Special Forces Seduction

Chapter 2

Finn had imagined a number of scenarios on his way to Montana to see Hyde. The entire trip he’d questioned if he’d made the right decision. But worrying about Hyde had taken over his thoughts to an obsessive point, and if he didn’t see her and talk to her, it wouldn’t stop. Coming to Bearcreek was about more than her being the right spy to help with Reed Barnett. He needed to see with his own eyes that she was doing well.

Hyde was in his arms and that made the trip worth it. At least physically, she was fine. No overt injuries, obvious scars, limping or GSWs. He sensed something was bothering her and he would find out what it was.

“Alexandra, will you introduce me to your friend?” A woman’s voice from behind him.

Hyde flinched in his arms and Finn tensed. Hyde broke away from him and he missed the sensation of her soft body against his. He turned. Standing in front of them was a woman with Hyde’s same dark hair, though the other woman’s was cut short. Similar facial features, but hers were softer. The other woman’s expression was also friendlier, her mouth drawn up in an unreserved smile. Hyde carried around the stress of her job and didn’t smile often.

“Lydia, this is my friend Finn,” Hyde said. She folded her hands in front of her and said nothing more.

Lydia looked between him and Hyde. “It’s nice to meet you. Did you and Alexandra work together?”

Finn caught Hyde’s subtle nod. “Yes, we did.” He’d follow her lead about her cover story relating to where she had been the last decade. From what he knew of Hyde, unlike him, she maintained a cozy relationship with her family.

“What brings you to town? I hope you don’t want Hyde to come back to work with you.” Lydia slid her arm around her sister’s waist and hugged her. “We’re grateful to have Alexandra back with us. For the longest time, I felt like I only had one sister.”

The guilty look on Hyde’s face could have been about her frequent travel or it could have been because she had introduced Simon to Lydia.

Finn slid his hands into his pockets. “I’m passing through on business. I have a big job I’d like Alexandra to help me with. A short job. It will only take a few weeks.”

Lydia looked at her sister. “I don’t like the sound of that. Alexandra gets pulled into things. A short job turns into another and then another. She’ll go missing for another ten years.”

“It’s the one job and nothing else,” Hyde said. She pressed a hand over her stomach.

“That’s right,” Finn said, picking up on Hyde’s anxiety and wanting to reassure her.

“I’m sure you have other associates who can assist you. Alexandra needs to be here,” Lydia said. Anger colored the edges of her words.

Hyde tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Lydia, I’ll talk with you about it later.”

Lydia pinned her sister with a harsh stare. “Okay, Alex. Whatever you say.” She looked over her shoulder. “Excuse me. My daughter is awake and fussing.”

Lydia rushed off and Finn captured Hyde in the circle of his arms. He resumed dancing with her. She moved on the dance floor like she did in the field, sleek and smooth.

“She seems protective,” Finn said.

Hyde swallowed hard. “They all are. They want me around. They were excited when I told them I planned to stay.”

“Then your family is the reason you quit.” He wouldn’t stop pressing until he had the details. He needed to know what was going on in her life. She was logical and rational, and quitting abruptly didn’t fit with what he knew of her. But then again, he might not know her as well as he thought he did. Spies lied. It had crossed his mind that he would arrive in Bearcreek and discover she had a husband and family of her own she had never told him about. Learning that wasn’t the case, he was relieved.

“Part of the reason. I want to help Lydia. She deserves better than she’s been handed. Thea is great, but being a single parent has been hard on Lydia. She’s asked me about Simon on more than one occasion and I wrestle with what to tell her.”

“What did you tell her happened?” Finn asked.

Hyde’s shoulders tensed. “I told her that he quit and he stopped coming to work.”

Finn saw the flaw in that explanation. “Not much closure for her.”

“I should have thought it through. When she asked me about him, I was still reeling from the news of Simon’s death and I wasn’t sure what I was allowed to tell her. I couldn’t believe he had been taken out. He was one of the best. He was careful. How did Barnett get him?”

Finn had been told parts of the story. He hadn’t been directly involved with Simon’s mission, and the details were classified. “I’ve asked questions and I didn’t receive any answers.”

Hyde looked over at her sister. “That’s the main reason I’ll do this. For her. For Thea. To give them answers and a way to move forward without being haunted.”

* * *

Boots hit Hyde’s second-story balcony. Finn was outside her sliding glass doors. No surprise, really. She had expected him, and Finn intended for her to hear his approach. Sneaking up on a spy was a quick way to catch a bullet in the head and the chest. Hyde still slept with a gun in her bedside table. And in her kitchen. And her living room. A woman couldn’t be too careful about protecting herself.

