Part of Faith’s assignment in Tagua was to identify key cartel players. She’d learned this man who’d been watching her from the dark corner of the bar for the last two months went by the name of Santiago Cabrero, and that he worked as a driver and laborer for a nearby cacao plantation. But he was not part of the Tagua cartel, and thus not part of her mission. Faith figured he was on the run, hiding some dark past, possibly a transgression of the law in some faraway place. Why else would someone choose to come to a place like this?
Faith could relate to keeping secrets—her whole life was one carefully constructed lie upon another, one alias after the next. She’d been faking it so long now she was beginning to forget who Faith Sinclair really was, deep down inside.
But irrespective of what dark secret Santiago might be harboring, his nightly vigil from the table in the corner had become Faith’s sensual pleasure, a way to while away the long, humid hours behind the bar as she waited for notice of the hit. She’d begun to watch the clock each evening, anticipating his arrival. And he’d begun to invade her dreams as she tossed and turned nights under the mosquito netting in her bed upstairs. But he’d never made a move.
Until now.
Santiago splayed his hands on the counter, leaned forward, his obsidian eyes boring into her. Faith felt her cheeks heat as he seemed to pull her into his dark aura. At the same time she became acutely aware of all the exits, of escape.
“Another espresso?” she said quietly, in the local Spanish dialect, as always, cognizant of the bug the cantina owner had placed under the bar counter on behalf of the cartel. The listening device was the reason her contact had delivered the time and place of her hit via paper and not words.
“Tequila,” he said.
A stillness went through Faith.
Santiago never drank alcohol—at least not in her bar.
“You celebrating something tonight?” she asked calmly, her pulse hammering as she reached for a bottle on the shelf behind her.
“No.” He jerked his head toward a higher-end brand along the shelf. “Not that bottle—the other one.”
Faith took down the more expensive bottle, opened it in silence and filled a shot glass. She slid it toward him, her eyes watching his.
Santiago swigged his drink back, slammed the glass onto the counter.
“Another,” he demanded. “And pour one for yourself.”
She smiled. “I don’t drink on the job.”
But he did not return her smile, and a cool thread of warning snaked through her.
“I’ve seen you drink near closing time, Lili,” he whispered, touching her arm and softly tracing the backs of his fingers across her skin. Goose bumps shivered in the wake of his touch.
“The owner of this cantina,” he said quietly. “Do you love him?”
She swallowed at the brashness of his question. Clearing her throat, she said, “He’s good to me.”
“How good, Lili?” He brought his mouth close to hers. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her lips.
“He gives me a job, a place to stay.” Her voice came out thick.
“And he’s good in bed?”
Heat pooled low in her belly, and her vision began to narrow. “He’s fine.”
He brought his mouth closer, and whispered, “I’m better. I want you, Lili. I know you want me, too—I’ve seen how you look at me when I come each night to watch you.”
She tried to smile again but the muscle in her lip quivered. Her breathing grew light.
“Your lover is away tonight,” he whispered. “Isn’t he?”
She’d wanted this, hadn’t she—for Santiago to dare to attempt to seduce her? She’d wondered if he’d have the nerve to actually risk his life in an effort to sleep with her—none of the other men here would even think of trying. And the fact that he did was a dizzying aphrodisiac.
Faith reached for a glass, and poured herself a shot of tequila, buying time to allow some logic back into her brain. “Tell me about yourself, Santiago,” she said, taking a sip. “Why are you in Tagua?”
His eyes darkened. A muscle pulsed under the dusky skin at his temple—he was exotic, a creature of masculine beauty and strength. And once she got out of this place, she’d never need see him again. Sleeping with him would be no threat to her—or would it?
“I’m here for a job,” he said.
“On the plantation?”
“Sí.”
“You running from something, Santiago?”
He smiled darkly, coming around to her side of the bar, and he cupped the back of her neck. Using his calloused thumb he tilted her face up to his. “Aren’t we all?” His voice was low, gravelly, seductive. It curled like dangerous smoke through her mind.
