VANISHED, A Romantic Suspense Novel (Edgars Family Novel) by Suzanne Ferrell Page A

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    Suddenly, she needed to put some distance between them. Trying not to look like a deer bolting from a mountain lion poised to strike, she eased off the bed. She retrieved her sneakers from the closet and sat on the other bed as she slipped them on.
    “Where are you going?” he asked without a pause in this fingers flying over the keys.
    “Just down the hall for some ice to go with the pop we got at the store. I feel the need to walk around.”
    “Okay. Leave the safety latch in the door, and take your gun.”
    “You’re not serious. No one knows we’re here. It’s perfectly safe in the hallway.”
    That got him to stop what he was working on and focus on her once more. “Sweetheart, until we find out who took your friend and why, I’m very serious about keeping you safe. Take the gun or stay put.”
    “Yes, sir,” she said with a mock salute and a suppressed urge to roll her eyes. Following his instructions, she took her weapon out of the bedside drawer and slipped it into the back of her jeans then grabbed the ice bucket from the little wet bar in the room.
    Leaving the latch in the door to keep it open for her return, she headed for the ice machine, pretty sure the most dangerous thing for her in this hotel was seated squarely back there in her bed.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Once the door hit the latch blocking it from closing behind Abby, Luke paused his fingers on the keyboard and slowly exhaled, trying to rein in the need to follow after her. Over the pounding of his pulse in his ears he strained to hear anything unusual in the hallway.
    Nothing but the sound of her shoes on the carpet.
    This was ridiculous. Why the hell was he so worried? They were five doors from the ice machine.
    Because this was Abby.
    Any other agent would’ve known not to leave the room without their weapon, but this wasn’t any usual agent but Abby, who’d never been in the field. For all her training, she was still a novice and it was his job to keep her safe.
    Didn’t have a thing to do with how her lips or skin had tasted today when he’d been playing the part of her lover in front of Jeffers and his stalker. Damn right. He was the senior agent on a dangerous op. It was his job to think of his junior agent’s safety at all time.
    And all senior agents cradled their subordinates in their laps, pressed in tight to their bodies.
    Fuck. And if that didn’t have him all hard and straining against his pants? The last thing he needed to do was act on the desire to bury himself deep inside Abby, no matter how happy that would make him. She wasn’t his usual love ’em and leave ’em kind of girl. She was the kind of woman who gave her heart only once and he damn well didn’t intend to be the one to break it. Wasn’t that why he’d rejected her all those years ago?
    Ca-chunk, ca-chunk .
    Well, she’d made it to the ice machine safe and sound.
    He had about two minutes to get his hormones under control before she sashayed back into the room, still looking like the damn supermodel. With a sideways glance his gaze landed on where she’d laid her black-framed glasses.
    And wasn’t that a fun surprise?
    Abby’s brain had always challenged him and he found it very sexy. Add that to her long sensual body and most men would be done in. But who knew seeing her with those glasses on her nose, her brows crunched as she concentrated on her work, would invoke a fantasy he hadn’t even known he had—Abby dressed in heels and only those glasses.
    He groaned at the renewed thickness in his cock.
    “What’s wrong?” Abby asked as she hurried in the door, remembering to pull the latch so it locked behind her. “Did you discover something?”
    Yes, that I have a thing for long, thin brunettes who are smart as hell and look sexy in glasses.
    “That this program is taking a while,” he said, all the while thankful that his laptop sat squarely on his lap to hide what really had him groaning. “Two satellites are in line and have picked up