Prologue II

Lake Cumberland, Kentucky

August, Four Years Later

Chaya Greta Dane found the tracking device that had been left beneath Dawg Mackay’s vehicle on the side of a dirt road so deep in the Kentucky mountains that she knew she would play hell finding her way out.

She blew out a hard breath and shook her head. The Mackays weren’t stupid, but sometimes her boss liked to pretend they were, and that was a very big mistake, especially in light of the fact that Cranston really wasn’t a fool.

She stared around the area before brushing back her dark blond hair and resigning herself to the inevitable.

Dawg Mackay had led her on a merry chase, and he had known exactly what he was doing. Through twisting hollows, up steep mountain roads that barely passed as trails, and into the thick forests that surrounded Lake Cumberland like a protective lover.

She would find her way out, eventually, but there was no doubt she was stuck for the night. Her satellite phone wasn’t cooperating for some reason, the cell phone had no reception, and night was coming on.

She straightened from the crouch where she had found the locator another agent had placed beneath the Mackay vehicle, propped her hands on her hips, and stared around the thick forest surrounding her.

It would have been enjoyable if she’d been prepared. Simple things like enough water to get her through the night, a sleeping bag maybe. She did have her weapon. And her thoughts. Too many thoughts the longer she stayed in Somerset—the longer she was around Natches Mackay and all the memories she tried to push behind her.

She shook her head and reached inside her back pocket for the habit she had picked up again in the past few months, only to find the cigarette pack she had stuck there earlier empty. Great.

Shaking her head, she wadded up the pack and tossed it into the back of the borrowed jeep her boss had had waiting for her just outside of Somerset, after she had reported the direction Dawg and his lover, Crista Jansen, had been heading in.

Crista Jansen looked too damned much like the woman brokering a missile sale between hijackers and terrorists to suit the Department of Homeland Security. It had been her job to follow Crista, to keep an eye on her and whoever she met with.

Knowing Dawg Mackay, Crista Jansen was meeting with nothing less than every inch of that Kentucky native’s hard body. Dawg wasn’t a traitor. He wanted those missiles as much as they did, and it was apparent he believed his woman was innocent.

But, hell, everyone thought the person they loved was innocent. Human nature had a tendency to overlook the truth whenever it wanted to. She had learned that lesson herself, the hard way.

Always the hard way. And look at what she had lost. Sometimes Chaya wondered if she hadn’t lost her soul in a desert so bleak it sucked the spirit out of a person.

She snorted at that thought as she kicked at a clump of grass and leaned against her car, determined to enjoy just a few minutes of being unreachable by her boss, Timothy Cranston. No doubt he was frantically calling both the cell and sat phones. And here she stood, breathing in the fresh mountain air, feeling the peace of the place wrap around her, sink inside her.

Beseeching her to relax. To remember. To remember one night. One man. Urging her to close her eyes and to remember his touch. A touch filled with tears and her sobs, but also with his gentleness, with the warmth of his kisses, the heat of his possession. A night she only remembered in her dreams.

Her lips kicked up in a grin at the thought. Yeah, relax and drop her guard. Hadn’t she done that before? And hadn’t she paid for it? Hadn’t she lost everything she loved in life because she had trusted the wrong person? And here she was, a part of her wishing, regretting things she knew she had no right to regret.

Strong arms that didn’t hold her through the night. A voice like aged whiskey that didn’t rasp her name with heated passion at his release. Hands, calloused and possessive. And she regretted, because that illusion was the most dangerous one she could ever reach out for.

A second later an unexpected sound had her jerking her weapon from the holster at the small of her back and taking aim at the front of the car.

She knew who it was. She took the precaution of waiting, watching, but the sound of the jeep rolling up the mountain was unmistakable. Powerful, a hard, male throb of power that her piece-of-crap borrowed jeep didn’t have.

At least he was driving up in front of her rather than slipping through the trees and taking aim. He could have taken her out before she knew what hit her. And he would. No matter how well he knew her, no matter the short history they had shared so long ago, he would put a bullet between her eyes as fast as he would an enemy combatant if he felt she was a threat.

She held the Glock comfortably, confidently, as the wicked black vehicle pulled over the rise. If a jeep could strut, it strutted up the mountain and caused her to grit her teeth. Cranston could make her crazy running her in circles, but he couldn’t give her a vehicle decent enough to make those circles in.

Tall tires, gleaming paint job, and a black pipe bumper. A winch at the front, the top pulled back, the man behind the wheel staring back at her from behind dark glasses, hiding those incredible green eyes.

But nothing could hide his somber expression as he jumped from the driver’s seat, the engine still idling, throbbing. Like the rumble of a monstrous cat.

This was the dream, and the illusion. And somehow she had known he would be here. Here, in the mountains that bred him, as strong, as secure, as dangerously primitive as the man himself. As dangerous as the regrets that whispered through her as she watched him.

