Forster, Suzanne (17 page)

He lifted her to him, an arm locked around her waist as he continued to make love to her. The power of it sent her body into a rippling chain of aftershocks, but she had no more strength, and her limp weight seemed to throw him off balance. The wooden floor was badly warped and the bar of soap had slid into the recess beneath them. In his struggle to get his footing, he stepped on it and pitched forward.

She cried out, startled to feel the heat of him gone.

"Watch out!" His legs buckled and he nearly came down on top of her before he caught himself against the wall. The shower creaked and groaned with his weight. "I've got you, " he said, holding her tight with one powerful arm while he fought to brace them both.

Gus shuddered at the abruptness with which he'd withdrawn. Before she quite knew what was happening, he'd eased her to the floor and released her. She collapsed in a heap, shivering as he knelt next to her.

"Are you all right?" he asked. "Did I hurt you?"

"It's okay," she said, unable to stop trembling. She wasn't hurt, but she did feel cold and confused and abandoned. It was only as she was trying to understand why he'd ended their lovemaking that she realized he was the one she should be concerned about. He hadn't finished.

"Come on," he coaxed, "I'll help you up. "

"No, we'll worry about me later. What about you?" She uncurled and held her arms out to him. "Please, come make love to me, " she urged. "You're not done. You didn't—"

She hesitated, aware that something was wrong, very wrong. "What is it?"

Jack shook his head and brushed her hand away. "It's all right," he tried to explain. He didn't know what to say to her now. He didn't know how to tell her it was all over, that this was as good as it got for him. "It's all right. "

He'd meant to ward her off, but she wouldn't let him.

"No, it's
not
all right." She sprang up, taking him in her hands. Her mouth was wet and sweet, all over him, giving him so much pleasure, so much pain. He'd had a taste, but he couldn't have any more, not even with her. He'd thought it might be different this time. He'd wanted it to be, and now she was stroking him like an angel, making his need so intense.

"For chrissake, Gus, stop it!" He took her by the shoulder, handling her more roughly this time. With a quick, warning glare, he thrust her away from him.

She huddled in the corner of the shower, bewildered, tears welling in her lower lashes. And suddenly he could see the real Gus Featherstone so clearly. It was right there in her violet eyes, all the things she didn't want the world to see—that she was vulnerable, that she didn't believe anyone could ever love her, and she would damn well prove it to anyone who tried. He saw all that in her tears, and this time he was touched.

Jack couldn't quite remember the line, but he knew the concept. It was something about beating your head against a wall because it felt so damn good when you stopped. It was a grim comment on the condition he was in that head-beating sounded vastly preferable to the low, deep, interminable throb in his groin.

He was stretched out on the floor in his usual pose, head cradled in his arms, his body engulfed in blue and gray as the last of the day's sunlight faded from the room. Across from him on the cot, Gus slept soundly, oblivious to his presence, but that hadn't been the case earlier. She'd been compressed like an accordion folder when he came out of the shower, her arms hugging her drawn-up legs, her chin resting on her knees.

He'd thought it was safe until she looked up at him, questions burning through the hurt in her eyes. Without a word he'd thrown some clothes on his back, jammed the Magnum in the waistband of his jeans, and left the cabin, determined not to give her any openings. Better the kiln furnace than a grilling on his sex life by Gus Featherstone. She would have badgered him mercilessly until she had the answers she
thought
she wanted.

She'd probably taken it personally that he'd thrown her out of the shower. He might have tried to reassure her on that score if she'd been a little less singleminded about things. He had a natural antenna for detecting drive in others. It was part and parcel of surviving in the jungle. A determined enemy was a deadly weapon. Since meeting Gus he'd added another coefficient to the equation. There were the tenacious types, who hung in there quietly, biding their time; there were the pit bulls, who went right for the throat; and then there was Gus, who'd undoubtedly trained under Margaret Thatcher. The woman could turn it on.

