Never Mine: A Base Branch Novella (Titan World) Read online

  Callum kissed with his entire body. His hand caressed. Hips undulated. His body cocooned her. But Jillian didn’t give herself permission to engage. Her fingers robbed her of the decision, curling around the collar of his shirt and holding on for dear life.

  “Jesus, Jilly.”

  Her nickname groaned between their melded lips jerked her from the depths of desire and exposed her to the harsh sunlight. Callum wasn't hers to covet, much less kiss. She turned her head in time to see the door swing wide and Roman Hart push through with his pistol trained on Callum.

  “No.” Jillian twisted and placed herself between Roman and Callum. Just as quickly, she was whirled around and shielded by a back twice as wide as her hips. “He’s Base Branch Operative Callum Bradfield.” She lunged from behind him.

  “Sweetheart, that’s reason enough to shoot him.” Roman winked and holstered his sidearm.

  “Damn it, Jillian.” Callum turned on her. “If you ever throw yourself in front of me, I’m going to—”

  “What? Spank me and put me in the corner?” She snarled at him like the confused and feral creature she was, like the creature he created. Before him, before the dreams, he’d been just her friend and her best friend’s hot husband, and she’d been sane.

  “Tempting.” His whisper coiled around her spine and spiraled her thoughts in too many devious directions.

  “All right, you two break it up.” Roman stopped near the beveled entryway mirror and pointed at Jillian. “You, clean up and be ready for briefing in forty.” His finger swung to Callum. “And you, asshole. Jared’s been looking for you for almost as long.”

  “Exaggerate much? I’ve been gone for ten minutes, and I told him what he needed,” Callum explained.

  “He wants you close while Parker works through it. Find him where you lost him. I’m going to shower off the desert. If I have to track you down again, I’ll shoot.” Roman’s brown eyes matched his dirt-caked face perfectly and narrowed in warning before he turned and walked out, leaving the door open wide.

  Callum drew a breath to speak, but she held up a hand. A very dirty hand.

  “Go. I’ll be in the war room in thirty.”

  His jaw waggled.

  “Sure you won’t run away again?”

  “I didn’t run away.”

  “Yeah, you did, but I’m a good tracker.” He touched the tip of her nose, turned, and left, closing the door behind him.

  6

  One by one, in small groups, operatives filed into the war room and took their seats around a large conference table. Each time the door opened, Callum’s newfound anxiety scaled higher. Sure, his briefs bunched, waiting to see if Jillian would show. Even more than that, the number of warriors piled into one room unnerved him.

  “What’s going on?” Callum asked the boss man.

  Jared Westin stood over Parker Black’s shoulder and snarled like a rabid dog, but the computer whiz seemed impervious to it. Neither his fingers nor his eyes deviated from his task—track down the source of the original breach.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Westin barked.

  “I don’t know much about Titan, but I know it’s a privately held company. I know you don’t have hundreds of teams like Branch. The UN backs Base Branch, which means several hundred countries. Most of your guys are in this room, which means something big is going down. Normally, I wouldn’t care about it, but you have Jillian square in the middle of this shit.” He crossed his arms and gave as good as he got.

  “First off.” Westin reached his full height. Callum had him by several inches, but he would never look down on a man with such grit and hard-earned legend behind his name. “I don’t have her here. She’s a grown-ass woman, who came on her own skill and accord. Second, I like you. You’re perceptive and well trained. Third, this is bigger than you and Jillian, and even your dead wife.”

  Instead of getting angry—which he could easily do—Callum focused on the message Westin smacked in his face. Without a single detail, he told him exactly what was at stake here. Everything.

  The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

  “The lady of the hour,” someone said behind him.

  Callum turned and watched Jillian rush to a seat nearest the door, farthest from him. She plopped her lush ass into the chair so quickly he couldn’t fully appreciate the way her knee-high black boots, maroon pants, sheer white blouse, and mini leather jacket hugged all her angles. A damn shame.

  “Your magic hands ready for the job?” A guy he knew as Ryder waggled blond brows.

