Can You Forget?

by Melissa James

  Standing up to their knees in warm ocean, hidden in the shadows of soft-lapping water and sensuous night, they froze in time: she couldn’t or wouldn’t, speak, and he was too speechless to respond, his heart hammering in wild hope. His hand shook as it reached out, turning her face back to his. “Mary-Anne?”

  Tears filled her eyes. She bit her lip, but she looked right into his eyes, letting him see inside her soul to the naked longing, the anguished hope and want. “You think I’m beautiful?” she whispered. “You really want me?”

  Holding his breath, half expecting the moment to shatter, he came closer, moving his imperfect body against hers in gentle testing, and her longing became pain, a need so strong and sharp it cut his fears to shreds. Tipping her face up just a touch closer, he whispered, “Hell, yeah.” He watched her move her tongue over her lips, her breathing harsh and erratic, her eyes fixed on his mouth as if glued there: a tender, terrible hunger, the need eating her alive. “I always did,” he said, his voice hoarse and rough, gravel-edged with sex. “So don’t look at me like that unless you mean it. Be sure, because there’s no going back after this.”

  “I don’t want to go back. I want you.” A trembling hand lifted to caress his face. “You’re the only man alive who knows who I am. I’ve dreamed of making love with you for over half my life. I just want Tal, my best friend. However you are.” Her voice shook with such heart-deep desire, his white-hot need overrode the faint, far-off screams of his survival instincts, telling him, This isn’t smart, O’Rierdan… “Please, Tal, give me tonight. Make love to me.”

  Knocked sideways by her words, he closed his eyes, dragged in a heaving breath. By instinct, his mouth brushed hers.

  She made a tiny mewing sound, like an eager kitten. With a harsh groan, he pulled her up hard against him and deepened the kiss, but she was already there before him, making a tiny, guttural sound of pleasure as she ravaged his mouth. Her hands slid beneath his T-shirt, drinking in every inch of skin she could find, with a need for him so absolute, so voracious, he gasped for air between consuming kisses and insatiable touch.

  He tore his mouth from hers to nibble soft-freckled shoulders and throat. Her head fell back, with gasps of joy. As his hand hesitated on her rib cage, she moaned and pushed it onto her breast, shuddering when his touch brought the peaked nipple to shooting life. Then she uttered magical words, words he’d never thought to hear again from any woman, let alone the beautiful, incredible woman in his arms. “I want to make love now…”

  The insidious whisper inside his mind made all the fears come back. Take your clothes off… “Mary-Anne…” How to say it? He’d always been the shining one with them, the beautiful one, her dream and master. Now, like a twisted Catherine and Heathcliff their lives had reversed and, damn it, he didn’t want to see her face when he stripped—

  “I know. Did you think I wouldn’t understand?” Smiling in blatant invitation, she backed off a step deeper, crooking a finger. “Come on.” She turned and dived into the warm, swirling waters of the Mediterranean.

  Joy burst inside him as he dove in after her. She did know. She understood, and, like the miracle she’d always been to him, she found a way for them to be together. No lights, no facing her with his imperfections.

  No comforts, either, yet somehow it seemed right, loving her out here instead of in the luxurious suite. Out here he could forget her fame and jets and limos and concert tours and fans—he could forget everything but that tonight, they were just two best friends finally becoming lovers. Tal and Mary-Anne, the two Outback kids who’d always hated boundaries, making love in the exotic yet hauntingly familiar outdoors.

  Water being the one place where he lost his athletic disadvantage, he caught up with her easily—and found her in chest-deep water, waiting for him, smiling. “Welcome home, Tal.” She opened her arms to him.

  With the first touch of their mouths, he was gone. She melted against him, caressing him in a need so frantic that until this night, unable to believe a woman like her could want him at all, let alone with this heated desperation, he’d dismissed it every time as an act for the camera or for their families.

  But now there was no audience, and she was undressing him—literally tearing off his clothes—and her own. Kissing every inch of him she could with a fevered intensity that burned him almost to the bone. Grabbing his hands, putting them on her wet, naked body, she muttered sweet, sensual encouragement for him to touch her, kiss her, explore her most secret desires.

