THE PERFECT TARGET (26 page)

Her hands found his face,
feathered along his cheekbone. "Open your eyes," she commanded softly.
"Please.
Open your eyes."

It took effort, but he would have given her the sun and the moon if she'd asked. His eyes burned, but he opened them, blinked several times before the world came into focus.

Darkness. That was his first thought. The blue sky was gone, replaced by a black as pure and impenetrable as death. The smoke, he thought, but then sucked in a breath and waited for the burn in his lungs, found only the sweet scent of grass. And Miranda.

"It was just a dream," she whispered. She was sprawled over him, her breathing as ragged as his own. "Just a dream."

"No," he ground out. "It was real. Gus and Roger were there, just like before."

More on top of him than not, she stilled. "Gus and Roger?"

He fought against the burning wreckage of the café, couldn't tear it away. "In London. After graduate school. We were just … playing. Killing time before real life started."

But it had ended instead, for Roger, and for Gus. And in many ways, for Sandro.

"What happened?" Miranda asked.

"What happened?" He blinked, but couldn't bring her into focus. "You were there … the bomb."

"What are you talking about?" she asked gently.

He was talking about General Viktor Zhukov, who'd decided to show the world he wouldn't go quietly into the night. Time to grab the spotlight. Time to demonstrate how far he would go, how many lives he was willing to take in the process.

"No," Sandro growled, pulling her down against him. His heart pounded hard and violent. Rage pummeled him like debris.
"Not you, too, goddamn it. Not you, too."

"Sandro—"

He didn't let her finish. He couldn't. He slid a hand to the back of her head and urged her down toward him, took her mouth with a desperation that ripped harder and deeper than the bomb that had killed his two best friends and prompted him to walk away from life as he knew it, to fight for a freedom and future he'd always taken for granted.

She didn't fight, didn't resist, just kissed him back with the same hunger, the same need. The same abandon. She lay sprawled between his legs, one hand holding the side of his face as though to prevent him from pulling away from her.

As if he could.

He'd tried. He'd tried so damn hard to do the right thing, to be noble, to keep his hands off her. To keep cold logic intact, to keep his heart from getting involved. But some needs ran deeper than honor, drove more relentlessly than integrity. Loving Miranda was a mistake. Wanting her was practically criminal.

But the thought of losing her shredded him to the bone.

Tearing his mouth from hers was impossible, not when she represented everything he'd ever wanted, but knew he could never have. Not after that sunny, bloody morning in London. Not after he'd knelt before Gus's grave and promised to exact vengeance.

He would, too, if it was the last thing he did.

And if it was the last thing he did, he would go to his death with the sweet taste of Miranda on his lips.

His soul.

* * *

She tasted his need, felt a like need pour through her. He kissed her hard, he kissed her deep. He kissed her as if his very life depended on it.

She kissed him the same way.

Her right wrist remained cuffed to his left, the key hidden by darkness in the rocks somewhere beyond. She didn't care. She liked being bound to him, didn't ever want to let him go. With their free hands they explored each other's bodies restlessly, eagerly, fingers skimming flesh, grabbing at clothes.

No more denying. No more pretending. Miranda didn't come close to understanding how she could feel so strongly, want so deeply, a man who worked for a criminal, who'd kidnapped her for God's sake, but she knew feelings couldn't be analyzed. Nor could desire. It just … was.

Tomorrow offered no guarantees. She knew that. But she didn't care, didn't need guarantees. Only Sandro. Holding her. Kissing her. Driving inside of her, making her his. Tonight might be all they had, and more than anything, she wanted him to know that not everyone in his life was destined to forsake him.

She loved being sprawled on top of him. She loved being between his legs, feeling his body envelope hers. She loved the strength she felt in his thighs, in the bulge pressing into her stomach, the arm he used to hold her.

She loved the take-no-prisoners possession of his kiss.

