Wade (17 page)

Wade didn't answer. She had left him nothing to say, even if he could have found words.

As he remained silent, she withdrew a fraction. “If you'd really rather not, it's all right. I can find someone else.”

“No.” The response was hoarse, but definite. The
very thought made him feel almost as sick as the idea of Ahmad having her, though he refused to even consider why.

She stood waiting, her gaze clear. “Well?”

“That's it, then? A cold-blooded decision, lots of reasons but no real emotion?”

“I didn't say that. You're the only man I've ever met that I could face this with.”

“You haven't met that many.”

“Sometimes one will do.”

Her smile was tremulous but real, and carried a light in its depths that kicked his overworked heart into an even higher gear. The accolade behind her words affected him as nothing else she'd said had or could.

“Fine. I'm your man.” His voice was taut as he gave in to the inevitable. And he couldn't help wondering if the words he'd chosen were truer than he knew.

Her smile rose slowly to warm her eyes. “You don't have to look so unhappy about it.”

“I'm not. I promise.” He stepped back, letting his fingers trail down her arm until he could catch her hand. “So when do you want to start these…lessons?”

“Now?”

The anticipation in her voice did things to his libido that should be against the law. If he followed his more base instincts, he'd simply lay her down in the middle of that white ballroom in the full glare of crystal chan
deliers, pier mirrors and floor-to-ceiling windows, and make love to her for the next century. It wasn't a viable option. She wasn't ready, for one thing, but he also had a feeling that any kind of rushed operation wasn't going to do a lot for the craving that mounted inside him. On the other hand, he might well explode if he didn't do something about the expectancy in her face.

“Lesson one,” he said, drawing her slowly into his arms and putting a finger under her chin to tilt her face to him. “Kisses come in all forms and flavors, but they usually begin something like this.” He pressed his lips to her forehead and the delicate skin of her eyelids in slow succession, exquisitely aware of the sensations against his mouth. Her cheekbones were incredibly soft as he moved from one to the other, while the hollows underneath were as cool and fine-textured as silk.

“And lesson two?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

“Delayed gratification increases pleasure.” Wry amusement colored his voice before he kissed the point of her chin. “But flesh and blood can only stand so much, and giving in to temptation is an enjoyment all its own.”

“I expect so.”

“Believe it,” he said, and brushed her lips with his. That light contact sent an electric jolt all the way down to his toes. Ignoring that response was an exercise in ultimate self-control as he carefully in
creased the pressure, matching surface to tender surface. His reward was the lift of her breasts against his chest as she took a swift, deep breath. To ease away from that softness as he raised his head was one of the hardest things he'd ever done in his life.

She opened her eyes, her gaze candid and perhaps a little disappointed. “I tried that kind of kiss when I was thirteen years old, with a lifeguard who was seventeen. There has to be something more.”

He laughed with a winded sound that just missed being a groan. “If you have to ask, it must be a long time since you saw a movie.”

“An eternity. Not that I was paying much attention then. Anyway, watching isn't the same thing.”

“You've got me there.”

“So?”

He smiled at the unconscious provocation in that single word, even as the muscles across his back clenched involuntarily against the need to give in to more urgent impulses. “So lesson three?”

For an answer, she lifted her face again and closed her eyes. Refusing that mute invitation was beyond him, though he was fast coming to doubt the wisdom of this demonstration. With a small prayer for strength, he pulled her closer, until the soft yet resilient surface of her abdomen was against him. Taking her lips again, he brushed them with delicate friction, then used the edge of his tongue to trace the sensitive line where they met. He tasted the pulse that throbbed just beneath the smooth lower surface, followed the
finely molded edge, and dipped into one tucked corner.

Her breath feathered his cheek, a sensation so enticing that he drew her closer still without thinking. She came willingly, lifting her arms to slide her open palms along his upper arms to his shoulders as if absorbed in the gathered sensations. As he felt her fingers trailing along his neck and into his hair, he shuddered involuntarily. So great was his distraction that he almost missed the moment when her lips parted to permit, or even encourage, access to her mouth.

He was drowning in the race of his own blood and the rampaging need carried by its hot flow. It had been a long time since he'd held a woman, too long for this kind of torture. The urge to take her in a fast explosion of passion burgeoned in a red haze at the back of his mind.

It couldn't be done. She deserved better, and so did he. In the desperate resolve to hold on to his senses, he opted for the next best thing by invading her mouth in unavoidable parody.

She was so sweet and fresh. He felt half-drunk on the unique flavor of her, knew that he could spend a lifetime getting to know her every taste, scent and satin texture. His breath was trapped inside the walls of his chest. The pressure in his lower body was excruciating. The hesitant touch and retreat of her tongue against his caught at his heart, making him wild with the need to earn greater trust, more of her exploration.

