A Burning Obsession Read online

  “Don’t scream or—“

  Jason sprawled on top of Kimberly on the queen-size bed, enjoying the feel of warm female curves pressed against him as she struggled.

  “Or what?” she demanded. “You’ll clamp your hand over my mouth again?”

  He grinned and nestled between her thighs. “If you don’t like my hand, maybe I could kiss you instead.”

  “Oh, please.” She twisted her strong yet sensual body. Her hips were narrow, her waist slender and her lovely breasts revealed tight nipples that suggested she wasn’t objecting that much. In fact, she seemed very aroused. As was he.

  They were in a hotel room, on a bed. He could have her undressed in five seconds and then he could nibble a sleek path down her neck. Feast on those pert nipples. Savor that lush… No, he shouldn’t.

  “Stop thrashing around.” Jason sighed. “We need to talk.”

  She panted and began to move beneath him again.

  “Let me go. There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “If you don’t want to talk, can I assume all your thrashing around is simply foreplay?”

  Dear Reader,

  After writing Quinn and Maggie’s story, Bordering on Obsession, I had to give Maggie’s best friend, Kimberly, her own book. Production assistant Kimberly Covington is the kind of woman so many of us are: hardworking, practical and longing for wild, lusty sex with just the right guy. So I sent Jason Parker to her, a dangerous man with his own agenda.

  A Burning Obsession is part of my HEROES, INC. cross-line Harlequin Intrigue/Blaze series of ex-military men who take on classified missions. While each story can stand alone, I hope you’ll look for them all. Next month another HEROES, INC. story, “Touch Me,” will be part of a special paranormal anthology titled Essence of Midnight that I’m writing with Julie Kenner and Julie Elizabeth Leto. And then watch for more HEROES, INC. Intrigue novels in November and December.

  I always enjoy hearing from readers—you can find me on the Internet at SusanKearney.com.

  Best,

  Susan Kearney

  Books by Susan Kearney

  HARLEQUIN BLAZE

  25—ENSLAVED

  50—DOUBLE THE THRILL

  96—BORDERING ON OBSESSION

  A BURNING OBSESSION

  Susan Kearney

  For Brenda Chin and Melissa Jeglinski—thank you both for all the help.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  1

  “WHY IS she taking off her clothes?”

  Jason Parker peered through the monitor focused on the interior of the public bathroom. The security cameras allowed him to see into the restroom but not beyond the closed stall door.

  Kimberly Hayward had just tossed over the door the skin-tight top she’d been wearing, creating an unabashed hunger in Jason to see more of her than her delectable calves and her sensuous feet. If Jason hadn’t known better, he might have suspected Kimberly was taunting him, teasing him. Distracting him from his job.

  But she couldn’t possibly know he was watching. She couldn’t know he was on an undercover mission for the Shey Group and that the U.S. government had tagged her for surveillance. Due to the government’s priority on stopping terrorism, her case didn’t warrant a high enough priority for the authorities to assign an official agent to watch her, so the Shey Group’s boss, Logan Kincaid, had pegged Jason for this mission. Only, Jason hadn’t expected the task of watching Kimberly Hayward to be so arousing. He shifted in his seat.

  For the past week, Kimberly’s flirty eyes, her sassy smile and her look-at-me stride had been driving him crazy. Tonight would probably require another cold shower if he intended to get a lick of sleep.

  Not for the first time this week, Jason cursed Logan Kincaid for “volunteering” him for this particular mission—which up until now had required the rudimentary skills of a Peeping Tom. As much as Jason preferred fantasizing about Kimberly’s slender body to wondering about her motives, he couldn’t help speculating about her peculiar behavior. Why wasn’t she strutting down the stacks of library books in search of a good read during their stopover in Cornwall, or using the computer to e-mail back home to the States like every other tourist? He’d like nothing better than to report back to Kincaid that there was nothing unusual in Kimberly’s behavior.

