Wild Card (Elite Ops) Read online

  And he was standing firm, refusing to back down. Of course, in the last three days there had been more business, but only, she suspected, because everyone was curious about the new mechanic.

  Grandpop just smiled back at her in that patient, wise way of his then patted her shoulder with his gnarled hand. “Irish boys will keep your blood hot at night,” he told her with a rascally wink.

  “I’ve had my wild Irish boy,” she told him softly. “No other can replace him, Grandpop.”

  Nathan had been her soul, and in too many ways, he was still so much a part of her heart that she compared every other man against him. Unfortunately, there were times she forgot to do that when Noah was around.

  “Follow your heart. Not your head, child,” Grandpop told her gently. He’d always told her that. “And come see me soon. I miss you.”

  She moved back as he closed the door and seconds later watched as he drove away.

  “Rory, what are you up to?” She turned to her brother-in-law as Grandpop pulled into traffic.

  Rory’s expression was too innocent, and reminded her too much of when Nathan had hidden things from her. Same expression, the same set of his broad body.

  “You’re too suspicious, Belle,” he sighed.

  “You’re not hiring that Viking,” she told him.

  Rory’s jaw clenched and his blue eyes fired. “Should I leave, Belle?” he asked.

  That hint of anger in his voice had her eyes narrowing.

  “No, you shouldn’t leave.” She frowned back. “You should discuss hirings with me.”

  “Like you’ve discussed with me?” He rolled his eyes. “Three years, Belle. You walked in and took over three years after Nathan died, and I let you, because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. But I know more now. It’s time I pulled my weight. And the mechanics we have now aren’t efficient.”

  She couldn’t argue that, but she hated him pointing it out.

  “I don’t like Noah Blake. Fire him and hire the Viking. Then we’ll discuss the others.”

  “Come on, Belle.” Frustration filled his voice now. “You don’t like him because he knows what he’s doing and because he doesn’t mind telling you that. No one’s done that since Nathan and you can’t handle it,” he accused her.

  Sabella flinched. She could feel the ache she kept hidden, buried beneath the reality of Nathan’s death, snap hot and sharp inside her chest.

  “Nathan didn’t arbitrarily argue with me,” she bit out.

  “No he didn’t,” he said roughly. “Because you never let him know who you were or how much that damned garage meant to you. Well, someone knows now. Give him hell instead of me.”

  With that, he stomped off, his hands buried in the pockets of his work pants, as Noah stepped outside the garage bay doors.

  Those dark, dark blue eyes were locked on her. Lean, hungry, powerful. His body drew her gaze whenever he was around whether she liked it or not. And dammit, she didn’t like it. She didn’t want another dangerous man. But she also didn’t want a man who agreed with her, and she didn’t want a man who was safe. For the first time in the three years since she had taken her wedding band off she admitted in her head what her heart already knew. Safe wasn’t going to do it. Duncan didn’t do it for her. Unfortunately, though, Noah Blake did do it for her. “It” being that sexual curiosity, that pounding heart, that surge of excitement. Something she had never felt with another man—only her husband. And that fact had the power to make the hurt, the anger, and the animosity toward this one man run deeper.

  Right now, she hated Noah Blake clear to the bottom of her soul. Because he was forcing something no one else had ever been able to do. He was forcing her to feel things she had only ever felt for her husband.

  And to Sabella, that betrayal to Nathan’s memory was worse than any other she could have committed.

  She couldn’t forget that. As the day went on, she dealt with vehicle computers that didn’t want to cooperate, and the mechanic from hell that didn’t seem to be able to do anything but draw her eye.

  At one point she lifted her head from the interior of the pickup she was working on to watch, fascinated, as he glared into the guts of another vehicle, slowly twirling a wrench between his fingers.

  There was an oddly familiar frown on his face. A way he had of glaring at the engine as he flipped that tool, finger to finger, and considered whatever it was he was considering.

