2

chapter 2

one week later

Maggie stared into the misty morning of the South Carolina mountains and contemplated mistakes. Past mistakes, present mistakes, and how they would lead into the future. She was twenty-eight years old, and she might not live to see twenty-nine. The choices she had made in the past two and a half years had led her to this mountain, this cabin, and the man she couldn’t forget.

She had been such a fool. Two and a half years before she had walked out of Joe Merino’s life, believing she had left in time to save her heart, to go on and to find happiness with someone else.

He hadn’t loved her. They were damned good in bed, but he had made it clear he didn’t want or need her in his life. Real clear. Another-woman-on-his-arm-type clear.

She curled her feet beneath her, tucking her body tighter in the rocking chair that sat on the weathered wood porch of the cabin Joe had brought her to a week before.

That had been the beginning of her downfall into hell. She had broken all ties to Joe Merino two years and six months before. Several months later, she had met Grant Samuels. Six months after meeting, they had married.

She should have known better. The moment she learned Grant was in law enforcement, she should have run. But Grant had been a detective with the Atlanta Police Department at the time, and Joe had been an agent in the DEA. They might have known each other, but it had never occurred to her that they had been as close as they were. And Grant had kept the secret until only days before their wedding.

She should have broken off the engagement the day she learned Grant and Joe not only knew each other, but were supposedly best friends. And she would have, except Grant had pleaded with her, swore he loved her, and the wedding had been only days away.

Grant had claimed he had known about her and Joe, and hadn’t told her who he was because he had been terrified of losing her. That much would have been the truth, considering how easily he had used her, how he had intended to use her.

She had loved Grant. Or she had thought she did. Within months she had learned that the man she loved didn’t exist. Grant had married her because he believed Joe cared for her. She had been a trophy, something to torment Joe with, and nothing more.

She had tried to leave him. Three months after their marriage began, she had walked out, only to learn the true nature of the man she called her husband and the information he had gathered to ensure she never divorced him. Information that would destroy her father.

And now here she was, still fighting to escape the hell of a marriage that had been doomed from the start. Older, wiser, and more certain than ever that Joe Merino would end up breaking her heart, if Grant’s deceptions didn’t end up getting her killed first.

Where would he have hidden the information Joe needed so desperately? Information that would seal the government’s case against the remaining Fuentes family? Hell, did he even have the proof his journal had stated he had? Everything else in that damned book had been a lie.

Oh, he had really managed to mess her life up completely. The journal claimed she knew the location of the proof he had taken against the Fuentes family: Pictures and videodiscs of Santiago and Jose Fuentes along with Roberto Manuelo, the cartel general who had been killed the night Grant had tried to kidnap a female DEA agent, and had coordinated the drugging and rapes of over a dozen women in the past two years. The location of the lab where the drug was created and even the identities of several influential political figures involved with Fuentes.

In the past week, Maggie had learned exactly why the police department was so eager to drop any charges they could bring against her in return for the information they were looking for.

So why couldn’t the bastard Grant have just written it in his journal with all the lies he had written against her? He could have included some truth in it, just for a change of pace.

She pushed her fingers through her hair, the circles in her mind exhausting her. There were no answers, and the cold suspicion in Joe’s eyes was killing her. He had changed since Grant’s death. Since he had been forced to kill Grant, rather. There was an edge of unrelenting ice in his expression, in his eyes, that hadn’t been there before. Amusement had always lurked in the chocolate brown gaze, sensuality; playfulness had always curved his lips.

Even when they had argued, when she had walked out on the relationship they had, there had been regret, sadness, softness. There was none of that now. This wasn’t the man she had given her heart to.

So why was he protecting her? Why did he give a damn? Those were questions he had refused to answer since their arrival at the cabin, questions that garnered no more than a cold silence.

At this rate, she was going to have frostbite before the month was out.

“You’re a sitting target out here.”

Maggie flinched at the sound of his voice from the doorway. The dark sensuality of the tone couldn’t be hidden, no matter how coldly furious he might be. It throbbed just beneath the ice and sent heat curling through her system.

She hated that. She hated the response to him, unwilling and unwanted, that she had learned she had no hope of controlling.

She stared into the forest, watching the mist rise like a veil of dreams above the treetops to meet the heat of the rising sun.

“If the Fuentes family knew where I was, then they would have already struck.” She shrugged her shoulders, wishing she had worn a bra beneath the loose T-shirt she had slept in.

Her nipples were hardening, her breasts were swelling, and this was no time for it. She could feel the steadily rising sense of expectation building within her. She had spent a week with Joe, alone, and the tension was only growing worse by the day.

“You aren’t showing much faith in my protective abilities,” he grunted.

“Of course I am.” She kept staring into the forest; she wasn’t about to watch him. Watching him only aroused her further. “I’m sitting here watching the dew meet the sunrise, in plain view. See, I trust you to know I’m well hidden.”

“You make about as much sense now as you ever did.” His voice turned surly. “Come inside, I have coffee ready.”

