I stretched my arms over my head, opened my eyes, and looked around the sunlit room. It took me a minute to remember where I was.
The bed beside me was empty, but the smell of coffee brewing somewhere close wafted into the room. That wasn’t all. Accompanying that heavenly scent was that of bacon frying.
I rolled out of bed and felt the cold cover of my laptop under my toes when I went to stand. Instead, I scooted down the bed, and put my feet on the equally chilly hardwood floor of the cabin.
Instead of putting on my sweatpants, I picked up a sweatshirt that, by its size, had to belong to Montano and pulled it over my head. As I’d expected, it was long enough that it covered my knees.
The only other thing I put on was a pair of warm, woolly socks before I sneaked out of the bedroom and across the hallway to the bathroom. I couldn’t say for sure why I didn’t want Montano to see me yet, other than I’d written a scene last night where the heroine surprises the hero by sneaking up behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist, and decided I wanted to act it out in real life.
Sadly for my original fantasy, he was facing my direction when I walked into the kitchen. However, his eyes trailing from my bed-ravaged hair down my body was a scene I’d happily write later.
“Good morning, angel,” he said, motioning to the breakfast set out on the kitchen table.
I raised my eyebrows, surveying his bare chest and the way his sweats hung low on his hips that I found more mouthwatering than the food.
“You fried bacon topless. Brave man.”
“It’s character building. You should try it.”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
“We could have BLTs for lunch if you don’t want to wait.”
I gave him a half smile. “Did I smell coffee?”
He reached over to the counter and handed me a cup.
“Is this for me?”
He made like he was looking around me on both the left and the right. “Don’t see anyone else here, angel.”
I took a sip and walked over to the chair he’d pulled out for me. “Wow, this is good.”
“How do you like your eggs?”
“It doesn’t matter to me. Any way you like them.”
I savored my coffee, sneaked a piece of bacon, and listened to Montano hum as he cooked the eggs. “I wonder what happened with the bear.”
“They took her to wherever her cubs were. I guess she and they were tagged.”
“It’s a marvel, isn’t it? That they can do that.”
He didn’t respond, and when I looked over my shoulder, I saw him studying his phone.
“Everything okay?”
He set it down on the counter, plated the eggs, and joined me at the table.
“Montano?”
“We weren’t the only ones who had a visitor last night.”
“No?”
“The crew at Canada Lake had one too. Someone different than the one we had the night before we left.”
I felt my stomach drop. “The night before we left?”
“Sorry, angel. I guess I didn’t tell you about that.”
“What kind of visitor?”
“Someone we believe is working with Hatch.”
“He gave me his real name?”
“Did he?”
“Richard Hatch.”
“That’s right. Although he’s known more as Hatchet.”
Now I felt sick to my stomach. I’d shifted to get up from the table when Montano put his hand on my shoulder.
“The more we talk about it, the less frightening it will be.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“The team protecting you is made up of some of the best men and women I’ve ever worked with. I handpicked each of them. We aren’t going to let anyone get to you.”
“You said the visitor was someone working with Hatchet.”
“A known associate, yes.”
I held up my hand. “Please don’t tell me his name until I’ve finished eating.”
“Her name.”
“Interesting.”
“Makes sense for this type of job.”
I’d ask him to elaborate, but I really didn’t want to talk about it, no matter what he said about it being less frightening if we did. “Do we need to leave?”
“If you mean here, no. It isn’t you they’re after. It’s what they believe Sofia left behind.”
“Your people are looking for it, aren’t they?”
Montano nodded. “What do you say we do a little snowshoeing today? Or maybe cross-country skiing?”
I bit my bottom lip. “I really need to write, but you can if you want.”
“Nah, I was only offering so you didn’t think I was lazy.”
I looked him up and down, happy to be distracted by his well-toned body. “You don’t look lazy.”
He leaned over so his mouth was close to my ear, his breath hot on my neck. “Neither do you.”
I offered to clean up when we were done eating, but Montano refused to let me. “Go write. I’m hoping if I’m a good enough boy, you’ll let me read it.”
“You’d have better luck if you were a bad boy,” I answered, smacking his bottom as I left the kitchen.
An hour later, when my phone reminded me it was time to stand, I went looking for Montano, never expecting to find him doing yoga in the living room.
The view of his ass in the downward dog position was enough to make me drool. When he moved into a side plank, he caught me watching.
“Wanna join me?” he asked.
“I’m afraid if I do, I wouldn’t get much writing done the rest of the day.”
“Nah, yoga clears your mind and increases your creativity.”
“Maybe another time.” I returned to the bedroom and picked up my computer. Just seeing him do yoga increased my creativity plenty, and I couldn’t wait to get more words on paper by way of a hot yoga-y sex scene.
