“Why not?” she persisted.
“Because I can’t It wouldn’t be right.”
“Right?”
He nodded. “I’m sorry. The more I tell you, the more dangerous it is for you.”
“You make it sound crazy, Alex. It sounds crazy.”
“It is,” he said grimly, taking her hand in his. “It’s not too late for you to change your mind. About us. If you want, I can get you out of here tonight We can leave right now.”
She hesitated. “I don’t...I don’t know what I want Except for all of this to go away. All of it.”
“Believe me, babe, if I could wish it all away, I would. But I can’t. I’m doing the best I can, here. This is all I have to offer you. You can stay with me tonight. I want to make love to you, about a dozen different ways. And you can leave tomorrow. Or you can go tonight Either way, Mitch will be waiting.”
He held on to her hand so patiently and waited for her to tell him what she’d decided. She sorted through the words, knowing there was something there she didn’t like, something she absolutely hated, something that had her trembling with fear, with rage.
“‘Mitch’?” she questioned.
He nodded. “My brother-in-law. He’s a cop in Chicago. He’s going to help you.”
Geri froze. It was like stepping off a ledge on a fiftystory building and finding nothing but air beneath her feet, like suffocating in the midst of all that air, unable to save herself, unable to take it in.
She had so wanted to believe that somehow, he wasn’t the man she’d thought. She’d been lying to herself so well. Almost as well as she’d been lying to everyone else, all through the years.
“You can trust me,” Alex said, so convincingly.
If she’d had to deliver that same line, she couldn’t have done it with nearly the sincerity he displayed. She’d never be able to paint such a convincing portrait of a woman so desperate, so needy for a man, as he’d seemed to be for her.
“Geri?” he prompted, worried.
“I’m fine,” she lied, badly, she thought.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” he said. “You can trust Mitch., too. I wouldn’t send you to him unless I was absolutely sure of that.”
Geri nodded. It was all she could do.
Mitch. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
Alexander Hathaway had a brother-in-law who was a Chicago cop, and his name was Mitch.
Chapter 7
She knew what she had to do. While he was busy shutting down his computer, she went back into the bathroom for a second to get something from her bag, then told him she needed a drink and offered to get him one, too.
Warm beer would do just as well as anything. She was a little uneasy about mixing the drug with alcohol, but it was just a sedative. No reason for her to feel guilty about anything.
After all, she knew who he was now. There could be no doubt. No more fooling herself. No more succumbing to this mind-numbing sexual heat he generated so expertly and aimed right at her. It had to be an act, she realized. A carefully practiced art of deception. If she’d known sex could be so potent a weapon, she would have made it a part of her arsenal years ago.
She popped open the tops of two beers, tipped a tiny capsule—packaged to look like an antihistamine—into one of them, then took a drink from the other and grimaced.
“You’re right,” she said, hearing Alex coming up behind her. “Warm beer is miserable.”
“Mmm.” His hands landed on either side of her waist. He leaned over and nuzzled her neck.
She shivered, stiffened, hating him, hating herself. Him for making her trust him and letting him see just a bit beneath the facade she presented to the world. For making her want him. And herself, for believing him.
“Nervous?” he asked.
“A little.”
“We’ll go slow,” he said.
God, he was so good at this. Geri closed her eyes, telling herself one more time to play it out. There was nothing else she could do.
She turned around, dislodging herself from his hold, and handed him the beer. Somehow, she managed to look up at him and to smile. He took a long, deep drink from the bottle. She watched the rippling action of his throat as the liquid slid down, and she felt better. It wouldn’t be long now.
She should probably lead him to the bed. She didn’t want him to fall down when the drug kicked in. If he wasn’t that far under, it would startle him. He might realize what she’d done and make trouble before the drug put him out completely. If he was already lying down, he’d just find himself feeling incredibly sleepy and soon, he’d be gone.
She could do her job and get the hell out of here. In time, she’d put him totally out of her mind, eradicate the touch of his hands and his mouth, the false kindness and concern. She could do that. She’d forgotten so many things over the years. Things she’d done. Things she’d been ordered to do. Sounds and sights and smells that might have haunted another person incessantly. Geri could push them all away, bury them so deep they’d never surface again, and one day soon, she’d do the same with the shooting and with him.
She looked up to find Alex eyeing her suspiciously. “You’re worrying,” he said.
“A little.” She took a breath, letting the nerves show. They worked for her now.
This felt like the worst of betrayals to her—what he’d done to her. Any other time, she would have said he was simply doing what he had to do, as she always did herself—that it was about duty, orders, the way of the world in which she’d chosen to live. But it didn’t feel like that with him. He’d made it personal, and she felt betrayed, felt a burning kind of anger that threatened to choke her.
She wanted to scream at him, to let him see that he’d hurt her, to demand some kind of explanation—which was so stupid. He wouldn’t care how she felt or what he’d made her feel. It was stupid of her to think that he would, and she couldn’t figure out when she’d turned into such a stupid woman.
Looking up at him, striving for a distance from the whole situation, she asked, “Could we just go into the bedroom?”
He arched a brow. “You sound like you’re facing a firing squad, Geri. I swear, I’m much better than that.”
