The Mercenary (13 page)

She was tired of being scared spitless. Tired of feeling off balance. Tired of fitting like a square peg in a

round-hole situation.

She likedquiet.

She liked every day to be exactly the same as the day before.

Boring was good.

Boring was comfortable.

Sheliked boring.

“No, Ilove boring.”

Being around Marc Savin was anything but boring. Being around him was like being stuck on a

rollercoaster ride without a safety strap.

“It’s not as though Iasked to come here,” she muttered crossly as she prepared a pot of coffee, just

enough for one. “Hewas the one who dragged me willy-nilly across the world, against my protests.” She

searched for a mug. “Itold him he’d be sorry. Itold him I wasn’t terribly brave.” She paused. “He gotsex.

So what is he so blasted cranky about?”

It might not be in her grandmother’s book of etiquette, but the son of a bitch haddeserved that slap.

She should have known better. Shedid know better. Except that making love with Marc had seemed so

inevitablyright.

He’d intentionally made her angry, she was sure—prettysure. Or maybe he was one of those men who

didn’t want the woman to get “ideas” after sex. As if she would. Their lives would never mesh. Ofcourse

they had no future.

Yet when he’d been making love to her he’d been gentle and affectionate. Could he have faked that?

Probably. But had he? Tory frowned. There had been no need to pretend. She’d been willing—more

than willing, to make love with him. He hadn’t needed to whisper sweet words to her.

He hadn’t needed

to spend as much time as he had on foreplay, she thought as her cheeks heated.

I’m trying to romanticize what was just a man scratching an itch. But let’s say,she thought,let’s say he

was really into making love to me. Not just a body, but me, Victoria Jones. Then he remembered that he

was here to search for one of his operatives. A man he considered a friend. He was on assignment, or

whatever it was called. His friend was in danger. His hands were tied because he couldn’t search in the

daylight hours, and there were a lot of daylight hours to fill while he waited.

Sex was good, but he didn’t want to have his friend’s sister mooning over him for the duration. He had

to make sure said woman didn’t get the wrong idea. He knew she was afraid of her own shadow. It

wouldn’t,hadn’t, been hard to scare her away. This time her face flushed with embarrassment instead of

heating with the memory of his hands on her skin.

The scenario made some kind of convoluted sense. At least she’d gone through some logical steps to

arrive at some sort of explanation. It would have to do.

The coffee was ready and she poured every drop into a mug. He was rude.

Uncommunicative.

Hostile…“Really, a person would need a thesaurus.” Irrational. A tender, wonderfully considerate

lover—

“Talking to yourself?”

Startled, Tory spun around. “Yes. And it was a rational, intelligent conversation.” He eyed her coffee mug. “Is that for me?”

“Dream on,” she told him daringly, then sipped her coffee while giving him a cool look over the rim.

“Why are you always so surly?” He hadn’t been the least bit unpleasant when they’d made love earlier.

But perhaps that was because his mouth had been busy. Her heart skittered and she concentrated on

swallowing.

“Welcome to the real world. You’re just too sheltered to play in the big leagues.”

“I’d like to point out that I didn’t want to play inany league, let alone the rude league.” She kept her

attention on his face, trying not to be distracted by his impressive physique. He was hard and firm, and

she knew, smooth to the touch. “You were the dragger.” Her mouth went dry, but she couldn’t look

away. “I was thedragee.”

His lips twitched, but he poured water and coffee into the pot and turned up the flame without comment.

She might not like his methods, but she reminded herself that she did trust him to find Alex,and to keep

them all safe until he got them home. “May I suggest you put on some clothes before you

burn—something important?”

“Christ, woman, you belong in another century,” he muttered, pulling on his clothes—

black of course.

Dressed, he sat on the sandy floor to lace up his boots.

Clearly the idea that she was so out of step with his definition of what was appropriate ticked him off.

Too bad. “Andthis is what set you off like a lunatic out there?” Speaking her mind felt wonderful.

Liberating.

