by Linda Howard
“What other cars have been reported stolen within the past twenty-four hours?”
“A Peugeot was taken from behind a house a kilometer from the Renault. A Fiat was also stolen, but that was some distance away. And a Mercedes was reported stolen, but the owner has been out of town and does not know how long the car has been gone.”
The Peugeot was the most likely, Ronsard thought. It was the closest. And yet . . . perhaps that was what Temple wished him to think. “Concentrate on the Mercedes and Fiat,” he said. “I will be joining you by helicopter in two hours. Find those two cars.”
“Yes, sir,” came the brisk answer.
It was noon when they reached Nice. Niema was so tired she could barely think, but somehow her body kept moving. They were met at the dock by a man in a small outboard, to take them out to the yacht that was moored in the harbor. He had to be Company, Niema thought. He was American, and he didn’t ask any questions, just competently steered the boat across the harbor and brought it alongside a gleaming white sixty-footer.
She wasn’t too tired to be amazed. She stared up at the yacht, with an impressive array of antennas bristling from its top. When John had said “yacht,” she had expected something about twenty-five or thirty feet, with a tiny galley, a tinier head, and bunk beds in a cramped cabin. This thing was in an entirely different category.
John spoke quietly with the other man, giving him instructions on the disposition of the stolen Fiat. It was to disappear, immediately. There were other instructions as well. “Keep us under surveillance. Don’t let anyone approach us without warning.”
“Got it.”
He turned to look at Niema. “Can you make it up the ladder?”
“Do I get to take a shower and go to bed if I do?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then I can make it up the ladder.” She suited action to words, setting her bare feet on the rungs and using the last of her energy to climb to the deck. John made it as easily as if he had just woke from a good night’s sleep and started fresh. He looked terrible, but she couldn’t see any sign of fatigue in him.
He opened the hatch door and led her inside. The interior was surprisingly spacious, with everything built in that could be built in, the design both sophisticated and luxurious. They were in the middle of the boat, in a large salon outfitted with pale golden wood and dark blue trim; a full galley lay beyond. John ushered her past the galley, into a narrow hallway, or whatever it was called on board a ship. If a kitchen was a galley, a bathroom was a head, and a bedroom was a cabin, then a hallway had to be something else too.
“Here’s the head,” he said, opening a door. “Everything you’ll need is there. When you’re finished, take either of these cabins.” He indicated two doors in the hallway past the head.
“Where will you be?”
“In the office, up-linking to a satellite for a burst transmission. There are two other heads on board, so don’t feel you have to hurry.”
Hurry? He had to be joking.
The head was as luxuriously appointed as the rest of the boat. All of the cabinetry was built in, to save space. The glass-enclosed shower was spacious by anyone’s standards, with gold-plated fixtures. A thick white terry cloth bathrobe hung on a hook behind the door, and a bath mat with a pile so thick her feet sank into it covered the glazed bronze tiles on the floor.
She investigated the contents of the vanity and found everything she could possibly need, as John had said: soap, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, a new toothbrush, moisturizer. In another drawer was a blow dryer and an assortment of brushes and combs.
She was so tired all she wanted to do was fall in bed and sleep for the rest of the day. They were safe, the job completed. She had done what she signed on to do.
She should feel satisfied, or at least relieved. All she felt was a great hollow pain that had started in her chest and now seemed to fill her entire body. It was finished. Over. John. The job. Everything.
“I can’t let him go,” she whispered, leaning her head on her hands. She loved him too much. She had tried to fight it for weeks now; loving a man like him was a tough thing to do. She had already loved one damn hero, and losing Dallas had nearly destroyed her. What she was risking now was too devastating to even contemplate, but there was no turning back.
Nor could she see any future for them. John was, essentially, a lobo. They had worked as a team on this job, but that wasn’t likely to happen again. By necessity he had to limit the number of people who knew his real identity, and carefully control any contact with them. She still didn’t understand why she was one of those few people, despite what he said about being taken by surprise and blurting out his real name. John Medina didn’t blurt out anything: Everything he said, everything he did, was toward some aim.
So why had he told her? She was nobody, a low-level tech with a talent for electronic surveillance. He could have kept quiet and let her go on believing his name was Tucker, or he could have come up with some other name; God knows he had a list of them tucked away somewhere in that convoluted brain of his. She had no way of knowing the difference.
She would drive herself crazy wondering about him, what he was doing and why he was doing it. No sane woman could possibly love him, but if this job had taught her one thing, it was that she wasn’t sane. She was an adrenaline junkie, a risk-taker, and though she had spent the past five years fighting her own nature, punishing herself for Dallas’s death and trying to shape her life, her personality, into a more conventional pattern, she could no longer maintain the illusion. All John had to do was walk through a door and beckon her, and she would go with him—anywhere, any time.
It angered her that she could be so defenseless against him. If he had shown any corresponding weakness, she wouldn’t feel so hopeless. He liked her, she knew; physically he had responded when they kissed, and he had certainly risen to the occasion in Ronsard’s office, but a physical response from a man was so automatic she couldn’t let herself read any importance into it. Men were, as he himself had pointed out, simple creatures. All they required was a warm body. She had filled that requirement.
