The Naughty Nine: Where Danger and Passion Collide

by Nina Bruhns

  The minute the car sped out of the dense foliage, Marisela spun in the seat and watched the other car, an SUV, disappear in the opposite direction.

  “Frankie, what is Pan’s condition?” she shouted.

  No response.

  “Ian, what is Pan’s condition?”

  The silence deafened. She scooted to the front seat and slapped Romulus on the shoulder. “Why is there no radio contact?”

  Romulus touched his earpiece. “The mission is complete. Communications are suspended.”

  “What about Pan?”

  “He’ll be all right.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Blake makes agent safety a priority. He’ll get the best medical care.”

  She slammed back into the seat, unwilling to share with this stranger that Pan wouldn’t have needed medical care if she’d pumped Ochoa with more darts than she had. Per her training, two should have been more than enough, but Max had warned that someone on drugs, particularly heroin or cocaine, might need a higher dosage. When she’d shot Ochoa the last time after the attack, she’d turned him into a lump of lard too heavy for rescue.

  She’d sentenced him to death.

  She glanced out the window. They were on a bridge, but the reflection of the sliver of moon on the water revealed nothing of what had just happened less than ten minutes ago not a half a mile away. No wisp of smoke. No spark of fire. Nothing.

  As if it had never happened. Only it had, and Marisela would never forget.

  * * *

  She should have known. Slamming the door behind her, Marisela marched two steps into the hotel room and stopped, her emotions a jumble of indignation and self-recrimination. And damn it, the last person she wanted to confront right now had propped himself into the chair beside the window, his face half-cast in shadow, with only his tight, square chin visible in the slats of light filtering through the blinds.

  His fingers, steepled on the table, moved first. His hands slipped into the darkness, then reemerged with a small, black electronic device she recognized as GPS—synchronized to her tracking device, more than likely. In an anger she couldn’t explain, she tore off her watch and tossed it on the bed.

  She clenched her fists until her fingers ached, willing the shaking to stop long enough for her to talk to her boss without sounding like a, well, like a girl. A frightened girl. A regretful girl. A girl whose incompetence had just led to a man’s violent death.

  “How’s Pan?” she finally managed.

  Blake leaned forward so that a slash of neon from the sign outside ignited his aquamarine eyes. “Concussion, but so far, the swelling on his brain is under control.” He toyed with the tracking device, tapping the pads of his fingers on the case. “He has the best care.”

  She stepped further into the room, certain he could see the way her muscles quivered uncontrollably, as they had from the minute she’d slid into the car with Romulus.

  “You’re so sure he’ll recover?” she challenged.

  Ian stood, grabbed her watch from the bed and examined the timepiece with a cursory glance. “He’s a strong man with an equally strong will to live. All of my agents fit that description.”

  Marisela tossed her bag onto the bed, followed by her dart gun, which seemed to thud onto the mattress with more weight than it warranted. She twisted to remove her holster, but her shoulders balked with a numbing ache. Her cheek throbbed. She suddenly felt as if she had the weight of two men around her—and in a way, she figured she did.

  But she’d be damned if she’d show that to Blake.

  She propelled herself into the bathroom, doused a washcloth with cold water no wipe some of the salt spray and smoky grime from her face, hands, and neck. She’d had no idea the fire would trail so far, though a shift in wind had helped the blaze along. The putrid smell of burning fuel and congealing blood remained fused in her nostrils, in her mouth, and plastered to her skin. She turned on the water in the shower to the hottest setting, then ripped off her jacket and flung it on the bed.

  “I’m taking a shower before Perez calls,” she announced, hoping with uncharacteristic optimism that the information would compel Blake to leave. She haphazardly grabbed clothes from her suitcase, not entirely surprised when Ian strolled into the bathroom and turned off the scalding stream of water.

  What did shock her was the way he came up behind her and slid his hands onto her shoulders.

  “Pan’s injury isn’t your fault.”

