by Dana Marton
“Found him?” He came closer.
“Not so far. I’ll have to go for the pictures they keep on file for the security IDs.”
“How many?”
“A little over seven thousand. Anyway, I have something else to show you.” She turned the laptop toward him and pointed to the four names. “Clients of one of the money-laundering companies we targeted, involved with Banca Internationale and on the possibles list for people who might be involved with T.”
Nick looked up, no trace of sleep in his eyes now, a huge grin spreading across his face. “You’re a genius.”
“Really? I mean you think this is it?”
“It could be. Too many things click for it to be a coincidence.” Nick looked at the screen again, then at her, and kept on grinning. He came around the desk and surprised her by picking her up and twirling her around.
They did it. They did it. They did it. She laughed, right up until the moment when he stopped and his face started to turn serious as he slid her to the ground. He didn’t step back. Neither did she.
SHE DID IT WAS ALL HE could think. Brilliant, brilliant Carly had very likely found some links that could take them closer to Tsernyakov than they’d ever been before.
Her lips were inches from his and he wanted to give into the natural impulse to lean forward and take them. She wanted to be kissed. And God knew, he wanted to kiss her.
Smart thing would be to walk away.
Why?
Since when did he walk away from beautiful women he wanted more than his next breath? And he couldn’t remember wanting anyone this badly before—an exceptional woman whose soulful eyes said she was willing.
He spent most of his life in the combat zone. When he was on leave, he was smart enough to take joy where he found it. He was aware, as everyone in his unit was, that each brief moment of pleasure could be his last.
So why wasn’t he kissing Carly already?
He didn’t want to take advantage of her, he told himself. He was the first man she’d been around for a long time. Well, screw that, he thought a second later. They were both adults, they knew their minds.
And still, he didn’t make his move.
Carly was different and it didn’t have anything to do with her past. It had everything to do with the time they had spent together. She was brave and smart and tough and in some ways innocent, a fascinating combination. There was this weird understanding between them that was at times comforting, at times uncomfortable. She kept him on his toes. No woman had ever managed to do that.
She leaned toward him a fraction of an inch, hesitated then drew back as her cheeks colored. She had wanted him to kiss her and she knew he knew. And right now, she was feeling the sting of rejection.
He cupped her chin and made her look at him.
To hell with being smart, they’d been plenty smart for one day already.
The meeting of their lips was intense, the need that rose in him elemental. He’d been so good about building a brick wall of denial, he hadn’t even realized it was there until now when it was suddenly crumbling. Bricks labeled I’m Responsible for Her Safety, She’s Here To Do a Job and Nothing Can Ever Come of This, plus dozens of others, were rolling out of the way.
He realized he was in trouble about the same time he realized that one taste of her wasn’t going to be enough.
She was pressed against him, tall and sinuous, a perfect fit. She opened for him and he lost control there a while, taking everything she was so trustingly giving. When he floated back to some semblance of sanity, he found with surprise that he’d carried her across the kitchen and had her back pressed against the wall.
That sobered him again. This wasn’t what he wanted. Not just a moment of pleasure—it wouldn’t be enough—not from her. But what else was there? And would she understand that this was all he could ever give?
He pulled away, rested his forehead against hers. “We shouldn’t do this.” He raised his head, pulled back some more, stunned by his words and that he meant them. What was wrong with him? He was either sick or going crazy. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be calling a halt to their lovemaking.
“Right.” She looked away, but not before he caught that pain of rejection in her eyes again.
That did him in. He’d be damned if he let her think there was something wrong with her, that what she had to offer wasn’t enough. “I want you, that’s not the problem here.” Or rather, that was the problem.
Her gaze cut back to him, wide with surprise and maybe with pleasure. She made it hard to the extreme to remember why he shouldn’t pick her up and carry her to the nearest bed.
“Look.” He took a big step back. “It’s been—You haven’t been around people on the outside that long. I mean, you might not want to—” He had no idea what he was trying to say. What had happened to his smooth side? He was losing it, fast, becoming a blue-ribbon idiot.
She was looking at him all of a sudden as if she shared that sentiment.
“You mean, I might just be throwing myself at you because I’m hard up for it? Because you’re the first man who’s crossed my path?”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said and felt ashamed that the thought had crossed his mind. The muscles in his jaw tightened.
“Never mind.” She turned from him and walked into the living room. “I should probably quit working for tonight.”
“Carly.” He came after her, knowing that would have been the perfect moment to let her go.
“What do you want?”
If only it was that simple. He knew what he wanted, but beyond that, he wanted to do what was right. “You. As long as you’re sure.”
She shrugged, trying to look tough, as if it didn’t matter. “I’m pretty grown up to know my mind. But if you have a problem with this…”
He blew out some air. “Actually, I do. I’m supposed to be protecting you.”
