by Tawny Weber
Diego nodded, and when Harper looked as if she were going to protest—or finish whatever she’d been trying to say—he took her arm.
“Thank you for your time,” he said quietly, moving past the woman without releasing his hold on Harper.
The mortician was waiting at the door, swinging it wide as if to hurry them out. They didn’t speak until it had closed behind them and they were on their way down the driveway.
“Well, she was a delight, wasn’t she?” Diego muttered.
“Nathan has her chin.” Looking like she was fighting the urge to cry, Harper took a deep breath and glanced back once before continuing walking. “I didn’t want to see a resemblance. But it’s there.”
“That’s all that was there, though.”
“What do you mean?” She stopped and shook her head as if throwing off the fear that had kept her so quiet. “We should have asked more questions. Should have pushed harder. What if she knows where he has Nathan?”
Diego took her by the arm.
“She doesn’t.”
“How do you know? You didn’t even ask about Nathan.”
It wasn’t easy to pull a woman down a sloping driveway and make it look like a casual stroll. But Diego thought he managed okay.
“No reason to do either.” He waited until they’d reached the truck before letting go of Harper. Once there, he kept his voice low.
“You saw that shrine. She worships her only begotten son. If she really thought he was alive, she’d have behaved differently. She’s telling herself he is, but she was looking for reassurance. And if she knew he had a son, there would be evidence. A mini-throne, signs that she’d moved photos out, filled in the blanks.” He shook his head, pulling a face as he retrieved the keys. “Could be because Ramsey doesn’t trust her—could be he simply doesn’t need her. But she’s not involved. I didn’t think she would be, but now we know for sure.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Why what?” He studied her face, taking note of those penetrating eyes and their wounded depths. He realized he couldn’t bullshit her. “I told you. Recon. It had to be checked out. She’s the closest living relative, unless he’s holing up at the prison where his old man plays golf. She’s his safety net.”
Harper simply waited.
Giving her points for interrogative skills, Diego shrugged. “You needed something to do.” He eyed the edgy nerves on her face, the way her fingers clenched and unclenched. She still did. “You want to drive?”
Harper blinked her surprise. “You’ll let me? I thought guys got their dicks in a knot over giving women that kind of power.”
“My dick likes it when you’re on top.”
She was either so emotionally drained that she’d lost her ability to hold the anger. Or that’d actually been funny.
Either way, he was glad it made Harper laugh.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
HARPER FIGURED IT was easier to let Diego do the driving.
Not out of any worry about his equipment. She knew, up close and personal, that it could withstand any number of challenges.
But there was simply too much conflict going on between her head and her heart, in her thoughts and her fears. It was easier to sit back in the passenger seat and rest her head against the cool glass of the window while she tried to sort through it all.
She loved her son. Adored him. She found herself pulling his baseball out of her bag and rolling it between her palms. Feeling that worn leather against her skin seemed to bring Nathan a little closer.
But even now, knowing he was in danger, facing the possibility of losing him—of never seeing him again—she couldn’t imagine building him a shrine.
What did being raised with that sort of unhealthy obsession do? Was that why Brandon was—or had been—so sure of himself? So absolutely positive that he was right, that he was best? She’d always thought he was just a selfish jerk. But if he’d done...well, whatever it was that he’d done that was so dangerous that a team of SEALs was dogging him, he’d gone beyond arrogance.
However he’d been raised, however he’d been trained, he’d chosen his path. He’d decided that he was beyond the law, that he was smarter than the military and more important than world peace.
She’d always told herself that DNA didn’t matter, that it made no difference who Nathan’s biological father was. But boy had she been proven wrong. It mattered.
Harper blinked, actually surprised when she saw the tears falling on her hand, sliding over the grimy leather of the ball.
She’d been wrong.
Now she had to figure out how she was going to make it up to Nathan. How she was going to fix her son’s world once he was back in hers. She had to believe that he’d be back. That Diego and his men would find Nathan so she could make it up to him.
Lost in the pain of her thoughts, it wasn’t until Harper’s stomach growled that she remembered that she hadn’t eaten in hours. For the first time since Diego had started the truck and pulled away from the Ramsey mansion, she paid attention to where they were.
Which turned out to be no place she wanted to be.
“Why are we going this way?” Tension gripped her belly as she scowled at the familiar highway with its sloping hills and congested traffic. “I thought we were flying right back to Santa Barbara.”
“Quick side trip. Call it a roundabout route to the air base.”
She wanted to ask why, but she was afraid she already knew the answer.
When Diego got off Highway 4, Harper was so tightly wound as he wended his way down familiar streets, she was afraid she was going to throw up. As she tried to keep from screaming, she noted that the streets weren’t any prettier now than they’d been when she was a kid.
“There’s an address here that Lansky found in Ramsey’s computer files. It was buried pretty deep, hidden under a few layers. I figure it’s worth checking out to see what he was hiding.”
