Fuel for Fire

by Julie Ann Walker

  Turning his face, he kissed the inside of her silky thigh, then sucked the pulse point there. Hard. Marking her as his woman.

  “Mmm,” she moaned languidly, the hand in his hair gentling until she cupped his face. “You—” She tried to talk but had to swallow. “You really brought your A game today, didn’t you?”

  “Nothing but the best for you, babe.”

  Standing, he shucked his clothes in record time. All the while, he watched her watching him with those lazy, sexy, jungle-cat eyes. She looked smug. Sated. Then came the moment when satiation gave way to new hunger. Hunger…and maybe a little trepidation.

  “You have a preternaturally huge dick,” she blurted, grabbing her glasses from the countertop and slipping them on.

  He didn’t know about that. What he did know was that his aching cock needed some attention. The dumbass was literally weeping for it.

  Putting his own hand to work, he tried to soothe the poor bastard while Chelsea caught her bottom lip between her teeth, eyeing every stroke, every pull, her breaths coming faster and faster until she was panting.

  She likes to watch, too, he realized.

  If he needed further evidence of their sexual compatibility—which he didn’t—that would have been it.

  Then she grinned and said, “You need a little help with that bad boy? Maybe a little quid pro quo? I’d be happy to return the favor.”

  The thought of her on her knees in front of him, her pretty mouth wrapped around the head of his dick, had his hard-on jerking in his fist. Pre-ejaculate rolled over his knuckles, hot and slick.

  “Later,” he promised her, promised himself. “The first time I come, I want to be inside you.”

  Her lips formed a soundless oh my!

  Chapter 24

  Clearly, having been tended to by an oral virtuoso had turned Chelsea’s mind into Swiss cheese.

  It was either that or the fact that Dagan Zoelner was huge and horny and standing in front of her in nothing but his birthday suit. Because for the life of her, she couldn’t remember why there was a hard stone of remorse lodged in the center of her chest, why there was a rough, sooty kind of sadness swirling around the edges of her brain.

  Her eyes drank in the sight of his broad shoulders. His heavy chest with its crinkly hair. His washboard stomach that flexed with every breath. The tattoos on his body that stood out in thick, black ink.

  On his inner right forearm were the words To Thine Own Self Be True. He had once told her he got the ink after unwittingly becoming Senator Aldus’s puppet, a reminder to never be taken in again.

  A huge Grim Reaper decorated the meaty bulge over his left shoulder. It was a snarling, hooded creature with the traditional scythe. To emphasize that death is always near and that I should live each day as if it’s a gift, he’d said when she’d asked him about it.

  And then there was the list of initials inked into his flank. Three sets. One for each agent who had died in the café in Kabul. A memorial to them that was far more personal than the stars carved into the lobby wall back at Langley—and a way to never let himself forget.

  As if he would.

  Seeing the tattoo made that hard stone of remorse grow larger, made that rough, sooty sadness spread deeper. But then he stepped between her legs, pulling her against his broad chest, and all rational thought became impossible.

  She could smell the spicy scent of her own release clinging to his beard. The hairs on his chest were wonderfully abrasive against her nipples. And after a few minutes of kissing her to within an inch of her life, he cupped one sensitive globe and plumped it high, thumbing over the taut tip.

  Blood that had cooled burned hot once again. He gently removed her glasses and set them aside before he slipped a finger into the place where she was slick and hungry and beginning to ache anew.

  This man… This big, bearded, bossy man was everything she had ever dreamed he’d be and more. So much hotter. So much sexier. So much dirtier. And for this moment, for this brief bit of time out of time, she would forget everything but making him happy, giving him joy and pleasure and anything and everything he wanted.

  He inserted a second finger, stretching her tight. “You have the sweetest, hottest little pussy I’ve ever tasted. I can’t wait to get my cock in it. I’ll fill you so full.” His lips moved relentlessly against her own. “I’ll hit all those spots inside you. The ones you know about and the ones you don’t.”

