Wild Encounter

by Nikki Logan

  “No. Let’s get this finished.” Clare’s hands shook. But her voice was strong.

  McKenzie took a deep breath and continued.

  The questions went on for fifteen minutes. Cross checking stated facts, getting corroborating evidence, double-checking timelines. Then, finally, it was over.

  “I think we have what we need. I’m satisfied with what I’ve heard,” McKenzie said, rising and turning to look steadily in the mirror as she ended the interview for the recording.

  Clare stood up. “May I go?”

  “Of course. Thank you for coming in.”

  You’re not welcome. “No problem.” She checked her face in the mirrored wall and decided she wasn’t too ravaged by her tears, but her eyes were still enormous and red-rimmed.

  McKenzie let Radcliff exit the room first. He nodded awkwardly to Clare then hurried out the door.

  “Rookie,” McKenzie said shaking her head.

  “At least he didn’t run,” Clare said with a wan smile.

  McKenzie smiled back—hell must have frozen over—and led her out of the interview room. Clare started back down the corridor the way they’d come in earlier. McKenzie stopped her at the door to the next room.

  “Clare, could you please wait here a moment?” she asked, glancing up and down the empty hall. She knocked on the door and then marched off without a backward glance. Clare frowned, and was about to follow her when she felt the door opening behind her.

  She turned and gasped as two strong hands yanked her into the room.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Simon shut the door behind Clare, plunging them into darkness.

  “Simon? Is that—”

  “Shut up,” he ordered, twisting Clare around to face him.

  “What’s going—”

  “Shut up!” He slid his hands up her arms, yanking her close.

  His heart was still beating double-time. He was going to kill Mac. She had gone thoroughly off-script in her inquisition. But Clare had rounded as savagely as one of her wild dogs defending itself against a predator.

  And then it had happened.

  Clare’s control had snapped. And like the thousands of liters per second that tumble over Victoria Falls, all her rage and pain poured out—six months of repressed hurt and fear crashing onto his speechless partner.

  He was a lousy friend. Because he’d never felt such pride and admiration. This woman—his woman—gave as good as she got.

  “Simon?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Shut up!” he murmured, wrapping her in his arms.

  Then his mouth was on hers, crushing her to him, trying to fuse their bodies permanently together. His muscles barely had to work to keep her tight within the circle of his arms. She melted into his python hold, opening her mouth wider to let him fully in. His tongue stole past her teeth, tangling with her own, invading and retreating, desperate to taste her. She tugged on his lips with her own, clinging as though her life depended on it.

  His hands moved down to splay across her midriff and under her breasts, the thump-thump-thump of her heart pounding against his palm.

  He lifted his head just a fraction. “You love me,” he told her.

  She blinked at him, disoriented. But he knew what he’d heard, and Mac had heard it too. That idiot, Radcliff, had probably even written it in his notes. He’d seen the subtle shift in his partner’s posture that marked her success. The big-arsed dose of smugness she shot at him through the one-way mirror.

  That was what she’d been pushing Clare to say. She knew him well enough to know he had to hear it to believe it, spelled out in black and white. For better or worse.

  But in this case, definitely, categorically better.

  “I heard you say it.” He gazed down at her, his heart filling with warmth. “You love me.”

  Clare blinked and glanced around, spotted the interview room on the other side of the glass. She sucked in an accusing breath.

  “Don’t be angry. If I hadn’t listened, I wouldn’t know how you really feel.” He dipped his head and kissed her neck. “Other than wonderful,” he murmured.

  “I said I half-love you…” She tried to huff. He kept kissing her neck, giving it tiny nips. The huff turned into a whimper.

  He hummed against her throat. “Got a particular half in mind?”

  She shoved at his chest but he wasn’t going anywhere. Defiance blazing in her eyes. So different than the open, vulnerable windows to her soul as she’d checked her makeup in the mirror. The precious seconds he’d had to let himself drown in those deep brown pools.

  “The half that doesn’t smirk.”

