“Yes. He’s in Paris and he’s safe.”
“Good. And we’ve got some intel you’ll be interested in.”
Noah blew out a ragged sigh. Hell no, the mission hadn’t gone down like a normal op. Still, knowing not only that everyone was okay but that they had the intel to put Reddington away improved his mood vastly.
“Where are you?”
“La Rosa.”
“Can you get out of there?”
“Not without attracting attention.”
“Give me a number. I’ll call as soon as I have an extraction plan.”
“Sounds good.” Dylan rattled off a number and then disconnected.
Pressing the End button, Noah then used speed dial for the one person who was even more on edge than he was.
McKenna answered, as he had, on the first ring. “Noah?” The fear in her voice was apparent.
“She’s safe … they’re both safe. I’m planning on an extraction tomorrow.”
She blew out a shaky, relieved breath. “I’m going, too.”
He didn’t bother to argue with her. “I’ll call you with the details as soon as I have them.”
“And she’s really okay?”
“Yes. I heard it directly from Dylan.”
“Thank you, Noah. I’ll talk to you soon.”
Noah closed his phone and set to work. Reddington might well have friends in the city, but LCR had something he didn’t have: the best people in the world. And when it came to LCR operatives rescuing their own, no one else came close.
Dylan dismantled the disposable phone and dropped the pieces in the garbage can. Before they’d checked into the hotel, he’d purchased two. Noah would call on the other one once he had plans in place.
He glanced over at Jamie, who was curled up in a ball on the bed, fast asleep. They’d driven outside the city, into a smaller community. The people of La Rosa weren’t wealthy, but they were friendly and helpful—at least the ones not carrying guns. He’d stopped and asked for directions to a place to stay and had been directed to a small hotel. The manager had been only too happy to take his euros and arrange for a meal to be sent up.
Jamie had been at his side the entire time. Yeah, they’d both looked like bedraggled sea demons. Salt had dried on their hair, making it stiff and wild, and their wrinkled clothing smelled like dead seaweed. He didn’t want to attract attention, but he wouldn’t leave her alone again.
Knowing she was in the ocean by herself, battling choppy waves and possibly attracting the attention of the gunmen, had been torturous. Of course, when he’d watched her take down a man holding an AK-47, a man twice her size, the word “fear” had taken on a new meaning. Dylan was running toward her when it went down. He hadn’t been close enough to help and couldn’t shout at her. Seeing her leap onto the man’s back and choke him into unconsciousness was a memory he’d never get out of his head.
Never, in his entire life, had he known anyone like Jamie. Even when the odds were against her, even when she wasn’t qualified or trained to do something … or hell, even when someone else could get the job done, she didn’t stop.
A small muttering sound caught his attention. She was dreaming, maybe even having a nightmare. After what she’d been through, not having nightmares would have been strange.
As soon as they’d gotten to their room, she’d gone into the bathroom. Five minutes later, she’d emerged with one towel around her body, another wrapping her hair. She’d grimaced. “Had to take a shower.”
He’d been about to ask her how she felt when he saw her arms. They were covered in scratches and cuts. “What happened to your arms?”
She shrugged. “That man I jumped.”
He’d wanted to growl at her for being so foolish and hug her for being so damn brave. And he’d wanted to know where she’d gotten that kind of training. He hadn’t taught her how to choke a man into unconsciousness. But the whiteness of her face and the tension around her mouth had stopped all questions. She needed rest … the talking could come later.
She moved restlessly and then blinked her sleepy eyes open. “Aren’t you tired?”
Her voice was raspy and rough, as was his. Swallowing and choking on copious amounts of seawater will do that to a throat.
“Yeah, a little. I called McCall.”
“Did you tell him what we have?”
“Yeah. He’ll call back tomorrow with a plan to get us out of here.”
“Did he say anything about McKenna?”
