Holding Fire Read online

  “Elle, wait,” Trey barked.

  “Thanks for everything. It was fun.”

  “Elle!” Something thudded to the floor, making Trey curse, “Damn it, stop!”

  “Bye!”

  “Stop!”

  No way in hell was she stopping. She moved faster, flying down the stairs as if wings were attached to the heels of her sneakers. Hitting the deserted bar below, she navigated her way through the empty tables and out the back door. The echoing gunshots sounded farther away than they had a few minutes ago, but she stayed watchful as she hustled down the street toward the marketplace.

  No one seemed concerned about the happenings a few blocks down. Crowds converged on busy vendors, some people stopping to haggle over the price of produce and handmade jewelry while others briskly walked as if on a special mission. Elle politely slipped away from an overzealous man attempting to unload his recently caught octopus, and wove through the throng of people toward the first empty alley—except it wasn’t really empty.

  Her gaze landed on the wide-eyed, frightened face of the old Thai merchant first—and then she saw the gun pointed mere inches from his head. Elle skidded to a stop. Her foot smacked into a discarded tin can and the gun-owner snapped to attention. His sharp blue eyes immediately locked in on her, giving her her first glimpse at the puckered scar bisecting his left brow and cheek.

  “Elle! You need to wait!” Trey’s voice shouted from down the street.

  She glanced over her shoulder to see Trey and his friend winding their oversized bodies through the crowd of shoppers—run up toward her. Alley Man or Trey. Neither option gave her the warm fuzzies, but she’d pick a one-night stand reunion over an armed gunman any day.

  “Don’t you fucking move,” Alley Man growled as if sensing her decision.

  He swung his gun in her direction just as a local driving a bicycle cart pedaled in front of her. Elle didn’t need an engraved invitation to move her rear end. She turned and half-ran, half-walked back through the market and toward the other side of the village.

  Ten minutes and limp-noodle legs later, she finally slipped into her hotel room—with no Alley Man and no Trey on her heels.

  Shay stepped out from the small corner kitchenette, relief written all over her face. “There you are! I was about five minutes away from calling the Thai police! You were supposed to text me every hour so I knew that Hunkalicious didn’t throw you into a trunk or somehow convince you to be his drug mule.”

  Shay braced her hands on her ample hips and waited for a response that Elle couldn’t seem to conjure. Since college, Shay Whitney had been single-handedly responsible for every drunken, free-spirited decision Elle had ever made—except she hadn’t been drunk last night. Hell, she’d barely finished her single beer before brazenly propositioning Trey back at the bar.

  Misreading Elle’s silence, Shay’s full lips broke into a sly grin. “Please tell me you can’t talk because your throat’s raw from some astronomical number of orgasms. And even if that isn’t the case, lie to me and tell me it is.”

  It wouldn’t be a lie. Elle had definitely lost count. But instead of rehashing the evening with her friend as she would normally do, she shook her head. “Sorry. I should’ve just come back here with you.”

  Shay’s shoulders slumped, her face crestfallen. “Well, damn. He had that look, you know? I guess just because a man has hands the size of dinner plates doesn’t mean he knows how to use them for the good of womankind.”

  “Definitely,” Elle agreed, knowing that Trey could no way be lumped into a group with the sexually clueless. Not only had he thrown her off guard, but he’d been the only man who’d ever made her lose her orgasm count.

  And she didn’t understand why her first instinct was to keep that information to herself.

  Chapter Two

  Trigger-happy kids with toy guns. That was the reason the locals gave for the chaos two hours ago that had left an entire neighborhood in a blind panic. Trey Hanson, former Delta and current Alpha operative, knew it for the unlikely story it was.

  Toy guns didn’t shake the ground or break glass windows, and they sure as fuck didn’t peg bullet holes into brick-and-mortar buildings. As quick as the chaos had erupted, it disappeared, leaving no trail to the responsible party—or to a petite blonde who’d been in his bed minutes before the hail and brimstone broke out around them.

