by Cherry Adair
She managed a nod. Internal muscles torqued tighter and tighter as he raised her slightly, then brought her down as she clenched around him. Her toes curled. "Better than okay. D-don't stop."
Jerking his hips to meet her, he said, "Never," his voice thick, his eyes dark and feral as he watched her face intently. He drove into her, again and again. Her entire body shook as his fingers dug into her hips, helping her maintain some sort of rhythm instead of exploding into a million pieces.
Waves of pleasure crashed over her, leaving her deaf and mute. Every nerve, every atom in her body, surged and pulsed, tightening unbearably, then releasing in a succession of tidal waves. The climax seemed to go on for an eternity.
Panting as if she'd run a marathon, River fell against his chest, burying her sweaty face against his damp throat. "Sorry." Breathing ragged, her body spent, she tried to formulate a response to the cataclysmic event, which, apparently, had only been explosive for her. He was still rock hard and in relative control of his senses. She'd fix that. In a minute, when she could gather her thoughts enough to forget her own response to him, and focus on his needs.
Maybe in two minutes, since her breath seemed to be on a runaway train and her heartbeat still pounded like mad. "I've wanted to do that from the second I met you. Inappropriate as I thought it was. Give me a minute."
His skin tasted salty against her tongue as her internal muscles flexed against his still-rampant erection and her lungs labored to draw in enough air. Trying to lift her hand to touch his face was impossible, so she licked his throat instead. His large body shuddered, and she realized that he was waiting for a sign that she was ready to go again.
Her throat ached with a well of emotion as his chest rose and fell—waiting.
"Minute's up." His voice sounded raw as he cupped the back of her head and tilted her face up so he could kiss her.
“Hmm.” It was the only encouragement he needed. Blood thrummed through her veins as he tightened his hands around the globes of her butt, plunging her down, guiding her to ride him to a shared orgasm. His body bucked, shuddering as he slammed home, his body locking with hers with each downward pull on her hips, each upward thrust of his own. After a long minute, he held her still and arched into her. Taking her mouth in another mind-drugging kiss, their joined bodies pulsed as he kissed her.
Finally, breathless, flushed, and sweaty, they broke apart.
With a gentle finger, he stroked a damp strand of hair off her cheek. "That has to go in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest fucking foreplay ever."
A day and a half. It seemed she'd wanted him for a lot longer than that. Limp as an over-cooked noodle, it took great effort for her to murmur, "Hmm." Her mind was still too hazed and drugged with Ash’s mind-blowing touch to be coherent.
"Don't look now, but we're being watched."
He laughed as she shot upright, one arm covering her breasts as she frantically looked around. "Him." He indicated a small, brown, big-eyed monkey, staring at them from the hood of the car.
Heart racing, River punched Ash in the arm. "You gave me a freaking heart attack!"
He smiled. "I like to look at you, too." Looping his finger around a strand of her wet hair, he tugged her face in for a lingering kiss.
River forgot where they were for a few more blissful minutes. God, the man could kiss. "I hate to spoil the moment, and I love having you inside me… But my underwear is like a tourniquet around my legs and is cutting off all feeling to my extremities."
"Hell, I should've done this before."
The spider monkey leapt off the car as Ash tore the delicate silk and lace apart. River shook her head. "There goes a hundred bucks."
"Jesus. Don’t you get a discount?”
“That is my discount.”
“Money well spent. Send me a bill. "
Since she had no idea what his real name was, nor did she have any idea where he lived, that would be tricky. Pulling her tank top down over her bare breasts—-she had no idea where her bra had ended up—-River eased off him.
Still erect, he gave her a frown of regret, holding her hips in place. She ignored the overwhelming temptation to stay there, with him warm and snug inside her. "The rain's stopped. Shouldn't you be getting back to town?"
He glanced at the black-faced watch on his wrist. "This car isn't going anywhere."
"Your watch just told you that?"
"Missing one tire and all these bullet holes tells me the car's almost certainly incapacitated. I'll call for pickup in thirteen minutes."
