Holding Fire

Book 2: Alpha Security

by April Hunt

Genres: Action & Adventure Romance; Military Romance; Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

Alpha Security operative Trey Hanson is ready to settle down. When he meets a gorgeous blonde in a bar, and the connection between them is off the charts, he thinks he's finally found the one. But after their night together ends in a hail of gunfire and she disappears in the chaos, Trey's reasons for tracking her down are personal . . . until he learns she's his next assignment.

Elle Monroe never expected to see Trey again. The night they shared was incredible, but the last thing she's looking for is a relationship. Now that it's clear she's being targeted, though, she has no choice but to trust this man she barely knows with her life. And Trey's not just determined to keep her safe . . . he's determined to win her heart.

***

The Alpha Security series
Book 1 - Heated Pursuit (Rafe and Penny)
Book 2 - Holding Fire (Trey and Elle)
Book 3 - Hard Justice (Vince and Charlie)

Release date: March 28, 2017

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 352

Sample

Chapter One

A quick tinge of panic held Elle Monroe’s breath hostage. Her gaze shifted from the masculine, tattooed arm draped over her waist to the door on the other side of the dimly lit room—a ten-foot distance. Maybe fifteen.

It might as well have been a mile-long obstacle course complete with rotating floorboards and mud pits when it came to crossing the distance without detection. And that was exactly what needed to be done—and sooner rather than later. Once she got back to her own hotel room, she could figure out why it had taken her nearly thirty years to experience the best sex of her life.

With a ridiculously sexy stranger.

In a rural Thailand bar.

To be more accurate, the sex happened in Trey’s room above the bar, repeatedly and with such vigor that her face flushed with each mental replay of the last six hours. Mouths. Hands. Naked, sweaty bodies. He’d worn her out to the point that she’d passed out cold—and woken up feeling way too trapped for comfort.

“Trying to plot the best escape route?” a deep voice rumbled behind Elle’s shoulder, low and husky with the perfect amount of gravel thrown into the mix. Trey With-No-Last-Name drew her deeper into his embrace until her back met his massive wall of a chest. “I heard your breathing change so I know you’re awake. Are you going to answer my question or keep pretending you’re sleeping?”

“No. Yes. I mean…crap.” Elle’s heart climbed higher into her throat. This is what happens when you develop a rebellious streak seventeen years past puberty.

“No, you’re not escaping; yes, to feigning sleep; and crap to answering questions? Is that what you’re saying or am I not following at all?” His mouth brushed against the curve of her neck, conjuring a trail of goose bumps.

Between his spicy musk filling her head and the brush of his morning wood against her left butt cheek, Elle didn’t know what she was saying anymore. It was as if her mouth wasn’t attached to her brain.

Trey skated his wide-palmed hand over her hip and gently guided her onto her back.

Don’t look. Don’t look.

She looked.

Propped up on one forearm and staring down at her, Trey granted her the prime opportunity to ogle every hill and valley of his impressive body. And it was definitely impressive. His chest, broad and covered with just the right amount of hair, couldn’t have been sculpted more perfectly if done by an artist. Covering his right shoulder and arm, a colorful sleeve of tattoos contrasted his bed-rumpled short blonde hair in a sexy, bad-boy-meets-golden-boy combination.

Wicked intent gleamed from the emerald depths of his eyes, and when his attention momentarily dropped to her mouth? Forget it. The man could cause an epidemic of wet panties with a five-second glance. Not even her ex-fiancé had affected her on such a primal level. Of course, James Worth didn’t do a lot of things, including travel anywhere that didn’t have a five-star hotel with a masseuse on speed dial. That, along with an arm’s length of other reasons, was why they never would’ve worked.

“Look…Trey.” Elle winced at the movie-script cliché about to come out of her mouth. “Last night was nice. Really, it was, but—”

“Nice?” Trey’s lips twitched with a forming grin. “Damn. You really know how to inflate a man’s ego, don’t you?”

“Somehow I don’t think you need help in that department.”

He traced the ridge of her collarbone. “Maybe not, but last night was a hell of a lot more than nice. It was fan-fucking-tastic.”

