THE PERFECT TARGET (23 page)

On a cry of frustration she squeezed the handle, stunned when the door fell open.

Sandro hadn't secured the locks.

She climbed inside, then closed and locked the door against the driving rain, shoved the hair from her face, took a moment to breathe. She would get out of here, find a phone. That was her first priority. Call her father. Let him know she was alive and safe. Find out where to go for help.

Shaking, she slid the key into the ignition and turned.

But just like with the door, nothing happened.

Miranda twisted her wrist as hard as she could, but the key remained jammed in place.

And in that moment she knew. She pulled it free and pushed on the overhead light, stared blankly as she realized that the keys she'd pulled from Sandro's bag were
not
the keys to the car.

Miranda blinked back the rush of tears and rested her head against the steering wheel. So close. She'd been so close.

It was a moment before the tap on the window registered as more than the pinging of rain. She sat there very still, fighting an inevitability that couldn't be outrun. She didn't want to open her eyes. She didn't want to see him standing there. She didn't want to see the cold fury in his eyes.

She didn't want to accept that freedom had slipped through her fingers yet again.

Throat tight, she lifted her head and turned toward the incessant tapping. She saw the gun first, felt her heart flat-out stop.

Because it was not Sandro who stood there in the rain.

It was Petros.

* * *

"Miranda!" Sandro ran through the tangled undergrowth and tore at the vines hanging from the trees. "Goddamn it, Miranda, answer me!"

Only the thunder answered, roaring low and deep.

Sandro pushed on, refused to let himself think of every fate that could have befallen her. In all likelihood, she was back at the car, furious at the precautions he'd taken, but safe and sound and out of the rain. She would glare at him, maybe launch herself at him again.

He'd be hard-pressed not to kiss her senseless.

He liked that thought, that of kissing Miranda senseless, so he used it to make himself run faster. The clearing was just ahead. He saw the bushes, ran toward them.

Stopped dead in his tracks.

The beat-up old car remained exactly where he'd parked it, and clearly Miranda had found it as well. But she didn't sit inside like he'd hoped. The two front doors hung open. And the windows had been shot out.

Sandro staggered forward, saw the tracks leading to the car, found the ones leading from the car.
Two
sets of tracks.

A cold rage stabbed in from somewhere dark and primal, and he took off at a dead run.

* * *

"Come out, come out, wherever you are."

Lewd laughter filled the abandoned old church, and crouched down behind the altar, Miranda shivered. Petros sounded darkly pleased with himself, forcing her to wonder inanely if his imitation of Jack Nicholson in
The Shining
was intentional.

Adrenaline crashed through her, keeping her heart racing long after her ankle had twisted out from under her. She'd half limped, half dragged herself from the rain and into the church.

"I hear you breathing," he announced, the words echoing through the damp chamber. "Heavily. For me, ya?"

Miranda pressed her back to the cold stone wall and held Sandro's gun in her violently shaking hands. Petros would find her soon. She would have only seconds to pull the trigger.

Footsteps shuffled closer, and then there he was, Petros, the vile little man who worked for the general. His eyes were dark, beady. His lips twisted.

"Don't look so scared, little one," he said in that heavily accented voice of his. "I'm not going to kill you."

She lifted her arms, pointed the gun at his heart. "Come one step closer, and I'll shoot."

He laughed. "All I want is what you gave Vellenti back at the house."

"I mean it, one step more and you're a dead man."

"One step more," he said, leering, "and you're mine." Then he lunged.

And Miranda fired.

But he slumped to the ground before she even squeezed the trigger.

A scream burned her throat, but no sound came forth. She stared blindly at the filthy man's unmoving body, then lifted her eyes to the man beyond. Lightning flashed in, stark, illuminating, garishly casting him in silhouette. Her heart beat crazily. She'd prayed for an angel, a miracle, but there was nothing holy or pious about the avenging commando standing alert and ready, savagery humming just beneath the surface, with hands that turned into lethal weapons even though his wrists were still cuffed together.

The man she'd deceived, just as he'd deceived her.

