by Julie Leto
Ian stretched his ministrations to her spine, pressing his thumbs along her discs, following the path downward to the middle of her shoulder blades. His touch, so like the man, was sure and decisive and strong. Everything about him was controlled precision, right down to the way his breath caressed her ear when he spoke.
“Too much sedative and he would have died anyway.”
With tiny movements, she shook her head in denial, not wanting to do anything that would make him stop. She knew he wasn’t lying, only oversimplifying. Her heart cracked at the thought that this man would seek to mollify her when her mistake had nearly cost him the life of one of his most valuable agents. Suddenly, he wasn’t acting so superior toward her. There was equality in the way he touched her, as if for once, she possessed something he wanted. Maybe it was just sex. And maybe she didn’t care.
The moment had grown intimate, but she couldn’t harness the willpower to break free. His kneading lulled her muscles into sweet surrender, though her mind struggled with defiance.
“Killing doesn’t bother you?” she asked, her throat dry and cottony.
He stepped closer, his chest and thighs nearly in complete contact with her body. With deep pressure, he rubbed his palms up and down her arms. She could hear the slight rasp in his breathing, a telltale hitch that revealed a viral clue about his aroused state, even more so than the increasing length of his erection against the small of her back.
“I’m bothered when one of my people dies, but otherwise, all’s fair in love and war. These aren’t boy scouts we’re dealing with. They’re conscienceless thieves and murderers.”
Despite the sultry hum of his voice, she heard an indignation there that gave her the power to turn around and face him eye-to-eye. As she suspected, the centers of his irises were wide with the darkness and the tension of true, unbridled desire. He wanted her, and God help her, she wanted him back.
Sex is so sweet after you’ve faced death. And won.
Frankie’s words slipped back into her brain, like a warning she was sure he’d never intended. The need coursing through her blood, lighting the tips of her breasts on fire even as they scraped against the cool, stiff cotton of Blake’s shirt, wasn’t real. It was adrenaline. Pure and inescapable. They’d succeeded in their mission, despite the unexpected turns. She couldn’t deny her innate attraction to Blake, but her passion for him now was only a lack of resistance, born on the wave of her regret and his compassion, enhanced by a natural attraction she’d repressed up until this very moment.
His hands slipped down to her thighs. Her muscles were still shaking, still reacting to the overflow of hormones pumping through her body from the confrontation with death and destruction. His palms seemed to soothe the quaking to gentle trembles, even as her flesh ignited with unbearable heat.
This wasn’t real—which was exactly why she could so easily tilt her head back so he could lock his lips on her neck.
The sensation exploded on her skin. Images of fire and wood hurling through the air and splashing into dark, unforgiving water faded from her mind. She concentrated on the silk assault of Ian’s mouth, the moist pleasure of his tongue.
He caught her brief stumble by bracing his hand on her back. He tugged her closer so that the pressure of his hard sex against her body tripped her over to the next level of arousal. He murmured words she didn’t even try to understand while his mouth dropped lower, teasing the nerve endings across her shoulder blades, forcing the world and reality farther into the darkness. Away from here. Away from any thought that could stop him and therefore stop this delectable pleasure. He curved his hand around her backside, then reached between her legs and pressed the seam of her pants until her blood thrummed with pounding need.
Then she made a mistake. She looked up. Even as his chin tilted and his eyes locked with hers to prepare her for an inevitable, potentially world-shattering kiss, she recognized the full breadth of what she’d been about to do and rolled slowly out of the way.
He didn’t chase her.
She forced her fuddled brain to remember what they’d been talking about before lust and simple, bone-wringing need overwhelmed her senses and sent her spiraling into a fantasy world where she could screw her boss and not ruin her career.
Oh, yeah. Death. Her favorite topic.
“We aren’t executioners, Blake. We don’t get to pick who lives and who dies.”
