Mia stared into the blackness. She could just make out his hulking shape. He would tape her mouth shut. He would.
She rolled her lips together. Pressed down hard on them to stifle the sobs mounting in her throat.
His shadowed shape moved. Flattened, and the mattress shifted.
He was lying down next to her.
A heartbeat later, she heard the soft chuff of his breath.
Her jailer was asleep.
Matthew slept exactly as he’d intended. Twenty minutes. Not a second more, not a second less. He woke as refreshed as if he’d slept the entire night.
It was something he’d learned to do when he was in Special Forces. Cam had been the first one to go in for eastern stuff. Breathing exercises. Tai chi of the mind, he called it, and Matthew and Alex had both laughed…
Until they saw that it worked.
Matthew had explored further and discovered a handful of ancient Zen techniques. One taught you to separate your mind from your body. It had helped him save his sanity in this very country when he and Alita had been tortured.
The other was a mind-exercise that induced sleep. Deep sleep, the kind you needed when all you had were minutes instead of hours.
It had worked. He was well-rested. He had to be because by the time dawn roused the sleeping forest, he needed to be ready with a plan.
What would be the most effective way to force the truth from his prisoner? And that was what she was. How could he have deluded himself into seeing her as something else?
She wasn’t a beautiful woman he’d met at a party. She was a criminal, or she damned well would have been if her lover hadn’t protected her. That he’d forgotten that proved how far removed he was from his days as a spook.
Okay. He’d made a mistake, but he wouldn’t make any others.
He lay still in the dark, feeling the strength flowing through his body, the cobwebs clearing from his mind. He was fine now.
She was the subject, this was an assignment and—
And, what was that sound?
Mia was weeping.
Quietly. So quietly that it was hardly more than a thickness in the inhalation of her breath but yes, she was weeping.
Let her, he thought coldly.
She’d used him, and he didn’t like it. Or maybe it was that he didn’t like himself, for being dumb enough to let it happen.
Either way, let her cry.
Let her lie beside him, arms jerked into a position that wouldn’t leave lasting damage but was surely uncomfortable. Let her imagination work overtime, painting vivid pictures of what he was going to do to her…
Of what he’d already done.
Held her in his arms. Kissed her mouth, tasted her sweetness on his tongue. Put his lips to her breasts, sucked on her nipples as he stroked her. As he put his hand between her thighs, caught the warm dew of her femininity in his palm. As he lifted her legs over his shoulders, entered her, slowly, slowly, exulted in her moans, her cries, the way her muscles had tightened around him, the way she’d sobbed his name as she came…
Goddammit!
He sat up and swung toward her.
“Stop that crying,” he said gruffly.
Her breath hitched. He could tell she was trying to obey his command but she couldn’t. Well, so what? A woman’s crying had never killed anybody.
Except, maybe, the man listening.
“Did you hear what I said? Stop sniveling. It pisses me off and, trust me, you don’t want to piss me off any more than you already have.”
She made a sound he knew meant she was trying to choke back her tears. It didn’t help. If anything, her weeping intensified.
Matthew shot to his feet, marched across the floor and slammed the bathroom door behind him.
He stood at the sink for a long time, hands clutching the rim, head bowed. Then he flicked on the light and stared into the mirror. He looked like a man who’d just had a quick glimpse of hell.
He turned on the shower. Stepped under the spray, turned it as hot as he could bear it, then turned it icy-cold. He bowed his head, let the water beat down on his neck and shoulders. Turned on the side-sprays and let them do their work on the muscles in his back and his hips.
It seemed like a hundred years ago, he’d stood in this same shower stall, Mia before him, watching the water turn her hair to silk, watching it turn her bra translucent…
Matthew mouthed a harsh obscenity.
To hell with that.
He needed a plan. He had to shake the truth loose from her. Either she had dope on her or she didn’t. Then he’d decide whether to take her back to Hamilton or send her to the States or—or—
Crap!
He shut off the sprays, stepped from the stall, dried off. Took a deep breath. Then he wrapped the towel around his waist and flung open the bathroom door.
Light spilled into the bedroom.
He saw Mia, lying as he’d left her, arms raised above her head, wrists manacled. Her head drooped but the second the light hit her, her chin came up. Her face was tear-streaked but the old defiance was back, manifested in the jut of her chin and the glitter in her swollen eyes.
Something shapeless and dark stretched feathery wings deep inside him.