Thirteen minutes was pretty precise. River suppressed a smile. "You have a phone that works? Mine doesn't. Who're you going to call? Uber?"
"My men in town. But we have to wait for the satellite to position overhead for me to get a signal again."
River slid, bottom first, over the gearshift and into the small puddle on the wet leatherette seat on the driver's side. It felt cold and clammy against her bare heated skin. "Ew."
Cuffing her ankles with his warm hand convinced her to leave her feet where they were. In his warm, naked, lap.
They stared at each other as the leaves dripped, and the sound of rushing water indicated the nearby river. Birds started cheeping again now the rain had stopped, and their friendly voyeur was now perched with half a dozen of his friends on a nearby branch.
River indicated her linen pants, which were around her ankles. "Would you—-?”
“Nah. Like I said. We have thirteen minutes.” Like a heated physical touch, he dragged his gaze along her thighs, and at what lay between. His voice turned hoarse. “Eleven and a half now.”
She shook her head at the look of pure lust that still filled his eyes. Reaching for her pants, she lifted her butt to drag the wet fabric up over her naked parts. "Before we do that again, I think you'd better tell me who you really are, and what you and 'your men' are doing here."
Twelve
Lust quickly faded to something else. Professionalism? Respect? A man of honor, getting ready to live up to it? Whatever it was, she took it as an encouraging sign that he wasn’t going to keep her in the dark.
As she put herself back together, Ash also dressed. Pulling his pants up, arching to zip them, he then settled sideways in the seat to face her. "I work for T-FLAC. It's a private counterterrorist organization. We go after the biggest and baddest tangos around the world."
"Sounds like a non-stick frying pan."
He smiled. "Terrorist Force Logistical Assault Command.
A counterterrorist operative. That made more sense than his being a bishop. "Is your name really Ash Daklin, or is that an alias?"
"When I build a legend, I stick as close to the truth as I can. That's my real name. Everyone calls me Daklin."
His name suited him. "What are you really doing in Los Santos, Ash?" God, please don't tell me he thinks Oliver's a terrorist. Was he there expressly to arrest her brother for the explosion a couple of weeks ago? But no. Oliver was anything but a terrorist. Damn it, Oliver, where the hell are you?
"Francisco Xavier is a terrorist. He was relatively unknown until he discovered a vein of a highly explosive substance in his emerald mines a couple of years ago."
River let out the breath she'd been holding. "Five years ago?"
He raised a dark brow. "Probably, why?"
"That's when my brother was offered a lucrative job for which he was paid a stupid amount of money. He didn't tell me where he was, but he described Franco to a T. Oliver's a chemical engineer, specializing in explosives. But you already know that." Of course he did.
“We keep track of people like your brother," he said gently. "It’s our job to keep a close watch on anyone that adept at bomb making. We think Dr. Sullivan—-”
“He's not Dr. Sullivan to me." River looked around for her jacket. She wanted to cover herself, hide herself from the intensity of Asher’s pale eyes but she couldn't look away. "He’s just Oliver, my brother.” Her voice broke, which annoyed her.
His expre
ssion softened as he ran his fingers up her arm, tethering her with his light touch. “I get it. Trust me. I know all about family bonds, but I’m not going to lie to you. We think your brother's responsible for manufacturing the most powerful explosive ever made. It’s lethal and it’s now being used worldwide, thanks to your brother and Francisco Xavier. We're here to shut the operation down, and as much as you’re looking for your brother, I’m damn well looking for him, too. He isn't just your brother, River. He's the engineering genius who knows the chemical components of E-1x, how to manufacture it, and more importantly, how to safely defuse it."
Hope beat an unsteady drum roll in her chest. "That means if and when you find him, you'll want him alive."
"We do."
She was afraid to breathe. "And once he tells you what you need to know?"
His eyes darkened. River's heart sank. Oliver was in big, big trouble and Ash wasn't going to sugarcoat it. Now, instead of hoping she'd find Oliver here in Los Santos, River wished him far, far away.
