Hawk’s Challenge Read online

  “I’ve been known to do that for my other stories,” he said. He took her hand and started walking behind the nearest row of cars. She easily kept up with him—even found herself drawing close to his side, enjoying the contact. “Cops and federal agents, too. But the new one? Did you happen to catch me mention what that special ops force does when you saw my interview?”

  “Not really,” she lied.

  “They…well, they’re involved in paranormal activity. It’s my first book on the subject.”

  “Interesting,” she said. “So how did you research that?”

  “I mostly imagined it,” he said.

  Mostly? It was the part he didn’t imagine that Autumn was interested in.

  They stopped beside a silver car, a model that she could tell, even from the outside, had a lot more bells and whistles than the government issue sedan that sat in the parking lot of the apartment temporarily rented for her and her aide Ruby Belmont while on this assignment. Ruby had driven her to the bar for her rendezvous with Logan. She was on call to pick Autumn up whenever she was ready.

  And wherever she was ready. Autumn wondered if she was going to get an invitation to accompany Logan home tonight.

  If so, she would say yes—in the interest of her assignment. To talk. To learn more. That was all—at least all she intended. But she’d never imagined feeling so attracted to a subject.

  He pulled keys from his pocket and popped the trunk of his car. “Damn,” he said after pulling it open. “I thought I had a couple of copies of my book in here, but I must have given them all away. There are more at my house. I don’t suppose you’d want to come with me to get one.” He tilted his head, eyeing her with a challenging expression in which she also read hope.

  “I’d love to,” she said, challenging him right back. If his offer to give her a book had been a way to get her to come home with him, there was no way she’d pass up the chance.

  He’d come to GlenB Brews hoping to run into Beer Guy again. Before leaving, he’d wanted to look around the bar once more for Beer Guy.

  Beer Guy. Logan had started thinking of the strange, usually drunk fellow that way the first time he’d talked to him, and it had been several meetings before he’d learned that he referred to himself as JD. Logan still didn’t know the guy’s real name, so he still mostly though of his as Beer Guy

  In any event, since Logan hadn’t seen him yet, he would tell Evan the bartender to give him a call if JD showed up again. He’d leave Even a generous tip as well as his cell number to seal the deal.

  But he’d have to come back another time. Right now, he wanted to get to know this woman better.

  A lot better.

  “In case you’re wondering—” he said after they’d both settled into the front seat of his car. He’d already promised to run her back here after he gave her a copy of his book, since she’d said a friend was picking her up later. A female friend. “—that wasn’t a come-on. I really did think I had some extra copies of my book here. I’ve been passing them out selectively to bookstores and media folks for reviews, but I apparently ran out.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  He was a writer—and a guy in lust. He hadn’t planned to bring Autumn home with him, but he had no intention of letting the opportunity go to waste.

  Why did he want her so badly? Hell if he knew. Something about her attracted him in a way he couldn’t explain. He felt like the men he wrote about, the ones who were seduced by the best—and worst—women possible.

  “So what do you do for a living?” he asked.

  “I work in retail,” she said. “I’m an assistant manager at one of the department stores in Marley Station, that mall on Governor Ritchey Highway.”

  That explained the sexy, high-end clothes. He didn’t keep up with women’s styles except as needed for his books, but what she wore looked good. And hot.

  Something about the way she’d said that, though—well, maybe it sounded rehearsed because she often made small talk with guys who tried to pick her up….

  He realized he might, in fact, be damned foolish, taking Autumn Katers home with him after just meeting her. He knew nothing about her.

  Except that he wanted her. Really wanted her. And she was willing to go home with him just to get a copy of his latest book that she’d probably never read. And—

  Hell, why was that?

  He’d have to be careful. Keep his cell phone handy in case she turned out to be a groupie after all. Or, worse, some kind of nutcase.

  If this beautiful, sexy woman was hiding secrets, he wanted to know them.

  Maybe he could use them in a book someday.

  “Nice place,” Autumn said as Logan parked the car in the driveway of a blue frame Cape Cod home near the water.

  It was the first time she had seen it from this angle. She was used to looking at it from above the steep, gray-shingled roof.

  “Thanks. Would you like to come in for a tour?”

  He looked almost anxious, as if he expected her to say no.

  “I’d love to,” she responded. It was the only way she could find out what, if anything, he knew about Alpha Force.

  As to the rest of his expectations—well, she was ambivalent. Or at least she wanted to be.

  Despite common sense telling her it was a bad idea, she wanted to go to bed with this sexy man. He was her target, but she wasn’t sure she could resist him. Her hormones were churning, and everything inside her kept telling her to go for it.

  Together they strolled up the rosebush-lined front walk. The place was lovely, a writer’s dream and the perfect place to find inspiration.

  She looked up at the surrounding woods, at the trees where she had perched while spying on him for the last two days. Into the moonlit sky where she had flown, learning what she could from the perspective of a hawk.

  Now, she had to use her fully human skills to extract the information she really needed.

  He unlocked the front door. He didn’t have a security system. Probably didn’t need it here. The place was beautiful, but it wasn’t exactly accessible. The nearest neighbors had tree-filled yards as large as his blocking prying eyes, and the small inlet gave his property even more privacy.

