An assessment of the collateral damage was soon underway.
Alfric led her toward what looked like an elevator and pulled her inside. His breath slid over her face as he leaned across her to reach for the panel beside the door. Pleasance shivered as her body reacted to his nearness, along with the heat and masculine smell of him.
Despite the dilapidated appearance of the elevator, the doors slid silently shut as soon as his finger touched the button. She expected the click and whir of an upward lift, but nothing happened.
Alfric turned toward the back of the elevator and pressed a button on his key ring. The back wall of the elevator slid silently open and soft light filled the car.
Pleasance gasped as she took in the clean, elegant beauty of Alfric’s home.
It was one, vast, well lit room, divided into areas of use by furniture groupings and the strategic placement of giant potted trees and privacy screens. The floors were gleaming wood of a reddish-gold color. Thick, expensive looking rugs in rich jeweled tones defined the different areas of the space.
On the far right hand wall, a state of the art kitchen gleamed. Black granite countertops, cherry cabinets, and stainless steel appliances warmed the eye, with hanging copper-bottomed pots and a fireplace set into the wall above the counter in one corner.
“Wow!”
Alfric grinned. “I think you’ll be comfortable here.” He turned to a wall of security screens and punched some buttons. The screens showed what looked like the entire area around the building. After apparently deciding everything looked okay, Alfric headed for the kitchen. “Come on, I need to feed Clancy.” He glanced over his shoulder and grinned at her. “I could probably whip something up for us too.”
Pleasance followed him, looking unsure. “You cook?”
He laughed. “Not like my brothers. But there are a couple of dishes I’m pretty adept at creating.”
Pleasance settled herself onto a tall, black leather stool at the counter. “Who takes care of Clancy while you’re gone?’
Alfric opened a large container on the floor beneath the phone and scooped a ridiculous amount of dried, brown chunks into a black ceramic bowl on the floor. Clancy dove into the chunks happily. Alfric picked up the matching bowl and emptied it into the sink, rinsing it and refilling it with fresh water. “I have someone come in every day. And my family takes him when I know I’m going to be gone for a while.”
He pulled two wine glasses out of a glass fronted cabinet and set them on the counter in front of her. “He has a special dog door so he can let himself in and out at will.” Alfric glanced toward the wall of buttons and screens beside the door. “Which reminds me…I need to lock that door down.” He strode back to the security screens and punched some more buttons.
Returning to the kitchen, he poured them both a glass of chilled Zinfandel.
Pleasance sipped her wine and made an appreciative face. “Not too many men will drink pink wine,” she said with a smile.
Alfric grinned. “I’ll drink anything that doesn’t run away from my lips. And I noticed you liked it so…” he shrugged, leaving Pleasance to figure out all for herself that he was just being accommodating.
She liked that in a man.
Alfric set his wine glass down and headed toward the biggest refrigerator Pleasance had ever seen. Pulling it open, he stood staring at the contents with a frown on his face. The soft interior light of the refrigerator backlit his strong, handsome profile in a way that made Pleasance wish she had a canvas and some charcoal at her fingertips.
Pleasance decided to rescue him. Sliding down off of her stool she walked around the counter and stepped up next to him. “How about I cook breakfast?”
He glanced at her eagerly. “Are you sure? I cook a mean omelet.”
“I don’t mind. I like to cook. In fact, I put myself through art school as a chef at La Place.”
Twin red arcs lifted on his face in surprise. “You’re a chef?”
She nodded, trying not to let her pride in that skill show too much. “I am an artist. Cooking is definitely an art.”
He grinned. “You’re going to get along really well with my brothers.”
Not sure how to take this statement, Pleasance turned away, and started pulling stuff out of the refrigerator. “Oooh Feta, real butter, eggs…”
She glanced up at him, excitement lighting her beautiful face. “Do you have fresh spinach by any chance?” Alfric sank into the sparkling blue eyes. He suddenly felt as if the two of them were in a bubble…separate from the rest of the world…and the place where they were was warm, and soft, and sexually charged. He took a step closer, lifting a hand to touch her warm, exquisitely soft cheek.
