Someone To Steal (9 page)

              The scrape of his beard against the sensitive skin of her throat made her writhe as he kissed her neck. They sank to the floor together, the nylon shell of the sleeping bag blessedly cool against their skin. She shoved her pants and socks off, adding them to the careless heap of Cain’s clothing. His rough, calloused hands were gentle on her rib cage, teasing slowly upward until her nipples contracted, hard from his softest touch. He grinned at her, watching her skin flush pink with desire as he rubbed and pinched her nipples, making her breath come faster.

She threw her arms around him, not satisfied to sit passively on a sleeping bag while he drove her mad. Kissing him, pushing her tongue into his mouth, Riley made a keening sound. His work-roughened fingertips reached between her legs, pressing and stroking until she was crying out under his touch. He pushed a finger inside her as she came, feeling the tight wetness that awaited him, and stroking her, lengthening her climax until her head fell back weakly over his arm.

              She took his face in her hands, brought him down to kiss her mouth as her breathing slowed. Cain moved away from her, reaching for his bag.

              “If you are checking your phone right now, so help me God—” she said.

              “I’m getting a condom.”

              “Who brings a condom to the end of the world?”

              “What?”

              “There’s a mob hit out on both of us. We could be dead tonight. I don’t want anything between us now, Cain. Please.”

              “Are you on birth control?”

              “No. I haven’t had much to control recently…I do medical coding and I live alone with a cat. Can we please stop talking about this?”

              “I won’t be reckless with you, Riley,” he said, opening the foil packet. “You said it wasn’t my job to protect you. The thing is, I want to keep you safe the way precious things are kept safe.”

              Tears came to her eyes and she turned her head, surprised his pronouncement struck her so deeply. Cain wanted to protect her; he had cared enough to stop and find a condom. It was enough of a declaration for her.

              “Come here. I didn’t mean to make you cry, kid,” he said, pulling her into his arms and holding her, kissing her lips softly. “I’ve lived too dangerous a life not to think about consequences, about how my behavior can affect others. It’s a hazard of life on the run sometimes. Thinking there’s no tomorrow, but there always is.”

              “Okay,” she relented, reaching for him.

              Cain positioned himself between her legs, pressing his cock to her cleft and sweeping into her, washing away all thought in a rush of pure sensation.

              “Oh.” She whispered and fell silent as she rose to meet the tide of his movement, the ebb and flow that seemed to overtake them naturally.

              Cain took her hands in his and held them above her head, pressing his forehead to hers. He moved deeply and slowly within her, their lips nearly touching. She could feel his breath against her lips as the wave built inexorably. He cried out with his release, kissing her. He untangled their hands so he could pull her up into his arms. He settled her in his lap, still joined, and wrapped his arms around her. She rocked against him. Bright sensations sparked through her until she screamed aloud, then collapsed against him.

              His skin was cooler now, her breathing more regular as they spiraled slowly back to normal. Riley felt different, new in his arms, her head against his shoulder. She traced his collarbones and his scars idly, enjoying the luxury of lying with him in silent closeness. She wanted to tell him that she loved him. She tried to convince herself that maybe he was deeply wounded by his marriage and widowhood, that he might be incapable of saying the words.
It might be that he just doesn’t love me,
she thought, but she pushed that aside in the afterglow.

              “I don’t want to go to Belize,” she admitted.

              Cain stirred and propped up on one elbow to face her.

              “Is it Belize you don’t want, or is it me?”

              “It’s Belize. The whole idea of retirement and idleness and peace. I’m, I guess I’m at a different place in my life than you are. I want to want that, if it makes any sense, but I don’t. I want you, but I want the
you
that I’ve known since Costa Rica, enigmatic and dangerous and challenging, not….sedate.”

              “It makes sense. It does. You’re starting out, you’re hungry, and I’m done with that game,” he said, his voice resigned.

              “We don’t want the same things,” she said, a catch in her voice.

              “Just because we can’t end up together doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the time we have,” Cain said.

              “That sounds like a really bad pickup line.”

              “It does not. I’m perfectly serious, and it was Shakespearean.”

              “Knock it off, Macbeth. Nobody wants to shag someone pretentious.” She giggled, fighting back the tears.

              She turned over to try to sleep. Cain spooned behind her, pulling her back into the curve of his body. It was comforting and warm, and for a moment she thought that it wouldn’t be a bad life: peace and comfort and terrific sex in Central America. She’d be bored to death in three weeks, though. There was, she supposed, something to be said for that kind of self-awareness. She just couldn’t think of an advantage at the moment.

              Her hands were zip-tied again, wrenched around behind her back and shackled to the metal chair. Smoke was clogging the room, and she heard the crack of flames licking against the metal door. Coughing and crying, she turned the chair over and tried to drag it to the exit. She screamed, but no one would help her and she knew she was trapped; she wouldn’t be able to get away.

Riley woke up screaming, her face wet with tears. Cain caught her in his arms, but she thrashed, fighting him, pushing at him and clawing his face until he let her go.

              “Riley. It’s me. Wake up!” he said, reaching for her.

Cain wanted to hold her until she was calm, but he knew from her screams that she was in a nightmare of being bound. He wouldn’t restrain her; it would be too cruel. He reached for the battery-powered lantern and switched it on, showing her the room, shaking her arm. She cried, shrank away from him until she had backed herself into the corner. Trembling and screaming, a thin, despairing wail that cut him to hear, she scratched at the wall hysterically as if she could dig her way out. The quickest way to wake her out of a night terror was probably a slap across the face, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

He stumbled to the kitchen and wet a dish towel with cool water. Back in the room, he got close enough to lay it around her neck as he backed away. Slapping at it, she pulled the shock of wet coldness off her neck and threw the slimy thing to the floor, kicking it away. Like the crack of a whip, her head snapped up. She saw him, clear-eyed, not through the lens of a nightmare that wouldn’t let her go.

