Greer sank deeper down, no other motion required to inspire her orgasm to return, bigger and bolder than ever before. But it came slow, his minute movements into her promising a more explosive release than she’d ever known.
She leaned back, sinking down and sliding over him, his intense presence inside her pushing a lump up into her throat. Her body shivered despite the heat, and his strong arms wrapped around her to pull her down and push himself in.
Two people walked up and past the jacuzzi, turning to glance and smile at Greer and Sean, as if she were merely sitting in his lap, two lovers enjoying the jacuzzi. They know, Greer thought. They have to know. But it didn’t stop her—it only sent a greater wave of shock and pleasure through her. Good, let them know! Let them see!
But they walked on, leaving Greer and Sean alone.
“All right then,” Sean rasped and gave his hips a little shake. The wave of pleasure it created in Greer’s body was electric, a unique thrill she’d never known. It wasn’t the throttle and storm of his usual pounding, but a delicate and subtle wave that was more impressive and powerful than she’d ever known. But she was about to know more as he pulled her further, his hips pushing up even further, pressing her tissues flat to the side. He ground his hips, and she matched his motions, grinding in circular patterns that were contrasting and complementary and absolutely thrilling.
“You’re ready,” Sean growled in the back of her ear. “You can’t fight it … you can’t stop it!”
The slow-motion pressure inspired her juices to gather inside her, nearly spilling over as he stirred them, just a bit faster to push the pressure to intolerable levels.
Greer wanted to scream as that orgasm welled up, barely any motion at all yet too much to handle. She clamped her hand over her mouth to silence herself, a gasp the only breath she could take. Sean gave another little shake of his hips, creating another wave of ecstasy, and then another.
“There it is, Greer, there it is!”
He read her body, he knew her mind and her heart, and he could feel her orgasm as it rose and pushed her mind and body into new expressions of her ecstasy. Motion without movement, a scream without a sound, exposed without being seen.
Her orgasm kept coming, shaking her body and rattling her soul. She lay back in a continued expression of her joy at their union. She’d never known such a force, the tiny movements of his erection inside her keeping that energy going, threatening to never stop.
“Keep going, baby,” he said. “All night, baby … all night!”
Greer’s body quivered, unable to contain the power and energy as he pulled her in just a bit tighter, just a bit further. She convulsed with pleasure, his every little turn and wriggle feeding that amazing expression inside of her, wave after wave after wave.
She began to weep, unable to move, wanting to live and die in that hot water, with that hot rod inside her, and never leave that place or that time. This was where her life had led her. This was the destiny she’d never imagined, but from that point forward could hardly live without.
Chapter Eighteen
Greer packed her bags and double-checked her passport and other essentials to make sure she had an easy flight back to the States. What she’d do once she arrived, she still wasn’t sure.
Her professional relationship with Sean was over, but so was any conflict about their new coupling, and that was something she wanted very much to pursue. He’d revealed more about his intentions than she had ever imagined. She’d never guessed that he might be happy in a place like Denver. And new thoughts and plans had found their way into her head and heart, and she was more than ready to pursue those too—charity work, philanthropy to help the poor and homeless. She thought a bit more traveling would be nice. There suddenly seemed to be a whole huge world out there, and Greer hadn’t seen nearly enough of it.
She met Sean in the lobby as they checked out, knowing that he was the man she wanted to do that traveling with. He was capable, resourceful, gentlemanly, and he was the most amazing lover she’d ever had or likely ever would have. Memories of her husband faded by comparison. Even the new realization that Spencer Lange was alive, and that he had secrets of his own, was a numbing reality that faded with every minute.
He hadn’t been the man she thought he was, the man she’d searched for. He never was and never would be. That man was an ideal and a preconception that Greer carried in her mind. But she’d developed, matured since his disappearance. She was a better woman with a better man, and she had a better life and a better future.
But without needing a second glance onto the street, she knew that they wouldn’t even get as far as the door. The block was packed with rioters, chanting and waving their fists, and policemen on horseback and on the ground in riot gear, unable to control them.
“Holy crap,” Greer said. “What happened?”
Carlo shrugged. “There is unrest, senorita. It cannot be helped.”
Greer glanced at Sean. “Now what?”
Sean shrugged too. “The whole city can’t be jammed up like this. Let’s carry our bags down a few blocks. It’ll open up.”
Greer turned to Carlo. “Or you could wait,” he said without needing to be asked.
“Airline will probably wave any fees,” Sean said.
“It’s not the fees I’m worried about,” Greer said. “If this place is going to have a revolution or something, I don’t particularly want to be here for it.” She picked up her suitcase, heavier than she remembered it being, and said to Sean, “Looks like we’re walking.”
She led Sean out the doors, the crowd thick around them. Sean led the charge, pushing their way through the dense throng, shoving them out of the way when necessary.
The Ecuadorians were small, tiny compared to Sean’s sizable presence, so clearing a path was easier for him than it would have been for Greer. Even so, she held close to him as they struggled to push through the dense crowd.
