by Tarah Scott
She was startled to realize she would have liked to see if she could bring him to so quick a climax, but when he tugged at her shirt with his free hand, she released him, straightened, and pulled the blouse over her head. The bra slid down her arms as Cole grasped her shoulders and pulled her close until his lips caressed a nipple. Intense pleasure raced to the sensitive point between her legs as his tongue twirled around her areola.
All she could think about was getting his clothes off and him inside her. Cole seemed to read her mind, for he released her shoulders and went to work unbuttoning her jeans. Seconds later, she slid down his body and snuggled against his chest as she freed his jeans. Her hands ran along his muscular thighs and desire deepened. She shoved her jeans and panties off then reached for him, eager for the taste of his lips.
He tugged her knees up until she straddled him, then pulled her face down and kissed her. She startled from the kiss when he reached toward the nightstand. What had happened? He pulled open the drawer and she blinked when he pulled a condom from inside.
“You are confident.”
His mouth kicked into a smile. “Hopeful.”
He started to tear open the packet and she placed a hand on his. “No need. I have an implant.”
His brows drew downward, then he grinned. “You think of everything.”
He tossed the packet aside and gripped her buttocks. He lifted her up and she barely had time to brace herself before he lowered her so that the tip of his rod played at her entrance. He probed, taking his time to fill her. She wanted to slam herself down onto him, to ride him hard, and nearly gave into the need before he finally settled her fully on him.
They lay without moving, their bodies joined. Never before had she been so aware of the feel of a man. The way he felt inside her, the heat of their union, even the beat of his heart. A sense of vulnerability unlike any she had ever experienced assailed her. She felt herself flush. Cole shifted, and she gasped in pleasure. He lifted her up an inch, then brought her down. Jesse braced herself on his chest. He lifted her again, then again, this time higher, then again and again. Pleasure rippled through her. He moved faster, faster.
Jesse braced her hands on his chest. His fingers dug into her hip. She kneaded his chest muscle. He groaned and she felt her channel tighten around him. She threw her head back, lost in the mounting pressure. One of his hands dropped from her hip and she jerked her head up at feel of his finger between her legs. He flicked the sensitive bud. Pleasure rocked her. Jesse cried out. Her mind splintered.
She found herself on her back, Cole arching over her, thrusting into her. Pleasure radiated like blast of energy. He groaned deep within, shuddered, then collapsed on top of her.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Egyptian cotton sheets and Cole’s warm body. Jesse opened her eyes, aware of the glow of a bedside lamp—and the passage of time. Red digits of a bedside clock read two a.m.
Cole shifted beside her in his sleep, his arm curling tighter around her shoulders. He held her as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if he had been doing it all his life. His lovemaking had left her content. The intimacy incited fear.
She had loved Michael. He had been intense, brutally honest, and a little dangerous. She told herself it was the dangerousness that ended their relationship, but she now wondered if that were true.
Her life with OIA was over. Even if all charges were dropped and her name cleared, she couldn’t go back. She had to go where no one could associate her with clandestine games, and start a real life, which meant dropping off the radar, forever.
She’d known this day would come, though she hadn’t expected it to be quite so violent or complete. All agents knew they’d eventually quit, but most didn’t disappear. The shock she expected to feel didn’t come. She didn’t feel anything.
“You look serious.”
Jesse started at the sound of Cole’s voice. She met his gaze. Intense curiosity sparkled in his eyes. This man might think he could change for a woman. They all loved to think that. Michael thought it. He had been wrong.
She managed a tentative smile. “It’s serious business.”
He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
Jesse couldn’t help a laugh. He wasn’t kidding. He had made love to her with the single mindedness of a greyhound with his eye on the rabbit.
He rolled onto his back, pulling her against his chest.
“You really think the three of us can pull this off?” she asked.
“I’d give the odds sixty-forty in our favor.”
That was better than her calculations. “Who was the man you met in the diner?”
“Victor Morales.”