She almost jumped out of her skin when he laughed. It sounded rusty, but itwas a short soft laugh. “I

thought you were a coward?”

Tory swallowed. She couldn’t believe that had just popped out of her mouth. Being defiant in her mind

was one thing. Blurting it out quite another. “Believe me, I am.”

“I know this’ll come as a hell of a shock,” he said drily, getting up to fill his cup. “But some of the worst

tangos—terrorists—in the world used to be shit scared of me.” Clearly he’d like her to feel the same way. “I’m very happy to hear it. I hope they still are since many of

them live here on Marezzo, and you’re going to have to go through them to get Alex.”

“Don’t get too—” He stopped abruptly, putting up a hand to silence her. In one smooth motion he

picked up the big gun he’d had outside. Motioning her back into the shadows, he handed her the Uzi.

Her eyes went wide as she felt the unfamiliar weight and texture of the weapon in her hand. It was

unwieldy with the cast on one arm, but Marc positioned it with quick efficiency.

“It’s ready to go,” he said so quietly she was amazed she could hear him at all. “Shoot the first person

that comes around that corner. No questions.”

In a blink he was gone.

COULD BE KIDS EXPLORING, Marc thought, keeping his weapon raised as he listened for the soft

whisper of footsteps on sand coming from the other chamber of the cave. Could be one of the Spiders

crawling around looking for the fly they’d invited into their web. He hoped it was the latter. Beating the

shit out of something that could fight back would be just fucking great right about now.

His ploy had backfired. So much forthat brilliant idea. Hopefully he’d retrieve her brother in the next

couple of hours and get them to the mainland. Then he wouldn’t need to come up with asinine,

unworkable plans to keep her at arm’s length.

Bring it on.

Whoever these guys were they didn’t want to be heard.

Not kids. Not locals, either. These guys knew how to walk silently across the gritty rocks. They weren’t

chatting. Hell, they were barely breathing. He sensed them more than heard them. Their very stealth

indicated an awareness that someone else—him—was in the caves.

A pleasant surge of adrenaline reminded Marc of how much he used to love his job. Of how badly he’d

missedthis in the three years of his retirement.

Scaling a low rock wall, he leaped lightly from there up onto a ledge he’d discovered earlier. The ledge

ran nine or ten feet off the ground, and was less then twelve inches wide in some places, but it ran for a

good two hundred feet around the south side of the main cavern.

Shifting ripples of silver reflected off the deep turquoise water, bouncing off the rock and his black-clad

body. A convenient camouflage as he stalked his prey.

It wasn’t long before he caught up with them.

Three men.

Disappointing.

He waited for the right moment to take them out. They split up to skirt the small lake.

Two on the

opposite side, one, conveniently, almost directly below the ledge.

After holstering the Walther to free up his hands, Marc dropped soundlessly behind the guy, snapping

his neck before he was even aware he wasn’t alone.

One down. Two to go.

Leaving the body on the sand, he caught up with the others in a narrow area not conducive to firing a

weapon. Bullets had a tendency to ricochet. He pulled out the Ka-bar.

The men had to go single file through the opening. Hell, Marc thought coming up behind them, this was

like shooting fish in a barrel. He needed a challenge for his rusty skills and these yahoos were practically

handing themselves to him on a silver platter.

He wrapped his forearm around the man’s throat, jerking him off balance as he stuck the knife up high in

his kidneys. It was a swift death. And silent.

Two down. One to go.

Oblivious, the man in front had moved twenty paces ahead, but he turned, perhaps to say something to

his partner, possibly because he’d heard the sound of the body dropping.

“Figlio di Gotta!”After a nanosecond of shock, he remembered he had a weapon in his hand—a Ruger

9mm—and probably figured now would be a great time to take aim.

“Fessacchione!”One shot and the bullet could take them both out. He watched the guy’s eyes—mere

glints in the semidarkness to see if he really was stupid enough to fire.

“Baciami il culo!”