He almost smiled at the timidity in her voice. She could take down a man twice her size without blinking an eye, but facing her sister’s wrath was something she was obviously dreading.
“No, but I’m sure he called and told her you were fine.”
She rolled over onto her back and sighed. “She’s going to be so pissed.”
There was no denying that. McKenna had been under the impression that Jamie was teaching school in Louisiana. Instead, she’d been halfway across the world, in the middle of the enemy’s camp, single-handedly performing her very own sting operation.
They still hadn’t talked about exactly how all of this had taken place. “How long were you working on the island?” he asked now.
“Only a few weeks.”
“How’d you do it?”
She released a ragged sigh. “When I was locked up in Reddington’s room, as you know, I overheard a lot of things. Once, during his daily conversation with his wife, they discussed the need for a new teacher for their young daughter, Amelia. I only heard Reddington’s side of the conversation, but from the sound of it, Mrs. Reddington wasn’t pleased with the teaching methods of her current teacher. Mrs. Reddington had specific requirements she wanted in Amelia’s new teacher. And Reddington agreed that by June of next year, she could start interviewing for a new one.”
“How did you know how to go about being interviewed?”
“He mentioned the agency he would use.” Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “It didn’t really strike a chord with me at the time. I still thought that when I got out of there, Reddington could be prosecuted like an ordinary criminal. When I realized that wasn’t going to happen, the conversation took on more meaning.”
“That took fake IDs, a fake résumé, references. A hell of a lot of planning. How’d you pull that off?”
She sat up, propped a couple of pillows behind herself, and leaned against them. “After my rescue, during that month McKenna and I spent in Paris getting to know each other again, she told me about the men in Memphis who’d helped her with fake IDs. Settling things with my ex-husband took less time than I thought it would, so I flew to Memphis and made contact with them.”
By choice and habit, Dylan wasn’t a man who talked much. Now, for the first time he could remember, he was speechless. They’d shared that plane trip to the States. As he had sat beside her, thinking how vulnerable and fragile she was, she’d been planning this job.
Apparently not realizing that she had shocked him, she continued: “After my training with you was over, I was going to present everything to Noah. I knew that having LCR’s backing would help.”
She didn’t need to explain why that plan hadn’t panned out. He’d been instrumental in destroying it.
“I visited McKenna briefly after I left the cabin. I told her I was going to work in the States. That’s when I went back to Memphis. My fake stuff was waiting for me, but I still needed more training. So, I sent my résumé, which listed the specific things Mrs. Reddington wanted, to the agency Reddington planned to use, and while I waited, I trained more.”
“Who?”
“A couple of former military men had opened a gym in Memphis. McKenna told me she’d gotten a lot of her training in a similar way with a group of guys in Maryland. I figured these guys could teach me the same kind of stuff. When I showed them what I could do, what you had already taught me, they agreed to take me on as a special project.”
At some point, he knew, he was going to be immune to shock, but he
wasn’t there yet.
“How could you be sure Reddington would hire you?”
“I wasn’t. But I heard enough to know what they were looking for in a teacher to stack the odds in my favor. Reddington wanted her to be single, with little or no family, and American. Mrs. Reddington wanted a woman in her early thirties, with master’s in both English literature and mathematics.
“With such specific requirements, I knew that the list of qualified candidates would be short. So I weighted my résumé with what I knew they wanted and then waited for them to contact me.”
“Did you know that he probably wouldn’t have let you leave the island alive?”
“I had to take the chance.”
“Why, dammit? Why the hell would you put yourself at risk like that when someone else could have—”
Fiery eyes turned to him. “No, don’t say it. Don’t you dare say that someone else more qualified could have done the job just as well. I got myself trained. I set it up. I was the one who got the files.”
“I’m not denying what you’ve accomplished, but you didn’t have to do those things. You could have been teaching school, having a normal life, without any threats. Why would you put yourself through that?”
“I had to.”