  This was amazing—beyond any experience he’d ever known. It was awkward, glorious, sensuous, terrifying—and sexual reassurance with a vengeance. Why she wanted him so badly, he didn’t know or care. Mary-Anne had been his own personal miracle too many years for him to question this new night magic. Untamed love in inky-wet darkness, wild and free, fulfilling frenzied, ravaging need.

  He groaned when she arched back to reveal her breasts, glistening pearl-like in the moonlight with a few spirals of her hair falling dark and wet over them. “Touch me…” Her sweet voice was low and husky with sensuality. “Put your hands on me, Tal. I’ve fantasized about watching you do that so many times.”

  Slowly, shaking a little, he filled his hands with those lovely, firm breasts. If this is another dream, God, please don’t let me wake up anytime soon. He’d lived this so many times in his mind, he could barely separate fantasy from reality, but this was so much more—so them, to be making love out here where only wild creatures and God existed.

  When his thumbs moved over her sweet, hard nipples, she moaned and arched against him. “Your mouth, Tal. Oh, kiss me there…”

  Lifting her in his hands, he took a wet, salty nipple into his mouth, feeling half dizzy with the joy of yet another fantasy fulfilled. He suckled her, tenderly grazing with his teeth, almost losing it when she gave a low, keening cry of pleasure. “Now!” she cried, writhing against him. “I need you now!”

  From somewhere close by he heard a boat engine humming…and as the sound quietly cut, his instincts resurfaced. Protect Mary-Anne. “Let’s go inside and do this right.”

  Her whole body stilled with his words. “You didn’t want to before.”

  He could hear the uncertainty quiver in her voice, ringing like warning bells in his heart. It seemed surreal to him that the beautiful person in this scenario should be the one to need the reassurance—but if his Mary-Anne still existed beneath the lovely shell of Verity West, it made perfect sense. Her heart held more unhealed scars than his face and leg ever would.

  “I won’t change my mind. I don’t think I could,” he said, wishing he had sweeter, more tender words to give her, but he was still an Outback boy, brought up on spare, blunt words and long days of hard work. He swam for the shore. “Come on.” He held a hand to her backward, keeping the sight of his worst scars—those on his thigh—from her eyes. “Let’s go to bed.”

  She ran out of the water to him, then suddenly stilled. Her face lifted to his in quick horror. “Uh-oh. Tal…”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “Our clothes are—out there,” she whispered.

  “So? What’s the problem? We’ve got plenty of fresh clothes in the room—” Then he got what she hadn’t said. “Oh, boy. I think we’re in trouble…”

  She grinned. “I didn’t think you’d found a new and miraculous place to hide room keys.”

  He laughed again, too happy right now to give a rat’s behind that they were locked out of their room. “So you wanna toss to see who climbs in the bathroom window and explains to Anson why he’s got to pay damages for the insect screen?”

  Her smile turned smug. “No need for that. Breaking into rooms without sound or damage is one of my specialties. Like I told you, I’m the Nighthawks’ cat burglar at socialite or political functions. I have to keep my little toy with me 24/7 during any missions. I put it in my shoe before I headed into the water.”

  “So why’d you freak out about losing the key?”

  “I forgot,” she admi
tted, biting her lip on a smile of pure, sweet confusion. “I got sidetracked with, um, other things.”

  Liking that admission—a lot—he nuzzled her neck. “Let’s go to bed. Or maybe we can take a shower to get all this salt water off?”

  Her eyes lit and glowed as she moved to pick up her shoes, in danger of going underwater. “Can we do both? I’ve had so many dreams of us making love in a bed, in the shower, the bath…”

  His heart and gut tangled around each other in their mad flip-overs at her words. “Whatever you want.”

  She led him back to the cabin at a gentle gait he could follow without difficulty, smiling at him every few steps, like every man’s fantasy come to life in the light of the creamy moon.

  Within a minute they were inside the room, laughing like kids, brushing sand off as sensual foreplay, kissing, staggering toward the bathroom—

  “Hmm, I see you’ve gone above and beyond orders to fulfill the mission—but you might want to hold off any further attention to detail until you’re alone.”

