FOR HIS EYES ONLY

by Candace Irvin

  Reese raked a hand through his wet hair. "You heard."

  "I was listening." She paused, nearly choking on the irony before admitting it out loud. "Dillon's right, you know."

  He released her chin, only to capture her hand. "No, he isn't. Nothing happened."

  Nothing? Guilt cooked off her top layer of skin as the memory came snapping back. Nothing?

  Reese chuckled, the fire in his eyes not at all related to embarrassment as he squeezed her hand. "Okay, a hell of a lot just happened. And for the record, it was not part of some nefarious plan of mine. But—for lack of a more polite word—penetration did not occur."

  Another layer went up in flames.

  He pressed on, trapping her chin once again. "And it won't, now that I know the rules."

  She tugged away, but he brought her right back.

  "Not here."

  He couldn't possibly mean—

  "That's exactly what I mean. I swear to you, I won't touch you as long as we're on this ship." He dropped his hands to either side of her, using them as leverage until his lips were buried in her hair, pressed to her ear, his growl low, his breath hot, "But, honey, you'd better watch out, because the second your foot hits the pier, you're mine."

  And then he was gone.

  She drew a shaky breath. Just how was she supposed to respond to that? Agree? Argue? Maybe she shouldn't do either. They still had another night underway. Maybe she should take the reprieve and think long and hard about Karin's advice. Having sex didn't mean they were headed down the road to marriage. Look at Jeff.

  But she'd have to keep it light this time. She'd have to keep her heart out of it. Because if she didn't, she had a feeling Reese would leave her razed to the ground when he left.

  By the time she found her composure and looked up, he was across the space, yanking open a drawer in the wall unit.

  He pulled out a set of worn gray sweats matching the ones he had on and tossed them at her before turning away. "Now, get dressed, woman. We have to talk, and I can't concentrate with your shirt hanging open."

  He knotted his fingers over the towel at the base of his neck and sighed. "You might want to do something with your hair as well."

  What? Stunned, she stared at his naked back. He expected her to just strip down to her underwear and change while he just stood there?

  "Don't worry, I won't look."

  Undercover agent. Photographic memory. Did he read minds, too?

  "Just yours."

  Now that was a lucky guess. It had to be. She started to stick out her tongue, but thought better of it. Just in case. She flushed again as she kicked the coveralls to the deck and hopped off the rack. It was a good thing she looked good in red. She had a feeling she'd be wearing it for a while.

  She was changed in under thirty seconds, but loitered for another thirty as she cinched the drawstring around her waist and cuffed the sleeves, all the while savoring the feel of snuggling deep in Reese's sweats. If she was only imagining they still carried his musky scent, she didn't want to know.

  "Okay, done." She gasped as he turned around. With the desk light inches from his thighs, she made out the angry scratches across his abdomen. "Oh, God, I am so sorry."

  Reese froze. For a split second, panic gripped him. Blessed relief followed as he realized Jade was referring to the scratches on his stomach. For a moment, he thought she'd actually apologized for initiating the best sex he'd ever had—and that was saying a hell of a lot, since they hadn't done it all.

  He smiled ruefully as she headed for the sink and soaked his washcloth before ringing it out. "Don't worry, the sting's already gone. The second you kissed me, a much lower ache took over."

  He chuckled as she blushed, then choked back a groan as she pressed the cloth against his stomach. Damn, that felt good. Too good.

  "Well, it's your own fault. Why didn't you tell me it was you when I opened the door, anyway?" She washed off the streaks of blood and rinsed the rag.

  He held his breath as she pressed the cloth to him again, tracing the scratches down to his groin. "At first I thought you were Dillon or Coffey." He pointed to his Glock on the desk as he tried like crazy to ignore her hands. "By the time I realized it was you, I was trying to ditch that while dodging knees and keys."

  He bit back another groan as the cloth flirted with the edge of his sweats. That rag was doing a hell of a lot more to enflame his lust than it could ever do to cool the scratches. If she didn't get her hands out of his pants soon, his promise was going to shatter into a million pieces. Personally, he was all for it. He didn't give a rat's ass about the Navy's rules.

