“And who is that?”
“I don’t know. We have to figure that out. We can. Together.”
We stare at each other, the sound of our breaths mingling together, the sun starting to dim beyond the windows, like the resistance I once had to this woman. “I want your help. I even need it, but I won’t lie to you anymore. You need to know that the first chance I have to make it happen, I will get you out of this.”
“If I don’t want to go?”
“You’ll go.”
She inhales and lets it out. “And never see you again.”
“It has to be that way.”
“If I resist?”
“Then we’ll go to war,” I assure her, “and I’ll win.”
“If you send me away, I’ll go after Sheridan on my own.”
I lean back, pressing my hands on the wall beside her. “That would be foolish, and you’re not foolish.”
“So is your thinking that you can take on something this big on your own. And don’t say you have Jared. I told you I don’t trust him, and some part of you doesn’t either. You didn’t tell him you have the cylinder. You didn’t even tell him what you were hiding for six years.”
“What he doesn’t know can’t get him killed.”
“That’s bullshit, Chad. They’ll kill him to get to you, just like they’ll kill me, or your sister. You do have to destroy them, and I don’t even know how you do that.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“Damn you and your stubbornness,” she hisses. “You’re going to end up dead.”
“Well, I can promise you that if I do, no one will ever find that cylinder,” I say—finally admitting for the first time, to anyone, that I have it.
Her eyes blaze with pure fury. “And so the smartass returns. You think joking about your death is funny?”
I slide my hands to her hair. “Now you need to stop talking. Right here, this moment, is about just that: the moment.”
“This moment won’t erase the facts. This is bigger than you and me. I have to be a weapon if I can be.”
“But not another loss,” I declare. “You give me the information. I risk myself. End of story.” She opens her mouth to argue and I silence her with a kiss, and I swear I can almost taste the blood I won’t let be hers, almost hear the piercing scream of my mother’s agony in my head. I cup Gia’s head, deepening the connection between us. Needing again. Demanding. Taking. Relieved when she goes from stiff and unyielding to wildly responsive, her tongue stroking mine, her hands sliding under my shirt, her palms soft and warm. Her touch is somehow like a calm summer breeze on a hot Texas night and at the same time it’s the fire that makes it hotter.
But Gia isn’t calm. She’s all over me—kissing me, touching me, possessive in her own right, as if she is trying to hold onto me beyond the moment.
In a rush of movement, I manage to undress us both, picking her up to carry her to the bed. We go down together, and I intend to be on top, but we end up side by side, staring at each other, and I’m lost all right, lost in the deep pools of torment in her eyes.
I grab her and shift our bodies, pressing the thickness of my erection between her thighs. I tangle fingers in her hair and lead her gaze to mine. “Gia.”
She leans in and kisses me, and there is a desperateness in her that I don’t fully understand, but when she shoves on my chest, I let her push me to my back and climb on top. My gaze rakes over the view of her high breasts and pink, budded nipples. Her slender waist and curvy hips I grasp with my hands, anchoring her as she wastes no time, gripping me and sliding down my erection.
She takes all of me, in more ways than one, and I know that she doesn’t know. I can’t let her know. We’ve only known each other a short time. We’re reacting to circumstances, to being alone, and being destined to stay that way. She feels she needs control. I’ve given it to her, allowing her to take the top position by way of demand.
But she surprises me when she leans forward, pressing her palms to my chest as she brings her cheek to mine and whispers, “Alone isn’t better.” It’s gut wrenching.
I react instantly, one hand cupping the side of her face, flattening the other on her back, holding her to me. “And right now, we aren’t alone.”
