“Do you have any idea how good you feel to me right now?”
“I’ve got some idea, yeah.”
“I’m not going to let you go until you promise that I can see you tomorrow. You can’t disappear on me for another six months. Okay?”
“You’re the genius who told me to take some time.”
“I wouldn’t have said it if I’d known how I’d feel when you were gone.”
With dizzying speed, her heart skittered to a stop and then sprinted into the thousand-beats-a-minute range. “And how is that?”
“Lost,” he said, lowering his head.
It was a slow and thorough kiss, unbearably gentle, their lips fitting together and sliding against each other in every wondrous combination possible. He kissed her senseless, until her bones melted into the purest spun gold and her skin shivered with readiness, and then there was more.
Also by Ann Christopher
Deadly Pursuit
Risk
Trouble
Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.
DEADLY DESIRES
ANN CHRISTOPHER
Kensington Publishing Corp.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
“Do you have any idea how good you feel to me right now?”
Also by Ann Christopher
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
Deadly Pursuit
Copyright Page
To Richard, always.
Acknowledgments
Thanks, once again, to Assistant US Attorney Kenneth L. Parker and retired Assistant US Attorney Robyn Hahnert, for not blocking my e-mails when I wrote with additional questions. To my old friend Kevin Schad, Esq., I send eternal gratitude for his tips on making my villain as devious as possible.
Thanks to Navkaran B. Singh, MD, who answered my medical questions with good humor and steered me in the right direction.
Any mistakes are, of course, mine.
A million thanks to my editor, Selena James, who agreed that Kira’s story wasn’t finished quite yet, and let me tell it.
Finally, to Eve Silver, for brainstorming and handholding, and to Eve, Kristi Cook, Lori Devoti, Laura Drewry, Caroline Linden, and Sally MacKenzie, for helping this writer stay as sane as any writer can ever hope to be. I couldn’t do this without my pals.
Chapter 1
Cincinnati
Kareem Gregory didn’t know who he wanted to punish first: his wife or his lieutenant.
The bitch. Or the snitch.
In a world full of liars and cheats, he’d relied on a handful of people, and this was the thanks he got for his faith and trust. His wife, Kira, had walked out on him, and his right-hand man, Kerry Randolph, the man—the one fucking man on earth—who’d seen the naked underbelly of Kareem’s drug empire, had flipped on him.
Was that undying loyalty? No. Was that till death do us part? Hell no.
That was betrayal, the worst possible crime against him.
The punishments would reflect that.
“We need you to empty your pockets and put your jewelry in here, Mr. Gregory.”
The voice interrupted his thoughts and cut through his rage and bewilderment, putting him squarely back in the here and now, which was the last place he wanted to be. Here was the US Marshal’s office, where the DEA brought you for after-hours processing when you had the misfortune of being arrested for possession of approximately two hundred and fifty kilos of coke and horse with intent to distribute. Now it was about eleven o’clock on the night that should have been the greatest of his life.
Oh, yes. Just this afternoon, he’d been acquitted at his retrial on money-laundering charges and, better than that, one of his men had hit the DEA agent responsible for Kareem’s entrapment and conviction in the first place. Just this evening, he’d been hosting a little celebration dinner and toasting his success with the finest champagne his world-class wine cellar had to offer. Just a few short hours ago, he’d been free and clear, with his entire life ahead of him, his wife by his side and everything to live for.
But that was before Kerry flipped and led the feds to the drug warehouse, where they’d found about seven million dollars’ worth of his shit. Before the DEA broke down his front door and raided his house. Before his beautiful wife packed her little bags and walked out. Before Special Agent Dexter Brady knocked Kareem to the polished floor of his own damn house, put his booted foot in the middle of his back, and handcuffed him like a street-level dealer.
Now here he was, once again at the mercy of these little government fuckers who didn’t have the slightest idea who they were dealing with. Once again reliant upon the nonexistent skills of Jacob Radcliffe, the high-priced lawyer bitch who was standing right there, watching the proceedings with his aw-shucks, Howdy Doody red hair, blue eyes, and freckles, useless to prevent Kareem from spending tonight at the Justice Center with the common criminals. Once again being searched, fingerprinted, photographed from all sides and numbered like a cattle farmer’s prize bull.
“Mr. Gregory?” the DEA youngster, or marshal, or whoever the fuck he was, slid the blue plastic box across the table toward him and tried again. “Your personal items?”
Kareem glared at the punk, enjoying the slow drain of color from his face and the way he tried to jerk up his chin in front of his superiors, acting all brave and shit when really he was beginning to understand the situation here.
Here was the situation.
Kareem was like a Siberian tiger. Siberian tigers didn’t belong in cages. You could catch one, yeah, and throw it in a cage, and sometimes you could even keep it there for a while. The tiger might sit quietly and eat his three squares a day. But the thing about both tigers and Kareem was this: they had fangs, claws, and unholy power. They chose the right moment to strike, and then they tore their captors to shreds and ate their flesh when everyone least expected it.
