Pursuit (14 page)

A large puckered bullet wound scar was on his right side, where the liver would be, with heavy surgical scars around it. She wondered if the bullet’s trajectory had nicked the liver itself. Two more bullet wounds in the upper thighs, one dangerously close to the femoral artery. To round it all off, she could see a long, ugly scar along his right biceps. A man who’d lived a dangerous life. She’d do well to remember that. She’d do well to remember that
he
was dangerous, down to his bones.

Matt was narrow-eyed, eyes watching hers, as if he could walk around in her mind and pull out her thoughts. His gaze dropped to her lips. Rolling over, her right hand had come to rest on his chest, just over his heart. She could actually feel his slow steady heart rate pick up as he looked at her mouth, then he raised his gaze once more. Mouth, eyes, mouth, eyes. And every time his gaze dropped, the heartbeat speeded up.

Eyes . . . mouth . . . eyes . . . mouth . . .

He moved forward, gaze frozen on her mouth. He was going to kiss her. Did she want it?

Yes, no, yes, no . . .

Charlotte’s hand on his chest pressed gently. She wasn’t pushing back at him, she just kept her hand in place as he moved his chest forward. It had the effect of stopping him, though it wasn’t a definite stop signal. It wasn’t a go, either.

Matt’s face descended toward her, closer, closer . . . only instead of kissing her mouth, he pressed his lips to the skin just behind her ear.

Oh, God, goose pimples broke out, and she shuddered when he lightly nipped the skin. As he drew in a long, shaky breath, the big hand along her back cupped her bottom and tightened its grip. Matt’s hips moved forward at the same time, and she suddenly found herself riding his penis. The folds of her sex had just opened up of their own accord and there he was, against her sensitive skin.

He was huge, hot, so hard it seemed strange that this was human skin and not warm steel. It was irresistibly exciting. Charlotte’s hand moved. Her palm slid over his pectorals, stopping for a moment over the hard male nipple. It was tiny compared to hers, surrounded by chest hair, but as sensitive as her own, judging by his jolt when her palm brushed softly against it.

What an amazing feeling of
power
. That this huge, immensely strong man could shudder and jolt at her touch. Tremble, too, as she discovered when she circled his nipple with the tip of her forefinger. His big hand tightened against her backside, pushing her hips more tightly against him. He ran his open mouth against her neck, licking the vein, nipping that spot where neck met shoulder. She had no idea it was so sensitive. When she shuddered again, she could feel the effect on his penis. It swelled even further against the tissues of her vagina, growing impossibly longer.

Her hand moved from his chest to slide under his arm, curling up over his shoulder. She could feel the play of those massive back and shoulder muscles as he moved his mouth along her neck. God, his entire body was an erogenous zone. Everything about him excited her—his size, his strength, his utter
maleness
.

Her eyes drifted closed. He was so delicious to the touch, the sight of him was almost distracting. His mouth was edging closer to hers, slowly, as if they had all the time in the world.

Maybe they did. Charlotte had never felt so out of the world as she did right now, in the tight embrace of this man. All thoughts fled from her head, all sense of time and space. Of past and future. The insides of her closed lids were flushed with a bright rosy glow, just like her entire body, responding to his touch.

Slowly, slowly Matt kissed his way to her mouth. When his mouth finally settled on hers, it shook her to her core. When his tongue touched hers, the jolt was electric. She felt it to her toes and felt him swell even more between the lips of her sex. For the first time in her life, she felt the connection between the lips of her mouth and the lips of her sex. Both highly sensitive, both opening wide to him. Her tongue tangled with his. She couldn’t seem to draw in breath, except through him. Her sex was as wet as her mouth and seemed to slide as slickly and smoothly over his penis as her tongue against his.

This was so delicious. She’d never felt this sexy, this
alive
before. It seemed as if every part of her was touching him, mouth, breasts, vagina . . .

