by Linda Howard
“Zane…wait,” she whispered, lifting one hand to his head. It was the only movement she had enough energy to make. “I can’t—I need to rest.”
He slid down between her legs and lifted her thighs onto his shoulders. “You don’t have to move,” he promised her in a deep, rich voice. “All you have to do is lie there.” Then he kissed her, slowly, deeply, and her body arched as it began all over again, and he showed her all the things he hadn’t been able to do to her before.
He brought her to completion once more before finally crawling forward and settling his hips between her thighs. She moaned when he filled her with a smooth, powerful thrust. She quivered beneath him, shocked by the thickness and depth of his penetration. How could she have forgotten? The discomfort took her by surprise, and she clung to him as she tried to adjust, to accept. He soothed her, whispering hot, soft words in her ear, stroking her flesh, which was already so sensitive that even the smooth sheet beneath her felt abrasive.
But, oh, how she had wanted this. This. Not just pleasure, but the sense of being joined together, the deep and intimate linkage of their bodies. This fed a craving within her that the climaxes he’d given her hadn’t begun to touch. Her hips lifted. She wanted all of him, wanted him so deep that he touched her womb, ripening with his seed. He tried to moderate the thrusts that were rapidly pushing her toward yet another climax, but she dug her nails into his back, insisting without words on everything he had to give.
He shuddered, and with a deep-throated groan, gave her what she asked.
She slept then. It was long after midnight on the east coast, and she was exhausted. She was disturbed by the presence of the big, muscled man beside her in the bed, though, his body radiating heat like a furnace, and she kept waking from a restless doze.
He must sleep like a cat, she thought, because every time she woke and changed positions, he woke up, too. Finally he pulled her on top of him, settling her with her face tucked against his neck and her legs straddling his hips. “Maybe now you can rest,” he murmured, kissing her hair. “You slept this way in Benghazi.”
She remembered that, remembered the long day of making love, how he had sometimes been on top when they dozed, and sometimes she had. Or perhaps she had been the only one who dozed while he had remained alert.
“I’ve never slept with a man before,” she murmured in sleepy explanation, nestling against him. “Slept slept, that is.”
“I know. I’m your first in both cases.”
The room was dark; at some time he had turned off the lamp, though she didn’t remember when. The heavy curtains were drawn against the neon of the Las Vegas night, with only thin strips of light penetrating around the edges. It reminded her briefly of that horrible room in Benghazi, before Zane had taken her away, but then she shut out the memory. That no longer had the power to frighten her. Zane was her husband now, and the pleasant ache in her body told her that the marriage had been well and truly consummated.
“Tell me about your family,” she said, and yawned against his neck.
“Now?”
“Mmm. We’re both awake, so you might as well.”
There was a twitch of flesh against her inner thigh. “I can think of other things to do,” he muttered.
“I’m not ruling anything out.” She wriggled her hips and was rewarded by a more insistent movement. “But you can talk, too. Tell me about the Mackenzie clan.”
She could feel his slight shrug. “My dad is a half-breed American Indian, my mom is a schoolteacher. They live on a mountain just outside Ruth, Wyoming. Dad raises and trains horses. He’s the best I’ve ever seen, except for my sister. Maris is magic with horses.”
“So the horses really are a family business.”
“Yep. We were all raised on horseback, but Maris is the only one who went into the training aspect. Joe went to the Air Force Academy and became a jet jockey, Mike became a cattle rancher, Josh rode jets for the Navy, and Chance and I went to the Naval Academy and got our water wings. We can both fly various types of aircraft, but flying is just a means of getting us to where we’re needed, nothing else. Chance got out of Naval Intelligence a couple of years ago.”
Barrie’s talent with names kicked in. She lifted her head, all sleepiness gone as she ran that list of names through her head. She settled on one, put the details together and gasped. “Your brother is General Joe Mackenzie on the Joint Chiefs of Staff?” Of course. How many Joe Mackenzies were Air Force generals?
“The one and only.”
“Why, I’ve met him and his wife. I think it was the year before last, at a charity function in Washington. Her name is Caroline.”
“You’re right on target.” He shifted a little, and she felt a nudging between her legs. She inhaled as he slipped inside her. Talk about right on target.
“Joe and Caroline have five sons, Michael and Shea have two boys, and Josh and Loren have three,” Zane murmured, gently thrusting. “Junior will be the eleventh grandchild.”
Barrie sank against him, her attention splintered by the pleasure building with each movement of his hips. “Don’t talk,” she said, and heard his quiet laughter as he rolled over and placed her beneath him…just where she wanted to be.
Chapter 12
Barrie awoke to nausea, sharp and urgent. She bolted out of bed and into the bathroom, barely reaching it in time. When the bout of vomiting was over, she sank weakly to the floor and closed her eyes, unable to work up enough energy to care that she was curled naked on the floor of a hotel bathroom, or that her husband of less than twelve hours was witness to it all. She heard Zane running water; then a wonderfully cool, wet washcloth was placed on her heated forehead. He flushed the toilet, something she hadn’t been able to manage, and said, “I’ll be right back.”
