5

Chapter 5

Maddix Nelson's home was in the most exclusive part of Hagerstown. The rising

mansions and gated estates were lavishly rich and heavily secured.

The Nelson home was on the lower end of lavish, situated in a gated community,

surrounded by other similar homes, just as expensive, just as secured.

As Nik pulled the Hummer into the Nelson driveway behind several other

vehicles, he was clearly able to see why his neighbors had been so certain Maddix had been home the evening Eddie Foreman had died. They were intensely curious. Even now Nik counted no fewer than half a dozen watching as he stepped from the vehicle and made his way along the precisely placed sidewalk that led to the front door.

The door opened as he stepped onto the ornately decorated front porch.

"Nik." Maddix opened the door and stepped inside. "They're all here." "They"

being the two city council members, chief of police, and mayor, as well as Maddix's son, Luke.

Nik followed Maddix through the quiet, understated luxury of the house to the

back of the house where the office was located.

Nik stepped into the room, paying particular attention to the heavy, closed drapes, the dark wood walls.

"Nik, Councilman John Cooker, Mayor Dempsey, Chief Daniel Riley,

Councilwoman Caroline Faulkner, my wife, Glenda, and my son, Lucas. We were all

here the night Eddie was killed."

"This is ridiculous, Maddix." Glenda Nelson, Maddix's younger second wife, was clearly his trophy bride. At thirty-three the former model with her dark chocolate skin and rounded dark eyes was an exotic beauty who was clearly put out at being asked to attend this meeting.

His son, Lucas, sat slumped in a chair in the corner, his brown eyes narrowed with spoiled defensiveness. His expression bespoke a man who considered himself far beyond being required to attend to anyone else's schedule.

The councilman and -woman watched in interest from their places on a love seat.

There was a heavy sense of familiarity between the two that bespoke of lovers, despite the fact that they were married, to other partners.

The chief of police sat in a chair next to a cold fireplace, his lips set in a thin line, his hazel eyes watching Nik suspiciously as Mayor Dempsey nodded his head in greeting.

The gang was all here.

"Thank you for meeting me," Nik said, making an attempt at a polite greeting.

"It wasn't as though some of us had a choice," Maddix's son sneered.

"No, it wasn't," Nik agreed. "But I'm certain we all appreciate your cooperation."

Cooperation his ass. Nik had warned Maddix he would drag the son there by his

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hair if he wasn't in attendance. It was a threat Maddix had evidently relayed.

"Why must Luke and I be here, Mr. Steele?" Glenda crossed her arms over the soft pale cream blouse she wore with stylish white shorts. "I'm certain we weren't needed."

"You were all here the night Eddie Foreman died," Nik said. "I have some questions I wanted to ask."

"Yes, we were all here, which means Maddix obviously killed no one," Glenda continued to protest. "That makes this an exercise in futility if you ask me."

So much for cooperation.

"Did I ask you?" Nik queried with cool softness.

"Enough, Glenda," Maddix growled. "Let Nik do his job. If he asked you to be here, then it's for a reason."

"We should have invited Mikayla." Luke's lips tightened into a smile of clear male appreciation. "Then perhaps I wouldn't be so bored."

Nik turned his head and stared at the other man. "And why do you say that, Mr.

Nelson?" he asked.

The smile shifted to one of anticipation. "Once this is over, it would be nice to take what's owed me. The little bitch was teasing the hell out of me before she dropped me cold after she accused my father of murder."

"Shut your damned mouth, Luke," Maddix ordered his son furiously before Nik would make a move to shut his mouth permanently. "I told you to stay away from that girl before any of this happened. She's too good for your spoiled, whorish ways."

There was an edge of contempt in Maddix's tone that surprised Nik. Luke was

Maddix's only child, a son at that, and obviously spoiled past redemption. The fact that Maddix was taking a stand when it was obviously too late made no sense to Nik.

