by Lisa Hughey
He despised secrets and lies. And he realized that he'd been in the biggest lie of all since they'd met. “Has anything you told me been the truth?” He couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice.
“Yes,” she practically shouted. “How can you ask me that?”
“Fuck.” Jordan closed his eyes, reached for his usual calm. “Because I really don’t know you at all.”
And fuck him, but he really didn’t.
How could he judge anything, present or past, without filtering it through the reality that Staci Grant, his girlfriend worked for the CIA. “Was our relationship a cover for something else?”
“No!” Her gaze was wild, desperate.
He let his disbelief bleed through. Frankly, he’d lived through enough weird political dynamics before he was ten years old and finally understood asking about his father was a really bad idea and some things were better left unexplained. And with that thought he had to wonder...she couldn't be trying to get information about his father, could she?
Or what if she'd been trying to get information about his job?
He couldn’t seem to grasp anything, as if his mind was clouded with static. Trying to make sense of the past few months, he reviewed their interactions, and everything took on new meaning and implication. He'd only ever discussed his work in hypotheticals, but she would have had access to his laptop and his files at home. It would not be good for his career if the Franklin Group discovered he'd been fraternizing with a CIA employee.
“The CIA can get access to the Franklin Group’s work through Intelink. You didn’t need to fuck me to get information.”
Her arm swung out, palm open as the flat of her hand smacked against his cheek. “That cheapens both of us,” she said hotly.
Okay, yeah. The insult was uncalled for, but at the same time he couldn’t bring himself to apologize. As he analyzed every interaction, he kept coming back to the one truth. She'd lied. About everything.
“Maybe. Of course, I’m not the one who based this,” he gestured between the two of them, “on lies.”
As she bent her head, remorse pricked at his conscience. He hadn’t been entirely truthful either. But his relationship with his father didn’t have anything to do with Staci--or himself.
He was an accident of biology and lack of birth control. And a product of his mother's refusal to cave in and have an abortion when she'd ended up pregnant and unemployed. The truth was Jordan wouldn’t be here if his mother hadn’t had the moral and religious constitution to tackle the stigma of being a Mexican-Catholic unwed parent.
“I was planning on telling you,” she started. “After....”
“What? You, maybe, come back from a war zone?” He tried to temper his response but didn’t succeed. His voice was harsh and accusing.
He’d been to Afghanistan. He knew what the country was like, and the thought of her spending any time there completely freaked him out. “Is this a working trip?”
“Yes. I’m going to volunteer with UNOCHA for two weeks.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he replied patiently.
“Even if it were, I couldn’t tell you.” She closed her eyes, an expression of pure frustration on her face. “This work is strictly for my parents.”
“Your parents are dead.”
She flinched and part of him felt sorry for pushing, but the other part, the one who knew too much about the way the CIA operated, needed to know.
“Every year I take two weeks and work for this organization.” Her fingers brushed at the amulet resting in the hollow of her throat. The amber scarab bumped subtly to the beat of her pulse. “My family is big on giving back and this particular cause was especially important to my mother. It has nothing to do with the CIA.”
Yeah. He’d heard this before. “Truth?”
“Truth.”
Was he going to have to ask for a pledge of veracity every time they had a conversation?
Staci reached out, her fingers tentatively trailing down the length of his arm, the gesture uncharacteristic and somehow vulnerable.
He tried to ignore the tactile sensation but the brush of her touch ignited every nerve ending in his body.
She wasn’t a tentative person. It was one thing he admired most about her. She knew her mind and went after what she wanted. Even if he didn’t always agree with her, he appreciated her passion.
Staci lifted her hand away from his wrist and crossed her arms protectively over her stomach. She would know the non-verbal communication showed her defensiveness and her need to protect herself from whatever came next.
The move galvanized him and he reached for her. His biological imperative was to protect. He’d been raised by his aunt and mother to cherish and revere women.
Not attack.
He slid his arm around her shoulders, the heat of her skin zapping his nerve endings. From the first time they met, before they’d even been introduced, swear to God, the electricity had arced twenty feet between them.
Together they were combustible.
They would have to discuss her trip, her job, her lies again later, but right now he chose to burn.
Jordan gripped the back of her neck, fingers twining in the leather chain, and pulled her to him, their bodies sliding together as if reassembling pieces of a well-oiled, field-stripped rifle.
“I don’t want to fight before I leave,” she whispered, her breath hot against his neck. “Please.”
Her mouth brushed against his collarbone and his body responded with pre-conditioned reflex, the slight flick of her tongue against his skin sent lightning bolts straight down to his groin.
The rush of adrenaline from his earlier anger transformed into a buzz of arousal. It was irrational and stupid. He was mad at her and still all it took was the soft, wet heat of her mouth for his scruples and his hurt to take a hike.
She subtly shifted her hips and the cradle of her concave stomach rubbed sensuously along his already hardened length. Jordan ran his hands firmly along her spine, stilling the movement of her hips as he cupped her ass and lifted her against him to increase the pressure.
