by Cindy Dees
The room spun around her, and she had no idea if Dutch had lifted her again or not. Everything fell away but her driving need to reach inside his very soul, to feast upon every cell of his being, to have this man. And then her clothes started to fall off, drifting away like smoke. She tore at his shirt, surprised that his buttons survived the attack as she ripped at the fabric in her haste to get to naked male skin. And then her palms encountered the raw silk of his flesh, sliding over slabs of rock-hard muscle. Pure animal need to feel him thrusting deep inside her drove her onward, clumsily peeling away the rest of his clothes.
A hum started somewhere behind him, and cool air from overhead struck her skin, not even putting a dent in the inferno consuming her. And then his arms were under her legs, scooping her up. He strode swiftly into the bathroom and deposited her on her feet in the shower. A quick flick of his wrists turning on the water, and then he was kissing her again, his hands and mouth roaming all over her body as he claimed every inch of her for his own.
His onslaught was merciless, leaving no quarter, nowhere to hide. She opened herself to him as water sluiced across her skin. Hot or cold, she couldn’t tell and didn’t care. Steam rose around them and then he was washing her, his hands soapy and slippery on her body, driving her out of her mind with the exquisite sensation of it.
His hand slid down her front, down the smooth slope of her belly and into the silky softness between her legs. He nudged her legs apart as his fingers slid lower, invading her most private flesh. How her knees managed not to buckle at the slick slide of flesh on flesh, she had no idea. And then his big, blunt finger was inside, testing her response. Her knees did collapse then. But his arm was there to catch her, pulling her against him, holding her close as the slow torture stretched into forever.
She threw her head back on a sharp cry of pleasure. He turned them both around, and hot water pulsed against her back as pleasure pounded her mercilessly from within. His fingers stroked and teased her until the walls disappeared and the skies opened above them. Rolling pleasure roared toward her like a towering, black wall of water, a tidal wave that crashed through her until every nerve in her body screamed with pleasure.
Delirious in her abandon, she keened her release. Water sliced across her face like wild rain, drenching her in the slashing glory of the present.
Practically drunk with pleasure, it took her a moment to realize that it was, in fact, the shower spraying across her heated cheeks. And that she was standing on her own two feet, under her own power. Dutch’s arms had fallen away from her. In fact, he’d taken a step back from her to the far end of the tub.
And then she looked into his eyes. They were pools of darkest, midnight black, staring at her as if looking into the past. No blank-stared blackout was this. Horror flickered in his eyes as they looked at and through her.
“Dutch, come back,” she begged, afraid. She reached for him, but he shrank away. Her hands fell to her sides. The water grew chilly against her skin. She tried again. “Dutch, the water’s getting cold. It’s time to get out of the shower.”
Swirling images of Julia’s face raced through Dutch’s head. A younger Julia with wavier hair. The same little-girl-grown-up beauty. Frightened eyes. A night like this, with rain making little rivers across her upturned face. An overpowering urge ripped through him, to hurt her. To wrap his hands around her throat and choke her. To kill her.
He staggered back, his hands shaking violently. The need rode him so hard, he could barely breathe. Get a grip! This was Julia. Sweet, innocent Julia who wouldn’t hurt a fly. But something primitive within him slavered, lusting for her blood. The jungle called, and the beast surged forward, tearing at its restraints. His head felt as if it was going to explode. He pressed his palms against his temples, trying physically to hold his skull together, stop it from bursting into a thousand pieces. He groaned in agony.
Her voice floated toward him from a long ways away. Saying his name. Coming closer.
“Get away from me,” he snarled. Please God, just make the ice picks in his eyeballs stop.
Strong, slender arms wrapped around him. Urged him out of the shower. He stumbled. Fell. Cold floor, but no pain. Then something rubbed all over his body. Warmer. The arms again, helping him to his feet, guiding him into a dark, cool place. Cushioning softness as he laid down, and blankets piled on top of him. Muffling the monster. Containing the claws of the beast.
