by Julie Leto
“Depends on who is doing the manipulating.”
He took her invitation exactly as she intended, slipping his hands slowly down her back and then cupping her backside in his large, muscular hands.
“Muchas gracias,” he said, his words caressing the shell of her ear.
“For what?”
“I know what you did for me today.”
“Oh, you mean putting your life in danger by letting Jessica get snatched when I wasn’t looking? You’re welcome.”
He trailed a path of hot kisses down her neck, making her wish he’d stop wasting time and simply unzip her blouse, remove her bra, and get to work right here, right now.
With deft fingers, he fulfilled the first part of her wish. The sensation of each tooth of her zipper pulling apart from its partner reverberated against her. She concentrated so intensely on the delicious, anticipatory vibrations that she nearly missed what he said next.
“He wouldn’t have killed me,” Frankie claimed.
“If he’d thought you were involved? He would have strangled you with his own hands.”
His tongue dipped low to the skin between her breasts. The heat of the night caught in her throat when her breath spiked in response.
“Me… or someone else.”
Despite her overwhelming desire to surrender to his touch and forget all about the case and the danger for a few stolen moments, Marisela pulled back, her eyes hardly able to focus. “What are you talking about?”
“I understand your reason for suspecting Elise might have ulterior motives for wanting Jessica, but that doesn’t mean she was behind today’s attempt. What if one of Javier’s lieutenants is attempting to stage a coup?”
“You mean a traitor?”
“I’m not sure. But someone within the organization could have used our presence here as a smokescreen. Taking Jessica would give them leverage. With Perez off-kilter, he’d let down his guard.”
Marisela blew out a wavering breath, realizing that in their quest to infiltrate the Perez organization, they might have stepped into more trouble than they’d bargained for. “But the guys today were amateurs.”
“And they also weren’t known by anyone in Puerto Rico, which means if the plan failed, no one could trace the betrayal back to anyone here.”
Marisela ambled away, immersed in the dangerous possibilities Frankie presented. His suggestion was clearly valid and with her concentration focused on making friends with Jessica, she hadn’t paid a lick of attention to the men who followed Perez around like obedient puppies. Maybe one of them was tired of licking his boots. Maybe one of them wanted to be top dog.
“Do you suspect anyone in particular?”
Thunder suddenly rumbled above them. Great. A storm. At least Perez’s security would have something to blame for the communications anomalies.
“No,” Frankie answered. “They all act completely loyal, but that doesn’t mean they are. While you’re working on repairing the damage with Jessica, I’ll make the rounds of the boys, see if I can find anything out, though I doubt anyone would be stupid enough to slip up to a stranger.” The lightning flashed again, this time with a crack that seemed to break open the clouds. Thick drops of water splattered all around. Frankie pulled his jacket over his head and held out his hand. “Let’s get inside.”
She shook her head, then scanned the shoreline for anywhere they could go that wasn’t under Perez’s watchful eye.
“Not yet!”
She dashed in the direction she’d gone when she and Jessica had left the island that morning to shop. The boat ramp. Frankie followed, cursing all the way.
She guessed a guard would be posted at the boathouse, so she wasn’t surprised when they confronted the man hulking under an awning barely large enough to shelter one person, much less three.
“¿Qué pasa?” he asked, his rifle tucked solidly beneath his arm.
“The rain!” she exclaimed. She let Frankie explain to the man that they’d been taking a romantic walk on the beach when the sky opened up and drenched them to the skin.
He offered them the inside of the boathouse, but only after making radio communication with his superior. He unlocked the door, clicked on a dim overhead light, directed them toward the kitchen where they might find towels, then made himself scarce.
The boathouse reeked with the stench of seaweed and fish and motor oil. A vast collection of rods and reels hooked onto the walls testified to Perez’s obvious obsession with sport fishing. A boat, a good thirty-footer, hung suspended from a sturdy collection of winches and steel cables. For an instant, Marisela wondered about using the vessel to execute a quick getaway—until she noticed the gaping tear in the hull.
Besides, the boathouse, while situated on the edge of the water with a large bay door that allowed the ocean to splash beneath the boat, was fairly closed off. The minute they attempted to activate that door, she was certain the whole of Perez’s security force would swarm down on them. And she couldn’t ignore the fact that neither she nor Frankie were cowards. They had a job to finish, no matter the odds.
With ceiling fans swirling the tepid, moist air, Marisela peeled off her shirt and wrung the cotton material out onto the floor. Frankie removed his jacket and tossed it onto a barrel by the door.
“Trying to give the security guards a thrill?” he asked, glancing up at the security camera mounted in the corner of the room.
Marisela looked down at her sexy black bra, then spared the security device a glance. “If Perez’s guards have any decency, they’ll turn the cameras off while we’re here. We are a married couple. Guests of their boss. I don’t think Señor Perez would approve of his men peeping in on us instead of watching for real threats.”
As if on cue, the tiny green light at the base of the camera faded to black.
“You don’t trust that, do you?” Frankie asked, removing his shirt and then using the semi-dry material to wipe off his face and hands.
