Hooking a chair, he dragged it around to straddle the seat. Jill took a cautious sip of the scalding brew while the intense young man catalogued Cody's many notable achievements. Rob was running out of steam when he let drop a comment that brought Jill's head up.
"Everyone thought Ditech would go belly-up when Dr. Richardson left," he said. "Good thing for them he retained his position on the board."
"Why's that?"
"Ditech invested heavily in research they hoped would lead to an inexpensive, readily available an-tianthrax vaccine. Unfortunately, the research was seriously flawed. Dr. Richardson convinced the board to terminate the project before the staggering costs dragged the whole company under. Over his father-in-law's strenuous objections, or so the rumor goes."
Carefully, Jill set the cup aside. "His father-in-law?"
"Right. Jack Conway, founder and CEO of Ditech. Dr. Richardson was married to his daughter."
Well, hell! So much for Jill's investigative skills! Despite her several inquiries into Cody's background, she'd failed to turn up that particular tidbit.
Not that it really changed anything, she supposed. Cody had disclosed his financial dealings with Ditech. The Department of Defense investigators who'd checked the doc out would have made the connection to the company's CEO prior to granting him his security clearances. Still, Jill filed the interesting bit of information away for follow-up when she returned to the Pegasus site.
If she ever returned to the Pegasus site. Four cups of coffee and two trips to the ladies' room later, she was beginning to wonder if Cody had taken up residence at Decker Labs. Finally he and Dr. Nez emerged from the inner sanctum. The aura of excitement that enveloped them was almost palpable.
"Sorry this took so long," he said, not looking the least penitent. "Ready to go?"
She managed not to comment that she'd been ready for the past hour. The beautifully groomed director of Decker Labs opened the outer doors for them, but left it to Rob to escort the visitors to the exit.
"We'll forward the samples to the National Institute of Health and the Center for Disease Control," she promised. "Unless you want to make the notifications yourself."
"Your folks should do it. They were the ones who ID'ed this baby."
"With your guidance! Brilliant work, Dr. Richardson."
Grinning, Cody tipped her a two-fingered salute. "Back at you, Dr. Nez."
The goggle-eyed Robert looked from his boss to his idol, but was too well trained to pepper either of them with questions about the specific findings. He picked up on their vibes, though, and fairly shimmered with excitement as he escorted the visitors out. They'd barely passed through the guard's checkpoint before Rob dashed back down the hall.
"So?" Jill asked as she and Cody stepped out into the star-studded night.
"We've identified the strain. It's definitely a variation of the flavivirus. A particularly virulent variation, judging by Ed Santos's symptoms. I still don't know how or where he picked it up, but at least now I know exactly what I'm looking for."
His voice vibrating with the exultation of a big-game hunter who'd bagged a rare trophy, he took her elbow to steer her toward the Lincoln. A woman of Jill's size and expertise in martial arts didn't particularly need steering, but she decided not to point that out.
Her reluctance to shake off his hold had nothing to do with the needles of sensation shooting straight from her elbow up her arm. Nothing at all. She just didn't want to put a damper on his triumph by emitting her usual prickly, hands-off signals.
For exactly the same reason, Jill didn't shut the door in Cody's face when he accompanied her to her room at the Kirtland Inn some fifteen minutes later. He was obviously too keyed-up over this new bug he'd discovered to hit the rack. After four cups of coffee, so was she.
He didn't wait for an invitation to follow her inside the suite. Decorated in glowing desert colors, the rooms boasted oak furnishings, a plush mauve carpet and opaque glass light fixtures engraved with the same Zia sun symbol that adorned New Mexico's state flag.
As she closed the door and turned to survey Cody, though, the room's decor was the last thing on Jill's mind. That was pretty much taken up by a large, restless male. His mind, obviously, was still on his bug.
"I haven't decided what to name it," he told her, frowning as he straightened the brochures and phone books on the desk. "The various strains are usually named after the place they first show up."
"Hence Ntaya and Rio Bravo?" Jill guessed.
