Condom.

There was a condom in his bag. Across the room. Clear across the room.

"Lilly." He groaned her name as her legs wrapped around his hips and held on tight. "Baby.

No condom. I forgot. f.u.c.k."

She shook her head as he tried to pull back again.

Her eyes opened, deep green eyes filled with mystery, with promise.

"f.u.c.k me, Travis. Harder. Oh G.o.d, I'm so close . . ." Her hips churned beneath him. "I'm so close."

And she was. He could feel her tightening beneath him again, feel her p.u.s.s.y heating further, her juices slick and hot as her entire body seemed to flush beneath him.

"Lilly." The protest was halfhearted at best.

Never had he had taken a woman without protection. Never had he filled a woman with his come, even the wife that had betrayed him. He had never given that much of himself.

Lilly already held all of him.

Throwing his head back, he gritted his teeth and let go the last measure of control he had held on to. f.u.c.king her with desperate driving strokes, he felt his release building, heating, threatening . . .

Lilly exploded beneath him. A long, low wail of completion filled the cabin as he powered into her again, again, driving her through another o.r.g.a.s.m as fierce, as deep, as the first.

Her p.u.s.s.y flexed around his shaft, stroked it tighter, gripped him, milked him, sucked his release from him with such a violence that he knew he had lost himself inside her forever.

Burying in deep, hard, he gave in to the fierce, white-hot spurts of s.e.m.e.n as it began to jet inside her. The more he gave her the more her p.u.s.s.y tried to milk from him. It rippled and gripped, stroked and sucked at his c.o.c.k until he was shaking, shuddering, certain he would never survive.

When it finally began to ease, as the strength seeped from their bodies and left him collapsed over her, fighting just to breathe, Travis began to wonder at exactly what point he had lost his heart to her.

With his head buried in the pillow next to hers, one hand gripping her hip, the other buried in her hair, he tried to tell himself he could control this, even though he knew he couldn't.

He felt her lips at his shoulder, her breaths shuddering through her body, then he finally felt her relax. He knew the moment exhaustion took her, eased her into sleep, and left her completely vulnerable in his arms.

He had taught her years ago to never leave herself vulnerable to a lover. A lover could be a killer. He could be the enemy in disguise. He hadn't taught her that he loved her. He hadn't taught her that he could be her greatest enemy.

But there she was, slipping into sleep, as he eased away from her and forced himself from the bed. A mumbled protest left her lips as he padded to the sink, dampened a small towel in warm water, then returned and cleaned her gently.

Spreading her thighs, he ran the warm cloth along the swollen, reddened folds of her s.e.x, cleaning her juices and his come from the tender flesh, amazed at the complete trust she gave him as she continued to sleep.

How long had it been since she had felt safe enough to sleep? he wondered. How long since Lilly had felt safe, period?

After cleaning himself he moved to the bag he had dropped at the door and pulled his weapon and a spare clip from inside. He moved back to the bed, eased her beneath the quilt, then slid in beside her and pulled her into his arms after tucking the gun beneath his pillow.

She cuddled against him with an innocent trust he was certain he should lecture her about later. After all, he was supposed to be no more than the wolf in sheep's clothing. The enemy posing as the lover.

Smoothing her hair back, he let his eyes close and let himself sleep. It wasn't a deep sleep, not here, not yet. He didn't know if there was security here, he didn't know the area, but he knew Lilly and he knew she protected herself. For the most part.

Once they were dressed and ready to face the day, then they would have to discuss this night, and they would have to face the implications of what the night had wrought.

Until then, she was sleeping in his arms, against his heart. And for now at least, she was his totally. The Ops didn't matter, the mission be d.a.m.ned. For now, he was just a man holding his woman, and he wanted every moment that he could steal.

Chapter 8.

lilly walked through the wide double doors of her family's home the next afternoon to face the combined disapproval of her mother and her uncle.

"Where have you been?" Her mother was smoking again. This time, she wasn't bothering to hide it. The cigarette was held between her fingers as she glared at Lilly furiously. "Do you know I was ready to call the FBI? For G.o.d's sake, Lilly."

Guilt seared her. She should have called, perhaps left a note. Travis had lectured her about that.

"I'm sorry, I needed time to think." She lifted her shoulders in an uneasy shrug as her gaze shifted to Desmond.

He was furious. His pale blue eyes glared back at her as he crossed his arms over his chest.

