Dying to Love (An FBI Romance Thriller Book 18) Read online

  Callen watched her.

  This woman owned his heart. When he’d gotten the card with the dirty message in it, asking Jackson James, his alter ego, to meet her for some raunchy sex, he’d wanted to marry her all over again.

  How could he not?

  Elizabeth knew how to brighten his day.

  He was feeling the pressure. He was mid-book, and it wasn’t going well. He was starting to question himself, and he had needed a break from all the responsibilities of being a bestselling author.

  It was ready to break him.

  She knew it, and this was what she came up with for the night.

  It was perfect.

  “I wish we could stay here,” she said. “I don’t want to move.”

  Callen did too.

  “How bad would it be if we just flaked on being parents?” he asked.

  “Bad. Really bad.”

  He laughed. “What if I bought you a pony? Would that make it better?”

  That made her laugh.

  “Well, how about I ride you instead of a pony, this time as your wife, and we call it even.”

  He leaned back, and his dick woke up.

  “Giddy-up, Cowgirl. I have another round of sex in me. I can’t wait.”

  Thank God for horny Natives.

  She was one hell of a lucky girl.

  “Once around the block, and then home for the night? If you’re a bad horsey, I’ll let you shower with me.”

  “I can be bad.”

  “How bad, Callen James? Are we talking Jackson James bad or I was a teenage hellion bad?” she asked.

  To her, they were both great prospects.

  “Both.”

  “Deal.”

  She straddled his lap. “Let’s make this one count.”

  “A slut a day keeps the boredom away,” he teased. With Elizabeth, he didn’t have to think before speaking.

  She was worse than him.

  “Then it’s a good thing you have your own private side piece, and I don’t mean your gun.”

  She slid down his dick, and he moaned.

  “Thank God for that.”

  Callen never wanted a slut more than he did right now.

  This slut.

  His wickedly wild wife.

  * * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *

  Building

  Across DC

  He put them side by side.

  The two whores were perfect together.

  Before he left, he made sure to leave one more calling card so she’d figure it out.

  She was smart, and she’d get it.

  He knew she would.

  “I’m sorry, ladies. Someone will find you soon, and once they do, it’ll be okay. Forgive me.”

  He headed out of the building, making sure no one saw him. Then again, would anyone notice him?

  Probably not.

  That was the beauty of it too.

  He was practically invisible, but soon, the woman he loved would see him for what he was.

  Sweet.

  Gentle.

  Loving.

  Then she’d come running with open arms.

  And that would be their happily ever after.

  Chapter One

  Tuesday Morning

  He really hated working so late that he couldn’t get home to his family. Ethan Blackhawk was trying to balance his life, his career, and his love all at the same time.

  His career was on the fast track to FBI directorship. He was going to be running the place one day. As of late, Gabe had been having him cover extra meetings, extra duties, and anything he didn’t have time for in his schedule.

  It was becoming inundating to say the least.

  Overwhelming.

  Stressful.

  A part of him was irritated that he’d missed out on some fun with the family. Just a couple weeks ago, he’d specifically told his boss, Gabriel Rothschild, that he needed more family time. It was like the second those words were out of his mouth, the exact opposite had happened.

  There was less time and more missed moments. It was to the point that he was beginning to feel left out. His family had gone to the zoo, they had a trip to a local museum, and Elizabeth and Callen had a sexy romp at a hotel.

  It sucked.

  Ethan wanted to be with the ones he loved, but this was the nature of the beast. He’d taken this on, and now he needed to suck it up, deal with it, and make his mark at the FBI.

  He knew he’d make up for it later. His hope was that after his retirement, he could be there for his spouses. If his wife had anything to say about it, they’d be spending a lot of time together. If he had anything to say about it, she’d be retiring too. Sometimes, you had to take one for the team.

  They’d both be doing just that.

  So, as his emergency meeting with the President of the United States ran late the previous evening, he’d opted to sleep in his office. When POTUS didn’t sleep, no one did.

  He was on call.

  He’d sent his wife and brother a few texts, got some sexy pictures back, and he’d forced himself to go to bed on his leather pull out couch.

  It hadn’t been restful—for a plethora of reasons.

  As Ethan tossed and turned on his leather bed, in his office, it smelled like them. He could pick up Elizabeth’s perfume and Callen’s cologne. For the longest while, he contemplated leaving work, heading home, and meeting them for coffee.

  Then when he finally drifted off around three, there was the dream.

  It came out of nowhere, and it made his heart thump in his chest.

  As far as dreams went, it sucked.

  It was that damn bad.

  The whole time, locked in the prophetic dream, he tried to escape. He couldn’t.

  Then it reminded him of someone.

  Maybe that was why he was having it. Ethan had been missing his grandfather. Just that morning, he’d heard wind chimes a few times.

  It wouldn’t have been odd if he hadn’t been inside the Hoover building in his office, the men’s room, and walking toward his meetings.

  Needless to say, the dream rattled him to his core. No matter how he tried to process it, he hated every moment of what had played out in his mind.

