Heat Seeker (42 page)

He’d buried one hand in her hair, holding her head to his shoulder as he poured himself inside the tight grip of her pussy.

“I want to hold on to you forever,” she sobbed against his shoulder. “Don’t let go of me, John. Not yet.”

“I have you, baby,” he whispered, holding her closer, trying to bring her body fully into his. “I have you. Right here.”

She stared up at him, her beautiful green eyes dark with satisfaction and the edges of pain.

“It’s going to be over soon,” she said softly against his shoulder. “Warbucks will be neutralized, the missiles will be safe, and it will all be over.”

And he could hear the hollow pain in her voice that they would be over as well. He wouldn’t let it happen. He couldn’t let it happen, and Jordan would have to understand that. There came a time when a man had to accept where his priorities lay. His were with Bailey. They should have been with Bailey all along. Vengeance was nothing compared with the hell he had faced without her.

Everything wasn’t going to be over, though. He would make sure of it.
They
weren’t going to be over. He wasn’t letting her go. But first, he had to face Jordan. There was always the chance that Jordan could just have him canceled. It was in his contract, after all. The warning that ignoring or disobeying orders could result in a silent order to terminate.

Not that he thought Jordan would do it. But he owed it to Bailey to know exactly what they were going to be facing before he broached the subject with her.

It would mean a lot of trust from her; it would require a lot of trust from the other team members to bring her in.

She would love it, though. Bailey was a damned good agent. Too good to just quit.

“I think I’m hungry,” she said softly into the silence as she sat up and pushed her hair back from her face before looking down at him. “What about you?”

“We missed dinner.” He turned and glanced at the clock on the bedside table. “And your friends are getting worried
about you. The story is that you fell in the gardens and cut your arm. You’ve been recuperating.”

“I’m surprised you’ve kept them out of our bedroom.” She laughed, a low sweet sound that wrapped around his heart.

He grinned back at her, then grimaced as his cell phone rang. Picking up the device, he flipped it open. “Vincent.”

“I’m coming back in,” Travis told him quietly. “I’m about five minutes from the cabin.”

“We’ll be ready.” He jumped from the bed as he disconnected and turned back to Bailey. “Get dressed, Travis is on his way in.”

She breathed in roughly. “Does he know who hired Alberto?”

He shook his head. “He won’t report until he can do it securely.”

He moved to help her from the bed, then stepped back at her playful glare. “I can still walk, John.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m not exactly an invalid from that little scratch.”

“Give me a few years to get over the sight of that bastard ready to slice your head from your shoulders,” he bit out, his voice rough as the image of it rose in front of his mind again. “That wasn’t one of my better days, Bailey.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t rate it very high either, John. But see, I’m just fine.” She spread her arms away from her luscious body as he felt his balls tighten in an impending erection.

“You look fine as rain, baby.” He sighed with the knowledge that he couldn’t have her again, not yet. “But if you don’t get dressed, Travis is going to end up seeing just how fine you really are, because I’m going to have you flat on your back again.”

That brought a smile to her face, but the quiet, somber intensity in her eyes was still present.

BAILEY PULLED ON JEANS,
a sweater, and thick socks. She was leaving the bathroom when Travis’s quiet knock heralded his return to the mansion.

Opening the door, John let him in as Bailey turned on the white-noise generator and poured them all a cup of coffee.

“Thank you.” Travis accepted the cup as he sat at the small table on the other side of the room, farthest from the door.

Taking the other two cups, John moved to the table to join him as Bailey trailed behind him.

“We interrogated Rodriquez,” Travis said softly. “He didn’t have a lot of information, though. He was contacted anonymously. The money was deposited electronically into his account and he was given your identity. All he knows is that whoever hired him informed him that they would be at the party and they would know if he actually succeeded in earning the money.”

“I guess it was too much to hope that whoever hired him would get stupid, just once,” Bailey stated in disgust.

“The men here aren’t stupid, and neither are the women,” Travis mused. “They can get careless, though, as can their security personnel. I’ll see what I can find out from there in the next few days.” He looked at John. “The boss is getting concerned. It seems the CIA is making noise about investigating Warbucks again. They caught a hint of this sale. So far he’s managed to keep them off track, but that won’t last long.”

“It’s likely not working at all,” Bailey told them. “The men here aren’t the only smart ones. The agency wants Warbucks, and they want him alive.”

“Too bad,” John murmured as he turned back to Travis.

“Rodriquez didn’t survive interrogation,” Travis said, keeping his voice quiet. “His body will be left where local law enforcement can find it in a few days. He didn’t suffer greatly. He just didn’t survive.”

Bailey knew what Travis wasn’t saying. Rodriquez had been executed. When his body was found that would be apparent, and it would fit with his history. There would be no investigation outside the team Travis and John worked with.

“I’ve suggested Warbucks may have been behind it,” John warned Travis. “As I expressed to Raymond Greer, a
goodwill gesture, if he wasn’t involved, may be appropriate.”

There was that look again. As though they were keeping something from her that they knew they shouldn’t be.

“What’s going on with Raymond?” She lowered her voice to a breath of sound as that mental note kicked in. “And don’t bother telling me nothing.”

Travis and John shared “the look” again. It was beginning to get on her nerves.

“If the two of you didn’t want to tell me, then you’d better watch your expressions,” she stated irritably. “Spit it out now and get it over with, if you don’t mind.”

Travis glanced at her with a brooding look as John breathed out heavily.

“Not yet.” His voice was a breath of sound. “We’re not safe enough. Not yet.”

