by Kylie Brant
Huddled in her light jacket, Ana promised herself that they'd stop in a pub to warm up after this. Regardless of what Jones intended.
The traffic in the area made New Orleans seem tame by comparison. Taxis jammed the streets, along with buses, limos and cars. The result was a cacophony of horns and shouts from irritated drivers. It wasn't until one of the limos slid to a stop, and the back door opened, that she straightened, glanced at Jones. His narrowed gray gaze was fixed on the man emerging from the vehicle.
"Show time," he muttered under his breath. With a hand under her elbow, he steered her casually in the direction of the person approaching the steps.
"Mr. Mashuki."
The man turned, carefully looked them over. "Do you have something for me?"
"As soon as we see some ID."
The man reached inside his coat to the breast pocket of his suit. Ana could feel Jones tense beside her. But Mashuki withdrew nothing more formidable than a slim leather case, which he flipped open to reveal his picture and position in the GTO.
After inspecting the ID, Jones took an envelope from his pocket, passed it to the other man. "You'll need to have it decrypted. It's only partially done. But tell chairman Shimbun to be sure and have it completed before the vote comes up for expanded trade advantages for the isle of Laconos."
"I will do so. If this contains the information I have been led to believe, you have done the world a great favor."
Jones didn't seem in the least impressed by that fact, Ana noted. He just seemed anxious to get away. "I'd like a phone call when this is over. Let me know how it plays out. My number is on the envelope."
The man bobbed his head. "It shall be done." He turned to go, and Jones reached for Ana's arm again. Mashuki strode back toward the limo. Jones began to steer her in the opposite direction. It was on the tip of Ana's tongue to suggest the pub idea. Surely the man had to feel the cold. He lived in the tropics. She'd only spent a few days there.
The window on a car in the street beside her shattered. Confused, Ana looked at it, then at Jones. But before she could open her mouth, he was dragging her past the car and into the street. "Run!"
There was the ping of metal creasing metal, a pepper of sound as they dodged cars and trucks veering toward them. In some numbed, distant part of her mind, she understood that whoever was shooting at them was using a silencer.
Brakes were screeching as they ran through the snarled traffic, drivers shouting. Ana's breath sliced through her lungs with every stride she took. She would have stumbled over the curb on the opposite side, if Jones hadn't been pulling her along so fast her feet barely grazed the pavement.
They raced down the sidewalk and around the corner. The streets were teeming with people. By elbowing into their midst they were either putting them all at risk or hiding in the most effective fashion possible. There was no debating the issue with Jones. Using his superior strength, he pushed his way, and hers, through the throng, letting it swallow them up. Only when they came to a line of taxis lined up at the curb waiting for fares, did he break away from the crowd, opening the door on one and all but shoving her inside it. Ana heard that telltale ping again as a bullet skimmed the door, even as the driver pulled away from the curb and headed in the opposite direction.
"And could I interest the two of you in a tour of London proper today?"
The driver looked in the rearview mirror to catch their reaction, but his smile faded when he saw Jones's expression and heard the tone of his voice.
"Just drive."
* * *
Their new quarters lacked the opulence of their former hotel room, but only a fool would head back there. Instead, Jones had found a touristy bed-and-breakfast, one that touted the intimacy and home-cooked meals of home.
The room was certainly private. The bubbly elderly woman who had taken their money and shown them to the upper floor of the Victorian home had chattered nonstop about it. They had the entire floor to themselves, she'd assured them. The former attic had been remodeled to a deluxe suite, complete with a hot tub for two tucked in the corner of the loo. But although Ana had obediently trailed the woman, looking at the amenities, Jones's gaze had been fixed on the bed.
One bed, and a double at that. If he hadn't been so tired he'd have sworn, vividly and imaginatively. The couch in front of the TV was short enough to promise a night of intense discomfort. But it would be better than the guilt he'd deal with if he slept with Ana again, knowing there was no future for them.