  When he woke, finally able to break free, he was covered in a fine sheen of sweat, and the memory of the dream. It played over and over again, and it reminded him of the first time he’d had one like it.

  Years ago, he began dreaming of Elizabeth. She was begging for his help in them. They had yet to meet, but he knew she was meant to be his. He’d searched for her, trying to locate his mystery woman, and finally, he did.

  And now the dreams were back. Ethan was beginning to believe that his dream wasn’t a fluke.

  This one was scary.

  The ravens in it freaked him out.

  It made him run his hand over the covered tattoo on his chest. In fact, it made him want to shower.

  Making sure his office was locked, he headed toward his closet to pull out his spare suit. Once it was out, he got ready for his day.

  In his bathroom, he jumped into the small shower, a luxury because of his job, and lathered up. When he thought he heard someone coming, he peeked out.

  There was no one there.

  He had that feeling that he was being watched. The hair on the back of his neck was standing.

  His gut was rarely wrong, but still, there was no one there with him.

  “Granddad, if that’s you, cut it out. I’m one day away from an ulcer as it is.”

  There was no answer.

  Yeah, Ethan needed to cut back on the coffee, and stop with the dreams. He was making himself a nervous wreck. As he stared down at his chest, his fingers caressed the scars there.

  It was a mess.

  Yes, it had healed, but it didn’t look the same as it once did. He could see the pentagram in the scarring, and he was forced to recall that day.

  It rattled him.

  What the hell was going on with him?
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  Ethan forced himself to focus on the ink beneath the scarring. He’d thought about touching up the tattoo, but he wasn’t ready.

  Not yet.

  A part of him was holding back, and he knew that when it was time, he’d go back to that moment in time, and he’d deal with it.

  For now, he wanted to focus.

  When it was time, he’d know.

  As he dried off, his hair too, he thought about his long day ahead. He was scheduled for back-to-back meetings, and he was trying to figure out how to squeeze in a couple of minutes to have lunch with his spouses.

  As of late, he’d only been able to see them on television in his office. He always made sure to turn it on when Callen had a book signing, or something going on in his other career.

  The last one…

  He wished he could have been there.

  Elizabeth looked beautiful. She was wearing red, her hair was artfully swept up, and she walked beside Callen, holding onto his arm.

  In that moment, they weren’t Feds.

  They were a couple, and he was jealous. While Callen was having no problem separating work from work, he couldn’t even balance life and one career.

  Ethan had to talk to Gabe about it.

  AGAIN.

  He had been trying to be home more, but the more he tried, the less it happened. Something had to give. He wasn’t sure what was up, but he’d get to the bottom of it. It was like his boss was slowly pulling away from his job.

  Was he quitting?

  God!

  Ethan hoped not. While he knew how to do his job, he wasn’t ready, or equipped, to handle this nut farm.

  Not yet.

  He needed time.

  As he stood there, tying his tie, his cell phone went off. He prayed it was going to be his wife, wanting to talk dirty.

  Hell!

  He’d have sex on his secretary’s desk at this point. He couldn’t remember the last time he and Callen made a Lyzee cookie.

  When he saw it was Gabe, his heart sank.

  He was probably covering another meeting and that was going to stress him right out. He was already overlapped.

  Shit!

  What the hell?

  This really sucked.

  Answering, he didn’t give him a chance to say a word. “If you don’t hate me, you won’t send me to another budgetary meeting where I have to listen to ten men talk about Kevlar and then have to decide between two that look identical.”

  Gabe laughed. “Did you think this job was going to be shootouts and fun, Cowboy? If you did, I have some really bad news for you.”

  He laughed. “I had hoped it was going to be more exciting that picking out shades of Post-It notes for the agents.”

  “You’re off on that one. We do the grunt work, and your wife has all the fun running around the city playing cowboy. You get to be the one who deals with her shenanigans.”

  “Well, I’d like to get my hands all over her shenanigans, Gabe, but I’ve slept in my office two nights in a row. Meanwhile, Callen is having all the fun.”

  Gabe made gagging noises. “One, she’s like my damn sister. I don’t want to picture it. It’ll make me impotent. Two, she was on the news last night going into Hotel Monaco in hooker garb, so I know what you missed, again, I want to gag, and three, welcome to my world. Why do you think we have couches that open in our offices? We are the President’s bitches.”

  Yeah, had he known what he was losing those months ago, he wouldn’t have signed on for this. It was a sad day in Ethan’s life when he actually missed being shot at for a living.

  How sick was he?

  “You’re working today, right? I want to grab lunch with my wife.”

  Yeah, and five minutes in a closet somewhere, anywhere, doing things that were very illegal. Every time he thought about her, he got hard.

  She needed to help him out with that.

  “Yeah, I’m coming in for ten. I’m on my way to a physical. I’ll be in for the afternoon meeting, but that’s not why I called.”

  “Uh, what?”

