Tall, Dark, and Dangerous Part 2

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Oh, God. Zoe closed her eyes as she leaned against him. Now she was the one afraid to let him look into her eyes.

  “Maybe that’s why I’m so okay about this,” he murmured, running his fingers through her hair. “I know you’re not looking for anything permanent. I know you don’t want anything more than sex—I mean, friendship, sure, but…What we did last night was intensely powerful, but…it was mostly physical. I mean…” He laughed. “You don’t want to marry me, right?”

  He didn’t let her answer. She wasn’t sure she could have answered. “But that’s okay,” he continued. “It’s okay with me, and it’s okay with you. And, see, that’s what I think makes this work. I know that you know that I can’t give you my heart.”

  Jake’s heart.

  In just a short amount of time, it had become the one thing in the world Zoe wanted more than anything. She wanted to walk out of the CRO compound in possession of the six missing canisters of Triple X, and Jake’s heart.

  Jake kissed her, and she sat there, with his arms around her, watching the first few flakes of snow drift from the overcast sky, praying he wouldn’t see the truth when he looked into her eyes.

  He was wrong.

  Somehow she’d broken all of her rules. Somehow she’d let herself cross that line. She was crazy in love with him.

  And she wanted his heart.

  Desperately.

  “He’s not getting it done,” Lucky said. “We’re almost out of time.”

  Harvard was giving him that stone-cold look that implied not only was Lucky a kindergartener, but he was a misbehaving kindergartener. “What do you suggest we do, Lieutenant? Mutiny?”

  “No.” Lucky took a deep breath. “Look. I just think it’s been long enough. Let’s try to get at least a few more men inside.” He swore. “What we should do is get the entire team inside.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Harvard said. “Because even with my blond wig, my complexion is a little too far from fair.”

  “So let’s get in whoever we can get in. Me and Cowboy. Wes. We can give him one of those skinhead haircuts—”

  “Notice how he doesn’t volunteer to shave his own head,” Wes said.

  Lucky was completely exasperated. “Dammit, what difference does it make?”

  “If it didn’t make a difference, you’d’ve volunteered to shave your own—”

  “Fine, I’ll shave my damn head! Let’s just get the hell in there! I’m so damn tired of sitting here doing nothing!”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Lucky realized that the problem here wasn’t necessarily with Admiral Robinson. The problem was his.

  He swore again. And then he apologized. To all of them. Especially Wes Skelly and the senior chief. “I’ve got a little sister in San Diego. Ellen. She’s still in college.” He rubbed his forehead. God, his sinuses were killing him. “I keep thinking San Diego would be the perfect city for these clowns to test the Trip X, and it’s making me crazy.”

  “I’ve got a little sister, too,” Wes said.

  “Yeah, I know that it’s no excuse,” Lucky said quietly. “We’ve all got family. I just…No offense, Crash, I know you’re tight with the man, but admirals should stay behind desks.”

  “Even admirals who used to be SEALs who specialized in demolition?” Crash spoke so rarely that when he did open his mouth, the entire team paid attention. “Even admirals who became so proficient with C-4 explosives that they literally wrote the book we all trained from—as well as the book that might be just a little too advanced for a few of us here?”

  “I didn’t know that,” Harvard admitted. “How come I didn’t know that?”

  “You wouldn’t. As the leader of the Gray Group, Jake’s worked hard to keep a low profile,” Crash said. “That’s why that book by Scooter Jennings irks him so much. I know some of you have read it.”

  “I have,” Bobby said in his basso profundo. “It’s good stuff.”

  Cowboy lifted the book out of his lap, flashing a sheepish grin. No wonder he’d been so quiet during all this. He was reading, and he was just a few pages from the end. “This reads better than fiction.”

  “I’m reading it after Junior,” Harvard said.

  “It’s all true, you know,” Crash said. “And it chronicles just one of Jake’s tours in Vietnam. He’s seen more action than all of us in this room combined.”

