Hot Intent (Hqn) (23 page)

“Consider it done.”

Alex sagged against the cheap headboard at his back. His old man might be an ass, but blood was thicker than water. When his son was in trouble, Peter could be counted on to come through for him. Yes, there would be strings attached to the help, and they would get tugged on later. But for now, his father would do his best to help him. But against what?

Peter was speaking again. “...about that other thing. I gather your abrupt exit from Cuba means you were able to bury anything...incriminating?”

Alex wasn’t willing to give up that bargaining chip just yet. He trusted his father a little, but not
that
much.

Huh. And here he was right back up on that tightrope, teetering between his father and the CIA. Again. And this time a third factor was pushing and pulling at him. His flipping mother, of all people. How did he keep ending up caught in the middle like everyone’s favorite tug toy?

He shook his head to clear it. He faked making a few static noises into the receiver and disconnected the call. Jerkily, he turned the phone over, pulled the battery and SIM card out and flushed the pieces down the toilet individually.

“Well?” Katie demanded impatiently.

“Get some sleep. I need to think.”

She frowned unhappily, but disappeared into the bathroom. The toilet flushed and he heard the sounds of toothbrushing. She emerged wearing one of his T-shirts. Her legs were long and sleek, and the curves of her breasts soft and inviting under the cotton fabric.

“I’ve been honest with you, Alex, and now I need you to be honest with me.”

Aw, hell. She wanted to talk about feelings again. It was a good interrogation tactic. Catch him when he was emotionally and mentally off balance. Drop a bombshell on him that his mother was alive and then move in for the kill when his defenses were down. His warning antennae wiggled wildly. He muttered cautiously, “You need me to be honest about what?”

“Guantánamo. What happened to you there?”

He swore mentally. It figured that she would want to dredge up all that crap. It was where he’d gone off the carefully prepared script the CIA had laid out for the two of them. He answered tersely, “I was drugged. You pulled me out. We each egressed the country.”

“What drug did that doctor give you?”

He frowned. Actually, that was a good question. Dr. Doe had called one of the medications CCRE. He’d forgotten about it until now.

Quickly, he powered up his laptop and typed in the four letters. It took a little searching but finally a Department of Defense paper came up on the screen. Concentrated Cannabis Resin Extract.

“What’s that?” Katie startled him by asking from over his shoulder. “Cannabis? They gave you
pot?
”

He scanned the medical paper quickly. “CCRE is a highly concentrated and refined derivative of cannabis resin.”

“Why on earth would they want to get you really, really stoned?”

He grinned in a flash of unwilling amusement. But his humor faded as he caught sight of the extract’s main symptom.

Ever perceptive, Katie asked quickly, “What is it?”

He leaned back, staring at the screen. “CCRE is designed to provoke paranoid schizophrenic episodes.”

“In English, please?”

“Put in lay terms, it’s a mind-altering substance that makes a person fearful and distrustful of others. Makes them think someone’s out to hurt or kill them.”

“But I thought they were questioning you. Wouldn’t they want you uninhibited and trusting so you’d tell them everything?”

“If that were the case, they’d have shot me up with scopolamine or some other truth serum–style drug.”

“Why did they treat you like a criminal and not me?” she asked. “You’re the government employee, after all. I’m the one they should have been really suspicious of. Was it because I’m a girl and you’re a big, strong, dangerous man?”

She was as perceptive as always. He frowned thoughtfully at her. She’d asked a hell of a good question. Why hadn’t they interrogated her? The obvious answer was that she was in on the scam.

But if that was the case, why would she point it out like this? A feint within a feint to throw him off her trail? Was she actually that subtle? Was he a gullible fool to have taken her at face value for all this time? Was she a great deal more than a civilian kindergarten teacher who loved him and was willing to lay her heart on the line for him openly and honestly?

God, he didn’t know who to believe anymore. The maelstrom whirled around him more violently than ever. His mother. The CIA. Katie. His father. Cold Intent. Who else wanted a piece of his soul?

