by Cindy Dees
She pushed on his shoulders and he obliged by rolling onto his back. She followed, exploring him avidly with hands and mouth. When he let go of her to clutch the sheets in his fists and suck in air fast and hard between his clenched teeth, she raised her head. His head was thrown back, his eyes closed, and the muscles on his neck stood out in taut relief.
“Are you okay?” she asked in quick alarm. “Am I hurting you?”
He opened his eyes to glare at her. “Only if you stop.”
“Well, then.” She sat up, straddling his thighs. “Let’s go for a ride, cowboy.”
He laughed reluctantly. “Why do I feel like I’ve bedded a tiger?”
She laughed back, and finished pulling her hair free from its plaits. When her raven locks flowed around her body as wild and free as she felt, then, and only then, did she grasp his straining member in her fist. “Because you have,” she murmured, guiding him into her.
She impaled herself upon him by millimeters, savoring the way his eyes went even blacker in the starlight. How his jaw rippled with the effort of his restraint. How his entire body shuddered with need by the time he was seated deep within her. She rocked forward slowly and her body shimmered with delight. Wanton, delicious impulses filled her. She ran her hands under her hair at the back of her neck and lifted her arms, letting the cool, silken strands flow like water down her arms and across her body.
And then Jeff’s hands were there, his fingers combing through her hair, his fingertips stroking her body through the silken strands to new heights of bliss. Her hips liquid with desire, she rode him as slow and easy as he’d said she would, letting her pleasure build and build.
His jaw clenched, and before long, his entire body clenched beneath her. She cried out as another orgasm broke over her without warning, a tingling explosion that traveled through every inch of her body.
And then Jeff’s hands were on her hips holding her so they remained joined as he rolled her over swiftly and rose up over her. He drove into her carefully. Again, deeper and with more power. She craved all of him and opened herself fully, whimpering for more.
He froze. “Are you okay?”
“Please, Jeff. More.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s not polite to make a lady ask twice.”
He laughed down at her. “My apologies, ma’am.” And then he took her breath away as he did, indeed, let go of his formidable control. He drove into her until she shattered around him yet again.
She grabbed his arms, which were braced on either side of her head like steel columns, and wrapped her legs around his hips, desperately seeking the next explosion lurking just out of reach. His gaze locked with hers, and as they stared at each other with a naked intimacy that was shocking, found release together. He groaned his pleasure as she cried out hers.
And then his body was a delicious weight on hers, the relaxation of his muscles reflecting the limpid exhaustion claiming her. Still, he held himself propped up on his elbows as he kissed her leisurely and murmured, “You, my dear, are a miracle.”
She was home. There was no other way to describe it. She’d never been a believer in soul mates, never held with silly, romantic notions like destiny. But she knew without a shadow of a doubt there would never be another man like this one in her life. Whether she was with him for a short time or forever, it wouldn’t matter. He was the last man she would ever feel this way with.
He rolled to one side, his lovely body pressed against the length of hers, a hand propped under his ear. He used his free hand to push the tendrils of damp hair off her forehead while he smiled down at her.
“Nice view,” she murmured.
He glanced up at the skylight.
“Not that,” she corrected. “You.”
He laughed quietly. “And here I was thinking the exact same thing. You’re more beautiful than the night. Your hair is the sky and your eyes the stars. And you showed me Heaven.”
“You look like you do, and make love like that, and you’re a poet, too? Methinks you’re pretty darn close to perfect, Mr. Winston.”
They spent a long time just smiling at each other and murmuring about nothing in particular. But then the phone rang beside the bed, startling Jennifer.
Jeff reached over and picked up the receiver. “Yes?” He listened for a moment and then swore quietly. “Don’t let them in, and don’t tell them I’m here. Tell them to speak to my lawyers in the morning.”
He put down the receiver.
“Who was that?” she asked soberly.
“The front gate. Uncle Sam’s come looking for you.”
Chapter 9
Jeff looked down at Jennifer grimly. Even when she was absorbed in unpleasant thoughts that put a frown on her face, he wanted her like crazy. She shifted restlessly, and he let her draw away from him. But he missed the warmth and softness of her body.
“What are you going to do?” he asked eventually.
“About H.O.T. Watch? I don’t know. About the guys at the gate? Will they get past your guards?”
“Not a chance.”
“Then I’m going to stay here a little while longer and hope you’re as fit as you look.”
“And why would that be?”
“Because I’m ready for dessert, now.” She smiled wickedly at him.
He laughed aloud. “Leland always says never to stand between a woman and her treats.”
“Smart man.”
His bones felt like jelly when he and Jennifer finally collapsed side by side a long time later and stared up at the stars. He mumbled, “Wow. Just wow.”
“Ditto,” she murmured.
He was prepared to spend the rest of the night sleeping with her in his arms, but she had other ideas. She rose from his bed, bathed in starlight that turned her into a goddess. With her hair swirling around her like a dark cloud, she truly looked otherworldly.
“Where’s the shower?” she asked.
He pointed at the bathroom door.