  She didn’t doubt it. She hadn’t been joking about that whole preternaturally big dick thing. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Dagan was hung like a horse. Long and thick, with heavy veins and a bulbous crown that was so red and swollen it was shiny.

  In all honesty? She was a little nervous.

  Of course, any hesitation was forgotten as soon as he began to pump his fingers. In and out. Slow and steady. Using his thumb to thrum the knot of nerves at the top of her sex.

  She squirmed and pressed against his talented, marauding fingers like the shameless hussy she was. She wanted more. She needed more.

  He gave it to her by curling his fingers inside her and rubbing against that spot that only Junior Patrick, her battery-operated boyfriend, had touched in…years now.

  Really? Years?

  She searched her memory and realized that it had actually been over two years. Twenty-six months to be precise since the last time she had gotten a little sumpin’-sumpin’. And, truth be told, she wasn’t sure that last time really counted.

  Number one, she’d had a third glass of wine, which had pushed her over the county line of Tipsy into that little town known as Slightly Drunk. Number two, the guy she had gone to bed with was a friend of a friend, and not someone she was all that attracted to. He had reminded her a bit of Peregrin Took, short with elfin features and boyishly curly hair. She had only agreed to go out with him because she’d been desperate to stop longing for a man she could never have. And number three, the whole business had been over before she’d had the chance to come.

  And speaking of coming…

  Dagan was building the sensation inside her. It was becoming an intense burn that rose higher and flashed hotter as his fingers down below kept time with his stroking tongue up above. Then he pinched her nipple, and white lightning flashed across her skin.

  Her toes curled. Her head fell back on her neck. She might have cried out his name, but she couldn’t be sure since she was coming and coming and coming some more.

  Chapter 25

  Dover, England

  “He’s a big bastard. That’s for certain,” Morrison muttered, and Steven flicked him a look.

  They were sitting in the gravel lot beside the Dover docks, watching the man they had come to know as Rusty Parker as he went about tidying his boat. Rusty couldn’t see them through the SUV’s deeply tinted windows, but they had no trouble observing him as he stowed gear and washed the hull and deck of his catamaran with a hose.

  “He might put up a jolly good fight, were you to have to knock his head about,” Morrison added.

  “And why would I have to do that?” Steven didn’t like the gleam in the old man’s eyes. In point of fact, he didn’t like the old man. Unfortunately, he was stuck with him. For better or worse. And the longer this day dragged on, the more he feared it would be for the worse.

  “To get information from him, naturally.” Morrison shrugged.

  Not that Steven was opposed to bloodshed. In his previous line of work and his most recent endeavors, bloodshed was just a part of life. A part of the life. But he didn’t like it, and he tried his best to avoid it when possible.

  “Why don’t we wait to hear back from Benton before we break out the Chinese water torture, hmm?” And right on cue, his borrowed mobile came to life inside his trouser pocket. After glancing at the number, he thumbed on the device and held it to his ear. “Tell me something good.”

 
“It took a lot of digging,” came Benton’s reply, “but when I looked into Rusty Parker, I found something you’ll probably think interesting.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “Parker came into some scratch a few years back. Not an inheritance or anything, but a deposit of a quarter of a million dollars into his personal checking account.”

  “Who gave him the money?”

  “That’s the interesting part. It appeared to come from the National Marine Fisheries Service, but I couldn’t find out what the payment was for. Since the CIA likes to hide payouts to its players inside the budgets of other government entities, I followed a hunch and hacked into their database.”

  All the hairs on Steven’s neck twanged upright. “You hacked into the bloody CIA? Have you lost your marbles?”

  “Nothing fancy. Nothing deep enough to set off any alarm bells. But I tell you, even a rudimentary surface scan was difficult enough. Our government could learn a thing or two from the Yanks when it comes to cybersecurity.”

