Ultimate Engagement Read online

  He nodded. “I like it. We’ll go with that story,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said.

  They stood in silence for a moment longer, watching each other before Adam finally cleared his throat and began speaking.

  “The plane leaves in about five hours. Thought we should start heading to the airport,” he said.

  Sloan’s brown eyes widened and then she blinked, a small smile playing on her face. “Me too,” she said, nodding at the small suitcase standing in the corner of her living room. “People always tease me for getting to the airport so far in advance.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” Adam said.

  “My take exactly. But you didn’t have to come all this way,” she said, frowning. “I was going to take the train, meet you there.”

  He shook his head curtly. “Nope. We’re supposed to be engaged, and though I doubt there are eyes on us, it’s best to act like we are. From here on out, we are the picture of a happy couple, and that includes arriving at the airport together,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said, “that’s reasonable.”

  “So you ready?” he asked a moment later, digging his hands into his pockets.

  Sloan noticed, and her eyes drifted lower, following the path of his hands, and Adam prayed she’d look up soon, because he doubted the ability of his cargo pants to shield his erection from more than a cursory glance.

  Mercifully, she looked away and then crossed the living room floor, giving Adam a few moments to enjoy the view. Her sweet ass and hips were perfect on her short, curvy frame, and he knew both would fill his hands exactly the way he liked. Her tits would too, smallish but plump, a treat Adam knew he would enjoy…

  He cut off that train of thought and scrambled toward Sloan, reaching her just as she began to lift her bag. Their fingers brushed, but Adam ignored that momentary flash of electricity and instead said, “I got it. Where’s the rest?”

  “The rest?” she asked, frowning. “We’re going to be gone for five days. How much do I need?”

  He shrugged. “I know, I just thought—”

  She smacked his arm playfully and then rested her hand there for just a brief second, which was long enough for Adam to begin to burn with desire. “Adam, I don’t know what all your other fiancées do, but this girl packs light,” she said.

  “As my first—first fiancée,” he hastily added, “you get to set the trend.”

  “I’ll do my best to be a good role model. So unless there’s something else, we should probably get going,” she said. “Can I drive?”

  He looked into her bright eyes and smirked. “No.”

  She frowned, the pout on her lips making it almost impossible for him not to kiss her. “Seth would let me.”

  “That’s because Seth’s a moron. Let’s move,” he said and began walking toward the door, the sultry sound of her laughter following him.

  3

  When the plane shifted over a patch of turbulent air, Adam immediately looked to the window seat his companion occupied.

  She still slept, her face peaceful in repose, and Adam was happy to see the change.

  After their frank and mostly painless conversation at her apartment, the mood had shifted, and by the time they’d reached the airport, Sloan had effectively built a wall between them. Oh, she responded to questions, made pleasant chitchat, but there was nothing like warmth and there sure as hell was no comfort in their communications.

  Adam hated that, but at the same time, he welcomed it. Hated it because he was so fucking gone for her that he lived for any hint of warmth she might give. Welcomed it because her distance was a reminder to keep his. He needed to get his head on straight.

  Adam doubted there would be much in the way of real danger. From the intel Lucian had gathered, this couples’ retreat was a front for one of the arms of Tremaine’s smuggling operations. Seth would probably correct him and say, “alleged smuggling operations,” but Adam preferred to ignore things like political correctness. Tremaine was a corrupt bastard, and Adam didn’t mind saying so.

  That he was into so many things added the most potential danger to this operation. Adam’s hunch was drugs were moving out of the Bali location and then on to who knew where, but they hadn’t been able to pinpoint the product or the route it was taking. So Adam would go in, figure out what was there and where it was going, then leave.

  Easy.

  Or would have been if Sloan wasn’t with him. Her presence added complications.

  Adam still had it under control. Given the straightforward goals, he could find the information he needed and keep an eye on Sloan, assuming he didn’t die of blue balls first.

  But based on the last couple of hours, chances were high he would.

  For the first half of their very long plane ride, she’d been as stiff as an iron rail, holding her body completely upright and away from him, her expression set in an impenetrable mask, everything about her screaming she’d rather be anywhere else—with anyone else.

  Adam tried not to take it personally, didn’t take it personally, not really, because he understood.

  Sloan had been a fixture at Silver, and a fixture in his life, though he doubted she knew that.

  Still, where she had maintained a warm and cordial relationship with everyone else, and that meant everyone from the CEO to the building’s night manager, Adam had always been treated differently, their earlier conversation aside.

  Before, if she ever chose to acknowledge him, and that was always an iffy proposition, she would only do so in the most circumspect, politest manner possible. Though Sloan was warm, kind, Adam had never thought of her as polite or circumspect. Those words suggested a distance and coldness at odds with who she was. She just seemed to have a problem with him and the source of that problem sometimes kept him up at night wondering why.

  As it was now.

