Blood Unleashed (Blood Stone)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  She ran her fingers through her hair, lifting it and letting it drop, and he saw more of the bracelet. It appeared to be wide – a couple of inches at least.

  “This is your home,” Ilaria decided, looking around.

  Marcus’ gut clamped tightly once more as he watched her slowly turn on one foot, taking it all in. He reconsidered the wisdom of what he was doing, but it was too late. She was here.

  He straightened up. Might as well get this done and get her out of here. Then he could relax. “You’re somewhere safe and secure, now,” he pointed out. “Time to talk.”

  “Mmm,” she agreed, her gaze on the sideboard that stood against the one solid wall in the room. She moved over to it and bent over to study the small carriage clock whirling away the seconds under its glass dome. “London, Summer 2012,” she said, reading the inscription. She stayed bent from the hips and looked up at him. “The Olympics?” she guessed.

  “So?” he asked, mildly annoyed.

  “You like sports so much you braved Britain’s tourist rush to see them?”

  “I like excellence in anything,” he said. “The Olympics is one big collection of the best in the world, doing their thing.”

  “Ah…”

  She spoke it like he had revealed a deep inner part of his soul and Marcus had the uneasy feeling he had done just that. He reminded himself to get down to business. “You’re from Italy, originally,” he said. The simple questions first. If he could get her to answer the easy ones, then the habit of responding would coax her to answer the more difficult ones.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Madre Maria, whatever gave me away?” She lifted her finger to point over her shoulder toward the room in general as she sauntered over to the kitchen counter. “There’s no computer here. No laptop. Nothing.”

  “I don’t have a computer.” Well, not one that she was going to see, anyway.

  “Who can survive without email, these days?”

  McLaren phoned him, always. So did his assignees. Occassionally, they might email him, but his cellphone was good enough for the odd message. There was no one else he was interested in getting email from, or sending it to. Not anymore. Marcus pushed the subject back to her. “Are you still based in Italy?”

  She leaned on the counter, opposite him, propping her elbows on the edge and pushing her hands together. “Isn’t it normal to offer me something to drink, or eat?”

  “If you were a guest in my house, I would do both,” Marcus said evenly.

  Her dark eyes assessed him. “What am I, then?”

  “The subject,” he said flatly. “When did you land in the States?”

  “Isn’t there a rule...the Geneva convention – doesn’t that say you have to take care of me?”

  “You’re not a prisoner.”

  “Shall I leave now?” she shot back, straightening up.

  “You know I won’t let you.”

  Her smile was infinitely wise.

  Marcus pushed a hand through his hair. “Do you want something to drink?” he asked. He was conceding and it bothered him greatly. He was usually better at this.

  “If I’m not a prisoner, but I cannot leave, I’m not a normal subject...am I?”

  “Ilaria…” he began, then stopped. He had no idea what to say.

  “You’re still wearing your jacket,” she said.

  He took a deep breath, trying to center his focus. To get back to business. “I’m still wearing my jacket,” he agreed. Perhaps she was deliberately trying to unsettle him with the fast changes of subject and the peppered questions. He had to remain on track.

  “You can take it off, if you want,” she added. “It’s warm in here with the sun shining on all the windows. ”

  “Thanks,” he said stiffly.

  She tilted her head to look at him. “Put the gun on the counter, next to your hand if you want. I don’t mind.”

  “I’m fine,” he returned. “How long have you been in the States, Ilaria?”

  She crossed her arms under her breasts. “Do I get a phone call? Or does my abnormal status mean I do not?”

  “Will you just answer my goddamn questions?” It came out with more anger than he had realized he was feeling.

  Her arms dropped, as her eyes widened …not in surprise, but empathy, which bothered him even more. He didn’t want her understanding him.

  “You haven’t answered a single question directly,” he said. “I’ve already indulged your whims far too much. You’re somewhere safe and secure, and it’s not downtown. It’s not the office. You haven’t been processed. It’s time for you to cough up some information. Tit for tat, Ilaria. Why are you here?”