The words sounded entirely hollow, no matter how sure she was that at some point in her life, she’d believed them with all her soul. Right now, her mouth was spouting theories about life, death, and morality while her mind whirled with images of naked bodies and wet, intense kisses that banished the world to another realm. But the erotic images were relatively easy to push away. All she had to do was think about Pan lying semi-lifeless on the bottom of the skiff beside her.
Two men—almost three—had died this week because of her. She couldn’t berate herself indefinitely, that she understood. Blake had a point. Men like Nestor Rocha and Ricky Ochoa made their choices and expected, some day, to die because of the lives they led.
But she suddenly realized that if she continued in the employ of Titan International she’d have to accept the possibility of her own inevitable death as well.
And that, she couldn’t do. Not tonight. Not ever.
“I think you need to leave now,” she said, digging her hands into the back pockets of her pants, knowing the heat effusing over her body was just an illusion, a crutch, a purely physical reaction to an emotional situation she’d been unprepared for. This time. But never again.
He looked at her with one tilted eyebrow, as if her reaction surprised him. “Are you sure?”
She nodded, then grinned wryly. “You’re not the kind of guy who likes to take advantage of a woman who’s just been through hell, are you?”
He matched her cynical expression. “Never. But I am the kind of guy who’d help you forget that hell, if only for a little while. No strings. No questions asked in the morning.”
The idea tempted her more than she’d ever admit, even if he was her boss. Most of her lovers, Frankie included, subscribed to the machismo belief that they could satisfy any woman, any time, without even trying, and that they had the God-given right to prove their prowess to each and every attractive woman who caught their eye. Blake possessed the same self-assurance—but she imagined he didn’t have to demonstrate his prowess to anyone. Not even himself.
So she was fairly certain he wasn’t insulted when she glanced longingly at the door.
He smiled—only the second genuine grin she’d seen on him since they’d met—straightened, and walked toward the exit. When he spoke, the soft sound of compassion had slipped away, replaced by the clipped tone of professionalism. “Perez will contact you tonight.” He removed a cell phone from his pocket and tossed it on the bed. “Use this monitored phone for all communications. Don’t agree to go anywhere until Frank returns, which should be soon. I’m sure you’re anxious to see him.”
She nodded, but kept her face stoic. She’d let her guard down enough with him tonight, allowed herself a taste of temptation she couldn’t afford. For once in her life, Frankie represented safety and security. How the hell had that happened?
Fourteen
THE BUZZ BROUGHT Ian awake instantaneously. With only the slightest fumble in the dark, he pressed the button on his nightstand without so much as rattling the crystal snifter he’d left there, untouched.
“Blake here.”
Max’s ever-present voice drifted into the darkness. “The call is in.”
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He couldn’t have been out for long. “What time is it?”
“Four A.M.”
Barely three hours.
“Doesn’t the man think his assassins deserve a little sleep?”
“Apparently, he’s anxious to set up the meeting.”
“Who’s doing the talking?”
“Marisela.”
Ian’s chest tig
htened. “Pipe it in.”
With a smooth transition devoid of crackles or pops or static, the conversation between Marisela, in the role of Dolores Tosca, and Javier Perez drifted into the room. Ian rolled back onto the pillow and hooked one arm behind his head. With the briefest nudge to his imagination, he could picture Marisela in the bed beside him talking to their client’s ex-lover—a much more palatable image than dealing with the fact that by now, Frank Vega was the one lying beside her.
“You don’t believe in sleep, Señor Perez?” Marisela asked, her voice appropriately thicker with the accent of her parent’s native country, plus deeper and richer with her exhaustion.
“I do adore a good night’s rest, Señora Tosca. But I was so pleased with your success that I wanted to share my congratulations. You and your husband have exceeded my expectations in every way.”
Marisela sniffed. Yawned. Loudly. “We did what you paid us to do. No more, no less.”
Over the phone line, Javier Perez’s chuckle seemed extraordinarily hollow, raising the hackles along the back of Ian’s neck.
