by Tara Janzen
“Don't even think it.”
She jerked her head up, breaking her laserlike concentration on the big wristwatch.
“What?” she asked, giving him the most innocent look she could conjure up.
“Don't think what you're thinking,” he said. “This all goes to Royce, every last piece of it.”
“Of course.” Well, duh. Like she didn't know that. The only things up for question were when it would all go to Royce and whether or not all the evidence would go at the same time, or if, possibly, one of the pieces might be sent along later.
A blinking light on the computer screen warned them their time was up.
“Royce is here,” Dylan said, setting the tracking device back down on the desk. “Photograph and catalog everything. Run as much of it through the system as you can and let me know if you come up with anything, but first send it all over the secure connection to General Grant, all the pictures and information. When you're finished, box it all up and seal it. Work fast. Don't dawdle.”
No shit, Sherlock.
“Yes, sir,” she said, doing her damnedest to give the impression of someone who could be trusted to follow his orders to a T.
CODY had never known anyone who had a refrigerator in their bathroom, or anyone whose bathroom was a tropical rain forest, at least not until now.
Creed had touched a light pad on one of the few solid walls in the whole loft, and half a dozen lamps had gone on: two in the water, to softly light the pool; two in the trees, directed at the waterfall; and two on the solid wall, to light up a sink and cabinet area and a very sleek stainless steel refrigerator. The whole area was covered in light blue, iridescent tile, which made it seem like the place was under water. It was a magical effect.
“We have every fruit and vegetable known to man in those bottles,” he said, gesturing at a stunning array of shampoos, conditioners, face masks, spa scrubs, and lotions lined up on the counter. She recognized a lot of the labels; all the products were first-class herbal organics.
“And flowers,” she added, noticing small vials of lavender oil and rose oil, and a special brand of chamomile shampoo.
“Yeah, the way it smells in here sometimes, I'd say flowers, too. I think Skeeter has cat parties in the bathroom when I'm gone.”
“Cat parties?”
“You know, when you get all your friends together and do stuff with shampoo and fingernail polish.”
“You mean hen parties.”
“No.” He let out a short laugh. “There aren't any chickens in Skeeter's crowd. They're all cats. Probably bobcats, and wildcats, and I'm pretty sure there's a couple of real feral cats from her old crew. The kind of girls you do not want to meet in a dark alley.”
“So Skeeter lives with you?” She'd gotten the impression that he lived alone, the way he'd said “my place,” but she could easily be wrong. She had not gotten the impression that he had a girlfriend, not the way he'd been kissing her all night, but again, she could easily be wrong. Skeeter did seem to have the run of the place.
She wasn't going to be picky about it. She couldn't afford to be, and truth be told, she wanted him no matter how many other women had a claim on him. He could be sleeping with a hundred of them, and she'd still want him tonight, because he was her last chance, her only chance—which didn't really make it any less shameful.
God, her life had gotten so strange, was so different from what she had ever imagined it would be. The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States government wanted her dead. The only thing stranger was that from Russia to Denver, there were a whole lot of other people who felt the same way.
She was so scared, too scared not to hold on to the one sure thing she had: him. Kiss me, she'd asked him, and she might as well have said, Save me. Save me if you can.
“She has the loft above this one,” he said, “but she does run things around here. She's a first-class mechanic and computer tech, and she's taking over Superman's job as majordomo of Steele Street—ordering in the food and organizing the houseboys.”
“Houseboys?” she said, relieved. She didn't really want to share him, even if he was only hers for one night. But lord, he really did live rich. The elevator had shown thirteen floors, and she knew from the ground-floor garage how big each floor was. It must take a small army to keep up the building, especially if there were many lofts like Creed's, and yet the place was very quiet, as if it was resting, peaceful, until called upon to be otherwise—which sounded ridiculous, even to her.
CREED nodded and wondered why. It was true that Mama Guadalupe brought over a select crew once a week to do general housekeeping of the apartments on floors nine through thirteen. Floors three through eight were classified. No one got in there without specific orders and secure access codes. But none of that was any of Cody's business.
Shit. He was talking to her, and he shouldn't. He should be asking questions, hard questions, the kind of questions where he needed to sit her in a chair in an empty room and be a real son of a bitch until she broke—which was exactly what Hashemi had been doing. And yes, he'd always known that he had far more in common with the men he killed than the people he protected. That was the job. That was the life.
And that was why the few women he'd thought he loved had not stuck around. Too many secrets, too much leaving without a word in the middle of the night, too much maybe-I-won't-make-it-back-this-time. He hadn't blamed any of them for walking away, and neither had he missed them for too long—which had always made him wonder if he knew what love was, true love.
He was pretty sure it wasn't something that was going to hit a guy on a frozen rooftop with a woman who had a gun to his head, but he wasn't completely positive, which left him on shaky ground in the son-of-a-bitch department with her.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked, foregoing one of those thousand and one hard questions in favor of an easy one, and sounding like a perfectly nice, normal guy who'd gotten lucky and brought a girl home.