The man she'd left at the castle ruins, out cold.

The man who'd come after her anyway.

There was cold murder in his eyes, and her heart jammed into her throat. His clothes were plastered to his body. He stood so violently still he looked more stone than human.

But then he was moving, she was moving, and all doubts as to whether he was real or an apparition vanished. He was across the space separating them before she could blink, and then he was on the cold floor with her, taking her shoulders in his hands and practically dragging her into his lap like a rag doll. The second their bodies touched, something between a cry and a moan ripped from her throat. She wanted his arms around her. She
needed
his arms around her. His hands moving along her flesh. The heat of his body soaking into hers.

She needed … him.

No matter who he worked for.

She crushed him in her arms, held him to her, plastered her body against his as though she could fuse them into one. Even soaked to the bone, he was big and warm and clinging to him like that, sprawled in his lap like that, rocking, rocking, Miranda couldn't hold back the tears. Nor could she stop the violent shaking that ripped through her. Him.

She wasn't sure she could ever let go.

But he'd yet to put his arms around her.

"Jesus, God, Miranda," came his rough-hewn voice. "Are you all right? Did he hurt you?"

The question was coarse, pleading, the anguish in it damn near breaking her heart. She didn't want to move. She wanted to stay tucked against the heat and strength of his body forever.

But she also wanted to see his eyes, those mesmerizing chips of black ice. "No," she managed, pulling back slightly. No, she wasn't all right. No, Petros hadn't hurt her. No, she didn't want to let go. "No. He—" She glanced at the still unmoving man, saw a dark substance pooling out from under his head. "Is he de—" she started, but Sandro cut her off.

"Probably." His eyes met hers then, and the vile little man was forgotten. The old church was dark, but lightning flashed relentlessly, revealing the wet dark hair plastered to the sides of Sandro's face, the brutal scratches across his cheeks, the mud on his jaw.

The agony in his gaze.

She couldn't imagine what he'd gone through to reach her. The river had been deep and fast and cold. The woods dark and treacherous. But he'd come anyway.

I'm not going to let anything happen to you!

"You're real." She just barely managed to squeeze the words through the emotion knotting in her throat. "You came for me."

And then his eyes filled. Sweet God. His eyes actually filled. "You've got to get me out of these," he practically growled, lifting his wrists toward her.

She stared in horror at the cuffs she'd completely forgotten about, the streaks of blood littering his forearms. "Sandro—"

"
…
because if I don't get my arms around you in the next ten seconds, I won't be responsible for what happens."

She lost it then, what little control she'd scraped together. She had the key out of her pocket and was jabbing it against the little hole. She had to fight to steady her hands, but then the latch turned and the manacles fell open.

And then he had his arms around her. Not just his arms, either. He had his whole body around her, arms, legs, just holding her. Holding her.

And then they were both rocking.

"Why, Sandro?" she whispered, burying her face against the wet fabric of his T-shirt, warmed by the heat of his body. She could feel his heart beating. She could hear it. "Why?"

Why had he lied to her?

Why had he pledged allegiance to a criminal?

Why had he saved her from Petros?

Why couldn't she stop holding him? Wanting him.

He pulled back, cupped her face with his big battered hands. "I'm not the monster you think I am," he said, and the words sounded torn from him, torn from somewhere dark and hurting. "And I'm not going to let anyone hurt you ever again."

The tears overflowed then, hot, scalding. Affirming. Everything inside her felt raw, needy, stretched beyond the breaking point. She could barely even breathe, much less think coherently. But she didn't need to think, not when she felt. There was only one way to make the hurting stop. To make the pain and the doubt and the longing go away.

"Sandro," she whispered, sliding her hand through the damp strands of his hair and urging him down toward her.

He didn't need much urging.

Chapter 12

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H
is mouth was on hers in a heartbeat, hot, rough, possessive. Glorious. He kissed her hard. He kissed her deep. He kissed her with the blind abandon of a man deprived of oxygen, greedily dragging in air.