  Mary-Anne gasped, shrinking against Tal. “Nick?”

  Anson sat on their bed, holding the running shoes she’d just tossed, his jeans covered in the sand from the soles.

  Tal thrust her behind him, and into the bathroom. “Put on a robe, honey. Bring one for me.” He spun back to face his boss, naked and not giving a damn. “I don’t care how you got in here—you just crossed the line, Anson. You might think your position gives you personal rights over us, but you will not invade our privacy.” He folded his arms, facing his boss down. “Knock on the bloody door from now on, and if we’re not here or not answering, wait outside the door. Got it?”

  “Absolutely.” Anson didn’t even blink at his nudity—he’d seen all Tal’s injuries more than once, since he’d kept him alive until the chopper had arrived to take him to Darwin. “I beg your pardon, Irish.” Anson grinned and scratched his head. “I’m used to unrestricted access to Songbird at almost any time or place. It appears that time’s ended.”

  “Bloody oath it has.” Just what the hell did Anson mean by “unrestricted access”? And where did his arrogant boss’s sudden burst of humility come from?

  Anson got off the enormous king-size bed where he sat. “I see you still blame me.”

  Mary-Anne emerged from the bathroom, dressed, and handed Tal a robe. He slipped it on, with a brief smile of thanks. “For what happened to me? No. For not telling me Burstall is still alive and still up to his tricks? Hell, yeah.”

  “Among other things.” Anson shrugged. “I wanted to give you time to heal first, without fretting about where he was or getting to him. I wanted to tell you face-to-face once you left the hospital last time, but you wouldn’t answer my summons. So I thought it might go down better coming from—Mary-Anne.”

  The way Anson stumbled over her name showed just how impersonal the guy was. How many years had it been since he’d used a name, not a code? “Yeah. It went down real well.”

  Mary-Anne spoke from behind Tal. “What are you doing here? You said we could have until we got to Amalza before—”

  “Gary Brooks is dead.” Anson always railroaded his words when he had something tough to say. “We found his body wedged among the rocks below your house in Sydney this afternoon, just after your jet flew out.”

  She gasped. Tal laced his fingers through hers in instinctive protection as his mind raced. So that was why his instincts had gone into high alert? “Murdered?” he asked bluntly.

  Anson nodded. “Shot in the head. AK-47 assault rifle, range at least two hundred meters. He was hit by a pro.”

  Mary-Anne’s free hand lifted to her mouth, slow and shaking. “Why?” she whispered.

  “Hacker got into his bank account half an hour ago. She reported that Brooks has had several sudden very large deposits made to his account from Switzerland in the past few years—over two hundred thousand in total. We think someone’s been paying him to follow you for the last few years, Songbird. It makes sense, since he always had stories on you, and he was the only one to find you in the Torres Strait.”

  “You think it’s Falcone?” Tal asked grimly.

  Anson shrugged. “Yes, him—or some other rich, obsessed fan, maybe. But why they ordered a hit on Brooks is unknown.”

  Tal met Anson’s eyes for a fleeting second. They both knew why—and he knew Anson would check out Brooks’s replacement with all his old CIA tricks. Hell, he probably already knew what time of day Brooks’s replacement woke up, what he ate or when he went to the john—but it wasn’t enough for Tal’s peace of mind. Not nearly enough. “Mary-Anne shouldn’t go to the Embassy, Boss. Not until we know what’s going down.”

  Anson paced the room, looking like a wild thing, a caged animal. “I don’t think we have a choice in that now. A man answering Burstall’s description took a young tourist hostage today—and though we haven’t heard anything yet, we believe he’ll try to ransom him for Skydancer or Countrygirl, or both. He’s got the leverage, too. The tourist happens to be the nineteen-year-old son of the Australian foreign minister.”

  “Oh, the poor boy.” Mary-Anne’s eyes filled with the immediate sympathy she always found for any suffering creature. “What’s the plan?”

  “Mary-Anne, you can’t go in there!” Tal whipped her around to face him. “It’s obvious what’s going on. He’s going to take you hostage, and there sure as hell won’t be a ransom!”

