She shook her head, fighting the need to confide in the only person who had reached out to her in years.
Richard Decker wasn’t just her employer; he and his wife had become friends of hers. They had supported her need for independence from her father, and had provided her a quiet, peaceful retreat in their home when she had needed it. Turning him down ate at her soul, but the risks were too great.
“If you walk away from this assignment, then you can kiss your future in security work goodbye. You’ll never get another decent agency to hire you. And you know it.” He leaned back in his chair, his arms lying comfortably on the sides as he regarded her. “Is that what you want?”
She resisted the urge to clench her fists. “You know it isn’t,” she said heatedly. “But this is insane, Richard. There’s no more a threat to Raddington and myself than there is to you. It’s another of his asinine little plots, nothing more.”
“And we can’t be certain of that,” he retorted. “Until we are, you will take this assignment Kimberly, and you will do it to the best of your ability. If for no other reason, than for me. I really don’t relish the ass chewing I’ll get from my boss if you pull out.”
Emotional guilt. She hated that and he knew it. He knew it and he was using it against her anyway.
“That’s low,” she snarled.
“But effective.” He leaned forward once again. “You’ll take Matthews, Adams, Lowell and Danford with you. They’ll take shifts patrolling the main grounds while you stick close to Raddington. Stay with him. Just until we’re certain.”
Stay with him, close to him, be in the same house with him. Kimberly wanted to groan miserably at the thought. The past week had been hell already, the arousal that normally taunted her was turning into a torment. She dreamed of Jared, craved his touch, his kiss. The emptiness that echoed between her thighs seemed to echo through her soul now.
He wouldn’t take “no” for an answer for long. He would have what she had denied every other man at that club, and she knew it. In the process, he might very well steal her heart. She couldn’t afford to let any man touch her heart.
She breathed out wearily. She was tired. Sleep was getting harder and harder to attain and she knew she was going to deal with the exhaustion claiming her soon. Another trip to The Club was out of the question. After the last episode with Jared she had a feeling the relief she had found there would be nonexistent now.
“Fine,” she finally muttered, knowing she was making a mistake, feeling it so deep in her soul that it reverberated through her body. “We leave tonight. Anything else?”
Richard’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“Is there something you’re not telling me, Kimberly?” he finally asked. “Something that could affect this assignment?”
Yeah, she wanted to f**k the client so damned bad that even now, her vagina wept with the hunger of it.
“No,” she answered instead. “Other than the suspicion that Senator Madison is playing yet another of his games, I can’t think of anything.”
“Would Jared go along with it?” She could see the automatic need to protect her in his eyes. Richard and his wife had been lifesavers in the past few years, but as she had told him before, there was nothing anyone could do to save her from her relationship with her father.
“I doubt Jared is involved in any scheme he would hatch up.” She finally shook her head at the question. “I don’t even think his mother knows all the details. The Senator wouldn’t want to ruin his good image.” It was all she could do not to sneer in contempt.
“Even I don’t know all the details,” he grumped. “Does anyone?”
She smiled mockingly. “The Senator and myself, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s two too many.”
Richard’s gaze was compassionate, but it did little to still the demons raging within her.
“I would pull you out of this if I could,” he told her softly. “You know I would Kimberly. But it’s not my call.”
She nodded bleakly. “I know Richard. Don’t worry, I won’t mess this up. We’ll leave tonight.”
He nodded slowly. “I’ll keep in touch with any new developments. As I said, at this point, the threat is only suspected based on intel coming through Homeland Defense. Your father’s a dirty son of a bitch, Kimberly, but he’s working wonders in Washington in national defense. That makes him a target, and it makes you and Jared a target. You can’t get away from that.”
“There are a lot of things I can’t seem to get away from,” she bit out fiercely. “Doesn’t mean I have to like any of it… I’ll get ready to leave now, if there’s nothing else.”
Richard sighed heavily. “No, there’s nothing else, Kimberly.”
She nodded shortly and turned and left the room. She managed to hide the fine tremble in her body until she reached her jeep, but as her fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, she felt the small shudders that reverberated inside her.
Jared. She stifled a moan as she laid her head against the wheel for long seconds and fought for her composure. For some reason, it seemed fate was out to destroy her. She could be strong away from him, but how the hell was she supposed to hide the hunger that ate at her soul for him, if she was forced into such proximity with him? And why was she suddenly wondering if the fight she was embroiled in with her father was even worth losing out on so much as a minute in Jared’s arms?
* * * * *
Jared stood on the back porch of his home staring into the twilight of a Virginia summer evening. He remembered, long ago, watching his father stand here as he debated some problem, staring into the surrounding forest with a frown on his dark brow as though the answers he sought were to be found there.