“I need to check my voice mail,” he said casually.
He kept his jazzed-up Hubble telescope at his ear and appeared to be listening intently while he paced the living area before strolling out onto the balcony. Nervous as a cat, Nina watched him lean a hip against the railing that framed the triangular hot tub. A sudden and very explicit vision grabbed her by the throat.
El Lobo. Her. In the hot tub. Naked. With a full moon reflected in a dark, shimmering sea.
She chugged down her water, half scared, half hoping he would find a bug that would force him to play her would-be lover just a little bit longer.
He did. Two, in fact. One in the living room, one in the bedroom. Both very sophisticated and high tech, but no match for the gizmo Wolf aimed at them.
Signaling Nina to join him in the bedroom, he gave her a status report. “I left the one in the living room active,” he said in a low voice, “but scrambled the signal on this one. Whoever is listening will think it malfunctioned.”
“Who is listening?”
“I should have the answer to that shortly. I’ve requested a signal intercept. Until we get a fix on it…”
Her heart skipped a beat.
“…we need to continue our respective roles.”
She gathered the folds of her colorful broom skirt in her fists, bombarded once again by the image of the two of them in the hot tub. Naked. Etc.
“Relax,” he said with a smile that produced the exact opposite of its intended effect. “I don’t expect you to perform for the cameras.”
“That’s a relief.”
Damn! Why couldn’t she lie with a straight face like everyone else? She could feel the heat coloring her cheeks as Blackstone outlined his plan of attack.
“Here’s the deal. We amble back into the living room. I comment on the long drive back from Cordell’s and suggest a drink up at the pool. You counter with that old stand-by ‘we need to talk’. I agree, but insist we can do that poolside as easily as we can here. We change, slather on some sunscreen, and move out of listening range.”
The plan was simple enough. Nina even managed to inject a note of authenticity into her assigned line of dialogue. If Wolf were Kevin, they certainly would have to talk.
The first glitch occurred when he walked out of the bedroom wearing a pair of low-riding gym shorts and not much else. The second, when he took the bottle of sun lotion from her suddenly nerveless hand.
“I’ll do your back.”
He did her back and neck and arms and thighs. Nina wasn’t sure her knees would keep her upright when it was her turn to perform the same service. “Turn around.”
He obliged and presented a broad back that tapered to a lean waist and a very tight, very trim butt. Eyeing it appreciatively, she oozed lotion into her palm. The sunscreen was cool and creamy, in direct contrast to her throat, which got hotter and drier with every swipe of her hands over his back and shoulders.
She tried to remind herself this was all for show, that Blackstone’s only intention was to keep up the pretense. The stern reminder didn’t prevent her fingers from gliding over his back longer than was absolutely necessary to work in the sunscreen.
“There.” Swallowing to lubricate her bone-dry throat, she capped the bottle. “That should do you.”
“Thanks.”
He didn’t turn around, just stared at the doors to the balcony. “Why don’t you go on up to the pool? I’ll follow in a minute.”
Oh, God! Now what? Imagining all kinds of disasters, she grabbed her tote and cover-up and fled the scene.
Wolf heard the door shut behind her but didn’t move. He couldn’t. The woman’s slow, sensual strokes had damn near paralyzed him. Half of him, anyway.
Above the waist his lungs were so tight and frozen he had to fight to suck in air. Below the waist…
He was tight there, too, but certainly not frozen. Hunger burned hot and fierce in his belly. Swearing, he gritted his teeth and glared at the endless expanse of ocean beyond the balcony.
As if he didn’t have enough to contend with. One dead United States senator. Stolen technology up for grabs to the highest bidder. A disaster in the making for U.S. national security. Now he had to go and develop a serious case of lust for Dr. Nina Grant.
She wasn’t even his type, for God’s sake! Too nice. Too damn gullible. Wolf had always gone for the kind of woman who didn’t expect—or particularly want—him to hang around. The kind he could kiss goodbye and forget, once he’d completed an op. Nina, he suspected, wasn’t the forgetting kind.
