Chapter Twenty-Six
In recent years, anyone in the government, certainly anyone in the FBI or the CIA, or recently, in again, Clint's film, In the Line of Fire, the main bad guy is the chief advisor to the president.
~Charlton Heston
McLean, Virginia
CIA Headquarters
February 18, Wednesday
Thirty-four hours after the assassination…
“Listen up, people,” Sam said, marching back and forth the length of the CIA meeting room. “It’s been almost thirty-five hours since the first lady was tragically gunned down. No one seems to have a clue who did it or why. It’s been almost that long since Duel reported in, which gives me cause to worry.” She paused and searched the haggard faces of her team. “I know you’re all tired. I’m tired, too, but we’ve got to do better than this. No one has seen or heard from Jayla Ross that I’m aware of, nor Flayme. I’m assuming Duel reached my secretary and has left to take her to a safe place, but I don’t know it for a fact. We have missing people, and that curdles my blood.
Angie Hillcrest, filling in temporarily in Flayme’s absence, fiddled with her pen and steno-pad. “Do you have any idea where Duel might have taken Flayme?”
“No.” Sam thought she probably looked as mortified as she felt. She should know where Duel intended to take her secretary, but things had been so crazy at the time.
“I do,” Travis said, filling in the sudden quiet.
Sam turned to him. Travis, bless him, always came to her rescue. She smiled gratefully. “Where?”
“He has a cabin near Denver, just off Interstate 70 West. It’s isolated. He knows the area. He’d want to be in a place where he knows the terrain. I think he’d take her there.”
Sam thought about it and came to the same conclusion. Frowning, she agreed and eyed the faces in the room. “Where’s Neil? Has anyone seen him this morning?”
“Ooh, I saw him earlier at the coffee, but that was a couple of hours ago,” Angie said. “I haven’t seen him since. Maybe he’s in his office.”
“Would you check, please?” Sam asked. “I need to speak to him.”
Once the room cleared, Travis turned to Sam. “You’re wasting your time having any kind of conversation with Neil. The man has a one track mind.”
“I’m not planning on having a conversation with him. I’m firing his ass.”
Travis frowned. “You can’t fire him because he’s sleeping with Flayme or walks around with a woody. He’ll file a complaint.”
Sam nibbled on a thumbnail. “Damn it, I don’t trust him,” she stated, unable to hold back her rage. “The man’s a creep. He’s a liability we can’t afford right now.”
“You still can’t fire him.”
“I’ll transfer him to another department, then. I want him off this team.”
Angie stuck her head in the door. “He’s not in his office.”
“Shit.” Sam grabbed her coat and purse. “See if you can reach him on his cell. Travis and I will be back in a couple of hours.” She shrugged into her coat and looped her purse strap onto her shoulder. “If Neil shows up, tell him I said he better stay right here until I return!”
Angie grinned. “Yes, Madam Director. Oh, you better not leave just yet. That agent, the one we like who works on the enemy side, Rydge Scott? He called, said to turn on the television. The president’s going live in about fifteen minutes.”
“Great!” Sam dropped her purse on the table and shrugged out of her coat. “I have a feeling this is going to be a long day.”
Angie nodded and pushed up her glasses. “I’ll make fresh coffee.”
* * * *
Somewhere in Nebraska
February 18, Wednesday
Forty-one hours after the assassination…
“All right,” Flayme said in as calm a voice as she could muster, “maybe you’re a human dynamo or the Energizer bunny, but I have needs.”
Duel slanted his gaze toward her, then returned his attention to the stretch of snow-packed highway.
God, she wished he’d stop flashing those green eyes at her. Her body went into meltdown every time he cast them her way. She’d never in her entire life felt like ripping the pants off a man and having her way with him—until she met this one.
There was simply no way. The man was a lone wolf, an outlaw who made his own rules along the way and damn the consequences. Trouble liked him. And he liked trouble. She’d be an utter fool to get mixed up with him. Hah! The way her body heated from his smoldering glances, she was already involved with him. It was just a question of time before she betrayed how she felt about the agent.
