Sam stared out the window of the taxi that was taking them across town. He couldn’t believe they’d had sex without a condom. First time in his entire life he’d done that. He’d tried to stop her, but . . .
Inwardly he shook his head at himself. Like hell he’d tried to stop her.
He’d been so completely blown away by the fact that she wanted him again. And he knew that if he had stopped her to get a condom, she would have come to her senses.
So he hadn’t stopped her.
What followed was his fault entirely. He’d assumed he could handle it, handle her. He’d thought that he could give her what she wanted, that he’d have enough macho control to keep himself from losing it and getting her pregnant.
It was a stupid thing to think. Doubly stupid because he knew, he knew, that simply entering her without a condom put her at risk for pregnancy.
But, oh, sweet Jesus, the way she had felt around him . . .
He sneaked a look at her, sitting as far from him as possible, looking pointedly out the other window. One of his sweatshirts was draped over the handcuffs that still connected them, and she held her jacket up to her breasts—hiding the fact that with her T-shirt wet and nearly transparent, she looked like a contestant at some low-life frat bar party.
She could be pregnant.
It wasn’t as terrifying a thought as he’d expected it to be. In fact, the idea of his sperm inside of her right now, maybe connecting with her egg right this very moment, was an undeniable turn-on. A piece of him inside of her for nine whole months . . .
It just didn’t happen to be the piece of him he wanted inside of her for nine whole months.
And of course, after nine months, there’d be a friggin’ baby—that was pretty terrifying.
But not as completely mind numbing as he’d thought.
Marry me.
He looked at the smooth line of her cheek, at the way she’d pulled her hair back from her face in an attempt to control it, to look professional and cool.
All that ice was just a cover for the volcano that burned inside of Alyssa Locke.
He’d always thought that a night with her would cure him of his obsession.
He’d been dead wrong. After last night, he wanted her more than ever. He wanted her forever.
Marry me.
He could say the words right now. He didn’t have to wait to find out if she was pregnant. Marry me and I’ll fuck you every night for the rest of our lives.
Sam laughed out loud. Yeah, that would go over really well. Women wanted romance. They wanted love. Even women who pretended to be ice cubes like Alyssa Locke.
But Alyssa didn’t love him. Hell, she’d made it more than clear she didn’t even like him despite the fact that she more than liked having sex with him.
She glanced at him, shooting him her disapproval. There was nothing about this situation that she found funny. His laughter was only making things worse.
The taxi pulled up outside the parking garage, saving his sorry ass. He let Alyssa pay for half of the cab fare with a five-dollar bill she had in the pocket of her jeans. No way was he going to start an argument over that.
“Can you wait?” she asked the driver. “He’ll be right back—he’ll need a ride back to the hotel.”
The he she was referring to was him.
She wasn’t going to drive Sam back. They were going to the exact same place, she had a car, but she wasn’t going to give him a lift. She hated him that much.
She must have seen something in his face because she said, “I’ll pay for the cab,” as they started for the stairs that would take them to the level where her car was parked.
“I can pay for my own cab,” he told her, careful to leave out the adjectives he was thinking, trying not to sound as pissed off as he felt. Getting into a fight with her now, mere seconds before they unlocked these handcuffs, wasn’t going to help.
Although help what, he wasn’t sure. What did he want from this?
To sleep with her again tonight.
Okay, King of Wishful Thinking, that wasn’t likely to happen. Try again, this time keeping it realistic.
He wanted her to be comfortable enough with him so that she’d let him know if she’d gotten pregnant from what they’d done this morning.
Yeah, that was about all he could hope for.
Sam cleared his throat as they climbed the last of the stairs. “If this ends—you know, the situation with Osman Razeen and Meg Moore—in the next few days, I’ll, um, call you in about a week, to, um . . .”
“I’ve got your email address,” she cut in. “I’ll send you a an email when I know for sure I’m not pregnant.”
He could see her car now. Right where they’d left it yesterday. It seemed like a lifetime ago. “And if you are?” he asked quietly.
She wouldn’t look at him. “I’m not.”
“If you are, please talk to me before you make any decisions,” he said. “I deserve at least, you know, to know.”
Her face was devoid of all expression, all the light and life of the woman he’d laughed with and made love to last night completely suppressed.
“All right,” she conceded. “If I don’t email you, I’ll call you. But I’m not going to have to call you.”
She was, however, going to have to follow him, today and the next day and the next . . . Because she thought he knew where Nils was.
And Sam knew that he wouldn’t be able to stand it. Having Alyssa continue to follow him for the next few days was going to drive him completely mad. He didn’t want to have to see her, to think about her.
To ache for her.
“I don’t know where Nils is,” he told her as she unlocked the trunk of her car. “Really.”
