Except it wasn’t knowing that that made his stomach hurt so badly he had to sit down. It was the knowledge that it mattered so much to him. Here he’d been pretending that what he shared with Zoe was only sex.
But it wasn’t.
The thought of her with Christopher Vincent—the thought of her with anyone else—made him completely crazy. He didn’t want to share her, not her body, not her smile, not her laughter, not any of her. He wanted her for his own.
Because he was completely in love with her.
God, no, how could he be? He still loved Daisy.
None of this made any sense.
Maybe he just wouldn’t tell Zoe. Maybe he wouldn’t even give her the option.
Jake pushed himself to his feet.
And maybe the canisters of Triple X would be waiting for him back in their room. Maybe this mission would just take care of itself.
But even if it did, even if Christopher Vincent surrendered the missing nerve gas to them this afternoon, Jake was going to lose because—mission accomplished—Zoe would be off to Saudi Arabia. Or Amsterdam. Or Somalia. Only God would know when she would be back again. Or even if she would be back.
The irony was intense. For all those years he’d been a SEAL, he had been the one who’d always left.
And Jake had to laugh—it was either that or cry—because only now, by falling in love with Dr. Zoe Lange, did he fully understand just how much Daisy had loved him.
Chapter 16
“I need to see my wife.”
Zoe looked up from what seemed like the four hundredth toilet bowl she’d cleaned in the span of three hours.
“I don’t care if lunchtime is in thirty minutes.” It was Jake’s voice. “I need her right now. Zoe!”
“In here.” She pushed herself to her feet as Jake steamrolled over poor pale Edith and came right into the ladies’ room.
“Hey.” His smile was unnaturally tight and the look in his eyes completely wild. Something was really wrong. “Nice rubber gloves. Yellow looks good on you, babe.”
“You all right?” she asked quietly.
He shook his head infinitesimally. No. “Yeah, sure. I’m just breaking you out of here a little early, that’s all.” He looked behind him. “Do you have a problem with that, Edith?”
Zoe peeled off the gloves and quickly washed up in the sink.
“Well,” Edith said. “Technically, we’re not—”
“Sorry for any inconvenience,” Jake said, grabbing Zoe’s hand and pulling her with him into the hallway.
He had her jacket in his other hand and was already wearing his.
Her first thought was that something had gone very wrong and they were evacuating—getting out of there fast. But as Jake punched open the door to the stairwell, he went up instead of down toward the main floor.
Up. Toward the recreation deck.
She had to run to keep up with him, he was moving so fast.
But finally they were there. Jake burst into the open air as if he’d been holding his breath all that time.
She followed. “Jake, what’s going—”
He kissed her. He dropped her jacket on the deck, dragged her into his arms and covered her mouth with his in a kiss of pure possession, pure need.
It was electrifying, mesmerizing—his mouth so demanding, his hands slightly rough and very proprietary. The sheer power of his desire sent her instantly aflame.
Was this why he’d come searching for her? Because he needed her? Because he finally realized just how very much he needed and—please God—even loved her?
He fumbled with the buttons on her shirt, growling in frustration, finally pulling, buttons flying everywhere. The front clasp of her bra gave just as easily, and the shockingly cold morning air hit her naked breasts. But Jake’s hands were warm and his mouth was hot as he touched her, kissed her, the rasp of his chin delicious against her skin as he buried his face against her.
“Oh, Zoe,” he breathed. “I need—”
He kissed her again, his fingers at the waistband of her jeans, unfastening the button, releasing the zipper.
“Yes,” she said. She needed, too.
He stopped kissing her only long enough to shake his jacket off his arms, to throw it onto the deck with hers. Then he pulled her down with him onto the soft cushion those jackets made. His muscular body was so wonderfully solid, so deliciously heavy on top of her, cradled between her legs. She could feel his hardness and she reached for his belt buckle, wishing the layers of thick denim that kept him from her would just instantly be gone.