“Cain?” Her voice was shaky.

“You were dreaming,” he said in an even, soothing voice, as though she were a spooked animal.

“I wasn’t. No one was here with zip-ties? There’s no fire then,” she said, slumping against the wall. “I was sure it was real, Cain. I probably made an awful fuss.”

“Tico would be proud,” Cain said. “You could rival his indignant yowl for salmon.”

“That’s great. I’m sorry,” she said, pushing her hair back and reaching for her sleeping bag.

“Can I hold you?”

“I wish you would. Was I awful?”

“No. Even if you were awful, which you weren’t, you’d have a perfect right to be after what you went through.”

“It wasn’t cancer, Cain. It wasn’t like losing my dad again, or when my mom left. It was a shitty week and nothing more,” she insisted, curling up in his arms and burying her face in his chest.

“I have contacts in Germany. We could go there instead of Belize, despite the weather.”

“Yuck. Beer and sausage? Plus it’s cold, and also, Nazis.”

“The Nazis were last century, Riley. But I also have friends in Indonesia who could hide us.”

“I don’t even KNOW what they eat there, but it can’t be good. Is there even medical care, or do they bleed you with leeches when you get a fever?”

“So you basically hate everywhere but Atlanta.”

“Atlanta’s actually too hot for my taste. London was nice. I liked the market and the thing you stole.”

“London’s too high profile. Sorry.”

“But the food was really good.”

“I know you liked the food, but is there any—I suppose what I’m asking is, is there anyplace on this Earth you’d agree to stay with me?”

“I wish there were. I’m not moving to Indonesia or Germany, that’s for damn sure. Even if it were London, or Paris or Venice—even if there wasn’t a hit out on both of us, I don’t think I could stay long term. I want you but not, I guess, on your terms.”

“Fair enough.”

“I want you to help me out, though. I want to strike at the Ukrainian. I owe him for what he did. What’s the best way to get him? You said his stepdaughter helped you get me out. What can we do? Would she help?”

“It was my mistake, Riley, that got you in this mess. Sasha is the head of security at that bank. I didn’t tell her I was pulling a job to get her to look the other way, because she wouldn’t have. Because the flash drive I wanted to steal belongs to her. It’s a list of the offshore accounts of Il Furrato. If the Ukrainian gets his hands on those, he’ll go on the offensive, and Il Furrato will have him assassinated.”

“So why hasn’t she done it? If the creep was messing with her after her mom died, he totally deserves it.”

“She’s smart, Riley. She doesn’t have the support yet to back her in a takeover.”

“Wait, this girl wants to run the Russian Mafia?”

“Yes. I knew about the drive because I did her a favor once. I was willing to sell her out to buy my freedom. It’s not a story that casts me in the best light, I’ll admit.”

“No, not really, but I’m on your side here.”

“I appreciate your allegiance. Still, she’s not going to strike at the Ukrainian openly. She’s biding her time. She helped me get you out because she doesn’t like his tactics, and she was willing to forgive my ethical lapse. I don’t think I can push her loyalty any further, considering my tactics.”

“I see. So how exactly did I end up kidnapped by the Ukrainian when you were stealing from a bank and this girl?”

“You don’t get the reach of the mob in the Russian Federation. When the pressure sensor inside the vault alerted Sasha, she had to notify the Ukrainian about the breach before the police. Not that the police are independent of the mob or have that much authority. The Ukrainian keeps a tight hold on crime in the cities.”

“So he’s like an evil superhero…fighting crime and capturing bad guys.”

“Not at all. But to answer your question, no, he doesn’t know what’s on the flash drive. Sasha had them put it back in the safe deposit box without telling the thugs it was hers.”

“But he still wants the flash drive and he would still give you up for it, right?”

“Forget the flash drive, and especially forget the revenge. You cannot avenge yourself on a man with the kind of resources and power he wields. Move on from this.”

“I can’t. I think it would be cathartic and healthy for me to kill him.”

“You can’t kill him. You’d never get close enough. You’d be dead six times before you were near enough to see the color of his eyes.”

“Can’t I blow him up? Don’t you know how to blow shit up?”

“I do, as a matter of fact, know how to blow shit up, as you so eloquently put it. However, I don’t intend to utilize this particular skill set in an attack on the Ukrainian. Not even for you.”

“If you help me, I’ll forgive you.”

“You already forgave me. You said so.”

“Fuck. I should never have said that out loud. It was my best bargaining chip.” She laughed. “I’m going after him with or without your aid. I’m just less likely to be killed if you help me.”

“Christ, Riley. It’s not like you’re giving me a choice.”

“Wait, is it like waving an unloaded gun in your face and threatening your defenseless kitten?”

“I never threatened to harm Tico!”

“Agreed. Now, are you in or are you out?”

“In,” he said grudgingly.

The next day, he was gone before she woke up. She caught a ride on the truck into town and came back with wrapped purple and aqua bangles stacked elbow-high on both arms, a stolen pair of diamond earrings in her pocket. Cain was back when she returned.

“Come outside with me. Carry that box,” he said, arms full of bags.

She followed him down the dirt road for a couple of miles before he took off into a field. She shifted the unwieldy box onto her hip and trailed after him. He deposited the bags on a rock and relieved her of the box. Cain set to unpacking a series of wires and ropes and papers.