by Linda Conrad
But it was tough going when images of Tarik kept creeping into her consciousness and throwing her off-balance. The man was seriously hot. With her next step, she found her imagination transporting her back to last night when he’d been naked, wanting and hard as a rock.
Forced to put a hand on the banister now, she tried to steady herself as mental pictures of those broad, supple shoulders of his holding her down caused her to miss a step. His extraordinary chest had pinned her to the bed, while his lean hips and broad thighs had moved suggestively between her legs.
She’d felt his erection. Hot and pulsing. Exactly where she’d needed to feel it the most.
Stopping to take a breath, Jass ordered herself to quit daydreaming this instant and pull it together.
She had work to do. Important work that might mean life or death for Tarik.
Someplace along the line, the idea of putting her own career in high gear with this mission had begun to pale against the idea of helping Tarik prove his family’s accusations. His mission had worldwide implications. Her career could hold for another day.
Yeah, he still irritated her to no end sometimes. The grin. The casual attitude masking a much deeper conviction. It all drove her nutty.
Worse, her own reactions to him on an intense, sexual level constantly made her angry with herself. Why now? Why suddenly find an unavailable and totally unsuitable man so attractive that she lost her mind whenever he was around? It didn’t make sense.
“Ah, Ms. Kocak, is it?” A Middle Eastern–looking man hailed her as he came around the corner from the other wing of the house. “We’ve not had the pleasure of meeting. The name is Malik Kasim Taj Zabbar. I understand we are to be competitors at the auction.”
Oh my god, this guy was one of the men at the table in Monte Carlo. Tarik and the Kadirs had been correct and the Taj Zabbar were seeking some kind of weapon of mass destruction. Of course, simply showing up for an auction was not conclusive proof to take to the international community. But it was good enough to make Jass a true believer.
Hoping to heaven her disguise would hold up under his scrutiny, she took the hand he held out. “The pleasure is all mine.” Giving him a flirty gaze through her lashes, she squeezed his hand suggestively. “Are you representing yourself? Or an absentee buyer? I’ve found it pays to get to know your competition—very well.”
He tilted his head as he studied her with a sober expression. “I am but a humble servant. And you, madam, are not the casual flirt that your expression and attire would suggest.”
Oh, crap. “Me? But I am—”
“Please. Your title as the Messenger is well known and respected the world over. You are reputed to be a shark in the arms negotiations business.” Malik tsked at her. “Do not try to fool me with your sweet smile and a stunning body. Let us begin on more equal footing—as true opponents.”
Her whole body wanted to cave in with relief. He still believed she was Celile.
She pulled her hand free from his and set her jaw in true Celile style. “Agreed. I will be representing Sheik Abu Zohdi in this matter. Whom do you represent?”
He gave her a half smile. “Better. But I already knew your buyer. And I have to say Zohdi may not have the wherewithal to compete effectively. At least not with the resources of the new nation of Zabbarán behind my bids.”
Man, she sure wished she had a digital recorder getting this conversation down. But there hadn’t been any place to hide one. Tarik would have to find something else to incriminate these bastards.
And she needed to shift the current conversation out to the patio right this minute. Her job—and Tarik’s life—might depend on her keeping an eye on all the others who should be out at the pool by now. Especially Eltsin.
She nodded her head and slipped her arm through the Taj Zabbar agent’s arm, swinging him around and moving them both in the general direction of the patio. “We shall see, Malik. Um, it is all right for me to call you Malik since we’ll be such close competitors, isn’t it?”
“Of course. If I might also call you Celile.”
Oh, you bet yer boots, babes. “That will be fine. But please don’t use my given name around Zohdi. Not if you care about living long enough to place your bid, that is.”
After hiding their weapons and equipment around the room and waiting a full fifteen minutes, Tarik changed into a black T-shirt and jeans and began scouting the rest of the residential wing. It didn’t take him five minutes to befriend one of the uniformed valets, who spoke Spanish instead of Portuguese and didn’t seem to think asking detailed questions about the other guests was strange.