  She looked out the window, watching the waves roll endlessly. When she spoke, her voice was soft. “You’ve been very understanding. Would you mind – would you give me some time?” She turned her head back to look at him. “It has been a long time since I could just…pause. The peace here – I would like to listen to it for a while. Do you mind?”

  Her simple request jolted him into seeing things from her perspective. He didn’t know anything about her other than her status as a world class sniper, but that, combined with her request, gave him a glimpse of what her life must be like. Constant danger from world authorities trying to catch up with her. The more acute danger of completing an assignment. Her accent wasn’t strong – she probably roamed the world, never staying in one place long enough for anyone to catch up with her. Good god, her enemies would be legion – every one of her targets would have had friends, family and colleagues who would want her blood. Most targets were politically powerful, so that would add more people and institutions that wanted The Whisper taken down.

  Peace and quiet in a secure location was probably as rare as white elephants for her.

  Marcus let the dilemma simmer in his mind for a long minute, while Ilaria simply watched him. Her eyes seemed to grow bigger as he stared at her. Finally, he fully unzipped the jacket and yanked it off. “Go ahead,” he said. “Relax. Zen out. I can wait.”

  Her smile was quick, but startling in its warmth. “Thank you.” She went back to the doors and took up a post where the frames cast shadows over her, but still let her look out. She held the pulled curtain aside to increase her view.

  Marcus unclipped his gun harness and put the gun on the counter where she had suggested. She had seen weapons aplenty. A handgun wouldn’t stress her. “Don’t go outside,” he told her.

  “It’s nice right here,” she assured him, without looking around.

  Marcus stood behind the counter, wondering how he was to play this now. Interrogation techniques and debriefing standards didn’t cover this in any way at all.

  Use your head, Marcus. The soft, feminine mental whisper was an echo from the past and he drew a deep breath, riding out the pain that it delivered. It was still good advice.

  He watched Ilaria turning her head, taking in the odd beachcomber and the surfers out at the break, seagulls fighting over scraps and rubbish rolling along the sand, pushed by the breeze. The sun was still high enough that it wasn’t bouncing off the waves yet, but it was already noon. Soon the sun would lower itself down beneath the horizon and turn the sea red and purple.

  Marcus never got tired of watching the waves, or the passing parade of people. He could understand Ilaria’s distraction.

  Facts shifted and realigned in his mind and he realized he was going about this wrong. He couldn’t treat her like a subject to be interrogated. He wasn’t good at it, and she had too many defenses. She wasn’t a normal subject at all – she had nailed that one.

  He needed to climb inside her like he did with his assignees. Get to know her and gently ease her open. A seduction of the mind. He was good at that. Happy that he had a plan of action, he turned and filled up the kettle. He would make tea, to start. The good stuff. Then, he would start the seduction.

  * * * * *

  Five hours later, Marcus found himself on the loveseat next to her as Ilaria watched television
. The handgun was still on the counter, beside the empty teapot, the remains of his lunch, and the last dregs of coffee in the French press. Ilaria had refused everything he had offered her. She wasn’t hungry or thirsty, she assured him. She was enjoying the atmosphere.

  So Marcus shrugged and let her have her way. No pressure, he reminded himself. Instead, he focused on drawing her out. But Ilaria was one of the toughest nuts he’d ever tried to crack. She had a way of deflecting his questions – gentle, but stubborn. It was passive resistance as its finest. No one got that good at it without practice, but Ilaria had spent her life hiding her real identity, he reminded himself. She wasn’t relaxed enough yet and didn’t trust him enough to open up.

  So he pulled back entirely, and let her simply enjoy herself. She sat cross legged on the sofa and watched reruns of Friends and The Big Bang Theory, giggling to herself. She also spent a good two hours very slowly moving around the room, touching his possessions and asking him about them.

