Hot Intent (Hqn)

  LOVE UNDER SIEGE

  Katie McCloud just wants to be a mom to Dawn and girlfriend to Dr. Alex Peters. But the violent unrest that brought them all together is once again erupting into their lives. Sent to Cuba to help care for hurricane victims, Katie and Alex are thrust back into the thick of international espionage—this time, on opposite sides.

  Katie thought she’d made peace with the secrets locked tight behind Alex’s handsome, brooding facade. Back in hostile territory, though, those secrets threaten the very bond that holds them together. And Alex? He’s finding out that what he holds most precious—Katie and tiny Dawn—is making him way too vulnerable. He’s going to have to make a choice…soon

  RT Book Reviews raves about Cindy Dees

  Close Pursuit

  “Dees blends action and intrigue in this character-driven romance with deft skill, keeping readers enthralled until the final secret is unveiled and the last chase winds down.”

  Night Rescue

  “Dees’s exciting, action-packed story speeds along on all cylinders, with a smoking-hot pair at the center of it all. Your fingers will get exercise as they rapidly turn the pages of this compulsively readable tale.”

  Flash of Death

  “Dees brings readers into an action-packed world, with superhuman operatives. Add to that a sympathetic heroine and a sizzling romance, and this is a book you can’t put down.”

  Deadly Sight

  “Dees crafts the perfect blend of romance and suspense with her latest story featuring members of the special ops group Code X. A solid, suspenseful plot, tormented, vulnerable characters and beautiful, compelling writing will keep you turning the pages.”

  The 9-Month Bodyguard

  “There’s action and hot attraction galore in this addition to the Love in 60 Seconds series. Dees does a terrific job of advancing the overall series while lending her unique talent to her vibrant individual contribution.”

  Also available from Cindy Dees and Harlequin HQN

  Close Pursuit

  Take the Bait

  CINDY DEES

  This book is for you, dear reader. You, who enthusiastically pick up books and throw yourself headfirst into stories, who let your imagination soar and who grant me the privilege of taking you on a journey of thrills, chills, laughter and love. The storytelling process would not be complete without you. Thank you for being here, and enjoy the ride!

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER ONE

  KATIE MCCLOUD STARTED as the front door’s elaborate electronic locks buzzed to indicate they were disengaging. Her heart leaped in eager anticipation. He was home. Finally. After nearly a year away.

  She’d been head over heels for Alex Peters when he was sucked into some supersecret CIA training program last year. He’d been yanked away from her just as they were really getting to know each other. But now he was back, and their life together could resume where it left off.

  Their relationship had been forged in danger as they’d fled forces intent on killing them and the infant girl they’d rescued together. Alex, a trauma surgeon by training, had been in the remote central Asian country of Zaghastan illegally delivering babies, and she’d been there as his translator and babysitter. Although who’d watched whom was still open to debate.

  His CIA handler, André Fortinay, had briefed her not to assume anything about her relationship with him when he got home. To let Alex set the tone and pace of the reunion. Almost as if they’d broken him in some way while he was gone. What exactly had they done to him in his training, anyway?

  Alex stepped into the living room, and her heart gave a lurch. God, he was more beautiful than she remembered. Tall. Dark. And even more dangerous than before. His coffee-dark hair was a little lighter, his skin darkly bronzed. He was leaner through the waist and bigger across the shoulders. But those changes weren’t what really arrested her.

  Something intangible had changed about him. His natural confidence had been replaced by something else, something more...powerful. Now it came across as utter belief in himself. He’d always had a lethal quality to him, but it had a new focus about it now, a cold reserve that oozed don’t-screw-with-me-in-a-dark-alley.

  She realized she’d risen to her feet after the fact. Crud. She’d planned to stay seated, arranged sexily on his white leather sofa. Oh, well. So much for pretending to be calm, cool and sophisticated. She was a hot mess and would always be a hot mess. To heck with André Fortinay’s do’s and don’ts for Alex’s homecoming.

  “Alex!” she cried joyfully. She started forward and managed to catch the edge of the flokati area rug with her heel, slam her shin into the glass coffee table and pitch headlong into Alex’s arms as he dived forward to catch her.

  “Been working on your coordination in my absence?” he murmured as he drew her up against his body. His mouth closed on hers and the wild magic exploded between them like it always did. His lips slashed across hers as her mouth opened eagerly. Their tongues collided, and he inhaled her like he couldn’t get enough of her. At least that hadn’t changed about him. Relief crept through her nervousness.

  Her arms slid around his waist. He was more muscular, harder, than before. But then, so was she. She’d been working out like crazy while he was gone. Some of it had been boredom, and some frankly had been a remedy for horniness. And a little of it had been insecurity over how a girl like her was ever going to hold the attention of a man like him. He was James Bond, and she was the girl next door.

  He came up for air long enough to murmur, “Where’s Dawn?”

