by Lora Leigh
As Jason McClane's niece, and a stockholder in the various companies and properties he owned around the world, Kira was known as his "source." One of the few people he relied upon when it came to investing in certain businesses. He was well known for working in the hot spots of the world, for turning a profit out of humanitarian aid by building contacts. And Kira was well known in those hot spots. It was one of the ways she gathered her information on insurgencies, the movers and shakers involved in those conflicts, and where they might be going. And in certain instances, disguised and dangerous, she was known as the Chameleon. Able to blend into her surroundings to gather information that had nothing to do with McClane or his various businesses.
He'd seen her as a blonde, a redhead, and a brunette over the years. She could use makeup like a weapon, changing her features so drastically that the true persona of Kira Porter wasn't even recognizable. Unless you followed body movements rather than faces, which few people did. The shift of a hip, a particular gleam in the eye that had nothing to do with color, the soft curve of an ear unique to one woman, or perhaps just an underlying scent. Or maybe it was just one woman's effect on a particular man and his ability to recognize it. Because in each instance he had become harder than iron and so damned aroused he was nearly panting when he saw her. No matter her persona.
Durango team, the unit he had fought with for the past five years, had run several ops based on information provided by the Chameleon. In each instance she had been on the inside of the op and present when it went down. And each time, Ian had recognized her, though the team had never been given her identity. Hell, he'd even taken her prisoner once when the team had been sent in to rescue an American diplomat being held in South America.
She poked her nose into places too damned dangerous for his peace of mind, he was beginning to realize.
"I'm certain my ceiling is perfectly interesting," she said sarcastically. "I was attempting a discussion here."
Ian looked down to where she rested on his chest. The irritation in her gray eyes brought a smile to his face. Damn, he should be running as fast as possible from her.
"I don't need your help, Kira. You'd help me more by leaving."
There was no doubt he was going to have to stay away from her.
"I think you're well aware that's not going to happen," she gritted out. "Do you think you're the only one who has a stake in identifying and capturing that bastard? Sorry, Ian, no-go. It's just as important to me."
Of course it was. One of Sorrell's militant groups had claimed responsibility for the blast that killed her family and Jason McClane's fiancée twenty years before.
"You can't let this get personal, Kira," he told her somberly, aware of the irony behind his statement. "And this is no place to try to fight what's between us, as well as the job at hand. It risks both our lives."
"I don't believe that. What we have between us makes success that much more important. It will make working together easier."
"For you maybe." He brushed her hair back from her face, wondering at the almost innocent quality in her face. She had an air of purity, of life, that never failed to amaze him. Or to challenge him. She had no idea what she was asking for when she asked to share his bed.
"For you as well." A frown tugged at her brow as her gray eyes darkened.
Ian shook his head. "I'd be too concerned with protecting you, watching out for you, than I would be on the danger. I can't afford that distraction. I can't afford the cost to my soul if you were killed here." He was a chauvinist. He had never pretended to be otherwise. When a woman was anywhere in the vicinity working an op, a part of him was always looking out for her. Women were strong, no doubt. Resourceful and intelligent. But the primal male inside him still insisted that they were to be protected.
"It's my risk to take," she informed him. There was no anger in her tone, only strength, purpose. She was a force to be reckoned with, his head knew that. She was an experienced operative. But his heart, right there below his head, clenched in fear at the danger she could be in.
She was his to protect. The only way to protect her was to get her out of the game.
"We're not going to agree on this, Kira," he finally said. "Let's enjoy what we have of the night, because you are not a part of this mission."
Before she could protest further he pulled her lips to his, catching them in a kiss as soft as sunrise and as hot as lava. That was what she was. Sunlight and heat, and for just a few more hours, he needed that heat. He needed Kira in ways even he didn't understand. And that scared the hell out of him. She softened a part of him that he had never believed would soften. His determination to always remain detached was like ashes in the wind with her.
But she came to him, like a pure fresh breeze pushing out the stench of evil he lived with. Her lips moved on his, heated silk, her hands flowing over him like pure passion.
This time, he let her have her way. He lay back and watched and let her touch and her passion flow into him. Let himself enjoy the sheer rapture of her touch.
This wasn't the time to assert his own control. His own dominance. He wanted her to carry away the knowledge that he could be gentle, that he could touch her with tenderness. Because once the sun rose, he would once again be a product of the world he lived within.
What was it about her? As her lips moved over his, her tongue tempting him, teasing him, as he let his hands coast over her back, that thought slid through his brain.
What was it about Kira that made her touch so special? Her sighs worth so much more than any others he had ever caused? And it only made him ache more for the screams of pleasure he knew he could draw from her.
He didn't know why, and as her sharp little teeth nipped at his lower lip, at that moment, he didn't care. His hands bunched in her hair, rubbing the strands against his palms as she kissed her way down his body and his cock rose to full strength in welcome.
Hot lips moved over his chest. Her tongue licked and played with the hard flat nipples there, the sigh of her breath over them causing him to stretch beneath her in pleasure.
Sharp nails scraped down his abdomen, sending pinpoints of wicked sensation to attack his balls. And he touched her. Caressed her back, her shoulders, cupped her head in his hands and groaned in hunger as her lips reached his abdomen.