"Hence Ntaya and Rio Bravo," he confirmed. "There's also the Japanese Encephalitis group, the Modoc group and the Uganda S. group."
"Sounds like that little sucker gets around."
"It does."
He moved to the well-stocked minibar and realigned the wineglasses on the shelf above the counter. Hiding a grin at his obvious need to do something, anything, to release his pent-up excitement, Jill folded her arms and leaned against the wall beside the door.
"So what's the problem here? Why can't you name your variation 'Albuquerque'?"
He left off fiddling with the wineglasses and threw her an impatient glance. "Because it hasn't presented in Albuquerque. Not as far as we know, anyway. It showed up some two hundred miles south of here...at a highly classified site no one's supposed to know about."
"Oh. I see your point."
The scientist in him was obviously as frustrated as he was thrilled by his find. He raked a hand through his hair, carving four neat furrows in the black pelt.
"I told Dr. Nez and her people that I was doing some research for Public Health Service on communicable diseases in the southwest when one of my team members took sick. They wanted to know exactly where, but I dodged the question by telling them the team has been highly mobile and we weren't sure where my colleague picked it up."
"That part's true."
"Right now." His blue eyes drilled into her. "If any more of our folks become infected, though, I'll have to report it to the Center for Disease Control. I'd also want access to local health records to make sure we're not dealing with a potential epidemic."
Jill gulped, uncrossed her arms, and pushed away from the wall. If they were dealing with a possible epidemic, preserving the security and secrecy of the Pegasus site would become an almost impossible task.
He must have read the dismay in her face. Shaking off his utter absorption with his find, he crossed the room to where she stood. "The Center for Disease Control is part of Public Health Service," he reminded her. "If we have to, maybe we can keep this all in-house."
"Yeah, maybe."
The glum reply pulled Cody from his total immersion in the night's findings. Without thinking, he slid his hand under Jill's hair and rested his palm on the warm, smooth skin of her nape.
"Hey, we should pop the cork on some champagne and celebrate. It isn't every day a guy gets to add a new entry in the Bad Bug Book."
She'd stiffened at the contact, but his comment drew a curious look. "Bad Bug Book?"
"Actually, it's the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Handbook on Pathogenic Microorganisms and Natural Toxins, but that's too heavy even for those of us in the business."
"Is that so?"
She tipped her head back, spilling a silky curtain over Cody's wrist. He stared into brown eyes fringed by gold-tipped lashes. For the second time in the space of a few hours, he took a kick right to the gut. This one, he noted with the clinical detachment of a scientist, was considerably more powerful than the wallop he'd experienced at Decker Labs.
Then Jill ran her tongue along her lower lip, and Cody's clinical detachment went to hell. All that remained was the urgent, greedy desire to kiss her again.
"Forget the champagne," he muttered, his gaze fixed on that wet, glistening stretch of skin. "I've just figured out a better way to celebrate."
This was crazy. Jill knew it, sensed Cody knew it, too. She had no business standing here like a brainless Barbie doll, waiting all gooey-eyed for Ken to dip his head. Yet th
at's exactly what she did.
She expected him to kiss her, was ready for the heat, the punch. But nothing in their previous contact prepared her for the electric jolt when he took her lower lip between his teeth The slow, erotic nips generated shiver after shiver..
She was just getting used to the shuddering sensation when he soothed the sensitive skin with a warm, wet sweep of his tongue. Afterward, Jill could never quite remember whether she wrapped her arms around his neck to draw his head down or he took the initiative. However it happened, they ended up with her shoulder blades pressed hard against the wall again and his mouth hot on hers.
Jill gave fleeting thought to her mission, to the need to maintain distance, to good ol' Goof and the gawky, gangly types she'd tried so hard to convince herself she preferred. The truth hit her about the same time Cody sandwiched her between the wall and his muscled body. She wasn't afraid or intimidated by his strength. She delighted in it. For obscure reasons she didn't stop to analyze, his masculine power stirred some atavistic feminine response deep within her.
