Guiding Kinley (NCIS Series Book 3) Read online

“Beau…” His name was a sigh on her lips, her body silken, a force to be reckoned with in his arms.

  When he felt the pressure against his arm, he released her to allow her to spread her legs wider, and he slipped his fingers up inside her. She was so soft, so wet, so beautiful—electrifying, turning him on, getting him hot and hard.

  “Beau…”

  “Come for me, cher.” He needed her, too.

  Her sighs grew rougher, more guttural, until he felt the contractions of her release rippling through her.

  When she collapsed against the wall, he rose to his feet.

  He took a breath. Her trust in him was in her eyes for him to see, and tenderness slammed into him as hard as a hollow-point bullet, shredding his insides.

  Taking her mouth with his, he fitted himself to her and pushed up inside. No hesitation. No thoughts. It was mind-bending. She was so hot and slick, taking all of him on his first thrust, to the hilt.

  “All in,” he whispered on barely a breath, and her breathing hitched.

  Her mouth was soft and wet, sucking on him, sucking on his tongue, then deepening the kiss. Between them, breasts were soft and full, and filling his hand even as he filled her, again and again, getting lost in her, mindlessly, so easily, following the heated warmth of her skin into pleasure so deep he never wanted it to end.

  All he wanted was to be with her.

  To be like this, driving into her, holding her to him. He had his tongue in her mouth, his hand on her breast, and his other hand wrapped under her thigh, lifting her leg around his waist, letting him go deeper and deeper. He thrust into her, and she took him every time, all the way, moving her hips with his, until the heat and the rhythm and the seductive softness of her body took him straight over the edge.

  He pinned her up against the wall, his body rigid with the pleasure pulsing through him, her soft gasps of breath hot against his mouth. Her.

  So perfect. Especially her. Hot and soft, and wet, and silky, turning him on and setting him off.

  He pushed into her one last time, watching her face as he slid deep inside just to feel her, just to see her pleasure as she finished him off. Just to hear the small sound she made. God, he could do her all night long, but he didn’t feel like she had the strength left to get to the bed.

  So, he held her and stayed inside her, just loving the way she felt, his heart still pounding.

  She was so dangerous.

  “You okay?” he asked after a few more moments had passed, brushing his mouth across her cheek.

  “Yeah,” she sighed, rocking against him, ever so slightly, and he sucked in a breath—it felt so good.

  He pulled out, and in one powerful move had her in his arms. She snuggled up to him and there it was again. Hell, he loved when she did that.

  He walked to the bed, a naked and totally boneless Kinley in his arms. He felt as if he’d just conquered the world.

  He set her down on the commode and turned to the medicine cabinet.

  Her eyes darkened when she looked at him and she rose, reaching for a washcloth. She ran water and dipped it in, gently wiping at the skin at the top of his shoulder. It stung, but he was too busy watching the way she administered to him with that knee-buckling look on her face to care.

  He cupped her face and rubbed his thumb along her tough little jaw. While she was attending to a couple of other nicks, he reached for a lock of her hair, loving the thick wet silk as it ran through his fingers.

  His throat tightened and he buried his face in her neck, breathing her in, filling himself with the warm and lovely scent of her skin. “I thought I had lost you.”

  “Oh, Beau. I knew you hadn’t. I knew you would come for me. I knew it,” she murmured, softening against him and running her fingers up through his hair—and he kissed her, moved his mouth to hers and played with her, sucking on her tongue, gently biting her lips, just trying to get more of her.

  She was so responsive, teasing him, giving of herself—he felt it with every move she made.

  He nuzzled her neck and she sighed. He took her hand and drew her out of the bathroom and to the bed.

  He climbed on first and she joined him. He tugged her until she folded down against him, pressing her back to his chest.

  “Lean back,” he said, and she did, just like that.

  “All in?” she asked, her eyes downcast. She had to be looking at his tattoo.

  “It’s one of things we say. All in. All the time.”

