Killer Secrets (37 page)

surrounded her. "You knew he wouldn't."

"Neither will they," he murmured at her ear.
"Durango team is over there with him, Kira. You and I both

know they are. They're going to get themselves killed if
they don't head out."

"And you know they won't," she said just as
softly. "No more than you would if it were one of them

involved. You have to meet with them. Work with them."

She felt his lips against her neck as one hand pulled her
hair back from her shoulder.

"This isn't their fight." There was something
akin to pain in his voice. She wanted to see his face, wanted

to read the emotions there, but as she tried to turn, he
held her in place. "Look on the roof." His hand

gripped her chin, turned her head until she was staring at
the edge of the slanted tile roof. "See, right there

where the balcony roof slants away from the side of the
house? The shadows are darker there, but

there's the vaguest hint of an even darker shadow. Can you
make it out?"

It couldn't be a human form; the slight glint of the
moonlight against the black was too dull, too slender.

"I see it."

"It's a special lens Macey has. Sort of like the
telescope a sub would use. He's hiding around the corner

there, that telescope trained on us, watching us. Macey
gets off on watching." There was the barest hint

of fondness, of laughter, in his voice.

"He's a pervert," she agreed, a grin tugging at
her lips.

"That too." He nipped at her ear. "I'll have
to kick his ass for letting you know he's a pervert."

Kira snorted. "All you have to do is say hello to that
man and you can tell he's a pervert. He didn't say a

word."

Ian chuckled. "He has no shame. No modesty. No
humility."

"Sounds like the Macey I know." She kept her
voice as soft as his, barely more than a breath.

"Reno and Clint will be in the house with Daniel. Kell
is most likely skulking around the grounds,

watching and waiting. Hell, that bastard could be hanging
from the balcony and you wouldn't know it until

it was too late. We didn't call him the Cajun Gator for
nothing, you know."

"What are Reno and Clint doing?" she asked,
desperate to hear that affection, that loyalty that she was

certain he had no idea he was revealing.

"Reno is plotting." His arms tightened around
her. "Macey is relaying our location, trying to home in with

that special mic he has to hear what we're saying, but the
jammer in the bedroom is interfering. I bet he's

pissed over that. Reno's trying to figure out how to make
contact without compromising the team, or me.

Clint is going over the information they have, trying to
anticipate my next move, figure out where to

waylay me. He was at Coronado's earlier tonight, in
disguise, watching for me. He's probably cussing

me. Reno is brooding. Reno can be worrisome when he
broods." Regret shimmered in his voice. "I've

managed to avoid them. It won't be sitting well with
them."

She stared at the villa, at the point where Macey was
watching with the lens. "You're going to contact

them, aren't you?"

He nipped her ear, drawing a soft exclamation from her.

"You know he reads lips, you little minx," he
growled before his tongue laved over the little sting.

"Why keep them wondering?"

"Because they're sticking their noses where they don't
belong." Anger thickened his voice now. "Reno's

wife, Raven, just had her baby. The boy, Morgan, is no more
than a few weeks old. Reno worked his

ass off for a three-month leave so he could be there. So he
could bond with the boy. Clint's newly

married. Just a few months. He came back from his honeymoon
early to head out here. Kell postponed

his marriage to Emily, did you know that?"

She shook her head. She hadn't known they had set a date.

"I better get my invitation." She frowned.
"She promised I could be a bridesmaid."

"If you live long enough?" His lips pressed
against her neck for a long, agonized moment before he pulled

away from her.

Kira turned and watched as he leaned a hip against the
rail, his arms crossing over his chest as he glared

down at her. He wasn't angry with her. Concerned. He was
irritated and just as aware as she was that

things would come to a head soon.

"I had Sorrell's missile boys killed this
afternoon." He sighed wearily. "They're going after Ascarti before

dawn."

Kira blew out a rough breath. "Ascarti was suspected
to know his identity, though there's never been

confirmation of it."

"I got my confirmation today. A man doesn't lie when
he has a live wire hooked to his balls." His voice

wasn't hard enough to hide the self-disgust in his tone.
"I told Antoli to kill them after he was certain he

had all the information he could get. A single shot between
the eyes."

"Did you have any other choice?" He hadn't, but
to hear the anger and the pain in his voice at his

decision eased something inside her.

"There are always choices, Kira." He shook his
head at the question. "It was the simplest way to show

Sorrell I meant business. Anything else wouldn't have
blipped his little radar."

"Then you couldn't do anything else." She
shrugged. "They weren't men, Ian. They were monsters. They

dealt in death daily, it just happened to have finally
caught up with them."

"There is no guilt, don't fool yourself." He
grunted, his expression tightening now. "Anger perhaps. A lot

of it directed at myself. I've let this game go on too
long. It's time to finish it."

"So you're going to do something that will bring
Sorrell out of the woodwork. Ascarti isn't it. If he was,

then someone would have tried it before. Think about this,
Ian. I know you want to keep them out of it,

but hold off taking Ascarti until you talk to the others.
Work with them. If they didn't have something of

value to add to this, they wouldn't be trying to contact
you rather than just watching you. You know this

as well as I do."