  But no, she had to slip into the British library and remove her clothes in the lavatory. And her hidden striptease was beating his pulse up another notch.

  The library security guard stepped into the office, frowned at the screen and spoke in his crisp English accent. “We don’t allow for that sort of behavior in the loo, sir. If she’s on holiday and meeting—”

  “She isn’t.” Kimberly had come to Great Britain alone, a trait Jason found both courageous and appealing. In his experience women tended to travel in twos, either pairing up with a man or going to clubs and parties with a girlfriend. That Kimberly was visiting England alone told him she was comfortable in her own skin, quite lovely skin with her smooth southern California tan and… You’re here on business. Get a grip. Besides, he hadn’t seen her talking with anyone beyond her tour guide or fellow travelers. He doubted she was about to do something deliciously illicit in the library’s lavatory.

  The guard frowned. “I’ll have her removed from the premises.”

  “Not yet. Maybe she’s just changing into another outfit.”

  At her suspicious antics, Jason’s thoughts had shifted from idle to overdrive in two seconds flat. During the past week, he’d watched Kimberly Hayward drink tea in a shimmering dress slit so high above her knee she could have been arrested. He’d watched her toned butt fill out clingy short shorts as she took the steps two at a time at the Tower of London. And he’d seen her sunning on Brighton beach in a mouthwatering bikini. Always fresh-faced and sparkly-eyed, she had an innocent look that a man of Jason’s sophisticated tastes rarely saw.

  After a week of secretly watching her and waiting for her to make a suspicious move, he’d come to appreciate her slanted green eyes, the angle of her jaw when her curiosity was aroused, and the pursing of her mouth every time she stopped to take a picture. She had kiss-me lips and a cute little nose, but it was her eyes that fascinated him. Irresistible sloping emerald irises that had pitched him a curve ball.

  Oh, yeah. He wanted her.

  And he didn’t know why. His tastes usually inclined toward voluptuous, big-haired women who wore tight clothes, too much makeup and too much jewelry. Women who expected nothing more from him than a good time. Jason liked experienced women, and until this week he hadn’t believed that a fresh-faced, starry-eyed, just-out-of-college girl could heat his interest. But heat it she had—to a boil.

  Kimberly flung her skirt over the top of the stall door.

  “Look at that, mate.” The security guard nodded enthusiastically despite his former utterance of disapproval.

  When Jason noted the seam of his jeans pressing into his crotch, he swore. The blond, dewy-eyed California coed was getting to him. Did she wear a thong or white cotton panties? Was her bra a sexy V-cut, satin or lace? Jason’s frustration rose along with his erection. He gritted his teeth and shifted his weight again.

  Until now, Kimberly had seemed a regular American tourist on a European tour. She hadn’t acted suspiciously—at least not since last week when U.S. Customs had caught her going through security with rocks hidden in a padded bra. A dry run, the a
uthorities theorized—in preparation for smuggling. Jason hadn’t believed the report. In fact, he thought this entire mission a joke—until now.

  When Kimberly draped a sheer white bra over the stall, he swore again and zoomed in on the garment. Small, lacy, feminine. No room for hidden rocks in that scrap of mesh. That a jewel thief of his caliber had been reduced to examining a woman’s lingerie didn’t sit well with Jason. But a commitment was a commitment. He might be a thief, but he was a man of his word.

  Jason had promised Logan Kincaid that he would repay a big favor, one large enough to keep Jason out of a jail cell. Otherwise, he never would have been here in the first place. So instead of drinking champagne on the French Riviera and hobnobbing with the rich and powerful while he secretly relieved wealthy women of their jewelry, Jason Parker was ogling the wise-eyed American tourist with the golden tan.

  That she was standing behind a stall door in just her panties intrigued Jason enough to shove aside his annoyance at his assignment. Besides looking good enough to eat for breakfast, this striptease was the first interesting thing Kimberly had done all week—if he didn’t count her spilling tea on an earl during a visit to Dumbroke Palace. She was an inquisitive thing, too, asking her tour guide so many questions that Jason’s head spun.