He recognized the mutinous expression. Determined to get the truth from her, he went in another direction with his questions: “You do realize that what we have on Reddington probably won’t put his son behind bars, don’t you?”
Her expression became even more closed, and in a way, he had an answer to his most burning question. Even though he had suspected it all along, it was now confirmed. “What did Lance do to you, Jamie?”
She was silent for so long, he wasn’t sure she’d give him any kind of answer at all. When she spoke, as usual, it wasn’t what he expected.
“Does it seem strange to you that there’s very little you don’t know about me and very little I know about you?”
“What?”
“You know everything, Dylan. My parents’ murder, my crummy marriage, what happened with Damon Hughes, and most everything that happened in Reddington’s house. Here’s what I know about you.” She held up a slender hand and ticked off each item as she spoke: “One: I know you grew up in the States. By the way, there are fifty of those now, so that’s a damn large generalization. Two: I know you were once married. Three: I know you have a degree in psychology. And four: I know your father killed your mother.” She glared accusingly at him. “Four things compared to my entire life seems damn uneven to me.”
“What do you want to know?”
If she weren’t so tired and dispirited, Jamie would’ve thrown a pillow at him. The instant she’d made that statement, his face had closed down. Why she’d thought confronting him point-blank would do any good, she didn’t know. But the wariness of his tone told her he was back in that defensive mode again. Asking him questions when he clearly didn’t want to tell her anything wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted him to share with her … not turn their conversation into an inquisition.
Rolling over on the pillow, away from him, she said, “Never mind. I’m going back to sleep.”
He was so silent, she couldn’t hear him breathing, but she felt his eyes on her. Was he wondering why she suddenly didn’t want to know about him? Did he get it? She knew the answer to that. Dylan wasn’t stupid. He knew what she wanted from him. And the painful truth was, he didn’t want to give it to her.
Closing her eyes against the tears that threatened, she forced her thoughts away from another bruise on her heart and thought about tomorrow—something she hadn’t done in what seemed like forever.
She had to find a way to make it up to McKenna. Before she had left for Reddington’s island, she had talked to her sister once a week. And each week, she had skirted the truth. Yes, she was pursuing a teaching job. Yes, she was beginning a new job. Yes, she was getting on with her life. And though, other than her location, she had never lied outright, she had misled her sister.
When she had decided on this plan, she had known the cost. She just hadn’t considered what would happen once she had accomplished her goal. Could McKenna forgive her or had she driven a wedge between them that couldn’t be healed?
Wrapping her arms around herself, Jamie let the tears she’d held back flow freely down her face, until sleep finally claimed her.
Sometime later, she woke in Dylan’s arms. His shallow, even breaths told her he was deeply asleep. Rolling over to face him, she murmured her content and burrowed into his chest. The fantasy of having his arms around her forever lulled her back to sleep and into the most restful slumber she’d had in months.
Hours later, she opened her eyes to find Dylan gazing down at her. The early morning sun cloaked the room in a gray tinge, giving her just enough light to see his face but not his expression.
“Everything okay?” she asked softly.
“Yeah. Just like looking at you.”
She’d gone to bed with her hair wet and figured she probably looked like some sort of woolly mammoth, so she was glad for the dimness of the room. Still, his words, unexpected and sweet, turned her heart over.
“Are you hungry? All we had yesterday was lunch, and we slept through dinner.”
Actually, she felt as though she had a crater in her stomach, she was so famished. But lying in Dylan’s arms, listening to his deep, still raspy voice, feeling his hard, warm body encircling hers? There was no food in the universe that could replace this wonderful sensation.
It seemed as natural as breathing to pull his head down and kiss him. Dylan’s lips were deliciously soft, wonderfully male, as he kept the kiss light, allowing her to lead, to show him what she wanted. Jamie wanted it all. She licked at his lips and then opened her mouth, inviting him in.
