Playing With Fire (Games of Chance Series Book 2)

by T. L. Cannon

  “And now?” Ethan asked hopefully, as he finally lifted his gaze to meet hers.

  “Now, I see that it’s your way of trying to free yourself from the ugly tentacles of your past so that you can fully become the man that you were meant to be. The man that I’ve seen glimpses of. The man I fell in love with.” Kira paused momentarily weighing her next words carefully. “The man that I still love.”

  Ethan’s eyes briefly fluttered shut as he allowed Kira’s words to wash over him, to soothe him. “I never thought I’d hear you say those words to me.”

  “I never thought I’d let myself say them.”

  “I love you too. You know that, right?” Ethan’s previously soft expression suddenly hardened with the firmness of his words.

  “Yeah, I do,” Kira replied with a certainty that surprised her.

  Ethan nodded his head as his expression softened with relief. “So what does this mean?”

  “I have no idea,“ Kira admitted with a soft laugh as she reached up with one hand to stroke Ethan's face. “But we don’t have to figure it all out tonight.”

  “Then what should we do?” Ethan lowered his voice suggestively as he pressed his hand against the small of Kira’s back and pulled her body taut against his.

  A sultry smile slowly curled Kira’s lips as she wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled in closer to him. “I think we should just enjoy being on the same page for a change.”

  “And what page is that?”

  Ethan’s breath fanned across Kira's face like a warm, sweet breeze, quickening her heartbeat and heating her blood. “This one,” Kira replied as she rose up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his.

  Ethan’s hand slid slowly along her spine from the small of her back to the base of her neck, cradling her head as he pulled her deeper into the kiss. Kira moaned against his mouth, causing her own to widen even more, giving more access to his gently probing tongue. The kiss was slow and sensual and all the more devastating for it.

  When he finally emerged breathless from the fathomless depths of the kiss, Ethan cupped Kira’s face with both hands as he rested his forehead against hers, looking into her eyes. Unlike the night they’d made love in his penthouse, she returned his gaze without hesitation, holding it with a deliberation that signaled the fullness of her emotional engagement. With that same careful deliberation, she began to unbutton his shirt. This time her hands were steady and unhurried as she slid them along the smooth, taut muscles of his chest, over his broad shoulders and down his arms, slowly peeling his shirt and jacket from his body in the process. Planting a soft kiss on the center of his chest, Kira’s lips spread into a smile as she felt the rapid beating of his heart against them. Pulling back to recapture his gaze, she slipped her hand into his and guided him to her bedroom.

  Pausing at the foot of her bed, Ethan once again gathered Kira’s hands in his, bending his head to plant light, feathery kisses on each of her injured palms, his lips acting as a balm to the slight pain that was retreating rapidly in the face of her mounting passion. “Turn around,” he whispered in a voice raspy with desire.

  Kira obeyed his command, holding her breath as she felt him slowly slide the zipper of her cocktail dress down her back, sending the satin frock sliding into a crumpled heap around her feet, stripping her down to nothing more than the bronze thong she wore beneath. The breath she had been holding floated from her lips on a contented sigh as Ethan ran his hands possessively over the fullness of her naked breasts, manipulating the yielding softness of them with long, firm fingers as he buried his face into the curve of her neck. Her sigh ended in a ragged gasp as he scraped his thumbs lightly over the hardened peaks of her nipples, stroking the swollen buds with a slow, back and forth motion that sent shockwaves of pleasure rocketing down to her warm, feminine core. Knowingly, Ethan followed suit, his hand gliding slowly down the flat plane of her belly and slipping beneath the elastic waist band of her thong, probing, testing, teasing. Kira writhed against his clever fingers in slow, sensuous movements, determined to savor every moment of his expert touch in a way that she hadn’t allowed herself two in their previous, frenzied coupling. But it seemed that her body had other ideas as she found herself involuntarily pressing against his kneading fingers with more force and urgency than she intended, pushing her towards the point of no return at a faster pace than she wanted.

