Secrets
Auteur·e
Cynthia Eden
Lectures
16,1K
Chapitres
14
Prologue
He’d rescued her from hell.
Jennifer Wesley turned slightly, and her gaze fell on the man in bed beside her. Sleep made him look innocent, safe, but she knew that image was a lie.
There was nothing safe about Brodie McGuire. The man was a SEAL. Dangerous. Deadly. A force to be reckoned with.
She’d thought for certain that a rescue wasn’t going to happen for her. Her captors had sure been confident that she would never escape from them. Then Brodie had appeared.
Her fingers brushed over his hard jaw, tracing the dark stubble there. His eyes opened at her touch, his green stare 100 percent awake and aware.
He was naked. So was she. After the rescue, once they’d ditched her captors and made it to relative safety, the adrenaline and fear that she’d felt for so long had morphed into something else entirely. The power of her desire had taken Jennifer by surprise.
He hadn’t seduced her. Hadn’t taken advantage—she’d been the one so intent on kissing him. On finding some pleasure to push away the nightmares and the terror.
His gaze slowly slid over her face. She had the odd feeling that he was almost…almost trying to memorize her features.
Only fair, really. She didn’t want to forget anything about him.
“Thank you,” Jennifer whispered.
His dark brows rose.
“For saving me.” Not the lovemaking part. She felt her cheeks stain. “I thought I was going to die out there.” Her wrists were still red and raw from the rope burns. She tried to smile. “I sure am glad you were the navy SEAL assigned to my case.” She was more grateful than words would ever be able to express.
I would have died without him.
“Your father wasn’t going to let you vanish,” Brodie assured her. She caught the faintest hint of a Texas drawl in his voice. There one moment, gone the next. “He used all his pull to bring in my team.”
“My…father?” She kept the emotion from her voice—she’d learned that trick long ago. For her, life was all about acting now. Hiding emotion was necessary for survival.
“Yeah, the oil magnate. He’s the reason you were pulled into this mess.” Anger roughened his voice for a moment. “Your captors thought they could ransom you for a fortune.”
No, they hadn’t. They’d just planned to kill her. But there was some information she couldn’t tell her rescuer. He didn’t have enough clearance to know everything.
Jennifer leaned forward. Her lips brushed across his. “Thank you,” she said again.
His arms curled around her as he pulled her up against his body. Powerful, hard, hot—those words perfectly described Brodie. She wanted to just stay there with him. To forget the rest of the world for a while.
But forgetting wasn’t an option for her. Especially not when she could hear the pounding of footsteps right outside their safe house.
Gasping, she tried to pull back from him.
“Easy.” He let her go and rose to his feet. Brodie jerked on a pair of cargo pants and peered through the thin crack between the window and the long, dark curtain. “It’s my men.”
His men. Okay, right, but his men could not see her naked. Jennifer grabbed for her clothes—bloody and dirty though they were—and she dressed as quickly as she could. When she whirled back around, Brodie was fully dressed, too—looking all crisp and in control, and not at all like a man who’d spent the hours of the night making passionate love to her.
When he opened the door, Jennifer saw that his gun was tucked into the waistband of his pants. Men streamed into the safe house then, men who moved with the same controlled, soundless steps that Brodie used.
“We have a chopper waiting for you, Ms. Wesley,” one of those men said. He was tall, with blond hair and bright blue eyes. “You’ll be on your way home in less than an hour.”
Home. She didn’t really have one of those. Her gaze slid back to Brodie. She shouldn’t ask this, but Jennifer still heard herself say, “Will you be on the chopper with me?” Because Brodie made her feel safe. In a world of lies, he was a man that she trusted. Someone she could count on.
It wasn’t every day that a man risked his life to save her.
But Brodie shook his head. “I have to stay for mission containment. That’s your flight to freedom, not mine.”
The others were watching them. Did they know what had happened in that safe house? Jennifer felt as if the truth was stamped on her face. No, it isn’t. You never reveal what you feel.
She closed the distance between them. She rose onto her tiptoes and, putting her mouth close to his ear, asked, “Will I ever see you again?”
His body was so tense against hers. “Hopefully, you won’t need to see me.”
She eased away from him.
“Try not to get kidnapped again, and you won’t need me.”
Not get kidnapped? No, she couldn’t make that promise. He didn’t understand the world she lived in.
Her gaze swept over him. Lingered. He hadn’t been what she’d expected, and she wouldn’t be forgetting him anytime soon.
Jennifer headed toward the door.
“I’m…I’m sure your father will be glad to see you,” Brodie’s gruff voice followed her. “He moved heaven and hell to find you.”
Glancing back, Jennifer gave him a faint smile. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled when he sees me.”
And that would be a miracle, actually, considering that her father had been dead for ten years.
She followed her new guards and slipped out the door. The men with her were saying that she had to hurry, that her safety depended on a quick departure.
So Jennifer didn’t glance back. She didn’t waste time on goodbyes with Brodie.
Yes, he’d been unexpected…and Jennifer was quite sure that she’d never forget him.
Too bad he had no clue who she really was.