She nailed him with a hard and near-violent kiss, and her hands gripped his shoulders with an intensity more powerful than lies. The heavy scent of her musk crowded out the lighter fragrance of gardenia. He slipped his hand underneath the smooth cotton of her shorts, traced his middle finger along the elastic lace of her thong, his fingers trapped by the tight thong against her aroused sex.
He slid his middle finger inside of her, his other fingers slipping along her folds and reveling in the fact she was already wet.
God, he could spend all day just rubbing and playing with her, listening to her soft moans, feeling the sound rumble through her body.
Just touching her turned him on so intensely, he could come right there, with her pubic bone pressing against his cock and the hard berries of her nipples stabbing into the muscles of his chest.
She moaned low in her throat and nipped at the curve of his neck as her hands headed south toward the erection popping out of his thin shorts.
He lifted her up so his hand could have better access and ran his tongue down the center of her breastbone, tasting the sweat, barely cooled, on her skin. Her head tilted back even as her legs came up to grip his hips. She rocked back and forth, as he nipped his way down to the beautiful globes of her breasts.
Her nipples peaked through the gray tank top, begging for his touch. He sucked one swollen tip into his mouth and tongued hard while his fingers plucked a similar melody on her clitoris.
Her arms corded and strong, held his head to her breast as her hips pumped faster.
Damn, she was close.
No way was she going over that edge without him.
She pushed his shorts down as they tumbled to the bed, her palm hot against his engorged cock.
His brain short-circuited. Protection.
No way. You’re mine. He squeezed her butt, shoved the thong aside, keeping the material tight
against her clitoris and slammed into her.
She seized his ass with her hands and yanked him toward her, pistoning her hips into his. Staci came in a violent burst as he slammed in and out of her slick channel, the head of his erection rubbing against her sweet spot inside.
“Unh,” she moaned. Her legs gripped his body as she bowed under the force of her orgasm.
The rhythmic contractions pulled on his erection and he shoved over the edge with an explosion of light and sensation, semen jetting out of him in sharp pulses.
The union of their bodies was always incredible, but this sex was better and hotter than anything they’d ever shared.
They lay there, hearts still pounding, bodies slick with sweat and come. The glow of sexual satisfaction shimmered around them, but the blood that had vacated his brain began to return.
Afghanistan, the CIA, her growing obsession with her grandparents’ deaths. He pressed his cheek to hers and tried to forget about Afghanistan, tried to forget about the monumental lie she’d been telling since they’d met. Tried to forgive the fact that she'd been lying.
And he wondered...what other lies had she told him? What other secrets was she keeping?
The mail cart clattered down the hallway, jerking Jordan back to the present and the Franklin Group office.
Jordan pulled the amulet out of his pocket and set it on the cherry desktop, staring at the warm amber, picturing the last time she’d worn the ancient necklace. The eye of Horus stared back at him...a symbol of strength and wisdom in battle. And he wished she’d taken it with her.
In the span of half an hour he’d gone from thinking her dead to realizing she wasn’t.
Weeks ago, he hadn't stopped her from leaving. And he hadn't gone after her when he first realized she might be in that prison. He could fill his office with the regrets of things he hadn't done.
He didn't want any more regrets. Jordan rubbed at the amulet. Strength and wisdom. And he knew two things. She was still missing. And he still couldn’t claim her.
But maybe he could find her.
SIX
September 13
Nassau, Bahamas
Not so tough anymore, are you, bitch? I taunted.
The syringe needle lay near my vein and I tried not to wince. For courage, I leaned against the rusted tub sink and stared into the half-silvered, half-black mirror above the faucet spigot.
My face, yet...not, stared back at me.
I’d already injected the experimental drug twice and knew the cool liquid would burn as it spread through my veins like a clear poison.
Soon it would be darkening my skin, ramping up my pigment, transforming me from a white girl with an olive complexion to a light-skinned black woman.
I wasn’t sure I could get out of the Bahamas any other way. I'd gotten into the Bahamas without detection from any one. I’d be damned if whoever wanted me dead caught me getting out.
Someone had set me up to be captured and possibly killed. There was no other explanation for what had happened to me in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan was no Central America with people getting kidnapped and ransomed regularly. However, the CIA has procedures in place in the event of being kidnapped while undercover. So when my jailors asked for next of kin, I gave them the proper case officer code name and contact info, supposedly a widowed aunt, exactly as instructed if ever kidnapped.
No one had come to ransom me out of the prison. I’d been tortured and beaten, and if it weren’t for Fariya’s sacrifice, I’d be dead.
The CIA had forsaken me.
Why? Various reasons ran through my mind.
Before I’d left for Afghanistan I’d filed the paperwork to officially report Jordan as a ‘Close and Continuing’ relationship. Paperwork to inform the CIA of our involvement. And then came the wait for a positive response regarding my association with Jordan and hope it was within parameters some pencil pusher deemed appropriate.
The whole idea of having to submit to the agency for approval of my boyfriend made me bristle. While I understood intellectually...in reality, the process sucked.
