“Jack always comes to get us in a boat.” She rattled off a phone number.
“Ragno, heard that?”
“Yes. Give me a second.”
“There’s no answer,” Sebastian informed Skye, after Ragno tried the number.
Her eyes widened. “That can’t be.”
He pressed his fingertips to his temple in an effort to ease the throbbing in his head, closed the jellybean bag, and shook his head. “Would I lie about this?”
“But Jack and Posie take care of us. It’s what they do. They were carefully vetted prior to hiring. They’ve lived on Firefly Island for ten years. They’re more than employees. He’s reliable, and so is she. They always answer.”
“Not today,” he said. “Could it be that he’s just not answering a number that he doesn’t recognize?”
“No. Jack answers our calls, regardless of whether he recognizes the numbers. We change phones like most people change clothes. Remember? I’m Richard Barrows’ daughter,” she said. Her tone was half-joking, half-desperate, and the sudden fear in her eyes made him want to hold her, to reassure her. “My father’s paranoia dictates what we do. Jack knows he won’t recognize the numbers that we’re using. But we always call that line. Or there are two more options. Jack has three potential numbers that we use-”
“Three?” Sebastian asked.
She nodded. “There are always three. Well, not always. Mostly always. My father’s compulsions, which he’s passed onto Spring, either by genetics or proximity, dictate that occurrences happen in threes.”
“Give me the numbers.”
She gave them to him. Ragno dialed them as he repeated them. No answer. He gave Skye a headshake as her eyes searched his.
“Especially now that news has broken regarding the prison break,” Skye said, “Jack would answer calls to these numbers.”
“Keep trying,” Sebastian said to Ragno, as the jet started taxiing. “Send Zeus in advance to reconnoiter. Secure a boat. Call on the satellite phone while we’re en route if there’s any news.”
“Will do.”
He took off the earpiece, slipped it into his pocket, and switched off the telecommunications portal on his watch. Only a few inches separated their seats. The armrest provided a laughable barrier, one that didn’t block the magnetic pull she had on him. “I was thinking that you’d try to rest on the couch.”
She shook her head. “I’m not tired. Besides, I can’t do anything now but worry about Jack and Posie.”
“Worry won’t be productive. We should know something shortly after we land,” he said. He couldn’t help but get personal when he saw the fear and exhaustion in her gray-green eyes. “You didn’t sleep at all last night.”
She gave him a slight smile, shrugging as the jet became airborne. “It wasn’t my first night without sleep,” she paused, “Thank you for believing me.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m trying desperately to find your father, and we have nothing else to go on. I believe that you’re telling the truth as you know it. To be honest, though, I’m not certain that what your father’s told you has any basis in reality. Shadows and LID Technology might have just been a figment of his imagination.”
“For now, you’ll just have to trust me. The technology exists. Even if you don’t believe me, once you have the backup, once your people assess it, you’ll know. It will be up to you to find out who wants it so badly, and up to me to follow my father’s instructions.”
“Those instructions,” he said. “All you know is you were supposed to get to Tennessee and await more instructions?” He had quizzed her endlessly on the way to the airport, but that was all she gave him.
“Yes. I’ll know more when I get to the lake house.” Her smile was slight, with just a turn-up to the left side of her mouth and a bit of light in her eyes. It was a sad, bittersweet smile that said, ‘The world’s fucked up, but damn it, I’m going to be brave and find humor wherever I can.’
Her smile was almost his undoing, because it made him hyper-focus on her, when he had told himself that all he was going to do was sit next to her and try like hell to ignore the magnetic pull she worked on him. With his eyes on that smile, studying the nuances of it, as he inhaled the fresh, vanilla-sweet scent of her natural perfume, she became impossible to resist.
Fuck me to hell.
As the jet leveled off, he shifted his legs, readjusted himself in the seat, and glanced at the bulge of his erection, visible through the Black Raven-issue khaki trousers. He glanced at her, saw that her eyes were on his hip area, and gave a hoarse laugh that was almost a groan. “Can’t help that, but don’t worry. After that apology I gave you, I’m certainly not going there again.”