  Feeling her control slipping away and instinctively sensing that it wasn’t what she wanted, Ethan withdrew his hand from it’s silken prison. Turning her around to face him, he carefully slid her thong down her legs before laying her gently across the bed. Quickly stripping off the remainder of his clothing, he covered her with his body, pausing briefly to study her face in the moonlit darkness of her bedroom. She stared back up at him expectantly, raw desire and deep emotion glittering like buried treasure in her dark eyes. Seeing his own emotions reflected in her eyes and relishing in the fullness of the connection they signaled, he resumed his exploration of her body, this time with his mouth joining his hands in their sensuous trek through its intimate recesses. Kira moaned with wanton, carnal delight at the dual approach, opening herself physically and emotionally to everything that Ethan had to offer while freely giving all she had to offer as well, her hands and mouth eagerly reciprocating the pleasure he gave her. On and on they went like this, tasting and teasing, exploring and caressing, their bodies moving in perfect synch with each other in controlled chaos as minutes seemed to stretch into eternity. When the urgency of their mutual need finally exceeded their control, pushing them past the breaking point, the ultimate explosion came in an intense burst of mind-shattering pleasure that left them both shuddering and completely spent but with a feeling of complete satisfaction that neither had ever experienced before. Gathering Kira in his arms, Ethan gently stroked her hair as they lay molded together in the darkness, relishing in the new level of intimacy they had just achieved until they both drifted off into a contented sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The ringing of his cell phone roused Ethan from sleep. Kira moaned in protest as she felt him slip from her arms to answer it. Glancing at the digital alarm clock on the nightstand next to Kira’s bed, he estimated that he had been asleep little more than an hour. With the bedroom still cloaked in darkness, Ethan followed the sound of the annoying buzz of the phone to the pants that lay in a crumpled heap on the floor next to the bed. Looking down at the number displayed on the phone, he wasn’t at all surprised to see that Donovan was the source of the annoying sound.

  “How’d it go?” Ethan asked, immediately shifting from a state of drowsiness to full alert.

  “Like clockwork,” Donovan replied without going into unnecessary detail. “Get a pen and paper, I have an address I want you to meet me at.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now,” Donovan replied irritably. “Unless you need to catch up on your beauty sleep.”

  “I need a pen and paper,” Ethan said to Kira, ignoring Donovan’s dig.

  “What’s going on?” Kira asked as she reached over to turn on a nearby lamp. Opening the top drawer of the nightstand next to the bed, she retrieved the requested items and handed them to Ethan.

  Raising a silencing finger to Kira as he listened to Donovan’s instructions, Ethan quickly scribbled down the address. “Donovan wants me to meet him at some warehouse on the outskirts of town,” he finally answered upon ending the call.

  “At this time of night?” Kira asked with alarm, frowning as she watched Ethan begin to gather up his clothes. “Why?”

  “He searched Seng’s body before he dumped it and found the address to the warehouse written down on a piece of paper in his jacket. “He wants me to meet him over there so we can have a look around,” Ethan explained as he zipped up his pants and began looking around for his shirt.

  “Again, I ask why?”

  “Because in addition to the address, he also found a receipt for delivery of goods from a cargo ship by the name of The Wayfarer.” Eth
an watched as Kira struggled not to react to the name of the freighter. “You can take off your poker face. I know that The Wayfarer belongs to Gau Lung. I also know that you’ve been looking into the records of The Wayfarer in connection to Yi’s murder.”

  “How do you know that?” Kira asked, unable to hide her shock.

  “I saw the paperwork on your desk the last time I visited your office.”

  “So you had more on your mind than seduction when you laid me across my desk,” Kira pointed out, not liking the all too familiar feeling of being manipulated by Ethan.

  “Let’s just say that I know how to multi-task,” Ethan replied glibly as he leaned over the bed, managing to kiss away the frown that suddenly curled her lips but not the nagging feeling of mistrust that had caused it.

  “I’m going with you,” Kira announced as she hopped out of bed and headed for her closet in search of some clothes appropriate for skulking around warehouses.

  “Like hell you are!” Ethan bellowed forcefully.