She could stand there all day running the details around and around in her mind, like a rat trying to escape from a maze, but she always came back to the same end: She couldn’t see a future with John. He was what he was. He lived in the shadows and risked his life on a daily basis, and kept his personal life to a minimum. She even loved that part of him, because how many people in the world could do what he did, make the sacrifices he had made?
All she could do was hope she saw him now and again. Even every five years would be enough, if she could just know he was alive.
Shuddering, she pushed away that last thought and at last moved into action, stripping off her filthy clothes and stepping under the warm shower. She put her mind in neutral, soaping and scrubbing and shampooing, scrubbing away at a stubborn dark stain on her thigh until she realized it was a bruise.
Getting clean made her feel marginally better, though the face she saw in the mirror was still pale and strained, her eyes shadowed with exhaustion. She took full advantage of the amenities provided, brushing her teeth, smoothing moisturizer into her skin, blow-drying her hair. There was even a tube of medicated cream, and she dabbed that on the raw places on her feet.
The grooming rituals had a sedative effect, easing the tightness of her nerves. She could sleep now, she thought, and even managed a smile to herself. As if sleeping had ever been in any doubt! She planned to spend at least ten hours horizontal, more if she could manage it.
She would deal with her dirty clothes later, she decided, and wrapped herself in the thick, soft robe. All she wanted to do now was sleep.
She opened the door and froze. John stood just outside the door, naked except for a damp towel wrapped around his waist. He had already showered; small beads of water still clung to the hair on his chest. Niema knotted her hands into fists, wrapping them with the robe sash to keep from touching him, flat
tening her palms against that warm, muscular wall and feeling his heart beat beneath her fingers.
“Are you finished?” she asked in surprise.
“It only took a couple of minutes. Load the disk in the computer, up-link to the satellite, and send a burst transmission. It’s done.”
“Good. You must be as tired as I am.”
He blocked her exit from the head, looking down at her with an unreadable expression in his blue eyes. “Niema . . .”
“Yes?” she prompted, when he didn’t say anything else.
He held out his hand to her, palm upturned, utterly steady. “Will you sleep with me?”
Her heart gave a powerful thud that made her feel weak. She stared up at him, wondering what was going on behind that impenetrable blue gaze, and then realized it didn’t matter. For now, nothing mattered but being with him. She put her hand in his and whispered, “Yes.”
He put his arms around her and lifted her off her feet almost before the word was out of her mouth. His mouth closed over hers, hungry, devouring, hot. He tasted of the same toothpaste she had used. His tongue stroked urgently in her mouth and she met it with her own. She wrapped her arms around his neck and lost herself, pleasure and joy exploding through her veins.
He dropped the towel where he stood. She lost the robe somewhere on the short route to the nearest cabin. She didn’t know exactly how he got her out of it, but he did. They fell on the bed. Before she could catch her breath he levered himself on top of her and pushed his legs between hers.
His penetration was abrupt and forceful. She cried out, her back arching, her nails digging into his shoulders. His penis was so hot and hard it felt like a thick, heated pipe pushing into her unprepared body. His whole body was hot with urgency, his muscles shaking as he probed deeper, working his entire length into her. His mouth covered hers, swallowing her moans as excitement swirled through her. This wasn’t part of a job. This wasn’t pretense. He wanted her.
He was in her to the hilt, a heavy, stretching presence. He buried his head against her shoulder, shuddering with relief as if he couldn’t have borne another moment unconnected to her.
This wasn’t the John Medina she knew, this man with his desperate need. He was always so controlled, but there was nothing controlled about him now.
She smoothed her hands down his back, feeling the powerful muscles rippling just under his skin. “There’s a concept I want to introduce to you,” she murmured. “It’s called foreplay.”
He lifted his head from her shoulder, smiling wryly. Propping himself on his elbows, settling more comfortably on her and in her, he framed her face in his hands and pressed a kiss to her mouth. “I’m a desperate man. Any time you let me touch you, I’m going to get inside you as fast as I can, before you have time to change your mind.”
The words shocked her, hinting at a vulnerability, a need, she never would have suspected he felt.
He moved, a slow stroke that set off a small riot in her nerve endings. She gasped, her legs rising to clasp his hips. “Why would I change my mind?” she managed to ask.
“Things haven’t always been . . . easy between us.”
Things weren’t easy between them now. There was tension and pain and uncertainty, an explosive sexual attraction, even a spark of hostility caused by the clash of two strong personalities. There was nothing serene about her relationship with him, never had been.
She slid her fingers into the damp strands of his hair, holding him as she lifted her hips and did her own stroking. “If I wanted an easy ride, I’d find a merry-go-round.”
His entire body tightened, and his eyes burned laser blue. He seemed to lose his ability to breathe. She did it again, lifting to take him deep, then clamping all her internal muscles on him and holding him tight as she pulled back, milking him with her body. A harsh groan burst out of his throat. “Then hold on tight, honey, because it’s gonna be long and hard.”
“Actually,” she purred, “it already is.”
The smothered sound he made was almost a laugh. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
“Then show me what you did mean.”