“You’re in trouble with the law somewhere, aren’t you?”
His lips feathered ever so lightly over hers, his strong hand holding her in place. “Does it matter where I left my troubles?” he murmured against her lips.
She swallowed, suddenly unable to think straight.
He slid his other hand down her waist as he spoke, down over her hip and around her rear. He caressed her butt and began slowly bunching her dress up her thigh.
Her vision blurred. She reached out for the bar counter, steadying herself. “This…could get you killed.” Her voice came out hoarse.
“I know.” He suddenly pressed his mouth down hard on hers. Faith’s knees turned to jelly. She opened her mouth under his, felt his tongue, slick, hot, teasing the sensitive inner seam of her lips, and her world began to spiral into dizzying concentric circles, like a kaleidoscope, a fairground carousel, spinning. Faster and faster.
She tried to remind herself to be careful—a slip in her cover now could not only blow her mission, it could get her killed.
But she was tumbling over the edge of reason. Like a shot of heroin to her system, one touch, a few seductive whispers from Santiago, and she was hooked.
Loss of control was an unfamiliar feeling for Faith.
But what harm could it honestly do to take him to her bed upstairs?
He was right, the cantina owner was away. The bar was empty, no one to see. She’d be clear out of South America by tomorrow afternoon. By nightfall she’d be on a U.S. military jet bound for her Maryland base. The following morning she’d be back in her sterile Washington, D.C., apartment, biding time, trying to act out a normal life without ever really being allowed to, until STRIKE assigned her next hit. A government assassin’s life was a lonely one. A cold one.
So what if she took fringe benefits every now and then? It wasn’t like she hadn’t done it before. Anonymous sex was the safest kind of sex for a woman in her profession, and she hadn’t been with a man in almost two years now. And the need in her was wild.
This is different, Faith. This man is not like the others—you don’t have control…
He gave a small groan of pleasure against her mouth as his fingers found her G-string. He hooked his finger under the strap.
Lust ribboned through Faith like wildfire.
She reached up and threading her fingers into his thick, dark hair, she drew his mouth down harder against hers, her tongue seeking, tangling with his, her desire growing desperate. Against her hips she could feel the bulge in his jeans, and her body screamed—she needed him. All of him. Hard, fast.
But she had to get that piece of paper out of her bra first.
“Upstairs,” she whispered, breathless against his lips. “I’ll lock the doors.”
Chapter 2
Faith woke with a start.
Parrots screeched in the branches outside her window and already the air was like a sauna. In raw panic she rolled over, groped around the bedside table, looking for her watch. A champagne glass clattered to the floor.
She jolted upright in her bed. For a brief moment she couldn’t piece together where she’d left her watch, where she gotten undressed, what time she’d gone to bed. Then it hit her. Like a rocket. Her hand went to her forehead.
Santiago.
She must’ve fallen asleep in his arms. Her gaze darted around the tiny room that had been her operations base for the past six months. What time had he left?
Panic struck deeper.
She’d let herself go in the moment, during the best sex of her life. She’d fallen into a deep, sated sleep in the arms of a stranger and she hadn’t even noticed him leaving. How on earth could she have allowed that to happen, especially the evening before a major job?
Her gaze flashed to the empty champagne bottle and glasses. She recalled taking the champagne out of the small bar fridge in the corner of her room, thinking she’d secretly toast the end of her stay in Tagua. Sex with Santiago was her reward for hanging in.
Faith angrily threw back the mosquito net and lurched out of bed. As she got to her feet, a crushed white bloom with pink stamens fell from her hair to the floor.
Faith stared at the bruised petals near her toes.
Her attention shot back to her bed. Another bloom, this one perfectly intact, rested on her pillow. A mix of alarm and confusion spiraled through Faith.
