by Lora Leigh
"They paid good money for him," Ian murmured. "Sorrell isn't going to be happy that he failed."
"We got lucky last night, boss," Deke said. "I can't see the Missern brothers fucking up like that, even if they are in bed with Sorrell. It's all about the profit to them. I'm suspecting a leak in-house."
Ian suspected that as well. It wasn't the first time Sorrell's men had been where they shouldn't have.
"Look into it." Ian flipped the pictures to the desk and ran his hands over his face before leaning back in the chair and staring back at Deke thoughtfully.
He waved at the bodyguard to take a seat, his eyes narrowed as Deke stared back at him expectantly.
"Sorrell's gearing up," he murmured. "He wants the cartel bad enough to try to take me out now. What would his next move be?" He knew what he suspected, but he needed confirmation of it.
"He'll keep trying. Odds are, he'll get lucky," Deke told him. "Until we find a way to neutralize it. We need a position of strength, Ian. Something that will make him crawl out from his hole."
"What about this rumor of a daughter that we keep hearing about? Have you managed to learn anything there?"
Deke shook his head. "Nothing substantial. Just that she exists and Sorrell is searching for her. We know he has a son, but only because he's slowly shifting some of the smaller responsibilities to that son's shoulders. He goes by the name Raven."
Ian rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. "Pull in a few of our contacts in France and see if you can't learn more. If we get to her first, we could use her."
His gut clenched at the thought of that. If Sorrell had a missing daughter as they had heard for years, then no doubt she was better off staying anonymous. Unfortunately, if she did exist, he couldn't allow that anonymity. He needed her too damned bad.
A second, a moment's thought went to the fact that he was willing to use such an innocent before he hardened his resolve. There was no time to worry about the innocence of Sorrell's daughter. The game he was playing here was too deadly, too imperative.
"There was a call that came in this morning as well." Deke nodded to the report. "Joseph Fitzhugh and his son. Some kind of English aristocrats that say they know you. They wanted to meet and talk."
Ian grimaced at the names and shook his head. Fitzhugh and his son had flown to Colombia when Ian first left the SEALs and arrived at Diego's estate. He had met the diplomat in the line of duty years before, and Fitzhugh felt it was his place to try to convince Ian of the error of his ways. He wasn't the first, he wouldn't be the last.
He shook his head. "No meet."
"I assumed you would say that." Deke nodded somberly. "Must be hard as hell, boss, having all these so-called friends coming out of the woodwork. I haven't seen Durango team yet though."
"You won't see Durango team," he said. "But they're on the island. I can feel Macey's sniper scope like you feel a mosquito biting into your flesh."
He'd been feeling it for more than a week now. That itch at the back of his neck, the curl of anger in his gut. For some reason, he had expected them to know better, despite how well he had laid in the evidence that he was indeed a traitor. It was contradictory and illogical, but feeling that scope's bull's-eye on his head was pissing him off.
Deke frowned at Ian's admission. "We can't afford to have you taken out, Ian. Not at this stage of the game. They have to be pulled back."
Ian shook his head.
"We continue on," he told him. "He hasn't taken the shot yet, he's not going to. He's waiting. He knows I'm aware of him. Let's see what plays out."
Deke breathed out roughly at the order. "I don't like this. They shouldn't be here."
Ian shrugged. "Kira is the bigger worry," he told the bodyguard. "She's unpredictable and she's trouble. I don't want her involved in this, and I know her. She's here because of me, not because of her uncle's business."
Deke's eyes sharpened at that information. "Enemy or friendly?"
Ian snorted. "What's her present mood? Your guess is as good as mine. One thing is for damned sure, it's not going to be anything you expect. Count on that and wear a protective cup in the process. Because that woman will end up busting all our balls if we give her so much as half a chance."
Deke had no idea the trouble Kira Porter could cause. But Ian did; he knew and he didn't like the anticipation throbbing in his cock at the thought of it.
"So where do you go with her from here?" Deke asked.
