Her delight faded. “Of course,” she said woodenly. “That makes perfect sense.”
He shook her a little. “Serrano is going to find a message left here. He’s going to know help is coming.” He shook her a little more. “You have to protect yourself when that happens, because I’m not certain what Serrano will do when he finds out.”
She shivered. “What’s to stop him from killing us all?”
“Whatever it is that he’s wanted from the U.N. in the first place. Whatever this whole charade is about. After today, he believes he’s so close, he’s probably celebrating tonight.”
Olivia shook her head. “He’s not close at all,” she said firmly. “The U.N. would never give official status to someone like that, certainly not when they’re forced at gunpoint. That would leave them open to every terror group in the world trying to force themselves to the bargaining table.” She shook her head again. “The U.N. won’t do it. Serrano can keep shooting Ameri—” She stopped as the thought struck her with the quality of neon in the dark.
“Olivia?”
“He’s waiting for the United States to step up to the table. It’s not about the U.N. at all.”
Daniel let out his breath. “Kill enough Americans and the US will have to step in. Then he’ll have them at the table and can talk deals with them. Serrano figures once he’s talking to them, he can use us as leverage to get anything he wants. Trade deals, alliances, even just simple goodwill. He lets us go as a show of good faith, which earns him brownie points, which puts him well ahead of the loyalists, who the Mexicans aren’t talking to now and can’t even point to a country and call it home.” He pushed his hand through his hair. “Fuck.”
“You have to get everyone out of here. You and your friends.” Olivia caught his shirt in her fists. “I’ll take care of myself. But you must go, before Serrano starts lining up United States citizens on national television and executing them on the hour, every hour or something even more bizarre.”
Daniel caught at her arms again. “Wait, Olivia. Just wait, please. There is one thing more I must say.”
She made herself let go of his shirt. She smoothed out the wrinkles she had made.
Daniel was staring at her, as if he could not quite bring himself to speak. Then he dropped his gaze and looked away. “If I do not make it back—”
She moaned. “No, Daniel—”
“No, don’t be romantic about this. You’re as much a realist, as practical as I am. I must tell you this and you must listen. Please.”
She stared at him. Daniel wasn’t practical or a realist and neither was she. They were both emotional romantics at heart but life had made them this way. They had both become so damn good at it and so practiced. They had maintained the outer efficient layer for so long it just seemed that this was the way they were supposed to be.
Only, she had seen a different facet of Daniel emerge the last day or so, when he let his guard down. A far different sort of man, one who might have been. The one that she liked to think was the true Daniel.
It occurred to her that neither of them had ever faced this before. Neither of them knew how to handle an emotional parting, when there was a good chance they’d never see each other again. Soldiers did it all the time, only Daniel had never had a stable relationship to practice with. The only parting Olivia had ever experienced had been acrimonious, retracted and hostile and her ex had insisted on hanging around like a bad smell for years afterward.
At the least, Daniel needed her to listen now and not trip him up with her fright and hysteria because that would make it worse for him.
So Olivia slid one hand around his neck and the other into his hair. “I’m listening,” she told him softly.
His thumbs moved in circles over her arms. “If I do not find you, search out Eduardo Peña with the loyalists. I have no idea what rank he is now. He was based at Pascuallita before they lost the main island and he’s still alive, so he must be with them at the big house at Acapulco. Find him. Talk to him.”
“Talk about what?”
Daniel took a breath. “About me. About you and me. Tell him what we talked about. You’ll like Duardo. He’s simpatico. He’ll understand a lot quicker than I did.”
She could feel a buildup of pressure behind her eyes, making them sting. She blinked hard. “You want him to know you’re sorry, don’t you?”
He made a small movement with his head. A tiny grimace. “Yes, damn it.” He sighed.
Olivia tightened her arms around his neck. “How long until you leave tonight?” she asked, dreading the answer.
“An hour. Not much more.”
Her heart lurched, but she bit back her reaction, for Daniel was still speaking.
“The rendezvous point is miles away, three bays north at Bahía Coralina. I had to make it that far from here. The Insurrectos would have noticed troops massing on their doorstep.”
She nodded, her cheek brushing his shoulder. “Then you had better make good use of your hour, hadn’t you?”
He swept her up. “I intend to,” he murmured.
* * * * *
Gomez laid the electronic pieces on Ibarra’s desk and stepped back.
“Where?” Ibarra asked, rubbing at his eyes to make them focus.
“The phone itself was at the front of the hotel, spread across a dozen yards of the old public parking lot—on the concrete there. The pieces of the battery were by the laundry, out the back.”
“As far apart as you can get them.” Ibarra considered the pieces. “It’s Solos’ phone?”
“Yes, sir. He confirmed it was his.”
“I suppose we have no hope of getting it operating again?”
Gomez shook his head. “The technician who looked at it said there are pieces missing. It shattered and sprayed parts everywhere and the wire board has been broken. It is quite dead.”
“How convenient,” Ibarra said.
“Sir?” Gomez asked, puzzled.
Ibarra shook his head, sitting up, the last of his fatigue draining away. Serrano was right after all. Nemesis was here at the hotel and the asshole had stolen Solos’ phone and got out a message.
