OnLocation (10 page)

“Now, Sir?” she asked.

“Now.”

For you, Sir.
She gave her clit the last few rubs it
needed, then squeezed her legs around him and pinched her eyes tight, feeling
her body shake out of her control. For a moment, she lost her focus on him,
lost in the quivering sensations. Then she felt his cock pulse in her pussy and
her pussy squeeze as if in response.

“Good man,” she said, softly, hoping she wasn’t too far out
of line.

“Fuck,” he said. She wasn’t sure whether that was a good
response or a bad one, but it would do. She needed a moment to catch her breath
anyway. She moved her hand down to hold the condom on and then rolled off him.

“We’ll do that every thirty minutes until you get back to
sleep,” she said softly as she pulled the condom off him and tossed it toward
the wastebasket in the corner. She didn’t look to see if she’d made the shot or
not because that wasn’t what was important right now.

“I can’t do it every thirty minutes all night long, Teresa.”

“That’s what I’m banking on.” She smiled at him. “Lean back,
Sir, and close your eyes. You can wake me up if you need to use me again.”
She’d never thought of a man using her as a good thing before. But tonight she
wanted him to do what he needed to do. He’d shown her a lot about herself and
had given her some amazing experiences. Even if she wasn’t going to be the one
to benefit in the long run, she wanted to leave him able to sleep with a woman.
If it was someone else, she just wanted to be able to claw her eyes out
afterward.

He closed his eyes and, to her surprise he was either asleep
again in a few minutes or he was doing a very good job of faking it. She rested
her head on his chest and closed her eyes herself. He wasn’t going anywhere
without waking her up.

There were lights outside the window. A boat of some kind,
she supposed. She raised her head for a better look and then put it down
quickly because she didn’t want to disturb Kyle. The island was owned by four
men, one of whom was Roger. It had been him she and Stegner had negotiated
with. He’d said he’d come by sometime during the week if he could. It was
probably him.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about the presence of another
man on the island. She remembered what Kyle had said about keeping his
submissives naked, or partly so. Was he used to playing in front of Roger? She
could deal with that, maybe. Big maybe. But what if they were used to sharing
women? That wasn’t something she was interested in at all.

She became aware of his eyes on her. This was about keeping
him relaxed, and sharing her fears now wouldn’t help. She’d talk to him about
it later. She rested her head on his chest again, and in a few minutes was
rewarded by hearing his steady breathing.

Eventually she decided he wasn’t faking and she fell asleep.

Kyle woke up and saw the light coming in. He couldn’t
remember a time when he’d slept quite so peacefully. He’d been aware of Terry
there next to him, her warm, soft body both comforting and arousing. He’d
probably been half hard the whole night, but that was okay. She seemed to keep
the nightmares away, at least.

He could hear the sound of a boat motor. Roger, he presumed.
Roger had been trying to convince him for a long time that he should let his
guard down and sleep with one of the women he played with, but Kyle had never
felt safe doing it. Now, although he hadn’t intended to, he’d done it. Had it
been safe? He wasn’t entirely sure. But it
felt
safe. And he knew he
wanted her in his bed the next night as well.

He watched her breathe. At some point she had rolled over
and he had spooned against her for a while. She felt right in his arms. Now
that he was awake she looked so peaceful and so sexy. He wanted to let her
sleep, but he wanted to slide inside her too and watch her wake up. Reluctantly
he pulled away. He was all too aware of what a precious thing sleep could be,
and he knew she’d gotten less than he had. Goodness knew what she was thinking
after feeling his hands on her neck. In fact, maybe it was best if she woke up
without him there so she could sort it out.

He pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and headed downstairs, then
out toward the dock. Sure enough, a tall, dark-haired man was trying to lasso
one of the posts to secure his boat. Kyle jogged over to help. It was
definitely a task that was easier with two, especially if one of them was
onshore already.

He hadn’t been too happy with Roger lately, largely because
of the way the other man had pushed the whole movie deal. Roger had known Kyle
wouldn’t like it, but given how well he and Teresa were getting along it seemed
churlish to hold that against him now. He reached out a hand to help Roger onto
the dock, and then embraced his old friend warmly.

“You’re in an unexpectedly good mood, mate,” said Roger.

“Things have improved recently,” Kyle admitted. Roger could
be smug when he was right. Which was most of the time, damn him.

Roger grinned. “Did the oaf manage to turn out to like
cricket?”

Kyle grimaced, remembering how he’d described Gallagher and
Teresa in the e-mail he’d sent Roger right after they’d first landed. He’d
called Gallagher an oaf. His word for Teresa had been less kind still.

Roger’s grin got wider. “I see I’m a little off. So then,
the ‘pushy bitch’ turned out to be a good shag? Nothing wrong with broadening
your tastes, mate.”

Kyle frowned. “Do you think that the only reason I can end
up liking a woman is because she’s good in bed?”

Roger raised an eyebrow. “Based on past experience, and
excepting those you’re related to, I’d say yes. Are you going to tell me you
haven’t slept with her?”

