by Cherry Adair
“He can be very charming when he isn’t dragging you from place to place with bullets flying.”
Rabiah quirked a brow. “Oh, sexy and dangerous. That’s a deadly combination for a woman’s heart.”
Isis bit into the warm toast, letting the crunchy texture of it roll about in her mouth. Rabiah was right. No matter which way she tried to frame things, she and Thorne had crossed a line somewhere in those tombs. And she ached to think what her life was going to be like without him in it once they tricked the bad guys and saved the tomb.
The last thing she wanted was to bring any danger to her friends, but the excitement of her father being right buzzed in her veins, making her lightheaded. She couldn’t wait to tell the world. But Thorne said they needed to wait. Timing was everything when it came to outwitting people like Yermalof, Dylan, and Dr. Najid, and they needed to be precise in their planning.
The bathroom door opened, and a few moments later Thorne limped to the table, his face washed and his hair damp, just as Husani returned. He set a carved cane against the back of Thorne’s chair. “Should you have need of it.” His nonchalant way of saying it made it easy for Thorne to nod his thanks.
“Appreciate it.” Thorne picked up his coffee cup and drank as Rabiah set plates of food in front of them, then joined them at the table.
While they ate the Western-style breakfast, they filled their hosts in on what they knew.
“This was a very involved plan, but the theft of antiquities happens here every day,” Husani told Thorne. “For the most part the authorities turn a blind eye.”
“It’s a disgrace,” his wife said, her voice angry. “They are stealing our national sovereignty. There is a new syndicate to stop such things. I hope they punish these men to the full extent of the law.”
Husani shrugged. “Like our Minister of Water. It is not uncommon for ministry officials to be involved with antiquity theft. It is hard to police such actions, and even harder to prosecute.”
“You don’t mind that a discovery like Cleopatra’s tomb has been raped and pillaged by these men?” Isis asked, her tone hard on behalf of her father. “That Cleo’s wealth is being sold off to the highest bidder and taken out of your country, never to be seen again?”
“I understand your anger, little bird. But such sales and thefts have been happening for thousands of years. It’s almost impossible to stop. Too many people benefit by turning a blind eye.”
Thorne cradled his cup. “What are the penalties when these men are apprehended?” His tone was casual, but Isis suspected that it wasn’t an idle question. Besides, she presumed he already knew the answer if he’d been chasing down Yermalof for years.
Her friend shrugged again. “The new law increased prison sentences for smuggling artifacts out of Egypt to fifteen years and a million-pound fine. Double that of ten years ago.”
“Clearly this hasn’t impacted the sales of antiquities,” Thorne pointed out with inflection. If this was the case, what recourse did anyone have against Dylan and the minister? After all this, were they just going to get a slap on the wrist and be let go?
“No, it has not.” Husani cast a worried frown at Thorne. “My father—”
“MI5 has had people with him around the clock since this started. He’s safe. I don’t advise you to open the shop until we know everyone has been rounded up.”
“No problem. I can do paperwork from home. Is there anything I can do for you?” He looked from Thorne to Isis, and back again as his wife cleared the table, then poured Thorne another cup of coffee, and brought another Coke to Isis, who drank it down like a crack addict.
“It’ll take my people some time to round everyone up. We’ll lie low until they do so. I gave them the number here.”
“I’ll come downstairs to fetch you as soon as they call.”
“I GET THE SHOWER first,” Isis told him unequivocally the moment the door to the downstairs apartment closed behind them. “I must smell like a thousand-year-old mummy.”
With a piratical smile, Thorne turned her around until her back slammed into the door she’d just shut. Without a Mother May I, he started nuzzling her neck with hungry lips. Lacing his fingers with hers, he held them beside her head. “You… smell…” He punctuated his words with biting kisses up her throat. “Sexy. As. Hell.”
Prickly heat swept over her skin, and her breasts instantly tightened with need. Her fingers curled helplessly between his. “You’re a crazy man. Let me go, at least until I—” His gaze dropped to her mouth and Isis forgot how to form coherent words as her heart hammered unevenly against her ribs. “You promised me clean sheets and a shower, and then—” There’d been something about leather, and baby oil… That thought made her hotter.