“Morales? He didn’t look Spanish.”
Cole placed a kiss on her forehead. Jesse closed her eyes, steeling herself against the wave of longing that rolled over her.
“His mother’s All American, blond and blue-eyed,” Cole replied. “I’m betting the money transfers between Perez and Lanton have his fingerprints all over them.”
Her mind snapped to attention. There had been something about the guy that bothered her. “Are we certain Lanton is working alone?” she asked.
“We can’t be certain of much,” Cole said. “What’s eating you, Jess?”
“This Morales is a wild card.”
“What do you want to do about him?” he asked.
Jesse hesitated. What did she want to do? With Cole so close, she couldn’t concentrate on anything except getting onto her back with him inside her. Tomorrow—what was she doing? Tomorrow—and the real world—were only hours away.
Jesse yanked aside the covers. She felt Cole tense, and thrilled when his erection pulsed under her scrutiny. She flattened her palm on his stomach and was sure he held his breath as she slid her hand downward over two cigarette burn scars. She brushed his erection before slowly wrapping her fingers around the thick shaft.
Cole groaned, thrusting into her hand. “Jess.”
She watched his rod glide up, then down, reveling in the strain of each measured thrust. This was what it was like for him when he was inside her, the need, the demand for more. Mesmerized, she stared, aware her body had gone taut. A throb pulsed between her legs and she gently squeezed his member on the next thrust. His arms tightened around her in what seemed an involuntary move, and he quickly loosened his hold.
Jesse nuzzled his chest, taking a swipe at his nipple with her tongue. “Don’t hold back.”
In a flash, he flipped her onto her back and slipped under the covers. Jesse started at the touch of his moist mouth around her belly button. Cole ran his tongue downward. A shiver rocketed up her spine. He veered left, along her hip, and she gasped when he kissed the insides of her thighs.
She buried her fingers in his hair and pushed his head deeper between her legs. He licked her with gentle rolls of his tongue. Jesse tightened her fingers in his hair, tugging convulsively with each lick. Cole shifted, and she startled. His fingers massaged her nipples while his tongue worked. Fast and slow. He lifted her legs onto his shoulders. He drove her higher and higher until she exploded.
As Jesse lie sweating and panting, Cole worked his way up her body. He kissed her, and she pulled him inside her again.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Jesse and Cole strolled along the sidewalk outside the Office of International Affairs’ twelve-story, steel and glass high-rise in Langley, Virginia. Jesse glanced at Cole’s disguise with a critical eye. Despite his extra two inches, the dark-skin latex mask, black eyebrows, and cream-colored suit accented with white shirt and brown tie, made him look enough like Perez to fool even her from a distance. He had exchanged the chestnut dye in his hair for a deep brown, and had even bound his broken index and middle fingers together with flesh colored medical tape. The brown eyes threw her more than anything, though. She’d gotten used to the blue that always made her feel like she could fall into them.
She returned her attention to the street as they crossed Ivy Lane between the OIA
building and staff parking garage. She hoped Lanton wasn’t late. The tight jeans and two-inch, backless Prada heels she wore to aid the elusion he was closer to Perez’s six-foot height were uncomfortable as hell.
Jesse glanced at her watch. Eight-thirty. She pressed the ear bud. “We’re at the garage.”
“Roger,” Tom radioed back. “Take a right. He always uses the north entrance between eight thirty-five and eight-fifty, statistically within three standard deviations. The mean is eight forty-three.”
Jesse laughed. Once a nerd, always a nerd. The woman who snagged Tom was going to be one lucky statistic. She touched Cole’s arm and headed right as she replied, “Roger. We’ll let you know once he’s inside.”
“Out,” Tom said, and ended the transmission.
She and Cole strolled the last forty feet to the parking garage ramp and stopped near a thin Elm tree. He pulled a box of Colombian cigarettes from his jacket pocket and lit a cigarette with a nonchalance befitting a high-powered drug lord. Mid-puff, Cole nodded almost imperceptibly at something down the street.