  He smiled down at her. “I’m not smirking, beautiful. I’m happy.” He slid his hand up her back to cradle the back of her head and then brought his mouth down to hers again. “So damn happy.”

  He kissed her long and hard.

  And exquisitely slow.

  Somewhere in the middle of that kiss her luscious body changed. She melted into him. Surrendered to him. She shivered with the pleasure of their tasting and their touching. She pushed against him as he covered her face and throat with more kisses. And more.

  But then she broke the kisses, pulled away a little. “Simon. Wait.”

  She looked up at him with smoky eyes. Stunning, especially when they were dark with desire. But there was hesitation in them.

  “Clare, if you’re going to tell me you don’t love me, I’ll—”

  “No. I…I have no idea how you feel,” she said, the battle between fear and trust playing out so clearly on her face.

  Once, during emergency egress training half-a-kilometer deep in the sea, his ribs had crumpled in on his thorax like a vacuum. By the time he broke surface his entire chest was in agony. That was nothing on this moment.

  He’d never even allowed the thought, let alone said the words out loud. Protecting and worshipping came naturally to him, but risking his heart? Letting out his emotions?

  Admitting to love?

  Never.

  He stroked the stray hairs back from her tear-stained face. “You said it yourself, Clare. You are my world; and my world has been cold and empty since Africa.”

  She took a cautious breath. “For three weeks?”

  He shook his head. “Seven months. Since the first time you left me.”

  Her eyes widened. “But…”

  He pulled a tall, padded stool over and lifted her onto it, kissing her face and throat. “But?”

  “How can we trust these feelings?” Her protest weakened the more his hands roamed her body. The more his lips caressed her skin. “We barely know each other.”

  He thumbed the feminine buttons on her angora cardigan. The way her breasts strained against the fabric, they hardly needed his help to freedom. Just as she hadn’t…

  “I know plenty. I know you’re brave…” A button popped. “And funny.” Pop. “And smart.” Pop. The final button slid free, and he pushed the soft fabric aside, feasting his eyes on the full, creamy mounds of flesh. He remembered those breasts. In exquisite detail. He’d dreamed of those breasts. Often. “And possibly the sexiest woman I have ever laid eyes on,” he said huskily.

  He strained thickly against his trousers, hungering for her. But he forced himself to slow, bending to lick across the lacy edge of her bra.

  “And you know I’m stubborn.” Lick. “And crafty.” Lick. He paused to mark the moment his life was going to change forever.

  “And completely, madly in love with you.”

  …

  Simon’s teeth scraped over Clare’s rock-hard nipple through the lacy fabric.

  She threw back her head at the sharp, hot sensation, and moaned in pleasure at the flood of emotions tumbling through her.

  He loved her! Simon loved her!

  An hour ago she’d believed she’d lost him forever, and now she was here with him, half-naked, practically making love, within the vaunted walls of Vauxhall.

  Delirium set in.

  In a good way.<
br />
  He undid her bra with no effort.

  “Someone will see…” Her protest wasn’t terribly convincing.

  “One way glass. Triple glazed.”

  “The door?” Turning her head to look only gave him easier access to the side of her throat.

  “Locked from the inside.” He nipped the tender flesh below her ear. She gasped, going shivery all over. She loved that spot.

  “Can they hear us?” She reached for his belt, almost beyond caring.

  “Soundproof.”

  “Oh, thank God.” Her fingers fumbled at his belt buckle and reached for the fly of his trousers. Scooting forward on the stool she hooked her legs around his thighs, her soft cotton skirt bunching up around her hips.

  “If you’re not ready for me in thirty seconds I’m starting without you,” he said. “It’s been seven long months of hell, Clare.”

  The idea of a man like Simon remaining celibate that long was hard to imagine. For it to happen because of his feelings for her was such a turn-on. “I was ready thirty seconds ago,” she purred, throaty with lust.