But it wasn’t Brandon’s secret hidden on these streets. Harper tried to swallow the bile rising in her throat. Her eyes burned as she imagined the look in his when he realized the truth. His admiration, his attraction, even his perception of her, they were about to be blown to teeny tiny pieces, showing Diego just how fake she was.
Harper wiped the tear that trickled down her cheek and mourned the loss of Diego’s vision of her. It shouldn’t matter, since he wasn’t who she’d thought he was, either. But finding out the sexy security guy was actually a big-time hero was one thing. Finding out the elegantly classy woman living in the fancy estate was really a cheap loser from a scummy neighborhood? It wasn’t the same.
Just ego, she assured herself. It wasn’t as if she’d actually fell for the guy like she’d thought.
And if Harper had learned nothing the last couple of days, it was that she didn’t get to choose what she could face or avoid. So when Diego stopped in front of a building that appeared to be held together by dirt as much as mortar, Harper could only sigh.
“Why would he keep track of this place?” she wondered, so quietly it was almost a thought. “He never even visited. Not once that I know of.”
“You know the significance of this address?” He gestured toward the dirty apartment building, with its dead lawn and sad bushes, the paint scarred here and there with darker patches where the landlord had tried to disguise graffiti. There was a parking lot to one side, half-empty but for a handful of run-down cars—two of which rested on cinder blocks.
On one corner was a QuickMart, on the other the high school. Trash, plastic bags and fluttering paper waved through metal fencing surrounding the school like pennants, but Harper had no desire to celebrate.
“You won’t find Brandon here,” she said. “But if he was tracking Nathan all these years, he probably started with this address.”
“Why
?”
“In case I ran here, brought my baby here. More likely, because I’d used this as my address for a few years, even after I’d left.” At Diego’s questioning look, she grimaced. “I didn’t think Brandon would come looking or bother trying to keep track of me. Why would he? He’d dumped me and didn’t want the baby. He believed I was getting an abortion. But I was a little paranoid after he threatened me with his parents, so I used this as my official address for a couple of years.”
“You lived here?”
Despite her mortification, Harper’s lips twitched at the shock in his tone.
“I grew up here,” she murmured, noting the fresh graffiti that hadn’t been cleaned off the walls of the high school. She pointed. “I graduated from that school. Three other girls were pregnant our senior year, but they dropped out.”
“You didn’t?”
“Too stubborn. And I had a baby coming. I didn’t think I could give him much of a life if I didn’t even have a high school degree.”
“I’m impressed.”
She glanced at him in puzzlement. How was that possible? There was nothing impressive about this place. The air itself stank with misery and pessimism. The few people on the street looked toward them with expressions of suspicion, hate or both.
“Nobody would believe you came from here,” he explained.
She wished she could say she was proud to look around this sad neighborhood and know how far she’d come. But as always, all she felt was shame at how she’d began.
“You won’t find Brandon here,” she said again. “Nor anything connected to him. So can we go?”
Before she gave up all hope.
* * *
DIEGO NOTED THE drug deal going down on the corner, the two girls—looked like preteens—hooking at the far end of the high school yard and a couple of brave flowers growing in the window box of a house whose paint peeled like onion skin.
He hadn’t thought Harper could surprise him again. He’d been wrong.
He hadn’t thought the two of them had more common ground than great sex and a connection to Ramsey.
Apparently he’d been wrong about that, too.
It looked like they had their beginnings in common, too. What did it say about him that he found pleasure in that? Maybe it was the idea that she might understand. That she might see him a little clearer. Someday.
After he brought her son back to her.
He glanced at the clock on the dashboard and slid the truck into gear. She was right. They had other things to do.
“Once the kid is home, remind me to show you where I grew up,” he couldn’t help but say as he pulled away from the curb. “In the meantime, you hungry?”
He took her murmur as agreement and pulled into the first drive-through he saw. Since she appeared ready to drop, he opted to keep driving while he choked down a couple of burgers. She only managed half of hers, along with a scant few fries, but he figured that was pretty good, all things considered.
For the most part, the rest of the drive back to the air base was made in silence. Per Savino’s directive, a cargo plane was waiting, fueled and cleared for flight. All Diego had to do was drop off the truck keys before they boarded.
Harper had wrapped herself in a cocoon of silence, her expression exhausted, her demeanor defeated. It was all Diego could do not to pound his fists into the wall of the plane. He’d brought her along to give her a focus outside her misery. For all the damned good it had done.
Since it was just the two of them and the pilot on board, Diego gestured Harper into the body of the plane, pausing briefly to speak with the pilot to confirm takeoff and conditions. Then, using the privacy, he took a moment to text the team for updates.
Nothing. Not a fucking thing had changed.
He gave in to the need to grind his teeth, then sucked it up and put on the poker face. His only concern for the next forty minutes of travel time was Harper’s state of mind.
When he stepped into the bay, he found her curled up on one of the benches that ran the length of the cargo hold, her head resting on that giant purse of hers and her feet bare.