  Each question sparked off a conversation. She was very well travelled. Up until two years ago, Marcus had built up the mileage at a sharp rate, too. As she had moved about the room, they had fallen into an exchange of reviews. The best hotels, the best cities and towns as remote and unlikely as the Old Town in Cartegena, and Interlaken in the Swiss mountains at Christmas.

  Ilaria wasn’t aware of it, but she was telling Marcus as much about herself as her answers to his direct questions would have. She was a loner. None of her reviews or reminiscing mentioned friends or companions. And while she avoided the subject of her work, Marcus could fill in the blanks: She travelled alone, did her job, then travelled onwards, still alone. The picture she painted was an odd one. She didn’t do the usual tourist things in her spare time. She spoke of mountains and glens, rivers and streams, forests and hiking trails. She also spoke of the seasons. Winter in Canada, summer in Australia, fierce storms she had seen.

  Ilaria sought out nature when she was free of her work. She stayed away from people, and watched the weather.

  Marcus glanced at the sea through the windows. Ahh… he mentally murmured to himself. This, then, was a fundamental truth about her. She really was trying to relax. The last doubt he’d had that she might have been spinning him some sort of story disappeared.

  After the sunset – which they both watched from the windows for forty quiet minutes, she had turned on the TV again and patted the cushion next to her. It seemed very natural to sit down beside her as she channel surfed until she found something interesting. “I’ve always wanted to see this,” she said, lowering the remote. “It’s 9 ½ Weeks, isn’t it?”

  Marcus recalled the one time he had watched it. Kim Basinger looked lovely and innocent as she combed through an open air market in New York, her clothes screaming 1980s sophisticate. He hadn’t enjoyed the first run through, but he recognized the movie well enough. “That’s it,” he confirmed. “Although you might be disappointed.”

  “Shh… Let me find out for myself.” She put the remote down.

  And so he found himself next to her as she watched the movie in absorbed silence.

  He studied Ilaria instead. Like Basinger, she was fresh, beautiful, young and the absolute antithesis of what he would have expected a marksman of her caliber to look like. She defied clichés.

  She had the tip of her finger between her teeth as she watched. Then she licked her lips.

  He focused on the tightness of his chest and the pounding of his body. His heart seemed to leap in his chest as he realized the truth. He was becoming aroused just from sitting there and watching her. He shifted very slowly, adjusting his jeans to make room for his aching, poker-hard cock and his swollen balls.

  Ilaria didn’t move and he breathed a bit easier. She hadn’t been alerted by his movements. If he sat still, his arousal might pass without her noticing anything odd about him.

  He glanced at her again. She had one foot on the cushion, now, her leg bent and pressed against her chest. Her breast was pushing against her knee.

  Marcus tore his gaze away from her. But the thought that had flashed through his mind from that one glimpse – his hand sliding up to cup the full roundness of her bare breast as she arched back in pleasure – was like a virus. He couldn’t shake it off and it bred more heated, body-tautening ideas and images. Taking her from behind…he realized that image had been at the far back of his mind when he had first spotted her lying on the ground shooting, her legs under the short skirt very slightly spread. The images sprouted in his mind like erotic mushrooms, as her naked body arched and writhed and squirmed as he took her in a carnival of ways.

  Marcus drew in a slow, deep breath, trying to banish the ideas and relax his body. But his body wasn’t obeying him. Neither were his thoughts.

  Ilaria turned to look at him. Her lids were lowered, her eyes smoldering with…

  Lust, god help me, Marcus thought. He swallowed.

  Slowly, she untangled her legs and turned so that she was kneeling on the cushion facing him.

  His heart tried to slam its way through his chest. He couldn’t breathe.

  Ilaria swayed toward him. She rested her small hand against his shoulder and turned his chin so he was looking at her directly.

  Her lips looked like moist, succulent pillows. He could see the edge of her teeth just behind the top one, white and small. She leaned closer.

