by Cindy Dees
She tensed her stomach muscles and lifted her head off the table to kiss him. And unleashed a firestorm between them. It struck with a vengeance. His hand went around the back of her head, pulling her near, sucking her into the kiss. His mouth slanted across hers, raw and wild, murmuring words of lust and need, glut-tony and greed. A vortex of heat inhaled her, scorching her. Her very core exploded in response, driving her half out of her mind with need. And he met her step for step, breath for ragged breath.
Whoa. Reality check here, girlfriend. She was letting a potential terrorist kiss her brains out! Startled, she broke the kiss. It jolted him, too, and he stared down at her in disbelief. He was as rattled as she was. Well, that was comforting, at any rate.
“Uh, well then,” she mumbled.
“Yeah. Right,” he mumbled back.
She did notice, however, that he was in no hurry to get off her. He continued to sprawl across her on the table. Not that she was making any big point of shoving him off, of course.
Reaching for a jocular tone, she commented dryly, “You’re a hell of a kisser, English.”
But his voice came back, sexy and low, “You’re not too bad yourself, island girl.”
Oh my. He could kick her butt in hand-to-hand combat and he was a closet romantic. She was a goner, for sure.
He flicked at the earpiece still lodged in her ear. “Who’s at the other end of that thing?”
Aleesha’s defenses flew up instantly. “A friend. Helping me dodge your buddies patrolling the ship.”
Michael snorted. “They’re not my buddies.”
Damn, he sounded sincere. Was he really that good a liar?
“So, what’s up, Aleesha? Your primary operators have to come in soon. We’ll reach Cuba tomorrow night, and Hurricane Evangeline will be here by the following day.”
“Maybe there’s not going to be a rescue. Maybe the logistics of securing a ship this size with the number of hostages and Tangos aboard was too big a job,” she retorted.
He snorted, ignoring her remark. “I’d recommend late morning for the assault. The night shift hijackers will still be asleep, and there’s a lot of movement on the ship. Viktor and friends won’t be expecting an attack at that time of day, and the kids will be alert and follow directions well. You dare not wait until the last minute before we hit Cuba. You could run into problems getting your people into Cuban waters without a diplomatic incident, and you sure as hell don’t want the Cuban Navy coming out to help Viktor.”
She stared up at him in silence. She wouldn’t be at all surprised if that wasn’t exactly the logic Jack Scatalone and Bud Lipton had used in picking the time of the attack.
“Go on,” she said.
“I’d secure the kids first, then head straight for the bridge. Viktor analyzed dozens of plans for taking the ship by force, and it always came down to exactly that. The kids and then the bridge. It worked for him, and it’ll work for your people.”
Aleesha shrugged beneath him. “I wouldn’t know.”
He grinned down at her. “Yeah, right. You’re just the surveillance schmuck. And that’s why you’ve nearly handed me my butt in a sling several times now. You’re just some chick with binoculars and I’m the Tooth Fairy.”
She grinned up at him. It was damned hard to deny being a highly trained soldier when she was lying here wearing the latest in high-tech military gear and had demonstrated deadly combat skills. Not too many housewives from Poughkeepsie—or Kingston, Jamaica, for that matter—were Krav Maga masters.
His eyes narrowed as he gazed down at her. Uh-oh. That meant he was thinking again. Probably not a good thing just now. She asked hastily, “What else do you recommend in this rescue op of yours?”
“You tell me,” he asked lightly, pushing away from her without warning. He didn’t step back, however, and his thigh between hers effectively trapped her where she was. She’d have to throw one leg high up in the air and clamber awkwardly across the wood surface to get off the damned table. She sat up at any rate, her inner thighs gripping his leg in a blatantly sexual fashion.
He crossed his arms and looked down at her steadily. Assessingly. Crud. Not going to back down, huh? She should’ve guessed he wouldn’t. He’d realized she was holding out on him. And he was pissed. She would be, too, if she were in his shoes.
