by Tara Janzen
But he'd held her hand—was still holding her hand.
He'd also used the brilliant strategy of maintaining absolute silence. He was sure she was impressed.
Not.
But she had to be impressed with the hallway. He called it Superman's Annex. Hawkins had more paintings than he had walls up on the eleventh floor, and a lot of very fine art had ended up in Creed's hallway. Polished oak floors, cream-colored paneling, discreetly appropriate lighting, and Christian Hawkins's discriminating taste in Cubist Modern. It was all very cool.
So was the door into his loft.
He pressed his hand on a freestanding biometric scanner, and the embossed steel door slid open, retracting back into the wall.
“This is my place,” he said. “You'll be safe here.” At least for a while. He honestly didn't know what was going to happen to her, or how much, if any, control he was going to have over it.
Once inside, he pressed his hand to another biometric screen, and the door slid closed, nearly silent, leaving them in the dark. He pressed the blue screen again, pushing down with his fingertips, and a pair of bolts slid home with a solid thunk thunk, locking out the rest of the world.
A boatload of tension drained out of him at the sound. Home. Safe. There was nothing and no one who could invade this place.
He lowered his forehead to the door and just rested for a moment, letting the quiet and the warmth seep into him, still holding her hand, still keeping her close. After a couple of seconds, she leaned back against the door, too, and let out a soft breath. He looked over. Her eyes were closed, her expression still tight, but not quite so strained as it had been in the office, as if she knew that for a while everything was going to be all right.
Watching her, his eyes slowly adjusted to the faint glow of the city lights filtering into the cavernous room through the windows. There were two floors of them, thirty feet of iron-bound glass extending the full length of the south wall. A full moon was visible in the clearing sky. The sound of free-running water, a lot of it, coming from the far end of the loft, was unmistakable.
“Did you leave a faucet on?” she asked softly, a slight tremor in her voice.
“Sort of.” The steel was cool against his skin. Her hand was warm in his, and with every breath she took, an irrepressible longing was building inside him, making his chest tight.
“Should you turn it off?” she said after a moment's hesitation, as if afraid to mention something so obvious.
“It'll be okay.” But he wasn't sure he was going to be, not with her wearing a push-up bra.
Black satin.
With silver stripes.
Yeah, he'd noticed. The same way he'd noticed Saturday written across her ass and that she was holding his hand, too.
Now that he could breathe again, everything was starting to fall into place in a little bit different order, stacking up to one undeniable truth: He wanted her.
God, it had been so long since he'd wanted a woman. Well, he always wanted one. He just hadn't bothered lately to find one, something he used to do without putting out too much effort. Usually, the women were just there—beautiful, warm, soft, sweet, funny, sometimes a little bitchy, and sometimes he didn't mind. And usually they found him.
But if they'd been anywhere lately, he hadn't noticed, not since Colombia.
He'd noticed her, though. Noticed her in a way that was impossible to ignore, deep down in his gut, viscerally. With the snow falling on her hair and melting against her cheeks, she'd looked up at him, and he'd suddenly noticed everything about her—the thickness of her lashes and the softness of her breath, the paleness of her skin and the racing of her heart, and he'd wanted her, the baddest badass girl to ever hit his part of town. She was so off-limits, she should have come wrapped in concertina wire—and he wasn't sure even that would have been enough to hold him at bay, not tonight.
He rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand and let out a heavy breath. Okay. What was he going to do here? He'd never out-and-out fraternized with the enemy before, but right now, every cell in his body was consumed with the thought of doing a whole lot more than that.
His gaze drifted over the little triangle of black satin clinging to her hips and the absolutely amazing sight of her breasts practically spilling out of her bra, and it tied him in knots. Just watching her breathe made his skin hot.
Covert war was like rugby, he thought. Women shouldn't even be allowed on the field, because it made the game impossible to play. He was supposed to bring her down, just like any other tango, and turn her in, and all he could think about was touching her, getting his mouth and hands on her, getting inside her.
Oh, yeah. Inside her, that was the picture hardwired in his brain and short-circuiting his common sense all the way down to his groin.
A black-market arms dealer, geezus. He was a highly trained special ops warrior. He was supposed to know better than this. He killed guys like her.
But he wasn't going to kill her, no matter who ordered it, and he'd be hell-and-gone damned if he was going to let anybody else, either, because somewhere, deep inside, he was having serious doubts about her involvement in this mess. She'd been bugged, and nobody bugged their partner.
You are so fucking crazy, he told himself. He couldn't think of a damn thing she'd done to slay him like this. In truth, she hadn't done anything except run for her life all night long—but he was slain, at her feet. All she was doing was holding his hand, and he was getting hard.
Perfect. He wanted to groan with the absurdity of it.
CODY felt his fingers twine through hers, felt the silky length of his hair slide across the top of her cheek where they stood so close together—and it was all she could do to keep breathing. Her heart was racing so fast.
O'Connell had told her if she didn't cooperate it might become expedient for the CIA to “retire” her. She knew exactly what “retire” meant, and the minute Dylan had spoken the word, her blood had run cold.
