Hot Mercy (Affairs of State Book 2) (14 page)

She remembered lying on blazing sandstone with him. Now cool sheets did nothing to temper her heat. He leveled himself down, down and spread her legs with one wide knee. When he guided himself inside her, he thrust hard. Possessively. Demandingly.

She came immediately. Then almost immediately, again. Gloriously. And again as he moved with liquid ease within her body, whispering into her ear in the language of his ancestors, words she didn’t understand but somehow knew he’d saved just for her.

When Sebastian at last spent himself inside her with a long shudder, he buried his face in the hollow of her throat, muffling the uniquely male groan that accompanied
la petite mort
—the “small death” that, perversely, provided both the ultimate sexual satisfaction and temporarily stripped a man of his vitality.

Mercy wrapped her arms around Sebastian’s muscular shoulders, holding him, savoring the weight of his body, delighting in the mingled, pungent scents of their sex. At last he rolled off into sweat-dampened, tumbled sheets, drawing her against him. And they slept.

                                          13

Mercy awoke in the early afternoon to find Sebastian had already ordered a lavish lunch for them. When she emerged from the steamy marble-walled bathroom she found their meal arranged on a damask-draped table by the window. Local rockfish stuffed with crab imperial, a salad of mixed greens, roasted baby red potatoes accompanied by hot yeast rolls, chilled butter, and Kristal Champagne.

Wrapped in the hotel’s plush French terry robes, they devoured the food and finished the wine. Lost in their own thoughts, they spoke little during the meal. Words threatened to shatter the fragile spell of intimacy.

Later they lounged in the suite’s oversized Jacuzzi. Mercy couldn’t stop touching Sebastian. She examined every inch of his body, delighted when he returned her caresses. They were like teenagers, behaving as though they’d never seen the other sex naked. It made absolutely no sense to her. They’d each been married. For her there had been only Peter. But Sebastian had told her he’d slept with other women since his wife’s death, and she assumed he’d had lovers before he married. Although they’d just finished ravaging each other, leaving nothing to the imagination, this simple act of bathing together felt new and precious.

“Would you like to go out for dinner?” Sebastian asked hours later, after they’d made love again. “Anywhere you wish.”

“No.” She had already made that decision. “I’d rather we stay here.” She couldn’t chance being seen in public with him. The risk of coming here was already too great.

He nodded his assent, asked no questions, opened a fresh bottle of wine. They sat holding hands, side-by-side on a loveseat facing the windows overlooking the city and sipped in silence.

After a while she said, “Tell me how things are going for you back home.”

“I’m afraid Mexico is in a terrible state.” He sighed. “The war against the gangs is fiercer than ever. It’s so bad that parents, fearing for the lives and future of their children, are sending them north, into the U.S., although to do so is illegal. But you must already know this. I’m grateful you've found a safe place in America for Maria.”

Mercy smiled at the mention of his daughter. She had grown intensely fond of the girl. Maria was an amazing young artist. Mercy had visited her every other weekend at the private girls’ school in Virginia, bringing her small gifts—a few sticks of buttery-soft Rembrandt pastels, sketching charcoal, sheets of the sanded art paper Mercy had shown her how to use.

“My president,” Sebastian continued, “has ordered search-and-destroy teams of commandos, using helicopters and light planes to spot marijuana and heroin poppy fields.”

“That sounds promising. But you say it’s not going well?”

He tilted his head in thought. “We are making some headway. But opium poppies love our sunny mountain climate. We burn off acres here; they plant another field there. It’s an endless cycle.”

She remembered an article weeks earlier in the Washington Post. “A car bomb went off in Mexico City.” She met his eyes. “No one was hurt and the intended victim wasn’t named. You, Sebastian?”

He shrugged, looking away. “My father was killed in that way.”

“You told me. But that’s not an answer to my question.”

“If I stop what I’m doing, they win. I can’t let that happen.”

Mercy studied his face. The man’s proud features reflected a blend of indigenous Central American tribes, Spanish conquistadors, and a touch of Irish heritage on his mother’s side of the family.

“I read about one of your ancestors in the Library of Congress,” she said. “He was a priest, martyred at the beginning of the Mexican revolution.”

“
Si
, my great uncle. My great grandfather rode with Zapata then allied our family with Porfiro, who wielded immense power in the new government. Hidalgos were loyal to him until his corruption became so obsessive the people turned against him.”

“And then?” She sipped her wine. Beyond the window and to her left, the lights of Capitol Hill sparkled against a crisp black sky. To the right, the Potomac River, over which a jet from National Airport flew every few minutes.

“My father, Don Miguel Hidalgo, fought the old bastard. He lost to Porfiro’s hitmen. I think he knew they were coming for him. He took me aside one night and told me his wish that I stay out of politics, take over running the ranch, protect his widow, my mother, and start a family of my own.”

“But you didn’t do as he asked. Why?”

He shook his head. “For a time, I did. I tried.”

“What made you change?” She watched his face harden.

“My mother’s death. And then the birth of my daughter. I didn’t want to leave this world knowing Maria would have to live in a country run by criminals.”

Mercy reached out to clasp his hand in hers, emotion filling her nearly to tears. “You would sacrifice yourself for your child? Do you think Maria expects or wants that?”

He turned fierce eyes on her. “For a long time I believed the Hidalgo wealth would be enough to protect Maria. Even when my mother became ill and passed into the protection of Madre Moon, I thought the three of us would be all right. But later that same year, my wife died of ovarian cancer, leaving me to care for our child.”

“So you broke your promise to your father,” she said, “because if you didn’t stop these men from destroying your country, no one would?”