As usual, she rapidly began to feel better after she had thrown up. Embarrassed, she got up and washed out her mouth and was standing in front of the mirror surveying her tousled appearance with some astonishment when Zane appeared with a familiar green can in his hand.
He had already popped the top. She snatched the can from him and began greedily drinking, tilting the can up like some college freshman guzzling beer. When it was empty, she sighed with repletion and slammed the can down on the countertop as if it was indeed an empty soldier of spirits. Then she looked at Zane, and her eyes widened.
“I hope you didn’t go out to the drink machine like that,” she said faintly. He was still naked. Wonderfully, impressively naked. And very aroused.
He looked amused. “I got it out of the minibar in the parlor.” He glanced down at himself, and the amusement deepened. “There’s another can. Want to go for it?”
Barrie drew herself up and folded a bold hand around his thrusting sex. “I’m not the kind of woman who loses her inhibitions after a couple of Seven-Ups,” she informed him with careful dignity. She paused, then winked at him. “One will do.”
Somehow she had expected they would make it back to the bed. They didn’t. His hunger was particularly strong in the mornings, and after a tempestuous few moments she found herself on her knees, half bent over the edge of the bathtub while he crouched behind her. Their lovemaking was raw and fast and powerful, and left her once again lying weakly on the floor. She found some satisfaction in the fact that he was sprawled beside her, his long legs stretched under the vanity top.
After a long time he said lazily, “I’d thought I could wait until we were in the shower. I underestimated the effect of a soft drink on you, sweetheart…and what watching you drink it does to me.”
“I think we’re on to something,” she reflected, curling nakedly against him and ignoring the chill of the floor. “We need to buy stock in the company.”
“Good idea.” He turned his head and began kissing her, and for a moment she wondered if the bathroom floor was going to get another workout. But he released her and rose lithely to his feet, then helped her up. “Do you want to have room service, or go down to a restaurant for breakfast?”
“Room service.” She was already hungry, and with room service their breakfast should be there by the time she showered and dressed. She gave Zane her order, then, while he called it in, she selected the clothes she wanted. The silk dress was badly wrinkled, so she carried it into the bathroom with her to let the steam from her shower repair the damage.
She took her time in the shower, but even so, some wrinkles remained in the dress by the time she finished. She left the water running and turned it on hot to increase the amount of steam. On a hook behind the door hung a thick terry-cloth bathrobe with the hotel’s logo stitched on the breast pocket. She pulled it on and belted it around her, smiling at the weight and size of the garment, and went out to see how long it would be before their breakfast arrived.
Zane wasn’t in the bedroom; she could hear him talking in the parlor, and wondered if room service had been unusually quick. But she heard only his voice as she walked to the open door.
He was on the phone, half-turned away from her as he sat on the arm of the couch. She had the impression that he was listening to the shower running even as he carried on his conversation.
“Keep the tail on her father, as well as on his tail,” he was saying. “I want to catch them all at one time, so I don’t have to worry about any loose ends. When the dust settles, Justice and State can sort it out between them.”
Barrie gasped, all the color washing out of her face. Zane’s head jerked around, and he stared at her, the blue mostly gone from his eyes, leaving them as sharp and gray as frost.
“Yeah,” he said into the receiver, his gaze never wavering from hers. “Everything’s under control here. Keep the pressure on.” He hung up and turned fully to face her.
He hadn’t showered yet, she noticed dully. His hair wasn’t wet; there was no betraying dampness to his skin. He must have gotten on the phone as soon as she had begun her shower, setting in motion the betrayal that could send her father to jail.
“What have you done?” she whispered, barely holding herself together against the pain that racked her. “Zane, what have you done?”
Coolly he stood and came toward her. Barrie backed up, clutching the lapels of the thick robe as if it could protect her.
He flicked a curious glance toward the bathroom, where billows of steam were escaping from the half-open door. “Why is the shower still running?”
“I’m steaming the wrinkles out of my dress,” she answered automatically.
His eyebrows lifted wryly. Though she didn’t find the pun amusing, she had the thought that this was evidently a wrinkle he hadn’t anticipated.
“Who were you talking to?” she asked, her voice stiff with hurt and betrayal and the strain of holding it all under control.
“My brother Chance.”
“What does he have to do with my father?”
Zane watched her steadily. “Chance does intelligence work for a government agency; not the FBI or CIA.”
Barrie swallowed against the constriction in her throat. Maybe Zane hadn’t betrayed her father; maybe he’d already been under surveillance. “How long has he been following my father?”
“Chance is directing the tails, not doing them himself,” Zane corrected.
“How long?”
“Since last night. I called him while you were showering then, too.”
At least he didn’t try to lie or evade. “How could you?” she whispered, her eyes wide and stark.
“Very easily,” he replied, his voice sharp. “I’m an officer of the law. Before that, I was an officer in the Navy, in service to this country. Did you think I would ignore a traitor, even if it’s your father? You asked me to protect you and our baby, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. When you clean out a nest of snakes, you don’t pick out a few of them to kill and leave the others. You wipe them out.”
