by Cindy Dees
When he saw her coming, he climbed aboard the vessel and reached out to take her bags from her. Their gazes met, and his gleamed hotly with inappropriate thoughts…no doubt the same inappropriate thoughts streaking through her head. She looked away hastily.
She started to climb aboard and wasn’t surprised when he held a hand out to help her. Normally, she’d ignore such offers. After all, her balance was superb. But she took Jeff’s proffered hand anyway. Of course, it had nothing to do with her ongoing craving to touch him, to feel his energy flowing through her, yin to yang, chi to chi.
His fingers were warm and strong and steady and sent a rush of something feminine fluttering through her. And then an awful thought struck her. He was her boss now. First order of business was to quit touching him. Regret stabbed her. And kissing—definitely no more kissing. Darn it.
“Buckle in,” Jeff murmured. “This baby can fly.”
The driver nodded over his shoulder at both of them and the vessel leaped forward, skimming across the black, glassy surface of the Caribbean, circling around Timbalo Island in mere minutes and pulling up at a wooden pier. She followed Jeff to shore, where a helicopter waited for them. With the ease of long experience with the birds, she stepped under the rotors and passed her bags to Jeff inside the sleek Eurocopter EC 155 with its distinctive built-in tail rotor.
She climbed inside and wasn’t surprised when Jeff took the seat directly across from her. The helicopter lifted off and she asked him, “How long to Barbados?”
“An hour and change at top speed.”
She nodded. Paused. Nope, she couldn’t resist. “Mind if I ask you a question?”
He flashed her those killer dimples of his. “Anything, darlin’. My life is an open book to you.”
“Why’d you get so mad at Chainsaw for calling me a chick? Believe me, I’ve been called a lot worse and I’m still in one piece.”
His eyes went a turbulent shade of sapphire. “Commander Hathaway asked me the same thing.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“I told him I expect my men to act like gentlemen and didn’t appreciate Chain calling you that. I mentioned the need for my guys to accept the reality of female Special Forces operatives, too, I think.”
“In other words, you didn’t tell him the truth. Did he buy your answer?”
Jeff’s dimples flashed. “Not for a second. But he didn’t press me on it.”
“Why did you jump him?”
He gave her a reproachful look. “Do you really have to ask? Even Commander Hathaway knows the answer to that one without having to hear me say it.”
An urge to gulp nearly overcame her. While it was flattering in the extreme to have a guy this charming and handsome and sexy laying claim to her like this, she wasn’t at all sure how it was going to impact their mission.
“What’s wrong?” he murmured.
Her frown deepened. She wasn’t even sure she could put it into words. “What have you done to me?”
The corner of his mouth tipped up. “I kissed you. And given how flummoxed you seem, I’d say I made quite an impression on you.”
“You don’t have to look so satisfied with yourself.” She grumbled.
His smile broadened, but he wisely made no reply.
“You don’t understand—” she started.
“Then explain it to me. What’s got your feathers so ruffled?”
She exhaled hard. “I’m…a warrior.” She paused, searching for words.
“So am I. And your point?”
She glanced up, relieved to see he wasn’t laughing at her. In fact, he seemed to be concentrating intently on her. Which was perhaps more unnerving. “My life is devoted to a principle. To discipline. To duty. To…honor.”
He nodded encouragingly, apparently still waiting for the big reveal.
“That’s it,” she huffed. “That’s the problem. I don’t have time for…other pursuits.”
“Why ever not? My life is about honor and discipline and duty, but I still have time for a personal life.”
“I don’t see you with a wife and two kids and a minivan.”
He shrugged. “I hadn’t met you yet.”
“But don’t you see? I’m not about having two kids and a minivan!”
He stretched his legs out until his ankles tangled with hers. “That is going to present us with some logistical issues, isn’t it? I understand your desire for a career. Hell, I’m not ready to hang up the old rifle yet. I guess we can wait until we’re both done with the Special Forces to start a family.”
Exasperation shot through her. “Will you quit talking like I’ve already agreed to marry you? I’m not even sure I want to date you!”
“But you want to kiss me again, don’t you?”
An urge to scream bubbled up in her throat. Damn if he wasn’t exactly right. She took a deep breath, held it for a count of ten and then released it very slowly. Familiar calm flowed over her, washing away the foreign emotions cluttering her thoughts.
She would face this problem head on. Calmly. Rationally. Honestly. “Yes, I do want to kiss you again. I want to do a lot more than that with you.”
He sucked in a sharp breath as she continued. “I also know it is not the right thing to do and it would interfere with the mission. Therefore, I shall set my desires aside and focus on the task at hand.”
“Just like that?” He sounded surprised.
“Just like what?”
“You can turn off your feelings like a light switch? No random imaginings of getting naked with me? No speculation on what making love with me would be like? No trouble keeping your gaze from going places it shouldn’t? You can just decide to set all that aside, and it’s done?”
She blinked, startled. She hadn’t really considered if the actual execution of her plan would be hard or not. She’d only gotten as far as it being the right thing to do.
