Honeymoon To Die For (20 page)

He was crazy to let her do this.

If she didn’t finish soon, she’d see just how much he was hurting in a different way. He didn’t want to worry her about sleeping in the same room with him tonight, but it wouldn’t take long for her to see how much he wanted a woman.

Not just any woman.
This woman.
 

Bad
idea. One that had so many repercussions he’d need an adding machine to tally them.    

Bianca tossed the washcloth aside and stood up. “That’s as good as it gets until we can put some ice on that cheek.”

He stood up, but before he could say a word, where her gaze had avoided him moments ago it now traveled from his face, down his chest to his waist.

She chewed on her bottom lip and her tongue peeked out the corner of her mouth as her gaze dropped lower.

Ah, fuck. That did him in. His crotch bulged more under her attention.

Her eyes widened then shot back to his face.

“That,” he said, “is
not
my fault. You can’t eye me like I’m your new favorite dessert and not expect me to react.”

“I didn’t do that.”

“Yes, you did.”  He stepped up and put a finger on her cheek. “Thank you.”

~*~

Bianca should end this conversation and get out of the bathroom.

Away from Ryder’s seductive voice and Oh-My-God body, the one causing her brain to implode from overheating.

Why had his icy silver eyes turned into molten pewter?

Awareness thrummed under her skin. “Why did you thank me?”  

Lips cut from perfection drew closer to hers as he said, “Because it was nice to be looked at like a person. As a man and not a criminal. I’ve missed that.”  

She tried to listen to what he was saying, but she couldn’t take her eyes off his mouth that was close enough to kiss her. Would he do that again? Did she want him to?

A smart woman would say no.

Her IQ was losing points every second that she took her time considering whether she wanted to be kissed again.

Why would he want to kiss her after she’d explained she didn’t like sex?

His fingers were grazing her face and brushing her hair back behind her ear. He lowered his head and she stopped him with her fingers on his lips. “I told you, Ryder, I’m not ... I don’t ...”

“I heard you. Not wired for seduction. Then I can’t seduce you, right?” he asked her in a deep voice that put her into a heady trance where thinking wasn’t possible. “Because seduction requires a certain amount of chemistry. Since you’re not wired for chemistry, you’re safe from anything happening, right?”

“I, uh, suppose.”  She tried to follow his logic, but he was standing so close that all she could think about was kissing him, which meant her hormones had hijacked her brain.

He kissed the corner of her mouth and trailed a finger lightly down her throat. “Just so we’re clear on one thing,” he said in that deep voice between peppering kisses along her neck that had her melting.

One of his hands cupped her hip, then slid around back to draw her up against that powerful body, then he kissed her lips.

No, he devoured her.

His fingers threaded into her hair, holding her head as his mouth went to work ripping through any puny resistance her brain put up. She’d never been held and kissed as if she was the most desired woman on earth.

His tongue mated with hers in a sensual dance. He caressed his way to her breasts, holding one in his hand and running his thumb across the nipple that tightened into a hard nub.

She felt moisture between her legs where a tightening sensation had her clenching her legs together, wanting more. Ryder’s mouth kissed her intimately, dragging her to the edge of no return. Making her want to stay here, suspended in time.

Being in Ryder’s arms was like the world’s greatest rollercoaster ride. Frightening, exhilarating and addictive.

The world disappeared.

Nothing mattered but the two of them.   

A worry niggled at the back of her mind. She shouldn’t be doing this, but she couldn’t think when he massaged her other breast and teased the nipple.

“God, you taste like heaven,” he murmured between kisses, stroking her female ego to life. His lips stroked a hot trail along her chin to her neck. She leaned her head to the side, craving his touch everywhere.

How could this be so much better with Ryder than it had ever been kissing Bernard?

Bernard had been worldly and handsome. Women drooled over him everywhere they went. Women far more attractive and sophisticated than a geeky college girl with the aspiration to join law enforcement.

Law enforcement like the FBI? You know, that group you’re working for right now?

 So
now
her brain comes back to roost?