From the corner of her eye, she spotted Lanton’s silver Mercedes turn onto Ivy. “Show time. Hold your position until he’s halfway through the turn onto the ramp. Can’t have him spook and keep going.”
Cole drew on the cigarette. “He’s glanced at us, but doesn’t seem to have made the connection.”
Jesse remained motionless, staring at Cole. She blinked. He wasn’t inhaling the cigarette. The sound of the approaching Mercedes drew closer. She held her breath while the car passed behind her, then appeared in the right edge of her peripheral vision as Lanton made a slow turn onto the ramp.
Cole grasped her arm, easing her around to face Lanton. Halfway into his turn, Lanton’s attention jerked onto them. His eyes widened. He yanked the wheel as if to turn toward them, then immediately turned back in the direction he was headed.
Adrenaline pumped Jesse’s heart faster as Lanton stared in open-mouthed horror while Cole pointed his cigarette at him, then dropped it. Lanton’s gaze followed the cigarette’s downward journey until the butt bounced once on the concrete. He swung his eyes back onto Cole’s face. Cole fashioned his hand into a gun, his thumb cocked like a hammer over the firing pin, and pulled the imaginary trigger. Lanton’s head swiveled forward and the car accelerated down the ramp and into the garage with a roar.
Jesse waited until he disappeared among the isles, cars and ramps inside before saying into her mic, “The rabbit is in the hole.”
She turned and they hurried up Ivy toward the minivan parked a block over. A minute later, she climbed into the driver’s seat and Cole dove in back. Latex snapped free of his face in unison with the purr of the minivan’s engine as she turned the key. Jesse glanced in her rearview mirror to see him toss the mask aside while shimmying out of his slacks. She caught a glimpse of muscled legs as she pulled out of the parking space and onto Nash.
Next to Interstate 76, two blocks from the parking garage, she pulled to a stop behind Tom’s surveillance van disguised as a Verizon Wireless repair truck. She cut the engine. A second later, Cole scooted up behind her.
He clamped a hand on her shoulder. “I’m off.”
Jesse nodded at his image in the rearview mirror. “Good luck.”
She wondered if she should kiss him—if he would kiss her—but he slid the door open and stepped out. She watched in the passenger mirror as he started down the street toward home base. They had planned in great detail how things would go off. She’d known Cole had to return to home base. So, why did she feel as if her world had just ended? She couldn’t let him go. She grasped the door handle and pulled back the lever before remembering Amanda—and their mother.
Jesse slumped back in her seat. After their father died, their mother wasted no time in putting Amanda in a home. No retarded girl was going to prevent her from finding a man. Her mother had put herself before Amanda. If Jesse stopped Cole, she would be doing the same thing. She glanced in the passenger side mirror. Cole was gone.
She exited the minivan. Traffic along I-76 zoomed past as she headed for the rear double doors of the surveillance truck. Jesse pulled the key from her pocket, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. She slid into the nearest of two swivel chairs positioned along the centerline of the van.
Equipment covered both sidewalls, from floor to ceiling, leaving only enough room in the middle to swivel from right to left. Radio receivers, tape recorders, high tech surveillance equipment blinked little lights and hummed small cooling fans. Keyboards and mice cluttered a desk-high narrow counter. Various storage and other faceless, button-less electrical gear filled the racks under the shelf. A nickel-sized homing transmitter sat in a charging cradle on the counter. Jesse snapped the transmitter free and slipped it into a jeans pocket.
She had half an hour to plant the homer on Lanton’s car and get back. Then she’d set up electronics gear while she waited, deaf and blind until one of the men phoned in a report.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
A knock sounded on the van doors, jarring Jesse from dead silence.
“It’s Cole,” came the familiar Texas drawl.
Her heart leaped and she told herself to get some perspective. This wasn’t the homecoming dance, and Cole wasn’t going to make her his queen. She glanced at her watch as she rose. Twenty after eleven. He had been gone for two hours and forty minutes and hadn’t contacted her. She opened the left door and he slipped inside
“So far so good,” he said, seating himself in the aft chair.
