Kiss and Tell (17 page)

Marnie smiled and went to the kitchen area to make a fresh pot of coffee. "Where will they sleep?"

He glanced over at her, his mouth a hard, grim line. "Who? The bad guys? What are you? A bleeding heart? The elements won't bother them. Those outfits will keep them warm and dry."

"I don't care if they freeze their collective butts off," she informed him, cutting thick slices of roast beef for Duchess. She arranged the slices on a plate and put it on the floor, then cut several more. One she bit into, leaning a hip against the counter.

Duchess gobbled down the treats, then, catching the tension in the room, retreated with a sigh to lie down on the area rug, chin on her paws, eyes alert.

Marnie poured a mug of coffee for Jake, then walked over to give it to him. "I was just thinking that if they came back to the cabin for shelter, you could get them all in one place."

His laugh was rusty. "Yeah, right. Why don't you go top-side and call them in for coffee?"

*

It was screwy, but then her logic usually was. Still, it wasn't a bad idea. The cabin could be practically hermetically sealed from down here.

There was a movement on camera seven. Jake zoomed. Just the wind in the trees. He zoomed out again. She was close. Too close. How the
hell
could she smell like spring flowers?

He drained half the mug of coffee and enjoyed the painful burn all the way down.

She perched on the workstation beside the control panel, bare legs swinging, head tilted to look at him. They were eye to eye.

"You know who they are, don't you?"

"Their MO was telling, but hearing them cinched it. We learn that 'language' at T-FLAC. It's complex and damn hard to decode. It's useful in the field when there's a chance we might be overheard. I heard enough to know they're closing in."

She put her hand on his arm. The sensation shot up through bone and muscle like an electrical current.

"I'm so sorry, Jake."

He moved away. The sizzle stayed with him. "It makes no damn difference which side kills me. I'll still be dead."

"Still," she said gently, "it's got to hurt to know people you thought you could trust are trying to hurt you."

"They aren't trying to hurt me. They plan to
kill
me. And I haven't trusted a damn soul since Lurch, Skully, and Brit died. It makes no damn difference to me who the hell they are."

She hopped off the counter and came around behind him. Jake froze as she wrapped her arms about his neck from behind and rested her chin on his hair.

What the hell was it with this woman? She just loved to
touch
. He stiffened, ready to break her hold. But, damn, it felt okay to have her touch him like this. Just for a second, of course. He didn't like it, wasn't used to being cuddled. He wasn't the warm, fuzzy type. Never had been.

No.

He couldn't like her. He
wouldn't
.

Jake squeezed his eyes shut, and felt the strength of her slender arms wrap about him like a cashmere blanket on a cold winter's night. Like spring water to a parched throat. Like balm on an open wound.

Judas Priest.

He could deal with the lust. Lust was controllable.

It was tenderness he couldn't handle.

Sex with her was out of the question. She tangled things. Made logic illogical. Made things he knew to be right seem wrong. Made nonsense out of sense.

A good night's sleep was all he needed, Jake assured himself, not shaking her off just yet. By tomorrow he'd have her across the river. If he had to
toss
her across, he'd have her safe. In the meantime all he had to do was keep distance between them.

He carefully untangled her arms from about his neck. A chill swept over him like nothing he'd felt before. Jake ignored it and leaned over to adjust a camera angle from the console.

"Just in case they get lucky, I'll show you how to exit in an emergency."

He put her through the procedure and encoded her fingerprints and her retina into the scanners via the computer. It was fortunate he'd trained in deep-sea diving and could hold his breath for long periods. Right now that was the only way he had of not inhaling her fragrance.

He showed her how to exit, told her when to exit, and did everything in his power not to brush against her.

It was peculiar she hadn't freaked out about being stuck down here if he was offed. What kind of woman was she that she cared more for the dog than her own safety?

"Get some rest. I have to go out and take care of business."

"I'll be in a coma in about thirty seconds," Marnie assured him around a jaw-cracking yawn that made her look like a sleepy cat. "What about you?"

