by Gennita Low
Not much progress, but he had something to work on later.
***
The game of hide-and-seek, Marlena mused, was a game of percentages and probabilities. She understood the risks she took too well. One too many—and she was due for one too many—and Marlena Maxwell’s life would be over.
She quietly stepped out of the shower stall, leaving the water running. Noise was also a great mask if there happened to be some listening device she’d missed. She pulled a mini cell phone, the size of a compact, from her purse and turned the music down.
“I’d hoped your number is still the same,” she said softly when she got through. She smiled, then continued, “I heard you were going to be the courier. This will have to be quick—I have company. I’m bringing somebody and I want any files you can find on him.” Pause. “Of course he’s good-looking, and no, you can’t have him. Get your own.” Pause. “Steve McMillan. Possibly CIA. I have his driver’s license number.” She gave it. “Can’t say. I’ll try to find out whether he has any bad side.” She laughed. “You’re right. I’ll have a good time finding out. Bye.”
Marlena wondered what Steve was up to. She was sure the man wasn’t merely sitting out there docilely waiting for her. She’d changed the safe combination, so he couldn’t get into that so quickly. Maybe he was waiting for the right moment to kill her.
Sobering thought. She cocked her head, looking at her reflection. Fear was a familiar feeling in her profession, but she’d been trained to see it as a good thing. Fear kept one alive. Yet nothing about Steve McMillan played with her fears; rather, it was anticipation he called up. A thrilling, nervous energy that made her feel slightly more reckless than usual.
Hide-and-seek. Keep him so close he couldn’t see what she was hiding. That was a good plan for now. But how close? The little query brought that nervous energy again, quivering in her stomach. How close? The voice in her head repeated softly. Her blue eyes in the mirror mocked her. For once she had no answer.
She walked barefoot into the bedroom, taking in at a glance the different boutique bags and the slight crease on the bed. She stood there for a moment, enjoying the image of him sitting there on that bed, waiting for her.
It had been a long time since she’d had a man doing that. She’d discovered a long time ago that men didn’t like role reversals. They didn’t mind it if they were gone and their women waited for them, but ask a man to do the same, and the relationship was doomed. A man, she’d found out the hard way, couldn’t wait. Of course he’d then lie to cover up.
“May I come in?” Steve asked from the doorway.
Marlena turned to face him. Tall, broad-shouldered, and easy on the eye. A mouth that could kiss away any excuses. Women would snatch him up just like that, CIA or not. And, she concluded with a touch of irony, he didn’t look like a man who liked to wait.
She turned away. “I had fun today,” she said as she picked up one of the bags and emptied it on the bed.
Steve sensed her withdrawal. It was difficult to read the woman, but her moods were discernible to him. She ran the gamut between teasing and calculated. Right now she was neither. She was wearing a large T-shirt with a cartoon of Tweety Bird on it. Without makeup, her hair damp, she looked ridiculously young. The look she’d just given him reminded him of the time after their first kiss. It made him want to pull her in his arms and hold her.
“I didn’t,” he complained.
Her lips curled slightly. “Your job’s to amuse me, not yourself.”
“Is that what you were doing, amusing yourself?”
She held up a dress against her body, smoothing away the wrinkles. “Well, somebody has to.” Glancing up, she added, “Amusement is much better than boredom.”
Well, well, if that wasn’t an acknowledgment from the lady of being lonely, he didn’t know what was. He stepped a little closer, handing her another bag to dump out. “Is that your secret then? To go through life amusing yourself?” He had the urge to find out what motivated a woman like Marlena. “Take what you want, enjoy it, then leave—no responsibilities, no conscience?”
Marlena paused in the middle of pulling out a long double strand of pearls from a large, flat, golden box. “Oho, judging me, sweetheart?” She climbed up on the bed, so she could reach over his head and loop the long necklace around his neck. One hand twisted around the dangling strands, and using them like a rope, she pulled until his face was close to hers. “Do you know what I do when I’m no longer amused?” she asked ever so softly.
“Kill?” Steve countered, feeling her tightening her hold. In a minute the pearls would be so many little pieces all over the bedroom. But he didn’t want to break the necklace, or her hold on him, so he inched closer.
“Is that your final answer?”
“Can I call on a lifeline?” he quipped.
Her eyes were so blue he could drown in them. “Are you in trouble?”
He was sinking fast. “No. I’m not the one with people threatening me.” He was so close he smelled the scented soap she used. Deliberately he looped the remaining length of the necklace around her neck, trapping both of them together. Her pupils flared, darkening the blue to that deep underwater darkness that had made him think of mermaids the first time he’d looked into them. Not again. No mermaid, he reminded himself. In defense, he added, “I’m not the one in danger.”
She made a sound of disbelief and jerked her hand. Steve was surprised the necklace hadn’t broken apart from the strain. Or maybe it was just the tension in the air he was feeling.
“I rarely sleep with a man on a first date,” she murmured against his lips, nipping softly.
“I don’t have sleeping in mind,” he assured her, trying to capture her lips more securely. Far from it.
But she resisted, seeming to be satisfied with just exploring his lips with her teeth and tongue. “I rarely do anything with a man on the first date,” she said.
