Killer Countdown (Man on a Mission)

by Amelia Autin

  Chapter 8

  Shane made as if to withdraw from Carly’s body, but she clutched at his arms and tightened her legs around his hips, refusing to let him leave.

  “Let me go, Carly,” he pleaded. “I hurt you.”

  “No. Oh no. You didn’t hurt me.” She caught her breath on a shuddering sob, then asked, “Why do you think that?”

  “You’re crying.”

  “I am?” She let go of his arm with her right hand, and touched her cheek, bemused to find it damp. “I am.” Then her brain cells kicked in and she said quickly, “But you didn’t hurt me, I swear.”

  “Then why...?” He rolled over, taking his weight off her. And though part of her was sorry, another part of her acknowledged it felt better being on top. And they were still connected. She didn’t think she could bear it if he withdrew just yet. It had been years since she’d felt this way after sex—as if the two of them shared a bond far beyond the physical—and she wanted to hang onto it as long as she could.

  That’s when she realized they were both mostly clothed. And Shane was still wearing his shoulder holster. A sudden urge to laugh swept through her, but she managed to turn it into a strangled gurgle instead.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Okay, so she wasn’t all that good at hiding her laughter. “You. Me. Us. Don’t shoot me for laughing in bed,” she teased with mock seriousness as she ran her hands over his chest and slid the fingers of one hand beneath the shoulder holster for emphasis.

  Then Shane was laughing, too, and she could feel it everywhere. He shook his head regretfully. “Obviously I have a one-track mind where you’re concerned.”

  Carly didn’t know why, but that statement only made her laugh harder, because she felt the same way. She hid her face against Shane’s chest, but she couldn’t hide her reaction from him any more than he could hide his from her.

  When they were all laughed out, she reluctantly let him go. He disappeared into the bathroom and returned a minute later, minus the condom, the shoulder holster and the rest of his clothes. And Carly caught her breath at the sight. He was lean, but muscular, without a spare ounce anywhere. And he was already semiaroused again.

  She had just enough self-control to try to keep things light. “You know that swimsuit competition you mentioned last night? You’d win hands down.”

  He grinned and sat on the bed next to her, then reached down to cup her cheek with one warm hand, his smile fading. “If I’m assuming too much, just tell me,” he said quietly. “But if I have a choice, that was merely the appetizer. I’m hungry for the main course. And dessert, too.”

  She breathed sharply, because her appetite for him had only been whetted, not sated. She’d never been shy about expressing what she wanted, either, and something about the way he said it appealed to her. Not cocky. Not assuming. Just a statement of what he wanted...if she wanted it, too.

  And she did.

  “One of us is overdressed for dinner,” she replied, letting her eyes do the asking.

  He smiled slowly, the smile that made her tummy quiver. He drew her up into a sitting position, his hands stroking over her bare back. “How does this thing come off?”

  “This thing, as you call it, cost me four hundred and ninety-five dollars on sale,” she chided.

  His eyes never left hers, but his hands slid lower. “It’s gorgeous. How does it come off?”

  “Keep going,” she breathed. “There’s a zipper at the waist.”

  The dress had a built-in bra because there was no way to wear one otherwise. And since Shane had already dispensed with her pantyhose and satin undies earlier, once her dress and half slip were gone, she was as naked as he was.

  “Hang on a sec,” he told her when she grasped a corner of the comforter and sheet to pull them down. He grabbed something from the middle of the still-made bed, and when he dropped them on the night stand, Carly saw they were condoms.

  “How many did you bring?”

  “Six,” he admitted. “There are three more in my pants pocket.”

  “Six?” she repeated in a stunned question.

  He shrugged lightly. “Condoms can tear. Especially if you’re impatient.” He cradled her face in his strong hands, tilting it up for his kiss. “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you,” he whispered when he raised his mouth from hers. “I figured I’d have one mishap. Maybe two. I had to make sure I didn’t run short.”

  Helpless laughter overcame her. Again. “Oh, I do like a man who plans ahead,” she whispered as her arm curved around his neck and pulled him closer.

  * * *

  Shane surfaced from a pleasurable dream in the early morning hours to find it wasn’t a dream after all—Carly was sprawled across his chest. She slept with the abandon of a child—completely oblivious to her surroundings, and to the slight movements he made to arrange her more comfortably in his arms.

  Light from the bathroom spilled into the bedroom, allowing him to see her face clearly. Must have forgotten to turn the light off the last time, he thought, letting himself be distracted momentarily from his contemplation of Carly. Then his focus returned to her.

  Two more used condoms had joined the first in the bathroom trash basket—and neither had been wasted. He’d made love to her the second time for more than half an hour. Wanting—needing—to make it up to her for the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am of their first time. He’d used his mouth on her, and she’d gone crazy. A suspicion resided in the back of his mind that maybe no one had ever done that for her before. Their loss, he told himself now. Because Carly wasn’t just multiorgasmic, she was generously multiorgasmic. He’d brought her to completion with his mouth, then slid into her tight sheath while she was still spasming and she’d come again for him. Higher. Harder. And she’d taken him with her, gasping his name in a way that still echoed in his mind.