Bianca put her hands up on his chest. “Ryder. Stop.”

He stilled immediately and raised his head, looking down at Bianca with need burning in his eyes.

For that one second, she wanted to be the woman for him, to be desired by a man like Ryder, but her senses were coming back to remind her he was in her custody. Not a man she was really involved with.

This was all make believe.

Ryder took a step back and shoved his hands in his hair, cursing under his breath. “Guess I should say I’m sorry, but that would be a lie.”

How could she berate him for that when it felt so powerful to have a man as seductive as Ryder admit that he wasn’t sorry about making out with her?

He dropped his hands. “Why don’t you shower first?”

Should she say something?

What? Like ... please do it again
?

Afraid to trust her voice, Bianca nodded. She’d have to discuss the “rules of engagement” later. As she stepped away, Ryder caught her by the arm and lowered his mouth to her cheek. “If you didn’t like sex, it wasn’t you. It was the moron who didn’t know what he was doing. You’re sexy as hell. Don’t ever let any man convince you otherwise.”

Then he walked out.

She stood there staring at the door, feeling something she hadn’t the entire time she’d been in a relationship with Bernard.

Appreciated and cared for.   

CHAPTER 16

Chatton ignored everyone she passed as she stayed in character with each step, leaning on the walking stick and limping her way down a long hallway in the Pentagon. No one questioned the ID on her chest that identified her as Alexander Zaran, a reclusive male military strategist who had SAP, or Special Access Programs, clearance. Alexander was eighty-three and had gotten his limp while serving in the Army as one of the first to wear a Green Beret.

He’d been born fifty years before she’d been a glint in her parents’ eyes.

A difficult man to locate, but not impossible for someone with her MI6 skills.  

At the moment, Alexander Zaran was in a deep slumber. When he woke he would be hesitant to say he’d lost two days sleeping. That might suggest he suffered from dementia.

Chatton had a detail of her men watching over the old guy so nothing happened to him while she borrowed his identity, including his fingerprints on the false skin covering her fingertips.

She’d come to collect on a debt.

All she’d asked for was the name of the person who’d killed a descendant of Clan Macintosh, though few of them went by that surname these days. Someone was systematically killing everyone with a drop of blood from that ancient clan, her family.

Chatton stopped at the desk of the plump, middle-aged assistant to the man she’d come to confront.

“May I help you?” Esther Shorter asked, squinting up in annoyance until her eyes lit on Chatton’s stolen ID. “Colonel Zaran? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was you. I haven’t seen you in a while ...”

Chatton lifted a hand covered in Zaran’s favorite black gloves he wore any time he traveled. She reached into the inside pocket of the brown tweed jacket that hung on her slouched shoulders, which made her look as hunched over and frail as he did.

Withdrawing the crinkled paper she’d written on with Zaran’s scribbly handwriting, she let her hand tremble a little when she dropped it on Esther’s desk.

Esther covered being flustered by squaring her shoulders and stepping back into the role of assistant to a high-ranking pentagon official. “Let me get you something to drink and I’ll inform ...”

But Chatton lifted a hand, waving off the assistant and started limping toward the door, just as Zaran was rumored to have done more than once when he came to share his unsolicited opinion.

As Chatton opened the office door, she heard Esther’s rushed voice behind her speaking into an intercom. “I’m sorry, sir, but Alexander
Zaran ...”

But Chatton was inside and the door closed by the time The General hung up his phone. He was not a true general. It was a moniker he used when meeting with Chatton and Wayan as part of a secret three-person group known only as Czarion. Wayan was the pseudonym of a powerful man inside the inner circle of the Chinese Party Chief.

Of the three who made up Czarion, she was the only one who didn’t buy into their fanatical drive to fulfill Orion’s Legacy. She’d write the other two off as insignificant if both men weren’t in positions to influence world conflicts. Wayan was one scary buggar when he got on his soapbox about how five rare artifacts told of a final international throw down.

Wayan and The General had let her join them in their sandbox of crazy because she possessed one of the five artifacts.