  His trousers fell to the floor, his hand tugged her underwear aside and then—wonderfully, finally, and forever—he was inside her. He drew her bottom hard toward him, locking them together.

  He found her hungry mouth with his and Clare squeezed her knees around him to hold him closer as he thrust more deeply. She locked her hand around her own wrist behind his neck and joined his rhythm, clasping inner and outer muscles in sync.

  It wasn’t romantic, there were no sweet nothings. It was fast and dirty, and exactly, perfectly, wonderfully right.

  Her body wept, and she cried out, exultant to end the long absence of him inside her.

  She matched him, thrust for ever-faster-ever-deeper thrust, her body trembling all over with her need for him.

  “Now,” he rasped. “Come for me now.”

  She wrapped her arms around his shuddering shoulders and felt the first powerful spasms.

  “Yes!”

  He crushed her to him, and thrust hard into her, muting his strangled cry against her throat. She fell with him over the edge, into the blinding light of orgasm, and the rhythmic pulse of his muscles, his essence, flooded into her, made all the more powerful, and all the more holy, by her own utterly silent scream.

  …

  Clare lay half bent back over the stool, still locked together with Simon, shudders rapidly giving way to gentle spasms of laughter.

  “Oh, God,” she gasped. “Sweet heaven.”

  “That was—” he gulped down a breath, choking on a chuckle “—insanely good.”

  She could just make out their reflections in the broad glass of the one-way window behind Simon and it was an entirely undignified picture. She, topless with her skirt bunched up at her waist, and he with the top half of his designer suit entirely untouched but his trousers pooled around his shiny shoes. Her legs were still hooked around his hips, and the hard curve of one very male buttock flashed out below his jacket hem.

  She hoped to heaven any surveillance equipment was on the other side of this observation window.

  He grinned and sighed. “I’ll probably get fired for this.”

  She giggled. “It was totally worth it.”

  He supported her weight as she lowered her legs, tipping her carefully into an upright position. He lowered his head for another lingering kiss. “Oh, yeah.”

  She met his mouth as she pulled her underwear back into place and smoothed her skirt down.

  “Next time we do this,” he pledged, refastening his suit pants, “it’ll be in one of our own beds. And we’ll stay there all day.”

  Clare smiled up at him. “What makes you think there’ll be a next time?”

  His laughter faded to seriousness. “Oh there will be. A hundred thousand next times. I never want to go a day without you again.”

  She blinked at the stark promise in his eyes, the intensity of his expression. “Me, neither,” she whispered.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

  It wasn’t anger in his eyes. Or hurt. She perched her feet on the stool base and fixed her bra and sweater. Buying time. She knew exactly what he was asking about.

  “You seemed so concerned about breaching your professional code of conduct,” she confessed. “So filled with remorse. I wasn’t about to admit I’d cherished every moment.”

  Simon swallowed. “It killed me to think you’d slept with me just to escape. Or that I’d taken advantage of you when you were vulnerable.” He stroked her hair. “And then you looked at me in the hunting blind last month, and I knew it was still there…what we’d had. But everyone had rammed the whole Stockholm thing into my head.”

  Clare furrowed her brow. “Dr. Douglass had me doubting myself, too. It felt so real. But you were one of them…”

  Two tiny lines formed between his brows. He nodded. “So, how could it be real?”

  She pressed her hands on both sides of his handsome face. “Yes. I can’t tell you how incredible it felt to see you again. Alive. Healthy.”

  “You mean when you ran away screaming into the bush?” he reminded her on a half-smile.

  “My body ran. That screaming was my heart howling with joy.” She slipped her arms around his waist as he wrapped his around her. Their body heat fused them together. “I’d learned not to trust my heart, by then.”

  His brow creased. “Always trust your heart. It is as pure and wise as any I’ve ever met.”

  “I got it so wrong once before. Then falling for you in the farmhouse. It felt so right, but had to be so wrong again. I began to feel like my own worst enemy.”

  “And then I led you straight into danger.”

