Forced Disappearance (21 page)

“How about to pull you out of the water?”

She was in the pool before she could ask what water. She plunged under, all the way to the bottom, pushed away, barely able to believe that he’d shove her in.

She broke the surface, shook water out of her face, and glared at him.

“I’d help you out, but on second thought, I’m pretty sure you’d pull me in.”

He was right about that.

She swam toward the steps and walked out of the water, plotting how to get back at him, glaring all the way.

Hands in his pockets, a glint in his eyes, he didn’t look as if he felt threatened. “Is there a wet T-shirt contest somewhere?”

“Very funny.”

“Not really. It’s more on the sexy side.” He moved toward her. His voice dipped. “Very sexy.”

She stood where she was by the pool and waited until he reached her.

“You should take your clothes off and let them dry.”

“Ever the helpful one.”

“I do what I can.” He reached for the bottom of her T-shirt.

She caught him by the wrists, flipped him sideways in a move she’d learned in hand-to-hand combat training, and tossed him into the water. And then, as he splashed, grinning, she jumped in after him.
Oh, what the hell.

“Payback sucks, doesn’t it?” She tried to push him under.

He put her arms around her, plastering her against his wide chest. “Maybe I’m exactly where I want to be.” He flashed an evil grin.

And before she had time to think about whether he’d planned the whole thing, he was already peeling off her T-shirt. And her pants. And her bra, and her panties.

His own clothes were gone just as fast as hers. Then they were pressed together skin to skin. “I’m not letting you walk out of my life again without a fight,” he murmured against her lips.

“This could be the beginning of a terrible mistake,” she warned.

“Engineers don’t make mistakes. On our way to resounding success, we identify methods that don’t work.”

He reached down to wrap her legs around his waist. “I don’t know about you, but from where I’m standing, this method is working pretty well.”

She laced her arms around his neck. His steel-hard erection was pressed against her, but not inside her.

“D.C. is just an hour’s drive from Baltimore,” he said, his voice strained. “It’s not a bad commute. I could drive to work from your place.”

She stilled. “You’d be willing to move to my one-bedroom apartment?”

He turned serious. “I’d be willing to do pretty much anything for you.”

Her heart smiled. “I’m not going to be home a lot with this job.”

“How about we’ll start with being together when you’re home, and go from there?”

“My job wouldn’t bother you?”

“The truth? I’d rather that you quit work and live with me. In between meetings, I could run home and make mad love to you.”

“Sure. And I could just cook and clean for you while I was waiting.”

His eyes lit up with approval.

She snorted and placed a hand on his forehead. “I think you might have come home with some kind of jungle fever. I’ve never known you to be this delusional.”

Since she was using her legs and arms to anchor herself to him, he could let go to rub his fingers across her nipples, roll them as they swelled into hard peaks. “I think you boggle my mind.”

He sure boggled hers. Her breath caught as arousal flushed her body with heat.

She could never forget the family
she’d
had. They’d been front and center of her broken heart all this time and that was where they’d remain. But somehow in the past two weeks, her heart had healed up around them, and that was Glenn’s doing.

He didn’t take Matthew’s place. He added something extra to her life, something wonderful that tasted like love and smelled like hope. Something she’d desperately needed even if she’d been too busy to admit it.

He dipped his head to hers and took her lips in a rough kiss, possessive, urgent. Then, before she could recover, he grabbed her behind and strode out of the water holding her, snatching up his pants that floated on top of the water.

He carried her straight to the large divan in the circle of palm trees and lay her down, pulling back, worshipping her body with his gaze, his eyes dark with need. He reached into his pants pocket, came up with a foil square.

She was ridiculously grateful for his forethought. But she teased him anyway. “Aren’t you just prepared for everything?”

“I happen to be an engineer.”

He sheathed his erection before he joined her on the divan.

Only the sound of their breathing and the water lapping the side of the pool broke the silence. Sunlight filtered through the palms. They could have been the first two people in paradise.

“When is the plane leaving?” she asked, not that she wanted to think about anything else but him right now.

“Whenever we get back to it.”

Okay, she could begin to see why living this way would be convenient.

