She pushed his thighs wide and nestled between them, placing the latex on the bedspread for later. Her lips almost touching his hot skin, she whispered, “Let’s see if I can make it go off.”
His eyes on her, he grit his teeth as she put her lips to the base of his shaft and ran them along his length. She sank her mouth over him and he flung himself out against the mattress.
Three years ago, she’d wanted to do this but never had. Now, she was more than ready. His skin was soft and torrid. Beneath her touch, he quivered. For a woman who hadn’t ever given a blow job, his reactions told her that maybe, just maybe, she was doing okay for a gal still learning the ropes.
He leaned up on his elbows and locked gazes with her. “You’re good. Too good.”
She wiggled her brows at him and licked his length. Shivering, she smiled and he groaned.
Hands of steel hauled her up and rolled her to the mattress. Wrenched her tee shirt up over her head. Vied with her own hands to unhook her jeans and peel them down her legs. “Wow. No panties. Such a smart cookie.”
She spread herself out on the bed. Beneath them, she felt the engines go from a purr to a roar. Just like her body did as he pressed the sides of her knees to the mattress.
“Like your women spread out wide, huh?” she teased him.
“I like my woman totally open to me,” he corrected her. Then he snapped on the condom and dropped inside her.
She arched into him, closing her eyes. “If this is what you’re doing for take-off, sweetie, I think I can fly all by myself.”
“We’re flying together.”
The engines revved higher.
So did hers when Grant sank closer, urged her ankles over his shoulders and rocked inside her with a hot wet rhythm.
The plane began to rumble down the runway.
She bounced along, Grant inside her.
“Whoa,” she laughed as Grant smoothly pumped away.
“Hang on!” He was chuckling, too, as he braced two arms to the headboard and held her in place with his hips and his body, buried tightly inside her. Hanging on to Grant Warwick was her major ambition in life now. He shuddered and buried his fingers in the flesh of her hips. She clamped down on him until finally he drove her up against the headboard with three strokes that took her over the edge of consciousness.
Minutes later when the plane leveled off and they had both cooled down, she hugged him to her. “That just added new meaning to the term cabin fever.”
“Take-off was never so good.”
She curled her fingers around his nape and kissed him. “I’ve never been a member of the mile high club.”
He beamed at her. “I’ll make it my duty to ensure you never again want to fly commercial.”
Chapter Eight
The late afternoon rain in Paris darkened her mood. Dreary and chilling, the drizzle had her shivering even in the new trench coat she’d bought in the boutique near their hotel. She pulled the lapels higher as she and Grant waited in a tiny café in the Marais sector of the old City for his contact at the embassy. The man was half an hour late. She sipped her thick hot chocolate, then scooped up a forkful of her raspberry gateau to offer to Grant.
His dark brows knit together in appalled delight as he took the bite, swallowed and licked his lips. “I can feel my arteries clog as we sit here.”
She took her own taste. “My thighs are spreading, too.”
His eyes lit with humor.
“Down, boy. Poor phrasing. Where’s your man?”
“If he’s not here in ten minutes, I’ll call. Been to Paris often?” he asked and sipped his coffee.
“Four, five times. For weeks when I was young and I came along with my parents when my dad was a delegate to one peace conference or other. But as an adult? No.” She covered one of Grant’s hands atop the table. “I’ve only passed through Paris on my way to some war or other.”
He gazed into her eyes. “We’ll come back and stay for a week when this is over. We’ll play tourist and go to the Louvre and Malmaison.”
“Have you ever been to Versailles?” She caught his enthusiasm for the diversion. “We’ll take the Metro. It’s so fast. I know a scrumptious bistro, open all day, dark with lots of French lace at the windows and china as thin as paper. Best of all, they serve escargot, in a huge bowl, drowning in butter and garlic.”
He laughed. “Woman, you love to eat!”
“Yes!” She feigned dismay. “And it’s a problem too.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’ve had no time to cook, but worse, when I do, there’s been no one ever to share the bounty with.”