“You don’t have to do a thing,” he promised. Her whispery kisses were driving him crazy. Impatiently he tugged on the necklace so she had to tilt her head up. “I’ll do everything.”
Her lips were softer this time, and he teased them open the same way she teased him. Again he tried to deepen the kiss, but her hand between them loosened its hold enough so she could pull back from him.
Forget those pearls. He went after her, using his weight to pin her down on the bed, among the clothing, bags, paper, wiring. Her hands mussed his hair as she pushed her tongue into his mouth and boldly met his.
It occurred to him as he became thoroughly immersed in having her tongue explore him that she was the one doing the kissing. It was a novel feeling, being kissed like that. It made him aware of other things about her, how the perfume of her shampoo clung to her skin, how surprisingly soft her body felt beneath his, how one of her thighs was pressing firmly between his legs. He was the one in danger here...and he hadn’t done a thing yet.
A low, rumbling sound broke the spell. Marlena pulled back, surprised.
“What was that?” It came again, a longer disturbance this time. Realization dawned in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Steve said. He couldn’t be more embarrassed.
Marlena started laughing, that unexpectedly delightful and infectious chuckle bubbling out of her. “Well, I’ve never made a man that hungry before.”
He found himself laughing back. “I’m sorry,” he apologized again. He was willing to continue but his body had different ideas. He was a man used to two things—lots of food and hard training. There came another grumble, and the two of them both broke up in hysterics.
“It’s my fault,” Marlena gasped out. “Really, I should have let you take lunch.”
“You’re not hungry?” What did the woman take for energy?
“Mmm...well, food wasn’t on my mind a minute ago,” she teased, smiling, “but let’s raid the fridge you claimed is full of my favorite things. See what we can come up with.”
He remembered the cold cut chicke
n. The big carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream. And groaned. Surely he was going nuts. He was thinking about food when he had a woman under him, in a bed. Where were his priorities?
She read his mind and chuckled again. “My ego is shot all to hell, Stash. To lose to food...I guess the tummy complaints weren’t the moving violation you had in mind?”
“No.” Reluctantly he lifted himself to a sitting position.
They had both forgotten about the necklace tangled around them, and Steve pulled Marlena up with him as well. Laughing aloud, she steadied herself by flattening her palms against his chest.
“Mmm,” she murmured, distracted. Her splayed fingers traveled up and down the front of his T-shirt. “Nice and hard. I was quite jealous of that tailor today. He was touching you all over. You must work out a lot. I can feel all your muscles.”
Oh-oh. Warning bells rang in his head. His physique hadn’t been sculpted in the gym. He had scars and calluses earned in battle. She might start asking questions when she saw them. “I like outdoor sports,” he told her, trying to ignore what her hands were doing to him.
“What kind?”
The lady was good with her hands, but he wasn’t going to be conned into slipping up. “Jogging, running, swimming, outdoor stuff.” Thinking of his scars, he added, “Football and boxing.”
“We’ll have to exercise together if we have time,” she said.
“Sure.” He doubted that she would like the stuff he did. He began to unwind the long necklace, taking it off her first, since it had somehow twisted into a double knot near his neck.
She barely paid attention, seemingly finding the hard ridges of his abs fascinating. She tried to pull his T-shirt out of his pants. Normally Steve wouldn’t stop any beautiful woman wanting to explore his chest, but her questions had left him wary. He was learning she was always after something else.
He looped her hands with a chain of pearls and brought them to his lips, kissing her fingertips softly. Her blue eyes gleamed back at him, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. “Fair is fair,” he told her. “You want to see what’s underneath, you have to show me what’s underneath that silly Tweety Bird shirt.”
“It’s not silly. Tweety Bird is my favorite cartoon character.” She pulled her hands loose and worked on the knot holding them both prisoners.
“Your favorite cartoon is a bird?” Steve asked incredulously. Somehow he couldn’t picture Marlena watching cartoons. And certainly not a bird. At her gesture he lifted his chin up and patiently let her untwist and unwind.
“Yup, even have a tattoo of Tweety.”
“Where?”
Her answering smile, small and secretive, instantly made him want to go on search mode. “Where?” he demanded again.
“There, free at last,” Marlena said. The long double strand of pearls swung loose. She eyed it admiringly. “I must say you look good in pearls.”
“It doesn’t go with my shoes,” Steve dryly mocked. “I want to see that Tweety Bird.”
“All in good time, Stash, all in good time. Let’s go fix you something to eat first, hmm? Are you as good at cooking as kissing?”
Steve reluctantly stood up. “We’ll both find out.” He didn’t want to go but he remembered the tablecloth he’d used to handle her things. With her keen eyes, he should really double-check to make sure there were no smudges.
Marlena folded up the clothes on the bed while sounds of dishes and silverware clanging came from the kitchen. She was glad about the interruption. Another minute and she would have forgotten her self-control. She couldn’t afford to forget anything, not at this time. She gathered up the wires, walked deliberately to stand a few feet from a portrait placed strategically facing the bed, and dumped the electronics leftovers like trash. Staring straight ahead, she lifted her chin in a silent challenge.