“You’ve done a good job so far.” She paused. “You’ll get court-martialed, or what? What are we talking about? Are we breaking some carved-in-stone rules?” she asked.
He gave a sour laugh. “This is not the kind of mission that has set rules.” Hell, officially, the mission didn’t exist. The whole SDDU that he worked for didn’t exist, for that matter. “It doesn’t feel like we should be doing this.”
She raised an eyebrow. She’d been close enough to know exactly what he felt like doing.
“Okay, on one level, yes, but what we are…” he hesitated, then said, “feeling, might not be genuine. Attraction like this can happen in forced proximity. But the danger is real.”
He waited for any sign that she was going to pull back, but she moved forward instead. “I trust you. I don’t think this is wrong.”
And those simple words overrode every feeble argument he could have offered at the moment.
He stepped toward her and she came into his arms. She’d been there before, during exercises, at the bank when he’d helped her out of the vent. But this time the intent behind their touching had nothing to do with work. Awareness flashed to life between them with the power of a live grenade as he kissed her.
SHE DIDN’T REMEMBER KISSING being so exhilarating. She had an inkling it might have had a lot to do with the man. Carly gave herself to the heady feeling that was made up from equal amounts of arousal and simple relief.
“That was worth waiting for,” she said when she pulled back for air.
There was that odd look in his eyes again.
They were a kluge, built from instinct, things thrown together that for some reason worked. But change just one parameter and a kluge could easily fall apart. She didn’t want to worry about that right now. Over the past six years, she’d spent enough time worrying. She had wondered, at times obsessed—she’d had the time—what it would be like after she got out, if the fact that she’d been a convict would make good men run in the opposite direction, and attract the perverse and unscrupulous.
But here was Nick, the sexiest, smartest, strongest man—she
was such a sap; she had to stop thinking of him in superlatives—and he wanted her. It was there in the steel restraint with which he was holding back, even as he reached for her again and devoured her mouth. His hands were on her upper arms, holding her in place. She wanted closer so she pressed her body to his. A deep groan rumbled up from his chest and somehow they ended up by the wall again.
She ached to touch him. Did she dare? She was afraid of crossing some invisible line that would make him stop.
But her hands came up anyway so she pressed her palms to the outside of his abdomen and slid them up slowly. He had the kind of body she’d only seen in magazines. Not true, she’d seen the beginnings of bodies like his in high-school athletes and then in college, but his was all grown up, the real McCoy. She wanted more. She slipped her hands under the soft cotton of his T-shirt.
He pulled back a little to nibble her lower lip. “You’re lethal.”
She raised her gaze to his. “Isn’t that the point of this mission?”
He grinned and lifted her effortlessly, wrapped her legs around his waist, the hardness of him pressed against her through their clothes.
“I want you,” he said against her lips.
“I noticed.”
“I have nothing to offer beyond this,” he warned.
That sobered her a little. A one-night stand, that was what he was saying.
“You have someone in your life?” She pulled her hands back.
“Carly.” The chiding look he gave her matched his voice.
He wasn’t seeing anyone. And she realized he didn’t have to say it for her to know it. There was a lot she didn’t know about Nick Tarasov, but she knew the man had honor.
“I rarely spend enough time in any one place. My job is…” He shrugged. “It is what it is.”
“I can roughly guess what your job is. It’s important. You sacrifice.” If this mission was any indication then he spent his days risking his life for his country on undercover missions. Which branch of the military or intelligence he worked for didn’t matter. It had to be hard not to be able to talk about it to anyone. She understood all about being lonely. “I get it. Really. It’s okay. Just don’t ask me to call you Mr. Bond.”
“What? You’re not into role playing? No cute nurse uniforms and all that? We’re going to have to discuss this.” He grinned, but soon his expression turned serious again. “I just don’t want you to—”
Her hands went back to his chest. “I’m not asking you to marry me and father my children,” she said, needing to keep it light for her sake as much as his.
A flash of emotion slid across his eyes, was gone too fast to be identified. Then he dipped his head to hers and claimed her in a breathtaking kiss.
The tone of what was going on between them changed, she realized after a dizzying minute. He was no longer holding back, which was a potentially scary thought, yet all she could feel was thrill as his hands came up to palm her breasts. His skin radiated heat. She could feel her already swollen nipples harden into peaks and she couldn’t help arching her back, pressing them against his hands.
He dipped his mouth to her neck and nuzzled the sensitive skin there as his hands slid lower, to the hem of her shirt. He fisted the material and pulled upward until her head was through, then her arms. The shirt dropped at her feet.
He was looking at her with open desire in his gaze, but still her insecurities surfaced. She closed her eyes. What if he didn’t like the way she looked naked?
“I love your body,” he said, his voice all throaty.
“You can have it,” she joked, feeling silly with relief, then winced as the words were out. Did that sound desperate? She couldn’t think when he was looking at her like that.
“I mean to,” he said and cupped the underside of her breasts, dipped his head to a nipple.