When I heard the shower go on a few minutes later, I added that to the end of it. Only in both cases, my heroine wasn’t sitting in front of a computer. She was enjoying everything I was only fantasizing about. Lucky girl.
I crossed my legs on the bed and squeezed my thighs together when I saw Montano come in with only a towel wrapped around the lower half of his body.
“I forgot to grab clean clothes.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
He studied me long enough that I thought maybe I hadn’t heard him answer and he was waiting for me to get up.
“I can go,” he offered.
I smiled. “I’m curious. What has you so lost in thought?”
“Wondering what you’re writing on the other side of that laptop.”
“Hmmm.”
“What?”
“I guess what we’re thinking isn’t that different. I was wondering what was on the other side of that towel.”
“You show me yours, maybe I’ll show you mine.”
I shook a finger at him. “It doesn’t work that way. No maybes, and we do it at the same time.”
He laughed and walked out of the room, clothes in hand, leaving me feeling as unamused as frustrated.
Since he was done with his workout, I went out into the main room for a change of scenery. One reason I liked writing on my laptop was I could do it anywhere. I wasn’t stuck in one room or even in my house. I could take it into the village and sit outside at a café, or if it was chilly, pick a corner table and watch the world go by as I drank my coffee or wine, ate cheese and fruit, and wrote my words.
I loved writing the places where the stories took me when I dove into them. That’s why I traveled as much as I did. Each new place I visited became a possible setting for a future book. Whether it was a villa in the Italian countryside, a pensione in a village, or even an apartment in a city like Milan, a flat in London, a house in Munich, or a room in a boutique hotel in Salzburg.
Until this book, the one I never intended to write, none of them had been set on the East Coast of the
United States. Funny, given it’s where I grew up.
Since it was sunny, I thought about sitting out on the deck, but my laptop was running low on battery, so I decided to perch myself on the sofa instead.
19
Onyx
“Blanca is in the other room. Why do you ask?”
“We’re running out of places to look,” reported Diesel. “We’ve looked everywhere.”
“According to her father, there is something at the camp that is imperative it be found. Keep looking.”
“Do you think Blanca might have any ideas?”
“My guess is she’d do what you’re doing, just not as thoroughly since it’s what you’re trained for.”
“This is not what I was trained for.”
Diesel Jacks was a language savant. At last count, he spoke twelve fluently. I’d read in a brief somewhere that he went to Cornell and graduated summa cum laude.
“It’s an assignment you’re perfectly capable of carrying out, Diesel. Get back at it and find whatever it is before I have to drive down there and do it for you.”
He laughed. “Damn, you sounded like my dad just then. Doc and Fatale made the right choice putting you in charge of the new unit.”
I’d been so wrapped up in Blanca, I hadn’t given much thought to the new unit, K19 Shadow Operations. Admittedly, I liked the concept, and I agreed with Merrigan when she said that K19’s core team had become too visible to be effective in missions where we suspected the bad guys were operating inside the intelligence community.
Rather than going out to where Blanca was, I opened my laptop and settled in where she’d been earlier—when she told me she was wondering what was on the other side of my towel.
If she were any other woman, I probably would’ve dropped it there and then, and let her see for herself. But the truth was, for the first time in my life, I didn’t want any other woman to see me. I sure as hell wanted Blanca to, though. I wanted to see her too. All of her. How in the hell was I going to keep this wall I’d erected between us up? There’d never been anyone I felt such an immediate connection with. Especially not her sister. Sure, I’d felt an attraction, but that was so much different than really connecting with a person.
I wanted Blanca, and she wanted me, and I was old and wise enough to know it wasn’t just physically. That meant I needed to get my ass back down to Canada Lake and find whatever the evil bitch who’d tried to kill me left there.
I set my laptop aside and went into the other room. “How’s writing going?” I asked.
“I’m enjoying this one.”
“Don’t you enjoy them all?”
“Some more than others.”
“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” I said, sitting down beside her when she closed her computer and turned her body to make room for me on the sofa.
“I’m listening.”
“The team back at the camp hasn’t had any luck finding whatever it was your sister left there.”
“And?”
“I’m going to head down there in the morning and see if I can help.”
“You’re going to?”
“Yes.”
“Not me?”
“It will be safer if you stay here.”
“Huh.” Blanca got up, grabbed her laptop, went into the bedroom she’d originally been sleeping in, and slammed the door closed.
This was behavior I was used to. Not from her, from Sofia. The latter, I would’ve ignored until she got over whatever innocuous thing I had done to make her mad, even if it took days. Blanca, on the other hand, I couldn’t ignore.
“Hey,” I said, knocking on the door. “Can we talk about this?”
“You want to talk about it now?” I heard her ask.
“Uh, yeah.”
The door flew open. “It would’ve been a better idea to talk about it prior to you making the decision to go look for something that is mine to find.”
She tried to slam the door again, but I stood in the way. “Did you hear what I said? You’ll be safer here.”
