by Opal Carew
Mick walked to the edge of the bed and let Caterina slip to her feet again.
“I’ll help you get out of those wet things,” his sister said and he took that as a cue to leave and also change into something dry.
In his room, he ripped off his sodden clothes and tossed them into the bathtub. Briskly rubbing a towel across himself to counteract the cold pool water, he dried off and eased into a t-shirt and sweats. Brushing his hair back with his fingers, he returned to the room where Liliana had managed to get Caterina out of her clothes and into bed.
Liliana was drawing another sample of blood and when he walked in she explained, “I want to try and figure out what’s causing the fever this time.”
After the vacutainer was filled with phosphorescent green blood, Liliana efficiently removed the needle from Caterina’s arm and bandaged it. As she finished, Caterina reached out and grasped her hand.
“Thank you, Lil,” she said and Liliana returned the gesture, taking Caterina’s hand in a reassuring clasp.
“It’ll be okay, Cat. I promise,” his sister said.
Mick wished he could make the same pledge, but said nothing as Liliana walked toward him, the glowing blood sample in her hand. “I’m due back in the hospital in a couple of hours. I’m going to try and grab a nap before then.”
“I’m sorry I’ve made it so hard for you,” he said, but his sister surprised him by smiling.
“Not hard at all. You’ve given me a place to stay and a reason to believe in myself again. It gave me the strength to do the right thing.”
“Harrison?” he questioned and she confirmed it with a slight dip of her head.
“Harrison and Caterina. I know you’ll find the strength to do the right thing as well.” She rose up on tiptoes and brushed a sisterly kiss on his cheek before leaving the room.
The right thing, Mick thought, closed the door, and approached the bed where Caterina rested, her gaze locked on him as he neared.
Her skin had lost the flush of fever and returned to its creamy hue. Thick curly locks of her nearly black hair, heavy with moisture, rested against the side of her face.
As she turned her face and the deep blue of her gaze met his, she said, “No matter what happens at the end, you’ve done the right thing by me.”
At the end, he thought, unsure of anything other than the fact that this would all not end well for someone. Whether it was Edwards or Mad Dog or Caterina or even himself, someone would pay a high price at the conclusion of this assignment.
Mick sat on the edge of the recliner and cradled her cheek. Her skin bore a slight chill from the water and was smooth beneath the pad of his finger. So smooth and womanly.
* * *
Caterina covered his much larger hand with hers. His palm was rough. Clearly the hand of a man who worked hard with his hands. A strong hand, she thought as she trailed her fingers past his wrist and to his forearm. The hair on his arm was soft beneath her palm. His body muscled and lean until she reached the edge of the bandage on his forearm that covered the wound he had received battling for her. Another scar to add to the rest of the damage on his body.
It had to be the fever that was making her remember just how that body had felt against hers when he had held her in the pool. How he had kissed her and she had responded, awakening passion that might be better left unexplored only . . .
“Would you hold me?” She needed the human contact. Needed the affirmation that she was still a woman. A desirable woman unless she was misreading the signals he was giving.
“If holding is all you want, I may not be your man,” Mick replied and dipped his thumb down to trace the edges of her lips.
“I want more. I want to feel alive again, Mick.”
* * *
She’s using me, but it wouldn’t be the first time or the last that a woman did that, Mick thought. Considering he found her damned attractive, weird genes and all, why not give into the temptation and get it out of his system?
“Move over,” he said.
Caterina shifted to the center of the bed and he joined her there, lying on his side and facing her. Their bodies less than a foot apart.
“Touch me,” she said and pulled away the sheet, exposing the fullness of her breasts with their soft tips that beaded as his gaze fell on them.
He ran the pads of his fingers across the tip of one breast. Cupped the weight of it in his hand and rubbed his thumb across the tip until her nipples beaded into even stiffer nubs.
I need to taste, he thought and bent his head, licked the one tip while continuing to caress the other nipple with his hand.
She arched her back to give him easier access and cradled the back of his head. Moaned as he teethed the peak of one breast. He soothed that gentle nip with another lick and suckled at her breast while shifting one hand downward, across the flat expanse of her midsection. Past the delicate indent of her navel until the curls between her legs brushed the tips of his fingers.
She moved closer and threw her thigh up over his, inviting him to her most private center.
He accepted that invitation, leisurely skimming his fingers across her center until the sensitive nub swelled and a fine trembling enveloped her body. He shifted his fingers lower and experienced the wet of her femininity. Stroked her warm moist lips and teased the entrance to her center with the light touch of his fingers.
* * *
Caterina gasped as he explored her center, gripping his shoulders as he eased in first one finger and then another, stretching her in preparation for his possession.
“Mick,” she keened, shifting her hips against his hand. Holding his head to her, but wanting to feel the warmth of his body beside her.