Sure enough, Tarik discovered several of the others were also Middle Eastern like he was. The valet even pointed out a couple of rooms belonging to men whose last names were both Taj Zabbar, though he added the two weren’t brothers.
After their conversation, Tarik followed the valet and uncovered a treasure trove. A large linen closet containing not only freshly washed and stacked towels and bed linens but also freshly washed valet uniforms. It didn’t take him thirty seconds after the valet left to slip into a uniform and grab a handful of towels. He was headed back down the hall toward the first of the Taj’s rooms before the valet was even out of sight.
Using a new high-tech master set of keys Jass’s handler had provided, he got through the locked door a lot faster than if he’d had to rely on obsolete lock picks. The first thing he did was set the towels in the bath and then scour the bedroom for any hidden surveillance devices. He’d been ready to believe the Taj might even try to protect themselves by setting up some way of checking who entered their rooms.
But the place was clean. Not for long, though.
He put a listening device in both the bedroom and the closet, in case. While he was in the closet, he checked the safe but decided it would take too long to open it. The room itself held nothing of interest. No files, PDAs or laptops.
Were those things in the next room over? He grabbed up the old towels and replaced them with new ones as he prepared to leave. But when he opened the outer door, he heard voices coming from down the hall—and drawing closer.
Maybe he’d get lucky and it wouldn’t be the Taj returning to their rooms. He stood at the threshold long enough to know it was not his lucky day. The male voices were speaking quietly in the Taj Zabbar language. He even recognized them as the same men from the club the other night.
Closing the door and locking it behind him, Tarik glanced around the room looking for someplace to hide. The drapes had been pulled, but hiding behind drapes was far too obvious.
He dashed back into the bathroom, wondering if he could pull off playacting as the real valet in front of the Taj Zabbar. Quickly deciding that would be pushing his nonexistent luck too far, his frantic glance landed on a tiny window in the shower enclosure and at the deep bathtub, half-hidden by frosted glass. He made a leap for the tub—at the exact moment someone entered the bedroom.
Chapter 11
Jass paced the floor of their room, fighting the urge to bite her nails—a habit she’d shed as a teen. Tarik had disappeared to heaven only knew where. A little while ago she’d noticed the two Taj Zabbar men leaving the patio for their rooms and had instantly sent the pool boy up with a drink for Zohdi. But the boy had come back within minutes claiming no one answered the door.
Where the hell was Tarik? Had the Taj caught him snooping in their rooms? Was he in danger somewhere and in need of her help?
Damn it, the two of them should have a better way of communicating if they were going to keep working separately.
Nearly frantic and too hyped up to think clearly, Jass began to wonder if she shouldn’t go looking. She ripped the beach cover-up over her head and threw it toward the bed. Not sure what the proper attire would be for snooping around Eltsin’s huge mansion, she untied the straps to her halter and slipped out of it. Catsuit or Celile disguise? Holding the scrap of material loosely in her hand, she headed toward the closet, still wondering what to pu
t on.
At that moment she heard a sound. Muffled and indistinct, the noise sounded like someone scraping on a faraway door. But why could she hear it from here? She and Tarik had checked the acoustics of the rooms earlier and discovered you couldn’t hear a thing from directly outside the door. The walls between rooms were also insulated far better than most five-star hotels.
Jass moved to the hall door and listened, in case someone was trying to break in. But the sound wasn’t coming from that direction.
The scratching noise had to be coming from right outside the windows. But right outside the windows they were three stories off the ground. Was someone washing windows? Did this have anything to do with Tarik?
She went closer to the sliding glass door leading to their own tiny private balcony and peeked out past the heavy drapes that had been drawn to block the heat from the sun. The knock came again, and when she peered down the balcony, she saw Tarik, kneeling at the door and working at the lock with one of Ed’s high-tech toys.
