Killer Secrets (34 page)

everything but physical strength and you know it. Don't
push me away because you're too much of a

chauvinist to work with me."

It wasn't just chauvinism. It was the certainty that losing
her would kill him.

"You'll be crucified in the tabloids," he told
her.

"Got the T-shirt." She grinned back at him.

His lips quirked. Yes, she did. She had been in the
tabloids for years, either for the scrapes she had

purposely managed to get into, or for the charities she and
her uncle backed. She was controversial,

flamboyant, and one of the government's most covert
contract operatives. She was damned scary.

He lifted his head and pressed his lips to her forehead as
he let his eyes drift closed, allowing himself to

enjoy holding her in his arms, feeling her warm and sweet
against him. Just a little while longer.

"We need to shower." He opened his eyes and stared
into the clear, blue sky beyond the balcony. "I

have to deal with what happened yesterday."

"You're going after them? Do you know who they
are?"

He nodded again. He knew who they were. The information had
been waiting in his in-box when he rose

that morning.

"Sorrell's men," he answered her. "I
received news he was in Aruba this morning. Apparently, he's been

here for a while."

She nodded against his shoulder. "Are we going for
intel or blood?"

"We're not going for either," he said. "I'm
sending in a small team of Fuentes soldiers to capture Sorrell's

contact as well as the two men in the boat yesterday. They
left an hour ago. I just have to wait on the call

now."

It was coming to a head slowly. He had managed to foul
every attempt Sorrell had made to kidnap or

kill him. All that was left was to draw the terrorist into
a meeting. Once he identified him, Ian could take

him out.

It was a waiting game, and Ian had once believed he had the
patience for it. Patience had never been a

problem until now. Until Kira had walked into his life once
more.

"Are you going to make contact?" Kira asked then,
and Ian knew who she was talking about.

Durango team. He looked up at the rise again and sighed
wearily. Reno would be pissed when Ian and

Kira didn't show up as he ordered. But hell, what could his
former commander expect? Reno had no

business here. His wife was just out of the hospital with
their newborn child; he should have been in the

States attending to his family, not out trying to cover for
someone whose main objective had been to

keep the team as far from this as possible.

Diego Fuentes loved playing with the men assigned to that
team. He considered it his personal duty to

see just how far he could push each man until he broke. He
had nearly broken Nathan. If Fuentes had

succeeded in his past plots he would have killed the
commander's sister and a senator's daughter; both

women were tied intimately to two of the SEALs on that
team.

He shook his head in response to her question. "It's
almost over. There's nothing they can do to help at

this point."

"They can cover your back."

"They can get in my way." He lifted her from his
lap, collected his coffee cup, and drew her back into the

bedroom.

Closing the door and locking it, he moved to the bureau,
flipped the security protocols to active then

turned back to her.

"When this hits, Kira, it's going to hit fast. I have
to be certain where your loyalties lie."

"In what regard?" Long black hair flowed over her
shoulder as she regarded him warily now.

"Sorrell will die." Nothing else was acceptable.
"If you can't handle that, then get out now. Don't come

between me and this mission."

"Your mission is to kill him?" she asked soberly,
her expression concerned. "I would think DHS would

need the intel he could provide?"

"He dies, Kira. I don't give a fuck what DHS needs or
what they want. So you decide now exactly who

has your loyalty. Me or DHS."

He had her loyalty. He knew it, she knew it, but he wanted
to hear it. He wanted her to
feel
it.

She licked her soft pink lips, her blue-ringed gray eyes
flickering in acknowledgment of the power play.

"You have my loyalty, Ian," she finally
whispered. "But don't make the mistake of abusing it. I'm not your

puppet and I won't be used as one."

"I didn't ask for a puppet." He stepped to her,
pulling her into his arms as he hid the grimace that

contorted his features. "We can't let him live, Kira.
Even for the intel. He has too many ties, too many

spies. I won't risk his escape. I won't risk Nathan or his
wife, even for the information."

The shadows of the past washed over him. For a moment, just
a moment, he was a child again,

screaming in agony through an empty Texas night as his
mother lay in his arms, near death. He had

screamed until his voice broke, until he couldn't scream
anymore. Until hope had leached from his body

with the same burning pain that his mother's blood wept
from hers.

Out of the night came a child and his father. The boy who
had heard his screams and awakened his

family. Nathan had saved his life and the life of his
mother. Ian hadn't forgotten that. He wouldn't forget it.

"How's he doing?" The question was dragged from
him. "He's holding up?"

"He's holding up." He heard in her voice what she
refused to voice. The battle Nathan was waging just

to live, to survive the operations he had had no choice but
to endure and the effects of the whore's dust

that had been pumped into him for so many months.

The synthetic date rape drug in such large amounts should
have been fatal. Nathan shouldn't have

survived the first month.