He said flatly, “I’m not letting you out of here until you tell me what in the hell’s going on.”
The very lack of threat in his voice made it that much more menacing. He meant what he’d said. Damn it. Jack always said to tell the truth whenever possible. Smart people could smell a lie. And Lord knew, Michael was nothing if not brilliant. Fine. So he wanted the truth, did he? She’d give him truth. And then she’d pray like crazy that it was enough of a shock to distract him.
“I heard back from the British intelligence service. They deny having any employee named Michael Somerset on their roster.”
He looked startled for a moment and then relaxed. “Of course they’d deny it. I’m an undercover agent. They don’t run around spewing their agents’ names.”
She sighed heavily. Choosing her words carefully, she said, “I didn’t ask through public channels. It went through the highest levels of my government to yours, and the answer was the same—you’re no longer on their books.”
“What?” He stared blankly at her. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the British government terminated you. Did they catch wind of those punks you killed, maybe?” Lord, she hated sucker punching him like this. But her revelation did the job. It effectively drew his attention away from prodding her for information about the imminent rescue.
“What else did they say?”
“They said you haven’t been in their employ for nearly two years.”
He stalked a lap of the large room. “Were they even getting my messages? Did they have any idea that Viktor was planning this whole fiasco?”
Aleesha shrugged. “I don’t know. I doubt it. Viktor sure as heck wasn’t popping up on American radar as a threat, and according to you he’s been in the States for years planning this little excursion.”
Michael whirled and advanced on her. “What do you mean, ‘according to me’? Don’t you believe me?”
“Of course I believe you. I’m here talking to you, aren’t I? Would I do that if I thought you were a turncoat or unreliable?”
That seemed to placate him. And that caused her heart to contract in pain. Ah, Michael. Don’t underestimate me because I’m a girl. I’d take the risk. If I thought you were Satan incarnate, I’d still be here talking to you. Heck, I’d still be kissing you if I thought it would help save those kids.
But Michael bought the explanation. Ultimately he hadn’t been trained around women operators, and he just didn’t know their true capacity. Of course, it was this very thing that would make the Medusas so effective in the long term. Everyone would underestimate them. But still, it hurt to have a man she respected—hell, a man she cared about, underestimate her.
Okay, did she just admit to herself that she cared for Michael? Personally? A string of highly unladylike expletives streaked through her mind. Now, what did her heart have to go and do that for? She didn’t need to have these kinds of feelings for anyone, and certainly not for a man she wasn’t entirely sure wasn’t a terrorist. Darned if she couldn’t hear grandmama cackling somewhere in the back of her head. Grandmama had always said the heart went where it willed and only a fool tried to steer it.
“What do you need me to do?” Michael asked tersely, interrupting her self-castigation.
Kiss her senseless? Make love to her until she was too weak to stand up? “Uh, come again?” she mumbled.
“What can I do to help the rescue op?” he asked impatiently.
Oh. Well. That was different. “I honestly have no idea if there’s even going to be a rescue attempt, let alone what the plan would be. So I can’t really answer that question. I suppose you could always unlock the door to the bridge,”
she added, her tongue firmly in her cheek.
He grinned briefly. “Good idea. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I’m really sorry, Michael….” she started tentatively.
“Sorry about what?”
“You know. The whole thing with the Brits. You got a raw deal. Maybe after you come in from this op you can talk to them. Work it out. I mean, it wasn’t as if you were in any position to defend yourself, undercover like—”
He stepped near and pressed two fingers against her lips. “Enough. It’s over. Don’t worry about it.”
“But I do worry about you,” she protested.
His answering grin was lopsided. “Thanks.”
They stared at each other in silence for several endless seconds. This was one hell of a mess. The last thing either of them needed right now was to get tangled up in a relationship that might distract them from their jobs. Especially with his status in doubt. And the last thing either of them had the power to do right now was change a blessed thing between them. There was a fire here, like it or not.
