, like this, with the rain plastering his dark blond hair to the sides of his brutally handsome face, brought everything crashing back in excruciating detail.

“Ellie?” His voice was gentler now, not so amused. “You okay?”

No, she wasn’t okay. Couldn’t be okay. Not when Hawk Monroe held her in his arms, the heat of his body chasing away the chill of the rain. Not when she had only to lift a hand to touch the dark-gold whiskers on his jaw. Not when a simple breath drew him deep, deep inside her.

“I’m fine,” she said more sharply than she intended. “Put me down.”

She would have sworn he winced. But he did as she asked, easing her down the length of his rain-slicked body, keeping one arm secured around her shoulders.

The second her feet touched concrete, she staggered from him. Cold water splashed over her broken sandals, and pain speared up from her ankle, but she gritted her teeth so that he didn’t see.

She knew better than to stare, but could no more have looked away than she could have run. Hawk Monroe. Here. In the flesh. Standing in the cold rain. As usual he looked rough around the edges even in slacks and a sport coat, courtesy of the gun in his hand and the empty holster strapped around his shoulder. His dark-gray button-down lay open at the throat, revealing the silver chain he always wore.

“Elizabeth?” He lifted a hand to her face and snapped his fingers. “You still with me?”

She closed her eyes, counted to five, opened them a moment later.

He was still there, standing behind the bank of dumpsters, all tall and soaked to the bone.

“What are you doing here?” She tried for grit, but the question came out breathy and broken, making her cringe.

“Your father sent me—” The words stopped abruptly, almost violently. His eyes went wild. “Those bastards hurt you.”

“No,” she said. “They just scared me.”

He crowded her against the cold brick wall. “Tell me where.” Before she could push away, before her heart could even beat, he shoved his Glock into its holster and had his hands on her body, running them down her bare arms and up the sides of her little black dress. “Damn it, this is my fault,” he said roughly.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, trying desperately to ignore the feel of his big, brutal hands cruising over her body. She might as well have pretended this was all a bad dream. Her skimpy cocktail dress hadn’t been designed for warmth, and the rain stung like shards of ice. Everywhere Hawk’s hands cruised, heat lingered.

Just like before.

Back away, she told herself. Now. His touch was too demanding, the contact between their bodies too intimate. She thought of putting her palms to his chest and pushing, demanding he let her go, but the truth burned. Even if he hadn’t wedged her between his body and the brick wall, her injured ankle made outrunning him impossible. Hawk Monroe was a man of instinct and impulse. He’d be on her before she took two steps.

She didn’t want him on her ever, ever again.

He pulled back and lifted his hand. “How do you explain this?”

In a faraway corner of her mind, the mix of blood and rainwater on his fingers registered, but it was the look in his eyes that stole her breath. They were hot and burning as always, but not with betrayal like the last time she’d seen him. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn they blazed with concern. Mortality. A fear that reached down deep and twisted hard.

“Not mine,” she whispered. “Not my blood.”

The breath sawed in and out of him. “Not yours?”

“No,” she said. “Not mine. I’m fine.”

He looked from her eyes to his upturned hand, washed clean by the steady downpour. “Not yours,” he muttered, as though he didn’t quite understand.

Elizabeth wanted to feel relief that he’d finally quit running his hands over her body, but he was standing so still. Too still. Unnaturally still for a man like Hawk Monroe, who wasn’t still even when he slept. He tossed and turned, thrashed, transforming a bed into a war zone. Now he didn’t move, just kept staring at his hand, as though blood might suddenly reappear.

She knew better than to touch him, but raised a hand to his anyway. “Wesley?”

That was her mistake. Touching him. Just like that night two years before. She tried to withdraw, to undo the damage, but he lifted his eyes to hers and she flat-out forgot to breathe.

“Elizabeth,” he muttered, and before she could pull away, before her heart could so much as beat, his mouth was on hers, and nothing else mattered.