Overwhelming tenderness came at him from out of nowhere. It crowded his brain, paralyzing thought, twining with aching gentleness around his heart. Amazement stilled his movements, and purest shock made him step back away from her.

“What?” she asked, blinking as if awaking from near sleep. “Did I do something wrong?”

He swallowed before he could find voice enough to answer. “No way. I just…it just seemed like a good idea, all at once, to take this somewhere more private.”

“Yes.” She studied his face a second before glancing around at the tall windows and door. “I suppose.”

He wondered what she was thinking, but knew with passing despair that he was unlikely to find out. With a brief touch on her arm, he gestured toward the dim hallway beyond the room. Silent, but obedient, she moved ahead of him in the direction he indicated.

They descended the stairs, their footsteps loud in the quiet. Wade wasn't fanciful, had never seen a ghost at home or felt the presence of his ancestors there. Still he had the distinct feeling that if he turned his head and looked back quickly, he might see a flitting shadow or catch the echoes of parties and celebrations long past. It was rattled nerves, he thought, and that was entirely the fault of the woman who walked beside him.

Wade opened the back door but put a hand on Chloe's arm before she could move out into the night. He allowed his eyes to adjust to the gloom, then stud
ied the shadows that lay in the narrow courtyard formed by an L-shaped house wing and the protrusion of the
garçonnière.
Nothing moved there or under the rustling banana trees that arched above the walk. The only sign of activity was the opening and closing of a door at the restaurant across the way, and the enticing smell of food from that direction.

Holding the door wider, he waited until she had moved ahead of him then let it close and lock behind them. As he joined her with a swift stride, he asked, “Hungry?”

“Not really. Are you?”

“We can eat later, if you prefer.”

“Fine. That would be fine.”

The exchange was stilted, ultrapolite. He was hard put to say whether it came from actual discomfort with each other now or was just the awkward manners of near strangers. Either way, he didn't like it. Slouching in the direction of the overseer's cottage, he almost wished that he had let caution go hang and taken whatever Chloe might have allowed him back there in that graceful old white-painted ballroom.

The man was sitting on the railing of the cottage's upper veranda. Wade saw him at the same moment that Chloe stopped, blocking his way. Almost at once, she stepped aside, putting her back to the house wall to let him pass.

Their visitor got to his feet, stepping forward so his coffee-brown features seemed to float from out of the
shadows. The khaki and brown uniform he wore was surprising, but not the weapon at his waist.

Wade recognized the man before his face came into good focus. And he knew exactly why he was there.

“D
amn it all, Nat, you scared ten years off my life.”

“Well hell, old buddy, who'd have guessed I'd catch you flat-footed. Though I do have to say, I see the reason.”

Chloe stared at the newcomer. He was the friend Wade had mentioned, the one who had recruited him for the DSS, as well as providing backup for her rescue. Her relief was so great that she slumped against the wall behind her while her hammering pulse slowly returned to normal.

Wade took the last few steps up to the veranda. “You might have told me you were coming.”

“Didn't want to disturb your beauty rest or do anything that might remotely point a finger. I sort of like you, you know? And I purely hate funerals.”

“I should have guessed you wouldn't be happy until you'd taken a hand. But what's with the uniform?”

“Special arrangement with hotel security. I'm supposed to look like staff if anybody happens to notice me hanging around—or be on watch.”

“God forbid,” Wade said, then turned toward
Chloe. “Come meet Nathaniel Hedley, top dog of the hostage rescue outfit I told you about. Nat, the lady we're all protecting.”

Wade's friend lifted a finger to his forehead in a small salute. “Ma'am.”

“Mr. Hedley.” Emboldened by meeting the other Benedicts, she held out her hand as she came forward, and even managed a smile.

The man's grasp was brief and completely impersonal though his smile was warm. “Nat, please. Any friend of Wade's, and all that.”

“Let's get inside, shall we?” Wade suggested with a quick glance around from their second-floor vantage point.

“Can't stay long, since it might not look right, but you can bring me up to speed since we spoke on the phone,” Nat agreed. “You didn't give out with many details on this part of the op.”

“That's because there aren't many.”

Wade held the door while they all moved into the small upstairs parlor. Chloe didn't pause as the two men headed toward a pair of chairs, but continued down the hallway toward their room.

“Chloe?”

She turned back, surprised that he'd noticed her leaving or interrupted his discussion with his friend to call out to her.

“You don't have to go. This concerns you, too.”

She could feel the smile that curved her mouth, was far too aware of her pleasure in being included as well
as his thoughtfulness in making sure she knew it. She could become dependent on such consideration. That was dangerous, as dangerous as the lessons she'd set in motion earlier, but she really didn't care. The problem, she feared, was that she'd learned too well to accept risk and the spice that it gave to being alive.

