by Linda Grimes
“Listen, Ciel,” Mark said in a patient voice that was starting to grate on me. If he reverted to ruffling my hair, I was going to
tenderize Thomas’s breakfast for him. “It’s easy to get swept up in the moment, especialy with a guy like Bily. He’s good-looking. Smart and funny. Add the adrenaline of a dangerous situation, and it makes everything feel that much more intense.” He
looked out to sea before he continued, offering me a bit of privacy from his gaze. “The … uh, sensations … can go to your head,
and you might not be thinking clearly.”
I baled up my hands, but kept them at my sides, which showed great restraint on my part. What he was saying might be true,
but I sure as hel didn’t need to hear it from him. Now, if he were giving me a better reason to stay away from Bily—say, like,
“I’m wildly jealous and don’t want another guy near you,” for instance—it might be a whole ’nother bal of wax. But this pseudo
big brother crap wasn’t doing it for me.
I forced myself to speak evenly. “Don’t worry about me. If I can handle your kiss—and I believe I somehow managed not to
lose my head there, even after a few drinks—then I’m sure I’l be able to cope with Bily’s attention.”
He looked at me sideways, apparently amused.
“What’s so funny?”
He shook his head, stil suppressing a smile. “Nothing.”
“Tel me,” I insisted.
He shrugged. “That was you kissing me, not me kissing you.”
“Oh, so there’s a difference?” I didn’t say yeah, right, but he got the subtext.
“Look, never mind. Forget it.”
“No, I realy want to know,” I said, with an edge to my voice. A smart man might’ve noted the danger. Not that Mark was one
to back away from danger.
“Yes, there’s a difference,” he said. “And if you’d ever been kissed by me, you’d know it.”
I expeled a short, derisive blast of air through my nose. “Much of an ego there, Mark? Gee, I’l try my best not to swoon in
your presence.”
“Look, Ciel, I may have gone about this the wrong way. I didn’t mean to make you mad. I’m just trying to get you to
understand—”
“Understand what?” I jabbed his chest. “Reactions?” Jabbed it again. “You’re one to talk. If I recal correctly, you—” (Jab.)
“—reacted more than I did back on your boat. But maybe I’m misremembering.” (Jab, jab.)
He took my hand, firmly, the flint back in his eyes. “Stop that.” The patience was gone. Good riddance. “Of course I reacted.
I’m human. You’re human, too. That’s al I’m—oh, hel.”
He puled me to him and lowered his head, stopping with his lips mere milimeters from mine. “Shal we see if your defenses are
as good as you think they are?” he said, his voice silk over steel, no doubt intended to make me run away like a frightened
schoolgirl.
Ha. Fat chance.
“Give it your best shot, spook,” I said, caling up a sneer, sure my anger at him would provide al the insulation I needed.
Um, yeah, about that …
Okay, so I was wrong. Turns out one kind of heated emotion isn’t that far off another, and sometimes they even morph into
each other. Kind of ironic for that to take an adaptor by surprise.
It started out tamely enough, with a brush of soft, warm lips over mine. A quick flick of his tongue gave me a start, but I
returned it in kind, showing him he couldn’t steamrol me. Easy, peasy. I could do it al day without breaking a sweat. But then his
tongue got busier, and I may have made a smal noise in the back of my throat.
That was my mistake. He latched on to my itty-bitty response—realy, it hardly qualified as a moan at al—and fanned it until I
couldn’t have backed away, even if I’d been inclined to try. Which, to be totaly honest, I wasn’t. And this time I couldn’t even
blame the Scotch.
He was right. It was different, different as night and day, and he was definitely night. The summer-in-the-mountains, black
velvet, stars-like-fireworks kind of night, so soft and sensual it made my skin go crazy. A little voice in my head—it sounded
remarkably like my thirteen-year-old self—started squealing, This is Mark! Mark is finally kissing you!