Chapter 2

Hawk Monroe prided himself on staying cool under fire. He didn’t cling to plans if they didn’t work. He didn’t hesitate to improvise. Those were his rules, rules that kept him alive.

Kissing Elizabeth Carrington violated every rule in his book.

But God help him, with the world exploding around him and Elizabeth Carrington staring up at him through those tilted green eyes, he flat didn’t care. There was nothing rational or cautious inside him, just hot, jagged edges and a burning need. He pulled her to him, roughly almost, knowing he could never get her close enough.

Elizabeth. Cool, untouchable Elizabeth.

Nothing had prepared him for the sight of her, the feel, even across a crowded auditorium. Not memory. Not dreams. She’d been just as heart-jarringly beautiful as ever, just as elegant and regal and refined. He’d looked at her standing behind the podium, wearing a sexy-as-sin little black dress with the kind of square neckline that drove a man wild, and he’d had no choice but to remember what it had been like between them, the heat and the intensity, the passion she denied.

He’d been making his way toward the stage when the auditorium went dark. He’d started to run immediately, instinctively. Toward her. Elizabeth.

The woman he’d sworn to give his life for.

Who’d tossed him out like month-old leftovers.

Still, his body tightened at the realization of how close he’d come to losing her. He’d seen that man’s hands on her. He’d heard her cry out. He’d wanted to kill.

Not now. Now he wanted only to absorb, to feel every inch of her. He lifted a hand to her face, found her skin soft and cool, damp from the rain, flawless like he remembered. He wanted to spear his fingers into her hair, but she had it twisted off her face in one of those fancy styles that emphasized her killer cheekbones and those provocative eyes that incinerated common sense.

Need twisted through him, hot and dark, punishing, to assure himself she was safe and unharmed, that she was in his arms and not just his dreams. The ones that had him jerking awake in the middle of the night, tangled in the sheets and vowing to never let her look down her perfect nose at him again.

Cradling her like that, with his palm cupping her jaw and his fingers spread wide, he kissed her hard, he kissed her deep. He kissed her the way he kissed her in his dreams, his memory.

And she was kissing him back.

Sweet Mary, she tasted of red wine and fear, temptation and destruction all rolled into one impossible package. The way she had her hands curled around the lapels of his jacket, it was as though she sought to keep him from backing away. Christ. There was no way he could have torn away, not when she kissed him as she had that night so long ago, when boundaries had shattered and the world had narrowed to only the two of them.

A hard sound broke from his throat as he pulled her closer, went deeper. He held her against him, ran his hands along her back. She was alive. She hadn’t been hurt. He’d gotten to her in time.

Dragging his mouth from hers, he skimmed along her jawbone. One of his hands drifted to her shoulders, down to her lower back, where he pressed her against him. His body was hot and hard and on fire, and—

The hands clutching his sport coat began to push instead.

“Don’t,” she said, turning her face from his. “Stop.”

Hawk went very still. Her brittle words doused the fire as effectively as the cold rain in which they stood. He pulled back to look at her, see her, found her eyes huge and dark and as icy as the night around them. No emotion glimmered there, not one trace of the seven hours when the rest of the world hadn’t mattered, none of the heat or longing that pulsed through him. He found only the cool indifference he’d seen countless nights when he lay twisted in the sheets of his empty bed.

And something inside him snapped.

“Which is it, Ellie?” He worked hard to bring himself under control, but the question ripped out anyway. “Don’t?” he asked, biting out the word like a command. “Stop?” Briefly he hesitated. “Or don’t stop?”

Her eyes flashed, reproach replacing the moment of apathy.

He held her angry gaze, enjoying even the smallest victory. For a minute there, a stupid, impulsive minute, he’d forgotten. He hadn’t been thinking about the way she’d rolled over in bed and looked at him with horror in her eyes. He hadn’t been thinking about the way she’d had him removed from her parents’ estate. He’d forgotten the cold look on her face, the cutting words.