The blue eyes widened slightly as he stroked a finger down her cheek and slid it across her full, soft lips. “You are a beautiful woman, Pleasance Roberts.”
She gulped, audibly, completely captured by the intense blue of his gaze. The finger on her lips was warm and smooth and she had a sudden urge to open her mouth and suck it in. He took a step nearer and his other hand settled at her waist. Pleasance felt warmth pooling between her thighs. Her nipples hardened under the cotton blouse. With a sigh, she gave in to the urge. She opened her mouth and let the finger slide between her lips. Closing her lips around Alfric’s finger, she sucked gently, watching his eyes narrow on a jolt of pure sensual pleasure.
Alfric groaned and slid his arm around her narrow waist, pulling her lower body tightly against his. Sliding his finger from her mouth he lowered his lips toward hers. He stopped just before they touched, savoring the sweet nectar of her breath against his skin. His hands settled on her narrow hips and he rested his forehead on hers. When he spoke, his voice was husky with building lust, “Yes. I believe I do.”
Pleasance blinked. She’d been so ready for his kiss she could already taste it. And her body was all but vibrating in anticipation of his touch. “You do?”
He nodded, lowering his head to lick her throat.
Pleasance almost growled. Her whole body convulsed in a lust saturated shiver. “You do what?” Her voice sounded so breathless she barely recognized it.
Alfric’s hands slid up her sides, his thumbs grazing the undersides of her breasts on the way by, and around to her back. He caressed her back in gentle circles, creating heat and electricity against her skin. His teeth found an earlobe and nibbled gently. “Fresh spinach. I think I have some.”
Pleasance jerked in surprise. She certainly hadn’t been expecting that! “Oh. Okay.” Feeling incredibly disappointed, she tried to take a step away, putting some much needed space between them. But her body wouldn’t allow the distance. Her feet wouldn’t move.
“I’m very hungry,” Alfric told her as his lips touched her cheek and then traveled down to trace her jaw line.
He left behind tingling, sensitized skin wherever he touched.
Pleasance leaned into him, moaning softly as his warm mouth closed over her chin and he nibbled gently. “I should start cooking then, huh?”
Alfric’s lips settled over hers, stopping just a hair’s breadth away. “You already are.” Then his lips touched hers and her world exploded into sensation. She didn’t even notice when the small tub of Feta cheese hit the floor at her feet, quickly followed by the stick of butter she’d been holding.
Alfric wound both of his arms tightly around her body, creating a cocoon of lust and heat, inside which they were both trapped. He reveled in the soft round curves of her body and the way she made little mewling sounds in her throat as they explored each other with frantic hands and hungry lips.
Panic tapped at the edges of his consciousness, not sturdy enough to get past the flaming lust, but there nonetheless. On some level, Alfric was aware that he was out of his element. A tiny portion of his mind recognized that their attraction for each other was extraordinary and just a bit too intense.
As their tongues danced hungrily and their hands slid over each other’s bodies in urgent need, Alfric wondered at his strong
reaction to a woman whom, before a few days ago, he’d never set eyes on. It was out of character for him, a careful, meticulous man, to react so strongly and so intensely to a virtual stranger.
But reason had nothing to do with what he was experiencing.
His fingers reached for the top button of her cotton blouse and flicked it free. He was reaching for the second button, his mind nearly melting with lust, when his satellite phone rang. He pulled his lips from hers, panting. “Damn!”
Pleasance reached up and slid her fingers through his hair. “Ignore it.”
He placed a kiss on her nose and stepped reluctantly away. “I can’t. It’s one of my brothers. Nobody else has this number.”
What he didn’t say was that they wouldn’t be calling unless part of the world had fallen over the edge. Because that had been his last instruction to them.
He pulled the phone from his pocket and hit the button. “Yeah.”
“Turn on your TV. Fox News.” It was Edric.