Everywhere his hand skimmed, his fingertips teased, she burned. She wanted to touch him, too, to feel flesh, not fabric. Fumbling with the buttons of his tiki shirt, she slid them free, until she could pull the cotton back and feel the heat of his skin. She shivered as she pressed her shaking palm to his stomach, slid up to his chest, tangled her fingers in the splattering of coarse hair there. With great effort she slid her mouth from his, cruised over the prickly whiskers on his jaw, down to the scar across his windpipe. There she kissed, and licked, and loved.

Something terrible had happened to Sandro. Something that shattered the boy with the dog and hardened him into the commando with the assault rifle. But that other part of him remained, buried below the surface. The part that made him swim a swollen river to prevent Petros from touching her. Hurting her. The part that enabled him to touch her with a mind-numbing combination of need and hunger and reverence.

The night was dark, but the full moon provided all the light she needed. She went down to his chest, opened her mouth over one flat, round nipple, and sucked gently.

A rough sound tore from his throat, sent everything inside her up in flames. Blindly, she reached for his jeans, worked at the fly.

"Whoa," he rasped, using their joined hands to pull her up from his waistband. "Slow down." His breathing was labored as his eyes met hers. They were unbearably hot. "I don't want you to do anything you'll regret."

She lifted a hand to his face, skimming his lower lip with her thumb, the whiskers on his jaw with her pinkie. "I'm not."

His eyes darkened, flickered. He clenched them shut, his body beneath hers going rigidly still. When he opened them a moment later, the struggle between desire and restraint remained.

"This isn't going to have a happy ending," he rasped in a voice more hoarse than usual. "You know that, don't you?"

Panic slashed in from somewhere unwanted. "I don't care about endings, Sandro. I care about now."

He let out a rough breath. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Then make love to me," she said, despite the tearing deep inside. She leaned down and pressed a searing kiss to his mouth. "The only way you'll hurt me is by pretending you don't want me as badly as I want you."

"Miranda—"

He was a man of iron will, but she was a woman of the same. In abducting her, he'd taken her body captive, but he'd freed her spirit. And her heart. No way would she let him take this fundamental freedom from her. No way would she let him save her from herself. She didn't want to abandon his mouth, but she did want him to see her eyes when she spoke. For him to see the truth and conviction burning in hers.

The irony was nearly unbearable, that this man who'd stolen her freedom had actually given her so much more. She didn't know why he'd turned down the path he had, but suspected his choice had something to do with the nightmare she'd awoken him from. The terrible dream that had brought those distorted, primitive sounds from his throat, made him thrash. The dream that had made him cry. The dream that had made him reach for her, hold her tight. And with absolute certainty she knew that beneath the bad-guy label, he possessed a heart and a soul purer, more loyal and dedicated than the majority of people commonly thought of as heroes.

What mattered lay inside. The man, not the label.

And it was that man she burned for, wanted with all her heart.

And her body.

"For the first time in my life," she told him, squeezing the words through the tightness in her throat, "I feel free. Free to be myself." She saw him wince, refused to let it deter her. "You make me feel alive," she went on, fighting the emotion twisting inside her, the tears gathering deep. "You make me feel special. Don't take that from me."

She waited for him to pull away, to push her from between his legs and put as much distance between them as he could. Instead, with their wrists cuffed together, he threaded his fingers through hers and squeezed. "You
are
special."

She could tell the admission cost him, which made the words all the more valuable. "Then give me now, Sandro. Give me now."

His lips quirked, but the motion looked more pained than pleasured. "I thought you weren't asking for the sun and the moon," he muttered.

She smiled, a curve of her lips that stemmed from deep inside. "I thought you said you'd give me them, if you could."

He swore softly. Again, she thought he meant to roll from beneath her, sit, turn his back to her. But he surprised her again, this time pulling himself up so they sat facing each other. She was still in his lap, though, her legs straddling his waist. And it was impossible not to feel the bulge that revealed he wanted her as badly as she wanted him.

"Tu hai le labbra le piu morbide del mondo,"
he said quietly, lifting a hand to her mouth. His fingers skimmed along her lips, parted them, slipped inside.
"Baciami."

Her heart kicked, hard. Recognition flowed swift and deep. The memory from that first day, there in the alley, brought stinging moisture to her eyes. "Sweet nothings?" she asked, smiling, even though for some reason doing so cut viciously.

