Stranger in my Arms

by Rochelle Alers

  “Ca dónde la, el señor?”

  “The Four Seasons Hotel en el Paseo de la Reforma 500.”

  The driver took off in a burst of speed as Merrick settled against the leather seat, his arm going around Alex’s shoulders. Minutes into the ride, she rested her head on his chest. Twenty-four hours. That was all they had left before he flew back to the States.

  Alex shifted into a more comfortable position between Merrick’s legs as an unconscious moan slipped past her lips; the cramping in her lower belly and a dull ache in her lower back were indicators that she would see her period in the next day or two.

  “What’s the matter, baby?” Merrick asked, his moist breath sweeping over her ear.

  She moaned again. “Premenstrual cramps.”

  Merrick gently lifted the damp strands clinging to her scalp. They’d returned to the hotel and instead of Alex taking a bath and him a shower, she’d invited him to share the oversize tub.

  “Is this the time of the month when you turn into a witch?”

  Peering at him over her shoulder, Alex wrinkled her nose.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve got sexist jokes.”

  Merrick’s expression was one of unadulterated innocence. “No.”

  “Have you had a lot of experience with women who become viragos when they’re PMSing?”

  “Even if I have I’m not going to tell you.”

  Alex shifted until she straddled Merrick, the pulsing jets from the Jacuzzi adding to her buoyancy. Leaning forward, she pressed her breasts to his hair-matted chest. “Why won’t you tell me?”

  He stared at her under lowered lids. “I don’t kiss and tell, Ali. The women in my past are just that—the past.” He kissed the end of her nose. “That is a topic I will not discuss.”

  Alex affected a pout. “I told you about the men from my past.”

  “You told me not because I asked but because you wanted to. You know who and what you are, and because of that you’re open and spontaneous, while I’ve lived my life speculating whether I’m African or Native American, and wondering if I father children whether they’ll inherit a gene abnormality from an ancestor.”

  “What do you say you are?”

  A wry smile touched his mouth. “I say African-American because unconsciously that’s what I feel. And if my biological father is European or Native American, then I assume he’d slept with a black woman. Or it could be vice versa. You have a large family connected by blood and marriage, and because I don’t know my parents I’ll never know if I have a brother or sister, nieces or nephews.”

  Burying her face between his neck and shoulder, Alex closed her eyes. She felt the strong, steady pumping of his heart against her breasts. “Have you thought of trying to find your birth mother? There are Web sites and agencies set up to reconnect children with their birth parents. It shouldn’t be too difficult for you because you know your mother’s name.”

  “I did check a database for Virginia Gray or Grayslake and came up with more than nine thousand nationwide.”

  Alex opened her eyes and pulled back, meeting his intense stare. “Did you contact any of them?”

  He nodded. “After the first thirty I decided to let it go. Each time I got a ‘No, I’m not your mother’ I found myself overwhelmed with feelings of abandonment. It’d begun to affect my job performance, so I decided to let it go. Uncovering who my mother is or was is no longer a priority.”

  Looping her arms under Merrick’s shoulders, Alex brushed a kiss over his mouth, feeling his pain as surely as if it was her own. It didn’t matter who he was because he was the man with whom she’d fallen in love; he was the man she would love forever.

  “I love you.”

  Merrick went completely still, certain Alex could feel the blood rushing through his veins. He was hot, then cold, confused, then clear-headed as her confession filled him with a sense of power, a strength that vanquished the lingering pain of abandonment that had become an emotional impediment to marriage and fatherhood.

  “Let’s get out of this tub,” he said, recovering quickly.

  Merrick anchored a hand along the shelf of the tub and came to his feet, bringing Alex up with him. He stepped out and reached for a bath sheet on a nearby table. Wrapping the velour fabric around her body, he lifted her gently from the bathtub and carried her into the bedroom, placing her on the bed.