Hell, her womb clenched with urgent need anytime he blasted her with one of his sizzling looks. Her breasts ached. Her nipples tightened and tingled. She was a mass of quivering hormones. And holy hell! Ripples of electricity sizzled through her blood, igniting sparks of heat along the way. Her body felt hot and ready to rumba. She’d never been much of a dancer. She wasn’t one for playing games, yet she’d been labeled a game-player.
What the hell? Did she really give a crap what this man thought of her? Might as well admit it, she realized she did care. However, she didn’t like the hold he held over her emotions or the feelings he aroused inside her, not when it was clear he had nothing but contempt for her.
As much as she hated to think it, she had a bad feeling she’d end up a notch on the cowboy’s belt. He wouldn’t give a damn if he broke her heart to pieces. Worse, she figured she’d go to slaughter a willing lamb. That caused her hackles to rise and her claws to erupt.
And she turned into this fierce kitten she didn’t recognize at all.
“Just so we’re clear on the subject,” he retorted. “I have needs, too.”
Flayme snorted. “I wasn’t talking about those kinds of needs.”
The devil actually grinned at her, more like a wolfish leer, all bared teeth. Silly her, she fell just that much farther into slippery territory.
“How do you know what kind of needs I was referring to?” He lifted a dark brow.
She bit the inside of her jaw to keep from hissing like a maddened cat. She was not going to let this man walk all over her and leave her squashed like a bug beneath his shitty boot heels. “You’re a man, by your very nature, a sexual beast. A stallion. A stud. A horn dog. Whatever the hell you wanna label it. You wanna fuck,” she said bluntly. “It isn’t gonna be me you screw or screw over, so you can just keep that well-oiled zipper in place and turn those sultry bedroom eyes on some hapless woman with a brain the size of a flea’s asshole.”
He laughed. “God, you’re priceless. Is there nothing you won’t say?”
“Nope. I don’t believe in pulling my punches.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, doll baby,” he said with a touch of sarcasm. “You’d be easy enough…if I wanted you. And my zipper isn’t oiled. Hell, it’s dry as the bone yard.”
“Hah!” Flayme counted to ten, then turned a saccharin smile upon him. “You want me, but you have this kind of Code of the West thing going on where it’s dishonorable for you to touch me. It’s the only reason you haven’t made a move.”
Duel lifted a brow. “Are you giving me the green light? If so, I’ll toss the damn code book. The thing gets in the way anyway.”
“No! I’m just saying you think I’m an easy lay willing to lie down with any male who has a hard-on, but you keep away because I belong to another man.”
“I don’t think you’re an easy lay.”
“Yes, you do. But guess what? I don’t care what you think. I’m not interested in you, either. I wanna eat and pee and not necessarily in that order. If you don’t stop for a while and let me out of this tin can on wheels so I can stretch my legs, I promise, you’ll be very sorry.”
Duel frowned. “What are you gonna do, break another window?”
She ignored the mockery in his voice. “I might.” Flayme glared out the passenger side window, lifted her gaze to the bleak, gray sky overhea
d, then returned it to the desolate snow-covered scenery.
Fields of withered corn stalks stretched endlessly on the left and the right side of the highway, leafless trees looked forlorn and naked. “I’m sick of snow! Mostly, I’m sick to death of looking at dead, mangled corn stalks,” she said, her voice rising. “Couldn’t you at least have found a scenic route? I wanna go home, back to the bright lights and the hustle and bustle of D.C.”
“Sorry, sweetheart, there’s little else to see in this part of Nebraska but dead, mangled corn stalks, at least this time of year. Hold on until we get to my cabin. Colorado will steal your breath away. The Rockies? Pike’s Peak? They’re a natural high you never come down from.”
“I doubt that.”
“Have you ever been there?”
“Colorado? No,” she replied. “And I have no desire to see it now. I told you, I wanna go home.”
“You can’t go home.”