Sex had always been one of his greatest pleasures. Sex with Kira could become addictive though.
"I've been dying to taste you," she whispered as she moved between his thighs, her hands wrapping around the length of his shaft firmly, enclosing him in soft heat as he felt his heart racing.
"It's all yours," he murmured, the sound of his own voice surprising him. It was gravelly at the best of times, but the roughness to it now went beyond that.
Emotion always made it deeper. He didn't want to look into the emotions she raised inside him. He couldn't do that, not yet.
But he could let the pleasure wash over him, and when her damp, wicked mouth surrounded the head of his dick he didn't have a choice.
"Damn. That's good, Kira. So good." It was like liquid hot ecstasy. Her mouth surrounding his flesh, hot and wet, without a condom, each sensation raking over sensitive nerve endings and cording his muscles with tension.
The sight of her consuming his cock was enough to blow his mind, assuming he had any mind left after that earlier orgasm.
Which he didn't. Because when her mouth tightened on the head of his cock and her tongue flicked over it, he latched his fingers in her hair and held her there. Right there. Where her tongue flicked over the sensitive under-crest and sent shards of sharp sensation racing through his shaft straight to his tightened balls.
"Your mouth should be licensed," he groaned. "It's damned wicked."
The fingers of one hand stroked the shaft as the other moved to the tight sac of his scrotum. There, her nails scraped and played and had his teeth clenching at the lust overwhelming him.
Ian let her have him. All of him. He pushed the danger to the back of his mi
nd, the operation and the evil he faced on a daily basis, to relish her touch.
"So good," he whispered as she sucked at the head of his cock, forcing him to tighten, to hold back. "I love your mouth. Your touch."
A moan rippled over the tight flesh.
His lashes lifted to stare down his body at her.
Her face was flushed with passion, her eyes darkening, swirls of gray and blue-gray color intermingling in a storm that mesmerized him.
She pulled back, let him watch her tongue curl around one side of the wide crest and watched a small drop of precum form on the head of his cock. Kira smiled a sultry smile, and when her tongue raked over it, drawing the little drops inside her mouth, he ground his head into the mattress to keep from releasing then and there.
"Come here." His hands slid to her shoulders, urging her to him. "Ride me. Let me feel that sweet, hot little pussy taking me again. Just one more time."
He reached to the bedside table, fumbling for one of the condoms that he had left there.
Kira took care of that quickly. Within seconds she had the hard length of his erection sheathed and was throwing one leg over his hips, coming down to him, letting him watch.
Damn her. She moved slowly, letting him watch as the engorged crest parted bare, slick folds and began to disappear inside the hot depths of her pussy. An inch at a time, rising and lowering to take more, until with a groan, he was seated fully inside her.
He stared up at her, his hands moving to cup her breasts, flick her nipples before they moved to her back and drew her down. He wanted as much of her as he could get. Every touch, every taste, every sigh.
He watched her breath hitch as he fought just to breathe himself, feeling the snug grip of her sex stroking him, milking with exquisite tendrils of pleasure. Taking him places he swore he had never been before with a woman. And when her lips touched his, the last fragile bonds to control were erased. One hand clasped her hip, the other the back of her head, holding her to him as he began to thrust, meeting each downward stroke of her pussy with a powerful lunge.
He snarled against her lips, because it was too damned good. Because walking away from this was going to fucking kill him.
He rolled with her, trapping her beneath his plunging hips, and felt her legs wrap around his back. Her hands were in his hair, on his back, scratching, holding to him as he fought to hold back, to force her to hold back.
He wanted to talk. Wanted to tell her how perfect she was, how hot, how exquisite. But he couldn't. Not yet. Because electricity was sizzling from his balls, up his spine, and centering in his brain. Lust was tearing through him, adrenaline spiking, and they were both coming.
He buried his head in shoulder, shaking from the hard, fierce jets of release that felt more like glowing bursts of rapture.
He wrapped his arms around her, desperate to hold on to her. Just for a little while longer. Then he would let her go. Just a little while longer . . .
* * *
Nine
AS DAWN NEARED, AND THE darkness outside began to lighten, Ian slipped from Kira's bed and found the clothing he had discarded earlier that night.
He finished dressing, slipped back onto the balcony, and dropped over the side of the rail to the ground below. Crouched by the wayaca tree that had given him the boost to the balcony that he had needed the night before, Ian narrowed his gaze, staring around the garden that separated him from the stone fence on the other side.
Confident he wasn't being observed, he made his way quickly through the flowering shrubs, bougainvilleas, and various trees until he reached the ten-foot stone fence. Once again using one of the many wayaca trees spread around the property, he made his way to the top to the divider and dropped into the Fuentes grounds once again.
From there, it was only a short distance to the villa. Diego's night guards didn't notice his passing, and the dogs the guards used never flinched at his scent. He was a part of the grounds, nothing to get excited about, so they did nothing to warn the guards of his presence as he climbed to the balcony outside his bedroom and let himself back inside.