Well, that was a different way to say incredible. And he was right. It was a lot more. She supposed if a woman was going to have sex with a stranger, it should at least be memorable, and Trey definitely ensured that. But in the light of a new day, she needed to get back to her regularly scheduled life—or as much of it as she was willing to resurrect.

“Look, I get it,” he said first, stopping her upcoming platitude by palming her cheek. “When I came to Thailand, I sure as fuck didn’t expect to meet—much less take to bed—a gorgeous blonde, but I did, and it was—”

“Fan-fucking-tastic?” Elle repeated his earlier sentiment.

His intense green eyes flashed. “Exactly. So why do I get the feeling that you’re itching to make a break for the door?”

Because she was.

Ever since she’d wiped her hands of the nonsense back home—specifically, with James and her father—she’d vowed not to get invested in any one man or relationship. That meant no planning romantic futures. No dating. And no falling asleep after fan-fucking-tastic sex—except she’d already broken that rule, and the consequence was literally staring her in the face.

Elle gripped the starchy bedsheet to her chest like a flotation device and slid out of the bed. “I’ve got to go.”

Trey’s blonde eyebrows shot up. “Wait. Seriously?”

“Seriously. I have a best friend to assure that I’m not lying dead in a ditch somewhere and a plane to catch.” She expertly avoided direct eye contact with the man, who was watching her every move as she tucked a found shoe beneath her arm. “I’m sure you know how this kind of thing goes.”

“Yeah, I do,” Trey agreed in a slow drawl, “but I never thought I’d be the recipient of the morning dodge.”

“I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

Trey slowly rose from the bed, as naked and proud as when they’d fallen into it hours ago. The man really was gorgeous from top to bottom. Elle’s gaze strolled lazily up from his muscled legs and over his perfectly chiseled abs. Before him, she’d lumped men with countable abs right up there with flying purple unicorns.

Trey caught her admiring glance. His mouth slid into a naughty grin as he reached for his pants and pulled them on—sans boxers. “I’m sure it happens to some guys, but not to me.”

Elle rolled her eyes despite the fact that it was probably true, and resumed her clothing search. “I’ll consider it an honor to be your first because as soon as I find my panties, I’m going to be on my way.”

“You mean these?” Her polka-dot bikini briefs hung from the end of his finger.

“Yes, those.” She grabbed the dangling panties, but before she stepped back, his tattooed arm slinked around her waist and brought her flush against his sweat-dampened body.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, her voice going breathy. Dammit…why did this man make her feel like she was walking a high-wire? “Seriously, Trey. I need to get out of here.”

“Why?”

His question took her by surprise. Following her breakup with James, Elle had had exactly two brief flings—one during a crazy, best-friend-sponsored beach vacation nearly immediately post-breakup; the other a temporary benefits arrangement with one of the clinic doctors. They had enjoyed each other’s company and then parted ways. No sleeping. No cuddling. No overdrawn conversations. And neither of them had ever asked why.

“Why what?” she asked carefully.

“Why are you running out of here like the building’s on fire?” Trey clarified.

“Why is knowing so important to you? Or are you just upset that I beat you to the punch?”

Trey’s mouth tightened into a thin line. Sore spot touched. “Yeah, I’ve had sex. A lot it. And I’m not going to deny that I’ve participated in my fair share of morning dodges. Actually, it used to be pretty fucking routine.”

“You don’t need to explain anything to me. Honest.”

“I really think I do—because I’m trying to tell you that I haven’t been that man for a while now. I’m fucking routine-less.”

Elle gave his chest a reassuring pat and prayed her forced smile didn’t broadcast the nerves flipping her stomach upside down. “It’s sweet of you to try to paint what happened here as something more than it was, but I came upstairs with you without any kind of expectations.”

“Then I guess that makes one of us.”

His stern tone took Elle by surprise. Most men would’ve sunk to their knees in relieved gratitude that their latest one-night stand wasn’t going to turn into a clingy stalker, but Trey almost looked…pissed.

She shimmied from his hold and nearly tripped over her feet in a world-record rush to collect the rest of her belongings. Then, finally dressed and more than ready to get back to reality, she turned and nearly came nose-to-chest with Trey.

“Jesus. What are you, a freaking ninja?” Elle asked, startled.

He’d gotten closer without her realizing, his laser-beam stare drilling into her from inches away. When he took a step closer, she reflexively took one back, and they repeated the dance until her back hit the wall.