  The third time they’d made love was just icing on the cake. Dessert, he thought with a flash of humor, remembering his statement to her earlier. He’d pulled Carly on top of him, leaving his hands free to toy with her breasts. The breasts he’d tried to ignore from day one—but had failed miserably at doing. He couldn’t really blame himself because her breasts were perfect. Absolutely perfect. They filled his hands as if they were made for him—just enough and not a fraction over. With silky nipples that tightened at the slightest touch.

  And the way she’d moved on him? Should be a crime, he told himself with another stab of humor. He felt like a horse who’d been ridden hard and put away lathered. Drenched, in fact. But he wasn’t complaining.

  Just thinking about it was making him hard again, and he tried to shift so he wasn’t touching her. Or rather, so she wasn’t touching him. It shouldn’t be possible. Yeah, it had been months since the last time he’d made love to a woman, but he was forty-one, not fourteen. He shouldn’t be popping up at the slightest provocation, but there it was. He tried to talk some sense into his body—three times should be plenty. His body wasn’t listening.

  Carly stirred, and with her lips pressed against his chest she murmured something he couldn’t hear.

  His arms tightened around her. “What did you say?” he whispered almost soundlessly, not wanting to wake her up if she wasn’t up already.

  She stretched a little. Sighed with contentment. Then rubbed her cheek against his bare chest like a satisfied kitten and said, “Again?”

  He chuckled softly. “Have pity on me, Carly.”

  She snuggled closer to his body, which responded with a surge of desire that left him hard and aching. “I wasn’t asking for me,” she explained. “I was voicing the question your body seems to be asking.” Her hand slid down to stroke his already-aroused flesh. “Doesn’t feel as if you need pity. Feels as if you need tender, loving care.”

  “You’re exhausted.”

  “Mmm.” He
r lips curved into a Mona Lisa smile.

  She toyed lazily for long minutes, until the breath caught in Shane’s lungs. “God, Carly, stop. I can’t—”

  “Yes, you can.” She raised her head to look at him, a challenge in her sparkling blue eyes. “Come on, Marine, oorah. You can do this.”

  Whether it was the challenge, the US Marines battle cry or Carly’s clever hand—which was soon joined by her unbelievably talented lips—somehow he found he could after all. No condom needed.

  * * *

  Shane made it to the Senate floor when it convened at nine by going there directly instead of to his office first, as he usually did. He’d texted Dee-Dee from home—where he’d gone to shower and change clothes—to let her know he was running late, and had asked her to have his senior legislative assistant and legislative correspondent meet him on the Senate floor with the paperwork he needed. He knew he could count on Dee-Dee and she didn’t disappoint him—his aides were already there waiting for him when he arrived.

  As was often the case, nothing much was happening on the Senate floor that morning, except a vote on a bill that was meaningless because the president would veto it and the Senate leadership didn’t have the votes to override that veto. Shane hated that kind of nonsense—grandstanding for the constituency at home—but he still voted because he wanted to go on the record as opposing the bill—he always voted his conscience.

  The rest of the day passed in a whirl of committee and subcommittee hearings, a strategy lunch with the two other senators who were cosponsoring his domestic terrorism bill, meeting with a delegation—some of whom were constituents from his home state and needed to be handled with kid gloves—regarding the upcoming vote on the pipeline bill and a policy meeting with his staff that took up most of the afternoon.

  But he found time to text Carly twice. The first was just three words—thank you again. He’d thanked her this morning when he’d left, of course, but he wanted her to know he was thinking of her, which he was. A lot. Everything he thought of saying seemed impossible to convey in a text, though, and he concluded his mother was right—texting might be great for some things, but it was a piss-poor way of communicating complex emotions.

  The second text was equally terse—we need to talk about the interview. Because right in the middle of the staff meeting he remembered he’d never discussed it with Carly last night. He’d intended to—until she’d opened the door and every rational thought was driven from his brain. He hadn’t been angry—well, okay, maybe a little angry, although upset was a more appropriate word. He’d been upset they’d used the domestic terrorism incident at the bookstore in the broadcast. That they’d interviewed the woman whose life he’d saved. That wasn’t news—it had been at the time, but it wasn’t now—and he felt Carly’s network had crossed an ethical line it shouldn’t have.

  And he’d been upset Carly hadn’t mentioned anything about it when he nixed her interview question on the topic. She had to have known what was planned, but she hadn’t said a word, and that had bothered him.

  When he’d watched a replay yesterday morning of the broadcast his press secretary had taped for him, it had bothered the hell out of him at first because he saw it as some kind of betrayal. But then he’d realized he was looking at it through the lens of their date that night...and into the next morning. When she’d interviewed him on Sunday, he’d been nothing more than a story for her. The subject of an interview. Sunday night had changed all that.

  Then he’d deduced that’s what Carly had wanted to tell him on the phone early yesterday morning—too late to change it, but at least in time to warn him what to expect from the news media. Because he was more than just a story for her now. Because he mattered to her. Because his opinion of her mattered to her. He hadn’t given her the chance to tell him, so he couldn’t blame her for that. At least she’d tried.