“I wish to meet with you and your husband later this morning. I want to present the final payment personally, and of course, discuss further business dealings, as my man proposed to your associate.”
“¿Dónde?” Marisela asked.
“At my hotel,” Perez answered. “I’d Like to invite you and your husband to be my guests for breakfast. I’ll send a car.”
“Make it lunch and we’ll drive ourselves. What time?”
She sounded tired and bored, but Perez retained the smile in his voice—one that grated on the fine tune of Ian’s nerves. “You name the time. I’m leaving the States in the early evening tomorrow, so—”
She cut him off with a curt, “One o’clock.”
“Wonderful,” he said, then named the hotel and provided the room number. “I look forward to—”
Marisela disconnected the call. A tense silence ensued until Max buzzed back in.
“I’ll have Dion and Romulus tail them from the hotel.”
“Do that,” Ian snapped. He’d wanted Marisela to assume the part of Dolores Tosca, but if she’d gone too far…
“She did fine,” Max reassured him, correctly interpreting Ian’s mood.
“She was rude,” Ian countered.
“By all accounts, Dolores Tosca was not Miss Congeniality. Don’t forget what she did for a living.”
Ian stretched, knowing Max was right. “Is everything in place to pursue Marisela and Frank if Perez takes them with him to Puerto Rico tomorrow?”
Max paused, but as expected, came up with an affirmative response. “The team that worked on the Sharp’s Destruction is already en route to the island and will pick up a new boat by tomorrow that has all the equipment we’ll need. The plane is fueled and ready to go. We won’t let them out of sight.”
“Good. Is there any news on Pan?”
“Stable. Doctor won’t know about permanent damage until he wakes up.”
“You contacted his wife?”
“She’s there already.”
“Cover story?”
“Mugging.”
“Ochoa’s family?”
“Under wraps. The wife is terrified. I don’t expect she’ll cause us any trouble so long as we keep her and the baby comfortable.”
“The bodyguard?”
“Moved to another location.”
“No complications, Max,” Ian said by way of warning.
“Of course. Goodnight, sir.”
Ian disconnected the link, rolled over, and opened the blinds on the window behind his bed. The moon was a sharp slice of light in the early morning sky, with no sign of the rising sun yet in the eastern waters. He couldn’t remember the last night he’d slept more than three hours in one stretch, and yet he also couldn’t dredge up the slightest memory of looking out the window or over the railing at a singularly spectacular view. Who had the time anymore? Who had the heart to give a damn?
He’d bet Marisela looked at the stars, probably every night if the mood suited her. Frank, too, if for no other reason than because he could after years in the pen.
The mental picture of his agents standing near a window while admiring the moon together drove a slim pin through the center of his brain. He speared his hands through his hair and rested his head in his palms, wondering what the hell had been going through his mind tonight. His first error in judgment had been going to her hotel room in the first place. He’d used the excuse that he was delivering the tapped cell phone, but any of his agents could have done that duty, including Max, who’d asked twice for the assignment. His friend undoubtedly sensed the growing fascination he had with Marisela and in his boundless insight, saw the train wreck that would occur if the dynamics of his interactions with Marisela skimmed anywhere near an intimate dalliance. Hadn’t the disaster of his last affair with an agent taught him anything?
Women who made their living pretending to be other people never revealed their true selves.
Women who made their living by betrayal, lies, and death could not shift back into the civilized world without causing destruction.
Women who made their living as agents in his employ should remain, always, off-limits.
So why had he nearly destroyed the tentative hold he had on Titan by touching Marisela’s skin in the privacy of a cheap motel room?
The buzzer broke into his thoughts.
“He called back?” he asked Max, surprised Javier Perez would be so insistent.
Max hesitated, then replied matter-of-factly. “Brynn would like to speak with you.”
Ian’s gut suddenly filled with burning hot lead.
“Is she here?”