Ian shook his head. "I'll catch up with her tomorrow night. Let her play for now. Let her think she's safe."
His jaw clenched at the suspicious look Deke shot him. He knew the other man wondered just how deeply Ian was letting this life affect him. And Ian admitted, it was damned deep. Sometimes, he didn't recognize himself or what he had become.
"Your mother called again," Deke finally told him. "You have several messages on your personal machine."
Ian stilled. Marika Richards had no idea of the game her son was playing, and the pain he knew she was feeling cut at his soul.
She had nearly given up her life for him countless times when he was a child, fighting to keep him away from Carmelita Fuentes's murderous hands. Diego's now deceased wife had hunted them like animals for ten years, before Ian's stepfather, John Richards, had found them.
For a moment, just a moment, he let himself remember his mother's smile. No matter how frightened he knew she had been, she had always found a way to smile at him, to promise him that all things pass: anger, pain, danger.
Be the best you can be, Ian. Be strong and brave, and know you're being just. That's all that matters. Know you're being just.
Those words whispered through his mind and sliced at his heart. He knew she wouldn't see what he was doing as just. She would never condone him killing the father who had nearly destroyed both of them so many years ago.
Sometimes, though, a man had to do what was necessary to protect the just, the innocent. Too many lives were held in the balance now. Sorrell and Diego Fuentes both would have to die.
But first, he had to find Kira Porter and make damned certain she left Aruba. How the hell was a man supposed to destroy the monsters of the world when he knew a delicate bit of satin and lace was going to stand in his way? And she was there to stand in his way. He knew it. He could feel it. And he would be damned if he was going to allow it.
* * *
Three
HE WAS THERE. SHE KNEW he was.
The moment Kira stepped out of the elevator of her hotel that evening she knew Ian was waiting in her room. Her breasts hardened, her nipples peaked against the thin leather bustier covering them, and her body came alive with instant, blazing heat.
It wasn't any particular premonition. She would have liked to say she could just feel him. The truth was it was the presence of the bodyguard leaning casually against the wall several feet from her door that clued her in.
Deke Santiago. Age thirty-six, married once, widower. A dishonorably discharged Ranger. Dishonorable because he had nearly killed his commanding officer for screwing his then wife.
The court-martial had earned him a year in Leavenworth because he couldn't prove the adultery. There, he had met up with one of Diego Fuentes's lieutenants; four years later he had flown into Colombia and begun his life of apparent crime.
She paused as the elevator doors closed behind her, flicked a long swath of black hair over her shoulder, and sighed with an edge of irritation, aware of the security cameras trained on her. She had an appearance to maintain. That of bored socialite and thrill seeker. Anyone searching for information would check security cameras. She knew, because it was something she did.
She moved along the hall, ignoring him. That's what she did with bodyguards, she pretended to ignore them. Her own, Daniel Calloway, was proof of that.
"I won't need you to check the room tonight, Daniel," she informed him as they neared his connecting room. "You can go on to bed."
"Are you sure, Ms. Porter?" His voice was colored with s
uspicion as he held to his role and Deke's lips quirked mockingly at the challenge in Daniel's voice.
"I'm positive. I'm certain the room is secure."
Daniel wasn't a stupid man, he knew Ian was there as well as she did. He entered his own room and closed the door behind him as Kira pulled her key card from the lining on the inside of her sinfully high-heeled boot.
She had hit the clubs early that evening, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ian before he found her. It seemed it had been a wasted effort. How long had he been waiting in her room instead?
She was nervous. She hadn't been nervous over a man since the last time she had seen Ian. Before that, she had never known a moment's nerves with a potential lover.
She could feel the blood rushing through her veins, need pooling between her thighs, and a haunting ache tightening her chest. An ache that had little to do with the arousal, but much to do with the emotions he inspired in her. Emotions as alien as the nerves.
"Is he upset?" She twirled the card in her fingers as she stared back at Deke, allowing a small grin to curl the edges of her lips.
