The Cinderella Mission Read online

  More than her safety depended on keeping a cool head. Alex Morrow was somewhere, waiting, hoping his government would retrieve him.

  What if Ethan had been the one lost overseas?

  Determination fired within her. She made a quick visual sweep of the greenhouse.

  Snaking a hand up, she snagged a miniature garden rake from the shelf. The lethal three prongs on the hand-sized cultivator would make a weapon more deadly than any dragon-eye slap. As long as she didn’t lose control of it.

  Kelly crouched, crept toward the door. Adrenaline burned the sweat from her skin, the spit from her mouth. It was likely nothing, she reassured herself. Just some animal rustling through the snow. There certainly wasn’t much noise.

  The knob turned.

  Not an animal. Kelly’s grip tightened around the plastic handle. The door swung open, the entryway empty. Pressing her back against the wall by the door, she waited. She wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t strike unless necessary. But if she did—

  “Kelly?”

  Ethan’s voice rumbled through the opening even though he didn’t show himself. Relief surged through her and she shot to her feet.

  Her body slammed against the wall. Ethan pinned her, his face looming over. Where had he come from so fast?

  “Kelly?” His hand vise-locked her wrist to the wall.

  Her fingers numbed. The three-pronged rake clattered to the ground. “Geez, Williams, way to stop a girl’s heart.”

  He didn’t laugh.

  She glanced down at the 9mm in his other hand. Suddenly the abundance of flowery scents made her nauseous. Thank God for his fast reflexes in lowering the weapon.

  Harsh lines marked his face, his skin pulled taut along angular bones. “Don’t ever, ever jump out at me like that. You’re damned lucky I didn’t shoot you.”

  Residual fear made her ornery. “I didn’t jump out. You snuck up.”

  “That’s what I do in order to stay alive, take my time entering an unsecured area.” Water glistened on his hair like the sparks flecking his angry eyes.

  “I waited until I knew it was you.” She nudged the gardening rake with her toe. “And I had a weapon.”

  A smile kicked through the harshness hardening his face. “Good, making the most of what’s around.”

  Pride flowed through in a warm rush that eased her fear. Slowly, her heart rate returned to normal.

  Only to speed right back up again.

  His long lean body pressed flush along hers. His hand lowered her arm, bringing them closer still until her breasts flattened to his solid chest in an exchange of heat that conversely sent shivers through her.

  He stared back at her. Then down. His slight shift allowed a whisper of air between them.

  Ethan’s eyes cruised every inch of her leggings and sports bra. The fire of his gaze threatened to melt Lycra clean away from her skin.

  Not that she could feel any more exposed than she already did.

  She scrambled for composure. A sweatshirt to yank over her skimpy getup might help. Her increasing breaths threatened hyperventilation, not to mention too-damned-enticing brushes of her breasts against his pecs. “So glad you’ve decided to apologize for what you said earlier about Matt,” she babbled.

  “I’m not here to apologize.”

  “Oh. Then please leave.” Please, please, please. “I’m busy.”

  He braced an arm over her head. “But I will apologize for scaring you just now.”

  Kelly sagged against the wall, farther from him and the temptation to rest her hands on his shoulders. “I’m fine. Just startled.”

  “Couldn’t guess by that yell.”

  “I never yell.”

  “Tell that to the office full of operative-support folks.”

  “It’s called projection. Not yelling. There’s a difference.” She knew she was rambling to cover her nerves, but couldn’t make herself stop. “You can go now.”

  He pushed away from the wall and strode down the row of plants, tapping along each one with careless leisure, while the 9mm dangled from his other hand.

  “What are you doing?” She scooped her sweatshirt from the floor and yanked it over her head.

  “Taking inventory.”

  She grabbed her jacket from a hook by the door. “Then I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Stay,” he called over his shoulder without turning.

  She shouldn’t. But suspected she would anyway. “Did we forget to discuss something?”

  He shook his head.

