Charade

by Lisa Marie Rice

  On Mark’s screen were mug shots of young police recruits. They were clean shaven and the men on the other side of the wall all had beards, but he could see the matchups.

  “It means they’ll have some tactical skills.”

  “Not as good as ours,” Robert vowed.

  Yes, the agents of the DGSE were notoriously capable and well trained. They had a rep as fierce and effective and if they had to overstep some laws to get their guy, so be it.

  “Sir,” Mark said. “I’m here. Use me. Just make sure my companion is kept safe.”

  “Roger that, Mr. Redmond. Make sure we know if and when you move.”

  “I’ll expect to hear from you soon.”

  Mark disconnected and put both arms around Harper. She was shivering though it was warm inside the walls. One way to help her was to keep her busy.

  “What did they say on the French TV channel?”

  She licked dry lips and Mark handed over a small water bottle. There was no way of knowing how long they’d be trapped here but for now, he wouldn’t stop her drinking her fill. He could do without. But she just sipped and handed him back the bottle.

  He refused to take the bottle. “Drink more.”

  Harper shook her head. “I don’t want to finish our water supply too soon. We don’t know how long we’ll be here.”

  That was true but Mark didn’t think the siege would last days like the Beslan or Moscow theater sieges. It was too big a thing. Public opinion would be like a tsunami bearing down on the Interior Ministry’s walls.

  “Plus,” Harper looked up with a small smile, holding out the bottle to him again, “you need to drink some water, too.”

  Something squeezed inside his chest. Terrified and shocked, having witnessed something that nauseated a battle-hardened warrior, she still thought of him. He gently pushed the bottle back to her.

  “Don’t worry about me.” Mark ran the back of his forefinger down her cheek, marveling again at the softness of her skin. “I’ve been trained to go without water longer than most people can stand.”

  “And have you?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes in the dim light glowed silver.

  He nodded. Oh yeah. Yeah, he had. Three and a half days was his limit, when he started showing strong signs of severe dehydration. Headache, dizziness, orthostatic hypotension. When immediate hydration became necessary, at the risk of permanent organ damage.

  That was when he knew he had to break cover and seek water. He’d done it and survived.

  She tapped the water bottle against his chest, hard. “We’re going to share this bottle, and even that is unfair. You’re twice my size, you should be getting at least two thirds of the water.”

  He smiled at her. She didn’t smile back and tapped the bottom of the bottle insistently against his chest again.

  “You’re serious,” Mark said, surprised.

  “Damn right I am.” She held the half-empty bottle up and he took it. “I want to see you finish it.”

  “I only have four bottles.” Mark shook his head.

  “That’s four bottles more than I have. I didn’t even think to bring water with me. It’s thanks to your foresight that we have water at all. And,” her mouth tightened, “something tells me that this will come to a head soon. I don’t see the French allowing a prolonged siege.”

  She was right. Mark upended the bottle and finished it. He felt instantly refreshed. She’d been right about that, too.

  Something else tapped against his hand and he looked down in surprise at the protein bar. Half of one, anyway, which she was holding out to him.

  He batted her hand away but it returned back to his mouth like iron to a magnet.

  She narrowed her eyes as him. “We’re sharing this, too. And don’t argue.”

  She sounded for a second like his first drill instructor. Like the Voice of God, only a whispering soprano instead of a bellowing basso profundo. A voice you never, ever disobeyed.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He took it and they both finished their halves quickly.

  Harper reached out and cupped his chin. “I don’t want you suffering because of me.”

  This was all wrong. He was the warrior, the protector. No one ever worried about him.

  Mark moved her hand up over his chin to cover his mouth and kissed the palm of her hand. There was something about this—the extreme danger on the other side of the wall, twelve armed murderers ready to kill at a moment’s notice, and tenderness on the inside of that wall—that touched him deeply.