Prowling the room, he looked out the window. The neighborhood street below was quiet. A stranger would stand out here. It wasn't the type of place where residents turned a blind eye to anything suspicious. At least he was counting on that.
Without his conscious volition, his gaze traveled to the bed again. An ancient four-poster, it was draped fussily with lace. But beneath the feminine coverings it'd be soft. Inviting. The kind of bed he'd promised her for their next time together. Back when he'd planned on there being a next time.
Crossing to the small desk in the corner, he dropped the paper bag of supplies he'd stopped for before finding this place. He heard the woman tell Ana, "I'm afraid you've missed dinner. But if you'd care for a spot of tea and scones, I could fix up a tray for you."
He took out his wallet, handed the woman a bill, saw her eyes widen when she looked at it. "We'd like a real meal. It doesn't matter whether you cook it, or order it from a restaurant and have it delivered."
"I don't … well … that is…" Her fist closed around the bill and she shoved it deep in the pocket of her housedress. "I'll take care of that for you, sir."
He nodded, waited for her to let herself out of the room, then locked it behind her.
"Do you think Mashuki got away safely?" Ana strolled to the bed, sat on its edge, bouncing a little, testing it.
"I'm pretty sure he wasn't hit. I saw him dive for the limo, and then it pulled away." Whoever the shooter was, he'd arrived minutes too late. Any earlier and the transaction wouldn't have been completed. "We'll have to wait for the call before we know anything for sure."
She stood and kicked off her shoes, shed her coat. Pulling at the covers, she folded them back neatly before sprawling backward on the bed. A knot in his gut clenched at the sight.
"What do you think happened?" She didn't open her eyes as she phrased the question. "Could we have been tracked from Laconos?"
"Maybe, but I doubt it. They certainly wouldn't have waited this long if they were following us from the start. And I think we covered our trail pretty well."
Her eyes popped open, their brilliant blue color startling against her pale face. "So they had to figure where we'd be taking that information."
He laid out the materials he'd picked up at the hardware store and began to fashion crude but effective booby traps should an intruder try to enter through the door or window. "I think it was probably simpler than that. If Oppenheimer is involved in this, he's going to have contacts within the GTO. He has to, to wield the kind of power he's been accumulating in the last decade. He must have been tipped off about the call we made today. Maybe he's got the phone lines tapped. Who the hell knows? But it's a sure bet that once he found out that we were prepared to share this information with Shimbun, he was going to send someone to stop that from happening."
"A few minutes earlier, and they would have succeeded," she murmured. "If you hadn't gotten us there early, and Mashuki hadn't come a bit early, as well…"
"No use considering that," Jones said shortly. He certainly didn't want to. Remembering just how close those bullets had come to Ana had his chest tightening. He gave a vicious twist to the pieces of metal he was bolting together. She didn't belong here, and she sure as hell didn't deserve to be a part of this. Only another twenty-four hours and she wouldn't be.
There was no reason for the shaft of desolation that plunged through him at the thought. She'd return to what sounded like a laid-back life in Tangipohoa Parish, and he'd be looking for a new port to cal
l home. Bontilla was a little too close to Laconos for comfort. Come to think of it, he'd have to change the name and number of his ship, too. He didn't want anyone able to trace him through it.
But try as he might to distract himself from thoughts of Ana, they crept into his mind like insistent little ants. The two of them had said all they had to say earlier, before the meeting with Mashuki. At least he had. What she'd said didn't really bear thinking about.
It's nobody's business but our own if we decide to mate like minks while we're here before going our separate ways. Who would we be hurting?
She couldn't have been serious. He risked a glance her way and immediately wished that he hadn't. She'd shed her blouse to reveal a formfitting undershirt beneath, and nothing else. His mouth immediately went dry. The garment left little to the imagination, and his memory supplied him with erotic images of what she looked like beneath it.