She’d rented this place because of the many exit points. One day she would select a house because it made her feel at home. She would hang pictures on the walls and decorate it. It would take longer than a few months for her to stop thinking like a spy and return to being a civilian.

Hyde counted to five. The lock clicked open. Finn was fast with a lock pick. She was faster. She hadn’t laid the jimmy bar in the door, anticipating his visit. He entered her room, closing the door behind him. Her heart raced and her fingers itched to reach for him. She counted his footsteps as he approached the bed. He dropped his suit jacket on the floor and loosened his tie from around his neck. Desire fluttered in her belly. Finn sat on the mattress, removed his shoes and lifted the sheet, sliding into the bed beside her. Heat spiraled through her. He gathered her against him. He smelled of laundry detergent and soap. “I couldn’t sleep knowing you were here alone. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed holding you in my arms.”

Tears sprang to her eyes and she curled her body against his. The tenderness he showed her was gentler than she had experienced with any another man. It struck her as odd because he was also one of the most brutal men she had met. “How did you know I was alone?”

His arm was slung over her waist. “I know you and I knew your date to the wedding meant nothing to you. You wouldn’t take him home no matter how lonely you were. But you seemed sad. I couldn’t leave you that way. I want you to tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it.”

She was sad. Hurting. Lost. Confused. Now that she knew about Reed Barnett, she felt pulled back into the world she swore was dead to her, but she also felt good having a purpose and a meaningful task. Given her skill set, fulfilling work had been hard to come by in Bearcreek. “I have a lot on my mind.”

She couldn’t tell Finn that she wanted a husband and a family and a life that involved footed pajamas, car pools and little league. A year ago Hyde believed a life of children and domestic duties was a prison sentence. She felt sorry for friends who organized playdates and spent their days playing cars and dolls. Now she wished she had considered her options sooner.

Telling Finn she wanted those things would be ice water on his libido and his feelings for her. And while it would have been a quick way to end the relationship, she wanted him to think fondly of her and remember her in a certain way.

Finn nuzzled the back of her neck. “I didn’t believe Connor when he told me you weren’t available for hire.”

Connor, the leader of the West Company, had contacted her about a job while she was in Munich. She had impulsively told him she was retired, and after speaking the words, she knew they were what she needed. Thinking over the experiences she had lived through as a spy, she counted herself lucky she was alive and relatively unscathed. Running, hiding and lying were exhausting, but losing her baby had broken her. “I spoke to his wife about it.” She could trust Connor and Kate not to spread it around. It was better for her enemies to believe she was in the game and not sitting around with her feet up, like a target with a big red bull’s-eye on her chest.

Finn touched her hip, rolling her to face him. “You should have called me when things changed. You should have called me when you decided you didn’t want to work as an agent anymore.”

Her skin prickled where his hand rested. She couldn’t get enough of him, but her desire was at war with her heart. “You would have pressed me for reasons why.”

He shifted close, sliding his hips against her. “You’re one of the best in the business. Why quit?”

She’d give the simple answer and leave out the stuff about love and marriage and a baby. “This isn’t the life I want.”

He tapped his finger against her leg. “Are you planning to stay in Montana and raise cattle with your family?”

He sounded sincere and she appreciated that he was trying to understand. He wouldn’t understand this. What she wanted now was so over the invisible line of where their relationship ended, she couldn’t voice it without feeling silly.

“I haven’t decided what I will do.” She had saved enough money to grant her the luxury of time to decide.

“What about your operatives and contacts?” Finn asked.

Hyde had turned away jobs over the last several months. She didn’t have employees who relied on her, not in the traditional sense. She had referred operatives with special skills to jobs that warranted them and vetted agents in the field. When she’d quit, she’d washed her hands of it and had been comfortable with that decision.

Finn was the one open item on the past. She couldn’t have Finn and a family. “Operatives I’ve worked with will work for someone else.” It was how the game was played. The network she had painstakingly built from influential contacts now felt unfulfilling. She had made herself a warrior for the cause, any cause she believed in, and most important, causes where a woman was in danger. Those were the ones closest to her heart. She was walking away from those women who had needed her, often in crisis, but she would find other ways to give back.

He brushed at the hair at her temple. “When we last met, you loved your job.”

When she had last seen Finn, they had spent three days in the Maldives Islands. She’d been fresh off an assignment, relaxed and excited. Stress relief, great conversation and mind-blowing sex wrapped up in one person were how she’d rejuvenated herself between missions. What he’d offered was everything she had needed, and for that, she was grateful. “I’m tired of this job. I want a simpler life.”