Slept. That was precisely what he’d done. To her, he
supposed the most extraordinary things they’d done involved clamps and crops.
But not to him. It wasn’t just the sleeping either. The time he’d spent in the
boat, watching her take pictures and listening to her tell him about the movie,
had all been intensely pleasurable. She had passion for what she did. Most of
the women he’d been with had wanted escape from an existence they found either
too boring or too stressful, and were in search of intensity to distract them.
He got the feeling Teresa loved what she did. Maybe she even cared about it as
much as he had once cared about his job in the SAS.

“Thoughts?” asked Roger.

Roger always wanted to know his thoughts. Kyle didn’t think
the shrink in him ever turned off. “It’s been a long time since I cared about
anything.”

“And now you care about her?”

Kyle glared. “I didn’t say that. That wasn’t where I was
going.”
Besides, I care for everyone I play with. It’s not safe if I don’t
care.
But he knew Roger had hit on something. What he felt for Teresa was
different, stronger.

Roger put an arm around Kyle and steered him toward the
house. “You didn’t deny it either. Let me meet your ‘pushy bitch’.”

Even though they had been his words originally, Kyle felt a
flash of anger. “She’s not a pushy bitch.”

Roger smiled. “Looking forward to meeting her more and
more.”

He’d shared women with Roger before, but he knew that he
didn’t want to share Teresa.
But what if that’s something she wants?
He
decided he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. But he hoped it wasn’t. He
wanted to keep her for himself. “She’s mine.”

“Does she know that?”

That’s the sort of question Roger loves to ask.
Kyle
wasn’t even sure what he meant by it. It was a gut reaction and he wasn’t sure
about his motives. Possessiveness wasn’t the same as love, certainly. He’d give
his life to protect her, but that wasn’t love either—maybe a kind of love, but
he’d do the same for a stranger in the right circumstances, and had put his
life on the line again and again in Iraq and Afghanistan. It wasn’t the same as
being in love, was it? That was something that happened to other people.

“You might want to tell her. She’s got what, forty-eight
hours or so on this island before a boat takes her away?”

“I’ll handle my own business,” said Kyle crossly. Just
because Roger was a shrink didn’t mean he had to always poke his nose in. But
the mention of boats jolted something in his mind. His eyes had fluttered open
once, when Teresa was startled by something outside, and he’d seen boat lights
in that brief instant. He’d assumed it was Roger. But Roger had just gotten
there. “You didn’t come earlier than now, did you? Or circle around the island at
night or anything?

“Huh? No, why would I do that?”

“Someone was out there.” There could be an innocent
explanation. Although Submission Island was well off the path any boat would
normally go, sometimes people liked to wander. Usually not this far off the
coast at night, but it was possible. But now that he knew one thing, all the
other things he’d seen started to niggle at him.

“I know that look,” said Roger. “What are you thinking?”

He stopped Roger suddenly, putting a hand on his mouth. They
were almost to the house, and through the glass door he could see Gallagher
opening the glass door on the other side, the one that led to the swimming
pool. He waited until Gallagher closed the door to take his hand off.

“Spill,” said Roger softly.

He told Roger quickly about the digging he’d seen evidence
of at the cove. The boat lights in the middle of the night. And the thing that
bothered him the most—how he’d felt when he’d stumbled toward bed the night
before. There was no way one glass of wine had done that to him, even as tired
as he was. “I was drugged.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“I take it you suspect that guy. I take it he’s the ‘oaf’,
because he sure doesn’t look like a ‘pushy bitch’.”

“Could you quit using that phrase? Her name is Teresa.” The
phrase irritated him, but what bugged him more was that he could tell what
Roger was thinking, which was that Teresa could have drugged him. “Gallagher
touched my glass. Teresa didn’t, except to clink her glass to it. Only one of
them had the opportunity. Let’s go to the cove and see what he’s up to.”

“If he’s heading there.”

“If not, we can still do some digging. But we’ll give him a
head start so he can get there and get involved in something. Then we’re less
likely to be heard approaching—you can be pretty noisy.” He grinned at the old
joke. Roger was as good at sneaking up on people as almost anyone in the SAS.
They both knew though that Kyle was better.

“Sounds good.” Roger opened the glass door and headed for
the stairs. “I’ll get my gun, just in case.”

Kyle nodded. Would Gallagher be armed? It was possible. Kyle
went upstairs to get his old throwing knives. He had no illusion that they were
as effective as a pistol, but they were quiet and gave him the benefit of
surprise. It was possible Gallagher wasn’t alone, if the boat lights he’d seen
indicated new arrivals.

Before he opened the door he remembered that Teresa was
there. He wasn’t used to having a woman sleeping in his room. He opened the
door carefully. She was stirring, not quite awake. He padded across the floor
quietly, keeping an eye on her while he felt about for the knives. He kept
everything in good order, fortunately.

“Mine,” he mouthed at her as he slipped back out.
No one
who looks that lovely could have drugged me.
It was a silly thought, but at
least he knew she didn’t have the opportunity. But if he’d been drugged to keep
him out of the way that evening, what she’d done by sleeping with him was the
next best thing. Any sane woman would have left after he’d almost strangled
her, but she’d stayed. Did she have an ulterior motive? Kyle didn’t want to
think so. He’d been touched by the bravery of what she’d done for him.