His eyes, those chips of midnight ice, took on a heated glow. "No."

"Then what?"

His gaze dipped to her mouth, where she continued to play with his finger. "You have the softest lips," he whispered. "Kiss me."

Surprise came first, followed by a rush of emotion so pure, so overwhelming, it jammed in her throat, making it hard to breathe. "Sandro—"

"Shh," he whispered, pulling his finger from her mouth and using it to press against her lips.

Her heart pounded mercilessly as he slid his hand from her face and down her neck, down to the buttons of the yellow shirt with orange Bird of Paradise flowers he'd provided her in the hotel room. Boneless, barely able to move, breathe, she watched him slip the buttons free with surprising precision, one by one baring her chest. His fingers skimmed her flesh, flesh that had never really known the intimate touch of a man, turning her breathing choppy, her heartbeat irregular.

His own shirt hung open, the moonlight casting his chest in an erotic study of rigid planes, hard muscle and scarred flesh. The urge to touch every inch of him almost overwhelmed her. While he slid her shirt from her shoulders so that it dangled from their joined arms, she did the same with his.

Her body burned for him, screamed. She wanted him to touch her, everywhere. She wanted his hands on her, his mouth. She wanted to feel him push inside her, go deep.

Holding her gaze, he reached behind her and unfastened her bra, eased the plain white garment down her arms and freed her breasts. They pebbled in the cool night air, eager for his touch. First he skimmed his fingers around her nipples, applying barely any pressure at all. The touch made her tingle. The touch made her ache for so much more. Then he replaced his hand with his mouth, and the rush of sensation changed, deepened.

As he suckled, he eased her down to the blanket she'd spread out earlier in the evening. With the same finesse, he unfastened her white jeans and slid them down her legs. Instinctively, she reached for his, pulled the zipper and tugged them over his hips, laughing when he violently kicked them free of his long legs.

Somewhere in the distance, an animal howled.

They lay there more nude then not, surrounded by the ancient stones and the grove of gnarled olive trees. Sandro wore only a pair of tight jersey boxers now, she her panties, except for the shirts tangled around their bound arms. She cried out when his hand slipped between her legs and cupped her, let out a jagged little cry when he slipped inside her panties and eased a finger inside, discovering just how badly she wanted him.

"Miranda—"

"Kiss me," she breathed.
Love me.

He needed no more urging than that. His mouth took hers again, while his fingers stoked her deep. She longed to feel his other arm around her, hers around him, but cuffed together, they could only twine their fingers together and hold on tight. She slid her free hand between their slick bodies, found him hard and ready, curled her fingers around him. The thrill was immediate, the promise intense.

Soon, he would be inside her.

They lay there intertwined in the darkness, sprawled on a blanket in the shadow of the moon and monolithic stones that predated time. And somehow, it seemed right.

She felt him against her thigh, hot, hard, heavy, and shifted so that he was between her legs.

"Miranda," he gritted out, sounding like a man fighting a weight that could easily crush him. "I don't have a condom."

She laughed out loud. Otherwise, she might have cried. "You don't need one," she said, wrapping her legs around his. She loved how finely muscled they were, the feel of the coarse dark hair scraping against her flesh. "I'm protected," she explained, acutely conscious of the heat of him.

A low sound ripped from him, and then he was pushing inside her, stretching her, filling her. The pleasure ripped through her in relentless waves, close to unbearable.

"You're so … tight," he rasped, pulling back to meet her gaze. "You're not—"

"No." Not technically. A former boyfriend, a golden boy handpicked by her mother, had known her body, but never her heart. He'd not come close to making her feel like this, on fire from the inside out, her heart and her soul stripped bare. "No."

That was all it took. He was buried deep in a heartbeat. She clutched him to her with her free hand, clenched her legs around his. Instinct had her lifting her hips, to which he pulled out slightly, only to push back in. Even more deeply. The tempo increased with every thrust, a rhythm at one with the crickets and cicadas in the woods beyond. The fingers of their joined hands twined together. And held. Tightly.