He rubbed his lips against hers, nibbled the bottom lip, licked the corners first, then the seam, then he swept inside and she forgot all about schedules. His long fingers dragged across her abdomen, up to her breasts, caressing, outlining. He rolled her nipple, and need swirled through her. Then he pinched, applying gentle pressure at first, then increasing it, tugging, even as his tongue made love to her mouth. She grew damp between her legs.

She was ready for him. Now. She arched her hips. He moved his mouth from her lips to her free nipple.

She moaned. The tugging and the suckling together were too much. An electric charge ran straight from her nipples to her clitoris. “Please.”

He lifted his head and flashed a devilish grin. “I like it when you’re so subdued.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

He positioned himself between her legs, on his knees, and sat back on his heels. For a moment, it occurred to her that they were in a building made of glass. Then she told herself that nobody could see them up here. She didn’t have it in her to worry. She couldn’t think of anything else but his hard length entering her at last.

He took his time, the bastard. He grabbed her under her knees and slid her bottom up his knees, pushed her thighs apart and spread her wide. His breath quickened. He watched her body grow even more moist for him as he caressed her inner thighs, played with her pubic hair, outlined the opening of her vagina in a circular motion, over and over again, flicked his thumb over her clitoris, all the while, his cock just inches away from where she wanted him.

“I’m so going to torture you back for this,” she threatened.

He grinned a slow grin that was full of sex. “I’m counting on it.”

And then he moved forward, touching the tip of his penis against her opening, holding her in place with his hands on her thighs so she couldn’t move. She could only arch her back, blindly seeking release, but he would have none of it.

He pushed in an inch, stretching her opening, then pulled back again. One hand slid up her thigh and found her clitoris. He circled his finger around it, then pushed in again. Circled. Pulled out.

Her heart raced, her breath hitched. Was he trying to kill her?

Circled. Pushed in. This time two inches. Circled. Pulled out. Then he pushed in again, but instead of circling his finger around her clit, he left his fingertip on her engorged nub, and pressed down. He kept that pressure as he pushed into her all the way.

That was the thing about engineers. They always knew what button to push, she thought hazily, her body focused on pleasure. A hot wave built inside her as he moved in and out of her body, a wave that rose to towering heights, then crashed, crashed, crashed, her body convulsing around him as she called his name.

Only then did he grab for her hips with both hands to pump himself inside her hard, allowing his own release at last.

Later, as they lay next to each other, looking up at the palm fronds and the sky, she thought:
I could stay like this forever.

So as they went down the elevator, even later, naked, with an armful of soppy, wet clothes, she said, “Maybe.”

He raised an eyebrow as they stepped out into their opulent suite.

“Maybe we could give it a try,” she said. “While I’m in Hong Kong, I’ll think about it.”

He dumped the clothes and picked her up, carried her to the antique Persian rug in front of the fireplace, laid her down, paused to turn on the fireplace with the remote before covering her with his body, and took her mouth in a kiss that she felt to her toes.

“Again?” she asked weakly when they came up for air, his renewed excitement, trapped between their bodies, unmistakable.

“It’s been a long time since the embassy in Caracas,” he said as he nibbled on her lip. “I’ve been saving up. Basic fluid dynamics.”

Freaking engineers.

Chapter 18

ON THE FLIGHT
to Hong Kong, Miranda read through her case file, while Glenn slept a little. The couches were larger than a bed in first class on any given airline, so he looked comfortable as he slept.

He woke tense, as if from a bad dream, then looked at her, and slowly relaxed. Did he dream about the torture?

She was never going to forget the sight of the welts on his back or the burn marks on his collarbones. She knew he’d never forget how he got his scars.

He sat up. “Come here.”

She pushed her work aside and walked over. He pulled her onto his lap. She laid her head in the crook of his neck. He smelled like sleep, and leather, and Glenn.

He pressed a kiss against her temple. “Hungry?”

Her stomach growled as soon as he said the word. Their breakfast at the Empress Hotel seemed like a lifetime ago.

He ordered food and they were served immediately, so they moved to sit at the table. In a jet that was worth millions, somehow he made her as relaxed as if she were sitting across her kitchen table from him.

He glanced at his watch as they finished the salmon with rice and steamed vegetables. “I’m going to have to work a little.” His voice held plenty of reluctance.

After what had happened with Cesar . . . she imagined there’d be a lot of damage control to do.