She could feel his hot lips through the thin material of her bra.
He drew her in, once, twice, then reached up with an impatient hand and pulled the fabric aside. The air caught in her lungs as the heat and moisture of his mouth enveloped her skin.
Was the air conditioner still on? Sure didn’t feel like it. She felt warm all over, needy, aroused.
He moved on to the other nipple, and the one already wet puckered even harder as the air touched it.
“I love your breasts.” He not only said it, he showed her.
Her bra disappeared at one point, so did his shirt. The first skin-to-skin meeting was intense, nerve endings transmitting messages with little zaps of electricity. He unzipped her pants and pushed them down. She kicked them away.
He was kissing her as he played with the lace edge of her panties. She bit her lip at the sight of his hands on her body down there.
He looked up with a half smile. “You wear stuff like this to work?”
After years of government-issue cotton undies, she’d gone a little crazy in the intimate-apparel department when they’d arrived on the island. “Maybe.”
“I’m glad I didn’t know,” he said.
He ran his hot palms up her waist, down the curve of her butt, cupped her to him. Then he lifted her and wrapped her legs around his waist again. “Hang on to my neck.”
She put her arms around him and held on as he walked to the bedroom with her, straight into the closet and over to his side. She glanced around. She hadn’t really been in there before, other than for that quick look the first day he’d moved in.
The studio apartment looked a little more settled in now. He had pillows and sheets on the bed, clothes folded over the back of a chair, a book on the night-stand—everything neat and in order, in stark contrast to her place.
He lowered her to the middle of the light blanket. “Hang on,” he said and ducked, pulled the first-aid kit she’d seen before from under the bed.
What on earth was he doing now?
She was about to ask when he pulled a little foil packet from the box and tossed it on the nightstand next to the book.
“I guess they do think of every kind of emergency,” she joked, thrilled and relieved to death that he had that detail taken care of.
“Standard survival equipment,” he said with a grin, then turned serious. “Comes in handy sometimes to keep water out of a wound.”
That hadn’t been the picture dancing in her mind. “Huh?”
“Like if you’re in a bug-infested swamp on a mission and a misbehaving grenade just blew off your middle and index fingers.”
She stared.
“Happened to a friend of mine.”
“Are you trying to tell me that condoms really are an integral part of the special ops’ survival kit?”
“It’s a trick I learned from Special Air Service, the special forces of the British Army. These things take up hardly any room and are waterproof. Put a nonlubricated condom inside a sock and you can carry about a quart of water.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“You’d be surprised the number of disgusting things a man is willing to do to keep from dying.” He stretched out on the bed next to her, nuzzled the side of her face. “You’d be good at what I do,” he said.
“What are you, a recruiter?” she joked. Hadn’t he recruited her for enough trouble already?
“Sometimes.” His hand came up to her waist. He hesitated. The moment stretched out. “I should probably tell you something.”
She didn’t like the tone of his voice.
“I’m responsible for your being here. The other women, they’re here because of you.”
“What?” What on earth was he talking about?
He hesitated. He never hesitated about anything. A ball of tension began to gather in the pit of her stomach.
“There was an emergency meeting over Tsernyakov, a task force. I was there. We were at our rope’s end, had tried everything, nothing worked. A guy from the CIA was there, too. One of their agents had just been killed when his cover was blown. He said there was no way to get anyone near him. His connections are too good. The on
ly way would be to hire an actual convict to do it.
“The idea was shot down. Some of the people present argued that we couldn’t trust someone like that not to run the second he was out of jail.”
He brought his hand up and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Someone remarked that the hard part was that T. had no weakness. Then another guy said, maybe he did. Rumor was he was a collector of beautiful women.
“So the CIA guy jokes that we needed a beautiful convict. Then another guy added that she better be super intelligent to get anywhere near T. and get away with it. And then I thought of you.”
“Me?” She looked at him, bewildered. “But you didn’t know me.”
“I was at your sentencing six years ago.”
The silence in the room gobbled up the romantic mood with ruthless efficiency.
He hadn’t thought of mentioning this until now? She felt all weirded out, sat up and pulled the sheet around her, a half-dozen questions circling in her head, just trying to comprehend what this all meant. The bed seemed to spin with her.
“So we looked at it from every angle and thought, okay, this could work,” he said. “Then the idea came up that we better make a team. We looked at the women around you, picked three with the right backgrounds and looks.” He seemed to be done talking and was watching for her reaction now.
“Back up a little,” she said, her thoughts jumbled. “Why were you at my sentencing?”
“Your case made the news. Impressive credentials. The people I work for asked me to evaluate you for possible recruitment.”
“Special ops doesn’t have any women in it.” Was he lying? The ground was shifting out from under her pretty fast.
“I never said I work for special ops.”
“You work for the FBI, like Law?”
He shook his head.
“CIA?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
