Night Shadow (16 page)

The seam of her tank top gave way as he ripped the material to get at her

breast. The barely control ed violence of the act made being half-dressed,

while he was naked, even more erotic. Lexi wrapped her legs around his

waist as he shifted her from the wall to carry her to the narrow bed.

The pulsing red light filling the room reflected demonically in his eyes as

he lay her down, then kneaded her thighs apart, ripping off her boxers like

a magician, then making them disappear before he lowered himself

between her thighs. Lexi’s hands gripped his shoulders, and she slid her

knees along his sides, opening herself wider. Welcoming him inside her.

His entry was hard and fast. Her entire body bowed with the exquisite

sensation as the heat of him filled her. He slid his hands down her back,

cupping her bottom in both large hands, his fingers digging into her flesh

as he brought her impossibly harder against him. She lifted her legs high,

tightening them across his upper back as her entire body shuddered with

the impact of each stroke.

Alex. Alex. Alex.

Slick with sweat, their bodies rose and fel in counterpoint as coiled

tension built unbearably, causing her body to arch and shake.

If he was insatiable, so was Lexi. She grabbed his face, bringing it down

to hers so she could kiss him as he plunged deeper. The muscles in his

back bunched and straightened, and she dug in her heels, holding on

tightly as he drove into her. His jaw was rough, his tongue slick and hot

as his hips pounded against hers in a rhythm that took them over, drove

them in this wild erotic dance.

The first climax hit her so hard she had to tear her mouth from his and

bite her lip to prevent herself from screaming. A soft, keening sound

escaped her and she almost bucked him off her as her body bowed with

excruciating pleasure. But Alex wasn’t going anywhere. He kept thrusting,

and the second climax, higher and stronger than the first, rol ed right over

the tail end of the last without giving her time to catch her breath. She bit

his shoulder as her entire body clenched around him.

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Night Shadow

His body shuddered, stiffening over hers as he gave a guttural cry, his

hips jerking powerful y with his release.

The sound of their harsh breathing fil ed the small room. Lexi couldn’t

move. She didn’t want to move. She loved the feel of his weight on top of

her. Loved that he was stil hard inside her. Loved—

She pressed a kiss to his shoulder, knowing her bite had probably left

marks on his skin. His fingers tightened on the globes of her ass, holding

her possessively in place. As if she wanted to be anywhere but exactly

where she was. They lay pressed together, sweat gluing their skin as both

fought for breath.

She felt him getting harder deep inside her and tightened her knees

against his sides, locking her ankles in the small of his back, feeling the

taut muscles bunch and gather.

This time, some of the urgency was gone as he moved deeply inside her.

Lexi combed her fingers through his damp hair as the pressure inside her

built quickly and with such intensity she had to grit her teeth so she didn’t

scream out loud and wake the whole damn house.

She licked his nipple as he surged against her. He groaned as she nipped

him not so lightly with her teeth. Dizzy with lust, she surged against him

as his thrusts became even deeper and more powerful.

They climaxed together and Lexi swore she saw fireworks of red burst

behind her closed lids.

Alex shifted so that they lay side by side, stil joined. Lexi opened dazed

eyes as he trailed his fingers over her shoulder to the slope of her breast

in a lazy caress that gave her goose bumps. Neither had said a word the

entire time.

“Jesus, sweetheart,” his voice was thick, low, rough with emotion when he

finally spoke. “Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head. And inside Lexi thought,
No. But you wil .

Sydney

33° 51 35.9"S 151° 12’ 40"E

Only one of the tangos had a bar code legible enough to read. The close-

set black lines went from inner wrist to his elbow.

33 51 35 09 151 12 40 02 14 08

Latitude. Longitude. The last three pairs of numbers might be a date. Or it

might mean bugger all. They’d got the call from Intel half an hour before.

So here they were in Sydney, in the safe house on Macleay Street. The

nondescript exterior of the three-story office building looked pretty much

like dozens of others in the neighborhood. The name of the company,

embossed on a classy plaque beside the double glass doors, was 1788

Exports, homage to the first vineyards planted near the Sydney Harbor

Bridge in that year. The business was real, employing several dozen T-

FLAC auxiliary personnel, and maintaining the secure safe house on the

top floor. Ironical y, their business cover was in the black, and doing quite

wel exporting excel ent Australian wines around the world.

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Night Shadow

The location, hidden in plain sight among newly renovated upscale retail

outlets, good restaurants, and service businesses, was centrally located

between downtown Sydney and the harbor.

“Hey. Did you know the Sydney Opera House was made a UNESCO World

Heritage Site in mid-2007?” Lexi asked the others as they sat around a

table.

God only knew all safe houses looked alike by now. The round table,

circled by high-back chairs, the long, low couches that doubled as sleeping

space when numbers were high. They were field-stripping their weapons

and waiting for more intel.

Lexi went on. “It was one of the twenty finalists for the project—”

Ginsberg’s head jerked up and he scowled. “Who gives a shit?”

“Easy,” Alex said mildly, purposely not looking at Lexi who sat to his left,

stripping her Sig Sauer with the precision of a neurosurgeon. He’d never

seen anyone strip down and reassemble a weapon that freaking fast. Last

time he’d looked, like twenty-two seconds before, she was stil a little

green around the gil s from the teleport from Germany to Australia.

“Have you been here before, Ruben?” Lexi asked, picking up her Glock.

She held the weapon in a safe direction and pulled the trigger, then held

the slide back, all while looking at the man across the table.

“Ginsberg,”
Ginsberg emphasized. Alex knew it would just make Lexi call

him by his first name to annoy him. “Couple of dozen times over the

years. Yeah.”

