by Donna Young
His smoldering gaze seared her, the amber flecks in his eyes glinting liquid gold. “Try again, babe,” he ordered, his hardness probing her soft entrance.
“Please.”
A low, ragged laugh erupted by her ear in response to her entreaty.
“Don’t ask me nice, just tell me correctly.” He rocked against her seductively.
She couldn’t control her shriek of frustration. She knew what he wanted her to say, but fear stopped her from giving in. He was asking her to sever her last lifeline, the last barrier between them. It was too much.
But then he pushed again, farther, only to pull back one more time. The feel of his hard body, the taste of his mouth, the fresh, damp smell of his skin and hair—all of it flooded her senses. Her thoughts fragmented as his hand and lips continued their hungry exploration. As her body began to vibrate, any need for self-preservation vanished.
“Now, Roman!”
Then he was in her, filling her just as he’d promised. It was an act of raw possession, of domination and control. One that sent her soaring, shattering into a million particles.
Chapter Twelve
A thunderous roar crashed against the mountain walls, shaking the timber of the mine and jolting Kate awake. A scream caught in her chest as the noise became deafening.
Roman gathered her close, shielding her for what seemed to be an eternity.
“Stay here,” he ordered when the noise finally faded. He slipped on his pants, not bothering to zip them and stepped to the mine entrance, gun in hand.
Tufts of dirt fell from overhead and Kate looked toward the ceiling. Peering at the shadows left by the fire’s flickering light, she searched the beams for any signs of weakness.
“A rock slide,” Roman commented as he returned to their makeshift bed of clothes. Quickly he disposed of his pants and settled beside her. “We’ll have a few rocks to climb tomorrow, but we’re safe for now,” he said, pulling the hunting shirt across her like a blanket.
Kate wasn’t as confident as she laid her head back down. The mine had lasted more than one hundred years—she hoped fervently it lasted one more night. A cool, moist breeze danced across the dirt floor, sending shivers rippling over her skin. Squirming her backside into his body, she took comfort in the heat that radiated from his chest and thighs. He wrapped his arms tighter around her torso.
A sharp jab at Kate’s hipbone elicited a small yelp of pain.
“What’s the matter?” Roman tensed. Swiping her hand underneath the clothes, Kate realized the object was in Roman pants pocket.
An instant later it lay in her palm.
“Your lighter.” She handed it him.
“It’s more than a lighter,” he said, giving the object a quick once-over before setting it on the ground by their heads.
“Really?” Curious, she rolled onto her stomach and snagged it again. “Is it a flamethrower?” After turning it over several times in her hand, she studied the beat-up disposable lighter in the firelight.
“The bottom contains a small homing device.”
Kate sat up, using Roman as a backboard, and looked at the base, still unable to see anything out of the ordinary. “Are you saying we’re being tracked?”
Roman sighed, obviously realizing Kate’s curiosity came before sleep. He unfolded himself and stood.
“Cain has the receiver. Another one of his backup plans.” He reached over her shoulder and released a false bottom on the lighter to show a minuscule electronic chip. “It was designed by MacAlister Security.”
After a moment he closed it again. “He can track us up to fifty miles away.” Handing the device back to Kate, he walked over to the fire.
In the light, Roman’s skin glistened. He had the body of a predator with an alertness defined in the sinew and muscle of his lean form. The sudden flash of him pinning her to the cave wall awakened a response deep within Kate.
“Cain has the only other device in existence. Unfortunately, I lost my receiver during our trip down the river.”
She forced herself to look away as Roman fed the fire and draped the plaid shirt around her shoulders. “Otherwise, we would have known if he was close.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said and listened to the crackling of the fire, trying to ignore the uncertainty that wound through her heart. “Cain will come. The question is when.”
“Soon. When I left, he was due back from another mission. The timing depends on his return.” He snagged the canteen and took a swallow before handing it to her. “We’ll be in Cedar by tomorrow. I expect he’ll catch up there.”
“Once you have me safe, what are you going to do about Threader? Kill him?”
“No. I don’t want him dead.” His eyes turned cold. “Dead is too easy. I want him to suffer.”
Kate hesitated, taking a sip of the water. She chose her next words carefully. “Even at the risk of becoming like him?”
But Roman took no offense at her question. Instead he lay next her and pulled her close.
“From what our intelligence gathered, Threader was born poor, on the streets of London. His mother was a heroine-addicted whore, and he never knew his father. As a boy, he was extremely intelligent. He could match you IQ-to-IQ, Doc. By the age of eight, he ran petty scams and built a relatively small fortune. As a teenager he broke into the big-time with drug trafficking, arms dealing and white slavery. You name it, the man has his fingers in it. Somewhere along the line, he gained a fondness for inflicting pain.”
He dropped a kiss by her ear. “Make no mistake, Threader is pure evil without a trace of humanity. There’s no risk of becoming like him.”
Kate heard the certainty in his tone but wasn’t reas sured. Somehow, she felt that if Roman brought Threader down as planned, he would lose part of his own humanity.
