She stripped and made use of both the basin and the bucket, then dried herself and put on the robe. It felt stiff and unforgiving against her skin, and chafed her unprotected nipples. When, she wondered, had they become so sensitive? The time of the month, maybe? Hormones, or her mind wandering where it had no business being, poking into long-buried memories and reawakening old yearnings?
She’d just finished folding her dusty sweat-and grass-stained clothing into an untidy pile and was considering whether to ask someone for enough water to rinse them out with, when there came a discreet knock on the door. She opened it to find a young girl of maybe twelve or thirteen, dressed in a patterned wrap skirt and long-sleeved tunic, with her head covered by a scarf and a single long braid hanging down her back. She was holding a tray on which were several covered dishes and the usual teapot, bowls and eating utensils. With eyes carefully averted, she entered, crossed the room to the table and set the tray down, then turned and, before Sam could even thank her, bent and scooped up the pile of dirty clothes, gave a quick little bow and scurried out, all without saying a word.
“Huh-maid service,” Sam said aloud to herself as she went to close the door. Then she had to use all the self-control she had in her to keep from falling on the food tray like a starving wolf.
She felt much better after she’d eaten all she could possibly hold of the customary offering of rice and vegetables and fruit, washed down with several cups of tea. Well enough that her mind could begin functioning again on more than just the most primitive level.
She wondered if Cory and Tony had been given trays in their room-rooms?-or whether they’d been invited to dine again with their infamous host, Fahad al-Rami. She wondered if Cory would dare to ask again about the hostages-the Lundquists. She wondered whether it really was the Lundquists in that house the soldier was guarding.
She wondered if it was time to send another target-located signal. And if she did, whether this time the government forces would obey her order to stand by.
Ripples of anger coursed through her when she thought about what had almost happened back at the house in the ravine. If it hadn’t been for Fahad al-Rami’s sentries and a well-planned escape route, we might all be dead right now. Those idiots!
No. She wouldn’t send the signal, not yet. Cory and Tony were exhausted-so was she, though she hated to admit it. Tomorrow would be soon enough, after they’d all had a chance to rest. After they’d had a chance to find out whether the hostages were in that smaller house, and whether there was any chance at all Fahad al-Rami might be convinced to turn them over. Tomorrow would be soon enough to risk another government attack and headlong flight for their lives.
Though it was only midafternoon, a full stomach, clean clothes and sleep deprivation were beginning to have a predictable effect on her. The sleeping mat was looking a lot less austere-downright seductive, in fact. And she thought, Well, shoot, why not? Nothing was likely to happen today anyway, and she wasn’t going anywhere dressed in a damn bathrobe, so she might as well nap.
She lay down, expecting to fall asleep instantly, thinking as tired as she was, she ought to be able to sleep anywhere, no matter what-even on the floor. But instead she found that, now that she was lying down trying to sleep, she no longer felt sleepy at all. Her body felt hot and tense; her skin crawled and prickled, as though all her nerve endings had gone on full battle alert and, like nervous sentries, were overreacting to the slightest sensation. She felt her heart beating in remote parts of her body, and heard her blood whooshing through the arteries in her head. Her mind followed the path of each breath, through her nostrils, down into her lungs and back again; she was aware of every molecule of moisture that welled up through her pores.
The chafe of clothing was intolerable; she longed to throw off the stiff cotton robe and lie naked with only the caress of warm, humid air on her body…but there was no lock on her door and what if someone came in and found her like that? And anyway it wouldn’t be enough, because part of her would still be touching the mat. How wonderful it would be, she thought, to be weightless, if only for this moment…to float suspended, rocked by a gentle sea…and the cool kiss of water on her skin. She longed for…yearned for…
She sat up suddenly, then collapsed back onto the mat, arms over her eyes, writhing in chagrin. Oh, hell, she thought, I know what this is. It’s him I want. The caress I’m longing for…the kiss…it’s Cory’s.