And there was her fanny pack. Aqua. As he watched, she unzipped it and pulled out a heavy ring of keys.
And then, with a click, they were free.
She pulled on her jacket despite the heat of the day.
“I did know for a while, right after he left,” Sam contin-ued. “You were right about that.” He told her about WildCard’s tracking device. “I’m positive Nils caught up with Meg within twelve hours of her being gone. But he hasn’t called—at least not me. I seriously doubt Meg killed him, so I’ve been going on the assumption that they’re still together. In fact, I’ve been expecting Nils to turn up with Meg in tow any minute now, ready to surrender Razeen to the FBI.”
Alyssa was silent, just listening to him.
“Nils has a real thing for this woman,” he explained awkwardly. “I think he, you know, maybe even loves her. He’ll bring her in. Just give him a little more time.”
She nodded, rubbing her wrist. “Will you call me if he contacts you?”
“Yes, I will.” Was he lying? He didn’t really know. Had she been lying when she’d told him she’d call him if she were pregnant? Probably. God damn it. He wanted to cry. There was nothing left to do but walk away from her now. “So now you can stop following me, all right? I think it would be best for both of us if you didn’t follow me anymore.”
She nodded again and got into her car.
That was it. No good-bye. No thanks, it was fun. No see you later.
Because she didn’t want to see him later. She didn’t want to see him ever again. Not even if she were carrying his baby.
Sam watched her pull out of the parking spot, watched her drive toward the exit.
He savagely kicked one of the enormous concrete pillars that held up the parking garage, but even the pain in his foot didn’t take away the pain that was in his heart.
“Damn it!” Meg said. “Damn you for following me!”
“Pull in here,” Nils ordered her, and she took a hard right turn into the massive parking lot of a resort hotel near Disney World.
The van hadn’t followed them.
Meg had hit it so hard, the front axle had broken. Nils had looked back to see the front left wheel listing at an odd angle. Those assholes weren’t going anywhere—not in that
van. And being amateurs, they hadn’t brought a backup vehicle.
Still, he’d had Meg keep driving. They’d gotten on and off the highway until Nils was convinced no one was following them. No doubt they were too busy running for cover after tossing off that shot. The police were probably on the way after that genius move. Nils could only pray that the Extremists didn’t have anyone watching the place. If they did, Amy and Eve wouldn’t be kept alive much longer.
Meg came to a stop with a jerk of the brakes and turned off the car as she glared at him.
She was mad at him. He’d saved her ass, and she was mad at him. She’d been seething while she drove, but now she let it all out. “You could’ve been killed!”
“So could you have!” he countered. “What was your plan? Shoot Razeen with the handgun you’ve got in your boot?”
He saw from her eyes that he’d surprised her. She hadn’t realized he knew about the backup weapon she was still carrying in her boot.
Her hands were shaking, and she tried to hide it by crossing her arms, tucking them out of sight.
Nils wanted nothing more than to hold her, to reassure himself that she was truly all right, but instead he lit into her the way Senior Chief Wolchonok would’ve gone after one of the younger members of the team who’d made a stupid mistake.
“What do you think would’ve happened after you’d done that, Meg?” he asked. “Didn’t it occur to you that shooting Razeen might’ve pissed those guys off? Didn’t it occur to you that if you killed him, they’d kill you?”
“Yes,” she said just as heatedly, “that did occur to me!”
And she’d been ready to do it anyway. She would have done it anyway. That was how desperate she was.
“I was minutes from checking in,” she fumed. “Minutes. And the girl behind the desk told me that someone’s been calling—frequently—to see if I had arrived yet. I was that close!
“Now what?” she continued. It was getting stale in the car, and she rolled down the window, her movements jerky, filled with fury. “Why are we stopping here? You’ve got a gun now. You can take me in. What are you waiting for, Nilsson? This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Nils took the clip out of the little Uzi he’d taken from one of the K-stani thugs in the Seagull Motel parking lot and held it out to Meg. “I’m waiting for you to surrender your weapon voluntarily and ask me for help. At which time I’ll contact my CO and Max Bhagat, the FBI agent in charge of this investigation. It’s possible that the FBI have found out where the Extremists are holding Amy and Eve. Wouldn’t you like to know that?”
She snatched the clip from his hands. “If the FBI have located Amy and Eve, it’s also possible that the Extremists know it, and have already killed them in retaliation! I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, remember?”
For a moment, Nils was certain she was going to cry, that she was going to crumble and break down, but this time she didn’t. She pulled herself together, sat up straighter. Her face pale, she turned to him. “Get out of the car.”
Nils reached for her. “Meg, god damn it, let me help you.”
She pulled away from him, opening the door and taking both the clip from the Uzi and the keys with her. “Get out of the car, John.”
Christ, she was bending over and taking the little handgun out of her boot.