“I wanted to check out the entertainment system anyway.” She didn’t want him to feel like he had to babysit her every second. She couldn’t believe all the time he was taking from the company at a crucial moment like this, for her.

So, like an old married couple, he worked on his laptop while she watched a movie, then picked up her case file again, planning out her day, which people she wanted to talk to first after her arrival.

They were less than an hour from landing when an email came in from Karin.

Target located. Mission cancelled.

She told Glenn. “I’m sorry you came all this way with me for nothing.”

“Not for nothing. Actually, I meant to show you something around here.” He stood and hurried to the cockpit, talked to the captain.

From the few words she was able to catch, he was asking the man to file a change to the flight plan. Then she caught the word “Thailand,” and her stomach clenched.

The last time she’d been to Thailand . . . She never wanted to go back there. Ever again. Did he think the trip would be therapeutic? She was pretty sure it’d be the exact opposite.

Nervous energy pushed her to her feet. “Why are we going to Thailand?” she asked as soon as he came back.

He took her hand and pulled her closer, then reached up to smooth the furrows on her forehead. “I have a surprise for you. I meant to take you over once you solved your case, or when you had a couple of hours free.”

Her entire body was tense. “I don’t want to go there.”

He took both of her hands into his, his gaze searching her face. “Do you trust me?”

She stood there, even as part of her wanted to flee. She’d known him forever. He’d been her first lover. He’d saved her life in the jungle and she saved his. They were bound by so many threads already.

He’d asked her to marry him.

She’d told him she would think about it.

She swallowed, held his steel-gray gaze. “I trust you. Yes.”

His instant, pleased smile sent delicious tingles down her spine. He pulled her closer, tucked her against his chest, then lifted her chin with a finger and claimed her lips in a kiss so tender it made her heart ache.

When they came up for air, he dropped to the leather couch behind him and pulled her onto his lap, and for the rest of the flight they made out like teenagers.

He only let her go to sit in her own place and strap in as they were landing.

“We had this plane configured for corporate travel. It’s a workhorse. If passengers need a nap, they can stretch out on one of the couches,” he told her with a rueful smile.

“It’s fantastic.”

“As soon as we get home, I’m ordering a remodel.”

“Why?”

“I’m having a bedroom put in the back. We’ll be traveling a lot when we’re married. I want to show you the world, Miranda.”

The word
bedroom
coming out of his mouth made her even more hot and bothered, and their kissing marathon on the couch already had her entire body aching for him.

Suspicion reared its ugly head. “Are you trying to seduce me so I’ll marry you?”

“Is it working?” he asked with so much boyish enthusiasm that she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Maybe.”

“I’m learning to hate that word,” he murmured. “I’d like to progress to an unqualified yes.”

They landed without a hitch and had a hired car waiting for them, like in Vienna. Despite the very excellent memories their Vienna stopover brought to mind, Miranda’s entire body was taut with nerves as they traveled to their destination.

Glenn enfolded her hand in his, his thumb caressing the back of hers.

How strange, she thought. They used to hold hands in college, always touching one way or the other. But she hadn’t really done that with anyone else. Kind of thought she’d grown out of it, that handholding was a juvenile thing, not for grownups. Yet holding Glenn’s hand felt both comfortable and comforting. He kept her grounded.

Until he said, “Gloria wants you to come to dinner.”

That threw her off balance all over again. “What? Why?”

“To thank you. The fact that you brought me back when all the other hired investigators couldn’t left a big impression.”

“No thanks necessary.”

He squeezed her hand. “My family isn’t perfect. But maybe you could get used to them. I think you’ll find their attitude improved the next time you meet.”

Before she could figure out what to say to that, the car stopped in front of a square building, the signs not only in a different language, but a different alphabet, swirling curls flowing into each other. Kids played outside, around two dozen of them, a variety of ages. All girls.

Once again, Glenn claimed her hand as they walked up the steps. An elderly nun waited for them at the door and introduced herself as Sister Maria Isabella, greeting them with an Eastern European accent. She knew Glenn by name and seemed to be expecting them.

They went down a long hallway, passing classrooms, children studying in the local language, some classes taught by nuns, others by civilians. Their guide led them to the open door of a classroom in the back where an English lesson was in progress. A woman and a man stood in the front of the class, their clothes simple, matching blue shirts and khaki pants. They wore necklaces with crosses around their necks. A missionary couple?