Kareem channeled all of this into his silent gaze, and he stared the youngster down until finally the kid looked over his shoulder and shot Brady a What should I do now, boss? look.
Brady edged forward, ready with a smirk and a taunt. “What’s wrong, Kareem? Afraid to trust us with your sparklies?”
“That’s unnecessary,” Radcliffe told Brady.
Wow. Two words out of his lawyer’s mouth. What was that—a thousand dollars or so tacked onto Kareem’s legal fees?
Kareem ignored Radcliffe—he’d deal with him later—and focused some of his fury on Brady because there was plenty to go around. Brady was the DEA bloodhound who’d been sniffing after Kareem for years. Brady was the one who’d been working with Kerry and got him to flip on Kareem; he could feel it in his gut. Brady was the one who’d led the raid tonight and riffled through all of Kareem’s precious belongings.
Brady needed t
o be brought down.
Later for that.
For now, he had to show the feds that they couldn’t rattle his cage, no matter how they tried. So he shrugged, ignored the slight shake in his hands, and reached up to unscrew the first of his three-carat diamond studs. Then he tossed it into the box and went to work on the other one.
“I’m not worried. Who can you trust if not the United States government?”
“Funny,” Brady said. “Don’t forget the Rolex.”
Kareem unhooked the heavy clasp, slid the watch off his wrist, and dropped it into the box with a satisfying clunk. Fifty thousand dollars’ worth of gold and diamonds had a nice weight to it, and he’d miss the watch. Especially if, as was looking pretty likely, the feds seized it along with his house, his cars, and every damn thing he owned down to his dirty drawers and used toothbrush.
Ah, well. Possessions could be replaced.
Except...
The plain platinum band on his ring finger, the one he’d never taken off.
That was priceless, even if his wife was a faithless bitch.
He wasn’t a fan of plain when it came to jewelry, but Kira picked the bands, and he’d made it a habit to buy Kira whatever she wanted. At least he had. Before she walked out on him.
He grabbed the shining band, meaning to slide it off, but it didn’t want to budge and he didn’t really put his heart into pulling it over his knuckle. These rings bound them together, him and Kira, and when they put them on, he’d meant it to be for life. Oh, sure, there’d been other women, but he’d only ever have one wife. One partner. One Mrs. Gregory.
“That too, Kareem,” Brady said. “We haven’t got all day.”
Kareem looked up from his hands to find Brady still watching him, but with sharper eyes that put Kareem’s instincts on alert even if he wasn’t sure why. He tugged the ring off and polished it between his fingers, his heart oddly tight. Kira always did that to him—trapped him between emotions like pride and exasperation, love and hate, fury and longing.
Much as he wanted to hurt Kira for walking out on him, punish her, to teach her a lesson she’d never forget, to show her that he was in charge and always would be, he wanted something else more.
Why couldn’t she just love him the way she once did?
“You know what this says on the inside, Brady?” he asked, holding the ring up.
Brady’s eyes narrowed with clear annoyance and banked curiosity. “Do tell. Since we don’t have anything else to do tonight but listen to your stories from memory lane.”
“It says Forever and a Day. That’s how long she’ll be my wife.”
Brady’s lips curled with amusement. “Looks like she didn’t get the memo on that. Judging from the way she packed her bags and walked out while you yelled for her to come back. Just saying.”
They watched each other, he and Brady, and the fine hairs rose all up and down Kareem’s arms, probably because Brady didn’t flinch or turn away. He had the unwelcome feeling that if he so much as blinked too loud, Brady, despite his Boy Scout soul, would cheerfully pump a round or twenty into him and then talk his way out of it with a judge and be home by dinner.
This animosity between them—it was as personal as Kareem’s taste in condoms.
Brady was, therefore, a serious problem. Maybe the most serious one Kareem had ever faced. But he wasn’t going to punk Kareem. Not tonight, or ever. So Kareem rolled his shoulders and matched Brady’s unconcerned smile with one of his own.
“Kira knows it’ll take more than a packed bag for me to let her go,” he said.
And watched the color drain out of Brady’s face.
Chapter 2
The ancient Tercel spluttered and lurched, clearly trying to give up the ghost and take its place in the great junkyard in the sky. “Come on.” Kira Gregory shot a quick prayer up to God, who surely wouldn’t bring her this far and then leave her stranded. “Come on.”
With rising desperation, she stomped the brake pedal and hoped for the best, which would be something other than the car slamming into the SUV parked just ahead. The car halted, which was great, but the pedal refused to unstick itself from the floorboard, and a freshly acrid wave of burning oil hit her nostrils.
Worthless piece of junk.
