Afterglow

by Cherry Adair

  “I know that. Logically. But I still have claustrophobia.”

  “Think about something else.”

  “Like what?” She was pretty much surrounded by sex. She let a small sigh of frustration escape, her body hyperaware of him, of the people in the other room, of him.… The naked men in the other chamber were now arguing loudly.

  “It was supposed to alleviate depression,” Dakota said, trying to work up anger and indignation to shove away her irrational fear of the confined space. Her body prickled, and sweat stuck her shirt to her skin. She wanted out of there. Now! “Not to create sex addicts.”

  Rand cupped her face, his thumb stroking her cheek. A shiver of a different kind skittered across her nerve endings, and her nipples tightened. She made a move to turn, but his large hand on her hip kept her in place.

  “It was very brave of you to come down here.”

  “I wasn’t brave at all,” she assured him, tilting her face to rest briefly in his palm. God. She’d missed this. Missed him. Unfortunately, this was neither the time nor the place to have this conversation. “It took everything I had not to pee my pants and whimper all the way.”

  “Doubly brave, then.” His thumb brushed back and forth in a maddening caress across her lower lip, and his other hand slid from her hip to flatten on her belly, drawing her closer. The ridged length of his penis pressed against her butt, hot and throbbing even through several layers of fabric.

  “I forgot your tendency to race in where angels fear to tread. An extremely unscientific trait, I always thought, but one I admired.”

  Someone in the club let out a piercing cry as they climaxed. Dakota tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry, and she could feel the increasingly rapid beat of her heart in every pulse-point up and down her body. “I have to get out of here,” she said desperately as the walls seemed to close in on her. A film of perspiration prickled her skin. Averting her gaze from people in the throes of Rapture wasn’t compelling or distracting enough to stave off her claustrophobia.

  It felt as though the entire city of Paris were pressing down relentlessly on her head. The very air felt suffocatingly heavy.

  “Seriously, can we get the hell out of here now? We heard what we need to hear, and we can’t nab the guy from here.”

  “Lean against me and close your eyes,” he whispered against her cheek.

  “Damn it, Rand. I don’t want to play games right now. This isn’t funny.”

  “I know. We can’t leave until we know what the next play will be. I can’t let you stroll out of here on your own. Close your eyes and breathe with me. There you go.”

  Eyes squeezed shut, she felt the brush of his hand against her tummy; then his nimble fingers slipped the button of her jeans free.

  “Remember when we had that picnic at Gas Works Park?” he murmured against her ear. After a few moments of struggling in the oppressive darkness, Dakota saw that day behind her closed lids. “It was cold and gray and drizzling, and we bundled in the blanket and ate our sandwiches there on the wet grass. We stuck it out because my flight was leaving in a couple of hours, and we couldn’t bear to let each other go. So we sat there shivering, looking over choppy Lake Union. Remember the feel of the spray stinging your face and the wind cutting through our clothes? Hell, we didn’t care. Just drank that great wine out of paper cups and talked about a quick trip to Tahiti. Remember?”

  Dakota nodded. God, yes. She remembered every single moment of their time together. Made more precious because they lived a thousand miles apart and didn’t see each other nearly often enough.

  That day at the park was even more memorable because it had been the day Rand proposed to her. Their love had kept them warm, and the discomfort of the cold gray day had been swept aside by the prospect of their rosy future.

  She’d missed him with an intensity that at times had been unbearable. Her throat closed on a whimper. She ached for more intimate contact. Surrounded by him wasn’t enough, and she felt bereft when he stopped touching her face. But it was only temporary.