He began to shiver. God, he was cold all the way to his bones. His teeth were even chattering. Eventually, sensation began to return to his skin. Awareness of a room around him. A flea-trap motel. Someone sitting beside him. Stroking his face. Gently. He squinted up at the shadowed figure. For a moment the flashback wavered into view like a mirage, but then it retreated. And only Julia remained.
“Hi, stranger,” she murmured down at him.
“Hey,” he mumbled back. If he wasn’t mistaken, he’d just made a colossal fool of himself.
“Feeling better?” she asked simply.
“Feeling human.” And he bet she had no idea how monumental an achievement that was, either. He frowned up at her. “Are you okay?” He had a vague memory of terror blossoming on her face, of her fleeing from the beast.
“Me? I’m fine,” she answered lightly. But something else vibrated in her voice.
He freed a hand from the blankets to run it through his short hair. “God, I’m sorry. I scared you, didn’t I? Look, if you want to leave me, I’ll call in someone else from the squad. I have a buddy on the team who’d help you, no questions asked.”
She looked long and hard at him, unfathomable thoughts flitting through her dark gaze. Finally she whispered, “I don’t want anybody else. Just you.”
He met her gaze candidly. And something passed between them. An understanding. An agreement of sorts. Recognition that there was something powerful between them, and if they both lived long enough they’d explore it.
“Some pair we make,” he remarked ruefully.
“You’ve got that right.” She grinned briefly. “Hungry?” she asked.
In his line of work, a guy never turned down a meal. Some ops got so hot or so covert that he might go for days at a time without eating. “What did you have in mind?”
“Pizza? There’s a delivery joint across the street.” She smiled and that damn mirage swam forward again. Something about seeing that water running over Julia’s face had triggered the memory. But the harder he reached beyond that one image, the more he felt it slipping away.
Enough was enough. He threw back the mound of covers and swung his feet to the floor. And realized he was naked. He swore under his breath. He glanced up to see if he’d shocked Julia, but she was smiling at him, and damned if that wasn’t unabashed appreciation he saw in her eyes.
He yanked on his shorts, which reeked to high heaven, but they were all he had until his SUV got delivered. Much better. He felt more in control now. Somehow, he’d managed to fight off the beast one more time, barely.
The pizza was average but filling. When they’d both eaten all they wanted, he pulled out his faithful laptop computer to see if it had survived the day’s shenanigans. He plugged it into the wall and the screen lit up as usual.
Julia collected the paper plates and went into the bathroom to throw them out. He felt her approach, looking curiously over his shoulder. “What are you up to?” she inquired.
“I’ve got to find out what’s happening to my head.”
He typed, logging on to the Internet and initiating a search on blackouts, flashbacks and nightmares. His attention riveted on the medical information scrolling down his screen. He read article after article and they all said the same thing. No doubt about it. His symptoms were consistent with someone harboring a repressed memory. A freaking huge one that was trying to surface.
No surprise there.
One thing he was sure of. Julia was the trigger to release it.
Chapter 10
A quiet knock on the door in the wee hours of
the morning swung Dutch out of bed and into a defensive crouch, gun in hand. Julia quickly rolled out of bed on the other side and onto the floor. A voice outside said low in Spanish, “I brought your car.”
“Anyone see you?” Dutch asked through the door.
“No. The INS, they left a couple hours ago.”
The Immigration and Naturalization Service? And then Dutch remembered their cover story about Immigration agents chasing Julia. He didn’t hear any stress vibrations in the guy’s voice to indicate someone had put him up to knocking on the door or was watching him from afar.
Dutch left the chain on—not that the flimsy thing would do a damn bit of good, but it might buy him a couple of seconds in a pinch—and opened the door a crack. A young Hispanic man nodded and smiled at him.
The kid held the SUV keys to the crack. “Sweet set of wheels. It’s parked around back.”
“Thanks,” Dutch replied. “What do I owe you for your trouble?”
“Nada. My brother’s share of the money you paid will feed his kids for a month. You be careful, dude. Those men, they were really hot to find your lady.”