"His mother raised him," Maddix explained with a glare toward his son. "Until she couldn't do a damned thing with him, either."

"He's twenty-seven years old. Throw his ass out and let him figure it out on his own," Nik stated coldly. "For now, he can sit tight and keep his mouth shut or he'll deal with me."

He slid Luke a cold, hard look as the other man opened his mouth to speak again.

Just as quickly, Luke settled back and merely glared mutinously back at them.

"Why are we here, Mr. Steele?" the councilwoman asked then, clearly as bored with events as Nik was becoming.

Nik turned his gaze to her, revealing nothing. "To satisfy my curiosity, perhaps,"

he stated.

The real reason was to gauge the honesty of Maddix's alibi. Guilt was never as

cleverly hidden as others believed it was. Bringing them all into the same place as they had claimed they had been the first time gave Nik a chance to decide if they were lying or if that meeting had truly taken place.

"I wasn't even in this damned room," Luke muttered. "I was upstairs. If I remember correctly, Dad was rather insistent that I not stay."

Maddix's lips tightened as his expression turned reproving. "He was drunk."

"I was." Luke smiled sardonically.

"I was by the pool." Glenda waved a graceful hand toward the pool outside the office. "I don't involve myself in Maddix's business affairs."

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No doubt. Not for the first time Nik was amazed at familial interactions. They

were nothing like his family, back in Russia, before he'd lost all he held dear. His may not have been willing to stand up to their government to help Nik, but they all knew better than to disrespect their parents. He and his brothers and sisters had worked from an early age and learned to take care of themselves. Nik had never been able to make sense of men and women like Luke Nelson and Maddix's trophy wife.

"Was there anything in particular that you needed to know, Mr. Steele?" The chief of police watched him with barely disguised animosity. "Or are you just checking us out?"

Nik allowed his lips to quirk mockingly. No doubt the police chief had

investigated him. Nik could see it in Riley's eyes, in the hunger to make an arrest that could possibly be the turning point of his career. Possibly. If he could actually come up with any proof to back the rumors that circulated in certain circles where Nik Steele was concerned. Thankfully, they were rumors. Even the U.S. government, armed forces, and law enforcement agencies often depended on the information he provided and even, at times, his services.

"Just checking you out," Nik agreed as he crossed his arms over his chest and turned his gaze back to the son. "You know Ms. Martin then?"

"I spent the better part of three months wining and dining her," he grunted. "She was ready to put out when she decided to try to ruin Father for whatever reason." He glared back at Maddix. "Not that I could blame her much."

Nik watched Maddix roll his eyes. "He begged that poor girl for a date for two years. She finally gave in to him just to shut him up."

Luke snickered at the comment, his gaze filled with sarcasm as he stared back at

Nik. "She's a frigid thing, I have to say, but I could have melted her."

Frigid? Mikayla?

There was no doubt in Nik's mind that Luke Nelson hadn't had a chance at

Mikayla. She had been anything but frigid the week before on Nik's back deck.

"Did any of you know Eddie Foreman?" Nik asked as he turned to the others in the room.

"I rather doubt it," the councilwoman informed him as she smoothed back a strand of her carefully colored blond hair. "Our meeting that night concerned city business interests that Maddix is a part of, not his construction business."

That was pretty much what Nik expected. His reasons for being here had very

little to do with the questions or any information that could be gained on the foreman.

Nik was learning quite a bit, though, more than he had expected. There was a lot

to be learned from simply watching.

"What do you have so far, Nik?" Maddix rubbed at his forehead at he cast the others a disgruntled look.

"Nothing yet." Nik cast Luke Maddix another look, one he was certain was filled with confidence. "I've moved in next door to her, though. She's a nice girl."

"I told you she was." Maddix shook his head. "I thought she was too good for this."

Luke was glaring back at him now.

"How long before she learns why you're here, do you think?" Luke grunted with bitter amusement. "It's not as though you're hiding it. Do you think she's going to thank 55

you for lying to her?"