Guiltily he shifted his gaze away. She'd been feeding him a line earlier; she had to have been. If there was any woman in the world who shouted strings and commitment, it was the one lying on the bed. Maybe she didn't even realize it, but she was about as far from a good-time girl as it was possible to be.
The trouble was, it was getting harder and harder to remember that. And even more difficult to care.
Thirty minutes later he finished with the crude mechanisms and carefully put them into place. He turned to find her lying on her side. Elbow propped, her head in her hand, she was surveying him intently.
Being the focus of that intense regard made heat pour beneath his fly. "What?"
"You don't look much like an Augustus. What's your first name?"
When he just gave her a look, her tone went wheedling. "C'mon. If you tell me I'll tell you one of my secrets."
"You have no secrets," he said bluntly, recalling the story she'd told about her first time. The story he definitely hadn't wanted to hear. He had no desire to think about a man touching her. Kissing her. Making love to her. He released a breath. No other man, that is, but him.
The walls of the room seemed to shrink then, compressing the available oxygen. The hours before them suddenly seemed to stretch endlessly. There was no telling how long before the phone call would come. There was no place to go … he couldn't jeopardize her safety. And he couldn't leave her alone for the same reason.
He hauled in a deep gulp of air. He'd learned patience with the CIA. All the tedious details of putting an investigation together took time, the months of planning sometimes punctuated with short, vicious bouts of action. But somehow that training didn't seem helpful in this instance. He'd never had to endure interminable hours of torture, but he had a feeling he was in for exactly that tonight.
"Do you remember what I said earlier tonight?"
Did he remember? He wished like hell he could carve it out of his mind.
It's nobody's business but our own… Who would we be hurting?
"You said a lot of things." He walked to the bathroom, washed his hands with more thoroughness than the act called for. But there came a time when he had to walk back into the bedroom. A time when he had to look at her and find her watching him with a hint of sadness in her eyes.
The look was out of place on her. Her face was made for expression, those quick blinding smiles, the sulky pouts, the exaggerated brows. But sorrow didn't belong there. And knowing he was responsible for it made him feel like driving a stake through his heart.
The time for dissembling was over. "There's no use doing anything else we'll be sorry for later, Annie."
Her voice was soft and sure. "I thought we'd agreed not to regret this."
A stronger man, a better one, would have turned away. Perhaps two weeks ago he could have. Before some of that emotion he'd so carefully tucked away had been allowed to leak, an insidious path that couldn't be undone.
"You made me a promise last time." There was the slightest tremble in her voice. He looked carefully, but her eyes were clear. "A bed, you told me. All night. No distractions. Are you a man of your word, Jones?"
It was all he could do not to lunge for her then. Desire flooded through him in a demanding tide, like a river of fiery little demons pounding him from the inside with wicked scorching fists. If he gave in to it, he knew he'd never forgive himself. And if he didn't, the same would be true.
She held out a hand, inviting him. Tempting him. "No expectations, remember?"
But there were, despite her words. Expectations and regrets and a million reasons why this was a bad idea. The worst. After tomorrow or the next day they'd never see each other again. There'd be nothing between them but miles and memories.
And in the end it was those same reasons that compelled him to move.
He crossed to her, slowly took her hand in his. Turning it palm up, he pressed it to his lips, watched her eyes turn misty. If memories were all they were going to have, he vowed, they were going to have a store of them to draw from. Magical images that would warm the nights that would forever seem cold without her.
He knelt in front of the bed as she sat up, faced him. When she released his hand her fingers skated along his face, her soft skin feeling like velvet against his rough jaw. He tugged at her waistband and she rose, the vee of her thighs close to his face. Jones reached up, unsnapped the jeans, and with both hands tugged them down her legs.
Tossing them aside, he stood, stroking his hands from her calves to her thighs. Her lips opened under his, a hint of desperation in her taste. It called to an answering wildness in him, one he savagely tamped down. The hours that so recently had stretched interminably now held a measure of promise. He was going to make them last.
