by Gennita Low
He could sense the anger coming from her, as if she was impatient about all this but needed to bide her time to get what she wanted. That was okay. He understood waiting. He did it a lot in his real job.
The booth blocked out a lot of the noise from the music. After all, this club was also a place to discuss business. “Something tells me you’re going to dash out on me right after I give you what you want,” he said as he slid in a little closer. “This is just insurance, Miss…?”
When she remained silent, he lifted a brow inquiringly. “Usually I do business with people who have names. Besides, you obviously know mine.” He put out a hand. “Hi, I’m R.C., but you can call me Reed. What can I do for you tonight?”
CHAPTER 5
Maybe it was because she had just been in his arms, or because it’d been a few months since she’d allowed herself to be this close to another man, but Lily was keenly aware of Reed sitting so near. She suddenly realized how much she’d avoided this kind of proximity with a man—it hadn’t been difficult, as she’d been on the run with a bunch of teenagers and young women. But she knew it’d been mostly out of fear of her own memories.
She’d been running from herself and it’d been easy, because as long as there was cash to see to all her charges’ needs, she hadn’t needed any contact with anyone from her old life—the friends she’d abandoned or her shady business “acquaintances.” In the back of her mind, she’d known she would have to deal with her own fears sooner or later, but she had been willing to make it as late as possible.
But now, because of this passport situation, she’d had to go back to her old life, which included dealing with the kind of people who reminded her of what she was. And what she was, no matter how she avoided the truth, was very simple. She was Llallana Noretski, a woman of dubious background with shady motivations. Just like everyone around here. She drank down the glass of wine she’d picked up on the way to the table.
“You can call me…Ambrosia.”
She almost gave him her real name. That would have been stupid, since she was sure she was on several wanted lists.
However, the rush of just being the old Lily while dealing with Johnny Chic had brought back a bit of her old swagger. She knew how to deal with people like that. At that moment, when she had been smacking that lecher around, she had suddenly felt exhilaratingly free. Almost normal, in fact. She’d walked with confidence toward R.C., the man Johnny had pointed out, with her focus on getting those passports from him. What could be so tough? She was used to dealing with gunrunners too, right? It felt good to just go with the flow again and not be suspicious of everyone’s, as well as her own, actions.
Then, this man had surprised her by keeping her on the dance floor. That had been totally unexpected.
“That’s unusual,” Reed said. “Is that your real name?”
Lily studied the man sitting so close to her. She hadn’t been held by a man since…“No,” she said abruptly, “but does it matter?”
“It does to me,” he said, cocking his head, his gaze quizzical. “I like to know whom I’m dealing with.”
“Our meeting is business, not a date, so whether I’m called Mary or Ambrosia, what difference does it make?” She really should just get down to business, but it felt so good to spar with someone again. She hadn’t realized how starved she was for interacting with people. It was difficult to have long conversations with her girls because of their age and the nurse helping them out asked too many questions that she didn’t want to answer. “How do I know R.C. is your real name?”
“Call me Reed,” he corrected. “And yes, that’s really my name. I like to be myself because it’s easier. Being two or three different persons at the same time seems so unnecessarily difficult, don’t you agree? I might confuse myself with myself. That wouldn’t do.”
Lily searched his face. He was too close to the truth, although he couldn’t possibly know. He was just flirting. She’d seen him doing it with that other woman with whom he’d been dancing—the same intense look in those eyes, the same tilt of the head, as if he was just enjoying being with a woman.
She hadn’t really wanted to dance, but that look had changed her mind. It had had such a strange effect on her—enjoyable and uncomfortable at the same time. He made dancing into some kind of personal revelation, as if he wanted to see the woman inside her, and, again, to her surprise, her body had responded.
She didn’t need to look too closely to know that Reed, if that was really his name, was easy on the eyes. Tall and, as far as she could tell from the lighting, blondish or light brown hair, the kind of face at which a woman would look twice. More than twice, she admitted as she studied him. It was the eyes—she was drawn to them. There was an easy smile on his face, but his gaze remained watchful. Killer eyes. She’d seen that look in men who lived at the edge of danger…like gunrunners.
“Like what you see?” he interrupted her thoughts.
Lily blinked. She probably shouldn’t have stared at him this long. She didn’t want to give him the idea that she was interested in anything but business. “I was talking to Johnny Chic,” she said, ignoring his question, “and he told me you bought some passports from him.”
“And if I did?”
“They are mine,” she said. “I ordered them from him.”
Reed shrugged. “He took my money, so they are now mine.”
“You don’t understand,” Lily said. “I ordered those passports in a batch, and Johnny sold part of my order to you.”
He shrugged again. “So? Order from him again.”
“I need them now. Tonight. I’ll pay you for them.” She narrowed her eyes at him, although he wasn’t smiling, and added, “With cash, not favors. I don’t think you want to end up like Johnny.”
“I don’t think you can afford me, Ambrosia.”
