Miki closed her eyes, lost in sensation.
He spread her sleek skin and caught her moan against his mouth. “Closer,” he said hoarsely. “Lean against me.” She quivered as he slid one finger inside her. “Beautiful,” he whispered. And she slipped over an edge she couldn’t see and didn’t expect, every nerve tuned to unbearable clarity. When he slid another finger inside her, Miki felt her breath stop, her heart catch and then she was tossed into a place that felt like magic. Trusting him completely, she moaned his name when the first hot wave took her by surprise and she came, shuddering against his careful fingers.
They were strangers bound by something that felt achingly familiar.
There was no time for awkward awareness because he drove her up again, this time kneeling and running his tongue over her until she forgot everything but the hot friction of his mouth doing things no man should be clever enough to do.
There shouldn’t have been more, Miki thought blindly. She shouldn’t have felt her body move again, desire coursing in a new haze of madness until she whimpered and dug her nails into his shoulders, coming against him again.
Her knees buckled. Dimly she felt him rise and catch her, pinning her against the wall with his body.
With his gorgeously aroused body, she realized.
When she looked into his eyes, she swallowed. “What was that? I mean how did you—” She shivered as he tugged at her taut nipples.
“It’s not usually so fast for you?” There was something dark and possessive in his gaze. “You don’t come like this every time?”
Heat filled her cheeks. She wasn’t used to discussing her climax with incredibly sexy men who were still clearly aroused. “How about we drop this subject?”
“I need to know.” His fingers shifted inside her, slow and deep, and desire filled her like warm honey, making her body quiver all over again.
“I—” She swayed, giving a husky moan. “No.” The man didn’t really expect details, did he?
“And this…thing between us. The immediacy of it,” he said roughly. “You felt that, too?”
Miki nodded and focused on his face, trying to bite back a moan as he eased another finger inside her.
“Because it’s important. Something is going on here.” His eyes darkened. “Something beyond good sex.”
Make that fantastic sex, she thought. Astounding sex. But he was too controlled and Miki decided it was time to turn the tables. She feathered one hand over his hard stomach and traced his erection. “Do you mind?”
“Mind what?”
“Taking your hand out of—that place where it is.” Her voice was hoarse. “Doing that thing you’re doing.”
“You mean this thing?” His lips curved and his hand opened and he did something slow and amazingly erotic inside her that made her eyes cross.
“That. Cut it out.” She pressed one palm against his chest. “You’re too good at this. I need to think.” It was her turn to touch and goad and watch him lose control.
“Forget about thinking.” He worked her bottom lip between his teeth and frowned as if he was concentrating on something. Then he bent his head once more to her stomach.
And he was liking what he saw.
His hands circled her legs. His mouth opened, sliding over her in a way that made Miki forget about pride and everything else. “You taste like sex and sea,” he said harshly.
The hot friction of his tongue made her shudder and she raked her nails across his shoulders, caught in another wave of blinding pleasure.
Dimly she felt him holding her up. Slowly the world came back into focus and she sank against the wall, boneless and sated. Her throat was dry, her heart pounding.
“Help,” she said weakly.
“Anytime you want,” Max rasped. His fingers speared through her wet curls and he licked her gently. “Like right now.”
From a distance Miki heard a rattling noise, followed by Max’s gruff curse.
When she opened her eyes, he drew away slowly, his eyes hard. “We’re going to finish this later, honey. Whatever the hell it is,” he added roughly.
“How about finishing it now?”
“Can’t.”
She made a low sound of protest as his hand moved away from her. He draped her blouse around her shoulders and shoved two buttons closed. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Why?”
Reality was charging back, and Miki didn’t like the sound of it. She was naked, still shivering from toe-curling sex and now she was supposed to dress docilely, swallow her questions and vanish? No way. “Max, talk to me.”
“Later.” His face was shuttered. “That sound came from the pager I took from our pal with the knife.”
Miki looked down and saw the pager vibrating in Max’s hand. “So he’s getting a message? Well, what does it say? Let me see—”
“Don’t bother. It’s in code,” he said grimly.
Max studied the LED intently, turning the device over on his palm. She had to wonder what was so important about holding the pager.
He slid his hand along the row of buttons. “Hell,” he whispered.
“What is it?” Miki stopped in the middle of zipping her jeans.
He didn’t answer.
“Max, what’s wrong?” She had the odd feeling that he had forgotten about her.
When the vibration started again, he pressed a button on the side of the unit and read the small, backlit screen.
“What do they want?” Miki’s throat tightened. Things were happening too fast, and it was getting harder and harder to stay calm.
“I have to go.” Turning off the pager, Max slid it into his pocket. “Whatever happens, don’t go outside. You’ll be fine here, but I can’t guarantee your safety anywhere else. Remember that.”
Miki knew he was right, even if she didn’t like the fact. “I understand.”
Max pulled a revolver out of a pocket on his vest. “Can you use one of these?”
“I’ve done some plinking.” She hesitated and then took the gun. The metal grip was cold in her fingers. By habit she flipped open the chamber and checked to be sure there were no bullets loaded and none in the barrel.