On that thought, her conscious mind shut down. As greedy now as he was, Jill arched her spine to increase the sensual friction of his hard contours against her thighs, her belly, her breasts. When her hip made contact with the bulge pushing at the zipper of his jeans, Cody dragged his mouth from hers and slammed both palms against the wall beside her head.
"If we're going to stop this celebration," he ground out, "we'd better do it now."
He was giving her the choice. Jill swallowed, agonizing for all of ten or twenty seconds before blowing out a ragged breath. "I vote we continue the celebration and see where it takes us."
"I can tell you right now where it'll take us," he warned. "Are you sure that's what you want?"
"Yes. I think."
"That's not good enough," he said with a rough rasp in his voice. "I'm not your beer-guzzling college date I won't take what you're not ready to give."
"I know exactly who you are. And I'm getting more ready by the second. Now, just kiss me, dammit."
Chapter 9
Cody complied with Jill's irritated command and kissed her.
Once with finesse. Once again with somewhat less skill and considerably more greed. He couldn't seem to get enough of her eager mouth. Or her body. It strained against him and set fire to his nerves at every major contact point.
When she hooked a heel around his calf to increase the pressure even more, Cody went from hungry to seriously hurting. For the first time in three years, he didn't stop to think, didn't force himself to remember. Sliding his palms down the stuccoed wall, he cupped Jill's rear and canted her hips into his.
All too soon even that intense sensation wasn't enough. Gritting his teeth, Cody dragged his head up once more. "We keep this up and I won't be able to stagger upright into the bedroom."
Her head tipped back as far as the wall would allow. Cody's pulse pounded at the heat staining her cheeks. She wet her lip again, almost stopping his heart in his chest, and gave a husky choke of laughter.
"Who says we have to go into the bedroom?"
"Good point."
With one bunch of his muscles, he hoisted her up until her legs locked around his hips. One turn and three steps took him to the oak-trimmed sofa. They hit the cushions in a tangle of arms and legs.
As his weight crushed her into the cushions, a momentary panic pierced the pleasure spiraling through Jill. The instinct to ball her fists and jerk up her knee ripped through her, only to die an instant death when he brushed back her hair and dropped a soft kiss on the puckered scar.
"If I ever come face-to-face with the bastard..."
She held her breath as his lips traced the ridged line from her neck to her jaw.
"...who did this to you..."
His mouth was hot on her flesh, his hands fumbling for the hem of her tank top.
".. .he'll be eating through a straw for a long, long time."
"That's interesting," Jill managed to say breathlessly, raising her shoulders to let him drag off the top. "I told him essentially the same thing. He pretty much kept out of my way after that."
Cody didn't answer. She wasn't sure he'd heard her. His glance was riveted on her breasts, only half-covered by a scrap of lilac nylon trimmed with ivory lace. He tugged at the lace and dropped a string of kisses on the rounded slopes, but didn't make any comment until he'd unsnapped her jeans. When he'd dragged them down to reveal matching bikini panties, he raised pleading eyes to hers.
"Please tell me you don't wear this kind of underwear with your BDUs."
"These or some very similar. A girl's got to express herself, even in BDUs. Especially in BDUs."
Groaning, he buried his face in the curve of her stomach. "I'll never be able to look at you in uniform again without wondering what you're wearing under your top layers."
His breath was hot and damp against her belly. Jill hollowed her stomach under his nipping little kisses.
"As a matter of fact," she returned, trembling under the assault, "I'm wondering the same thing about you right now."
Grabbing a fistful of his collar, she tugged him up until she could reach the buttons on his white shirt. She was wedged against the cushions, half under him, half squashed against the sofa back, but managed to pop the buttons and slide her hands inside. Her palms glided over what seemed like acres of soft cotton T-shirt before finding the bare skin of his upper arms. Warm and tightly corded, his muscles jumped under her touch.