"I'll rest while they run around looking for me tomorrow."

"Jake?" She followed him to the tunnel elevator.

He half turned. "What now?"

She came right up to him, showing no fear at his obvious impatience and irritation. She stood on tiptoe and fiddled with the collar of his jacket until it lay the way she wanted it. Her eyes met his. "Thank you for bringing Duchess home safely."

"This isn't
home
," he informed her in the tone of voice that had terrorists backing away if they were smart.

She gave him a solemn look. "Kiss me good-bye."

"Don't you ever give up?"

She had very pretty eyes. Hypnotic eyes, Jake decided, mesmerized by the heat and the sweet clarity he saw there. He tried to shift out of her reach. He tried to drag his gaze away from the bewitching appeal of her.

Somehow his arms wrapped about her slender waist. Her arms looped around his neck. Her mouth touched his.

Soft.

Smooth.

Sweet.

The embers in his gut, which had been glowing for hours, days, a lifetime, roared into an inferno.

Jake didn't give a damn if it was witchcraft or insanity. With a groan of pure agony, he crushed his mouth onto hers and felt the slick heat of her tongue meet his.

Judas Priest. The woman took prisoners.

One more second, he promised himself, and he'd pull away.

One more lick. One more nibble.

Two minutes later, he tore himself away from her arms. Band-Aid quick.

"Lights. Off. Ninety-five percent." His voice sounded ridiculously hoarse.

He strode into the waiting elevator, turned, and saw her standing where he'd left her in the gloom.

"Be careful out there," she said softly.

The door slid shut.

Jake closed his eyes, then leaned forward to thump his head
hard
on the metal panel.

*

She was hunched over the computer when he returned hours later, the dog snoring at her feet.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Jake demanded, striding across to her. His hands and face tingled in the warmth of the room. She'd turned up the heat.

"Heat," he said tersely. "Sixty-four degrees."

Dumb ass. He was the one who'd given her the keys to the castle. He shouldn't be surprised she'd burglarized him.

The dog opened her eyes. She grinned a doggy grin, then slumped her chin back on her paws and with a contented sigh closed her eyes again.

"That was hello," Marnie told him unnecessarily, head down as she concentrated on the computer monitor. "I made some vegetable soup. It's on the stove. And corn bread," she muttered without looking up.

"You did a good job covering your trail. All I'm doing is coming up with dead ends. I've got one ... last—" her fingers skimmed the keys "—thing to try."

The savory smell of the soup made his mouth water. The sight of
her
made his heart stop.

She'd turned up the heat and then, obviously too warm, changed from his sweatshirt into the old tank top he used when he went running. Soft from a hundred washings, the fabric hung from her slender body, accentuating her curves and making her skin look like silk. Paired with his blue boxer shorts, it was a formidable outfit.

She embraced the rules of engagement.
As long as it works, anything goes
.

He watched as she ran her fingers through hair that had dried to soft, springy curls the color of honey. One step and he could touch her. He stayed where he was.

Oblivious to the impact her state of undress had on him, Marnie turned back to the computer. "I coded a package trace program to see if I could get an echo back from the satellite using your encryption algorithm. Let's see if the baddies came in through the back door." Her fingers flew across the keyboard. "Now for the satellite coordinates... Okay, let's see what happens." She pressed a key, then folded her arms and sat back.

Her blue eyes twinkled as she looked at him over her shoulder. "How was work, honey?"

Jake snorted.

Beside her, numbers flashed across the monitor almost faster than the eye could see. Marnie whirled around and leaned forward to avidly scan the screen. She tapped out a few more rapid keystrokes.

Jake strode up behind her.

"Damn." She nibbled her lower lip.

"What is it?"

"Nothing. Not a blasted thing." She pushed a curl out of her eyes and scowled. "I don't know how they did it, but a cracker didn't trace you through the computer, Jake. I've tried every trick in the book and then some. I've found zippity-dodah. Maybe if I called my dad—"

"No, no calls," Jake said sharply. "It doesn't matter. Besides, I told you, I don't need your help. It's one-thirty in the morning, and you've been up since six. Why aren't you sleeping?"