  In danger, he always switched straight into battle mode. A way of being that allowed him to think and react to danger without any emotions getting in the way. He’d always gone into battle having made peace with the idea that he might not survive. All warriors did. You couldn’t feel in battle. Feelings were dangerous, toxic even.

  And here he was, swamped with them. Pierced by feelings thumping around in his chest, all of them having to do with the beautiful woman sitting hip to hip beside him.

  He kissed her hand again, held it.

  “I’m not suffering.” Truer words were never spoken. Even with the imminent danger they were in, there wasn’t anyplace in the world he wanted to be other than right here, right beside Harper Kendall.

  “Good,” she said. Her hand curled tightly around his own, eyes locked on his.

  “Tell me what they said on French TV.”

  “Okay.” She caught a deep breath, let it out slowly. “The French channel essentially just kept repeating what we know. The Pyramid was blown up, an unknown number of terrorists swarmed the Denon Wing, which is where we are, explosives were set along the monumental staircase and at the entrance to the Grand Gallery. Nobody knows how many bodies are lying along the corridors, but 6,504 tickets were sold for today and by the time the attack started, 4,752 people had entered the museum. Many people escaped before the police arrived, but nobody knows exactly how many. Estimates of the dead range from the hundreds to the thousands.”

  Privately, Mark thought it was closer to thousands of dead rather than hundreds. The terrorists had moved fast and they had automatic rifles. He was certain that it was a true slaughterhouse out there, particularly at the entrance. And it could become a slaughterhouse in the Mona Lisa room, too. He would do everything in his power to stop that.

  “The news program interviewed the mayor of Paris, the head of the Louvre and the head of the police force.”

  Mark huffed out his breath in disgust. “Who presumably didn’t mention that a number of the attackers are former cops. And that some of them were in police uniform.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No.” Harper stared at her knees and sighed. “They didn’t add anything of substance, either. Shock that this has happened, convinced that the forces of law and order will prevail, the country will stand firm… Rhetoric, really.”

  She shook her head, shiny hair slipping over her shoulder. Every time she moved he could smell her perfume and shampoo, delicate fragrances that brought life and beauty into this dusty wall.

  Even covered in dust and scared to death, she was still so beautiful. Part of it was pure genetic luck, part of it that bone-deep classiness, refined and discerning. Not a woman designed for the field.

  He’d been the tip of the spear so many times. Out in the field, life was raw, crude. When he came back from the bloodiest missions, it took him a couple of days to shake the chaos and ugliness of the world from his soul.

  This was the first time he was near terrorists with a woman he cared for and it shook something deep inside him. It wasn’t right that she should be here—a wall away from murderers, blood-crazed thugs one step up from animals. It upset him at a deep level. She belonged far away from this. She belonged somewhere safe, writing books and thinking about design. Doing things that could be done only because the peace was kept by warriors. This wasn’t her place at all.

  But here she was.

  Mark lifted her chin. Her eyes rose to his. The narrow, intense flashl
ight beam lit her face up from below, caressing the elegant bones. He bent to kiss her, intending a short, reassuring kiss.

  But there, in that small, dark space, with murderers right on the other side of the wall, desire rose—swift, sharp, unbelievably intense. A force he was unable to resist. If he was holding her in his arms, she was safe. While he was alive and close enough to touch her, she’d be safe.

  And kissing her felt like an antidote to all that was on the other side of that wall. Her mouth tasted delicious, she smelled like flowers in warm sunshine, she felt as soft as silk.

  Harper was clutching his shoulders, shaking. She was scared. He tightened his arms around her, meaning it to be reassuring, like a hug. But it didn’t reassure him, it aroused him. Her breasts flattened against his chest and he remembered what those breasts felt like naked. Her skin had been hot, her scent rising from it like a cloud last night.

  Last night they’d both been wide open. The world had faded to a dream beyond the hotel walls. Anything he could have wished for and desired had been right in that room, in his arms.