  Probably for the best, and Adam should probably thank Sloan for being smart enough for the both of them. Those years of wanting had been exquisite torture only made bearable by distance. The thrill of seeing her smile, hearing her voice, was worth it even if they weren’t directed at him, but he’d always been able to retreat when the wanting started to become too much.

  There was no such option now.

  Now her sweet face and easy smile would be his constant companions, her luscious body only an arm’s length away. He just had to pretend she was his and not act on his real feelings, if that was even possible.

  Adam leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out as far as they would go, careful not to wake her. The seats were nice, but the soft leather and adequate legroom did nothing to lift Adam’s darkening mood.

  Seth should be here, not Adam. He bit back that little flare of annoyance as he thought of Seth, or rather, Sloan’s relationship with him.

  She’d probably love it if Seth were here. People loved Seth, and from what Adam had seen, Sloan was probably no exception. He looked at her again, saw she still slept peacefully, and then he noticed that she had drifted toward him, her head soft against his shoulder, her breath coming out in even-spaced exhales.

  His first instinct was to reach for her, gather her in his arms, but he ignored it and instead looked away.

  He was here on a mission, and he could not let Sloan distract him. He was going to gather intel, get Sloan back to Seattle in one piece, and not lose his fucking head.

  He felt his gaze start to drift toward her again, but he pulled it away quickly and softly scoffed.

  No wonder Saint worked alone.

  Adam cursed himself for not coming up with a better plan, but given they were on hour seventeen of an eighteen-hour flight, he supposed there was nothing he could do about it now.

  He was a professional, a damned good one, so he would rely on his training and experience and ignore the beautiful woman next to him. Sloan leaned closer and curled her hand around his forearm.

  Adam swallowed.

  Somehow.

  ••••

&nb
sp; “Sloan, we’ve landed,” Adam said a little over an hour later.

  She sat up quickly, almost instantly alert, and when she looked at him and blinked, the last vestiges of sleep were gone.

  “I slept for over half the flight?” she asked, probably more to herself than as a genuine question. But he answered anyway.

  “You did, but it’s good. You’re going to need your rest,” he said.

  At the shocked expression on Sloan’s face, Adam smiled and then reached for her hand. “It was just a joke, sweetheart. I’ll try to let you get some sleep on our little retreat,” he said.

  Sloan’s eyes widened even farther at his insinuation, but then Adam saw her sudden realization about what he was doing. He’d said they were going to be a happy couple from here on out, and that meant Adam had free rein to make all the insinuations he wanted. She chuckled softly, though Adam didn’t miss the little bit of tightness in her voice.

  Good, she had gotten the message, though. They were going to have to convincingly play a couple, unlike earlier, when Sloan had looked as though she wanted to crawl out of the plane to get away from him.

  Maybe he would try to have fun with this. The expression on her face had been priceless, amusing, and it was somehow salacious to think of sweet Sloan trying to interpret his double entendres.

  Adam smiled again, this time genuinely. Yes, there would be some upside to this trip after all.

  They quickly exited the plane and went through the crowded terminal toward the sign that welcomed them to Bali Couple Excursions. A group of twenty headed toward the sign, which was held by a tall man in his midfiftes or early sixties if Adam had to guess. He was dressed in a white linen suit and held a straw hat, and, most strangely of all to Adam, seemed completely immune to the stifling heat in the terminal.

  He cleared his throat, and after he’d looked at every assembled face, then he spoke.

  “Welcome,” he said in a crisp British accent, his words precise, “I am Alistair Jones, the proprietor of Bali Couple Excursions,” he said.

  Adam kept his eyes on Alistair, but his attention was on his companions. Three guards who looked everywhere but settled on nothing in particular, all holding automatic weapons, their stances, the way they held the weapons, and their general air telling Adam they were trained, mercenaries like him. Their presence put Adam on high alert.

  Alistair locked eyes with Adam before he moved on to Sloan and then to the couple that stood next to them. He gave a smile that was ice-cold and then said, “Please ignore my companions. They are here for precautionary measures only. We want to make sure you’re going to have the best time possible, as safely as possible.”

  There were a few murmurs of approval and Adam watched the group relax at Alistair’s reassurance. That reassurance only heightened Adam’s worry. Security was essential, especially at high-end resorts in potentially unstable areas, but this show of force didn’t sit right. The guards were too well-trained, too focused to simply be protecting tourists, and Adam would bet the three of them were only a fraction of Alistair’s men.

  Perhaps his simple mission wasn’t as simple as he’d hoped. On instinct, Adam reached out and put his hand on the small of Sloan’s back, the little shock of electricity making him wince as he tried to ignore it.

  “Good. I need to see that my fiancée is taken care of,” Adam said, rubbing his hand up and across her back to rest on her hip, the movement possessive, familiar. He waited for Sloan to flinch, but she didn’t move.

  “Understood,” Alistair said. Then he looked at Sloan, letting his gaze trace her body long enough that Adam was on the verge of speaking out before he finally broke it. “Understood completely. If we’re ready,” Alistair said.

