Cherry Adair - The Bodyguard

THE
BODYGUARD

THE
BODYGUARD

Cherry Adair

Gena Showalter

Lorie O'Clare

St. Martin's Paperbacks

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE BODYGUARD

"Temptation on Ice" copyright (c) 2010 by Cherry Adair.

"Temptation in Shadows" copyright (c) 2010 by Gena Showalter.

"Hunting Temptation" copyright (c) 2010 by Lorie O'Clare.

Cover illustration by Craig White
Photograph of dark alley (c) Denis Tangney Jr / Getty Images
Photograph of man (c) Shirley Green

All rights reserved.

For information address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

ISBN: 978-0-312-94323-3

Printed in the United States of America

St. Martin's Paperbacks edition / July 2010

St. Martin's Paperbacks are published by St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

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CONTENTS

by Cherry Adair

by Gena Showalter

by Lorie O'Clare

TEMPTATION
ON ICE

Cherry Adair

CHAPTER ONE

Decommissioned Soviet Submarine Base #15
Arctic Ocean
90 00 N, 0 00 E

Invisible, Sebastian Tremayne and fellow T-FLAC operative Anatoly Cohen silently followed the three physicists, two male, one female, down the long, dimly lit corridor of Decommissioned Soviet Submarine Base #15.

The casual conversation of the targets wasn't relevant and Sebastian tuned it out. Half of him prayed the woman wasn't who he'd been told she was. The other half felt a surge of hope. The question was, what should he hope for? He looked at her and the question became instantly moot.

Her glossy chestnut hair was longer than it'd been the last time he'd seen her. But the color, even in the crappy lighting, was instantly recognizable. For a second he remembered the heavy, silken weight of it as he'd held her head in his palm and brought his mouth down on hers. Her hair had draped like a spill of satin over his fingers. Sebastian remembered the feel of her slender body pressed against him. He imagined he smelled the heady fragrance of night-blooming jasmine as the heat of her wrapped about him.

The smell of meat cooking on the grill outside, the sound of glasses clinking and people laughing, faded to nothing. For a few incredible minutes, standing there in a back hallway of his best friend's house, holding his best friend's fiance, Sebastian had felt an aching yearning that had gone miles beyond sexual desire.

He walked a different hallway now. Cold, dim, and smelling of mold. This hallway was far more dangerous than being caught kissing another man's woman. Turn around, sweetheart, he thought, angry with himself as well as with her. Let me see those big, beautiful lying brown eyes.

As if she'd heard him, the woman turned her head to answer one of the men, giving Sebastian a clear view of her profile.

Sebastian looked into the very much alive face of a dead woman.

His heart raced. Michaela Giese. Beautiful, vibrant Dr. Michaela Giese. Very much alive after being declared dead two years ago. He sucked in an inaudible breath, his heart manic with lo-- lust . With unrequited hunger . Beating fast, because just looking at her turned him on like no other woman ever had, nor, he knew, ever would.

It took every ounce of fifteen years of T-FLAC training not to suck in a shocked breath, not to grab her, not to... Fuck--not to demand answers, right now .

They'd been right. She was here and responsible for building a nuclear bomb primed to detonate in mere hours. Set to melt the polar ice caps into a worldwide slushy margarita, flooding coastal cities, and within a short time, raising ocean levels. Fast.

Millions would die because of her actions. Because of her piss-poor choices. Unless ridiculous billions of dollars were paid to the terrorist she worked with by midnight.

Sebastian and Cohen were here to stop her.

The beautiful, breathing, lying, gut-yanking bitch was obviously ruthless enough to do it.

"That her?" Cohen whispered into his lip mic.

"Hell if I know." Oh yeah . He needed some time to get used to her being back from the dead. Along with the pieces of him that had gone into that empty grave with her.

His fingers flexed at his sides as her glossy ponytail swayed against her slender back as she walked. It would feel like heavy silk against his skin. He knew... He shook his head, as if to clear away cobwebs. Get a grip, Tremayne; what do you really know about her?

Had she intentionally faked the plane crash to come and work with the terrorists? Jesus. Jesus. How long had that been going on? He hated to believe it, but the evidence was too hard to negate. The timing had been just too fucking convenient.

Two years ago she'd abruptly called off her engagement to his best friend, fellow operative Cole Summers, a month after their engagement party. No explanations. But there'd been plenty of suspicions, most of them tossed his way by Cole afterward. It had been a major blowout that Sebastian and Cole had eventually managed to overcome.

A few days later, the bits and pieces of her crashed Cessna had been found on the shores of the tiny island of Diomede in the middle of the fucking Bering Strait.

There'd been no body.

Speculation had run rife at T-FLAC HQ. As far as anyone knew, Michaela didn't know anyone locally. She was an experienced pilot, but there were no signs of foul play. She'd simply... vanished. Drowned in the icy sea. Or so everyone had believed.

Her funeral had been a seminal moment in his life.

"Still with me, bud?" Cohen asked quietly in Sebastian's headpiece.

"Yeah."

The long, narrow cement corridor, painted half filthy white and half puke green, had a domed ceiling and metal-caged, bare lightbulbs. A track ran down the middle, indicating that during the Cold War heavy equipment had to be transported to and from the dock at sea level.

Even with just his face and hands bare, it was freeze-his-balls-off cold, and Tremayne was grateful for the protection of his LockOut suit worn beneath a thick, hand-knit gray sweater and charcoal jeans. The insulated boots with the no-sound tread developed by the science geeks at T-FLAC were doing a good job of saving him from frostbitten toes. If they stayed in this corridor much longer, though, the gloves and face mask were going to come out of their pockets. He wondered if he had ice crystals in his eyebrows....

Michaela was similarly dressed in a bulky brown sweater and too-long black pants, rolled up several times to accommodate her walking. She looked like a little girl playing dress-up in her father's clothes. But she wasn't a child. Whose clothes was she wearing?

Sebastian felt a surge of unwelcome annoyance at the direction of his thoughts. Even though Cole was now happily married and father to a delightful little girl, Sebastian still felt guilty as hell coveting his friend's fiance.

Ex- fiance.

Dead, miraculously alive ex-fiance.

And that guilt and anger was without the added component of her contribution to this particular terrorist cell. Damn damn damn .

"Think they're heading to the nuke?" Cohen speculated. "If that's the case, we can be outta here in thirty minutes tops."

"When has an op ever been that fucking easy?" Sebastian rubbed the back of his neck. He trusted that itch, and it told him there was plenty of shit and several fans before they teleported out, job accomplished.