***
A little over an hour later, Marlena came back into the room and with a small blade dislodged the tiny electronic micro eye hidden in the frame. She’d returned that device there on purpose earlier. Disabling it, she dropped the useless chip into the pile on the carpet. It’d served its purpose.
She walked out to the mini bar. She shoved aside the bottle of whiskey. She needed something smooth and rich. Cognac. Yes, that might put her in a mellow mood.
It hadn’t been easy saying no to a man like Stash. He’d left after dinner, given her one of his long looks that almost had her changing her mind. Her attraction for him was stronger than she’d thought. It had been a long time since she had actually lusted after a man from the other side, and she knew how high a price that could be.
Marlena wasn’t willing to pay that price again. Except for one thing. She frowned and took a long swallow of the brandy, feeling its fiery heat go straight down her throat into her stomach. She’d never been so aware of a man as she was of Stash McMillan. She felt it down to her toenails whenever he followed her with his dark gaze. He reminded her of a caged animal for some reason. She had tested his depths and knew he had a mind of his own. It was in the way he stood watching her with those brooding eyes, in the way he demanded her attention by merely quirking his beautiful mouth, in the way he pretended to be just what he claimed to be. And he made her laugh. She couldn’t remember a day when she had laughed so much. He was good. Very good.
The phone rang. It still wasn’t whom she was expecting. Picking up the receiver in the kitchen, she didn’t bother to be polite. “Yes?”
“Marlena Maxwell, your bodyguard is useless against us. We want what you have. Hand it over or we’ll come after you from all sides, wherever you are.”
Marlena sighed. “Dear me, and if I give it up, you’ll just leave me alone.” She studied her hand, frowning at a chipped nail.
“You don’t have an option. Give us what we want, or die.”
“Um, sorry, you just gave me two options.”
“You think you can joke with us over this?”
“Why not? Only clowns would talk over a bugged phone this long.”
The line went dead. Marlena tapped her chin with the receiver as she thoughtfully looked overhead, at the micro eye and bug she knew were above her. No doubt, whoever was on the other end of those stupid things had heard every word exchanged, just as they had this morning, when Stash answered the phone. She also knew they wouldn’t be able to trace those calls.
Probabilities and percentages. That was the tightrope she balanced on. The probability of these two parties working together was low, and the percentage they might help her cause by getting in each other’s way was higher. Thus it didn’t hurt to let whoever was monitoring her know other people were after her too. She was used to different groups trying to get what she had, thinking they could handle one woman. She smiled mirthlessly.
It was easy to let her gender blind them all. From the moment she had walked into this apartment with Steve, she’d been ready for a setup. What she had come to D.C. for was big enough to attract those who couldn’t afford to pay its real worth. She was used to shady types coming after her. Apparently it might not even be just the usual kind of crooks.
The special CIA-originated electronic devices betrayed them. They didn’t think she’d know the difference, but she had contacts, and there were plenty of CIA boys who were greedy for money, showing off new inventions being tried out by the Company. So the question of the day was—which side was Steve working for? Good CIA or bad CIA? It was going to be a challenge to find out. Her contact had been very careful thus far, doing everything through middlemen. She would have to take a few more risks than usual. Letting those others know her phone was bugged was one of them.
The thought of putting Stash in danger made her heart skip a beat. Marlena frowned. Why would she be concerned about that, if he were just someone hired to keep an eye on her? He shouldn’t mean a thing. Not a damn thing.
***
Confusion in the enemy camp was good. Steve’s commander from his SEAL team had told him that, quoting some ancient Chinese text call
ed The Art of War. He was right. Steve was confused, tired, and frustrated. He had this simple plan. Charm the shoes off a beautiful woman. Get some names. Send her to the Department of Justice. His task force team would then get some action, going after whoever had ordered a contract on...on whom? That was the problem. Too many things missing in this assignment.
When he was with his SEAL team, he knew who the enemy was, why they were there, what they were after. Their objective was to search and destroy paramilitary enemies with an agenda against the U.S. government. The wars were always covert, out of the public eye, but they were real. There was a procedure to each maneuver—his allotment of ammo, location of a target, a timetable, and a clear briefing on the goals of the operation.
Since joining TIARA, he’d been trying very hard to adjust to this new kind of war. Admiral Madison had told him he was needed here for now, and he’d accepted the orders after voicing a few objections. The higher pay was an incentive; he needed the money. From the beginning, the friction between him and his new team had been obvious. It wasn’t that they disliked one another—it was just his style didn’t suit theirs.
This was the first real test. At least, Steve saw it that way. For the first time in months there was something tangible happening. He could feel in his bones it was big. This operation would show him why he’d been transferred, why Admiral Madison told him his skills were needed here.
His mind skimmed quickly through the important things from the day. There was the early morning call with the threats. No one had followed Marlena and him all day, except for his own task force men who were now outside the apartment building for the night. Then there was the quick search of Marlena’s suitcase that hadn’t yielded anything of significance.
When he entered the surveillance room, he found Harden there alone. Great. That was all he needed, another clash with the operations chief.
