Hidden Impact (16 page)

She gasped as the heat of his mouth closed over one nipple, and clutched his shoulders for balance as he sucked. Distracted, she didn’t resist as he pressed her backward onto the bed. He took a moment to give similar attention to her other nipple until she was squirming underneath him.

“Easy.” He murmured the word against her skin, then kissed his way down her navel. As he unbuttoned her pants and hooked his fingers over the waistband of both pants and panties, he looked up the length of her. “Are you wet for me?”

She swallowed, caught up in desire and aching. If he didn’t ease the need soon, she’d go insane. “Yes.”

He grinned, sliding her pants and underwear off in one smooth motion. “Good.”

His big hands parted her legs and gripped the inside of her thighs, holding her open for his pleasure. He never broke their eye contact, even as he leaned down and blew a puff of hot air over her tortured flesh. He hadn’t even touched her yet and she quivered for him.

Suddenly, he dragged his tongue through her folds and she cried out, tossing her head back as the sensation shot through her. His hands shifted to cup her bottom, lifting her hips as he feasted on her. All she could do was grab the bedsheets in her fists and writhe as he sucked, licked, even nipped.

“You taste so good.” He didn’t let up his onslaught, darting his tongue into her opening. “Sweet.”

Her body tightened and she moaned. His tongue flicked against her clit and she bucked. Couldn’t help it.

He chuckled. “Oh, you’re close, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes.”

Letting her hips back down, he continued to lick and kiss and swirl his tongue while his hands ran up and down the backs of her thighs. She reached down and grasped his head, holding on as the sensations built more and more. He penetrated her with a finger. Each stroke drove her closer to the edge.

But she wanted more. Something more than one or the other of them finding release.

“Wait.” She pulled on his head, made him look back up at her. “Wait. I want you inside me.”

He paused. The storm in his eyes rocked her to the core.

“Please. Come with me.” This time it was important to her. She didn’t think about why, just that it was.

He rose up and fished in his discarded pants pockets, coming up with a condom. Without taking his gaze off her, he freed it from its wrapping and rolled it over the length of him. When he climbed back onto the bed, he stopped to kiss her breasts before covering her. She parted her legs, shifting her hips to help him until the head of his cock nudged at her entrance.

For a long heartbeat he held himself poised over her. Then his mouth came down on hers hard and demanding as he slid inside her, stretching and filling. She moaned into his mouth, reaching up to grasp his shoulders.

He kept on kissing her as he rocked his hips into her. Every stroke drew a moan or a cry from her and he swallowed all of them as his tongue danced with hers. Wild wasn’t the word for it. She was lost in him.

“Maylin.” He uttered her name and she tightened hearing it.

He groaned. Then he leaned back just long enough to hook an arm under her right leg, bringing it up high and opening her wider. Every thrust went deeper, stroking different places inside her until she felt herself climbing back to the edge of climax.

All she could do was hold on. “Yes, Gabe, this. Please!”

A guttural sound rolled up out of him, something between a growl and a sound even more primal. He drove into her and they both went over the edge together. Her orgasm gripping her entire body as pleasure rushed over her mind in a tidal wave.

Awareness came back to her slowly. He’d let himself down on top of her and she savored the weight of him, reaching to run her hands over his back and shoulders.

He nuzzled her neck. “I can’t resist you when you ask all nice like that.”

“Nice?” She squirmed under him until she could angle her head to look into his face. “More like begging.”

And wasn’t that embarrassing?

He must have seen the flush rise up on her cheeks. Concern in his eyes, he propped himself up on his elbows so they could look at each other without craning necks. “Hey. It
was
nice. And I like when you tell me what you want. Please keep telling me. Okay?”

He was so earnest, so sincere, she couldn’t help but absorb his words. Biting her lip, she nodded. The embarrassment receded gradually.

He kissed the bridge of her nose. “Good.”

Since he was leaning over her she indulged herself, running her hands over his chest and torso.

“Aw, you are too tempting.” He lowered himself down on her for a long kiss with a fair amount of caressing and hip grinding. She might have been guilty of some groping. Okay, a lot of groping. “Minx.”

“What?” She nipped at his earlobe. “I can’t help it. You’re I don’t know how many pounds of delicious muscular ubergorgeousness.”

Now she was making up words.

He chuffed out a laugh. “And you are definitely starting to fall asleep. You just don’t know it yet. Wait right here.”