  “Benton—”

  “But that’s neither here nor there.” Benton pressed on quickly, reacting to the impatience Steven couldn’t keep from his tone. “I found a reference to Rusty Parker. His name is attached to a CIA file I didn’t dare attempt to download. But it was a big file. That much I could determine. Given the file size and the sudden influx of cash into Rusty’s account, I would say the gobshite did some work as a CIA asset.”

  “Bollocks!” Steven snarled, his mind gathering all the pieces of the puzzle and trying to fit them together. “So the facts of the case are as follows: Number one, Rusty Parker likely worked for the CIA in some capacity. Number two, Chelsea Duvall planted a virus too sophisticated for you to overcome without first reverse engineering it, a virus the likes of which the U.S. intelligence agency has been known to construct. Number three, Miss Duvall was snatched out of my hands by what I’m sure were trained agents. And number four, the Ducatis Miss Duvall and her trained agent mates rented are parked right beside the docks where Rusty anchors his boat.”

  Their friend in Scotland Yard had agreed to hold off on sharing the information about the location of the Ducatis with any law enforcement agencies until Steven gave him the go-ahead. It was no secret that Spider was using his pull with the authorities to apprehend Chelsea Duvall. But it was also no secret that Spider would far prefer that Steven take care of the situation himself if possible. “Is it just me, or does that all sound a bit too coincidental?”

  “Right-oh,” Benton concurred.

  “Did you happen to find Parker’s current address in all your digging?” It was obvious that Steven’s quarry wasn’t on Parker’s boat. But his intuition told him the same might not be true about Parker’s house. “Does he live in Dover?”

  “Nope. Over in Folkestone.” Benton rattled off an address.

  Folkestone, huh? The border agent had said Rusty led them on a merry chase from Dover to Folkestone and back again. Had Chelsea and the others been on Rusty’s catamaran, only somehow to slip under the Border Agency’s radar and make it back ashore before Rusty’s boat could be boarded and searched?

  Steven supposed it was possible. Then, the memory of the way those blokes had moved when they barged into the penthouse had him moving that possible straight into the probable category.

  “Thank you, Benton.” He thumbed off the phone and leaned between the front seats, quickly giving Ramón the address to Rusty’s house. Adrenaline burned through his blood. He was on to something; he could feel it. “And step on it,” he told the driver. “I want to have a look around before he”—he shot a finger gun toward Rusty—“gets there.”

  Ramón glanced at Morrison in the rearview mirror, asking permission to follow Steven’s order with nothing more than a raised eyebrow.

  “Do as he asks.” The old man flapped a consenting hand that made Steven grit his teeth.

  Chapter 26

  Folkestone, England

  In Christian’s experience, places like the Bloody Bucket, places serving free music, cheap beer, and marginally edible baskets of fish and chips were the world’s leading purveyors of hangovers.

  Unfortunately for him, he had limited himself to one pint of the local brew. A brew that Ace had decreed was the sudsy nectar of the gods, and Christian couldn’t agree more. Beer was just better in Britain. None of that flat piss served ice-cold and guzzled by the twelve-pack.

  Yet, despite the sad state of his near-empty pint glass, Christian was grinning as he swirled his last chip through a pile of mayonnaise.

  That was another thing. He could not fathom the fuss about ketchup. If one didn’t shake a ketchup bottle or ketchup packet properly, one was left with an unappetizing slick of ketchup water. Disgusting.

  There were loads of things he did not miss about England. A good, noisy, wood-paneled pub wasn’t one of them.

  Popping the mayonnaise-dipped chip in his mouth, he hummed his contentment. Things could fall to shite faster than he could snap his fingers—that was just the way of the world in their line of work—but for now he was happy. As a spec-ops soldier, he had learned to appreciate life’s little moments.

  Across from him, Emily halted with a forkful of fish halfway to her mouth. She cocked her pretty head. “Now that’s a new smile.” She pointed her fork in his direction. “I’m not sure how to read it.”

