On the Prowl (14 page)

At thirty seconds, the girl still sat on the edge of the bed, but her eyes were now wide and frightened. Her hands dropped to her breasts and she watched her hands massage and pull on them as if she couldn’t believe what she was doing to herself.

At a full minute, the woman writhed on the bed, pumping her hips at something that wasn’t there. Her legs fell open and she ground down into the mattress. As she panted and moaned, her eyes followed Baker’s every movement.

At two minutes, she wept and begged Baker to take her. The perverted bastard obliged.

Delaine watched the tape and almost gagged when he approached the bed with his skinny hard cock poking out of the fly of his pants. He lay down on top of the woman and her legs immediately wrapped around his hips. The woman was like a wild animal under him and screamed, yelled and clawed at his back while he pumped into her body with his pants, shoes and shirt still on. The woman came on a tormented scream. Then Baker flipped her over, told her to get up on her hands and knees and took her from behind. She screamed as she came again.

No wonder the walls were soundproof. Baker had plowed his blonde guinea pig for fifteen minutes and she’d come several times. When he was done, she still writhed and rolled around on the bed. Then Sarah Ann came into the picture. Before the blonde collapsed from exhaustion, she’d come almost non-stop, compliments of Sarah Ann and a dildo.

Sapa roared loud and long in her mind. The lioness had obviously been trying to warn her about something, but she’d been so absorbed in the disgusting video, she hadn’t been paying attention. Delaine snapped out of her incredulity at the turn of a key in the lock. Shit! She snatched the tape out of the playback unit, stuffed it into her pocket and moved silently to the first closet door. Hell, it was locked and there was no way she’d have time to pick it. On to the second door. Locked. Relief coursed through her when the third door opened and closed smoothly just before Baker stepped into the room.

‘Sapa, I need a little help with my hearing,’ Delaine called to her spirit guide. The great hunter’s keen senses flowed through the bond and manifested inside Delaine’s body. Through the door, she heard everything going on in the lab as if she were sitting right there. Crouched in the dark, she listened while Baker fussed at Sarah Ann for dead-bolting the doors and leaving the lights on.

Ready to take the bastard down, she silently unsnapped the secure strap on her holster to slide her gun free. Delaine had all the proof she needed.

A wicked, sharp knife pressed against her throat from behind. She didn’t move a hair further.

Chapter Ten

Justin couldn’t believe it. The woman was supposed to be having breakfast with Pam, not nearly getting herself killed. He was furious.

“Don’t make a sound, Delaine, or we’re both dead,” he hissed as he removed the blade from her throat and pocketed it in the sheath hidden in his boot.

She hissed to her spirit guide, ‘Damn it, Sapa. Why didn’t you warn me Justin was here?’

*
Because he is not a danger to us
.*

He pressed so tightly against her back, she was practically in his lap. Against her will, her skin heated and her nipples tingled. She didn’t need this, not right now. She needed to concentrate on taking down the bad guy.

“What the hell are you doing here, Justin?” she whispered furiously to her man crouched behind her.

“Can we talk about this later and concentrate on getting out of here in one piece?”

“I’m a law enforcement officer. Don’t interfere with the arrest I’m about to make,” she warned in a no-nonsense tone.

“Don’t think so, baby. Baker is alone in this room, but he’s not alone in the facility. If we’re discovered, we’ll find ourselves ‘disappeared’, and probably with lots of pain involved.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Baker has allies here? In the building?” She clearly wondered how much he knew that she didn’t.

“Justin, who…”

“Later, Delaine.”

“No, now. All we can do is wait until Baker leaves. I think we’ve got time.”

Her tone was snide. He was so pissed, he didn’t care. “I’m not willing to wait that long,” Justin snapped quietly then flipped open his cell phone and turned it on. He breathed a sigh of relief while grumbling about poor signals in a state-of-the-art facility.

He whispered into the mouthpiece. “Hey, Derrick, it’s me. We’re stuck in Baker’s lab. Confirm the passage behind door number three.” After a couple of seconds, he said, “Excellent.” He clicked the phone shut and listened. It sounded like Baker was having hot and sweaty sex with Sarah Ann. Good.

“Sounds like the perfect time to get the hell out of here. Stand up, and step where I step.” He pressed a button on the back of his cell phone and a thin beam of blue light appeared, just bright enough to see the floor of the little room.

She followed silently, her back stiff with anger and her brows drawn so tightly together she felt the beginning of a fierce headache. Delaine couldn’t remember being this angry since the jacked-up e-mail from Gary a year ago. It had been a long time since she’d been this frightened for someone she cared about. And she didn’t like it one bit. She was royally pissed. If she said a single word, it would be a very long, loud mistake.

* * * * *

With Derrick’s guidance, it took Justin less than a minute to find and open a small hidden hatch set into the wall at the back of the closet. It was one of many that had been used to get building materials down to The Vault when it was being secretly built. Once through it, he turned off the small flashlight built into his phone and they moved silently up a narrow hallway until they reached a steep stairwell. It took them another twenty minutes to climb up to the first floor. They emerged outside at the rear of the building covered with dust and cobwebs, their lungs burning from their adrenaline-fueled jaunt up those endless steps. By the time they reached the rear parking lot, they were both huffing, puffing and sneezing all over the place.

Justin packed Delaine into his car and sped her home. He clenched his jaw to keep silent, not trusting himself to speak to her just now. He knew his reaction to discovering her down in the The Vault ready to draw on Baker was unreasonable. She was, after all, an undercover agent like himself. It was her job to find evidence on people like him and take them down. But the thought of her charging out of their hiding place to confront Baker scared the red out of his hair. Delaine in any kind of danger set his teeth on edge. He gripped the steering wheel of his Jag until his knuckles turned white.