“You don’t need that,” he said to her as he got out.
“It’s the end of the line.” The look in her eyes chilled him to the bone. He wasn’t afraid for his own safety. He didn’t doubt for one second that she would die herself to protect him. But if he didn’t stop her, she was going to kill Razeen—and regret it for the rest of her life.
“The Seagull Motel was my contact point with the Extremists,” she told him, her voice oddly flat. “I was supposed to check in and wait to be contacted. But I can’t go there without being attacked by the GIK. And after what just happened, the place is going to be crawling with police.”
“Meg.” Nils moved slowly around the car. Why the hell had he given up the Uzi? He should never have let her regain control of this situation. He should have realized how close she was to the edge.
And just how little she felt she had to lose.
It stung knowing that she didn’t include what he wanted, what he felt, in her equation. It hurt knowing that—aside from her wanting him to be safe—he wasn’t a factor that she considered when deciding whether or not she should sacrifice her soul and her life.
And whose fault was that, but his own? He’d never shared enough of himself. All those hours they’d just spent together in her car, and he still hadn’t told her jack about himself.
Yeah, he’d burped out the fact that he loved her, but she hadn’t believed him, and he hadn’t made an attempt to convince her it was really true.
So now she didn’t have a clue how much she stood to lose.
“I can’t go back to the motel. I have no choice,” Meg told him dispassionately, as if she’d detached from herself. “Now I’ve got to kill Razeen, and pray that the Extremists hear about it and believe that it’s real, pray that they release Amy and Eve after the news is out.”
“Meg, you’re not going to kill him. He’s not even awake. You promised him you wouldn’t—”
“I am awake.” Razeen’s voice came from the car. “It is okay, Meg. I am ready.”
Oh, fuck.
“Stay back, John,” Meg ordered. “I have to do this. I don’t have a choice anymore.”
He didn’t stay back. He moved in front of the car, between Meg and Razeen.
“There’s always a choice,” he told her again. “You could do it this way, sure. Murder this man.” She flinched at his choice of words, and he ruthlessly used it again. “Murder him and gamble that the Extremists will then release your daughter. Or you could let me help. You could let yourself trust me. Let me contact the FBI, let me get us the help we need.”
“It is an unnecessary risk,” Razeen’s voice floated out of the car, “when killing me will get you exactly what you want—your daughter.”
Nils raised his voice and talked over him. “In exchange for Razeen, in exchange for your cooperation, because you’re under duress, the FBI will drop all charges against you. I’ll make sure of that, Meg. Once we locate Amy and your grandmother, I’ll make sure my commanding officer, Lieutenant Paoletti, is in charge of the SEAL team that’ll do the rescue op. He and Bhagat will work with you, Meg, to find and free them.”
“Shoot me and save Amy,” Razeen urged.
“With the FBI and SEAL task force’s help,” Nils continued, willing her not to listen to Razeen, willing her to hear him out, to keep looking into his eyes, to stay connected, “we can go back to the Seagull Motel and wait. We’ll get the local police and the motel owners to cooperate. You told me yourself that someone’s been calling for you—that’s good. That means the Extremists probably haven’t been watching the place. They probably don’t know anything about what just went down. We can go back there, we can, Meg, and the FBI will grab any GIK members who show up, attempting to free Razeen. With the FBI’s help, we can still get that phone call from the Extremists. And when they do call and tell you where to meet them, I’ll go with you. I’ll pretend I’m Razeen.”
Meg shook her head. “Absolutely not.”
“I’ll use makeup—shading so I look more like him. I’m a little taller, he’s a little heavier, but I’ll stoop and wear padding. You know I can do it.”
“If you go in as Razeen, you’d be putting yourself at tremendous risk,” she countered. “They could kill you right away!”
“I’ll wear body armor.”
“That won’t do any good if they shoot you in the head!” Heat was back in her voice. And even though she was arguing with him, it was far better than that near zombie flatness that had scared him to death.
“This is actually a better plan than you going in with Razeen,” Nils tried to make her understand, “because if the Extremists have no intention of releasing Amy and Ev
e, then I’ll be in there with you, with all of you. You’ll have a better chance of survival—Amy will have a better chance, Meg—if I’m there. You know this.”
“Except if they kill you right when you walk through the door!”
“If we do this right, if we use the Troubleshooters, let them do what they—we—have been trained to do, you and I won’t even have to get out of the car. Meg, you’ve got to listen to me—”
“Meg, do you remember what I told you?” Razeen wouldn’t shut the fuck up. He was desperate not to be turned over to the authorities, desperate to die as a martyr to his cause at her hand. “My death will save your daughter and bring me peace,” he said from the backseat of the car. “It will bring justice.”
Troubleshooters 02 The Defiant Hero Page 37