Beautiful Sacrifice: A Novel

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Just enjoying you,” she said.

  Then, slowly, she released him. He shuddered and forced himself to be reasonable.

  “Boots,” he growled. “Will you strip while I undress, or are you shy?”

  “I was. Before you.”

  Her eyes became even more heavy-lidded. She toed off her low shoes and opened her tailored pants. Before she could lower the zipper, Hunter had kicked off his boots and was shoving his jeans over his feet. His underwear and shirt followed. By the time the narrow waist of her pants reached her curvy hips, he was naked, watching her.

  And she burned, watching him in return. Slower now, she shimmied out of the bottom of her pantsuit, feeling a little embarrassed and a lot aroused by the stark male hunger in his eyes. His eyes never left her as he ripped open a foil packet from his jeans and put on a condom. Her simple underwear caught in the pants fabric. She lifted her hips and tugged harder.

  “Darn my big butt,” she said between her teeth.

  “Big? Hell, no.” His hands swept off her tangled clothes and kneaded the curves in question. “Sweetheart, you have the most amazingly perfect ass I’ve ever seen. Makes me want to…bite.”

  He leaned down and did just that, sucking hard, his mouth leaving a brand against her rich skin. She cried out in surprise and pleasure, then in shock as his mouth moved lower.

  “I—can’t,” she said, writhing beneath his hungry tongue. “I’ve never—”

  Turning away from the shy feast he’d barely tasted, he kissed the inside of her thighs and murmured, “Next time. Or the time after. I want you like I’ve never wanted a woman. All of you, sweetheart. Everywhere. Everything.”

  Lina moaned at the same time a rush of liquid heat left her core. Before she could draw another breath, he came back up her body like a storm tide, covering her, tumbling her around and around, entering her, engulfing her. She hung on to him with her arms, her legs, her mouth, everything she was, moving as he did, giving and taking and demanding. Then she cried out as her body bowed in an arc of passion that turned her inside out, breaking her and remaking her with each wave of release.

  Hunter locked deep inside her and rode her orgasm until he could no longer hold back his own. Release pulsed and racked him until he was empty, fulfilled, and knew only her. Breathing hard, he licked the slow tears from her cheeks.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked.

  “No. You…” Another wave rippled through her. Deep inside, she clamped down on him, milking him. “So good.”

  “Amen.” He shuddered as he felt her caressing him, holding him sweet prisoner.

  When she was finally still, he rolled aside. He knew he should separate their bodies and get rid of the condom, but he felt too damn good to move.

  “This could be addictive,” he said against her skin.

  Her breath sighed out and her hands stroked the slick heat of his back. “I’ll risk it.”

  Reluctantly he pulled out of her. She made a disappointed sound.

  “Condom,” he said.

  She mumbled something and snuggled under the covers while he disposed of the protection.

  “Shower?” he asked, turning over and reaching for her.

  “Sleep.” She burrowed close to him, skin to skin.

  He pulled the bedspread over them and was asleep before his head hit the pillow. So was she.

  HUNTER AWOKE AS HE HAD SLEPT, A SENSUAL TANGLE OF HEAT and flesh, female and male. He watched the sun spill across Lina’s face. Dark hair, eyelashes black half circles against her creamy brown skin, her lips full and red. Her beauty made his heart ache. They had reached for each other again and again during the night and he still wanted her. Knowing that she wanted him in the same way was a miracle he was still trying to absorb.

  He looked at the digital clock on the small bedside table. It was early, but tourist towns worked long hours. Crutchfeldt and his staff should be awake. From what Hunter had found out about the man, he was up at dawn and lying in the sun like a lizard until the sun went down. All work was conducted at poolside.

  The clock told Hunter it was time to get going, to find out who El Maya was and make sure he would never threaten Lina again.

  But all Hunter wanted to do right now was sink into Lina so deep they would never be separate.

  Caught between what he should do and what he wanted to do, he forced himself to slide slowly from the bed. The room was warm, not only with the day but with a whole summer’s worth of heat still captured in the cinder-block walls. He retrieved his cell phone from his jeans and went to the living room with long, silent strides.