Her heart pounded in her chest, but not in fear. Even after only twelve hours together, she knew he wouldn’t hurt her. He leaned into her space until his muscled arms caged her in. Heat radiated off him in waves, and her body soaked it up, wanting to fall back into bed with him in the worst way. That intensity was what had drawn her to him in the first place; ironically, it was also what fueled her need to escape.

Trey brushed his lips down the curve of her neck as he spoke, the sensation making her work to fight off a whimper. “If your plan is to walk away and not look back, why not stick around and enjoy it a little longer?”

Because of her sanity. After hours in his company, she didn’t know the difference between left and right, and probably wouldn’t even if she held both hands out in front of her to look for the magic “L.”

“Because I really do have a plane to catch.” She plied him with the half-truth.

Her first six-month assignment as head nurse for the medical relief outfit Caring Hands had come to an end, and it was time to figure out what came next. Most likely it would be another community in need, but until the orders came across her desk, it was girl-time with her best friend.

“Elle.” Trey’s soft murmur was interrupted by the inward burst of the room’s lone window.

Shards of glass and wood chunks rained down on their heads. Shouts echoed from the busy street outside. More things crashed. And then a Mack truck knocked Elle to the ground.

Breathless and dazed, it took a second to realize the Mack truck was Trey’s half-naked body…and to recognize the rolling tap-taps coming from the busy street below.

“Is that—” she started to ask.

“Gunfire,” Trey grumbled. “Stay here.”

He returned to his feet, moving with a speed that shouldn’t have been possible for a man his size. Back against the wall, he skirted the room’s perimeter until he neared the broken window.

Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head. “What the hell are you doing? Are you freaking crazy? Stay down!”

“You stay down, Elle. I mean it. Don’t fucking move.” He looked out to the street and cursed under his breath before producing a cell phone from his pants pocket. After one press of a button, he was talking to someone on the other end, but thanks to a new series of gunshots, only every fourth word or so reached her ears. When he finished the call, she was just climbing to her feet.

He picked up her dropped purse and tucked it back into her arms. “We’re going to get you out of here. Do you have your passport with you or is it back at your hotel?”

“It’s with me, but—”

“Good. Then we’ll get you on the next bus out of town.”

Leaving sounded better by the minute, but Elle didn’t take directives well, probably because she’d lived her whole life being subjected to them. “I don’t know how you were raised, but I’m not leaving my best friend to deal with whatever’s happening out there by herself. Besides, who died and made you my travel agent?”

Agitation flashed in his green eyes. This time when her back hit the wall, she wasn’t so sure what he’d do.

The rigid angle of his jaw flexed with tension. “I appointed myself your travel agent when trigger-happy yahoos drove into town and started shooting the place up. Are you seriously going to fight me on this, sweetness?”

“Are you seriously going caveman on me, sweetness?”

“If that’s what it’s going to take to make sure you’re safe, then yes. I’ll pull my club out of the fucking closet and throw your sweet ass over my shoulder—whatever it takes.”

The door to the room burst open, nearly cracking in half. Trey was in front of her in an instant, blocking her from the giant man standing in the doorway. Head-shaven and mountainous with tattoos decorating both arms, he looked mean, lethal—and armed.

Only when the stranger registered Trey’s presence did he lower his gun, and just barely. “What the fuck, man? You in here napping while shit’s going down?”

“What exactly is going down?” Trey asked.

“Hell if I know.” The two men’s familiar banter did little to comfort Elle when Trey’s friend slipped his attention her way. He scanned her from head to toe and back, taking in her very bed-rumbled appearance, and gave the barest of head-shakes. “It’s a fucking epidemic.”

“Shut it, Vince,” Trey growled. He shifted his stance, the move showcasing the gun clenched in his hand.

Well, crap.

While both men were distracted, she shimmied past the walking mountain. “I’ve obviously stumbled into something here, and you two look like you need time alone to talk, so I’m going to make myself scarce.”

“Elle, wait,” Trey barked.

“Thanks for everything. It was fun.”

“Elle!” Something thudded to the floor, making Trey curse, “Damn it, stop!”

“Bye!”

“Stop!”