“Always good to check, but it’s empty now.” Max held out a box of .45 bullets. “Keep these with you. Truman will be up above on watch. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Like hell it would, Miki thought. What had he seen on that pager?
Hiding her anxiety, she turned away, buttoning her jeans. “What if Dutch gets worse? How can I reach you?”
When she turned around, she was talking to dead air. Max was gone.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“FIVE TEN. Probably 190 pounds. Brown eyes and a small tattoo of a red scorpion surrounded by three diamonds in the middle of his left wrist.” Max paced the lower deck of the gunboat, talking quietly into his encrypted satellite phone. “See what you can get on this creep, Izzy.”
“I’m on it. Tell me about that pager you found.”
“Some kind of new model, nothing I’ve ever seen before. It’s got a big self-contained power source, but I can’t tell what kind without opening the unit. The message was brief. Tango-12-Bravo-97. After that a string of numbers.”
“Read them to me,” Izzy said.
Max recited the number string, which he had already committed to memory. “The same text scrolled through twice.”
“They’ll be expecting an answer. When they don’t get one…” A chair squeaked. “Let me work on it. I’ll check our database on that tattoo while I’m at it, but I’m not too hopeful. What’s his current status?”
“He’ll be out for at least six more hours. I gave him two shots of your special Thorazine cocktail.”
“That’ll do it,” Izzy said dryly. “Anything useful in his pack?”
“Compass, water purification tablets and two more knives. A nice preban silenced AK-47, too,” Max added grimly. “Everything for your well-equipped, garden-variety terrorist. All well maintained
and packed in waterproof bags. Our friend was loaded for bear.”
“Would you expect anything less? Cruz doesn’t fool around. We know he makes very few mistakes.”
“Ryker was a good teacher.”
“Any feedback from those motion-activated sensors you buried along the beach?”
“Nothing yet. None of my energy sweeps have revealed any definite signs of Cruz, either.”
“The coordinates we picked up might have been a chip malfunction. Either that or he’s managed some new set of tricks. We know his skills are growing.”
It wasn’t what Max wanted to hear, but he never let his emotions cloud his field planning. You surveyed your terrain, targeted the enemy and set up a defensive net in accordance with the facts, not what you wanted to be true. Good intel and detailed preparation had kept Max alive too often to count, while emotions interfered with capability and tactical response. He had been trained to keep his emotions locked up tight, where they couldn’t cloud his judgment.
All that had changed thanks to one shadowed moment in a cool tunnel with a woman whose body was hot silk. She shot through his control the way no woman ever had, driving him right to the edge. Responsive and hungry, she had stolen right out of his darkest fantasies.
Only now it was over. It had to be over.
Do the job.
Forget the rest.
“Anything on those thermal images I uploaded?” Irritated, Max checked his supplies and tested the blade on his knife.
“No significant anomalies. Nothing to suggest where they could be storing the guidance system. To protect the electronics, they’ll need a top-notch cooling system, but I’ve seen no hint of that. I’ve still got sixty or so images to check. The camera I gave you is almost too sensitive, and I have to rule out thermal bleed from adjacent rocks and solar pooling. Even with my new processors it’s like crawling through wet cement. Once all of this is over, I’ll program a better system, but that’s no help now.”
Max crossed to the porthole and scanned the water, but there was no sign of a boat anywhere. “What about that storm you mentioned?”
“Rolling in, right on schedule. It’s going to be nasty.”
That could be useful, Max thought. Anything that slowed his search would also conceal his presence on the island. “Tonight I’ll check the third quadrant. Map coordinates 9.21 to 11.02.”
“The woman?”
“She’ll stay underground.” Somehow he’d have to convince her it was necessary.
“How can you be sure of that?”
“We’ve reached an…understanding,” he said coolly.
“What about Truman?”
“He’ll be right beside me.”
“Be damned sure that he is. You’re good, but Truman can hear a cricket drop at rush hour.”
Max knew from firsthand experience how good the dog was. “Copy that, Izzy.”
“What’s that noise?”
“I’m going through her camera case. I brought it out here my last trip but I haven’t had time for a closer look.” Max pulled out two new Nikon digital cameras in plastic bags that had torn open on impact from the crash. “I doubt any of this stuff will ever work again. Nikon body. Lenses, filters. The usual.”
“Anything to make an ID?”
“Wallet’s gone. She had a bottle of perfume, but I disposed of it after it disabled Truman.” Max rummaged deeper in the bag. “Beef jerky sticks. Nail file. Mascara. Something lacy.”
Something short and sheer and lacy. Tiny white straps slid through Max’s fingers, making his throat go dry. The top would slip low and tease unmercifully, leaving a man crazy to remove it.
“Max? I asked if there was anything else?”
“Just some clothes.” Opening a plastic bag, Max pulled out a pink lace thong with pink satin bows. As the narrow lace band pooled through his fingers, he pictured Miki inside it. Then he imagined taking it off her slowly and savoring her flushed skin.
Focus, fool.
He dug deeper in the bag. “Wait, there’s something else.” He pulled out two smooth wooden sticks with points at both ends. Beneath them was a ball of damp yarn. “False alarm. It’s just her knitting needles and some yarn. There are notes here, as if she was working on some kind of top.”