  She wanted to shake him off. Every nerve ending from her neck to her forearms screamed for her to throw an elbow or a backfist so that he wouldn’t touch her, wouldn’t attempt to soothe her with that honeyed, cultured voice.

  But she didn’t move. Instead, she allowed his fingers to spear into the aching tendons in her neck and shoulders, massaging away the tension in slow, practiced strokes.

  “I should have hit him with more juice from the start,” she said, reciting the mantra her conscience had been chanting for the past half hour. “He shouldn’t have had the strength to Attack Pan. He shouldn’t have gone below decks where we couldn’t get him out.”

  Ian stretched his ministrations to her spine, pressing his thumbs along her discs, following the path downward to the middle of her shoulder blades. His touch, so like the man, was sure and decisive and strong. Everything about him was controlled precision, right down to the way his breath caressed her ear when he spoke.

  “Too much sedative and he would have died anyway.”

  With tiny movements, she shook her head in denial, not wanting to do anything that would make him stop. She knew he wasn’t lying, only oversimplifying. Her heart cracked at the thought that this man would seek to mollify her when her mistake had nearly cost him the life of one of his most valuable agents. Suddenly, he wasn’t acting so superior toward her. There was equality in the way he touched her, as if for once, she possessed something he wanted. Maybe it was just sex. And maybe she didn’t care.

  The moment had grown intimate, but she couldn’t harness the willpower to break free. His kneading lulled her muscles into sweet surrender, though her mind struggled with defiance.

  “Killing doesn’t bother you?” she asked, her throat dry and cottony.

  He stepped closer, his chest and thighs nearly in complete contact with her body. With deep pressure, he rubbed his palms up and down her arms. She could hear the slight rasp in his breathing, a telltale hitch that revealed a viral clue about his aroused state, even more so than the increasing length of his erection against the small of her back.

  “I’m bothered when one of my people dies, but otherwise, all’s fair in love and war. These aren’t boy scouts we’re dealing with. They’re conscienceless thieves and murderers.”

  Despite the sultry hum of his voice, she heard an indignation there that gave her the power to turn around and face him eye-to-eye. As she suspected, the centers of his irises were wide with the darkness and the tension of true, unbridled desire. He wanted her, and God help her, she wanted him back.

  Sex is so sweet after you’ve faced death. And won.

  Frankie’s words slipped back into her brain, like a warning she was sure he’d never intended. The need coursing through her blood, lighting the tips of her breasts on fire even as they scraped against the cool, stiff cotton of Blake’s shirt, wasn’t real. It was adrenaline. Pure and inescapable. They’d succeeded in their mission, despite the unexpected turns. She couldn’t deny her innate attraction to Blake, but her passion for him now was only a lack of resistance, born on the wave of her regret and his compassion, enhanced by a natural attraction she’d repressed up until this very moment.

  His hands slipped down to her thighs. Her muscles were still shaking, still reacting to the overflow of hormones pumping through her body from the confrontation with death and destruction. His palms seemed to soothe the quaking to gentle trembles, even as her flesh ignited with unbearable heat.

  This wasn’t real—which was exactly why she could so easily tilt
her head back so he could lock his lips on her neck.

  The sensation exploded on her skin. Images of fire and wood hurling through the air and splashing into dark, unforgiving water faded from her mind. She concentrated on the silk assault of Ian’s mouth, the moist pleasure of his tongue.

  He caught her brief stumble by bracing his hand on her back. He tugged her closer so that the pressure of his hard sex against her body tripped her over to the next level of arousal. He murmured words she didn’t even try to understand while his mouth dropped lower, teasing the nerve endings across her shoulder blades, forcing the world and reality farther into the darkness. Away from here. Away from any thought that could stop him and therefore stop this delectable pleasure. He curved his hand around her backside, then reached between her legs and pressed the seam of her pants until her blood thrummed with pounding need.

  Then she made a mistake. She looked up. Even as his chin tilted and his eyes locked with hers to prepare her for an inevitable, potentially world-shattering kiss, she recognized the full breadth of what she’d been about to do and rolled slowly out of the way.

