by Taylor Lee
Jase was thoughtful, looking across the room at Sapphire who now had five men offering to light her cigarette and pour her another drink. “Hmm, I’ll consider it. Meantime, I’m going to take the ungrateful wench home and practice a little bitch control.”
Roberto laughed. “If you’ll pardon my saying so, the look she gave you when you started toward her doesn’t bode well for your success, my friend.”
He murmured as Jase prepared to head toward Sapphire and her crowd of admirers. “Do know that if you are going to sell her, she needs to be unmarked. You understand?”
Jase grunted and said over his shoulder, “Unfortunately, I do. But don’t worry, she’ll be in USDA prime condition if I decide to take you up on your offer.”
Chapter 28
“I don’t think I can do it, Gabriella.”
Jase wasn’t aware that he’d used her real name until Sapphire reproached him.
“Oh no, you don’t, Jase. I’m Sapphire. Agent Shaw, a member of your high level team.”
Jase looked at her in the mirror above the bar and groaned. Christ, no wonder Sapphire was glaring at him. It didn’t take a mind reader to see the anxiety below her frustration. He sighed again. Reaching for the bottle of Glenmorangie, he poured himself more than he needed. It was already his second glass and he’d quaffed the first in a few angry swallows. He stared into his brooding refection and shook his head. Dammit, how was he going to convince her, this beautiful woman, this talented agent, that her Commander didn’t think he could do the job. That they were going to have to call off the operation. Sighing again, he knew the least he owed her was an explanation. The reasons for the actions he was about to take.
“Gabriella, you need to listen to me.”
She shook her head fiercely from side to side.
“No, Jase, I won’t. Not when you call me that. I am not some innocent civilian. I am a trained operator. Let’s be honest, Jase, I’m a trained killer. Same as you and the rest of the agents on our team. That’s my job. It is the job I’ve spent my adult life learning. And, Jase, just to be clear, Agent Malone, I’m damned good at it.”
Jase’s tone was sharp as he glared at her.
“Fine, Agent Shaw.” He emphasized her name. “Let me be clear. This is not about your credentials or your skills. We agree. You are an exceptional agent. One of the best I’ve ever worked with. Fuck, you think you’re a killer? Well, baby, I concur. You are a killer with or without your weapons. One look from you tonight had hardened Doms eating out of your hand. Christ, I thought the assholes were going to topple the bar just to get next to you.”
Sapphire’s eyes widened and then she gave a tentative smile.
“Goodness, Jase. Don’t tell me that you’re jealous? Is that what this is about?”
Jase slammed his glass on the bar.
Don’t, Sapphire. Don’t minimize what I’m saying. And yes, to answer your question, I was jealous. It almost killed me when that fucker John Phillips was inches away from slobbering all over your breasts. Don’t look so surprised. But maybe I should explain that in addition to liking bodacious women, our illustrious U.S. Senator is a flagrant sadist. Noah and I have taken more than one of his subs to the hospital for emergency treatment.”
He glared at her and took a hearty swig of his drink willing the potent liquid to burn away his angst.
“Do you have any idea how hard this gig is for me? Even if you weren’t involved, these last six months, sucking up to Roberto Ventrilo, getting him to think that I am like him, one of them, matches any mission I’ve had in the worst hellholes in the Middle East. The guy is a sick bastard. Noah and Gray and I and the others have had to play along, acting as though we were like them. Watching them abuse women and perform hideous operations.”
Sapphire raised her hand. The expression on her face stopped his tirade in mid-sentence. Her voice was shaking. She looked pale, strained.
“You tell me these things, Jase? You tell me what you and the others have gone through to get to this place? The things that you’ve tolerated in order to get to the point where you are? Literally a day or two at the most from taking down this evil man and all the sick sycophants who surround him?”
She stood clinging to the back of her chair for support. Her voice rose. “And you want to call it off? Stop now? Now, Jase? When we’re on the verge of success?”