  None of his movements were rushed as he blotted the moisture from her satiny body, lingering over the curve of her breasts and hips. It no longer mattered that he would leave Mexico and Alex in a little more than twenty-four hours, because he had the rest of his life to share whatever he had and whatever he’d become with her.

  Time seemed to slow down for Alex as she languished in the gentleness of her lover’s touch. He dried the front of her body, turned her over and then repeated the action.

  Then, without warning, his mouth replaced the towel, tracing a sensual path down the length of her spine, lingering at the indentation separating the globes of flesh defining her buttocks.

  Heat, chills and undulating waves of ecstasy swept over her as she tried, and failed, to keep the moans from escaping her parted lips. His hands searched areas known only to her, his mouth exploring, and tantalizing, searching, savoring every hollow, dip and curve of her from head to toe.

  Merrick couldn’t get enough of Alex. His hands and mouth mapped every inch of flesh he could see and reach. Her smell, her essence, lingered in his nostrils and on his tongue. His passions rose quickly, and he released her, pausing to slip on a condom. It was as if time had stood still until he looped an arm around her waist; she knelt with her back to him as he pressed his groin to her buttocks. In one, sure motion, he eased his erection into her, both gasping from the unexpected joining of flesh against flesh, man against woman.

  Merrick cupped her breasts, alternating squeezing with rubbing his thumbs over the pebble hardness of her distended nipples. The kneeling position allowed him deeper penetration, maximum pleasure. The sensual beauty of her naked limbs, her feminine fragrance mingling with the rising scent of their lovemaking threatened to take him over the edge where it would be over much too soon.

  Withdrawing, he reversed their positions. Merrick lay on his back, arms anchored over his head, as Alex straddled him. He knew he would never get used to her sensual expression in the throes of lovemaking: flushed skin, dilated pupils, parted lips, flaring nostrils and heaving breasts. And her bubbly spontaneity out of bed became an uninhibited smoldering passion that stripped him raw wherein he was unable to hold anything back. Alexandra Cole claimed what he’d been unable to give anyone—all of himself.

  Alex’s gold-brown gaze met silver-gray. Her gaze inched down to the firm muscles under the brown arms in the diffused lamplight. Tufts of straight reddish hair grew out from his armpits, a lighter shade than the crisp, curling strands covering his chest that tapered down to a narrow line that spread out in an inverted triangle to coarser, tighter curls at his loins. Everything about her lover was a visual banquet. Merrick’s deep drawling voice, powerful masculine presence and compelling, magnetic eyes held her captive in an abyss of loving and longing she never wanted to end.

  Anchoring her palms on his shoulders, her gaze meeting and fusing with his, she lowered her body over his rigid flesh, making them one with each other. Simultaneous audible moans of satisfaction matched the rush of moisture bathing the pulsing area between her thighs.

  The world as Alex knew it ceased to exist. All that mattered was the man offering her the most exquisite passion she’d ever known. What had begun as friendship was now a full-blown love affair, and she realized what she’d felt and shared with her art professor had not even come close to what she felt with Merrick. The pulsing grew stronger, becoming contractions that gripped his hardness before releasing it, then began again.

  Heat rippled under Merrick’s skin, became hotter, more intense each time he thrust upward. They had ceased to exist as individuals, separate entities. He was so attuned t
o the woman rising and falling over his throbbing erection that he felt the spasms that seized her, followed by a primordial scream that made hair stand up on the nape of his neck. Before the next spasm and Alex’s next outburst of ecstasy, he had her on her back, feet anchored on his shoulders. He didn’t want the pleasure to end—not yet. He wanted it to go on—forever, if possible. But it was not possible when he lowered his head, closed his eyes and enjoyed the most extreme physical gratification he’d ever experienced.

  When it was all over he lowered her feet, then collapsed heavily on her smaller frame, waiting for his heart rate to return to a normal rhythm.

  He loved her. He loved her more than anyone or anything.

  Alex struggled to catch her breath as the pressure from Merrick’s greater weight prevented her from moving. “What are you doing to me?” she whispered.