Directly next to Greer, a man’s head exploded with a gunshot. Brains and flecks of bone and tufts of hair splashed outward with hot red blood. The moment seemed to pass by in slow motion before things started moving fast.
The crowd threw up a unified scream, and Sean dropped his luggage and grabbed Greer’s hand. She let go of her own bag and ran with him, the tide of the crowd surging in every direction. There was no way to know what had triggered the violence, but there was no time to figure it out either.
Sean pulled Greer down that crowded street, people pushing and shoving into them from every direction. Greer lost her grip on Sean’s hand, and she was suddenly alone in the crowd, nearly pushed off her feet by the panicked people around her.
“Stop it!” she shouted. “Watch out!” But nobody was listening. Another person just next to Greer was hit, her head snapping back with a guttural grunt, a red wound bursting in her chest.
It’s me! Greer realized. They’re shooting at me!
Sean seemed to realize the same thing, ducking down and pulling Greer around a corner.
“What’s going on?” Greer asked. “Sean, what is this?”
“Two shots that close to you? No coincidence.”
“Is it Spencer?”
“Or somebody we brought with us,” Sean said. “Those shots would have come from above. Somebody planted there, waiting for us to come out of the hotel. The crowd must have interrupted the plan.”
“Then we’ve got a chance if we run!”
“And fast!”
Sean pulled her down the street, ducking and dodging through the screaming crowd. All around her, faces were bent into masks of twisted fear and confusion. There were two forces at work, neither of which could be comprehended or controlled by the average Ecuadorian or a normal person of any stripe. But Greer was beginning to understand that she was not such a person. She was the woman who had evolved from the girl she’d been. She was capable, she was resourceful, she was a person apart from others.
And it was about to get her killed.
Chapter Ni
neteen
They ran down the street, farther away from the dense protest and toward a more natural flow of pedestrian traffic. But the streets were still packed with cars and buses, telling Greer there was no way to drive out of Quito, at least not from there.
But other things were even clearer, and she tried to work them out to greater clarity as she ran with Sean away from the protest and the gunman who was trying to assassinate them.
It had to be from a window, she thought. The shooter was staked out, hoping to snipe us. Is it Spencer? He would have been able to track us in all that time, set himself up to ambush us. Or if we did attract the mafia to Ecuador, or who knows who, it would follow that they’d hit us here … but why? Why not just kill Spencer, as they’d clearly want to do? Why bother killing us? Unless they’ve already killed Spencer and now they need to tie up any loose ends.
But as they kept running, the crowd thinning but the traffic immobile, another thought crept into the back of Greer’s mind.
There would be a second gunman, she thought. There would have to be some backup on the street. If we have to go, they wouldn’t just leave it to one lone shooter in a window somewhere nearby. It didn’t work for Oswald, and it wouldn’t work now!
They pushed through the pedestrians, Sean glancing behind them before turning a corner and leading Greer down a smaller side street, into another ornate souvenir store.
“Should we be in a shop like this?” Greer asked him. “Somebody’s on our tail—you know that.”
Sean nodded. “Let’s give ’em the chance to run past.” He pulled his pistol out. “They won’t find us unprepared.”
The shopkeeper shouted out a slew of Spanish objections, pointing at the gun and screaming.
“Calm down,” Greer said. “It’s … it’s nothing, it’s fine.”
“Cierra la boca y mantén la cabeza baja, amigo,” said Sean.
Bang, bang!
The storefront window shattered, Greer and Sean ducking down as the store erupted into chaos around them. The shopkeeper crouched down, souvenirs falling from the shelves with the gunfire.
Sean returned fire, the crowd outside screaming and running.
A young man ran into the shot, gun pointed, ready to shoot. But Sean tossed his pistol to Greer and turned to engage the man hand-to-hand. He threw a vicious punch into the young man’s gun, whose white skin earmarked him as a North American. Then the man threw a hard punch into Sean’s face as Greer gasped and stood back, unsure of what to do. She wanted to support Sean, but she knew an errant shot could just as easily kill him and not his adversary, and that would almost certainly mean her own death as well.
But at that point, she wasn’t interested in surviving without Sean Callahan.
The shop was filled with heavy and large wooden objects, any of which would deliver a terrific blow to the back of the man’s head or neck or back. A statue of some ornate figure Greer had no time to consider was fast in her hand, heavy and ready. But the men were grappling in front of her, spinning around with too much frenzy to give her a clear shot.
Sean turned to flip the man over his shoulder, smashing him into a table filled with little wooden figures that scattered under the force of the impact. Two hard punches to the face seemed to weaken the man, whose leather jacket splayed out at his sides.
“Who’re you with?” Sean shouted.
But the man’s only answer was, “Fuck you,” delivered in a heavy New Jersey accent. Another two hard punches in the face seemed to secure the man’s attention, if not his compliance.
Sean reached out to Greer. Without thinking, she handed him the statue she’d been holding, a long, tall figure of a naked woman. Sean turned to the man on the floor at his feet. “I’ll jam this down your throat … or somewhere else! Now, who are you with?”
“With your mothah!”
Sean threw a few angry kicks into the man’s side, his hand still clutching the man’s black hair. “Stooper, you knew Stooper?”