“Then I wanna go somewhere they don’t grow corn! Right now!” She burst into tears.
“Shit! Don’t cry.” He moaned as if he was the one in total misery. “Don’t cry,” he said softer, his eyes filling with something she hadn’t seen before.
Tenderness? For her? Hah! The man detested her.
“I’ll pull over as soon as I see an exit,” he continued, “and you can walk around a bit. Stop crying.”
“Don’t tell me to stop crying, Mr. Hard-Nose, Agent Remington,” she bellowed, swiping angrily at her tears. Damn it! She hated crying. It was a sign of weakness and she didn’t like revealing any type of flaw. “I’ve earned the right to cry,” she said, in direct contrast to her thoughts. “I’ve earned the right to cuss and pull out my hair if I want to. And right now, I want to.” She jabbed her chest to make her point. “So don’t tell me what to do. You’re the worst bodyguard I’ve ever met.”
Duel laughed. “And how many bodyguards have you had in your lifetime?”
“A few.”
His brows rose. “Do tell.”
“I’d rather not if it’s all the same to you.”
“It isn’t. I need to know everything about you if I’m to do my job right.”
“Tough!”
His face set with temper. He took the first available exit. Stopping the car, he killed the engine. Duel sat there with his hands wrapped around the steering wheel clenching his jaw. He drew a sharp breath and slowly released it. “I’m kind of partial to your hair,” he said huskily. “I’d really like it if you didn’t pull it out.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded. He liked her hair? Huh. Those were the last words she’d expected to hear from a man who was obviously furious with her. Flayme unhooked her seatbelt and turned to face him. “Honestly, I didn’t think you liked one damn thing about me.”
“Where did you get that impression?” He frowned as if he couldn’t believe she thought he didn’t like her.
“Why did we stop?” she asked, sniffing, then looked around. There was nothing here. Just another single picnic table and a trash barrel half filled with snow. Bits of weathered paper tumbled across the icy ground as if trying to escape their glacial prison. How depressing.
Fresh tears filled her eyes and spilled down her face. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to stop crying. Her lips trembled and she knew she must look like a wild woman, but he didn’t know since he refused to look at her. Instead, he stared straight ahead, his grip tighter on the wheel.
“You said you needed to…stretch your legs.”
“Well Jesus, Duel, can’t you ever find a place with bathrooms?” She burst into another bout of tears.
“Not lately. Hey…” He mumbled something that sounded like “Fuck it,” then turned abruptly and pulled her across the center island. Cradling her in his arms, he said soothingly, “I know it’s been rough, baby. I never planned for things to be so tough for either of us.”
“I wanna go home,” she whispered, lifting her tear-drenched face to his. “Please? Just turn the SUV around and take me back home.”
* * * *
Duel brushed a stray curl behind her ear and rubbed her back. “I wish I could, doll baby. I know you’re scared and confused, but I can’t protect you there. There are too many unpredictable equations, too wide-spread an area to track movement. One gunman, I might be able to handle, but what if there were three or even more? One could get to you before I could ever make a move.”
She was so beautiful. Even with red eyes, no makeup, her face all blotchy from crying, and that sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose he adored, she managed to rob him of his breath. That had to have some kind of meaning. Didn’t it? Yeah. It meant he was so far gone he was never going to be normal again, not when it came to this woman. Hell, he’d fallen hard like a cowboy bucked off a green-broke horse. No question about it, she’d won him hands down. She didn’t even realize it.
Her body fit against his perfect, and damn it, he knew she was trouble with a capital T. He didn’t care. He wanted her and nothing was going to erase or ease the need until he had her beneath him and his cock buried to the hilt inside her.
Duel released a pent-up breath and accepted he might as well toss in the flag. He was a cowboy roped, heeled, and hog-tied. But who cared? The weight of her breasts felt right against his chest. His palms itched to cup them, to taste the delicate tight nipples poking him through his shirt. His heart pounded. Hell, his dick jerked and sprang to instant life.
“Shit,” he said against her hair, “this could get complicated, baby.”