Anyway, I’d done my own background check on Jordan before we’d ever even had dinner. Nothing in his past raised any flags except for the mystery of his father’s identity. But since the father wasn’t in the picture, I had let the subject go.
I couldn’t imagine anyone had even looked at the information yet. Admin was notorious for taking forever. Besides, the CIA should have a better reason to decommission me, or kill me, or refuse to save me, than because I got a boyfriend.
The syringe was cold and real in my hand as I contemplated the likely reason I'd been a target. Being with Jordan brought up all my old insecurities. I wasn't sure I had it in me to be the best for him. After my parents died and I went to live with my grandparents, life changed. Then when my grandparents were murdered, my life changed again.
I realized I needed closure about my grandparents' deaths. When I went back over what happened to them, the mugging and stabbing that had no witnesses, I started to wonder what really happened to them.
And when I'd been looking into my grandparents’ deaths, I had discovered Department 5491. A super secret, National Security Agency, Department 5491.
Starting right after my grandparents were killed, every month I received a check. I'd been told it was insurance money and I’d never wondered about that money.
Until I went back over what happened when they died. Carson Black had come to me and professed his sympathy. A friend. A mentor. He was the reason I got into espionage work. He was the man who helped me after the rest of my family perished. And I'd never questioned his involvement. I'd been eighteen and shell-shocked.
But when I started asking questions a few months ago, I was shut down and shut out.
Firmly. Emphatically.
When my queries to Carson were unanswered and information about the mysterious department 5491 was stifled, my desire to know more rose.
And I realized it all tied into those monthly checks. The more resistance I encountered, the more determined I became to get to the bottom of Department 5491.
That’s when I discovered there was a whole list of people receiving the same checks. Checks that started after someone in their family had been killed. All in October of 1995.
Same as my grandparents.
So now while I thought my troubles likely stemmed from my investigation into 5491, I didn’t have a freaking clue where the threat came from. Who was behind Department 5491?
The NSA, the CIA and the DIA were all possibilities. All had employees on the list who were receiving checks. But none of the family members who were killed worked in espionage or for those agencies. So why were we receiving those checks?
And, I was stalling.
With a huge exhale of breath, I twisted the rubber tourniquet and waited patiently for the vein in my left elbow to pop. I ignored the slight wobble as I moved the needle into place. I splinted my left arm whenever I was alone, but the still knitting bone ached constantly. I didn’t splint it in public. I had no idea if my captors had known my arm had been broken, but I couldn’t afford to assume that they hadn’t.
Outside the ramshackle and only door, the chickens clucked and squawked. The warm breeze as trade winds hit the island’s shore shifted the ragged bit of fabric tacked over the window behind me. Sweat and the oily, sickly scent of my fear coated my grimy face.
No one was coming. I’d purposely tossed corn feed around my door and window to set up a warning system. The scrawny hens would squawk and screech if anyone bothered them while they tried to peck up the offering.
The simple measure was probably as effective as the fancy alarm system I had in Alexandria.
Nice stall, Stace.
I inhaled, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the odors of rotting garbage and refuse of the people too stoned or too tired to care where they defecated.
Afghanistan was hell.
The Bahamas were paradise...if you had enough mone
y and influence.
If not, you were stuck in clusters of houses with amenities from the last century, bacteria-laden water, less-than-ideal refrigeration, and minimal electricity.
“And you’re still stalling, dammit.” My voice came out ill-used and harsh, and my words grated inside my throat like claws trying to tear out of me.
I’d hoped talking to myself would jolt me out of this funk long enough to get the job done. If I didn’t shoot the damn drug, Fariya would have died in vain. That--I couldn’t let happen.
I snatched the syringe and angled the sharp point of the needle at my blue, blood-engorged vein. With a sharp exhale, I jabbed the needle in, pressed the plunger down.
How the drug could be so freaking ice cold in the humid, languid heat of the Caribbean was beyond me.
But it was.
The liquid seared into my blood, working its magic. I pulled the needle out slowly and watched the blood pool into a drop at the crease of my elbow. I turned my hand over slowly. After two injections I already saw the difference in the color of my skin.
My once extremely light, olive skin was a coffee brown. The drug seemed to be working faster than expected, possibly because of my Arab heritage. Just a few more treatments of the pigment-producing drug and I would pass for a mulatto or maybe even a black woman.
Then whoever was looking for Staci Grant, white skin, blond hair with light brown streaks, and blue eyes would pass right over me. My skin would be dark enough, dark brown contacts would shield my blue eye color, and the mahogany brown dye and lack of conditioner would turn my hair into a much rougher and scraggly mop.
With the slight limp I’d acquired getting my butt from Afghanistan to Pakistan, no one should connect urbane, sophisticated, wealthy Staci Grant to the run down, ragged, beat-up woman in a cheap Bahamian cotton sundress.
The toe-popper I’d triggered had ripped off a piece of my right little toe. I know I should be grateful I hadn’t blown up my whole foot, but shit, I’d already lost what felt like everything and right now I didn’t have faith I was ever going to get it back.