  But she did.

  And that was enough for him.

  He grabbed her wrist as it made another achingly low pass. "Honey, you keep that up and you're not going to make it to the pier. It's going to happen right here, right now."

  She jerked her hand away, looking everywhere but his rapidly tenting sweats. She finally turned away altogether, laying the damp cloth over the edge of the sink and fingering it nervously. "Sorry."

  She cleared her throat and turned back. "You—ah—said we had to talk. Did you find out anything?"

  He took pity on her. There'd be time enough to torture her later. When they were truly alone. Besides, right now he needed information. And much as he knew she wouldn't want to hear his questions, he was hoping she'd have the answers.

  He guided her back to the bunk, flipping on his Walkman with its tiny speaker for cover noise as she settled in, cross-legged. Then he dragged his desk chair across the cabin and straddled it backward. He took her hand, wishing he could delay the inevitable.

  For once, he didn't want to say it. Because once he did, she'd know Coffey was officially a suspect.

  Surprisingly, it was her hand that squeezed his. "Just tell me."

  He sighed. "I found it."

  She blinked. "It? I don't understand. What exactly did you find? Oh, my God—you found it."

  He nodded.

  The confusion and disbelief gave way to horror. "You really found heroin? In the NSF?"

  He nodded again, waiting for it to sink in before he pushed it further. But he didn't have to, she was right there with him. He wasn't surprised—she was sharp. It was one of the things he admired most about her.

  "Oh, God, you found it in the office, didn't you?"

  "In a storage cabinet across from their desks."

  She was perfectly motionless—for about ten seconds. Then she laced her fingers and began twisting them back and forth, her knuckles white. "I see. Do you think they could be in on it together?"

  That was pretty much the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, wasn't it? And he wished to hell he had the answer. He shrugged. "At this point, I honestly don't know. The container was locked and looked like one of about fifty others I searched. It's possible one of them could be doing it alone."

  "Describe it."

  Huh? What was the point? He knew heroin when he saw it. But this was Jade, so he humored her. "Brown, uncut. I saw four units—about three kilos—but there could be more—"

  She shook her head. "Not the heroin, the container."

  Aah. He spread his hands two feet apart. "About this big—a square silver box with a lid. It looked like anodized steel to me."

  She leaned forward, tightening her grip on his hand. "Was the outside marked in any way? Was there an orange symbol on it? Something that resembled a ship's propeller—a large dot with three blades radiating out?"

  So that's what that was. "Yeah, as a matter of fact it did. I was going to ask you about it."

  "Oh, my God." She stiffened, staring at him, but not at him.

  "What?" He squeezed her hand, then eased off, afraid he was crushing her fingers. "Jade, what is it?"

  She finally focused on him. But the horror was still there in the swirling gray depths. "Reese, you just described a ship-to-ship transport container."

  "A ship-to-ship—?" Holy Mother of—

  She nodded. "We're n
ot the only one involved. You may have found your heroin—but you found something else as well. There's a least one more ship in the loop."

  Son of a bi—

  "Did you see anything else on the outside? A label? A name or a set of letters followed by a number? Most likely written on something temporary, like masking tape."

  "No. I didn't get a chance to really look at the box before Dillon showed up, but I don't think so."

  "Dillon showed up? Why didn't he say anything in the passageway?"

  He chuckled as she crushed his fingers. "Relax. He never even knew I was there. Though you're probably going to take some grief for the mess I left."

  She waved his warning off. "Don't worry about it. At least he'll have something legitimate to whine about for a change."

  True. "Anyway, I do know this batch wasn't radioactive. Your chief tested the shelves before I began."

  She slumped back against the bulkhead. "That's a relief. So now what? Are you going to confiscate it as evidence?"

  "Not yet."