He pulled into her driveway and she slammed out of the car before he could get the emergency brake in place. She stomped through the front door, stripped off her soiled, filthy clothes in the foyer and sprinted up the stairs.

Justin got an eyeful of a very naked Delaine, cobweb-filled hair flying behind her as she took the stairs two at a time. He stopped short and stared after her. His anger faded as his body tensed with baser emotions. Damn, she had such a nice ass. Would he ever get used to his physical reaction to this woman? Not bloody likely.

He stripped off his dirty clothes, piled them on top of Delaine’s and took the whole pile to the laundry room before following her up the stairs.

* * * * *

Fuming, Delaine jumped into the gigantic glass brick shower in her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. How dare that man put himself in such danger! She was so mad, she couldn’t think straight. He looked more than capable of taking care of himself, but didn’t he know how dangerous it was snooping around in The Vault? And he had to be snooping, otherwise he wouldn’t have been crouching in that stupid closet. The big question was, who the hell did he snoop for? As a contractor, he could end up working at some other pharma company next week. Perhaps he planned to take Astin trade secrets with him? ‘
Oh please don’t let him be a bad guy.
’ She already had one crook to catch, and the last thing she needed was to fall for one. And what if he got hurt in the meantime? What a mess.

One thought led to another, and by the time she angled one of the large shower heads to rush over her body, leaned back against the cool glass brick wall, the bath seat solid under thighs, she was a volatile mix of confusion and fury. Forcing herself to relax, she breathed deeply as the hot water splashed over her head and down her tired, aching body like a warm, gentle waterfall. The steam-covered door swung silently open and a cool whoosh of air washed over her. Justin.

Again, Sapa hadn’t warned of his approach. What was up with that?

She opened her eyes and pushed her thick cottony locks back and away from her face. The soothing scents of rosemary, lavender and peppermint filled the air just as his big hands sank into her curls to lather her hair with her favorite shampoo. His fingers moved expertly through the mass of coils until every inch of her scalp tingled.

“How in the world do you know so much about hair? Black hair at that?” she breathed contentedly. It felt so good, and his strokes were so gentle, working from her roots clear to the ends of her hair. She leaned into his hands and sighed softly with pleasure. He stepped to the side and the waterfall of water flowed down over her body again, rinsing her hair clean.

“Three younger sisters.” He kept his reply soft and controlled.

“It feels wonderful,” Delaine murmured. How could she stay mad at a man who shampooed her hair? Lather was worked through her hair again and rinsed until all traces of shampoo flowed down the drain and her body threatened to slide off the bath seat along with the puddle of suds.

She started to tell him if she didn’t hurry up and moisturize the mop on her head, it would be good and nappy. Instead, she snapped her mouth closed at his attentiveness. One step ahead of her, he was already smoothing a handful of creamy conditioner through her tresses and massaging it through. But now that she thought about it, he always seemed to be one step ahead of her. How?

Suddenly her body cooled and ached at the loss of contact. Justin had stepped away. Her eyes snapped opened and his blazing blue gaze trapped her with its intensity. He held out his hand to her.

“Come here, baby.”

Delaine quirked a brow and wondered at the tone in his voice. His jaw ticked furiously, but she did as he asked, stood slowly and stepped into his arms.

He held her close, trembling as he said, “Delaine, I was furious today. The thought of anything happening to you made me crazy.” His voice tight with emotion as his hands stroked up and down her back. “I don’t think I’ve been that angry since…hell, I’ve never been that angry.”

“Then you’ve read my mind,” she whispered back. “I know you work for Astin, but The Vault just isn’t a safe place to be found right now. I checked the list of authorized personnel and your name wasn’t on it, Justin. What the hell were you doing down there?”

“I don’t want to talk about that right now. I’m so relieved you’re safe, I just want to hold you and never let go. I need to feel you, Del. Let me touch you, baby.”

He sat her back down on the bath seat and knelt between her legs. Even on his knees, they were still of a height. He rubbed his nose against hers and whispered all the nasty things he wanted to do to her.

“Baby, I want to nibble and suck on your pretty tits and lick you from the underside to the nipples until you squirm. Then I want to kiss a path from between your beautiful breasts, down to your navel and back up again before I take them in my hands, squeeze them together and slide my dick back and forth between them.”

Delaine wanted him to do that and more. His erotic words stoked the low simmer in her womb to a full-blown forest fire.

“I want to suck on the lobes of your ears then slip my tongue up around them. Work my way slowly down your neck to that spot near your shoulder that makes you scream.”

“Oh, yes,” she hissed through her teeth while her hips moved in a slow restless rhythm as Justin knelt between her legs. One hand massaged the sensitive nipple of one breast while the other found her swollen clit peeking out of its little hood so he could play with it.

He slipped a finger into her mouth and said, “I love how you suck my finger. Your mouth is so hot and wet.”

Delaine had never enjoyed oral sex, but suddenly she wanted it with this man. Wanted it almost more than she wanted to feel him moving inside her, more than she needed to breathe.

She stood and pushed him from his knees down to the shower floor. The scent of his body mingled with the steam of the shower into an intoxicating perfume that tickled her nose and made her pussy weep. The second he lay back on the warm, wet tiles she plunged her mouth down over his engorged length with an urgency that took his breath away. He bit his lip, holding back a primal yell when she began sucking his flesh like she wanted nothing more in the world than to take him all the way down her throat and milk him dry.