Finally, reluctantly, she broke the silence. “Any idea how I’m supposed to get out of here? Or do I get to spend the rest of the night on this extremely comfortable table? Or perhaps more accurately, under it?”
He grinned. “Think you can pretend we had a tryst set up in here?”
Her mind shot back to that incendiary kiss they’d shared. “I don’t think that’ll be too hard to do.”
“Then we should be able to just walk out of here and down the hall to my room, as pretty as you please.”
“Who’s working the cameras?” she asked.
“Franco. And he’s a bit of a voyeur. He’ll get a cheap thrill out of imagining what we’ve been up to in here once he figures out we’ve both been here all this time.”
It was a big risk to take. But, by the same token, gaining access to Michael’s room tonight would position her perfectly to carry out her next task before the SEALs came aboard the Grand Adventure. God, she hated taking advantage of Michael like this. But a job was a job, and a whole lot of children were counting on her. She nodded up at him. “Let’s do it.”
Michael opened the door and stepped out into the hall as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Aleesha took a deep breath and followed him. Immediately he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close against his side. Right. Franco.
Michael paused, pressing her back against the wall, and started kissing her neck in a way that sent lust zinging all the way down to her toes. She didn’t know if Franco was getting into this, but she sure as heck was. Michael’s tongue swirled into her ear, wet and hot and her knees nearly buckled. Dang, he was good at this seduction stuff!
He straightened, dragging her down the hall again. She wondered idly as she stumbled along beside him whether he’d had any formal training at doing that. Given the iconic popularity of James Bond, she wouldn’t put it past SIS to teach their operatives how to kiss like gods.
She twined her arm around Michael’s waist and leaned into him, not having to work hard to feign wanting in his pants. Franco might be eating this up, but she expected Isabella would just about swallow her tongue in dismay. Aleesha could only pray her teammate wasn’t sending blow-by-blow descriptions of all this back to the TOC. But, hey. It wasn’t like Bud Lipton could get away with hanging all over Michael like this. Being female had gotten her inside information a traditional male team would never have managed to collect in so short a time.
Michael opened the door to his suite and pulled her inside after one last, lingering caress of her derriere for Franco’s benefit. Good thing she wasn’t usually inclined to make a lot of noise during sex, because she was going to start moaning aloud soon if Michael kept touching her like that.
Sheesh, she was a mess! But when Michael kissed her all the way into his bedroom, she couldn’t summon up the gumption to care. Life was short. They both might die tomorrow. Why not seize the day—or the night, as it were?
He speared his hands into her hair, backing her against the closed bedroom door, kissing her with his entire body. She managed to mumble, “This is insane.”
“Completely unprofessional,” he agreed, lifting her shirt over her head.
“Stupid.” She tugged his belt from around his waist.
“Colossally dumb.” Her bra gave a soft pop and fell away.
She arched into the impossibly erotic caress of his long, lean fingers against her skin. When she finally managed to tip her head forward and draw a breath, she reached out to unbutton his shirt and push it off his delicious shoulders.
Leaning forward to kiss his neck, she said against his warm, raw satin skin, “We’re going to regret this in the morning.”
He replied huskily as he kissed his way down her neck, “Mmm-hmm. Deep regret. Passionate, pounding regret.”
“We’ve got to stop.”
“Absolutely.” He lowered her to the bed and followed her down into a steamy, dark abyss of tangled sheets, a hot, slick slide of flesh on flesh and, eventually, the oblivion of sated exhaustion.
She woke up in the morning, drowsy and relaxed as she swam lazily toward consciousness. Michael’s leg was tangled between hers, and her arm lay across his powerful chest. Responding to the nearly psychic link they seemed to have forged between them somewhere in the sexual tempest they’d created last night, he opened his eyes and gazed warmly at her, his expression un-troubled and trusting. And that was what broke the spell.