An urge to scream rose in his throat. Appalled, he bit it back.
Focus, Alex.
Guantánamo.
Follow Katie’s line of reasoning and see where she’s trying to lead you.

There had been plenty of time for John Doe, his interrogator, to get instructions from Washington. John Doe couldn’t possibly have had the rank or authority to decide to dope a U.S. intelligence operative for grins and giggles. The decision to drug him
had
to have come from Langley.

Why had the CIA been out to mess with him and not with Katie? Particularly since it seemed that someone within Langley pretty seriously wanted to see her dead. His suspicions from before roared to the fore once more. Was this all an elaborate head game designed to throw him violently off balance and off guard? But to what end? What did they want from him?

He looked up sharply as the computer lifted off his lap. Katie tossed a leg across his hips and straddled his lap. “What the hell are you doing?” he blurted.

“Getting your undivided attention.” She pulled at his belt buckle, and it gave way under her fingers.

She was really raising the stakes now. What was her gambit? He braced to resist her sexual advances. He’d been trained in how to handle situations like this, but the hookers in his training hadn’t been Katie. She was the one and only woman who’d ever managed to get inside his head.

He swore at himself. This was his fault. He’d let her past his guard. He’d set himself up for this. Was this what his mother had done to his father? No wonder Peter had fallen prey to her. Christ. He was lucky his old man even spoke to him, let alone raised him after this mind-fuck.

Katie wiggled suggestively, demanding his attention. He yanked his thoughts back to the woman stripping while she sat on his crotch. “So,” he commented. “You’re a sparrow, after all. I have to compliment you on your extraordinary acting talent.”

She replied tartly, “I’m not a sparrow, and you, of all people, know it. You know how little sexual experience I had before I met you. No sparrow would be sent out in the field to use sex as a weapon with barely any knowledge of it.”

He examined her logic as calmly as he could with her hands on his zipper. Reluctantly, he had to admit she had a point. He asked desperately, “Why is the CIA trying to kill you, but not the slightest bit interested in questioning you? Do you know something they don’t want revealed?”

She sat back on his thighs, staring at him thoughtfully. “I do know
you
better than anyone else.”

“Why would that alarm the CIA?” he asked reflexively.

“Is somebody trying to hide your real motives for joining Doctors Unlimited?” she asked slowly. “Or is this internal CIA politics? I’ve heard Charlie gripe about those before. Is someone engaging in a slam campaign against you that you’re not aware of? Maybe someone’s spreading lies about you and doesn’t want me to tell the truth?”

“The CIA is not a high school lunchroom.”

“No, but it is made up of human beings subject to human flaws and weaknesses,” she retorted.

He knew he’d become a source of controversy in the agency after his training had finished. Some people saw him as a threat, and others saw him as an exciting weapon. Was all of this the two factions infighting over him? He mumbled under his breath, “How in hell am I supposed to know who’s my friend and who’s my enemy?”

“I am not the enemy, Alex.” His zipper slid down and his fly melted back under her hands.

He ought to stop her.

“I’m not out to hurt you in any way,” she murmured. “I only want to help you. I’m loyal to you. Only you.”

If only. At least she was a known enemy. He could deal with that.

Her clever fingers dipped inside the waistband of his underwear and grasped his member in a warm fist. Blood rushed to the site and his hips flexed of their own volition. Dammit.

“Do you hear me?” she demanded. “I’m on your side.”

He had to keep his head clear. He couldn’t afford to get lost in her body or sucked into the emotional vortex she always managed to create around him when they had sex.

“They gave you drugs to make you suspicious of me. But you know, don’t you, that I would never hurt you.” Her fingers tightened around his rapidly hardening erection, and a groan escaped his throat before he could pull it back. His mental swearing grew more violent as her fist slid up and down his shaft. Damn, that felt good.

“Say it, Alex. Tell me you know I would never hurt you.”

He surged up beneath her, capturing her around the waist with his arm while he used his free hand to yank her hand off him. He ground out, “You think you can use sex as a weapon against
me?
”

“Go ahead, Alex. Show me how you really feel.”