  The first call he made was to the nurses’ station on Jase’s hospital floor. Ali had told them that he was Jase’s brother, so getting information wasn’t a problem. A nurse reassured Hunter that Jase was doing well, a lot better than expected. His condition had been upgraded to good.

  Relief went like wine through Hunter’s system. He savored it for a moment before he went to the living room, where his computer had been plugged in for a charge. The workstation in the corner of the living room was mildly messy and quite dusty. He booted up his computer and read quickly—e-mails from contacts answering his queries, and from his uncles concerning background checks.

  Snakeman had been deported in record time.

  The body count at the second death house was up to eleven, but only a few of them had had their hearts removed.

  Why them? Why not the others, too?

  No one had any answers, or even hints of answers. None of the gangbangers who had been arrested had talked. They didn’t know nothing from nothing. Each one of them had claimed he was just couch-surfing at a friend’s place and he’d been arrested for no reason but racism.

  And rats have wings covered in booty dust.

  The dead janitor had a mother and two teenage sons living across the border. When questioned, they admitted that the sun rose in the east and set in the west. Other than that, they only knew that the dead man had sent money south and now he didn’t. The grandmother was terrified. The grandsons were sullen.

  The crime-scene photos an ICE contact had sent were as ugly as Hunter’s memories.

  Nothing new.

  Certainly nothing useful.

  The quick, but not careless, background checks his uncles had done yielded little more than Hunter had already guessed or known. Lina’s parents lived separately. Other than a single scandal about artifacts that were sold from Reyes Balam land without government approval and a public drunkenness charge when Philip was a freshman, there were no flags in any official files that had been searched.

  Carlos had indeed been a bad boy in his early teens, but had grown into a citizen in good standing with two governments. There were bare hints that he might be unofficially working for and/or being investigated by DEA. Not surprising for the Mexican-born CEO of a cross-border enterprise in these days of open narco warfare. Two ex-wives, serial mistresses, no children.

  De la Poole was single, upper class, educated, connected, and clean.

  Crutchfeldt not so much, but he didn’t have any official black marks on his record on either side of the border. Reading between the lines, there was a good probability that he snitched on illegal artifact middlemen from time to time, which kept the cops off his own back.

  Probably taking down competitors, just like the narco “informants” do, Hunter thought.

  He kept reading swiftly. Everything he saw made him believe that if he was going to find the shooters and whoever they worked for, it wasn’t going to happen north of the border. The people in the United States who might have answers were dead or lawyered up. As much as he’d like to beat the truth out of the gangbangers, he had a gut feeling that any real knowledge had been lost when Snakeman went south.

  Hunter punched up a travel Web site and checked availability. From the look of it, they’d just added more flights to Cozumel to accommodate the holiday-season demand. He booked several different flights on the family business account, paying extra
for fully refundable tickets.

  Wonder how good the Reyes Balam bodyguards are?

  Good or bad, Hunter would find out. He wasn’t letting Lina out of his sight until he was sure she was protected. Then he’d go hunting in Mexico, where rules were different and life was lived a lot closer to the bone.

  But first, Crutchfeldt.

  “Hunter? Where are you?”

  Lina’s voice floated through the silence like music. The huskiness told him that she had just awakened.

  “I’m just checking on Jase.”

  “How is he?” Her voice was as anxious as Hunter had been before he talked to the hospital.

  “Good,” Hunter said. He left the computer and headed toward the bedroom. “Out of danger, stable, recovering faster than anyone expected.”

  “That’s wonderful!”

  When he got to the bedroom, she was propped on one arm, the sheet loose around her breasts. She was more beautiful to him than ever, goddess and woman, as deep inside him as his heartbeat. Deeper.

  She watched him with equal intensity.

  “Don’t look like that, sweetheart,” he said huskily.

  “Like what?”

  “Like I have another party hat in my jeans.”

  “You’re not wearing any jeans,” she said, her glance traveling over him with open approval. “Not wearing anything, in fact.”