  "But—"

  Guilt swamped him as she tried to stifle a yawn—and failed. He was going to have to make sure she got a decent night's sleep when they finally hit port. "It's okay, the stuff's not going anywhere. I think the reason it's still there is because the regular guy is out of commission thanks to radiation burns. Whoever put it in that container is too smart to move it now. He won't make a move until he has someone to hand it off to. And when he does, I'll be ready."

  "But in the meantime—wait a minute…" Her gaze narrowed to steel gray. The same shade he'd seen it turn on several occasions when she'd grasped the problem at hand and hooked the solution.

  He liked that color.

  "When did you say the last deal went down—exactly?"

  He checked the date on his watch. "Five weeks to the day. Why?"

  "Because not only do I go to PB4T, I take notes." She leaned forward and reached for the khaki pants crumpled at the bottom of the rack. "Could you hand me those? I need my wheel book."

  PB4T? Wheel book? And he thought his father was bad. He handed over the trousers, waiting patiently as she pulled a small green tablet she and about every officer on the ship carried. Okay, so that was the wheel book, but that still didn't explain PB4T.

  "Yup, here it is." She stopped to cover another yawn and then continued, "Five weeks ago we were working on six nukes."

  Man, her yawns were contagious. He suppressed one of his own and then held up a hand. "Whoa, you want to try that again—this time in English? And start with the PB4T."

  "Sorry." She grinned. "I forgot you don't speak Navalese. PB4T—Planning Board for Training. All the department heads attend once a week to hammer out and fine-tune the ship's schedule. I'm there because of the Damage Control drills. Anyway, the point is the Repair Officer attends."

  Now it made sense. He smiled. "Coffey and Dillon's boss."

  "You got it, Sherlock. But what you don't have are the names of the ships the Baddager was servicing five weeks ago. I do."

  "So what are you waiting for?" He reached for the wheel book, but she snatched it away and laughed.

  "A trade." She glanced down to the mini-refrigerator at the head of the bed next to him. The one she'd coolly informed him was purchased and installed especially for his pampered butt just before he arrived. The Captain even had it stocked.

  He grinned, leaning over to whip it open. "What's your poison?"

  "Anything—as long as it has plenty of caffeine."

  He pulled out a cola, cracked the seal for her and handed it over before taking one for himself. "Now, talk."

  He dropped his can to the back of his chair, no longer needing it as she took a long swallow from hers. The husky sigh that escaped her as she lapped the bubbles from her upper lip packed one hell of a jolt—more than caffeine ever could.

  He was awake now.

  "Talk." But his voice was hoarse.

  She took another sip and then pointed to a list of names in her wheel book. "I'd start with these bottom three."

  He glanced at them as he polished off his soda. "Why?"

  "Because the level of contamination that produced those blisters on your informant most likely came from contact exposure to the primary power supply in a propulsion plant. That leaves the bottom three ships—because they have nuclear power plants on board." She smiled as he rubbed the back of his neck and continued, "Let me put that in layman's terms."

  "Please do."

  "Somehow, that heroin—directly or indirectly—touched the uranium core."

  He crushed the empty can.

  "Exactly."

  He hooked the can across the room, nailing the trash in mid-basket, his gut doing the dance of the Titanic as he turned back. "You're telling me there's no way the heroin could simply have been packed next to a contaminated machine part while it was in the NSF, aren't you?"

  "It is possible, but highly unlikely. I think your best bet is one of those ships. In fact, I'd lay money one of them had a core breach. If the ship was run out of specs—kinda like running an economy car at a hundred and twenty miles an hour for a while—that would contaminate the containment water surrounding and insulating the uranium core."

  She took another sip. "I'd lay odds the heroin was packed in one of the valves that control the flow of that coolant water." She handed the wheel book over. "Reese, you find out which ship ran out of specs—and you'll know where the heroin came from."

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  « ^ »

  Jade ignored the taunting chuckle inside her mind as she yanked the sweatshirt down over her head.

  Reese's sweatshirt.