He’d only known Elizabeth was safe and in his arms.

Swearing softly, he took his hands from her body and stepped back. No way was he going to let her turn him into the bad guy.

Wide-eyed, she lifted a hand to her mouth, pressing fingers to full lips colored not by cosmetics, but the relentlessness of their kiss.

“What are you doing?” she asked with a breathlessness he knew she would hate.

“You were pale.” He spoke with exaggerated simplicity, not about to tell her the thought of her being hurt had pushed him to the edge. He would never give her that leverage over him ever, ever again. “I wanted to put some color back into your cheeks.”

She lifted her chin, just as she always did when she was determined to pull herself under control. “A simple pinch would have been fine.”

But nowhere near as satisfying. Retrieving his gun, Hawk scanned the rain-dampened alley a block from the hotel. Many of the sirens had quit blaring, indicating the chaos was settling. Soon Elizabeth’s absence would be noted.

“Nothing is ever simple with you,” he said, returning his attention to her. She had this preconceived notion of how life should be and couldn’t accept that just because a plan was made didn’t mean it had to be followed. He’d tried to show her, had shown her. God, how he’d shown her.

In return she’d accepted another man’s proposal.

“What do you want me to say?” he added, lowering the pitch of his voice. “That I wanted to kiss you? To know if you tasted like the red wine you had with dinner?”

Her eyes darkened, but other than that, she denied him a reaction. “What are you doing here?”

Walking back into a colossal mistake. “Saving your life, it looks like.”

She wrapped her arms around her rib cage, drawing his attention to the black pearls showcased by the square neckline of her little wet dress and the way she’d started to shake.

“Why?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

He slipped out of his sport coat and draped it around her shoulders. “Here,” he almost growled. “You shouldn’t be running around half-dressed when it’s freezing outside.”

She didn’t throw the jacket to the ground and stomp on it the way he’d expected, but pulled the tweed tightly around her. “Answer my question, Wesley. Why are you here?”

The Dumpsters shielded them from view, but soon the authorities would come looking. Or worse. He needed her cooperation, and he needed it now.

“Your father sent me. Jorak Zhukov broke out of prison.”

What little color he’d kissed into her face drained away. After her sister’s ordeal, he figured just the name Zhukov would strike fear into any of the Carringtons.

“Why you?” she asked, and he heard what she didn’t say. Why not Aaron or Jagger or anyone other than him?

“Your father knows I’m the best.” He held her gaze, refused to let her see one trace of the cold fear still slicing him up inside. “So do you.”

The hair pulled from her face made it impossible to miss the way her eyes flared, the flicker of memory, but she quickly hid the reaction and looked toward the Dumpsters.

Hawk didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or slam his fist into the cold brick wall.

Nothing had changed. He knew they had no future, he didn’t want a future, but the denial stung all the same. Here she was as cool and untouchable as always, while something deep inside him boiled. He caged in his response to her, unwilling to let her think she still had that power over him. Because she didn’t. She never had. That was only adrenaline, the thrill of the chase.

“Where did the blood come from?” she asked, looking back at him. “Did you shoot someone?”

“With you in the line of fire?” The thought sickened him. “Sweet God, Elizabeth, what kind of man do you think I am?”

She had the good grace to wince. “Then where did the blood come from?”

Her failure to answer his question didn’t go unnoticed. He knew what kind of man she thought he was. She’d made that bulletproof clear.

The rain picked up, icy pellets slanting down on them both. And despite his jacket, Elizabeth still shook. A compassionate man would have pulled her into his arms, let the heat of his body warm her. But Hawk wasn’t interested in another Elizabeth Carrington rejection, no matter how badly he hated seeing her tremble. The urge to hold her was just instinct, he told himself. Basic human kindness. Nothing more.