Glaring at him, he saw that the tears swimming in her eyes, but she continued, her voice thick with emotion.
“Because of me? Damn you. Damn you to hell, Jase. How could you even think of doing something like that to me?”
Jase slammed his eyes shut to block out the shattered expression on her face. He couldn’t look at her. Because he knew she was right. Against his better judgement, he took one more stab at trying to get her to understand, although he knew before he spoke that it was hopeless.
“Sapphire. Please hear me out. Do you have any idea how close I came to taking Ventrilo down when he grabbed your shoulder? I swear to God if you have a bruise there—”
She broke in angrily. “What will you do? Will you tell him in the morning that you won’t allow him to touch your woman? Will you add that, because he did, you are going to blow a six month undercover operation all to hell?”
When he looked away, slowly shaking his head, she moved toward him and reached for his hand and pleaded.
“Jase. Listen to me. I know tonight was horrible. But we did everything we planned to do. You and Ian and Diamond and I came up with an incredible plan. And God, it worked even better than I thought it would. I knew I could do my part. I’m great at acting like a bitch.”
She gave a hurt little laugh, looking as though she wanted to make him smile.
“C’mon Jase, admit it. I was great. But even I didn’t think he would fall for it the way that he—”
Jase interrupted her, unable to contain the anger that was swirling inside his gut, causing the bile to rise in his throat.
“Yeah, baby, you were great. We agree.”
His voice rose. “But did you have to act like you were fucking liking it? Encouraging them? Christ Almighty, why didn’t you just take your dress off? As far as you pulled it up over your ass when you draped yourself over that bar stool. You may as well have taken it off! Jesus that fucking Phillips practically had you on his lap and you looked like you were enjoying it. What did you plan to do next? Crawl up on him? Straddle him?”
Sapphire backed away until she was leaning against the wall. Her face was white. Jase could see that her legs were shaking. But her voice was ominously soft. If he’d been paying attention, hadn’t been so caught up in his own fervor, he would have heard the fury underlying her calm words.
“I was doing my job, Jase. The job you hired me to do. I was making a scene. I made sure that every man in the room tonight knew who I was. That they were intrigued with me. That they wanted me. Just as we intended that they would. Remember the plan, Jase? We wanted them to want me enough that they would come to the auction just to bid on me. So that we could take down the whole goddamn bunch of them, not just Ventrilo.”
She took a visible breath and continued.
“Moreover, I taunted the big guy. Made Ventrilo look as foolish as I made you look. Because, Jase, that is what you and your boss and my boss and I agreed I was to do!”
Jase put his glass on the bar and began to pace dragging his hands through his tousled hair, wishing he could pull it out of his head. He didn’t have to look at Sapphire to know how angry, how upset, she was. He didn’t blame her. The fact that she was right didn’t help his angst but it did clarify the issue. She was correct. As he’d always known she was. They would go through with the mission. Tomorrow he would put the woman he loved in even greater danger. And he would do it for the greater good. Because, even though their chances of success were fifty percent at best, if anyone could take out Roberto Ventrilo, he and his crack team of hotshot agents could. And had to try.
He walked back to the bar and sat down on
one of the stools. He avoided looking at Sapphire. Instead he focused on his reflection. He knew he needed to deal with the man in the mirror. He needed to make him understand, convince him, that he was doing the right thing. When he finally gave into the truth, agreed that he would do what he knew all along that he had to do, he put down a marker. If he was going to put Sapphire and his men and himself in this kind of danger, then, by God he wasn’t going to spend what was potentially his last night on this earth arguing with the woman he loved. Absolutely not.
He slammed his glass down and made a silent declaration. He would spend this very auspicious night in the arms of the woman he loved. His woman. He had to have her. He knew that he couldn’t walk back into that Club again without taking her. She was his woman. Given what they were planning, the chances of them getting out alive were questionable as hell. At that moment, he decided that if he was going to die, he wouldn’t die without making love to her. He would show her what love and passion were. What she had never learned about her beautiful body. What she could expect—no, what she should demand from the man who loved her.