She leans back and tries to look at me, but I don’t let her. I force her lips to mine, licking into her mouth, breathing with her, drinking in the fear I sense in her, the desperation that is richer now, fuller in a way that can’t be possible unless it’s about passion and how much we need each other in this place, at this time. I start to move, cupping her backside, lifting my hips. The kiss deepens, maybe because of me, maybe because of her. I don’t know. I don’t care. I just want her, and this, and that escape into oblivion that I look for in sex and that she actually gives me. We become more frenzied, rougher in the way we drive our bodies together, and we can’t kiss. She sits up, staring down at me, and her fear is gone, replaced by the burn of desire.
I watch her move, seduced by her body, her curves, the sway of her hips and the bounce of her breasts—loving the way her head drops forward, her long dark brown hair draping her ivory skin, the way she can no longer sit up and lowers those tight little nipples to my chest, where they rest against the wall of dark blond hair there, her face nestled in my neck.
We ride out what becomes a storm of need, a burn that has to be sated, grinding our bodies together, the sounds of pleasure and heavy rasps of breathing taking on lives of their own. I cup her backside, caress her breasts and tug roughly on her nipples. It seems to send her over the edge as she gasps, “Chad.”
A moment later, her sex tightens around the thick ridge of my erection, and it is heaven and hell at once. I ache for the burn to become a rush of pleasure, a release, and I loathe it for the ending it’s sure to become. And it does. Her body spasms and spasms some more, and I can do nothing but respond, pressing her down against me as I thrust upward. Once, twice, and then the explosion, the pleasure—the darkness of release that is eternal and not long enough—and then, too soon, the end.
Gia has already collapsed on top of me, both of us exhausted, sated. For a minute, maybe two, I just hold her, before rolling her to face me. We don’t speak at first. I’m not sure either of us wants the return to reality, and with it, our battle. But finally, Gia ends the silence. “Alone isn’t better.”
God. This woman could make me forget why alone is better. I reach up, stroking hair from her eyes. “Gia—”
The doorbell rings and I’m on my feet in an instant, tugging on my pants and grabbing my gun from the holster at the foot of the bed. I open the bedroom door to find Jared already at the door to the apartment. “Delivery,” I hear from the hallway before Jared says, “Yes. We were expecting you.”
I lean on the doorframe, willing the adrenaline rush in my body to calm. Jared turns to look at me over his shoulder, giving my naked chest and low-hanging, unzipped jeans a look before shaking his head in frustration. He really doesn’t trust Gia, and I really have to face the facts that Gia can’t yet fully comprehend: In a world where a delivery makes me draw a weapon and I question everyone and anyone, including a longtime friend and the woman in my bed, being alone is better, and trust doesn’t exist.
FOURTEEN
HOURS LATER, all three of us have showered and thrown on casual attire. The sun has set long ago behind the skyline, darkness a cloak beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows of the main living area. The marble coffee table is the command center of our hours of work piecing together anything that might be of value to defeat Sheridan and protect Amy.
Stretching, I lean back on the ottoman I’d pulled to the end of the table a good hour ago, watching Gia tab through something on her computer screen while she nibbles on a slice of pizza. Seeming to sense my attention, she arches her brow with a questioning look. I answer by lifting my chin toward Jared, who is sitting on the opposite side of the couch from her. “Just wondering how you’re surviving the stench of his anchovies.”
&n
bsp; Jared glances up from his computer, but doesn’t stop typing. “I guess she doesn’t have your delicate little nose.”
“Chad’s right,” Gia says, crinkling her nose. “They stink.”
“Spoken like a person who ordered ‘just cheese’ pizza,” Jared responds. He seems to have grown more comfortable with Gia as we’ve shared information, and she’s become comfortable with him as well.
“Anything that’s furry and stinky should not go in food,” Gia fires back. “And it’s funny how furry and stinky remind me of Sheridan. I just finished typing up everything I remember about the year I spent with the man. The dinners. The conversations. The people in his life. I just e-mailed my notes to both of you at the addresses you gave me. I’m [email protected].”
“GiaGia?” I ask, and it’s my turn to arch a questioning brow.
“It’s a memory,” she explains.