“No, sir. Calling from an undisclosed location in Toronto, if my triangulation is correct.”
Ian swallowed his annoyance. His sister rarely came back to North America. But so long as Brynn wasn’t on the other side of his door, he didn’t give a damn where she was.
“Patch her through. I’ve apparently had what little rest I’m getting tonight.”
And what little peace of mind.
Ian shook his head and delivered the cheeriest hello he could summon to his twin. He anticipated that she’d chitchat a few minutes, then fill him in on her exploits in whatever case she’d undoubtedly made great progress on. And just after she’d lulled him to relax in their familiar sibling exchange, she’d slide in a loaded question—a query he couldn’t avoid without outright lying. He’d done enough of that over the past few months and each mistruth chipped away at him. Still, he had to do whatever was necessary to keep Titan in his hands, where his legacy belonged.
* * *
Javier Perez’s hotel, a tiny boutique establishment with a prime location on snowy white sand in the heart of South Beach encompassed everything Marisela had ever dreamed about Miami. From the salsa beat piped into the mirrored elevator to the pastel, art deco designs of the furnishings and tile floor, she half-expected to see Gloria Estefan sipping a mojito on the balcony as Perez’s bodyguards ushered them through the luxurious penthouse. Instead, she found Javier Perez and a woman with a fake tan and vapid blue eyes sitting at a table set with fine china and crisp linens that fluttered in the ocean breeze.
Perez stood the minute his bodyguards stepped aside and Frankie and Marisela, as Rogelio and Dolores Tosca, walked through the impressive archway onto the terrace. The arms dealer looked exactly like his pictures, only more in focus. He was slim, but not tall. Elegant, and yet quick—just like a man who’d orchestrated his own rise to wealth and power should be.
He held out his hand, which Frankie accepted. “Señor Tosco. I’m honored, And señora,” he said to Marisela, offering his cool palm to her next, “you are indeed as beautiful as I’ve been told.”
Marisela cocked an eyebrow. Either this was a lame compliment or Dolores’s beauty had been highly exaggerated. Not that Marisela had seen more than the one grainy picture, but she wasn’t exactly a classic beau
ty, Latina or not.
“You flatter me, señor.”
“Yes, I do,” he said, winking warmly. “But it is deserved. Please, sit down.”
He spoke in rapid-fire Spanish to the blonde, who didn’t even bother to look offended that she hadn’t been introduced or that she’d been instantaneously dismissed. Arm candy. Once the bimbo left, they were alone, except, of course, for the two formidable bodyguards that flanked the entrance to the second-story suite.
Frankie cleared his throat, but otherwise remained silent, his gaze drifting over the balcony while his ears clearly remained trained on the conversation at the table. From all accounts, Rogelio Tosca allowed his wife to do most of the talking, especially the niceties and chitchat. He was the executioner; she the planner.
Secretly, Marisela couldn’t help but enjoy the situation. If not for the Toscas’ established roles, Frankie would never have allowed her to take the lead. She knew he had reservations about her inexperience, reservations she’d probably heightened thanks to her poor judgment the night before. And yet, when Frankie had slipped into their room last night, he’d said nothing except to report Pan’s tentatively stable condition. While he’d showered, she’d taken Perez’s call. With him nearby, she’d finally fallen asleep. During the night, he’d swung his arm possessively across her belly, and damn if the likely accidental gesture hadn’t warmed her to the core.
Now, as he held out the chair for her, he glanced at her with eyes that revealed nothing—reminding her to do the same.
Perez snapped his fingers and one of the bodyguards fetched two silver carafes, one piping with hot coffee and the other with equally steamy milk. Marisela directed him in Spanish on the ratio she preferred. Frankie waved away the milk altogether.
“Señor Perez,” she said, taking a sip from her coffee. “My husband and I appreciate your hospitality, but we are anxious to leave Miami. If you don’t mind, we’d like to hear your proposal so we can consider our immediate options.”