Donna Young - Black Ops Bodyguard

“Because Jason and I weren’t friends,” Cal answered. “We weren’t anything.”

“And yet, you owe him.”

“I owe a lot of people many different things, Julia. And some owe me. It’s the nature of my job. You’ve worked in politics, you’ve seen Jon Mercer operate. The man borders on being one of the best con artists of our time.”

He crossed over to a small glass bar beside the balcony doors. “Want something?”

“No, thanks.” She loved Jon like a father, so it was hard for her to be at odds with him now. Even harder to believe the worst of him.

Stubborn Irish, his wife Shantelle called him in private. With his charming ways and wicked words.

Approaching his midsixties, President Mercer defined the term “larger than life” with a set of strong, broad shoulders, an even gait to his walk and, on most occasions, an even temperament. He was quick to laughter, quicker when the joke was on him, but swift and scathing when it came to dispensing his more difficult duties.

Jon Mercer saw only the black and white when it came down to the laws. Of humanity or the land. He compromised out of necessity—for the people who entrusted him with their lives and the well-being of their children. But on a deeper, personal level, there existed no gray areas.

And Julia admitted silently, that was what she feared the most.

Restless, she stood and walked to the window. The sun sank toward the ocean, painting the beach in tangerine hues, shaping the waves until they tossed and turned with the incoming tide.

“You’re like him, you know.” She turned to Cal. Frustration scraped at her nerves, even while its cause evaded her. “I never really understood that until now.”

“Like who?” Cal opened a cabinet underneath the bar and pulled out a bottle of whiskey.

“Jon Mercer.”

Cal’s lips twitched with amusement. “You’d bloody well better be joking, sweetheart. I haven’t aged that much since you’ve last seen me.”

“I’m not talking in physical likeness.”

But in retrospect, she saw that, too. A younger Jon Mercer, an older Calvin West.

His shoulders flexed beneath the white dress shirt just a bit when he poured three fingers of the whiskey into a highball glass. Her eyes followed the lines, the tailored fit of the cotton from the shoulders to his chest to the flat of his stomach.

It hadn’t been that long since she’d touched the warm contours beneath.

“Do you want me to step from behind the bar so you can finish the job?” Cal said softly.

Startled, Julia looked up, her breath hitched in her chest.

He stilled at the sound, letting his gaze catch hers. Something in his eyes sharpened, then turned almost predatory.

She forced herself to breathe.

“How do I remind you of Jon Mercer, Julia?”

Each of his words drifted over her, low and velvet-smooth against her skin. Small electric shocks pricked at the base of her spine even as the warning bells went off in her head.

“For king and country,” she said, cursing the fact her voice broke just a little. “No middle ground. No matter what it takes. Or who it destroys,” she repeated, just managing to keep the hurt from filtering through.

“It sounds a bit heroic, doesn’t it?”

“If it did, that wasn’t my intent,” she retorted. “I was aiming more for calculated and …”

Dangerous.

He stepped from behind the bar, and her gaze dipped to the narrow hips, the lean thighs barely hidden by the tailored lines of his trousers.

And sexy as hell.

Her muscles went lax, her body trembled. Just with words and a few heated glances.

Damn him.

“And?” he challenged her, and took a swallow from his glass before he set it on the counter. The request was direct, a double-edged sword.

Images of them, naked, their limbs tangled, his body hot and hard against hers.

Julia closed her eyes against the memories.

“You’re not going to get fainthearted on me, are you?” He spoke the words low, against her ear.

Her eyes flew open. He’d moved silently, quickly until he stood mere inches from her. She’d forgotten how quietly he moved. “Let’s not bring my heart into this.”

“Into what?” he murmured.

They were no longer talking about Jon Mercer. His finger touched her ear, traced its delicate curve.

Julia shivered. He gathered her close. His fingers drifted down her spine, making small, lazy circles over her back. She curled into him.

Before she could answer, his mouth covered hers, coaxing, caressing.

“Just one. The one I wanted at the apartment. The one I’ve been craving since …” He captured her groan in a long, deep kiss. Desire rolled through her, over her, in an unleashed tidal wave of heat.

Drowning, she broke away. “Stop, Cal.”

Hadn’t she hitched that ride? A whirlpool of molten lava that tugged at her until her senses spiraled into a thick vortex of desire and anger. Fast and furious, she’d loved every minute of it.

Loved him .

Until he’d played her. Used her to get information for MI6, England’s answer to the CIA.

Top secret information.

Seduce the President’s secretary, steal files from her computer and win the game.

She pulled back, broke contact and forced herself to look at him again. Past the dark, set, sexy features to the cold, calculating depths underneath.

“I think I’d like a drink now.” She stepped away, praying her legs wouldn’t buckle beneath her as she made her way to the love seat.

For support, she settled deep into the cushions. For spite, she crossed her legs, deliberately letting the material slide up mid-thigh.

“You don’t mind, do you?”

His gaze wandered up from her bare feet, over her knees to the tip of the hem. Only then did he shift back to her face. His fingers flexed for a brief second at his side.

“No.” The word was clipped, its sting sharp enough to make her flinch.

Almost.

SOLARIS LEANED ON THE RAIL OF THE freighter, The Hyperion , and took a long drag on his cigarette. The smoke caught in his chest and held. For a moment he enjoyed the sting of the nicotine, then slowly exhaled.

The ship rolled beneath his feet. The rhythm set by a nearby crane as it settled orange and brown cargo containers onto The Hyperion ’s deck.

He was a fisherman’s son. Spent his youth hauling nets, trawling traps, setting hooks and sails. The work roped the muscles of his six-foot frame, added bulk to the wide shoulders and barreled chest, set steel in his spine.

Over the years, he’d lost his father and two brothers in the storms, while his cousins lost limbs and with them, the taste for the sea.

But Solaris continued, taking pride in what his father had passed to him. The skills, his family’s name. Until the commercial fishing companies muscled in and stole their livelihood—leaving his mother and sisters to starve.

The water lapped up against the side of the ship, its spray caught in the tug of the wind leaving a sheen of salt water sparkling in the air, the taste of the ocean at the back of his throat.

At eighteen, Solaris had killed his first man. A lawyer who came to repossess their family home and business. There was no remorse, no pity. Nothing but utter satisfaction when the man took his last breath with Solaris’s knife in his chest, his hand still on the hilt.

It was then he realized his other talent. And killing had become his new line of work.

For the first fifteen years, he drifted from country to country, hiring his skills out to those who could pay for them, learning his trade, building his fortune.

Then he met Cristo Delgado.

In the years he worked for Cristo, Solaris’s bank account had quadrupled. He even managed a few deals on the side.