Dangerous to Know

by Merline Lovelace

  She snatched it up and raced back to the opening, fumbling for the square stone in the center.

  Dear Lord, how did the thing work? Once to transmit, twice to receive? Or was it once to receive, twice to transmit?

  And what was the damn emergency signal? One-one-three? Three-one-one? Three-two-two?

  Paige swallowed a groan and reminded herself this was for David. Her David.

  She could remember the code! She had to! All she had to do was concentrate. Think of the alley behind the tobacco shop, she told herself, emptying her mind of everything else. Think of David’s instructions as he’d cradled an unconscious Maggie in his arms. Think of Henri hopping up and down on one foot in impatience as he repeated the instructions in a near shout.

  Not a half a mile away, a fleet of five black-painted helicopters skimmed the surface of the bay. Rotor blades whirring, they raced without lights or directional signals toward the high peak that housed Victor Swanset’s aerie.

  Maggie hunched forward in the copilot’s seat of the lead aircraft, scanning the darkness through high-powered starlight-vision goggles. Beside her, Adam worked the controls with a skill that had astounded her when they first took off. She’d had no idea he could pilot a craft like this, but she hadn’t wasted time arguing with him.

  Maggie had made the decision to launch immediately after losing contact. Her instincts had told her that the broken transmission wasn’t the result of any equipment malfunction. Wherever that elevator had taken Doc and Paige to had been shielded to prevent emissions. Although Doc hadn’t signaled for help, hadn’t called for backup, Maggie intended to be within range if and when he did.

  They were only minutes away from the target area. Sheer cliffs loomed in front of them, looking much like a wall of chalk through the night-vision goggles. Adam pulled back on the stick and began a smooth climb to the central, highest peak.

  Maggie spun the dial on the aircraft’s digital radio, hoping, praying, for a signal. She’d tried every emergency frequency, every satellite channel, on the system at least a dozen times during the short flight.

  She had just reached for the dial to spin to another frequency when static cackled through her headset. She froze, her hand in midair.

  More static filled the earphones, then a voice filled with quiet desperation.

  “…can’t remember the code, but we need help.”

  “It’s Paige!” Maggie shouted over the helo’s intercom.

  Adam lifted a hand from the controls to give her thumbs-up.

  Maggie pressed the radio mike to her throat to activate it. “Jezebel, can you hear me?”

  Evidently not.

  “…dead, and David’s hurt,” Paige continued, in the same desperate tone. “He said the wound wasn’t bad, but he’s bleeding heavily and unconscious. Uh, we’re in a tunnel beneath the villa. It ends at the cliff face, in a small hole that overlooks the sea.”

  Maggie’s heart sank as she peered through the helo’s Plexiglas windshield at the endless stretch of chalky white cliffs below. Even with the goggles, it was going to be tough to locate a small opening in that indented, snaking wall.

  Paige’s voice faltered, then resumed. “I hope this is transmitting. I pressed the stone once, but I may have the sequence wrong, so I’m going to press it twice and try again.”

  “She’s using the compact,” Maggie breathed. “Do it, Paige. Do it! Press the stone twice, so I can talk to you.”

  A staticky silence hummed through the earphones. Maggie spoke slowly, clearly, into the mike.

  “Jezebel, this is Chameleon. If you pressed the diamond twice, you should be hearing me. Now press it once, and acknowledge my transmission.”

  The helicopter swerved to one side, caught in a sudden up-draft. Maggie ignored the violent movement and Adam’s smooth corrective action. Her entire being was turned inward, focused on the mike pressed to her throat.

  “Press the stone once,” she repeated calmly. “Acknowledge my transmission.”

  “This is Jezebel. I can hear you!”

  “Yes!”

  Reining in her wild elation, Maggie jammed the mike against her throat.

  “Search Doc’s pockets, Jezebel. See if he has the receiver on him. The one that homes in on the tracking chip you were fitted with. It looks like a small flat calculator with a liquid crystal display.”