Alfric picked up the small remote on his counter and pointed it at the under the counter television screen beside the refrigerator. The scene that emerged as the small screen flickered on was one of chaos. People crying, cars being pulled from water, and a lingering shot of a bridge, twisted and torn, hanging over the grey chop of what looked like a river. “What is it?”
“Brita did some research on the victims of this kidnapping thing Raia’s supposedly involved in. One of them disappeared from Seattle.”
Alfric tapped the volume higher so he could hear the news reporter as she gave a slightly hysterical account of the apparent terrorist attack on University Bridge, Seattle Washington. “Okay, so what’s the connection with this bridge?”
Alfric was dimly aware of Pleasance moving around the counter to pick up her wine. She probably needed a few moments to regain her equilibrium. He knew he did.
“The victim’s father is the city engineer in Seattle.”
Alfric frowned, not seeing the connection at first. On the television screen they were interviewing a young woman. She looked shell shocked as she pointed to a battered truck in the background.
Edric’s voice sharpened. “Bro, were you sleeping or something…you’re not your usual razor-sharp self. Who better to tell a bunch of terrorists the stress points of a potential target then the city engineer?”
“Shit! Leverage kidnappings.”
“That’s what we’re thinking.”
The camera panned back to the twisted bridge. A trailer rig filled with logs teetered dangerously on one end of it. Alfric could see the driver still in the cab.
Behind him, Pleasance cried out and glass shattered against the floor. He turned and saw stark terror sliding across her beautiful face. She was staring at the little television and her fingers were still curved, as if she hadn’t yet realized she’d dropped her wine.
“Pleasance?”
Slowly her eyes swung to him. “I know that bridge.” Her lips trembled as she swung her horror filled gaze back to the chaos being played out on the television screen. “I painted it.”
Chapter Ten
Alfric became aware of his brother’s voice on the other end of the phone. “We have our connection,” he told his brother. “Pleasance just identified the bridge.”
The blare of an alarm suddenly filled the house. Alfric ran to his wall of monitors and saw several, darkly clad figures inside the warehouse. He programmed numbers rapidly into the monitor and ran back toward the kitchen as smoke spewed from the monitor. “They’ve found us,” he told Edric. “We need to move. I’ll contact you when we land somewhere.”
He hung up and jammed the phone into his pocket, grabbing Pleasance’s hand.
“What’s going on Alfric?” He glanced at her and saw from the grey aspect of her face and overlarge eyes that she was terrified. “I’ll explain once we get away from here.” Whistling to the dog, he dragged her toward a wall of built in shelves. Grabbing a book with Edric’s name on the spine, Alfric reached into the space the book had been covering and pressed his thumb onto a tiny pad built into the shelf. The wall containing the shelves slid silently to the side.
He dropped the book back into place, taking the time to straighten it, and then pulled Pleasance through the opening in the wall. Clancy loped in after them.
Alfric slammed his palm on a keypad beside the door and it slid shut again.
They were standing in something that looked like a safe room. It had a television screen built into the wall through which they could see Alfric’s living space. Pleasance jumped as the door to his home blew inward, filling the beautiful place with smoke and debris. After a moment five men, dressed head to toe in black, came through the breeched door. They held what looked like machine guns in front of them and wore gas masks.
Not good.
“Let’s go. We can’t stay here.”
Dazed with horror, and feeling as if she was caught in a nightmare, Pleasance allowed Alfric to pull her away from the monitor. Alfric shoved a large, metal cabinet aside, exposing the trapdoor beneath it. He opened the door and bent down, fumbling around beneath the floor. Pleasance heard a click and a dull light filled the space beyond the hole.
Clancy, apparently used to the drill, lumbered through the hole and down the rough, wooden stairs. “Go ahead,” Alfric told her as he grabbed weapons from the cabinet he’d moved aside to reveal the trapdoor. He shoved guns into his jeans at the waist and grabbed a rifle of some kind before turning toward the opening.