Marisela slipped her thumbs into her back pockets, arching her back until Frankie’s eyes brimmed with hunger.
“If we can’t trust the man who’s hired us to eliminate his enemies, who can we trust?”
Nineteen
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Marisela said, her skin prickling despite the steamy heat in the boathouse.
His eyebrow quirked. A smile lit his eyes. Damn. In perfect keeping with the dance they’d established so many years ago, he closed in on her hesitation. He offered her his shirt and when she didn’t accept, he balled it up tighter and proceeded to wipe the moisture off her face himself.
“Maybe what isn’t a good idea? Drying off?”
He smoothed the cotton over her cheeks and she couldn’t help but tilt her face into the fabric. His scent curled into her nostrils—a powerful elixir of male musk and fresh rain and body heat. When he patted the shirt lower, dabbing at the moisture glistening across the top of her breasts, her nipples hardened and ached for his touch.
“Making love,” she said.
“Who said we’re going to make love?”
He stepped closer, his erection brushing her belly, proving she wasn’t mistaken. She and Frankie were alone, in the dark night, in a storm. What else would they do?
She cocked a brow.
He chuckled, the deep, throaty sound oozing over her skin like warmed honey. “We can’t seem to keep our hands to ourselves, that’s true.”
After tossing the shirt aside, Frankie twined his fingers with hers even as she struggled to keep them at her sides. What was this force that drew them together? Chemistry? Familiarity? A little bit of both?
“Hands, lips, tongues, assorted private parts,” she admitted, even as he coaxed her palms onto his butt where she could squeeze his tight muscles through snug, damp denim. “The minute we’re alone, we go back to being teenagers again.”
“Now that’s where you’re wrong. I never could do this so fast when we were kids.”
In a split second, her bra popped fr
ee, his deft fingers working their magic even as she relished the feel of his strong body against hers. She shrugged her shoulders and the lingerie fell away, freeing her breasts for his hungry gaze. She stared at him wide-eyed—and aroused.
“If I remember correctly,” she said, “you were faster than a speeding bullet in the backseat of your mother’s car.”
“That’s just because I didn’t want to get caught. I can take my sweet time when the incentive is right.”
With a flash of lightning from outside, her arousal spiked. He pushed her up against a support beam for the boathouse, dropped to his knees, and proceeded to unsnap, unzip, and peel her jeans off her body.
She didn’t resist. Couldn’t resist. She had the strength to fight anyone but him. His power over her loomed like a bad omen of their past, but she couldn’t form the words to tell him to stop, not when his mouth trailing up from her knee to her inner thigh, evoking all the sensations she craved. With Frankie, she’d do anything, because she knew intense pleasure would be her reward.
“You rescued Jessica to save my life today.”
“Mmmm,” she replied, concentrating so much more on the sensations of his breath and tongue across her heated flesh.
He shifted higher onto his knees so he could move his kisses upward, just along the edges of her black lace panties.
“You care about me that much?”
“I wouldn’t want you to die on my account,” she managed, but the long string of words cost her. With his hands sliding up and down her legs, she could hardly breathe. Her nipples tightened, and the pain stabbing through her body could be soothed only by Frankie’s tongue. Yet his mouth was engaged elsewhere and she wasn’t about to complain.
She tangled her fingers into his thick hair and eased his face closer to her concha, so she could feel his hot breath diffuse through the lace and enflame her creamy skin.
“You deserve a reward for your bravery,” he murmured.
She swallowed deeply, nearly cooing when he pressed his tongue against her, delving into the cleft between her legs until she thought her knees might buckle. She might have whimpered. She wasn’t sure. When his hands inched up and removed the lace barrier, she thought she’d scream in triumph, but instead she held her tongue until his assault pushed her over the edge.
And even then, he didn’t stop. No matter how she begged, no matter how convinced she was that she had no more left to give, no more left to feel, he pushed harder. He drove his fingers deep within her and when that threw her into a spiraling orgasmic vortex, he shucked his pants and filled her completely.
He grabbed her hands and stretched them high over her head so he could suckle her breasts even as his thrusts milked her dry. Marisela tried to focus, tried to grab him, touch him, but he denied her, telling her in no uncertain terms that she was going to come again whether she liked it or not and he didn’t need anything from her to make him hard but her complete and total surrender.
She gave it. God help her, but she couldn’t resist him. Not now. Not ever.
* * *
The teddy bear sealed her fate. Marisela blew out a shaking breath and closed Jessica’s door quietly behind her. She wasn’t cut out for emotional scenes. No amount of training from Titan could prepare her for a confrontation with a vulnerable woman-childlike Jessica. In the cool, dry dawn in her own room, wrapped in Frankie’s strong, warm arms after a night of lovemaking, Marisela had made a decision.
One that could get them both killed—or save a mission that was dead in the water.
She strolled to the bed and with a light touch, moved a strand of hair that had tangled across the young girl’s eyes. Jessica bolted upright, but Marisela remained steady and cool, even with narrow hatred slicing at her from Jessica’s clear blue stare.
“Get out!”
“I came to talk to you.”
