by Anne Stuart
“Nope. But it means we may not be in the Holiday Inn any longer than we were in the Travers Hotel. I want to take my creature comforts while I can.”
“Sounds reasonable. Let’s go.” He rose, tossing a handful of paper money down on the table, and Maggie looked up at him for a long, pensive moment before following.
It wasn’t until she’d stepped under the shower a few minutes later that Maggie realized what was bothering her. Mack had been warm, charming, and infuriatingly distant. Clearly he didn’t feel the same strong sensual pull that she’d been fighting all night. It was probably the fault of the unaccustomed good food and alcohol, she told herself, rubbing the sweet-smelling shampoo through her tangled hair. She’d sat there, staring at his strong, lean body lounging comfortably in the chair across from her, trying to fight the insidious attraction that was threatening to overwhelm her. She was becoming weak in her old age, her strength and resolution wavering in the face of almost continual disasters. With Peter’s death her life had undergone a change that she could no longer deny. Life and death were indelibly imprinted on her brain. Tomorrow Mack could be dead. Tomorrow she could be dead. It was useless to miss chances that might never come again.
Life needed to be lived to the fullest, Maggie told herself when she stepped from the shower, wrapping the threadbare towel around her tall body. And the next time Mack made one of his halfhearted passes at her, she was going to take him up on it. Because even if he was only marginally attracted to her, he was becoming an obsession with her.
She wasn’t one for spending a great deal of time looking in mirrors, but tonight was different. She saw that she was attractive, with her wide-spaced aquamarine eyes, her Danish corn-silk hair, which was now hanging wet and shiny down her back, her good nose, high Nordic cheekbones, and generous mouth. And her body was strong and sleek and healthy, a good body for loving. But maybe Mack liked petite brunettes full of soft curves. After all, he’d said he’d always had the hots for Sybil Bennett. Maybe he’d settle for bedding someone with the same eyes.
“You’re an idiot, Maggie,” she said out loud, grimacing at her mirror. “You only get into trouble when you go after someone. Look at Deke. Look at Randall. Look at your marriage. Forget about sex and concentrate on a good night’s sleep. Pulaski looks good to you only because there’s no one else around.”
Which was a fat lie and she knew it, but she stuck to it anyway, turning her back on the mirror and rubbing her body briskly with the towel before pulling her wet jumpsuit back on for the dash down the hallway. She’d washed all her clothes in the sink, with the hopeful thought that they’d dry by morning. Even in the heat of the Honduran summer the wet cotton chilled her flesh, and she shivered as she ran barefoot down the hall to her room.
There was a light burning by the narrow bed as she closed and locked the door behind her. A light that illuminated Mack lying on her bed wearing his jeans and nothing else. Waiting for her.
She held herself very still, pressing her shoulder blades against the thin wooden door behind her. “What’re you doing there?” Her voice came out admirably controlled. “That’s my bed.”
Mack smiled up at her—a sweet, understanding smile. “I’m sleeping here.”
“And where am I supposed to sleep?” Stupid question, she thought.
But Mack was still curiously gentle, almost reassuring. “Here,” he said.
“Isn’t the bed a little small?”
“We’ll manage.”
So why was she standing there, frozen like a panicky virgin? Hadn’t she just stood staring at herself in the mirror, telling herself that the next time Mack made a halfhearted pass, she was going to take him up on it. So what was she doing cowering against the door and trying to find her way out?
“Uh, Pulaski …” she began nervously.
“I never thought I’d see you turn into a coward, Maggie.”
“I’m not a coward. I’m just not sure if this is a good idea.”
“It’s an excellent idea. What’re you frightened of, Maggie? That you’ll scare me off like you scared all the others? Or that you won’t?”
That moved her away from the door. “Go to hell, Pulaski. I don’t need your two-bit psychoanalysis tonight.”
“I know you don’t. You need love.”
That shut her up for a moment. When she’d gathered her wits back about her she laughed. “Isn’t that a euphemism? Aren’t you talking about sex?”