  Maggie held her breath until Paige replied.

  “I’ve got it.”

  “Good! There’s a small switch in the upper left-hand corner. Push it to the right, then read me the coordinates. Slowly!”

  “Do you mean these numbers in the display? I—I can barely see them.”

  “Yes, those numbers. We need those coordinates to find you. Read them to me. Slowly!”

  She did. Slowly and accurately, repeating them over and over until Maggie locked them into the helicopter’s global positioning unit.

  Within moments, Adam had the aircraft hovering two hundred feet above the crashing sea and a powerful searchlight trained on a small square opening in a sheer rock wall. With a skill learned long ago and kept finely honed, he held the platform steady while one of Maggie’s team members fired a titanium-tipped steel anchor dart from a shoulder-held launcher. The dart shot through the night, trailing a snakelike nylon line, and buried itself in the rock just a few feet above the opening.

  Adam kept one eye on the instruments while Maggie and the wiry Santorelli strapped body harnesses on over their black jumpsuits. Rushing wind whipped through the belly of the helo as they pulled open the side hatch.

  “Have you used this rig before?” Santorelli shouted to her over the noise from the chopping rotor blades.

  “No, not this one!” Maggie yelled back. “One similar to it, though!”

  “Roger! Let’s go!”

  Adam made no comment as they rigged a lifeline to the specially designed lift that swung out over the open hatch. But his jaw was so tight it ached as Maggie snapped the lifeline to her harness and stepped toward the hatch.

  “Okay, Jezebel,” she said into the mike, her hoarse voice filled with a breezy confidence that made Adam’s fist clench on the control stick. “We’re coming in. And once we get back to Cannes, we’ll have to hit the boutiques. Don’t you have a wedding dress to shop for? I saw just the thing. All white silk and silver sequins.”

  Paige’s shaky laughter floated over the headset. “No sequins. Please, no sequins.”

  Chapter 17

  Paige sat at the ornate rosewood dressing table and towel-dried her hair. While she rubbed the squeaky-clean strands through the thick cotton, she went over the arrangement she’d made for the ceremony scheduled to take place thirty minutes from now.

  As weddings went, theirs would be a relatively small affair. Only a handful of people would attend—just the immediate wedding party, the deputy from the American consulate who’d act as an official witness, and the French magistrate hurriedly contacted to perform the ceremony.

  Paige had refused to wait until more of their friends and family could gather in Cannes. She was determined to join her life to David’s today, scant hours after swinging out of a dark tunnel and dangling hundreds of feet above the sea while she was winched aboard a hovering helicopter. Today, before Maggie and Adam got called back to OMEGA for some crisis or another. Before she and David flew to Paris with Henri to arrange his passport and visa for an extended stay in the United States. Before any of them began any new adventures!

  It had taken most of the night to sort through the aftermath of their mission. Luckily, Maggie’s extraction team had included a skilled paramedic who patched David up so neatly that he was able to conduct a detailed debrief on-site with Maggie and Adam and the rest of the team. That done, they’d evacuated the servants, sealed off the villa and left guards in place until the French authorities arrived to excavate the laboratory.

  Dawn had feathered the skies with gold and painted the sea a deep wine red by the time they returned to the hotel. Too wired from the n
ight’s events to sleep, they’d all feasted on the breakfast Henri ordered from his friend the head chef.

  After that, Paige had taken charge. With a ruthless assumption of authority, she’d directed an amused but compliant Adam to use whatever influence was necessary to take care of the legalities. Henri was put in charge of the wedding supper. David was told to rest and recuperate. And Maggie… Maggie had gleefully accompanied her on the promised shopping expedition. They’d found exactly what Paige wanted in the first shop they entered.

  Her senses tingling with delicious feminine anticipation, she swiveled on the dressing stool to gaze at the two-piece dress that hung on the wardrobe door. It met her stringent requirement of no sequins, but even without any glittery trim, it was an outfit Meredith herself might have purchased. The snowy watered silk shimmered with a luster all its own, and the exquisite beading on the three buttons and the low square-cut neckline of the short-sleeved jacket was handworked. The straight skirt stopped just above Paige’s knees, but was slit high on one side to allow ease of movement.