"He's part of a criminal enterprise. A shit-load of people have died. He's an American citizen. If convicted, he'll be tried as a terrorist for murder."
Panic and fear beat inside her chest like a trapped bird. She didn't know how to contain all the emotions rattling around inside her. Fear for her brother. Anger. At Ash, at Oliver. At Franco Xavier.
River observed Ash's tightened features and laser-like focus as he stared out into the trees. He wasn't seeing the golden rays of sunlight piercing the canopy, or the way droplets of water shimmered on the edges of the leaves like silver sequins.
T-FLAC operative Ash Daklin didn't see the beauty.
He saw danger.
Man. Animals. Poisonous flora and fauna.
She reached out to grab his upper arm. “Look at me." When he looked into her eyes, she didn’t see anything that told her that he’d believe what she had to say. “I know my brother.” Her voice was thick with emotion because she didn't know her brother.
She hadn't a freaking clue what he thought or even what his values were. "Oliver would never intend to kill anyone. Never. He just doesn't think that way. If that was the end result," she paused to control her erratic breathing, "then he was duped into believing he was doing something noble.” She didn't know that for certain. It was just what she had to believe. Anything else was unimaginable.
"Whether his intentions were altruistic or not, he did manufacture E-1x. It has killed thousands of people, and if allowed to continue, it will kill possibly millions more. He must be stopped, River. The courts won't give a damn why he did what he did. They'll throw the damned book at him."
Dropping her hand from his arm, she pressed it to her churning stomach. “Oliver has a mild form of Asperger's. He won't do well in prison."
"One step at a time. First we have to find him, then we see where the information he gives us leads."
"I know he suspected something bad was going to happen. That's got to be why he deposited millions into my bank account without explanation just before he disappeared."
"We knew he moved money, we just didn't know where."
"He sent it to me. What gave me chills was the amount. Five million dollars! And he deposited the money without saying a word, then immediately dropped off the face of the Earth. That was when he stopped calling. From then on, my calls went directly to his voicemail."
"If he's alive, we'll find him. I swear to you, as soon as we do, I'll contact you so you know. One way or another."
"Can you promise me that if and when you find him, you won't hurt him?"
His expression gentled. "We don't want to hurt him. We need him. A half ounce Nut can bring down a twenty story building."
She frowned. "Nut?"
"The E-1x is treated with a hard substance to prevent premature detonation. Since it's a dark brown, almost black coating, it has the appearance of a Hawaiian kukui nut. We believe Dr. Sullivan was the one who took E-1x and encased it in a hard protective coating to make it safer to transport and ship."
Ash used his finger to slide back the hank of damp hair that kept falling into her eyes. His touch made her shiver with pleasure. She wanted to cradle his palm to her face, wanted to bury her face in his neck and have him hold her so tightly her ribs protested. She leaned back against the door instead.
"This is the most powerful explosive we've ever encountered," he told her, his steady eyes indicating he’d done this before. How far was he willing to go to get the person he was really after?
"We have no idea how to defuse E-1x in its whole state. It takes a sniper's bullet or remote control to detonate it. We don't know how to neutralize it once the casing is shattered."
It didn't surprise River that the explosive casing Oliver had made resembled something from Hawaii. The trip they'd taken to Maui with their parents when they were young had been a happy one. The thought that her brother had used that memory to make an explosive made her want to cry. Damn it, Oliver. She swallowed the lump of fear in her throat. "Did you injure your leg in one of these explosions?"
"Twice. My lower leg the first time on an op in Algeria, then my thigh eighteen months ago when my brother, also an operative, tried to help me out and went to our lab to work on disarming it on his own. I was too late. He was killed in the blast."
Instinctively, she reached out her hand in sympathy, twining her fingers with Ash's, while her heart pounded with mounting fear for her own brother’s safety. Now she prayed she wouldn’t find him.
"I'm sorry." Acid rose in the back of her throat as she read pain and determination in Asher’s intense blue eyes.
