Fight Fire With Fire.

by Amy J. Fetzer

  She felt him approach slowly, and moaned softly, awareness ringing through her. She wasn’t certain she wanted it. She didn’t turn around, rebellion pricking her, and she kept her back to him, but he stayed near, letting her feel the heat of his body, grow accustomed, then, when she could barely stand it another moment, he slid his arms around her waist and pulled her back against him. Safia went soft inside and laid her head back on his shoulder. So nice, she thought, but had to be realistic. She wasn’t exactly every mother’s dream for her son. God. Even thinking like that scared her.

  “Don’t believe this is any more than a working relationship. I can’t think like that. I can’t.” She started to push his hands away, but he tightened, leaning his cheek against hers. She released a long sigh and nuzzled his face. How could she fear and want at the same time? “You want what I can’t give.”

  “Have you tried?”

  She dropped her head forward. “Oh Riley, why are you digging so deep?”

  “I like you. I want to know you. Is that so difficult?”

  “In my life, yes it is.”

  “It can be easy.”

  She turned on him. “For that I’d have to give it up and I won’t.”

  He reared back, surprised. “Who says you have to?”

  “No one. Me.” She glared, pushed out of his arms. “Damn you, Donovan.” She strode into the other room, flipping at papers and room service menus, then finally stopped and faced him.

  “Maybe I was wrong.” He walked near, the scars an insult on his lean sculptured body. “Wrong in thinking there was more to you than fighting the good fight.”

  She tried moving past him. “There isn’t.”

  “Liar,” he said, pulling her smoothly into his arms.

  Denial was on the edge of her lips, but he covered them with his own. Safia capitulated, her willpower and her excuses disintegrating with every slide of his mouth over hers. She fought terrorists, the world’s most evil, and wasn’t afraid of much. But up against Riley Donovan’s incredible mouth and tender heart, she felt annihilated, weaponless. And then she didn’t care, and kissed him with total surrender.

  “There you are,” Riley whispered, and felt the change in her, the way her body relaxed into his and let him feel all her luscious curves.

  “How many women have you charmed so easily?”

  He scoffed, rubbing his mouth down her throat and loving that she tipped her head back. “I just listen,” he murmured. “I never got a word in edgewise with my family.”

  A prick of longing stung her heart, and she tried smothering it, pushing it far down where it didn’t affect her work. But it reared and made her want more of this, she thought as his mouth moved over her jaw, then lower. Her hands were busy on his jeans, flipping the button, loving that his muscles contracted as she sent the zipper down. She shed her job with her clothes as he stripped her down to her skin.

  “Then let’s not talk.”

  Riley let his gaze roam over her, the scars she’d earned over the years marring her beautiful body. “Not in my plan.” He swept his hand down her curves, cupping her breast.

  “Smart man, oh yeah,” she purred. “That’s good.” His tongue slid over the thin scar that stretched from hip to navel; then he found another and she pulled him nearer, gliding her hands over his muscled contours. He had them in spades.

  “I’m a little out of practice.”

  “Then you’ve been doing it with the wrong man,” he growled and she inhaled, trapped by his soulful blue eyes. God. She wanted to run, and run to him. He’d slipped under her skin, made her see a life without isolation. Made her want it. She’d never entertained the thought and rarely felt jilted out of a steady love life. Until now. Until she understood and experienced and, God, hungered for it. She’d lived her life telling herself that eliminating fanatics like the group that killed her family was worth giving up that part of herself. But as his hands swept luxuriously over her body, she knew her thinking had changed.

  And would keep changing. Riley was stubborn, but hard to resist, especially when he knew exactly what buttons to push. Like now, his hand palming her behind, and doing that slow upward glide that sent shivers of pleasure over her spine. She wiggled deeper into his arms, his mouth plying over her throat, her jaw, then her mouth. Oh man, she liked that the best, she thought, then changed her mind when he lifted her, pulling her legs around his hips, then walked through the suite and tumbled her to the big bed.