  So she'd held on to it for a day. If she wanted to wear it one more time before they headed into port in the morning, there was nothing wrong with that. Besides, she'd have to wash his sweats before she returned them, anyway, right?

  Who you trying to convince, Missy? You or me?

  She stuck out her tongue as the laughter died out, then glanced at her watch. Rats. She still had fifteen minutes to kill before she headed to Karin's stateroom for the movie. Reese's movie. Somehow, Karin had bribed a copy from a sailor—probably threatened him with an extra battery of shots.

  Sorority Rush.

  The title said it all. She'd lay odds at least twenty minutes of footage was filled with screaming debutantes running bare-breasted through the night. But she was curious. Karin did rave over it. Then again, Siskel and Ebert Karin wasn't. She thought Freddy Krueger was a gas. Maybe it was the doctor in her. All you had to do was give her a little blood and guts and she was yours for life.

  She sighed as she tugged the bobby pins from her hair, pulling the French braid over her shoulder. Somehow, she'd suffer through.

  The laughter picked up again.

  Okay, so her curiosity had a bit more to do with the movie's male co-star than she wanted to admit.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  Jade froze, her fingers threaded halfway up her braid. Speaking of co-stars…

  Please, God, don't let that be Reese.

  She didn't know what she'd say if he caught her in his sweats.

  She forced herself to relax. It couldn't be him. Reese said he'd be tied up in paperwork for the next two hours at least. Besides, even if it was him, she didn't have time to change.

  The door thumped again, this time impatiently.

  She took a deep breath, praying Reese hadn't decided on a break, and opened the door.

  Karin stood in the passageway, grinning like the village idiot as she brandished a VCR tape and a steaming bag of microwave popcorn. "Got it!"

  Jade slapped a hand around her wrist and yanked her inside. She snapped the door shut and leaned back against it, her ears straining for the slightest sound of Reese stirring next door. Whew! The coast was clear. She sighed and pulled away from the door.

  Karin arched a brow. "My, my, someone's anxious to see Macbeth in action after all."

  "Do you think you co
uld be a little louder next time? Reese is in his stateroom." Unease swamped her as Karin plopped down on the rack, obviously settling in for the long haul. "What are you doing here, anyway? I thought we were supposed to meet in your room."

  "We were, but my VCR just broke. Sorry." She shrugged and popped a piece of popcorn into her mouth.

  Sorry?

  "Relax—you have one. We'll just watch it here."

  "No!"

  Karin tossed the tape onto the mattress, her gaze narrowing suspiciously. "Why not?"

  The question seemed simple enough. On the surface. Unfortunately, the answer wasn't. Jade shifted beneath that steady stare, finally looking away altogether, studying the carpet intently. "Because."

  "Because…?"

  She couldn't look her in the eye. "Just because." Because what if Reese caught her? What if she couldn't hide her feelings? What if he figured out he'd really gotten to her?

  What if he figured out she cared?

  Would he use it against her? Would he push her into a physical relationship she wasn't sure she was ready for—let alone able to handle? Not now, anyway. Maybe not ever.

  "Jade?"

  She glanced back at Karin, into blue eyes that were compassionate—and far too knowing.

  "You want to talk about it?"

  Yes—no.

  Not yet, anyway. "I—I need some time."

  Karin nodded. "Okay. Sure you're up to a movie?"

  Not by a long shot. But this wasn't just any movie. It was his. Maybe it would help. Maybe staring at Reese for two hours without him really staring back might help make up her mind. Anything was possible. Besides, what else was she supposed to do before watch tonight?

  Sleep?

  She stared at the bulkhead behind Karin. The one separating her rack from his by a quarter-inch of gray steel. How could anyone sleep knowing Reese Garrick was that close? She certainly couldn't. The last two weeks had proved that.

  Jade snagged the movie from the bed and opened the center doors of the wall unit, revealing her small television. She sighed as she slid the tape in and punched Play.

  Karin reached over and squeezed her hand briefly as she settled down on the rack. "Just give it time. You'll see—it'll work out."