  Skimming a hand beneath her tank top, he murmured, “Mmm,” curling a finger inside the cup of her bra, his hard palm shockingly warm. With his fingertip, he raked the hard areola of her erect nipple, making Dakota moan low in her throat and press her bottom against his erection, rocking against him. She wanted to turn around. She wanted him to kiss her. She burned for him to kiss her, but instead, he eased her zipper down. “Rand …”

  Need clawed at her. She made a muffled sound of mingled pleasure and despair. Nothing between them had changed, but she didn’t want to say no. She didn’t give a damn where they were. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the skim and glide as he slid his hand into the open V of her pants. Behind the darkness of her lids, all she could do was feel and hear the erratic breathing and sounds of sex a few feet away. That was quickly tuned out as her own breathing became ragged, competing with the sound of her own rapid heartbeat. He nuzzled her damp hair as he slid his fingertips under the elastic of her lacy thong to cup her mound. “Rand …”

  “Shh.” His fingers opened her, and Dakota shifted restlessly to give him better access. “You’re wet.” His rough voice had an incredibly sexy rasp, and her nipples tightened even more, to hard, needy points.

  “And getting wetter.” A haze of lust blurred the glow of the room in front of her. Stars and glitter. “Are you … going to …”

  “Oh, yeah.” He teased his way inside the damp seam, sliding two fingers inside her. She arched into his hand as her muscles contracted. He pressed the heel of his hand against her clit and brought her to climax so fast it caught her between one breath and the next. “More?” He bit gently at the distended tendons of her neck as he inserted another finger inside her, stretching her. He kissed the side of her throat, stroking his tongue around the shell of her ear. He remembered her body so well.

  “God, yes.” The fact that she couldn’t spread her legs because of her tight jeans, and because he was leaning against the wall, his body bracketed around hers, made the sensation of his fingers inside her even more erotic. His arms surrounded her, his breath blew hot against her throat. His heartbeat syncopated with hers. Hard, rapid, loud.

  This was familiar. The heat. The intensity. The want. This, she thought, choking back a sob, was the Rand she knew. And still loved.

  “I remember what you taste like. Here.” She gulped air as his fingers thrust impossibly deeper. “And here.” His hand curved around her breast inside the cup of her bra; he rubbed the hard nipple with his thumb so it hardened even more, and ached for the wet heat of his mouth. “Salty and sweet.”

  The next muscle-clenching crest pulsed throughout her body, drawing tighter and tighter… . She flung her head back, gasping for air as her muscles spasmed around the hard spear of his fingers. His strong arms kept her upright when her knees threatened to dissolve with the pleasure as the second climax washed through her in a hard, bone-shuddering wave that made her dig her nails into his wrist, and she bit her tongue to keep from crying out with the pulse-pounding, driving orgasms rolling through her one after another.

  Dakota wilted limply against his broad chest, her heartbeat manic, her brain fogged with lassitude and pleasure.

  Sounds seeped back into her consciousness. Rand’s slightly erratic breathing as he rested his chin on the top of her head. The nonstop action in the club, and the rasp of her own breathing. “What about y—”

  His entire body stiffened. He jerked away from the wall, his hand still between her legs. “Shit!”

  He’d done such a great job distracting her from her claustrophobia that she’d almost forgotten why they were there. “What?”

  “Quiet.” He withdrew his hand from her pants, set her aside a few feet from him, then brushed by her to get close to the grille.

  Dakota mouthed, What the hell? Which he couldn’t possibly see in the dark. He wasn’t even looking at her. His entire focus was on the room beyond as he stepped closer. He leaned in to peer through
the finely wrought iron.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Their Paris bad guy’s GPS location winked out of Dakota’s head, and Rand said, “Our bad guy just fucking well got himself shot.”

  TEN

  As soon as they bolted the hotel room door, Dakota yanked off the black wig that she had put back on before leaving the catacombs. When this clusterfuck was over, he was going to burn the damn thing. She tossed the wig onto the bed, her pale green eyes a little dazed.

  He’d gotten them out of the catacombs as the people in the club became marginally aware that someone had been shot. Nobody seemed to care particularly. Rapture did that. The situation had just gone from shit to fucked in a heartbeat.

  He raked his fingers through his hair, dropping his hand when he smelled Dakota on his fingers. Christ. He couldn’t go there.

  She sat on the foot of the bed. “I don’t understand what happened.”

  He went into the bathroom and washed his hands, drying them as he walked back into the room. She sat cross-legged on the bed, her bare shoulders gleaming in the sunlight shining through the window, and her hair looked like the finest cognac streaked with ginger. He walked to the window to stare out at the Parisian rooftops without seeing any of it.

