It was a crappy scenario. Despite that, over the last few days he seemed to have lost sight of the fact that he was a loyalist army officer first and foremost and everything else came second.
At least, that was the way it had been for the last fifteen or so years.
Her hand touched his chest, the fingers spreading. Daniel opened his eyes. Olivia was looking up at him, concern rich in her face. Her hair was slicked back again, the conditioner rinsed out. “Don’t,” she said.
“Don’t what?” His voice was hoarse and that shocked him, too.
“You’re beating up on yourself because you think you’ve been neglecting your duties as an officer and a gentleman,” she said softly. “You’re not being fair on yourself.”
His breath pushed out in a rush. “How the hell do you know that?”
“Your lips were moving. Spanish. You switch to Spanish when you’re thinking in officer mode or when—” She shrugged. “Well, when you’re in your Vistarian mindset.”
Stunned, he could find no words to respond. He just stared at her.
Olivia stepped back under the water. She picked up the soap and lathered it.
“Or when what?” he prompted, realizing she had been about to say something else. He felt a prick of guilt for pursuing the opening she had clearly tried to close. Only, he needed to find out for sure if it was just Olivia who could read him so damn easily.
Either she knew him so well he was a sheet of newsprint to her, or he had become lax and undisciplined. Was it just her, or had the entire hotel figured out he was more than a British businessman? Ernesto had been suspicious enough to tag him for Serrano. Who else suspected?
That was the problem with being in one place for too long. People got to know you. They got under your skin.
Daniel stretched his shoulders as an uncomfortable ripple ran down his spine. “I speak Spanish when I’m in officer mode and when else, Olivia?”
She was concentrating on washing the rest of her body, a small furrow between her brows, making a real job of it. He could feel her unease almost like heat radiating off her.
He let the silence stretch a bit longer. “Olivia?”
“When you…during sex.”
She had been about to say “make love”, he realized with a start. Then he stood up from the wall with jerk.
He was speaking Spanish when they made love?
“When?” he demanded. He reached for her arm, then remembered and forced himself to drop his hand. “When did I start speaking Spanish?” He could feel the sweat at his brow even though he was already wet and standing in a steamy shower cubicle. Christ.
She stood upright, too. Soap lather washed off her body in waves, just like foam at the seashore. Her eyes were wide. “You didn’t know. You weren’t aware of it.”
He closed his eyes, turning his head away. Sickness was pooling in the bottom of his gut. “No,” he confessed.
“Daniel, look at me.” Her hands were on his face, turning it.
He forced his eyes open.
Olivia gave him a small smile. “You’re safe. You haven’t been whispering Spanish endearments into the ears of every woman you’ve bedded. You’re fine. You only starting doing it with me after you told me who you really were.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded.
He couldn’t help it. He had to lean back against the wall again, so great was his relief. He was shaking with it.
Olivia was staring at him. Her expression was odd, her full lips quirked, as if she was puzzled. She pushed her wet hair back over her shoulder and it slapped her back. “You really didn’t know, did you? You had no idea at all that you were doing it.”
He tried to explain. “Well, you think in English, don’t you?”
“You’re telling me you think in Spanish, even now?”
“Not when I’m using English all the time, after all these years. Only it seems, now, when I’m truly relaxed, I revert back.” He tried to smile and couldn’t quite make it. “I’m not aware of it because I’m at ease in both languages.”
“Don’t you mean that when you truly have your guard down, you switch back?” Her gaze was pinning him against the wall. Not sparing him an inch.
Daniel slowly nodded. “Yes, that’s what I mean,” he agreed. The last of the fear and sickness left him, like the water draining at the bottom of the cubicle. God, she was relentless, but she had a way of placing her finger on the truth that took the sting from it.
Olivia moved through the spray of water and gently, slowly, rested her body up against his, one soft inch at a time. “You have such courage,” she murmured, resting her head against his shoulder. “I don’t know if I could do as well, if I were in your position.”
He looked down at her, shocked. He was tempted to laugh but knew she would take his laughter as scorn. She thought he was brave, this woman who had defied Serrano to protect him?
He wanted to wrap his arms around her. His arms and his entire body. Only, she must reach for him. She had to call the shots this time, even if it was just for comfort.
She lifted her head to look up at him. Her arm moved lazily up to slide up into his hair. There was a look in her eyes… His heart accelerated as he realized Olivia wasn’t seeking comfort at all.
She pulled his head down to meet her lips as they turned up toward him. They were the softest, sweetest lips he’d ever tasted. Why did she always taste of peaches? She was still in the shower, had not even stepped out to clean her teeth or apply cosmetics of any sort. This was just her and she was luscious.
Her small tongue thrust into his mouth, demanding. He struggled not to take control of the kiss, to hold her against him or to dominate her in any way, even though his body was as taut as a piano wire with arousal, strumming each time her fingers stroked the back of his neck, or her tongue flickered against his. Her breasts were soft cushions against his chest.
“Olivia…” he breathed into her mouth.