He kissed her deep, hard and thoroughly, enjoying the way her flavor traced through his senses, firing nerve endings along the way. Her tongue glided along his, and need clawed through him, hot and urgent. This wasn't the kind of hunger that could be satisfied easily or quickly. Perhaps it couldn't be satisfied at all. But he was going to try his damnedest.
Her hands were busy, tugging the shirt from his waistband, shoving it up to skim her hands over his chest. He could feel his muscles quiver, as if conditioned to her touch. The reaction was both tempting and troubling. How had she gotten under his skin so fast?
The thought barely registered as he scraped her full bottom lip with his teeth. She gave a little gasp and swayed closer against him, and he broke away to yank his shirt over his head and threw it aside. Then he put his hands on the narrow expanse of her waist, lifted her and tossed her lightly back onto the bed, following her down.
He stretched out above her, enjoying the freedom the position gave him. Her nipples stabbed against the thin cotton of her undershirt, taut peaks that tempted. Leaning forward, he took one between his teeth, teased it lightly.
Her hips jerked off the bed, coming into contact with his. He settled himself more intimately against her, wanting that pressure without any barriers, knowing the folly of ridding himself of his jeans. Not now. Not yet. There was too much to be savored to rush.
Reluctantly, he lifted his head, surveyed her. Her shirt was wet from his mouth, her nipple turgid beneath the damp cloth. He took great pleasure in driving himself a little crazy, peeling the cloth up her torso a little at a time, ducking his head to press wet openmouthed kisses against each inch he bared.
Her skin was like rich, smooth cream. He was hardly aware that her hands had gone to his hair, released the thong he used to keep it tied back. He was steeped in the taste of her, greedy for more. He shoved her shirt up a fraction higher, leaned down to run his tongue along the underside of her breast. There was a bolt of lust tightening in his loins, making it difficult to move slow. He stroked the shirt over her head, baring her breasts. Her curves were delicate, her nipples pink and impudent, begging for his lips. He bent his head to suckle from her, took savage pleasure from the bite of her nails on his shoulders as she clutched him closer.
Sweeping his hand up her thigh he placed his palm over her mound, stroking and rubbing the he
ated flesh beneath the silk until the cloth was damp and slippery under his fingers.
There were alarms shrilling in his mind, distantly sounding, with what might have been logical excuses for turning away from this exquisite torment. But reason was impossible to summon. There was only Annie, twisting beneath him, chanting his name in a broken voice; her hands fumbling with the release to his jeans; her knuckles pressing against his engorged manhood.
He lifted his head, hissed in a breath. His intention of taking it slow was thwarted by the sight of her nipples glistening from his tongue; the soft skin of her breasts bearing the mark of his mouth. Logic receded when she lay beneath him, clad in nothing more than a tiny piece of thin flaming-red silk.
A boulder-size knot formed in his throat at the sight. It was difficult to swallow. Difficult to remember to breathe. She didn't make matters easier when she slipped her hands in the front of his jeans, squeezed him gently. Giving a heartfelt groan, he levered himself away from her, stripping off his jeans and underwear then returning to her.
He pressed moist kisses on her breasts, finding the hollow of her throat, the soft area behind her ear. His hand returned again and again to that moist flesh that was still hidden from him. His fingers slid beneath the elastic of her panties and found her slick dampness.
A broken cry came from her lips, unleashing something raw and wild inside him. This was how he wanted her. Had always wanted her. Naked, twisting beneath him, hands skating over his flesh, sobbing his name as he brought her to pleasure. This was the image that would torment him long after this was over, the image that would refuse to remain tucked safely away.
He parted her and slid a finger deep inside, grinding his mouth against hers as she bucked beneath him. The tight heat of inner muscles worked against him, even as he rubbed rhythmically at her in the way guaranteed to bring her climax. And when she cried out he swallowed the sound with his mouth, redoubled his efforts, letting her release slide over his fingers and make her even more slippery to touch.