Oh my God. She grabbed the drapes and ripped them back.
“Get inside before someone spots you.” Hissing with fright and wanting to remain quiet, she unlocked the latch and slid open the glass door.
Tarik stepped inside looking disheveled and obviously out of breath. “Thanks. I wasn’t having much luck with that lock.” He reached up and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
She stood shaking her head at him. “What on earth are you wearing?” He was dressed like one of the valets—only he looked much better.
With the button-down shirt open, his T-shirt clung to his taut muscles. She ached to touch him.
Tarik shook his head too but held his forefinger up to his mouth to indicate he wasn’t going to answer.
Then he narrowed his focus on her as flames suddenly jumped into his eyes. “The question is, my dear Celile, what are you wearing?”
Jass froze, belatedly remembering she still held the top to her bathing suit in her hand. A shiver of sexual heat raced from her fingertips to her breasts. She closed her eyes, hoping he would disappear, or that a hole would open up in the floor and swallow her whole.
No such luck. When she opened her eyes he was blatantly watching. A hungry stare. She became painfully aware of her nipples hardening. Taking a breath didn’t help. As her chest swelled, the look in his eyes took on an intense quality—like the wolf gazing at Red Riding Hood.
Her nipples grew even harder. She was in deep trouble.
The memory of the kisses they’d shared came back to haunt her. She licked her lips once and Tarik moved closer, pulling her into his arms.
“Don’t say anything until I check the room for bugs again,” he whispered as he searched her eyes.
What was he looking for in her eyes? Fear? Rejection?
She wasn’t feeling either one. Lifting her mouth to his, she told him what she wanted with her lips and tongue.
He tightened his hold on her, mashing her breasts against his chest as he participated in the kiss in every conceivable way. This wasn’t an act. It was an astonishingly realistic move from a flesh-and-blood man who wanted her—not Celile.
Tarik no longer hid behind the mask of someone else. He was for real. The moment was for real. And she’d suddenly discovered some part of herself that had been hidden away wanting now to come out and play. Play only with Tarik.
Pressing on her bottom with his broad, hot hand, he jammed her tightly against his erection. Then he hummed, deep in his throat, as if this was the sweetest experience of his lifetime. To her ears, his murmur sounded of longing and pleasure, so closely matching what she was experiencing that it almost brought tears to her eyes.
She wanted to move even closer. Yet there wasn’t so much as a breath of air between them. Throwing one leg up, she wound it around his hips and tried to climb right inside his body. She couldn’t seem to get enough of his taste, and wished he had a lot fewer clothes on. She was dying to rub her tongue all over his skin.
He broke their kiss and lowered his head to her throat, moving his mouth in wide-open abandon toward the base of her neck and the pulse beating wildly there. She rocked against his hard erection, growing ever more desperate for a release of her tension.
His hand slid between them then and his palm cupped her with erotic warmth. She gasped, ready to explode.
Suddenly, he stopped. Froze. And swore quietly under his breath.
Her desire flamed, and then burned out in a rush of vulnerability, confusion and finally embarrassment. She stepped away and tried to cover herself with her hands.
“Go take a shower, Celile.” Tarik looked embarrassed too as he nodded his head toward the bathroom. “We’ll talk later.”
The bugs. The mission. All of what had been lost in her lust-filled haze came back with the splash of a prickly air-conditioned chill.
She was such an idiot. Turning on her heels, she dashed out of the room to the relative safety of the bathroom and slammed the door.
Breathing deep and rushing to turn on the hot water in the shower, Jass swore at her own stupidity. Yet with each breath of air, she realized Tarik had become more than a partner and a friend. He’d become her everything, all within a few days. Furthermore, if he ever made a move in her direction again, she would fall into his arms without a moment’s hesitation.
The woman she had always thought she’d been, the woman cautious with her emotions, was now gone for good.
Tarik stumbled around the room, ripping off the valet’s coat and searching for the bug-detection device.