  He and Vince had scoured the area for Elle for close to an hour before lighting up the bat signal that brought the rest of the team. Then they’d combined their efforts and searched for another goddamned hour with nothing to show for it.

  No trail. No Elle. And no clue how he’d been given the slip by one lone woman.

  A civilian.

  A nurse.

  And according to the file open in front of him, the woman he and his team had been sent to Thailand to protect.

  Trey stared down at the photograph in his hand, barely suppressing a long list of expletives that would’ve had his mother reaching for Paddington the Paddle. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and stared down at the image again. Nope. Didn’t fucking change.

  Despite the double-stranded pearls and sophisticated updo, the woman peering up at him from the eight-by-ten glossy photo was most definitely the one whose ass he’d watched run away from him a short time ago. The only difference was that the woman in the picture looked like she belonged on the red carpet while his Elle wore cotton from head to toe and pulled her hair into one of those sexily messy ponytails he loved sinking his fingers into.

  Two different images, the same damn woman.

  Elle Monroe—the daughter of the man who hired them.

  His boss, Sean Stone, didn’t have a formal rule about mixing business and pleasure, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t an unspoken one. And then Trey had his own. Blurring the fucking boundaries was a shit-storm waiting to swallow you whole and spit you back out onto a dung heap. He didn’t do it—except that he had last night. And this morning. Hell, he wished he was upstairs still doing it.

  Trey transferred his scowl toward the head-shaven former SEAL who’d given Elle a mode of escape.

  Vince Franklin’s mouth twitched, the small move practically an earsplitting smile for the Man of Brood. “Don’t look at me like I killed your fucking poodle, man.”

  “How the hell do you want me to look at you?” Trey demanded.

  “Like I was the only one who came to check on your sorry ass.”

  Trey tossed Elle’s photo back onto the personnel file and grunted. “Why the hell are we only getting the assignment details now, when we’ve been in this godforsaken town for three damn days?”

  Vince shrugged. “You want to tear someone a new asshole, start clawing away at Ortega’s. Rafe was the one who sent us down here before the ink was even dry on the assignment papers.”

  “I already did, and he claimed the operation was time sensitive. They couldn’t chance us being in travel-limbo. They needed our boots firmly on the ground.”

  “Then there you go. Besides, it’s not like anyone could’ve expected your gut instincts seeking out our care package before we even got the full details—and by ‘gut instincts,’ I mean your dick.”

  Trey’s displeased snort made both Vince and Logan, Alpha’s resident sniper and all-around good ol’ Southern boy, chuckle. Assholes, the both of them. Charlie Sparks, the fourth man—er, woman—on their operational team sat tucked between them, her nose buried in her laptop as she attempted to find the whereabouts of Elle Monroe. Without warning, she took both hands off the keyboard and biffed Vince and Logan on the back of their heads.

  “What the hell was that for, English?” Rubbing his head, Vince shot her a glare.

  “For making fun of Trey while he’s obviously having a bloody moment. It’s not his fault that the male species have two brains, and it’s the smaller one that usually wins out. It’s like embedded genetic code.”

  “I’m not having a moment,” Trey grumbled in his own defense. “And I take off
ense to you implying that I make decisions with my dick.”

  Charlie smirked. “I never said anything about your goods, Hanson.”

  No, but it had been implied. And once upon a time, he did let his dick lead him around like he was a show-pony in a parade. Hell, it had been fun—in his twenties. Now, at thirty-four, going home alone—or with a different woman each weekend—had lost its appeal. And seeing his best friend and pseudo-sister’s happiness confirmed what he’d already started realizing himself—that he wanted what Rafe and Penny had.

  He wanted lazy mornings in bed—with the same woman. He wanted secret smiles and shared jokes. He wanted someone in his life that he’d lay down his life for—besides his family and the bastards he called brothers.

  Maybe that made him the caveman Elle had called him; he wasn’t sure. What he did know was that the second he and Elle had locked gazes, he’d experienced that protective tug in his gut that had him searching behind her sultry smile and come-hither stare. His need to get her into his bed had come later, albeit not by much.