He released her slowly. "We need to shower. I have to
check on Deke, and I have a few meetings to

attend in Palm Beach. You'll be by my side. My trophy. Try
not to let everyone see just how dangerous

you can be for the time being."

If she was going to work this mission then he was going to
use her particular talents effectively. She

looked like soft fluff. Delicate. Girly. Femininely
arrogant.

"I've got your six, bad boy." Her hands smoothed
over the side of his ass and Ian couldn't help the smile

that tugged at his lips.

"More than you know." A quick kiss to her lips
and he turned and headed to the shower. "I'll get things

together while you shower; for now, see if you can contact
Daniel. You have a four-minute secure

window with the security protocols. Make it fast and tell
him to stay the hell out of the way. I'd hate to

see him killed because he blindsided me or Deke, Kira. Make
sure it doesn't happen."

Later, Ian braced his hands against the shower wall and let
the warm water flow over him. Control. That

was all he needed, just a little more control and he could
get through this. It was moving rapidly. The

team he had sent in to take Sorrell's men was one of the
best he had brought together from among the

cartel soldiers Diego possessed when Ian took over the
cartel.

Led by a former Russian militant, the men had training and
experience that was on a level with some

Special Forces teams Ian knew of. They were quick,
effective, and merciless. And Ian had learned that

mercy in this world brought nothing but more blood. There
was no mercy. There was right of might and

nothing more.

He lifted his head to the water, letting it flow over his
face as his chest clenched and agony welled inside

him. The blood he had shed since coming here would haunt
him forever. It didn't matter that the blood

was as vicious and evil as the world itself. He hadn't
killed innocents. It was war, he tried to tell himself.

A diseased world and he was weeding out the infection. But
that didn't help anymore. It hadn't helped

since the first night Kira had shown up.

It had sliced into him the night before as the words of
love burst from her lips. Love for Kira would

mean everything. Whoever or whatever she loved would have
one hundred percent of who she was, she

would give her life for whoever she loved. And he couldn't
allow that. He had to keep her safe even

while allowing her into the mess his life had become.

As his eyes opened, the shower door slid to the side, and
she stepped into the steamy atmosphere with

him. Her gray eyes were soft, her expression filled with
concern, and with love.

He had to touch her. His arms went around her, his hands
flattening against her back as he pulled her

against his aroused body and took her lips before she could
speak.

Whatever Daniel had reported to her, he didn't want to
know. Not yet. First, he had to taste her once

more. Fill his senses with her heat and her passion.

One hand slid between her thighs and found her creamy,
slick with her own need. That was what he

needed. Kira wet and ready for him.

Hands clenching in her buttocks now, he lifted her, feeling
slender legs grip his hips as he pressed the

painfully thickened flesh of his cock head into the folds
of her sex.

No condom. Not this time. She was protected. He knew for
damned certain he was safe. And he

needed this. Needed to take her naked, with nothing between
them, nothing separating their lust.

His head fell back on his shoulders at the intensity of
sensation that whipped up his spine. His balls drew

tight, his jaw clenched with the need to hold back. He
could have spilled himself inside her in that moment

as inch by inch she tightened around the impalement, her
moans whispering around him as he braced her

shoulders against the shower wall.

She was like pure heat. White-hot. Cutting through
bitterness and pain to the core of his soul and

wrapping around it tighter than her legs were now wrapped
around his hips.

Opening his eyes, he tilted his head to lower his lips to
hers once again. To sip from the shower-wet

curves as he opened her slowly, his cock flexing,
throbbing.

"It's like possessing life," he whispered against
her lips. "And feeling it envelop me. Do you know that,

Kira?"

Shock darkened her eyes.

"Do you know what you do to me?" He groaned
roughly as he slid in to the hilt and felt her pussy

tightening convulsively, milking his flesh.

"What you do to me?" She gasped, her hands
tightening on his shoulders. "Oh God, Ian. You make me

come apart."

She was coming apart? He was melting inside. He could feel
the heat burning him alive as her head

lowered to his chest, her sharp little teeth nipping at his
flesh as he began to thrust inside her.

Her pussy was so tight. So hot. It seared his flesh with
liquid heat and tightened on it with firm, rhythmic

milking motions. The sensations stroked over the sensitive
nerve endings of his cock head, rippled

through the shaft, and struck his balls with fingers of
heat. They drew tight beneath the shaft, ached with

the need to come. Her lips scraped over his chest, adding
to the pleasure tearing through him. Her hungry

moans filled his head, the prick of her nails on his
shoulders added to the incredible rapture he could only

find in taking her, possessing her.

"Don't leave me." He tightened his teeth as the
words slipped past his lips, as the emotions tearing

through him found voice.

"Never. Oh God, Ian. Never."

He braced her against the wall, held tight, and pounded
inside her. He fucked her like the demon he

sometimes felt he had become, starving, demented. And she
was his softness. His corner of peace.

His hands tightened on her hips as he felt his release
boiling in his balls. Holding on wasn't an option. Not