Beneath the Secrets, Part Two (Tall, Dark & Deadly) (2 page)

“Pine Street’s the closest
location,” Kara said tightly, seeing this as an opportunity to get
inside the restaurant she’d been scouting for some time, and
perhaps inside the back warehouses the cameras kept her away
from.

“Pine Street it is,” Blake said,
lacing his fingers between Kara’s. “We’ll meet you there.” He
didn’t give Ignacio a chance to reply. He pulled Kara with him and
started walking toward the parking garage. His pace was steady and
calculated, but she could feel the urgency building inside him, the
fire about to combust. It was as if the instant they stepped away
from Ignacio, something inside him snapped. Had something just
happened or had he been containing this back there with Ignacio?
And if he was, my God, how?

“What’s wrong?” she asked the
instant she felt they were safely out of earshot.

“Not now. Wait.”

His tone was sharp, his grip on her
hand tight. “Blake—”

“Not,” he ground out,
“now.”

Tension crawled inside Kara and
took root, and her hand went to her purse to once again grasp her
weapon. She could only assume someone must be following them, close
enough that he feared they would be heard if they spoke, or worse.
That they were about to be attacked and he was trying to hear a
perp’s approach. Ignacio was as low as they came. It would be
nothing for him to kill them right here and now. And, as he’d said,
he was good at getting rid of bodies. She knew that for a fact.
Knew it in an intimate way she wished she didn’t.

The entrance to the parking garage
came into view and Blake seemed to speed up, not slow down at the
dimly lit tunnel it resembled. Kara relaxed marginally, seeing that
as a sign he felt they were leaving the trouble behind.

Once the truck was in sight, Blake
clicked the automatic locks and she rushed to her door and climbed
inside, pulling the door shut. She turned to Blake as he did the
same, intending to ask questions when he slammed his hands down on
the steering wheel. Kara flinched.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he exclaimed,
raking fingers through his hair, long, dark strands falling from
the tie at his nape and hanging around his face. His grip closed
into a vice around the wheel and Kara could see his muscles
quivering as he grappled with whatever had him in knots.

She held her breath, waiting
expectantly, long seconds ticking by, while Blake clearly stood on
the edge of a proverbial cliff about to jump. Kara could feel his
tension and she actually felt herself tremble, her stomach knotting
with the pain and torment that radiated off of him. Whatever the
darkness was that she’d sensed in him the first time she met him
had been triggered. Something had reached in deep and dragged it to
his surface. It was crazy, but on some unexplainable level, she
knew this man, and understood him, knew he was motivated by some
deep hurt that carved him inside out. The idea that she could
understand an enemy and make him human rather than a monster was a
terrifying thought. She wanted to reject the idea. But she
couldn’t. Not with Blake.

She didn’t give herself time to
think. She reached for him. The instant she was about to touch him,
it was as if he knew. His hand snaked out, fingers wrapping her
wrist, and the next thing she knew she was flat on her back with
him on top of her.

Chapter Two

She was soft beneath him, and
Blake’s mouth came down on hers, his tongue caressing hers with
desperate, hungry strokes, drinking her in, drowning the past in
the present. He hated the past, hated the memories and the way they
sideswiped him, controlled him. The past was controlling him now,
and in a big way.

One minute he’d been with Ignacio,
the next walking away, reliving Whitney bloody and dead in his
arms. He’d made it to the truck without being overcome with the
acid burn of hate and hurt that memory produced, but it hadn’t been
easy. And when Kara had touched him and that image of Whitney had
transformed, becoming her instead, it had been like a premonition
that he was going to get her killed, too. Like she was going to
matter to him and he was going to fail her, as he had Whitney. And
damn it to hell, he didn’t want her to matter. He didn’t want to
care about Kara or anyone else ever again. He
wouldn’t let it happen.
Kara was a
tool for revenge, to get to Alvarez, and hot sex along the way.
Which was exactly why he was going to fuck her right here in the
truck, in the garage.

Blake curved his hand under her
hips, shifting his hips to fit into the V of her body, nestling his
cock against her. She moaned and arched into him, so freaking soft
on the outside, curvy beneath him, the floral scent of her
delicate, and yet she was hard, tough, war-ready in a way he’d
never suspected the first night in Denver.

Blake licked into her mouth, drank
in the sweet honey flavor of her passion, of his passion mixed with
hers, feeling the burn of insane need for a woman he barely knew
driving him wild. He needed her, and he needed this right now. This
was an escape from the rage going on inside him, the certainty he’d
gotten Whitney killed, and that he was on the verge of getting Kara
killed when he was only trying to save her. An image of Kara lying
in his arms as Whitney had flashed in his head again. Damn it to
hell, why was he thinking about this again? Why was he thinking at
all?

He tried to deepen the kiss, to
forget again, but it was too late. He was back into the acid burn
of the past, the fear it would become the present. He didn’t trust
Kara, but he trusted himself even less. Damn it, he was pissed. At
himself. At her. At his inability to control what he was feeling
and thinking.

Blake tore his mouth from Kara’s,
staring down at her, their eyes connecting, the cabin of the truck
a sauna of desire and lust, and for a moment he could once again
think of nothing but how good it would feel to be inside her. She
was making him crazy. “Who the
fuck
are you?” he growled through clenched
teeth.

Her chin lifted. “I could ask the
same of you, because we both know you’re more than you
seem.”

She was smart. Too smart. Too
tempting. Too everything. “I’m the bastard who just aligned you
with me, life or death, sweetheart.”

“Why?” she demanded. “Why save me?
You don’t even trust me.”