  Kira turned to face Ethan, holding a black t-shirt in front of her naked body. “Let’s put it this way. I can either go with you or stay here alone and vulnerable, hoping that Gan doesn’t send another one of his goons after me.”

  Ethan bit back a curse. She was right. With Gan gunning for them, he needed to stick as close to her as possible. “You don’t play fair,” Ethan grumbled as he slipped into his shirt.

  “Then that makes two of us,” Kira smiled victoriously as she pulled a well worn pair of black jeans from her closet.

  Less than an hour later Ethan pulled Kira’s Mercedes into an industrial park located in the Hong Kong suburb of Tuen Mun, parking alongside a black Jaguar, the only other car in the lot. Donovan was peering through a pair of high powered binoculars at a warehouse in a adjacent lot when Kira and Ethan climbed into the Jag.

  “Ms. St. James, why am I not surprised to see you here?” Donovan asked as he lowered the binoculars and peered at Kira as she scrambled into the back seat.

  “I couldn’t very well leave her alone after what happened earlier tonight,” Ethan replied defensively from the passenger’s seat.

  “What happened earlier tonight wouldn’t have happened if Kira hadn’t, once again, been someplace she shouldn’t have been.”

  “Quit griping and tell us about the warehouse,” Kira said, simmering over the fact that she couldn’t argue with Donovan’s statement.

  “From the information I’ve been able to gather, it belongs to a company by the name of Envirotech International which is ostensibly a plastic waste recycling company.”

  “What could a common thug like Seng possibly have to do with a plastic waste recycling company?” Kira asked.

  Donovan ran a hand over his chin. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”

  “Is the place guarded?” Ethan asked as he took the binoculars from Donovan’s hand and did a careful survey of the building.

  “I’ve been here for over a half an hour and haven’t detected any activity. The place appears to be empty.”

  “Then let’s go have a look-see.” Handing one of the two small, black flashlights he’d brought with him from Kira’s apartment, he flung open the passenger door and quickly exited the vehicle then waited for Kira to do the same. “You stick close to me,” Ethan instructed her brusquely as he gripped her by her elbow and began guiding her towards the warehouse.

  As much as she hated to admit it, she welcomed the physical reassurance of Ethan’s strong, protective touch as the trio made their way across the dimly lit parking lot, the grim landscape of fluorescent lighting and cold gray concrete bringing back terrifying memories of her violent encounter in the stairwell just a few hours earlier. Ethan paused once they’d reached the back side of the warehouse, gazing up at a small window midway up the corrugated steel wall of the two story building.

  “Wait here,” he said as he tucked his flashlight into his back pocket and quickly climbed on top of a softly humming electric generator box next to the warehouse. With a well honed deftness, he managed to scale the space of wall between the generator and the window encasement with a quickness that was impressive. Opening the window itself just as quickly, he slipped inside the building with relative ease. A few minutes later he opened up the back door and ushered Donovan and Kira inside, closing the door softly behind them.

  The pale yellow beams of the flashlights that Donovan and Ethan wielded sliced through the murky darkness in sweeping arcs, revealing a warehouse that contained five large shipping containers and not much else. Grabbing Kira by the hand, Ethan moved towards the nearest container with Donovan trailing closely behind.

  Kira’s eyes widened as a shaft of light fell across the familiar emblem on the container. “Gau Lung.”

  “Since when has Gau Lung been in the waste recycling business?” Ethan asked rhetorically.

  “Since never as far as I know,” Kira replied.

  “Well, importing and recycling waste is a booming business in China,” Donovan muttered as he fished out a folded piece of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Maybe Yi wanted in on the action.”

  “No way. Importing other people’s trash was not his style.”

  “You’d be surprised what becomes someone’s style when there are millions of dollars to be raked in,” Donovan countered as he directed the light from his flashlight onto the paper in his hand and then back onto the container. “The identification number matches the one on the receipt I got off of Seng’s body. This is the container he picked up from The Wayfarer yesterday.”

  “Let's see exactly what it was that Seng picked up,” Ethan said as he handed his flashlight to Kira before grabbing one of the handles of the double bar locking mechanism securing the container’s doors and began the process of disengaging it.