How dare he!
Who was he? Which one?
Ibarra looked up at Gomez. “I want the video from today and the most recent list of all the male guests, now.”
“Yes, sir!” Gomez snapped off a salute and hurried away, the perfect unquestioning officer.
* * * * *
As soon as Daniel placed her on the bed, Olivia knew this time it was different. It wasn’t only that her own heart was breaking.
He kissed her with a slow, deep lingering thoroughness that left her breathless and panting. His tongue swept through her mouth, lazily curled around her own and stroked her lips with teasing, long passes that made them tingle. All the while his hands held her head still and his knees pinned her hips.
She caught glimpses of his eyes watching her as her own eyelids grew heavy and tried to keep closing, the blue of his eyes so brilliant and pure it made her breath catch. Then he sat up.
Olivia moaned her frustration.
He laughed. It was a low sound. “You sound thwarted, my tall one. Anyone would think I am not being a gentleman.” He had switched back to Spanish.
“You are not,” she told him as he swiftly unbuttoned and discarded his shirt. “No gentleman would leave me lying in this state.”
“You are to blame for that, my sweet.”
“Me?” She was genuinely astonished.
Daniel tugged the hem of the camisole out of her jeans and slipped the garment off over her head. He dangled the damp piece of silk and lace in front of her. “You wear this and these—” His other hand smoothed its way down her thigh. “No bra, your hair down and Vistarian symbols all over your body like brands out in public. You wonder why I tease you now? You’d be better off wondering why I didn’t just lower you to that bar room floor when you first stepped in there this afternoon and claimed you as mine for the world
to see.” His hands curled possessively around her waist as he stared down at the silver belt buckle. “I wanted to. Jesus, how I wanted to.” His voice was low.
“Daniel,” she breathed, afraid to break the spell. This was the real Daniel. Right now.
He blinked and looked at her, then stirred, his hands falling away from her abruptly, is if he had been caught with them in the cookie jar. “Vistarians are full of bullshit like that. Sorry. All that Latin male ego run amok combined with generations of poets and dreamers. Now everything’s a symbol or a sign to us.” He laughed tightly. “Or a warning.”
He lay on the bed next to her and Olivia hid her disappointment by reaching for him. “If you had taken me, then you might have used the table. That floor would be far too cold.”
Daniel’s jaw dropped open a little. He laughed again, but this time it was a good laugh. He kissed her, rolling her so that she was lying on top of him. He pushed her hair back. “I love your hair, especially loose like this.”
She laughed. “I grew it out and refused to cut it because my father and my ex kept saying I should cut it, that I was too old to have long hair anymore.”
“Drinking buddies, were they?”
“Something like that. Let’s change subjects.” She kissed him and spread her legs until they slipped to either side of his hips. She ran her tongue from his lips to the base of his throat, having learned from Daniel himself how erotic it felt. His head pushed back into the pillow and he hissed. His hands came around her waist.
“It’s safe to talk about yourself now,” he pointed out.
“But you only have less than an hour,” she said, her lips moving against his chest. “I don’t want to spend that talking about my cantankerous family.”
“Later, then,” he said. “Promise me you’ll tell me later.” His hands tightened and shook her a little.
She lifted herself up enough to meet his eyes with her own. She could see the unspoken “if” there. It was large, radiating…and silent.
“Yes, later, then,” Olivia said slowly. She returned her lips to his chest and could feel the rapid beat of his heart beneath. She spread her fingers there, too. What was in her heart was so close to spilling from her lips. She held it back by kissing his flesh, pressing her love into his chest over his heart.
She swirled her tongue over his skin, tasting him. Daniel had such a unique flavor. She would recognize his scent and his taste blindfolded.
If someone who had known her future had told her she was going to fall so deeply in love with a man like Daniel, two weeks ago, she would have told them they were lying. She would have laughed in their faces and crudely told them they were full of shit and demanded her money back. The idea of falling in love with someone like Daniel was so far beyond possible her mind would not have been able to grasp it.
Yet it was now a reality.
She distracted her thoughts by seducing Daniel with her mouth and her hands, making him groan and writhe on the bed. He withstood it as long as possible before turning on her with a growl of frustration and pinning her to the bed with his body and returning the favor.
He took her with slow movements designed to torture her and drive her out of her mind. As he worked over her, Olivia beat at his shoulders, every nerve shrieking. Her breath built and built and built as her pleasure peaked. She screamed hard and long and low. Daniel smothered her scream with his mouth.
His lips didn’t leave hers. It turned into a kiss that turned into another, that stretched on for long minutes while their hearts calmed and their breathing steadied. His lips wandered over her face, covering her eyes and nose and forehead and temple and cheeks and chin.
When she could breathe again, he released her and rolled onto his side, bringing her with him. He pushed her hair off her face.
“You should try to sleep,” he said quietly.
“Like this?”
He smiled. “I’ll move in a minute. Not far.”
“And when I’m asleep, you’ll go, right?”
His gaze dropped away from her face for a moment, then came back to her eyes. “Yes.”