  “Asleep. Would you like to peek into her room and see her, though?”

  He smiled and the warmth reached all the way to his eyes. “Yes.”

  Keeping her plastered against his side, he strode across the sleek living room of his penthouse condo and down the hall to the nursery where their adopted daughter, who recently turned one year old, slept.

  He cracked the door open and crossed the floor to the crib. “My God, she’s grown so much,” he breathed.

  A wedge of light from the doorway fell upon her blond curls and chubby cheeks. She slept on her tummy, her knees tucked up under herself and her diaper poking up under the pink blanket. Adorable didn’t begin to cover her angelic cuteness.

  “I thought they taught you in medical school that growing is what babies do.”

  He snorted without taking his gaze off the sleeping baby. “She’s gorgeous.”

  “Did you ever get a good look at her birth mother before she died? The girl was stunning. Our Dawn’s going to keep you hopping in about thirteen years when the boys start sniffing around.”

  “There will be no sniffing,” he said firmly.

  She laughed under her breath. “Good luck with that.”

  He backed out of the doorway and headed toward the white quartz bar in the corner of the living room. He poured himself a shot of expensive Russian vodka neat and tossed it down. He made a sound o
f appreciation.

  “Missed the good stuff?” she asked.

  “You have no idea.”

  “Tell me about it. What was your training like?” André had told her not to ask any questions, but he could get over it. Alex would think something weird was up if she didn’t display at least a little curiosity.

  His eyes shuttered instantly and completely. “Rough.” And that was obviously all he planned to say about it. Great. He was back to minimal communication punctuated by long silences.

  “Fair enough. Glad to be home?”

  He looked around the condo, his sharp gaze probing the corners carefully. “Thanks for house-sitting.”

  She laughed. “It was a real hardship, living in all this luxury for free.” She added more seriously, “Actually, it helped me feel a little closer to you while you were gone. I missed you.”

  He bit out grimly, “I missed you, too.”

  She knew him well enough not to take it personally that he sounded supremely unhappy about that development. He’d been raised by his spy father to believe that all human emotions were weaknesses in need of expunging from his heart and mind.

  “André said you might want some time by yourself to decompress after your training. I’ve talked with my parents, and they’ve invited Dawn and me to come hang out at their place for a while and give you some space.”

  “No,” he replied sharply. “Stay.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “You’re safest here.”

  He wasn’t kidding. She’d spent the past year learning the security features of his fortresslike home and they were daunting. Like him. The place was elegant and gorgeous on the inside, hard and impenetrable on the outside.

  “You haven’t lived with a toddler before. Dawn will totally destroy your grand solitude. Chaos is the normal state of affairs around here,” she warned him in all seriousness. Not to mention, she was concerned about his reflexive responses to a baby. Who knew what knee-jerk reactions had been hardwired into him this year? Were she and Dawn even safe around him? After seeing the icy detachment in his eyes, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure.

  “I insist.”

  Big words. Still, she worried about how he would react to Dawn and her. He’d lived alone basically his entire life, and the transition to having an overnight family was not going to be easy for him. No way would she even consider staying here like this were it not for the threat his father posed to them all.

  “I had an intercom system installed while you were away, Alex. I hope you don’t mind. It’s just that the apartment’s so big I can’t hear Dawn if she’s in her room and I’m in—” She broke off. How to describe the master bedroom? Was it still just his room? Their room? It had been her room for the past year.

  “Good call on an intercom,” he remarked.

  “Are you hungry? Tired? It’s late. Have you traveled a long way to get here? Oops. Strike that last one. But you do look tired.”

  He actually looked more than tired. Up close, she spied lavender shadows beneath his eyes, and a certain haggard quality clung to him. He looked bone-deep exhausted. She could imagine the kind of stuff the CIA trained its field operatives to do, and he probably had good cause to look wiped out.

  She murmured, “Let me check on Dawn, and then I’ll be back to welcome you home more thoroughly.”

  His gray, intelligent gaze went alert and predatory. Her tummy fluttered excitedly in response. Who’d have guessed she was still such an adrenaline junkie after a year of sedate parenthood?

  “I’ll be waiting,” he murmured.

  Now why did that sound like a threat? Was it just his habitual economy of expression, or was it more? Either way, her heart leaped in anticipation.

  Hah. And André had hinted broadly that Alex might not want to have a romantic relationship with her when he got home. He’d been home five minutes and already laid a smoking-hot kiss on her and was now moving things to the bedroom. Along with her triumph, a dose of abject gratitude flowed through her.

  He was still hers. Brilliant, tortured Alex Peters—genius, surgeon and now spy—still wanted her. Part of her—okay, a scarily big part of her—worried that it was too good to be true. That he was going through the motions now because he thought she expected him to. That the past year’s worth of training had forced him to revert to form and shut down emotionally. That he would ultimately push her out of his life.