He slipped inches away and she reached for the hem of his shirt. Pulled it over his head while he skimmed the sweat pants down his body, revealing the nakedness beneath the fleece.
She laid her hands on his shoulders once more and took a moment to enjoy all of him that was visible. The articulated and defined muscles of his body. The scars and bruises that spoke of a man familiar with danger and accustomed to violence.
But there was nothing violent about the way he touched her. About the gentleness of his mouth and hands as he resumed his loving.
She once again granted him access and he used it to full advantage, rousing her passion much as she urged him on, using her hands to stroke him. Playing him much as she might a sonata, each measured beat and pull of her hands on his erection giving him pleasure until he, too, was trembling and breathing roughly.
“I can’t wait anymore, Cat,” he said, rolling her beneath him. His arms braced on either side of her body as he slipped between her legs, but paused before entering her.
“I can’t either, Mick,” she replied and dropped one hand so she could encircle him and guide him to her center.
He sucked in a shaky breath as she gasped at his entry and held still as her body accommodated to the size of him. Thick in girth and perfect in length, he filled her completely, creating an almost unbearable pressure within her. Making her want to move on him and feel the intense friction of that long hard cock against her, but he held still, reining in his need. Letting her set the pace of the lovemaking.
She was the first to move, raising her knees to grasp his hips. The motion drove him even deeper within her, stretching her to the point of pleasure pain.
He met her gaze then, his eyes almost black with desire. A flush across the high cheekbones inherited from some long ago Aztec descendant. Full lips she wanted to savor.
She cradled the straight strong line of his jaw and brought her lips to his. Eased her tongue past the seam of his mouth to mimic the motion of their bodies. Her tongue darted along his much like he was drawing her ever closer to release with the stroke of his hips, pumping in and out of there. The friction building desire with every sure thrust of his hips.
His movements grew more hurried and she urged him on with the soft cries of pleasure she whispered against his lips and the shif
t of her hips against his. She was almost writhing against him when something suddenly coalesced in the center of her.
The energy gathered into a ball and then exploded throughout her body, pulling him into her and caressing him as her climax overtook her body.
* * *
Mick exhaled roughly against her mouth as her soft cry of completion came against his lips and the muscles of her body milked him, pulling and tightening on him as his own release hovered around the edges of his body.
She felt so good beside him. Around him, her body tightening around him. The hard pebbled tips of her breasts rubbing along his chest.
He felt the first sharp jerk of his climax as his balls tightened and at her long moan and shift of her hips, driving her ever deeper, his release erupted across his body.
He managed to drive into her a few more times, prolonging her climax, but then he dropped down onto her, drained. His body heavy against hers, but she wrapped her arms around him and urged, “Don’t leave me yet.”
Yet, he realized, glad that she understood the limits of what they had just experienced, but saddened by that as well.
He allowed himself to bask in the pleasure of her soft skin beneath him, and the heat and wet of her center as her body caressed him while he slowly softened within her.
The temperature of her body remained warm, a little hotter than normal. Thankfully nothing like it had been earlier in the night.
Guilt rose up on so many levels, but he ruthlessly drove it back, justifying what had just happened with one simple truth.
They had both wanted it to happen.
Now the question was: Where did they go from here?
Chapter 29
Mad Dog hadn’t worried about circumventing the security system guarding Mick’s office/apartment.
He wanted Mick to know he was on his trail.
Shitty digs, he thought, walking around the one room office before heading up a back staircase to the loft apartment overlooking part of the U Penn campus and the railway yards for 30th Street Station.
The layout of the loft was basic. Living and dining areas. Kitchen and a bedroom. The furniture utilitarian. A Spartan residence empty of any personal touches.
He rifled through the kitchen cabinets and drawers of all the furniture, but found nothing of interest. He returned to the office.
There were a few cabinets filled with what appeared to be old case files. No computer anywhere. Too hard to secure and so Mick probably took it with him wherever he went.
That’s what he would do and that’s probably where Mick had any of the kind of information which might lead him to where his old colleague might be hiding.
There was nothing in the apartment to tip him off.
No bills or mail. Everything probably went to a P.O. Box somewhere. No personal papers of any kind.
Begrudgingly he admitted that Carrera was damned good at what he did, but Mick wouldn’t be able to play hide and seek much longer.
Disgusted, Mad Dog plopped into the leather chair by Mick’s desk and as he did so, he noticed the paper shredder sitting on the garbage can beneath the desk.
Bending, he tossed off the shredder and saw the long thing strips of paper within the garbage can. He pulled out the paper shreds and tossed them on top of the desk. Carefully he sifted through the pieces and discovered bits of color in all the boring business white.
He pulled those soft pinkish shreds out of the pile. They were of a heavier weight, likely from an envelope. Unfortunately, most of the pieces were too small, except . . .
Mad Dog pulled one larger piece from the pile where the cross cut shredder had failed to do its job.