It was still running cold—dead cold, if she couldn't find a way out. Time had escaped her, all of her time, all at once, and she was alone, except for Creed Rivera.
She'd missed him, her guardian angel. She hadn't known how desperately, until he'd walked into the office, bruised and cut across one cheek, his pants torn. She hadn't expected to see him again, ever—but he was here now, holding her hand, and she was loathe to let him go.
She tightened her hand around Creed's. She could feel his pulse, feel his strength—and she could feel the sharp edge of panic snaking through her gut.
Everybody wanted her dead—except for Creed Rivera.
“Would . . . would you kiss me?” The words came out softly, barely audible, almost taking her by surprise, but not quite. She knew why she wanted to kiss him again—and it was all selfish, but she wasn't going to take the words back. The place they were was warm and dark, and he was close, and this was it, as safe as she was ever going to be for the rest of her life, in this room, with him.
He'd kissed her in South Morrison the same way he'd kissed her on the roof of the library, with more tenderness than she'd had in too long to remember. It had been instantly consuming, the taste of his mouth, the softness of his breath upon her skin, the sheer heat of it washing through her and making her melt.
She'd like to melt now, or at least feel warm, and he was a wall of warmth standing beside her, almost face-to-face, his chest almost touching her shoulder. He was alive, and her life was slipping through her fingers. She looked up and saw him silhouetted in the shadows with moonlight limning his face and running like silver down the bare skin of his throat, and everything inside her ached. He looked like an angel, a ruthless, heartbreakingly beautiful angel, and he'd killed a man to save her life.
A weary sigh left him before he turned and met her gaze.
“You don't owe me anything.”
She nodded slowly in agreement. She didn't owe him anything, but she couldn't forget what he'd been through, the look on his face in those photo
graphs as he'd watched J.T. Chronopolous die.
“And I can't be bought,” he said, his voice a little firmer, his gaze more direct. “Not like this.”
“I'm not buying.” She didn't know how to explain everything to him, how to tell him what she needed, what she was feeling—which was awful, and scared, and so horribly alone. “I'm . . . I'm trapped.”
She wasn't going to cry. The last thing she wanted was his pity. She'd weighed her options and her chances in Prague—and she'd miscalculated everything.
She hadn't really expected to die.
She hadn't expected to meet anyone like him at the end.
“Cesar Raoul Eduardo Rivera.”
A slight grin twitched the corner of his mouth, and his thumb slid across the back of her hand again. “Nobody calls me that, not even my mother.”
“Creed,” she whispered, letting the name fill her heart, feeling the strength and warmth of his body so close to her, but not close enough, not yet. It had been so long since she'd had anyone of her own, and she didn't want to die with the sins of Karlovy Vary still on her. “Please.”
PLEASE . Geezus. Everything Creed knew, everything he stood for was telling him this was just one big mistake, but God, being with her felt so right.
And she'd said please, which tore him up. What was she thinking, to ask a stranger for sex? Because she had to know that's where it was going to end up—the two of them hot and naked and all over each other. He didn't see any way around it.
His gaze went over her again, up the length of all her fishnet-covered curves to her face.
Yeah, she knew. He could see it in her eyes.
He was doomed.
He brought his hand up to her face and gently cupped her cheek, then leaned sideways and pressed his mouth to her temple, just to feel the softness of her skin—and she was soft, incredibly, seductively soft, so female. He slid his mouth lower, closer to her ear. Her hair was damp and cool where a stray tendril curled onto her cheek. The flowery scent of her hair spray had faded. In its place was a more complex mix, a light, windblown muskiness that said “woman” to him, one-hundred-percent pure girl; a deeper, unnameable essence that was simply, irrevocably her—and the trace of fear he'd known was there. He could always smell fear; from fifty yards he could smell someone's fear.
He'd smelled J.T.'s, and it had smelled like his own, the scent binding them across the short, muddy stretch of the guerrilla camp that had separated them—separated life from death.
But this—he squeezed his eyes shut—this didn't have anything to do with J.T. This was about her and what she made him feel.
He breathed her in, letting his mouth roam even lower, down to the delicate angle of her jaw and the tender skin of her throat, lower still across her shoulder—and satisfaction flowed into him. Her clothes, what little there were of them, and her skin, smelled like him, from his coat. He inhaled more deeply. He liked smelling himself on her. He liked it a lot.
Moving back up, he nuzzled his face into the curve of her neck, and his satisfaction deepened, a new scent coming into play. She was trembling, her pulse fluttering, and she was softening ever so slightly, becoming . . . amenable.
Please, she'd said, and he'd wanted to devour her.
He'd won her tonight, through strength and cunning and skill. Fought for her and won.
He wasn't completely uncivilized, not here in this place, not like he'd been in other places, at other times—but he'd still won her, and he wanted to claim what he'd won.
Smoothing his hand up into her hair, he lifted his head and met her gaze for one more moment. It was her last chance to stop this, and when she didn't, he lowered his mouth to hers and gave himself up to the biggest mistake of his life. It was the sweetest thing he'd ever done—to sink into her kiss, to lick her mouth and feel her teeth with his tongue, to lave her lips and hold her close. The smell of her was like a balm to his soul, soft skin, warm scent, sweet woman sighing in his mouth and firing up all of his cylinders. He pulled her close, loving the feel of her, the life of her.