  Worried, she leaned over the crib in the nursery. Sweet Dawn, the best baby ever, settled in under her blanket without waking up. If the way she kicked off blankets was any indication, she was on her way to being a great soccer player.

  Li’l munchkin had been through a lot in her short life. She’d been born into a war zone and her mother had died in childbirth despite Alex’s heroic efforts to save the girl. Her entire village had been massacred and the three of them had barely made it out with their lives.

  But thanks to the trust fund Alex had set up, the legalities his lawyer had sorted out to give Alex and her permanent custody of Dawn and, of course, the roof Alex had put over both of their heads, it was nothing but smooth sailing for Dawn now. For all of them. No more running around being chased by bad guys out to kill them. Katie tiptoed out of the nursery and down the hall to Alex’s bedroom.

  *

  ALEX STOOD IN the darkness of his bedroom absorbing the familiarity of its dark shapes, noting the differences Katie had brought to the space. He could do this. He could pretend to be a normal man. Living a normal life. He could experience pleasure. Family. Love. He would not break.

  Nothing would break him.

  They’d tortured him and screwed with his head and made him kill. But in spite of it all, he had not broken. And to think, he’d once believed his father a bastard for training him like a spy. If only he’d known just how easy his old man had taken it on him.

  Alex pulled his shirt off over his head, not bothering to unbutton it. Cool air blew lightly across his skin causing goose bumps on his chest, back and arms. He kicked off his shoes and stripped off his pants and socks. Naked, he stood stock-still in the middle of his bedroom. Nothing but darkness clothed him.

  Memories rolled over him then. Remembered tortures that made him tremble even now. They’d begun like this, too. Exposed skin, cool breath upon his flesh. Then pain. Exquisite, fiery pain.

  And in his agony, all the demons from his past had come calling, singing to him like sirens, calling him home. It would have been so easy to lose himself in them. Then check out of the prolonged agony and go to that other place inside his soul.

  But he’d chosen the pain. He’d stayed present. Suffered the agonies of hell. Only then had he been sure he was still alive.

  Even now, especially now, he wondered if any of this was real. It was so mundane. His house. Katie. The baby.

  Was this the cruelest torture of all? Were they going to let him get comfortable and then rip it all away from him? If he knew what was good for him, he would reject it all. He would find the pain and live there.

  But that welcome-home kiss...

  He swore violently. Kissing Katie might just be worth going to hell for.

  *

  KATIE STEPPED INTO the darkness of the master bedroom and screamed a little as strong arms came out of nowhere to sweep her up against a hard body. “Gotcha. I win,” Alex announced. “You are the worst spy ever.”

  “Mmm, but I’m the softest and sexiest and love you the best.”

  “True,” he agreed as his mouth closed over hers.

  The explosive attraction that had simmered between them before erupted, crackling like chain lightning across her skin, striking further and further inside her as their kiss deepened. Craving twisted her innards into tight knots of desire. She could never seem to get enough of him.

  Her clothes went every which way as the passion overtook them, and frantic urgency spurred them onward. Naked and devouring each other, they fell onto his bed. She’d have laughed, except he speared his hand into her hair and pu
lled her head back so he could plunder her neck and shoulder with teeth and tongue, and the laugh became a gasp of pleasure instead.

  He took control tonight, demanding ever more response from her as he kissed and stroked and nipped his way across her flesh. Where she was cold, he was hot. Where she was soft, he was hard. And where she was hungry, he starved her for more.

  With hands and mouth, he played her body, using his knowledge of her pleasures and desires to drive her into a frenzy of blind lust. She needed to have him crushing her into the mattress, to fill her body with his, to feel his power and desire as he pounded into her...oh, yes. She needed all of that in the worst way.

  But frustratingly, he withheld it from her tonight. Instead, he kissed his way down her body until she gasped with need. His tongue circled her most sensitive bud, wet and hot and maddening until a climax started to claw its way out of her belly. And then his mouth withdrew.

  “Tell me something, Katie. How bad do you want this?”

  Oh, no. “Um, bad enough to beg?”

  “Is that all?” he murmured in disappointment.

  “Bad enough to do anything you want?” she tried.

  “You’ll do that anyway,” he replied dismissively.

  True. She never could say no to him. “Bad enough to cry?”

  His thoughtful silence was encouraging. Although on second thought, she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out how he would make her cry. He’d warned her before that his sexual tastes could run pretty dark at times. And he’d just come off a year of pretty dark, violent training, if she had to guess.

  Before he could act on her ill-considered offer, she added, “Bad enough to say ‘please’?”

  He rose up over her on powerfully muscled arms. “Say it.”

  “Please, Alex.” When he didn’t move, she continued. “Please give us both an orgasm. Or ten. I want you so much I can’t stand it. Now. Take me now. Please.”

  In typical Alex fashion, he continued to stare down at her, letting her frustration and desperation build until she thought she might die.