Mine to Keep (Mine #2)(55)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Skye’s fingers curled around his shoulder. Some of the fury eased.

“Anna Jean wasn’t working alone then. I don’t buy for an instant that she’s working alone now.” This was the part that sealed the deal for Trace. “I saw the bodies at the morgue. Sharpe, Parker, and Sara. There were no hesitation wounds on Parker, but the killer paused when he was carving up Sharpe’s throat and when he was slicing open Sara.”

Noah cocked is head. “He paused?”

“The wounds were deep. Hard. Strong. Anna Jean is many things, but I don’t think she could’ve inflicted those wounds. The angles would’ve been wrong. The depth of entry—none of it matches up to her.” Anna Jean had been all of five foot three and one hundred and twenty pounds.

“Then Tucker’s here, too,” Drake said. He looked and sounded hollowed out. “We thought that we left them to die, but they’ve come back to kill us.”

“Revenge?” Skye asked. “If that’s what this is about, then why attack all the others? Why go after Sara?”

Trace told her the dark truth. He said, “Because lives don’t matter to Anna Jean. They never did.” She’d been willing to use anyone or anything in order to get what she wanted.

“They’re pawns in a chess game,” Drake explained. “She’s the queen on the board.”

Trace’s hands slapped down on the surface of his desk. He f**king knew how to play chess. “We need to find her damn king.”

And destroy him.

***

It was storming outside. Skye stared out at the pounding rain. Lightning lit up the sky.

Thunder roared.

“She wasn’t at the Pier,” Trace said as he came up behind her. The others had left. Noah had stormed away, no doubt headed out to search on his own. Drake had followed Noah out, but his steps had been much slower.

Was he in love with Anna Jean? There was just something about the way Drake looked each time her name was mentioned. Pain filled his eyes. Skye suspected that there was a whole lot more to Drake’s connection to Anna Jean had he wanted to confess.

Trace’s hands closed over her shoulders. “My men are talking with the vendors there. Someone had to see her. They’ll find her.”

Skye saw another flash of lightning. She waited for the thunder to rumble. “Have you told me everything?”

His fingers began to rub her shoulders. “Everything that you need to know.”

That wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear.

“Don’t tense up on me like that,” Trace said. “Baby, you don’t want to know about every battle. About every life that was lost or about how I felt when I had to pull the trigger each time.”

“I do,” Skye told him. Didn’t he understand yet? “Good and bad. Everything in between.”

He bent his head. Because the office was lit and it was so dark outside, she could easily see their reflections in the glass. He surrounded her, so big and strong.

His lips brushed over her nape. “I don’t like for that world to touch you. The more you learn about me, the more you realize you’re too good for me. That I shouldn’t even be touching you.”

He was wrong. “I like it when you touch me.”

His right hand slid down and curled around her stomach, pulling her back against him. She could feel his aroused length pressing against her.

“This nightmare is going to be over soon,” he promised her as he pressed another kiss to her throat. “Now we know we’re looking for Anna Jean. She’s not getting away. And we’ll find her partner.”

“Tucker?”

He seemed to hesitate.

And she caught that telling sign. “You don’t think Tucker is alive, do you?”

His head lifted, but his arm tightened around her. “I’m not like Drake.”

Skye waited, her heart racing.

“I didn’t hesitate at the last instant. I know my shot hit his heart.” Trace shook his head. “He didn’t get out of that frozen hell, but she did. She took the dog tags, and now she’s got some other dumb SOB doing her dirty work.”

She gazed down into the darkness of the city. “So her partner could be anyone.” Any man that Skye passed on the street. Anyone she saw. Anywhere. Any time.

“I’m running down leads right now. The guy made a mistake when he hacked into my phone system. I’ve got my techs on it, retracing his steps.”

“You said that it’s been years since that attack in Siberia. Why are they after you now? Why wait so long?”

“Some people can wait forever for the right vengeance.”

“And this Anna Jean…she and her partner want to hurt you.”

By hurting me.

He pressed another kiss to her nape.

A shiver slid over her. “I would do anything to keep you safe. You know that, don’t you?”

His muscles locked. She felt the tenseness in his hold. “I don’t want you at risk, Skye.”

“But she came looking for me. In broad daylight.” That just didn’t sound like a woman who was trying to come in for a slow, sneaky kill.

“Anna Jean is insane. You don’t want to ever get close to her.”

“I’ve been close to other insane folks.” Like my mother. “I managed okay.”

He turned her in his arms. His gaze searched hers. “I don’t like to think of you in danger. I can’t.”

His lips took hers.

She kissed him back eagerly, her lips opening beneath his. Trace lifted her up, carried her a few feet across the room. She felt the hard edge of the desk against her thighs. He sat her down there, right on top of his gleaming desk, and he slipped between her splayed legs.

“I have you, and I won’t let you go.” One of his hands rested lightly against the column of her throat, right over her frantically racing pulse. “I don’t care which ass**le from my past comes calling, no one will take you from me.”

Just as she wasn’t going to let anyone take Trace from her. Not when they finally had a chance together.

He lifted up her shirt. Tossed it across the room. His eyes were lit with a bright, burning fire. Lust. Need. The same need that pulsed through her veins.

His fingers brushed aside her bra. Her ni**les were tight, aching, and when he bent his head and took one sensitive peak into his mouth, she arched against him.

Yes.

But he had on too many clothes. Way, way too many. Her fingers pushed between their bodies. She caught his belt. Yanked it aside. Jerked open his fly.