He stared at her lips. “I can help you on both counts.”
She hoped that could be so. “When this is over?” If it ever is.
“A promise,” he whispered and dropped a kiss to her palm.
“One I’ll keep, too.”
Grant turned to look through the front glass. “Here he is.”
“What’s his name again?” Nerves were making her memory dull.
“Nick Chekov.”
“Nice Irish boy, huh?”
“Yeah. We were in the service together. He’s the assistant to the Military attaché at our Embassy here.”
She froze. So many attachés had a second job. For Langley.
One look at Chekov and she had to blink. If ever there was a body double for Grant it was this tall, heavily muscled man with a hearty handshake, big grin and a gravelly voice. There the similarities ended. Where Grant was dark, Nick was fair. Where Grant was bald, Nick had a wild crop of curls. Where Grant seemed patient, Nick talked in clipped patterns, bounding over issues as if he were on fire. He seemed to personify what Grant called him—Check.
“Who’s investigating the murder?” Grant asked him soon after he sat down and refused a drink.
“French police. Interpol came in, too. They’re finishing up the DNC now. Lucky I could learn about the note.”
“What’s a DNC?” Coco asked Check.
“Jargon.” He grinned. “Means forensics, you know, dust and clean up.”
Grant leaned forward, lowered his voice against the six other patrons in the tiny shop. “Anything you can tell me about the note? The paper it was written on? The pen or pencil used?”
“The note? Written on a phone book page. Torn out of the directory right there in Suleiman’s apartment. The writing implement? A blunt black magic marker. Must have taken it with him. Police haven’t found it.”
Grant paced. “What about the nature of the room?”
Nick shook his head. “Looks odd.”
“Why’s that?” she asked him.
“Nothing’s disturbed, except the body. He was badly beaten. But the room wasn’t tossed. Odd for a murder scene where the perp wanted to extract info. And so far, no latent fingerprints. I made a few inquiries and we can go there, if you like.”
“Ahmed’s apartment? We can get in?” Coco was astonished.
Nick nodded. “It’s about two blocks away off the Rue de Rosiers.”
Grant examined her features. “I think we should. What do you say?”
She grabbed her purse. “Let’s go.”
The apartment was on the top floor of a huge home with low mansard roof of red tiles. Nick had a key, removed the French police tape across the door frame and let them in.
“Don’t touch anything,” he advised. “Just look.”
Ahmed’s entire living space was only as large as her living room back home in D.C. Dust over the flimsy table and kitchen counters. Carpet that was stained and curling at the corners of the walls. A mattress flung on the floor, bed linens threadbare and rumpled. One big hole in the carpeting. All of it covered in transparent plastic sheeting to preserve whatever evidence remained that the police had not yet picked up for analysis.
“What’s that from?” Coco asked Nick, pointing to it.
“Police cut out the carpet where the body was in a chair. They wanted to test the rug for fibers and blood.
See if they could get anything to lead them out to a suspect.”
Grant crossed his arms. “Did they take anything to the lab besides the carpet?”
“Not as far as I know, no,” Nick responded.
“So then, this is all he had?” she asked Nick as she pulled open the only closet door. “Did they take his clothes?”
“I would assume.”
“All his furniture, too?”
“There were no major pieces of furniture except that table there. As you can see from the surfaces of the counters and some of the items spread on the floor, the forensics guys dusted for fingerprints on what was here. But they’ve gotten only Suleiman’s prints.”
Coco was troubled about Ahmed’s possessions. “What about a computer?” Coco pressed him. “Have the police looked at his files, his emails?”
Nick shook his head. “No computer.”
Grant turned to Coco. “Do you know if he had one?”
She shrugged. “He got in touch with me by email. I just assumed he had a computer.”
Grant put his hands on his hips. “He could’ve gone to an internet café to email you.”
She winced at that. “Too public. Too much foot traffic in a place like that and a possibility that he’d be hacked.”
Grant and Nick stared at each other. The two of them fixed on her at the same moment with almost the same question. “Could he have had a laptop?”