Nik arched his brow. "In this situation, lying isn't an option." He shrugged. "She'll learn soon enough and I won't deny it. I've told her no different."

He would give Luke Nelson no ammunition against him, or Mikayla. It wouldn't

matter whether others knew why he was there or not. Maddix had called Nik to find out why Mikayla was lying. The problem was, he couldn't tell which one of them was lying, her or Maddix. It was a disturbing realization.

"Do you think we haven't checked you out, Steele?" Animosity thickened Luke Nelson's voice.

"Enough, Luke," Maddix growled.

"Tell him, Riley." Luke's sneer in the chief of police's direction was snide and filled with derision. "You can't arrest the bastard, though, can you? Can't or won't. Maybe you're just too damned scared?"

Chief Riley's wide, square face tightened in anger as Nik merely shook his head.

"He can't arrest me." Nik stared back at the chief. "I have yet to break a law."

Which wasn't entirely true.

"That we can prove," the chief muttered. "You know, Steele, I'm only here because Maddix is a friend and I want this cleared up just as much as he does. Otherwise, I'd be trying to find a way to fry your ass, no matter the fact that certain government agencies find you useful."

"That you can prove. And fortunately for me, I have many friends," Nik agreed as he inclined his head mockingly. "And on that note, before I murder this little bastard of Maddix's, I'm leaving."

Fury stiffened Luke's expression as he jumped to his feet and turned to his father.

"I feel sorry for you, Maddix," Nik stated, pitying the man. "Try suspending his allowance for a while. Maybe he'll act like a decent human being rather than the disgrace he's turning out to be."

Nik walked out of the room as Maddix lowered his head and pinched the bridge

of his nose. Almost simultaneously Glenda and Luke began raging. It didn't surprise Nik that Glenda was joining in on Luke's side; like the two council members, Glenda and Luke Nelson were making a little happy time between the sheets.

Nik wondered if Maddix was aware of it.

On second thought, Maddix wasn't a stupid man; he probably was.

Leaving the house, Nik walked back to his Harley, swung on, and twisted the key.

The engine flared to life with a heavy, deep roar.

Maneuvering out of the wide driveway, he headed for the security gates and what

he considered freedom beyond. Hell, he'd prefer to pledge the rest of his life to the Elite Ops than to live like this. Accepting deceit and selfish bickering such as what he'd glimpsed in Maddix Nelson's life.

The man hadn't raised his son with the same values he lived by; that was for

damned sure.

But Mikayla had those values.

Where the hell had that thought come from?

Nik felt his enter body tense, tightening involuntarily at the thought of the too-

small, too-fragile woman he had held in his arms the past week.

He hadn't been able to get her out of his mind, nor had he been able to keep from

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watching her. He was spending more time tracking her than he was tracking a killer. And that wasn't even Nik's job. His job was to figure out why she was lying about a man who hadn't, or at least who swore he hadn't, committed murder.

This was turning into a hell of a job, and one that was clearly going to take more time than Nik had anticipated. His commander, Jordan, was already questioning how

much longer it could possibly take. The team had already been sent out to the next mission without Nik. That was something that hadn't happened in all the years they had fought together.

It was something that shouldn't be happening now. Except Nik couldn't seem to

pull himself away.

The bruises on Mikayla's face were only now beginning to fade a bit. He knew

that because he spied on her. As disgusting as it seemed to him, he couldn't help but watch out for her, to check up on her.

Someone much larger, much stronger, had dared to attack her in the darkness.

Because of what she had seen or because of what she thought she saw?

Nik knew the surrounding area was divided on the subject of Maddix Nelson

committing murder. Many thought he was capable of it. Some thought he was capable, but that in the case of Eddie Foreman he hadn't actually acted. Others thought the idea absurd but were amused by the battle being waged over it.

And at least one night, someone had decided to put a stop to the small woman

who had instigated that battle.