  Dakota’s beauty stole his breath, making him do and think crazy things. Always had. “Apparently our guy went to the club last night. Waited for the owner-slash-prospective buyer to show. He supplied the buyer and his friends with Rapture. As you saw, it was a big hit. Big order. Then playtime for the rest of the night.”

  “Everyone looked …” Dakota’s lips twitched. “Very happy. Why kill the man who was about to give them a lifetime supply of happy?”

  “That—” He cut himself off when there was a coded knock at the door, and he went to yank it open. “—is the million-dollar question. A day late and several million dollars short,” he told Ligg and Rebik as they entered. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be following the other guy. And why weren’t you answering your phones?”

  The two men exchanged a look.

  Ligg shrugged. “Crappy reception.”

  “I left explicit instructions for you to follow the GPS location Dakota sent you. Did you get any of those texts?”

  “Nope.” Ligg gave him a quizzical look. “Only one from Ham telling us to rendezvous with you here.”

  “Where’s everyone else? Cole? Walters?” He’d brought twenty-four men with him for the wedding. He’d ordered half his men to return to the United States on the private plane with the wedding guests, which meant there should be eleven of them hanging around waiting for orders.

  Rebik shook his head. “No idea.”

  “What about Chris Raimi?” Dakota asked, picking up on the tension. “He called and said he was on his way here.”

  “Who?” Rand asked, distracted by the men’s inability to tell him where the others were. He shot a brief glance at her, then looked at Ligg for answers. “Chris Raimi? Never heard of him.”

  “You’re joking, right? I spoke to him. He had my cell number.”

  Yet another fucking mystery. “He’s not one of mine.”

  Dakota looked from Ligg to Rebik. “Do you know who he is?”

  “No, ma’am,” they said in unison.

  She pulled out her phone and hit “last call.” Rand watched as she listened, a scowl marring her pretty features. He already knew no one was going to answer.

  “Ham’s dead.” He was pissed at the world, and he didn’t bother hiding his anger and frustration. “And our quarry with him. What the hell took you so long, and where are the others?”

  Ligg gave him a strange look. “You counterordered. Most of the team went home this morning.”

  Rand’s gaze met Dakota’s. She bit her lip. Trust no one. He turned back to his men. “Who passed along the order?”

  Rebik frowned. “I thought Cole—”

  “No,” Ligg corrected. “It was Jakes.”

  Jakes was too far down the food chain to work independently, and it was unlike Cole to take orders from anyone but Rand. His assistant had been with him for seven years, hell, back when Rand had been Creed’s stunt coordinator. He was as loyal and devoted as a golden retriever, and as protective and tenacious as a rottweiler. He wouldn’t take anyone’s word for it that Rand had told everyone to go home.

  “Point is—it wasn’t me,” Rand informed them grimly. “If you were ordered to return home, supposedly by me, what are you two doing here?”

  “I spoke directly with you after Jakes relayed the first order,” Ligg told him. “We figured you wanted to keep this tight. Especially if the Spanish police and Interpol are on your ass.”

  Damn. “They ID’d me?”

  Derek Rebik shoved his hands in his pockets, looking like he wanted to pace. Rand watched his men, trying to assess whether they really believed he’d counterordered, or whether they had their own agenda. Paranoia was insidious.

  “Not that we’ve been able to find out,” Rebik reported, running a hand over his shaved head. “They have one grainy video. So far, they haven’t been able to ID the person in it.”

  Rand remained standing, but gestured to the small table and two chairs by the window. “Grab a seat, and I’ll update you. When I was in the catacombs, I overheard the guy we were tracking as he was talking to a customer. He said that two men were sent to a meet with a prospective buyer at the Bennett-Dunham wedding.”

  “Wait. The buyer was at the wedding? As in one of the guests?” Ligg, who was about to sit, straightened. “It wasn’t a blackmail attempt, or someone playing a gag that went balls-up? Jesus. We’re gonna get our asses handed to us by a bunch of high-profile Hollywood lawyers!”