I kept my breathing under control, but I couldn’t do anything about my heartbeat. He had to know the effect he was having on
me, that he’d accomplished his purpose within the first ten seconds of his lips touching mine, but he didn’t stop. He drew it out. I
knew why he was doing it, knew I should pul away, but—
Screw it. I kissed him back, letting my hands slide up his chest—geez, he had nice pecs—and behind his neck.
He dropped his arms and puled me roughly to him, teasing me with his arousal. I pressed against him, and, okay, I wiggled.
Only a little—I couldn’t help it. A smal part of me was angry he was right, that I was so easily sucked into the embrace, but it
was subdued by the part saying, Shut up already! Wiggle some more! A fine time for my inner slut to make an appearance. She
was even worse than my thirteen-year-old ghost of hormones past.
He groaned (breathing heavily himself, I was happy to note) and began inching apart the blanket I was stil wearing, dragging
the soft pile across my bare skin until it opened in front. A hot hand snaked between the folds, up to my breast, cupping it softly,
grazing my nipple with the calused pad of his thumb.
Whoa. Now there was sensation, and damned if he wasn’t right again. It was going straight to my head, where Inner Slut and
Thirteen-Year-Old Me were fighting over who would get custody. Inner Slut won. Thirteen was way too young for a feeling like
that.
His mouth left mine—it would have been the perfect time to cry uncle, except I was half-afraid he might listen—and went
exploring on my neck, from under my chin to behind my ear and back again. I bit my lip against a whimper. My neck is entirely
too sensitive for its own good. As he tickled the pulse under my jaw with his tongue, his hand slid lower, finding my navel and
dipping in. I was al set to protest—honest—but then his mouth was right there with mine again, and my lips decided they had
better things to do than listen to my brain. I bit his bottom lip hard enough to make him suck in his breath and deepen the kiss. He
had to be feeling this, too. It couldn’t just be me.
“Hey, Mark.” Laura’s voice jolted me, caling from below. Crap. Again? I tore my lips away from Mark’s. “SÄPO caled.
They said they’d—” She stopped when she saw us, both brows jumping this time.
Mark held me against his chest, so she wouldn’t see where the blanket had come apart.
“Never mind. Tel you later.” She turned and went back below.
Mark held me until my heartbeat slowed. “So, hey,” I said finaly, avoiding his eyes. “I, um, guess you were right about those
sensations, huh? Sneaky little bastards, aren’t they?”
I tried to disengage myself, but he held on to me. “Howdy, I’m sorr—”
“Don’t you dare say it.” I pushed away from him, surprised at the strength of my reaction to his attempt at an apology. Guess I
was a little upset at being caught by Laura. Twice. In a short span of time. With different guys. What must she think of me?
Shit. What did I think of me?
“But I shouldn’t have—” Mark tried to continue.
“No, I’m the one who shouldn’t have.” I straightened my blanket and got hold of myself. “Look, just forget it, okay? You were
right. Lesson learned, Professor Fielding. Class over. Now, hadn’t you better go see wh
at Laura wanted to tel you?”
He swore softly. “Yeah, I better. We’l pick this up later, Howdy.”
“Hey, Mark,” I said as he walked away. “Are you the kind of guy you’d want your kid sister to get involved with?”
He stopped and turned back to me, eyes serious. “No. I’m the kind of bastard I would castrate before letting him near my kid
sister. Maybe you better think about that.”
Chapter 26
Cripes. Think about that? On top of thinking about Bily? Oh, and why not contemplate what a skeeze Laura must think I am,
while I’m at it. Shit. What in the hel was going on with Mark and Bily, anyway? Did Bily suddenly want me because he thought
Mark did? And was Mark interested only because Bily was paying attention to me?
Fuck it al. I made up my mind. I wasn’t having any more to do with either one of them after this escapade was over. I was
done with the both of them. Finito. I’d redouble security at my office, so they wouldn’t be able to track me on my jobs. I’d avoid
family gatherings where they might be present—there had to be at least a dozen severe ilnesses I could credibly fake as excuses.