She licked her lips. “Daniel, I-I’m not going to be able to go to sleep. I’m not good at this. I’ve never done it before.”
He shook his head. “Neither have I. Not like this.”
“I know.”
He slid her off him, back onto the bed. She wanted to protest, but didn’t. He picked up her hand from between them and kissed the knuckles. It made her want to weep.
“I wanted you to be asleep when I left. I think it’s the only way I can make myself go.” He looked up from her hand to look her in the eye and she knew he was using every scrap of courage he had to do so.
“Why?”
His answer took a long time to emerge and he had to look back down at her hand before he could say it. “I’ve been doing this sort of work for fifteen years and this is the first time I’ve ever been scared.”
She picked her words carefully. “You’ll be fine, Daniel. I’ve seen you do stuff. Not much, but enough to know you’re good. Very good. If anyone can come out of this alive, it’s you.”
He looked up then, startled. “God, not me, Olivia. You. I’m scared for you.”
Her mouth opened. There were no words there. There were dozens of thoughts. Hundreds of them. None of them voiceable. All of them ranging from dumb shock to astonished hysteria.
He kissed her knuckles again. “You shattered the coffee cup that day and covered for me and it was a selfless act. You keep saying you have to give to get, but you knew damn well you were never going to get anything back from me. You just did it because it was the right thing to do.” He stopped and kissed her temple. “Maybe you taught me something after all, because what I’m doing tonight I’m doing for no better reason than it’s the right thing to do. Two weeks ago I wouldn’t have bothered because the risks are too high and these aren’t my orders. I just can’t stand to see my country go down the gurgler like this. Serrano’s insane and I don’t want him in charge. I’m in a position where I can actually do something about it. I’m terrified I’m not going to live to see the sunrise, but it’s the right thing to do, so I’m doing it.”
He closed his eyes. “Even that doesn’t bother me nearly as much as leaving you behind, alone and having to deal with whatever craziness Serrano and Ibarra choose to hand out in the meantime.”
“You’ll be back,” she said firmly. “And in force.”
“If it comes down to a standing battle, then I won’t be able to reach you, not immediately. You have to take care of yourself.”
“I said I would.” She cupped his cheek. “Do you trust me, Daniel?”
He blew out a breath. “Yes. Yes, I do.” He laughed and kissed her knuckles again. “With my life. I already have, haven’t I?”
“And do you consider me capable, within my own range of abilities and talents?”
He smiled. “Astonishingly so. You have amazed me more than once.”
“Then there is nothing more you can say or do to protect me. You have done all you can. I will do the rest.”
Daniel shook his head a little. “Just trust me, huh?” he murmured. He sounded strained.
She understood. All the important people in his life had gone away and not come back. His mother, his father, the family and friends who had disappeared. Then he had made the pattern repeat itself by ensuring anyone who did get close to him would want to leave by treating them so badly they hated him enough to go.
Now he was the one leaving and he expected that when he got back she wouldn’t be there. It was the pattern.
Tears burned her eyes. She knew now what she had to do. It would make her vulnerable but for Daniel’s sake, she was willing to take the risk. She brushed her thumb over his cheekbone.
“Daniel, I love you. I love you so much that it has changed my life.”
The shock on his face was momentary.
Olivia pressed her fingers to his lips to stop him from interrupting
her. “You don’t have to be afraid I won’t be here when you make it back,” she told him. “No matter how long it takes you. If you say you’ll be coming back, then I’ll defy Serrano and his whole army just to see you again. Don’t you see? You can’t scare me away from you. Serrano tried and failed—I came back. He didn’t scare me from you.” She held his face. “You’re not going to let anyone down tonight. How could I let you down?”
Daniel’s kiss seared her mouth, his hands holding her hard against him. He seemed to be trying to climb inside her skin and Olivia floated despite the anchor of his heavy body over hers.
When at last he let her go he stared into her eyes. “Now I really am afraid,” he whispered. “I’m afraid I won’t deserve your love.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” she told him. “I will love you no matter what you do.”
He grimaced. “If that is true, then why do people who love you always leave?”
“Because you had a shitty childhood and because you learned to be an even worse adult.”
He looked startled again. Then he smiled. “Right, I forgot. The bastard syndrome.” He took a breath. Hesitated. Then, “It’s time, Olivia.”
Her heart jumped. She said with false calm, “What can I do?”
“Nothing. I’m just going to get dressed and go.” He eased off the bed and dressed.
Olivia threw on her satin robe and belted it. She pulled the gun out from under the pillow, then stood at the end of the bed. Her heart was racing. When Daniel was fully dressed she held it out to him. “You’d better take this. If they catch me with it, it’ll go worse for me and you’re going to need it tonight.”
Daniel nodded and took the gun. He pulled out the clip with quick sharp movements, checked it, checked the barrel and reassembled the gun with economical, practiced motions. He tucked the gun into his trousers and left his shirt hanging out. He unclipped the window but didn’t push it open. He glanced at his watch.
“Go, Daniel,” Olivia told him softly. “You don’t want to miss the rendezvous.”
He had one hand on the window frame, as if he meant to push up the window. His back was to her.
Hostage Crisis Page 21