“It’s already complicated,” she said, pressing tiny kisses along his jaw line. “It isn’t going to get less complicated because you’re holding back. I’ve waited a lifetime for you, cowboy. Kiss me. And this time, make damn certain you remember doing it.”
“Shit,” he said again with a little more force this time. “You have any idea how messy this could get? Mac—”
“Mac…who?” she whispered.
Duel cupped the back of her head and lowered his mouth to hers. With a low groan, he took her mouth with all the frustrated hunger eating away at his soul. Desire slammed into him, hot and needy. He felt as if he’d been run over by a herd of wild mustangs. Burning low in his gut, fierce heat spread like a wildfire to his cock and balls.
The intense need he felt for this woman bulldozed its way through his body and settled in his groin. His dick throbbed urgently against her rounded bottom. She gripped his shoulders and wiggled her hips against the iron-hard bar behind his zipper. He couldn’t stop tasting her mouth, couldn’t stop rubbing the sweet curve under her breasts.
His thumb tip smoothed along the delicious edges and he could no more resist sliding his hand beneath her shirt and cupping the heavy fullness of her firm breasts than he could stop breathing. The delicate weight of them fit his hands perfectly. This woman had been created for him and only for him.
Pushing her shirt aside, he released the front clasp of the lacy peach-colored bra hugging her breasts and stared at her flushed nipples. Gingerly, he rolled a coral tipped nipple between thumb and forefinger until it tightened, then he brought the other to the same tight summit.
Her lips tasted like wild berries. He remembered her applying a strawberry flavored lip-gloss earlier. Utterly delicious. It was suddenly his favorite flavor and he couldn’t get enough of it. Duel molded her mouth to fit his. Nudging her lips apart, the taste of her was both sweet and tart and made him think of strawberry wine.
He didn’t want to let her go, but this was insane. She might have been created for him, but she belonged to another man. She was the mistress of one of his best friends. He couldn’t do this. Wouldn’t do it. He released her mouth and thrust her back to her seat.
“What?” she asked, catching her breath. “Why’d you stop?” She fumbled with the catch on her bra and snapped it in place.
“I’m working,” he barked, resenting the fact she belonged to Mac. He hated that another man had first dibs to what he wanted and needed. Hell, th
e fact that other men before him had touched her first aggrieved him to the point he wanted to explode and take all his resentment out on her. He’d never in his life felt like this. She was driving him crazy! “It’s never wise to mix business with pleasure,” he said. “It’s best if we leave things alone and not act on our feelings or…anything else.”
Her eyes flashed fire. “Best for whom?” She jerked her shirt down. She knew what his problem was and she didn’t like it.
“Mac, goddamnit, and me! It’s best for us.”
“I see. I don’t matter in the equation. Turn this SUV around and take this business back to D.C.,” she said hotly.
“I’m not taking you back to D.C., so stop nagging me about it.”
“I don’t nag!”
“My orders are to keep you away from there. Don’t you get it? Someone tried to kill you right after another someone murdered the first lady. You’re involved in a political nightmare right up to your lovely neck.”
“Molly’s dead? When? How?” All the color drained from her face. She literally wrang her hands.
He couldn’t recall ever seeing anyone wring their hands. “Shit, I didn’t think, what with everything going on…” His words ground to a slow halt. Puzzled, he wondered at her familiar use of the first lady’s name. Although Flayme was Sam’s secretary, that didn’t mean Flayme and the first lady were friends or even acquaintances. “She was assassinated the same night you and Jayla were shot at.”
Flayme thrust fingers through her hair and took several deep breaths. “This is bad.”
“Hell yeah, it’s bad. But it might get worse.”
“Does anyone know who killed her?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried to get through to Sam.”
“Knowing John, he probably hired the hit man.”
Duel narrowed his eyes. “You just accused the President of the United States of murder. Be very careful what you say. I doubt you know him well enough to make such assumptions or allegations.”
Playing For Keeps (Montana Men) Page 31