  They walked into a small entry. To their right was the living room and straight ahead was a hallway that presumably led to the kitchen and bedrooms. The walls were painted a luminescent white, and Logan had hung framed prints of some of his earlier book covers on them.

  “Very nice,” Autumn said. She walked toward the living room, observing comfortable, mismatched furnishings and a huge flat-screen television that hung on the wall across from a faux leather sofa—all of which made it obvious that this was a man’s home. She turned to find him right behind her.

  His confidence had clearly returned. In moments, he had gathered her in his arms. Now was the time to back off, if that was what she wanted.

  It wasn’t.

  She held him closely as once again his lips sought hers. It felt familiar now, and right, to be kissing him.

  For a moment, a scene from one of his books passed through her mind—a torrid sex scene, one that had made her body react as heatedly as if she was the heroine of the emotion-packed thriller she’d pored over weeks before.

  She considered trying to make that scene a reality—then tossed the thought away.

  Okay, maybe they were going to make love. Despite what common sense told her would help complete her mission. But she couldn’t resist. He might even use their time together as research for a future story—which was fine with her as long as she wasn’t identified. She certainly intended to enjoy, and remember, every sensual moment.

  She let her hands caress the fabric of his shirt and range up his hard, muscular back. His tongue teased hers, causing her to sway in his arms even as she pressed closer.

  She wanted to feel skin, not fabric, so she tugged his shirt out of his pants and touched the hot, hard body beneath. If her other side had been feline, she would
have purred.

  His hands were equally busy, reaching between their bodies to unbutton her blouse. He caressed first one breast, then the other. She wore a bra, which suddenly disappeared. His mouth moved down until his lips, then his tongue, teased her nipples.

  She almost fell to the floor, but he held her tight. “This way,” he rasped, and together they hurried down the hallway to his bedroom.

  The bed dominated the place, queen-size and swathed in a rich-looking gold-trimmed coverlet with matching pillows and shams. She considered her hawk vision her strongest, most vibrant sense, and she delighted in the visual effects of how he had decorated his room.

  She took a deep breath—his aroma, spicy and all male, washed over her.

  Logan released her just long enough to yank the covers down. “I don’t know what it is about you, Autumn Katers,” he said huskily, leveling those darkened blue eyes on her, “but in case you can’t tell, I want you.”

  She managed a laugh as she let her eyes travel along his body. His shirt was off and his jeans were unzipped—and she could see a sizeable bulge straining to escape the gray underwear beneath.

  “I can tell,” she whispered. “And I feel the same way.”

  She wasn’t sure which of them moved first, but they both ripped off their remaining clothes and were on the bed in an instant, naked. The feel of the cool sheets on the firm mattress contrasted with the heat she felt inside—and the fire emanating from Logan’s body as he continued to caress her. First his hands slid over her breasts, then they dipped lower, much lower, until she gasped with the pleasure of his touch in her most sensitive areas.

  She in turn grasped his hardness, stroking it, unsure whether touching him, or the way he touched her, was doing the most to stoke the fire within her.

  He eased his fingers into her. Then he seemed to back off for a moment, long enough for her to miss his hard presence against her.

  She heard the sound of plastic and was glad that he’d remembered protection. And then he was inside her. He moved only slightly at first, until she encouraged him with her own body, withdrawing, then pressing forward, reveling in the feel of his hardness within her.

  Autumn climaxed quickly, followed only an instant later by the arching of Logan’s body as he found his own release. And then he collapsed on top of her, breathing as hard as she was.

  Research? Perhaps, but she was sated.

  She forced herself to remember that she hadn’t come here for pleasure—well, not entirely.

  But the best was over, and there could be no more. She was here because she had to be—and because her duty was to help protect Alpha Force and all that it stood for. She knew that, as much as she hated to think about it at the moment.

  She had questions for Logan Valliere, though, that required answers. Would he be willing to answer them now? She would wait for their bodies to calm down. Or at least for her mind to clear.

  And then she would try to fulfill her mission.

  CHAPTER 3

  If it had been entirely up to Logan, he would have stayed in bed with Autumn all night. Made love with her over and over. He’d have savored every moment of her warm flesh on his, of her hands on him, of being on and within her.

  But after they’d lain together in his bed and caught their breath, Autumn planted a fleeting kiss on his mouth and headed to the bathroom. When she emerged, she didn’t get back into bed, and instead got dressed in the dimness of the light creeping in through the cracked bathroom door.

  He watched her, enjoying the view—and caught the amusement in her gaze each time his eyes met hers. She was enjoying having him watch her strip show in reverse.

  So was he.

  But soon he joined her, pulling on his jeans.

  “Do you have any coffee?” she asked. “I’d love a cup before I go home.”

  He did indeed and felt utterly domestic as he started a pot in the kitchen he’d equipped with the best appliances he could find. He wasn’t much of a chef, so he liked having gadgets around to do the work for him, preferably while he slaved over the computer in his office.

  Once the coffee was brewing, he sat down across from Autumn at the square oak table in the middle of the room and looked at her.