More to the point, she represented everything he’d deliberately avoided during his years with OMEGA. Ties. Commitments. Responsibilities that might shade his judgment when he went into dangerous situations. Although Wolf had seen many of his fellow agents successfully combine undercover work and marriage, the effort took its toll. Most left the business eventually. He just hadn’t met the woman he wanted to make the switch for.
This one, though, stirred all kinds of thoughts he had no business thinking. Setting his jaw, Wolf willed his body into submission. He had to remember where he was. Had to stay focused on the mission. There was too much at stake to indulge in his ferocious urge to drag Ms. Grant back down to her suite, peel off her bathing suit, and bury himself between her lotion-slick thighs.
With another smothered curse, Wolf stalked out of the casita. His phone buzzed just as the door slammed behind him. He glanced at the coded ID on the display, flipped up the lid, and snarled into the mouthpiece. “What?”
“Wolf?” Ace asked sharply. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Gritting his teeth, he moderated his tone. “What have you got?”
“The tag on the Chevy Aveo checks to Economy Rentals at the Cabo airport. They leased it this morning to one Anton Hdrovski. The name’s fake. Ditto the passport he registered with them.”
“Did you get a visual from airport surveillance?”
“We did. No positive ID yet, but this character sure looks like Ivan Alekseev. Heavier build. Less hair. Same ugly sneer.”
Wolf’s gut took another twist. A suspected lieutenant in the Russian mafia, Alekseev reportedly ran a host of illegal activities. Everything from drugs and black market military weaponry to white slavery.
So far, Interpol hadn’t been able to nail him. Wolf had never worked in his area of operations, but he knew at least two Interpol agents had died trying to infiltrate the Russian’s tight inner circle. The fact that Alekseev had appeared on the scene upped the stakes considerably.
“How did Alekseev pick up my tail?” he asked, grimly.
“Actually, we think he was tailing Dr. Grant. Once we ID’ed him, Mannie Diaz shook down some of his sources. They confirm the Russian heard from his sources here in Cabo that Cordell invited an American woman to his compound for lunch. Alekseev was too late to follow her to the hacienda, but he caught her on the way back into town.”
“Hell!” Wolf considered a dozen possibilities, none of them good. “Sounds like Alekseev thinks she might be another potential buyer, or acting for one.”
“Sounds like.”
His jaw locked. He didn’t need Ace to spell it out for him. If Alekseev and company believed Nina was a player in Cordell’s auction, they could well decide to eliminate the competition.
“What about the signals emanating from the bug in Dr. Grant’s suite? Did you run the intercept?”
“We did. They’re low frequency, with a limited range.”
Which meant whoever was listening could be close enough to have his ear to the wall. His spine crawling, Wolf made a slow three sixty.
“Mac’s still working the intercept,” Ace told him. “She said to give her a few more hours. She’s confident she’ll be able to lock in on the listening post.”
He hoped to hell she did. The ultraluxurious casitas were stacked one on top of the other, clinging to the cliff face below the towering pyramid of the main building. There must be close to a hundred of them. One-, two-and three-be
droom units, in shades of umber and ochre that blended in with the cliffs themselves.
He could help at this end, he decided. He’d get with hotel management. Find out who checked into which units in the past twenty-four hours. In the meantime…
“Lightning wants you to stick close to Dr. Grant,” Ace reported. “Intentionally or not, she’s becoming a key player in this op.”
And he’d forced her into it.
Wolf had never hesitated to employ whatever tools necessary to accomplish a mission, but this particular tool was starting to play on his conscience, big time. He didn’t need Lightning’s instructions. He intended to stick extremely close to Nina Grant. Day and night.
Chapter 7
Infiltrating Sebastian Cordell’s compound with a fake fiancé in tow had pretty well maxed out Nina’s fun meter. That exercise was a stroll on the beach, however, compared to having her fake fiancé stretched out next to her on a double-wide lounger.
