Dominant Force [Clandestine Affairs 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  Clandestine Affairs 4

  Dominant Force

  Anais Harrison’s soldier husband is classified as missing in action—training action in the Florida Everglades. Stonewalled by the military when she asks how that could have happened, Anais turns to the Clandestine Agency for help.

  Hunter Griffin and Lewis Kyler, tough ex-special forces commandos, are sent to help Anais and soon become convinced the military is covering something up. The attraction between them and Anais is instantaneous, electrifying, making this their most important assignment to date. But their determination to discover the truth is hampered by their equal determination to awaken Anais’s sensuality.

  Hunter and Lewis make startling discoveries about Gary Harrison’s activities, but they aren’t the only people following his trail, and the stakes could not be higher. Anais recklessly places herself in danger’s path to protect the men she has fallen in love with. Can Hunter and Lewis reach Anais in time to save her…

  Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Romantic Suspense

  Length: 52,599 words

  DOMINANT FORCE

  Clandestine Affairs 4

  Zara Chase

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  DOMINANT FORCE

  Copyright © 2014 by Zara Chase

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62741-246-9

  First E-book Publication: January 2014

  Cover design by Les Byerley

  All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  About the Author

  DOMINANT FORCE

  Clandestine Affairs 4

  ZARA CHASE

  Copyright © 2014

  Chapter One

  Raoul dove into the frigid water and swam beneath it until his lungs felt ready to burst. Ah shit, I can’t do this. His head broke the surface, and he shook his hair back from his eyes and trod water as he fed his screaming lungs with fresh Wyoming air. Zeke dove in at the same time as Raoul, but surfaced a good hundred feet farther ahead and almost a minute after Raoul ran out of air. Sometimes Raoul thought his buddy was more than just Native American—he was frigging Superman. Nothing seemed to faze him.

  “You’re getting soft in your old age,” Zeke yelled, grinning.

  Raoul flipped him off and swam away. “We can’t all be fucking amphibians,” he said. “You were always better at this shit than me.”

  “You ain’t too bad.” Zeke rolled onto his back and floated, staring up at the crystal clear sky. “For an old guy.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You sure need to fuck someone. Your dick will fall off from lack of use if you carry on the way you’re going.”

  Zeke turned almost soundlessly and swam up to join Raoul, his crawl seemingly effortless as he cut through the water, making barely a ripple. The two men swam hard to the end of the lake. It took them five minutes to get there. Instead of resting, they flipped around and swam straight back again. A cold lake that would have seen even the strongest of swimmers struggling was no big deal for Raoul and Zeke. Neither of them was breathing particularly hard when they reached their starting point and hauled themselves out. Both of them had swum in the buff. There was no one around to see them. Not that they would have given a shit if there was. This was private land—their land—so anyone trespassing got what they deserved.

  “Good thing I slowed down, old man, and let you keep up with me,” Zeke said, reaching for his towel.

  Raoul did the same thing, feeling refreshed and invigorated, but still unable to shake off the restlessness that had gripped him for some weeks now. Running this horse ranch, and the Clandestine Affairs agency, ought to be enough for him—one activity fed his love of the outdoors, the other sated his need to right just a few of the world’s wrongs.

  Raoul and Zeke had seen more than their fair share of excitement—make that human misery—during their tours of duty as elite Special Forces Green Berets. They were still doing good through their investigation agency, only now it was on Raoul’s terms. He got to dispense his own form of justice, without reference to Uncle Sam’s rules and regulations, or the politically correct bullshit that had taken over the modern world. The irony was, the military sometimes came knocking at Raoul’s door, wanting him to clean up its own messes. Deniability.

  “You just keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better,” Raoul said, slapping his buddy’s rock-har
d shoulder as they made their way back to the house.

  Even so, he knew Zeke had a point, and that he was worried about Raoul. The two of them used to be all action, living, working, and especially playing hard. They went for the same type of women, and enjoyed sharing them. It had been a while since Raoul had felt like doing that, and hell if he knew why. In spite of the fact that he kept himself so busy, recently it hadn’t felt like enough. Perhaps Zeke was right, and it was time for him to return to the real world.