She glanced at her watch. Right about now, Titan was jamming Perez’s surveillance system yet again. This time, she had five full minutes to talk, though she knew she needed more. She decided to gamble that Perez didn’t have his own daughter’s room bugged. If he did, Marisela could be dead very, very soon.
“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say!” Jessica spat, scrambling off the bed.
Marisela spun Jessica into a tight hold and blocked her mouth so she couldn’t scream.
“Look in my pocket.”
Jessica attempted to break free, but Marisela wrapped her foot tighter around the girl’s ankle, then shifted to the side so she presented no target to Jessica’s effective head-butt technique.
“Listen to me, chiquita. If you want to know what is really going on, you’ll take what is in my jacket right now.”
She felt the girl’s capitulation in the way her shoulders sagged. Certain Marisela could regain control of the situation at any point, at least physically, she relaxed her hold so Jessica could do as she asked and slip her hand into Marisela’s jacket.
She withdrew the letter, but the locket fell to the floor.
“Read it.”
Jessica shook the folds until she could read at least the first few lines. In an instant, her muscles completely gave way. Now, Marisela wasn’t restraining Jessica so much as she was holding her up. She took her hand away from the girl’s mouth then led her gently back to her bed.
“This is a letter I sent to my mother,” she said, her voice quivering. “Oh, my God. Alfredo’s granddaughter mailed it for me from her school. I found the address in my father’s papers. He would have locked me up forever if he’d found out. I was only, I don’t know, like eight.”
“You were nine,” Marisela answered, swooping down to retrieve the locket and chain from the floor. “Your mother gave me that letter only a week ago.”
“My mother?” Jessica’s honed instincts brought her voice to a whisper. “No, that can’t be. My father would never allow…”
Her voice trailed off and Marisela watched her eyelids blink as she struggled to make sense of her admission. She shook her head, her hands quaking even as she pressed the sheet of paper onto the bed and tried to smooth out the wrinkles.
“Your father doesn’t know,” Marisela assured her.
“I don’t believe you. He knows everything that goes on here. You’re just playing with me! You’re his assassin! You’re trying to trick me so that I’ll forgive him for asking you to kill my mother.”
Marisela kneeled beside the bed as she glanced toward the door. Even though there might not be a listening device inside the room, there was no telling who was patrolling the hallway.
“¡Silencio! What I’m telling you could get me killed and I sort of like breathing. Think you can tone yourself down while I explain?”
Jessica’s mouth tightened into a thin line, but she gripped the letter as if the paper had been glued to her fingertips.
“I’ll hear you out, but I won’t believe you.”
“Don’t make up your mind just yet. First, let’s get one thing clear—your father did not order a hit on your mother. He was angry and frustrated and scared shitless when those thugs took you. He suspected your mother might have been behind the kidnapping and he was just thinking out loud. Those pendejos nearly got you killed. You can’t blame him for wanting revenge.”
“My mother would never try to kidnap me! She doesn’t want me!”
Marisela rolled her eyes, placed her finger over Jessica’s lips, and shushed her again. “Wrong again, mija. Your mother is the reason I’m here.”
Even as the whole story poured from her lips, Marisela knew Frankie would kill her himself for telling Jessica the whole unadulterated truth. She didn’t reveal her real name, fearing Jessica could inadvertently screw up, but she did promise to tell her once this whole situation ended.
If it ended with Marisela still alive, that was.
To seal her confession, she showed Jessica the locket, which the girl opened, then cradled in her palm as if the charm were made from spun glass instead of gold.
“So yo
u’re here to take me back to my mother?” Jessica asked, her voice raspy from all the unshed tears pouring down the back of her throat.
“I was. But you’ve been through so much and frankly, your father isn’t the man I was told he was anymore than I’m guessing your mother is the woman you’ve been told she is. And now, there is a third player in this game and that’s an unknown that could get you killed if I take you out of your father’s protection. Besides, with the tightened security, I don’t think we can get you off this island safely without your cooperation.”
“Cooperation? What are you talking about?”
Marisela slid onto the bed beside Jessica and glanced quickly at the door. They’d been chatting for quite some time and no one had burst in or even so much as interrupted, which she hoped meant that her hunch about Perez keeping his daughter’s bedroom off limits to his surveillance team had been on target. But this conversation couldn’t go on forever. Sooner or later, her father was going to come in and check on his daughter. Frankie was supposed to run interference after he completed his call to Blake, but there was no guarantee he’d be able to keep the distraught father from his child.
“Do you want to meet your mother?”
“Yes! If she really wants me. I mean, of course.”
“Will your father let you do that?”
“Are you kidding? You heard him. He hates her.”
“I’m supposed to take you to her, back in the States, where she has custody, at least until you turn eighteen. But I don’t want to do that anymore.”
Jessica’s brows shot up, then knotted over suspicious eyes. “Why not?”
“Because frankly, I don’t trust your mother anymore than your father does. And I know you love your father and would be miserable if I took you away by force. I want you to meet your mother, but I’m not averse to changing the terms in your favor. But only if you want me to. So until you decide, I’m putting my life in your hands.”