She was courageous to taunt him like that. With a growl, he sprawled on his back, carrying her down on top of him, then rolled over, until she splayed beneath him. He pinned her to the lumpy mattress with his bigger, stronger body, and she didn’t struggle. He shoved the T-shirt up her naked body, not stopping until the gray cotton completely covered her face. She wouldn’t have any trouble breathing through it, but he had to shut her up. She was pushing him beyond his ability to control himself.

He ought to kill her. Any spy worth his salt would eliminate the threat she posed without a second thought.

He only kicked partially free of his jeans before he rammed into her. She bucked against him, driving him deeper inside her. He groaned in spite of himself, and just like that, her body softened and opened, welcoming him home. Dammit, she made it impossible to use sex as a weapon against her when she surrendered unconditionally to him like this!

Swearing violently inside his head, he paused to strip off his clothes. And then he sank into her again. As always, her complete welcome and acceptance undid him, unraveling his rage as easily as a piece of knitting.

The probability that this was the last time he would ever have sex with her slammed into his awareness and he involuntarily slowed down to savor the moment and imprint it upon his memory forever.

He couldn’t look her in the face. It would be too painful for him to see the deceit there. This one last time, lost in the depths of his desperation, he needed to pretend she really loved him. He planted his hands on either side of the T-shirt fabric and pinned it lightly over her face in place in hopes that it would help distance her from him, but it didn’t. Everything he’d loved about her—her generosity, honesty, innocence and joy in life—wrapped around him, embracing his heart and bathing him in love until he couldn’t fight it off anymore.

She was better at her job than he could have ever imagined any sparrow being. Was it possible she was telling the truth—

No. Impossible. She was in on the conspiracy. She
had
to be.

As an orgasm built fast in his belly, a mirroring explosion of emotion built in his chest. She arched up into him, her body sucking him down effortlessly into the whirlpool of everything he’d tried so hard to avoid. Feelings broke over him, drowning him in gratitude and regret, affection and reluctant acceptance. Of being lovable and loved.

For just a breath of time, he didn’t care if she was working against him or not. She owned his heart. He could not believe he was going to have to turn his back on this. On her. It was going to feel like ripping his heart out of his chest to leave her and Dawn behind forever.

Their lovemaking reached an exquisite peak and his body clenched around his release. He couldn’t hold back a muffled shout as the orgasm tore free of his control and exploded from the depth of his being.

Stunned at the power of it, he stared down at the sweet contours of Katie’s covered face. As he watched, a small circle of wetness appeared in the center of Katie’s forehead, darkening the gray cotton. Swearing, he pushed away from her and rolled out of bed, swiping at his eyes. He did not cry. Not for her. Not for himself. Not ever.

He stormed into the bathroom and ran himself a steaming hot shower. It pounded his flesh into gelatin but did nothing to soothe the fury tearing apart his heart. Nothing could soothe it.

When he came out of the bathroom, Katie was dressed and curled up in a chair, going through the motions of reading a book on her cell phone.

Devastated at how easily she’d apparently disengaged from the overwhelming emotional power of their lovemaking, he pulled out his laptop and read up some more on the drug he’d been given. So much about the end of his Cuba mission made sense now. The fog of terror, the extreme measures he’d taken to hide and to escape Katie—he’d been flailing in an artificially induced paranoid state. He hadn’t been losing his mind, after all.

Small comfort, that.

Thing was, the CCRE was well clear of his system by now. Any paranoia or suspicion he was experiencing currently was wholly his own. His doubts about Katie were not drug induced. None of it was drug induced.

Absently, he fiddled with the flash drive he’d brought out of Cuba. The one holding all the evidence of the chemical weapons secretly stored in Cuba.

“Oh, my God!” Katie exclaimed without warning. “Is that what I think it is?”

He jammed the drive back in his pocket. “Depends on what you think it is.”

“Is that your pictures from Cuba? Did you manage to run the samples we got from that bunker? Are the results on that drive, too?”

“It’s nothing,” he lied. “Just some personal information I’ll need to set up a new identity.”

“Bull,” she retorted bluntly. “That’s the evidence of the sarin.”