The muscles beneath his fine cotton shirt bulged, attesting to the anger that flushed his ruddy complexion further.

"Where is your mind?" Angelica turned and stalked back into the family room, her head held high, the sharp odor of tobacco following behind her.

"I would suggest you step into the family room," Desmond bit out between clenched teeth.

"Running and hiding will do you little good this time."

Lilly arched her brows. "I'm twenty-six, Uncle, not six," she informed him.

"Then perhaps you should start acting your age," he retorted as he, too, turned on his heel and followed her mother.

She really wanted to do just as he had told her not to. Run and hide. Facing her mother's wrath had never been a preferred sport as far as she was concerned.

Blowing out a hard breath, she pushed her fingers through her hair before following the two. Entering the room, she moved toward the bar first, ignoring her mother's muttered curse as she reach for the whisky.

"That is a gentleman's drink," Angelica reminded her. "It is not a drink for polite young ladies."

"I'm no longer a polite young lady," Lilly told her.

Pouring a shot, Lilly tossed it back quickly, her eyes fluttering at the pleasant burn that hit her stomach. Come to think of it, she distinctly remembered the fact that a gla.s.s of wine normally accompanied any conversation with her mother. Angelica was a dominant personality, and not always easy to get along with, even for her children.

"The least you could do is show me the respect of telling me when you will be out playing your foolish games all night," Angelica snapped behind her. "It would keep me from informing the FBI that my daughter has been kidnapped again."

"Kidnapped?" Lilly turned back to her mother. "I wasn't kidnapped the first time, Mother."

Angelica tamped out her cigarette in a nearby ashtray before staring at her daughter disdainfully. "And how do you know? Have you remembered the past six years?"

"Why, no, I haven't," she stated clearly. "But I think I would know if I had been kidnapped, Mother."

"I rather doubt you would," Angelica told her, her voice cold and brittle.

Lilly lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "According to the investigator's report, I had quite a bit of freedom in the past six years. I can't see kidnappers allowing their kidnappee to carry a gun. And I don't remember a mention in that report of a ransom being demanded."

Lilly propped her elbows on the bar behind her and stared back at the couple.

"I'll call Dr. Ridgemore first thing in the morning," Angelica said between clenched teeth.

"Clearly you need help that I cannot provide."

Ridgemore? Lilly stared back at her mother in shock. She was well aware of who and what Dr. Ridgemore was and what he did. He was co-owner and head psychiatrist at Le Fleur in France, a psychiatric hospital where her mother's cronies often sent their children for evaluations when they were considered unruly.

"Mother, that isn't a mistake you want to make," Lilly stated gently. "After all this time apart, do you truly want to make sure that I never return to this family again?"

Le Fleur was the bane of every child's existence among the social set Lilly had once been a part of. If they disobeyed their parents, they were sent to the hospital. If they became dependent on drugs, tried to marry someone their parents disapproved of, made any decision on their own, then they were shipped off.

It wasn't every family that practiced such heinous decisions, but there were more than a few. They couldn't handle their children, so obviously something was wrong with the child, not the parent. In Angelica's case, the threat and the concern were very real. When one of her family members didn't conform something had to be wrong with them.

"As you seem determined to get yourself killed, it seems the preferred alternative,"

Angelica responded furiously. "You read the report Desmond received on you, Lilly. Did you even consider the repercussions such a life could have on your family should it become known? Do you even care?"

Her mother's voice rose on each sentence, fury filling each word as her fists clenched at her side, her face flushing a delicate, rosy hue.

Once, Lilly would have been desperate to appease her mother. There had been a time when she had known nothing but fear of her mother's rages. Not because she would hit her, or even punish her, but because with it came the censorious silences, the lack of an allowance, the car keys taken, friends turned away at the door.

How childish each of those punishments seemed now. If only she had no more to worry about than lack of an allowance.

"I'm sorry, Mother, I can understand how that investigator's report could affect the family,"

she stated, resignation filling her.

Her mother would never let her live that report down. It would never matter what the truth eventually turned out to be; the fact that there was the slightest hint of impropriety attached to her name was enough to ensure Angelica never forgot that her daughter had been accused of such a thing. Or that that accusation could become public knowledge.

"I very much doubt you gave your family a moment's thought during the years you were away," Angelica charged. "Had you cared even a bit, then you would have at least let us know you were still alive."

Pain filled Angelica's voice then.