Chaya licked her lips slowly, staring back at him, trying not to notice the smooth, corded grace of his body. The way his jeans hung low on his hips and drew attention to his thighs. The way his gray T-shirt snugged over taut abs. The aura of power and male grace that seemed to ooze from the pores of his heavily tanned skin.

The wind ruffled through his overly long black hair, whipping it across his forehead and along the nape of his neck. Those thick, tempting strands had her hands itching to touch them, her fingers curling into fists to restrain the need.

Hell, she needed that cigarette bad now. She’d been working with him for months, and she still couldn’t dampen the sickening nerves, the pain each time he came near her. The need. Oh God, the need wrapped around her until sometimes she wondered if it would eventually drive her insane. The need to touch. Just one more time, just one touch, one kiss, one more night to hide within his arms.

Instead, she tucked her weapon back into its holster and shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans as she watched him. The way he moved. The intensity in his forest green eyes, the knowledge in his expression. There was always that knowledge, the words that whispered just below the surface, the memories that never really went away. The hunger that never really receded.

Natches moved lazily to the front of the jeep and leaned against the heavy bumper. He stared at her, unsmiling, as he crossed one booted foot over the other and eased the dark glasses from his face.

Piercing green eyes tore into her senses, scrambled her brain and had her heart throbbing like a schoolgirl’s. Summer’s heat rushed around her then, stroking over her body and reminding her, always reminding her, of things she shouldn’t let herself remember.

“Busted.” He lifted his brows mockingly. “Want to tell me why you’re following my cousin and his woman?”

Her lips parted as she fought to drag in more breath. He could do that. Make her breathless. Make her want. With only a look, he made her feel like a virgin on the verge of her first kiss. And that was very dangerous. He was dangerous. In more ways than one.

“You’re not answering me, Chaya.” He was one of the few people who dared to call her by her given name rather than the name she used in the agency. Greta. It was nice and plain and unassuming. But he had to call her Chaya instead. He had to remind her of who she had once wanted to be rather than who she was.

She licked her lips again, fighting for her composure.

“You’ll have to ask Cranston.” She was not taking the blame for this. “His orders. I just live to obey them.” That was nothing less than the truth in the past few years. He controlled her. For now.

Natches shook his head, straightened, and moved closer. Standing her ground wasn’t easy. She wanted to run. She wanted to run to him, touch him, stroke all that hard, dark flesh, and let the intensity of these dangerous desires free.

She wasn’t married anymore, she reminded herself. She had been reminding herself of that for years.

She watched him, wary, suspecting the danger that lurked beneath that easy smile. Suspected nothing, she knew it lurked there. She knew she was facing a man who at one time had been a cold, hard killer. He had been taken into sniper training within six months of his enlistment with the Marines and within a year was ranked as one of their most proficient assassins.

And now he was retired. Bum shoulder. He liked to grin when claiming the injury that pulled him out of the Marines. She doubted a single cell on his body was “bum.”

“You know, Chaya . . .”

“My name is Greta,” she grated out. “Use it, Natches.” She had to find some kind of defense against him. The name Greta reminded her, kept the memories of the one mistake that had shaped her uppermost in her mind.

“Chaya.” His lips caressed the words as he drew closer, within a breath of her, forcing her to stare up at him. “Darlin’. Cranston’s gonna get you in a shitload of trouble. You know this, right?”

Oh God, if she didn’t know it before, she was finding out now. She had thought working with Cranston would make her life easier, that the team that worked stateside only would ease her slowly away from the horror of the past and allow her to step out of the world that had begun to smother her.

“Take it up with Cranston.” She forced the words from her throat as his hand curled around the side of her neck and the dark, sexual light in his wicked eyes began to gleam with intent.

That touch, just like that, the implied power and gentleness of that hold, had her knees weakening. She was a trained agent; she wasn’t supposed to let emotion or lust cloud her judgment. But right now it was clouding her entire mind.

His fingers flexed against her neck, the power and strength in his arm echoing along her nerve endings. Pleasure corrupted her normally logical thought processes and eroded the control she had fought for over the years.

Suddenly, she was in the dark, fighting to breathe through the agony of a hell she couldn’t accept, holding on to only one thing. Holding on to Natches’s touch.

She couldn’t let herself hold on to that memory.

Chaya didn’t bother to struggle. She could see the desire already burning in his eyes, and she knew she didn’t have a chance against him if those luscious lips actually touched hers. She would be lost in him, and she couldn’t afford to ever lose herself again.

“Don’t kiss me, Natches. Don’t do that to me. Please.”

He froze, those fingers contracting on her flesh, stroking cells that hadn’t known a man’s touch in so very long.