  And now, not only was he not buried balls-deep inside her sweet little body, but he sure as hell wasn’t protecting her either. She was roaming Thailand without any fucking protective detail…because of him.

  “Where the fuck would she have gone?” Trey had no one to blame but himself, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t be pissed about it.

  Logan covered a chuckle with a cough. “You know what would make finding her easier? If you’d taken the time to ask where she’s staying.”

  “That didn’t really come up in conversation.”

  Charlie cocked up a single blonde eyebrow and paused in her typing to shoot him a glare. “You’re bloody lucky you’re sitting across the table right now or you’d be getting clobbered in the head too.”

  Trey didn’t doubt it. The British analyst held her own in their all-male outfit, showing them every day that she was a lot more than a smart brain, pink-tinged hair, and a few half-hidden tattoos. Though not a full-fledged operative yet, it was only a matter of time before she wore Stone down enough to give her a true shot.

  He nodded toward the laptop. “Find her now. Maim me later. The medical clinic director said Elle and her friend headed into town for a little R&R before heading back to the States, and it’s not like this place is tourist central. There’s only so many places they could be.”

  Heads swiveled as the outer bar door squeaked open and four men walked into the building. All large, all menacing, they scanned the room, their alert awareness labeling them as some kind of military, despite their civilian dress. And then there were the unsightly bulges where they’d made a poor attempt to conceal their weapons.

  Ten to nil odds they weren’t toy fucking guns.

  Charlie pulled her hat low over her brow, and Vince leaned on his elbows to block the better side of her face. They settled into the relatively dark corner of the bar. And waited.

  The front man of the small group beckoned to the bar owner behind the counter. The Thai man rushed over and the two had a quiet conversation that looked pretty peaceful until the new arrival yanked the old man up to the tips of his toes.

  Charlie went stiff in her seat.

  “Easy,” Trey murmured.

  “Aren’t we going to do something?” she hissed.

  “Not unless we have to.” Having a public tango with these four definitely wasn’t on the day’s list of things to do. They had enough wrinkles in this op to iron out; they didn’t need to blow a big-ass hole in it too.

  As suddenly as he’d lifted the old man onto his toes, the gang leader released his hold. For the first time, Trey got a good look at the wicked, three-inch scar on the left side of his face.

  The bastard didn’t look right. His nose was a bit too broad, a slight indentation on the bridge indicating it had been broken a time or two. Smaller, more subtle scars marred the rest of his face and the left side of his neck.

  Trey tried to pin down the sense of déjà vu playing tug-of-war with his gut, but before he could find the reason for it, the four men walked out of the building as efficiently as they’d walked in.

  Ignoring Vince’s curse, Trey approached the old bar owner. Going for laid-back and nonthreatening, he gifted the nervous man with a smile.

  “Those men looking for someone special?” he asked in broken Thai.

  The bartender gave the entrance an uneasy glance before nodding and replying in English, “The American nurse. The one here last night—with you. I did not tell him anything. She was here helping our neighbors. I did not tell them a thing. I swear.”

  Trey’s gut somersaulted. “Did he say why he was looking for her?”

  “No. But he said he would be back if he did not find her.”

  From across the room, Charlie let out a whoop. She jumped up, laptop in hand, and hustled to the counter, followed by Vince and Logan.

  “I found her,” Charlie announced. “Or more accurately, where she’s going to be. She and her friend have an evening flight booked back to the States. To JFK.”

  Logan glanced at his watch. “Tally up the three-hour drive to the city airport, security screening, and an evening commercial departure with twenty hours of flight time, and she could be in New York late tomorrow or early the next day.”

  “We need to beat her back,” Trey stated adamantly. If they didn’t, she’d be easy pickings. “Charlie?”

  Charlie already had the satellite phone in her hand. “That private jet was the best bloody acquisition I ever convinced Stone to make. It’ll be fueled and ready to go by the time we hit the airfield.”