Returning to the parlor, she perched on the edge of the sofa while the two men took the chairs pulled up in front of it. She listened to their jargon about perimeters, observation points and other things designated only by unknown acronyms, but her attention was only half-engaged. She couldn't help contrasting the man who now sat discussing military tactics and deadly maneuvers with the one who had, just a short time ago, danced to unheard music and made quietly assured jokes about lessons in love.

Delayed gratification increases pleasure.

That wasn't what she'd expected of him. What she'd thought he might do instead, she wasn't really sure. Take her there in that big house where anyone might have walked in on them? Take her standing up, as they'd pretended in Ajzukabad? Take her back to their room and to bed without question or preparation? Any of these had seemed possible, even probable. Sex was merely another appetite in the world where she'd lived so long. Kings and princes might have time for the unlikely postures and endurance of the Kama Sutra, but common people coupled and were done with it.

She wasn't sure she liked his inventive preliminar
ies. Or perhaps that was wrong. She liked them too much, could easily become addicted to them. But it wasn't what she wanted or needed. Any dependence on a man was unacceptable. And yet, she couldn't wait to see what he would do when they were alone again.

Delayed gratification increases pleasure.

More than anything else, she wondered how Wade felt about her request, if he accepted what she offered as he might a handful of figs when hungry, or took the same enjoyment in the caresses that he'd given her.

He'd called a halt so suddenly. What if he was sorry that he'd agreed to her request? What if he was searching for a way to avoid the lessons that remained?

He'd been so relieved to see his old friend. She'd thought that it was because he would now have someone to back him up, someone outside the threat of Ahmad's jihad. Suppose, instead, it was for the distraction the visit provided.

These things weren't what she'd expected to be concerned with while their lives hung in the balance.

Chloe stared down at her clasped hands as her thoughts chased each other in her mind, only half attending to the exchange between the two men. That was until Wade's voice took on a graver note.

“You ran a trace?”

“Took a while, but we got him,” Nat answered. “This Ahmad likes to travel, though he's never made
it to the States until now. He showed up in Yemen a couple of years ago, in Africa a few months before that, and also in Iran. Money seems to follow him around, the movement of large sums in a network of Middle Eastern firms with zero reliance on electronic transfer, so no magnetic trail.”

“Al Qaeda.” There was little surprise in Wade's voice.

“You've got it. That he's entrusted with funds for the organization means he's rabidly loyal. Or maybe just rabid.”

“Tell me about it,” Wade said with irony. “The trace didn't happen to pinpoint his current location?”

“New Orleans still, best we can tell, along with one or two of his pals.”

“How the hell did he get into the country, with security the way it is now?”

“Same way everybody else does—a rigidly correct passport and visa along with a plane ticket. Can't do a two-week security check on every person who touches down here, can't keep out everybody who wears a turban.”

Wade swore under his breath.

“Exactly,” Nat said. “But it's a free country, and who wants it any other way? But I have to tell you, letting him in may have been deliberate.”

“You're joking, right?”

“Wouldn't do that. Seems one of the guys with Ahmad is ours.”

“Meaning an infiltrator, someone who has been
feeding info on movement within terrorist cells?” The glance Wade sent Chloe suggested that the amplification was primarily for her sake.

“Yeah. So now the Feds are watching to see what else these guys have in mind beside wiping out Benedicts.”

“The plant is reliable?”

“Somebody seems to think so. He was recruited years ago. Hazara, of course, but loyal to the old regime, partly from conviction, partly because the Taliban destroyed the luxury good trade, jewelry, gold, silver and so on, that was his family's livelihood. Became our man because we're the best bet for getting rid of the extremists, not because he's pro-American. Word is that he's as devoutly Islamic in his way as Ahmad himself. All of which means that whether he's reliable may depend on what we want from him.”

“That would be mainly information about their objectives, I suppose,” Wade said with a thoughtful frown.

“Yeah. New Orleans has a trade center, too, you know.”

“Don't even think about it. So has this operative made contact?”

“Not yet. We're waiting.”

Wade swore under his breath. After a short pause when neither man spoke, he asked, “Have you had dinner? We could all walk over to the restaurant. My mom says the food was good when she was here before.”

“I'd take her word for just about anything,” Nat answered, “but I ate on the way out of town. Besides, it wouldn't look right for security to be fraternizing with guests.”

“You're sure?”

Nat touched his waistline. “I don't make a habit of missing meals, believe me. You and Chloe go right ahead.”

“We may do that,” Wade agreed with a quick glance in her direction. “An early night couldn't hurt. Jet lag, and all that.”