Deke glanced at her door, a grin quirking his sensual lips. "Ask him yourself and see."
As she turned back to the door it swung open. A hard hand gripped her wrist and jerked her inside before the door slammed closed behind her.
She was pushed against it, her breath whooshing from her lips as her hands were gripped in one of his, held high above her head, and every inch of her body was molded to the hard length of his.
Her juices pooled between the lips of her sex then eased into the silk of the thong she wore beneath her leather pants. Her nipples spiked impossibly harder, and she swore she could feel a bead of sweat tickling between her breasts.
No one had ever felt like Ian. Hard, in control, commanding. Every touch, every action, gauged for maximum pleasure.
The hand holding her wrists tightened as the fingers of the other threaded through her hair and pulled her head back to stare into the blazing heat of his deep brown eyes. Eyes almost as rich as brandy, fired with dark little hints of red and filled with fury.
Dark blond hair fell over his forehead; the rich mix of colors, sun lightened and thick, lying long along his nape and falling over his brow made her long to bury her fingers in it again.
He turned her on in ways she had never been turned on before. She dreamed about sex with Ian. Lusted for it. Ached for it. She had agreed to deceive him for the slightest chance to be touched by those hard hands again.
"What the fucking hell are you doing here?" he snarled down at her as his head lowered.
His lips buried in her shoulder, opening to allow his teeth to grip the flesh there, his tongue to lap over it with quick heated strokes as she jerked against him.
"Business." Her head lowered as well.
The strong column of his neck was there for her enjoyment. Her teeth raked it. She licked slowly and the taste of male lust exploded against her taste buds.
God, he tasted good. She sucked at the flesh, a little moan escaping her throat as he picked her up, turned her, and in the next second bore her to the bed.
"Ian." She gasped his name, feeling the hard length of his body covering hers, his thighs spreading hers, his cock pressing hard and demandingly into the butter-soft leather covering her sex.
Her hands were still stretched above her head, her breasts perilously close to spilling from the cups of the leather bustier she wore.
She felt bound. Helpless. She had never felt that way with a man before. She had never wanted to feel that way until Ian had shown her the pleasure to be found there. Now she craved it. Craved him with a hunger that refused to be quelled.
"You have no business here." His lips drew back from his teeth as his free hand tugged at the ties that secured the front of the bustier. "No business here. No business close to here."
The top loosened, spread apart, and with a flick of his fingers the cups covering her breasts were released. Her breasts spilled free, nipples hard and pointed, flushed red and aching for his touch.
"You're here." It was a statement and a moan as his head lowered and his lips covered a tight, sensitive nipple.
He wasn't easy on her, and she didn't want easy. His teeth gripped and tugged, his tongue lashed with wicked wet heat. Her eyeballs were going to roll back in her head it was so damned good. He sucked on her like a starving man.
Long moments later his head lifted, thick dark blond lashes fanning his cheeks as he stared down at his handiwork.
Her nipple was tighter, if that was possible, gleaming wet and ruby red.
"You wore too many clothes," he growled, his voice, which was rough on a good day, grating now.
"I didn't want to appear too easy," she gasped as his lips moved to the opposite breast and began their less than tender ministrations.
God, this was what she had loved about the first and only time he had touched her. He didn't treat her like spun glass. He didn't touch her like she would break. He touched her like a woman well able to satisfy the dark, hungry sex drive she knew he possessed. That he possessed and she craved to experience.
"Not easy enough." He nipped the side of her breast, his free hand moving to her hip, tugging at the laces on her pants now as his lips moved back to hers.
Oh God, the taste of his kiss. It was incredible. It was enough to steam her eyeballs, not to mention what it was probably doing to the glass balcony doors across the room.
She stretched beneath him, arched closer, rubbed against the erection seated firmly against her pussy and wished she could purr. It felt that damned good. So good, she wondered if she could come from his kiss alone.