“Thanks.” Dutch watched the young man through the window as he disappeared into the night. All was still outside. The kid wasn’t followed, as far as Dutch could see. He eased the curtain back into place and slid into bed beside Julia, who also crawled back under the covers.
Her breathing was shallow and rapid. As much as he’d like to think it was because he turned her on, he knew it to be nothing more than abject terror.
He rolled on his side and opened his arms. “Come here,” he murmured.
He gathered her cold, board-stiff body close, sharing his heat with her until she began to thaw out and relax. God, she felt good in his arms. Like she belonged there.
This was bad. Very, very bad. He’d watched half the guys on his team go down this road before. It was always a nightmare to get involved with a woman on an op. Maybe they got their girl when it was all said and done, but they paid in blood in the meantime.
And here he was, rolling around in the sack with Julia Ferrare. Worse, she made no secret of the fact that she wanted him. They were headed for some seriously hot and sweaty sex in the near future if he didn’t put on the brakes. And the situation couldn’t get much messier than that.
All he had to do was unwrap his arms, roll over and go to sleep. Go ahead. Do it. His arms didn’t budge. Sever the link, you coward! Put this op back on track where it belongs. Nothing. His body flatly refused to cooperate.
Dammit.
Distance. Emotional distance. Think detached. She was just an informant. He should work her over for information and then bring her in. He should do it now and walk away from this. Walk away from her. But there he lay, berating himself up one side and down the other. And he didn’t move a damn muscle.
Julia drifted off to sleep and turned to soft silk in his arms, but he lay there, ramrod stiff for hours, watching the clock tick away the minutes until he had to get up. Until he had to unwrap his arms and let her go. One minute before the alarm was set to go off, he kissed Julia awake. She stretched like a sleek kitten in his arms, and his heart clenched.
“Time to go, sleepyhead,” he murmured.
“Ugh,” she groaned. He tickled her neck and she laughed up at him. “No fair. I’m still half-asleep. Do we have to go so early?”
He sighed. “Yup. Roads are deserted at this hour. Nobody’ll follow us without me seeing them.”
With nothing to pack but the laptop and some cold pizza, they were out the door in a matter of minutes.
Julia headed for the passenger door of his SUV, but he murmured, “Change of plans. Help me get our bags.”
She frowned, but came around back and picked up her suitcases.
He looked around the parking lot, scoping out a decent target. Over there. A heavy-duty Jeep. It would handle the mountain roads and the snow that was in today’s forecast.
“This way,” he murmured.
Julia followed him, a perplexed look on her face. He dug out a pouch of tools, lay down underneath the front end of the Jeep and disabled the vehicle’s alarm system. It was a bit of a trick to reach, but he managed to snip the necessary wires.
He shimmied out from under the car. Using a Slim Jim, a flat metal tool that unlocked car doors from the outside, and a pocket reference book on how to jimmy different models of cars, he popped the Jeep’s locks.
He tossed their bags in the back and held the passenger door for Julia. Her eyebrows hovered in the vicinity of her hairline as she slid into the vehicle silently.
Hot-wiring the Jeep was kid stuff, and he had it running in about thirty seconds. He pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the highway, keeping a close eye on the rearview mirror for tails.
“And we just stole a car why?” she finally asked, nearly a half hour later.
“Keeping our tail clean,” he replied.
She looked over at him in dismay. “Don’t you feel any twinge of conscience over stealing somebody’s car?”
He glanced over at her, surprised. “I’m doing my job. The owner of this vehicle will get compensated by Uncle Sam when this is all over.”
She didn’t look convinced. And for some reason, he actually gave a damn about what she thought of him. He sighed and explained, “If it comes down to a choice between you and me staying alive or taking some guy’s car temporarily, which would you choose?”
Her gaze wavered and slid away.
He shrugged. “It’s not pretty or clean, but that’s how it goes in my line of work.”
