Intense Pleasure

FIVE MONTHS LATER

Well now, it would appear he owed his brother a sizeable payout on the bet

they had, Falcon thought in disgust.

How the hell had she managed to fool him so easily?

The last time he'd seen Summer Bartlett, aka Summer Calhoun, she'd

been lying sobbing in a bed in her brother's home in DC, long black strands

of hair lying around her, her hair a neat little cap of jagged cuts no more

than two or three inches long. All those long soft curls had been gone and

he'd felt like a part of his heart had been cut from his chest.

He'd stomped out of the bedroom after warning her to get ready for an

upcoming mission, so pissed that she'd cut her hair that he could barely

stand to breathe, and it had been a damned ruse, nothing more. A trick. A

carefully staged gimmick guaranteed to make him mad enough to stay away

from her, for a while at least, when she slipped away again.

A month later there she stood on the balcony of a beach house she'd

been staying in, nearly waist-length waves of raven black hair blowing in

the ocean breeze, her slender, petite body clad only in a short nightie,

allowing that breeze to caress tanned flesh as she tipped her head back in

sensual enjoyment.

And she had him so damned hard it was all he could do to breathe.

"I warned you," his brother, Raeg snorted behind him. "Summer

wouldn't cut her hair. She gets off far too easily on having you brush and

braid it for her."

He slid a look to his brother, his jaw tightening at the scathing tone of

voice. There were moments he wondered what had made him believe Raeg

would be the best partner for this job. Perhaps he'd made a mistake in

giving his brother first choice in accompanying him to inform Summer of

the coming danger and protecting her from it. There had been other options.

Options that would not have been so critical of the agent Summer had been,

or the woman she was.

Was he wrong, he wondered, to believe Raeg's manner toward her held

more than it appeared to on the surface? That the sensual enjoyment it

seemed Raeg had found in Summer in DC was only in his own

imagination?

Hell if he knew anymore.

"I didn't ask your opinion on her reasons why, they are obvious," he

assured his half brother. "Searching for a woman with short black hair,

made finding her more problematic if I continued searching for her. She

would have known this."

"The point is, she ran, Falcon," Raeg pointed out, quite confident he

knew Summer well enough to understand motivations that Falcon doubted

even Summer understood. "If she gave a damn either way about how her

abrupt absence affected you or anyone else, then she would have stuck

around long enough to explain it."

Yes, she had run. Just as he had known at the time that she would do.

Evidently, Summer was serious about getting out of the covert and

security work she'd been a part of for so long. Just as she was serious about

refusing to return to the political social center that was DC.

But Raeg was wrong, she had attempted several times to tell him she

wanted out, and Falcon had been so loath to lose her that he'd talked her

into staying instead. That was a mistake he should have never allowed

himself to make. A mistake he would not make again.

I'm so tired, Falcon, the note she had left at the house in DC stated.

Tired of being shot at, tired of shooting at others, and tired of learning that

friends were enemies and tried and true enemies could be friends.

Belle was being retired forever.

And could he truly blame her? In the space of only a few years, she had

lost so much. The woman who had helped shape her as an agent and as a

person had died unexpectedly, and she'd been forced to kill someone she

had believed was a friend for most of her life.

To save him.

She had taken that life to save him, because he hadn't believed the

woman would actually attempt to pull the trigger.

"I would be dead were it not for her," he reminded his brother softly.

"She pulled the trigger when I could not, Raeg."

He'd kept his weapon holstered rather than pulling it and being prepared

for what may happen.

Raeg said nothing. Instead, he lifted the water bottle to his lips and

sipped as they stared at the vision still standing on the balcony, the sun's

rays caressing her from head to toe, loving the breeze even as it loved her.

"I didn't say she didn't have her good points," Raeg finally stated with

no small amount of ire. "I said she fooled you. You let her fool you."

Falcon pushed his fingers through his hair wearily, glancing at his

brother and wondering if he could ever convince him that the reasons he

fought so hard to find fault with Summer wasn't because she had the faults

he wanted to see. Summer made Raeg see what he refused to acknowledge

in himself. A man who hungered for a woman so much that he could not

refuse who he was, what he was, if he was to have her. A man who knew

that, even though he would have to walk away from her in the end, having

her would be worth the agony of releasing her later.

If they could release her, Falcon thought, something he rarely allowed

himself to consider because he knew too they'd have no choice but to let

her go far too soon.

When Summer finally turned and reentered the house, Falcon hid his

disappointment and continued to watch the area. Tonight, they'd sneak into

the house and he'd have to tell her why he had chased her so relentlessly

over the past month. She was running out of time and had no idea of the

danger building with each day that she stayed out of sight. If he didn't tell

her quickly, the consequences could prove disastrous.

"We will go in tonight," he told Raeg, hating the fact that what he would

tell her would shatter any security she may have found in the past six

months since leaving DC.

She was serious about getting out, he could see that now. He even

accepted it, and after the past month of considering all the reasons why she

would want out, he couldn't blame her.

She was a hell of an agent, but she was also a woman, and women did

not see the world in the same terms, with the same logical choices that men

saw it in. For a woman, friendships meant far more than they meant for a

man in some ways. The rules were different in their hearts and taking the

life of one she considered a friend would have altered everything she felt

about the life she was living.

"You're not being logical about her, Falcon," Raeg advised. But Falcon

heard the regret his brother tried to hide in his voice. "You know what

you're risking. What both of us are risking."

The bleak lessons of the past couldn't be forgotten.

"Should I just allow Dragovich to kill her then?" Falcon turned to his

brother, watching him curiously. "He nearly did in Russia. That was my

fault because I all but begged her to take the job. Because of that, she was

betrayed by Gia, her identity sold to the bastard and now he intends to

finish the job." He couldn't even consider not protecting her, watching over

her, after the many times she'd saved his life. But he understood Raeg's

concern as well. "Why do you not go back to DC? I'll inform her of the

problem and call Lucien Connor to come out and help me with this. She

knows him, she works well with him."

Oh, he just bet she did, Raeg thought furiously, forcing back his anger at

his brother's offer. She might get along fine with Lucien Conner, and that

was all well and good, except for the fact that Lucien wanted nothing more

than to get Summer into his bed.

"Why don't you just stop with the demands that I return to DC," Raeg

snorted, "and stop making excuses for her."

"When you stop making excuses for yourself," Falcon stated with such

disgust that Raeg could feel his frustration level rising. "For pity's sake,

Raeg, protecting her from this will not endanger her from our enemy.

Keeping her, loving her would. This will not."

Raeg couldn't convince himself of that, no matter how often he tried. He

knew far better than Falcon the cost of forgetting the legacy that haunted

them. He'd known a taste of that hell once already. He didn't want to revisit

it. Especially not for a woman who affected him more than any other

woman ever had.