“Gia, you know—”
“That I’m not Gia anymore,” she finishes. “Yes. It’s a free e-mail address on Jared’s protected remote server. Let me cling to my past where I can safely.”
“There is no place to do it safely. I didn’t make those kinds of assumptions, and I still don’t know how I was located and targeted by Meg.”
“So far I can’t find a clear answer to that,” Jared adds, “and I know you’ve looked as well, but I’m not exactly focused right now. I just fed a personnel list for the facility Gia worked at into a program I created, as well as the guest list for Friday night’s party. The program will flag certain criteria I’ve coded it to look for, but it’s going to take a few hours. I can speed it up by not running anything else at the same time.” He pulls another computer out of his briefcase. “Good thing I have a backup computer.” He glances at me. “I’ve done this previously with Meg and come up dry. When I couldn’t find anything on her electronically, I followed her to a restaurant and bar in Denver, played the social game, and left with her fingerprints. I’ve done a few jobs for the FBI, and I managed to get her details run through their system without leaving any record the search was done. Nothing turned up. She doesn’t exist.”
I’m blown away by everything Jared’s done, feeling like a shithead for doubting him. “Thanks, man. Seriously. I didn’t even have time to leave you money when I disappeared. I swear you will be repaid generously in every possible way.”
“The only payment I need is for this to end. And I’m pissed as hell that Meg escaped my radar. She was in Texas at the same time we were, and then she was just gone. No sign of her again, and she’s the only link we have to Rollin. And it makes me nervous as hell to know he’s a dead man walking around out there somewhere, a license to kill from his fictional grave.”
“The upside,” I say, “is that I can have the honor of putting him in his real grave.”
Jared turns his computer toward Gia. “You’re sure you don’t remember seeing Rollin before?”
Her brow furrows. “You know, now that I see a larger shot rather than the cell phone photo you showed me before, there is something about him, but I don’t know what. Maybe . . . a photo on Sheridan’s credenza, perhaps?” She shakes her head. “But I’m not really sure. I didn’t exactly get invited to his office to chitchat about his personal life.”
“Why did you go there?” I ask.
“For my interviews. For a couple of team meetings. I think maybe four times.”
“What about when he hosted all those weekly dinners?” I press. “Did he talk about anything personal at all?”
“He asked us a lot of personal questions as we ate, and seemed genuinely interested in the answers. But once the food was cleared, it was all about the research progress.”
“This really shouldn’t be news,” I say. “Sheridan is a smooth operator who is never foolish.”
“He left a door open, and Gia overheard a conversation that led her to help you escape,” Jared reminds me. “That sounds pretty foolish to me. Greed and desperation create screwups. And six years is a long time for both things to fester.”
“Yes,” Gia says, averting her gaze to punch a random key on her computer. “Six years is a long time for it to fester.”
Sensing a shift in her mood, I tilt my head to study her, but she leaps to her feet, tugging her teal T-shirt over her snug black leggings, and announcing, “I need a soda. I put some of the beer from the grocery order in the fridge earlier—anyone want one?”
Jared lifts a finger. “I’m in. I hack better with a buzz.”
Gia arches a brow in my direction, but I don’t miss how she doesn’t quite make eye contact.
Lifting a hand, I decline. “I hack better with caffeine. Another Coke for me.”
“Coke it is.”
She turns and hurries away, her pace a little too fast to be casual. “Chad hacks like my kindergarten teacher,” Jared yells over his shoulder at her. “Better get him Kool-Aid.”
“Since when did you grow a sense of humor?” I ask, not sure why I haven’t let the friendly banter bait me into admitting just how good at hacking I’ve become.
“Since when did you lose yours?” he challenges.
“Six years ago,” I snap, the question setting me off for no logical reason.
He gives me a level stare. “Which is why you have to end this.”
I nod, still trying to shake off the irritation I don’t understand while he’s already moved on, keying a couple more strokes before adding, “I just sent you the list of party attendees, but remember, it’s going in my program tonight. I wouldn’t bother to analyze it too much until the program finishes.”