Oh, God. An eye for an eye? Oliver wasn't destined for prison, River knew with utmost certainty; Ash was here for revenge. Those hard blue eyes told her with certainty that if Oliver crossed Ash Daklin’s path, her brother wouldn’t survive.
"Part of the job." His expression sober, he stroked the back of her hand with his thumb almost absently. "All operatives know that. But Josh shouldn't have been killed on my watch. Not in our own backyard."
He wanted retaliation against the man he believed responsible for manufacturing the explosive that had killed his brother.
Not an eye for an eye.
River's blood froze, moving sluggishly through her body as her heart clenched. A brother for a brother.
Her constricted throat felt as raw as if she'd been screaming. Her mind darted back and forth like a hamster in a cage, as around them, the jungle came back to life. Water dripped musically from the leaves, and a fine fog surrounded them as the sunlight heated the rain-wet leaves and evaporated. Her throat was so constricted, it was hard to draw a real breath.
"You pretended to be a bishop because Franco is such a staunch Catholic and you wanted to get close to him."
He nodded. "That, and he's so paranoid he won't allow strangers into the village, and certainly nowhere near the mines. One of my men, Ramse Ortiz, the tall bodyguard up at the hacienda, has a father who's lived here all his life, and alerted us to unusual activity at the mine, as well as an increase in highly skilled security. T-FLAC sent in an advance team as “friends.” They all got jobs here, either as security at the plant and mine, or as Xavier's bodyguards."
"Nice." Her voice was dry. "Were those the guys shooting at us?"
"No. My guys went off duty as we were driving up. That truck we passed earlier was them headed back to town. Because Ram couldn't realistically bring any more of his “out of work” friends in, we set up an apparition. Father Marcus encouraged Xavier to ask the Pope to send someone to validate his claim."
"Aw, really?" She gave him a mock amazed face. "The apparition is fake?"
He smiled. "Xavier believes it one hundred percent. It also is one way to keep him right where we want him."
"If he doesn't want strangers in Los Santos, wouldn't having an apparition make everyone in the world want to see it?" As long as the subject wasn't her brother, River was able to pretend, just for a few moments, that she wasn't waiting for t
he other shoe to drop.
"Yeah. He's constantly wrestling on the horns of that dilemma."
"Is that why you're here? To arrest Franco and find Oliver so he can tell you how to defuse this bomb?"
"That and because E-1x is found in only one place on Earth that we know of."
Something tickled her neck. With a start, River slapped a hand there, squashing a big blue butterfly against her damp, sweaty skin. Sad that she'd killed something so beautiful, she wiped her hand on her pants, and fought back the tears that were so close she could taste them on her tongue. "If it's found in this emerald mine, it's probably in all the emerald mines in South America. In fact wherever they mine emeralds, right?"
"E-1x has nothing to do with emeralds. We've checked worldwide. The Los Santos mine is the only area where it's found."
"How will you get rid of it?"
"Blow the mine to hell."
"That's pretty extreme isn't it? Doesn't it go deep into the mountain?" The situation was grave. Disastrous for the innocent lives in the valley, terrible for the animals in the jungle, and cataclysmic for Oliver, if he was still here.
"Five miles at least. The whole mountain will blow like a volcano."
Skin prickling with nervous sweat, her stomach tight, she rubbed her upper arms as she hugged herself. "You're going to blow up a whole mountain? Dear God, what about everyone living and working in the valley?"
"We already moved most of them last night. The rest will be removed discreetly today."
"That explains why the streets looked so empty when I left earlier. When exactly is this going to happen?" She could hire a private investigator locally. Not Los Santos, but a big city like Santa de Porres must have private detectives. She'd pay whatever they asked for them to find Oliver discreetly. She'd find out which country didn't have extradition. God. What was she thinking? Oliver wasn't guilty. A conversation with him would prove that to Ash.
"Tonight.”
"Tonight?"
“I don't want you going back to town. Head straight to the airport. My people will make sure you get there safely."