  “I don’t think I’ve met anyone like you, Beau, a man who so fully participates in everything he does. I love that about you. It makes me want to be like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Facing my fears head on and dealing with them instead of retreating and letting them control me.”

  “Handling the fear in battle is the number one thing that keeps you alive. Admitting your fear is all right. Totally. Handling it is the key. Because being afraid is a natural reaction to danger,” he said tenderly.

  “Even you get afraid?”

  “Yes, even me.”

  When she turned to face him, he was blindsided by her beauty, with her slicked-back hair leaving it stark and out there.

  He kissed her mouth as he shifted back around.

  “Yeah, wasn’t that you wanting to go after el Ajeer? Wasn’t that you calling me a bastard and slugging me?”

  “It wasn’t about you,” she said, running her hand over his thigh.

  He breathed deep. “I know. Give me some credit, sugar. I knew you were hurting.”

  Her hand was so gentle on him, sliding along his skin as if she couldn’t get enough of the feel of him.

  “He took everything.” Her voice held the pain he’d seen in her tears and his heart squeezed at the sound of it. “For what? To make my father some kind of an example in his war of terror? What did he accomplish?” Her voice was getting bitter and angry. “Nothing. And my father died protecting me. I know it. He would never have run. He was a SEAL like you. He would have fought.”

  “I’m sure he did, Kinley, but you’re wrong.”

  She turned her body, her green eyes met his with the same pain he’d heard in her voice. “What? What do you mean?”

  He cupped her face between his. “He didn’t die for nothing. He died for you and the way we live our lives. Free and unafraid. If anything, he made a statement.”

  She closed her eyes as his words penetrated. Softly, she said, “He took my father’s trident.”

  He stiffened and everything in him rebelled, heat whooshing over him, fury in his blood. “He freaking what?”

  She opened her eyes, acknowledged his anger with her gaze. “He ransacked our home, trashed it and took it. My father kept it in his office, on his desk to remember to serve well in everything he did.”

  Beau’s lips thinned.

  That just solidified this guy’s place at the top of his hit list.

  Beau held her in a cocoon of heat and gentleness. She pushed at her damp hair and sighed. Her gut still churned, and she still felt raw and shredded from their ordeal in that ramshackle apartment complex. The place where Daniel had died and where they had to leave him behind. She had seen it in Beau’s eyes that it had killed him to leave a man behind, had heard it in his voice. But they hadn’t had a choice.

  Both of them had to call in. But she couldn’t face that yet. She let the bed reluctantly and walked into the bathroom, grabbed the blow dryer and dried her hair.

  Beau came into the bathroom looking like the battle-scarred warrior he was. God, he was beautiful, smooth, broad chest, delineating abs, his legs so strong and muscular, his fingers nimble.

  She didn’t want to think about anything else, not about earlier, when she’d been crying in his arms, and not about the loss that would forever haunt her days, not right now. The ache was always with her. It never went away completely.

  But with Beau, she had a chance for another small reprieve, and she wanted it, just a little more time with him, time to be held and ca
red for, and to get lost in his loving. It was crazy, something of the moment, intense and vital, sex and solace and salvation all wrapped up in Beau Jerrott with his sexy Cajun accent and his midnight-blue eyes.

  She gave him a sultry look over her shoulder as she left the bathroom and settled on the mattress. He didn’t need a verbal invitation. Every cell in her body cried out for him.

  He was across the room, his damp, sexy hair framing his stubbled face. He put a knee on the bed and slid his hand over her ankle, brought it to his mouth and kissed it.

  Just as she remembered the day her father died with the clarity that was born out of anguish, so would she remember until the day she died how Beau had saved her today, in more ways than one. No matter what happened between them.

  “Beau,” she murmured, and he moved up another inch and kissed her shin, then the inside of her knee.