A cold, hard knot of rage formed in Nik's stomach at the thought of the harm that

could come to her. Something dark and protective welled inside him despite his battle against it.

Hell, he'd lost enough in his life. Did he really need to allow himself to become

attached to a woman he knew he could never allow himself to have fully?

He could fuck her. He could take that shining innocence she had saved for so long

and mar it with the darkness that lived within his soul, but he couldn't keep her. For a brief moment in time he could let the warmth and light that flowed through him when he touched her fill his soul, but he would have to walk away soon.

His life wasn't his own for two more long years, and even then he couldn't call it his own. There was no chance that once that time was past he could ever live a life even resembling happy.

He'd made enemies. He'd walked a line that no man could walk and expect to find

peace later.

He was known in many dark corners of the world as a killer, a purveyor of war

and destruction. And he wanted to bring that into the life of a woman who seemed to vibrate with warmth?

And yet how could he walk away?

His jaw ached at the force of his teeth grinding together. His hands flexed

deliberately around the handgrips of the motorcycle handlebars as he turned toward town and the shop he knew Mikayla would still be working in.

Creating dreams. That was what she did there.

She created dreams in the form of dresses for both the innocent as well as the

jaded. In each stitch of each design that she created herself, she lived her own dreams.

Dreams of romance and adventure, dreams of candlelit nights and passion.

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And he knew, in a back room of her own home, she was creating her own dream.

The first fragile form of a white gown that she would one day wear as she walked down the aisle herself.

He'd seen it when he had slipped into her home. His fingers had touched the

fragile lace of the underskirt she had begun as his eyes had memorized the sketch on the table.

Mikayla was making her wedding gown. A creation of satin and lace, of beads

and ivory. A gown she would wear for the man who would claim her heart forever.

Nik couldn't allow himself to be that man.

There was a part of himself that clenched in fury at the thought of any other man

claiming that place in her life, though Nik knew it was a place he could never claim himself.

Damned if he did, damned if he didn't.

His job here was to find out why Mikayla Martin was lying about what she had

seen.

His opinion was, if she was lying, then she was the best damned liar he had ever

laid his eyes on. Or simply a woman he wanted more than he had ever wanted any other woman.

The potential for destruction was only growing.

Mikayla stared at the plate-glass window of her shop, feeling the tears that

threatened to flood her eyes.

"LIAR." The word was brilliant crimson. The defacer wouldn't be caught.

Mikayla had been through this too many times now to even bother calling her lawyer to once again demand the security tapes from the bank across the street. They always

showed the same thing. Whoever used the paint wore a now-familiar black face covering.

They had run across the street, painted, and run back while Deirdre and Mikayla were closer to the back of the store.

"LIAR." The letters were like a brand on her soul as the door opened and Deirdre stepped out with a bucket of hot sudsy water, a scraper, and sponges.

"I'm sorry, Mikayla," Deirdre said softly as pedestrians walked by slowly, whispering.

Everyone whispered.

"It's not your fault, Deirdre." It was her own fault, she thought. She must not have been careful enough when she stopped by the new foreman's house, a friend of her

father's, and tried to discuss Eddie Foreman with him.

That or he had called Maddix Nelson after she had left.

"Luke Nelson told some of the guys at the bar that his father had hired a private investigator," Deirdre said as Mikayla dampened the window, then went to work with the scraper. "Have you seen anyone?"

She shook her head. No one had talked to her. A part of her wished they had, then

that evening wouldn't seem more like a too-vivid nightmare than reality.

There were days she had wondered if it had even happened. If it hadn't been for

the fact that Eddie Foreman was indeed dead, then she would almost be convinced she had imagined the entire thing.

"What about Nik Steele?" her friend asked. "Have you seen him again?"

"Coming and going." She scraped at the stubborn paint as Deirdre began working 58

on the other side. "I haven't spoken to him again."

"Not since your brothers cock-blocked you." Deirdre snickered.