Another long, seamless kiss, and Matt rolled on top of her. He was incredibly heavy, but even this was delicious, his heavy weight something erotic in and of itself. He was so broad she had to open up to accommodate him, arms and thighs. In rolling over, somehow the folds of her sex no longer gripped his penis, and he was angling his hips to penetrate her. She could feel the large bulbous tip, right there, at her opening. It was so startling she opened her eyes . . .

And froze.

His face, only an inch above hers, was utterly transformed.

He’d changed color, from the deep biscuit tan to an even darker hue, with red flags riding the angular cheekbones. His lips were fuller, suffused with blood, wet from her mouth. Behind his narrowed lids, his eyes glittered almost black. The skin was drawn tightly over his cheekbones and deep grooves lined his cheeks. The tendons in his neck stood out like cords, and it seemed as if every muscle on his body was flexed and hard. It was extreme arousal, but it was indistinguishable from extreme rage. He looked exactly like Martin Conklin when she’d defended herself, only much much more dangerous. Charlotte’s head knew she wasn’t in danger but her body didn’t. Matt looked feral, utterly and completely dangerous.

There was nothing she could do to defend herself. She was spread-eagled under him, her thighs wide open between his, arms caught between his arms and his sides. In lifting his hips to penetrate her, he pressed forward, his chest crushing hers. She had no breath to cry out.

That big penis was moving forward slowly, and Charlotte panicked. She couldn’t run, and she couldn’t hide. The only thing her body could do was close in on itself in total alarm. He angled his hips and pressed forward but met resistance. He couldn’t penetrate. She was closed up too tightly.

Frowning, Matt reared his head back and studied her face. She stared up at him, both frightened and aroused herself, shaking.

Matt tested himself against her, but there was no question of her body opening itself to him. She could feel her vaginal muscles clenching tightly and braced herself. She hadn’t seen his penis clearly, but he felt enormous.

To her surprise, he pulled his hips back, withdrawing from where he’d barely begun to penetrate, and rolled to his side. Charlotte expanded her lungs for the first time in what felt like hours and drew in a long shuddering breath.

Their eyes met. She had no idea what to say to him. “I—” she began, then stopped. There were no words. There was nothing she could say that wouldn’t put her at risk. She bit her lips, blinking back tears. “I
can’t,
” she finally whispered.

“No?”

Charlotte’s chest was so tight it hurt to breathe. She couldn’t look away from him. She shook her head.

Matt was leaning on one strong forearm beside her head. He moved his hand and touched the scar on her shoulder. The touch was gentle, but he explored it thoroughly, the ugly puckered ridged scar tissue, the discolored skin, the deep indentation. Gently but firmly, with his other hand he lifted her shoulder and examined the exit wound. Charlotte rarely looked at it, the entry wound was bad enough.

She watched his face for clues to his mood as he examined her scars but it was impossible to know what he was thinking.

She was shaking so hard she thought she’d fall apart.

“Can’t,” she gasped. “Just . . . can’t. Sorry.”

He didn’t blink, just watched her carefully. With a sound that might have been a sigh, he turned and lifted himself away.

Warrenton

April 26

Inside Court Mansion

Barrett pulled on latex gloves and slipped surgical booties over his shoes. Later, they would both go into a portable incinerator that would reduce them to their constituent molecules.

As far as he knew, he’d never left DNA or fingerprints anywhere, and he wanted to keep it that way. Before going to Haine’s house, he’d put glue over his fingertips, so that even if he wanted to, Haine couldn’t track him down. Surreptitiously, when Haine wasn’t looking, he’d sprayed a small canister of bleach solution over the glass where he’d sipped the whiskey.

Barrett took his time once he was inside Court Mansion. There was no rush. The Court woman had disappeared two months ago. A few hours one way or another weren’t going to make any difference. The more he learned here, the more he got into her head, the easier it would be to find her.