  Both men showered, after which Raoul figured Zeke would disappear into the horse barn. He had a real way with horses, but then Zeke had a real way with just about everything he touched, including women. Especially women. They flocked to him in droves, attracted by his tough image and swarthy good looks. Horses virtually sang to him, and it never took him long to have even the most spirited equine dancing to his tune.

  Raoul sighed as he headed for his state-of-the-art office, from which he kept on top of his operatives’ activities twenty-four-seven. He accessed his e-mail, but found nothing interesting to detain him there. He placed a couple of calls, then headed for the kitchen and flipped on the kettle. Caffeine was definitely on his immediate agenda, and he had just finished grinding the beans when his phone rang.

  “Washington,” he said curtly, pressing the speaker phone button as he continued to assemble the coffee.

  “Mr. Washington.” The woman’s voice on the other end of the phone was little more than a whisper. A terrified whisper.

  “Yeah, what can I do for you?” Raoul knew when a person was in trouble and, coffee abandoned, he gave the woman his full attention. Zeke moving silently into the room behind him, presumably because his sixth sense had told him they had a situation—just like it always seemed to.

  “My name’s Anais Harrison. My husband Gary was in SOCOM.”

  Raoul exchanged a glance with Zeke as he opened a database on his computer he probably wasn’t supposed to have access to. Make that definitely wasn’t supposed to. SOCOM was the US Special Operations Command, with headquarters in Florida. It was a joint forces command manned by elite personnel who were called in to cover covert and clandestine operations—anything from direct action and special recon to counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics.

  “Okay,” Raoul said, searching his database for the name Harrison. “You say ‘was.’”

  “He went missing in action two years ago. No one can tell me what happened, so I’ve been trying to find out for myself. Since I started asking questions, I’ve been threatened verbally, and my car was vandalized. I ignored the threats so far, but when I tried to go home just now, the door to my apartment was hanging off its hinges.”

  “Did you go in?”

  “Hell, no! I hightailed it for my car before I was seen.”

  “You did the right thing.” Raoul flexed his brows at Zeke. “Where are you now? Tell me you’re not on your cell phone.”

  “No, I’ve watched enough detective programs to know I can be traced through it. I’m on a payphone in a strip mall outside St. Pete Beach.” Her voice trembled. “I’m real scared, Mr. Washington. My friend Eloise gave me your number a while back when Gary went missing. She said you helped her and that you would probably help me if I ever needed it.” She paused. “I didn’t want to bother you then, but I could sure use your help now.”

  Raoul thought quickly. Oh yeah, he remembered Eloise. She was getting seven shades of shit beaten out of her by her pilot husband. He was such a hot shot that no one believed he could possibly do such a thing, and so no one did anything to help her. No one except Raoul’s people, that is. Eloise was now free of domestic abuse and her husband wouldn’t be hitting any more women for a long time. It explained how Anais had gotten his number. It wasn’t in the phone book, and he was careful who he gave it to. Eloise shouldn’t have passed it on, but something about the desperation in Anais’s voice made him glad she had. He was a sucker for a woman in need.

  Zeke scrolled through the database and pointed to an entry for Sergeant First Class Gary Harrison, listed as MIA January two years previously. So far the woman checked out.

  “Can you give me the address where you are now?” Raoul asked.

  “Yes.” Anais reeled it off.

  “Okay, stay where you are, Anais.” Raoul came to a decision he didn’t really need to think about. “I’ll see who I have down there and get someone to come and help you out. I’ll call you right back.”

  “Thank you.” She sounded on the verge of hysteria. “Please hurry.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “Sounds like the perfect job for Griffin and Kyler,” Zeke said as soon as Raoul hung up. “They were both SOCOM before they saw the light and got out.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Pull me up their number.”

  Chapter Two

  Hunter Griffin had just docked their thirty-eight-foot Boston Whaler fishing boat when his cell phone rang. He stepped onto the dock where his buddy, Lewis Kyler, was making the lines secure and setting up the shore power. Hunter checked the phone’s display.

  “It’s Raoul,” he told Lewis. “Wonder what’s up.”

