Heat Seeker (27 page)

“Catalina and Jerric haven’t been an item several times,” Bailey said with a shrug. “Catalina still cut off a woman’s earlobe for allowing him to whisper in it. She’s sworn she’d never let him go short of death and he has yet to kill her. That means they’re still an item.” She rose to her feet and stared at John, then Tehya. “I wonder how
Jerric’s
new wife feels about his new lover?”

She turned to head for the shower when John caught her arm, pulling her to a stop. “Meaning?” he growled, his voice dark, warning.

Bailey widened her eyes innocently. “Oh, do I have my information wrong?” “Jerric isn’t married? How bad of me.” She shook his hold loose. “Excuse me while I go shower. This game makes me feel dirty all of a sudden.”

John watched as she stalked through the bedroom and into the shower before he turned and stared back at Tehya.

Tehya sighed. “It’s a good thing Risa trusts Micah and likes me, huh? Otherwise, we’d be having problems with this mission.”

John pushed his fingers through his hair wearily. “She knows who Jerric is. I don’t have a doubt in my mind that she’s also piecing together other bits of information we don’t want her to know.”

Teyha shrugged. “She
thinks
she knows, John. Without proof or someone to verify it, then she’s still in the dark.” She gave him a warning look. “Just make certain you aren’t the one providing the proof.”

John shook his head as a mocking smile crossed his lips. “Jordan thinks he can control this, doesn’t he?”

Tehya rolled her eyes. “Jordan thinks he can control many things. Whether or not he can is another thing.” She glanced around the room, her expression sobering as a hint of wariness crossed her face. “I’d better go. I have to at least pretend to be Jerric’s mistress. Do you have any idea what a bitch he can be when it comes to working with a woman? You’d think he’s possessed by his wife rather than married to her.”

“He’s possessed by his love for her,” John said quietly. “There’s a difference.”

“He’s still a bitch to work with.” She shrugged. “I’ll keep you up to date on Alberto, and you keep an eye on her.”

“I have her back,” he stated as he moved to the bedroom door. “Do you have a viable cover for being in our room?”

A faint grin touched her lips. “Several people heard Jerric more or less order me to come here and attempt to negotiate with you to drop out of the running. Simple business transaction.”

He nodded at that and opened the door, aware that the cameras aimed at the hallway would monitor her exit from the room.

Bailey was getting fed up with the lies, he could see it in her expression, sense it in the tension that was tightening
within her day by day. Bailey didn’t suspect anything. Hell, no. She knew . . .

Running his fingers through his hair, John moved to the door, turned the knob easily and stepped into the steamy confines of the bathroom before closing the door behind him.

He could see her through the glass shower doors, her head braced against the tile wall, her shoulders hunched against the anger. The knowledge. And the pain.

This was destroying her, it was destroying him to watch her hurt like this. Like a beast digging in sharpened claws, the knowledge that the end was coming soon tore at both of them.

Shedding his clothes, he moved to the shower, slid open the doors, and watched as her head jerked up.

John saw the betrayal in her eyes, the fear, the need to know that something, just one thing in her life was a constant. That it was real.

“Come here.” He pulled her into his arms despite her attempt to turn away from him. “Come here, baby. I have you.”

He felt the sob that racked her body as he closed his arms around her, and felt the feminine need for comfort, for security, that she so rarely showed.

Bailey was used to dealing with everything on her own. She wasn’t used to sharing her pain or leaning on anyone. Right now he needed her to lean on him. He needed to protect her against something, he needed a dragon to slay for her, because God knew he couldn’t find a way to slay the situation they were in, or the lies he was forced to live.

He cupped the back of her head and stared across her head, feeling the anger rise inside him that she had to hurt this way.

He kissed her forehead, beside her eye.

She shook her head. “I hate the lies, John.”

She stared up at him, anger vibrating in every line of her body. “I know you’re lying to me. I know Jerric is a lie, just as I know Travis Caine is one. I know it. And I still have to allow it to continue. I hate it.”

Bailey knew how to lie. She knew how to deceive in her job. If there was one thing he knew about her though, it was that outside that job, Bailey was as honest as the day could be long.

This was tearing them both apart.

“There are lies we have to live, for one reason or another,” he said. “That still doesn’t mean the reality is what we want it to be.”

He couldn’t tell her the truth. God knew he wanted to. He needed to. But right now the truth would be more dangerous to her than the lie was painful.

“I’ll end up hating you,” she whispered fiercely.

“And I’ll always dream of you,” he sighed as he lowered his lips to hers.

His hard shaft pressed against her belly, though it was a need he could control now. He needed to comfort her just as much as he needed to love her.

“Did I ever stop dreaming of you?” She cried softly as she melted against him.

He ran his hands down her back, holding her close to him as he felt her hands stroking around his back, her sharp little nails probing at his flesh with slow, sensual rasps.

He could feel the heated hunger rising inside her now. It was there in the prick of her nails, in the feel of her hot tongue licking against his chest.

Oh yeah, he liked that. His hand cupped the back of her head as he lifted his face and blinked against the water flowing around them.

“I need you.” The sound of her whisper against his flesh tore through his senses. “I need all of you, John. Everything. Just this once.”

Just this once, and she wanted things he was sworn not to give her. Things he knew better than to give her—and yet he knew he would.

Simply because she asked for it, because she needed it. Because she was immersed in a world that he could see was destroying her.

“You have me, love.” He kept his voice low, let the Australian
flavor of his natural accent free, and gave her all of him.

He stared down at her as her head lifted, her eyes filling with tears, her lips shaking as she parted them to speak.