  It was sexy. Impossibly sexy. Dressed in dark gray work pants and a matching short-sleeved shirt, he conveyed an image of raw, powerful male that she couldn’t help but notice.

  “Hey, Noah,” Rory called, interrupting her musings. Noah turned and frowned back at Rory in the office. “I need you in here.”

  “In a minute,” Noah called before turning back to the engine.

  “Now!” Rory’s voice held a snap.

  Noah’s expression became still, dangerous, but he shoved the wrench in his back pocket and walked to the office. Prowled to the office maybe. There was something dangerously predatory and pissed off about him now.

  The door closed quietly behind him as Rory lowered the shades to the windows that looked out to the garage. Sabella’s eyes narrowed. She dragged the oily rag from her back pocket and wiped her hands before moving to the office. Gripping the doorknob, she tried to turn it, only to find it locked.

  Locked out of her own office? My, how interesting. She could feel her face flushing with anger as she jerked the keys out of her pocket. She was set to unlock it as the door jerked open.

  “Guy talk.” Rory’s grin was stiff, his blue eyes brighter, though more with concern than anger.

  “Guy talk, your ass!” She smiled tightly as she stepped into the office to see Noah standing by her desk, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared at Rory with a flat, hard gaze. “What did he do?”

  “Sabella, can you please let me handle this one little thing?” he said impatiently. “Really. I promise. I can manage some stuff on my own.”

  Rory sounded a shade put out. Okay, so she was a little territorial with the garage, maybe too much so. But over the years she had let it become her husband and her baby and everything in between. Rory knew that. So why was he becoming so angry now?

  “I was just curious.” She shoved her hands into her pockets and gave Noah what she hoped was a sweet smile. “Just tell me what he did and I’ll leave. Are you going to fire him? Can I watch?”

  “Fine.” Rory didn’t look happy, that was odd enough. He looked angry at her, and he was never angry with her. And his smile. It was tight. All teeth. When had he turned into a full-grown man on her? He wasn’t a kid brother any longer. “He was staring at your ass! Now you deal with it.”

  He turned and slammed out of the office, leaving her to stare at him in shock before she turned to meet Noah’s amused gaze.

  “He was lying to me,” she said.

  He grinned. Noah was absolutely entranced. Once again, he had to ask, though, what had happened to the Sabella he had known six years before. The one who never chipped a nail, and would have never, under any circumstances, butted into a male/male confrontation.

  “You have a fine ass,” he stated, and knew she wasn’t buying it.

  Her eyes narrowed. “And you’re not going to tell me what he was chewing your ass over?”

  Noah had to chuckle. “It was more in the way of a warning.”

  He was treading a fine line. Nathan wasn’t as dead as Noah might wish; he still had habits that had once been ingrained. One of those habits? Twirling that damned wrench as he tried to figure out a particular problem beneath the hood of a vehicle.

  She sniffed at his response. “Piss him off too far and I’ll convince him to finally fire you.”

  He had to grin at that one as he sauntered to the door. Before passing her, he stopped, lowered his head, and whispered, “And I caught you looking at my ass too. Maybe I should tell Rory on you.”

  She caught his arm as he moved to open the door, star
ing up at him soberly. “You’re messing up my life,” she told him quietly. “And I don’t like it.”

  Noah sobered. He could see an edge of pain, of knowledge, in her eyes. For the past three days they had been circling each other like combatants, edging forward and back, trying to make the other force the confrontation they both knew was coming.

  “How am I messing up your life, Sabella?” Once, long ago, he would have known. He would have known the woman standing before him and could have sworn he could anticipate her every thought and move. He was learning, though, and hated it, but he was learning there had been so little that he had known about her.

  Nathan’s wife would have never barged into the office. Hell, she would have never been working on a car or staring him down now. The woman that had belonged to Nathan had hidden from him, just as Nathan had hidden from her.