He leaned forward abruptly, startling her. He popped her lap belt and dragged her across the space between them and onto his lap. She should’ve broken his wrist, but somehow she ended up sprawled across his thighs, his mouth slanting down toward hers, his hands plunging into her hair, and she let him.
Somehow she ended up arching toward him, her body taut with need. Somehow her mouth ended up plastered against his, her hands moving frantically across his chest, her entire being vibrating with uncontrollable need. Somehow the buttons of his shirt opened beneath her fingers, her palms flattened against his hot flesh. A moan escaped her throat and she all but crawled inside him. She turned in his arms until she faced him, straddling his hips with her thighs. How her own shirt fell open, she had no idea. But when his hands closed upon her throbbing breasts, she didn’t think twice about pressing more deeply into his hands, about writhing on the hard bulge between her legs, about making a good-faith effort to extract his tonsils with her tongue.
Jeff murmured laughingly, “Honey, my hat’s off to you if you can turn this off on command. There’s not a chance I can do it.”
Whether it was a sigh or a sob that escaped her lips, she wasn’t sure. But she knew she wanted him worse than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. Beneath his clever hands she danced, responding to every touch, every caress, every stroke and pluck upon her aching body. How her pants got unzipped, she had no idea, but she couldn’t fail to notice when his fingers invaded her most private space, driving her half out of her mind. Pleasure completely overtook rational thought, spinning her up and out of herself, to a place of heat and light and tingling sensation that took her breath away.
And Jeff was there, all around her, between her thighs, against her breasts, kissing her neck, breathing her in. And it felt…so…good.
Eventually thought stopped altogether, and she flung herself into the drowning glory of the moment.
“Honey, you’re killing me,” he muttered.
She pulled back to stare at him. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”
He responded with a pained laugh. “I thought you
were the one who was supposed to be able to turn off this thing between us. Don’t count on me to be all noble and stop it. I’m not that strong.”
What was “this thing” between them, anyway? She struggled to form intelligent thought, but the current of her lust was incredibly powerful and sweeping her wildly forward toward oblivion.
“What have you done to me?” she managed to whisper.
“Bluntly put, I believe I’ve turned you on. And Lord knows, you’ve done the same to me. Ain’t it grand?”
She laughed ruefully and pressed her forehead against his. Grand didn’t even scratch the surface of it. “We’ve got to stop, you know.”
“Yeah. I know. Here I go, setting you off my lap, buttoning up our shirts and thinking serious, mission-related thoughts.” He didn’t move a muscle as he uttered those words, other than to run his fingers through her hair, smoothing strands of it lightly across her breasts.
How had her hair gotten out of its usual French braid?
“Okay, your turn to do something,” he muttered.
“Right. I’m climbing off you. Going back to my own seat. Meditating until my mind is clear.” Her fingers traced the line of his jaw, the outline of his ears, the shape of his mouth.
“We’re formulating our plan of attack for Barbados now,” he mumbled. “First order of business…take you to our hotel room and get you naked…”
She nodded soberly but couldn’t keep the twinkle out of her eyes. “And then we talk to the police and come up with a brilliant plan to trap the Ghost while lying in bed together watching the sun rise.”
He laughed. “I love the way you think.”
Gradually, sanity was beginning to return to her. She sighed. “And then the Ghost gets away, we fail at our mission, and we let down General Wittenauer and American citizens who are counting on us.”
The laughter in his eyes dimmed. “There is that.”
She looked deep into his cobalt-blue eyes. “What are we going to do?”
He sighed. “I suppose we’re going to try it your way for a while.”
His big hands spanned most of her waist as he gently lifted her off his lap and placed her back in her own seat. Abruptly abashed at her earlier boldness, she fixed her clothes and re-braided her hair. She ventured a gaze over at Jeff, and he was studying her inscrutably. Had he really succeeded at shutting down his lust? What was the world coming to when a fun-loving good ols’ boy had more discipline than a highly trained martial arts master?
He murmured, “Working with you is going to be a royal pain in the ass, you know.”
“Why?” she blurted.
“Because we’ve got to set this thing between us aside for now. And I’m going to spend every waking minute wanting to put my hands on you again and hear you make those sounds again and taste you again…”
She gulped. Oh. Yeah, that.
Okay. So deciding not to have any feelings for him and not to react to him hadn’t worked out so well. Time for Plan B. They might not be able to control what they thought or felt, but at least they could control what they did. And they both obviously lost all self-discipline once they touched each other. From here on out they were simply going to have to observe a strictly hands-off policy. No kissing, no handholding, no casual brushes against each other. Yup, it was going to suck rocks. But what other choice did they have?
Chapter 7
They pulled up in front of police headquarters in their rental car a little before midnight. She observed while Jeff did the talking. He was very smooth and managed to extract a few details about the latest theft, but the police held their cards close to the chest.
Kat and Jeff wandered toward the exit, and when no one was paying attention, ducked down a side hall that brought them to the evidence locker. Jeff flashed her a Special Forces hand signal to fall back. One eyebrow raised, she did so, fading into the shadows well down the hallway.