Thorne cupped her nape, pulling her so close she felt the hard ridge of his penis through his jeans, right where she needed to feel it, damn him. Sparks of scalding heat traveled from their points of contact to zing through her bloodstream like liquid fire. “I’ll deliver—when I’m more rational. Right now I don’t give a damn about the trappings. I. Just. Want. You.” He kissed her senseless, sucking away her right mind, leaving her panting and lust-crazed.
“Don’t talk.” Still nuzzling her throat, he turned her around and started down the short hallway with her clasped in his arms. “Don’t think,” he told her thickly. “Just feel.”
“I feel filthy,” Isis groused, wrapping her arms around his waist as he walked her backward toward the bathroom in what felt like a perfectly choreographed dance.
The all-white tiled bathroom had a blue-and-white-striped plastic shower curtain and a tiny window high on the wall that let in a stream of brilliant white sunshine across the floor.
Thorne laughed. “We’ll fix that.” Reaching over, he turned on the shower, then backed her against the wall and continued kissing her. His rough jaw abraded her skin as he kissed her forehead, then worked his way across her cheek to her mouth. He tasted of rich, dark coffee and a need too strong to contain.
The bathroom filled with sweet-smelling steam from sandalwood, and he paused kissing her only long enough to add cold water, then tested the temperature on his fingers before returning to crush his mouth down on hers once again.
He skimmed his palm up under several layers of T-shirts to her bare waist. “Your skin is so soft,” he said as his damp fingers slid slowly up her sides. “Softer than the most expensive satin.”
“Hmm.” Isis figured if he was determined to do this, then they should both be naked. Her fingers shook with impatience as she fumbled with the button on his jeans. The ridge of his erection pulsed under her unsteady fingers as she freed him, then she shoved his jeans down as far as she could without being more than an inch from his mouth, which was giving her so much pleasure she vibrated like a tuning fork.
God, she loved kissing him. She loved the smooth texture of his lips, and the way he angled his head to accommodate her. She loved the slick glide of his coffee-flavored tongue mating with hers, and the suck and pull as he played tag inside her mouth. She could kiss him all day and night…
“I want to be naked this time,” she managed to say, panting slightly because she’d forgotten to breathe through her nose. She used both hands to pull his T-shirt up his body, letting her lips follow the path, up the narrow line of dark hair on his lower belly, up to his rock-hard abs, which vibrated as she kissed a damp trail between his pecs. He helped her pull his shirt over his head.
His skin burned her hands as she ran them over his shoulders. She leaned in to press kisses to the crisp dark hair on his chest, then pressed her mouth there and simply held on as she inhaled deeply. The smell of his skin was like a powerful aphrodisiac. Hot male. Primitive. Primal.
“I assure you”—his voice was tight, his eyes glittering as if he had a high fever—“in less than fifty seconds you’ll be in the shower, wet and bare-arsed naked.” He pulled the T-shirts over her head before she knew it, and was
back nibbling at her bottom lip before she
missed him.
“Fifty seconds? You’re losing your touch, Thorne.”
Picking her up, he tugged her jeans down her legs and tipped her gently onto her feet in the bathtub.
Hot water swirled about her feet and ankles, and she made a grab for the tiled wall with one hand and his shoulder with the other. “I’m wet now.” She let go of the wall, because Thorne was all she needed to steady her.
Climbing in with her, he slid his hand between her thighs and gave her a devilish look. “And so you are.” For several breathless minutes she could do nothing but dig her nails into his arms and ride his clever fingers. She came twice in quick succession, and could barely gasp out what she’d been trying to say as she pressed her face to his chest, and hung on limply.
She slid her hands down to squeeze the hard flesh and muscle of his taut ass. “This is the order of things, Connor Thorne. You’ve mixed them up a bit, so here’s the new order of things.”
He cupped her breast, stroking the erect nipple with his thumb as he edged her back under the deliciously hot spray. “Uh-huh.”