  Two minutes passed and Kimberly pulled the clothes back into the stall. Then she opened the door and exited, fully dressed.

  “Oh, she’s good.” Jason muttered.

  If he hadn’t been a trained observer, if the head of the Shey Group hadn’t insisted that the U.S. government considered Kimberly Hayward dangerous, Jason would never have recognized that the sexy blond woman on a vacation tour had ditched the hottie sandals, flirty skirt and spaghetti-strapped midriff-revealing top for a navy business suit with button-down white blouse, horn-rimmed glasses, a brown wig and what he suspected was a padded bra because her chest size had expanded. She stopped in front of the mirror, wiped her pink lipstick from her mouth and straightened her wig, then with brisk steps that bespoke a woman on a quest, she strode out of the restroom.

  Goodbye, carefree tourist. Hello, Madam Serious. With the boldly angled chin and the squared-to-do-battle shoulders of a somber scholar, she’d changed her entire persona. She wasn’t just good, she was amazing.

  While these clothes weren’t as revealing as the ones she’d worn all week, she still projected an unattainable attitude that glued Jason’s gaze to the monitor. In stockings her legs looked as they said in the U.K., smashing, and the conservative jacket showed off her nipped-in waist to perfection.

  However, Jason’s other instincts had just kicked in, too. Suspicious instincts. Until this moment, he hadn’t believed that Kimberly Hayward could possibly be the devious spy her government suspected her to be.

  But just when he’d concluded that the mission the Shey Group had sent him on was a wild-goose chase meant to torture his libido, his spying was paying off.

  Could the sweet-faced girl with the slender body have been fooling him all week? Jason found the unexpected change in her not only unusually fascinating, but compelling. She might even have a talent that paralleled his own light-fingered touch.

  And he’d bet the hefty commission that Kincaid insisted on paying him, that Kimberly Hayward was about to get herself invited into the restricted area of the Cornwall library. But why the disguise? What was her goal?

  For once, Jason wished he’d paid attention to all of those annoying questions she’d peppered their guide with. Unless it came to jewelry, he didn’t care much about history. However, even he knew that this library housed the Book of Celts, a valuable British treasure passed down from the time of the Roman invasion of the British Isles and kept under lock and key, only studied by scholars with the highest of credentials.

  On a series of monitors, Jason followed her progress down the hallway. Her flirty walk had disappeared. She now strode in businesslike fashion right past several travelers in her tour group, who never gave her a second glance. Even the man in the baggy surfer shorts named Alex Taylor, who’d kept shyly smiling at Kimberly all week—the man she never seemed to notice—hadn’t recognized her in her disguise.

  Reaching into the large leather satchel where she must have stuffed her extra clothes, Kimberly pulled out a business card and handed it to the library attendant. “Good afternoon,” her clear voice, bright and warm as California sunshine, rippled through the microphone. “I’m Dr. Johnson from Stanford University. I have an appointment.”

  For the second time, the library’s security guard, sitting beside Jason, frowned. The guard’s hand went to the phone.

  Jason clamped a hand over the man’s wrist and applied gentle pressure. “Please, allow me to handle this.”

  “But—”

  “If you need permission to follow my lead…” Jason deliberately let his voice trail off. It was rumored that the head of the Shey Group had tentacles that extended from all the way inside the White House and across the Atlantic to the highest members of the British Parliament. When Jason had first entered the library, the suspicious guard had called his superiors for permission to allow the American to use the security system. After several phone calls up the chain of command, the guard’s hostile attitude had done a one-eighty. Jason didn’t know what kind of strings Kincaid had pulled, but the man had clout with a capital C.

  “Dr. Johnson” followed the librarian into a back room. The librarian donned gloves, removed a key from her pocket, inserted it into a lock, then reverently removed a leather-bound book.