The three of them never breached each other’s security. Never crossed the line of entering each other’s countries unannounced. But The General had not made good on a deal with Chatton and it was time to pay the bloody piper.

The General took one look at Chatton’s impersonation and his eyes sharpened. He spoke into his intercom. “I don’t want to be disturbed, Esther.”

“Yes, sir.”

He punched the off button on his intercom and leaned forward, coiled and ready to pounce. At forty-nine, The General was still an impressive man who managed to stay fit in spite of aggravating back problems. The buzz cut prevented his short red curls from being odd looking in contrast to his coffee-brown skin, but grey peppered the tight beads of hair on his head.

Chatton shuffled forward, still hiding her identity even though doubt was entering The General’s gaze. He hadn’t decided for sure if she was Alexander Zaran or not.

“What do you want?” he asked, more as an order than a question. No matter how hard he studied her, he would not be able to recognize the attractive thirty-two-year-old woman with honey-brown hair—her normal appearance.

Hell, some days
she
didn’t even recognize her new face.  She let her natural voice come through when she told him, “The same thing I wanted the last time we met. A name.”

Light bulbs went off behind his eyes. “Son of a ... what the
fuck
are you doing here?”

She sat down in the chair across from him and removed horn-rimmed glasses that appeared an inch thick to someone looking at her. Not real glasses. She’d had perfect vision all the way here. “I’ve been patient, something I’m not known for.”

His voice came out in hushed stream of fury. “You screwed up coming here. You may think you’ve got me in a vulnerable position, but I can have you killed three steps outside my door.”

Oh, she did have him by the short hairs. He just didn’t know it yet. “You wouldn’t do that. Not when you know I’d never come here without plenty of insurance.”

That gave him pause. “Like what?”

When she didn’t answer right away, The General’s nostrils flared as he realized why she waited. He leaned back and tapped on his keyboard, glanced at his monitor then back at Chatton. “We’re secure.”

She lifted an electronic unit that was concealed inside a hard phone case so it could pass as a phone, but when she pressed a button it played the audio of the General and Wayan from one of the Czarion meetings. Both men incriminated themselves in the sixteen seconds she played before thumbing it off. “I shouldn’t have to point out that this is a copy. Now back to our unfulfilled deal. I want the shooter who killed Edward Abbott.”

Edward Abbot Macintosh, a British diplomat and cousin to Chatton’s murdered father.

The General slapped his hand down on his desk and ground his words. “I gave you Van Dyke. That’s who our intel fingers as the most likely candidate.”

“Lot of Van Dykes in the world and our deal wasn’t for a
candidate
. I wanted
the
killer.”  She’d known inside an hour who the only possible Van Dyke suspect could be.

“One Ryder Van Dyke was arrested for shooting J. K. Kearn with the same .338 Lapua round that killed Abbot, which indicated the same McMillan rifle was used in both shootings,” he said as though instructing an imbecile.  “I would think even you could put that one-and-one together on your own.”

She’d come up with that same conclusion right away. Too easily. In her business, easy equaled flawed thinking. “If I had handled my part of our agreement as carelessly as you handled yours, Wayan’s shipment would not have arrived intact and on time in Miami. I expect more in return than just Van Dyke, but I would have let this go if I had found satisfaction by now.”

“Speaking of Wayan’s unit—”

“Were we?”

“We are
now
since this was more his debt than mine,” The General pointed out.

But The General had set the parameters and made the commitment. She was not here to quibble and let her silence hammer that home.   

He made a gritty sound in his throat and leaned back. He eyed her for a tedious moment. “Your part wasn’t as clean as you’d like to pretend.”

“You’re wasting my time trying to claim fault on my end.”

“You delivered the packages to Miami, but someone undermined the project and the unit got destroyed.”

“Not my problem.” She used this break to stretch her legs and back from holding Zaran’s balled-up posture. “You said those three boxes were booby-trapped if I tried to open any of them during transport. They were delivered on time, intact and unopened. What happened with them after that point is not my concern.”

“Don’t act as though you don’t know what was inside the boxes.”