No way in hell was she stopping. She moved faster, flying down the stairs as if wings were attached to the heels of her sneakers. Hitting the deserted bar below, she navigated her way through the empty tables and out the back door. The echoing gunshots sounded farther away than they had a few minutes ago, but she stayed watchful as she hustled down the street toward the marketplace.

No one seemed concerned about the happenings a few blocks down. Crowds converged on busy vendors, some people stopping to haggle over the price of produce and handmade jewelry while others briskly walked as if on a special mission. Elle politely slipped away from an overzealous man attempting to unload his recently caught octopus, and wove through the throng of people toward the first empty alley—except it wasn’t really empty.

Her gaze landed on the wide-eyed, frightened face of the old Thai merchant first—and then she saw the gun pointed mere inches from his head. Elle skidded to a stop. Her foot smacked into a discarded tin can and the gun-owner snapped to attention. His sharp blue eyes immediately locked in on her, giving her her first glimpse at the puckered scar bisecting his left brow and cheek.

“Elle! You need to wait!” Trey’s voice shouted from down the street.

She glanced over her shoulder to see Trey and his friend winding their oversized bodies through the crowd of shoppers—run up toward her. Alley Man or Trey. Neither option gave her the warm fuzzies, but she’d pick a one-night stand reunion over an armed gunman any day.

“Don’t you fucking move,” Alley Man growled as if sensing her decision.

He swung his gun in her direction just as a local driving a bicycle cart pedaled in front of her. Elle didn’t need an engraved invitation to move her rear end. She turned and half-ran, half-walked back through the market and toward the other side of the village.

Ten minutes and limp-noodle legs later, she finally slipped into her hotel room—with no Alley Man and no Trey on her heels.

Shay stepped out from the small corner kitchenette, relief written all over her face. “There you are! I was about five minutes away from calling the Thai police! You were supposed to text me every hour so I knew that Hunkalicious didn’t throw you into a trunk or somehow convince you to be his drug mule.”

Shay braced her hands on her ample hips and waited for a response that Elle couldn’t seem to conjure. Since college, Shay Whitney had been single-handedly responsible for every drunken, free-spirited decision Elle had ever made—except she hadn’t been drunk last night. Hell, she’d barely finished her single beer before brazenly propositioning Trey back at the bar.

Misreading Elle’s silence, Shay’s full lips broke into a sly grin. “Please tell me you can’t talk because your throat’s raw from some astronomical number of orgasms. And even if that isn’t the case, lie to me and tell me it is.”

It wouldn’t be a lie. Elle had definitely lost count. But instead of rehashing the evening with her friend as she would normally do, she shook her head. “Sorry. I should’ve just come back here with you.”

Shay’s shoulders slumped, her face crestfallen. “Well, damn. He had that look, you know? I guess just because a man has hands the size of dinner plates doesn’t mean he knows how to use them for the good of womankind.”

“Definitely,” Elle agreed, knowing that Trey could no way be lumped into a group with the sexually clueless. Not only had he thrown her off guard, but he’d been the only man who’d ever made her lose her orgasm count.

And she didn’t understand why her first instinct was to keep that information to herself.

Chapter Two

Trigger-happy kids with toy guns. That was the reason the locals gave for the chaos two hours ago that had left an entire neighborhood in a blind panic. Trey Hanson, former Delta and current Alpha operative, knew it for the unlikely story it was.

Toy guns didn’t shake the ground or break glass windows, and they sure as fuck didn’t peg bullet holes into brick-and-mortar buildings. As quick as the chaos had erupted, it disappeared, leaving no trail to the responsible party—or to a petite blonde who’d been in his bed minutes before the hail and brimstone broke out around them.

He and Vince had scoured the area for Elle for close to an hour before lighting up the bat signal that brought the rest of the team. Then they’d combined their efforts and searched for another goddamned hour with nothing to show for it.

No trail. No Elle. And no clue how he’d been given the slip by one lone woman.

A civilian.

A nurse.

And according to the file open in front of him, the woman he and his team had been sent to Thailand to protect.

Trey stared down at the photograph in his hand, barely suppressing a long list of expletives that would’ve had his mother reaching for Paddington the Paddle. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and stared down at the image again. Nope. Didn’t fucking change.