“Rumor had it,” Roman continued, oblivious to her thoughts. “Threader was trying to turn legitimate. Now I’m not so sure. All our information is pointing to the fact that if he gets possession of your formula, he’ll start destroying countries one by one until he is given what he wants.”
“Which is?” she whispered.
“Power. But this, like most of the information we have on him, is unconfirmed.”
“So he’s ransoming mankind.”
“Yes, it’s possible but not plausible. World domination would be closer. I’ve been studying him for years trying to nail him. Came close once, but had the operation blow up in my face.”
“Amanda?” She rested her face on his arm, savoring the feel of the crisp hair against her cheek.
“Yes, Amanda. Whenever we tried to plant an operative into Threader’s operation, he’d find out almost immediately. We lost several. Amanda Salinas was the first woman who tried to infiltrate.”
Roman caressed her shoulder. An odd twinge of jealousy passed through her at the admiration in his voice.
“Threader has a weakness for beautiful woman—and a reputation for maiming them if they displease him. She knew this and was willing to take the risk.”
“Tell me about her,” Kate asked. Maybe knowing more would alleviate the envy she felt for the dead woman.
He rolled onto his back pulling her with him until she ended up sprawled across his chest. When she laid her head in the crook of his shoulder, he pulled the hunting shirt back over both of them. Then he moved his hand to the base of her scalp and began to massage the area, a tendency from the past she took mistakenly as affection. Now she realized it was nothing more than a habit.
“Periodically, field operatives are assigned new recruits. A year or so back the director assigned Amanda to me. She impressed me from the start.”
A quiet laughter rumbled in his chest. “And that’s not easy to do. Her Puerto Rican–French heritage made her exotic and unusual. And yet that was only window dressing.” His hand stopped. “Some people are born savvy. Amanda was one of them.”
Gently, he brushed the hair from her cheek, his words growing distant. “And tough. Some of the wo
men who come to work at the Agency put up a front, trying to be one of the men. Amanda didn’t have to, she had a spine of steel.”
He shifted and slid Kate back onto the clothes, then looked into her face. “I liked her from the beginning, Doc. The more missions we worked, the more I admired her. She followed procedures, never questioned field orders and caught on quickly. So quickly I ended up showing her a few things about computer intelligence. The technology fascinated her. She said it was the key to the future.”
“I agree,” Kate said softly.
“Not her future. Not anymore.” Lightning flashed and the air around them crackled with electricity. With the flicker of light, Kate caught the lines of his face, somber and brooding.
“We set up the meeting at a casino in Monte Carlo. Dressed Amanda up sleek and cool. She’d studied Threader’s profile until she had his personality down pat, then adapted.”
He brought Kate deeper into his arms, obviously lost in thought. “That was Amanda’s talent you know, understanding the enemy. She could slip into their shoes and become them.”
When he paused, she could feel his jaw clench, his throat muscles contract. “Threader fell into the trap. He was fascinated with Amanda and took her back to his Mexican island. For the next several months, she could come and go as she pleased. Always under his watchful eye, of course. Her job was to access Threader’s computer and retrieve his business records. He had some powerful people on the take and we needed those records to bring them down.”
Suddenly his voice changed, the tone becoming laced with frustration. “But after several weeks we were running out of time. Threader was becoming bored with Amanda, so I ordered her to pull out.”
Kate could feel the tension in him build.
“She protested of course, but I wouldn’t risk her life. Ultimately we decided on a secondary plan. Threader had arranged a nuclear warhead shipment for a terrorist group known as the Brotherhood, a vicious bunch of renegades who wanted nothing more than to kill for notoriety. Amanda was going to damage the shipment then disappear.”
“They’d want Threader’s blood.”
“Exactly. We’re talking a hundred million dollars in nuclear. His other customers would get nervous, leaving the door open for us to get to him another way.” He heaved a sigh. “Everything was a go. She’d set small charges to damage the merchandise. Then we rendezvoused in a cove by the fishing village.”
“If you had suspicions, why not—”
“Send in the troops?” he said derisively. “Because we only had suspicions. No hard evidence. Threader has too many international connections for us to lead with our chin and come up empty. It could be disastrous for the United States diplomatically.”
“You sound like this was your only chance.”
“It was our best chance. We’d come close once before in Morocco, but lost a warehouse full of contraband when a few stray bullets ignited some stored explosives,” he said. “That left us with Amanda’s plan.”
“But something went wrong.” Instinctively she knew Roman needed to say the next words aloud.
He nodded. “The day of the pickup, she broke his security code but didn’t have time to download it.”
Kate understood. “She went back for the information.”
“She couldn’t without my go-ahead. I gave it to her. We needed that information.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know exactly. Somehow Threader must have discovered she’d set the charges. Within a few hours of her return to the villa, he had her strung up in the courtyard, beaten and bloody. When he got tired of the game, he let his men have her while he watched.”
Roman touched the side of her face, then slid his fingers down her cheek before letting his hand drop away.
In a heartbeat his voice turned to steel and his eyes became flat and hard.
“I sent the rest of the team back to the rendezvous point. It took me eight hours to get in sniper position.” He closed his eyes briefly, remembering. “Eight hours of hearing her scream like a wounded animal, until her vocal cords broke. Then I took her out at four hundred meters.”
