“Ride me, Lyrica,” he groaned, finally seating himself fully, her fist-tight grip surrounding his sensitive flesh and throwing him straight back into that swirling vortex of inevitable destruction.

Straightening above him she began moving, her hands lifting to her breasts, watching him, drowsy, dazed green eyes glittering between heavy lashes. Lashes that flickered in growing ecstasy as her thumbs and fingers plucked firmly at her little nipples.

Gripping her hips in desperate hands, he moved under her, giving her a rhythm to follow as her panting breaths became whimpering moans that drove him crazy with lust. The sounds of her pleasure sounded drawn from her soul. Low, resonating with a pleasure neither of them had a hope of controlling.

“Fuck me,” he growled, watching her, moving harder beneath her, rocking her against him as his balls began to throb with the need to spill his release again. “That’s it. Ride me harder.”

He was dying with the need to come. It was burning through his cock, pounding at the crest, racing through his bloodstream.

Holding her to him, he reversed their positions quickly. Coming over her and lifting her hips to his penetration, Graham felt his senses overloading with the pleasure he’d only found with this woman.

His lips covered hers, drinking in her cries, her pleasure as he began driving into her, fucking her with a hunger, a need he’d never experienced in his life.

Her cries echoed around him.

When her orgasm gripped her, the muscles of her snug little pussy tightened with almost painful intensity around his cock, triggering his release along with hers. Flames rocked up his spine, shot back to his balls, and exploded through his senses.

He was coming, filling the condom with a release that he wanted nothing more than to feel surging into the unprotected depths of her flesh, marking her as his.

His.

God help him, if he wasn’t careful, he would belong to her.

TWENTY

Time was running out.

Two weeks after Lyrica had returned to his house, he could feel the advance of each day like a noose tightening around his neck.

Graham could feel it like a bomb, silently ticking off the time, but he was unaware of the number remaining on the countdown.

Watching the cameras Elijah had installed on one monitor, he also watched the cameras his father had installed and hidden on the laptop sitting beside it.

Lying on the desk directly in front of him was the file he’d shown Lyrica several days before. Several reports were spread out around it, the pictures lying off to the side, unneeded once she’d confirmed she’d seen none of the men involved with the group.

“There are no anomalies in the cameras, no sign of the intruder’s return, and no one showing any curiosity at all in the fact that Lyrica seems to have disappeared.” Elijah paced the office slowly as he spoke, head lowered, staring at the floor thoughtfully. “It’s been two weeks. The waiting game isn’t on our side if we can’t flush out whoever’s behind this.”

“Angel’s hit a dead end as well,” Tracker stated from where he rested at the edge of the bureau on the other side of the room. “The wait-and-see game is on their side.”

Behind him, Graham could feel Lyrica tense, the slender hand resting on his shoulder slowly fisting. Reaching for her and drawing her to him, he pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin on her shoulder as his gaze moved around the room.

Elijah, watching the act, reached up and rubbed at the back of his neck, blowing out a hard breath. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Tracker?” Graham asked quietly.

“No contact yet.” Arms crossed, his gaze hooded as he glanced to Lyrica, he gave a quick shake of his dark head. “I sent the message night before last that I’d completed the previous mission and was en route to Somerset. There’s been no reply. I have the rest of my team lying low and waiting. As soon as contact’s made, they’ll move.”

Lyrica was rifling through the pictures again, her graceful fingers trembling as she shuffled through them slowly.

The sight of those slender digits trembling with fear enraged him.

Lifting his head from where his chin rested against her, Graham turned to Elijah again. “Has Doogan managed to find anything?” he asked the agent.

“Doogan went and got himself shot again two nights ago on another op,” Elijah snorted in disgust. “Out of a six-man team, only one escaped unscathed. Two are in critical, one recovering, one limping, and Doogan’s out of commission with a concussion and a bullet hole in his shoulder.”

Graham winced at the information.

“If that boy keeps looking to die, fate’s going to hand him his wish on a silver platter,” Tracker grunted. “He’s a fatality waiting to happen.”

Lyrica stilled against Graham again, tensing further.

Damn, Tracker, it wasn’t enough that there was somebody out there trying to kill her, he had to mention fatalities, too?

Shooting the mercenary a scowl, Graham watched as the man gave an apologetic shrug before uncrossing his arms and bracing his hands on the top of the bureau where he rested.

The look in his eye reminded Graham of the warning he’d given before Lyrica had entered the office earlier.

He was hiding her. He kept her in the house behind closed doors and carefully darkened windows. There hadn’t been so much as a sighting of her since the night of the wreck.

Weariness and worry had lined Dawg’s and Natches’s faces as they’d pointed out the same thing that morning while Lyrica slept.

He was keeping her hidden. Whoever had the contract up for her was waiting to see where she was, evidently in no hurry at all. That meant it was someone close. Someone who wouldn’t seem out of place over a long period of time.

“We need a plan now,” Tracker growled. “It concerns me that the contract hasn’t been rescinded, yet he hasn’t replied to my message, either. It’s time, Graham.”

“Like hell . . .”

“I know him.”

“I agree with Tracker,” Elijah said as Lyrica’s soft statement had Graham looking back at her as she turned to him.

Lifting his hand in a gesture of silence, he glimpsed Lyrica’s pale face and wide emerald green eyes.

“What did you say?” His gaze went to the picture she was holding, the photograph shuddering from her trembling grip.

“I know him,” she said again, her voice soft, fear shadowing it. “I didn’t see this picture the other day. Why didn’t I see it then?”

Tracker and Elijah moved to the desk as Graham took it from her, frowning down at it.

“Because I wasn’t aware this one was in there,” he muttered.

Frowning, he flipped the picture over, checking the identification number on the back quickly before he began shuffling through the reports.

“That was a late arrival from Doogan.” Elijah stared at the picture of the soldier standing with Betts Laren. “Check the back of the file for the report. I don’t recognize him.”

“I do.” The statement had them stilling, staring back at Lyrica in surprise as her voice sharpened. “I do know him. He’s been at the inn several times. I’ve fixed his breakfast. I even told him about my favorite places to shop when he asked so he could tell his fiancée the best places to go.”

“Who is he?” Graham had never seen him. He hadn’t been part of Betts’s group in Afghanistan, nor part of Betts’s team.

“Kevin Davis,” she said softly. “He’s engaged to one of Mom’s long-term guests, Carmina Lucient. He was there for a few days last month before returning to Iraq for the end of his tour. He’s not supposed to be back until sometime next month.”