That look was back in his eyes again, that unreadable wall behind which something elusive moved. “A lot of different things,” he murmured. “But for now, we’ll concentrate on this one.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
Niema woke in his arms the next morning. She lay quietly, still drowsing, slipping back and forth between sleep and awareness. She was curled on her left side and he was a solid wall behind her, his legs tangled with hers and his arm a heavy weight over her hip. His breath was warm on her shoulder.
She hadn’t slept with a man like this since Dallas, she thought sleepily, the name resonating gently in her mind. No—John was the last man she had slept with. The realization was a shock. She remembered that awful time in Iran, the way he had held her and gentled her to sleep, then held her the next morning while she wept, when she woke and realized he wasn’t Dallas, that Dallas would never again hold her in the night.
She couldn’t see the clock, but it was almost dawn; the sky was beginning to lighten. They had been in bed—what, sixteen, seventeen hours? Making love, sleeping, making love again. He had gotten up once and brought back a tray of bread and cheese and fruit, and that had been their supper. Other than that they hadn’t left the cabin except to visit the head.
She felt lethargic, content to be right where she was. Her entire body was relaxed, sated, well-used.
His lips brushed the back of her neck and she realized he was awake. She made a slight nestling movement, sighing with pleasure. How she enjoyed this, waking in the early morning, held close by the man she loved; there were few things in life more satisfying.
His morning erection prodded her, rising insistently against her bottom. She started to turn over but he stayed her with a murmur, adjusting his position and guiding himself to her opening. She arched her back, giving him a better angle. He put his hand on her stomach, bracing her, and pushed. He went slowly inside her; she was morning soft, morning wet, but their positions made her body yield reluctantly to his intrusion. She breathed through her mouth, trying to stay relaxed. With her legs together there wasn’t much room inside her; he felt huge, stretching her to the limit.
The sensation bordered on pain, but was also its own turn-on. She pressed her head back against his shoulder, struggling to contain the feeling and yet take more of him. Another inch pushed into her and she moaned.
He paused. “Are you all right?” His voice was low, smoky with sleep and desire.
She didn’t know. Maybe. “Yes,” she whispered.
He stroked his right hand up to her breasts, lightly rubbing his fingertips on the lower slope, the way he had learned she liked. The subtle caress lit a gentle glow of pleasure, prepared her nipples for more direct contact. That came from his thumb, slowly moving over them, circling them until they hardened and stabbed into his covering palm. It was scary how fast he had caught on to all the small subtleties of how she liked to be touched, scary that his attention had been so focused on her that he hadn’t missed a single hitch in her breath. After just one night, he knew her body as well as she did.
He slipped his left arm under her, curving it around her waist and cupping his hand over her mound. His middle finger slid between her fold, pressing lightly on her clitoris. Not rubbing, just pressing, holding his finger there. Then he began to thrust, using long, slow strokes that moved her body back and forth against his finger.
She cried out, jerking under the lash of pleasure. He whispered something soothing and steadied her, then resumed the motion.
“I wanted you the first time I saw you,” he murmured. “God, how I envied Dallas!” His right hand stroked up and down her torso, piling sensation on top of sensation. “I stayed away from you for five long, fucking years. I gave you every chance to settle down with Mr. Right, but you didn’t take them and I’m through with waiting. You’re mine now, Niema. Mine.”
Her thoughts reeled with shock. He wasn’t given to a lot of swearing: For him to say what he just had was a measure of the strength of his feelings. “J-John?” she stuttered, reaching back for him. She hadn’t had any idea any of that had been going on inside him. How could she? He was too damn good an actor.
His hips recoiled and plunged in a steady, unhurried motion that was completely at odds with the way his heartbeat was hammering against her back. “I talked you into coming on this job because I couldn’t let you go.” His mouth moved on her neck, finding that exact spot between neck and shoulder where the lightest touch made her go limp with pleasure, and a bite would light her up like a Christmas tree. He licked and kissed, holding her quivering body as she strained against him. She tried to part her legs, to lift her thigh over his, but he anchored her leg and held it down.
Niema squirmed, almost frantic with need. As good as his finger felt between her legs, with her legs held together the contact wasn’t quite enough; his strokes inside her weren’t quite deep enough, or fast enough. He had brought her to the boiling point, with touch and words, but wouldn’t let her go over it.
“You were right,” he breathed, the words hot on her skin. “I could have found someone else to plant the bug. Hell, I could’ve planted it myself. But I wanted you with me. I wanted this chance to have you.”
“Let me put my leg over yours,” she pleaded, almost mad with frustration. “Move faster. Please. Just do something!”
“Not yet.” He kissed her neck again. Her right hand, reaching behind to grab him, clenched hard on his butt. “In Ronsard’s office—”
“For God’s sake, confess afterward!”
He laughed and moved her hand, dislodging her nails from his ass. “I didn’t mean to go that far. I’ve never lost control like that before.” He nuzzled her ear. “I had to taste you, had to kiss you—and then I had to have you. I wanted our first time to be in a bed, with a lot of time to spend loving you, but I couldn’t stop. I forgot about the job. All that mattered was having you.”