Her dark gaze swiveled back to him. “That’s why I’m glad I found you. I could never do what it takes to stay alive on my own.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. You were doing okay when I found you.”
She laughed shortly. “I was at my wit’s end and would’ve been caught and perhaps killed within a few hours if you hadn’t come along when you did.”
He tensed when she reached over, put her hand on his arm and squeezed it gratefully. Sparks leaped between them, and the temperature in the Jeep went up noticeably. Good thing there wasn’t a rest area just ahead, or he’d pull off and make love to her right this very minute. By main force, he dragged his attention back to his driving.
Sometime later, Julia asked around a yawn, “Where are we going?”
“Montana.”
“As in where you’re from?”
“Yup. To my home turf. Let’s see if those bastards can move around unseen in a place where every single person knows everyone else, and a rancher would rather shoot you himself than bother calling the cops.”
“Sounds like the Wild Wild West.”
He nodded, “It’s isolated country. Folks up there look out for each other. I can’t think of a safer place to take you.”
Dutch kept one eye peeled on the rearview mirror as he put New Mexico behind them. Nobody followed them. He breathed a sigh of relief.
He drove until the sun rose, and now and then he saw a frown flicker across Julia’s face. Finally, he asked, “What’s got you looking so worried?”
“Are you taking me to your family’s house?” she asked hesitantly.
“No!” he answered in sharp alarm. He would never insult his parents by introducing them to the girl who’d set up Simon.
Julia replied fervently, “Thank goodness. I couldn’t live with myself if they were endangered on my account.” She paused and then added miserably, “I’ve hurt your family enough already.”
His gaze snapped to her. She sounded genuinely remorseful. Was that all part of her act? He wanted to believe her. Wanted to think she wasn’t an unfeeling monster.
He said quietly, “My dad has a hunting cabin in the mountains above our ranch, and I’m heading for it. I know the area around it like the back of my hand. We’ll be safe there.”
Silence fell between them. The morning was gray. Low, heavy clouds scudded along the mountain peaks as they made their way higher into the R
ockies. He eyed the sky warily. Those were snow clouds packing in. The kind that dropped truckloads of white stuff hard and fast.
He stopped for gas at midmorning and loaded up on emergency provisions: food, candles, matches, blankets, batteries and a portable radio.
They started out again and the wind began to pick up. By noon, it howled around the Jeep and he was forced to slow down lest they be blown clean off the narrow, winding mountain road. If they could’ve hopped onto an interstate highway without being spotted, they’d be crossing into Montana by now. But by traveling these anonymous back roads and taking a circuitous route, they were still hours away from their destination in the high Rockies, near the Canadian border.
The snow started around two o’clock. At first a few sparse crystals fell and then they thickened rapidly into big fat flakes. The snow, driven against the windshield by the developing blizzard, all but blinded him. He was forced to slow down even more.
Because of the rotten visibility, the dark blue, full-size sedan was almost in his back seat by the time he finally caught sight of it. His internal alarm system went wild. Almost as fast as the car had run up on their rear fender, it slowed down and disappeared from sight. Oh yeah. Definitely Ferrare’s men. The bastards got close enough to make his license plate, but the second they knew it was him and Julia, they backed off to wait for reinforcements.
He swore under his breath. How did those jerks find them way out here in the middle of blessed nowhere? They must have heard about a stolen vehicle in the parking lot of the hotel where his SUV was parked. Definite police contacts, then. Dammit. He pressed down on the accelerator on the assumption that this Jeep had more guts than that sedan.
He drove in grim silence for nearly half an hour. He didn’t see the blue car again, but he had no doubt it was back there somewhere. He jolted when a cell phone rang shrilly. That wasn’t his…
He frowned as Julia lurched and dug her cell phone out of a coat pocket hastily. She put it to her ear and said a nervous hello. She listened in silence for several seconds, then mumbled a couple yeses and noes. As the call progressed, the color drained out of her face, leaving it a sickly beige shade. She disconnected the phone silently. He watched without comment as, with shaking hands, she stowed the instrument in her pocket.