  “Okay. Then I’d like to go.” She clutched her parka in her hands without moving.

  “Soon.” The length of the greenhouse separating them, he pivoted on his heel to face her. “Right now, I need to look at you for another minute.”

  “What?”

  He set his weapon beside a potted topiary of miniature roses. “You may have only been startled, but I was damned scared.”

  “Of what?”

  The harsh lines of his face hardened into a man she barely recognized, but she’d bet those he’d taken down in the field would know well. “You scared the hell out of me, disappearing like that, Taylor.”

  “I did?” Kelly clutched her coat to her stomach in direct pressure against a dangerous yearning blooming faster than the orchid stretching toward the sunlamp.

  “I’m responsible for you.”

  And then he wilted those tender feelings as quickly as if he’d pulled the plug on the lamp. “We’re responsible for each other.”

  “Whatever.”

  Damn it, they had to start working together as partners or they would end up maiming each other with garden tools by the end of the week. She accepted responsibility, as well, knew she should have kept him informed if she intended to wander off.

  But he wasn’t being straight with her, either. Sure his ego might sting if this assignment didn’t shake down right, but he would still have a future in the field. Unlike her. She needed to close this case.

  Alex Morrow needed them to close this case.

  No more holding back. No more secrets. Finally, Kelly asked the question that had knotted her muscles all night, necessitating her relaxing escape to the greenhouse.

  “Who’s Celia?”

  Ethan planted his feet to keep from staggering. Damn, the woman knew how to stage a hell of an ambush. “What?”

  Kelly flung her coat on top of bags of potting soil. “Who’s Celia?”

  He stalled for more time to find his footing. His head still buzzed from the outright fear that something had happened to Kelly. He didn’t need this conversation, not now when he just wanted to look at her and reassure himself she wasn’t somewhere bleeding out.

  Or already dead.

  Ethan braced a hand against a support beam. Yeah, he would just hold up this wall for another few minutes. “Where did you hear her name?”

  “Samantha mentioned Celia as if I should already know about her.” Kelly trailed a hand down a table of empty clay pots, her sweatshirt doing nothing to disguise her curves now that he knew what rested beneath that cotton.

  “Who’s acting dog-in-the-manger jealous this time?”

  She met him toe-to-toe. “This has nothing to do with jealousy and everything to do with the integrity of our cover. If I’m going to convince people we’re a couple, you can’t hide important parts of your dating history from me.”

  She was right, damn it. He pulled the words up and out. “Celia and I were engaged. She died.”

  Kelly deflated. “Oh, Ethan. I’m sorry. How? What happened?”

  “Still working to get our stories straight?” he asked with bitter precision.

  Her hand settled on his arm with a gentle reassurance he didn’t want.

  “Ethan, be fair, please. That’s not why I’m asking now, and you know it.”

  He stared down at her wide-open face, so full of emotions and caring and giving. The eleven years difference between their ages stretched in front of him. The world he’d made for himself would suck h
er innocence dry in a heartbeat.

  He held still, only an inch of air and miles of experience separating them. “In case you haven’t noticed, life isn’t fair and I’m not a nice guy. Whether it’s poker or basketball or my job, I fight to win. I learned fast and early there are too many damned times you can’t control losing, so you’d better fight like hell to win the ones you can. No rules. No boundaries.”

  She didn’t move, didn’t stop him, just listened with her typical Kelly understanding that wore him down faster than any amount of questioning.

  Ethan jammed his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her, holding her close and stealing some of that sweet innocence, and damn it, yes, comfort, for himself. The sooner he told her about Celia, the sooner they could move on. “She caught hepatitis on a trip to Mexico. It destroyed her liver. She died before an organ donor became available.”

  Kelly stroked his arm. “I wish you’d told me.”

  Anger steamed through him, mostly at himself. “Damn it, I know I should have briefed you.”

  “No.” Silky hair straggled free from her ponytail, but not enough to hide the sympathy he didn’t want. “Before this case. I wish you’d told me.”