He met Roger downstairs. Together they walked toward the
cove. The path was only one person-wide in places, and Kyle took point. He slowed
down when they were thirty meters away, wanting to be quiet. Roger did
likewise.

Gallagher was alone, and digging with a shovel in the same
place Kyle had noticed signs of digging before. Kyle and Roger watched from the
jungle as the man sweated with exertion. There was something frantic about him,
Kyle thought.

At last he tossed the shovel aside and knelt down by the
hole. He lifted out a plastic box about as big as his chest. The box, thought
Kyle, would have fit in one of Gallagher’s big suitcases. Hands shaking,
Gallagher opened it. His face lit up and then he snarled in anger. He reached
into the bottom of the box and pulled out a small packet of white powder.

“Half,” he muttered to himself. “Half!” He opened the bag.

Kyle moved forward, quicker than he had been in the jungle.
It was easy to be quiet on sand, and Gallagher was totally intent on the bag.
Gallagher poured a little of the white powder into the palm of his hand and
bent down to sniff it up.

“Nice day for a walk,” said Kyle, putting a hand on the
man’s shoulder. Gallagher turned and spilled the powder in his hand. He held on
to the bag.

“What?” asked Gallagher. He looked at Roger. “Who’s he? Hey,
don’t shoot me. It’s, um, just a little coke.”

“Share?” said Kyle. He reached for the bag.

“Um, sure. Just don’t let your friend shoot me.”

Kyle nodded and sealed the bag up before putting it in his
pocket. “Big box for such a little bag.” The box was empty. Kyle nudged it away
with his foot, toward Roger.

“Yeah, well, it was my last one.”

Kyle was not an expert in drugs. He’d seen poppy being
processed in Afghanistan, but that was most of what he knew. But he was sure
that even the most determined coke addict couldn’t come close to going through
a box of coke that size in a few days. He didn’t think a hundred of them could.

Roger had moved forward and was looking at the box
carefully. At last Roger put a finger in, wiped it along the edge and brought
it to his tongue.

“That’s not coke,” Roger said. “That’s heroin.” Like Kyle,
Roger had been taught to recognize the stuff when they’d been doing drug
interdiction in Afghanistan. Opium poppies and their by-products were a major
source of revenue for the Taliban, as well as various rogue warlords. Roger
moved his gun back to point at Gallagher.

“What’s in the bag is just coke. I swear it!”

It all fit together suddenly. “The boat last night came in,
picked up the heroin, which you brought in with your photography equipment,”
Kyle said. “They dropped off the cocaine as payment. And they shorted you.”

Gallagher paled. Kyle let him stew for a moment. Roger
apparently agreed with that approach because he didn’t say a thing. The silence
lengthened.

“So,” said Gallagher at last. “Are you guys going to tell
the police?”

Kyle glanced at Roger. Roger was better at interrogation.
But Roger had moved behind Gallagher. Roger pointed to Kyle and then made a
circle with his fingers and put them over his head. Kyle smiled.

I’m the good cop, the one with the halo. He’s the bad
cop.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on, and then we’ll
figure out how to go from there?” Kyle asked in his most reasonable voice.

“Do I get my coke back?”

No.
But he had a role to play. “Sure, if you’re
good.”

“I need some now.”

Kyle knew he’d have to get the police involved eventually.
He and his friends might own the island, but that didn’t mean they could do
whatever they wanted. He remembered what Teresa had said about Stegner picking
the places to shoot the movie and having a preference for Colombia. Wasn’t that
supposed to be a drug trafficking center of sorts? For cocaine at least. He had
a suspicion this was all way bigger than Gallagher and a boat.

The police might not like him giving Gallagher a sniff. On
the other hand, the police had limits that he and Roger didn’t have. It would
be nice to give them as much information as possible.

“Once you natter, you’ll get your fix,” he said.

“Coke first,” said Gallagher, and Kyle could see that he
meant it.

Kyle put his arm around the other man’s shoulder. “Let’s go
back to the house and talk about this, shall we? Roger, could you stay behind
us?”

“Sure. I’ll shoot him if he runs for it.”

There wasn’t anywhere to run. Swim, maybe, if you fancied
swimming a hundred and fifty kilometers. Near the island, one mostly had to
worry about jellyfish. The sharks probably would wait for an escapee to get to
open water. It didn’t matter. Gallagher walked along with him, eager to get
away from Roger with his gun.

“Roger’s a waterboarding expert,” said Kyle. “He’s done it
dozens of times. You’re much better off talking to me.” It wasn’t even a lie.
After his field duty, Roger had moved on to training others. Part of that
training included resisting torture. Kyle doubted very much that Roger would be
willing to waterboard Gallagher, but Gallagher had no way of knowing that. From
the look on Gallagher’s face, he bought it. Now Kyle had to let it sink in for
a while, and he knew the best place to do that.