His friend got to his feet. “Don't let me hold you up. I got things to do anyway.”

Wade rose as well. Feeling dwarfed by the two men towering over her, Chloe did the same. Nat Hedley turned to her, again touching a finger to his forehead in salute. “Ma'am, it's been a pleasure.”

“For me, as well,” she said formally. “And may I say that I appreciate your coming all this way, though I know it wasn't for my sake.”

Nat gave her a rueful smile. “A wasted trip, I expect. Wade here can probably handle whatever happens just fine. But I'm a great believer in overkill. Besides, I was the one who advised him on how to go in after you. I take it to heart that he got hurt.”

“The blame is really mine,” she answered, her gaze straight.

Wade made a sound of disgust. “It was my own fault, thank you both very much. I underestimated the enemy.”

Chloe didn't intend to argue with him, not because he was right but because she'd learned to avoid confrontations she couldn't win. To Nat, she said, “Anyway, I'm sure he and I both will sleep better for knowing you're around.”

“Now that's the idea. And if you don't mind me saying so, I understand why he was so all-fired set on getting you out of that mess over there. It's no place for an American, and especially for a woman like you.”

She still wasn't used to compliments, either overt or implied. The heat of a flush burned across her cheekbones, and she glanced unconsciously at Wade for help.

“Get used to it,” he said easily. “You'll be hearing that sort of thing often from now on. All you have to do is tell him thank you and good-night.”

As she complied, Nat gave Wade a look that was both penetrating and amused. Wade shrugged, then stepped to clap a hand on his friend's shoulder and turn with him toward the door.

“I'll check with you later for a status report,” he said. “In the meantime, watch your back. We're about as secluded here as it's possible to get short of heading into the swamps, but you never know.”

“Same to you,” Nat replied. Then he stepped out the door and closed it quietly behind him.

An uneasy silence descended in which Chloe could hear plainly the sound of Nat's footsteps on the outside stairs. Then Wade raked his fingers through his
hair with an abrupt gesture. “Sorry about that. One reason for coming here was so you could have a little time to get used to being in this part of the world before meeting a lot of new people.”

“It doesn't matter. Some things take precedence, though it's a shame you and Nat won't be working together.”

“That wasn't in the plan,” he answered, his gaze steady.

“No, but still.” She hesitated a moment, then asked, “Did you really want to go to dinner, or were you being polite?”

“Polite, mainly. Though we can eat if you're hungry.”

“I'm not really,” she said without quite looking at him. “We had a late lunch and my stomach is still on Hazaristan time anyway. But I was just thinking…”

“About Nat? Or maybe about what happened in the ballroom.”

“Both, in a way.”

“You're thinking maybe you made a mistake, and having three at dinner would allow more time to think about it?”

“You could say that,” she answered, the words constricted in the tightness of her throat.

“You don't have to go through with it. Say the word, the whole thing is forgotten.”

“That isn't it. I mean, I don't want to forget it,”
she said, her gaze steady on his face. “I just…wondered if you were having second thoughts.”

He folded his arms over his chest, his face inscrutable. “You were afraid I'd decided I didn't want to be your teacher, after all, and was using dinner as an excuse to get out of it?”

“Something like that,” she agreed in relief for his understanding.

“You thought, just possibly, that I couldn't drum up any interest in making love to a beautiful and willing woman, or that it was just too much trouble?”

The combination of amusement and incredulity in his voice made her acutely uncomfortable. “Not exactly.”

“I guess it occurred to you that I could be insulted at being treated like a sex object? That being wanted for my body and so-called expertise hurt my feelings?”

“I didn't mean to make it sound that way,” she protested.

“Only like a one-night stand, right? No ties, no obligations, no tomorrows?”

“Okay,” she said in fatalistic acceptance. “You really have changed your mind then.”

“Never in a million years.”

She met his gaze again. “But you said…”

“A lot of stuff, trying to find out what you wanted. I have my own misgivings, you know. I'm afraid that I'm taking advantage of you. I'm scared that you'll recover in a day or so from whatever combination of
jet lag, culture shock and self-doubt that has you in its grip, and wonder what possessed you to ask me what you did. I'm almost certain that one day soon you'll regret the whole idea.”

A slow smile tilted her mouth, though she felt hot all over as she repeated, “Never in a million years.”

The overseer's cottage was quiet around them, so quiet it seemed that they must have it to themselves. Beyond the dim hallway, with its high ceiling and indefinable smells of cypress wood and ancient dust, could be heard the calls of crickets and night insects, and the faint sigh of a breeze through the great, overhanging oaks. They barely noticed as they watched each other in the soft gold-tinted light. Then Wade caught her hand, holding it as they strolled the few feet to their room. She glanced at him, smiling a little because she couldn't help it.