He strode toward her, opened the cuffs that secured her to the bedpost and drew her arms down.
She whimpered in distress and he told himself that the stab of pain he felt on hearing it was meaningless, just a whisper of human empathy, that was all.
He wouldn’t have been troubled by it back in his Agency days, but wasn’t that one of the reasons he’d left? Because the Agency was a black hole that had damned near sucked the humanity out of him?
No way did his reaction have anything to do with Mia. He’d have felt like this for anyone.
Yeah. Sure you would.
Matthew cleared his throat. “You have a lactic acid build-up in your muscles,” he said crisply. “It’ll ease in a couple of minutes.”
She didn’t answer. He clasped her shoulders. She was trembling, and tried to jerk away.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he growled. “Let me get some circulation back. You’ll feel better.”
He ran his hands up and down her arms, gently kneading her flesh. Her trembling stopped but there were still tears in her eyes.
How come seeing them put a knot in his throat?
A muscle jumped in his cheek. He touched the chafe marks the cuffs had left on her wrists.
“You shouldn’t have struggled against the cuffs.”
She didn’t answer. Fine. He’d made his point, scared her into compliancy just as he’d intended.
The truth was, he wouldn’t need the cuffs anymore tonight. She was going to be docile. Besides, he was wide awake. He could keep an eye on her. No sweat.
“Better?”
Still no answer. He took her hands in his. They felt icy. It wasn’t cold in the bedroom. The overhead fan was doing its thing, moving the night air in easy circles, cooling the room without chilling it.
He put his hand against her cheek. It was cold, too. Shock? Out and out physical shock? No. She had none of the other signs.
Emotional shock, then. That made sense. It explained her trembling, her acquiescence…
And those tears, welling in her eyes.
“Hell,” he muttered.
He put his arms around her. She came to life in a second, shoving against his chest and shoulders.
So much for being docile, he thought, and almost laughed at how good it made him feel to see the fight in her return.
“Easy,” he said, wrapping her tightly in his arms, but she kept struggling and they tumbled sideways on the bed. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
She got one hand free and swung at him. There was no force behind the blow—she couldn’t get her arm back far enough for that—but her knuckles grazed his chin.
“Damn it,” he growled, “I said I wasn’t going to hurt you!”
He caught her hand, tucked it between them and
held her in place with one arm while he tugged up the sheet and the duvet.
She was still shaking.
Nerves, rage, fear… Whatever it was, he had to stop it.
Matthew drew her flush against his body. She fought hard, wriggling in his embrace, but he held her tight, stroked his hand down her back, then brushed her tangled curls from her forehead.
Little by little, she stopped fighting him.
He felt the chill seep from her body.
Felt her tremors slow.
And felt, sweet Jesus, felt the wonder of having her in his arms again.
He shut his eyes. Dipped his nose into her hair and inhaled its scent. The aroma shot through his blood. A magnum of Dom Perignon couldn’t have had a more powerful effect.
Her heart was beating hard against his.
Once, years ago, when he was eight or nine, still innocent of the world’s evils, he’d been riding the ranch with Cam and Alex. They were playing a game they loved, pretending to be Comanche warriors, proud descendents of the mother they hardly remembered.
Matthew’s horse had snorted and reared.
Even then, he was a good rider. He’d steadied the animal, checked around—rattlesnakes were always a threat and horses were terrified of them—and saw, in the grass just ahead, not a snake but a nest.
It was a small, commonplace thing made of twigs and dead grass, but it held a miracle. A tiny, defenseless, unfledged bird.
He’d dismounted, taken the baby carefully in his hand and felt its tiny heart racing with terror.
None of them knew what to do. Finally he’d put the nest into a tree, dug up a couple of worms and put them in beside the bird.
When he went back, two days later, the tiny creature lay motionless, its heart forever stilled.
Now, all these years later, Mia’s heart raced with fear, just like that baby bird’s.
Maybe she was all the things Hamilton had said. Or maybe there were reasons to explain whatever she’d done. Maybe all he had to do was ask her…
Matthew swallowed hard.
Maybe it didn’t matter.
He wasn’t a saint. He’d done things he wouldn’t even admit to himself.
“Mia,” he said huskily, “baby, I’m sorry I frightened you.”
She looked up at him, eyes wet and glittering with tears.
“Douglas lied to you,” she said in a thready whisper.
“Never mind. I don’t have the right to sit in judgment on you.”