If she was going to call a halt to things, it had to be now, before either of them shed any more clothes. Jill knew it. Recognized that the responsibility for what happened next lay squarely on her shoulders. The ripple of warm flesh under her hands stirred such a fever of impatience and hunger that she accepted the responsibility eagerly. For tonight, for this crazy slice out of time, she intended to shut down her mind and just feel.
Cody must have sensed her inner decision. Or her hunger. Or both. Angling off the sofa, he rolled to his feet with the casual grace of an athlete. Any other time, that smooth coordination of bone and muscle might have bothered Jill. Not now. With her mouth throbbing from his kisses and her skin suddenly cool where it had been deprived of his heat, she wanted him naked and fast.
Thankfully, he wanted the same thing. He stripped down to his shorts. Before tossing his jeans down to join his shirt, he dug his wallet out of his pocket. Jill got a brief glimpse of the condom he extracted from his billfold and dropped on the table beside the couch.
She had protected herself against pregnancy since college days. She wouldn't leave that to chance. But the cautious side of her nature, the cop side that had seen too much misery and darkness, took fierce satisfaction in knowing Cody didn't leave such matters to chance, either. When he turned back to her, Jill got a glimpse of wide, muscled shoulders, a chest dusted with black hair, and long, lean flanks. He bent a knee and wedged it between hers, skimming a glance down her sprawled body. "Something tells me I'll be having erotic dreams about lilac and lace for a long time to come."
Not just about lilac and lace, Cody thought wryly. He had a hunch he'd be spinning late-night fantasies about every inch of this woman, in and out of uniform. His blood pounding, he reached for the front hook on her bra.
Lord, she was beautiful! He took a moment to admire high, firm breasts tipped a dusky rose before sliding his hands under the small of her back. Arching her up toward him, he let his mouth roam her belly, the tender undersides of her breasts, her nipples. By the time they were knee to knee and chest to chest, her breath was coming hard and fast and Cody was damned near bent double with the need to have her.
Panting, she reached down between their bodies and slid her palm inside the waistband of his Jockey shorts. He grunted as her fingers closed around him. Every muscle in his body strained with the urge to drag her back down to the cushions, but he forced himself to wait, to let her prime him until he had to clench his jaw against the pumping, pulsing sensations.
Then it
was his turn. Burying one hand in her hair, he ravaged her mouth while his other hand found the damp heat between her thighs. He slid a finger inside her slick channel, followed with another, and used the heel of his hand to exert a light, grinding pressure.
Within moments, she was wet and gasping. Moments more, and she flung her head back. A high flush stained her cheeks. Her eyes were wide and hot.
"Cody! I don't... I can't..."
"I can't, either," he growled.
He was all thumbs as he fumbled for the condom. Sheathed and so hungry for her he abandoned any attempt at skill or finesse, he tumbled her to the cushions. She parted for him eagerly, welcomed him with a clench of her muscles that had him gritting his teeth.
He almost lost it after the first couple of thrusts. He managed to hang on to his control, if not his sanity, until Jill arched her back and groaned. He felt her tighten around him again, felt the wild shudders of her climax and, somehow, held back until the torrent slowed to mere ripples.
Only then did he flex his thighs, drive in and lose himself in her.
"Am I too heavy?"
"Unnn."
The unintelligible grunt was the best Jill could manage.
"Sounds like a no," Cody muttered, nuzzling her tangled hair. "God, I hope it's a no. I don't think I have enough left in me to move for another hour or so."
Since she was sprawled under his very limp and very heavy body at that moment, Jill sincerely hoped he'd overstated the situation. Despite being pinned to the sofa cushions, though, she made no effort to dislodge him. Nor did she feel so much as a flutter of unease at her vulnerable position She was too sapped to feel anything at all.
She drifted in and out of pleasure, breathing in the salty tang of perspiration and sex. The combination was intoxicating beyond words. Sighing in hedonistic pleasure, she trailed a forefinger down the bumps on his spine. That stirred him enough to go from nuzzling the top of her head to folding down so he could nibble on her ear. She hunched a shoulder in a vain attempt to escape the tickling wash of his hot, damp breath.
A Question of Intent Page 9