  Lucky couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “But that was thirty years ago.”

  “He’s been out from his desk and in the real world often enough since then,” Crash told him. “You guys want to hear a story?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Wes said. “Uncle Crash, tell us kids a story.”

  “S squared, wiseass,” Bobby intoned. “I want to hear.”

  Cowboy, even fewer pages from the end, put down his book.

  Crash had their full attention. He smiled. “Jake was in Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm, and his team was assigned to take out this one Iraqi Scud missile launcher that kept evading us. The Iraqis would fire the Scud at our troops, then move that sucker to a new location. Jake’s SEAL team was working off of satellite pictures and getting nowhere, so Jake—he wasn’t an admiral yet, but he was close—he tells whatever commodore was in charge that he and his men were going to try to check things out a little closer to the source. What he didn’t say was that a little closer turned out to be downtown Baghdad, deep inside enemy lines. When they got into the city, Jake and his team split up. They had the locations where the Scud launcher had been set and fired from over the past few weeks, so they searched those neighborhoods for a place where something that size might be hidden.

  “Jake’s team finds not one, but two Scud missile launchers, and they uncover the location of a chemical weapons storage facility. So there Jake is, in the middle of Baghdad, with more than enough explosives to take out a single Scud launcher but not quite enough to do all three targets. He knew he could try to stretch it thin, but that way he risked destroying nothing.”

  “Damn, what did he do?” Harvard asked.

  “I’d’ve blown the Scud launchers and given the location of the chemical site to intelligence,” Wes said. “Have them take out the place through air strike.”

  “Except those chemical sites were moved constantly,” Lucky pointed out. “Even just a few hours later, it might’ve already been gone.”

  “And this one was in the middle of a residential neighborhood,” Crash told them. “Not the most PC site for an air raid.” He smiled again. “Jake managed to take out all three targets with no civilian casualties.”

  “How?” Lucky asked. “Did he find a munitions dump? Get his hands on more C-4?”

  “No,” Crash said. “He took his time. And he thought it through. And when he was ready, and only when he was ready, he placed the explosives he had very strategically. It was risky, but the man’s a wizard when it comes to blowing things up. He trusted himself, and he got the job done.” He was looking directly at Lucky. “I think we should do the same—trust our team leader to get the job done.”

  Lucky nodded. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  Message received.

  On Tuesday, Zoe was assigned to clean bathrooms. She gave Jake a comically dark look as she headed down the hallway with Edith, a pale ghost of a woman who’d been assigned as her cleaning partner.

  Edith looked as if she’d be a breeze to evade. With luck, their pairing would be ongoing.

  Of course, it didn’t really matter who Zoe was paired with. She would manage to get away from anyone. She was that good.

  She was more than good.

  She was…

  Jake took several steps backward to watch her. Her hips swayed a little as she walked away. Just enough to advertise that the body inside those androgynous jeans was pure female.

  They’d taken another late shower last night. Dear, dear God. Sex with Zoe was indescribable. It was…

  Sex. It was purely physical. Two people having a damn good time with their bodies
.

  Zoe was so direct, so honest. She didn’t play games, didn’t try to make him guess what she wanted. She liked having sex the way he did—with her eyes wide open and the lights brightly lit.

  He loved watching her eyes as he drove himself into her. He loved the way she seemed to look directly into his soul, the way the connection between them seemed an almost mystical thing. He loved the hunger of her kisses, the sheer intensity of her release. He loved the way she curled against him at night, touching as much of him as possible, as if despite all that they’d done, she still couldn’t get enough of him. He loved the way, with just one look and smile this morning, she’d let him know she was anticipating making love to him again tonight.

  He loved the way just watching her walk down the hall made him aware of the blood rushing through his veins, aware of his heart’s steady rhythm.

  Oh, yes, he was feeling very much alive.

  Zoe turned to glance back at him, and he didn’t look away. He let her know he was watching her. He let her see exactly what he was thinking.