  Breathing heavily, Merrick rolled off Alex and pulled her to his chest. “Loving you, baby. Loving you, and your life.”

  Chapter 11

  CIA Headquarters…Langley, Virginia

  A rare smile deepened the network of lines crisscrossing William Reid’s weather-beaten face within seconds of the door closing behind a man who he’d believed he would never see again. His smile faded as one of the three telephones on his desk rang; reaching over, he picked up the receiver.

  “Reid.”

  “Come to my office.” The command was sharp, the caller’s tone brusque, no-nonsense.

  “I’m on my way.”

  Pushing back his chair and coming to his feet, he put on his suit jacket, left the office and made his way to one several doors away.

  “He’s expecting you,” said the dour-faced woman who guarded her boss’s office like a Secret Service agent assigned to the presidential detail.

  Carl Ashleigh stood by the door to his inner office. It wasn’t often William saw the man wear a suit jacket unless he was scheduled to meet with the director.

  “Let’s go for a drive.”

  William, or Bill to the few friends he’d acquired since coming to the CIA from the FBI, followed his supervisor like an obedient puppy. It wasn’t until they were seated in Ashleigh’s gas-guzzling Yukon, maneuvering toward McLean, Virginia, that Ashleigh initiated conversation. He’d become used to the eccentric younger man who would order him to his office, then make him wait before granting him an audience.

  “Is he coming back?”

  William stared out the side window at the passing countryside. It was the first week in March, and winter appeared to have finally loosened its grip on northern Virginia.

  “I assume you’re talking about Grayslake.”

  High color suffused Carl’s face, his pale blue eyes standing out in stark contrast. “Who the hell else do you think I’m talking about? Did he not spend the past two hours in your office?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He wants back in.”

  “What did you tell him?” Carl asked.

  “I told him that he would have to go through the same protocol as if he were a new hire. He’d have to pass a physical, a psychological and of course obtain security clearance.”

  “What’s he asking for?”

  “Training.”

  Carl slowed the Yukon, turning onto a local road and coming to a complete stop behind a copse of pine trees; he left the engine running. Releasing his seat belt, he shifted on his seat and stared at William Reid. The man was only fifty-six but Carl thought of him as a dinosaur, a holdover from a past era with his military crew cut, cuffed trousers and wing-tipped footwear. William had given the Bureau fifteen years of fieldwork before transferring to the CIA as a desk jockey.

  “Slow down his paperwork.”

  “What!” The single word exploded from William Reid’s mouth.

  The fingers of Carl’s left hand drummed nervously on the steering wheel. “I want you to keep him on hold for a while.”

  William ran a hand over hair that looked like the bristles on a stiff brush. “How long is awhile?”

  “Six months. Assign him to sniper training. With his background as a Marine Corps scout he’ll do well there until we’re ready for him.”

  William gave Carl a long, penetrating stare. “What’s up?”

  Carl’s pale blue eyes narrowed, and he wondered how much he could tell his assistant without compromising the details of a joint meeting of agencies that included the FBI and the CIA. Biweekly meetings between the two directors, corresponding assistant directors and federal prosecutors had become akin to a world economic summit.

  “We may need him for a special assignment.”

  “It can’t be a field assignment,” William insisted.

  “I know that!” Carl said angrily.

  William did not visibly react to his supervisor’s outburst. “Grayslake is going to become suspicious if we take too long to approve his rehire or if he’s assigned to something he hasn’t requested.”

  Ashleigh stared out the windshield. “He wants back in, and that means he’ll accept whatever we offer him. And if he makes it known that he’s unhappy, then bust him down to a file clerk.”

  Carl hadn’t been cleared to brief his assistant on Operation Backslap, but with Merrick Grayslake’s possible return the initial strategy would have to be modified. Once Grayslake was given security clearance Reid would be briefed on an investigation certain to send elected officials scrambling to hire the best defense attorneys not only to salvage their political careers but to avoid going to prison.