Hell, she had never done that, but this was close. This was edging closer. His tongue curled along hers, stroked it, then teased her by licking at her lips. Then he bit her.
Kira jerked her head back, glaring at him before she returned the favor by nipping at his lower lip. His hand tightened in her hair, jerked her back, and his lips slammed over hers.
He released her wrists, wrapped his arms around her, and began thrusting between her thighs, stroking the silk of her panties and the leather of her pants against her, rubbing against her clit and causing little snarls to echo in her throat.
Damn him, he was burning her alive.
Her hands buried themselves in his hair, pulled at it. Her knees lifted and bent, clasping his hips as she dug the sharp heels of her boots into the bed and tried to defy the layers of material between them.
She wanted him, bad. She wanted his cock pounding into her. Wanted him fucking her, filling her, stealing her senses and her much lauded control with the lusts that blazed between them.
This was no place for those lusts. The middle of an investigation, in the eye of a storm that threatened to close in on Ian like the narrowing spout of a cyclone. And yet, just as before, the wild hunger flared through her, rocked her, seared her senses. Opened something inside herself that she didn't recognize. A core of femininity. A certainty that the rabbit hole the woman hid within had been discovered. The agent she had become could no longer hide the woman desperate to reveal herself.
She was immersed in thick, white-hot sensation and flowing with damp, desperate need. And when his hand slid into the loosened edge of her pants, his hips pulled back, and his fingers found the bare flesh of her saturated sex, Kira knew she was doomed.
She froze, but Ian didn't have any such inclinations. His fingers found the narrow, sensitized slit, slid through it, and two fingers speared into the snug, slick entrance of her vagina.
"Oh God!" She tore her lips from his, the words bursting from her lips as she felt the muscles surrounding his fingers spasm, felt her juices spurt around them.
"Damn you, you're hot!" He bit her neck, just like a damned freaking vampire. Just bit right into it and sent her eyes rolling back in her head again as a shudder tore through her.
Her hips jerked, working her sex on his fingers as she felt the explosion just a breath away. Just
a frickin' breath. It was so close she could feel it, taste it, smell it.
"Oh, it's not that easy," he snarled, his fingers stilling inside her, just filling her, holding her on the edge of a precipice that was painful.
"Would be," she panted. "If you wouldn't be such a jackass!" She just wanted to come. It wasn't like she wanted national secrets or something. Hell, she already had those.
His smile was tight, hard. His hair, mussed from her fingers, fell around his dark tanned face, his lips swollen from her kisses.
He looked like the dominant male he was. A sexually dominant, fierce and forceful, take-all-control kinda guy. He wasn't going to let a lover control her sexuality or his. That was his prerogative, and by God if he didn't know how to do it. Not exactly her normal taste, but he had become a craving.
"What are you doing here, Kira?" He stroked her, inside, just the sweetest, most delicious rubbing of her internal muscles with the tips of his fingers.
Shiverlicious. She shivered and gasped and grew wetter, it was just that damned good.
"Business. Working." She tried to breathe. Hell, breathing was overrated anyway. If she held her breath, just held it, she could almost fall off the edge from those rasping little strokes inside her pussy.
"Working huh?" He bent and ran his tongue over a stiff nipple. "You do remember how I punish liars, don't you?"
Was that really her moaning like she wanted to be punished? Oh hell no, couldn't be. She didn't play those games, and she wasn't into any kind of submission. Until it came to Ian. Her butt clenched, she couldn't help it. And she knew he felt it. She knew she felt his knowing chuckle against her nipple.
"Bite me," she groaned. She didn't order or snap. Nope, she groaned, like a helpless whimpering little submissive begging for her master's touch.
"Where?" His teeth rasped over her nipple.
"That works."
He bit her. Not too hard. Just enough. He closed his teeth on her nipple just enough for her to feel the pleasure/pain.
Sweet Holy Mother . . . She arched, bearing down on the fingers filling her, and thought for certain she would go off like fireworks from that alone.