  He stood so closely to the Aussie, he could probably snap his neck before anyone tried to stop him.

  “One more hour.” Jillian stared at her fingertips, fingertips that toyed with treachery every day.

  “I found it.” Parker Black’s deep blue eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “It was cloaked on my end, which is why I never saw it to begin with. Jesus Christ. Someone cracked the door long before Bradfield.”

  “He was just too proud to realize he’d gotten luckier than the most elite hackers in the world and dumb enough to waltz right in,” Roman quipped.

  “Thank fuck.” Parker pointed an accusing finger at the screen. “Otherwise, I’d have never known it was there. This thing is beautiful and terrifying in its simplicity, mirroring its surroundings without revealing its presence.”

  “Who put it there and when?” Jared pinched the back of his neck in a crushing grip.

  “It’s going to take time, but I can follow the crumbs,” Parker answered.

  “We don’t have time.” Jared glared at his watch. “We have fifty-five more minutes until…” He slid his gaze to Callum. Jared scissored his jaw for half a second, and then continued, “…until Cooper can dismantle the warhead.”

  Holy shit. They were sitting on a nuke. He’d heard one had been stolen out of a Russian facility. He’d thought it was better off out of Putin’s hands. Callum should have known better. Anyone dumb enough to steal from a Russian was worse.

  “I want eyes on it now,” Jared ordered.

  “But sir, if we raise the temperature—” Jillian shot forward in her chair.

  “If it’s not there, you can’t disarm it at all.” Jared pointed around the room. “Titan, make sure it’s there and that it stays there until Cooper can dismantle it. Delta, hit the lobby and bar and get a read on the hotel. Anything that looks suspect, you have my permission to get to the bottom of it.”

  “I can help.” Callum spoke only for Jared’s ears.

  “You can hinder too,” Jared shot back.

  “I won’t. I have girls to get home to,” he explained.

  “And another one to take with you when you leave?” The boss man shrugged innocently.

  “She’s a grown-ass woman.” Callum gruffed. “I suppose it’ll be up to her.”

  “Titan, make room for Bradfield. Unattached Delta, don’t make goo-goo eyes at Cooper or Bradfield will try his damnedest to pop them out of your skulls.”

  Jillian—the hard-ass who never blushed—turned the shade of an Atlantic sunrise.

  “Bloody hell, all the hot ones are claimed.” Ryder shoved through the door.

  “Let’s move.” Winters swept the room with his arm and followed Delta.

  Jilly’s blush turned into a scowl he knew he’d pay for later. He just stared back at the woman he’d known only two months shorter than he’d known his wife, almost as deeply but never as intimately. He’d always known she was beautiful. Why had he never noticed how his pulse raced when he looked at her?

  Because he hadn’t let himself. He’d been faithful to Amery until death parted them.

  He beat feet behind the others down the corridor to a private elevator. Delta continued through a set of double doors toward their temporary quarters. No one spoke on the elevator as thoughts of security breaches and big kabooms quieted their minds. At least, they did his until he slid a glance to Jillian. She stole her gaze away and stared at the numbers blipping past on the readou
t above the doors.

  They opened on B2. Callum bet no one else had access to or even knew a second level of the basement existed. Titan and Jillian rushed out of the elevator and down a brightly lit hallway. Callum took his time, scanning the perimeter for security sensors and cameras. The place was rigged better than the exterior of most bank vaults. No way could anyone steal anything from here without setting off alarms, causing lockdowns, and probably being scanned for facial recognition and biometric data.

  When he reached the group—each person input a series of numbers into a keypad and then scanned their retinas for entry into the vault—he had no doubt the warhead would be chillin’ where they left it. Jillian rocked back and forth on her feet, none too patiently awaiting her turn. She must have mistyped the numbers the first time because she cussed, shook out her right hand, and then pounded the keypad once more. After she thrust her face at the scanner, the red light above turned green.

  A great whoosh that sounded like a spaceship airlock releasing created a funnel. It screamed past them into the crack between the large receding metal doors until the gap grew to more than an inch. The noise quieted to a low rumble of the cooling pump’s engine.