  In thirty minutes or so, she’d slip on that deceptively demure skirt and fasten those tiny beaded buttons. She’d walk out of this sumptuous bedroom for the last time to join David in the suite across the hall, then leave immediately for the honeymoon Adam had arranged aboard a luxurious yacht owned by a friend of his. Paige made a silent vow not to fall off the gangplank this time.

  Now, though, she had thirty minutes to get ready. Thirty minutes to blend the best of Paige Lawrence and the worst of Meredith Ames.

  Grinning wickedly, she tossed the towel aside and walked over to the bed. With unabashed eagerness, she plucked the lemon-colored lace teddy off the coverlet and held it up by its thin straps. She’d been waiting far too long for the opportunity to put this little baby to use. When they hit that yacht, both she and David would be ready—more than ready!—for immediate carnal copulation.

  Shrugging out of her robe, Paige stepped into the flimsy scrap of lace and shimmied it up her thighs. She wiggled to adjust the divided strip of fabric that ran between her legs, a little shocked in spite of herself at the intimacy of the garment. She’d just slipped her arms through the narrow shoulder straps and was tucking the underwire lift beneath her breasts when the sound of the door opening made her spin around, both hands plastered against the front of her chest.

  David stepped inside, still dressed in the tan slacks and blue knit shirt he’d changed into as soon as they returned to the hotel last night. This morning. Whenever. The bandage on his left shoulder bulged a bit under the shirt, but he showed no other signs of his recent wound.

  “You can’t come in here,” Paige protested. “It’s bad luck to see the bride before the ceremony. You’re supposed to get changed in the suite across the hall.”

  “I’m going to,” he said slowly, his eyes skimming her body. “I just came in to give you—Jesus, Paige, what is that thing?”

  “It’s called a teddy. I think. I’ve never seen one, um, constructed quite like this.”

  “Neither have I,” he muttered. “It doesn’t have any back.”

  “Not much of a front, either,” she admitted. With a little spurt of daring, she dropped her hands. The stunned expression that crossed David’s face sent a dart of pure delight through her.

  “Good grief! Is that what you bought when you went shopping today?”

  “No. This is—was—Meredith’s. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.” Her shining, fresh-washed hair swept her bare shoulders as she tilted her head and smiled at him. “I think our wedding night qualifies as special, don’t you?”

  David stared at her for long moments. Then he returned her smile with a slow, crooked one of his own.

  “Very special. But I don’t think I can wait until tonight.”

  He turned, and the sound of the key snicking the tumblers in the lock thundered in her ears.

  The old Paige, the shy, timorous one who had driven through the French Alps with an aching heart because she believed she wasn’t woman enough for this man, might have protested. She might have reminded David that Maggie and Adam were waiting just across the hall. That Henri would be pacing the floor, all puffed up with importance over the fact that Paige had asked him to give her away. That the American consul might arrive at any minute, or the French magistrate.

  This Paige simply shivered in delicious anticipation. They had thirty minutes, after all.

  As David crossed the room, she wet her lips in an unconscious invitation. He stopped in front of her, his fingers reaching to brush the tip of one breast. She drew her shoulders back, and the underwire lifted her soft flesh even higher. The scalloped edge of the lace cup barely covered her nipples as it was. Paige’s instinctive little movement exposed them completely.

  David drew in a sharp breath. His eyes darkening with pleasure, he shaped her breasts, fondling them, worshiping them. Then he bent and brushed the soft mounds with his mouth. The sight of his dark head against her flesh sent a shaft of savagely primitive possessiveness slicing through Paige.

  She wanted to wrap her arms around him, cradle him against her breasts as she had last night, keep him safe and secure from all harm. She now understood David’s urge to protect her, to shield her. She felt the same, exactly the same.