  “Your reputation precedes you,” she murmured as his lips skated over her breast, a warm tongue snaking around her nipple. His lips tugged, and heat spiraled under her skin. He was a charmer, loved women, and she experienced the reality of it in his expert touch. She was just damn glad it was all over her and gasped hard when he slid lower and nudged her thighs apart. His mouth found her center.

  She let out a little shriek of his name. He didn’t answer, then she couldn’t, his lips and tongue doing incredible slidy things and she felt the burn all the way up to her hair. Then she fell off the edge of the world when he pushed her thigh over his shoulder. He devoured her, sliding two fingers inside that made her bow off the bed with a guttural moan.

  He rose up, smiling, and in the slickest move, sheathed himself with a condom and slid into her. She inhaled and arched, her body liquid beneath him. She pushed against him, his groan that harsh male sound every woman wanted to hear. He was as helpless as she was, his trembling striking her almost like a blow. She’d never done that to a man, and felt herself sinking when he leaned down slowly, bracing himself. His gaze locked with hers and he tucked his hand under her hips, bringing her to him. With each withdrawal and plunge, he watched her, toyed and stroked until she was hurting for air.

  “I adore you,” he said deeply, then kissed her, melting away the rebellion instinctively rising in her. In his arms, she reveled in the freedom, smiling when she rolled him to his back and sat up. He pushed deeper and she held his gaze, her hips undulating and taking him with her.

  Riley didn’t think he’d seen anything so exotic, her dark hair unbound and sweeping her elbows, teasing across her round breasts, and he sat up, pulling her closer, smiling when she laughed, when she asked him to keep rocking her world.

  “It’d be me pleasure, love,” he said and bucked, grinning when she quaked and lavished in his arm. Her hands dribbled over his body, feeling where they joined. The pulse burst through him, and he pushed her on her back, held her as the sensual eruption clawed up his spine. He pumped harder, a hand on the headboard, the other sliding beneath her hips again and pulling her up to greet him.

  He watched her whiskey brown eyes, saw the tears well slowly. Emotions rose with their desire, and Riley wanted her—all of her. Greedy, he withdrew fully, her gasp of pleasure galvanized him, and he plunged again and again.

  She cupped his jaw, whispered his name, and he begged, “Give yourself to me, Safia.”

  Her mouth crushed over his, her body a wildfire beneath him and she held tight, the crush of passion spreading through her and into him. Her little gasps fueled him, her whispers and the slide of their bodies breaking something inside him. He thrust once more, the eruption spilling and she dug her fingers into his hips, grinding as he whispered his truth in Gaelic. They collapsed in a tangle of arms and legs on wrinkled sheets.

  He couldn’t move, wondering where his finesse went when he was with her, and he struggled to catch his breath when her fingers were sliding up his spine. He leaned back to meet her gaze, swiping her hair from her face. A tear slid into her temple and her brown eyes captured his soul.

  “Oh Riley,” she said, sweeping her fingers across his mouth. “I hate you and love you for that.”

  He smiled. “God love ya, lass, you’re a difficult woman to please.” She rolled him on his back, laying herself over him and Riley thought he could live a long time just like this. “You could keep trying,” she said. And he did.

  Fourteen

  Marina Bay

 
Singapore

  Max frowned when the door buzzed and slid the pan off the burner, then crossed the condominium to answer it. A petite woman smiled up at him.

  “Hi. You must be Maxwell.”

  He recognized her voice. “Ellie?”

  She flashed a quick smile. “Yes.” She showed him her ID. “I have a key, but I didn’t want to barge in, in case you weren’t alone.” She peered, and sniffed the air. “Cooking?”

  “Guy’s gotta eat. Join me.” Max stepped back to let her pass, then closed the door. “Who would I have here anyway?”

  She walked with him to the kitchen. “I never close doorways of thought. Anything is possible.”

  Well hell. She was just a little thing, and as young as she sounded. Younger now, he thought, yet Safia had said she was a Marine. “How did you make it through boot camp?”