  But this woman was going to belong to Noah.

  “You think you can take over, don’t you?” she asked him softly. “Walk right in here, and everything you want is going to fall into place.”

  He narrowed his eyes on her. He’d had that thought, maybe. She was disabusing him of that notion quickly.

  “I just needed a job.” He forced a grin and watched as her gaze examined his face.

  “You just need something to control,” she told him as she eased away from him and moved to her desk. “You need someone to control. Your world has to be under your thumb, following your rules.”

  He turned and watched her closely as she leaned against the desk.

  Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail, her face streaked with oil. There was a smudge on her neck and her jeans were stained with it. And she was the damnedest sight he had ever seen. All woman, confident, almost imposing, and the snap of lust that shot past his control nearly sent a shudder tearing through his body.

  “I won’t deny wanting you,” he told her.

  Her eyes widened. “I didn’t ask if you wanted me.”

  “I’m tired of tiptoeing around the subject,” he growled. “We’re playing a game here and it’s starting to irritate me, Sabella.”

  A mocking smile crossed her lips. “I don’t need you, Noah. If you didn’t notice several days ago, I have one relationship to keep me busy. I don’t need another.”

  “You don’t sleep with him.” He moved to her then.

  Anger lit the depths of her gray eyes then. “And you know this how?”

  “Because your nipples are hard right now,” he bit out, glancing down at the hard little points pressing against her bra. “Because you’re doing everything you can to piss me off and get close to me at the same time. Because you feel the heat between us just as much as I do.”

  Sabella inhaled sharply. She wished she hadn’t, because beneath the scent of oil was the scent of the man. Sweat dampened, lustful, determined. It was there in his eyes, in the tension that filled his body, whipped around her, reminded her how damned long it had been since she had been with a man. Since Nathan had touched her, she reminded herself desperately.

  “This conversation is over.” She pushed herself from the desk and moved for the door, only to find his larger body suddenly in her path.

  “Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away,” he said softly, catching her shoulders, holding her still in front of him as her head snapped back to stare up at him.

  “I don’t have to ignore what isn’t going to happen and what doesn’t exist,” she retorted desperately.

  “It’s going to happen.”

  She stood still. She should be fighting him, running, screaming, or something. Anything but standing here, feeling her knees weaken, as his head lowered, his gaze holding hers, his lips coming closer.

  “Don’t,” she whispered when his lips were but a breath away from hers. “Don’t turn this into a war.”

  “It’s already a war,” he warned her, his voice grating, so rough. Unnaturally so, she realized as she let herself see the scars beneath the rasp of beard. “Give me your kiss, Sabella. You want to. You know we both need to.”

  He spoke against her lips, and they parted helplessly. Her hands gripped his wrists, something inside her clenched in longing, in desperation.

  “Enough.” She jerked away, but he pulled her forward.

  Before Sabella could react, before she could escape, pleasure swamped her.

  His lips were on hers. They covered hers. Slanted over them, parted them, and she was lost. The kiss rocked her in places she didn’t know she could be rocked. It was dark, forceful, dominant.

  Within seconds he had her against the door, lifting her against him and pushing his tongue inside her mouth as Sabella heard her own, half-frightened, half-shocked cry of pleasure.

  “That’s what you want,” he accused as his head jerked back, lust flaming in his eyes and burning in her veins. “You want it, Sabella. Just as hot and just as wild as I do. Be careful, sweetheart, very damned careful, or you just might get it before you’re ready for it.”

  Sabella felt pinned before him in shock. Pleasure was coursing through her; the dark, dominant power of that kiss had awakened something she knew she didn’t want to face. Something she wasn’t ready for.

  She pulled back slowly. “Tell Rory I’ll see him at closing.”

  “Running?” he growled as she turned and headed for the entrance to the door that led outside.

  Sabella turned back, her gaze flickering over him, seeing the bulge in those pants, the hunger in his eyes.