  He didn’t chase her.

  She forced her fuddled brain to remember what they’d been talking about before lust and simple, bone-wringing need overwhelmed her senses and sent her spiraling into a fantasy world where she could screw her boss and not ruin her career.

  Oh, yeah. Death. Her favorite topic.

  “We aren’t executioners, Blake. We don’t get to pick who lives and who dies.”

  The words sounded entirely hollow, no matter how sure she was that at some point in her life, she’d believed them with all her soul. Right now, her mouth was spouting theories about life, death, and morality while her mind whirled with images of naked bodies and wet, intense kisses that banished the world to another realm. But the erotic images were relatively easy to push away. All she had to do was think about Pan lying semi-lifeless on the bottom of the skiff beside her.

  Two men—almost three—had died this week because of her. She couldn’t berate herself indefinitely, that she understood. Blake had a point. Men like Nestor Rocha and Ricky Ochoa made their choices and expected, some day, to die because of the lives they led.

  But she suddenly realized that if she continued in the employ of Titan International she’d have to accept the possibility of her own inevitable death as well.

  And that, she couldn’t do. Not tonight. Not ever.

  “I think you need to leave now,” she said, digging her hands into the back pockets of her pants, knowing the heat effusing over her body was just an illusion, a crutch, a purely physical reaction to an emotional situation she’d been unprepared for. This time. But never again.

  He looked at her with one tilted eyebrow, as if her reaction surprised him. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded, then grinned wryly. “You’re not the kind of guy who likes to take advantage of a woman who’s just been through hell, are you?”

  He matched her cynical expression. “Never. But I am the kind of guy who’d help you forget that hell, if only for a little while. No strings. No questions asked in the morning.”

  The idea tempted her more than she’d ever admit, even if he was her boss. Most of her lovers, Frankie included, subscribed to the machismo belief that they could satisfy any woman, any time, without even trying, and that they had the God-given right to prove their prowess to each and every attractive woman who caught their eye. Blake possessed the same self-assurance—but she imagined he didn’t have to demonstrate his prowess to anyone. Not even himself.

  So she was fairly certain he wasn’t insulted when she glanced longingly at the door.

  He smiled—only the second genuine grin she’d seen on him since they’d met—straightened, and walked toward the exit. When he spoke, the soft sound of compassion had slipped away, replaced by the clipped tone of professionalism. “Perez will contact you tonight.” He removed a cell phone from his pocket and tossed it on the bed. “Use this monitored phone for all communications. Don’t agree to go anywhere until Frank returns, which should be soon. I’m sure you’re anxious to see him.”

  She nodded, but kept her face stoic. She’d let her guard down enough with him tonight, allowed herself a taste of temptation she couldn’t afford. For once in her life, Frankie represented safety and security. How the hell had that happened?

  Dirty Little Secrets: Chapter Fourteen

  The buzz brought Ian awake instantaneously. With only the slightest fumble in the dark, he pressed the button on his nightstand without so much as rattling the crystal snifter he’d left there, untouched.

  “Blake here.”

  Max’s ever-present voice drifted into the darkness. “The call is in.”

  He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He couldn’t have been out for long. “What time is it?”

  “Four A.M.”

  Barely three hours.

  “Doesn’t the man think his assassins deserve a little sleep?”

  “Apparently, he’s anxious to set up the meeting.”

  “Who’s doing the talking?”

  “Marisela.”

  Ian’s chest tightened. “Pipe it in.”

  With a smooth transition devoid of crackles or pops or static, the conversation between Marisela, in the role of Dolores Tosca, and Javier Perez drifted into the room. Ian rolled back onto the pillow and hooked one arm behind his head. With the briefest nudge to his imagination, he could picture Marisela in the bed beside him talking to their client’s ex-lover—a much more palatable image than dealing with the fact that by now, Frank Vega was the one lying beside her.