  Usually he tried to avoid going quip for quip with her. Especially since her quick mind always surprised and delighted him, which in turn made him incredibly horny. The latter was a problem since she had given him no indication that her constant taunting and teasing would lead to anything other than more taunting and teasing.

  But the devil got the better of him—or else it was simply a case of masochism—and he feigned an amazed expression. “Oh, you read? The surprises today…they just keep coming, don’t they?”

  Ace snorted, but didn’t look up from his basket of food.

  “Don’t let my occasional lapse into poor grammar fool you, mister,” Emily declared. “I’m a card-carrying member of Oprah’s Book Club. And speaking of reading…” She held up one of the Bloody Bucket’s laminated menus. The history of the establishment was printed on the back. “So what if two hundred years ago on this very site a local went to the town well and pulled up a bucket full of blood because someone had disposed of a murdered body in there? Does that make it okay to name a place that serves food and drink the Bloody Bucket? What is with you Englishmen?”

  “Skewed senses of humor?” Christian suggested.

  “I vote for lack of imagination,” Ace said, dragging a chip through a mound of ketchup. Bleck!

  “You’re one to talk,” Christian scoffed. “If memory serves, your favorite place to eat in Chicago is Downtown Dogs, which serves hot dogs…say it with me…downtown.”

  Emily opened her mouth to add something that Christian was sure to find wonderfully scathing or snarky. But before she uttered a word, her eyes focused over his shoulder and her lips sealed shut. He was instantly on edge.

  They had chosen a four-top table near the southern wall. The location allowed him a view of the front window while Ace kept an eye on the back door. Watching the exits was one more thing they did naturally, instinctively. But the arrangement proved disadvantageous because it meant Christian’s back was to the bar. He had to crane his head over his shoulder to see what had snagged Emily’s attention. The moment he did, he wished he hadn’t.

  Oh brilliant, he thought, watching the woman headed their way.

  When they arrived, the pub had been mostly empty. But the clock on the wall now read half past five, and the place had filled up. Locals packed the bar area, and the tables around them had not one seat to spare. Which brought him back to the woman…

  She had been sitting alone at the bar when they entered. One look at her outdated, frizzy blond hairstyle, her two-sizes too-tight clothes, and her
blatant leer had told him everything he needed to know. She was the town drunk and the town score.

  Every little borough had one. A woman who dolled herself up and hit the local pub in the afternoon, drinking her government support check away by evening, which was when she would start chatting up others to buy her another round. Sometimes she would blow a stranger or a local just to get her next glassful. And all the while she lived with the hope that one of the men would see past her smudged eye makeup and whiskey-sour breath to the good-hearted woman beneath.

  Christian knew all about her kind of woman. His mother had been one.

  “Oh snap,” Emily muttered. “My craydar is going nutso.”

  “Craydar?” Ace asked, unaware they had company coming.

  “The ability to spot crazy,” Emily explained from the side of her mouth just as the blond-haired woman sat in the extra chair at their table.

  “Well, you three look flush and full of fun,” she said, fiddling with the cheap silver cross attached to the chain around her neck. Christian had thought she was pushing forty, but up close he could see she was probably a good decade younger.

  Hard living had a way of aging the body.

  A memory of his mother stumbling home and stinking of well gin tried to invade his head, but he quickly shoved it away.

  “How ’bout lettin’ me join the fun, eh?” The woman’s words slurred together. “What say you all to another round?”

  “Care to give us your name first, luv?” Ace asked, eyeing her curiously.

  “Oh.” The frizzy blond blinked. “I’m Jenny.” She extended her hand. “And you’re the most delicious thing what’s come ’round here in a fortnight.”

  Christian assumed she was attempting to look seductive when she pursed her lips at Ace, but it only served to make her look more drunk.

  “Hi, Jenny.” Ace shook her hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Ace. I’m gay. And we’re all on the clock, so another round is out of the question.”