“Did you hear what I said? Montano, whatever Sofia left is mine to find. In fact, I should be a lot angrier. The whole time you and your ‘team’ have been searching for something that doesn’t belong to you.”
“What are you doing?” I asked even though it was obvious she was packing.
“The rental car outside is in my name. As soon as I have my stuff together, I’ll be getting in it and driving away from here.”
“You have no concern whatsoever for your safety?”
Blanca threw the last of her stuff in her bag and zipped it up. “I figure that I’ll be safe enough once I’ve gone home. I doubt anyone will follow me back to Italy. Would you please excuse me?”
I stood in the doorway with no intention of letting her pass. “You’re wrong about someone following you to Italy. They’ll follow you to Outer Mongolia if they think you have something that might incriminate them. That’s what we think it is, Blanca. We believe your sister had enough on whoever she was working for, that she could use it to make sure they didn’t try to kill her once she was no longer useful to them.”
“She’s dead.”
“That’s right.”
“So they killed her anyway.”
“I don’t believe so.”
“Are you saying the plane crash was an accident?”
“I don’t believe the intended outcome was your sister’s death.”
“I don’t like it when you talk that way. Like you’re reciting from a manual.”
“I’m stating facts—” I’d almost called her sis. “Blanca, please, let’s not do this. I have two agendas: to find what your father believed your sister left at the camp and keep you safe while I’m doing it.”
She dropped her bag, she plopped down on the end of the bed, and her eyes filled with tears.
Instead of staying in this room where her packed bag sat, I lifted her into my arms and carried her into the bedroom we’d shared last night.
I rested her body on the mattress and stretched out beside her. I brushed her tears away and stroked her hair. “Why are you crying?”
Blanca closed her eyes and shook her head.
“Neither of us is going anywhere, so you might as well tell me.”
That made her open her eyes, if only to glare at me.
I leaned forward and kissed her. “Tell me why you’re crying.”
“It’s stupid.”
I pulled her over so her head rested on my chest. “Nothing that makes you cry is stupid, angel.”
“I…” She couldn’t get any more words out; her tears had turned into sobs.
I tightened my hold on her and soothed her the best I could. Eventually, her breathing evened out to the point I thought she may have fallen asleep. Moments later, she spoke.
“I wanted to believe that whatever she left behind was something for me. Something to mend what was broken between us. Now, that will never happen.”
“I wanted to believe that too. Part of me still does.”
“Then, you wouldn’t find what you need.”
“Neither would you.”
She turned her face so she was looking at me. “How did my sister ever let you go?”
“It wasn’t meant to be between her and me, Blanca. Meeting you has shown me that.”
“Why?” she whispered.
I gripped the side of her face and kissed her, but she pulled away.
“Why?” she asked again.
“Because it was you I was supposed to meet.”
“Montano—”
“It’s true. Can you tell me you don’t feel it? I’ve never felt this way with any other woman. Never. And truth be told, I didn’t believe I ever would.”
“No happily ever afters.”
“No. Not for me. At least until I met you.”
“We hardly know each other.”
I kissed her again, and this time, she didn’t try to pull away. “Blanca,” I murmured between nu
zzling her nose with mine, nipping and licking her lips. “You know that isn’t true.” I went in hard and deep, and almost sighed in relief when I felt her giving it right back to me.
“Montano,” she said, pushing me against the mattress and climbing on top of me. “I want you.”
“I want you too.”
“But?”
“No butts, except this sweet one,” I said, digging my fingers into the cheeks of her perfect ass.
“I want to have sex with you.”
“I want to have sex with you too, angel.”
“No lectures about how it’s too soon or how we aren’t ready for it?”
“No lectures,” I answered, but in a voice no longer playful.
“What? Whatever it is, just say it.”
I rolled us both so I was above her. “I don’t want to have sex, Blanca. I want to make love to you, and you know as well as I do that neither of us is there yet.”
The anger I’d seen in her eyes earlier returned. “I just said we hardly know each other, and you said I knew that wasn’t true.”
“There’s a difference between not knowing each other and being ready for something that will change us forever.” I brushed her lips with mine. “That’s what I want, angel. The first time our bodies become one, I want to be ready for it to change my life forever.” I stared into her eyes, waiting for another argument, but one never came.
“Let me go with you tomorrow. Don’t leave me here alone.”
“You wouldn’t be alone. Wasp and—”
Blanca pressed her fingers against my lips. “If I’m not with you, I’m alone, Montano. Please, I’m begging you, take me with you.”
“Okay.”
“You promise? You aren’t going to get up in the middle of the night and sneak off?”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Do you, uh, want me to go sleep in the other room?”
“Is that what you’re going to do? Sleep?”
“Probably not right away. I’ll write for a while.”
“Where’s your laptop?”
Onyx (K19 Security Solutions Book 10) Page 11