She walked the perimeter of the tiny room. “One way to learn that, minus the hardware itself, is to see if he had a hard-wired internet connection.” She stopped and pointed. “Here.”
Coco had a deeper feeling of foreboding and looked at Grant. “Ahmed contacted me via email. If he accessed his email account through his own computer—desktop or laptop—then he may have other info on there.” About me. Others who attended the Stars of the Desert meeting. “This murderer is a radical, that much I know. And if he has a list of people from Ahmed’s computer that he wants to act on, so many more people could be in danger from him.”
Grant bent to the floor and peered at the cut wire through the plastic layer. “Forensics should check the fingerprints on that cable.”
Nick agreed. “If you two know special facts about this case, you need to talk to the Paris police yourself.”
She caught Nick’s gaze. “I can’t. I’m with the Agency, too. And what I know is very top secret.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “I see. That changes things.”
She tipped her head. “Meaning?”
“I’ll let you know what else develops in this case.”
“Good of you,” she told him. But she didn’t feel good at all. Not about the cable or the fact that the police had missed its significance. The hair on her arms stood up and she clasped her arms together. Was she just cold?
Grant stood, “Have the police gotten any ideas about why his tongue was cut off?”
Nick glanced at Coco, and she knew he was deciding if she could take the ugly answer. “Either he told them what he wanted to know…or he didn’t. Do you both have any idea what the murderer wanted from Suleiman?”
“Yes,” Coco admitted and hated to.
Grant said, “We need to learn before he hurts anyone else.”
Nick inhaled. “I hear you. Let me do a hustle on the cable analysis. How long are you both here for?”
“We leave tomorrow.” Grant told him, grabbing his hand. “Thanks for this.”
“How do I get in touch with you?”
“Cell phone,” Grant told him and gave him the number. “It’s a secure line.”
* * *
Grant hailed a taxi to take them back to their hotel. Their ride was a silent one. He was reviewing the interview with Nick and making a list of items he had to investigate on his own. Without Nick. More work for Todd. Grant wondered if Coco was assessing the same issues. She was certainly quiet enough and he decided to let her be. Minutes later, he took her arm as they climbed the steps of the George V to the reception area. “Let me check the desk. I expect a package.”
Sure enough, he had the small special delivery that Todd had sent from Washington this morning. This would brighten Coco’s mood. He grinned. I’ll make certain of it.
As they took the elevator up to the tenth floor, he asked her what she’d like for dinner. “We’ll go to one of my favorite restaurants and dine on all the fish and cream and butter you can stand.”
“We’d better work out in the morning to get rid of the flab!”
“We will.”
“What do you have in the box?”
“Surprise,” he told her as they left the elevator and stopped at their door. “For your eyes only.”
“She spun in front of him to walk backwards past their living room to their bedroom. She dropped her purse to the floor and widened her eyes at him. “Surprises, huh?”
“Mmm. But you have to work for it.”
She opened her coat, unbuttoning it and loosening the sash. “What kind of work?” She let the coat drop to a chair as he backed her to the wall and nuzzled that special spot behind her ear.
“Take your clothes off and I’ll show you.”
She reached to the hem of her tee shirt to rip it off, but he caught her hands.
He led her toward a six-foot-tall cheval. “Come here in front of the mirror. Do it now.” He whipped off his trench coat and positioned one of the chairs to face her. Then he sat, toed off his shoes, dispensed with his socks and unbuckled his belt and his fly. Hard as hell for her in an instant. The package in his fingertips, he crossed one ankle over a knee. “I like to watch.”
“I remember.” She winked at him and arched a brow at the box. “Let’s see if I can inspire you.”
She began to move in slow motion. A lift of her tee shirt here, a slow unzip of her jeans there. A bump. A slither. A flash of material as she flung her shirt up over her head and threw it at him. He laughed as he peeled it from his face. She twirled to face the mirror and there in the glass, her deep purple gaze met his. Her mouth was open, her lips plump and wet. She shimmied out of her jeans, her hips and her thighs and her long sleek legs. No panties. She was into the dance of it now, away from her troubles, her eyes half closed, her cheeks pink and her breath picking up tempo.