It was stupid. Why did she want to hear her name on his lips? “How much?” she insisted. “Look, I really need the passports.”
“I saw the batch he took mine out of,” Reed said, stroking his chin. “There’s quite a few of them. Surely you don’t need that many, unless you’re going around the world a few times. Why do you need them all?”
Lily shook her head. “My business. How much did you pay Johnny?”
“I’m into weapons, sweetheart, what do you think the exchange rate was?”
She should have guessed. A few months out running around in a daze appeared to have slowed her thinking process down too. She needed to be smart here. And persuasive. “Look, Reed,” she said, smiling and looking directly into his eyes, “what if I pay you double the street price that Johnny charges for those passports? You can get new ones and have some pocket change. I really have to have the ones in your possession right now.”
“Why?”
“What difference does it make why?” she asked, frowning, feeling exasperated.
“Curiosity, I guess. Like I said, that’s quite a few you ordered. You aren’t one of those child smugglers, are you? Selling babies and kids to desperate couples overseas, that sort of thing. I really hope not.”
Lily stared at him in disgust. How dare he think that of her?
“I don’t do business with human traffickers,” he continued, his eyes still watching her in that intense way that pulled at her insides, “although you don’t seem the type that would sell girls to men looking for mail-order wives. But then one never knows.”
“You think I’m running a sex slave ring?” Lily asked slowly.
It was getting really annoying the way he kept looking at her like that. It was as if he was waiting for her to do something.
“Why else would you need so many passports? How much do you make per child? No wonder it’s urgent for you…someone must be paying a lot for these kids. Young girls are the premium, aren’t they?”
Rage boiled over rational thought. Without thinking, Lily reached out and grabbed him by the front of his jacket. If she hadn’t been sitting down, she would have kicked him and beaten him to
a pulp. The idea that he thought that she would do that to girls and children…that she would take advantage of…
He didn’t resist when she jerked him forward angrily. Instead, he braced himself by putting both his arms on the wall behind her, trapping her face between them. She stared up, suddenly aware that his lips were a few inches away from hers. His gaze held hers, alert and watchful, with a hidden emotion she couldn’t quite understand. Her heart was thundering in her head and she fought the aggressiveness that had risen so suddenly. She had to stay in control. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to think she could be herself again.
* * *
This flower is a very complex creature.
Reed really didn’t understand it, but sometimes he thought Arch still talked to him. One of the first things Arch had given him was a book called The Little Prince and ever since his friend had died, Reed had found himself hearing quotes from that book. Lines would pop up out of nowhere and it would make sense.
“Let me make it very clear, mister,” Llallana said, her hands still on him, “I don’t sell or abuse women and children. As far as I’m concerned scum who do should be hung, drawn, and quartered. What I do with the passports is my business, but it has no connection with…”
She paused and bit her lip. There was consternation on her face. Reed understood. She’d caught herself in a lie. Her business did have something to do with human trafficking, but her reluctance to lie to him was intriguing.
He looked at Lily Noretski and again thought of that flower in the book, which had appeared out of nowhere, demanding all of the little prince’s attention. Lily caught his attention like no one ever had, with that outward exotic beauty and those thorny secrets. Being near her like this, he had the strange urge to make her tell him all her fears so he could take them away from her.
“Maybe, maybe not,” he said softly.
She didn’t know it, but he was her guardian and her executioner. He had to make sure she wasn’t a danger to society, that she couldn’t be used by those who had programmed her mind. It was much easier to just follow orders and sight a target through the crosshairs of a weapon, but Lily had somehow slipped under his skin and made herself more than that.
So cool. So confident, treating him as if she knew exactly how people like him behaved. He wanted to push her, show her the passion that he knew was there. And thanks to GEM training, he knew exactly how. He knew her weaknesses because they were in her CIA files, so he had used them against her to see whether she still had the same core beliefs.
He was a bit surprised at himself, actually. He was enjoying this charade more than he’d thought he would. Be careful, Joker, emotions blind people.
“Isn’t there any way I can convince you?” she asked, pulling him closer.
The heat of her anger was very real. The passion in her eyes, the dangerous edge to her voice, the spontaneous way she’d struck out at him. He let her slide her hands inside his jacket, molding her hands down his chest, curious to see how far she would go. At the same time, he felt like a bastard because he didn’t like manipulating her. But he had to know.
There was total silence from his listening partners. He realized that they were observing him as well as Lily, gauging his actions and reactions. Hawk had told him that their organization’s idea of teamwork was a far cry from the SEALs’. They would let him do anything and everything he wanted, as long as they achieved their objective. He understood now that meant they wouldn’t interfere with him unless he asked them to.
Her hands urged him to come closer. He didn’t resist her.
“Let me find a way,” she murmured softly, her breath brushing his lips.
She kissed him tentatively, almost as if she was afraid of the act itself, then, when he didn’t respond, she deepened the kiss, slipping her tongue into his mouth.