It had been too long since he'd done this, lost himself in a woman.
He was in so much trouble. Where the hell was Dylan? Or Skeeter? He needed the cavalry, right now, somebody to come and save him—because he wasn't going to save himself. Not when Cody Stark tasted so beautiful, like sex and heaven.
No way. Not tonight.
I'M worried about Creed being upstairs with that woman,” Skeeter said, flipping open the wallet she'd just pulled out of Creed's coat. “I think it's just asking for trouble.”
They were working fast, getting everything out of the pockets, seeing what the jungle boy had come up with for the night. Dylan figured they had about five more minutes before Royce and his gang made it to the main office.
“Trouble?” He looked up from a folded piece of stationery. There was a phone number written on the front, along with a few words in Dari on the back. “What have you got?”
“Bruno Walmann's wallet.”
He grinned. Creed was damn good. “You said yourself that she was done in. There's no way in hell she can get away from him, not here.”
“Well, that's the problem,” she said, setting the wallet aside and digging her hand a little deeper into the same pocket. “I don't think she wants to get away from him.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, watching her pull out a blocky-looking wristwatch.
Her eyes lit up. “Yikes.”
“Put it on the desk and forget it,” he ordered. The last thing he needed right now was for her to get sidetracked on the tracking device somebody had used to chase down Dominika Starkova. A.k.a. Cody Stark.
With obvious reluctance, she set the tracker aside and dug back into the pocket. “She didn't take her eyes off him, not from the instant you guys walked in,” she said, pulling out a soft, crumpled-up bit of something that was very white.
What in the world? he wondered, watching her untwist the small item.
“What is that?” he asked when she held it up and he still didn't have a clue what it was.
Amazingly, Skeeter took off her glasses to give the thing a closer inspection before she answered him. She stretched it out a little, and a funny look came over her face before she lifted her pale blue eyes and met his gaze across the length of the desk. He could just see the end of her scar under the brim of her hat, where it cut across her eyebrow, but her nose was so cute—kind of short and kind of a button—and her cheeks were so baby soft, there was no help for it, he felt like a pervert. When all a guy could see was her body, black leather, and tattoos, it was easy to forget how young she was.
But that face. God, twenty years old or not, scar or no scar, that face made her look like jailbait, and “jailbait” was looking utterly dismayed by the thing in her hand.
“This . . . this is what I'm talking about,” she said, giving the thing a little shake where it dangled off her fingertips, her voice rising a bit at the end. “This is Tuesday. Saturday's cousin.”
Oh.
Oh, shit.
He didn't have to ask what Creed was doing with Dominika Starkova's underwear in his pocket. He was a guy. He knew—and he couldn't believe Creed was going there.
Well, Creed wasn't, not on this op. No way in hell. Women like Dominika Starkova ate jungle boys for lunch. Hell, she'd been running with the Russian Mafia for months.
Son of a bitch.
“Don't worry,” he said, his words strong with conviction. “They're not going to be up there long enough to get into trouble.”
Skeeter arched a brow in his direction, her expression one of pure incredulity.
“Okeydokey, Mr. Know-it-all, but the way they were looking at each other it sure looked to me like they needed Commando Condoms 101 and a safe sex lecture. Didn't you feel the vibe coming off the two of them? Fifty bucks says he's already kissing her.”
Dylan didn't know what bothered him more: Skeeter referring to him as Mr. Know-it-all, or the word sex coming out of her mouth.
“Creed is a professional.”
“Creed is a man.”
He wanted to ask her what she knew about men, but he didn't dare for fear of what she might say. He didn't want her knowing anything about men—especially men with women's underwear in their coat pockets.
What in the hell was Creed thinking?
C HAPTER
21
B LACK SATIN, soft skin, silky mouth—Creed was going down in flames. Everything was moving so fast. They were up against the door, and she had her tongue in his mouth and her hand halfway down his pants, and he was nearly electrified with pleasure.
Geezus. How could he have forgotten what this felt like? How incredibly, mind-blowingly good it felt to have a woman touching him?
He needed to slow things down a little, though, help her out. She was a panic attack in the making, all over him—which he loved, but at this rate, and if she actually got her hand all the way down his pants, it was going to be over in about two minutes whether he figured out how to get her out of her fishnet or not.
And he had just enough clearheaded thinking left in his brain to know he didn't want that. It would be so freakin' stupid to come in her hand, when he had the chance to come inside her.
Just the thought sent another wave of heat surging through his body. He rocked against her, all but begging her to find those last few inches down to home base.
But the fishnet—cripes. No zipper, no buttons, no snaps, no nothing, and not enough stretch. How did she get into the thing? Paint it on?
“Cody, I—” He was starting to ask that exact question when something gave way, some little cut thread at the top, and suddenly the whole bodysuit was unraveling faster than he could keep up.
“Oh,” she said, grabbing for her waist, but she was way too late.