“I just need to close my eyes for a few minutes,” she said, stating the obvious since they were already closed. “I’ll get up and put a seat belt on at takeoff time.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
His shoulders heavy with worry, he slid an anchor strap around her, belting her in where she was. A few minutes later the plane took off.
“There’s no word on Nathan, is there,” she asked without opening her eyes. Her words were so heavy with despondence that Diego couldn’t stop himself from brushing a hand softly over her cheek, hoping to offer even the smallest amount of comfort.
“The team is working on it,” he promised. “We’re almost there.”
“Almost?”
“MacGyver’s working on it.” He’d broken through Ramsey’s encryption; Prescott had worked a little decoding magic. They had an electronic signature verifying that Ramsey was behind the sale of the formula. They’d pulled together enough data for NI to deem the team was in the clear and the CIA to be told to get off Poseidon’s ass.
Savino hadn’t sounded sure, though. Whether because he didn’t think NI was going to let go of their vendetta against Poseidon, or because it wasn’t enough to shut this down, Diego wasn’t sure. Bottom line, they didn’t have a location. They didn’t have the kid.
Guilt a misery in his gut, Diego watched the emotions play over Harper’s face. He hated what he’d done to her. And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to fix it. Not yet. Not until they caught that break and found Nathan. But maybe for just a moment he could give her a tiny break from the worry.
With that in mind, he took her mouth. When she didn’t pull away he took the kiss deeper.
Slow. Oh, so seductively slow, he swept his tongue along her lips, sipping gently before sliding between the seam and engaging her in a sweet dance.
Her fingers gripped tight, digging erotically into his flesh, making him want, making him desperate.
But this wasn’t about him.
Harper’s hum of approval worked at his resolve, but Diego reminded himself that he wasn’t controlled by his dick. No matter how insistent it was.
He found the hem of her shirt, reveling in the warm skin beneath. He traced a pattern up the silken delight of her waist, circling until he reached the lace of her bra. He teased her nipple where it pressed tight against the fabric, flicking his thumb over the rough design of the lace.
“More,” she murmured against his mouth. “Give me more. Make me forget.”
Oh, yeah. He intensified the kiss. His tongue stabbed, teeth scraped. He gripped her breasts, working those delicious nipples between his fingers.
Her hands pressed, fingers dancing over his shoulders, down his arms and back up to cup his head. She gripped his hair and arched her back.
He took the hint and worked his kisses across the soft planes of her cheek, along her chin and down her delicate throat.
Impatient, he shoved her shirt out of the way, tugging the lace down to expose the berry tip of one breast to his tongue. He laved it softly, round and round the rosy edges, feeling her body tighten with each circle. When her fingers gripped his biceps, nails digging into his flesh, he sucked.
Hard.
She cried out as her hips arched. The rumble of the aircraft muffled any noise she might make.
Filling his mouth with her deliciousness, he tweaked the opposite breast even as his free hand teased and swirled a path over her belly. He made quick work of the button on her jeans, shoving her pants down so he could dip his fingers into her wet heat.
That’s what he wanted. What he needed.
Her.
Wet, wanting, ready.
He dipped, swirled the ti
p of his finger around the sensitive bud between her thighs, then dipped again. Her breath came faster, panting little mewls of need.
His mouth followed the path his hand had took, his lips leaving a hot trail down her torso, over her belly. Between her legs.
His tongue slid along her pouting, swollen clitoris. She gasped. His teeth gently tugged. She moaned.
Her hands gripped, trying to pull him up. Trying to angle him back up, to move him over her body. He wanted that. He wanted in.
They had the time, at least twenty more minutes in the air.
They had privacy, this ride had no autopilot option.
But Diego had a point to make. “This is for you, babe.”
She mumbled a breathy protest, but his mouth was too busy to respond. The rest of her comments came in the form of escalating whimpers and gasping breaths.
He swirled his tongue around the rim of her core, fingers tweaking, pinching. When he felt the tension ripple through her, when her back arched high, her heels digging into the bench so she could press tighter against him...
That’s when his tongue plunged.
Deep inside. Again and again.
Until she exploded over his tongue, into his mouth, through his being.
But once wasn’t enough. So he sent her up again.
Even as he swallowed her addicting juices, his teeth and tongue worked. He slid his hands up her body to cup her breasts, fingers tugging and tweaking in time with his teasing tongue.
This time she came with a scream.
God, he loved that sound.
Because he knew he was afraid he could stay here all day making her repeat it, he reluctantly shifted out from between her thighs. He couldn’t let go, though.
He had to hold her. Had to pull her tight into his arms and hang on, to feel the quivering aftershocks of pleasure ripple through her.
“Why?” she finally mumbled, the words almost lost against his chest.
“You needed it.”
He grinned when he felt her laugh. Good. She needed that, too.
“I don’t want to lose this,” he confessed, surprised to hear his thoughts put into words.