Читать книгу A SEAL's Fantasy - Tawny Weber - Страница 11

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THREE HOURS LATER, Lara stepped off the bus, shifting her bag into the crook of one arm while she dug out her keys. She didn’t angle them like a weapon. Her neighborhood was run-down and on the cheap side, but it wasn’t sleazy like the alley behind the casino.

It was the best she could afford. A far cry from what she’d grown up with, but a major step up from where she’d lived three years ago when she’d landed in Reno.

That didn’t mean she was satisfied.

Soon she’d be making good money, she promised herself as she crossed the street. She might not be able to swing the snooty gated community of her childhood, but she’d own a home. Not here in Reno. She wanted a place in the country, where she could look for miles and not see another person.

Someday.

Someday soon.

Except that damned cab ride had cost her three days’ meals.

She gritted her teeth. Leave it to Phillip to cost her more than she could afford.

She’d stopped blaming the sexy hunk about an hour after she’d escaped.

Sitting under the bright fluorescent lights of the classroom, she’d decided that tall, built and gorgeous was only the messenger. Between taking notes and coding HTML, she’d changed her mind about Phillip sending his friend. Maybe big brother had finally decided to clue her in about their parents’ death. Not one to get his lily-white hands dirty, he’d probably asked his friend to pass on a message. Guys being guys, the dimpled hunk had probably agreed out of loyalty.

Phillip. Prince Perfect, as she’d called him growing up. She’d never have figured her uptight, upright brother to inspire that kind of devotion, but who knew. It’d been a lot of years since she’d seen him. Maybe he’d developed warmth, or oh, inspired miracle, even a little compassion in the last decade.

Or the gorgeous messenger was simply a card-carrying member of the penis brigade, loyal to any and all who sported the same equipment.

Men were funny that way.

Lara knew the only person worthy of her loyalty was herself. It hadn’t taken long to figure that out—all she’d needed was for every single other person in her life to let her down before she’d clued in.

Climbing the steps to her building, she felt the weight of the day pressing on her shoulders. She’d danced the matinee and the early show, escaped a gorgeous mountain, then attended both class and lab.

She still had about twelve hours of homework before Monday night and eight shows to dance over the weekend. If she nailed this assignment, she’d have the top grade in the class. This cyberinspection program was the last of her course load and the school offered internships to the best graduating students with three top-flight security firms.

Six more weeks and she’d be working for one of those three. With a happy sigh, she rounded the hallway to her corridor. A year’s internship while she still danced on the side and she’d be ready to go out on her own.

Lara Lee, Cyber Detective.

She grinned, then blinked. Frowning, she noted the hall lighting was out. Weird. The super was a lech, but he was a conscientious one.

No biggie. She was the second door, so seeing her keyhole wasn’t a problem.

She’d just gotten her key in the lock when she felt him.

It wasn’t his body heat that tipped her off.

Nope, it was the lust swirling through her system, making her knees weak and her nipples ache.

Taking a deep breath, this time she did shift her keys between her knuckles as she turned around.

“Do you always lurk in the shadows?” she asked.

“Hall light is out. Shadows are all you’ve got here.”

“What do you want?”

“I already told you. I need to talk to you about your brother.”

“And I already told you. I don’t have a brother.”

Not anymore.

“Lieutenant Phillip Banks. Of the Maryland Banks’s. Parents were Randall and Ellen. Dad owned an investment firm and dabbled in politics. Ring any bells?” His words were easy, the look in his eyes as mellow as the half smile on his full lips. “Brother went to Annapolis right out of school. Top honors, joined the Navy as an ensign.”

Her eyes narrowed, noting the slight change in his tone. His expression didn’t change, but he didn’t sound as though he admired those accomplishments too much.

“My last name is Lee.” All her legal documents said so. It’d cost her a quarter of the small trust her grandmother had left her to make sure of it when she’d run away. Then, before she could stop herself, she asked, “Why are you running errands for this guy, anyway?”

His dark eyes flashed for a second before he gave a lazy shrug.

“Sweetheart, do I look like anyone’s errand boy?” he asked, leaning his shoulder against the wall. He still blocked her exit. He was that big. But at least he wasn’t looming anymore.

She couldn’t resist.

She let her eyes wander down the long, gloriously hard length of his body. Broad shoulders and a drool-worthy chest tapered to flat abs, narrow hips and strong thighs. His boots were black, worn and very, very big.

She wet her lips and met his eyes again.