He gave a tight nod. “
Si
. They are ruthless. The good among us can fight them only by being more ruthless.” He stopped abruptly, reached for her hand and squeezed it. His gaze went unfocused and he blinked as if waiting out a jolt of pain.

“What?” she asked softly.

“I wish,” he began, went silent, then cleared his throat. “I wish this madness would leave us. I would bring Maria home and ask you to come and live with us at the hacienda.”

Mercy swallowed, confused. What was he trying to say? He’d already given her his mother’s beautiful ruby ring as a promise of their future together.

“I feel a better man when I’m around you,
mi amor
. You have made me remember what it is like to feel human, to think about more than hatred and revenge.”

“Even if things were more settled in Mexico,” she said gently, “I couldn’t go with you. Not until I find my mother.”

“Let me help you. Please!”

She looked away from him toward the river in the near distance—a dark ribbon winding between the fairy lights of DC monuments and blocky government buildings and the nearby Virginia shore. The Kennedy Center’s soldierly ranks of spotlighted white columns seemed to float above the black pond of night like a marble lily pad.

Mercy’s eyes suddenly went hot with threatening tears. Now was the moment. She must talk to him about why she needed to disappear for however long it took to satisfy Red Sands. Only then would they actively begin searching for Talia. She could postpone this conversation no longer.

“I don’t see how you can help me this time.” She avoided his eyes. “Besides, I think I’ve found someone with the power to bring my mother home. Truly, it’s going to be all right.” It has to be all right.

“Who is helping you?”

“I can’t tell you that, Sebastian. I’m sorry.”

He leaned away from her, his hand releasing her fingertips, making their separation complete.

“Sebastian, please. You have your battles. I have mine. Let me fight them in my own way.”

His reflection in the window glared harshly back at her. Rough tenderness colored his words. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t,” she promised. But did she really know that? “I have to go away for a while. But I’ll be back. I promise. Then we will talk about the future―our future. If that’s still what you want.”

She took a deep breath for courage, stood up before him. Grasping his hands, she tugged him to his feet and wrapped herself in his arms. “Let’s go to bed.” She pressed her cheek to his breast bone and listened to his heart’s thrum. “I have to leave early in the morning. I don’t want to waste precious minutes arguing.”

“Neither do I.” His voice was gruff but he kissed the top of her head.

They made sweet, generous love that night then slept naked in each other’s arms. But at six a.m., when the wake-up call she’d requested came, Mercy rolled over to find Sebastian gone.

Somehow she’d known he would be.

                                          14

The islands first appeared as low, emerald humps snug against a gray-blue sea. Strangely, in all of her travels with her parents, and later when she was on her own, she’d never visited either the USVI or British Virgin Islands. Now as she peered out through the jet’s first-class cabin window, these insignificant blips in the middle of a vast stretch of ocean seemed far too small to be her destination.

Nevertheless, the Boeing 727 began losing altitude then dipped like a frenetic dragonfly out of the sky between two volcanic rims, sending her stomach lurching into her throat. She spotted an impossibly short runway and imagined the plane pitching off the end of St. Thomas and into the sea. But then the red-tile roofs of the capital city, Charlotte Amalie, flared into view, and lofty coconut palms, immense dagger-like green aloes, and flowering hibiscus cloaked hillsides that reached upwards to cup the plane as if it were a huge metallic insect. Engines roared, wings and fuselage vibrated and groaned in protest. Mercy pressed back into her seat, closed her eyes and practiced stress-reduction breathing. Tires squealed dramatically on tarmac. Finally, incredibly, they rolled to a stop.

When she looked out the window, a few dozen feet remained before the end of the runway. Passengers burst into applause at the flawless landing.

Now it’s my turn to put on a show.

The question was…could she actually pull this off? Bull’s grumbling predictions of disaster haunted her. Margaret Storey’s final, urgent instructions clattered through her mind. The fact that the TI’s had put her through such grueling physical training suggested she might actually need to use such tactics. And yet, Margaret Storey had assured her that the role she played would be as close to her own real identity as possible and therefore remove nearly all risk.

“Your mission is simply to gather information,” her handler had said. “Anything more, either I or your partner will handle.”

As soon as the plane came to a whining halt beside the Cyril E. King Airport terminal, Mercy stood up out of her seat and pressed travel wrinkles from her lime-green linen suit. The steward plucked her valise from overhead stowage and handed it to her.

“I’ll summon a porter to retrieve the rest of your luggage in the terminal,” he said. “Enjoy your stay in the islands.”

“Thank you.” She gave him a forced-bright smile.

A driver was waiting for her beyond Customs holding up a sign:
Ms. O’Brien, welcome to St. Thomas
.

Seeing her name displayed for all to see, she wished they’d given her a sparkling new identity to help her feel protected. But the mission depended upon her appearing to be on one of her normal art-collecting trips, as well as boat shopping as Geddes had suggested.

“Just be yourself,” Margaret had explained. “The less you lie, the fewer chances of slipping up. Make your presence known and be in the right place at the right time. The information will come to you.” Could it possibly be that easy?

“Straight to the Ritz-Carlton?” her driver asked, looking over her designer tropical suit with what seemed approval. Maybe he picked up a lot of tourists in shorts and t-shirts who didn’t tip well.

“Yes,” she said. “How far is the hotel?”

“She is a very speedy twenty minutes, mum. A beautiful drive.” His island patois made the word sound like boo-tee-fool. She loved the melody of his voice, and couldn’t help breaking into a wide smile that chased the nerve-induced hum from her mind.

The entire island, she soon decided, was indeed gorgeous. Measuring only twenty miles, end to end, St. Thomas was so laden with lush tropical verdure she thought it a miracle it didn’t sink into the sea. Bright shops and sunny cottages sprouted all along the narrow highway marked State Road 30.