He pulled back onto his knees, easily ridding her of her jeans as she kicked off her sneakers. He lowered his pants, covered himself and then, God, he drove himself hard inside of her.
She cried out, she couldn’t help it—and he swallowed her cry of pleasure with the fiercest of kisses as he filled her again and again with hard, deep, demanding thrusts.
He didn’t try to pretend that his need for her didn’t completely control him. He didn’t hold back, his kisses feverish, his hands and body deliciously possessive.
And Zoe abandoned all pretense, too. She let herself love him—wildly, furiously, passionately—body, heart and soul.
He was everything she’d ever wanted and everything she hadn’t known it was possible to want. The hero was just a shadow compared to the humanness, compassion and honest reality of the man.
This incredible man who burned for her with the same urgent fire that consumed her very soul.
She felt his body tighten and tense, felt him shake, heard him rasp her name, and the sheer power of his release made her explode. Pleasure pulsed through her, so intense, so scorchingly wild. She opened her eyes, and the brilliant blue of the sky seemed close enough to touch. Her senses were almost painfully heightened as she smelled the subtle scent of Jake’s cologne and felt the warmth of his breath against her neck, the slick heat of his body against hers, the sharply cold air against her legs, the indescribable sensation of him, still hard inside of her as he thrust just one more time, as the fierce waves of her release finally slowed, finally subsided.
Zoe closed her eyes, holding tightly to him, afraid that she might cry from the exquisite wonder of it all. But then she had to laugh. She would never have believed that she could have had the absolute best sex of her entire life in the so-very-submissive missionary position.
“Jeez,” Jake breathed without moving, his mouth against her neck. “What a gentleman. I didn’t even wait for you.”
“You didn’t have to,” she told him. “I was right there, with you.” Her voice shook. “God, Jake…”
He was still breathing hard as he lifted his head to look at her, acknowledgment in his eyes. What they’d just shared had been as powerful and as intense for him, too.
“When you came looking for me like that, I thought we were in some kind of trouble.” She made her voice even lighter. “I had no idea the trouble was physiological.”
“Zoe, I…”
She held her breath. This was it. He was going to tell her that he loved her. Please, God, let him love her, too….
But the expression in his eyes was completely unreadable. His ready smile was nowhere to be found. “I’ve found out how I can gain access to Vincent’s high council.”
Not the words she wanted to hear. Still, she managed to hide her disappointment. “But that’s great!” She searched his eyes. Wasn’t it? “How?”
“I need to prove my loyalty to the CRO and to Christopher Vincent,” Jake said. “He’s got this little share-the-wealth program. I think it’s some kind of power trip for him. Whatever his followers have got, he wants a share of. Money. Information.” He briefly closed his eyes. “Wives.”
Wife sharing. Oh, God.
“Of course the bastard probably wouldn’t be as interested in a guy’s wife if she didn’t happen to look like you, and…” Jake broke off, looking at her more closely, incredulousness in his eyes. “You know about this, don’t you?”
“What, did you expect him to approach you about it?” Jake’s eyes were nearly as cold as the freezing air that slapped her skin as he pulled himself away from her. “And what the hell were you going to do when he did?” He swore sharply. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
He had been mostly dressed, and it didn’t take him long to pull himself together. Zoe had to search for her underpants, turn her jeans right side out, find her sneakers. Her shirt had no buttons, and the plastic clasp of her bra was broken. She shivered, clutching the front of her shirt together, uncertain what to say, how to explain.
Jake wrapped her jacket around her. “Dammit, Zoe.” His voice shook. “You could’ve at least let me in on the plan.”
“It wasn’t a plan,” she told him. “It was…just an option I thought I should keep open. Jake, the man was dogging me for weeks. I thought I could go in there and talk to him. Tell him I was thinking about accepting his offer. I would have told you before I did anything. I thought at least it would be a way into his private office.”