  William shook his head. “He’s not going to go for that. If we lose him a second time, you and I know that he’s never coming back.”

  “If you have a better plan, then you’d better tell me right here, right now.”

  The older man stared at his supervisor. “You know I don’t have one.”

  Carl snapped his seat belt, put the vehicle in gear and maneuvered back onto the road back to Langley. The return drive was accomplished in complete silence, and when the two men returned to their offices both knew someone higher than them had determined Merrick Grayslake’s destiny the moment his written request to return to the Company was received.

  Merrick scrolled through his cell-phone directory and clicked on a name. “I’m in your neck of the woods,” he said when hearing the deep-voiced greeting. “Can you spare me a few minutes?”

  “Sure. What’s up, Gray?”

  “I’ll tell you when I see you.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Merrick disconnected the call and shifted into a higher gear. Forty-five minutes later he parked his vehicle two blocks from Michael and Jolene Kirkland’s house.

  Making his way along the tree-lined streets in the D.C. suburb with opulent and historic colonial and Georgian-style homes, he recalled his meeting with Bill Reid. Merrick had been forthcoming when he revealed that he was more than ready to return to the CIA as a training specialist.

  Turning a corner, he walked a block with only six structures in the charming cul-de-sac, most large, imposing, claiming spacious front lawns and, in the warmer weather, flowering shrubs. Michael’s house stood apart from the others. Its simplicity was a Frank Lloyd Wright Japanese-inspired design. A broad sheltering roof with generous overhanging eaves and windows set with colorful geometric shapes radiated warmth, beckoning him closer. A waist-high slate wall was covered with a profusion of climbing vines. A gate made of iron pipe painted a Cherokee-red stood open, welcoming him.

  Merrick strolled up the path, but as he walked up the six steps to the front door it opened and Michael Kirkland stood in the doorway, casually dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt.

  He extended his hand, pulling Michael close in a strong embrace. “How’s it going, Kirk?”

  Michael Kirkland was an imposing figure. His exposed muscled arms were brown as berries. Tall, broad-shouldered and slim-hipped, former U.S. Army captain Michael Kirkland was as physically fit as he’d been when he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Po
int a decade before. His face was as remarkable as the rest of him: close-cropped raven-black hair, clear green eyes that shimmered like precious gems in a sun-browned face. Men and women were drawn to his perfectly symmetrical features that were as delicate as a woman’s.

  Merrick’s friend had resigned his commission and now taught classes in military law and military history at a private military school in northern Virginia. Merrick knew Michael’s decision hadn’t been an easy one, but now as a husband and prospective father he appeared content with the turn his life had taken.

  Michael returned the rough embrace. “How long are you staying?”

  Pulling back, Merrick shook his head. “I’m not. I plan to drive back to Bolivar tonight.”

  Lifting his sweeping black eyebrows, Michael stepped aside and beckoned Merrick into his home. “Come in. Don’t tell me you’ve been holding out on me.” Merrick walked into the living room of the two-story converted carriage house decorated with Asian and Southwest–themed furnishings.

  Michael Kirkland stared at his friend, unable to believe the transformation. When he’d reconnected with Merrick six months ago, he’d found him long-haired, bearded and gaunt-looking. Not only had Merrick put on weight, but he always could’ve easily passed for a D.C. businessman or politician in his tailored suit, imported footwear and conservative haircut.

  Merrick flashed a smile, not replying to Michael’s accusation that he was hiding something from him. He followed Michael into a room that was an exact replica of a Japanese teahouse. Octagonal in shape, its walls were made entirely of screened-in glass windows. Two of the eight sides were open to take advantage of the crisp air. A low lacquered table, surrounded by large black and jade-green floor cushions, were set up in the middle of the room.

  Merrick owed Michael his life from when he found him lying facedown in the street, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Doctors had repaired his spleen but were unable to save his left kidney. The police recorded the incident as a mugging, but Merrick knew he’d been set up, though he was unable to prove it.