And then his tactic became clear. He bellied up to the check-in window and plied his considerable Southern charm on a female evidence officer, who in short order was hanging over the gate and flirting right back at him. Kat had to give him credit. The woman was putty in his hands in a matter of minutes.
Almost as fast as she’d succumbed to him, dammit.
Kat barely registered the additional details he coaxed out of the woman. If that woman leaned much farther forward, she was going to fall out of her uniform. Jeff must be getting an eyeful of the woman’s ample cleavage. Only one painting taken last night from the Valliard place.
Oh, and now the chick was fondling her top button, toying with the idea of “accidentally” slipping it free. Hussy. The Monet was, indeed, stolen sometime in the past twenty-four hours.
If that woman licked her lips one more time, Kat was going to lick them for her—with her knuckles. The police strongly suspected the Ghost based on the complete lack of evidence left behind.
Jeff pocketed the slip of paper with the woman’s phone number on it and turned to sashay down the hall. Kat fell in behind him, closing on his six like a dutiful wingman.
Not that she felt the least bit dutiful at the moment, however. Equal parts fury and humiliation swirled in her afterburners, making for an explosive mix. Had she fawned all over him like that? Had he flashed her a smile and a suggestive look or two over dinner and then watched her fall into his arms on cue? He was insufferable to behave like that! And she was a fool to have fallen for him like some gullible groupie.
Except that his desire for her had been real. She might not know much about men, but she was dead certain he hadn’t been faking in the helicopter. Desire being the operative word, however. For all his big talk about her being his soul mate, so far he’d only actually displayed a large dose of healthy male lust for her. And he’d turned on the charm for another woman fast enough.
Hah. And he said he never used sex to help with his work. She might have hassled him about it, but she had no desire to further probe the little green monsters bouncing around in her stomach.
One thing she knew for sure. She was a mess. How Jeff Steiger had managed to throw her this totally off balance this fast, she had no idea. But she didn’t like it. When they got to their hotel, she was having a nice long meditation and getting him thoroughly out of her system—regardless of her failure to do so in the helicopter.
As for the job at hand, there wasn’t much to mull over about the theft. There was no sign of forced entry. An excellent security system had inexplicably been circumvented. The caretaker had worked there for thirty-five years and had an airtight alibi for last night, not to mention a sterling reputation on the island. It was the Ghost, through and through.
On their way out of the police station, they ran into the detective in charge of the art theft investigation. The guy seemed none too pleased that they were still hanging around.
Jeff asked the detective, named Elgin D’Abeau, “Would you mind if we went out and had a look at the Valliard place in the morning?”
All guise of friendliness evaporated. “Sorry, mon. Dis is a police mattuh. Stay out of it, and tell your people to stay away, too.”
Kat assumed that by “your people,” the detective meant the American government. Yikes. Lack of police cooperation would spell big trouble for their op. Time for a quick intervention.
She spoke up smoothly. “As you know, Detective, Mr. Steiger represents certain American interests. I, however, do not.” She caught the flash of surprise in Jeff’s eyes, and also how quickly he masked it. He was good, all right.
Time for a little flirtation of her own. After all, what was good for the gander was good for goose. She smiled intimately at D’Abeau and let her hand drift up to the detective’s shoulder seemingly of its own accord.
“Actually, I work for Lloyd’s of London—” her hand drifted lower. Slid off his elbow and fluttered to her throat. “I’d appreciate it if you could keep that under your hat—you understand—the sensitive nature of this case—”
She tucked a lock of erra
nt hair behind her ear, running her fingertip suggestively around her earlobe. She let her voice go breathy and took a small step forward, bringing her subtly but definitely into the guy’s personal space. “I wouldn’t dream of interfering in any way, of course—”
His nostrils flared, and his pupils expanded sharply as he nodded in agreement.
Time to go for the kill. “My employer is deeply concerned about this string of thefts and Lloyd’s would like to offer any assistance we can in the matter. I’ll see to it personally.” Loaded emphasis on the deeply and the personally, of course.
The detective swayed forward, a slow grin unfolding on his face. He purred back, “Of course, Ms. Kim. I completely understand.”
She’d bet he did. She continued in her huskiest voice, dripping with all the sex she could muster. “Of course, my firm wouldn’t want to cause a fuss by advertising my presence here—perhaps even scare certain residents into leaving the island. I must ask that you exercise the utmost discretion regarding mentioning my affiliation—deeply appreciative and all. Our intent is to stay completely clear of your investigation, of course.”
For good measure, she stroked his arm again. The guy about came out of his skin. He drawled, “Lloyd’s, is it? Well now, little lady. I’m proper glad you’re here. We’d be grateful for any help you can give us. You understand that I can only help you unofficially.”
“But of course. I’d have it no other way. I’m happy to share anything I learn with you. We understand each other, then. I’ll make sure my American associate behaves himself.” She let a hint of disdain enter her voice as she referred to Jeff.
Thankfully, Jeff was lightning fast on the uptake and didn’t react to her comment. But if she wasn’t mistaken, there was a certain whiteness about his mouth—or maybe it was the clenched fists jammed deep in his pockets that gave away his tension.