Slowly, she reached for the flower. The petals felt like silk against her skin and a strange sensation tightened her chest. They reminded her of the white roses her mother had given her on her twelfth birthday. It was the first time Faith had ever been given flowers. It was the same day her mother had just given up and died, leaving Faith to face her father alone.
It was also the year Faith had first run away, promising herself she’d never be weak, like her mom; that she’d never allow a man to beat her into submission without fighting back; that she’d never bring kids of her own into this world, or dream about stupid idealistic lives behind white picket fences where families all smiled in church every Sunday, because she knew it was a lie. Behind the smiling faces hid drunks, wife beaters, bad mothers, bullies and cheats. She’d vowed to show her
father a woman could not only be as strong as a man, but better. She was going to show her bullying father that she could be a real hero. Not a sham like he’d been—a man who wore his war medals on his chest and beat his weak wife in the secrecy of his home.
A tear slid down her cheek. Startled, Faith brushed it away.
In a moment of inexplicable panic she tossed the flower onto the pile of tangled sheets and moved quickly to her bathroom. She braced her hand against the bathroom wall, steadying herself as a wave of dizziness swept over her. She was still suffering the aftereffects of a stomach bug she’d contracted a week ago—she hadn’t been able to keep food down for days and it had weakened her defenses, that’s all this was. It had nothing to do with Santiago, or that flower.
Or her past.
Or the fact she’d lost control.
Faith’s self-control defined her—it was the reason she’d become a top female sniper in the U.S. Army. It was why STRIKE had chosen to groom her as a NOC—nonofficial cover operative—for their deep black ops assassin program. She couldn’t afford to lose it.
Faith quickly located her watch beside the sink and cursed when she saw the time. She had less than ninety minutes to get into position before the weapons exchange went down. She turned to reach for her clothes and caught sight of her black bra folded neatly on the laundry basket. Sweat broke out over her body—that wasn’t how she’d left it.
She could swear she’d tossed it to the floor after quickly extracting and hiding the note hidden inside. Her pulse began to race.
Dropping to her haunches, Faith ran her fingers along the wall behind the toilet plumbing. She touched paper. Relief washed through her as she extracted the note from where she’d stashed it behind the pipe.
For a horrifying moment she’d feared Santiago might have seen her slipping it into her bra earlier, and that he’d only made a move on her because of it. Faith dragged both hands over her hair and tried to calm her paranoia.
Okay, so she’d fallen for him, inexplicably, hard and fast. And she’d been a complete idiot to take him to bed. But it was done, over. He was gone, and she was never going to see him again. She’d treat it as a little warning sign for next time, but right now she had to think fast, get her brain into gear, steady her mind and her hands before she looked down that sniper’s scope. Because her mission had been made crystal clear—hit only
Escudero, the Tagua cartel leader. Collateral damage was to be avoided at all cost. This was in both U.S. and the Colombian government’s interests.
Pablo Escudero was a drug lord turned international black-market arms dealer and a pain in the collective Colombian government butt. And not only had he made huge inroads into the U.S. gang underground, he was now aligning himself with known terrorist groups, as was evident by this latest deal about to go down. U.S. intel was that Escudero’s cache of Chinese arms was destined for the Western Sahara where the guns would find their way into the hands of the Maghreb Moors—MagMo—a terrorist organization now rivaling al Qaeda.
Faith was to make her hit on Escudero appear as though it came internally from a rival cartel member. And she was to ensure the North African arms broker was not touched—the arms were to continue to North Africa. The CIA operative who’d delivered the details of the exchange was deep undercover in the cartel and he’d tagged the weapons shipment with GPS tracers. The CIA would follow the shipment to the buyers in the Sahara in the hopes of closing in on a key MagMo cell.
Sucking air deep into her lungs, Faith went to her fridge, took out a bottle of cold water and downed the contents. Then she removed her brown contacts and stared at herself in the mirror. Soft amber eyes stared back.
What happened to you last night, Faith?