She almost protested when he rolled off her, but he was back in record time with a damp washcloth. Cleaning up a little was a good idea, and then he climbed back into bed and tucked her against his side. “Nap.”

“Is that an order?” She said it lightly but she had to admit, it was a good idea. Exhaustion had snuck up on her and sleep was dragging her under faster than she’d anticipated.

He nuzzled her hair. “I’m here. You’re safe. Rest. Then we’ll take on whatever comes next.”

Snuggling in the circle of his arms, she let go and fell into sleep.

Chapter Fifteen

“So. Your car is still on the side of the road.” Lizzy was sitting at the breakfast counter when they returned to the main house.

The dark-haired woman lifted her chin at Gabe in welcome and gave Maylin a smile.

Warmed, Maylin returned it with one of her own. “Hungry? I was about to make up dinner for us.”

Lizzy peered down into her plastic cup. A metal ball inside clunked against the side. “Normally protein shakes are fine for me around dinner time, but I’m game for real food.”

“It’ll only take twenty minutes,” Maylin promised as she reached the refrigerator.

Someone had stocked it with a few more fresh ingredients. Plus the freezer had a few surprises too. She wondered if the Centurions might be hopeful she’d do more cooking to calm her mind.

Glad to.

“Need help?” Gabe stood at her shoulder.

She handed him a box of frozen shrimp, easy peel kind. “Could you dump some of these into a bowl of cold water? It has to be cold to defrost properly. Warm will spoil the shrimp. Figure about four or five for each of us. Oh, and could you start the rice cooker with about one measuring cup of uncooked rice? There should be a cup for the rice cooker, not a standard measuring cup.”

There was a beat of hesitation and then he took them from her, dropping a kiss on her cheek before turning toward the sinks. “Really glad you’ll let me help.”

Maylin paused. Blinked. When was the last time she’d let anyone help her cook in a kitchen? She couldn’t remember. Usually if they were catering, she’d assign simple dishes to the staff but did special dishes on her own. Declining help.

Trying not to ruin it by thinking too hard, she nabbed the carton of eggs from the refrigerator and bustled over to the counter, peeking into the cupboards to see if someone had stocked them with a few basics.

“Car is still burning itself out?” Gabe asked Lizzy as the sound of running water started.

“For the time being. Authorities will probably wait until danger of fire is gone before letting their investigative teams near it.” Lizzy snorted. “I pulled the remnants of both your bags out of the trunk to avoid identification, but none of it was worth saving. Too much damage.”

“Interior?”

Lizzy shook her head. “Too hot and too much fire and smoke damage. No way is a forensics team going to lift prints out of the interior.”

Maylin looked up from her mixing bowl. “You make it sound all sorts of easy. Like the car couldn’t explode more.”

Was that even a thing that could happen? It seemed like it could. Lizzy had taken an extreme risk going anywhere near the thing and she made it sound like no big deal.

Fear squeezed her chest at even the thought, so she walked over to the sink to splash water from the tap into her bowl of flour, corn starch and baking soda, then started beating the contents hard. Taking her worry out on the mixture until it became a thin batter seemed like a practical thing to do.

“They’re not going to blow up the car after we’ve left it behind,” Gabe stated, his gaze focused on the bowl tucked into the crook of her arm.

She set it down with an audible thump and cracked an egg, carefully separating the egg white into her batter and tossing the yolk and shell into the garbage disposal. “How do you know?”

Picking up the bowl, she resumed her beating. Earlier in the day, being yanked out of the car and running for the woods counted as the strongest fright she’d experienced in her life. Mostly because Gabe had been scared. And she couldn’t imagine much he’d be afraid of, but whatever it was would end her without much effort.

Lizzy looked from Gabe to her and back. “It’s one thing to blow up the car with you two in it. It’s Jewel’s special kind of twisted to take out the tire, then set an explosion to incinerate the inside of the vehicle. She obviously wanted to give you a chance to get out. So there’s no reason to have set a third charge to wipe the car off the map. Waste of valuable explosives.”

Maylin pressed her lips together. Neither of them had said Jewel wouldn’t have blown up a car with a person in it. She added a bit of vegetable oil and finished combining her mixture. Hesitated, then added a tiny pinch of salt. Another few seconds of beating gave her a smooth, light batter and a little less anxiety.