  Movement by movement he worked his way up her leg, stretching himself out on the bed, until his mouth was back at the hot sweet center of her desire. She lifted her hips against him in rhythm with the forays of his tongue, and she let herself sink into the loveliness of how he made her feel.

  And so it went, on and on, his mouth on her everywhere and then coming up to take her in a kiss, hot and soft and deep, claiming her as he pushed up inside her. Everywhere she held him, she could feel the sleek, powerful movements of his muscles beneath his skin.

  The world disappeared time and again, every moment in his arms drawing them closer—hot mouth, soft skin, hard body, thick muscles, the angle of his hips, warmth, eroticism, tenderness, falling…falling…falling into… Oh, God. Falling away and dropping hard.

  She was a goner.

  On his next thrust, he pushed up harder into her and held himself deep, and there he stayed, his breathing slow and even and sure, his body like iron.

  He leaned down and kissed her, a fleeting touch of his mouth.

  “You’re hot, sugar,” he said, smoothing her hair back off her forehead.

  They both were. There was too much heat between them for them not to spark and catch fire. Their bodies were slick with sweat and he was teasing her, holding himself so still, second after endless second, until even the slightest movement nearly sent her over the edge.

  “Beau…please.”

  He pulled out and pushed back in so slowly, his face so fierce, she thought she might lose her mind.

  “Please…”

  She strained against him, wanting him to take her there, to make her part of him, to give her release and power, and the life of him that he promised with each thrust.

  “Please…oh, Beau.”

  He leaned down and kissed her again, and his next thrust came harder, and the one after that faster, each one stroking a banked fire deep in her core, until it caught and flashed into flame.

  She clung to him, riding wave after wave of pleasure, hearing him groan on top of her, a guttural sound of need and satiation that echoed in her heart.

  Beau, hard as nails, tough as granite, Beau. Her Beau had come undone.

  Slowly their bodies relaxed as they breathed together, still locked in each other’s arms, and dear God, he smelled good—all overheated male.

  The gorgeous interior of him matching and exceeding the gorgeous exterior, Beau Jerrott, with his soft mouth and heartbreaking eyes.

  By a twist of fate and a drifting Coast Guard cutter, Beau had dropped into her life. It was supposed to be temporary, but it didn’t feel like it now. She knew why he was here. For whatever reason the universe worked the way it did, and Beau Jerrott was a haven for her, a place to rest. She’d felt it instinctively when she’d first met him. She felt it in every cell of her body now. He was here, by her, with her, and she was safe.

  She let her breath out on a soft, easy sigh, and he brought his forehead down to rest on hers.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes. I feel so safe with you.”

  He smiled. “You are safe with me, ma belle,” he said, resettling himself next to her.

  Man, she could stay in his arms forever.

  Wrapping his arm around her, he slowly rolled them to their sides, and he kept her close. He stuffed a pillow under his head and one behind her back and then he kissed her, slanting his mouth over hers and sliding his tongue in deep.

  It was a hot kiss, lazy, thorough, missing nothing. Breaking off, he gently bit her lower lip, then licked her, then kissed her again, taking her mouth with his own. She explored him, not just his mouth, but the taste of him, the angle of his jaw, the weight of him up against her, the hard muscles in the arm around her.

  She smoothed her palm over the broad curve of his shoulder and continued upward, tunneling her fingers into hair that she couldn’t stop wanting to touch. She kissed him, one long moment after another, luxuriating in the sensuality of having him naked and close, and in the comfort she felt. Even the way he smelled made her feel safe.

  She snuggled closer to him and kissed his chest and breathed him in, and after a moment, she said, “I know our next step.”

  “Sleep,” he said. “Then we’ll discuss that.”

  The sound of a clip getting shoved home woke her. She opened her eyes to find Beau standing near the closet in the bedroom dressed in tight-fitting jeans and a tropical shirt.

  “Locked and loaded?” she asked.

  He gave her a sidelong glance, holstering the HK underneath his shirt. “Good morning, sleepyhead. Time to rock and roll. We’ve only got two more days before extraction.”