  “That hit me hard. But I thought about what you said—about operating on a different set of rules than everyone else. And about you being the target, not me. I was so self-centered, thinking only of myself, and the danger to me. Never thinking about the enormous risks you took, routinely, every day, to protect people like me from the bad guys of the world.”

  “No, I was the selfish one. It’s my job to risk my life. That’s my choice. You were never given a choice. I was hurting because I wanted you so badly, and knew I could never have you.”

  “Oh, Simon. I felt the same way. I just didn’t know how to change things. You kept apologizing for making love with me.”

  They smiled at one another, and he shook his head, quiet wonder in his expression. “I’d never had another priority. In fifteen years within SIS I’d never been compromised. And then I saw you, dirty and terrified, crouched in that transporter ready to fight Corby to protect your dogs, and I wrapped my arms around you and…everything changed. My world didn’t just tilt on its axis, it lurched. I just didn’t know what it was at the time.”

  “When did you know?” she asked, wanting to know the exact moment he’d become hers in soul as well as in body.

  “When you escaped. Any woman who could outsmart four sociopaths and an SIS operative… How could I not love you?”

  He gave her a long, tender kiss.

  “I hated drugging you. Leaving you like that.”

  He stroked her hair. “I remember your face as I went down. I knew you felt terrible about it. I got word from Mac a few weeks later that you were safe. And I realized you’d driven all the way to Lusaka before going to the police. To give me time to get away.”

  McKenzie. She’d pushed her hard this afternoon. “Your partner’s a tough one, isn’t she? Was today’s interrogation all for your benefit?”

  “She knows how miserable I’ve been since returning to London. And she believed she owed me one for—” He caught himself. “She thought maybe she owed you, too.” He stroked her hair. “She realized I loved you long before I did. She tore strips off me for putting her in that position.”

  Clare smiled. “I didn’t want to be in love with you, either.”

  “Why not?”

  She wrapped her arms around her torso, but he freed her
arms and wrapped his own around her instead.

  “I was a laughingstock at college,” she said. “For caring for the wrong man.”

  “Your plagiarist asshole boyfriend.”

  Right. That gentle conversation through the tent wall. She smiled despite the bad taste she always got in her mouth when she thought of Craig. She had a feeling soon she wouldn’t even remember his name.

  “I didn’t want to risk going through that again. I fought with Douglass every session because I didn’t want to find out that it was only the kidnapping that gave me those incredible feelings I had for you. Because you were gone, and I was so afraid I’d never feel that again with anyone else. That I’d be empty inside forever.”

  “Douglass was wrong. What we have is real and won’t ever go away.” He kissed her so sweetly tears came to her eyes.

  She gazed up at him, her vision blurred. “The thing that really terrified me was when I drove away from the release site all those weeks ago. I’d lost you again, plus I thought for sure WildLyfe was done for because of what Artie did.”

  “He’s going to pay for that, Clare.”

  “Did he say anything? Explain how he could do it?” To people he was supposed to care about.

  Simon hugged her close. “I can’t discuss the details. But I can say that what he did wasn’t even related to the finance heist. His debt was to someone else and they sold it, and him, to the big players. He never even knew what was on the chips or who he was mixed up with. In fact none of them seemed to know exactly who they were working for.”

  Layers and layers of deceit to untangle.

  “He spilled everything when we confronted him. How he’d grown overly ambitious shifting his money around to make it work for WildLyfe and then had to take a big loan to trade out of the shit. But, for what it’s worth, I absolutely believed him when he said he didn’t mean for you to be a part of it. The collars were supposed to be lifted in London and your trip would have been postponed.”

  Pfft. “For all he knew he could have been making me into a drug courier,” she gritted. And the dogs.

  Simon’s arms tightened around her. “Yeah. He could have.”

  “I was so lost at first, Simon, I thought my life would be empty without WildLyfe. But I realized that I was already empty. The only two times I felt truly alive in my whole life was working with the dogs and when I was near you.”