Holy hell. What had hit him?
As he found the detector and began running it along the four walls and checking the house phone, he thought back to a few moments ago when his hands were roaming over Jass. It had been pure heaven when his tongue slid into the warm, honeyed depths of her mouth. Exploring. Taking her with a savage kiss. Holding her tighter. Kissing her harder and harder while his heart went off like a time bomb in his chest.
She was so sweet. Her breasts so beautiful and her lips soft. Her tight, rounded ass felt solid as he filled his hands with her flesh. Her whole exquisite body was everything a man could ever want. Then, when she’d wrapped one of her slim, toned legs around his waist, he’d completely lost his mind.
It took her gasping out a breath as he’d touched her and found her wet, to make him remember they could be the starring attraction on some bad guy’s headphones at that exact moment. It was possible the Taj or one of Eltsin’s men had entered the room while they were gone and planted bugs. Earlier Tarik had set a thread over the door as a trap and to let him know if their privacy had been breached while they were out of the room. But Jass had entered through the door first and ruined his trap.
So, he’d forced himself to stop one of the most intense sexual experiences of his life.
Now he was checking for bugs. But still felt overheated and remained harder than he’d ever been.
He couldn’t shake the image of Jass, nipples peaked and looking up at him with a combination of desire and vulnerability in her eyes. A potent look, it had turned his knees to mush and his brain to ash. And nothing short of making love to her would help.
But that wasn’t going to happen. Couldn’t happen. Shouldn’t…
After silently declaring the room to be clean, Tarik lifted his head and listened to the water as it continued running in the bathroom shower. He should clear the bathroom too—to be safe.
After shucking the rest of his clothes, he went to the door and hesitated, leaning his forehead against the air-cooled wood. If he opened this door, what would she do? What did he want her to do?
He knew what he wanted. He wanted to touch her again. And to run his mouth and tongue along every inch of that perfect body. She wanted that too, he was almost positive.
The indecision and options were killing him.
Making a deal with himself, a deal with the devil in his soul, he finally decided to try the door handle. If he found it unlocked, then that meant Jass h
ad deliberately left it open as an invitation. If the door was locked, he would turn away, satisfied she had left him a message that she didn’t want him.
Holding his breath, Tarik’s hand closed around the handle. What would come next?
The door opened with a tiny squeak of hinges. He stepped into the room with his heart jackhammering in his chest. Shower steam clouded his vision, but it didn’t keep him from seeing Jass looking out at him through the glass enclosure. Another moment of indecision had him blinking and swallowing hard. She had yet another shot at turning him down.
But as he closed the door and took a step toward her, she opened the shower door and held out her hand to him. She looked beautiful. Hot. He could weep with joy.
Physically, she was perfect. But it was the look in her eyes, saying she felt as hungry for him as he felt for her, that knocked him back a step. This exquisite and strong woman knew what she needed. And it threw him to find that what she needed was him.
More than anything, he needed to make love to her and watch her come apart in his arms. To pull down the moon and put that glow in her eyes whenever she looked at him.
The vulnerability he’d seen on her face earlier had disappeared. The heat and the need were back, lighting up the hazel-green eyes of Jasmine O’Reilly—not Celile Kocak’s dark browns.
Tarik knew for sure what, and definitely who, he wanted in his arms.
Stepping into the shower, he took her hand. “We’re in the clear. No bugs.”
She smiled up at him but didn’t make a move.
“Are you sure?” he asked, with his heart in his throat.
Instead of answering, Jass moved closer, went up on tiptoes and without touching anywhere else, pressed her wet lips to his.
“Why me?” he gasped.
“Because I need you.” As simple and as complicated as that.
He could no more have found the will to turn her away after that than he could have sprouted angel wings and flown out the window. Dragging her hard against him, he buried his hands in the wild tangle of her short auburn hair and kissed her again. A kiss that spoke of desperation and a surprising kind of trust.