Yeah, she had smelled it for the past half-hour, tempting, strong, teasing her senses. Rather like Joe did.

This was not going to work.

“You’re sitting out here pouting,” he accused, when she didn’t move to follow him.

“I don’t pout, Joe,” she reminded him. “I think.”

“You think too much then,” he growled. “Now get your butt in the house. Maybe the coffee will even out your temper.”

She clenched her teeth. She was not going to argue with him. Arguing with him was a pointless exercise. It was like beating her head against a wall. She only ended up hurting herself.

“I don’t have a temper.” She was restrained. Hell, he was still alive, wasn’t he?

“Uh-huh.” Was that amusement she heard in his voice?

After a week?

She couldn’t help herself, she turned and looked at him and her senses went into overload. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. The leanly muscled contours of his hair-matted chest brought back memories better forgotten. Memories she had never forgotten.

The warmth of him as he came over her, his thighs parting hers, the feel of his cock nudging against her sex, filling her slowly, riding her fiercely.

Maggie shivered as her vagina clenched with a sudden spasm of hungry need, a clenching of lust as the heated dampness began to prepare her for a touch that certainly wasn’t coming. She jerked her eyes from his chest and lifted them to his face. Beard-roughened, the darker growth contrasted with the dark blond, rakishly cut hair that framed his face. The two days’ growth was nearly black, and gave him a piratical appearance that was too mouthwatering for words. It just made his lips appear sexier, more lickable. And she really wanted to lick them.

“Come on, Maggie. Coffee and breakfast. Then we can talk.” He held his hand out to her, the ice that had filled his eyes for the past week thawing, warming.

Maggie licked her lips nervously, feeling her heart racing in her chest, her nerve endings sensitizing. She rose from the chair, though she ignored his outstretched hand as she watched him warily. He was like a damned chameleon, and the abrupt changes were throwing her off balance.

“So where’s the prick I’ve spent the last seven days with?” she asked as she moved around him to enter the cabin, feeling the walls closing in on her as he stepped in behind her.

He had a habit of that, sucking all the space out of a room until nothing remained except him. At least, that was all she was aware of. The warm, cheery tones of burnt reds and soft desert browns of the living room were lost on her. The couch was wide, comfortable. Joe liked making love on couches. Floors. Coffee tables. Kitchen counters.

She stepped back quickly, giving him plenty of room as the corner of his lips kicked up in a grin.

“Same cautious Maggie,” he said, as he moved past her and headed to the kitchen. “How long did it take me to get you into bed the first time?”

“Not long enough,” she stated. “And I am not having sex with you again, Joe.” Yeah. Right. Her body was all in agreement on that one. In another second, the dampness building on the folds of her sex was going to start dampening the fleece of her pajama bottoms. If it wasn’t already.

“We’re sleeping in the same bed…”

“That’s not my choice,” she argued, as he glanced over his shoulder, casting her a wicked look. “You wouldn’t let me sleep on the couch.”

“Sure you can.” He shrugged his tanned shoulders negligently. “But it’s going to be an awful tight fit with both of us there.”

That was pretty much his stand on it seven days ago. She followed him slowly into the kitchen, admiring the tight contours of his rear beneath the snug jeans he had only zipped, not buttoned. Yeah, she had caught that little detail out on the porch.

“How much longer are we staying here?” She finally asked the question that had been hovering on her lips for days. “When are you going to give up, Joe?”

“When the Fuentes family is dead.” He padded to the coffeepot, lifted the carafe, and poured the liquid into waiting cups.

His answer shocked her. Before, his answer would have been once a culprit was behind bars, not dead.

“I just want to know how they managed bail,” she sighed, moving to the kitchen table as he turned back, the coffee cups firmly in hand.

“One of Fuentes’s lieutenants paid off the judge. We have the money and evidence in hand. Judge Gilmore was none too pleased with the offer. He could take the money and let them out, or his grandchildren could suffer the consequences. We opted to go with the bribe, taped it, and now have the money impounded in a safe location until it’s needed. All with Jose’s and Santiago’s fingerprints.”

She couldn’t have been more surprised if he had said he was Santa Claus.

“And that’s not enough to lock them up for a while?” she asked, amazed.

“We need it all, Maggie. We want them locked away forever, if they’re smart enough to live until the trial. I don’t want them out on a technicality. And I don’t want families murdered to get them there.”

Maggie stared back at him suspiciously. She had been questioning him for a week now, and he was finally giving her the answers she wanted: Why?

“If I’m suspected of being part of this, then didn’t you just put several people in danger by telling me?”

His gaze was hooded as he glanced back at her before shrugging. “I don’t believe you’re part of this.”

Oh yeah, she really believed that one at this late date.

“So I’m here why?” she questioned him as he set the coffee in front of her. “And they are still out on bail for what reason?”

“We need that proof Grant hid and the Fuentes family still believes you have that.” Joe took his seat across from her, watching her steadily. “You don’t know where it’s at; that means your life is still in danger. And the Navy needs that mole. There’s too much at stake here to risk a trial on what little evidence we have of the two aiding and abetting Diego. If we want to shut down this cartel and that drug, then we have to do it here.”