He didn’t look mellow now.

He looked hot.

As if he’d like to strip her down and play show-and-tell.

Tempting, since she’d bet that’d be worth seeing.

“Sorry,” she said truthfully. “I’m not the woman you’re looking for.”

* * *

DAMN.

Not for the first time in his life, or even the first time today, Dominic cursed Banks. The guy was a major pain in the ass. Even while captured by a psychopathic drug lord, he was still causing trouble.

Didn’t it figure that long, lean and sexy was gonna be just as bad.

He wanted to grab her, haul her off to the nearest horizontal surface and show her exactly what he was looking for.

Which meant they’d both be naked, there’d be a bottle of warm body oil and a bowl of whipped cream nearby, and he’d be showing her with his mouth.

Insane.

He was on a mission. It might not be recognized by the brass, but it’d been handed down by his superior officer. So to Castillo, it was a duty.

She was his duty.

He’d never lusted after a mission before.

Not in the rock-hard-dick, blood-pounding-desire kind of way.

He didn’t like it.

He wished he could say the same about the woman in front of him.

Her chestnut hair swept over strong cheekbones like a heavy curtain, ending at the sharp angle of her chin. She was tall, at least six foot in those heels, and all leg. All long, delicious leg encased in tight denim.

Tall meant he could gaze straight into her eyes. She’d looked like a sexy goddess on stage, her eyes heavily made up, false eyelashes glittering with rhinestones and her lips a candy-apple red.

But here, now, she looked even sexier.

He knew women. Oh, boy, did he know women.

So he knew that the only thing she had on her face might be a layer of moisturizer. No matter, she was great without it. Her skin glistened with just a hint of gold, her full lips were rosy and her huge green eyes were fringed with thick dark lashes.

“So if you’re nobody’s errand boy, what are you doing here, bugging me with some message I don’t want to hear?” Those sloe eyes bland, she gave him a long look up, then down, as if she were assessing the goods. Since her expression didn’t change, it was hard to tell if she liked the view or not.

Dominic didn’t know why that fascinated him so much. It wasn’t as if he expected to appeal to all women, but for the most part, they pretty much fell at his feet. Most offering any variety of promises—everything from sex to bearing his children to general worship. So this cloaked indifference was an interesting change.

Intriguing.

“I serve with Banks,” he told her, figuring that said it all.

“Serve? Like, what? Drinks?” she asked, leaning against the wall and batting her eyelashes.

First an errand boy and now a waiter? She was either lousy at reading people, or she was hot on giving him a bad time.

His research said that their grandfather had been a Navy commander, that she’d grown up in Annapolis’s backyard and that her brother had been well on his way to graduating the Naval Academy with honors when she’d run away. So he figured she was all about the bad time.

“Look...” She paused, arching one slender brow in question.

“Castillo,” he filled in.

“Look, Castillo. I don’t know what you want with this Banks guy, or what info you think you can get from me about him.” As if sensing that he’d been about to interrupt, she held up her palm and shook her head. “Whatever it is, I’m not interested.”

“I’m not here to get info, sweetheart. I’m here to protect you.”

Damn. Dominic grimaced. What was with his mouth? He shouldn’t have said that. He was just here to keep an eye out, not to scare the poor woman. Then he thought of the message he’d gotten while waiting outside her building.

Bad Ass says bad juju. Ugly on the move.

It didn’t take much to decode that Brody was warning that things were going bad in Guatemala, they hadn’t gotten Banks out and Valdero’s men were likely to grab Banks’s sister as leverage.

So maybe she should be a little scared. If that made her cautious, it was worth the info breach.

For one second, he thought he’d gotten through—her brow creased, her eyes clouded and her lips pursed.

Then she laughed in his face.

“Protect me? From what? Big burly guys accosting me in the dark hall of my apartment building? News flash, Castillo, you’re the only trouble I’ve got in my life right now.”

Her words were light, her tone amused. But Dominic knew how to read beneath the surface. He could tell that she’d had plenty of trouble before him and had probably handled it just fine.

Still, handling a drunk or a jerk of a boyfriend was aeons away from facing down drug-running goons who specialized in body decoration via knives and fishhooks.

Before he could tell her that in some form or another, he heard a noise in the hall.

Lightning fast, he grabbed her around the waist, lifting her off the floor. At her quick inhalation, he slipped his hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. He scanned the area. Four closed doors on the right, three on the left and a janitor’s closet at the end. He strode toward it, the kicking, squirming bundle in his arms not slowing him down at all. He regularly carried a backpack that weighed almost as much as she did. Although, granted, it didn’t try to bite him.