"It's not like I have to get up early," she said dryly, with a final glare at the screen. "Thanks to the coffee and cookies I ate, I got a second wind after you left. Besides, I needed to wait for you."

Jake stripped off his jacket and tossed it on the coffee table. He strode toward the stove to poke at the soup with the spoon she'd left beside it. "Why?"

"To make sure you're in one piece."

"I'm in one piece."

The soup was thick with vegetables and savory with spices. He found a mug and used it to ladle out a serving. Wiping the drips off the side with a finger, he sampled the taste. It was great. "Go to bed."

She busied herself turning off the computer, then swiveled on his chair to face him. Her bare legs looked pale and vulnerable wrapped around the base of the chair. "You need rest even more than I do."

Jake closed his eyes on a long-forgotten prayer. "You're not my mother. Sleep, don't sleep, I don't give a damn. Just give me some space."

"You're mad because I kissed you and you liked it."

Jake found the warm, butter-saturated squares of corn bread. He drank soup from the mug. "Kisses are a dime a dozen. Yours are good but nothing special. I told you. I'm immune."

She untwined herself from the chair. Eyes narrow, she came toward him like a sniper stalking her kill.

"You may be the spy king of the universe, Jake Dolan, but you are one big fat liar. You want me. You want me bad. You're just being disbuggerable about it."

"There's no such word as
disbuggerable
." Reluctantly Jake put the mug and slice of corn bread down. Just in case he had to defend himself.

"Don't change the subject."

"It was either kiss you or kill you," Jake told her, his hip striking the counter behind him. "I hope I didn't make the wrong choice."

She giggled.

Jake closed his eyes.
Oh, man. This isn't goddamned fair.

"Don't you have a lick of sense, woman? I scare most people."

She tried to straighten her face and ended up biting her smile in half by sinking her teeth into her lower lip. "I'm sure you do."

"Is this what you did to those fiancés of yours, Marnie? Pestered them until they gave in?"

She stopped a few feet away and said quietly, "If you want to know if I've had any previous lovers, all you have to do is ask."

Jake picked up his soup mug and took a slug. It was good soup. She could cook. BFD. Who the hell cared? "I don't give a damn if you were the featured date du jour of the sultan of Brunei. Get it through your head: You're here under duress,
my
duress, and the second I can get you across the river, the better I'll like it."

"Even if Winkie wants me?"

"Who the hell is Winkie?"

In answer, her gaze traveled to his crotch.

"Woman," Jake roared, beyond insane, "do you have a death wish? Get in that bed, pull the covers over your head, and go to sleep before I do something we'll both regret."

She went.

"Lights. Off. One hundred percent."

Except for the illumination of the infrared on the multiple screens around the perimeter, the room immediately plunged into darkness.

A second later she was a motionless lump under the silk throw he'd brought back from China last year.

Jake wished he had a cellar where he could chain her for the next few days. He wished he'd left her in her grandmother's cottage with the tree through the roof. He wished he'd urged her to swim across the flooded river and left her to be swept downstream.

Most of all, he wished she didn't tempt him so much.

Lurch used to call him the Man of Steel for his phenomenal willpower. Jake wondered morosely if his pal was watching him from some pearly cloud in heaven and having the last laugh right now.

Chapter Nine

M
arnie slept the way she did everything else, with one hundred percent commitment. Jake woke beside her after a solid six hours' rest. Refreshed and alert, he turned to look at her sprawled out beside him.

He should have sacked out on the couch – it was comfortable, and he'd done it before. But there was something dangerously appealing about crawling beneath the covers with her, even though he'd left a wide space between them. It was a form of insanity, but he couldn't resist. Within minutes she'd closed the three feet of space and gravitated to his side as if she belonged there.

He'd gone out like a light within seconds.

It didn't surprise him that during the night she'd flung one leg across his, or that her head was sharing his pillow.