He rose from his stool and held out his hand.
“Come here, Gabriella.”
She met his gaze, her sapphire eyes filled with tears, her voice thick with emotion. He didn’t miss the fear and residual anger in her shaky voice.
“Why, Jase? Why ever would I?”
“Because, Gabriella, you are my woman. And I’m going to make sure you understand what that means.”
She shook her head and started to object. “Jase, we…we can’t. I…I don’t want to….”
He covered the distance between them in two long steps and reached for her. Pulling her into his arms, Jase leaned down and murmured in her ear.
“You don’t want to what, baby?”
When she shook her head and struggled against him, he shook his head and tipped up her chin. Gazing into her tear-filled eyes, he ran a finger across her puffy bottom lip.
“You don’t want me to kiss you?”
He leaned down and lightly pressed his lips against hers. He nipped at the corner of her mouth, gently at first, coaxing her to open to him. When she shuddered and leaned against him he smiled and held her in front of him, holding her chin so that she couldn’t look away,
“Before I kiss you, really kiss you, let me tell you everything I’m going to do to you. It’s only fair that I do. I need you to understand how much I love you. God knows, why you would believe me after what I have put you through tonight. This is the only way that I can make you understand why I’m so crazed.”
He brushed at the tears on her cheek and pressed his lips against the soft skin under her ear.
“Tell me that you want me. Tell me, Gabriella. Tell me what you want me to do to you.”
She sighed as she stopped resisting, and pressed against him. Her voice was soft, wavering. “I…I want you to make love to me, Jase.”
He nodded and held her tighter, his voice roughening with emotion.
“What kind of love, baby?”
When she didn’t answer he bit her earlobe then blew on it to take away the sting.
“Tell me, darlin? Do you want me to love you the way that you need to be loved? The way that I need to love you? Hard, passionately? Until you are begging me not to stop, begging me to let you come?”
At her throaty moan, he ran his hand across her chest and cupped her breast through the clinging fabric of her dress, working his fingers around one tight nipple. He pinched the hardening nub, rewarded with her passionate cry.
“Like this, Gabriella? Do you want me to strip you naked, and revel in your glorious body? Do you want me to play with your nipples? Make them swell, ache with need? Do you want my tongue on them, my teeth? Do you want me to suck them until you are begging me not to stop?”
She writhed against him, crying out for more. He grasped one of her hands and pressed it against his throbbing erection.
“Do you feel that, Gabriella? Can you feel how much I want you? How much I need to be inside you? Do you, baby? Do you want me high and hard and deep?”
Her fervent cry was all he needed to hear. Swamped with desire, he didn’t know how he was going to make it to her bedroom without taking her. The deluge of adrenalin and testosterone surging through him made him wonder how in hell he was going to keep from laying her on the floor and driving into her, much less get her naked and on a bed. He had never been this hard. Damn, his prick was like iron. His shaft was long, hard, throbbing for release, the swollen head moist with pre cum. He slipped his hands between her legs and groaned at the moisture he felt on the slick folds.
“Christ, baby, you’re wet. So fucking wet. I need to touch you. Taste you. Everywhere. Do you understand, Gabriella? I’m going to make love to you in ways and places you didn’t know existed. And, baby, do you know what you’re going to do?”
He groaned at her shuddering moan. “You’re going to beg me for more. Cry out for my touch. Not let me stop loving you until I’m deep inside you. Deeper, harder than you knew it was possible to have a man. And, baby, when you come, you are going to explode, feel things you’ve never dreamed about, much less felt. Ecstasy, darling. Pure ecstasy.”