  Vince looked physically pained as he smacked his unfinished beer down on the counter. “First goddamned beer in a week and I can’t even finish it.”

  “I’ll buy you one when we get stateside,” Trey offered. “But we need to move. I don’t know who the hell those guys were, but I know enough that we can’t let them get to Elle first.”

  Logan scoffed. “Looks like the Senator wasn’t talking out of his ass this time. Go figure.”

  “We’re not doing this for the fucking Senator.”

  Vince snorted and Charlie smirked knowingly. Yeah, Trey knew how it sounded, but damn if he didn’t care. It was the truth. Alpha might have been hired to keep Elle Monroe safe, but it now meant a lot more to him than a job.

  * * *

  Elle stared, transfixed by the clock behind the airport’s claims counter. Each snap of the second-hand took about five years off her life. Being a few weeks shy of her thirtieth birthday, she estimated she had roughly ten-and-a-half seconds until the coroner needed to be called. Twelve, max, with a little bit of luck, but her luck seemed to be in short supply.

  Her normal patience was at an all-time low, sucked into a black hole right along with her personal hygiene and her luggage. Twenty total hours in a plane, plus an unscheduled six-hour stop for mechanical repairs, was to blame for the first. The latter two were entirely the fault of the airline.

  Behind the counter, the gray-haired hospitality worker never bothered looking up as she called for the next traveler in line. One more person. One more step. The closer Elle got to the cracked, yellow Formica counter of the claims department, the more that surface looked like a goose-feather pillow. To leave or not to leave.

  Jeans. Shorts. Granny panties. All cotton, no sexiness. Everything in her suitcase could be easily replaced by her modest paycheck and the nearest discount store. She could call it a loss, go home with Shay, and pass out on her couch for a week.

  With a deep sigh, Elle looked around the large, open space. People milled through the airport, bulky suitcases bouncing behind them as they scrambled to their destinations, while others procured blankets and pillows and looked to be settling in for the duration of the night.

  On her left, two children tackled the legs of a tall, slender soldier dressed in desert fatigues. Laughing, the woman bent, spreading kisses over every surface of their little cheeks. A smile ghosted over Elle’s lips at the sweet si
ght.

  She’d once wanted that. Not only the children, although she couldn’t deny being a mother had been high up on her to-do list. But to be missed—to have someone care about you so much that they nearly threw you to the ground because they couldn’t wait to have you in their arms.

  That’s what Elle had dreamed of since she was a little girl…and it was that crushed dream that had sent her thousands of miles away. To say she felt uneasy being back was an understatement.

  Elle ignored the faint ache in her chest and watched the happy family walk away. As they disappeared around the corner, a new sensation whittled its way in—a tingle; the one she’d felt the instant she and Shay unloaded from the gate—the one that came with the ardent focus of someone’s attention. It took root in the pit of her stomach and didn’t let go.

  When she’d sensed it earlier, she blamed the paranoia on lack of sleep and inhumane travel hours. But the prickle of awareness came back tenfold, turning her head until she noticed the man leaning against the far wall, reading a newspaper.

  Elle did a double take. It wasn’t Trey. It couldn’t be. She’d left him back in Thailand without so much as her last name, much less her travel itinerary, yet the longer she stared at the stranger across the room, the faster her heart galloped.

  Worn blue jeans encased his thighs perfectly. Not tight. Not baggy. No doubt if he turned around, the rear would look as impressive as the front. Both his face and his hair were disappointedly half-hidden by a baseball cap and sunglasses, but he had the same strongly chiseled jaw and sexy blonde scruff that made her want to throw every razor known to man straight into the garbage.

  Though he never looked away from his paper, the wall lounger’s lips twitched, almost as if sensing her visual appraisal. That smirk. Those lips. The stretch of a long-sleeved T over a chest wide enough to land an airplane on. Elle nearly collapsed into an X-rated memory of how lips nearly identical to those of this stranger had pleasurably ripped away all her sensibilities only a scant few days ago.