Read Online Her Secret Agent Man by Cindy Dees - Free Book Online Page B

recall exactly the wispy slide of her skirt wrapping around his thighs as they kissed. And that kiss. He couldn’t dream up something that vivid if he tried. And that meant…
    It was a memory! A piece of that missing month in his life. Julia must have triggered it. Holy cow. If he spent more time with her, would she trigger more recollections? Was it possible for him to regain that entire lost month?
    A voice whispered in his head, did he really want to regain that particular month of his life? Did he want to relive the loss of his baby brother, and the loss of a girl he was crazy about, if that dream was accurate?
    He stared up at the ceiling in dismay. He’d been half in love with Julia Ferrare? No wonder he was having such a weird reaction to her now. One second he wanted to wring her neck, and the next he wanted to wrap her in his arms and never let her go. Now what in the bloody hell was he supposed to do?
    He muttered a curse under his breath.
    To most of the people whose lives he entered, he was Death. They could run from him and they could hide, but he’d hunt them down. He always did. The frightened faces of the dozens of criminals he’d nailed through the years floated through his mind. What stuck with him wasn’t the moment he killed them. It was always the moment when he first met them face-to-face. When they still hoped to get out alive. Before they realized he was their inexorable fate.
    Julia had looked like that when he’d caught her trying to sneak out earlier. Was she a criminal like the others? Disquiet rippled through him. He didn’t want to turn the hunter in himself loose on her, no matter his earlier intentions or what he’d told her tonight.
    Had that dark, inhuman part of himself that he held in check so carefully finally broken out? Was that what took over his mind during that inexplicable blackout earlier? Was he losing control of the beast within? An unfamiliar emotion rolled over him, choking him until he struggled to breathe. Fear. He’d fought for so long to tame the monster, to keep the violent part of himself reined in. The psychologists had warned him it was a delicate dance and that he was skating very close to the edge. But was it too late? Had the beast won?
    Julia shifted restlessly, troubled by her dreams. She rolled over and flung an arm and a leg across his body. He froze beneath her. Lust pounded through him, roaring in his ears and demanding release upon the sleek female draped across him with such abandon. The turmoil bubbling in his brain intensified.
    It would be so easy to roll over, to pull her beneath him, to bury himself in her sweetness and ravage her mindlessly. To succumb to his baser self once and for all.
    No! Forcibly he held himself still, letting her use his body as she would for safety and warmth. He would protect her. Guard her innocence with his life if he had to. He would not harm her. Not yet.
    The litany replayed itself in his head endlessly as the night stretched out around him. Slowly, slowly, he won the battle against his dark side. One muscle at a time, he gradually let go of his tension, gradually went still in spirit as the beast retreated from his mind. He’d won. This time. Julia’s innocence and her life remained intact as she slept on beside him.
    But as the light of dawn seeped insidiously between the curtains, fear sidled into his mind once more. What was it about this woman that brought him so close to the brink? Didhe dare stay with her? Would keeping his promise to protect her destroy him? Would he take her with him when he went?
    With morning came howling winds, blizzard conditions and subzero windchill. He built a fire and made a pot of coffee while Julia slept the deep, hard sleep of someone who’d been on the run for weeks and had finally found a safe place to rest. While the storm raged outside, he pondered the dilemma of the woman in his bed.
    Late in the morning she emerged, swallowed in his bathrobe, her hair tangled, and