He blew out a rough breath. "Macey's tried to contact
me through the secured sat phone for days."

She could see it in his eyes. He knew they had something,
knew they wouldn't be so insistent unless it

were of vital importance. They would have merely watched
and waited, backed him however they could.

"I didn't want them involved in this," he said
then. "I didn't want you in it."

"They're you're friends. Did you really think you
could convince them you had gone rogue? They aren't

stupid, Ian."

"I wouldn't be the first that's stepped out for a life
of crime." He grimaced in disgust. "Happens often."

"Not to you. You don't threaten, you defend. They know
that. If you wanted to convince them you were

all bad and evil then maybe you should have started before
the Atlanta operation."

He grunted at that before he pulled his cell phone from the
clip at his waist and hit the programmed

button to Antoli's cell.

Ian didn't like admitting she was right, she knew that. And
he sure as hell didn't like letting Durango team

in on his operation. Not because he was its leader, but
because Ian felt the risk was his alone, and no one

else's.

"Delay the grab," Ian ordered into the phone, his
gaze locked with hers, a brooding frown pulling at his

brows. "I'll contact you at dawn with further
orders."

Seconds later he disconnected the call and shook his head
wearily.

"We'll slip over to the villa in two hours," he
told her. "Dress to blend in with the night and I'll let Deke

know that we'll be out."

She started to nod. Ian's hand cupped around her neck, as
the opposite arm hooked around her waist

and dragged her against his body. His lips came down on her
with a hunger that seared her. His tongue

drove between her lips, tasted her, then a hungry growl
rumbled in his throat as he began to gorge himself

on the kiss.

All thoughts of meeting with Durango team or even breathing
became overwhelmed by the sheer, fiery

pleasure of his touch.

It was always like this. He could steal her mind with a
single hungry look and sear her senses with the

lightest touch. He was her addiction, and she prayed to God
she never had to go without a fix.

"When this is over." He drew back just enough to
speak, then took another, short hungry kiss. "When

it's over, we'll discuss your habit of poking your nose
into my business."

"Okay," she agreed readily, as her arms tightened
around his neck to bring his lips back to hers.

Another sharp, stinging kiss and he pulled away, staring
down at her, his gaze burning into hers, hungry

and intense. And angry. She could see the emotions roiling
inside him, tearing at him. She could feel them.

They whipped in the air around her, burned through her
soul.

"What else is going on, Ian?" she asked, lifting
her hand to touch his roughened cheek. "What happened

with Diego in the study?"

He moved farther away from her, his gaze breaking away as
he stared out into the distance, his

expression becoming hard, set.

"Nothing happened," he growled. "We head out
in two hours. Make certain you're ready or I'll leave

you here with Deke."

"No." She caught his arm as he turned to go.
"Don't close up on me like this, Ian. Tell me what's going

on."

His bicep flexed beneath her hold, tightening dangerously
as he stared down at her.

"Nothing that applies to this mission," he
informed her, his rough voice bleak, the almost ruined quality of

it grating. "Nothing that applies to anything but
regret, Kira. And that's something I can't deal with right

now. We'll deal with that one when it's over."

He pulled from her grasp and moved back to the bedroom as
Kira followed him, her heart aching, her

need to alleviate his pain, or at least a part of it,
thickening her throat.

"We have two hours," she told him, moving to his
back, her hands flattening against it before smoothing

around his waist.

She laid her head on his back, feeling the tension growing
inside him. "We could spare a few minutes."

"Do you think a few minutes are all I need with
you?" He caught her hands as they trailed to the band of

his slacks. "Never enough, Kira."

"Then a few dozen minutes." She grinned up at him
as he turned, the low lamp on the nightstand

shadowing his dark, savagely honed features.

"You don't want this from me right now." His hands
gripped her arms, his hold tight as the anger came to

the surface and burned in his eyes. "Stand back,
Kira."

"Why?" She would be damned if she would stand
back. "So you can maintain that cold, hard shield you

place so much stock in. Tell me, Ian, doesn't it ever get
lonely in there, all by yourself?"

His lips flattened. "You don't know what you're
talking about."

"Don't I?" She smiled back at him mockingly.
"You have to do everything alone. The team you have with

you, you had no loyalties to before this assignment.
They're not important to you. Nothing in this deal is

important to you except the end result. No one or nothing
can be used against you, can it, Ian. Even me."

His face hardened further. "Unfortunately, you can
be," he ground out. "You made certain of it."

Shock resounded through her, parting her lips at the
emotion that gathered in his voice, in his expression.

Like a veil lifting to reveal the soul of the man that she
had only sensed before. She saw him. Tortured,

hungry, aching.

"Damn you," he suddenly cursed, jerking her to
him, his hands pulling at the elastic waist of the silk

capris. Material ripped, shredded, the sound of it an
erotic hiss as he growled. "I told you. I warned you.