  Rebik looked from Ligg to Rand and back again. “Or find our asses thrown in jail somewhere.”

  “All possibilities,” Rand admitted. “Dakota and I think all of this has been a demo. That dead waiter was paid to drop wafers with the drug into the champagne glasses. The liquid caused it to dissolve. It was a small dose—” He looked to Dakota.

  “Less than a microgram,” Dakota explained, scooting back to lean against the padded headboard, “but more than enough to cause the uncontrollable reactions. That presents as sexual excess for the majority of people taking Rapture, but for others it will manifest as wild mood swings. Rage, fear, paranoia.”

  “Shit. Yeah.” Ligg dropped into the chair. “That tall brunette bridesmaid couldn’t stop bawling, and the old guy with the white hair was on a rampage, tossing tables and throwing shit he shouldn’t have been able to even lift. It took three of us to restrain him long enough to tie him up.”

  Rand leaned his shoulder on the bathroom doorjamb as they talked. Who’d countered his orders, and why? Someone who wanted him swinging in the wind alone with no backup? On the run from the authorities? It sounded a little crazy to him, but he figured it wasn’t paranoia if someone was really after him.

  “According to the guy in the catacombs, manufacturing has barely begun.” Rand shrugged. “While they work out the production details, they’re giving firsthand displays of exactly what Rapture can do. These guys we were following are basically salespeople. The box you found in the waiter’s room was a traveling salesman’s sample case. We need the kingpin.”

  Rebik half-smiled. “The stuff will practically sell itself. What else does it need to do besides make you horny?”

  “The effects are dose-dependent,” Dakota told him shortly, clearly not amused. “In the realm of toxicology, we have several commonly used measures to describe toxic doses—”

  “Cut to the chase,” Rand inserted before she went all chemist on them and no one understood more than a word in three. When Dakota was on a roll, it was sometimes hard to stop her. “They get the gist.”

  She wrapped her arms around her up-drawn knees, but Rand knew her well enough to know she wasn’t relaxed. She wanted to find the manufacturer worse than he did. And he wanted the guy bad.

  “A dose,” she told the two me
n, keeping it simple, “is the quantity of the chemical that impacts an organism biologically. When Rapture is made to be ingested, a very small amount—less than a microgram—is delivered on a soluble wafer. That would be your street drug. A much stronger airborne dose was inhaled at the bank. Strong enough to kill everyone who came into extended contact with it.”

  “Holy fuck.”

  Holy fuck indeed.

  “The gas has a slight scent of roses, which wouldn’t be detectable until the toxins hit the air, and by then it would be too late.” Dakota’s ice-green eyes met Rand’s across the room. “As a weapon of mass destruction, Rapture would be unstoppable in the hands of a terrorist.”

  IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON, almost dusk, when Rand commandeered a pickup truck parked down a narrow, out-of-the-way side street a few blocks from their hotel. Once again, they switched license plates before heading south out of town. Dakota was getting good at popping them off and using her thumbnail to screw them back on.

  He called Rebik and left a message when he didn’t answer. “Damn it to hell, now where are they?”

  “On the way to the airport,” she reminded him mildly. The second bad guy had too much of a lead to catch up with him by car. Dakota had directed them to Innsbruck. From there, they’d rent a car to tail him. “Relax. They know you’re already pissed. I’m sure they’ll call you as soon as they land. Here, give me your phone, I’ll text them, and they can read it when they get there.” She texted the new coordinates, then shot Rand a sassy smile. “Want to add a love note?”

  “I want to add a kick-your-ass-for-not-picking-up-your-phone note,” Rand said dryly. “Just tell them to call me ASAP.”

  Dakota added the rest of the message and handed him back the phone.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as he checked the rearview mirror. The guy in the catacombs was dead, and Rand’s men were following the other GPS coordinates.

  “Rome. I have to talk to Paul.”

  He always referred to his father by name. The two Maguire men weren’t what Dakota considered warm and fuzzy to each other. “Your father’s been incarcerated for two years.” She kicked off her shoes and curled her legs under her butt.