One day, when she wasn’t consumed with the bare necessities of life—like finding a safe place to stay for the night and trying to divorce her husband without getting killed in the process—she’d spend a little time cursing the used car bastard who sold this so-called vehicle to her, the mechanic who’d examined it and reassured her it was in decent shape, and herself for being desperate and gullible enough to fall for the shiny coat of navy paint and believe either of them.
So this was the freedom she’d fought and prayed for these last months: scared spitless, driving around in the middle of a black and frigid night, protected only by her frayed wits and the negligible body of a car that should be crushed and recycled at the first opportunity, with only her year-old beagle, Max, for company.
Nice.
And well worth all the risks she’d taken to get to this point.
A burst of hysterical laughter shot out of her mouth before she could control it, earning her a surprised sideways glance from Max, who sat in the passenger seat. It got worse when she thought of her previous car, a brand-new Mercedes S-Class sedan that would die of shame before it did anything as tacky as leak a fluid.
The laughing might have gone on forever, but another wave of light-headedness hit her, making the parking lot do a crazy swirl at the edges of her vision. Unconsciousness beckoned—it had been beckoning a lot in the fortyeight hours since Kareem attacked her—but she did everything she could to fight it off. If she passed out in this neighborhood, there’d be nothing left when she woke except for the seat she was sitting in and the car’s frame up on cinder blocks.
God, she was tired.
Giving herself a quick second to pull her sanity back together, she leaned against the seat and closed her eyes. Deep breath. Another deep breath.
Okay. Better.
No self-pity, she reminded herself. At least she had a car that was hers, free and clear. The car she’d left behind when she walked out on Kareem earlier tonight was a) bought and paid for with drug money; b) Kareem’s; and c) probably being seized and impounded by the DEA right this very second. The Tercel wasn’t new, pretty, or reliable, but she’d paid for it with the honest proceeds from her grandmother’s ruby ring (and God knew pawnbrokers never gave you real money for anything), so that was something to be proud of.
Besides. Oprah never wasted time feeling sorry for herself.
Oprah would say something like, “What I know for sure is: My slave ancestors didn’t have time to feel sorry for themselves when they were working in the cotton fields, so what do I have to complain about?”
Words to live by.
Well, what Kira knew for sure was that she couldn’t sit here on her butt all night. “Wish me luck,” she told Max, who yawned with the startling unfurling of a pink tongue that seemed a yard long. “You stay here and be quiet. Okay?”
Max whined, then dropped to a curled ball with his chin on his front paws.
Right.
Pausing only to grab her purse and do a sweeping 360-degree glance in all her mirrors, making sure there were no signs of movement, she got out and immediately felt as vulnerable as a pig in a sausage factory. Pitiful as the car’s protection was, it was better than nothing. Out here, there was nothing but the frigid sting of winter air in her lungs, the prickly feeling of unseen eyes, and a thousand and one places for someone to hide, to stalk her before lunging.
Crazy? Probably.
Kareem was downtown being processed right now.
So he couldn’t be stalking her right now ... yeah, sure.
But what about his legion of minions, any one of whom was ready to answer his beck and call and do anything from wipe his ass to stalk his wife for him?
That was a whole ’nother story.
Squaring her shoulders, she strode across the parking lot, through the double glass doors and into the sorry excuse for a lobby/registration area. Just to lift her spirits, it had weathered orange carpeting, brown vinyl chairs, a plywood coffee table, and, honest to God, a condom-vending machine wedged between the snackand cigarette-vending machines. Wow.
Behind the counter sat a white-haired man who’d last seen young about the time Lincoln was elected president. Rubbing his bleary eyes with weathered hands, he gave her a quick but appreciative once-over, then nailed her with a stare that would only be considered welcoming if you were an escapee from the seventh ring of hell, and waited for her to speak.
“Hello.” Infusing her voice with cheer and light, she reached into her purse and pulled out some cash. “I’d like a room for the night, please. Nonsmoking.” The last part was probably pushing her luck, but, hey, a girl could hope.
It was no surprise that his voice sounded like Louis Armstrong with laryngitis. “Seventy dollars,” he informed her.
This place would need to be razed, burned, and rebuilt from the ground up before it was worth even thirty-five a night, but Kira quashed her outrage and counted out the bills. This was further than she’d gotten at the other two motels, and she was almost home free—
“Oh.” Yawning, her charming host scratched at the four inches of gut that hung over his peeling belt and treated her to a glimpse of his cavernous mouth. “And I’ll need to swipe your card.”
Kira froze, struggling to keep her pleasant smile in place.
Shit.
“Of course,” she said, and reached for her wallet, which was what a person did when they had a credit card. She did not have a credit card. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, was it? In her old life, the one she’d left mere hours ago, where her husband, the sociopathic drug kingpin, kept her short leash in his fisted hand, she had every platinum card under the sun. And Kareem tracked her spending the way marine biologists track tagged killer whales.
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