An absorbent, cloth-covered mattress at least four inches thick cushioned the lounger. A roll made of the same cushiony material served as a pillow. With her head propped on the roll, Nina had an unobstructed view across a seamless blend of turquoise pool and achingly blue ocean.
Unobstructed, that is, except for a bent knee. Which connected to a hard, muscled thigh. Which connected to the hip that bumped hers as Wolf settled in beside her.
“I just talked to my people. They—and I—think it’s best if we remain engaged until Cordell makes his move. Or at least for the duration of your stay in Cabo. When are you supposed to head home?”
“My assistant booked me for an entire week.”
Very much against her will.
Talk about irony. When her staff had threatened to resign en mass if she didn’t take some time off, Nina had reminded them of all the hot projects they had in the works and insisted she couldn’t drop everything and jet off to Mexico. Even after she’d caved and arrived here at the Mayan Princess, she hadn’t been able to relax. Too many things on her mind, too much restless energy.
Rafe Blackstone had certainly tapped into that energy. And something deeper. More urgent. She wanted to believe it was a sense of outrage over Cordell’s alleged role in Senator DeWitt’s death, but she knew darn well the naked chest just inches from her nose factored heavily into the equation.
“I don’t fly home until Saturday,” she told him. “I, uh, could stay longer if you need me.”
The cushion dipped as he propped himself up on an elbow and tipped his mirrored sunglasses. Surprise and a touch of amusement played in his blue eyes.
“Is this the same Nina Grant who made me swear not more than a half hour ago that we’re all square?”
“It is,” she said loftily. “Just because I dislike being blackmailed doesn’t mean I won’t do whatever I can to help expose a traitor.”
“I appreciate the offer, but as I told you in the car, this should be over soon.”
“What if it’s not?” It was Nina’s turn to tip her sunglasses. “Don’t you think it’s about time to tell me what, exactly, Sebastian intends to auction off to the highest bidder?”
Wolf had to make a split-second decision. Grant wasn’t cleared for the level of detail she now demanded. He could stonewall her—or bring her fully into the op. He went with his instinct.
First, though, he speared a quick glance around the pool. They weren’t the only couple soaking up the late afternoon rays but none of the others were anywhere close enough to overhear. Nevertheless, Wolf kept his voice low as he described the new generation Unmanned Aerial Vehicles at risk because Janice DeWitt hiked up her skirt, shimmied out of her thong panties, and had sex with the man she knew as Stephen Caulder atop her desk in the Russell Senate Office Building.
With her PhD in biology, Nina grasped the devastating potential of the stolen technology immediately. Her eyes went wide with dismay.
“If these UAVs are as inexpensive to build and easy to fly as you say, some wild-eyed terrorist could deliver a deadly strain of anthrax or ebola anywhere on the planet.”
“Just about.”
“No wonder you resorted to kidnapping and blackmail to gain entree into Cordell’s compound!”
She swiped her tongue across her lips, clearly trying to take it all in. Wolf half expected her to reneg on her offer at that point. As he’d related to Ace after the frustrating prep session, Dr. Nina Grant didn’t have the temperament for undercover work. So her angled chin and terse reply took him by surprise.
“Count me in, Blackstone. I’ll do whatever I can to help put Cordell behind bars where he belongs.”
“You sure?” Now that he’d secured her willing cooperation, Wolf was hit with a fierce need to talk her out. “We’re playing for extremely high stakes, Nina. People could get hurt.”
She paled, but nodded. “I’m sure.”
Her declaration shifted something inside Wolf. He couldn’t quite identify the odd sensation. Probably because he’d never felt this combination of respect, admiration, guilt and fierce protectiveness before. All he knew at that moment was that he had to make her understand what she was up against.
Digging his elbow into the mattress, he leaned closer. She tilted into the crease and almost slid under him. His pelvis pressed into hers. His chest flatted her right breast. To any interested observer, they would project the image of a couple caught up in a very intimate conversation.