Ahh, so the truth was emerging, perhaps.

“You’re using me…”

“Hell no!” Anger flashed across his expression. “You are not bait, Maggie. No matter what you think. I told you I’d protect you, and I meant it.”

And she didn’t trust him, not even for a second. Fear raced down her spine as she stared back at him, suddenly wondering to what lengths he would go to in capturing the Fuentes men. But she knew the lengths he would go to, she reminded herself. He blamed the Fuentes family for what happened to Grant, rather than blaming Grant himself.

“And this information the federal prosecutor thinks I’m hiding?” she asked, not bothering to hide the mockery in her voice. “Have you just given up on it, Joe?”

He tilted his head as he regarded her for several seconds. “You don’t know where it’s at. That’s a dead end.”

“Oh, you are so good.” She would have cried if it didn’t hurt so damned bad. The truth was there in his eyes, the suspicion, the calculation. Others might not have recognized it, but Maggie saw it and knew it for what it was. “Do you really expect me to swallow that line of crap, Joe? Do you think I’m that stupid?”

“On the contrary, you’re not stupid at all. Suspicious,” he chided her with a quirk of amusement. “But not stupid.”

Maggie ignored the coffee sitting before her, the smell of it suddenly as unappetizing as the lies passing his lips. Standing slowly to her feet, she stared back at him impassively, fighting to hide the pain exploding inside her.

“You’ve changed, Joe,” she whispered. “I never pegged you for a liar. An asshole and a prick maybe, but not an out-and-out liar. Congratulations, you did the impossible. You made my opinion of you sink lower than it was two and a half years ago.”

Turning on her heels, she moved to stalk from the kitchen, to put distance between herself and his games, his lies. She hated lies. She hated herself. Because she wanted to believe him, she wanted to trust in the arousal and the warmth that had heated his eyes, just as she wanted to believe that he could trust in her, just once. She was a fool.

“No, you don’t.” She came to an abrupt stop as he jumped from his chair, his hand reaching out to catch her upper arm as she moved to pass him.

The shock of his flesh touching hers, the heat and strength in it, nearly drove the breath from her body.

“Let me go.” She jerked against his hold, feeling the anger growing inside her, the hurt burning through her heart.

“I won’t let you go, Maggie,” he suddenly snarled, jerking her around, as his free hand buried in her hair, his fingers locking into the strands. He jerked her head back and stared into her eyes fiercely. “I won’t let you go and I won’t let you die. Lie to me all you need to. Fuck it. I’ll get Fuentes in the end, if I have to kill him to do it. But I won’t let you go.”

“You don’t have a choice.” She pushed against his chest, desperate to escape him, to break free of the hard temptation of his body. “I don’t belong to you, Joe, not anymore…”

“By God, you always belonged to me. Always.”

Before she could stop him his head lowered, his lips covered hers, and time came to a stop. There was only Joe’s kiss. His lips moving against hers, his tongue licking, piercing her lips, moving between them in a fierce, dominant kiss.

Her fingers curled against his chest, then spread out, nerve endings soaking in the feel of him, remembering, relishing the rasp of the short, crisp hairs on her palms, the fiery warmth beneath his flesh.

Against her lower stomach she felt his erection pressing intently through the material of his jeans. His arms enfolded her, his kiss intoxicated her.

“Joe,” she whimpered as his lips slid to her cheek, to her jaw. “Don’t do this.”

Don’t make her feel again. Don’t make her ache for all the things she knew she couldn’t have. Don’t make her love him more than she already did.

“I dreamed of you.” The arousal and the anger pulsed in his voice as he nipped at her ear. “For more than two years, I remembered what it was like to feel you beneath me, to hear the soft little catch in your voice when you came beneath me, the feel of your body tightening around me. I remembered, Maggie, and it drove me insane.”

She whimpered at the pain that enveloped her, the raking fingers of need, regret, and sorrow that filled her.

“This won’t fix the past.” She tightened her fingers on his biceps, feeling the power and the tension that vibrated in his body. “It won’t solve anything, Joe.”

He wanted to punish her. She could feel it pulsing in the air around them, feel it in the rake of his teeth along her neck, the nipping little kisses, and the press of his erection against her.

Even as her head screamed out a warning against his touch and the probability of heartbreak down the road, she felt herself relaxing, leaning into him, the response he had always commanded from her leaping through her system.

“I know one thing it will definitely solve.” One hand slid down her back, gripped the swell of a buttock, and lifted her to him.

Maggie moaned at the feel of his cock notching between her thighs, his lips at her neck, his tongue licking erotically at her skin. Blood pulsed hot and fast through her veins, heating her flesh, sensitizing her nerve endings, as lust began to spike the air around them.

Hunger surged through her. More than two years of aching, of needing, of suffering the restless, shadowed dissatisfaction that edged at her mind, culminated here. In Joe’s arms. His touch. His kiss. It was the drug she had never recovered from, the one very likely to destroy her.