Right, he thought, a perfectly nice, normal guy who'd killed someone tonight, and if he wasn't mistaken, gotten a piece of another one with his Glock.
“I've got all kinds of juice, beer, wine, probably some organic smoothie things . . . shots of tequila.” He could use a couple of those, but technically he was still very much on the job, in charge of a hardened international criminal, and though he had every intention of getting her into his bed, he'd probably be better off if he was stone cold sober when he did it. That way, at the court-martial, he'd have all his facts straight.
Kee-rist. He needed his head examined. Fortunately, he had an appointment later in the week with a Captain Teal, USN, to do just that . . . again. Honestly, he couldn't have too much left in there that somebody hadn't seen and probably already poked a couple of times, except for the stuff he wasn't letting anybody see—how it had been with him and J.T. at the end.
Shit. He brought his hand up to his chest.
“Juice, please. Orange juice, if you've got it.”
Taking a deep breath, he left her by the side of the pool and walked over to the refrigerator. Skeeter did a helluva lot better job of keeping things stocked than Hawkins had ever done, and she bought all the really nice stuff. Superman had never ordered organic smoothies, which Creed had discovered he liked. It was Skeeter's bottles of watery stuff with leaves and whatnot floating in them that he couldn't take. Guaranteed to add years to his life and life to his years, Skeeter liked to say.
She could be such a dork. Years to his life, his ass. A Kevlar vest and a two-and-a-half-pound trigger pull added years to his life, not herbs.
But he was in the refrigerator looking for orange juice, just the thing to get a woman in the mood.
No wonder he hadn't been laid in months.
And today must have been houseboy day, because there was lots of new stuff in the fridge, and in an interesting twist, all the orange juice was in little boxes. Great, he was going to be offering her a juice box. How incredibly seductive.
He grabbed an orange juice out of the fridge and was delighted to realize that each came with its own unbelievably tiny straw stuck right to the box—utterly fucking delighted.
Geezus. He did the deed, got the whole thing organized, then grabbed a few first-aid supplies and a bunch of towels and turned back to the pool.
“Thanks. That's . . . uh . . . sweet,” she said, when he gave her the juice box.
That was him. Sweet.
He dropped the towels on the tile behind her.
“Let's see your arm.” He'd noticed her favoring it in the elevator, and then had conveniently forgotten all about it once he'd gotten his mouth on her.
He sat down cross-legged at the side of the pool. She'd taken off her shoes and had her feet in the water, but he was still in full battle gear, including the pistol-gripped shotgun strapped to his hip and Velcroed around his thigh—another real romance-inducing item.
Yessiree, he'd just about brought this party to a full freakin' all-out stop, and for someone who was still pretty much consumed by the thought of full body contact, hot, sweaty, lose-your-fucking-mind sex tonight, that couldn't be a good thing. God, he wanted to eat her, all of her. He wanted to lick her up one side and down the other, bury himself inside her and drive her crazy, right over the edge, and when she came undone all over him, he wanted to start over again.
He needed that, needed it like air—was beginning to think it was the only thing that could save him.
“I think it's okay, just sore,” she said, lifting her arm, testing it, and not sounding like she had a clue what he was thinking. “For a minute there, in that room, I thought it was broken, but it's not.”
“You're bruising.” He could see it through the fishnet. Reaching up, he started easing what was left of the cat suit down off her arm. “I've got a cold pack to put on it for now.”
“No.” She shook her head, adamant. “No ice. I'm done with being cold tonight. I'm still cold, even in here.”
Okay. He could let her get away with that.
“I'll be finished in a minute, then you can get in the water,” he said. “That'll take the chill off.” Especially once he got in there with her—at least he hoped they were still headed in that direction.
He got her sleeve all the way off, and then just didn't stop. There was no sense, to his way of thinking, in leaving those last few shreds of fishnet on her.
“Lift up,” he said, and scooted what was left of the cat suit out from under her butt. From there it was one cheap thrill after another, rolling the rest of it off her leg. The other side had fallen apart at the door, so once he got to her ankle, it was a done deal.
He tossed the silky mess over by the cabinet and opened up a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
“Let's see where you got hit in South Morrison. I saw you go down.” And had gone ballistic. Nobody deserved to die because they'd hit somebody on the head, but Hashemi had proven himself willing to do a whole lot more, and Creed couldn't say he was sorry. He never was. If there was one thing he knew, it was the good guys from the bad guys, and it was his job to go up against the bad guys and win. Win at any cost, any way he could. There were no rules in his game, no code of conduct. It was win or die every single time.
Yeah, he knew who the bad guys were, and she didn't feel like one of them. He didn't think it was possible for him to be so horny he couldn't see straight, or for him to want a woman so much it would throw off his moral compass. That part of him had always run true, so even though all the facts lined up against her, his gut was telling him not to let the feds have her. That something didn't add up.
“This is going to hurt, isn't it,” she said, turning her head and lifting up the back of her hair. She had a goose egg, all right, and a little bit of blood smeared behind her ear, and it pissed him off.