He was very conscious of his silent eavesdroppers. They were all women and didn’t need to see to know what was happening. He pulled away a little. Lily slid her hands lower. He went still. He hadn’t thought she would…
But there was no time for thought as he felt her tugging at his shirt. Her tongue tangled with his, becoming bolder. She tasted sweet, with a hint of wine. In spite of himself, he wanted more, his tongue taking the initiative, chasing hers as he found more sweetness in her mouth. He felt her hand going lower still, pausing at his belt for a second before bypassing it for the zipper.
His body responded like lit dynamite. Her tongue was too insistent, her hands too damn clever.
This time Reed resisted the urge to continue. He moved his hands from the wall and placed them on her shoulders, forcing her back as he broke away from her kiss.
Her eyes were so dark that he couldn’t see the pupils. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Don’t you like this?”
Too damn much. “Your hands are in my pants, lady,” he told her. “I think you can tell I like it. But I can also tell you’re just manipulating me, and that I don’t like. If you really want to convince me, I prefer to do this sort of business somewhere quiet, with less distraction, and with me calling the shots.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I could hurt you right now.”
“Then you won’t get my passports.”
Their eyes locked for a few seconds. “I haven’t traded cash for my passports yet. Johnny’s holding onto them till I come back with yours,” she told him. Her hands moved leisurely, and she smiled at his response. “You wouldn’t be saying no if your underwear hadn’t been in my way.”
He had a feeling she was right on that point. He had been warned that because of her past, Lily was a woman who wanted total control of every situation, including sex. He had been prepared, yet he hadn’t expected his own attraction to her to be so deep.
He gently dislodged her hands, wondering whether he could zip up his pants sitting down. “Somehow I think you always get your way with men,” he said.
Her smile disappeared. “I used to,” she said. Rubbing her hands on her thighs, she added, her voice wry, “I must be losing my touch.”
It was that odd humor of hers that popped up suddenly that got to him. The woman hid everything behind a smile and a sarcastic comment. He caught her hands and brought them to his lips. He kissed her knuckles softly. “Let’s go to Johnny’s office,” he said.
As he followed her from the booth, he couldn’t help but notice the long length of her legs and the sway of her hips. For sure, a stack of passports wouldn’t easily fit in that outfit she was wearing. He hadn’t the faintest idea how he was going to bring the conversation from sex to weapons, especially when his own body was having ideas of its own about which was the more important topic. He opened the door to Johnny’s office for her and indicated that he would wait outside. He wanted to show her that he wasn’t that interested in her business with the other man.
She sauntered in. “Dobro, Johnny,” she said in Croatian, “good to see you decent.”
Reed hid his amusement. The flower is a very complex creature…. She was a combination of fragility and strength, trying to camouflage her softness with a thorny outside. Maybe if he took the time, he could get her to tell him more about what was going on inside her head.
But he didn’t have that much time.
She reappeared quite quickly, a bag in her hand. His amusement grew. Johnny must have learned his lesson from their last encounter.
* * *
Lily gripped the bag in her hand tightly. She must be out of her mind. She had no idea what she was going to do once she and Reed were alone. What had possessed her to kiss and touch him like that?
She was playing with fire, being as reckless as she used to be when it had come to doing business on the shady side. Allowing herself so much free rein had summoned back all the things she wanted to keep out of her life—her wild mood swings, her runaway tongue.
She looked up, startled, when Reed reached out and caressed the side of her face. “He didn’t give you any trouble, did he?”
She shook her head, sur
prised at his concern. “Just a little mad about being tied up before,” she said, then smiled and added, “I don’t think I’m welcome here anymore.”
The way she was going, Amber would be losing all her information business clientele. Another wrong she was doing to her friend.
“You weren’t planning on coming back anyway,” Reed said, surprising her with his seeming ability to read her mind.
She studied him surreptitiously as they walked through the noisy crowd again. The lighting close to the entrance was brighter, and she could now see the amusement in his eyes. That riled her up. Did he find her attempts to seduce him funny?
She frowned at her strong emotional reaction. Why did he have this odd effect on her? She was too aware of him, especially when he looked at her. She had this uncomfortable feeling that he could see right through her lies, which was silly. She was, if nothing else, very good at hiding her pain from everyone. But he had managed to unnerve her just now—so much so that she’d almost lost it when he’d mentioned that she might be connected to the human trafficking trade.
Her rage had been like a sudden full blast of heat from the furnace. Her only outlet had been either violence or—
The next thing she’d known, she’d found herself kissing Reed—a total stranger—trying to make him lose some of his damn cool. And in the back of her mind, she’d known she’d just been doing what she had always done in the past whenever she’d felt the need to exert control: used her sexuality to beat them at their game.
Only this time, the man had resisted her, wouldn’t give himself to her. She was aroused. That he was too was pretty obvious. Remembering the proof of that, she shoved one hand into her pocket. She couldn’t help wondering why he had stopped her, something no man had ever done before.