She forced a half smile, took another drink of the beer, and he did, too. She needed to get at least half of it in him.
“It’s been a long time,” she said, “since I was with someone new.”
He was still suspicious, and she felt like a mouse, with Alex, the big, hungry cat, toying with her. She wondered when he was going to make his move, wondered exactly what he wanted from her and why he’d let her stay here so long. Maybe he just wanted to bed her, to see if he could. Maybe it was some kind of game to him. Maybe he enjoyed it—the power, the danger. Maybe he got off on it. Maybe he was even more devious than she’d imagined.
“Geri?”
She took another drink. “I’ll be fine. Really. I want to do this.”
“You look like you’d rather have a tooth pulled, babe.”
She laughed, the sound forced and strained. She took him by the hand and tugged him toward the bedroom. “Come on.”
He came, somewhat reluctantly, and she watched as he took one more drink from his beer before setting it on the nightstand. That should do it. Ten minutes, tops, and she could relax. He’d be dead to the world.
Surely she could put him off for ten minutes, could put up with the feel of those big, hot hands of his on her body and his mouth on hers for ten lousy minutes. She could do anything. It was her job, and until recently, she’d done it very well.
Geri sat down on the side of the bed and looked up at him warily, as he stood there in nothing but a towel. He really was a beautiful man—amazingly, deceptively beautiful—and he managed to look so open, so honest, seeming to take such absolute delight in life itself. She’d thought she was such a chameleon, so talented at putting on whole different personas. But this man was brilliant at it, a true master of the game.
He reached
for the hem of her shirt and, when she didn’t make a sound of protest, slowly drew it over her head, a lazy smile spreading across his lips, a languid heat coming into his eyes. Geri fought the urge to fold her arms across her chest. She could feel his hungry gaze on her breasts. They seemed to swell and tighten from nothing more than the look on his face.
He extended a hand to touch her, then stopped abruptly as his thumb brushed across the scar tissue high on her right shoulder, just below the collarbone, where the bullet had driven into her skin. It was a full two inches from the worst of the scrapes and scratches she’d gotten in the fight at the bar, and he’d never completely undressed her that first night. Still, he seemed surprised he’d missed this.
“Dammit, Geri,” he said, as if it hurt him, as well. “What did he do to you?”
He? It might as well have been Alex who’d pulled the trigger.
Now it was Alex who leaned down, settling his warm mouth over the scar, kissing her there.
Geri couldn’t help it. She pushed him away. “Don’t,” she said. “Not now. I don’t want to think about that now.”
“Okay,” he said softly, gently. “We won’t. Not now.”
She held herself absolutely still as he resumed his teasing, hypnotic touch, stroking her arm with the back of his hand, then her collarbone, her neck, her jaw, all the while watching her so intently. What did he think he was going to see? she wondered. She’d shown him more than she’d ever shown anyone. Shown him vulnerability and loneliness and doubts. He’d acted as if he cared, damn him.
He touched her breast then, and she closed her eyes, trying to analyze the touch with the detachment necessary for her to get through this. How could it possibly feel good to her? To have him do nothing but stroke her breast that way? Even if the touch was slow and soft, deceptively tender, it was still his hand, his fingertips. And she knew what he was now. What he’d done.
Her mind couldn’t possibly welcome his touch, but somehow, her body did.
Maybe she was just lonely, she thought. Maybe it had been so long since anyone had touched her or kissed her, she could be with the devil himself and like it.
He took his thumb and ran it back and forth across her nipple, encircled it, teasing her, until she could hardly breathe. His hands were hot and gentle and so very patient. Her skin was on fire, wanting those hands everywhere, wanting him. Alex, the liar. The thief. The traitor.
She felt him shift in front of her, had maybe half a second of warning, of hot breath against her breast, before his hand and his fingertips were replaced by his mouth and his tongue.
She gasped, unable to help herself, and he steadied her with his hands, holding her easily and gently. The touch of his mouth was electrifying, running through her like a current She felt the physical sensations so vividly. And just as vividly, she felt the emotional firestorm of wanting him, hating him, hating herself, hating all the lies.
“Alex?” she said, tears seeping out of the corners of her eyes and running down her cheeks.
“Hmm?” he murmured, without lifting his head from her breast
He was laving her with his tongue. She didn’t think it was possible to be this aroused from one simple caress. If she made it out of here alive, she was going to have to explore this neglected side of her life. She’d find some other man, some skillful, patient lover, to teach her all about this. Surely it would be even better with someone she didn’t despise, as she ought to despise him.
She cried for the man he’d pretended to be, the one she wanted to run away with on the back of the bike and never stop. The one who wasn’t Alexander Hathaway, traitor, murderer, but Alex the smiling, laughing man. She was crying for someone he could never be, for something they would never have together.
He’d finished tormenting her breast, was working his way up the side of her neck, burying his head in the sensitive knot of nerves there at the base. He brought her fully into his embrace, and she realized he’d lost his towel somewhere along the way, that he was naked, and she might as well be. She felt the muscles of his thighs shifting against hers. Her naked breasts were buried against his chest. His mouth came up to hers, his hands to either side of her face, and that was when he found the tears.