  “Ilaria, don’t,” he whispered.

  Her lips pressed against his and this time his heart stopped. His thoughts turned into sparkling jelly and melted away. She’s kissing me, seemed to be the only coherent one.

  The tip of her tongue swept into his mouth, touching his. She licked his lips, tasting them, then kissed him again, her mouth fitting against his lips like it was made for him.

  He found himself kissing her back. Tracing her full lips with his own, and plunging his tongue deep into her mouth, which tasted sweet and cool and arousing as hell. He realized he had pressed his hands to her head, to keep it steady so he could kiss her as deeply as he needed to, and that was when he knew he was a lost cause.

  Her hand pressed against his bare stomach and the fingers spread. She had pulled up his tee-shirt to explore beneath. He groaned at her touch and she pulled back from his mouth to look him in the eye.

  Her silence was filled with the unspoken question.

  “We shouldn’t do this,” he forced himself to say.

  “You want me. I want you.” She shrugged.

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Why not?”

  Why not? he asked himself. He knew he wasn’t thinking straight. The throbbing ache of his body, the need to devour her, was mangling his thoughts, making it hard to focus. “Because…” he began. There were very good reasons, if he could only recall them. But all he could think about was the temptation in front of him. Who would know? Who would ever find out? We’re not in the office. We’re here, where no one knows I have her….

  It was hard to dispute those alluring justifications.

  Then Ilaria unzipped his jeans and pushed her hand inside. Her fingers caressed the hard length of him and Marcus let all the justifications and reasoning dissipate. He picked her up, his hands around her waist, and placed her back on the sofa. He spread her knees and kneeled between them.

  “But—” she began.

  “Shhh…” He kissed her, to experience more of her lips and mouth and the flicker of her tongue against his. Her hands were in his hair, then slid down his chest. She couldn’t reach any further without breaking the kiss, so she brought them back up to his neck. She moaned softly, and his gut tightened in reaction. He could happily stay here and kiss her for the next decade or two. She was pure delight.

  Ilaria tore her mouth from his. She was breathing heavily and her thick lashes were half-lidded over the chocolate-colored irises.

  “More,” she whispered.

  Her voice was husky with need and it goaded Marcus into moving faster than he wanted to. He wanted to slow down and take
his time over every inch of her. But it wasn’t just her own need pushing him onwards. His body was tightening with every passing second. The need to ram himself into her was a siren song in his mind, blotting out everything else.

  He pulled her hips forward until she was sitting on the very edge of the cushion. He lifted his hands from her hips and gently nudged the hem of her tee-shirt up until a few inches of her torso were exposed. Her waist was tiny, but it suited her.

  Marcus pressed his lips against her flesh. He wanted to nibble and taste all of her, but his body was driving him onward. He pushed the tee-shirt up – it was made of something silky and incredibly soft – and followed the rising hem of the shirt with his lips. Her muscles quivered as he trailed his tongue up the center of her abs and her breath caught.

  When the shirt pressed up against her breasts, he lifted his head long enough to strip the shirt from her and toss it away. She wore a lace bra beneath, in a soft apricot color that matched the shirt and complimented her flesh. Her areoles were dark circles under the lace, and the nipples were sharp points, lifting the fabric as they thrust out.

  Marcus stroked his thumbs over the peaks, teasing them, and Ilaria drew in a sharp breath. “Ah, Dio mi aiuti...” she murmured, clutching at his shoulders. “Please...again.”

  He slipped his finger under the front clip and released the bra. It sprang open and fell away, exposing her fully-rounded breasts. There was no hint of sag in them. Marcus drew in a slow breath as he brought his hands up to cup them.

  Ilaria’s head rolled back, and her eyes closed as he slid his fingers over them. Each finger caught on the hard pebbles of her nipples and she drew in a shuddering breath in reaction.

  She was thrusting her chest out, arching her back like a cat, her hands falling to the cushions beside her hip, to clench and claw at the fabric.