“No,” he said flatly, his voice low and sexy in the still night air. “I’m talking about love, and you know it as well as I do. Come here, Maggie.”
She could stand there, shivering in her wet jumpsuit, and keep arguing. She could order him from her room, and he’d go with that damnable, easygoing smile of his. Or she could reach up and begin to undo her top button.
The wet material made the button tricky to unfasten, and her hands were trembling. She managed the first one, her eyes looking into his shaded ones with a fearless gaze, then her fingers moved awkwardly to the next one. And then he was off the bed in one fluid movement, and unaccountably she remembered Snake’s serpentine grace. He was standing in front of her, his hands brushing hers out of the way, and he was warm and strong and so very close.
“I can take care of it, Maggie May,” he whispered, his fingers making quick work of the buttons that traveled down her chest, past her waist. When he pushed the jumpsuit off her shoulders and down to her waist, she just stood there naked, waiting.
“Oh, Maggie,” he said, his voice a caress, a raw breath of emotion, and his eyes glazed as he watched her. “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie,” he whispered, pulling her into his arms, her chilled flesh scorched by the heat of him. And suddenly she was shivering, trembling all over with heat and cold and light and darkness, with a wanting that she’d thought was gone forever from her life, and she slid her hands up his smooth chest to clutch at his shoulders, swaying against him with a quiet little moan of delight.
“This is a mistake,” she whispered, her mouth pressing lightly, curiously against the warm, smooth skin of his shoulder.
“This is the smartest thing we’ve done so far,” Mack murmured back. “You told me last night how sexually healthy you are. Why don’t you show me?”
His hands slid down her back to her hips, pulling her up against him, and the wet jumpsuit slid to the floor around her feet. It was an odd erotic sensation to feel her naked hips pressed against the heavy denim of his jeans, to feel his strong, rough hands on her smooth skin, molding her to him. Suddenly she felt gloriously, wickedly, wonderfully alive, and she raised her face to his, laughter and delight and wanting filling her aquamarine eyes. Her hands boldly slid down the taut length of him to press against the heat that surged against the zipper of his jeans.
And Mack’s hands left her hips to cup her face, holding it up to his as he stared down at her with wonder and longing and something distant and indefinable. “God, Maggie,” he whispered. “Why didn’t we do this days ago? Why didn’t we stop long enough in the cabin in Moab and get this settled?”
“Pulaski,” Maggie said. “Stop talking so damned much.” And she reached up and pressed her mouth against his.
She’d never known kissing to be such an overwhelming erotic adventure. If there was an Olympic event in kissing, Mack would have walked away with the gold medal. He did things with his tongue and teeth and lips that Maggie would never have even thought of, till she was gasping and burning in his arms, and her hands were tearing at his jeans.
The narrow bed sagged beneath their combined weight, the dip in the center throwing them together. Mack had dumped his jeans on the floor beside her wet jumpsuit, and Maggie spared a moment to consider how uncomfortable they were going to be when they got dressed in the morning. And that was the last rational thought she had for hours.
The small pool of light from the bedside lamp threw shadows around Mack’s face, making him appear dark and mysterious as he bent over her. But Maggie was beyond childish fears at that point. She arched her back
as his mouth traveled down her smooth skin, tasting, teasing, arousing, and soothing. Her nipples were painfully tight with longing, and when his mouth caught one and then the other, she moaned with desperation as her fingers twined in his long hair and pulled him down against her.
His hands stroked down the smooth skin of her stomach, across her hips, his rough calluses another sensation of delight. She arched her hips against his hand in mute supplication, and he laughed, low in his throat.
“For someone who put up such a fight,” he said, “you sure are in a hurry.” And his hand slid between her legs.
She reached out and touched him, stroking the hot, surging length of him, her fingers gentle, knowing, inspired. She could feel his reaction, the sudden trembling that vibrated through his body, the tension in his muscles that matched her own and told her they had waited long enough.