It had been so many years since she’d felt like this, but she remembered it now-it all came back to her. The frustration…the yearning…the bewilderment. I want him so much…I know he wants me, too…why won’t he make love to me? And then the anger, too. I’m eighteen, damn it-a grown woman. Plenty old enough to know what I want!
Old enough, yes, but without the experience and confidence to take the initiative, to go after what she wanted. What if I fail? What if he turns me down? Her pride wouldn’t let her take that chance.
Until the day something awoke inside her-a voice scolding, Samantha June, your mama didn’t raise you to be a coward! If you want the man bad enough, you just might have to sacrifice a little pride.
She remembered it so well. It had been November, the weekend of her nineteenth birthday, her first birthday since her dad had come back from the dead. Her birthday was on Friday, and that afternoon Cory had driven over from Atlanta to pick her up from school and take her to Grandma’s house, where her parents were staying while their new house was being built over near Augusta. There’d been a huge party-naturally all the aunts and uncles and cousins and in-laws had been there, because any excuse for a family get-together, right? It had been great, though, having both her dad and Cory there, one of the happiest days she could remember in a long, long time.
The only cloud in Sammi June’s sky that day had been the knowledge that it was Cory’s last weekend in Atlanta. On Sunday he was catching a plane to New York, and after that he’d be going off on assignment, back to the Middle East-and hadn’t he had enough of that place? She knew it was his job to be where the danger was, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible might happen to him over there, and if it did, she was never going to see him again. Never have a chance to know what it would be like to make love with him.
Or maybe that was just an excuse because she’d been wanting him to make love to her for months, and she was nineteen, now, and tired of waiting.
Whatever the reason, on Saturday afternoon when Cory was dropping her off at her dorm, she asked him to wait for her while she took her birthday loot up to her room, because, she said, she had a surprise for him. And boy, did she. When she came back downstairs she was wearing a little black dress that hit her about eight inches above her knees, and high heels made mostly of see-through plastic, and she’d put her hair up on top of her head. She even had on earrings, which she never wore. She’d spent most of the birthday money she hadn’t even gotten yet on that outfit, but it had been worth it, because the look on Cory’s face when he saw her in it was priceless.
She’d brought her soccer sports bag with her-which didn’t exactly go with her outfit, but it was all she had to put her overnight stuff in-and she told Cory, since it was his last night in Georgia for a while, she wanted to take him out and “do Atlanta.”
He’d said, “I didn’t know there was anything to do in Atlanta.” And she’d replied, with a sexy and wicked smile, “Have you ever been to Underground Atlanta?”
So they’d joined the Saturday-night crowds strolling the underground mall, and they’d eaten dinner and danced to live music, and Sam was careful not to drink anything except diet soda because she didn’t want Cory to think she was doing this just because she was drunk.
By the time they headed back to Cory’s apartment-the apartment CNN let him use whenever he was in town-her feet were killing her, and she’d taken off her high heels and was carrying them in her hand. Her heart was thumping and butterflies were fluttering around in her stomach as she rode up in the elevator beside Cory, his
arm just brushing hers and her whole body vibrating nervously inside that little black dress.
The elevator doors opened, and she could hear laughter and music, with a thumping bass that crawled through the floors and walls and went in through the soles of her bare feet and joined up with the rhythms of her own pulse beat. Evidently, someone a couple of doors down the hall was having one hell of a party.
Cory had apologized for the noise while he unlocked the door and showed her inside the apartment. Then he’d closed the door, shutting out most of the racket-all but that bass. He turned back to her, and she could see it in his eyes-she just knew what he was thinking. And before he could even suggest making up that couch for himself to sleep on, she dropped her sexy shoes and her soccer bag on the floor and stepped up to him and laced her fingers behind his neck.
“Actually, the noise is good,” she’d murmured, her lips so close to his they tingled. “It makes a good cover.”
“Mmm…cover…for what?” His voice had sounded faint and shaken-and she knew that he knew. And she’d felt something inside herself grow strong and sure.