Isis took a moment to enjoy—enjoy the sensation of hot water sluicing over her parched skin, enjoy Thorne performing amazing sleight of hand between her legs… “The order of things is as follows: first, soaping and s-scrubbing. Getting shiny clean—”
He pressed his mouth to her neck and took a little nip, making her simultaneously wince and become even more turned on. “Hot, down-and-dirty sex,” he murmured at the underside of her jaw.
“Okay. First.” Isis ran her palm over his short, wet hair, loving the feel of him, loving to pet him when he made muffled sounds of pleasure low in his throat. “Hot sex where we try very hard not to drown ourselves or each other. Then shiny clean. Then fall onto that overworked sofa bed and sleep until you’re called to duty. How does that sound?”
His arms tightened around her, bringing them both under the hot spray. Reaching out, he grabbed the soap, using her breast and his hand to work up a lather. “You left out the part between fall onto that overworked sofa bed and sleep.” He ran his soapy hand over her arm, then under her arm, then around her back.
Soap trickled down her breast onto her belly, tickling its slow path down her body and waking any nerve endings that might still be napping, so her entire body was on red alert. “There was nothing between the two.”
He soaped her other arm, glided his fingers over her breasts, then curved his hand around her back and all the soapy, slick way down to her bottom. “Make love slowly on a horizontal surface.”
“What?” she asked, dazed and hyperaware of what was soaped and what was not. The soap suds felt like an extension of his nimble fingers as they slid slowly down her body. “You’re insatiable.”
“You talk too much.” He kissed her while he made sure all her girl parts were sparkly clean. Then, when she was limp and didn’t give a damn what order things happened in, he slid his hand under her knee and guided his hard length into her soapy channel. Isis stifled a scream against his shoulder.
NINETEEN
At the sharp rap at the front door, Thorne flung his legs over the mattress, then retrieved a damp towel from the floor to wrap around his waist. Despite the bright sunlight streaming through a chink in the heavy drapes, Isis slept sprawled out on her back with sweet abandon.
They’d made love in the shower. Twice. Washed. Frequently. And managed somehow to open the sofa bed and fall on the clean sheets before going back to devour each other again. Isis had fallen asleep as if she’d run into a wall. Which, God help him, she had. The fact that she’d been able to match him stroke for stroke was, all things considered, nothing short of amazing. Hell, she was amazing.
In sleep she’d curled her body against him. A position he had grown to love, one arm and a leg curved around his body. Holding him to her. There was no hold necessary, no hold as strong as his feelings for her.
Thorne hadn’t wasted time sleeping. He’d have time for that later. For now, he wanted to absorb her with all his senses.
Whoever was at the door could wait a moment. Thorne stood looking down at her, memorizing the way her waist curved into the sweet round of her hip. The plump weight of her breasts beneath his hand. The soft pink of her nipples. He needed to memorize this moment in case he was never allowed to be this lucky again.
He’d been trained from a young age to keep a stiff upper lip, to show no emotion, to do his duty. Those lessons hadn’t taken effect until Garrett killed himself. Then all the fun and fuckup he was, was wiped away. He’d left school, signed up with MI5, and done his best to get killed in every way, shape, and form to make up for his screwed-up youth, without realizing it—until he’d met Isis.
She was everything that was good, while he was—Thorne shoved that realization aside. It was what it was. He was what he was.
Once she was imprinted on his brain looking just this way, he tightened the towel and padded to the front door.
Peering through the peephole first, he flung open the door. “Heustis?”
“This was quicker than calling and arranging transport. Here, your pal upstairs said to give you this.” He handed Thorne the cane he’d forgotten and tossed him a can of cola. “The spillway has been turned off, at least temporarily, until the authorities decide what to do. We have Brengard and Dr. Najid in custody; they’re screaming for their attorneys. Unfortunately, they’re not screaming nearly loudly enough for said attorneys to be called in,” the Mossad operative said dryly. “The Egyptians have allowed a combined team of your people and my people to ask questions.”