Jase scooped her up in his arms and held her against his chest as he strode toward the bedroom. Laying her on the bed, he pulled back for a moment gazing at her. Staring at her beautiful face, her lovely body, a wave of emotion threatened to swamp him. As he stripped off his clothes and prepared to take her, Jase was struck by a startling realization. In all the times that he he’d made love, to countless women, he’d never once given himself. He sure as hell had never given his heart, much less his soul, as he was about to give to Gabriella.
Chapter 29
Sapphire sauntered down the hallway to the large double doors at the entrance to Roberto Ventrilo’s private quarters. Noah was among the six formidable men positioned on the side of the doorway.
Tossing her head she eyed Manuel, the man whom Jase had punished for refusing to let her enter, standing in front of the door. When he saw her coming he moved in front of the double doors and crossed his arms over his beefy chest.
Sapphire glared at him then reached over and poked him in the sternum.
“Look buddy, Mr. Ventrilo is expecting me.”
Pointing to Noah, she smirked. “Ask him if you don’t believe me.”
Noah shrugged and intoned in a low voice. “All I can say is that he sure seemed to want her here last night.”
Manuel grunted and stepped to the side, his narrow, beady eyes dark with suspicion. Sapphire strode past him, flicking a teasing finger at his chest as she entered and closed the door firmly behind her.
The empty room was cluttered with bottles, glasses, drug paraphernalia and smelled like a saloon that hadn’t been cleaned in three days. Seeing that no one was there, Sapphire made a quick decision. Knowing that one of the guards or even Ventrilo himself might come in at any moment, she didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to look for signs of the missing girls. Remembering that she’d promised Jase that she would stick to their strict plan, she shrugged off her twinge of guilt and began moving quickly from one door to the next. To her surprise no one was in any of the rooms—although the rumpled bedclothes, full ashtrays and countless empty liquor bottles confirmed that every bedroom had hosted a party.
Trying the knob on the last door at the end of the hallway, she was surprised that it was locked. Sapphire grinned and reached in her boot for her smallest knife. With a couple of quick turns she unlocked the door. Seeing the large desk and computer in the center of what was clearly an office, she locked the door behind her. Moving to the desk, she sat in the large swivel chair and searched enough drawers and riffled through enough papers to confirm that it was Ventrilo’s office. She hesitated for a moment and then gave in to the lure of the computer. Booting it up, and gladdened to see that it didn’t require a password, she flicked through the documents file. She laughed in delight when she saw the fo
lder marked auction. Slipping a flash drive from her pocket into the ISB port, she opened the file and clicked on download.
Brushing against her hair activating the off the grid communication device that was buried so deep in her ear that it would require a surgeon to find it, she spoke in a low voice.
“Jase, a slight change of plans. I lucked out. No one was here so I did a little investigating. You’re not going to believe this, but I’m in Ventrilo’s office and got into his computer. I’ve just opened a file labeled auction.”
Jase’s cold voice burned in her ear.
“Please tell me, Agent Shaw, that I misheard you. That you did not just say that you deviated from our plan.”
Before she could answer, she heard the sound of a key in the lock. Seconds later she stared at the looming figure of Roberto Ventrilo in the doorway. The sadist’s eyes widened in surprise and then darkened with disbelief. Sapphire forced a smile on her face, inching her hand along her thigh, zeroing in on one of the three knives she’d secreted on her person.
His booming voice echoed across the empty room.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
Knowing that Jase could overhear the conversation, she tried to convey as much information about her plight as she could. She kept her voice light, unconcerned.
“Oh, hi there. I wondered where you were.”
Ventrilo stared at her, incredulous for a brief moment, then walked in and closed the door behind him. Taking his cell phone from his pocket he glared at her.
“I will ask you one more time. What are you doing here?”
She tossed her head and replied nonchalantly, “What do you think I’m doing? Waiting for you, silly.”
When he startled, she focused on the phone in his hand.
“Now don’t you be calling Manuel, and that hot black guy, and those other big burly men out there in the hallway. Geez, you must be one nervous Nelly. Six huge guards just to protect little ol’ you?”