  “Neither are you.” He bent over and kissed her slowly, thoroughly. “We’ll take care of that when we get some new clothes, Padre style. Do you think Crutchfeldt would like to show us through his collection?”

  Lina slowly surfaced from sleep and the desire that curled lazily through her. “Crutchfeldt? Why would he?”

  “You’re Celia’s daughter. You’ve heard so much about his collection from your mother, and you happened to be in the area, yada yada.”

  More awake with each second, Lina thought about it. “He just might. He’s arrogant, proud, and likes to be admired for his scholarly and discriminating taste.”

  “Perfect. Bat those fantastic eyelashes at him, make suitable cooing sounds, and generally take his mind off of business.”

  She grimaced. “Ugh. That’s what Celia does. The batting and cooing.”

  “Works, right? Men can be very simple creatures.”

  “Simon Crutchfeldt is odious,” Lina said. “He’d wade through blood to get to an artifact he wants.”

  Hunter’s eyes narrowed. “Literally?”

  “There are rumors…” Lina’s long fingers moved restlessly over the bedspread. “But rumors aren’t truth. I don’t want to spread lies, even about him.”

  “Are those rumors about a network of grave robbers and bloody middlemen who funnel artifacts through Mexican government contacts to Crutchfeldt?”

  She gave him a startled look. “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Part of any security operation is gathering information. My uncles are good, and two of my cousins are even better. Born hackers.”

  “Crutchfeldt.” She said it like a curse. “I can’t decide whether to shower before or after we see him.”

  Hunter laughed. “I’ll shower down the hall while you decide. Because if I shower near you, we’ll be in severe danger of making a baby.”

  Lina got up. She’d much rather have lured Hunter into bed or into the shower, and knew he felt the same way. But she didn’t object aloud. They had used up all available condoms. Not that she didn’t want to have a baby. She did. Just not nine months from today.

  Sometimes being an adult sucked.

  Hunter watched Lina’s beautiful butt disappear into the bathroom. He grabbed his clothes, showered, and dressed quickly. A circuit of the house told him that nothing had changed since the last time he’d made the rounds shortly before sunrise. Nobody parked nearby, nobody sitting on a porch, no new tracks in the yard or near the Jeep.

  He went back to the house and straight to his uncle’s safe. The combination hadn’t changed. He opened the safe, counted out a wad of cash, took one of the penlights, removed his boot knife, and left a note with his signature. He ignored the handguns and the cache of emergency documents in case he needed a new identity. He shut the safe, smiling.

  Lina thought he was paranoid. His uncles were paranoid. They had learned the hard way.

  By the time Lina had showered, taken what stains and wrinkles she could out of her clothes, and dressed, Hunter was through fixing breakfast in the kitchen. Toast, peanut butter, orange juice, coffee. Not a feast, but it would keep them going until they found better. They both ate quickly, knowing the meal was meant to be fuel rather than a dining experience.

  “No complaints?” he asked as he ditched their paper plates.

  “About what?”

  “The food.”

  “We don’t have freezers and greengrocers and chefs at dig sites,” she said, rinsing out their coffee cups. “We eat what we pack in and are glad to have it.”

  He laughed, slid his arms around her waist, and nuzzled her freshly washed hair. “I really like you, Dr. Taylor. You don’t need perfumes and spas and boutiques to make you sexy.”

  “A night with you would make any woman feel sexy.” Then Lina heard her own words and blushed.

  “Same goes. I’m lucky I can walk this morning.” His teeth closed gently on her ear, his tongue savored delicate skin. “Now march that beautiful ass out to the Jeep before I get us into trouble.”

  She took the warning and grabbed her purse on the way through the living room. She noticed the open computer, but left it for Hunter to deal with.

  By the time Lina was strapped in the Jeep, Hunter was striding out, computer under his arm. All male, lithe as a big cat, he took her breath away. With a mental curse she reined in her thoughts.