Miranda glanced at Glenn. Did he donate to the school? Was he supporting children here? Orphans? Was this what he wanted to show her, that he was a good guy who also did good things in the world and not just flew around in his private jet?

The gesture was completely unnecessary. She already knew what was in his heart. Knew it and liked it. She smiled at him.

The woman at the front of the room pointed at herself and said, “Mrs.” then pointed at her husband and said, “Mr.” Then she pointed at herself again. “Lady.” And she pointed at her husband. “Gentleman.” Then she repeated it again. And after a few encouraging smiles, the children repeated the words after her, in a chorus of timid voices.

Twenty little girls sat on pillows on the floor, ranging in age from six to twelve or so, wearing colorful, if faded, clothing, all very somber, looking eager to please. Nobody was whispering with her neighbor. Not one of them was smiling.

Then Miranda’s gaze caught one of the younger girls in the back. She sat away from the others, her arms wound tightly around her skinny little body. She presented such a lonely, solitary figure, the sight of her twisted Miranda’s heart.

She narrowed her eyes.
Wait a minute
—

Was she? Miranda took an involuntary step forward, the rest of the world disappearing from around her. Blood rushed in her ears. She’d only seen the little girl in the brothel for a very short time. And this girl’s hair was shorter. She was a year older. But Miranda was almost sure . . .

Then the girl turned, her gaze locking with Miranda’s. Her little brown eyes went wide, huge in her thin face. As if in a trance, she scrambled to her feet and stared at Miranda, her mouth opening and closing, opening and closing again.

Then she began to run through the back of the classroom, and she was shouting all of a sudden. “Mrs. Lady, Mrs. Lady.” Then more words in her own language. Then, “Mrs. Lady!” again and the other words, until she was out of the classroom and threw herself at Miranda, clutching Miranda’s legs in her skinny little arms, pressing her face against Miranda’s.

“This is the first time Mai has said a word since she’s come to us,” the nun said next to them, her expression stunned and joyful at the same time.

Miranda knelt to put herself on the child’s level. “What is she saying?” she asked without taking her eyes off the child, her oversize eyes, the badly cut dark hair, the arms that were so slim the sight of them nearly broke Miranda’s heart.

“She’s saying, ‘Mrs. Lady, you saved me,
’
 ” the nun translated.

When Miranda opened her arms, the child burrowed against her breast as if she wanted to hide herself inside Miranda, as if she wanted to climb inside her. Miranda stood with her, holding Mai tightly to her chest. Hard to say who was holding on tighter.

“Hello, Mai. I’m Miranda.” She smiled at the little girl, then glanced back at Glenn, who’d taken a few steps back. Because Mai might be scared of men. If Miranda wasn’t already hopelessly in love with him, she would have fallen for him right then and there.

“Is this an orphanage?” she asked.

“Kind of,” he answered carefully.

“It’s a children’s home.” The nun provided the information. “We raise them and educate them, teach them sewing before they leave us at eighteen.”

“Are they eligible for adoption?” Miranda asked without having to think about it.

The nun hesitated. “We don’t normally receive requests. This is a rescue home for girls recovered from child prostitution.”

“All of them?” Miranda felt the blood drain out of her face as she looked around at all the innocent faces. The lack of smiles suddenly made sense. “I’d like to adopt Mai.”

Glenn moved a little closer. “I can take care of the paperwork and the lawyers, if you’d like.”

Another gift. She didn’t even think about refusing it. His company probably had an entire legal department, and a lot of those lawyers would know international law like the back of their hand. Glenn had contacts in politics, possibly even in foreign countries where his company held interests. If he could shorten the wait time by even a single day, she would be grateful beyond words. “Thank you, Glenn.”

The female English teacher came from the room at last. “Is everything all right here?” she asked in a British accent, then smiled at the little girl. “Mai doesn’t normally let anyone touch her. Do you know her?” she asked Miranda.

And Miranda said, her heart swelling with so much emotion she could barely contain it, “I’m her mother.”

She turned to Glenn, smiling her gratitude and her love. The love brimming in his eyes took her breath away.

She had so much to tell him, but she said only a single word.

“Yes.”