“My guess is the fall,” he said. “Zhukov’s man must have cut himself, got his blood on you.” The bastard had taken Hawk down, as well, lifting a leg in the darkness to send Hawk to his hands and knees. The impact had jarred him, but nowhere near as much as the sound of Elizabeth’s scream.

“Zhukov,” she muttered, lifting her eyes to his. “Dear God, where’s Miranda?”

He stepped from the shield of the dumpsters and verified the coast was still clear. “Sandro has her. They’re safe.”

“Thank God,” she breathed.

Time was up. If the authorities found them, there’d be a fuss, questions, officials. There’d be delays. Cameras. Someone might try to separate them.

Elizabeth, the woman who looked at him and saw her worst nightmare, wouldn’t stop them.

He swung toward her. “Can you run?”

She looked at her ruined strappy sandals, then back at him. “Run?”

“I need to get you out of here, and either we run or I carry you.”

She snapped off the heel of her other sandal. “I can run.”

He bit back a laugh. She was so predictable. “Good girl. My car is just around the corner.” Ready to go, he reached for her, but as he’d predicted, she stepped away from his touch.

He came damn close to growling.

“Quit fighting me, Ellie,” he said as levelly as he could. “You have to let me do my job.”

“Is that what you’re calling it these days?”

Impatience snapped through him. “I call it saving your life,” he said, then didn’t give her a chance to protest further, just put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her close to shield her from the rain and took off running.

“It’s not the Ritz, sweetness, but it’ll have to do.”

Elizabeth stepped into the small hotel room and heard Hawk close the door behind her. She drew a deep breath, but the stale air did nothing to soothe her nerves. Jorak Zhukov was out of prison. He’d threatened the Carringtons. Shots had been fired.

And Hawk Monroe had saved her life.

Hawk.

God.

She still couldn’t believe it, couldn’t stop shaking, even though he’d turned the heater in the car on full blast. She’d sat there, numb and clutching his sport coat around her body, listening to him explain the situation while trying not to draw the achingly familiar scent of incense and musk deep inside of her. She didn’t want him there with her. She didn’t want his warmth.

And dear God, she didn’t want to remember the way she’d kissed him. Because she had. Kissed him. Kissed Hawk. His mouth had been hot and hard and more than a little seeking, covering hers, coercing, urging, rough, a seductive drug she’d never quite gotten out of her system. Adrenaline.

A mistake.

“You need to get out of those clothes,” he said, coming up beside her.

The heat of his body washed over her like a tempting embrace, forcing her to wonder how he could generate so much heat when his clothes were as drenched as hers. “I don’t have anything else to wear.”

Too late she realized her mistake. For a man like Hawk Monroe, nudity wouldn’t be a problem. She braced herself, waiting for him to cockily tell her he didn’t mind one bit if she walked around naked.

“I do.”

Holding his sport coat around her, Elizabeth followed the sweep of his arm to the bed closest the window, where clothes spilled from an open gym bag and onto a ratty floral comforter.

Twin thoughts hit her simultaneously. There were two beds, and Hawk had known they’d be spending the night in this rinky-dink hotel a few miles from the airport.

“You planned this?” she asked, pivoting toward him. She didn’t understand why the thought bothered her.

He shoved dark blond hair, still damp, back from his face. “Sorry, sweetness, but I couldn’t let you sleep in that hotel tonight, not with Zhukov unaccounted for.”

“I guess it never occurred to you to let me know what was going on?”

“Not before the awards ceremony,” he said with infuriating dismissal. “No. What occurred to me, as you put it, is that my time was better spent mapping out the hotel and beefing up security.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “A lot of good that did us.”

He was across the room before she could so much as breathe. The angles of his face hardened. She took an automatic step back, but he took one forward. “You’re damn straight it did a lot of good. You’re alive, aren’t you? You’re here, with me and not out in the woods with one of Zhukov’s men.” His voice was hard, angry. “Do you know what they would do to you?”

