by Karen Anders
That was her reality, not this sunlit room, in this gorgeous house nestled in the breathtaking landscape of Southern California, with this enticing, drop-dead-dangerous man.
But she never missed a beat or dropped out of her Gina cover. She played her part to the fullest extent. “Good, because Reggie and Alberto will deliver what they promised. If they don’t, I’ll make them sorry, and I won’t need any help to do so.”
Jammer took another sip of his coffee and polished off the muffin. “I’ll help anyway.”
A shiver ran down her spine at the menacing tone in his voice.
He rose and set the cup on the nightstand, disappearing into the bathroom. While he showered, Callie stepped out on the balcony and updated Gillian on her progress.
She ended the call just as Jammer exited the bathroom. He climbed into a pair of black boxer briefs and blue jeans.
“This gunrunner in London. Does he have blond hair and a Cockney accent?”
“Yes. I thought you didn’t know him?”
“I don’t, just heard about him.”
He picked up the towel he’d dropped and vigorously rubbed his dark hair, leaving it in wet, tangled spikes.
“And?” she asked.
“Nothing bad that I remember. I just heard he has a thing for you.”
“All men have a thing for me. I know how to handle those ‘things’ with a quick jab of my knee.”
He laughed out loud. “Good. Then I won’t have to kill him.”
She eyed Jammer, trying to gauge whether he was serious or not. What she saw in his eyes sent another, more powerful shiver down her spine.
“Now, there’s no need for jealousy or violence. That’s never been a smart combination. I’m only interested in you, baby.” She felt the truth of her words resonate against her heartstrings. Her hands itched to touch him.
“I still don’t like it,” he said, giving the full effect of a lethal Jammer.
“Awww, come on, sweetie. You’re not going to make me regret getting you a firearm in London now, are you? The Brits don’t really appreciate us crazy Americans acting like we’re in the Wild West.” She pouted and then smiled as that look faded from his eyes. And the urge to touch him ratcheted up a notch.
“Don’t worry. You can be sure I’ll be locked and loaded.”
“Judging from my keen observation, baby, you don’t need a gun for that.”
Her gaze slid over him. The reality was far better than any fantasy she’d worked up during the few weeks they’d been separated. His heavy muscles stood out in stark relief as he picked up his cup and sipped his coffee, his eyes on her-not her body or anything else, but her face. It was intense; she felt it down to her bones. Her gaze slipped to his jeans. The top button was open. She wanted to peel those off and have her way with him. As if reading her mind, his mouth curved.
She reached out and smoothed her hands over his chest. “I’m really hating the airlines right now.”
Jammer set the cup down. “I take it we don’t have time because we’ve got a flight to catch?”
Her palms, hot from the warmth of his skin, tingled. The chemistry between them could cause a small fire-spontaneous combustion.
He bent down and she covered his mouth with a quick movement of her hand.
“Get packed,” she told him, recognizing the look in his eyes. “Guns, deals.”
“You’re all business, aren’t you?”
Smiling widely, she moved off the bed and squatted to grab her suitcase. “Get dressed, Jammer. Before I lose my business sense and peel you out of those jeans.”
But she didn’t get far. His warm hand slipped around her wrist and she found herself jerked up against him. His eyes locked to hers like a loaded gun. The experience of a fully aroused Jammer who wanted what he wanted was seductive, intimate and wholly unnerving.
“Jammer, the flight…”
Most of the time, she thought she had the tiger tamed, but at moments like this, when he exerted his formidable presence, Callie found that the taming was a complete and total illusion. What shocked her about him constantly was his ability to make her melt, when she knew in her brain that she shouldn’t be doing anything of the sort. From the instant she’d met him, she’d lost that cool, controlled persona that had protected her from situations exactly like this.
She was playing a dangerous game, but she just couldn’t seem to help herself. He made everything inside her come alive every second she was with him.
His mouth curved. “Who gives a fuck about the flight?”
Drawing a deep, measured breath to steady herself, she tilted her chin up and tried again. “We do. Remember Fuentes.”
“That bastard can go to hell,” he said. His tone dismissed the drug lord as if he was totally inconsequential. “Usually I prefer to take my time with you, Gina. Slow, long strokes that make you want to go crazy. But fast works for me, too.”
He held her gaze, his eyes dark and intense, mesmerizing. “You’re killing me with that outfit, and you expect me to keep my hands off you. You don’t want me to, do you?”
Her breath hitched and she ran out of air, just like that. Her breasts pressed firmly to him, tingling from the provocative heat of his rock-solid chest. Her pulse tripped all over itself, and anticipation coiled tight and low in her belly.
“I want to suck your nipples right through that pure white mesh. Take those hard, hot peaks, the color of cherries, into my mouth and taste you.”
“You are such a seductive bastard, but we don’t have time…”
He leaned in, the clean, sharp smell of him making her lose her train of thought for a moment. Then it was totally lost when he said, “I bet you’re hot and deliciously wet right now. I bet my cock would glide in like greased lightning.”