  And watch her eyes turn soft and compassionate the way they were doing now? Not a chance would he have risked that. “Talking about it won’t change anything. It happened six years ago, right before I joined ARIES. I was a regular CIA operative then, so most people in ARIES don’t know. I should have considered that Samantha or Matt or Jake might mention her.”

  He defied her to ask more. Hell, he would have. But then Kelly was a better person.

  “Okay, that subject’s closed.” A bracing sigh later, she asked, “But is there anyone else I need to know about?”

  He shook his head. “No one. There haven’t been more than passing relationships since then. Never anything serious.”

  Never.

  The word hovered between them in the silence, only the watery hiss of the plant mister answering his one statement that told more than he’d wanted to relay.

  Time to stem all the sympathy pouring from her like water from the ceiling. “You know I go out, but only with women who want as little as I do. The smart ones like Samantha punch out of any relationship with me damned quickly.”

  Her gaze probed him, luring him to share more than if she’d openly asked. He needed to distract her before he started spilling his guts in some pathetic display that would land him right up against the comfort of those incredible breasts. “So what were you doing out here anyway in this getup?”

  “Pilates.”

  Pilates Method exercising? Good God, he’d expected any answer but that. “How does a girl who grew up on a Nebraska wheat farm pick up an affinity for Pilates?”

  She stared at him so long he wondered if she would let him off the hook, but her sweeter side obviously won out against her pit-bull determination. “Nebraska isn’t the boonies.”

  He held up his hands. “Sorry! No offense to Nebraska.”

  “None taken.” Her shoulders relaxed their defensive arch. “Actually, I started out with meditation first, looking for some kind of relaxation. It takes a lot of late nights to become fluent in seven languages. That doesn’t leave many hours for sleep.”

  “Seven, huh? I wondered what the count was.”

  She packed a big-time IQ under all that hair. No secret since Hatch had plucked her from the CIA ops support for ARIES so fast.

  Kelly rested her hip on the center row of plants, facing him while he held up the support beam for a while longer. “If I wanted to maintain the pace, something had to give. One day in eleventh-grade gym class, I fell asleep standing up on the volleyball court. I didn’t wake up until the ball clocked me on the head.”

  Eleventh grade? He expected that kind of drive in a college student, but not in a high-schooler. He kept silent though, so she would keep talking. Kelly didn’t share often and he needed distraction from the unwanted emotions talk of Celia had raised…the old fears of losing someone close to him again. Only Kelly hadn’t gotten that close. Had she?

  She swept wisps of dark hair off her face. “My gym teacher took pity on me. She was a real health nut who mastered meditation in the sixties before she fell for the farm boy standing next to her at Woodstock.” A smile played with Kelly’s full lips. “That day after the volleyball game, she gave me an icepack along with my first meditation lesson. Once I realized how much rest I could cram into a power nap, my world changed.”

  What kind of social life could she have had with such overprotective parents and nothing but academics? None, of course. In her sweatshirt and leggings she looked more like a cheerleader on her way home from practice. Except he suspected she’d never had the star quarterback appreciate the fullness of those luscious lips of hers.

  She should have.

  And dog-in-the-manger be damned, he was glad she hadn’t.

  “So, Kelly Taylor.” Ethan hooked a finger in the hem of her sweatshirt, the back of his hand brushing the warmth of her thigh. “Is there anything more I should know about you? In the interest of seeming like a couple, of course.”

  Her hand fidgeted with a watering can, turning it so the spout faced inward. “Can’t think of anything that’ll come up in conversation.”

  “I don’t know about that.” He let his hand sweep around to the side where her tattoo waited a mere scrap of Lycra away. “It’s probably important I know what that tattoo is.”

  She abandoned the watering can, but didn’t move his hand. “You’re certainly a focused man.”

  “That I am. So?”

  An impish smile teased at her lips. “No one we come into contact with will know.”