If only she could believe it. If only she could be sure it wasn’t all an act. Did he harbor the same doubts about her? Was he uncertain as to her motives? Surely he must be. Both of them were playing a dangerous game, engaging in this deadly dance, both needing to trust, wanting to trust, but both knowing better than to give in to the impulse.
And for better or for worse, she had work to do this morning. In her pouch were two dozen state-of-the-art microburrs, tiny transmitters barely the size of a pin head, designed to stick to the clothes of a target and transmit a signal that could be used to track their position for up to six hours once activated. The burrs were too small to have much more battery life than that, and their range was limited to a few hundred yards, but they were perfect for today’s purposes. With each of the hijackers marked by one of the burrs, the SEALs who made up the rescue team could monitor the exact position of all the terrorists aboard the ship in real time. Her job was to stick the burrs to as many of the terrorists as she could locate between now and 11:30 a.m.
She frowned and peered over the edge of the bed. The first order of business was probably to remember where Michael had ditched her utility belt. Somewhere between the front door and the bed. It wouldn’t do for Viktor to stroll into the suite and spot it in the living room.
Michael spoke lazily from behind her. “I moved your stuff in here so nobody’d see it if they got here early for this morning’s briefing.”
“Briefing?” she asked lightly, hope bursting in her chest. If the whole terrorist crew assembled at once, it would make her job a piece of cake!
“Viktor wants to go over the procedures for anchoring in Guantánamo and ferrying the prisoners out to the ship. We’ll get there at about four o’clock this afternoon, I think.”
Better not act too interested in the briefing or clever Michael would smell a rat. Instead she asked, “How about I go get us some breakfast and bring it up?”
He rolled onto his back and glanced over at the clock on the bedside table. “Ugh. I’ve got to take a shower and get dressed. The others should start arriving in about fifteen minutes.”
Reluctantly she got out of bed. Time to start the biggest day of her life. “Go take your shower. Would you like your usual English breakfast? Steak, eggs and kippers?”
“How about a couple of muffins and some coffee?”
She smiled warmly. “What? I didn’t work up any sort of appetite in you last night? I’m devastated.”
He rolled over fast. Trapping her beneath him and smiling dow
n at her. “Don’t tempt me. We don’t have time.”
She looped her arms around his neck. “Later?”
He nodded in the affirmative. “That’s a promise.”
God, if only it truly was. In unison, they rolled out of bed. The interlude was over. Time to get back to reality and their respective responsibilities. Ugh.
For lack of anywhere to hide her utility belt, she grabbed a towel off the pile of dirty ones by the door of the suite. Hauling the wrapped bundle, she left Michael’s suite and raced down to her room on Deck 8. She jumped in the shower for about thirty seconds, flew into clean clothes and hurried down to the restaurant. She loaded up a serving cart with pastries, fresh juices, pots of coffee and an assortment of fruit. It would give her an excuse to move around the room while Viktor’s briefing proceeded and tag everyone with a burr. Last, she loaded the cart with the business-card-size pieces of paper that held the microburrs. She covered them with a linen napkin, close at hand. Here went nothing.
She headed over to the two guards stationed in the corners of the restaurant today. Americans. Good. Native English speakers. She could strike up a conversation with them without giving away the fact that she spoke fluent French. She picked up a burr on her left index finger and approached the first hijacker from an oblique angle.
“Excuse me,” she said pleasantly, reaching out to place her left hand on his sleeve. “Can I get you something to drink?”
Startled, the guy whipped around to face her. “No. Uh, thanks.”
Thanks, huh? He’d sure thawed toward her since the first day she’d run into him and he’d nearly shot her. She smiled. “Let me know if you need anything.”
The guy nodded at her. One down, twenty-three to go.
She caught some of the dirty looks other passengers threw at her as she headed for the other side of the restaurant. Good for them. From their perspective she was collaborating with the enemy and should be shunned. Hopefully, the Americans or whoever was manning the security cameras caught some of those venomous glances being tossed at her. The looks lent credibility to her act that she’d fallen for Michael and sympathized with the hijackers.