  She smiled, and he’d expect to see her dark blond self at a football game or a Dairy Queen, not running intelligence for CIA. He suddenly felt very old.

  “Four older brothers. I graduated top rifle score of my series,” she said as he pulled the pan back on the burner and stirred. “I was slated for sniper school, but since life expectancy in the field is two minutes and I’m a tech geek, this was safer.” On the other side of the counter, she slid onto a stool and said, “I’ve had to cut all communications with Riley and Safia.”

  Max frowned. He’d signed off with them when they’d gone to talk to Safia’s assets. Then she told him why. “Good God. The car?” Max leaned back against the fridge, thankful Safia used her tech toys to start her car. “Where are they?”

  “Underground.”

  “Good.” Though knowing Riley, he was probably enjoying his confinement. “Two attacks in one day is risky, even for a criminal.” He rubbed his mouth, tumbling theories over in his head. “The dock attack was a lure with the biomarker.” He waved it off. It had the earmarks of a game to the Ghurka soldier. “But her car was stored in the garage here. Anyone could have tampered with it. If they knew her identity of the day and where to look.” He leapt forward to move the pan off the burner and stir. “Possible, but not probable given the time frame. It’s been a day since Vaghn came out of hiding and hell broke loose. However,” he said, stopping to search for plates, “she’d driven the car all over town, restarted it. So, it was either planted and detonated by someone on sight, or rigged on the spot to the starter, which isn’t that difficult if you know what you’re doing. Either way, it was planted while they were talking to the assets.”

  Ellie gathered utensils and laid them out. “Do you always answer your own questions?”

  “Free association. Try it.” Max dished up the stir-fry. “Now that we know when it was planted, what do we know that they don’t?”

  She frowned, sliding onto the stool.

  He put up a finger. “We know who they are. They probably don’t know us personally, other than we’re making trouble for them.” Another finger went up. “They’re willing to kill anyone, anywhere. We’re not. Put that at the top.”

  “You like lists.”

  She gestured to his larger than necessary list of items in Vaghn’s backpack and Max knew he bordered on obsessive, but he’d brought the damn thing into the station. “Vaghn’s backpack. Riley and I looked through it. It was normal guy stuff. Games, music, phone, a pen light, though he had a gun, cheap and pretty dirty. It’d probably misfire if he used it.” He took a seat beside her and ate. “Vaghn’s smart enough to create any weapon, but he can’t do it without that.” He flicked at the screen with the duplicate hard drive that wouldn’t do anything but exist. “He had a death grip on it from the get-go and the encryption is way out there. They don’t know we have a copy, but then, only Vaghn can open it. The little creep holds all the cards. I just want to read his hand.”

  Ellie laughed softly and Max glanced. “Did you extract anything from the Triad house? They were chatty.”

  She nodded, moppy curls bouncing. “I confirmed that the incoming caller was the same number that the two phones had in common.” She showed him a picture on her web phone. “The only woman. Safia calls her Red Shoes.”

  Max frowned at the photo, thinking pretty but kind of sharp, as if her elegance was painted in place.

  “I did a synthesized wash on the Triad house, removing each, one at a time to single them out. In operation at that moment was a computer, three active cell phones, and four numbers.”

  “Four?”

  “Vaghn’s computer is its own communication. Attach a head set with a mic and you’re good to go. Satellite capable too.” He groaned. “They were all working at the same time, but it was the woman’s that was incoming. Red Shoes doesn’t match any passport photo so far, and the cell number is dead,” Ellie said. “No battery, no signal. It’s just parts.”

  “Smart cookie,” he murmured, eating.

  “They aren’t missing a beat, even with all our interference.” Her sad tone made him look up. “Red Shoes would have to be using that particular phone to even start a triangulation. Or at the very least, have the battery back in. I have alerts set up to let me know if she comes online with it.” She wiggled the phone, then hooked it on her shorts. “She could just use another one and we’ve got nothing.”