A skimpy top, Max thought. A narrow string around the neck was the only thing holding it up. He would have given a million dollars to see her wearing that and nothing else.
He felt a bead of sweat on his brow. Stifling a curse, he stuffed the pink thong, the notes and the knitting gear back in the camera case. “Nothing helpful here, Izzy. Knitting is a hobby, photography is a passion and she’s pretty good with dogs. Even Truman took a shine to her. She told me that her best friend Kit is convinced dogs are smarter than most people.”
“Come again.” A chair creaked sharply. “Say that last thing again.”
“I said that Truman likes her.”
“No, the other part. Tell me about her friend.”
“Her name is Kit. Miki said she raises dogs.”
“Right. That part.” Izzy sounded tense. “Kit who raises dogs.” He whispered the words as papers ruffled, and then silence fell. “This can’t be happening.” A book snapped shut. “What’s her friend’s last name?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Stay where you are.”
The line went silent. Against his better judgment, Max pulled out the lace top again. Though it was crazy, he slipped off one glove and ran his fingers over the sheer edge.
She’d worn it recently. He picked up traces of sweat and caffeine. Hormones, stress, excitement and high energy bled into his sensitive hand to create a picture of a restless, vibrant woman who threw her soul into work that she loved. He imagined the sexy sway of her breasts beneath the lace and the tight fit of the thong, snuggled against warm skin.
Hell. This was torture he didn’t need.
With a curse, Max dropped the soft lace back in its bag, but the images were harder to escape. He could almost taste the faint layer of sweat that clung to her breasts and he knew exactly how she’d feel when he pushed her against the wall and filled her, fast and deep, while they both lost their minds in the kind of sex that didn’t happen often. After their experience in the tunnel, Max had no doubt that taking her would be unforgettable.
But that was never going to happen. He couldn’t afford distractions and meltdowns. The job always came first.
He tried to get her out of his mind. She was mouthy and stubborn, but she’d stood up to a man probably twice her strength wielding a knife. She wouldn’t be easy to ignore.
The thought irritated him as he tugged his gloves back on. Women weren’t long-term. Not in his life. Not ever.
Izzy came back on the line. “I don’t believe this. You’re sure she said her friend’s name was Kit?”
“Not a doubt. She clammed up after that.”
“Describe her to me again.”
Max ran through the basic facts, then frowned. “Her eyes are the color of the sky. Sort of like after it rains in the mountains.”
“You mean they’re blue?” Izzy said dryly.
“No, they’re more on the gray side. But there’s a hint of blue. Maybe even some green. Something cool and soft.” Max cleared his throat. “Gray-blue with green, call it.”
The chair squeaked again. “I’m looking at a receipt for two Nikon digitals and the models match the numbers you gave me. These babies aren’t cheap and they don’t get sold by the thousands in a mall camera store.” Izzy sounded resigned.
“So?”
Computer keys tapped like gunfire, and Izzy made a disgusted sound. “Your mystery woman is no hostile. I even met her after that mess we had in Santa Fe, but I didn’t connect her with the crash. Hell, I should have thought of her sooner, but who would have figured the odds?”
“Who is she, Teague?”
“Her friend’s last name is O’Halloran.”
“You mean she knows Trace O’Halloran’s baby s
ister?”
“That’s right.”
Max rubbed his neck, stunned. So Miki wasn’t working with Cruz. She had nothing at all to do with this mission, other than blind bad luck. His instinct to trust her finally made sense.
“Here it is, Best Beaches of the World. It’s already presold half a million copies, according to the file I just hacked into. Apparently the production staff was lax about posting their local flight plans. The office manager in L.A. took off to Catalina for a four-day vacation and just now realized the plane hadn’t returned.”
So Miki was family—or nearly as good as family. In Foxfire the boundaries tended to get blurred. Her friend Kit O’Halloran was engaged to marry Wolfe Houston, the SEAL who had become Foxfire’s new leader.
Hell.
“Trust me, Houston’s going to be seriously pissed off if anything happens to his fiancée’s best friend.”
“I’ll see to it that doesn’t happen.” Max zipped up his vest. “Anything else?”
“Just one question. If she’s truly out of all this, why did Truman alert for Cruz so clearly?”
That same question had been bothering Max. “Maybe there’s something we don’t know about Miki. Someone she’s met, something she’s bought or someplace she’s been. It could be that her shoes or even one of her cameras have a scent trail to Cruz or someone very close to him.”
“You think Cruz’s people passed her something without her knowledge?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“How in hell can I trace something like that? We’re all connected, if we go back five steps, at least that’s what the sociology wonks keep saying.” Izzy sounded irritated.
“Sorry, can’t help you there. You’re the techno go-to guy.” Max glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. “I’d better move. Two cliff scans to finish as soon as it’s dark.”
“Keep your ammo dry.”
As Max stared out through the uncertain light, he saw something cut through the choppy water to the south.
“Shit,” he snapped. “We’ve got company.”
Code Name: Bundle! Page 43