He couldn’t let her speak. He couldn’t let his soul break apart any more than it already was for her. His head lowered and he stole the words in a kiss that immediately sparked a conflagration of heat.

Her hands buried in his hair, fisted in it, and tried to pull him closer as he cupped the rounded globes of her rear and lifted her closer.

Her legs twined around his hips, her ankles crossing at the back as he braced her against the wall and stared into her exquisite, hungry expression.

“I remember, love,” he whispered as a soft sob tore from her lips. “I remember every touch, every kiss. I remember you like a dream that saves my soul.”

Her head rolled against the shower wall as her hips lifted against him, rubbing the slick folds against the head of his cock.

The sensation was sharp, fiery. Like a thousand pinpoints of pleasure racing over the hardened crest. He felt the silken folds of her pussy part for him, felt the heat of her as he nudged inside.

Snug, clenching tissue surrounded the tip of his cock as he fought to breathe through the pleasure. Being with her like this, holding her, feeling her acceptance of him tore through his senses like wildfire.

“Hold on to me, babe.” His voice was thick with passion, with an accent he’d sworn he’d never use again.

She needed all of him, he would give her all of him.

Pressing inside her, he worked the hard flesh of his cock deep as he held her gaze. Heavy-lidded and intense, her emerald eyes glittered as water condensed on her lashes.

“We’ll never speak of this again,” he insisted roughly, his own heart breaking as her eyes filled with tears again. “Tonight, Bailey. Just tonight, we forget where we are, who we have to be. Just for tonight.”

“Just for tonight,” she agreed, her voice filled with tears. “Just for tonight.”

Gripping her rear tighter he lifted her to him, braced his feet against the shower floor, and began to lower her again. Each blistering inch of velvety female flesh that gripped him sent a lance of sensation tearing into his chest.

As though she were firing barbs into his heart, tying her to him forever in ways that she hadn’t already.

How could one woman have such a disastrous effect on a man?

How could one woman fill so much of a man’s soul, even as he knew that the day could come when he would lose her?

He was risking everything for her. To give her this one night. To give her a few moments of comfort that would eventually do more harm than it could ever do good.

But he couldn’t resist her. He couldn’t resist the need, the hunger, or the plea she had whispered.

She had known, in her heart, in her woman’s soul, she had always known who he was, what he was, and what he was to her. There was no denying it any longer, just as there was no denying the need clawing at his balls.

Hips straining, he thrust deeper inside her, feeling her clench and tighten around him as a muted cry fell from her lips.

“I dreamed of this,” she whispered on a sob as she buried her lips against his neck. “I dreamed of you touching me, holding me again. Loving me. Love me, Trent. One more time.”

Trent. The forbidden name, a man who was dead, the man who had claimed his woman so many years before and had never been able to let her go.

“Shhh.” He breathed the shushing little sound against her ear as he pressed deeper and deeper inside her. Taking her by increments until he was lodged to the hilt, stretching her, feeling the erotic bite of muscles that were stretched to their limit.

The feel of her was like heat and lightning surrounding his dick. It was the most erotic, most sensual sensation of his
life. The feel of Bailey taking him, loving him, each feminine clench of her sheath rippling over the too-sensitive flesh.

“I can’t wait,” he groaned as he tried to hold still inside her, tried to hold on to the sensation of her clenching and stroking his cock with delicate internal muscles.

It was a sensation unlike any he had ever known, even with other women. Women he had cared for, had at times perhaps even loved. Still, none could compare to taking Bailey naked, without a condom, with nothing separating their flesh, nothing standing between them physically, or emotionally.

In that moment, with the water pouring around them, he could touch her heart, her soul. Just as she touched his.

“God help me, I love fucking you,” he groaned, watching as a flush worked over her face and her eyes darkened in arousal.

Around his cock he felt her pussy convulse, felt her heated juices pressing around his engorged flesh.

“Fuck me some more,” she whimpered.

His hips jerked involuntary, thrusting against her, lodging his shaft deeper inside her as they both groaned with the gathering firestorm of sensations.

It was going to blow his mind, taking her like this. When they were finished he would drown beneath the spray of water because he’d be too damned weak to push himself from it.

Bracing her more firmly against the wall, his hips moved. He pulled back, swallowing tightly at the feel of her pussy gripping him, trying to suck him back in as he forced himself to withdraw all but the engorged crest. Breathing in deep, he fought for control. Staring into her heavy-lidded eyes, he lost it as her grip tightened, rippled and she moved, driving him inside her once again.

He couldn’t hold back. There was no way to recapture his control after it splintered, no way to halt the tide that rose inside him, spurred him, demanded that he take all she had to give. That he give everything that she demanded of him.

Moaning her name, he braced one hand against the shower wall and held her to him with the other wall. His hips thrust and churned, shafting inside her with hard, brutally exquisite thrusts that had them both panting, fighting to hold back, to hold off a release that he knew would drain him not just physically, but emotionally.

He wanted it to last forever. He wanted to hold himself inside her until the world itself disappeared and there was nothing but the man and the woman, hearts pounding, souls merging. Until nothing mattered but the pleasure, and the pain washed away with the water pouring around them.

“I love you. Oh God, Trent. Trent. I love you so much.”

His name on her lips sent a shaft of ecstasy tearing through his testicles as he groaned in near rapture.

“I love you, babe.” Thick and heavy, the rough drawl of Australia in his voice whispered around them, bringing back a past neither of them had been able to forget.

As the words whispered past his lips, he felt her lose control. A low, fierce tremor began in her hips where his arm braced her to him. That tremor built, grew in intensity as it raced through her pussy, worked over his cock, and tore through her senses.