  She laughed, and an incredible surge of warmth seemed to detonate within him, radiating out, filling him with happiness.

  She waved before she disappeared around the corner, and Jake stood there for several moments longer, struck by the realization that he was going to miss her today. For four days, they’d been together constantly. And as much as the waiting had frustrated him, he’d loved sitting with Zoe and talking for hours and hours and hours.

  He’d loved learning about her, loved discovering the intricate ways her mind worked, loved her thoughtfulness and her quick sense of humor.

  She’d filled more than the void in his life caused by his lack of a sexual partner. Far more.

  And that realization shook him.

  He’d been so certain of his feelings yesterday, as he’d sat by the waterfall in the early morning light. He’d been convinced that his relationship with Zoe felt so right because it didn’t go beyond the physical. And yet his missing her today wasn’t just about sex.

  And then there was that annoying question he hadn’t quite found a way to ask her. “So, babe. When you go undercover, playing husband and wife like this, does, uh, this sort of thing—you know, this intense physical attraction and mind-blowingly great sex—happen all the time?”

  He shouldn’t care about that, about who she’d been with in the past and why she’d been with them. He shouldn’t care about the casualness that she assigned to sexual relationships. Why should he care about anything beyond these immediate moments and the fact that right now she wanted him?

  He had absolutely no right to be jealous. Jealousy implied love, and…

  Falling in love with Zoe Lange would be the mistake of his lifetime. What, did he honestly think she would ever agree to marry him? Yeah, right. Oh, she liked him, she desired him, and she probably wouldn’t object to getting together and getting it on with him three or four or five times a year, whenever she rolled in to D.C. But marriage? Not a Twinkie’s chance in a room full of eight-year-olds.

  Get a grip, pal. Jake headed toward Christopher Vincent’s office. You’re not looking to marry the woman. It’s just the sex messing with your brain.

  Indescribable sex. With a woman whose smile and laughter made him feel truly happy for the first time in years.

  Of course he was feeling happy—there was no big mystery to it. Sure, he liked her, sure she was smart and sharp and funny, but the bottom line was that in his mind, Zoe equaled sex. And sex equaled happy. After living like a monk for three very long years, sex definitely equaled very, very happy.

  All of his warm, fuzzy feelings could be traced to the fact that Jake no longer had to imagine Zoe naked. He could pull her into the shower and see her naked anytime he wanted. See her and touch her and…

  And that had nothing, nothing to do with love.

  Love was what he’d had with Daisy. Slow and easy at times, hot and furious at others, ebbing and flowing like the tides. Love was years of understanding, the ability to communicate volumes with a single look or touch or smile. It was trust, it was faith, it was never to be doubted. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best thing he’d ever had.

  There was no way a man could hope to find something so rare twice in one lifetime. And the thought of settling for something that didn’t live up to what he’d once had…

  No, he didn’t love Zoe Lange.

  But even if he did, he didn’t have to worry. It would never work out.

  Zoe would never expect anything long term, Mitch had told him. Because she leaves, too. And she’ll probably leave first.

  And Jake tried to convince himself that that thought made him feel so damned bad only because he would miss the indescribable sex.

  “Your position on the high council of the CRO can be secured immediately,” Christopher Vincent said, eating a sticky bun as he sat behind his fancy oak desk in his private office, “through your willingness to share your personal wealth.”

  The room wasn’t large. It didn’t have one single window. But it did have three doors, all tightly shut, leading off the wall behind Vincent’s desk. Jake was willing to bet that behind one of those doors was the CRO surveillance control room—and possibly the missing Triple X.

  Jake held out his hands in a shrug. “Chris, you know as well as I do that all my funds are frozen. I’ve got over four million dollars in liquid assets—that I can’t touch.”

  Christopher stood up and opened the door on the far left. It was only a bathroom. One down, two to go.

  He turned on the light and rinsed his hands, raising his voice to be heard over the running water. “Personal wealth isn’t limited to finances.” He came out, drying his hands on a towel.