“Would you, here?” She gestured with her chin to the door between the two cabins. “With your agents on the other side of the door?”
He chuckled. “Behind a closed door? If I wasn’t working, and with the right woman, the answer would be hell yes, and it wouldn’t matter who was on the other side of a closed door. I’ve never been very selective as to time and place. Would you?”
Some of the worry left her eyes as she laughed. “I’ve done it behind billowing drapes, in a crowded ballroom.”
Damn.
He’d known that she was his kind of woman, from the moment he’d looked at her bare-chested pose, as she readied herself for a dive. His kind of woman, he reminded himself, but not his woman. “On a full commercial plane?”
She shrugged. “That’s a rookie move.”
“The bathrooms are hell.”
She shook her head, with a smile. It would have been demure, but for the positively wicked gleam in her eyes. “We weren’t in a bathroom.”
“Holy hell.”
“The hardest thing about that,” she paused, “well, there were plenty of difficulties. But it is really hard to have an absolutely silent orgasm. Especially if it’s a good one.” He started chuckling and ended it with a deep, heartfelt laugh. “You know,” she continued, “I could probably win this game, because from my late teens, until about two years ago, when I chose to become celibate, I had one hell of a lot of fun in the sex department.”
“Monogamy’s hell,” he said, studying her eyes, her lips, the tilt of her head, “isn’t it?”
She nodded, her eyes serious, her expression blank, except for a slight smile that played at her lips. “Sure is. I’ve never been committed to it.”
“Your blank face tells me you’re lying.”
“No. Nothing but the honest truth.”
“Now I’m wondering at what point in this conversation did you start lying?”
“I haven’t at all,” she paused, with a gleam in her eyes that was virtually an admission she was fibbing and having fun doing it. “What about you? Monogamy. Has it ever worked for you?”
He cringed on the inside, knowing he shouldn’t have ventured down this path, yet he was intrigued by the irreverence with which she approached such a private subject. “Years ago I was in a couple of committed relationships-”
“At the same time?”
“No. Over a span of years. I actually liked it, until I figured out I’m just not the committing type.” He narrowed his eyes, studying her, enjoying talking to her about a subject that, like religion and politics, would be better kept private. “You’ve never been monogamous?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never been in a committed relationship, and that is the honest truth. There weren’t all that many men, but the men I did it with sure did it with a bang. You probably even know their names.” She gave him a slight frown, glancing again at his hips. She recaptured his eyes with a delicious, enticing smile. “You really don’t want to act on that, do you?”
He shook his head. Thank God the flight was short, and they were already a few minutes into it. “Regrettably, no.”
She drew a deep breath. “Wow.” Her expression turned serious. “Have I turned you off with my sexual honesty?”
“Actually, it’s become torture,”
he said, “I’m using as much willpower as I’ve ever had, when what I really want to do is-” he drew a deep breath, and shut the hell up. If he described what he wanted to do to her, how hard she made him, how he wanted to rip those damn jeans off of her and slide in and out of her until she moaned like she had the night before, he was going to die. Fuck it. If he thought for one more second about it, he wouldn’t resist.
“That’s too bad.” Her voice was so low it was almost a hoarse whisper, her face just inches from his. “Because when I said best sex ever, I meant it. And I know what I’m talking about.”
“I can’t remember better,” he said, shifting in the seat, groaning as he did. “But you can change the subject. Or else I have to go hang out with my agents.” After hanging out with myself in the bathroom.
“You don’t kiss on the lips,” she said, her tone serious again. “When we were having sex, you avoided my kiss.” He drew a deep breath, as her eyes studied his, regretting that he had stayed seated and didn’t move into the front cabin. With just inches separating them, her eyelashes were thick and dark, even without mascara. A loose one had fallen on her cheek. He lifted his index finger, touched it, and flicked it off her cheek. “Why?”