Like his.
She did a little bump and grind and her jeans slid slowly as molasses down to her ankles. He swallowed hard on desire. He loved her knees, he hadn’t lied the other day. He liked her calves, too. Hell, even her toes were a turn-on. He was so damn lost in her.
She whirled around. Her fingers of one hand lifted a breast, like an offering to him. Yeah, that was his. One of her hands drifted lower, swept down her waist and paused at her navel. That was his too.
“Come here, pretty lady,” he beckoned her in rough voice, “I’ve got something for you.”
“I did well?” she asked as she straddled his legs and sat, her hips tilted up.
His body strained at the fly of his trousers and he could feel the surge that demanded he take her soon. He sank two fingers inside her wet channel. “Very.”
She licked her lips. “Gonna let me see what’s in the box?”
He found her sensitive spot and teased her delicately. “Before or after?”
“Hmmm. How about during?”
He barked in laughter. Sent his fingers up inside her higher.
She bucked.
“On the bed,” he ordered her. As she climbed off and took his hand, he grabbed the package. And where the hell was a condom?
When she got to the bed, she sat.
“No,” he instructed, “on your back.” Appreciating her compliance, he ripped open the brown wrapping paper, slipped the string off and had to pause to admire her.
Coco had slid onto the golden coverlet, her arms above her head, her eyes gleaming at him in anticipation. He inhaled, his nostrils flaring with the sight of her. The box slipped from his fingers but he caught it.
“Come closer, sweetie,” she pleaded, petulant. “And fo
r god’s sakes, will you please take your pants off?”
He grunted as he stripped. “Oh, no, you had me in the jet. Now it’s my turn.” He thumbed open the box, admired in a glance the workmanship of the gold ring on the stud, encrusted with five tiny diamonds. He extracted it. The box fell to the floor. He put the ring over one knuckle of his index finger and climbed up on the bed.
She wiggled to get closer to him.
He shot her a warning look. “My party, babe.”
She swallowed, her lips parting.
He smiled and went back on his haunches to admire the pretty picture of this woman whom he’d never thought he’d have again. He covered her mound with an open palm. She was hot surrender, writhing.
He dropped a finger inside her. Juicy and hot.
“Pet me,” she pleaded.
He stroked her seam. Dipped between her silken folds and she groaned, swelling in sweet response. He wanted her, but he wanted to prolong the ecstasy, double the pleasure.
She pressed up, a cry in the back of her throat. “You want me to beg?”
“Maybe later, we play that game.” Truth was, he had no more patience. Each time he had her, he needed more and needed her more urgently. He slipped his index finger along her seam her and gently let the tiny polished diamonds massage her clit.
“Oh! God!” she crooned. “What is that?”
“You like it?” he continued to caress her and rub the jewelry against her sweet ball of nerves.
“I do, I do,” she groaned and moved with him, drenching her channel and his fingers in more hot juice.
He fucked her with his fingers, rhythmically, forcefully, once, twice, until he had to have a taste of her, pulled his fingers out and bent down to lick her. She groaned, clutching at him, until he pulled away and spread her legs wide.
Lucky for him, he had dumped a fistful of condoms in the nightstand drawer right after they’d checked in. He yanked the drawer open, tore one off and snapped the latex on. In the next second, he buried his cock deep inside her.
“Oh, yes!” she shouted as she gripped his hips and held.
Admiring how she floated in her rapture, he couldn’t move. Not for a long minute or more. But lust took over where love had led, and he sank inside her down to the hilt. Consumed, he pumped into her at a clip that stunned him, holding her as if he’d never let her go. She arched, offering up herself to his relentless claim, until he felt her insides clench and throb. She tumbled into a fast, hard orgasm and he followed. He sank to her side and pulled her against him. His lips against her forehead, he caught his breath and stroked her back.
Tall, Hard and Trouble Page 18