With the silent understanding that usually comes only with long-term lovers, he knew that she was ready. He was above her, shadowed against the darkened room, kneeling between her legs. He hesitated for a moment, and with a sudden, matching clarity she knew what he was thinking. He was wondering whether she still needed to be in control.
And without a word she reached out her arms to him, pulling him toward her, against her, into her, taking him on his terms in a sudden rush of love and gratitude and sensuality that threatened to split her apart.
If she expected the filling of that aching, empty part of her to assuage her longing, she was wrong. It drove her past wanting into a kind of madness of desire that he matched, surging against her, his body shaking as he tried to control the steady, powerful thrusts into her.
And then suddenly she was talking, words tumbling out of her mouth—feverish, pleading, impassioned words, love words, sex words, begging him, praising him, moaning against him. Until his mouth silenced hers, his tongue driving deep into her mouth as his body drove into her warmth. And there was nothing she could do but cling to him as explosion after explosion wracked her body. She was distantly aware of him stiffening in her arms, the sudden exhalation of breath against her sweat-streaked face, and then he collapsed against her, cradling her head against him as he lay there, his pounding heartbeat a twin to hers, slowing in tandem, as they sank back to a semblance of reality.
His strong back was slippery with sweat. It felt good to her, strong and real and hot, and she moved her head to place her mouth against his slightly bony shoulder, opening it to taste the dampness their lovemaking had brought forth. Then his head moved down, catching her mouth, kissing her with a sweet passion that had only begun to be sated. And the slow coils of desire began to burn again, and she was wide awake once more.
There was no way she could deny it. Her body was already reacting to the renewed proof of his desire, tightening around him in reminiscent, anticipatory spasms of longing. “We’re going to be sorry,” she said, trailing hot, hungry little kisses down his chest.
“Maybe,” Mack said. “Maybe not.” And he flipped over, bringing her with him, and smiled up at her, a devilish, sexy grin that wrung her heart. “Okay, kid. Your turn to do all the work.”
She looked down at him, considering for a long moment. “Pulaski,” she said, shifting slightly and watching with pleasure as his eyes glazed, “you’re going to be my downfall.”
He looked up. “God, I hope so, Maggie May. I surely hope so.”
twelve
It had been a strange, uncomfortable morning. Maggie woke up first, crawled from beneath the tangle of limbs, and made it to the shower before Mack could pull her back. She killed as much time as she could, then went directly down to the small, clean lobby to find out about flights to Tegucigalpa. By the time she came back to the room, Mack was up and dressed.
She didn’t want to look at Mack and see that warm, tender look in his eyes that completely demoralized her. He seemed suddenly much larger, filling the small hotel room with his presence, and yet she knew it was an illusion. He wasn’t much taller than her almost six feet. She felt nervous, unsure of herself and her reactions to the almost shocking events of the night before. The feelings he stirred in her left her disoriented, quiet, and in desperate need of time to think and reflect.
But right now time was their most precious commodity. So she entered the room, avoiding his gaze, moving straight to the window and looking out over the courtyard. The soft trade breezes blew her damp hair against her forehead, soothing her. “We’re taking the first flight out of here—I’ve arranged for a taxi to take us to the airport. Was there anything you needed to buy before we go?” Her voice was cool, distant, friendly, and she allowed herself a brief look at him before her eyes skittered away.
Hurt and anger clouded his hazel eyes, but his rough, drawling voice sounded just as unmoved as hers. “I think I’ve got everything I need. Tegucigalpa’s the biggest city in the country, according to Fodor’s. I’m sure if we need anything else, we can find it there.”
“Yes, I’m sure we can,” she said, staring out at the leaves gently moving in the soft wind. She forced herself to turn, smiling brightly at him. “Let’s go.”
He waited. Watching her. He was going to say something, she just knew it. He was going to open that sexy mouth of his that had done such shocking things to her last night and say, “About last night …”
Without a word, he stuffed their damp clothes in the knapsack, fastened it, and hoisted it over his shoulder. “Let’s go,” was all he said.