Mikayla knew what her friend was trying to do. Deirdre was trying to ease the

hurt. This had happened so often now that there were times Mikayla wondered if it even hurt any longer.

"I don't want to talk about that, Deirdre." Perhaps she had made a mistake in telling her best friend about the deck fiasco with Nik Steele.

"Of course you don't." Deirdre grinned. "Then you might have to admit you miss him."

Of course she missed him. There was no doubt about that. But the sane part of her

brain realized that the absence was for the best.

"Doesn't matter." She finally shrugged, keeping her eyes firmly on the job at hand. "Some things are better off unknown."

Nik Steele was better off being one of those unknowns. Like aliens, the mysteries

of the universe.

As she watched the water smear across the red, mixing with the color, looking

like blood running in rivulets to the sidewalk, the image of Eddie Foreman flashed in her mind.

She swallowed tightly, her heart thudding sluggishly at the remembered fear.

"Mikayla, you don't mean that," Deirdre said softly.

"I mean it," she whispered as she fought to shake off the nightmarish image of Eddie Foreman's dead body. "He's a bad boy, Deirdre. I'm the good girl. Doesn't that suck? Sounds like a recipe for trouble if you ask me."

"Sounds like a recipe for some incredible sex to me, but I'm prejudiced toward the idea."

The dark rasp of his voice sent a rush of sensation up Mikayla's spine. She swung

around, her gaze hitting directly in the center of his chest before lifting, slowly, to those incredible light blue eyes.

What had ever made her believe his gaze was icy? It was hot. Filled with hunger,

with sex, with trouble.

Deirdre was so dead. That wench had totally betrayed her.

Blood rushed to her face, heated her body. That was all well and good, but the

flush afflicting the flesh between her thighs was terribly uncomfortable. It was lush, damp, so heated. The need for touch began to rock her system, to travel across her nerve endings and throb in areas of her body that she was certain shouldn't be throbbing.

"You weren't supposed to hear that," she muttered irately, turning back to the window, scrubbing at the paint, promising to make sure Deirdre paid for this one.

Somewhere, sometime.

"We need to talk, Mikayla," Nik stated as he moved closer, the heat of his body surrounding her. "Could you leave the cleanup to your assistant?"

"No, actually, I can't." She was too close to proving just how thin that layer of her good-girl persona was. It was barely skin-deep, and the flames burning beneath it were melting it away as quickly as a fire softened butter.

He had an effect on her she knew no man should have on a woman. He made her

weak. He made her need things she knew she shouldn't need.

She had plans. Her plans did not include having her heart broken, her future

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forever marred, by the man she couldn't have.

"We could always discuss this on the sidewalk." He turned, leaning his back against an unpainted section of the window, crossing his arms over his chest. "I could tell you in detail exactly what I had planned last week when your brothers decided to become inquisitive and protective. For instance, I didn't have time that night to tell you how soft your pretty thighs are."

Mikayla froze. For one horrible second she could only imagine who was standing

behind them. Her breath stopped. Her eyes widened; then she sneaked a peek around

them, nearly giving a hard breath of relief when she saw no one.

Her gaze jerked back to him.

"Come inside and talk to me, or we'll talk out here."

"You don't want to talk," she hissed.

"Talking is the last thing on my mind," he assured her, his fingers curling around her wrist, his eyes locking onto hers. "Isn't this where the bad boy kisses the good girl in public and begins sullying her pristine reputation?"

There was a twinkle of amusement in his gaze, but it was hesitant, as though in

teasing her he was enjoying something he hadn't expected to enjoy.

"Sorry, someone else already took care of sullying that pristine reputation. At least, the honesty part of it." She sighed as she attempted to pull her wrist from his grip.

"Let me go, Nik. I don't have time for this. I have a window to clean."

"And I have a discussion I want to have with you. Come along, sweetheart." He pulled her into the shop as she stared at his back in amazement.