  “You don’t believe in sleep, Señor Perez?” Marisela asked, her voice appropriately thicker with the accent of her parent’s native country, plus deeper and richer with her exhaustion.

  “I do adore a good night’s rest, Señora Tosca. But I was so pleased with your success that I wanted to share my congratulations. You and your husband have exceeded my expectations in every way.”

  Marisela sniffed. Yawned. Loudly. “We did what you paid us to do. No more, no less.”

  Over the phone line, Javier Perez’s chuckle seemed extraordinarily hollow, raising the hackles along the back of Ian’s neck.

  “I wish to meet with you and your husband later this morning. I want to present the final payment personally, and of course, discuss further business dealings, as my man proposed to your associate.”

  “¿Dónde?” Marisela asked.

  “At my hotel,” Perez answered. “I’d Like to invite you and your husband to be my guests for breakfast. I’ll send a car.”

  “Make it lunch and we’ll drive ourselves. What time?”

  She sounded tired and bored, but Perez retained the smile in his voice—one that grated on the fine tune of Ian’s nerves. “You name the time. I’m leaving the States in the early evening tomorrow, so—”

  She cut him off with a curt, “One o’clock.”

  “Wonderful,” he said, then named the hotel and provided the room number. “I look forward to—”

  Marisela disconnected the call. A tense silence ensued until Max buzzed back in.

  “I’ll have Dion and Romulus tail them from the hotel.”

  “Do that,” Ian snapped. He’d wanted Marisela to assume the part of Dolores Tosca, but if she’d gone too far…

  “She did fine,” Max reassured him, correctly interpreting Ian’s mood.

  “She was rude,” Ian countered.

  “By all accounts, Dolores Tosca was not Miss Congeniality. Don’t forget what she did for a living.”

  Ian stretched, knowing Max was right. “Is everything in place to pursue Marisela and Frank if Perez takes them with him to Puerto Rico tomorrow?”

  Max paused, but as expected, came up with an affirmative response. “The team that worked on the Sharp’s Destruction is already en route to the island and will pick up a new boat by tomorrow that has all the equipment we’ll need. The plane is fueled and ready to go. We won’t let them out
of sight.”

  “Good. Is there any news on Pan?”

  “Stable. Doctor won’t know about permanent damage until he wakes up.”

  “You contacted his wife?”

  “She’s there already.”

  “Cover story?”

  “Mugging.”

  “Ochoa’s family?”

  “Under wraps. The wife is terrified. I don’t expect she’ll cause us any trouble so long as we keep her and the baby comfortable.”

  “The bodyguard?”

  “Moved to another location.”

  “No complications, Max,” Ian said by way of warning.

  “Of course. Goodnight, sir.”

  Ian disconnected the link, rolled over, and opened the blinds on the window behind his bed. The moon was a sharp slice of light in the early morning sky, with no sign of the rising sun yet in the eastern waters. He couldn’t remember the last night he’d slept more than three hours in one stretch, and yet he also couldn’t dredge up the slightest memory of looking out the window or over the railing at a singularly spectacular view. Who had the time anymore? Who had the heart to give a damn?

  He’d bet Marisela looked at the stars, probably every night if the mood suited her. Frank, too, if for no other reason than because he could after years in the pen.

  The mental picture of his agents standing near a window while admiring the moon together drove a slim pin through the center of his brain. He speared his hands through his hair and rested his head in his palms, wondering what the hell had been going through his mind tonight. His first error in judgment had been going to her hotel room in the first place. He’d used the excuse that he was delivering the tapped cell phone, but any of his agents could have done that duty, including Max, who’d asked twice for the assignment. His friend undoubtedly sensed the growing fascination he had with Marisela and in his boundless insight, saw the train wreck that would occur if the dynamics of his interactions with Marisela skimmed anywhere near an intimate dalliance. Hadn’t the disaster of his last affair with an agent taught him anything?

  Women who made their living pretending to be other people never revealed their true selves.