“I might need you.” The words,
meant to be flippant, hit him hard.
He
might need her, and not just for
the job. Damn it to hell, she was twisting him in knots,
claiming
him
, not
the other way around. He would not let this woman mess with his
head and distract him. “I might need you to get what I want,” he
repeated to prove to himself he could say it again and not have it
affect him as it had the first time. It didn’t work, and that
pissed him off all over again. This was sex damn it. Just sex. “And
I damn sure want to fuck you.” His mouth closed down on hers again,
one hand sliding under her backside, shifting her, and settling his
thick erection in the V of her body. His other hand slid over her
waist, back up and around her breast.

She moaned and sunk deeper into the
kiss, teasing him with wicked little licks that had his cock doing
all of his thinking, and, for the moment, that’s what he wanted.
Finally, yes. He could forget. Ignacio would wait on their arrival.
The bleeding ulcer of memories in his mind wouldn’t. If he didn’t
shred them and fast, they’d shred him.

Time disappeared into in a
whirlwind of his mouth on her mouth, on her neck, on the swell of
her breast above her bra. He shoved her shirt and bra up and
suckled her sweet little nipple, and damn, when her fingers sliced
into his hair, he felt a shiver of pure pleasure down his spine.
Good, too good when he didn’t know who she was, what her agenda
might be.

Blake pressed her hands over her
head, nipped her lip. Damn, he loved her mouth, full and soft, and
wickedly feminine. “I should cuff you to the steering wheel and
keep you here until you tell me what I want to know.” His free hand
raked over her naked breast, tweaking the nipple.

“No time,” she panted, arching her
back. “Ignacio’s waiting.”

“He’s waiting because I want him to
wait. If I see him in my current state of mind I might kill him
before I get the proof I need to justify it.”

“Is that what you’re looking for
with me? Proof I’m some sort of traitor so you can kill me,
too?”

“I don’t want to kill you.” He
lowered his mouth to her ear. “But make no mistake. If you give me
a reason to, I will and so will they. Get out while you can. Go and
never look back.”

“I can’t,” she whispered, no
hesitation. Two simple words etched with a world of pain and
desperation.

He pulled back to look at her,
trying to read her expression through the shadows in the dimly lit
garage. “Why? What does the cartel have on you?”

She turned away, giving him her
profile. Still holding her hands over her head, he reached up and
framed her face with his free hand, pulling her eyes back to his.
“What does he have on you?”

“Nothing. He has
nothing.”

She was lying. He heard it in the
quiver of her voice and he suddenly didn’t want to know the truth.
He didn’t want her to be the enemy. He released her and sat up,
sliding behind the wheel and running a rough hand through his hair,
his nerves so on edge his skin was twitching. He cut her a sideways
look. “No matter how good you think you are at keeping a secret,
I’m ten times better at uncovering them. I’m going to find out what
you’re hiding. You can count on it.”

***

Kara slid into a booth at Shivers,
a Chili's-style restaurant that drew big crowds, while Ignacio
claimed the seat directly in front of her. Blake eased in beside
her, settling his leg intimately against hers, and she tried not to
think about his confident promise to unveil her secrets. She had to
stay focused on the here and now, and hope they might get a tour of
the back warehouses she’d been unable to find a reason to get
inside. If she could locate the cameras, and the various entrances,
then she could enter again without being seen and get a closer
look.

“What can I get you to drink?” a
waiter asked, stopping at their table with supreme
speed.

Ignacio started speaking to the man
in Spanish and Kara’s gaze shifted beyond his shoulder, to a corner
booth where a young, twenty-something blond female in a waitress
outfit huddled with the restaurant manager, Eduardo, a bit too
intimately to be his employee. Kara’s nerves prickled and her
fingers curled into her palms. Women had a way of disappearing
after coming to work at this location, and it was all she could do
not to go yank the girl up and send her home before she got into
trouble, or worse, dead. Mysteriously, their HR files were deleted
after they went MIA from their jobs, as if they never existed. And
the HR person actually claimed they never existed. Kara couldn’t
push without raising suspicions, but she’d taken to copying every
file for the employees as they were made. No one else was going to
just disappear without her having proof they’d existed.

“Kara?” Blake’s voice snapped her
back to the table, and when her eyes met his, she felt that
familiar flutter of awareness he so easily created in
her.

“Yes?” she answered, barely finding
her voice as the memory of being beneath him in the truck swept
over her.

“What do you want to drink?” he
asked softly, a warm quality to his brown eyes saying he hadn’t
shaken off their intimate encounter anymore than she
had.

“Drink. Right. Yes.” Kara cast the
waiter an apologetic look, her senses reeling as Blake’s hand
settled on her leg, heat pooling low in her belly. “Sorry. Coffee,
please.”

The waiter departed and Ignacio’s
gaze settled on Kara, his lips twisting snidely. “I thought I was
buying you a drink?”

“I prefer a clear head,” she
replied tightly.
And a steady hand on my
gun.

“Talk to me about the staff here at
the restaurant,” Blake said, pulling Ignacio’s attention to him,
and Kara had the distinct impression it was intentional. He didn’t
like Ignacio focusing on her. That made two of them.

Ignacio stared at her several more
seconds that felt like an eternity before shifting his attention to
Blake. “What do you want to know?”

“Who’s in the know about the true
nature of the operation?”

“The restaurant runs like any other
with a staff who know no differently. Eduardo, the manager, and the
entire warehouse staff are, as you say, ‘
in the know’.”

“How many does that
make?”

“Thirty, mostly
non-English-speaking illegals who do our handling.”

“What time do the daily shipments
go out?”

Kara watched Ignacio’s jaw flex, a
subtle sign he didn’t like to be questioned. But then, no one had
questioned him in a long time. “Ten. That allows us the coverage of
restaurant traffic.”

“And who’s in charge of overseeing
the product making it to the pier?” Blake asked.

“Eduardo signs it out and I
personally sign it in.”