  Her auburn-streaked brown hair was mussed and her eyelids lowered as she regarded him from beneath thick lashes. She looked like a woman who had just made love and enjoyed it. Which only got him interested again. Could he convince her, after coffee, to return to the bedroom?

  “That was…well, amazing, Logan,” she said, looking down at her hands, no longer meeting his gaze. “I can’t help wondering, though—well, I don’t know how a writer works. Is everything research?”

  He laughed. “Are you worried that someday you’ll read about one of my protagonists making delightful love with a woman named Autumn Katers?”

  “Well…yes.” She sounded almost bashful, for the first time since they had met—had it only been a few short hours ago? He felt as if he had known her for eons.

  Only—he didn’t really know anything about her, did he? She had talked about going home, but he didn’t even know where she lived.

  She had mentioned she was in retail, selling high-end women’s clothes—and that was all she had revealed.

  He wanted to know more. A lot more.

  Was this something she did often? She’d seemed flirtatious and outgoing. But he’d had a sense that wasn’t really who she was. He hoped she’d stepped out of her comfort zone because she had genuinely found him interesting.

  But why had she dared go home with a stranger? Of course, now she knew who he was. Which made him wonder yet again if he had been taken for a fool.

  Would she try to use him, as other women had? He hoped not. Autumn Katers struck him as a sassy, sweet and sexy woman who’d been attracted to him, as he was attracted to her. Period.

  And yet…

  “No worries,” he told her. “I admit that nearly everything I do in life can turn into research. But I don’t kiss and tell. If I incorporate a wonderfully erotic sex scene into one of my stories that makes use of my own sensory experiences—and I admit the experience we just shared was extraordinary, by the way—no one will be able to tell either that the guy is me, or that the woman is you.”

  “That’s good.” Her eyes caught his again, and her smile made him want to undress her all over again.

  “So…tell me more about you,” he said instead. “Do you have any deep, dark secrets that I could use in a story?”

  She looked startled for an instant, before her sexy yet serene expression returned. “Not really. What you see is what you get.”

  The part of him that made him a good writer—curiosity for all things that could be molded into an electrifying, absorbing story—wondered what she was hiding. There was something. He was suddenly sure of it.

  He was also sure that she wasn’t about to reveal it to him. At least not yet.

  He’d have to woo it out of her. And the idea of spending more time with her to do it—in bed and out—intrigued him. A lot.

  But for now… “Let me check on the coffee.” He stood. Turning away from her allowed him to rearrange the still-uncomfortable bulge in his pants.

  Autumn breathed carefully, forcing her pulse rate to slow down. In. Out. In. Out.

  Logan was just making conversation, asking perfectly innocent questions about the woman he had just made love with.

  He had no reason to think she was hiding anything, did he?

  If he only knew how many things she was hiding. And how bizarre and unreal the main one would seem to him, if he ever found out.

  How would he feel if he discovered he’d made love with a woman who shapeshifted, almost at will, into a hawk?

  She almost smiled in spite of herself. He would never find out, of course. And, he would never believe it even if he did.

  But this train of thought led her back to exactly why she had been following Logan Valliere.

  He’d said that he’d mostly re
searched his upcoming paranormal thriller with pure imagination. It was the rest of his research that she had to learn about. Fast. Now, while he was still feeling close to her in the trusting afterglow of lovemaking.

  Not that she liked using what they’d shared together.

  He placed a large black mug of coffee on the table in front of her. “Cream or sugar?” he asked.

  “Cream, please.”

  In a minute, he was again sitting across from her with a mug of black coffee for himself, his blue eyes again seducing nearly every ounce of her.

  She let her mind focus before she began speaking. “I’ve never considered writing a book, but I admit I’m fascinated by the process. When did you start writing that new thriller you mentioned, the one about shapeshifters?”

  He took a sip of coffee and shrugged one broad shoulder. He hadn’t put on his shirt, and she was fascinated by the way the muscles in his arms and chest moved. She made herself look down at her coffee instead of at Logan.

  “I started it almost a year ago, which is actually a fairly short window of time in the publishing business. And, yes, it’s about shapeshifters. I’ve created a fictional military force of men and women who can change into wolves.”

  “Like werewolves?” She made her tone scornful—though the majority of the key personnel in the covert military unit to which she belonged, Alpha Force, in fact did change into wolves.

  “Right. Like werewolves.” He smiled. “Makes good fiction.”

  “But you said that you’d actually done some research on that book, didn’t you? That the story was mostly based on your imagination, but not all of it, right?”

  “Kind of.”

  He looked sheepish. She almost wanted to reach across the table to comfort him, without knowing exactly why, but she made herself hold still.

  “So…” she prompted.

  “Well, to tell the truth, the idea wasn’t entirely mine. I didn’t steal it or plagiarize or anything like that. And it wasn’t really research. I met a heavy drinker with a wild imagination who planted the idea in my head, and embellishes on it now each time I see him. That was why I was at GlenB Brews tonight, actually. I run into him there now and then. I just finished a manuscript for another series and now I’m starting a sequel to the paranormal thriller. I wanted to take advantage of the guy’s imagination and brainstorm some ideas about military shapeshifters with him.”