Her question opened a door that he didn’t want to go through, but the light in her eyes was so captivating, he didn’t want to disappoint her desire for an answer. “How honest of an answer do you want?”
“On a scale of one to ten,” she said, “give me a ten. It’s the least you can do, after you’ve had your hackers break into notes from my therapy sessions.”
She had him with that truth, which he couldn’t refute. “Somewhere along the way, I got it in my head that kisses, full on the mouth, French kisses, the kind that go on…” he almost groaned, suddenly wanting to glide his tongue on hers, wanting to taste her, wanting to lock lips with her and pretend, for hours, that nothing but the two of them existed, “…and on, were promises. A promise of a future, even if that promise is just another phone call, another night together, another...” his voice trailed, “…another something. I stopped making those kinds of promises years ago. Sex is sex. That’s it. Women know before we have sex that there’s no future.”
She shook her head, giving him a wide-eyed, skeptical look.
“Really. They know. I make sure they know. I don’t get caught in the predicament I got caught in with you. Having to apologize. Having to talk about it.”
She was sitting in the seat sideways, her boots kicked off, her feet curled under her, settled into the conversation. Hell. She was interested in his answer, and more than slightly enjoying his discomfort. “How do they know? Because I’m betting that they don’t really understand what you’re saying. You see, even when a man says he can’t offer a future,” she paused, “there’s something about the female brain. Maybe it’s all of that estrogen that runs through it. We just don’t get it. We think the most impossible man could somehow become…”
He chuckled. “Prince Charming?”
She blushed, then shook it off. “If not that fantastical, then just ‘the one.’ The one we were meant for. So how do your women know so effectively that you’re not it?”
His insides did a flip. He couldn’t go there with her. Open and honest was one thing. Revealing just how committed he was to having no commitments was another. “You don’t want to know the answer to that question.”
“Go on. Shock me. Believe me, I’ve heard it all from men. You know everything about me. Tell me something about you I don’t know. Tell me what you tell women in advance. What gives them no doubt that there’s nothing more than the moment?” She paused. “Because most men aren’t quite so honest.”
He didn’t want to tell her. Really didn’t want to tell her, and his extreme hesitancy shocked him, because it shouldn’t matter to him what she thought of him. There wasn’t going to be a future for them. He didn’t offer a future. Couldn’t offer a future. Actually, he probably didn’t even have a future, not even for himself, and, right this moment his dick wasn’t the only thing that was throbbing. His head was pounding, a constant reminder of his own fallibility. Aw hell. He drew a deep breath. “I stopped having relationships about ten years ago. There was just one too many from which I had a hard time extricating myself.”
“It’s called a break-up,” she said, as the plane hit a bump of turbulence, “not an extrication. Geez. And my therapists said I have relationship issues?” She stared at him, thoughtfully. “So, how do you deliver the there’s-no-future-not-even-a-phone-call disclaimer? And still manage to get some?”
“Well,” he paused, wondering whether he was really going there. Aw. Fuck it. Why not? She had asked. “Here’s how that happens. I agree on a price before I show up.” Her eyes widened. “X amount buys me X amount of time. It’s usually a lot of money,” he said, “and I usually don’t go to the same woman more than once. I use reputable companies. Once the money changes hands, and it always does before sex, they know it’s just a business deal. You’re the first real woman I’ve been with in ten years. By real, I mean someone I didn’t pay for her services.”
Open-mouthed shock had never been quite so gorgeous.
He touched her chin with his index finger and lifted it. “There you have it. Now you know the real me. I work endless hours. When I get a break, and I want sex, I call and arrange it. I fly across the country for it, or they come to me. It’s all pretty damn anonymous. I learned not to go to the same woman twice, because even then, you run the risk of emotional attachment.”
“That’s,” she drew a deep breath, and when he thought she was going to say disgusting, because that word would have matched the look she was giving him, he put her index finger on her lips, and shook his head, not wanting to hear her answer.