“You and I and Cordell aren’t the only players in this game. My controller contacted me right before I came up to the pool. That tail we picked up…?”
Some of the bravado seeped out of her, replaced by a wary caution. “What about it?”
“From all indications, it was a real badass by the name of Ivan Alekseev. He’s a major player in the Russian mafia.”
Wolf saw her eyes widen behind her tinted lenses. She swallowed and said very carefully, “The Russians are following you?”
“Not me. You.”
Her jaw dropped. “Me?”
“You.” With brutal honesty, he laid the cards on the table. “Mannie says Alekseev arrived in town just in time to hear from his sources that Cordell had invited a special guest to lunch. He’s going to want to know who you are and what interest Cordell has in you.”
The incredible news that she’d now become the focus of the Russian mafia shook Nina almost as much as lying chest to chest with Rafe.
“Wh…?” She struggled to sound coherent. “What do we do now?”
“Until I say otherwise, we do just what Nina and Kevin would do. We lie in the sun, we cool off in the pool, we have dinner, we take a moonlight strolls along the beach. In the process, we work out the kinks in our relationship.”
Nina went into the pool several times in the hours that followed, but the cool turquoise water did little to soothe her frazzled nerves.
Particularly when Wolf rested his elbows beside hers on the pool’s curved ledge. They floated side-by-side, massaged by the thin stream of water cascading over the lip. With nothing but that lip between them and the endless blue of the Pacific, they could have been alone in the universe.
Except, of course, for whoever might be watching. Or listening. Or trying to figure out if she was a player in Sebastian Cordell’s dangerous game. The notion was absurd, and scary as hell. So scary that goose bumps popped out on her arms when she and Wolf abandoned the pool and went down to her casita to change for dinner.
The air-conditioned chill inside the casita piled another layer of goose bumps on top of the first. Shivering, Nina deposited her tote and wide-brimmed hat on the counter.
“I need to shower off the chlorine before dinner,” she told him.
“Me, too.”
“You want first crack at the bathroom?”
“No reason to take turns. I’ll scrub your back, you scrub mine.”
He delivered the suggestion in a caressing tone that squeezed the air from Nina’s lungs. It took her several heart-stopping seconds to remember the bug behind the flat s
creen TV. Scrambling for a reason to decline the seductive offer, she shook her head.
“As tempting as that sounds, we’d better forego the back-scrubbing. We’ll have to rush to make our dinner reservations as it is.”
Was that a glint of approval for her quick thinking in his eyes? She couldn’t quite decide, as he curled a knuckle under her chin.
“You wouldn’t turn down a back scrub if you were really ready to forgive me.”
“I’m still working on that,” she said, fighting to remember her role as his thumb glided along her lower lip.
“Work harder. I’ll do anything to get back into your heart, Pumpkin.”
Oh, gag!
She didn’t have any trouble interpreting the gleam in his eyes now. He was laughing at her.
Indignant, she fired back with a quick retort. “My heart, Kevin, or my bed?”
His thumb stilled. She had the satisfaction of seeing his amusement fade before she issued a tart warning.
“Don’t push me, fella. I haven’t had time to adjust to your unexpected appearance here in Cabo, much less your insistence we put the past behind us and start over. Let’s just take this a day at a time.”
“Guess we’ll have to,” he said after a moment. “You’re calling the shots on this one.”
His thumb glided over her lip one last time before he issued a warning of his own.
“Just don’t expect me to roll over and play dead while you try to make up your mind about us. I want you, Nina. I didn’t know how much until I lost you. I intend to do everything in my power to make you want me again, too.”
Whoa! Playacting was one thing. Making her legs start to buckle and her heart thunder like the opening stanzas of Beethoven’s Fifth was another. Scarcely able to breathe, Nina beat a hasty retreat to the bedroom.
Wolf let her go. Their hours at the pool had damn near shredded his concentration. Touching her, breathing in her chlorine-scented hair and skin had just about sent him over the edge.
Risky Engagement Page 7
