by Gayle Wilson
So long that his very skin seemed sensitized. At every point where their bodies made contact, nerve endings, feeling raw and exposed, reacted to the slightest stimuli. The tightening of her nipples. The breath she drew. The slight arching of her back to bring her lower body into contact with his. Her recoil at the unmistakable evidence of his arousal and then the subtle relaxation of her acceptance.
Acceptance. Of him. Of what he wanted.
And that was the very least of what she was entitled to from him. Acceptance.
His hands returned to the task they’d deserted. As they again struggled with the metal buttons, he lowered his head, his mouth seeking hers. Their tongues touched. Joined. Released.
The last of the buttons finally came free. His fingers had found already either side of the waistband of her jeans, when she whispered another word.
“Boots.”
For a heartbeat, it made no sense. Not until he realized, as she obviously had, that there was no point in attempting to strip off her jeans while she was wearing her boots. Not unless he intended to take her like that.
The phrase reverberated in his head. Take her…
That’s exactly what he had intended, he realized. To take her. To use her body to ease the aching hunger of his.
Why not? his conscience jeered at the resultant surge of guilt. You certainly won’t be the first.
The kind of thinking that had destroyed things before. The hated images of what they’d said about Nicola Carson flickered at the edges of his consciousness, no matter how much he tried to deny them.
He had never before had a problem with a woman’s past. She had as much right to take lovers as a man did. That’s what he had always professed to believe, so why did the questions his sister had raised about Nicki’s past bother him so damn much?
Because there’s a difference in making love to a man because you want to and in doing it for money. There was no way he could romanticize prostitution. He had seen it in some of its cruelest guises around the globe. Just because it occurred at the Mayfair or the Ritz didn’t change its essential ugliness.
Perhaps Nicki sensed, and didn’t yet understand, his mental withdrawal. Or maybe she believed he hesitated because of the warning she’d just given.
In any case, she caught his hand, bringing it to her lips. She pressed a kiss into the palm, and then stepped away from him.
Standing alone in the darkness, he listened to the noises as she removed first one boot and then the other, dropping them on the floor of the trailer where they landed with small, distinct thuds. He didn’t move as he identified the rustling noises that signified the removal of her jeans and her shirt.
And then he didn’t dare to move at all.
Still struggling for control, he was unprepared when she stepped back into his arms. Her palms rested against his chest, fingertips lying over his collarbone.
He reached up and wrapped his hands around her wrists, pulling them out to the sides. At the same time, he moved forward so that their bodies were again in contact.
The knowledge that she was completely nude intensified every sensation. The tips of her breasts brushed against the hair on his chest. His hands found the rounded curve of her bottom, decidedly feminine, despite her slimness.
He lifted, again bringing her against his arousal. Her fingers found the waistband of his jeans, working frantically at their fastening. After a moment she had the zipper undone. Her hands pushed into the opening, forcing the fabric apart.
He put his head back, eyes closing at her first touch. Heat roared through his body as her hands freed him from the now painful constriction of his clothing.
And then, as they began to caress him, the resultant rush of blood strengthened an erection that seemed more powerful than any he’d ever felt before. His long need could explain that, of course. Or her expertise.
With that thought, his hand closed over hers, stopping the motion she’d begun. “Don’t,” he ordered softly.
And hated himself.
He could hear nothing but the blood drumming through his ears. Neither of them seemed to be breathing. The stillness grew, stretching tensely between them as he continued to hold her hand.
Finally, she twisted her wrist, attempting to pull it from his grasp. He let her go, and she took a step backward.
The distance that opened between them was less than a foot, but it was breathing room. He took a breath into it, feeling deserted, even though he had been the one who had put a stop to what had been happening. And he still wasn’t sure why he had.
“Is this some kind of game?”
Considering what he’d done, her voice sounded incredibly controlled. Logical. Interested even.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He was. Sorry he’d touched her in the first place. Sorry that he was too stupid to take what she was offering. More sorry than he could possibly express that he couldn’t get the image of her professionally servicing some fat-assed congressman in the exact same way she’d been touching him out of his head.
What the hell did that matter? he raged internally. She was a woman who was willing, and he was a man who—
He took another breath, trying to decide exactly what he was right now. Given the unusual flood of emotion, it wasn’t as easy as it should have been.
“I asked you a question,” she said.
He ignored her, concentrating instead on deciding who he was and what he wanted.
A woman? If so, he’d just blown it.
This particular woman? If so, why the hell hadn’t he taken what she was obviously offering?
Or did he want some preconceived idea of who and what he needed Nicki Carson to be? And if she wasn’t that…
“I made a mistake,” he said. “I had promised you this wouldn’t happen again.”
There was a long beat of silence.
“I didn’t think this was the same,” she said softly.
It hadn’t been. For a multitude of reasons, including her reaction.