And if that didn’t work, I could always tel Thomas. He’d kil both of them for me.
Back below, I went straight to the head, and rinsed my face with cool water until I felt in control again. I could do this. I could
be strong. Helping free Trey from the Vikings would be my focus. Getting him for Mina was my job. Nothing else mattered.
*
Other than a half-grin and a suspicious twinkle in her eyes, Laura didn’t let on that she’d seen anything unusual—thank goodness
for inbred spook discretion. I had to wonder, though: if she could be so sanguine about the whole thing, maybe she wasn’t
involved with Mark. Unless the pair of them were a whole lot more open about relationships than I was.
Not that it mattered anymore, of course, since I was no longer interested.
Laura was a whiz with disguises. After being introduced to a bottle of peroxide, Bily bore more than a passing resemblance to
Spike, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. By the time she was finished with me, my hair was orangey-red, my freckles had
disappeared beneath a thick layer of foundation, and my lips looked considerably thinner and paler. She said she hated to mess
with my mouth, but that any man who’d ever seen it wasn’t likely to forget it, so she had to.
“Your eyes are spectacular, Ciel—I’ve never seen such a clear, spring green,” she said when she was done with my makeup.
“Realy distinctive. Unfortunately, distinctive is what we’re trying to avoid. I have some noncorrective colored contact lenses—
could you give them a try?”
I agreed, and chose a plain medium brown. I managed to get them into my eyes after several failed attempts. Not liking the way
they felt, I waited until her back was turned, removed them, and adapted my own eyes to the same color. Surely that wasn’t
cheating. Though judging by the gleeful look on Bily’s face, he considered it cheating.
She didn’t have to do much to herself because she had barely been in view since they’d arrived in Sweden, and of course
Mark was free to adapt at wil. He didn’t have to do a thing except put on a costume, in hopes of blending in at the periphery of
the Viking group. Laura, Bily, and I wore typical, touristy day-hiker clothing made of state-of-the-art synthetic materials in
various shades of tan. Ho-hum.
The plan was to get as close as we could to the Viking encampment, under the pretext of bird watching. With luck, Laura
would overhear enough to tel us if they were holding Trey there, and what their plans were. If our presence was detected and
questioned, we would feign total ignorance of anything other than Gotland’s bird life.
According to the new passports Laura had modified for us by making good use of a digital camera and compact photo printer,
she was now Rose, Bily was Hubert (which made me laugh and him wince), and I was Sarah. Mark gave us a brief inspection
after we were fuly outfitted. I refused to meet his eyes.
He lifted my chin and said, “Look at me, Ciel.”
I did, but kept my lips compressed. I had nothing to say to him. He turned my head from side to side, in ful professional mode,
his manner giving no hint of the passionate embrace we’d shared. I knew good and wel he could tel I wasn’t wearing the
contacts, but he couldn’t cal me on it in front of Laura. Finaly he said, “You’l do.” He barely looked at Bily and Laura as he left,
trusting them to handle their disguises without supervision.
Fifteen minutes later, after receiving the designated signal via text message, the rest of us folowed. Bily had found a
prescription-less pair of black-framed glasses in Laura’s bag of tricks, and was wearing them to dorky effect while training his
binoculars on every passing feathered creature. He assumed a slightly pigeon-toed walk that totaly altered his gait, and would
have cracked me up but for the warning look Laura gave me. I knew I couldn’t keep up something like that myself for any length
of time, so I didn’t even try. Laura’s transformation of my face and hair would have to do for me.
I hung my binoculars around my neck, got out my book, and tried to look fascinated by nature. It would have been a nice
outing under most other circumstances. Heck, if I was honest with myself, I was having fun under these conditions, as long as I
kept my head in the moment, and didn’t think too much about Mark or Bily. No wonder it wasn’t difficult for covert agencies to
recruit people to do this stuff—it was a rush.