Her pulse skittered with anxiety, but she tamped it down, quickly showered, tied back her hair, dressed for her mission. Packing only the bare basics, she then pried up the floorboards under which she’d stored the high-tech tools of her trade.
Pausing at the door, weapons bag in hand, Faith scanned the tiny apartment that had been her operations base—her home—for the past six months. It was the last time she’d see this hovel, or use this particular alias.
Goodbye, Liliana Rodriguez.
Quietly pulling the door shut, Faith sneaked down the back stairs. But as she donned her aviator shades and slipped down the jungle path, a sweet, heady scent snared her attention. She stopped, looked up at thick white flowers growing in a creeper that strangled around the trunk of a tree—the same blooms that had been left on her pillow. And in that moment Faith knew that while she could easily leave Lili Rodriguez behind, this time there was one thing she’d not be able to excise from her mind—Santiago Cabrero. And the small chink he’d made in her armor.
Hurrying along the jungle path, she told herself it meant nothing in the bigger picture. It was just a
warning, and she’d heeded it. But a tiny niggle deep down told her different.
And that made her vulnerable.
Faith could not afford vulnerability.
STRIKE couldn’t afford it.
She hoped it wasn’t too late to pull herself together.
*
By noon Omair was in position at a little wooden table outside a ramshackle café about seven miles down river from the cantina, straw hat tipped low over his eyes, his legs crossed lazily out in front of him, one ankle over the other. Flies buzzed around the rim of a glass of flat cola, ice long melted.
Lili’s note had said the exchange would go down across the street from this café shortly after noon.
A hot breeze rustled pieces of litter down the street and made a swishing sound high in the tops of thickly leafed trees. Above the jungle canopy, heavy clouds hung low in the sky and an electrical energy crackled in the oppressive air—felt like a storm coming.
Omair checked his watch. It was one minute past noon.
A cat skittered into a hole under the building, spooked by a cur trotting down the road with something unidentifiable in its mouth. Chickens pecked at crumbs under Omair’s table. A pearl of sweat trailed slowly down the
side of his face.
Omair focused on the tickling sensation of the sweat against his skin—anything to stop the smoldering images of Lili’s naked body, the smooth feel of her inner thighs straddling his hips, the scent of perfume in her hair, the taste of her mouth…how she’d cried out and thrown her head back as she’d climaxed on top of him, the sensation of her sleeping naked and soft in his arms.
Omair inhaled deeply.
He’d lost focus with Lili last night and he could not allow the tantalizing memory to distract him further. He forced his concentration to cataloging his surroundings.
One side of the café was open to the air and inside a woman with large brown arms slowly wiped down a chipped counter. Behind her a television set was mounted on the wall. It was tuned to the CNB global news channel, volume cranked loud. Omair listened to the news, trying—and failing—not to think of Liliana.
Sex with her had been mind-blowing, combative, dangerous, just the way he craved it. But as the clock had ticked down toward dawn, Lili had remained alert and Omair had begun to worry he might have to resort to another method of obtaining the information on the scrap of paper she’d hidden in her bathroom. He’d also begun to fear someone might show up for the note and he didn’t want to be there when they did. But finally her body had softened in his arms and she’d fallen asleep, head against his chest, her breaths deep and relaxed. Only then had he been able to extricate himself from her embrace and sneak into her bathroom.
Her bra had been lying on the bathroom floor, no note in sight. Omair had searched the bathroom systematically, thinking she had to have hidden it in there, because when she’d come out into the bedroom she’d been buck naked, save for her heels, and he was certain there’d been nothing in her hands. Finally he located the folded piece of paper behind the toilet plumbing. He read it carefully, and replaced it just as meticulously.
But he’d been distracted by his feelings about Lili, and he’d left the bra folded atop the laundry basket
instead of tossing it back on the floor. It was a disturbing error, and a most unusual one for him.
Sheik's Revenge Page 2