He pulled backed instantly, capturing her face in his hands. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
She tried to calculate how many minutes had gone by, how much more of this she had to endure, but she’d lost track of time and she lied to him once more. “I’m thinking too much.”
“About what?” he asked, painting a very credible picture of a patient, considerate man.
“Everything,” she said. “I can’t help it.”
“We’ll stop,” he offered, his breathing heavy and laden. But he gestured toward the bed and said, “We’ll just lie here. I’ll hold you, and you can tell me about all these things you can’t stop thinking about.”
She tilted her head to the side and studied his face—his beautiful, lying face. No wonder he’d gotten away with all that he had so far, she thought. He was so good at it—at lying, at convincing people he was something he was not.
“Come on,” he said. “Lie back.”
She did, and he drew the thin sheet over her, then climbed into the bed beside her, pulling her into his arms. Her head rested on his shoulder, his arms were around her, and she tried not to think of the intimate way they were still touching, bare skin to gloriously bare skin. He rolled her on top of him, into an even more intimate position. Her legs were tangled with his, and she could feel his arousal, so big and so hard, between them. But he didn’t try to push himself upon her. Instead, he merely rubbed at the tension in her back and shoulders.
It was useless, she wanted to tell him. There was no way she could relax at this moment, and the last thing she wanted was fake kindness, false concern.
She still wanted to scream at him, to demand answers, to make him account for all he’d done and all he still planned to do. To make him sorry. Was it possible for someone like him to be sorry for anything he’d done? Sorry about anyone he’d hurt? He’d probably laugh at her if she so much as asked, laugh at her for believing in him and his little games. He had no conscience, she reminded herself. No feelings. He obviously used his body as easily as he used his mind—anything to get what he wanted, what he needed.
She hated it. All of it When this assignment was over, she was done. She was getting out, salvaging what she could of her life and moving on. She’d start over. She’d forget
Alex and his magic hands, his lying eyes, his false concern.
“I hate this,” she said, never intending to speak the words aloud.
He shifted again, until she was lying on her back, and he was leaning over her, staring with hard, glittering eyes. “What’s going on here, Geri? If you don’t want to be here with me, all you have to do is say so. I told you I won’t force myself on you.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”
“You won’t let yourself,” he insisted. “Your body says one thing, but that head of yours is determined to say something else entirely. Why is that?”
“I don’t know,” she lied.
He shook his head, then blinked, as if to clear his vision. “Damn, I’m tired,” he said, a slight slur to the words. “And I don’t think I’ll ever understand you. No matter how hard I try.”
He looked down at her, breathing hard, fighting the sedative. Geri pushed him onto his back, and again he pulled her along with him, his hands playing lazily on her spine, still stroking, still gentle. She felt all the muscles in his body slowly relax, saw nothing but a brief flicker of alarm in his eyes. And then he was gone, utterly still, sinking into unconsciousness.
She waited for one full minute, counting off the seconds in her head. She’d made so many mistakes already, she couldn’t afford any others.
Without letting herself so much as look at him, without letting herself think, she climbed out of the bed, pulled on her shirt and checked Alex’s bo
ttle of beer. It was more than half gone. She calculated she had about six hours before she had to worry about him coming to.
Determined to see this through without any more screwups, she went to the other room, to his computer, and booted it up. She searched methodically, if hurriedly, through his hard drive and all the CD-ROMs in the case by the computer, finding games. All sorts of computer games. It was a virtual video-game heaven, about blowing things up, shooting things, playing spy.
She frowned at the irony of that. Alex always seemed to be playing. He never seemed to take anything seriously.
She didn’t find anything that looked remotely like work, like any kind of research, any chemical formula. There were no hidden files that she could detect. She clicked on the communications software. She tried to find the e-mail he’d supposedly sent to his brother-in-law, but couldn’t even access that. It was password protected, and though there was equipment that could have figured out his password, she hadn’t brought any with her. Her superiors had felt it was too great a risk to take at this point.
They could have come charging in here with guns drawn, ready to take him in, but they didn’t just want him; they wanted the formula. Geri didn’t think there was any way he’d have cut a deal to sell it yet or that he’d delivered it. So if it was here, she would find it. If not, they’d begin less subtle tactics—probably tomorrow, as soon as she was out of here. She would take a great deal of satisfaction from seeing him brought down.
Geri continued to fight her way through his computer for nearly four hours and found nothing. She’d been warned he was very, very good at what he did, and that computers were his hobby. But she was good, too, and this was still the most frustrating computer she’d ever had the misfortune to tangle with.
It was nearly three o‘clock in the morning before she gave up, knowing her time was running out. She went to work over the cabin, methodically going through everything—every drawer, every corner, even the bedroom while he slept. He had about five thousand dollars in cash, a gun and several extra clips of ammunition—nothing else that seemed at all significant. Close to four o’clock, she went outside to check the bike, again finding nothing. He’d disabled it yesterday. She’d noticed him putting it back together before they went on their little ride. He hadn’t bothered to disable it afterward. She didn’t want to think about what had been on his mind then.
Spies, Lies and Lovers Page 10