  “Your sexy wife has an assignment. I just got a call from Metro PD.”

  Ethan thought back to his dream. “Uh, okay.”

  “They have two dead hookers.”

  “And you thought my wife would be best equipped to handle this because she plays one in our bedroom?” he asked, hoping that was it.

  He crossed his fingers.

  “You wish, Cowboy, you wish.”

  Yeah, he really did.

  Ethan ran his hands through his wet black hair, and the slickness reminded him of the bloody raven wings in his dream. Yeah, this was going to be bad.

  Quickly, he tied it back.

  “Are you sitting down?” Gabe asked.

  “Oh, shit!”

  Ethan hated when anyone said that to him—his boss, the president, his wife, or Callen. It was never good.

  Never.

  Ever.

  “The killer called her out.”

  “WHAT?”

  Ethan immediately thought back to all the cases where that had happened before.

  NONE of them ended well.

  Hell!

  One ended up with him buried alive after hours of physical and mental torture.

  “NO.”

  Gabe knew he wasn’t going to like this. In fact, before he called, he really tried to find a way out of passing this one on to her. He had a bad feeling, and it had nothing to do with his current mental state.

  This was bad.

  He could see it already.

  “You don’t have a choice. It’s already been leaked. One of the cops on the scene had a big mouth. Apparently, he worked with Elizabeth before, and he said too much to one of the reporters.”

  Great.

  This was not what he wanted.

  “No! The answer is still no, Gabe. NO!”

  “Ethan, son, she’s the head of the Violent Crimes unit. This is what she does. It allows you to be Deputy Director, and her to work with one of her husbands. I’ve stretched the rules to the max to keep you three together. One snap of the president’s fingers, and one or two of you are out of a job.”

  He was aware.

  Still…

  He didn’t have to like it.

  “I’m sorry, son, but she has to go out. She was called out, and after Oracle, the president is not amused with your sassy wife.”

  Okay, he got it.

  She’d threatened the most powerful man in the free world, and it was a bad idea, but this was far worse. This was a nightmare come to life—his wife going head to head against a killer. Ethan was replaying the dream in his mind.

  He wanted to be sick.

  None of this sat well with him.

  “Ethan, what have you learned about your wife the last five years?”

  “That she’s a crazy magnet?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, she is. What else have you learned about her?”

  “That she’s going to get shot more times than not,” he stated.

  Gabe laughed. This was clearly not where he was trying to take this whole conversation.

  “How about something not related to her danger quotient?”

  “That she’s hot in the sack.”

  Gabe sputtered.

  “Sorry, I had to do it.”

  “She’s also smart, and she knows when she needs to take a case and when to walk away. All those years ago, remember when I sent you to the Rez to handle that Native issue?”

  “Yeah, I hated you for about three weeks.”

  “Let me tell you a little story.”

  Ethan sat down. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he’d survive one of Gabe’s stories. They never ended with a fairytale.

  He was a sadistic bastard.

  “Are you ready?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” he stated, wishing he had a cup of coffee to soothe his frazzled nerves.

  This was going to be bad. He could tell. His stories always involved him getting more work or
Elizabeth getting a case.

  “Back to you hating me for those three weeks for sending you to Damascus. Son, she was the other agent. Remember when I told you that I was sending you and giving the woman the case?”

  He thought back to it.

  “It was Elizabeth?”

  “Yes. That was the case that gave her back her street cred and rebuilt her career.”

  He couldn’t believe it.

  Again, their paths had crossed, and he’d never been the wiser. What the hell was wrong with him?

  “I profiled for her. That was the case where the hookers were being garroted and the killer was taking faces, right?”

  “Yeah, it was. I called to give her the cake case, and she gave me shit. She wanted me to stop pulling punches and let her have a hard case.”

  “And?”

  “I did. Had I not, this would have been very different for all of you.”

  Ethan thought about it. “What do you mean by that, Gabe?” he asked in confusion.

  “She wouldn’t have started rebuilding her career. She wouldn’t have had that case, and she wouldn’t be respected at the FBI. Without that case, she wouldn’t be her.”

  He had a point.

  “I can’t believe I’m going to go there, but you’ll have to give me some leeway.”

  “Uh, okay.”

  “Do you believe you and your brother were meant to be with Elizabeth?”

  “Yes,” Ethan said without even hesitating. “She was instrumental in helping me forgive him. Without her, I wouldn’t have done it.”

  “That’s what I thought. So, now that we covered that, what do you think would have happened had she headed to Damascus instead of you? Think about it—a young, sexy, single woman, about to meet one of her soul mates.”

  Ethan couldn’t breathe.

  Immediately, he got the implication.

  “Wait! What?”

  “That day, she almost changed fate. Had it not been for her gut, her tenacity, and her drive to stay on track, maybe you never would have gone back. You wouldn’t have met her. Right now, she’d be living on the Rez with your brother having only his babies.”

  Ethan wanted to weep at that.

  Those words scared him. It was his secret fear that one day he’d wake up and not have his wife.