“The party is a setup,” Gia says, setting the drinks on the table and sinking back to the floor, her strange energy from a minute before seemingly gone, leaving me to wonder if I’d imagined it. Or, considering how touchy I am with Jared, maybe I just absorbed it. “Anything too convenient,” she continues, “or too good to be true almost always is.”
“I’m not denying it reads like a trap,” I assure her. “In fact, I’m certain that’s exactly the case.” I look at Jared. “This consortium member on the guest list lives in Houston,” I say, having studied each member quite extensively. “Can we find out when he arrives for the party?”
“One step ahead of you,” Jared responds. “He’s out of the country at present, and his return ticket is a week out.”
“That pretty much confirms the trap, and that Sheridan is watching Amy,” I conclude. “And Liam’s a little too close to the situation for my comfort.”
“Liam is too close to your sister for your comfort,” Gia comments. “That means you aren’t objective. Don’t let him be a distraction from a real threat, like you did me.”
“I don’t trust Liam any more than Chad does,” Jared interrupts, “and I haven’t made that a secret to Amy. I can use that to get to her. I’ll call her and tell her I have information about your whereabouts and will only talk to her. She’ll agree, but finding a way for her to ditch Tellar Phelps is going to be the issue.”
“That’s the bodyguard?” Gia asks.
“Yes,” Jared confirms, “and a damned good one at that.”
Fighting an urge to pace, I say, “Tell her no one but her means no one but her. Tell her I’m in a life-or-death situation. Fuck, man. Tell her whatever the hell you have to. Just get her free of Liam and Tellar.”
He reaches into a briefcase and sets another folder on top of my pizza box. “You need a reality check. These are shots I took while watching them. I find when I’m at a distance that I miss things that I see later in photos. And they tell a story: Namely, that Amy won’t cut Liam out of the information loop.”
Gia moves to sit on the ottoman next to me and I open the folder, suddenly staring down at a close-up of my sister, feeling like I’ve just taken a punch in the chest. It’s then that I realize that watching her from a distance, seeing her and knowing she was alive, had quite possibly kept me sane all of these years.
Gia’s hand slides to my leg, warm and welcome, and I can almo
st feel Jared’s eyes on us but I don’t give a shit. “She looks like you,” she observes. “Her hair is much blonder than yours, but she has the same defined cheekbones as you, and you both have the same remarkable pale blue eyes.”
“She looks exactly like our Swedish mother,” I say, hating the memory of Amy braiding her hair and wearing dark-rimmed glasses for years after the fire. I laugh sadly. “My father called the two of them Twinkies. Amy loved it. So did my mother.”
“What’d he call you?” Gia queries.
“Same thing as you. Asshole.”
She laughs, and I swear there is some kind of a musical, sweet quality to it that takes just enough of the edge off to allow me to turn to the next photo, a shot of Amy with Liam. My sister is looking her normal, sweet, innocent self in a floral dress of some sort, her arm latched around that of an impeccably dressed Liam Stone. She’s laughing up at him, and the joy in her expression is something that I’ve not seen since before the fire—and he, in turn, is looking at her like he’s the wolf and she’s dinner.
Shutting the folder, I glare at Jared. “I’ve seen enough. I get the idea. He’s possessive and she’s head over heels. She’ll want to believe Liam is good even if he’s the devil himself.”
“He might actually be a good man,” Gia argues.
“And I might be Prince Charming,” I reply dryly, eyeing Jared. “You say Meg told her that Liam’s life was in danger to lure her away before. So let’s go that route again. Tell her he’s in danger again and you can’t risk him taking the wrong actions. She can’t tell him about the meeting.”
Gia makes a frustrated sound and flips open the folder, holding up the shot of Liam and Amy. “What do you see in this photo?”
“What I cannot unsee,” I snap.
Forsaken Page 17