"Perhaps I was trying to protect you, Mother." Lilly couldn't imagine any other reason.

"Have you considered that? Someone killed Father and obviously tried to kill me."

"Which only tells me you were somehow involved in his asinine little games," Angelica threw back furiously. "Were you, Lilly? Is that what nearly got you killed? Please, G.o.d, tell me your father hadn't drawn you into that paranoid probe he launched into Harrington's?"

"Mother," Lilly said wearily, not wanting to get into this with her. She had been outraged when her father suspected his own share holders of stealing from the company. The shareholders had been friends.

"Actually," Desmond breathed out roughly. "We suspect your father had developed a bit of dementia perhaps. I mean, to think that someone within Harrington's or perhaps a shareholder, was still embezzling funds from the companies. He refused to accept that whoever had stolen the money had gotten away, or that they were no longer trifling with the accounts."

Dementia?

Lilly stared back at her uncle as she fought to hold in her shock. There was no way anyone could have believed her father had been ill.

"Father wasn't ill," she finally stated, the feeling of betrayal that filled her centering on her uncle. "Is this how you convinced Mother to marry you? By spreading such lies about Father?"

"Lilly!" Angelica gasped. "How dare you say such a thing."

Lilly shook her head as Desmond's lips thinned, his gaze narrowing on her angrily.

"Evidently, Father was dealing with much more than I knew before his death," she informed them both tightly. "How could you have believed for even a moment that Father was ill?"

Angelica stared back at her for long moments, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rising and falling quickly as tension thickened further in the air.

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Angelica finally whispered. "You didn't see him as he truly was, Lilly. You saw your father, and as a child, you excuse inconsistencies."

Lilly lifted her hand to halt the coming tirade.

"I refuse to discuss this supposed illness," she snapped. "You and I both know there was nothing wrong with Father other than a family that obviously refused to believe in him. And I well understand how he felt if you were so bold as to question his sanity to his face. My G.o.d, Mother, simply because we dare to oppose you or because we create a few waves doesn't mean we're in any way mentally deficient."

"No, but when you throw away a t.i.tle, wealth, and a stable home for the life you lived for six years, then there is no doubt in my mind that you were mentally unbalanced," her mother shot back loudly. "Did you read that file, Lilly? Did it even connect in that selfish little brain of yours what you did to us for six years? You deprived me of my daughter. You deprived yourself of your family. For what reason? At least give me that. Why would you do such a thing?" She was yelling by the time she finished. Her mother's voice and expression were filled with such tormented fury that Lilly had to fight the tears that filled her eyes.

"I don't know," she whispered painfully. "If I knew, Mother, then I would tell you."

But would she?

Even as the words came out of her mouth, Lilly had a feeling she wouldn't tell her mother the truth. Whatever had driven her away from her family would have had to be a threat to them as well.

"That's all well and good." Desmond's shoulders tightened as he once again crossed his arms over his chest. "That doesn't change the fact that your actions now are unacceptable, Lilly. You have gone irrevocably wild since connecting with Travis Caine again. This a.s.sociation must end immediately."

Lilly blinked back at him. She had the most insane urge to laugh in both their faces.

"I'm no longer sixteen, Uncle Desmond," she told him calmly. "Travis is a connection to the memories I've lost and whatever drove me from my family. Ending that a.s.sociation is not an action I'm willing to take at this time."

She had a feeling it wouldn't be an action she was willing to take at any time, but wisely refrained from making mention of that fact.

"I warned you she would refuse to listen to reason," Angelica said. "Caine has somehow managed to bewitch her."

"Oh my G.o.d, Mother." Lilly did laugh this time. "Bewitch me? This isn't the Middle Ages, you know, and Travis Caine isn't some sort of wizard."

"He's a criminal is what he is," her mother argued. "An element that has always attracted you. You were forever attempting to converse with the less desirable elements that attended any party you were invited to. No matter where we went it seemed you were attracted to the shadows. I warned your father you would come to a bad end if that habit continued."

Arguing with her mother was fruitless. She and her father had often discussed her mother's inability to ever admit she was wrong, and the trials in loving one who perceived that they had no faults.

"Lilly, you're not fully healed," Desmond said softly, his expression still filled with censure as he watched her. "Until you're well enough to understand the decisions you're making . . ."

"Don't patronize me, Uncle Desmond," she warned him then. "I'm not a child, nor am I a simpleton."