“Yours isn’t the ass I want to kiss,” Marc assured him as he flung the Ka-bar. It turned blade over hilt in

a glittering arc, then struck the man in the throat. Blood spurted from his jugular. His eyes went wide. The

Ruger discharged as he crumpled to the ground. Marc threw himself down as the shot went wild,

bouncing off the stone walls like the pinball in a video game.

After zigging and zagging unpredictably the bullet imbedded itself in the rock a foot from Marc’s left

shoulder.

Three for three.

He dragged each man to the lake, and the whirlpool that indicated the tunnel that drained out into the

ocean. Nature’s garbage disposal, he thought, feeding the bodies into the vortex. In seconds each body

disappeared.

And Marc was back to being alone with the woman he most wanted to avoid.

“It’s me,” he said before rounding the corner. He didn’t doubt for a moment that Tory would shoot as

instructed. The Uzi wasn’t that discriminating. Even a bad shot could hit a target eventually.

“Identify yourself.”

“You have a birthmark under your left breast.”

“Your name would have been sufficient,” she told him without moving. Her lashes flicked as she looked

down at the Uzi braced on her hip. Her fingers were white with tension. “Would you please take this

thing?”

Marc clicked on the safety, then took the weapon from her.

“Put it down,” she instructed quietly. He shot her a glance.

“Now.”

He set the Uzi near the pack, ready if he needed it. He’d barely straightened, when, without warning,

Tory flung herself into his arms. “I heard the shot. I was so worried you’d been hurt!

Her cheek was damp against his throat. Marc smiled as he cradled the back of her head in his palm. He

could feel the syncopation of her heart against his chest. “So little faith, princess?” She pulled away. Face pale, she ran cold hands across his chest and over his arms.

“Were you hit?”

Marc bracketed her face and kissed her.

Tory choked back a sob as he fitted his mouth over hers. She’d been terrified. The blast of a single shot

still fresh in her mind. Deathly frightened by the prolonged silence as she stood there in the semidarkness,

the nasty weapon gripped in her good hand, her heart beating in her ears. Listening.

Waiting. Praying.

At the sound of gunfire, she’d almost cried out, biting her tongue so as not to give away her position.

She couldn’t begin to imagine what was going on out there, but she was certain that at any second a man

would appear in the entrance to their camp and shoot her on sight. Conversely, being shot would have

been a blessing. She’d already had one run-in with these people and she didn’t relish the idea of a repeat

performance.

Marc’s mouth was hot and wild on hers, and Tory couldn’t help but respond to the urgency in his kiss.

Her tears made the kiss salty. He tangled his fingers in her hair, drawing her more tightly against his body.

His mouth softened on hers.

“I’ve never met a woman like you,” he said quietly. With barely exerted pressure he pulled her down

beside him onto the sand. It wasn’t difficult. It was where she wanted to be.

She looked up at his face looming above her. The hard line of his jaw was blurred under the dark, bristly

shadow of several day’s growth of beard. His pale eyes glittered as he wiped her wet cheeks with his

thumb. “You know you’re out of your league here, right?”

“My league? I keep telling you I don’t have one. But if you’re talking about my lack of sexual

experience, that was a choice, one I’m proud of.”

“Yeah. I know. I was there. But you shouldn’t have chosen me. All that did was add another thing to my

list of demerits.”

Her heart tripped. “I’m not keeping a running tally.”

“You should. God help you, you really should.”

“This is a unique situation. Let’s enjoy it while it lasts.” Her arm circled his neck as his head blocked out

the sapphire glow from the lake in the next cavern.

His lips touched hers—softly, gently. Tory found her fingers tightening in the thick hair at his nape; as if in

response, his lips moved more insistently on hers and his tongue invaded her mouth. She closed her eyes

as sensation washed over her. Her T-shirt was up around her throat, her bra loose and hanging, as her

breasts were pressed flat against the hard wall of his chest.

She felt the pounding of his heart beating in perfect rhythm with her own. Her skin felt alive as he drew

his hand under her head and swept her hair out of the way. It would be full of sand, but she didn’t care.