  There was a murmur of agreement and then Alistair stepped aside and gestured toward the waiting shuttle. They boarded and Adam led Sloan into the first seat and sat next to her. He leaned over and whispered into her ear, “You ready, sweetheart?”

  Sloan’s faint shiver was almost imperceptible, but Adam saw it, felt it, as he looked at her. She didn’t meet his gaze, kept her eyes firmly focused on the window, but Adam smiled nonetheless.

  4

  Sloan was a jittery mess by the time Adam unlocked the door and led her into the resort hotel room.

  Such a mess, she couldn’t fully appreciate the incredibly luxurious surroundings, surroundings of the sort she had never been in before.

  Instead of noticing the opulent decorations, the breathtaking view, her body was quivering inside, that number of hours next to Adam, oh-so-potent Adam, having almost been too much to withstand.

  But then, when he had touched her, put his hand on her back and hip like it was supposed to be there, and later, on the ride back to the resort, when his strong, heavy thigh had pressed against her soft one, his heavy arm around her shoulder, pulling her toward him so her breasts rested against his chest, it had been enough to make it nearly impossible for her to stay inside herself.

  On the surface it was good. They were here to create the illusion of a happy couple, and the way Adam touched her, looked at her so intently, was doing a good job of that. Sloan wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the mission or to distract Adam, no matter how much of a distraction he might be for her. So she would overcome her shock at his touch and help him.

  Starting now.

  That pep talk played on a loop in her head as she watched him settle their luggage in the far corner of the room. Then he went into one of the bags and retrieved a small object Sloan didn’t recognize.

  “Was the flight okay, sweetheart?” Adam asked in a voice that was his but different.

  “Yes…I slept through most of it,” she said, her voice somewhat stilted.

  “Good. The air was a little rough there, so I was worried you might not be feeling well,” he said.

  The voice in which he spoke, his words, didn’t sound like Adam. Too…polite? Too formal? Probably a mixture of both.

  “No, I’m fine,” she said, still watching as he walked around the room with the object, eyes on it as he paid no attention to Sloan.

  “Good. We have dinner in three hours,” he said, still moving through the room.

  “Time to recuperate,” she said.

  “Time for something,” he replied, pausing long enough to meet her eyes.

  She froze, again taken away by the power of the man with her, the intensity in his gaze.

  “That’s an idea,” she finally responded, her voice husky despite the fact she knew the “something” of which Adam spoke was not a possibility.

  “It is,” he replied.

  Then, he slipped the object into his pocket and his entire demeanor changed, he was again the Adam she knew.

  “Everything checks out. No bugs,” he said.

  “Ohh,” Sloan said, his actions finally making sense.

  “Are you impressed?” he asked.

  She shrugged but smiled anyway. “I hadn’t considered that. Good thing you’re here.”

  Sloan had been so preoccupied with Adam, what being with him would entail, she hadn’t given much thought to the purpose of the trip. They were here for a reason. More precisely, Adam was here to get information, and she was here to make that possible. And she would. The armed guards had taken her back a little, but on second thought, they made sense. There were security issues to consider, even if this resort company was just a front. The bottom line was Adam wouldn’t have let her come if there was a threat he couldn’t handle.

  She trusted that like she trusted him, and she trusted him completely, knew that he wouldn’t let her near real danger. Knowing that the risk was limited left Sloan free to focus on doing her part to help Adam—and keep her libido in check.

  Adam looked around the room and then whistled low. “Silver certainly knows how to travel, doesn’t he?” he asked, lifting the corner of his lips in something like a smile.

  “I made sure he spared no expense,” Sloan supplied, at which Adam laughed heartily.

 
“Smart,” he said.

  Then they went silent, and it occurred to Sloan she might have shared more words with Adam in the last twenty-four hours than she had in the seven years before. It also occurred to her that she liked it, looked forward to more of it.

  The mood in the room, which had been tense before calming into something close to comfortable, ratcheted back up as Adam began to pull his T-shirt over his head. It was now dusk, so the fading sunlight was dim, but still lit Adam’s skin with a golden glow, the light playing against his sculpted chest and the light dusting of dark hair there.

  Her heart began to beat so hard, she thought it would pound out of her chest, and her throat was suddenly screaming for a drink as she stared at the muscled planes of his abdomen.

  She’d seen him without a shirt before, countless times, in fact, because he and Seth often jogged together and came back to Silver Industries half naked to shower. Those sightings had been fodder for Sloan’s fantasies, fodder she had more than once taken advantage of, but this felt different, was different.

  When he moved and came to stand no more than an inch away from her, she tilted her head up on instinct and met his eyes. She heard him move, then felt him anchor an arm around her waist, squeezing her until her breasts were flat against his chest.

  He held her for a moment, his face not even inches away from hers, before he moved closer, pressed his cheek against hers, the stubble rasping against her skin, his breath warm against her ear.

  “Put your arms around my neck,” he whispered.

  She complied, moving without hesitation, unable to deny him anything in this moment.