She kissed him with the same urgency. She could feel his teeth against her lips, his whiskers scraping her jaw, but still she wanted more. She kept the one hand tangled in his damp hair, brought the other to his face. His hands were on her face, too, holding her while he drank of her. Took her. Claimed her mouth as intimately as she'd longed for him to claim her body. His mouth slanted restlessly, hungrily, as though something of monumental importance hung in
the balance.

The need was relentless, driving, and she suddenly wanted more than just his mouth on hers, his hands on her face. She wanted him to touch her. Everywhere.

Primitive sounds tore from deep in his throat, empowering Miranda to grab one of his wrists and drag his hand away from her face, place it against her side. He groaned, sliding his hand to yank her shirt from her shorts. And then his hand was on her flesh, all hot and roughly possessive, sliding and stroking. Claiming.

She never wanted him to stop. Ever. She could no longer discern truth from lie, but she also realized she didn't care. Because in every corner of her heart, she finally accepted what instinct had been shouting all along. This man, this amazing, lost, ferocious poet of a commando, would not hurt her.

Touch her again, you son of a bitch, and you're a dead man.

A shiver ran through her at the memory, and Sandro gathered her closer. She wasn't sure it was possible to be any closer without slipping beneath his skin. She only knew that she wanted to hold this battered warrior close to her heart and never let go, no matter what lies he'd told. No matter who he worked for. No matter how loudly common sense screamed that she should run far and fast.

He tasted of strength and raw determination, a bone-deep ferocity that thrilled on a fundamental level. He tasted of sorrow and hope. He tasted of need and urgency. He tasted of everything she'd ever wanted but had never thought to find in the arms of a man who'd robbed her of fundamental liberties.

He tasted of freedom. Pure, raw, soul-shattering freedom.

There in his arms, body to body, seeking mouth to seeking mouth, hands groping desperately, she didn't let herself analyze why. She didn't let herself analyze, period. She simply kissed him with the same relentless hunger he kissed her. She let her mind shut down, her senses hum. She loved the feel of his mouth moving roughly against hers, his teeth against her lips, his tongue sliding with hers. She loved the feel of his whiskers scraping her jaw, his hands tangled deep in her hair.

She loved
him.

It was as simple, as absurd, as impossible as that.

The realization should have stopped her cold. It didn't. Nothing could, not even the fact she'd run from him. Because she hadn't, not really. She, champion of going with the flow and living life to the fullest, of tossing protocol to the wind and making her own decisions, her own judgments, had run from herself. From the fact that even during the darkest moments back in the bedroom of the safe house, when she'd bit and hit and shouted, all she'd really wanted was for him to crush her in his arms and hold her. Love her.

That's why she ran. And every step of the way, a fundamental piece of her had silently prayed he would come after her. Find her. Prevent her from escaping him.

Because she knew,
she knew,
the second she tasted so-called freedom, she would never see him again.

And that reality made her hurt in ways she'd never imagined possible. It was a ragged, tearing hurt, bone-deep, a chill that could permanently freeze everything inside her.

They had no future. They
could
have no future.

But Miranda had never constrained herself by logic, rules or plans. That was her sister's realm. Miranda was the dreamer.

And she knew no matter what else went down, when she dreamed from this day forward, she would dream of eyes like chips of midnight ice, a poet's mouth that kissed with soul-shattering intensity, a commando who carried an assault rifle in his briefcase and a carved statue of his childhood dog in his pocket.

She refused to think beyond that. She refused to think at all. She was safe. She knew that. Sandro had risked his life to save hers, not to reclaim a prize. She'd seen the violent, unchained emotion in his eyes. It had touched her, changed her.

For now, that was enough.

More than enough.

His hands were all over her, rough, but gentle at the same time. It was as though he was inventorying her body, cataloging the feel of her, making sure she was really safe and whole. And she knew that as long as she lived, she would never forget the sight of him standing in the abandoned old church, dripping wet, wrists cuffed in front of him, lightning illuminating the hard glitter in his eyes. The image was indelibly etched into her soul. Where she could keep it safe.