Setting it aside, she rummaged for a large pan. Somebody had bought the kind of wok with a flat bottom you could set directly on a burner. Handy. She pulled it out, wiped it down, and poured a large amount of oil into it. As she set it on the stove to heat up for frying, she glanced back at Gabe. “You don’t think you’re worth it to her to blow up?”

He met her gaze, his expression very serious. “She had the opportunity to kill me from a distance. She didn’t. If she does in the future, she’ll make it up close and personal.”

His statement had the kind of ring of truth to it that sent a cold shiver down her spine. She headed to the sink. The shrimp were mostly defrosted, and she drained the water from the bowl and patted them dry with a paper towel before seasoning them liberally with salt and pepper. Then she went back to the fridge and pulled out green onions and a jalapeno.

“Someone really did some shopping.” She needed a change of topic. For just a minute.

Lizzy laughed. “Victoria and Marc figured if you could make breakfast out of nothing but leftovers, getting you a little bit of everything from the grocery store could only mean good things in our future. The internet may have been involved in assembling the shopping list most likely to tempt you into making stuff we all like.”

Maylin smiled, some of the tightness leaving her shoulders. It made her happy when people enjoyed her food. Really, it was why she did what she did. “I’ll make something nice for tomorrow morning.”

“They’re doing some recon. Won’t be back until late morning.”

“Even better.” Maylin pondered. “I’ll have time to make dim sum.”

She cleaned and chopped both the green onions and jalapeno fine, then washed her hands. She’d have to remember not to rub her eyes for a few more hand washes. Once wasn’t enough to get the burn of the pepper off her fingertips, and it transferred readily.

Both Gabe and Lizzy were sitting in awkward silence. Gabe was texting on his smartphone but he was keeping an eye on Maylin.

She realized they were being sensitive to her. But she couldn’t hide from serious discussion every time she got anxious. It would slow down their main purpose. And honestly, she needed to grow up some, step up to the issue at hand. “Are they doing recon on the biotech company Gabe found out about?”

It was Lizzy who answered first. “Marc and Victoria headed down to California to check out the biotech facilities and get us some basic intel. If your little sister is being held there, though, they are either incredibly smart or insanely arrogant.”

Leaving the chopped stuff by the sink, Maylin grabbed the shrimp and dumped them in her batter, giving them a light toss to coat. She nabbed a pair of long chopsticks from her personal kitchen tools. Glad she’d brought the box of cooking tools with her from her place. It had seemed stupid at the time, but she hadn’t been willing to leave without them in case she needed to return straight to work. Having them here was a comfort.

“Why arrogant?” An-mei had to be there. Where else could she be?

The oil in the wok sizzled as she started frying the shrimp a few at a time so as not to drop the oil temperature too low.

“You can run an easy internet search and view satellite photos of the whole facility,” Lizzy answered.

Gabe grunted.

Maylin kept her eyes on her shrimp, ensuring each one fried to a light golden brown before nipping them out of the oil to drain on a plate layered with paper towels. “What?”

“Generally, biotech or tech companies with things to hide have high enough security to lock down satellite images of their facilities. Not usually available to the public or the casual internet surfer.” Gabe pushed away from the counter and took the plate with the fried shrimp from her. As he held it for her, she transferred the last few shrimp to the plate and turned off the heat under the wok.

In a fresh skillet, she poured half a tablespoon of the oil from the wok and tipped the skillet this way and that to coat before setting it on the stove at high heat. “So Marc and Victoria went all the way to California to confirm?”

Lizzy laughed. “It’s not a long flight and they were getting a little cabin fever. Some light reconnaissance did them good.”

Maylin considered that as she tossed the green onions and jalapeno onto the skillet, stirring them with a wooden spatula as they sautéed and released fragrant scent. Turning to Gabe, she relieved him of the plate of freshly fried shrimp and added them to the skillet, tossing to mix the shrimp with the greens. Then she added another sprinkling of salt and dusted it all with pepper. As she finished, the rice cooker beeped. “Perfect timing.”

She flew about the kitchen then, putting out plates and arranging them with a nice scoop of rice topped with the salt and pepper fried shrimp. Gabe had taken a seat at the breakfast bar with Lizzy, but neither of them started on their plates until Maylin sat with them to eat.

“Leave the dishes. I’ll do them since you cooked,” Lizzy said between mouthfuls. “S’good.”

“Do you get any communication from them while they’re gone?” Maylin figured Lizzy would have told them if they’d found An-mei, but it seemed odd for them to head out and not send back any information at all.

