Killer Secrets (6 page)

tugged her pants from her legs.

Clad in nothing but a white silk thong, she jerked the
bronze silk robe from the chair by the bed and

shrugged it on as she turned to face him.

"You know, Ian, this habit you have of leaving me a
second before I get off is becoming annoying."

"Your habit of poking your nose into my business could
become dangerous," he snapped, fury contorting

his expression. But lust gleamed thick and bright in his
eyes.

Kira pushed her fingers through her tangled hair, shook it
out, and cast him a mocking look from beneath

her lashes.

"Oh really, Ian," she drawled then. "You
brought your business to me, remember? The night you slipped

into my condo and crawled that tight ass of yours into my
bed during that op in Atlanta. Don't start crying

foul now. You're just pissed off because you finally met a
woman unwilling to play the ready-and-willing

submissive. Speaking of those, didn't you ever get
bored?"

His lips thinned and she swore that muscle jumping in his
jaw was going to tear right out of the tightly

stretched flesh of his cheek.

Damn, he was a tad upset.

Poor baby.

"What kind of deal is Homeland Security running here,
Kira? Don't fuck with me. Not now. Mess in my

business here and I might have to kill you."

And damn if he didn't sound as though he meant it. He was
almost believable. Maybe. If she were on

mind-altering drugs, she thought with a sniff.

"The big bad cartel leader now, are you?" She
tossed her head back and let a low, seductive laugh

whisper from her throat. "Come on, Ian, you enjoy the
game too much to kill me. Besides." She moved

closer to him, ran a finger down his heaving chest, and whispered
the words that she knew had the

potential to rock his little world. "Why would they
run an op against their favorite bad boy spy?"

It was a guess, nothing more. A supposition. A hope, but
the reaction was far more than she anticipated.

The change was frightening. The lust in his eyes was
instantly replaced with icy fury. His expression

tightened further, the harsh planes and angles of his face
cast into savage relief a second before he

grabbed her.

Between one breath and the next Kira found herself, arms
locked behind her back, her back to his

chest, and his powerful arm braced around her neck as his
lips lowered to her ear.

"Get out of Aruba, and take your accusations with you.
Get as far away from me as possible or I'll fuck

you until you're dying from the orgasms. And once I've had
my fill of you, I'll break your pretty neck."

His arm tightened around her neck for emphasis as his hard,
corded body vibrated with tension against

her. She should have felt at least a frisson of fear. She
assumed that was the point behind the hold on her.

It wasn't painful, but it reminded her to the very core of
her being that he was broader, stronger, and a

hell of a lot more experienced in violence than she was.

She didn't try to break loose. She knew better. For every
move she had, Ian had one to counter it.

Instead, she relaxed into the embrace, became soft and
pliant, aware that he only tensed further behind

her.

"Go ahead, Ian," she said softly. "Kill me.
If you can."

HE COULDN'T.

Ian stared down at her face, felt her body relax into him,
and felt like a drowning man. Only it was soft,

willing woman he was drowning in. The scent and feel of the
one woman he had learned was a weakness

he could ill afford.

"You're playing a very dangerous game," he
whispered against the soft silk of her hair as he felt her ass

flex against the hard length of his cock.

Her unique, pretty little ears were at his lips, the little
slant and soft curve of the lobe tempting his lips.

His dick was throbbing, aching. Just the thought of her
could do this to him, make him crazy to fuck her,

to hold her to him and bury himself inside her.

Luck had been on his side in Atlanta eight months before.
There hadn't been the time or the opportunity

to take her, and each time he'd managed to get his hands on
her there had been an interruption.

There would be no interruptions now, the wild side of his
brain reminded him with frantic lust. He could

push her against the wall, bury himself inside the hot grip
of her pussy, and find the relief he needed with

teeth-clenching desperation.

"And you're not?" she asked him as he slowly
released her hands.

Hands that slid down and curled over the hard ridge of his
erection, stealing his breath.

"Do you think you really managed to slip into that
naval clinic unseen, Ian?" she whispered then. "You're

good, big boy, but you're not that good. Don't you know
that entry point you found unsecured was

unsecured for a reason? That the guard was napping, for a
reason. That Nathan's bathroom door was

closed. For a reason. I knew you would be there. I knew,
all I had to do was wait, because I knew the

signs that a path had been made for you. You're working an
op here and we both know it."

He released her slowly, his hands curling over her
shoulders as he pushed her away from his body,

despite every cell in his cock screaming no.

She turned slowly to face him, wearing nothing but the
bronze silk robe and panties so tiny he wondered

why she bothered. Witchy gray eyes stared up at him, the
cloudy color ringed with a thin circle of

gray-blue that had always fascinated him.

The dangerous statement had cleared the mind-numbing lust
from his brain and left him chilled to the

bone. His contact at DHS had arranged the visit, he knew
that.
But
how had Kira known it?

"There's no op in progress."

He breathed in through his nose before he moved away from
her, pacing to the chair where his

expensive silk jacket had been laid. Shrugging it on, he
turned back to her, remembering the job, the

dangers, and the price of failure.