And yet, at the heart it was the same. He wanted her, but only if she wasn’t what they said she was.
Even as he admitted that, he couldn’t reconcile what he felt with who he was. It made no rational sense, not even to him.
“There’s too much going on for this to be a good idea,” he said, offering excuses. “It’s too dangerous.”
He was glad it was dark. That way he didn’t have to look her in the eye as he mouthed that lie.
“Because this is a distraction.”
“It could be.”
“And you don’t want that.” The inflection was flat.
“I don’t think a distraction is good for either one of us right now.”
“Did you decide that before or after you unbuttoned my shirt?”
“This was a mistake,” he said evenly. “I told you I’m sorry.”
“You told me that before.”
“I was sorry before.”
“Am I seeing a pattern in this? Make a move and then retreat. Say you’re sorry. Promise it won’t happen again. If a woman does that, she gets called some very ugly names.”
He said nothing in his defense. What he had done was indefensible. And he couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth: I want you until I remember what you are.
“It won’t happen again,” he said. Each word deliberate. Measured.
“You’re so right,” she said, laughing a little, despite the fact that her voice had trembled. “You know what they say. Fool me once…”
She didn’t bother to finish the adage. Instead, she bent and retrieved her clothing from the floor. He listened as she pulled on her jeans and shirt, every motion abrupt with anger. Instead of taking time to put on her boots, she picked them up and took the two steps that separated her from the door.
As she opened it, he tried to think of something to say. Something that could make this better. And then he realized there was nothing he could say.
Nothing had changed. Nothing would change unt
il he knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, the truth about Nicki Carson.
His long years in intelligence had taught him two things. To trust no one. And that the really expert liars are the ones you can never in a million years imagine are lying.
Chapter Thirteen
He had expected there would be strain between them and had been prepared to deal with it. What he hadn’t expected was how bad he would feel when he looked into her eyes. Rimmed with red, they were both haunted and exhausted. And they refused to hold on his.
He couldn’t tell if that was the product of anger or something else. Something he would have a much harder time dealing with, he had decided, as they’d saddled their horses side-by-side in the thin morning sunlight streaming into the barn.
There had been no opportunity for private conversation, even if they’d been inclined to talk about what had happened last night. Several of the others, including the two hands assigned to take the newly sampled flock to pasture, had also been there.
He had watched surreptitiously as Nicki got her mount and her gear ready for the day. Her motions had been quick and controlled. Unrevealing.
As she worked, she had kept her head down, a precaution she’d employed in the past. In this case he felt the gesture was directed at hiding her face not from the others, but from him.
Once mounted, she had led the way out of the compound, riding up into a mist that was almost ghostly in the dawn light. Without discussion, but also without any attempt to back out of their plan, a move he’d been anticipating, she had then done exactly what he’d told her to do last night. She’d ridden out in the direction of their assigned work area before she doubled back, heading toward the remote peak she’d marked on the map.
Whatever else Nicki Carson might be, she was apparently a woman of her word. Despite what had happened between them last night.
He was sorry for that. Especially sorry for hurting her.
He no longer bothered to deny, at least not to himself, the strong sexual attraction he felt for her. Every time he allowed himself to get close, however, the images engendered by what Colleen had told him would be in his head. And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to banish them.
It was only when they reached that wilderness location that he realized the daunting prospect they faced in trying to pinpoint anything hidden up here. If the lab existed, however, he had already decided it would be in the highest, most rugged terrain surrounding the ranch. Needle in a haystack or not, this was where they needed to be looking.
After a couple of hours of picking their way up the mountain, they had to leave the horses to climb the increasingly steep and hostile incline on foot. Almost two hours after they’d staked their mounts, they were rapidly approaching the point of no return. If they didn’t turn around soon, despite having found nothing vaguely resembling a lab, they wouldn’t make it back to the compound for dinner. That was necessary to avoid any further suspicion from Quarrels or Johnson.
As much as he hated to admit defeat, especially since there was no guarantee they would be assigned to work together tomorrow, not on a job that gave them so much freedom, Michael turned to Nicki and motioned her to start back down. She met his eyes this time, holding them long enough to make a sharply negative movement of her head. Then she pointed to the top of the ridge they were climbing.
His eyes tracked upward as he tried to estimate how long it would take to reach that vantage point. By the time he had, she had scrambled past him, climbing, despite their long effort, with a determination that was almost palpable.
He had understood yesterday that this search had become some kind of crusade for her. Maybe because, as she’d said, she was ashamed of not having done this kind of investigation before. Maybe because she wanted to prove something to him, although he wasn’t clear what that might be.
All he knew was that he wasn’t going to let her go on alone. He gritted his teeth against the burn in his knee, which seemed to have stiffened during the few minutes of inactivity, and followed her, moving far more slowly than she was.
When he finally arrived at the top, Nicki was lying on her stomach looking over the edge. She turned her head as he eased down beside her. His breathing was ragged, loud enough to be audible in the thin mountain air.