  Reacting to the heat rolling in from the corridor, a dense fog rose in curled clouds and spilled through the doors. The moment they were wide enough, Jillian slipped through. Winters tried to follow, but the width of the opening wouldn’t allow him through. He and the others jockeyed and pranced for their go at the door. Finally, it opened adequately, and they piled into the room.

  Callum had never seen men so eager to cram into a room with a nuke. He checked his package, nodded, and joined them…in the empty room.

  Jillian’s hands braced her forehead as though her brains might pop out the front of her skull. She stared blankly at the open space where the warhead should be.

  Each true-blue member of Titan blinked at the space, but slowly, one by one, their narrowed gazes lifted to Jillian.

  “No.” Callum strode forward two steps and turned on the team.

  “Callum, what are…” She pulled around his arm to glare at him, but the silently accusing team caught her attention. Her breath caught. The realization that suspicion fell on her played fifty emotions across her face until resolve straightened her shoulders. “No.”

  The solid word spoken with such conviction filled him with pride.

  “Goddammit. The only way to prove I didn’t do it is to find out who did.” Jillian’s voice was strong and no-nonsense, but her cheeks flushed red-hot. She was pissed, which ratcheted his own anger.

  “There’s another way.” Callum took a half step in front of her. “I beat the notion out of them.”

  The tension in the vacuum doubled, raising the temperature of the cooler twenty degrees.

  “You could try.” Cash Garrison stepped forward with his fists loose but ready. Roman perked up at Cash’s back.

  “Stop.” Winters held up both hands and walked into the middle of the divide. “There’s an enemy. They stole a nuclear warhead from under our noses, but it’s not any of us.”

  “How can you be so sure? He hacks us, shows up here, and now, the nuke is gone.” Cash snarled at Callum and then swung his gaze to Jillian. “And she deals in bombs. I don’t think she stole it, but who’s to say she didn’t sell it to the highest bidder and use him as a cover.”

  “I say,” Callum whispered the word, which brokered more menace.

  “Look, Jared and Parker, guys who know a hell of a lot more than us vouched for them both.” Winters addressed his team and then eyed him. “Why’d you hack us?”

  Callum didn’t owe them a goddamned explanation. He could dole out a broken bone or two before being taken down by the team, but what would that help?

  “If they know your motivation—” Winters started.

  “I know I crossed a line. I’m sorry for putting your families in jeopardy or perceived jeopardy.” Callum rubbed the knot at the back of his neck. “A part of my family was MIA, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. Priority one was finding out where she was and making sure she was okay.”

  Besides him, Jillian didn’t move or make a sound, but the murderous expressions on the guys’ faces slowly eased to gratuitously violent.

  Winters pointed at him and Jillian. “You two find out who betrayed us. We found the warhead once. We’ll do it again.”

  Everyone filed out of the chiller, leaving him and Jillian literally in the cold.

  “I’m out. Just like that.” Jillian’s face fell. Her gaze hit the floor like a rooftop jumper. Its sadness splattered all over his boots and rattled something loose inside him.

  “It’s not you—”

  “What? It’s not you, it’s me?” She snorted. “I’ve heard that one before.”

  “No, smartass. It’s them. They’re a tight-knit group who’ve been working together for years. You’re the new face. When shit goes down really close to home, you look at the things that stand out, and you do.”

  Callum eased toward her. God, did she stand out. Her sullen eyes that always had so much spark begged him to reignite their fire. Her curves made his palms itch.

  “What the fuck am I supposed to do now, sit and wait?” Jillian’s palms slapped her thighs. The sound shot through him, right to the tip of his cock.

  Until a few weeks ago, he’d never sexualized her, but now that he had, there was no stopping him. Every glance, every snarky comment, every move did crazy things to his body, and sent his mind on a tactical reconnaissance of what-ifs. What if he ran his hand up her muscled thigh? What if he jerked her pants down her legs and spread her legs wide? What if he and Jilly worked together as more than friends?

  “You have a new mission. We have a new mission.” He meant it in more ways than one. “Look at me. Show me you hear exactly what I’m saying, Jillian.”