She wanted to kick both of them. “Whatever.” She rose from her chair, finished with the conversation now. She had her own suspicions, suspicions she wanted to reject simply because she detested Raymond Greer so thoroughly. But she had to admit that she detested a lot of the men she’d worked with.

If Raymond had been setting himself up to move into Warbucks’s sphere, then his attitude would make perfect sense. It would also explain his sincere affection for his wife, which she would have never believed if she hadn’t seen for herself.

She grimaced at the thought. She didn’t want to suspect what she was starting to suspect. It meant she was going to have to change her perceptions, and she really didn’t like doing that.

Turning back to both of them, she considered them with a narrow frown before mouthing, “Raymond’s covert.”

John glanced at Travis, then to her, and nodded sharply.

Fuck. Dammit.

She stomped her foot against the rug before kicking out a pillow that had lain forgotten in the floor. With her good
arm she swept the blankets off the bed, kicked them, and cursed silently again before turning on the two men again.

She didn’t want to believe it, she really didn’t. She detested Raymond. Arrogant. Superior. Conceited. The man was an asshole. He couldn’t be a good guy. She wouldn’t allow it. She didn’t want to accept it even as she knew she was going to be forced to.

She’d spent years investigating Raymond, so she knew his cover was damned deep. That took careful planning. It took an agent setting himself up, effectively going rogue, and aligning himself with a backup team no one would suspect.

John’s team.

She glared at him. Her teeth clenched until she was afraid she was going to crack her own molars.

“I hate him,” she mouthed.

John’s lips tightened as he fought back the grin that she knew wanted to shape his lips. Travis’s head ducked as he hid his amusement. He was a hell of a lot smarter than John.

And they were keeping her blind. They had held this information back, giving those damned silent signals and making her figure this out on her own. They could have just told her.

Raymond’s cover was sensitive, though, she knew that. If he was covert here, they couldn’t take the chance that even a breath of it reached Warbucks. They could cover their own conversations, they could hide their true purpose beneath a million excuses. But an explanation of Raymond’s position couldn’t have been covered or excused.

She pushed her hair back from her face, almost wincing at the pain that sliced through her upper arm.

She hated this, she really did. She had actually plotted and planned Greer’s death with great precision and pleasure. Backpedaling from that mind-set was not going to be fun.

“Assholes,” she muttered before picking up the blankets and pillows and tossing them back on the bed.

Both men were so obviously holding back their amusement that she could have shot them both.

Now she had to do some serious rethinking about a man she completely hated.

She blamed John for that. It was going to be all his fault until hell froze over.

As she stomped over to the coffeepot, a firm knock sounded on the door. She wanted to groan at the thought of yet more surprises coming her way.

Rising quickly to his feet, Travis took his coffee cup and retreated to the connecting room as John moved to the door and opened it carefully.

“Mr. Vincent.” Myron stood on the other side of the panel. “A moment of your time, if I may?”

John stepped back as Myron moved past him, his gaze raking over the room before taking in the state of the blankets. Bailey glanced at them, let her lips twitch, then turned back to Myron. It looked as though they had been playing in the bed. Well, actually, they had been.

“How can I help you, Myron?” John closed the door behind him and moved to the wet bar at the side. “A drink?”

“No thank you,” Myron said politely as he stepped over to the seating area. “Could we sit, please?”

Moving to Bailey, John settled a hand at her back as he led her to the love seat across from the chair Myron had taken.

“You’re doing well?” Myron asked her as she and John sat down.

“I’m better.” She nodded, keeping her expression calm.

“Good. Good.” He rubbed his hands together as he leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. “I’d first like to extend Warbucks’s apology for the attack. We’re not exactly certain who ordered it, but we’re tracking the money sent to Rodriquez’s account. We should have answers soon.”

“I’m tracking the information as well,” John informed him. “I have my own sources.”

Myron nodded. “I expected as much. Warbucks has asked that you allow him the pleasure of taking care of this for you, though. He has, over the years, taken extreme measures to protect Bailey from any danger. It disturbs him greatly to
believe that one of our own, more or less, would strike out at her for any reason. This society polices itself when possible. Warbucks will police this issue.”

Bailey was aware of John staring back at Myron for long, tense moments before replying. “If he can produce results,” John finally said, shrugging. “If he doesn’t, then I’ll take care of it myself.”

“Good enough.” Myron sat back in his chair and stared at them for long, silent moments before continuing. “I always knew I liked you for a reason, Bailey,” he finally stated. “Over the years you’ve surprised me more than once with the operations you’ve covered for Warbucks. You knew he was part of your extended family. How?”

Her brow arched. “Really, Myron, it wasn’t that hard. The thefts were connected too many times and in too many ways back home. There was no mistaking it, if you grew up surrounded by certain men and their idiosyncrasies.”

“Yet you haven’t identified him,” Myron stated.

“I tried not to get too involved,” she answered. “I knew who I suspected, just as I knew how dangerous he could be. If he wanted me to know who he was, he would have told me.”

Myron nodded slowly. “Yes, you were always very cautious as a child as well. Curious, inquisitive. But cautious. That very much suits your personality.”

He seemed subdued, Bailey thought. She had never seen him this quiet or hesitant in anything.

“Warbucks has built his persona carefully,” Myron went on. “He built it by ensuring that only one person knew who he was. It was the only way to be certain. That person is myself. Even Raymond has no idea of his identity.”

John shifted beside her. “That can’t continue, Myron.” He voiced the warning softly. “Warbucks’s deals are growing. He’s not going to get the price he’s demanding for his acquisitions without a level of trust. The only way to succeed in that would be in using you as a broker rather than hiring it out.”