She groaned and that was the end of his restraint. His mouth was scorching and demanding from the instant he assaulted hers, as if he was unleashing all the passion and hunger that he just couldn’t contain. It spilled over in his almost savage kiss. He kissed her deeply, his mouth pressing harder until she tasted blood, and she wasn’t sure if it was his or hers.
His hand fisted in her hair at her nape, while the other stroked down her spine and cupped her bottom and squeezed. Next thing she knew, she was flat on her back on the bed. Her senses reeled as he loomed over her, looking tough and sexy. She could feel the explosive energy coiling tighter and tighter inside his strong body.
His hands went to the thin straps of her top and dragged them down her arms until they caught in the crooks of her elbows and the mesh material bunched beneath her breasts. Without giving her time to breathe, he closed his blazing mouth over one firm nipple, then the other, using his tongue and teeth before sucking her hard and strong, and she cried out from the searing pleasure of it.
Her hips began to move against his, rubbing along his thickened erection, seeking relief from the growing, pulsing ache between her thighs. He swore and pulled his mouth from her breast, breathing heavily, his eyes electric.
“I need you inside, Jammer, inside.”
His nostrils flared, and with a low, rumbling growl he stripped off his jeans and boxers, then her lacy panties. Before she could take another breath, he rose over her, fitting himself between her thighs. There was nothing gentle about the way he plunged into her and filled her to the hilt, nothing sweet about his deep, driving thrusts.
“Fuck, you’re killing me,” he said with agony.
Her body embraced every inch of him, met him stroke for stroke, matching his erotic rhythm as it sped out of control.
He groaned and tossed back his head, arching into her, surging higher, grinding harder, moving faster until she was gasping for breath and swept into a devastating climax.
Growling low in his throat, he surrendered to his own fierce orgasm. His hips pressed her farther into the bed, then farther still, nearly crushing her with the violent force of his release. His breath ragged, he collapsed on top of her and buried his face against her neck.
“Really,” she said softly, against his brow. “Who gives a fuck about the flight?”
“I love it when you talk dirty,” he mumbled into her throat, and they both erupted into laughter.
Callie was weak when it came to this one particular man, completely and utterly helpless to resist his allure, so unable to refuse him anything.
And that was going to cause her a wealth of heartache in the end.
DUE TO JAMMER’S delay they had to take a later flight, which put them into Rome ’s very busy Fiumicino Airport early in the morning. Finally, they got through security and customs, and were in a limo heading to their hotel-the St. George Roma, a quaint hotel Callie had never visited and Jammer had stayed in several times. It was decorated in a trendy style, with lots of travertine and marble on the walls and floors.
Callie was used to time changes, and jet lag had ceased to affect her. She was wide-awake and sleep wasn’t an option, so Jammer suggested they go for a run before the heat and tourists took over the city.
Eager for the exercise, Callie changed into a T-shirt and shorts and followed Jammer out of their hotel.
It was still dark outside, but the streets were illuminated and easy to navigate. Dawn was about an hour away.
Jammer took her past St. Peter’s Basilica and through winding streets as the city came awake. After thirty minutes of running they passed the Pantheon and, jogging in place, Callie stopped to take in the ancient structure.
It wasn’t long before she could hear the sound of gushing water. It reached a crescendo when they emerged in a square and saw the Trevi Fountain, bathed in gold from the illumination of the lights.
Panting from their exertion, Jammer and Callie splashed themselves with the water from the fountain to cool off.
There were very few pedestrians around, but traffic was starting to increase in the area where three roads intersected, forming the square.
When their breathing had returned to normal, they sat on the edge of the fountain.
“This is quite beautiful,” Callie said.
“The fountain was built as a tribute to the aqueducts that supplied water to ancient Rome,” Jammer replied.
“I’m sure it was an engineering marvel.”
Jammer laughed and Callie loved the deep, carefree sound of it. She smiled. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s funny because supposedly a virgin led Roman engineers to the source of the pure water.”
“Once again, it takes a woman to show men where they need to go.”
“You’ve never had any problem with telling me where to go,” he said softly. His voice was barely audible above the rushing water. She had to lean against him, making the moment intimate and romantic. “That’s true,” she said, rubbing her cheek against his.
Jammer slipped his arm around her, drawing her closer. Callie snaked her arm around his waist. Snuggling into the crook of his neck, she relaxed against his wide, hard chest.
“Kidding aside, this is more than a mere sculpture,” Jammer said. “It’s a wonderful example of Baroque art with its soft, natural lines and fantasy creatures that embody movement as the soul of the world.”
Callie was stunned. Simply stunned. Jammer, who looked like he belonged in some smoky bar as a bouncer, was talking about Baroque art in such a way that it made her raise her head and study him. His eyes were a different shade of gray, like a calm, early-morning sky, content in the beginning of the day and warming from the rising of the sun.
A morning breeze ruffled his short hair, which appeared blue-black in the shortening shadows as dawn broke on the horizon. It was one of those true, genuine moments that she would always remember, like the one when he had talked about his father. A window into the real person Jammer was. The identity of the man she wanted to get to know more deeply than she would have time for.
Unexpectedly, tears pricked her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to clear them. There was no crying in black ops.