"He saved my life when I was a kid," he stated,
hearing his own raspy voice and recalling that his

screams at that time had nearly broken it. Nathan's was
worse. His voice was so ruined that the sound of

it would always remind the other man of the hell he had
endured.

Kira nodded. "He told me about that."

Ian clenched his teeth. "I needed to say goodbye. That
was all."

Her lips pursed. "Just saying goodbye? All security
measures were allowed to lapse so a drug lord could

say goodbye? Give me a break, Ian."

"Money in the right hands works wonders," he
assured her, staring back at her with the same icy

expression he had perfected over the past several years.
"I'm here by choice, Ms. Porter, don't make the

mistake of thinking otherwise. And trust me when I say, I
don't intend to leave."

Her gaze flickered then, whether with indecision or belief,
he couldn't be sure. Reading Kira was like

trying to navigate through lake fog. Damned near
impossible.

Finally, another of those irritating, knowing smiles shaped
her lips and she shrugged with a graceful shift

of her slender shoulders.

That smile was designed to make men crazy. To make them
dream of wiping it off her face with passion,

or with their dick filling that hot little mouth. Ian had
quite a few fantasies concerning the latter.

"Whatever," she finally answered smoothly.
"Uncle Jason is considering buying a villa here, did I mention

that? He's flying in tomorrow to check out a few
possibilities that I found today. You go ahead and play

your little games, Ian, I'm sure I can find a way to occupy
myself."

"Get the hell out of Aruba, Kira," he ordered her
harshly. "Don't turn this into a pissing match, because

you'll lose. The hard way."

She clicked her tongue then. "Really, Ian, you're
losing your perspective. Drug cartel leaders don't give

warnings, they act. I guess you'll just have to try the
cement slippers next." Her eyes widened. "Or are

they using something else here in the Caribbean? Sometimes
it's just so hard to keep up."

He'd had enough. He'd warned her. She was an experienced
agent, she knew the game, the rules and

the dangers. If she got her ass killed, then it was out of
his hands. He'd warned her.

"Good night, Ms. Porter." He moved across the
room and headed for the door. "I trust you'll take ample

care of yourself while you're here."

"I always do, lover."

He jerked the door open then slammed it behind him as he
stepped into the hall. Deke straightened from

the wall, his gaze narrowing, his eyes flickering with
interest as he glanced at the suite door.

"Let's move." Ian stalked down the hallway
without explanations. He'd be damned if there was any way

to explain Kira, even if Deke was aware of exactly who and
what she was.

Oh yeah, she was the niece to Jason Maclane all right. And
one of the most clever damned contract

agents Homeland Security had on its payroll.

The Chameleon, that was her code name. And why was that her
code name? Because she was as

changeable in her appearance as she was in her moods.
Because her job wasn't to confront a damned

thing, it was to watch and listen and flit around the elite
little parties that catered to the rich and notorious,

and the dirty little deal makers. To shift and change
according to her location, to become seductive or

dangerous, to fit in with the diseased, disgusting
parasites of the world.

And he should remember that one, he told himself as he
followed Deke into the elevator. Kira knew the

rules of the game. She didn't need him to protect her.

Four

IAN'S MOOD THE NEXT MORNINGwas less than cheerful. He
always awoke quickly, but opened

his eyes slowly. He felt his surroundings out, let his
senses hone in to detect any shifts or dangers before

he allowed himself to move from the bed.

This morning, he awoke in a mood designed to piss even
himself off. His skin felt stretched, irritation

tightened his guts, and damn if he didn't still have the
hard-on from hell throbbing between his thighs.

He took care of the hard-on in the shower, masturbating as
he closed his eyes and imagined Kira, on her

knees, her lips surrounding him, her tongue licking and
stroking as she sucked him to her throat and made

his teeth clench with the need to hold back.

Not that his hand came anywhere close to the imagined feel
of her mouth, but the thought succeeded in

spilling his semen to the shower floor and taking the
bitter edge off his lust.

Hell, he could have gone to Astra's room and awakened her
last night. He could have fucked her all

night long, and rather than giving him grief, she would
have smiled and licked her lips in anticipation.

She was one of many women that Diego seemed to delight in
filling the villa with. He liked pretty

women, and he liked having them near. Women who liked rough
sex. Hell, they went beyond a little

rough sex. They were women who enjoyed the pain Diego could
mete out.

Ian grimaced at the thought of that. He had seen one of the
maids, Eleanor's, back beaded with blood

from the stroke of Diego's whip, and still she had begged
for more. Not more sex. Not more fucking or a

deeper penetration, because Diego rarely fucked one of his
toys. No, it was the pain that got both of

them off. Diego got off giving it, and Eleanor could climax
from it. Ecstasy would wash over her face and

her body would tremble with it.

It was enough to make a jaded man wonder what the hell had
gone wrong with the world. For all his

cynicism and experience, he still couldn't understand that
one. But it wasn't Astra he wanted, it was Kira.