A hell of a lot more effective. Thorne cocked a brow. “ ‘Allowed’?”
Heustis grinned. “What do you English say? Finders keepers? We scooped them up. When we’re done with them, we’ll consider handing them over to the locals.” His smile was feral.
“Where they’ll be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their way.”
The other man shook his head. “I’m sure the Egyptian police appreciate our interrogation techniques, which will have saved them time and effort. So much can happen with a hostage situation—”
The prisoners would be moved to Israel, bypassing the lax Egyptian legal system, Thorne thought with grim satisfaction. “What about Yermalof?”
“In the wind, but we have word he’s visiting a lady friend in Alexandria. Your people went to pick him up there. We’re holding the other two at a safe house. Want in on the talks?”
“I do. More so when Yermalof shows. Is Najid the mastermind?”
“Seems like.” Heustis gave his slipping towel a mild look. “Are you planning to stand there naked all afternoon, or would you like to dress and finish this op off so we can all go home?”
“Give me a minute—”
“Can I come with you?” Isis asked from the bedroom doorway. She too was wrapped in a towel. It looked a hell of a lot better on her than it did on him.
“Only fair. Get dressed.”
She disappeared into the bedroom. “Give us five minutes.”
“Car’s downstairs. Oh, Thorne?” When Thorne turned back, the other man handed him a polymer-framed, standard Jericho pistol. “Thought you might like the use of my backup.”
Magazine loaded, double action, semiauto, short recoil. Thorne hefted the weight. “Thanks, appreciate it.”
It took Isis an astoundingly short ten minutes to get dressed and put on makeup she didn’t need. “I feel human now.”
“You look good enough to eat.”
“Thank you, I’ve been eaten, and have feasted in return, but that’s enough sex for you for a while. I want to go and poke a sharp stick at Dylan. Your cane might do the trick.”
“Feel free.”
“You sit in front. I can stretch out in the back,” Isis offered, switching places when Thorne opened the front door of the plain beige sedan for her. He popped the back door and waited until she was inside, then handed her the soda he’d almost forgotten in his pocket.
“How far?” h
e asked Heustis.
“Twenty minutes, give or take. Can you fill me in on what went down since I saw you last?”
“I’m using Husani’s phone to call my father,” Isis told him, already punching out the numbers.
Thorne did a quick summary of past events to get the Mossad operative up to speed, listening to Isis’s quiet conversation in the backseat, not with her father, but apparently with her cousin. Her conversation was shorter than his CliffsNotes report to Heustis.
He was just up to the avalanche sealing them inside the upper chamber when Isis chimed in: “Sorry to interrupt for a second—Acadia and Zak are going to bring my father here, probably tomorrow. We decided that it doesn’t matter what he remembers or doesn’t. He deserves to see Cleo.”
“Agreed.” Although Isis would be back in Seattle herself by then. “Scorpions and snakes and God only knows what else, but we had—”
Isis’s elbow bumped the back of his head as she leaned over the seat. “Acadia asked me about the clues my father left—and I was listing them, when I suddenly realized, we forgot my father’s other clue!”
Thorne turned to look at her glowing face and gleaming eyes. His heart double-clutched. God, she was pretty. He smiled at her enthusiasm. “What clue?”
“Seeing the cane Husani gave you reminded me of the broken walking stick my father left with him. It’s identical to that one.”
“And?” Broken and apparently useless, it had been left at the souk. “Hand it back here. I just had an idea.”
Puzzled, Thorne lifted the carved walking stick over the seat back. He caught Heustis’s eye and the other man shrugged. “Let me know when you have something to share with the class,” Thorne told Isis, turning back to face the front again. “The chopper came over the ridge, and—” He recounted their movements up to their entrance into Cleopatra’s tomb.
“Sorry to interrupt your fascinating story again,” Isis said excitedly, leaning one elbow over the back of Thorne’s seat, “but you might want to take a look at this. But before you do, brace yourself.” She handed his cane back across the seat. But this time it was tightly wrapped in a dirty white ribbon.