Finn ran his index finger down her cheek. He was pure temptation. “You’ll be bored.”

Not if she found the right career or hobby. Plenty of people lived in the same town, drove to the same job each day and collected a paycheck every two weeks. She could do the same and she would be happy doing it. A husband and family could be in the cards for her. “I’ll be busy.”

“Busy isn’t happy. I don’t understand why anyone would want a house that breaks and a job that goes nowhere.”

Hyde’s brain spun. It wasn’t as if she was thinking about marrying Finn, but to hear him describe the life she wanted in disparaging terms, Hyde was hurt. She needed more than Finn could give her. Though she had known Finn wouldn’t settle down with her, or anyone, hearing him speak the words felt like the death toll on their relationship.

Finn closed his eyes, oblivious to how she felt. That was one downside of subconsciously masking her emotions out of habit. No one could read her. “I don’t see it that way. My new job will be exciting because it will be different. I’ll have time off. I’ll have friends I see more than once every few months or years.”

“You are the most complicated woman I have ever known.”

A compliment? Why the groan? “I don’t think I’m complicated.”

He shifted in the bed, moving the pillows. “The secrets you keep would make the average person insane. You hide them like you hide everything. But I have no room to criticize.”

If he knew her biggest, most painful secret, how would he feel? He may blame her. He might be angry. If he was relieved, she wasn’t sure she could handle that. She would interpret his relief as happiness not to be tied to a baby who would have been an inconvenience to him and his work. It wasn’t fair to leap to that conclusion, but right now the only acceptable emotions surrounding her baby were grief, loss and sadness. Thinking of her baby, sorrow crashed around her. She put distance between her and Finn. “I can’t be up late. I have a wedding brunch tomorrow morning.”

“Isn’t that what the reception was for?” Finn asked.

“Victoria and Thomas want to spend time with family, especially those who traveled a long distance, while they have the opportunity,” Hyde said. She and Finn hadn’t spoken much about their families. Did he get along with his?

In the last three months, she had been to a bridal shower, a bachelorette party, a rehearsal dinner, three dress fittings and a craft show. She had looped orange ribbons on bells and tied bows on bottles of bubbles while drinking wine with her sisters and mother. A different experience for her and she had enjoyed each. “Don’t you want to spend time with your family?”

“Family is overrated,” Finn said. Indifference emanated from his voice.

Red flags went up. Much about this conversation was telling. She hadn’t realized how focused he was on his job. “I didn’t realize you felt that way.”

“Too much drama.”

Hyde didn’t press him. If family was unimportant to him, she couldn’t change that with a conversation.

Finn shifted and adjusted the blankets. Though Finn rarely emoted, she sensed he was upset.

“Tell me what’s on your mind.” She set her hand on his arm and Finn covered it with his own.

“I was thinking about Simon. About his plans for the future. He wanted a wedding and a family. He met your sister and he fell hard. She and their life together were taken from him. Thea has Simon’s eyes. Haunting.”

She and Finn harbored guilt about Simon and Lydia’s relationship. Hyde, for not warning Lydia to keep her distance from Simon, and Finn, because Finn believed he could have saved Simon from his untimely death.

Hyde didn’t think any action on Finn’s part would have altered the outcome. She had voiced that sentiment before and he’d blown her off.

Death was a reality they faced daily. Spies accepted dangerous assignments in unstable places. Hyde had been close to death a few times. She had been shot. She had broken her leg and been left for dead. She had been imprisoned. She had defied the odds and felt blessed to be alive.

“Lydia will like to know that Simon cared deeply for her. I’ll be happy when I can tell her the truth,” Hyde said.

From what Lydia had shared, she and Simon had talked about a future. They’d discussed marriage. Lydia also believed that Simon had manipulated her, promising a life together as a line to get her into bed. Hyde had wanted to spill the truth. Simon’s intentions had been genuine.

“She deserves at least that,” Finn said. “When she tells Thea about her father, it shouldn’t be to explain he was a loser who abandoned them.”

They lapsed into silence, lost in their thoughts.

“Are you planning to be a spy forever?” Hyde asked.

Finn propped his head on his hand. “I’m good at it. I don’t know if there’s anything else that would make me as happy as this work.”

She’d had similar thoughts in the past. “You might see it differently one day.”

“You sound like my mother,” he said, and he sounded exhausted.

Interesting that he’d mentioned his family again. “Does your mom know you’re a spy?”