She pulled her lips from his and her hand from his hair. Her eyes were dark with arousal.
“I want you to make love to me, Daniel. You think you can do that?”
“You know I can.”
She shook her head. “I’m not just talking about sex.” She licked her lips. “They tore my clothes off me in that room. They tore my clothes off and threatened to let the guard have me. Serrano said he would shove a submachine gun into me and a pistol up…as well. That’s what he told me. At one point he spread my legs and let the guard have a good long look. A preview, he told them.” She let go of him and clutched her arms about her chest and shuddered. Her eyes grew haunted.
Daniel could feel tightness in his chest and a dull, growing, helpless fury. He wanted to kill them all. Tonight.
Why not? The small voice was cool, dispassionate. Logical. He had the ability. He knew all the sightlines and where the sentries would be. Serrano was in the hotel. This was a priceless opportunity. To get rid of the leader of the Insurrectos!
Only, Daniel would never leave the room alive where Serrano’s assassination took place. He would die right along with Serrano.
Besides, those were not his orders and Olivia needed him right now.
Daniel clenched his hands into fists. He stayed silent so she could keep talking. Above all, she had to keep talking.
Abruptly, she refocused on him. “I want you to cancel all that out.”
“By making love,” he repeated carefully. He wasn’t sure he understood.
“Not just sex. I want you to do everything that Serrano threatened. I want it all wiped out in my imagination by you doing it in fact. Your body. Your mastery. Your domination. Everything. I want to be so completely taken by you that nothing else is left. I don’t want to sleep until the major highlight of this day—this very long day—is you and what you do to me.”
His body and soul leapt, liked a coiled dragon roaring to life. His heart, too, soared. That his heart leapt over the fact that she wanted him to be the highlight of her
day he shoved into the inner recesses of his mind to consider later. He knew there were far too many big questions like this he was shoving onto that shelf marked “later” but was not about to pause to consider them right now.
Olivia stepped back from him, squeezed the excess water out of her hair and pulled the curtain aside enough to step out of the shower. “Don’t drip on your shoes when you get out,” she told him. “Take your time.”
Chapter Ten
The whole time Daniel made love to her, he watched her face, his blue eyes blazing with fervor. She had never seen him this way, with energy pouring from him so blatantly, his pleasure and desire so naked on his face and body. He had been until now a more sophisticated lover. A more urbane and contained man.
This Daniel was raw and open.
He nuzzled her lips as his body moved against hers. Tasting. Sucking her lower lips between them. His tongue slid along both. “Peaches,” he murmured in Spanish. “Why peaches?”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered back, instinctively staying with Spanish. She realized he wasn’t even aware he was speaking Spanish. He had let down his guard. Just like that.
“Later,” he breathed.
But later didn’t come. He was indefatigable, playing her body like an instrument, time after time. She couldn’t get enough of him. Each time their heart beats slowed, one of them would turn to the other and tease and kiss and provoke until they came together again.
Until finally, exhaustion claimed her, stealing all her energy and blanketing all thought.
Daniel let her go, then—but only long enough to draw the sheet and blanket up over her. He slid out of bed and went to the door, to turn off the lamps.
He tripped over the pile of ruined clothes she’d left puddled next to that side of the bed. The wooden wedge fell out of the pocket of her trousers and he picked it up. “Where did you get this?”
Olivia explained sleepily.
“Well, that’s one on our side I didn’t know about,” Daniel murmured. He slipped the wedge under the door. “Use the wedge even when I’m not here. I’ll come in some other way. The night clerk is right. There are too many people with your key and with you in their crosshairs now. I’d put the desk chair under the doorknob, too.”
Then he turned off the light and came back to the bed. Her heart gave a little leap. He was going to stay here with her.
His hot body pressed up against hers. His lips touched her neck.
Then sleep claimed her.
* * * * *
Olivia jerked awake and blinked, trying to figure out what had woken her. She was disoriented.
Then there was a touch on her lips. Fingers.
“Shhh….” Daniel’s voice was low. Not a hiss, though. His voice reverberated underneath her, too.
She realized that she was lying on him. They weren’t lying flat. He was propped on the pillows, half sitting. One of the bedside lamps was on. She was lying on her hip and her head was on Daniel’s shoulder. She had one arm curled around his neck, the other around his waist. A big teddy bear.
No wonder she had been so deeply asleep.***
There was a sound at the door and she realized it was the second time she had heard it. It was what had woken her. The sound was the electronic “thunk” of the key being used.
Someone was trying to unlock her door.
Cold fear washed through her. Olivia sat up.
Daniel dragged her back down again. There was no arguing with the force in his hand. He held her against his chest with a steel grip. His other hand, which had been under the unused pillow on the other side of the bed, came out from underneath it holding an automatic pistol. He flipped off the safety with his thumb and lined it up on the door with a steady, unwavering aim.
That was why he had wanted her to lie down. He didn’t want her in the way, spoiling his view of the door.
Her heart was banging against the inside of her chest, making her sick, but Olivia stayed down.