  But now danger loomed beyond the stucco walls, monsters right outside, willing and able to hurt them, kill them. They had killed maybe a thousand tourists already and were threatening to massacre over a hundred more.

  But crazily enough, that wasn’t important while he kissed her. The danger beyond the walls inflamed him, was like a spear at his back, spurring him on.

  He left her mouth to nibble along her jawline and felt more than heard her sigh. That narrow rib cage lifting and falling as her long neck lay open to him. He ran his lips and then his tongue along the tendon of her neck, feeling her shudder, then brought his mouth back up to her jaw, behind her ear.

  Her scent was concentrated there, in the hollow behind her ear, her hair forming a perfumed curtain that cut off the world even more.

  Mark nipped her, gently and carefully, but with enough force to make her jerk and gasp. Exactly the way a stallion nips his mare, to make her hold still, to make her remember who she belongs to.

  She belonged to him.

  He’d found her, he was going to keep her.

  Their heads aligned and now they were kissing deeply, wildly. Harper’s arms locked behind his neck and she pulled as if wanting him as close to her as possible. Fine, because he wanted the same thing.

  Closeness. Skin to skin. Touching that smooth fragrant softness all over. Closer, closer, because everything good in the world was right there, right with her, right in her.

  Mark shifted, put his hand behind her head to cushion it and shifted them down inside the small corridor, him atop her. One hand still cupping her head, he pulled off the short wool jacket then pulled her silk sweater up and off, unhooking her bra, lifting his head up just enough to see her.

  She was so beautiful she nearly blinded him. The flashlight was blinding him, so he shifted it slightly so it wasn’t right in his eyes.

  God. Just look at her, he thought.

  The bright beam of the flashlight picked out the bright highlights of her hair that surrounded her head like a halo. She was staring up at him, eyes glowing almost silver, half closed with desire. Her mouth was red, swollen from his kisses, branded by him. There was a tiny mark under her ear made by his mouth. All that smooth skin, those small, perfect, upright breasts with the pale pink nipples…he wanted to just gobble her up.

  Though he wanted to kiss her mouth again, kiss her until they both passed out from lack of air, he wanted to kiss her breasts even more. He remembered their taste, like salty vanilla; he remembered her nipples hardening against his tongue; he remembered sucking strongly, hearing her deep panting in time with the pulls of his mouth.

  Oh yeah.

  He wanted that again, he wanted that right now.

  Mark dipped his head, kissed his way from her chin, down over her neck, to her breasts. Harper was amazingly responsive and he was paying close attention. Real close attention. She was like a map where the waystations moaned. She let him know clearly what pleased her. Everything pleased her but some things pleased her more.

  The space under her ear, for example. All he had to do was suck a little there and she’d arch her neck. A little nip right where her neck met her shoulder and she’d jolt. And when he licked her nipples and blew on them, she’d catch her breath and forget to breath out. He’d have to go to her mouth and kiss her briefly so she’d breathe again.

  How could a woman be so perfect?

  The light here was both dim and harsh. Military flashlights weren’t built to caress skin, but it did hers. Her skin actually glowed, like pearls in the dark. And there was enough light to see where she changed color. Like her nipples, turning bright pink. Like the flush that covered her from her face to her breasts when she came.

  Fuck, he had to see that color again, there was nothing like it. When Harper came, it was a feast for every sense—the colors, feeling her muscles tighten, that burst of scent that came from her skin and her sex.

  The confines of the space between the walls and the imperative need to stay silent made it somehow more exciting. In some dim part of Mark’s normally disciplined brain he realized this was madness—sex while terrorists with guns stood mere feet away from them was insane. But he couldn’t have stopped, not for anything in the world, not even with a gun to his head.

  He had to be inside Harper. Or die.

  But first…

  Mark licked one nipple, then sucked, hard. Her left breast trembled from her fast-beating heart. He could see it and he could feel it.