  She looked up into his eyes, flushed and earnest, and so lovely in the simple fluffy white robe, her wet hair hanging down her back, it hurt him to look at her. “As a trained operative, I have a greater chance of getting away than that poor boy. I have the resources to get away, and Nighthawk backup.” Her hands gripped his. “Tal, Ghost is right. I don’t have a choice here. None of us could live with leaving the boy to die. You know Burstall won’t let him live long if he doesn’t get what he wants.”

  He jerked his hands out of her grasp and turned back to their boss. Damn her for being right—and for being too much like him, willing to risk her life to save a stranger…

  Anson smiled briefly at Mary-Anne, expecting no less than the decision she’d made. “Orders came from the Australian government via the Virginia branch. We can’t leave him there—he’s worth too much, both in ransom and in information. Joel St. Bremer’s family was staying at the ambassador’s residence in Ramiara when the religious war broke out there two years back, and we had to go in and get them out.” Anson slanted a glance at him. “Remember the kid? The fighter? He was sixteen then. He’s nineteen now.”

  Oh, yeah, that mission in Ramiara wasn’t easily forgettable, on any level—and he’d had to jab the hysterical kid with a sedative before he’d stop punching and kicking them. He nodded. “Yeah, he kind of sticks in the memory.”

  “We have to get him out. We can’t use Skydancer or Countrygirl as bait—she’s eight months’ pregnant. The sight of her could incite Burstall to do something stupid.” Still pacing the floor, he spoke with an irascible kind of self-control. “The situation is deteriorating fast. Our orders are to get in ASAP.

  “If Joel St. Bremer is in the Embassy, only you have a chance to get us inside, Songbird. Falcone’s previous interest in you guarantees he will send you an invitation as soon as news spreads of your arrival. So wangle your arrival into the local newspapers. You know how, just make yourself visible. Once you’re in the Embassy, gather information in your usual manner while Irish conducts a search for the hostage and checks out points of entry for a rescue effort. Any questions?”

  Yeah—can I finish making love to my wife first?

  Mary-Anne kept looking at the floor, shuffling her feet. She was thinking about it, too—but she didn’t ask, either.

  Anson got to his feet, brisk and capable. “Get dressed and pack. We have a jet cat to take us over to Amalza. Hotel’s booked and there’s staff on standby for your arrival. ETA 2245 at the resort jetty.”

  Tal looked at Mary-Anne again. She looked at him, then quick
ly away. Yep, he had to give it to Anson—he sure made an entrance. The loving mood was completely broken. “Sure thing, Boss,” he drawled. “We’re at your service.”

  Chapter 7

  They finally reached the hotel in Lortámacino, Amalza’s only town, at 0200. By the time the boys, in the guise of Mary-Anne’s bodyguards, had finished sweeping the honeymoon suite in the hotel for illegal surveillance of any kind and had installed their own handy-dandy polytechnics, it was almost 0400. “Right, let’s go through the agenda for today, then we can get a few hours’ shut-eye,” Anson said.

  Tal glanced into the living area of the suite, where Mary-Anne was curled up in the high-backed armchair, fast asleep. “She needs to rest.”

  “Don’t think for Songbird, Irish. She won’t thank you for treating her as less than the complete professional she is.”

  Anson crossed the room to her as he spoke—but Tal got there first. “Look at her, Ghost,” he growled softly, pointing to the dark smudges under her eyes. “If you can’t see that she’s on the edge of collapse, you’re blind. She’s been working nonstop for months on end, and this mission is taking its toll on her. She needs more rest than she’s getting.”

  “Don’t worry about Songbird. She’s used to sleeping anywhere on missions.” Anson’s words were a mixture of impatience with Tal and admiration for Mary-Anne. “The floor, a chair, a sofa—it doesn’t bother her so long as she can sleep. She’s a real trouper on assignment. She never complains, no matter what I ask of her.”

  Tal frowned at his boss, wondering if Anson had any idea of how bad he made himself look with those words. “She might not complain,” he agreed, “but that doesn’t excuse your neglect of your operatives’ needs.”

  “Back off, Irish.” Anson looked dangerous now, his eyes flashing and his face like thunder. “You’re only her husband temporarily—and you’re way out of line.”