When he'd left the shack, he'd headed straight for the Blazer to use the car phone and to hear the status of the kidnapping on the news. But all he'd managed to do was get a message through to his contact about the change in destination before everything had gone dead, the car phone, the radio, and the car itself. He had no way of knowing whether the information had been relayed to the anonymous party who set up the kidnapping. The car battery had dried up like a raisin in the sun, and the closest source of water had been back where he'd come from, the shack.

He used the return trip to plan his next move, and it took him all of five minutes to figure out that he had to get rid of Gus Featherstone as soon as possible. She'd already given him all the information he was going to get without alerting her to his plans, but that was only one reason to move quickly. In less than twenty-four hours she'd undermined five years of effort and a lifetime of training with one incredible pair of breasts. If somebody didn't show up to take her off his hands—and goddamn soon—she was going to subvert his entire mission.

Those who operated in covert circles, whether legal or not, lived by several axiomatic laws of survival. The first was a code of emotional detachment. Emotion made you sloppy. It got you killed. Every spook knew that, even the bad ones. The good ones followed a precise set of rules designed to keep them alert and alive:
Don't get involved, don't make any exceptions to your normal procedures, give away nothing, and always let your opponents think they have the advantage.

It wasn't written anywhere in the Annals of Correct Espionage, but Jack was about to add another one: For fuck's sake,
never
have sex with a hostage who clicks her fingernails against her teeth.

When he'd returned to the shack, he'd found her sound asleep in nearly the position he'd left her. She was lying on her side, all tucked up, as if she'd simply fallen asleep that way and tipped over. It pleased him that he hadn't been bothered by how forlorn and miserable she. looked. It pleased him a lot.

He'd been told someone would show up with the money within twenty-four hours. It was getting closer to thirty-six hours now, and the longer he waited the more wary he got. Whoever said crime didn't pay was either criminally stupid or a politician, which was pretty much the same thing these days. It did pay, but Jack had spent enough time on both sides of the law to know the hazards. Any deviation from the game plan was dangerous, and there had been two already. The odds were mounting against him.

He closed his eyes and the throb in his jeans intensified. Each aching pulse squeezed like a heartbeat. He could have counted them. There was no wind tonight, no relief, and the air was so heavy with heat it felt like a second layer of clothing on his body. It was quiet, too. He could hear the rustle of displaced gravel outside the window as some night stalker, probably a kit fox, honed in on its dinner, its huge satellite-disk ears tuned up for sound.

He rolled to his side and cradled his head in his arm— not a good position for defending himself, but it was the only way he was going to get any sleep. At least the shack was secure. The sensors had been rearmed, so he'd be alerted when someone arrived,
if
they arrived. If they didn't, he would have to come up with an alternative plan. His chest tightened as he realized how extreme that plan might have to be. He hadn't done anything that involved wet work in years, but that could change very soon. She could ID him. Christ, she'd not only seen his face, she'd left teeth marks on his butt!

His stomach jerked, but it wasn't with laughter. The sound that hissed through his clenched jaw was cold. For her sake he hoped the party that wanted her kidnapped showed up. The laws of survival said she was too great a liability to set loose. He'd already made two exceptions. He couldn't make a third.

Jack fell asleep to the deep silence of the desert night.

He awoke to the thunder of a gun being cocked.

His gun? No, the barrel of the Magnum was still pressed tightly against his gut. Whoever he'd been waiting for had arrived, and somehow they'd breached his security measures, which was damn near impossible.

Jack didn't move. He didn't even allow the rhythm of his breathing to change as he tried to gauge the person's whereabouts. He was dealing with a pro.

"Freeze,"
a male voice whispered from just in front of him. "If you fucking breathe, there'll be a bloodbath. "

Jack opened his eyes to the blinding spot of a flashlight. To do anything else would have invited a blow or a bullet.

"Roll over on your back and spread-eagle, " the intruder ordered. "Do it!"

Again, Jack complied. The object was to get to look at his assailant, mentally voiceprint him, not to take him down.
The object was to know what you were up against.
Jack's gut jerked as he was relieved of his weapon. The flashlight bobbed, but not enough for him to see anything clearly.

