Midnight Angel

  MIDNIGHT ANGEL

  An Ellora’s Cave Publication, August 2005

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.

  1056 Home Avenue

  Akron, OH 44310

  ISBN MS Reader (LIT) ISBN # 1-4199-0313-6

  Other available formats (no ISBNs are assigned):

  Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), Mobipocket (PRC) & HTML

  MIDNIGHT ANGEL Copyright © 2005 LISA MARIE RICE

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. They are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Edited by Kelli Kwiatkowski.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Warning:

  The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. Midnight Angel has been rated S-ensuous by a minimum of three independent reviewers.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).

  S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

  E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.

  X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

  Midnight Angel

  Lisa Marie Rice

  Trademarks Acknowledgements

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Jim Beam: Jim Beam Brands Co.

  Kevlar: E. I. DuPont de Nemours and Company

  Mercedes: Daimler-Benz Aktiengesellschaft Corporation

  Thorazine: Smith, Kline & French Laboratories Corporation

  Vanity Fair: Conde Nast Publications Inc.

  Viagra: Pfizer Inc.

  Chapter One

  Portland, Oregon

  Saturday, January 15th

  Parks Foundation

  Opening ceremony of the “Jewels of the Czars” show

  “Fucking monkey suit,” John Huntington muttered darkly, pulling at the black tie of his tuxedo.

  Senior Chief Douglas Kowalski, USN (Ret.), watched his former commanding officer and current business partner shift his shoulders uneasily. Kowalski wasn’t a smiler, hadn’t smiled in years, but he was tempted. He and John, aka Midnight Man, had spent damn near twenty years together under the most intensely dangerous, life-threatening conditions on the face of the planet. They’d swum underwater close to the Arctic Circle, they’d spent four months under the Afghani desert sun without shelter, they’d once been trapped under fire behind enemy lines without food and with a gallon of water between them for a week.

  On the scale of discomfort, a too-tight tuxedo just didn’t register. And here big bad Midnight Man was growling with disgust over some cloth.

  “Fucking tuxedo. Why the fuck I—” Midnight cut himself off suddenly, silenced by the sharp little elbow of his wife jabbing him in the side.

  John’s chest was as heavily ribbed with rock-hard muscle as Kowalski’s own. There was absolutely nothing his beautiful wife Suzanne could do to hurt him. Midnight probably hadn’t even really felt her dig. Still, Kowalski had learned in the two weeks in which he’d been John’s business partner that Suzanne could hurt Midnight in ways that weren’t physical. For some reason known only to Midnight himself, he’d given his new bride enormous power over his life. What she wanted, she got. She wanted him to shut up so he did, pressing his lips together.

  “Hush, John!” she hissed, looking around, a bright fake smile on her lovely face. She could have spared herself the worry. There wasn’t anyone around to hear John bitch. Everyone was too busy oohing and ahing over the gazillion-carat Russian jewelry exhibit. Suzanne had designed the display cases, and Kowalski had to admit they were stunning. This evening was a professional triumph for her. Pleasing Suzanne was the only thing on this Earth that would make John squeeze himself into a tux.

  Kowalski turned to look at the glittering assembly gathered in the magnificent turn of the century mansion housing the Parks Foundation. He moved easily in his own tux. He could never have found a rented tux to fit him. He had two of them, made to measure for his tall, big-shouldered frame by a tailor in Singapore. Both of them were beautifully tailored, with extra room under the left armpit for his sidearm.

  The one he’d had to leave at home.

  The only discomfort Kowalski felt was the lack of a weapon, something Suzanne had insisted on. John had blown up at that, but Suzanne had put her pretty little size six foot down and to Kowalski’s amazement, John had caved in. The first time ever he’d seen Midnight back down on anything.

  An unarmed Midnight was bad enough, but then Kowalski had nearly had a cow when Suzanne insisted that he go unarmed to the jewelry show opening, as well. She’d been specific about it, too, which meant she was learning fast from being married to John.

  No weapons. None. No guns, pistols, rifles, machine guns, automatic pistols. No K-Bar. No Emerson CQC6 folder. No other kind of knife. No garrotte, no taser. Nothing. Zip. Nada. Both of them.

  Kowalski had looked in shock at Midnight. John was the shackled one, the one who had to please his wife. Why the fuck was Kowalski supposed to disarm? Why couldn’t he carry, like he always did? Kowalski hated being unarmed. It made him feel naked. He wasn’t the one in love with Suzanne, so why did he have to put with this crap?

  Kowalski had opened his mouth to say “sorry no, absolutely not, no fucking way,” when he’d caught a glimpse of Midnight’s pleading eyes.

  John had saved his life three times and had taken a bullet for him in ’98. Kowalski had saved his hide, too. The ties between them ran too strong and too deep for Kowalski to say no.

  So with a silent sigh, he’d turned to Suzanne Huntington to say, through clenched jaws, that of course he’d be happy to come to the opening of the Russian jewelry show. Unarmed. He’d rather have had all his teeth pulled out without benefit of anesthesia.

  Still, John looked grateful. This classified as a lifesaving IOU. Kowalski would collect, eventually.