  “She’s the money and while we should follow the cash, we’re missing a key piece.” She frowned, her pixie nose wrinkling. “If there wasn’t a bomb in the pack and right now, let’s say no, then what triggered that station explosion?” We have two hitters, Max thought, but he didn’t want to voice his thoughts just yet. He needed evidence.

  “Forensics is still testing, and I don’t monitor the workings of the station, but I do know that there wasn’t a gas line and locks were engaged. Anything on site is gone, but all data files are backed up with Langley.” She frowned for a second. “The Company would have known because it’s automatic, like in a power outage.” She reached for her phone. “I’ve got some friends who might help pick this apart.”

  Max chewed, swallowed, and shook his head. “Keep this between us. They wouldn’t shut down links if they thought it was just Barasa tracking them.” Then he gave her a morsel because he needed her help. “We have a new player.”

  She nodded, quiet for a second and Max didn’t think they had the same suspicions till she spoke. “The other stations know she’s offline and why, Max. You don’t think there’s a leak in the Company, do you?”

  He scoffed and tried not to burst her bubble. “Wouldn’t be the first time. But with the right software, anyone can trace a cell phone. Moms do it on their kids’ phones.”

  “The car bomb was a professional job.”

  “Oh hell, yes. But the house, another story.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t add up.” When she didn’t respond, he glanced up. She toyed with her fork, her brow knitting. “She’s fine.” He nudged her.

  “I know, but—” Ellie met his gaze. “Safia’s made enemies. Most are in prison or dead, but some, like Barasa, slipped through.”

  “She’s tried for conviction on him before?”

  She shook her head, picked at her meal. “He’s produced documentation or paid fines.” She tipped a look at him. “Or witnesses disappear. Mostly that. But a case has never made it past international investigation. Never to court. Probably why she breaks a lot of rules.”

  He could tell that bothered her. “Such as?”

  Ellie looked away, pursing her lips, and Max wondered if she was fighting loyalty or her clearance in telling him something that might be classified. He understood that. “You don’t have to elaborate.”

  “Oh, it’s not illegal or anything,” she rushed to say. “She takes big risks, alone, a lot. She has a few agents who can help her when she needs an extra pair of eyes, but she rarely let’s anyone in.” She met his gaze. “I was really shocked when she asked me to bring Riley online with her communication link to me.”

  “She did it without authorization.”

  “I did it for her. It’s
a misuse of government equipment, if you want to get technical, but fortunately she’s rarely wrong.” Her brows knit deeper. “She really doesn’t like to be outsmarted. Expect crazy.”

  “Honey, that’s what Dragon One is all about.”

  “I know. I read your dossiers. Y’all are too old to be so daring.”

  Max looked up sharply. “Who you calling old, little girl?”

  She grinned, taking the last bite of her meal. “My dad is only about eight years senior to you.”

  Good God. “Well thanks, peanut, that just made my day.”

  NSA

  Near Washington, D.C.

  When Nolan Deets admitted he couldn’t break the encryption on the satellite transmission, his frustration settled somewhere between his shoulderblades. He’d created a program for David’s stream and each effort bounced off its firewall. A transmission this deeply encrypted was never good news. Without the program to run it, he’d tried duplicating it, unsuccessfully. The encryption was for this particular data strand. Nothing else like it, he thought, and glanced between the two computers and the rapid attempts to decode. But a piece of the stream wasn’t doing any of them much good, and David Lorimer was trying to gather segments. So far, it had bounced to eleven different server locations across the globe.

  He turned to the third computer and opened a window, then dialed the phone. The video screen came up with David’s image.

  “Any luck?” the analyst said.

  “If I had more time to understand the creator maybe, but no. Breaking it is impossible, at least for me.”

  “Oh hell.”

  “Yeah. It’s kicking at all my brain cells. I think there might be a certain sequence of steps before you enter the primer to unlock it. If you don’t, it automatically alters the firewall and locks me out.”