He reached the closet, glad it was unlocked. Jimmying the lock would have required taking at least one hand off the woman. Instead, he shoved her into the small, cramped, dark space and pulled the door closed, but not all the way. He peered through the crack, watching as two thugs rounded the corner.

Damn, talk about timing. Not for the first time in his life, Dominic gave thanks for whatever guardian angel was watching out for him.

He glanced down at the thrashing handful of woman trying to bite his fingers. Her breasts pressed tight against his chest, a minor turn-on even through both of their jackets. Damn, she was the perfect height. Pulled close to his body, her face was level with his, so he had a good view of the fury coating it. Her eyes spit fire and promised a nasty enough retribution that he tightened his hold on the wrists he’d snugged into the small of her back.

Power down, he warned his glands. Hot and horny was fine in the proper place and time. A closet with gun-toting goons outside looking for torture targets was neither.

As much to keep them safe as to get her out of temptation distance from his lips, Dominic leaned down to press his mouth against her ear.

“I’ll take my hand off your mouth if you promise to stay quiet,” he warned in a whisper. “Fair warning, you break the promise and someone is gonna end up hurt bad. Before you decide, take a look through that crack and check out your door.”

Her glare didn’t dim, but she did stop thrashing and trying to bite him. Suspicion joining the fury in her eyes, she stared for another second before shifting her gaze to the crack of dim light floating between the wall and the edge of the door.

He felt it the moment she saw them. She sucked in a breath, whether to scream or cuss didn’t matter. He pulled her back against his front, her ass snuggled up against his zipper and his cheek against hers. The move had a double payoff—she immediately stilled, and his dick was damned happy with the arrangement.

“Quiet,” he whispered as she growled against his fingers when the goons finished busting the lock on her door with a swift boot to the hinge. It flew open with a crack. They didn’t care about quiet. Guys like that were used to doing and taking as they saw fit.

One of the pair went inside while the other stood in the doorway, one hand inside his jacket. Since it was obvious he was gripping his weapon, Dominic figured Lara had clued in enough to the danger that he could slide his hand off her mouth. He didn’t pull it away completely, though.

Just in case.

But she didn’t scream. She didn’t even cuss. She just gave a low hiss, sounding like an infuriated snake ready to strike.

“That’d be what I’m here to protect you from,” he said, his voice so low it was as if he breathed the words.

Still cheek to cheek, she barely had to turn her head to look at him. Snapping with indignant fury, her eyes shifted from him to the door, as if asking what the hell he was going to do to protect her apartment.

“They’re armed, I’m not,” he whispered. “My job is to keep you out of their hands, not to take them down.”

“Pretty sure if you do the latter, the former is moot,” she whispered back.

“No engagement.” Unless absolutely necessary. He’d keep that to himself, since he was sure her idea of necessary and his weren’t quite the same.

Slowly, he’d like to think reluctantly, she pulled away. His body instantly went cold and a little lonely without her.

Damn.

He gave in to the torment for a second, closing his eyes, leaning his forehead against the edge of the door and giving a deep sigh.

“We should call the police.”

Her whisper pulled his attention back to the task at hand. He opened his eyes, peering through the crack at her apartment, with its door swinging drunkenly, only hinged on the bottom.

“Bet one of your neighbors already did,” he said. “The goons know it—they’ll be gone before the sirens get here.”

“What...” Her words trailed off in a volley of cursing echoed out of her apartment. She puffed out a nervous breath, then finished, “Are they looking for?”

Before Dominic had to decide how he wanted to answer that, the men reappeared in her door. After a quick consultation, they headed out. Neither bothered to look around, clearly not giving a damn about caution.

Dominic, on the other hand, was careful to give them a solid sixty seconds to clear the hall before he eased the door open. Gesturing for Lara to wait, he paused only long enough to make sure she obeyed before leaving the closet. He didn’t bother with stealth as he strode down the hall. Valdero’s men weren’t looking for him.

It only took a glance to be sure they were gone, but he still checked the stairs and landing, as well as the other hallways, always keeping the closet in sight.

A minute later, sure they’d left the building, he returned to Lara’s apartment. What a mess. He shook his head before gesturing for her to join him.

Lara stopped in her doorway, shock chased off her face by fury. Neither disguised the grief, though.