  Suzanne looked up at him. “Are you having a good time, Douglas?”

  Kowalski almost didn’t answer until he realized she’d addressed him. Douglas. Nobody on this earth called him Douglas, except Suzanne. He’d been Kowalski, or Senior Chief, so long he’d almost forgotten his first name.

  “Absolutely,” he lied. “Fascinating show. Wonderful jewels. Great jewel cases.”

  “Well, I’m so happy you’re enjoying yourself. Now please tell my husband to have a good time.”

  Kowalski turned to John. “Have a good time, Midnight. That’s an order.”

  John scowled.

  Suzanne beamed at Kowalski, pleased. He nearly looked around to see who she was smiling at.

  Beautiful women didn’t smile at Kowalski. They barely managed to look at his face without flinching. He couldn’t blame them—he knew what he looked like. He looked like a thug. A hard, dangerous and mean thug. Probably because he was hard, dangerous and mean.

  It was unusual for a woman to smile at him. It was a credit
to Suzanne that she managed to pretend he looked like everyone else.

  He didn’t. He’d been born big, with rough, irregular features and his life hadn’t softened them any. His nose had been broken four times. Ten years ago, a tango had gone for him with a knife. The fucker had managed to slice his jaw open before Kowalski took him down. That had been seven hundred miles from the nearest hospital and he’d had to sew the gaping slash himself using his knife blade as a mirror. The Navy had offered to pay for plastic surgery to repair the damage, but he’d refused.

  Kowalski didn’t give a shit about the scar—the tougher he looked, the better—and, anyway, he’d had enough of blades.

  Kowalski had spent his entire adult life being a hard man training other hard men to face death. You don’t do that by smiling gently with a twinkle in your eye. He’d schooled his face to harshness until it was second nature.

  It felt strange to smile, so he never did.

  “Suzanne! There you are! What a triumph, my dear!” Two willowy men in white tuxes drifted up in a cloud of scent and kissed the air around Suzanne’s cheeks. They were supremely elegant and overly thin. They gave Midnight an approving up and down glance, looked at Kowalski, shuddered, and turned back to Suzanne.

  “Darling,” one of the men said, as he took Suzanne’s arm. “What brilliant design solutions you came up with. I tell you Nomura is insanely jealous.” He pursed his lips. “Serves the old bitch right, he wanted to use glass and brass. Wouldn’t have been the same at all. Let’s have lunch with him next week and gloat. Come to think of it, let’s make the rounds right now and gloat. So delicious.”

  John’s scowl deepened. Not even he could be jealous of the two men. It was clear that neither man had ever fucked a woman, nor had they ever wanted to. Kowalski figured John frowned on principle, at the thought of not having Suzanne within touching range.

  “My dear Suzanne,” the other man said, “I just saw Marvin Lipinsky walk in. You must come with us right now and meet him. Do you know he’s thinking of exhibiting his pre-Columbian collection next year? I’ll bet you’d do a brilliant job on the displays. Come, darling. Let’s go.”

  John moved forward. “No,” he said. “I don’t—”

  Suzanne put her hand on his arm. She stretched up on her toes and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Be right back,” she said, while her blue-gray eyes clearly flashed, you stay put now. And behave.

  Her look at Kowalski was clear, too. And you—you make sure he stays here and doesn’t embarrass me.

  With a last, smiling glance back at her husband, Suzanne was led away.

  John watched her, grim-faced.

  A waiter in formal evening wear came to a halt in front of them. He was holding a solid silver salver with crystal flutes of champagne. John grabbed one and downed it in a gulp.

  The waiter hesitated a moment before offering it to Kowalski. Kowalski clenched his back teeth. He knew he looked like a rough laborer, someone more comfortable on a construction crew or on a loading dock than in an elegant setting. But shit, he was clearly a guest, all suited up nicely for the occasion in a tux and everything.

  Kowalski lifted a glass from the tray and sipped. The champagne was superb, dry and crisp. He looked over at John, who was watching his wife making the rounds, and took another sip. Might as well take your pleasures where you can find them. John sure as hell wasn’t going to be entertaining company.

  “Must be hard being married,” Kowalski said finally.

  “Nah,” John replied, never taking his eyes off his wife. “Being married’s fucking easy. Shit, I had no idea or maybe I would have gotten married sooner. I live in a gorgeous house. My wife designed a fantastic office for me. I get regular, delicious meals. Regular sex. Clothes washed and ironed. No, it’s not being married that’s hard.” John swung his head around to look at Kowalski. Kowalski saw something in John’s face he never ever thought he’d see. Fear. Vulnerability. “It’s being in love that’s really hard. It sucks.”

  This was a completely new John Huntington and it scared the shit out of Kowalski.

  “Almost lost her, Senior Chief,” John whispered, and his face looked haggard.

  Kowalski answered sharply. “Almost don’t cut it, Midnight. You know that.” Their mantra in the Teams. Almost never cut it. You can’t almost hit your target. You can’t almost catch your tango. Nobody cares that you almost died when you make it back to base under fire—you go right back out into the field. Almost didn’t exist.

  John’s jaw muscles jumped.