The instant she opened her mouth to him, Dylan took control. Waking with Jamie in his arms had felt like a dream, one he hadn’t wanted to wake from. He’d been lying here for a while, just watching her sleep. And now, right or wrong, he’d never wanted anything more than he wanted her at this moment.
The kiss went hot and deep, and suddenly, their hands were all over each other. Dylan was wearing only a pair of shorts; Jamie had on his T-shirt and nothing else. Gasping into each other’s mouths, their hands frantic with need, they stripped each other bare.
And then, as if in mutual agreement, everything slowed. Dylan’s mouth moved down the tender line of her jaw and stopped for a moment to pay special tribute to the chin that jutted out with determination whenever they argued. Needing to taste all of her silky flesh, he kissed down her slender neck and stopped at her breasts. He could stay here for hours, sipping, licking, and sucking. He licked a nipple, loving the way it tightened, hardened against his tongue. Covering it with his mouth, he suckled deep. Jamie’s hands on his head, holding him against her, along with her breathy moans, told him she loved it, too.
His mind blurred with passion, it took him a few seconds to realize she’d said something. Raising his head, he said, “What, sweetheart?”
In a panic, Jamie shook her head and pulled him down to her again. He hadn’t heard her. The words had slipped out, but to say them now, when he was looking down at her, asking … No, she could do a lot of things, but repeating “I love you” to Dylan wasn’t one of them.
The bristly stubble on his face rubbed against her abdomen as his mouth traveled down. When his tongue swirled around her navel, Jamie arched up, needing and wanting his tongue somewhere else. She was burning from the inside out, turning into a molten pool of need, with every hot sensation coalescing between her legs. The thought of his tongue probing there put her at the very edge of climax. And then, oh yes, he was there, licking, thrusting, sucking. Arching her body upward, Jamie cried out his name as she spiraled into ecstasy.
Sanity returned slowly and, with it, renewed desire. Dylan lapped at her, licking with soft, sure strokes … the tenderness of his touch bringing tears to her eyes. Desire strumming once more, she whispere
d, “Dylan?”
This time he heard her. Raising his head, he said, “What, sweetheart?”
“I need you inside me.”
As he leaned over the side of the bed, she heard a rustle. It wasn’t until she saw the packet he was ripping open with his teeth that she realized he had pulled a condom from his backpack. Laughter bubbled through her. He had produced everything from bandages and gauze to a protein bar he’d given her on the boat, and then chewing gum when she’d needed to get the taste of the ocean out of her mouth. And now condoms. “What else do you have in that bag?”
“I’ll let you explore later.”
Taking the packet from his hand, she whispered, “Deal” and slid the condom over him. Dylan groaned and surged into her hand. Unable to let go, she held his erection in her hands, caressing the hard length.
“Enough,” he growled. Suddenly, her world turned upside down as he dove into the bed and pulled her on top of him. Straddling him, she took him into her hands again and slowly eased him into her. A hissing sound brought her eyes up to his. “Okay?”
Hard, callused hands grabbed her hips, but with infinite gentleness and ease, he pressed into her until he was buried deep inside her, and then he answered with a husky “Perfect.”
She couldn’t have agreed more. Every worry, every problem disappeared from her mind. What today held for them, what worries she had about the future vanished. This was the man she had loved for so very long, and if this was the last time she’d be in his arms like this, then she wanted to have the memory untainted, with nothing other than pleasure and fulfillment in her mind.
Lowering her entire body over him, she covered his mouth with hers, tangling and dueling with his tongue, licking at his lips. Her body rode him, up and down, until waves of pleasure zoomed through her again.
Shudders of fulfillment went through her as she collapsed onto his chest, and then she held him tight and close as Dylan ground into her and found his release. Jamie took a deep breath, inhaling his scent into her memory. Her entire being felt like warm, melted wax. With Dylan’s strong arms around her, his scent on her, and a part of his body still inside her, she drifted into a delicious and satiated euphoria.
Sweet Revenge Page 30