  Dark eyes that mirrored his own lifted. Callum interlaced his fingers with her right hand. A possessiveness—that had nothing to do with her job, his girls, or devotion to his dead wife’s friend—called to him like the roar of a wild beast to its mate. He lowered his head to hers, not to test the waters or gage her reaction. His lips pressed to hers for the pure awe and delight elicited by the meeting of their two mouths.

  Unlike before, Jillian yielded to the first touch of his lips to hers. She opened and received his tongue. A long sweeping taste told him all he needed to know.

  If she couldn’t get past Amery’s ghost, he was fucking screwed.

  Callum cupped her cheek with his free hand and dove in for seconds. Her tongue tangled with his, hungry and involved. Panted breaths sighed over his lips. Her fingernails bit into his palm. He pulled her closer. The intensity of their exchange revved his long dormant yearning to new life.

  Jilly’s lips tore from his mouth, and Callum blinked the world back into focus.

  “You can’t keep kissing me.” Her words said he really shouldn’t do it, but her quiet moan and swollen pupils centered on his lips contradicted them.

  “Once will never be enough.”

  “It has to be. We can’t do this again.”

  “Why not?” he asked, out of breath enough that embarrassment crept its way up his cheeks. Hell, as sexual experience went, she probably outdid him. Amery hadn’t been his first, but she’d been his second and only for a long time. They’d met as little more than children, ready to serve their country.

  No way would he let inexperience or his dead wife scare him away. There wasn’t a faster learner than Callum Bradfield was, and he was more than ready to learn a trick or two with this fiery woman.

  “It’s not right,” Jillian whispered.

  His hands dropped to her thighs. The hard curved flesh hidden by tight maroon pants fit perfectly in his palms. He lifted her into his arms and backed her to the wall. The heavy ridge of his dick nestled against the junction of her thighs. Her breath caught and jaw slackened.

  “Tell me that doesn’t feel right.” He started a slow push, rolling his hips forwa
rd. His imprisoned cock stroked her clit from tip to root.

  Jillian bit wine-stained lips that matched her pants, as though willing herself not to react. She studied his intricate tattoos as her balled hands hovered over his forearms.

  “Put your hands on me, Jillian. Feel me.”

  Her hands flattened and lowered. The touch connected them and electrified everything. She pulled him close. He obliged, leaning into her, while reversing his hips until their most intimate parts no longer touched. The dull edges of Jillian’s fingernails bit into his arms, and a satisfied rumble purred from his chest. He exhaled against her neck and nipped a line to her earlobe.

  “Do you feel me?” His teeth ran the crest of her jaw to her lips. When she didn’t respond, he stilled completely. “Jillian, do you want me to stop? You can walk away now, and I’ll never put my hands on you again.”

  She gripped his arms so hard the blood stopped flowing. Her inhale shook them both. Callum swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth as he waited and prayed.

  “I should.” The edge of her forehead dropped to the side of his cheek.

  Callum’s chest cracked wide. The soft, pliant skin of Jillian’s lips kissed his cheek. It was a wartime goodbye, an I-may-never-see-you-again-but-you’ll-be-in-my-every-thought farewell lovers shared before being ripped apart.

  Only they never had the chance to be lovers, yet he loved her all the same. He knew it by the pain of his fragile heart being torn from his chest. He’d known it by the blood trail she’d leave as she walked away from what they could have been.

  Jillian laid another heart-wrenching kiss a fraction of an inch closer to his mouth, and then another closer still, until her lips hovered over his.

  “But I can’t.” Her lips bumped into his as she formed the words that salved his open wounds.

  He held still, needing her to make the next move.

  They shared several shaky breaths. Callum looked into her eyes, seeing Jillian for the first time as she was—haunted and yearning and more beautiful than he ever realized. Her lips quivered as the soft, textured skin caught the upper edge of his. She pulled his lip, urging him to open for her. His mouth parted and Jillian toyed with it, dragging hers across, dropping them low, and tugging his lower lip into her wet heat.