For the first time, she met his eyes squarely. Hers were filled with what appeared to be triumph.
“Look,” she said, tilting her chin toward the rim.
Across the canyon, slightly below their elevation, a series of low, rectangular buildings spread out along the side of the opposite peak. Although the terrain around the structures was as craggy as that they’d just struggled up, a smoothly graded, unpaved road led up the mountainside, giving relatively easy access to them. Two vehicles, both designed for off-road travel, were parked in tandem in front of the first of the structures.
Michael wondered briefly how they’d managed to get the materials and the manpower up here to create this place, but the construction was simple and strictly utilitarian. Built of concrete and glass blocks, both durable and relatively easy to work with, the project wouldn’t have taken skilled labor. Not the exterior, at any rate. As for whatever was inside—
Nicki grabbed his forearm, her fingers digging into muscle. He turned his head, but she was no longer looking at him. As his eyes followed the focus of hers, he realized what she’d been trying to tell him.
A man, wearing a white lab coat, was walking away from the far end of the buildings. He carried a metal pump sprayer, the kind gardeners use to eradicate weeds. Michael couldn’t tell if he had exited from a door at the end of the last structure or if he had come from somewhere around the back.
He approached a pen, which held a dozen or so sheep. Michael hadn’t noticed it before because it was at the extreme end of the ledge the lab occupied, tucked under an overhang.
When the man reached the enclosure, he put the pump on the ground and pulled the handle up and down a couple of times to prime it. Before he picked it up again, he lifted the clear plastic mask hanging around his neck and placed it over his nose and mouth. He took time to adjust and then to check the fit before he picked up the canister again.
“What is that?” Nicki breathed.
Unconsciously, Michael shook his head, his eyes never leaving the man in the lab coat. He now had the sprayer under his arm, holding the nozzle out over the animals with his left hand as he moved the handle up and down with his right. Although they couldn’t see what he was spraying, it seemed obvious from the nonreaction of the sheep that it was an aerosol rather than a liquid.
“Some kind of pest control?” Nicki whispered.
“Maybe,” Michael conceded, although he’d never seen that method of delivery. “They do that on the Spur?” He turned in time to see her shake her head.
“I don’t like it,” she said softly, still focused on the opposite ridge. “I don’t like this whole setup.”
“We need to get closer.”
She pulled her gaze away from the man in the lab coat, whom she’d been watching in almost fascinated horror. “Why?”
“We need a sample of whatever that is.”
“And just how do you propose to get that?”
“Whatever that is, the wool will have absorbed it. There will be traces.”
“You’re planning to traipse over there and shear a sheep or two?”
The unpaved road that ran in front of the buildings didn’t provide much cover. Even if he could discover where it began, it would probably be guarded. Or monitored.
If he rejected the road, that left climbing up on foot. After the trek they’d made this morning, he doubted he’d be in shape to tackle another climb anytime soon.
“You have another suggestion?” he asked. It wasn’t a rhetorical question. At this point, he would welcome another viable alternative.
“Go back to whoever the hell you’re working for and tell them about this place. Let them send somebody out here to check it out. Like maybe the Air Force.�
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Given Colleen’s connections, he probably could at that, he thought, amused by the thought of a couple of F-16’s buzzing the lab. And then he realized there would already be satellite photos of this place. By pulling the right strings, those could be acquired from the agency. Given the sophistication of their technology, they would provide details of the site he couldn’t see from here.
Neither the satellites nor the Air Force, however, would be able to get a sample of whatever the guy in the white coat had just sprayed on the sheep. To do that somebody was going to have to visit that lab in person.
“Could you find the start of that road?” he asked, still examining his options.
“From the base of the compound?”
He nodded, his eyes still focused on the scientist who was returning to the building, pump sprayer in hand. As far as Michael could tell, the sheep, back to their normal placidity, were none the worse for the experience.
“Probably.”
Her tone was grudging, but he didn’t believe she would have agreed if she hadn’t been certain she could.
“Then the next climb we make will be by pickup.”
HE GLANCED AGAIN at his watch, directing the penlight Nicki had left in his trailer last night toward the dial and then clicking it off. She was more than ten minutes late.
Maybe she’d overslept. Or maybe there was someone wandering around outside, and she’d decided to lie low for a while. That was a decision he normally wouldn’t argue with, but for some reason he had the feeling that things were coming to a head on the Half Spur. Tonight might be their last chance to get to that lab.
He couldn’t put his finger on why he had such a heightened sense of anxiety. The visit of the helicopter, maybe. The sidelong glances from Quarrels that he’d caught out of the corner of his eye at dinner tonight. A tenseness in the atmosphere.
He flicked on the light once more, directing its narrow beam at the face of his watch. Another two minutes had dragged by since the last time he’d looked.