“Shhhh. I know.” Sick. Sad. Disgusting. Pathetic. He didn’t need her to put a label on it and that’s why he touched her lips. His action shushed her, but it did way more than that. The feel of her soft, plush lower lip sent an electric shock through him. Her lips were full and slightly moist and felt like a balm on the rough callous of his trigger finger. He skimmed the full crescent of her lower lip, unable to stop until he ran his finger along the full length of it, then doing the same with the top lip.
Holy hell. He dropped his hand, realizing how badly he had fucked-up, because if ever he was going to kiss a woman again, it now had to be Skye.
From the shocked stillness that greeted him and the uncharacteristic lack of a smart retort, he realized that if the opportunity had existed for anything between them, it was gone. Her probing questions had given her way too much information. Now she was probably more worried about disease than anything else.
Hell.
He would be. He unsnapped his seat belt, stood, and stretched the kinks out of his back. He reached for the door handle as the plane started its descent. He looked down at her before opening it. “Don’t worry. I know we didn’t last night, but I use condoms. I knew you were on the pill. That’s why I didn’t use one with you. In the last several months I’ve had more medical tests than I thought were possible. I haven’t had sex since the accident in July. I didn’t want it, until I met you. I’m clean.” He stepped into the other compartment, shutting the door behind him.
Did their night together produce sentimental feelings for him? He no longer needed to worry about that. Mission accomplished.
Chapter Twenty
12:30 p.m., Tuesday
His revelation had shocked her into silent numbness. She shouldn’t have asked such personal questions. A decade of going to prostitutes to avoid emotional attachments was an admission that was better left in the world of unspoken words. At least now she knew exactly where Sebastian stood with women.
The soft touch of the wheels on the runway made her shudder, reminding her that she had enough to worry about without thinking about Sebastian’s personal life. If Ragno had managed to get in touch with Jack and Posie, she’d have called Sebastian on the sat phone. Silence on their end wa
s not a good sign.
Dear God. Please help me figure this out. Find my father and Jen, and let Jack and Posie be safe. End this before I actually hand over my father’s backup to Sebastian. End this before I have to tell Sebastian where we need to go with the backup.
The same uncertainty that prompted her prayer provoked an intense longing for her beautiful bakery. She wanted to be Chloe Stewart again, where no one knew her true identity, where Spring was safe and happy, where the weight of being Richard Barrows’ daughter wasn’t suffocating her, where she was ignoring men and the complications they brought into her world. She wanted all of that, and this time, she wanted it all to be permanent.
When the jet taxied to a stop near other private jets, she stood and opened the door to the forward cabin. Her eyes fell on Sebastian. Clearly not in a rush to get off the jet, he was sitting in a seat that faced the rear of the plane, facing one of his agents. His long legs were stretched in front of him, and, as usual he was talking, with one finger touching gently on his earpiece, while his hand rested on his iPad’s keyboard.
“Aren’t we leaving?” she asked from the doorway.
He glanced at her and gave her a headshake. “We’re waiting for word from the advance team before we go.”
“Did anyone manage to contact Jack or Posie?”
He gave her a slow, barely perceptible headshake no, before his eyes drifted back to his tablet. The other agents were also talking on their phones or studying their iPads. One of the pilots opened the door to the cockpit, but they remained in their seats, checking their instrument panels. The agents, Sebastian included, wore either long-sleeve t-shirts or turtle neck sweaters, all with Black Raven logos. From the five men, Skye figured that broad chests, bulging biceps, and narrow waists appeared to be as much of a Black Raven prerequisite as a pistol, which they all wore at their hips like extensions of themselves.
She yanked her hair back in the ponytail holder that she’d put on her wrist earlier, saw that Sebastian’s eyes were on her movements, and her chest, as he talked to one of his agents. She wanted a t-shirt. A plain t-shirt. Something cool, cottony, and boxy. Not a pink, form-hugging sweater that barely reached the top of equally snug jeans.
Shadows (Black Raven Book 1) Page 31