They slept the short flight from La Ceiba to Tegucigalpa, careful not to touch each other. There’d been an uncomfortable moment when they’d taken their seats in the small commuter plane, and Maggie couldn’t keep her eyes from meeting his as she fastened the seat belt.
“You’re not the slightest bit nervous?” he asked her, his voice nothing more than politely curious. They might never have clung together on the shattered wing of a downed plane, might never have kept each other alive and alert during those endless hours.
“Not the slightest,” she said, and it was only a little bit of a lie. “What about you?”
“Scared shitless,” he said. “But then, I’ve never made any claim to being perfect. I have real emotions. I get angry, I get scared, I get hurt. What about you?” There was no mistaking the pulsing anger in his voice.
Maggie knew that sooner or later she was going to have to face what happened, sooner or later they were going to have to talk about it. But not right now, when she was trying to hide the fact that her palms were sweating, not right here when they were surrounded by tourists and businessmen and flight attendants.
“You should know by now that I do my absolute best not to let things faze me,” she said in her coolest voice. “Life is a great deal more comfortable that way.”
“I’m sure it is,” he snapped, and he didn’t say another word the entire trip.
If his nagging, impertinent questions made her edgy, his silence was even worse. As they made their way through Tegucigalpa, Mack followed her with a leashed docility that she had little doubt would explode sooner or later. She found she was looking forward to it.
Tegucigalpa was a bustling, growing city, nestled in one of Honduras’s many valleys, with new construction abounding on the outskirts and in the center of the capital. The pastel houses, the red-tiled roofs, the twisting little neighborhoods and charming, colonial ambience made Maggie think twice about settling for the anonymous comfort of the Holiday Inn Plaza. But not three times. That anonymity was just what they needed while she made contact with the head of the rebels.
The government of Honduras had cracked down recently, ordering the various bickering groups of rebels to maintain a lower profile in the country’s capital. It might prove more difficult finding them than she supposed. She also had to figure out what she was going to do with Mack while she made contact. While it was unlikely that word of his involvement with the New York drug deal could have filtered all the way down here, Maggie didn’t dare rule it out.
Mack waited in the spacious lobby
of the new Holiday Inn Plaza while she checked in, followed her as she led the way to their room on the third floor overlooking the charming city and the mountains that ringed it.
Finally he spoke. “Where am I sleeping?”
There were two double beds in the spacious, American-style hotel. “Like a five-hundred-pound gorilla, Pulaski, you can sleep anywhere you damn please.”
He didn’t smile. “Which bed do you want?”
So it was going to be like that, was it, she thought dishearteningly. She had no one to blame but herself. She’d known it was a mistake from the start, she’d been deliberately cool all morning, and it was no wonder he was setting his own distances between them.
“The bed by the window,” she said in an even voice. “I like to be near the light.”
Mack nodded, dropping the knapsack on the other bed. And then he kicked off his shoes and sank down onto her bed, stretching out and placing his hands behind his head. “Good. I like this one better too.” And his eyes were challenging.
Her eyes met his challenge for a long, unwavering moment. Then she sank down in one of the chairs. “I want you to stay here while I contact the RAO.”
“The who?”
“The RAO. The … God, I can’t remember what the letters stand for, and I don’t really give a damn. It’s the largest group of rebels. They’re the ones working the most with the CIA—they should know where Van Zandt is.”
“And you want me to stay here while you talk to them? Forget it, Maggie.”
“Pulaski, we can’t be sure they haven’t been warned about you. Your voice is distinctive—all they’d have to do is hear that rasp and recognize you.”
“Then I won’t talk. I can be discreet, Maggie. But I’m not going to let you go into a lion’s den alone.”
“I don’t need some goddamned man watching out for me!” The nervous tension that had been simmering within her all morning ignited, and fury lit through her like a forest fire. “Don’t think that sleeping with me gave you some sort of rights over me. I can take care of myself, and I’m not about to start relying on some insecure male who’s got something to prove and thinks he owns me. No one owns me, mister, and no one is responsible for my well-being but me.”