  Kowalski had arrived in Portland a little over two weeks ago as John’s new business partner. He was just in time to take over Midnight’s business, Alpha Security International, when John went AWOL. The woman Midnight had fallen in love with had been under threat of death by Paul Carson, a businessman with organized crime connections. She had witnessed Carson murdering his wife. Carson had been gunning for her before she could testify at the arraignment.

  When Midnight disappeared, Kowalski had filled in for him, getting a crash course in running a fast-growing security company.

  Midnight reappeared four days later, when the FBI released Suzanne from protective custody. The danger was over. Paul Carson had had a fatal accident. His forehead had accidentally run into a .50 caliber sniper rifle bullet.

  The next day, John married Suzanne. Kowalski still found it so weird that his friend was married. Warriors don’t marry. They have sex, sure, to blow off steam. Soldiers fuck a lot—as often as they can, actually, because they are under a lot of stress and sometimes they have to go for months without. Sex is a guaranteed muscle relaxant. But love? Marriage? Not in the handbook.

  He shook his head and sipped some more.

  Suzanne made her way back to them, swaying gracefully over the marble tiles. John straightened, watching her every step of the way.

  Dispassionately, Kowalski had to admit that Suzanne Huntington was a truly extraordinarily beautiful woman.

  She smiled up at her husband. “There John, you see? That wasn’t so bad, was it? I went away, spoke with some people about business, made some contacts and came back.” She shook her head, dark blonde hair belling about her face. “Nothing to it.”

  John’s scowl deepened and Suzanne laughed. Another beautiful woman came up behind her. Dark-haired, slender, dressed in a strapless red gown.

  Kowalski knew who she was. Claire Parks, heiress to the Parks fortune and tonight’s hostess. Very rich. Stinking rich, in fact. She was also the woman who’d been heavily messing with the mind of John’s friend in Portland, Police Lieutenant Bud Morrison.

  She’d broken off her engagement to Bud a few days after Kowalski arrived, and Bud had been a walking corpse ever since.

  Kowalski finished his flute and plucked another off a passing waiter’s tray. Women. He’d seen strong men, men not even the most highly trained enemy could take down, come completely undone for a woman. Simply go up in smoke. To a very real degree, women, particularly beautiful women, scared the shit out of him. He’d never been brought low by one, though. Thank God he was immune.

  Claire Parks put her hands on Suzanne’s shoulders. “Hi,” she murmured, pressing her cheek to Suzanne’s. “Congratulations on the display cases. They’re gorgeous. Almost as beautiful as the jewels themselves.”

  “Thanks, sweetie.” Suzanne smiled and swirled a lock of dark blonde hair behind an ear. “I worked hard on them. It was a pleasure and a privilege. The jewels are truly exquisite.”

  Smiling, Claire Parks looked around then froze when she saw Kowalski. She stared at him with a mixture of curiosity and horror, then looked away. Suzanne saw her glance and sighed. “Claire,” she said with a forced smile, “I’d like to introduce you to Senior Chief Douglas Kowalski. He’s John’s new partner.”

  Claire Parks’ thoughts might as well have been broadcast in flashing lights for all to see. He was John’s new partner? This huge, fearsome bruiser, who looked like a contract killer in a tux? Kowalski could easily read wh
at Claire Parks was thinking—Suzanne had to live where she’d see him all the time? Poor, poor Suzanne.

  John’s company, Alpha Security International, was based in one half of a restored factory in a bad part of town. Suzanne had done a fabulous job restoring the building, and being in a rough part of town suited the nature of his—their—business. The hitch was that she and John lived in the other half of the factory.

  Pretty Miss Parks did her duty. She didn’t shiver and she didn’t recoil. She’d been taught her manners. She held her hand out, looked up at his face, made eye contact for a nanosecond, then her gaze skittered to a point somewhere past his right shoulder.

  “Senior Chief Kowalski.” Her lips turned up at the corners. It couldn’t be called a smile, just a slight baring of teeth. “N-nice to m-meet you.”

  Shit. He made her stammer and she couldn’t even bring herself to look him full in the face. She held her hand out gingerly. It trembled slightly. What the fuck did she think? That he ate female human hands for dinner?

  Kowalski hated this. He hated being made to feel like a freakin’ animal in a zoo. It had happened all his life, and was why he steered clear of civilians.

  Coming here tonight had been a mistake, one he wouldn’t make again. He’d had enough. He was going to shake hands with Claire Parks, make his excuses to John and his wife, get into his SUV and go home.

  Maybe he needed to get laid. Maybe he could call that woman he’d picked up in Pearl last week and fucked. Charlene something.

  Shit, no. She’d freaked him out. She kept asking for rougher sex, until he was sure he was hurting her. He’d pulled out at the end without coming. That was when she hinted that she’d like to be tied up and fucked even harder. He outweighed the woman by at least one-hundred and twenty pounds. He knew he looked scary, and in many ways he was, but he could never hurt a woman, not in any way. It was only when he saw the feverish, bright gleam in her eyes that he realized maybe Charlene wanted to be hurt. She got off on having sex with someone she considered violent. Like a drug, she was hooked on dangerous sex.