From that well of confidence a laugh bubbled up, one she’d never heard from herself before-husky and deep-throated…a woman’s laugh. “What do you think?” she’d said, and then she’d kissed him.
She’d kissed him until she’d felt his muscles begin to quiver and his breathing quicken, and his hands slip around her waist as though they didn’t have the will to do otherwise. Then, still kissing him, she took her hands from around his neck and reached behind her and pulled the zipper on the little black dress all the way down. The dress slithered to the floor, and she was wearing only a very tiny pair of black lace panties.
“My God…Sam…” His voice had sounded strangled. “Are you sure-”
She’d silenced him with a finger across his lips. “Shut up, Pearse,” she’d said fiercely. “Don’t make me have to kill you.”
He’d chuckled then, the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard. “Not a chance,” he’d growled. And after that there was no more talking.
He kisses me and I know it’s going to be all right, I can leave it to him, now, and a good thing, too, because this is about as far as my vast knowledge and experience can take me. I’m shaking, appalled and amazed at this thing I’ve done, the tremendous risk I’ve taken. But proud, too, and glad, and so very, very relieved…
He kisses me and his hands are on my body, so passionate and sure, touching me in ways he never has before, but so gently, too, and his tenderness tells me as nothing else could that this is important to him, as important and momentous and miraculous and terrifying as it is to me. And I understand, finally, that the reason he hasn’t made love to me before is only because he loves me. I understand that by waiting for me to come to him, without pressure or hesitation, he has given me the most amazing gift, and my heart fills with so much love it overwhelms me and tears rush into my eyes before I can stop them. This is a very special man, I tell myself, awed. An incredible, wonderful, amazing man…and he is mine.
He kisses me, and I him, and my body shudders with joy and awe and wonder and fear, all of those, but at the same time I feel safe and cared for, and suddenly this-everything-every part of him seems so precious to me, I feel a terrible stab of panic at the thought of ever losing it. I rub my face against him and breathe him in, and I love the way he smells…run my hands over his body and tangle my legs with his, and I love the silky slide of his skin on mine…I wrap my arms around him and feel his body’s weight and warmth embrace me, and I love the thump of his heart against my breasts, and the quiver of his muscles, and the strong, solid feel of his bones. And I know that I can trust this man absolutely and without reservation, and that I always will.
I hear the belly-deep growl of his voice against my ear: “Sam…” Just that, and it’s a poem, a sonnet, a hymn, a prayer and a question.
I answer with only one word: “Yes…”
Cory woke to the crash of thunder. He lay for a moment, jangled and clammy, haunted by dreams already slipping beyond recall, the menacing shouts and thumps and bangs of the dreams so rapidly overtaken and usurped by the cracks and crashes outside his open window he forgot they’d ever been at all. Then, because they were sometimes in his dreams as well, he thought, Explosions! Mortar rounds! Incoming! But in the next instant the room lit with flickering blue-white light, and the crack and rolling rumble that followed a moment later sent a new fear racing through him like a cold wind. Monsoon.
It had been his greatest fear-hard to remember that, now-that the rains would come before he was able to complete the interview with Fahad al-Rami and get the hostages safely away and off the island. Discovering that Sam-his Samantha-was the person whose responsibility it would be to get them off the island safely had only deepened his sense of dread. Not that he’d ever doubted her ability to do so; it just made the stakes, in case anything did go wrong, that much higher. Now, though, as a wild rushing sound filled the night, he felt a strange, almost fatalistic sense of calm. That was the thing about weather, he thought-there wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it. Whatever disasters it brought simply had to be dealt with.
He lay with his eyes closed, listening to it, one forearm across his brow, the thump of his own pulse and the roar of the rain filling his ears, drowning all other sounds, even Tony’s snores from the other side of the room. So it was that he never heard the creak of the opening door…the soft brush of bare feet crossing the wood plank floor.