The edges of her vision blurred, and she felt herself sway. Oh, God, how could she ever forgive him if her father went to prison? How could she ever forgive herself? She was the cause of this. She had known the kind of man Zane was, but she had allowed herself to ignore it because she’d wanted him so desperately. Of course he’d turned her father in; if she’d been thinking clearly, instead of with her emotions, her hormones, she would have known exactly what he would do, what he had done. It didn’t take a genius to predict the actions of a man who had spent his life upholding the laws of his country, and only a fool would ignore the obvious conclusion.
She hadn’t even thought about it, so she guessed that made her the biggest fool alive.
She heard him say her name, his tone insistent, and then her vision was blocked by his big body as he gripped her arms.
Desperately she hung on to consciousness, gulping in air and refusing to let herself faint. “Let go of me,” she protested, and was shocked at how far away her voice sounded.
“Like hell I will.” Instead he swung her off her feet and carried her to the bed, then bent to place her on the tumbled sheets.
As he had the night before, he sat beside her. Now that she was lying down, her head cleared rapidly. He was leaning over her, one arm braced on the other side of her hip, enclosing her in the iron circle of his embrace. His gaze never left her face.
Barrie wished she could find refuge in anger, but there was none. She understood Zane’s motives, and his actions. All she could feel was a huge whirlpool of pain, sucking her down. Her father! As much as she loved Zane, she didn’t know if she could bear it if he caused her father to be arrested. This wasn’t anything like theft or drunken driving. Treason was heinous, unthinkable. No matter what conclusion her logic drew, she simply couldn’t see her father doing anything like that, unless he was somehow being forced to do it. She knew she wasn’t the weapon being used against him, although she had been drawn into it, probably when he had balked at something. No, she and Zane had both realized immediately that if she was being threatened and her father had nothing to hide, he would have had her whisked away by the FBI before she knew what was happening.
“Please,” she begged, clutching his arm. “Can’t you warn him somehow, get him out of it? I know you didn’t like him, but you don’t know him the way I do. He’s always done what he thought was best for me. He was always there when I needed him, and b-before I left he gave me his blessing.” Her voice broke on a sob, and she quickly controlled it. “I know he’s a snob, but he isn’t a bad person! If he’s gotten involved in something he shouldn’t, it was by accident, and now he doesn’t know how to get out without endangering me! That has to be it. Zane, please!”
He caught her hand, folding it warmly within his. “I can’t do that,” he said quietly. “If he hasn’t done anything wrong, he’ll be all right. If he’s a traitor—” He shrugged, indicating the lack of options. He wouldn’t lift a finger to help a traitor, period. “I didn’t want you to know anything about it because I didn’t want you to be upset any more than necessary. I knew I wouldn’t be able to protect you from worry if he’s arrested, but I didn’t want you to find out about it beforehand. You’ve had enough to deal with these past couple of months. My first priority is keeping you and the baby safe, and I’ll do that, Barrie, no matter what.”
She stared at him through tear-blurred eyes, knowing she had collided with the steel wall of his convictions. Honor wasn’t just a concept to him, but a way of life. Still, there was one way she might reach him. “What if it was your father?” she asked.
A brief spasm touched his face, telling her that she’d struck a nerve. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I hope I’d be able to do what’s right…but I don’t know.”
There was nothing more she could say.
The only thing she could do was warn her father herself.
She moved away from him, sliding off the bed. He lifted his arm and let her go, though he watched her closely, as if waiting for her to faint or throw up or slap him in the face. Considering her pregnancy and her state of mind, she realized, all three were possible, if she relaxed her control just
a fraction. But she wasn’t going to do any of them, because she couldn’t afford to waste the time.
She hugged the oversize robe about her, as she had once hugged his shirt. “What exactly is your brother doing?” She needed as much information as possible if she was going to help her father. Maybe it was wrong, but she would worry about that, and face the consequences, later. She knew she was operating on love and blind trust, but that was all she had to go on. When she thought of her father as the man she knew him to be, she knew she had to trust both that knowledge and his honor. Despite their enormous differences, in that respect he was very like Zane, the man he’d scorned as a son-in-law: honor was a part of his code, his life, his very being.
Zane stood. “You don’t need to know, exactly.”
For the first time she felt the flush of anger redden her cheeks. “Don’t throw my words back at me,” she snapped. “You can say no without being sarcastic.”
He studied her, then gave a curt nod. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
She stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door. The small room was hot and damp with steam, the air thick with it. Barrie turned off the shower and turned on the exhaust fan. There wasn’t a wrinkle left in the silk dress. Hurriedly she shed the robe and pulled on the underwear she’d carried into the bathroom, then pulled the dress on over her head. The silk stuck to her damp skin; she had to jerk the fabric to get it into place. The need to hurry beat through her like wings. How much time did she have before room service arrived with their breakfast?
The mirror was fogged over. She grabbed a towel and rubbed a clear spot on the glass, then swiftly combed her hair and began applying a minimum of makeup. The air was so steamy that it would be a wasted effort to apply very much, but she wanted to appear as normal as possible.
Oh, God, the exhaust fan was making so much noise she might not have heard their breakfast arriving. Hastily she cut it off. Zane would have knocked if their food was here, she assured herself. It hadn’t arrived yet.