The door groaned. Then groaned in stress again.
Daniel’s aim didn’t quivered by so much as a hair.
Then the door rattled as if someone was shaking the knob.
Daniel smiled, but still the gun didn’t move.
Olivia heard it, then. The soft squeak of boot leather.
She clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes growing wider as she realized who had rattled the door.
Daniel lowered the gun and pushed it under the pillow again as Olivia sat up. He held his finger to his own lips for silence, then slipped off the bed and moved to the door. Olivia padded after him. She was wearing, she realized, one of her nightgowns. Then she remembered.
She had pulled it on once she had found the strength to move, sometime after Daniel had come to bed. She had thought she was too wired to sleep, so Daniel had agreed to talk and turned on the lamp once more. Then her memory failed her. She must have lasted three nanoseconds after lying down before sleep had slammed her once more.
Daniel pressed his ear to the door.
The desk chair had been jammed under the handle and the wedge was under the door. He must have put the chair there after she’d fallen asleep.
A shudder ran through her. What if he hadn’t put in place for her the precautions he had insisted she take care of? What disaster would she be trying to cope with right this instant? She didn’t even want to think of it. She had to start thinking like Daniel, even a little bit, if she wanted to come out of this situation alive.
He straightened up, his chest rising as he took a breath and let it out. “He’s gone.”
“It was Serrano,” she said. They were still talking in Spanish.
“You know that how?”
“His boots. They have that little squeak, you know? It must be his weight.” She shivered. “I had to listen to it for hours.”
Daniel brushed her hair aside and kissed her temple. “He’s been thwarted. You embarrassed him by having precautions in place. He won’t be back again. He can’t risk being publicly humiliated. Just make sure you have the chair and the wedge in place at all times.”
She nodded.
He tugged her back to the bed. “Come and sleep. You’re exhausted.”
“You should be, too.” She let him pull her onto the bed. “Where did you get the gun? We weren’t allowed to bring weapons with us on the assessment tour. It was a strict requirement of the Insurrectos.”
Daniel shrugged. “I stole it, two days after they shut us in here.”
“You’ve had it hidden all this time? They’ve tossed our rooms at least twice. Where do you hide it?” She was amazed.
Daniel pointed up at the dark square above the bed where the still missing ceiling tile sat on top of its neighbors inside the ceiling. “No one ever thinks about the roof above their heads.”
She shook her head. “I certainly don’t.” She lifted herself onto the high bed. “Did you pull me on top of you?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “You did that. I merely tried to soothe you while you were sleeping by holding your hand. You kept moving until you were draped as you found yourself when you woke.”
She could feel herself blushing. “That’s not normal. For me.”
Daniel settled himself onto his stack of pillows once more, with a low chuckle. “Is anything about our sojourn here normal?”
“No, but—” She wanted to explain that her behavior around Daniel had little to do with the odd situation at the White Sands and more to do with Daniel himself.
“Then come here,” he said and patted the mattress.
The fact was, if she had met Daniel under normal circumstances, they would have maintained the instant disliking for each other they had formed and never burrowed any farther under each other’s surfaces. It had taken being held hostage here at the White Sands to rub away at the veneer.
So she shut up and moved closer to him. She touched the fine, almost invisible scar on his chest, over his nipple. It looked new. “There’s a story to this, is
n’t there?”
He glanced at it. “Yes.” A shadow crossed his eyes. “Only, it’s not for nighttime telling.”
“Will you tell me one day?”
He sighed. “Maybe. It’s not an easy tale to tell.” He pulled her into his arms and settled her so that her head was on his shoulder and her arm over his waist. “I have no objections to being a pillow,” he told her. “You can blush all you want. I like to see you blush, anyway.”
She tucked her head against the soft mound of his pectoral muscle, as embarrassed as he intended her to be. She heard the laughter rumbling in his chest.
“You make me feel like a sixteen-year-old,” she complained.
“Good,” he said flatly. “When I first met you, I took you for forty years old. It’s about time you felt younger.”
“In my line of business, feeling younger is a handicap.”
“You can be as old as you need to be while you’re working. When you’re not working, you need to stay young.”
“You should listen to yourself. In your line of work, dying young is a real option. When I met you, you were a cynical old bastard who screwed young women because he was afraid an older woman would see through him.”
He was silent a long moment. “Ouch.”
“What happened to you to make you that way?” she asked gently.
He shifted. She could feel the muscles flex in him. His chest lifted as he drew in his breath. “You never did explain to me why everyone is so willing to sacrifice themselves for other people, anyway,” he said.
He was speaking English.
Olivia sat up.
Daniel hadn’t moved but she had been resting against him and felt the internal shift as his wariness kicked in. Now he’d switched to English.
She crossed her legs and studied him. His face was blank, held in rigid control. She realized with a start that he wasn’t emotionless, as she had first thought him to be when he had slithered through her window. There was a storm of emotions going on inside Daniel. He just wasn’t allowing any of them to show on his face.
Hostage Crisis Page 15