Chapter 9
In the darkness and heat and humidity of the night he hadn’t felt her warmth or sensed her presence. The only warning he had came with the rasp of coarse cotton fabric against his side. Something brushed across his face, and instinctively he shot out a hand and his fingers closed around a wrist, one with strong and sturdy bones, but slender nonetheless. A woman’s wrist.
He heard the sharp hiss of indrawn breath, then a husky gurgle of laughter and a whispered, “Nothing wrong with your reflexes, Pearse.”
“Sam.” His heart was knocking so hard against his ribs he wondered it didn’t do itself damage, but he sought to keep his voice calm. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little storm.”
Her snort blew a puff of warmth across his cheek. “You know me better’n that-I’m a Georgia girl.” He felt her settle herself along his side, and her murmured drawl was smug. “Just thought…be a shame to waste all this noise. Makes a good cover…”
His mind lurched, spilling a memory from his distant past. He groped for it, his heart racing, his skin rippling where she touched him. “Cover?” he said weakly. “For what?”
Her hand skimmed lightly across his chest. “What do you think?” she replied, and her voice was not quite steady.
“My God, Sam…” The powerful sense of déjà vu made him wonder if this was real, or if he could possibly still be asleep…dreaming. “Are you sure?”
He heard a husky sound that might have been laughter. “Shut up, Pearse, don’t make me have to kill you,” she said fiercely, and the memory tumbled into his mind and unfurled in full light and living color.
No longer in doubt, he growled, “Not a chance,” and raised himself to meet her.
The kiss was fierce and wild, the clash of two hungry and frustrated souls-not like his memory of that first sweet, wondering time, when they’d touched each other with such awe, lost in a daze of happiness, like children discovering the gift of their dreams on Christmas morning.
And yet…there was something of the same feeling inside him…a remembered sense of amazement and disbelief, almost, that such a miracle should have been granted to him. Back then, the miracle was that this incredible woman had chosen to give herself to him, when he’d never dared to imagine such a possibility for himself-had certainly never looked for it, and had in fact spent his adult life to that point insulating himself against the likelihood that it might happen to him.
But now… Now, it seemed lightning had struck him again, because the w
oman he thought he’d lost forever was back in his life, and inexplicably had once again chosen to give herself to him. For reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom, he was being granted a second chance. If only this time he could figure out how to get it right.
“You’re naked,” she whispered, pulling back a little as she combed her fingers down his chest, grazing his skin with her nails so that he rippled inside where she’d touched him, like water when the wind passes over it.
“And you’re not,” he whispered back, voice choppy with his fractured breath.
“No problem.” He felt a rasp of heavy fabric and a flurry of humid air, and then her warmth and softness covering him from chest to thighs, and his body was remembering her contours, their two bodies melding with the ease and gladness of two old friends meeting again after far too many years.
“Aren’t you afraid someone might see you?” he asked with a bump and a smile in his voice as he let his hands follow their well-remembered path over the dip of her waist…the swell of her bottom. Because he already knew the answer, even before he felt her jerk back like an affronted cat. Afraid? Not my Sam. Fearless Sam!
“Who’s going to see us-Tony?” she scoffed. “You said it-he sleeps through everything. Besides-it’s pitch-dark in-” And she gasped as, with magnificent timing, the room lit up with blue-white light and turned her lovely body to silver.
It looked, he thought, as though it should be hard and cold to the touch, like an elegant sculpture in marble or alabaster, but instead she was all firm and giving softness and a fierce, vibrant heat that radiated from somewhere inside her and reached deep into his very core.
In the flickering light her face seemed to come down to his bit by bit, in little jerks and starts that matched the uneven rhythms of his heart, and the rocky rumble of the thunder outside was a growling he felt deep in his chest and belly. Too impatient to wait for her to come to him, he lifted his head and found her mouth, then gasped as passions ignited inside him with a power that threatened to tear him apart. And somewhere in the chaos of his mind a thought flashed clear:
Secret Agent Sam Page 14