As he closed the glass doors behind him, Deke rose from his reclining position on the couch in the sitting area of the room and stretched stiffly.
"You said an hour." The other man reminded him irritably of the amount of time he had been gone.
Ian let his lips quirk at the querulous tone. "I had the cell phone on me, you could have called if you needed me."
Deke snorted at that one, his eyes narrowing on Ian then. "Man, you look like you been rode hard." There was a note of envy in the bodyguard's voice. "Bastard. Hope you enjoyed it enough for the both of us."
Ian almost chuckled. Deke's lover, an American law graduate, was waiting patiently at home while he played in the criminal element, both of them surviving on the impromptu, secretive visits the other man managed to make every few months. Sometimes, only a few times a year.
Yeah, he had enjoyed the night enough for four men, and still he was far from satisfied.
"You gonna try for a few hours' shut-eye before the day begins? I can take up watch in the main room."
Ian shook his head. "Did you manage some sleep?"
"A few hours." Deke nodded.
"Go catch a few more," Ian instructed him. "I'm going to shower and take care of a few things before we meet later. We have that meeting with Radacchio and his three sons later this afternoon. I'll catch a nap on the way there and then on the return."
"Yeah, good ole Radacchio called daddy dearest just after you left. That meeting might not be so important, because Diego informed him in rather bloody terms of the fact that the Fuentes cartel will no longer require their services."
Ian grimaced and shook his head. He should have known Diego wouldn't leave it alone. Hell, a part of him had known. Diego had ruled with a bloody hand, and he saw no reason to do things differently now that Ian was stepping into the cartel. For some reason, he thought he could make Ian enjoy the killing, the drug wars, and the blood lust that fueled them.
"I'll take care of Diego before we leave." He sighed. "Be ready to roll by nine. I want to be in place and I want the meeting site secured before we enter. I don't put betrayal past Valence Radacchio any more than I put it past any of Diego's other business associates but I want to hear what he has to say about that last attempted hijacking."
Deke touched his fingers to his forehead in agreement and farewell before slipping from the bedroom, then the adjoining sitting room. Left in the dark alone, Ian stared around the bedroom, his eyes narrowed, as he considered the spy Sorrell had on the estate now.
He'd received proof of the transfer of information before leaving the night before. Not that she had been able to take much to her contact. Ian didn't keep Diego in the loop for the most part, knowing his habit of discussing everything that passed by him with Saul. Diego was careful, he was smart, but one of Sorrell's spies had slipped by him.
Shaking his head, Ian headed for the shower. He needed to clear the scent of Kira from his head so he could think and move on with his own plans. No doubt, he was going to have to find a way to get rid of her now. The past night had proved his weakness to her. He would never be able to stay out of her bed knowing she was so close.
And it wouldn't take long for someone to catch on to the affair and to betray it to Sorrell or one of the other cartel enemies. Hell, even to Diego, which would be just as bad. He knew his dear old pop. The minute he learned Ian had a lover, a woman who meant more than a one-night stand, then he would start plotting, conspiring. Because nothing mattered more to Diego than learning a weakness; he had a need to exploit. And Ian was smart enough to know just how easily he could be manipulated if Kira were in danger.
He had realized that somewhere around the time he had looked down and seen his cock spearing between her lips, seen the hunger in her eyes, and the need glowing in her face. Or maybe about the time she had stopped fighting him, stopped fighting the control he stole from her and let him enforce h
is own.
TWO HOURS LATER, IAN STALKED into the servants' quarters on the first floor of the villa, his foot landing squarely on the locked door of Liss Dannear's bedroom door and splintering it from the hinges.
With Deke behind him, he moved slowly into the room, his eyes narrowed on the two women now cowering on the bed.
"Surprise, surprise." His smile was tight, hard, as he looked from Liss to Eleanor. "My, my, ladies, been up to fun and games, have you?" It seemed the known and the suspected information leaks were keeping more intimate company than Ian had guessed.
Eleanor's kittenish features were twisted into shock and dismay, while Liss lowered her eyes quickly, but not before Ian glimpsed the anger that filled them.
He stared at them coldly, aware of Deke and the others spreading out around him, the automatic rifles they carried held confidently in their arms.
"El Patrón, it . . . it is not as it seems," Eleanor gasped, her dark brown eyes widened in distress as Liss cowered against her naked body.
Their bodies quivered, breasts bare, as the women made no attempt to cover themselves. The obvious signs of recent sex lingered on their thighs, on the reddened discoloration of their nipples, and the dampness of the sheets beneath them.
"Oh, I think it's very much as it seems." He jerked a wooden chair forward, straddled it, and braced his forearms on the back. And then he smiled at them. A triumphant, knowing smile.
Eleanor pulled the sheet toward them.
"Leave the sheet alone." His hardened voice rasped through the silence that had been broken only by Eleanor's gasping breaths.
"El Patrón Fuentes does not mind how we find our pleasure." Liss suddenly had the temerity to speak up. She tried to simulate fear, but there was too much triumph, too much anger in her for her to carry it off.
"Liss, you forget who rules the roost here. That rooster has done cocked his last crow, so to speak, as far as decisions in this house are concerned, are we clear?"