He shifted their bodies so that she was sitting between his legs. They watched as the sun melted the gold, seeming to wash down the statues and disappear into the water until it, too, changed to aquamarine.
“It’s the light and shade effects of the marble that make it seem like the clothes and hair of the statues are moving-Neptune is the one standing in the chariot being pulled by two seahorses. To the side stand Abundance and Salubrity, and around the borders of the pool are stone and carved vegetation representing the sea.”
Callie got a very unique view of a piece of art from a man from whom she had expected only violence and greed. This side of him shook her foundations and crumbled her defenses all the more, until she was scrambling to find a foothold to hang on to her objectivity.
The struggle to deny her own feelings caused a pressure in her chest that grew and grew, like an inflating balloon. It crowded against her lungs, squeezed her heart, closed off her throat, pushed hard on the backs of her eyes. She had crushed it out before, time and again.
This was the paradox of being undercover. You had to become the person you needed to be-not role-play, not act, not pretend. She had to guard who she was from Jammer to protect her cover. It seemed ironic to try to hide anything from a man with whom she had shared the most private parts of her body, who had taken her to dizzying heights of pleasure and held her safe in his arms. She had opened her body to him, but she couldn’t ever open her heart and truly share with him everything she was. Gina Callahan could do that, but Callie Carpenter couldn’t.
For the first time in this crazy relationship that hurt.
“Who are you?” she asked softly, not sure if he could hear her above the rushing water that cooled her face, not sure if the moisture was tears she wouldn’t acknowledge or random droplets from the fountain.
He didn’t speak, but she could feel his alertness behind her, as if he wanted to tell her. Wanted to give her that insight into his character that she craved.
Finally, he said, “I’m just a cog, Gina. Just a cog.”
He was wrong. He wasn’t a cog, he was a linchpin, and when it was pulled, everything would come crashing down. He was her conduit to the Ghost. Her mission.
Who would have thought she would have needed that reminder? Not her. Her relationship with Jammer had been intense from the start. Those three days in Paris, as they had slaked a need for each other that became as addictive as a drug, were ones she would never forget. But she’d set up the deal with the intention of trapping the Ghost, and she had been resolved to follow through. All she could hope for in that situation would be that Jammer would get jail time, but not as much as his boss.
But then Miyagi’s henchman had run her down, giving her a concussion, and she’d been out of it enough that her twin sister, Allie, had had to fill in. But Allie and Drew had failed to capture the Ghost, had lost the weapons and the money to Jammer. He had orchestrated the death of Miyagi, effectively saving her sister’s life, for which Callie would always be grateful.
How to mesh this man with his international reputation for being the Ghost’s muscle? It was interesting how he was always where the Ghost was supposed to be. Always the face of the organization. It made her wonder and speculate.
Jammer was much more than the Ghost’s muscle. She found this intriguing, and grudgingly had to admire Jammer’s intelligence.
“We’d better get going,” he said as he let her go. She slid off the fountain and for an instant, in front of one of the most famous monuments in the world, she wrapped her arms around him and held him, just held on to him, breathing in his scent and enjoying the sheer physical contact.
That was the other negative side effect of being undercover-the loneliness of never really letting herself get too close.
And in her heart, she knew that even after she’d completed her mission she would always feel that loneliness, because after her mission was complete, Jammer would never hold her like this again.
7
THE ITALIAN MET THEM in a small conference room provided by t
he hotel. It was a quick transaction and took all of thirty minutes to complete.
As they were wrapping up, Jammer asked, “Alberto, do you have any ideas where would I get my hands on seven or eight hundred surface-to-air missiles and two planes?”
Callie closed her eyes and swore softly when Alberto regarded her quizzically.
“This information I have already given to the fair Gina. È questo non è così?”
Jammer looked at her as she smiled and nodded at the Italian. “Yes, you have, but I haven’t had a chance to discuss it with Jammer.”
“Ah, well, I must depart. Your shipment will go out this afternoon to the place you have specified.” He kissed Gina’s hand and exited the room with his two bodyguards.
As the door closed, Jammer turned to her. “You know where to get the rest of the weapons? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was checking all my contacts.”
“Why do that when we have a solid lead on those weapons? It’s all I need to complete the shipment.”
Just then Jammer’s cell rang. He answered curtly. “Fuentes,” he mouthed to Callie. He listened to the voice on the other end and rubbed at his temple as Fuentes’s yelling rose another octave. Switching to Spanish, he said, “I am meeting my obligation and I will have everything you requested within the allotted time, which I have to point out isn’t up yet.” Jammer was silent again. “I don’t care what rumors you’ve heard. I fulfill my promises and expect that everything will be to your specifications.”
Fuentes’s voice dropped, and Jammer ended the call shortly afterward.
“Now, who is this contact?”
“Joost Roorback,” Callie said. She wasn’t disappointed in Jammer’s reaction.
“Son of a bitch! Three years I’ve been doing this and not one problem. Not one.” He sat down heavily in one of the conference room chairs. “Joost fucking Roorback hates me, and the Ghost in particular. He feels that he’s being dissed every time I make a buy in the Ghost’s name. He’s a loose cannon and a murdering, sadistic bastard. I don’t want you anywhere near him.”