The black T-shirt he wore stretched across the hard, well-defined muscles,

catching her gaze. Otherwise, she assured herself, she would have never followed him, at least not without the fight she should have given him, into her office.

As the door closed behind them and he began to turn, her lips parted to inform

him of her opinion, in blistering detail, of his high-handed tactics.

He was quicker than she. Between one breath and the next he was lifting her to

him, his lips catching hers, his tongue slipping between her lips with rapacious demand, with hungry sexuality.

And she wasn't fighting him. She didn't have the strength to fight him. Instead, her fingers gripped his shoulders, her lips parted further, and her tongue stroked against his, tasted him, drew him into her like the sweetest nectar.

It was exquisite. The taste and the feel of him.

It was like drowning in dark heat and forbidden hunger, and for precious seconds

Mikayla allowed herself the sheer luxury of having exactly what she wanted, exactly how she wanted it.

She wasn't going to fall in love with him, she promised herself. This was not

going to mess up her plans for her future, because she simply wouldn't allow it to.

It was just a moment out of time, she promised herself.

She could have this moment.

She could have his lips on hers, his arms wrapped around her, holding her against

the rock-solid heat of his chest, feeling his heart beat against her breasts, the hard outline of his erection beneath his jeans, pressing into her lower stomach.

God, she wanted him.

Straining closer, she fought for a deeper kiss, more touch. She wanted to feel him 60

against every inch of her body. She needed him at this moment like she needed the very air to breathe.

Just for a moment.

"Such a good girl," he murmured as his lips sipped from hers, his hands shaping, then cupping the rounded curves of her rear as he lifted her, pressed her against the wall, and let her feel him.

"Aren't you supposed to be fighting, Mikayla?"

The hard wedge of his cock pressed firmly between her thighs, hot, thick, a solid

weight of arousal behind the leather pants he wore.

The thin silk of her stylish short skirt rode up her thighs, leaving only a narrow band of silk between the leather and her dampening flesh.

Her panties were no barrier. She felt too much; the sensations traveled too deep.

"I am fighting." She bit at his lips for not kissing her, for daring to pull away from her.

At the nip, he seemed to freeze, then a harsh growl of hunger tore from his lips

and he was kissing her as though the sheer act of thrusting his tongue inside her mouth, stroking against hers, mimicking the act their bodies were suddenly desperate for, would somehow assuage a hunger Mikayla knew she was never going to be free of.

His hand slid beneath the skirt, calloused fingertips touching bare flesh only a

breath from the elastic band of her panties.

She wanted his fingers there. She wanted them sliding beneath the material. She

wanted him touching her.

Rocking against the press of his erection, she allowed her fingers to bite into his shoulders as his lips slanted over hers, the hunger deepening, the need tearing through her.

She couldn't have him.

She couldn't have this.

She wanted it.

She wanted it with a force threatening to drive her insane as she suddenly found

herself free of him, standing against the wall, staring back at him in shock.

His hair was loose and flowing along his shoulders. Had she done that? Slipped

the leather strap free of his hair?

She must have. It was tangled in her fingers, the warm leather gripped in her hand as she stared back at him, drawing in deep, ragged breaths.

He was no less affected. His eyes blazed with need.

No man had ever burned for her like this. Mikayla had never inspired great

passion until now.

And God help her, if she didn't have more of it, then she just might do something

she rarely did.

She was going to cry.

"How much do you want, good girl?" His fingers slipped just beneath the edge of her panties, feathering over the swollen, curl-laden flesh that dampened further at the feel of his touch.

"How much?" How much did she want? She wanted everything. All of it. She wanted to forget why she was supposed to protest, and take everything she could get.

"A little?" He breathed a kiss over her lips as his finger feathered against the curls 61

with the lightest caress. "Or a lot?" His finger slipped past the curls of her swollen sex and slid gently between them.

Her lips parted on a gasp of shock, of exquisite pleasure.

"So which do you want, good girl?"

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