"Why in hell didn't you take her where you were told to?" the intruder demanded, cold fury in his voice.

Inexplicably the flashlight clicked off. Moonlight glinted against the gun barrel, and Jack realized it was gleaming in his face, not six inches from the bridge of his nose. He acknowledged two things immediately. The man was enraged, which was sloppy, but he knew the most effective place to put a bullet, which wasn't. Right through the brain.

Jack shifted slightly, preparing to use the only weapon he had under the circumstances, his legs.

"Don't move!"

The gun barrel struck out, slamming into Jack's forehead. Pain streaked through his eyes, blinding them for an instant as he fought to bring his assailant into focus. He'd come close enough for Jack to get a look at him. He was masked, and there wasn't enough light to see hair or eye color, but Jack had seen a dark spot alongside his eyebrow. A mole? A scar?

"I'd love to kill you," the intruder breathed harshly. "Give me a reason. Blink. "

Something landed on the table. It clinked like a sack of money, like heavy metal coins.

"That's your payoff," he informed Jack. "In gold bullion, just the way you wanted it. Now, let me leave you with a word of advice. If you talk to anyone about this gig, if you even breathe Gus Featherstone's name, to anyone, especially the scumbag who contacted you, you're as good as dead. And I'll do it myself, do you hear me?
I'll fucking
kill you myself. "

The intruder squeezed off a round and blasted a hole through the floor next to Jack's ear. The report slammed through Jack's head, jarring the delicate bones of his eardrum and rattling his teeth. The flaring pain sparked an impulse as savage as anything he'd ever felt. He wanted to annihilate the bastard, tear him limb from limb.

Rage shook through him, but he quickly squelched it as the intruder backed to the door, his gun still trained on Jack's skull. Jack glanced around the shack and saw that she was already gone. Gus was gone. They'd taken her.

An engine was running out front. He heard it for the first time, but it must have been idling there all along, the getaway car. As the intruder disappeared through the door, Jack sprang to his feet and sprinted after him. He reached the door just in time to see an off-the-road vehicle pull away, spewing out sand in a huge, choking roostertail.

He spun around, knowing there was nothing he could do, nothing he should do. He'd been paid to kidnap her and keep her hidden until someone showed up to take her. They'd taken her. It was all over. He'd been hired to do a job, and he'd done it, even if they didn't like the way he'd done it.

His duffel bag lay on the floor next to the table.

He knelt and fished out the briefcase. He wanted to know how the hell the intruder had gotten past his safeguards, and he had his answer the moment he lifted the computer lid. The system was turned off. He'd rearmed it with the remote after she'd silenced the alarms, so there was only one explanation. The remote must have been broken in the fall.

He slammed the lid in a rage of frustration.

The soft leather satchel the intruder had tossed on the table had nearly displaced the castle Jack whittled. His creation was teetering on the rim, ready to fall, but Jack was barely aware of it. He rose and opened the satchel, wondering how badly they'd ripped him off. To his surprise, there was nearly double the amount he'd been promised. Clearly he was being paid to keep his mouth shut, which was almost funny. What did they think he was going to do, go to the cops and report that someone had abducted the woman he'd kidnapped?

He stepped away from the table, resisting the impulse to upend the damn thing. He ought to have been down on his knees praising God that it was over, he told himself. He had enough information to move to the next step in his plan, he had the money, and he had Gus Featherstone out of his hair. That was a reason to celebrate right there.

He spun around again, searching the empty shack, anger steaming through him. Who the fuck was the asshole who'd come after her? And why did he care?

The castle glowed like an ivory shrine in the moonlight. It was breathtakingly beautiful, breathtakingly fragile, every sliver of wood so painstakingly placed. With two swift steps Jack bore down on the thing and smashed it to pieces with his fist.

Chapter 10

Jack Culhane was blessed with a dark talent for precision and timing. He came by it naturally. From as early as he could remember he'd been handy with things mechanical and electrical. While in grade school he'd designed his own voice-controlled robot and wired his bedroom against intruders, nearly electrocuting his unsuspecting mother on more than one occasion.