“She thinks I work as a contractor for a defense firm. She doesn’t know specifics,” Finn said. “That’s something I like about you. You know what I do. I don’t have to hide much from you.”

“We have secrets,” Hyde said.

“When I’m with you, I can relax. You know the ground rules. You don’t pry.”

Prying was exactly what she wanted to do except she had no interest in pressing him for details about his missions, past or future. She wanted to know more about him, his life, his childhood. They had spent time together, and she felt like she had barely scratched the surface learning what made him tick. It may not change anything. Finn was against having a family, and having a family was her new dream. If she had an explanation, would that make parting easier?

Finn rolled and slung his thigh on top of hers, his leg between hers. “You smell good.”

Whether his desire was taking over or he was avoiding delving into a deeper conversation with her, she couldn’t tell. Sex was often on Finn’s mind. “What you smell is soap and shampoo. I showered when I got home. My hair was sprayed into place and it was too stiff to sleep in and it was giving me a headache.”

“I would have liked to help you,” Finn said.

“Shower?” she asked.

He ran his nose along her jawline. “That and take the clips from your hair. Alexandra?”

He almost never used her real full name and it shook her and stirred her desire. Her stomach fluttered. “Yes?” She met his gaze. The fire in his eyes matched the heat in his voice.

“I want to kiss you.”

Could she let him kiss her? Would one kiss change anything? A kiss wouldn’t make her permanently decide to return to her life as a spy. A kiss couldn’t change her feelings about the future. But a kiss could feel good and comforting. Comfort was something she was missing. No one knew how much she was hurting. No one had sensed her sadness and reached out to comfort her.

Finn was offering physical comfort and Hyde reached for him, drawing him close. His arousal pressed at the apex of her thighs. She ignored that and focused on his lips. His perfectly kissable, sexy lips. When their mouths touched, a hundred sparks lit in the air around them. His lips were soft and pliant. Unhurried and seductive, his tongue danced with hers. Heat smoldered inside her and she wished she knew how to cool it.

They had fantastic chemistry, and getting naked with him held a great deal of appeal. But that appeal was lost when she thought of the last several months. How lonely she had been in Bearcreek and how the time alone had affected her. Time to think was good, except when it brought to light unsettling questions. Her extensive traveling over the last decade had prevented her from being close with anyone, from forging close relationships or letting anyone inside. She wanted those things, and Finn wasn’t the man who could give them to her.

A tear slipped from her eye. Finn pulled away, questions in his eyes, and then wiped at the tear with his thumb.

“I won’t hound you to tell me what this is about. I know spies keep secrets close to the vest. But I’m here if you want to talk. I don’t need to say anything. I can listen.”

Hyde wanted to confess everything and bare her soul to him. But making herself vulnerable scared her. She kept her mouth shut.

Chapter 3

Hyde clasped Victoria’s hands before she climbed into the limo with Thomas. “Promise me you’ll be careful,” Hyde said.

Victoria laughed and looked over her shoulder. “I will be fine. This will be the first vacation I’ve had in years. Don’t worry so much.”

Hyde shouldn’t worry, but Victoria had never traveled outside Montana and now she was flying halfway around the world with her new husband. Hyde’s paranoia pinged. She had learned to be suspicious of everyone. That suspicion was misplaced with Thomas. He was a good man and could be trusted.

Lydia was standing close by with Thea. Thea was sleeping in her arms, likely tired from the night before. Lydia had dark circles under her eyes, her clothes were wrinkled and her hair knotted in a messy bun.

As Hyde waved goodbye to her sister and Thomas, Finn strolled toward her. He had skipped the family brunch, choosing instead to sleep for two more hours. No details had been mentioned about his last mission, and Hyde hadn’t reviewed the details for their upcoming one.

“Ready to leave?” Finn asked.

Hyde had assembled a bag that morning. She hadn’t forgotten how to slip undercover and pack the essentials quickly. “Yes.” Speaking the word held weight and evoked sadness. Leaving her family was harder than she’d anticipated. Staying away had been easier, jumping from one assignment to the next. Reconnecting had touched her more deeply than she’d expected.

She had felt a shift between her and Finn, as well. They were embarking on a mission together. Their career and relationship were colliding.

Hyde’s father approached and Hyde braced for impact. She didn’t want to lie to her family, but she didn’t have a good, clear way to explain Finn’s sudden presence in Bearcreek or why she was leaving.

“Alexandra, are you coming by for dinner tonight? The caterer dropped off the leftover food from the wedding. There’s plenty for everyone. Even for your friend.” Her father gestured at Finn.