  But he still wanted to discuss it with her. He had no intention of letting last night and this morning be the end of his relationship with Carly. Which meant he needed to get a few things straight before they went any further.

  * * *

  Marsh whistled tunelessly to himself as he walked casually away from the reporter’s town house in Georgetown and down the block. He’d already taken care of the senator’s house with no one the wiser. Now he’d done the same here. The reporter had a better security system than the senator—which didn’t surprise him with her being a woman. But neither had been too much of a challenge for him to overcome.

  He turned right at the corner and walked three more blocks, “checking six” twice, before turning left. He always watched his back for a tail—it was as automatic for him as breathing. He’d never been followed. Not once. But he always looked.

  Halfway down the block he clicked the remote to unlock his truck, and waited. When nothing untoward happened, he circled his truck as he always did when he’d left it unattended in a public place, because a professional hit man had a lot of secrets. Secrets that could be dangerous to those who hired him.

  Marsh wasn’t a blackmailer. When he accepted payment for a job, he did it, collected his money and his employers never heard from him again. But sometimes his employers figured him for a liability once he’d completed the job they’d hired him to do. He’d set enough booby traps himself that he had no intention of being someone else’s victim.

  Once he was satisfied none of his nearly hidden markers had been disturbed, he hopped in, started the engine and pulled away from the curb.

  He never even saw the man who’d been shadowing him.

  * * *

  Carly returned home to find her street roped off and yellow tape stretched across her front door. She parked as close as she could, got out and headed for the first official-looking person she could find—a DC police officer standing guard in the street, watching her closely as she approached, then heading to intercept her.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Sorry, ma’am, I can’t tell you. Do you live on this street?”

  “I live there,” she said, pointing to her town house and the group of FBI and ATF agents clustered on her lawn, a couple of them blowing on their hands and stamping their feet to keep warm. “I’m Carly Edwards. What’s going on with my house?”

  “Hang on a sec,” he told her, blowing his whistle to get the agents’ attention, then signaling for them to come over.

  “Ms. Edwards,” he said, indicating Carly when two agents responded with alacrity. “She’s the home owner.” He moved back to his original post in the middle of the street, just out of earshot.

  “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to come with me,” said the FBI agent.

  “Why? What have I done?” were the first words out of her mouth. Then she said to the ATF agent, “Wait, I know you. Weren’t you interrogating me after the attempt on Senator Jones’s life?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said without even the hint of a smile.

  “What’s going on? Why is my house being searched?” And being Carly, she had to add, “Do you have a search warrant?”

  The two agents exchanged glances, then the man from the FBI removed something from an inner pocket and handed it to her. “Search warrant,” he said. “Ma’am.”

  She stood and read the thing in its entirety, as an icy wind blew down the street, making her shiver. Or maybe it’s not the wind, she acknowledged. Because there in the middle of all the legalese were words to the effect that the FBI had good reason to believe a bomb had been planted in her town house. Target? Her and anyone visiting her.

  Shane. Oh my God—Shane. That’s all she could think of in that instant. Another attempt on his life.

  She raised frantic eyes to the two agents. “Senator Jones,” she blurted out. “If there’s a bomb in my home, has anyone searched Senator Jones’s home?”

  The FBI agent spoke for both men. “Ma’am, we
can’t give you any information on an ongoing investigation.”

  “That’s not why I’m asking,” she said urgently. “He’s the real target. Someone has to warn him.” She fumbled in her purse for her smartphone. “Oh my God,” she breathed as she realized her phone had somehow been turned off. She frantically turned it on and scrolled to find Shane’s cell phone number in her contacts, her fingers trembling. “Oh my God.”

  The ATF agent put a hand over both of hers, preventing her from completing the call. “He’s safe, ma’am,” he assured her. He glanced at the other agent, then back at her. “This is not for publication—I know you’re a reporter, and this can’t go beyond here,” he insisted, drawing a circle in the air indicating Carly, the FBI agent and himself. He overrode the other agent’s angry protest to say, “They already found and disarmed a bomb in his home.”

  For the first time in her life Carly’s knees buckled, but she caught herself and stiffened her knees before she could fall. She had more difficulty dealing with the sudden lightheadedness that struck without warning—not even when word had come about Jack had she reacted this way...as if she might faint. And that realization terrified her nearly as much as the idea that something bad could have happened to Shane.

  But she didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on that, because her phone suddenly dinged for an incoming text. She glanced down and saw she had several from Shane, time-stamped throughout the past hour. She clicked on the last one and read, Get out of your house NOW!

  Carly had barely processed Shane’s warning when the attention of the two agents was drawn to something behind her. She swung around, her heart thumping in her chest, and saw television trucks approaching...including one from her own cable network.

  “Keep them back,” the FBI agent barked to the DC policeman standing outside the rope cordoning off the street, and the cop quickly advanced on the approaching TV reporters and their camera operators.

  “You’d better come with us, ma’am,” the ATF agent said quietly, taking Carly’s arm and attempting to lead her away. “You don’t want to get involved in that circus.”