  She rose to a sitting position and his eyes roamed over her.

  “I am sorry that I got up early,” he said.

  She gave him a sleepy smile and walked to the closet. Giving him a kiss, she opened the door and chose a pair of cropped jeans and a silk T-shirt that would also mask the weapon Beau had been able to snag.

  “I ordered breakfast. It should be here any minute. I also contacted Chris. He said he’d take care of notifying the DEA about Daniel.”

  She nodded, the whole terrible night flashing back. Daniel’s open, staring eyes. “I know I didn’t give you a good impression of him, but in the end, he tried to protect me. He really did care about me.”

  Beau wrapped his hand around her nape and rubbed her hair and scalp. “How could he not?” he said softly.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “That’s breakfast. You should call Stafford before we go. No telling what today is going to bring and whether we’ll even have a signal.”

  She nodded and walked to the dresser. Grabbing underwear, she quickly dressed. In the bathroom she ran a comb through her hair and pulled it all back into a ponytail to keep it out of her way.

  She picked up her cell from the nightstand and dialed Kirk. He answered on the first ring. “Are you all right?” he asked with genuine concern in his voice.

  “Not great at the moment.”

  He had always been a good boss, and an even better man, and she let just a bit of her guard drop. She’d never really trusted him either, but he’d never let her down and had always believed in her as an agent.

  “It was a tough night.”

  He blew out a breath. “I can imagine. I’m sorry about Daniel, Kinley.”

  Her throat got tight. There had been absolutely no chance for them, not after she’d met Beau, but she was so sorry he was dead. Glad that she’d gotten a chance to hear his apology, since she’d been much too stubborn and hurt to open his emails before they had reconnected on this case. A sense of closure. She hoped that was true for Daniel, too. He’d died saving her from a sexual assault, giving Beau time he needed to rescue her. “So am I. The DEA will…take care of him? Right, Kirk?”

  “Yes, they are making inquiries. Their intention is to get his body back.”

  She rubbed her forehead. “Keep me posted about that.”

  “All right.”

  “We might be cut off from communication. We’re going to get that name that we need, no holds barred, and then we’re going after
that picture.”

  “Good luck and get back here in one piece.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She disconnected the call. As she emerged into the room, the food was already on the table and she didn’t hesitate to dig in.

  No holds barred.

  For her country.

  For Daniel.

  And lastly, for herself.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You know where we’re going?” she asked, and Beau’s eyes narrowed.

  “Yes.” He threw her the keys to the sleek, black Mercedes coupe.

  She got into the driver’s seat and they drove off in the direction that she and Daniel had taken yesterday. Cuba had been like descending into the 1950s, with all the amazing vintage cars on the streets. Havana was the capital city, province, seat of government and major port of the island, and the architecture attested to its rich history. The buildings were beautiful, and the city well maintained.

  There was still a lot of lush tropical growth in and around the city, but she was under no illusion that the jungle beyond the metropolis wasn’t filled with plenty of danger, least of all the snakes and crocs.

  There was only one man on this godforsaken island who knew they were here.

  The arms dealer.

  “A bakery shop?” Beau said, eyeing the innocent and delectable-looking shop as she parked at the curb.

  “Yeah, he’s not just cooking up sweet things in the back. There are plenty of deadly weapons.”

  When they got to the front door, it was ajar and there was a smear of blood on the handle. Beau reached back for his weapon and she followed suit.

  There was no one there and it wasn’t lost on Kinley that there weren’t any delicious smells coming from the kitchen. Yesterday, there’d been a warm cinnamon scent in the air when she and Daniel had walked through the front door.

  Beau took a quick look around the counter. He stopped and pointed with the gun. There was a dead guy and a long swath of blood leading into the back.

  “That’s not the arms dealer,” she said.

  “Cartel?”

  “That’s the arm’s dealer’s assistant. Looks like he was cartel.”