Despite the double-stranded pearls and sophisticated updo, the woman peering up at him from the eight-by-ten glossy photo was most definitely the one whose ass he’d watched run away from him a short time ago. The only difference was that the woman in the picture looked like she belonged on the red carpet while his Elle wore cotton from head to toe and pulled her hair into one of those sexily messy ponytails he loved sinking his fingers into.

Two different images, the same damn woman.

Elle Monroe—the daughter of the man who hired them.

His boss, Sean Stone, didn’t have a formal rule about mixing business and pleasure, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t an unspoken one. And then Trey had his own. Blurring the fucking boundaries was a shit-storm waiting to swallow you whole and spit you back out onto a dung heap. He didn’t do it—except that he had last night. And this morning. Hell, he wished he was upstairs still doing it.

Trey transferred his scowl toward the head-shaven former SEAL who’d given Elle a mode of escape.

Vince Franklin’s mouth twitched, the small move practically an earsplitting smile for the Man of Brood. “Don’t look at me like I killed your fucking poodle, man.”

“How the hell do you want me to look at you?” Trey demanded.

“Like I was the only one who came to check on your sorry ass.”

Trey tossed Elle’s photo back onto the personnel file and grunted. “Why the hell are we only getting the assignment details now, when we’ve been in this godforsaken town for three damn days?”

Vince shrugged. “You want to tear someone a new asshole, start clawing away at Ortega’s. Rafe was the one who sent us down here before the ink was even dry on the assignment papers.”

“I already did, and he claimed the operation was time sensitive. They couldn’t chance us being in travel-limbo. They needed our boots firmly on the ground.”

“Then there you go. Besides, it’s not like anyone could’ve expected your gut instincts seeking out our care package before we even got the full details—and by ‘gut instincts,’ I mean your dick.”

Trey’s displeased snort made both Vince and Logan, Alpha’s resident sniper and all-around good ol’ Southern boy, chuckle. Assholes, the both of them. Charlie Sparks, the fourth man—er, woman—on their operational team sat tucked between them, her nose buried in her laptop as she attempted to find the whereabouts of Elle Monroe. Without warning, she took both hands off the keyboard and biffed Vince and Logan on the back of their heads.

 “What the hell was that for, English?” Rubbing his head, Vince shot her a glare.

“For making fun of Trey while he’s obviously having a bloody moment. It’s not his fault that the male species have two brains, and it’s the smaller one that usually wins out. It’s like embedded genetic code.”

“I’m not having a moment,” Trey grumbled in his own defense. “And I take offense to you implying that I make decisions with my dick.”

Charlie smirked. “I never said anything about your goods, Hanson.”

No, but it had been implied. And once upon a time, he did let his dick lead him around like he was a show-pony in a parade. Hell, it had been fun—in his twenties. Now, at thirty-four, going home alone—or with a different woman each weekend—had lost its appeal. And seeing his best friend and pseudo-sister’s happiness confirmed what he’d already started realizing himself—that he wanted what Rafe and Penny had.

He wanted lazy mornings in bed—with the same woman. He wanted secret smiles and shared jokes. He wanted someone in his life that he’d lay down his life for—besides his family and the bastards he called brothers.

Maybe that made him the caveman Elle had called him; he wasn’t sure. What he did know was that the second he and Elle had locked gazes, he’d experienced that protective tug in his gut that had him searching behind her sultry smile and come-hither stare. His need to get her into his bed had come later, albeit not by much.

And now, not only was he not buried balls-deep inside her sweet little body, but he sure as hell wasn’t protecting her either. She was roaming Thailand without any fucking protective detail…because of him.

“Where the fuck would she have gone?” Trey had no one to blame but himself, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t be pissed about it.

Logan covered a chuckle with a cough. “You know what would make finding her easier? If you’d taken the time to ask where she’s staying.”

“That didn’t really come up in conversation.”

Charlie cocked up a single blonde eyebrow and paused in her typing to shoot him a glare. “You’re bloody lucky you’re sitting across the table right now or you’d be getting clobbered in the head too.”

Trey didn’t doubt it. The British analyst held her own in their all-male outfit, showing them every day that she was a lot more than a smart brain, pink-tinged hair, and a few half-hidden tattoos. Though not a full-fledged operative yet, it was only a matter of time before she wore Stone . . .