  Following Ethan’s lead, Donovan got to work unlocking the second of the double doors and the two had the container open in a matter of seconds. The overwhelming stench of piles of plastic waste nearly knocked Kira off her feet as it poured through the opened doors, pushing her away from the container like the force of a tidal wave.

  “We should have worn HAZMAT suits,” Kira managed to choke out as she covered her nose and mouth with one hand, keeping the beam of the flashlight directed into the container with the other.

  “It is a little ripe in there,” Ethan replied, his face scrunching up with disgust as he and Donovan stepped inside the eight foot tall trailer that was piled to the ceiling with all manner of discarded plastic products.

  Donovan glanced at the putrid debris field piled up in front of him. “It’s no wonder they didn’t bother with security guards. The smell alone is enough to keep most people out of here.”

  “Why would anyone want this pile of trash?” Kira asked, fighting the urge to gag.

  “Like Donovan said earlier, there is a lot of money to be made in China from importing recyclable waste,” Ethan explained as he began poking through the piles of rotting plastic. “So much so, there have actually been cases of people illegally smuggling it into the country.”

  “You know what else they smuggle into the country? Drugs,” Donovan announced as he reached inside a large plastic motor oil container and pulled out a brick of white powder wrapped tightly in plastic.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Kira asked, braving the stench as she edged up to the container for a closer look.

  Donovan tore a tiny hole into the plastic and tasted the contents with the tip of his tongue. “Well, it sure as hell isn’t baby powder. ”

  “So The Yellow Tiger Triad is smuggling coke into the country,” Ethan said as he took the brick of cocaine from Donovan’s hand. “That’s hardly surprising.”

  “What is surprising is the fact that they are using The Wayfarer to do it,” Kira replied with dismay as she stepped into the container, her shock at learning that a Gau Lung owned company was part of a drug smuggling ring overcoming her aversion to the stench emanating from the container. “That’s why Yi
was so interested in that particular freighter. He must have somehow found out about it before he died.”

  “Assuming of course that he wasn’t in on it to begin with,” Donovan remarked flatly.

  “There’s no way that Yi would be involved in drug smuggling,” Kira replied adamantly. “I’d stake my life on that.”

  “Staking your life on anybody’s integrity is a risky proposition, Ms. St. James,” Donovan cautioned as he tossed the motor oil bottle back onto the heap of plastic. “People are rarely what they seem to be.”

  “Yi was.” Kira set her jaw stubbornly, refusing to acknowledge the niggling doubt Donovan had managed to plant in her mind.

  “Can we debate this point elsewhere?” Ethan asked as he stepped out of the container. “This stench is killing me.”

  “There’s nothing to debate,” Kira stated stubbornly as she and Donovan exited the container. Eager to get as far away from the source of the stench permeating the air in the warehouse as she could, she waited by the back door as Ethan and Donovan relocked the container doors. Opening the door a crack, she gratefully inhaled the blast of cool, fresh air that wafted into the warehouse. However, that feeling of gratitude soon turned to alarm as she saw two cars pull up to the back of the building. “Somebody’s coming!” she yelled across the cavernous warehouse as she quickly closed and locked the door, praying that she hadn’t been seen.

  “Come here!” Ethan ordered, waving Kira towards the long, narrow crevice between two adjacent containers that he and Donovan had slipped into.

  Fearing that she didn’t have enough time to reach that hiding place before the occupants of the two cars entered the warehouse, Kira ignored his command, opting instead to dash into a tiny office nearby, breathing a sigh of relief when the doorknob twisted easily in her hand, granting her access to the office. That feeling of relief proved to be short lived as she swept the beam of her flashlight around the cramped space only to find a tiny desk and a few cardboard boxes piled up in a corner were her only options for cover. Opting for the cardboard boxes, she squeezed into the small crawlspace between them and the wall before turning off her flashlight. Squatting down behind the opaque, vinyl partition that made up the bottom portion of the wall, she cautiously peered out the clear Plexiglass that comprised the top half of the wall. Gripping her flashlight like a billy club, she held her breath and waited alone in the darkness.