Printed on the pale pink corner was the start of an address. He rummaged through some more of the colorful shreds and found another few strips that he pieced together.
From one set he got part of a word: Brad.
From another just a “ch”.
Not enough, he thought, perusing the strip of paper from what had likely been a personal letter. He hadn’t been able to pinpoint any of Mick’s liabilities, but now he had a possible lead to the name of a place where there might be someone of interest to his old colleague.
Someone who would end up dead if Mick didn’t hand over Shaw.
He rose from the desk and did another search of Mick’s apartment and the office.
Nothing else provided any useful information.
As he was about to leave the office, he noticed the security camera tucked up into one corner of the room where it would provide a view of everything and everyone who entered the space.
He walked up close to the camera, wanting to make sure there was no doubt about who had paid a visit. Smiling into the camera, he slashed his hand across his throat, his message clear.
With that broad satisfied smile on his face, Mad Dog left behind the mess he had created, certain that the small bit of the address from the envelope would soon point him in the right direction for finding Mick.
* * *
Mick had been in a number of dangerous places, but none more dangerous than this.
In her arms.
He hadn’t expected the peace and contentment that had followed the sex. Amazing, satisfying, mind-blowing sex.
Each time had been different and possibly more satisfying than the first.
Because of the danger of remaining in her arms, and possibly finding the strength to do it yet again, he was trying to muster the will to leave and she must have sensed it.
Caterina propped her head on her arm and glanced at him as he lay on his back beside her. She had been resting against him, her head pillowed on his chest.
“I’d understand if you want to go,” she said and made no motion that contradicted that statement. No touch or caress. No little pout of those full and incredibly mobile lips. Nothing like what he was used to from the other women he’d taken to bed.
Which only confused him more and had him about to protest her statement when the angry buzz of his cell phone alerted him to a security breach.
“Shit,” he said as he rolled off the bed, reaching for the cell phone with one hand while grabbing his weapon with the other.
The code buzzing on the cell phone indicated the breach was at his office/apartment and not at one of the perimeter points surrounding the house.
“Stay put,” he said to her, needing to get to his laptop and find out who had broken into his apartment.
He jerked on his sweatpants, raced out of the room and to his office. With a flick of his finger across the touchpad, the laptop sprang to life to display the feeds from the house, office space, and apartment on the three monitors sitting on the desktop.
The view of the loft area was empty of any intruders, but clearly someone had gone through his things. Clothes and other items littered the floor of the apartment.
He caught a flash of motion from the camera trained on his office. Someone leaving the area? he wondered as Liliana and Caterina walked into the room.
Liliana took one look at his half-naked state and another at Caterina’s in his robe and immediately put two-and-two together. She narrowed her eyes, assessing the situation, but kept silent about it. Instead Liliana asked, “Trouble?”
Caterina walked over to him, tightening the belt on the robe as she did so. She laid a hand on his bare shoulder and that touch alone was enough to awaken need in him.
He slipped behind the protection of the desk and sat down. He worked on recovering the stored video feed to see what had happened and said to the two women, “Someone broke into my place in Philly.”
Liliana came to stand beside Caterina. Both of them had a view of the monitors as Mick replayed the video, from the moment Mad Dog had entered the location to the last few minutes when he slashed his hand across his throat.
His sister tucked her arms tight against her midsection and glanced down at him. “Is he serious or is this some kind of game he plays?”
Mick tucked his arms across his chest and leaned back in
his chair. “Mad Dog loves to play sick games and he is nothing but serious when he’s on an assignment.”
Surging back toward his laptop, he rewound to the point where Mad Dog had pieced together the shreds of paper, captured that screen shot, and sent it to the printer. The printer kicked to life and a few seconds later, the picture rolled out onto the paper tray.
He picked up the photo and stared at it, recalled the pale pink envelope that had come from his mother together with a letter and family photo. The photo was in his wallet, but the shreds of envelope and letter were the only things in his Philly place that had anything to tie him to anyone outside of his life as a hired gun.
He had been so careful to separate his two lives to avoid the violence of one spilling over into the other. Now the smallest trace of his personal life may have possibly changed what might happen next and not for the good.
He said nothing as he handed the screen shot print to his sister, who examined it and said, “It’s just some paper.”
“With part of an address I think,” he said and watched as Caterina took the paper from his sister. She perused the photo with seemingly great care and said, “An address for here?”
He shook his head. “It was a letter from our mother, so it would be our parents’ address.”
Their home was several blocks away, but even just the name of the town was enough to provide Mad Dog with the information he needed to begin his search. A visit to town and some questions to the right locals and Mad Dog would know where to find his parents. Maybe even possibly where to find him.
“It won’t take much effort for Mad Dog to pinpoint an exact address. A little longer to connect the dots to us,” he warned and held out his hand so Caterina could return the screen shot.
“What do we do now?” Liliana asked.