  “A job hopefully,” Lewis replied. “I’m fed up with doing nothing more exciting than taking punters fishing.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Hunter took the call. “Hey, Raoul, how’s it going?”

  “A damsel in distress down your way,” Raoul replied. “I thought of you guys straight away. Sounds right up your street.”

  “Is she young and good looking?” Hunter grinned as Lewis, who immediately perked up. “We got a sale on this week for young and good looking.”

  “Can’t say,” Raoul replied. “But I do know she’s scared shitless.”

  Hunter sobered as he listened to Raoul tell him what little he knew about the lady in question. “This is where she’s at right now.” Raoul reeled off an address. “She’s waiting on you.”

  “Okay, I know where that is. Tell her to hang tight and we’ll be right there. We drive a navy blue Dodge truck.”

  “Let me know what you need when you’ve spoken to her.”

  “Will do.” Hunter cut the call. “Come on, buddy. I’ll fill you in on the way.”

  The guys jogged to their truck and Hunter fired up the engine. It took them ten minutes to reach the strip mall, and all of thirty seconds to find the payphone. They stopped right next to it, and saw a tall, slim woman with thick chestnut hair piled on top of her head cowering in the booth. Lewis let out a slow, appreciative whistle.

  “The day just got a whole lot better,” he said.

  “She ain’t exactly making herself inconspicuous,” Hunter replied, “but I guess she’d have trouble blending in with a crowd.”

  She looked up, her eyes round with fear, when the truck stopped beside her. Lewis opened his door, jumped out, and smiled at her.

  “Hey, Anais,” he said. “Raoul sent us.”

  She looked at him through enormous, frightened eyes, and exhaled. “Oh, thank God for that!”

  “Come on, honey, jump in. I’m Lewis and this is Hunter. You’re safe now.”

  “My car’s over there,” she said, pointing to an old Jeep.

  “Give me the keys.” Lewis held out his hand. “I’ll deal with it, make sure we’re not followed. You just go with Hunter.”

  “Hey,” Hunter said as Anais, her entire body trembling, slid into the seat Lewis had just vacated. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Me too. Wish it could have been under different circumstances. Thanks for coming so quickly.”

  “Our pleasure. It’s what we do.”

  “I can’t go back to my place,” she said. “I don’t think it’s safe.”

  “No, we’ll take you to ours. We can talk there and try to figure this thing out. You did well not to use your cell. If people really are following you, they could get to you that way.”

  “Yes.” She glanced out the window and must have seen Lewis going all over her Jeep with a wand. “What’s he doing?”

/>   “Looking to see if anyone’s placed a tracking device on your car.”

  She gasped. “Who would go that far?”

  Hunter shrugged. “You tell me.”

  Lewis held up a hand, grimaced, and after a moment during which he ducked out of sight, he climbed behind the wheel of Anais’s car. Hunter chuckled, having a pretty good idea what he’d just done.

  “He found one,” he said.

  The fear was back in her eyes. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Afraid not.” Hunter squeezed her trembling hand. “You really do seem to have upset some serious people, honey.” He put the truck into gear and pulled out of the lot. “Let’s get you out of here. Then we’ll talk.”

  “While I was waiting for you, I’d almost persuaded myself I was reading more into this than is actually there. I’d managed to calm down a bit.”

  Hunter shot her an appraising glance. “I wouldn’t have liked to see the way you were when you were upset.”

  She gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah, sorry, it’s been a tough time.”

  “You don’t need to apologize to me. I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve been through.”

  Hunter turned onto a side road with Lewis directly behind him in Anais’s car. He cast sideways glances at his passenger as he did so. She was probably five seven, with all that glorious chestnut hair, and leaf-green eyes cloudy with fear he would definitely go that extra mile to get rid of. Seeing those amazing eyes sparkling with pleasure would be a result worth fighting for, no question. She wasn’t classically beautiful, but still a traffic-stopper. She exuded a sensuality she probably wasn’t aware she possessed, along with a vulnerability and a certain air of determination that broke through her fear. Her slim body, with all those enticing curves, had already gotten him salivating, and Lewis would definitely want to know if the freckles dotted across the bridge of her nose were replicated on other parts of her body. Whoa, don’t go there. She’s a client.