She disappeared, and he took a quick power nap while she played in his custom rain jets. The water turning off woke him and he swung out of bed. For the first time in several years, he actually felt unsteady. He grinned and just shook his head. That woman was a wonder.
By the time she’d combed out her hair and twisted it into a long braid, he’d finished a quick shower and dressed. As tempting as it was to interrupt her dressing, he left her alone. Her brow was furrowed in deep thought, and he’d never met a woman that liked to be bothered when something serious was on her mind. Finally, she looked up at him in decision.
“Yes?” he prompted.
“I need to make a phone call. One that can’t be recorded or eavesdropped on.”
“In the ops center.”
They rode the elevator to the basement in silence. She retreated completely from him as the reality of their problems crashed back in on them. He felt strangely bereft. Quietly, he told the technician on the communications panel what she needed.
In a moment, the fellow passed her a wireless headset. “The line’s secure, ma’am. I’ll monitor the line throughout the call to make sure there’s no surveillance, but I won’t hear the conversation.”
She nodded and donned the headset.
“Do you need me to clear the room?” Jeff murmured.
“Do you trust everyone in here?” she replied.
“With my life.”
“All right, then.”
He was shocked when she leaned down and commenced dialing a phone number. Just like that, she trusted him? Or maybe not just like that. He’d told her the truth about the island and about H.O.T. Watch and backed up both claims with hard evidence. But there were still a few truths he hadn’t shared with her. And he didn’t doubt the day would come when she demanded to know everything about him. Hell, after what they’d shared tonight, she deserved to know everything. Problem was, it wasn’t just his neck on the line here. She wasn’t the only person to whom he owed his loyalty.
Still, cert
ain unspoken promises had passed between them. What they had was no casual hookup, no one-night stand. He didn’t think for a minute that she was the kind of woman who jumped into bed with just any man. She was too self-contained, too mature, too professional, for that.
But they were headed for a wall beyond which he could not pass and behind which he could not allow her to go. When they hit it, she would walk away from him and never look back. The prospect of that caused him intense pain. And in his world, that was pretty bad pain.
Jeff made no effort to memorize the series of numbers she dialed, but he did note that it was longer than a regular phone number, even taking into account a country code and area code. A government number, then. Momentary panic clutched his gut. What if she was about to tell someone where she was and that he’d kidnapped her?
Trust was a two-way street, dammit. If he wanted hers, he had to give his to her, too.
“Brady, it’s me.”
Jeff heard a faint exclamation from a male voice at the other end of the line. His stomach muscles clenched until they cramped. Trust, dammit. No way would she do the things she had with him tonight if she was involved with some other guy.
Jennifer spoke quickly. “I’m fine. I can’t tell you. And I can’t tell you why. But I need you to trust me.”
The man on the other end of the line said something fairly lengthy in response to that. Jennifer’s gaze shifted to him and she smiled slightly at him. Jeff smiled back, but his mind raced. Whatever she was hearing was about him. He’d lay odds on it.
Finally, she said, “That’s all very interesting. But it’s not why I called.”
A short pause.
“Look,” she announced. “What I’m about to say has to stay just between you and me.” Another brief pause, then, “Brady, H.O.T. Watch is compromised. Data from the satellites is being stolen and sold on the black market, and I can’t tell you how I know that. But I do. And no, I’m not crazy.”
Clearly, the man on the other end of the line thought she was, for she exclaimed, “Of course I’m serious! And no, I don’t want you to investigate this. I’ve got it covered.”
A short, sharp argument ensued. She ended it with, “I didn’t tell you this to get you to do anything. I just need you to protect your teams. Make sure they don’t get into any situations in the next few days where anything picked up on satellite telemetry could compromise their missions.”
The technician spoke up, startling Jeff. “A trace has been initiated.”
“I’ve got to go, Brady.”
She disconnected the line. Looking disconsolate, she took off the headset and passed it back to the technician.
“Did he believe you?” Jeff asked.
“I don’t know. But he won’t take any chances with his men’s safety. He’ll operate as if I’m telling the truth until he knows otherwise.”
“And what about you? Are you in trouble?”
“I didn’t sound much like a woman being held against my will, did I? I probably should have pleaded for a rescue or something. But there wasn’t time. I had to convince him to take precautions. That was more important.”
“Sometimes it sucks being a good guy, doesn’t it?” Jeff commented wryly.
“And how.”
“Now what?”
“Now I think you need to tell me what happened in Africa.”
He stared at her and hoped the chagrin churning in his chest wasn’t visible. “I’m going to need coffee if we’re going there.”
She nodded and followed him silently from the ops center. He led her to the kitchen, and she sat on a stool while he did the one thing he knew how to do well in his kitchen and brewed a pot of strong coffee.
She sipped at the steaming mug for a moment, and then looked him square in the eye. “Quit stalling and spill it, Jeff.”
“My people were in East Africa studying the problems with feeding the local populace.”
She smiled wryly. “So you really were solving world hunger? What did you figure out?”
“We ran across a gang of thugs, led by El Mari. He and his men were stealing land from farmers—the good land with its own water supply that could feed a lot of people. They’d raid a farm, grab the women and children, and torture them until the farmer signed over the deed to his land. Then they’d murder the farmer and his family, of course.”