  “Do you want me to call Crutchfeldt now?” she asked as Hunter got into the driver’s seat. “Or do you just want to show up at his door?”

  “You have his number?”

  “He called me a few weeks ago, looking for Celia.” Lina pulled her cell phone out of her purse. “He should still be in the memory.”

  “Good. We’re on a short clock. Get us in as soon as possible.”

  Hunter drove into the commercial section of town while Lina made nice on the phone with a man she would rather have sliced into fishing bait. He admired her professionalism and hated that he’d asked her to do something so distasteful to her.

  But then, holding a bloody rag over a bullet wound was nobody’s idea of nice either. She’d done it without a flinch or a complaint.

  I like her way too much, Hunter realized.

  Then he smiled. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he knew it. At some level it scared him. He knew what loving and losing was like.

  Hell on earth with no time off for good behavior.

  “In an hour,” Lina said, closing her phone. Like her mouth, her voice was flat. “He just oozed anticipation over meeting Celia’s oh-so-respected Ph.D. daughter.”

  “Good work, Lina. Thank you.”

  “If it will help Jase and his family, I’ll deal with the devil.”

  “And you,” Hunter said quietly. “Don’t forget your own safety in this. I sure don’t.”

  Her mouth tilted in an upside-down smile, but she didn’t say anything.

  South Padre Island unrolled on either side of the Jeep—malls and tourist traps sprouted like crazed mushrooms alongside new two-story houses and smaller homes that had been in place for some fifty years or more. The damage from the last hurricane was a memory gathering dust in storerooms along with the plywood used to cover windows during a blow.

  It was cooler than Houston, but not by much. The morning sun caused heat ripples to rise out of the asphalt. The breeze from the sea was more hope than actual relief. The swampy smell of the slow-cooking wetlands to the west of them pervaded the humid air like invisible smoke.

  Hunter parked near a strip mall with a gas station on one side and a discount chain clothing store in the middle, and tourist tr
aps full of trinkets on the other end. In between was everything including a liquor store, a fake fingernails “spa,” a check-cashing company, a small grocery store, and a Thai restaurant.

  He reached into his wallet and pulled out cash. “Get what you need.”

  “I have credit and debit cards,” she said.

  “Cash only. No paper or electronic trail until we have to show our passports to get on the plane to Cozumel.”

  Lina stared at him with wide, dark eyes. “Were we followed to Padre?”

  “Not yet, but there’s no point in leaving a trail of bread crumbs.”

  “You’re paranoid.”

  “I’m alive.”

  She let out a breath. “I’ll pay you back.”

  “Whatever. Just make sure you have two changes of clothes and shoes you can run in. The sort of stuff you could wear on a dig or at the beach. Are you on birth control?”

  She blinked. “Ah, no.”

  “Good. Then we don’t have to worry about getting you meds.”

  “I can live without vitamins, but a toothbrush would be very nice.”

  “No problem. We’ll pick them up along with a new stock of party hats.”

  Lina bit back a smile. “Colors and flavors?”

  He gave her a hot sidelong look. “Want to pick them out?”

  She blushed, laughed, and shook her head.

  With a last check around the parking lot, Hunter followed Lina into the store. His eyes were never still, but he didn’t find anything that set off his internal radar. They hadn’t been followed past the edge of Houston and nobody seemed interested in them now.

  Once in the store, Lina quickly found what she needed. Even if she’d been the shopping kind of woman, this wasn’t a place she would have lingered. But shopping was something she did when she had to, with a list in hand. Like jaguars were climax predators, she was a climax shopper; she knew what she needed, she took it when she saw it, and that was that. The only thing she tried on was a pair of all-purpose athletic shoes. She threw in socks and a pair of flip-flops and took her armload back to where Hunter waited, watching other shoppers.

  “Your turn,” she said.

  He went through the men’s department with an efficiency that spoke of long experience with unexpected trips and living off the land. His last selection was a cheap sports duffel that could hold everything the two of them had selected. He paid for the lot at one of the checkout stands. As soon as they were in the parking lot, he put everything into the duffel and headed for the market.