“I don’t know nobody!”
Bang! Bang bang!
Another wooden figure burst into chunks, and Greer raised the gun and focused it on the shooter. A second young man approached the shop, gun raised and shooting as she ducked back into a corner.
But her instincts kicked in. Her arms stretched out, her fingers wrapped around the handle and trigger, and her body swung back into the line of fire before squeezing off the shots.
Bang bang bang bang!
The man flew back, his body torn with the three good shots that landed in his chest and belly. A rush of heat and chemicals pulsed through Greer’s body, mind, and soul, even in that chaotic moment.
She had taken a life, personally shot a man dead. It was another step in her evolution, away from the person she’d been and toward the person she would forever be. No longer the redheaded girl next door but the pixie-cut, raven-haired woman of adventure, of danger. But the danger wasn’t just to her—she was the dangerous one, she was the peril.
She had been death for that man, and she would be for others if it was necessary. But in that slow-motion moment, Greer knew that she would need even more strength, even more power to defeat the forces coming against her and Sean, and she’d need them immediately. Her evolution hadn’t ended. It had just begun.
She turned back to Sean with his own adversary, still on the ground with Sean’s fist wrapped around a stalk of his hair. Sean turned to him and raised the wooden statue, base down, and smashed it into his face. The man flinched, blood shooting out of his shattered nose.
“Who’s your crew?” Sean demanded. “Who wants Spencer Lange dead?”
But the guy was a real soldier, Greer had to admit. He shook his head and grinned through his bloodied mouth.
Then he pulled out his knife.
The moment happened so quickly that Greer could hardly trace it. The gun was in her hand, the man’s knife was in his, swiping up and toward Sean’s side. Her finger squeezed the trigger, and the bullet discharged and pushed the pistol into Greer’s palm, her arm absorbing the pressure of the kickback.
The man was hit in the side. His arm twitched and the knife fell from his hand just before penetrating Sean’s side. The blade clanked to the floor, and Greer’s instincts told her to fire again.
She didn’t, instead falling to the man’s side. She felt possessed by a force she couldn’t control, some strange cocktail of anger and confusion and the power of another life she’d taken, a death marked on her ledger in the Book of Life. In that moment, Greer knew she was forever changed, reduced and yet enhanced, a force of greater reckoning even if it cost her some measure of her soul.
Greer could feel her innocence being pulled from her, exchanged for her new powers, for her advancing adventure. She was becoming a more powerful person, things changing by the minute. But those changes would come at a terrible cost, and Greer could already feel a certain part of her dying with every advance. She’d killed one man and shot another, and their blood was her own, their deaths her own, the death of the better part of her, the purity she’d managed to hold onto, even through the misery of the past three years.
But it was slipping away with every pulse of blood as that man lay dying on the souvenir store floor, unable to reply to Sean’s interrogation.
“Tell me who’s behind this,” Sean demanded as the man flinched and became lifeless, his body still, eyes staring, chest motionless.
Sean dropped the man’s head and stepped away from his corpse. “Whaddaya think?”
Greer shook her head. “Dunno. We gotta get to the airport.”
“Yeah.” He looked around. “Let’s get outta here.”
“Wait, really? And leave two dead bodies? Couldn’t the police help get us out of here?”
“Greer, this is South America. If you think the cops back home are corrupt … remember that dick at the NYPD? Well, here we’ll be locked up for thirty years while they sort this out. They’re certainly not going to fly us outta here like it’s the Fall of Saigon!
”
Greer looked around, no reason to apologize or excuse herself to anybody they were leaving behind. It didn’t seem right, but it did seem necessary. Sean took her hand, and they ran out of the store together, fading into the crowd.
Running further and further from the protest and from the scene of the shooting, which had created its own frenzy, Greer noted that the street traffic was getting thinner.
Two men, she told herself, plus the shooter in the window. How many more could they have had lined up? They must have figured two would do the job, underestimating both me and Sean. So maybe we’ve already outrun and outfought them? Whoever was in that window, he wouldn’t also be giving chase, would he?
But there was no more time to reason things out. Sean pulled her across the street, where a taxi sat at an intersection. The red light was just turning green as Sean pulled the door open and shoved Greer inside, piling in behind her.
“Aeropuerto de Quito! Hazlo rápido!” Sean snapped.
The driver nodded and stepped on the pedal, the taxi skidding into a right turn that took it and them farther away from any possible pursuers. Greer looked around, unable to believe that they were finally safe.
“You still have your passport? ID?” Sean asked. Greer clutched her purse, knowing the vital things to be in them. All she’d left behind were her clothes, toiletries, minimal cosmetics. Sean nodded. “We should be all right then.”
Greer’s heart was pounding in her chest, her mouth dry, her brain swimming. “Do you think we’ll make it?”
Sean broke a smile. “We got lucky. But two men on the ground, one in the window. How many more were they going to send against us?”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” After a moment to think about it, Greer said, “I … I guess I shouldn’t have shot that guy in the store. He could have told us a lot about what’s really going on.”
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