“No.” Taking a slug hurt. Screwing up and getting cut by some asshole's knife hurt. Watching your best friend die hurt—but not hydrogen peroxide on a wad of cotton.
“Ohh, ouch, ow.” She squirmed as he dabbed away, and he had to grin.
“Baby,” he said, teasing her, then had to refrain from saying it again, but with his mouth on her somewhere, anywhere while he did it.
“Oh, do something,” she said. “Blow.”
And there was another one of those surefire winners on his all-time fantasy hit list, a beautiful girl in black satin underwear begging him to blow. He knew how to “blow” a girl, would love to “blow” her—blow her mind.
“Hold on just a second.” Just a second while he let that image play in his mind a couple of times.
His gaze drifted to her lap while he dabbed, and suddenly he was right back at the door, on his knees, his gut in a knot, his chest tight. She was sweet. He knew it for a fact, and all he'd gotten was a promise more than an actual taste.
Taking a breath, he finished cleaning up the scrape on her head and made a three-pointer into the trash can with the wad of cotton. Then he gave her what she was really asking for, a little relief from the pain. He started blowing on the back of her neck and up behind her ear.
In seconds, she'd stopped squirming, everything about her telegraphing an unmistakable awareness.
Perfect, he thought. This was all going to work out perfectly.
He let his breath drift south, over her shoulder, and his mouth followed, pressing a soft kiss on her skin. This was where he'd needed to go. She was so smooth, and he was more than ready to cross the line again.
He moved aside her bra strap, letting it fall down her arm, and pressed another kiss to her shoulder.
When she turned to look at him, he lifted his head. Her eyes were a dark, verdurous green, and a little wary, which he didn't mind. Under the circumstances, wariness was a smart move. He wanted a lot from her, everything he could get and then some.
Would you kiss me? she'd asked, and there was only one answer: “All night long.”
Careful not to hurt her, he slid his hand around the back of her head and brought her mouth to his. Her lips were soft, open, her tongue warm and wet sliding along the length of his, instantly turning him inside out, turning him on. Yeah, this was the kind of kiss he'd needed, hot and deep, not desperate. Hell, they both had enough desperation in their lives. What he needed was time out from everything else on the planet. He needed a break.
So did she.
Moving his hand to his hip, he double-checked the safety on the Mossberg, then unclipped his gun belt, pulled the Velcro apart, and laid the whole holster off to the side.
He didn't particularly want her to see the Randall fighting knife, so he opened his mouth wider on hers, took her a little farther, held her to him tighter, while he undid the strap on his ankle and gave the knife and sheath a good shove off into the shadows. Next came his boots and socks, all of them tossed off to the side.
The kissing was great, sweet and slow, his teeth grazing her lips, her breath soft on his skin, and him being careful not to give in to the urge to shove his tongue halfway down her throat and just do the caveman thing on top of her.
No, he was cool, letting her take the lead while he got rid of his weapons and clothes. She'd turned more toward him, leaned in, and he had his hand up under her arm, his palm cupping the side of her breast. She wasn't very big on top, even in her push-up bra, just perfect, and he couldn't wait to kiss her there again. She'd been so responsive.
Reaching up and back between his shoulders, he grabbed a handful of sweater and T-shirt and pulled both of them off over the back of his head. With an overhanded toss, he lofted it all toward the sinks and cou
ntertop.
He was committed now, with her small hands touching his skin, sliding over his shoulders and up into his hair, her mouth coming back to his for more of his kiss. He ran his hands over her, from under her arms all the way down to her incredible ass. She was so curvy—sleek rib cage, small waist . . . hips. God, he loved a woman's hips. She pressed against him, bringing her satin bra in contact with his chest, rubbing against him ever so slightly, and heat flowed down into his groin.
“Come on,” he whispered, pulling her to her feet.
He stood with her in front of him, one hand around her waist, keeping her close, the other undoing his pants. He shucked out of them and his boxers, then took her hand and slipped into the pool. The water felt great, swirling around him as he led her back toward the waterfall.
It wasn't far. The whole lagoon wasn't much bigger than two or three good-sized hot tubs, big enough to hold quite a few, but he'd never had more than one in it with him, sometimes a woman, and lately Skeeter. He'd never been one for crowds of any kind.
He noticed Cody didn't drop her gaze below the water line, which made him grin. He'd like her to look. It was always such a turn-on to have a woman check you out, but since he was pretty turned on already, maybe her shyness was for the best.
What he really wanted was for her to relax. He wasn't sure he could get everything he wanted if she was too nervous, and for all her wonderful kisses and pressing up against him, she was nervous.
Well, he could probably help her out there. Leaning a little ways away from her, he cut his hand across the top of the water and splashed her. The small wall of water caught her all the way down the front, drenching her from the top of her head to her waist.
She sputtered, instantly indignant, and when she gave him the “you're in trouble, buster” look, he grinned and did it again.
Before she could retaliate, he dropped her hand and dove under the water—and circled her like a shark.