  “Stay away from me, Noah,” she told him bleakly. “I don’t need you. I don’t want you. All I want is for you to be gone.”

  Lies. All lies and she knew it as she pushed through the door and almost ran the distance between the garage and the house on the hill. The house she had shared with the only man capable of doing what Noah had just done. The only man who had ever awakened a desire she couldn’t control, one she couldn’t combat. If she didn’t get away from him, and get away from him now, then Sabella knew, she was looking at nothing but more pain, more loss. Noah wasn’t the staying kind. He wasn’t the loving kind. He wasn’t her husband.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sabella managed to avoid Noah the next day, and the day after that. She could feel his gaze on her as she worked in the office. When he came into the office, she escaped to the convenience store. If she worked in the garage, she worked far enough away from him that she could almost ignore the rough rasp of his voice.

  Something had happened to his voice. It grated too deep, it was too rough, too gravelly. The scars on his face, the fine web of them beneath the hairs on his muscular arms, made her wonder at the hint of them that she had seen peeking beneath the collar on his shirt. What had happened to him? It would take a lot to scar a man that powerful, in such a horrible way.

  No matter where she moved, she could feel his gaze on her though, and she could feel that kiss that had burned through her and left her shaking and weak for hours.

  She could feel the tension ratcheting up the next evening in the garage. Each time he tried to speak to her, each move he made in her direction, she went the other way. She didn’t want to deal with this. Her life was fine without him in it. She was fine alone. A date every now and then was okay. And though Duncan was pushing for more, it hadn’t yet reached the point where she was going to have to break the relationship off. She enjoyed the companionship. She enjoyed his laughter. And she feared Noah’s intensity.

  She almost escaped him one more day, until closing. Rory left and the others followed close on his heels, closing down the garage and leaving Sabella alone in the office as Noah entered.

  “We need to talk,” he told her as she shoved the money bag in her purse and felt her heart rate accelerate.

  “No time,” she told him. “I have a date tonight. That means I need to get out of here on time.”

  “The hell you do.”

  He stomped to the door, twisted the locks with a snap of motion that had her flinching at the savagery in it. Then before she could evade him he snagg
ed her wrist and pulled her to the stairs that led to the apartment above.

  “What the hell—”

  “Stop cussin’ at me, Sabella,” he growled, pulling her up the stairs. “We’re finishing this. Here and now.”

  “Finishing what?” She jerked at his hold as he pushed her ahead of him and into the apartment she had once shared with Nathan.

  She should be screaming, she should be trying to kick him, punch him, not let him drag her, with only minimal struggle, into the large apartment.

  A leather duffel bag had been tossed on the couch. There was a box on the cabinet, evidently some groceries. He was moving right in, taking right over, she realized. Here, where she and Nathan had first made love, where he had proposed to her, made love to her that first time. Suddenly, the thought of another man here was intolerable.

  “Move right back out.” She turned on him, shaking at the sight of another man’s possessions in Nathan’s space. “Now. Get out now!”

  A haze of heat was flooding her. Fury. She told herself it was fury and nothing more.

  He snorted at that. “Rory was nice enough to stock me up with groceries while I was working my ass off on those cars downstairs,” he said. “The hell I’m leaving.”

  “I don’t want you here. Get out before I call the sheriff.” She was furious. He was staring back at her as though he owned the apartment, the garage, and her. He was staring at her as if she were pushing him too far.

  But she wasn’t backing off. She wanted him out of her life now, before it was too late.

  “And you think I’m going to let the sheriff run me off?” he asked her, his ruined voice sending shivers up her spine.

  Sabella stopped and stared back at him. He looked dangerous, the tension surrounding him was dangerous, so why wasn’t she frightened? Where had she managed to lose all the common sense she had once possessed?

  “Why are you here?” She stared back at him, the anger and disbelief coalescing inside her. “What the hell makes you think you can just walk into my life and take over like this?”