His eyes were bright with excitement and anticipation tightened her belly.
Jesse sidestepped the back swivel chair and slipped into the forward seat. “How did it go?”
“Pretty much as expected. He made me start from how I found you in the alley, lost you, then picked you up in Colombia. I told him how we found Perez through Menendez. That caught his attention. He was interested in your Colombian connection.” Cole raised a brow.
A tingle played at the back of her neck. Was he trying to figure if she was still connected with Michael?
“I stuck to the truth up till the part about you killing Perez,” Cole went on. “He didn’t say a word when I told him you didn’t turn on me.”
Jesse nodded. “Just like we wanted.”
“Right. He’s a cool cookie. Didn’t let on he’d seen you or Perez.”
“You don’t think he found it coincidental Perez shows up the same day you do?”
“If he did, he didn’t give away his thoughts. At this point, though, his focus is on Perez. Perez scares him.” Cole shrugged. “I’m no threat.”
“I am,” she said with satisfaction, “because I’ve done the one thing that gives me real power.”
“Teamed up with Perez,” Cole finished.
She nodded. “What do you think he thinks about the fact you saw Perez die, yet he’s shown up here in Langley?” she asked.
“I did some fancy talking about why I let you check Perez’s vitals. I told him you dragged me out of there, then skedaddled.”
“He bought it?”
“It wasn’t hard for him to buy that I didn’t want to get captured by Perez’s men. He kept the debriefing friendly.”
“Sounds like he’s acting as if you and he have teamed up to single handedly bring me in.”
“Looks that way,” Cole said with enough derision to surprise her. He further startled her with a sudden grin. “Ain’t it great?”
She laughed, finally letting his excitement spark hers. “I suppose it is.”
“It couldn’t have gone better,” Cole said.
“Taking you fully into his confidence would have been better.”
“He may be acting like we’re a team, but he’s not stupid. He won’t chance bringing me that close.”
“Unless we force him to,” she said.
Cole paused. “What do you mean?”
“He might chance pulling you closer in hopes he can convince you to take care of Perez like h
e hoped you would in Colombia. He would bank on your outrage upon learning I faked Perez’s death then teamed up with him.”
Cole thought for a moment. “Maybe.”
“He would figure—worst case scenario—you balk, and he takes care of you quietly.”
Cole stared.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll save you. Just wear a mic next time.”
He blinked, then grinned. “I almost hope he tries it. I’d like to see that.”
She had the impression he had reverted to some Cro-Magnon man, who believed he would take care of her. There was a first time for everything.
He turned to the universal cell phone emulator in the rack to his left. The gear was a new model that looked more like an expensive home stereo with a keypad than a cell phone.
“Did you set up a cell account?” he asked.
Jesse donned the headphones at her station and switched off the mic. “I registered a new cell phone account under an assumed name. When Lanton has the call traced, it’ll originate two blocks away in the opposite direction. All he’ll know is that you’re close.”
“Let’s see what we can stir up. Ready?”
“Ready.”
Cole put on the headphones and punched Lanton’s number on the keypad. The phone rang four times before the voice mail recorder picked up and a low-grade computerized woman’s voice said, “Please leave a message.”
The tone sounded, and Cole said in Perez’s voice, “Senor, I suggest you answer next time. I do not like to be kept waiting.” Cole cut the connection. “That should make him jump.”
He leaned back in his chair, his sleeves going taut across his arms. Jesse couldn’t resist, and ran a hand down his arm. The muscles coiled under his gray dress shirt. Eat, drink and be merry, she thought. For tomorrow we may die.
“We might have some time to ourselves,” she said.
Cole grinned and leaned closer.
The phone emulator rang. Jesse blinked. Damn. She checked the number on the long, narrow screen. Tom’s number flashed in green numbers.