“Excel ent,” she said cheerful y, then pul ed down the slide lock on both

sides of the weapon simultaneously.

Alex watched her slender hands, fascinated by her dexterity and speed as

she pushed the slide forward until it fully separated from the receiver,

pushed the recoil spring slightly forward, and lifted it away from the

barrel. Once the barrel had been removed, she started to clean each piece

careful y, then reassembled the weapon with blistering speed. She hadn’t

looked at her hands once.

“Then
you
can tel us something about the city,” she told Ginsberg

smoothly. “Since we’re here, and not going anywhere for a few more

hours at least.”

Ginsberg stared at her, disbelief etched on his face. He pinched the bridge

of his nose. “Do I look like a fucking travel guide to you, Lara Croft?”

Lexi shot a brief glance his way to let Alex know she could handle it and

set her weapon down while looking the other operative dead in the eye.

“No, you look like a guy who doesn’t play wel with others. Don’t like

working with a woman? Tough shit, Ruben. I’m here to stay. Suck it up or

ask for a transfer to another team.”

Since she’d finished stripping five weapons to Ginsberg’s two, and they

were ful y loaded and lined up inches from her fingertips, Ginsberg wisely

shut the hel up.

Daklin tried to hide a smile. Alex did a better job of hiding his annoyance.

Daklin had casually mentioned the night before that Ginsberg had

complained to anyone who’d listen that he didn’t like working with female

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Night Shadow

operatives. Too fucking bad. T-FLAC was training more and more women

to work in the field. Al of them good.

Lexi had handled him just right. Didn’t mean Alex wasn’t going to sit on

him and bend him into a pretzel if he got out of line again. Too bad.

Ginsberg was a good operative, Alex had worked with him before. He was

usually a pretty even-tempered guy, and now that Alex came to think of

it, had worked with AJ Cooper on that op. He’d had no trouble with

Cooper. What was it about Lexi that got his goat?

Whatever it was he’d better get his shit together. Alex would not tolerate

friction between team members when they were working. Period.

He’d been damned fortunate he’d been capable of teleporting both Lexi

and himself to Australia from Germany. But he couldn’t put off reporting

this any longer. When his power outages affected only himself he’d

convinced himself that reporting the “illness” wasn’t necessary. But since

the occurrences were coming closer and closer together, and now involved

Le—an entire
team,
he couldn’t be so cavalier.

They might, of course, relieve him of his duties and send in someone else

to lead the team. He was man enough to be okay with someone else

taking over; if they would do a better job, then he deserved to be

released. What he
wasn’t
man enough to take on the chin was some other

guy being around Lexi.

Christ, he had it bad.

Hyperaware of her sitting just a foot away, he smel ed her skin. It smel ed

like honey. Her taste—

“How long do you think before we mobilize?” Lu asked, leaning back. He

talked around the white plastic filter of an unlit black cigaril o. He’d never

seen the man laugh, but Alex couldn’t miss the amusement in Lu’s black

eyes as he flicked a glance upward.

“Why? Want to go sightseeing?”

He shook his head, and the cigarillo changed sides. “Stone can give me a

travelogue, right?” Lu’s gaze switched to Lexi.

“Don’t stir the pot,” Daklin told him, folding his cleaning cloth and putting

it away.

“She knows things, right?” Lu fol owed suit. The exercise, even for the rest

of them, hadn’t taken up more than a few minutes. Boredom was a big

part of being on an op. Hurry up and wait.

Lexi clasped her hands behind her head and tipped her chair back on two

legs. “Right. I’m a font of useless information.”

“Ginsberg might not be interested in the construction of the opera house,

but I am,” Kiersted assured her. “Tel us what you know.”

Alex bit back a smile as Lexi launched into the planning, history,

construction, blah, blah, blah of the landmark building. She was a good

storytel er, weaving facts and numbers into a lively monologue. Daklin and

Kiersted looked interested, and Lu egged her on. All of them doing it to

piss off Ginsberg.

Clearly irritated, Ginsberg inserted earphones from his kit, and without a

word, ignored them all.

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Night Shadow

“Back off, guys,” Alex said in an undertone. “We’l be going out in a while,

and we stil have to work as a unit.”

The secure buzzer rang, indicating someone downstairs. “Dinner. I’ll go.”

Lu offered.

“I’l give you a hand.” Lexi rose, automatical y holstering her Glock before

fol owing him out to the elevator. They’d opted for take-out Chinese while

they waited for a call from Montana.

When they left the room, Alex turned to face the sullen, earplugged

operative.

“What?” Ruben Ginsberg demanded belligerently, yanking out one plug.

Alex lifted a brow at his tone but kept his own voice low. “I didn’t say a

word. But you know damned wel you were out of line with a fel ow

operative. You’re lucky she didn’t hand you your ass.”

“Not only do females have no business in the field, she isn’t even a

fucking wizard. What’s she doing on our team anyway?” Ginsberg

reassembled his weapon clumsily, swearing under his breath as he

misaligned the barrel.

“Hey,” Daklin said mildly. “
I’m
not a wizard, and I’m on the team, what’s

your beef with us regular personnel, Ginsberg?”

Ginsberg shoved his chair away from the table. “Fuck you both.”

“Maybe it’s his time of the month,” Kiersted offered, watching the other

man storm out of the room. Daklin grinned.

Alex didn’t find the exchange amusing. Ginsberg was a blowup about to

happen. “One goddamn warning, and his ass will be replaced. I won’t

tolerate that kind of behavior from any member of my team. As for you