  “Is that the Book of Celts?” Jason asked, surprised that the volume was over four inches thick and at least two feet high. Too big to hide in Kimberly’s leather satchel and smuggle out of the library. But then again, she might just be scoping out the locale first before making her move.

  “That’s it, all right. The Book of Celts.”

  Jason’s eyes narrowed at the dim screen that showed floor-to-ceiling wood-and-glass cabinets lined with hundreds of leather volumes. “Can you turn up the lighting?”

  “No, sir. Direct light can damage the pages of these old books.”

  Jason watched Kimberly carry the precious artifact to the farthest table. The librarian left her alone in the quiet room. With Kimberly’s back to the video camera, he couldn’t see what she was doing. But the microphone picked up every sound. The crinkle of pages turning.

  Then the unmistakable sound of paper ripping.

  The security guard cursed.

  Kimberly shoved her hand and a piece of paper under her suit jacket. Jason suspected she’d just ripped a page out of a thousand-year-old book and hidden it under her clothing. She hadn’t intended to steal the entire book—just a page, but the action offended Jason’s sensibilities. Didn’t she realize that she’d just devalued her product by tearing it?

  “Is she crazy?” The security guard beside him breathed heavily and rose to his feet. “We can’t let her leave the library.”

  KIMBERLY HAYWARD hadn’t tripped or dropped the book or set off any alarms. Her plan to recreate in real time the scene she’d written in her script had gone off like clockwork. She couldn’t quite believe it.

  She looked right, left, back over her shoulder, but the room was empty. And with her back to the video monitor, even if someone had been watching, they couldn’t have seen what she’d done.

  Satisfied she’d accomplished her goal, she returned the Book of Celts to the librarian and headed back to the ladies’ restroom to change. The security monitors would view the same woman walking out who had walked in—a necessary deception in the plot she’d concocted. Soon she’d again be dressed in comfortable clothes and back into tourist mode.

  Containing her excitement in a scheme well-executed, she ordered her feet not to skip. She didn’t need to fall on her face and draw attention to herself. The European trip was turning out better than she’d planned.

  She was halfway down the dimly lit hallway when a man’s arm stretched out from a darkened nook. Strong fin
gers grabbed her upper arm and yanked her against his chest. A very hard, very forbidding chest.

  He clamped a hand over her lips, turning her gasp into a terrified squeal. Frantic, she dropped her satchel, then realized she should have at least tried to hit him with it. Instead, she brought up her knee, aiming for his groin.

  “Hey, careful. You could hurt me.” Her attacker twisted, and her blow glanced harmlessly off a muscular thigh.

  Damn.

  He’d spoken with an American accent, and she forced her head up to look at his face. He had black, short hair, dark blue eyes, the brows arched almost in amusement. His jaw was wide, neatly shaved and his lips were full and mocking. And he wore an immaculate gray suit, white shirt and tie, not the usual uniform of a criminal, but then again, he was holding her so tightly, he was cutting off the circulation to her brain.

  She couldn’t think clearly but that didn’t deter her. She raised her fists to strike his throat, and he grabbed both her wrists in one hand and pinned her up against him. Then he swiveled, trapping her between his body and the wall and covered her mouth with his hand.

  “I won’t hurt you.”

  Yeah, right.

  “If I let go of your mouth, will you promise not to scream?” His voice was cool and controlled, almost polite, but the sound hissed through her like a hot knife.

  If he hadn’t been holding her up, her watery knees might have given way. Not just because of the fear shooting through her, but because she was thinking the man with Mel Gibson eyes should make his living as a soap star instead of assaulting women in libraries. Kimberly’s work as an assistant producer at Simitar Studios brought her into close contact with many celebrities. Good looks didn’t bowl her over. But she didn’t expect to meet an American in England with such rugged handsomeness and the body of an action hero…who the hell was he?