“Standard procedure is to check in every twelve hours for a short trip like this. We know you’re under surveillance, so we’re keeping communication to a minimum to reduce the chance of our
friends
tapping into us.” Gabe was eating his portion quickly too. “They’ll be sad they missed this. It’s delicious.”

Pleased, Maylin applied herself to her own plate. “Normally, I’d serve this as part of a meal with several other dishes. But it seemed like it’d be good tonight on its own.”

“It is,” Lizzy agreed. “Last check-in, they confirmed the location seems to be legit. No signs of underground labs or unusual shipments. Personnel come and go on a normal schedule. They’re maintaining observation through the night to see if there’s any interesting activity in the dark when the normal employees go home.”

“There’s probably another facility if this one is filled with normal employees.” Gabe stood, taking his plate and Lizzy’s to the sink.

Maylin swallowed hard, only halfway through her dinner. They ate fast. No. They inhaled. Minimal chewing.

“We’ll find what we’re looking for,” Lizzy said, standing away from the breakfast bar. “We’re systematic to be sure we don’t miss anything. And we will find anything they’re trying to hide. You’ll see.”

Maylin turned on the stool to face Lizzy. “Thank you.”

The smile Lizzy gave her was gentle, and somewhat awkward. “Good night, you two. Try to get some actual sleep.”

* * *

Gabe opened the door to the guest cabin, listening hard to ensure the silence. They were safe on Centurion Corporation ground, but he was too keyed up to ignore ingrained habit. Instead, he moved through the rooms and cleared each as Maylin waited for him just inside the door.

She was getting good at following his directions. Her trust evident every time she did it without question. He’d repaid each time with answers once they were safe. Explanations he’d never taken the time to make for anyone else.

And her trust was misplaced.

So far, none of his queries had turned up feasible solutions. He’d called up some old favors and could pull together a small task force, but not one sufficient to go up against Edict and other unknown opponents. He’d been checking messages while Maylin cooked. He’d even talked to Lizzy to double-check his logistics and it didn’t look good.

He had feelers out and at the very least, he’d know what freelance contractors were out there. Some of his old contacts were looking for information on Phoenix Biotech to find out who else they might have on their payroll.

Something might come through. Maybe. But realistically, it wouldn’t be soon.

He closed the door once his sweep was complete and Maylin headed straight for the little kitchenette area. He smiled. She was more at home in a kitchen than anywhere else in a place. Not because of any stupid saying about women and kitchens, either, but because she created things there. It was her domain, where she could make things happen and do things to help the people she cared about. It didn’t matter if she’d just come back from another kitchen.

“I’m putting on a kettle for tea,” she called over her shoulder. “Did you want any? Or would coffee be better? Were you planning on doing any research tonight?”

He stepped up behind her, placing his hands on her waist as she straightened. “Coffee would be great.”

She set the kettle on the stove over high heat, then turned in his arms. As her arms slipped around his waist, he kissed the top of her head. He should tell her.

“We’re close to finding her.” Maylin pressed her face into his chest. “I know we are. Even if she’s not in California, we’re on the brink of something.”

And if they were?

“It will be good to find your sister.” Lame he couldn’t think of anything better. He’d promised her false hope.

“Should we start planning? How will we get her out?”

No more dodging.

“Centurion Corporation isn’t going to.”

She froze in his arms.

“There’s four in my fire team. Chances are whatever facility she’s in has more security than just we four can handle.” He kept his arms loose, let them fall to the side as she stepped back and away from him. “I won’t send my team into a massacre when there isn’t a chance of any of us making it out. It’s a lose-lose scenario.”

“This isn’t new. You’ve known. Since we were in DC.” Each sentence came out carefully measured. Precise and cold. With plenty of time for him to refute her.

And he couldn’t. “I was looking for solutions. There aren’t any.”

The kettle behind her began to go off, a low whistle building in pitch and volume. Maylin ignored it. “You’re giving up. After all that talk.”

He met her gaze, squashed the urge to cringe under the accusation in her clear green eyes. “This ‘small’ biotech looks to have a lot more resources at its disposal than any legit company its size should. It means that wherever your sister is being held is going to be a fortress. Even if we find it, and we haven’t yet, the only result to come out of us rushing in there will be a missing fire team. We’ll disappear off the grid with no evidence to follow.”