“Well, I’ve been in his office now,” Jake said tightly. “It’s small, no windows, one desk, three chairs. Three doors on the wall behind Vincent’s desk. The left is the bathroom. The right a room he referred to as his inner chambers. There was no sign of the missing canisters. I’m betting they’re in that inner chamber.”
Which he would have access to—provided he share Zoe with the CRO leader.
Zoe’s hand shook only slightly as she pushed her hair from her face. “So what did he say to you about…” She managed to make her voice sound remarkably calm, but she couldn’t say the words aloud.
“It was all implied,” Jake told her. “He spoke of sharing my wealth. Mentioned you. Invited us both to his private dining room tonight at nineteen hundred—seven o’clock.”
“Both of us?”
“I asked one of his lieutenants.” Jake’s voice was raspy. “Apparently the way it’s done is, he invites us both, and I send you alone, along with my regrets, pleading I’m feeling slightly under the weather.” He laughed, a short bark of disbelief. “Believe it or not, it’s considered an honor for Christopher Vincent to mess with your wife.” He dropped his head into the palms of his hands. “Crazy-assed, twisted sons of bitches.”
Zoe took a deep breath, filled with a sense of dread. “So. Did you tell him yes or did you tell him no? That we’d—I’d be there for dinner?”
He looked at her, his eyes nearly as blue as the sky overhead. “We can cancel.”
“That’s a yes,” she said. “You told him yes.”
Jake shook his head. “I didn’t say yes.”
“But you didn’t say no.”
“I didn’t answer him one way or the other.”
“Silence generally implies an affirmative,” she said tightly.
“Yeah,” Jake said, the muscle flexing in the side of his jaw. “I know.”
He put his head into his hands, unable to hold her gaze.
Zoe closed her eyes against the rush of tears. Did he actually think…Could he honestly expect…“Are you asking me to have sex with Christopher Vincent?” God, what he must think of her, if he could ask such a thing.
“No.” Jake lifted his head. His eyes were rimmed with red, as if he, too, were fighting tears. “I’m not asking you, Zoe. I could never ask that of someone under my command. Except you’re not really under my command, are you? And you haven’t been completely honest with me about this other option you had standing ready. Maybe you’ve got a better plan in mind to get me into the inner council?”
She shook her head. “I don’t,” she whispered.
“I’m not going to ask you do this,” Jake told her. “But I’m also not going to tell you not to do it. I’m giving you the choice.” He cleared his throat. “I know this…this sort of thing doesn’t particularly bother you, so…” He shrugged as he forced a smile. “It’s your choice.”
Zoe was dying. She wanted him to tell her not to do it. She wanted him to refuse to let her do it. She wanted him to hold her tightly and tell her that he was never going to let her go, that he honestly didn’t believe her capable of such coldhearted self-exploitation.
“Do you…” She had to stop and clear her throat. Amazingly, her voice came out even and clear. “Do you want me to do it?” She had to know.
He looked her squarely in the eye. “This doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
The last of her hope died, and she turned to look out over the valley. “I see.”
She’d done such a good job bluffing. She’d convinced him so completely that she was tough and strong—emotionally made of Teflon. He obviously thought she wouldn’t think twice about prostituting herself this way in the name of their mission. He clearly didn’t approve, and despite the fact that he’d made incredibly powerful, passionate love to her just moments ago, he didn’t think that her buying their way onto the inner council through sex had anything to do with him.
Zoe felt like throwing up. Or bursting into tears.
Instead, she nodded. “What am I supposed to wear?”
Chapter 17
Lucky poured Bobby a cup of coffee and set it down near the video screens in the surveillance trailer.
“Thanks,” Bobby said.
“Any change?”
“Zoe got assigned to a two-woman work detail cleaning bathrooms,” Bobby stated. “Jake came in a little while ago and pulled her out. They headed toward the roof and have been out of contact for the past hour and a half. I’ve been cruising around, following Vincent’s two top lieutenants—neither one of ’em win any prizes, except maybe Dullest Human Beings on Earth.”
