Free Cleopatra's Necklace (Devlin Security Force Book 3) by Susan Vaughan

blew his nose on a handkerchief as they passed him.
    When the couple turned into the central section housing the elevators, he checked again. Still no sign of the steward. Only the cart. All clear. A silent whistle escaped him. Running DSF from his office had made him soft, slow, too jumpy. Cleo needed him sharper.
    She was probably safe in the shore-excursion group. Home of the Mafia, Sicilian towns were safe. As long as Centaur didn’t hire some mobster to snatch her from her tour. His pulse thumped. Nah, no reason for concern. They couldn’t have had the time to organize such a grab, even if they traced her to the ship.
    He withdrew the lock decoder. When his tech department supplied Lucas with the device a month ago, they’d insisted it would open any door that required a key card. Not strictly legal but one of the high-tech gadgets for the occasional Interpol gigs DSF did. Thomas had wanted Lucas to have every possible advantage pursuing Centaur.
    And Marco Zervas. The small-time thief had gone big time. Zervas escaped the CTF’s raid on his London townhouse, but in his haste, he left behind a single print. The way Centaur operated, with total secrecy, now made sense. Thomas’s former weapons NCO had trusted no one in their team. Being paranoid about his teammates didn’t make for good morale. Even if the man hadn’t crossed the line, Thomas would’ve had him transferred.
    He tapped in another code from the list. Universal-code cards used by hotel staff and ship stewards were designed to override the unique door codes. The decoder used the same principle but with a pad for keying in the universal codes.
    His last chance. It had to work. He pushed Enter.
    The tiny light above the stateroom number changed from red to green.
    He yanked down the handle and stepped inside the room. As soon as he closed the door, he smelled her. Light scents of lilac and lemon, but also Cleo herself. Feminine yet full of zest.
    Or else it was his imagination. And just the ship’s soap.
    Cosmetics littered the counter beside the closet. Clothing draped chair backs and hung on the closet door. He’d seen the same disarray when he used to hang out with her brothers. Cleo Chandler had moved in.
    No time to waste. He stared at the tracking button in his hand. Wafer thin and sheer, virtually invisible. He could track her using an app on his phone. But where to plant it so he could follow her tonight, figure out the best time to approach her? He dreaded her reaction. God, he’d hurt her so badly.
    Since her sixteenth birthday, he’d tried to stay away from her. He was ten years older and a soldier, disciplined, hard and tough. Shit, hard was the truth. He’d stayed that way from the moment he came home on leave and saw her in a miniskirt. She was his buddies’ little sister, for God’s sake, the kid who followed them around with Andie. How could he lust for her like a stag in rut?
    She was attracted too. That was the rub. When he’d joined Special Forces, she used the banter from her favorite author as a joke. Whenever he called her Babe , she mocked him with Ranger . She knew damned well Delta Force wasn’t the Army Rangers. When he protested, she only laughed. They teased and laughed but he’d kept his distance otherwise.
    Until a few years later before he left for Iraq, when she’d come on to him strong. And hell, horny idiot that he was, he responded, laughing with her, flirting with her, looping his arm around her shoulders. They rode her brother’s motorcycle. He could barely straddle the cycle’s seat with her breasts snug against his back, her thighs tight against his, and her arms wrapped around his waist.
    That night their two families—her parents and his dad—put together a send-off barbecue. Too many toasts and wishes for a safe deployment fogged his mind. But something must’ve happened between them that she interpreted as an invitation. He didn’t remember returning to his room over his dad’s garage. He