Pleasance stood there, her eyes fixed on the monitor where the men appeared to be looking for a way to get into the safe room already. Her arms were crossed over her stomach and she looked as if she would be ill.
Alfric touched her arm. “Pleasance?”
She blinked and glanced toward the stairs.
He said softly, “We need to get through this door and to the car I have waiting in the underground garage. Can you run?”
She nodded, turned, and climbed quickly down the stairs. Clancy was nowhere to be seen, but she could hear his nails clicking against the concrete floor and large snuffling noises coming from the shadows.
The room where she stood was vast, stretching well beyond the arc of light created by the light over the stairs. The space darkened slightly as Alfric pulled the cover back over the door.
“I pulled the cabinet back over the trapdoor as best I could but it won’t take them long to find it if they make it into the safe room.”
Pleasance noticed that he looked worried and that made her pulse, already pounding so hard she felt like she might pass out, kick up another notch. “What’s wrong, Alfric?”
He glanced up the stairs and then looked at her. His face clearly showed his reluctance to voice what was bothering him. Finally, he grabbed her arm and they started moving again. Clancy bounded past them and took off into the shadows ahead. Alfric clicked a small flashlight on and shone it ahead of them as they moved quickly across the vast space, their footsteps echoing hollowly as they walked.
Pleasance wasn’t willing to let it go. No matter how bad it was, she preferred to know what was coming her way. She stopped and jerked her arm from his grasp. “Alfric?”
He stopped too, turning to her with an impatient look on his face. “Can’t we discuss this later?”
She shook her head. “I want to know now. What aren’t you telling me?”
He sighed, “Okay, but let’s keep walking while I talk.”
Pleasance fell into step beside him, thankful that he’d at least slowed down a bit.
“I spent years developing this place. I bought it five years ago, using a complex trail of information that would take an intelligence level investigation to unravel. I purposely stayed away from it for three years, further distancing myself from it just in case. My legal address is listed as an apartment downtown. I don’t have this address listed anywhere. There should have been no way for Raia’s men to find me here. Unless…”
Pleasance suddenly felt very co
ld. What kind of man were they dealing with in Jon-Luc Raia? How much power did he have? What kind of connections would have allowed him to unravel Alfric’s trail so quickly. “Unless what, Alfric? What are you afraid of?”
He stopped, watching Clancy happily chase a mouse across the debris strewn warehouse floor. Then he looked at her and his blue eyes were dark with worry. “I’m afraid he got it from a member of my team.”
She frowned. “You think one of your team is working with Raia?”
He shook his head. “Maybe, but it’s even more probably that he tortured one of them to get the information. And my team is trained to take an incredible amount of torture without giving up our intel.”
Pleasance stared hard into Alfric’s face, feeling a bone shattering cold seeping through her body. If what he suspected was true, then that made Raia the basest kind of monster imaginable.
And she’d worked with him, danced with him…oh my god she’d even flirted with him. Bile rose in her throat and she turned away, putting some distance between her and Alfric before she bent over and threw up everything she’d had to eat or drink for the last several hours.
She retched so hard it brought her to her knees on the filthy concrete. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she realized that it was all true. And she’d helped a terrorist kill all those people in Seattle.
She had done that. Pleasance Roberts. She’d been responsible for what had happened on that bridge.
She began to shake as the reality of what she’d done hit her.
What Jon-Luc Raia had made her do.
Suddenly, warm hands slid under her arms and lifted, pulling her to her feet. A pristine white hankie appeared before her face and she used it to wipe her mouth and dry her tears. She sobbed into the hankie and allowed Alfric to pull her against his chest, murmuring words of comfort to her as she shook under the onslaught of a tsunami of emotions.
“It’s okay, Pleasance. We’re gonna get him. We’ll make this all right.”
She turned beautiful blue eyes, swimming in tears, up to him. When she spoke her voice was husky with emotion. “I want to help, Alfric. I want to be part of bringing this evil bastard down.”
Life Liberty and the Pursuit of a Honeybun Page 8