  Which hinted that someone else did know, and he didn’t like the surge of possessiveness chugging through him at all. He wanted her, damn it. And he didn’t want to want her.

  He needed space. Good thing he’d made a morning appointment to meet with a retired agent specializing in gems. Kelly would insist on coming along, but at least their jaunt to North Carolina would take them out of close quarters.

  He’d never been any good at denying himself what he wanted. And right now, with his emotions still raw from worrying about her and dredging up ancient history, he couldn’t find the will to do the right thing and push her away. Tomorrow would come around soon enough.

  He accepted he would probably never see that tattoo of hers, and he would regret it for the rest of his life. But he damned well didn’t intend to go to his grave without the memory of tasting one long, thorough kiss from Kelly’s beautiful mouth.

  Kelly felt Ethan’s eyes on her mouth as surely as if he’d kissed her. And she did so want him to kiss her, this hard man who’d never touched her with anything other than the gentlest of hands.

  Ethan tugged her forward by the waistband of her sweatshirt. “I can think of another thing we need to work on in order to pull off this couple cover story convincingly.”

  Her heart tripped over the next beat, then forgot altogether about another beat before jump-starting a double pace. “You can?”

  “It’s important we look comfortable together—physically.”

  Oh, geez. “Uh-huh.”

  His hands skimmed up her arms to rest on her shoulders. “We need to lock in that familiarity with kissing.”

  “Wouldn’t want to bump noses.” Was that husky voice hers?

  “Not a chance.” He angled his head toward her and found her lips with ease.

  The scent of musk drifted down around her, mingling with the crisp freshness of melting sleet on his hair. The lingering taste of their chocolate dessert and something distinctly Ethan seeped into her senses with such ease it had to be right.

  Part of her insisted the perfection of the meeting of their mouths had more to do with his experience than any pre-ordained rightness. Then his mouth opened, his tongue touching hers for the first time, and she knew there had to be a second time, as well. “Ethan. More.”

  H
e growled his agreement into her mouth.

  A desperate need built within her to explore more of him than just his mouth. She combed her fingers through his damp hair and mourned the loss of its length. Desire lending confidence to her inexperienced hands, she tore his shirt from his pants, flicked buttons open, found the incredible chest she’d felt through cotton earlier in the gym.

  While he stroked down her arms, over her belly with bold possession, her hands reveled in the undiluted sensation of honed man under her palms. The cut of whipcord strength bulged under her touch. Flexed in response to her caress. A moment’s trepidation shivered through her as she considered why he needed such strength, followed by a thrill from the pleasure the gentleness of that restrained power brought her.

  His hands trekked a deliberate path to her hips. One bold callused finger hooked in her waistband, on the same side as her tattoo. He eased back from their kiss until she looked into his eyes. She knew what he wanted and waited for him to find it.

  Holding her gaze with his, he dipped one long finger into her leggings, along her hip, exploring until he landed on the patch of skin where the texture would differ. His low growl of appreciation, of possession, sent her up on her toes and into another kiss. He insinuated his whole hand in to cup her bare hip.

  She tugged his head down to her and surrendered to the fiery heat of his hand, his mouth, her need.

  Again, he traced the patch of inked skin on her hip. Would he guess its pattern? Somehow this sensory investigation of his sent tendrils of desire smoking through her more powerfully than if she’d bared her body to his eyes.

  Tingling need pulsed lower with almost painful intensity. She arched into him, closer, rocking her hips against his. Desperate for release after a lifetime of abstinence. Desperate for beautiful memories to overlay the bad. Her hands grabbed his shoulders, gripped, pulled him to her until he winced under her touch.

  Winced?

  Reality forced its way through her need. She’d been working out, sure, but no way was she strong enough to hurt him yet. “Ethan? Is something wrong?”

  He pulled her hand from his left shoulder and pressed a kiss to the center of her palm before replacing it on his chest. “Forget about it.”