Sensing his torment, Kate tried to comfort him. “You had no choice, Roman. She had information that could’ve gotten you all killed.”
“I operated strictly on a need-to-know basis. Any in formation she possessed was directly related to the mission.” A muscle worked spasmodically in Roman’s jaw as he searched her gaze for understanding. “He tortured Amanda in ways you’d only see in a concentration camp. Even if we could’ve penetrated Threader’s defense and rescued her, she was so badly injured we couldn’t have saved her.”
He showed Kate the scar on the back of his hand, his fist clenched tight. “I ran into a couple soldiers with knives on my way back to the team and got this as a reminder. One I’ll carry for the rest of my life.”
The unquestionable pain in Roman’s eyes caused an intense ache under Kate’s heart. “You must have loved her very much.”
Roman sat up, untangling himself from Kate. “Is that what you think?”
“Yes.” She slipped her arms into the sleeves of the hunting shirt, then hugged it tight, trying to stave off the cold that suddenly seeped into her bones.
“I cared for her, sure. I never loved her. She worked for me, she was one of my team and my responsibility. Her death was a direct result of my order. I got greedy and made a bad call.”
He drew in a long breath. “After the doctors released me, I decided to use my own time to bring Threader down by myself.”
Kate understood what he didn’t say. His pain, his revenge, his way. The thought had barely registered when another followed. A thought that had lingered in her mind for some time.
“Roman, back in the cabin when Dempsey held me with the gun, you told him your orders were to keep the formula out of Threader’s hands. I assumed that meant ei ther by bringing me back safe or by taking me out of the equation.”
“When in danger, bluff. That’s exactly what I was doing, Doc. I had to make sure he didn’t pull that trigger.”
“You weren’t bluffing. You and I both know that if Threader gets hold of me, I could end up like Amanda, strung up in the courtyard.” A needle of fear pricked her spine, but she continued. “I work with equations every day of my life, some more difficult to comprehend than others. This one is simple. If you take me out of it, Threader has nothing to deal with.”
“You’re missing one key element.” His voice was calm, his gaze steady. “You see, I’ll already be dead. Because the only way Threader is getting to you is through me, and the only way he’s getting through me is over my dead body.”
Kate nodded, hearing the statement for what it was—a call of duty.
“Ridiculous as it sounds, I thought you left me for Amanda. I know now I was wrong.”
“She was my responsibility, nothing more.” There was a tense pause. “You were a good time.”
Stunned and sickened, she could only repeat the words. “A good time.” She stiffened and her defiance rose. “Was that before or after we went to bed together?”
When she started to stand, he grabbed her arm and tugged her back onto the makeshift bed. “Things changed. The more time we spent together, the more important you became to me.”
“And you couldn’t allow that,” she snapped, pulling against his grip.
“My job is my top the priority—will always be my priority. You’d always be secondary.” He let her arm go, his glare daring her to get up again. “Hell, we both know you were raised in an environment where family comes first. Could you accept that?”
Kate couldn’t argue the truth of his statement. The love and closeness she had experienced growing up were something she’d always hoped to pass on to her children.
“Not to mention the secrets. My line of work doesn’t permit the typical end-of-the-day discussion between couples. The fact that you know I’m a government operative only makes the circumstances worse. Think of it, Kate. Y
ou’d never know where to reach me. If I was in danger or not. Or even dead.”
He thrust his fingers through his hair. “It’s no way to live. Eventually the stress would eat at the relationship until we hated each other.”
“I see.” She saw the conviction etched his face, telling her he would never consider retiring—would never love her as much as he loved his job. “So you terminated the relationship, quickly and efficiently.”
“I thought it best.”
He had decided with no consideration to her thoughts or feelings. She didn’t realize until that moment that she still held out hope. Hope that Roman loved her. Hope that one day they would be together…
She took a huge, ragged breath before finally letting that hope die. “So what do we do now?”
He gathered her stiff body close and lay back on the ground. “We sleep until the rain stops. Then we hike to Cedar.”
THE MUTED SHADES OF DAWN touched the tunnel entrance when Roman woke. Silence surrounded them, interrupted only by Kate’s rhythmic breathing. Sometime during the night, she’d crawled on top of him. The shirt lay open, leav ing her bare against his chest with her hair splayed across his throat and shoulders. He touched the sleek tresses with the tip of his fingers.
He’d hurt her last night, intentionally, with half truths. But he couldn’t let her waste love on him. His hand slipped under the shirt and traced the line of her spine until it reached the soft indentation of her bottom. Still, the knowledge he’d done the right thing didn’t alleviate the guilt.
“Wake up, babe,” he said roughly, masking the feelings inside him. Kate squirmed until she settled herself deeper into the apex between his thighs. Her soft triangle of curls brushed against him, making him instantly hard. With a groan, Roman rolled over, then levered himself above her. Precious inches of air separated them, giving Roman little space to control his urges. He wanted nothing more than to lose himself again in her warm willing body, but he refused to let his hormones distract him from the danger they were in.