Jennifer winced in commiseration like that sort of violence was not unknown to her.
He continued grimly. “We suspected that El Mari was, in turn, selling the land to big agro-businesses from China. The Chinese don’t seem particularly interested in feeding the local populace. They’re using the land to grow crops for making biofuel. My team was documenting all of it when we were ambushed.”
She laid her hand on top of his sympathetically. “Any idea who jumped you?”
He shrugged. “Logic says El Mari’s people. But one has to wonder if it wasn’t a Chinese hit squad, given how fast and efficient they were. I have a hard time believing a local thug could marshal that kind of discipline from his men.”
Jennifer absorbed that for a moment. Then she surprised him by changing subjects. “My informants say you killed a prison guard, but I also hear there were irregularities with the murder scene that cast doubt on your guilt.”
Her sources were very good, then. Better than he’d expected. He sighed. He hadn’t planned to tell her this part, but he supposed it did no harm. “A local cop came into the room they were holding me in, ostensibly to interrogate me. Instead, he whispered a warning that I wasn’t safe. That my enemies would finish the job they’d started and kill me in jail.”
“Did people try to kill you there?”
He grinned. “Not after I scared them all into believing I was possessed by a demon and that bullets wouldn’t scratch me. No one dared try a direct attack on me after I demonstrated my strength a few times. They knew I’d break them in half. I might have done a few things to intimate that I possess superhuman strength.”
“Do you?” she murmured reflectively.
He looked her in the eye. “Any strength I have is one-hundred-percent homegrown. I earned it in the gym through sweat and hard work.”
“Then what are all the injections and medications about then?”
He should have known she’d cut straight to the heart of the matter like a laser. “I really can’t talk about those.”
“I’m not going to reveal your medical discovery to some competitor of Winston Enterprises. I happen to have a bunch of security clearances that say I can keep a secret.”
He shrugged, hoping against hope that she would follow him back to the subject of El Mari and Africa. “We didn’t get our proof of the link between El Mari and the Chinese, but how else could some two-bit African strong man afford to buy surveillance footage from H.O.T. Watch to attack my teams with?” He added dryly, “For what it’s worth, your images don’t come cheap. Apparently, you guys are the best.”
“Gee. That’s good to know,” she retorted.
She stared down at the quartz kitchen countertop. Apparently, his distraction tactic had worked. He hated manipulating her like that, but what choice did he have? It was that or destroy their relationship before it barely had a chance to get started. And he really wanted a chance with her. He sincerely hoped she wasn’t allergic to money for real. While he had no great need for all this luxury, he did need substantial funds for his company’s work. High quality medical research was not cheap.
Not to mention, he’d give his right arm to destroy her surveillance facility’s capacity to kill his men. He owed payback for his men’s’ lives to whatever bastard inside H.O.T. Watch was selling the feeds. And Jennifer was his ticket inside the place. If he played his cards right, she would lead him right to the mole.
“I’m going back,” Jennifer announced.
His gut leaped in vicious joy. “Back where?”
“To H.O.T. Watch.”
Time for a little reverse psychology on the lady. After all, he dared
not look too eager to break into the place. He rose up off his stool in what he hoped looked like genuine dismay. “Absolutely not. It’s too dangerous.”
“I wasn’t asking your permission, Jeff.”
Their gazes clashed. “Then I’m going with you,” he declared.
“Too dangerous.”
“Like it’s not for you?” he demanded.
“I work there. Heck, I run the place. If I’m caught inside the facility all that will happen is my guys will ask me why I didn’t come in the front door. You they’d lock up and throw away the key.”
“Think about it, Jennifer. If I’m right, if the place is wired throughout with bugs and double feeds, then you’re not going to be able to fix it. You’re going to have to destroy the place.”
She stared at him, her eyes huge. Shocked. Finally, she whispered, “Destroy H.O.T. Watch?”
It was a truly evil tactic to scare her like that. But if it turned out they only needed to kill off a single mole, it would be a relief to her by comparison to destroying the whole place. It was a classic Russian negotiating tactic. Make an outrageous demand and stick to it. Then, when you finally relent and offer something only mildly unreasonable, the competition leaps at the deal.
He sighed, disgusted by his own duplicity. She deserved better. “Let’s take this one step at a time, Jenn. The first order of business is to find out exactly how much data is being stolen and how it’s being done.”
She snorted. “Based on what I saw in your basement tonight, I’d say we know what’s being stolen—darned near all the visual data.”
“Okay. How’s it being done?” he asked reasonably.
“I have no idea, and I know that place like the back of my hand.”
“Sounds like we need to take a look at the actual wiring. Check for duplicated and hidden feeds off the major data streams.”
“Which means we’ll need to go there in person.”
He winced to hear her use the word “we.” On the one hand it meant his tactic to use her to get inside the place was working. But on the other hand, it meant he was taking advantage of a woman he genuinely liked…and who would never forgive him for it if she figured it out. He asked, “Any idea how to approach the island unseen?”