Lucky pointed to the screen that showed the CRO mess hall. “Isn’t that Jake?”
“Jake.” Bobby glanced at him. “Finish reading the book?”
Lucky smiled. “Yeah.”
“Like him better now, huh?”
“I’m still working on the like part, considering he’s spending all his time kissing my woman.”
“You never had a chance with Zoe, and you know it.” Bobby keyed in some numbers, and the screen showed the camera on the other side of the room, closer to Jake, who was sitting alone at a table, lunch tray in front of him. “Yep. It’s definitely the admiral.”
Lucky leaned closer. “Is it my imagination or…Does he look okay to you?”
“Looks wound pretty tight. I wonder where Zoe is.” Bobby typed in a steady stream of numbers, and lightning-quick pictures flashed on the other two screens. “Whoops, there she was.”
“Wait a minute,” Lucky said. “You saw her? How could you see anything in that?”
Bobby shrugged, calling back the image he’d spotted. “I’m pretty good with visuals.” On the center screen, Zoe walked briskly down the hallway, heading toward the room she shared with Jake. She smiled brightly as someone passed her.
Bobby hit the commands to show the cameras inside the room as Zoe went inside.
But no sooner was she inside the door than she leaned against it, her smile vanishing. It was as if her legs suddenly failed to support her, because she slid down, back against the door, so that she was sitting on the floor.
She hugged her legs and bent her head and…
Zoe was crying.
She was shaking, sobbing as if her heart were breaking.
Bobby looked at Lucky and Lucky looked at Bobby.
On the other video screen, Jake toyed unenthusiastically with his food. He tossed his fork onto the tray and rested his forehead in the palm of his hand, a picture of total despair.
But then Jake sat up. And with both hands on the table in front of him, he made a gesture, a hand signal that the SEALs used. It was brief but unmistakable.
Get ready.
“Did you
see that?” Lucky asked, nearly jumping out of his seat. “Was that what I thought it was?”
“Yes, sir. That was definitely a message for us.”
Jake had only made the signal once, but they had it down on tape.
Lucky reached for the phone. “Yeah, Skelly, it’s O’Donlon. Is the senior chief there? Bob and I have something we want him and the rest of you guys to see,” he said. “Oh, and on your way over? You might want to run.”
Zoe pulled her baseball cap down over her eyes as she pushed the cleaning cart into Christopher Vincent’s private quarters.
No one had noticed yet that she wasn’t a part of the regular cleaning crew. Or if they had, they’d been downtrodden and beaten into submission too often to care.
Melissa, Amy, Ivy, Karen, Beth and Joan. Zoe had had to learn their names from the color of their hair. Their faces were too similar—they looked exhausted and as if they’d lost all hope.
Zoe moved like them, as if she, too, ached both physically and emotionally, as she took the supplies for cleaning the bathroom toward the door to Vincent’s private office.
The door was ajar, and she went in without switching on the light.
It was exactly as Jake had described it. Big desk. No windows. Three doors. No sign of the canisters of Trip X anywhere.
The bathroom was on the left. Zoe tried the knob of the far right door as she went past. Locked. So was the center door. The bathroom was half open, and she turned on the light. It was tiny. One toilet and a sink. According to the Frosty Cakes factory layout she’d looked at with Bobby and Wes, there was enough unaccounted for room in this part of the building for a good-size security headquarters, as well as a conference room-size inner chamber.
She didn’t have her lock pick, but she had a paper clip from Vincent’s desk. In the light of the bathroom, she unbent the piece of metal and—
The office light went on. “Who are you? What are you doing in here?”
“Cleaning the bathroom?” Zoe blinked owlishly as she unobtrusively tried to slip the paper clip into the back pocket of her jeans. She only got it in halfway before the long-bearded man got too close.
Tall, Dark, and Dangerous Part 2 Page 65