  “Information,” Jake said. “After thirty-five years in the U.S. Navy, I’m in possession of a great deal of information that might be useful to you.” He sat forward. “Look, Chris, I’ve heard people talk about this birthday celebration you’re planning. Let me sit in on the meetings, see if there’s anything I can contribute—”

  “Letting you sit in,” Christopher interrupted, “would prove our trust in you. What are you going to give me that proves you’re worthy of that trust? Something that proves your acceptance of me as leader of the CRO.” He smiled tightly. “Let’s be honest, Jake. I know you’re a very ambitious man. You wouldn’t have gotten where you did in the Navy if you weren’t. But if you’ve got any intentions of coming in here and taking over my show—”

  “Whoa,” Jake said. “Christopher. You are the CRO.” He laughed. “Okay, I am ambitious, but my goal here is to sit at your right hand at the council table. Be your chief adviser. Your second in command. I’d never try to take you down or undermine your authority in any way.” He lied smoothly. “Never.”

  Chris sat behind his desk. “Then prove it.”

  “I will,” Jake said. “Like I said—through information. I can give you computer passwords. Back door entrances to highly sensitive files. Information on security procedures in government buildings—”

  “You have more to give than information,” Chris said, “although I’ll accept that as a sign of your loyalty—in part.”

  Jake shook his head. “Chris, I came to you empty-handed. As far as wealth goes, I don’t have much. Even these clothes I’m wearing are yours and—”

  “Zoe.”

  Jake sat back in his chair. “Excuse me?”

  “You’ve got Zoe.” Christopher smiled. “I’d say that makes you a very wealthy man.”

  Jake laughed, but then stopped when he realized that Christopher wasn’t laughing, too. Holy God, the son of a bitch was serious.

  Share his personal wealth. Share…Zoe. The CRO believed that a wife was a man’s possession, but God…

  “Why don’t the two of you join me in my private dining room for dinner tonight?” Christopher said, standing up. “Seven o’clock. There’s a high council meeting scheduled for noon on Friday, here in my inner chamber.” He gestured to the doo
r on the far right. “It would be nice—for all of us—if you could join us.” He moved to the door that led out of his office, opening it for Jake, dismissing him.

  Jake rose to his feet despite the fact that this conversation wasn’t over. He had more to say, to protest, to explain, but the phone on Christopher’s desk rang. And the guard outside the door gestured for Jake to follow him.

  Jake didn’t move. “Look, Chris—”

  “I’ll see you at dinner tonight.” Christopher nodded to the guard, who stepped forward and took Jake’s arm.

  There was nothing he could do short of creating a scene. Christopher’s door shut behind him as the guard ushered him into the corridor, closing that door behind him, as well.

  And Jake stood in the hallway, certain of what had just been implied and sickened by it.

  If Zoe slept with Christopher Vincent, Jake would be in.

  If Zoe slept with Chris…

  Jake laughed aloud, a sharp burst of disbelieving air, as he headed briskly down the hallway toward his room. No way! He wasn’t going to let Zoe anywhere near Christopher the scumball Vincent. She was his, dammit, and he wasn’t about to share.

  Except she wasn’t really his. Their marriage wasn’t really a marriage. It wasn’t legal. And even if it were, Zoe wasn’t the kind of woman any man could ever completely possess.

  He took the stairs down two at a time, moving faster, almost running.

  But there was no way he could outrun the truth.

  Jake had found a way to get the information they needed. If Zoe slept with Chris, he’d find out at noon, Friday, exactly what the CRO intended to do with the stolen Triple X. And he’d probably even locate the missing canisters.

  If Zoe slept with Chris.

  He stopped short, gripping the handrail tightly, sitting down right there in the stairwell between the second and third floor, directly in the blind spot between two surveillance cameras.

  Oh, God. She would want to do it. Sex just wasn’t that big a deal to Zoe. She’d made that more than clear to him many times over. She’d as much as told him she was willing to do anything for this mission. Anything.