  His breath was ragged when he lifted his head. Paige saw the hot, urgent need flaring in his eyes, and her own rose in waves. His hands less than gentle, he searched her front for a hook or a fastening on the one-piece teddy.

  “How the hell does this thing open?”

  “It doesn’t. It doesn’t have to.”

  “What?”

  “You’re an engineer,” Paige purred. “You figure it out.”

  With a half laugh, half growl, he drew her into his arms. Paige went willingly, eagerly. Her hands slid up the broad planes of his chest—then stopped abruptly when her fingers encountered the bulge of the bandage.

  “Oh, David! We can’t! Your wound!”

  He drew her closer, nuzzling the side of her neck. “What wound?”

  “You lost a lot of blood,” she reminded him, hunching a shoulder against the tickle of his moist breath in her ear.

  “I had a steak for lunch.”

  Despite her own fiery need, Paige stepped back. The memory of those desperate moments when she’d tried to stanch his bleeding was too fresh to ignore.

  “David…”

  “I’m here, sweetheart.”

  The look in his eyes almost melted her resistance, but she took another step backward, until her bottom bumped against the dressing table. She gestured helplessly toward his shirtfront.

  “Doesn’t it hurt?”

  He nodded. “Like hell.”

  “Oh, David!”

  Her heart aching in sympathy, Paige reached out to brush her fingertips gently over his poor, injured shoulder. He caught her hand.

  “Not there.” He redirected her hand to a spot considerably below his shoulder. “There.”

  “Oh!”

  Paige had hoped this sinful little garment would have an instantaneous, erotic impact on David. It had. Her fingers pressed against the bulge in his slacks, and the hot, liquid desire in her own belly flowed into her loins.

  Still, she was careful to avoid touching his shoulder when he swept her into his arms once more and brought his mouth crushing down on hers. He held her hard against him, his palms spearing down the small of her back to cup the bare, rounded flesh of her bottom.

  When his fingers found the narrow strip that traced between her legs, he stiffened. The old David, the one who had always held himself rigidly in control for fear he’d hurt her with the violence of his passion, might have drawn back at this point. He might have undressed her gently and laid her on the bed, supporting himself on his arms as he surged into her.

  This David took full advantage of the teddy’s ingenious construction. Holding her mouth with his, he arched her against him and explored the moist dampness between her legs. Paige gasped a
s his fingers found the opening in the fabric and parted it. One, then two, blunt fingers slipped along her slick, wet channel.

  She strained upward, her belly clenching as he stretched her, entered her, impaled her. She moaned far back in her throat. Or David did. She wasn’t sure.

  Sensation after sensation rippled through her body. She was sure she couldn’t take much more when her brilliant engineer figured out just how to put that narrow strip of lace to even greater effect.

  He twisted one thumb around the fabric and tugged on it, sawing it gently back and forth, creating a friction that had Paige squirming frantically. Wave after wave of heat shot out of her belly to her thighs, her breasts, her throat.

  “David,” she panted, dragging her mouth from his. “I can’t… I won’t…”

  “You can. You will.”

  He reached behind her and swept the various bottles and brushes and combs on the dressing table to one side. Wrapping his good arm around her waist, he lifted her and set her on its smooth, satiny surface. The cool wood only heightened by contrast the fevered heat of her skin.

  While Paige worked frantically at his belt buckle, he snagged his shirt and drew it, one-armed, over his head. In seconds, he stood before her, hard and rampant and hungry.

  The old Paige might have waited for him to make the next move.

  This one planted her hands on the smooth surface behind her, spread her legs wide and tipped her hips to receive him.

  David surged into her with a power and a strength that took her breath away. The bottles rattled. A brush tumbled off the table. Paige arched her neck, throwing her head back as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

  The savage thrusts slowed, then stilled.

  Surprised, she opened her eyes.

  He planted both hands beside hers, his chest heaving as he leaned over her.

  “Who do you see, Paige?”

  She struggled for breath. “What?”