He had no idea how hard it was to turn away, to walk away. How she ached at night, tossing and turning in her bed, the thought of the promise in those cat’s eyes of his burning through her soul. She wanted him with a strength that terrified her.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t,” he said, his voice low as those fingers stroked against her flesh. “You’re not married anymore, sweetheart.”

His gaze wasn’t mocking now; it was somber, intense. The memories flashed in his eyes as well, and she couldn’t bear it. It connected them, made it so much harder for her to break away, to hold herself steady as she fought through the never-ending abyss of emotions that threatened to swamp her.

“Because I can’t handle you, and we both know it. Have mercy, Natches. Don’t you have enough women in your little stable? You really don’t need me.”

And there was no way she would survive it. He was wild, intense, the most wickedly alluring man she had ever met in her life. And he wasn’t the man for her. She wanted him until she ached with a force that tore at her soul, and she couldn’t allow herself to have him. This man, the one who fired her soul, who made her dream when she had no right to dream.

“That’s not a good enough reason.”

She gasped as his lips covered hers. Sensation exploded through her body; pleasure rippled and waved over her nerve endings and began to burn along her flesh. This kiss, this man, he was like nectar, like a drug she couldn’t get out of her system.

She gasped harder as her weapon dropped to the ground and she felt Natches’s hands tugging at her shirt, baring her, allowing the warmth of the sun-filled air to touch her flesh.

She told herself the perspiration was from the heat of the day, but she knew better. It was from his kiss.

Oh God. His kiss. She flattened her hands against his chest to push him away, but he wasn’t budging. His hands stroked up her back, beneath her shirt, then around, the pads of his fingers at the tender swells of her breasts, covered by nothing more than lace.

Chaya struggled with the war waging within her now. Her body, eager, desperate, it knew this man’s touch, knew his possession. Her heart, her head, was screaming out in warning.

And her body was winning.

“Ah, Chay.” He nipped at her lips. She loved that sexy little sting and lifted closer, begging for more. “There you go, baby. Show me how you can burn again.”

She breathed in sharply as his hands slid to her hips, gripping them and lifting her until she was sitting on the hood of the jeep, then lying back, his big body pressing her down as her hands tugged at his shirt.

She should be pushing him away, not baring that gorgeous body. But that was what she was doing. Baring all that hard, delicious muscle. Feeling the rasp of crisp chest hairs against her palms, the dampness of his sweat beneath.

She twisted under him, feeling his knee press between her thighs, and saw stars explode behind her closed lashes as he pressed against the sensitive flesh between her thighs.

“Hell yeah.” He groaned against her lips as he worked her jeans loose. “Burn for me, Chaya. Just a little bit. Burn for me wild and sweet, sweetheart, just like you do in my dreams.”

His voice was rough, tight with arousal, and she knew it could become guttural. That his drawl could slur his words and make him sound drunk with passion. She wanted that sound. She wanted him drunk on her.

“Natches!” She cried his name as his hand pushed beneath her open jeans and his fingers found her. Found the slick, too-thick layer of juices that prepared her for him, that betrayed her need.

That need was killing her.

She twisted, arched to him as his lips slid down her neck to her breasts. His teeth rasped the tender tip of a nipple as his free hand pulled the cup of her bra beneath the swollen mound.

Then his mouth was covering it, his lips closing on it, sucking it inside with tight, hard pressure that sent sensation ripping to her womb.

Long, broad fingers speared inside her vagina, drawing another cry from her. Flesh unused to any touch but her own since he had taken her so long ago. Too long.

She came instantly. The stretching heat, the feel of his mouth sucking her nipple, his tongue lashing her, it was too much. She exploded in a prism of light and color, his name on her lips and in her heart.

Oh God, she was never going to be free of him. And in this moment, exploding around his fingers, she wondered if she ever wanted to be.

She struggled to open her eyes, then lost her breath as she watched him. He pulled his fingers free of her, lifted them, and tasted her. Right there, beneath the sun, the breeze whipping around them, he opened his lips and sucked the taste of her from his fingers.

“Natches.” She could barely do more than breathe his name when his face suddenly stilled, his head lifting, like an animal scenting danger.

“Son of a bitch Cranston.” He was jerking her bra in place and pulling her shirt down when she caught the sound of a helicopter coming closer.

Pulling back from her, Natches let her fix her jeans, his green eyes filled with mocking amusement as the helicopter flew around the sheltering trees and came over the clearing.

It couldn’t land, but she knew who it was. The Department of Homeland Security had found her. They had nearly seen more than she could have safely gotten away with.

Natches drew farther back from her, his expression hardening. “Come on. I’ll lead you back to the main road. Then you can call Cranston and tell him to meet with me. I’ve had enough of this crap. It ends now.”

What was going to end now she wasn’t certain, but she was more than ready to get the hell out of there, away from him. Let Cranston deal with him, because she knew, as sure as she was standing there she knew, there wasn’t a chance in hell that she could handle him.