  He slipped her panties off, this delightful little silky lace thing, sliding it right down her legs, tossing it to the side. Now she was naked except for her skirt, which somehow made the whole thing even sexier. He couldn’t see her sex but he could feel it. He cupped her between her legs, waggling his hand a little to make her open her legs wider. She obeyed instantly, her heels sliding along the dusty floor making a little scraping sound.

  Mark ran his finger around her sex. He had rough skin on his hands and hoped he wasn’t hurting her. He lifted his mouth from her breast to look at her. She didn’t look like she was hurting. Her eyes were half-closed, light gray eyes looking like slices of a dawn sky. She was breathing heavily, that narrow rib cage rising and falling fast, nipples hard and cherry red, one glistening from his mouth.

  “Mark,” she whispered, and lifted her hand to the back of his head and pressed. It was a command, and he obeyed happily, bending back to her breast. When he pulled at her nipple, she sighed and arched her back.

  She was already wet, ready. He wanted her even more ready and slipped his finger inside her. Harper’s breath left her in a whoosh and he abandoned her breast because he wanted to watch her face. He slid his finger in, then out, watching her carefully. She let him know where she loved to be touched, without words. They didn’t need words. He just watched her beautiful face, watched the color rise, her eyes flutter, her mouth open to take in more air.

  His hand speeded up, moving in her faster and faster, and when his thumb touched her, right there, she shuddered, took in a breath, and he pulled his free hand from the back of her head and clamped it over her mouth as she came, feeling her convulse around his finger, while also feeling her panting against the palm of his hand.

  At the last second, she realized she shouldn’t be making any noise, but a few raw groans escaped as her orgasm rippled through her.

  His turn.

  All he had to do was unzip, slide his briefs down and move on top of her. Mark slid a second finger inside her, opening her up, and slid into her, not bothering to go slowly. He didn’t have the control to enter her slowly. He planted his hands on either side of her head and pumped into her, fast and hard, his mouth covering hers. She was still coming as he moved in her, her hands clutching his shoulders, ankles locked over his buttocks, riding him.

  It was too intense to last. A streak of electric heat ran down his backbone, through his balls, out his dick, which swelled and exploded. He came
and came and came, spurting every drop of liquid in his body as he shuddered and shook inside her, completely out of control. Static filled his head, wiping out any thoughts that may have been there.

  He stilled, closed his eyes, dropped his forehead to her shoulder. Harper’s ankles unlocked at the small of his back and her legs fell to the sides. Her arms, too, slid down as if she didn’t have the strength to hold him for even a second longer.

  Mark waited for his heartbeat to slow down, for his breathing to even out, for the slight tremors running through his body to still.

  It took a while. But finally, after a billion years, he sprawled over her, wiped out.

  Harper wriggled a little, just enough to slightly angle her torso out from under his. Just enough to breathe a little. She didn’t want him off her, she just wanted a little oxygen. Just a bit.

  Because though he was heavy as an ox, he felt absolutely delicious. Hard as a rock all over, except the bit that had been inside her and was now softening, starting to slip out of her.

  God, it had been glorious. Almost better than last night, and last night had been off the charts.

  And it has also been…insane.

  Passion had never, ever gotten the best of her. Except now, apparently. There had been nothing in her head except red-hot heat, a crazy desire to have Mark Redmond on her, in her. And nothing was going to stand in her way. Certainly not a dozen murderous terrorists a few feet away, separated from her by some wood and stucco.

  God.

  What had she been thinking?

  She hadn’t. She hadn’t been thinking, at all.

  But she had been feeling, emotions raw and harsh, right under her skin. The horror of having watched people being killed—gunned down like animals. Men standing with weapons trained on terrified hostages, sitting on the floor like animals ready for slaughter. Women and children, not knowing if they would get out alive.

  The Louvre was wired for destruction. That was one scenario where she and Mark would not survive. They’d wired the monumental staircase and the Grand Gallery, so explosives were not far away. They’d die in the initial blast or be buried under tons of stone.