He had to do this right because he had a tight time line, which was unusual. Most jobs were open-ended. Find my . . .
husband, wife, the bastard who sold me out
—

and there usually wasn’t any requirement other than proof of death. This job required speed—Haine needed a dead body in five weeks’ time. Barrett had one important thing going for him. The Court woman had disappeared in a panic, with no outside help. The hardest people to find were those who’d prepared their disappearance for months, sometimes years, in advance and sometimes with the help of a professional. It was next to impossible to follow someone whose trail was erased by a pro. At times, it was as if they had simply stepped off the Earth. The only thing to do in that case was to wait for them to make a mistake.

Barrett had once waited three years to nail a woman running away from a rich, abusive husband. She’d planned her disappearance carefully, with professional help. There were three men in the continental US whose business it was to help people disappear. Barrett could recognize in an instant when they’d had a hand in the getaway. They could make people vanish into thin air. They couldn’t, however, stop people from being too stupid to live.

Barrett knew the woman was a fanatical ballet aficionado and had subscribed to an obscure ballet magazine. He’d gotten hold of the subscriber list and had checked out all new subscribers. Luckily, the husband had given him almost unlimited funds to track his wife down. Subscriber number 2,127 turned out to be the runaway wife, and Barrett had—

as per instructions—brought her head back to the husband.

This case was different. This was a woman who left in a panic without any preparation, without any planning, without the tools for a new life. A rich, pretty, young woman who’d lived a pampered life would be out of her depth as a fugitive. She’d need money and documents and would make endless mistakes along the way. Tracking her would be easy once he got to know her. He just had to make sure it was within the client’s deadline. Charlotte Court would have been incapable of doing out-of-character things to disappear. On top of it all, she’d been wounded. Shock, pain, blood loss would have all sapped her reasoning powers, her ability to plan. In her desperation and weakness, she would revert to her truest self.

When he knew that self, he’d know where to find her, as surely as day follows night. Barrett knew of his reputation as a sniper, and he made sure potential clients thought of him as a sniper first, a tracker second. He made sure he carried his big Barrett around with him, to show when necessary. The Barrett’s muzzle brake gave it a distinctive profile. The rifle was pure business, with no aesthetics to it whatsoever.

A Barrett’s bullet was a small missile that could penetrate an armored vehicle at two thousand yards out. It was the most efficient killing machine possible. The rifle mesmerized clients.

The few times he’d had to use it, it had been to pull off a job that with any other weapon—

and any other eye and any other hand at that weapon—would have been impossible. Most times, he didn’t need to use the Barrett. Too many assassinations using a .50-caliber sniper rifle, with its distinctive projectiles, would have raised a huge red flag for the FBI. Barrett preferred to rotate his working methods.

Keeping the Barrett to hand was more like a calling card.

Potential clients—most of them men, a few women—found the Barrett fascinating and snipers sexy—which was crazy, since snipers are essentially mechanics. Superb mechanics, but almost autistic in the narrowness of their talent, obsessed with the arcana of the hardware and the physics of projectiles. Though he kept his sniping skills well honed, Barrett was much more than a sniper.

There had been only a few jobs where his expertise with the Barrett made the difference. Three years ago, he’d taken a two-thousand-yard shot at a material witness being herded in the dead of night in a phalanx of guards up the courthouse steps of the old Pima County Courthouse in Tucson.

Twenty US Marshals in body armor and holding MP5s had jumped out of a bulletproof security van, hustling the witness toward the big white building at a dead run. Barrett, who had been waiting patiently for three days off a sandbag on a rooftop way beyond the Marshals’ Worry Zone, eye glued to the scope, pissing into empty Coke bottles, had taken the shot in a two-second window of vulnerability.

He’d had an infrared sniperscope, seeing the world in the eerie underwater green light of night vision. Barrett had practiced with tens of thousands of rounds using night vision, and he didn’t hesitate.

The witness’s head had exploded under the impact of the Barrett’s .50-caliber cartridge. The rifle was suppressed, and he could see the marshals drop, stunned, to a crouch, backs to the now-dead witness, scanning the horizon uselessly because Barrett was almost a mile out, in the dark. Until they laser-projected the shot the next day, they wouldn’t even have an idea which direction it had come from.