We walked for a mile, maybe a little more, never far from civilization but sticking to the wooded areas, with Bily checking his
compass every now and then in a big, nerdy production. I doubt he needed it—he had the most obnoxiously keen sense of
direction of anybody I knew—but it fit in with Hubert’s persona. I, on the other hand, would have been lost inside fifty yards,
even with the compass. When it comes to directions, I depend upon the kindness of strangers. Honking big landmarks help, too.
As we neared our destination, we came upon our first neo-Viking. The tal, barrel-chested, ginger-bearded felow seemed
amiable enough as he approached, greeting us in Swedish. Laura answered him in kind, and asked him a question, also in
Swedish. After hearing his response, she grinned and said, in English, “Pretty good, Mark. I wouldn’t take you for a Swede, but
you pass—barely—for a somewhat slow Dane trying to speak schoolroom Swedish.”
A hearty laugh rumbled through him. “You got me. Now, let’s go—I need you to listen for me. I heard Trey’s name mentioned
again, but couldn’t cipher out the details. If we hurry, they may stil be discussing him.”
“What now?” I asked Bily once they were gone.
“Now we work our way closer to the camp, looking at al of our fine, feathered friends. I need to get myself better situated to
help. Presupposing Mark is right about what he heard.”
“Okay,” I said, faling into step beside him. “Um, how precisely do you propose to get Trey? Their team is a little bigger than
ours, in case you haven’t noticed.”
He shrugged. “I don’t think about the bridges.”
“Bridges?”
“You know—the ones you cross when you get to them—I don’t think about those. Something wil come up. There’l be an
opening, and we’l take it.”
“Oh.” It didn’t sound like the most reassuring of plans to me, but since I didn’t have a better one to offer, what else could I
say?
We wan
dered on, moving quickly without appearing to be rushed, Bily sweeping the area visualy with his binoculars, making
occasional, clearly audible comments to me about this or that bird. “Oh, my God,” he gushed in a loud whisper, sounding like he
meant to be quiet but just couldn’t contain himself. “Is that a Radde’s Warbler? Could it be? It is!”
I lifted my binoculars and pointed them where he indicated. Saw a smal, brownish bird with a lighter underbely, and what
looked like long, cream-colored eyebrows.
“Why, yes. I believe you’re right. Shal I, um, make note of it?” I said, and then added, ultra-low volume, barely moving my
lips, “How the hel do you know what bird that is?”
“I paged through the book while we were waiting for Mark to cal. Didn’t you?” he said.
Not actualy, no. A bit of musical birdsong interrupted before I had to admit it, though. I scanned the area. “Did you hear that?
Why, that’s a … what would you say that is, Hubert?”
“My phone,” he said drily.
Wel, how clever to think of programming birdcal ringtones, just exactly as bird geeks might do, I thought, irritated for no valid
reason. Weren’t Bily and Mark just so good at everything. Sailing. Spying. Kissing. Why not ringtones? I kicked a rock.
Okay, so maybe I was ticked about the kisses. Both of them. And maybe, if I were honest with myself, I was more ticked
about my reaction to the kisses than the fact that either one of them had kissed me. Ticked and confused.
Crap. Being honest with yourself sucks.
Bily slid open the tiny device. “Hubert here.” He listened intently for several seconds. “Where?… Is he stil…?… Got it.”
My cranky confusion was doused by a sudden splash of adrenaline. “What? Did they find Trey? Is it time?” I whispered
urgently. “Are we going to bust him out? Did anybody bring a gun?”
Bily laid his hand over my mouth and spoke softly. “Laura thinks she knows where they have Trey, but they could be moving
him at any time. It won’t be a simple extraction. We—by which I mean Mark, Laura, and I—are going to try to sneak him out
without being noticed by the horde. You are going to head back to the boat—”
“But I can—”
“The boat,” he repeated firmly. “You wil wait there, out of sight, until one of us cals you. Mark decided it was too dangerous