Elizabeth bit down on her lower lip. Surprise flickered through her, followed by an unexpected sliver of regret. Yes. She knew what Zhukov would do to her.

“I thought you were one of them,” she admitted, and the flash of horror streaked back, the insidious vulnerability she despised. “I thought you were dragging me off to do God only knows what.”

His eyes flashed. “Don’t tempt me.”

The dark words whispered through her, as unsettling as they were familiar. The pieces, the memory, fell into place. “It was you,” she muttered. No wonder her heart had taken a long freefall through her chest. “It was you.”

He tucked a finger under her chin and turned her to face him. “What was me?”

The masculine scent of incense and musk in the elevator lobby. The one that had prompted her to spin around, expecting to see him standing behind her, thumbs hooked into the waistband of faded, low-riding jeans, smiling that insolent smile of his.

She forced herself to look at him, refused to give the satisfaction of thinking he rattled her. Because he didn’t. “All day I felt like I was being watched, followed. It was you, wasn’t it? You were there.”

The planes of Hawk’s face tightened, emphasizing wide, flat cheekbones. “I didn’t get to the hotel until midafternoon.”

She stepped back, swallowed hard. The thought of Hawk Monroe following her unsettled her in ways she didn’t want to analyze too closely, but it also brought a modicum of comfort. He was one of her father’s men. His best man, if she were honest. He’d been sent to keep an eye on her, escort her home, keep her safe.

The threat he posed had nothing to do with her life.

“If not you,” she asked, keeping her voice steady, “who?”

Hawk swore roughly, then strode to the air conditioning unit and fiddled with the controls. “Zhukov.”

Reality drilled deep. Jorak Zhukov. The man who’d sworn to make the Carringtons pay for his father’s death. Make them suffer. He’d been in the hotel, watching her. Waiting. Planning. If Hawk hadn’t been there…

“I’ve got the heat going,” he said, turning his attention to his gym bag. He pulled out a well-worn shirt, then crossed to her and put the flannel into her hands. “Go take a hot shower. Get warm. We can talk more when your teeth aren’t chattering.”

She looked at the familiar green-and-black tartan balled in her hands and tried not to remember the way the fabric looked stretched across Hawk’s shoulders, with those top three buttons open and exposing the silver chain nestled against the dark gold hair of his chest.

She did not want to put that shirt on. She didn’t want to crawl into bed with the soft, well-worn flannel whispering against her body.

But she wanted to walk around naked or in a towel even less.

“I won’t be long.”

Thank you, Hawk. Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for giving me your jacket, for turning up the heater in the car so hot that you broke out in a sweat. Thank you for thinking ahead, making sure we had a safe place to spend the night. Thank you for offering me your shirt, so I don’t have to walk around naked.

Thank you for being such a sap.

Hawk watched Elizabeth walk regally away from him, head high, damp hair sleekly twisted from her face, his sport coat hanging from her stiff shoulders and extending below the hem of her little black dress. Her panty hose were muddied and torn. Her feet were bare.

Rarely did he remember her looking more provocative.

She stepped into the brightly lit bathroom and closed the door, fiddled with the lock on the doorknob.

Biting back a few not-very-nice words, Hawk could do nothing about other impulses. He swept his arm across the dresser and sent the stupid little ice bucket and room-service guide crashing to the matted carpet.

Nothing had changed. Elizabeth Carrington may have kissed him like there was no tomorrow, but when it came to anything beyond pure physical responses, she made it brutally clear she hadn’t forgotten yesterday.

Or rather, two years before.

Once, he’d actually let himself believe a woman of refinement could want a rough-around-the-edges man like him. He didn’t have a pedigree, but he had a code of ethics and a heart, and he’d thought that would be enough. He’d convinced himself her cool facade concealed a passionate woman, that if he could crack through her barriers, he could show her she’d planned the living out of her life. That there was a whole world waiting to be discovered.

Instead, she’d shown him he was a fool.