“You’d have every right, if I’d tried to smuggle cocaine.” Her voice broke. “I didn’t. I never smuggled drugs. Never!”
“Hush.”
Matthew cupped her face and kissed the tears from her eyes. He brushed his lips over hers. Then he drew her close and rocked her in his arms.
He could feel the last of her tension slipping away.
Another kiss, then. Another whisper of his mouth on hers. It didn’t mean anything. He only wanted to hold her and soothe her.
She was so warm. So soft.
One more kiss. Just one, and if, by chance, her mouth clung to his, if she sighed and slid her arms around his neck…
“Mia,” he whispered, “baby.”
Her hands crept up his chest. Over his shoulders. Her fingers linked at his nape. When he kissed her, her mouth opened to his.
Before he could think, his hand was under her shirt, seeking her breast, cupping it. She moaned and his kiss deepened.
Suddenly, she drew back. Her eyes, filled with doubt, met his.
“I don’t know who you are, Matthew. I don’t know what you are. This is—it’s crazy. We can’t. We shouldn’t—”
She broke off in midsentence. On a desperate sob, she clasped his face between her hands, brought his mouth to hers and kissed him with a passion that set him on fire.
Together, they pulled off her clothes. She rose to him as he knelt between her thighs and buried himself inside her on one long, silken thrust.
She was weeping at the end. Weeping with happiness.
And Matthew was filled with joy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A WHILE AGO, Matthew had used an ancient meditation technique to find restful slumber.
Now, all he needed was to make love with Mia, then have her fall asleep in his arms.
There were still so many unanswered questions…but right now, all that mattered was this. Mia, warm and soft in his embrace.
He felt her body relax against his. He kissed her and she sighed and rolled to her side, her head still on his shoulder. Matthew drew her closely against him.
All those questions, he thought…
And fell with her, into sleep.
In the pale silver light just before dawn, as soft birdcalls sounded in the forest, Mia woke in Matthew’s arms, pressed back against him.
His mouth was on her nape.
His hands cupped her breasts.
And the hot, silken-steel fullness of his erection nudged at the juncture of her thighs.
She started to turn in his arms, but he wouldn’t let her. Instead he pushed into her, his penetration deep and powerful.
No preliminaries.
There was no need for any. She was ready and eager for his possession.
She cried out; her head fell back against his shoulder as he began to move, faster and faster, and when he groaned and sank his teeth into her flesh, she flew with him into the golden sun.
Long moments later, he turned her in his arms. Her eyes were coals, burning into his.
“Matthew,” she whispered.
She put her hand against his cheek. He caught it, brought the palm to his lips and kissed it.
And lay watching her, holding her, long after she drifted back to sleep.
He must have slept, too, because the next thing he knew, the sun was approaching its zenith.
Mia was still in his arms.
A strand of dark hair was caught against the corner of her mouth and he eased it away with his fingertip, then kissed the spot where it had been.
It felt so good, holding her like this. Being with her in this house he’d once expected to love and had, instead, hated.
Foolish. A house was only a house, he understood that now. If a man was going to have bad dreams, it didn’t matter where he was. The dreams would keep coming until he chased them out of his head.
Mia being here with him had made him feel different about the house, even about Colombia.
The problem was, he still felt the same about himself.
Alita. The name came to him as it so often did. He hadn’t been able to save her.
Would he be able to save Mia?
She was running from something, but he couldn’t protect her until he knew what that something was. She wasn’t a thief. She didn’t deal in drugs. He’d have staked his life on both things.
Then, why was she on the run? Why would she be in danger from the cartel? If there was nothing between her and Hamilton, why did he want her back?
Why had he lied, and clearly said that there was?
Matthew let out a long breath.
Pieces of the puzzle were missing. The only certainty was that he’d do whatever it took to shield the woman lying in his arms. She needed his protection. Needed him.
And he—he—
No. Hell, no. He didn’t need her. He wanted her, yes. Wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman, but need her? Uh uh. He’d never needed anybody.
He never would.
Matthew frowned. Carefully, he eased his arm from under her shoulders. Took one last look at her face, and then he rose, pulled on a pair of faded denim shorts, and left the room.
Mia was dreaming.
She was walking down a dark, narrow corridor with Matthew.
Where are we going? she said, but he was mute.
A man stood at the end of the corridor. She couldn’t see his face but she knew who it was.
Please, she said to Matthew, don’t make me go to him.
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