Tempting Evil (5 page)

“They were only dreams, Quinn. It would have been nice to have something with a little more substance.”

“Which is what we now have.”

His hand splayed across the flat of my stomach. Heat pooled under his fingertips, flared across my flesh like a flash fire. Lord, his touch was even more intense than I’d remembered.

His hands slid up to my breasts, pushing them together as he began to tease and pinch my engorged nipples. I squirmed against him, wariness momentarily forgotten as every inch of me vibrated with the hunger now flowing through my veins.

As if sensing the fall of reluctance, he began to kiss me, caress me, tease me, until tiny beads of perspiration covered my skin. Until every inch of me was trembling, and I was hovering on the edge of a climax, aching for the release he was keeping from me.

When his caress finally moved down, I groaned in relief. His fingers played around my thighs, close but not close enough to where I actually wanted them.
Needed them
. After a few more torturous moments, he hooked his thumbs under my panties and pushed them down my legs. I stepped free, then toed them to one side. He pushed up my skirt as I widened my stance, then his fingers were slipping through my slickness from behind, caressing and teasing until I was moaning from equal measures of pleasure and frustration. His soft chuckle whispered heat across the back of my neck, then his fingers were in me even as he pressed his thumb against my clit. As he began to stroke, inside and out, I shuddered, writhed, until it felt as if I was going to tear apart from the sheer force of pleasure.

And then he was in me, claiming me for real and in the most basic way possible. I groaned again as he gripped my hips, his fingers bruising as he held me still for too many seconds.

But oh, it was
so
glorious, just standing there, my body throbbing with need, his body deep inside mine, heavy and hot with the same sort of need. I loved the way he seemed to complete me. It had nothing to do with his size or his shape or anything physical, because I’d certainly been with men who outstripped him in all those areas. This was far more—was almost as if when our flesh was joined, our spirits combined and danced as intimately as our bodies.

He began to move, not gently, but fiercely, urgently, and I was right there with him, wanting everything he could give me. The deep-down ache blossomed, spreading like wildfire across my skin, becoming a kaleidoscope of sensations that washed through every corner of my mind. I gasped, grabbing the bench for support as his movement grew faster, more urgent. Then everything broke, and I was unraveling, groaning with the intensity of the orgasm. He came with me, but it wasn’t just his juices that flowed into me. So, too, did his mind.

And he was raiding my thoughts and my memories as fast as any thief fearing discovery.

Anger unlike anything I’d felt before surged through me, and without even thinking about it, I lowered my shields and let him have it with every ounce of psychic strength I had.

He made a gargled sound, then the force of my psychic punch wrenched his body from mine and he was flying through the door, out into the living room, where he landed with a thump on his back.

I re-shielded fast. Pain hit, but it might as well have been a leaf tossed on the wind, my anger was so strong. I grabbed my knickers and marched into the other room.

“You
bastard
!” I flung the panties at him, though why I had no real idea. It wasn’t like it was a knife or a stake or anything
that
useful.

Which is probably just as well, because right then, I would have used either one of them.

He rubbed a hand across his eyes, then slowly raised himself up on his elbows. “How the hell did you do that?”

“What the fuck does it matter, given what you just did?”

“If you’d tell me the truth for a change, I wouldn’t have to resort to such measures!”

His voice was as loud and as angry as mine, but there was a tremor in his tones that suggested I
had
hurt him. Part of me was fiercely glad. Part of me hated it.

“I have a right to privacy. In my life, and in my thoughts.”

“This is different.”

“Why? Because you’re a twelve-hundred-year-old vampire who no longer has to obey the rules?”

“And yet, for all my age, and for all my psychic skills and knowledge, you just ripped through my shields as if they were paper. And then you sent me flying. You couldn’t have done that a few months ago.”

A cold hard knot formed deep in the pit of my stomach. He was right. God help me, he was right. Even though Jack
had
been training me in the fine art of breaking through psychic shields over the last few months, I’d never managed to break through all
his
shields, no matter how hard I’d tried. And Quinn was far more powerful than Jack.

I licked my lips, and pushed the thoughts away. Now was not the time to think about the implications of his statement, or what it might mean to the future I so desperately wanted.

“Don’t try changing the fucking subject.”

He sighed, climbed a little unsteadily to his feet, and re-dressed himself. “I admitted to you months ago that I was, in part, using you. You were my quickest way of finding information about my missing friend—information that the Directorate, and my friendship with Director Hunter, wasn’t providing. That hasn’t changed—though the reason certainly has.”

“So that’s why you’re back now?”

“Partially. Something changed yesterday afternoon. Something is happening. I can feel it.”

He could feel it? How? We hadn’t shared dreams in any way yesterday, so he couldn’t have leeched information that way. And, usually, he could only catch my thoughts if he was physically near.

But maybe he had been. Maybe he’d been here in Melbourne all along, and just hadn’t contacted me.

Bastard.

“So the real reason you came to my apartment last night was for a little extra information gathering? I bet it sucked having your grand plans foiled by Kellen’s presence.”

“It wasn’t the only reason I was here last night. I did want to see you.”

Yeah. Believing
that
big time. “How in the hell could you supposedly feel
anything
when we’re supposedly only sharing erotic dreams and nothing more?”

He didn’t answer. No surprise there. The bastard never answered questions that
really
mattered.

He walked toward me and held out my panties. I snatched them from his hand and threw them to the floor. And some childish part of me wanted to stomp all over them—or maybe it’s just that I wanted to stomp all over Quinn, and with no hope of achieving that, they were the next best option.

“Was I ever anything more than just a convenient source of information?” I asked bitterly.

He reached out, his fingers briefly caressing my cheek with heat until I jerked away from his touch. His hand dropped back to his side, but the determination in his eyes said he was far from defeated.

“There has always been something more between us.”

“Yeah, great sex.”

“More than that. I care for you, Riley. Deeply.”

I snorted softly. “You keep saying that, and yet you couldn’t even be bothered coming to see me for the last two months. The only reason you’re here now is the fact that you sensed something was happening with the case.”

He studied me, arms crossed, face impassive. But there was nothing impassive in his eyes. Nothing impassive in the explosive swirl of emotion scorching my skin with heat.

“If it was your brother they’d snatched and killed, would you not do everything in your power to exact revenge? Even if that meant betraying someone you cared for greatly?”

“That’s different—”

“No, it’s fucking not! Henri was my brother in all but blood. I will not let these fools get away with his murder. I
will
have my revenge, no matter what I have to do!” He paused, then added softly, “Or who I have to hurt.”

I held up my hands, not pushing him away but certainly ready to. “Don’t touch me.”

“This will not end here,” he said flatly. “I won’t let it.”

“Right now, you have no goddamn choice. I want you to leave and I don’t want you to come back and I don’t want to see you again.”

He snorted. “You’ll see me, not only in your dreams, but on the mission. It starts today and I
will
be involved in it.”

So he’d gotten that much from me. Bastard.

“Go,” I said fiercely, “before you make me do something I might not regret.”

He studied me for a moment, then spun on his heel and walked to the door. But he stopped with his hand on the knob, and looked over his shoulder at me. “I’ll see you at the Directorate. And you had better tell Jack about that increase in power, or I will.”

With that he left. The door slammed after him, the noise reverberating through the sudden silence. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples for a moment, then turned and headed for the shower. And though I could wash the smell of him from my skin, there was no washing away the feel of him in my mind. No getting away from the huge sense of loss and betrayal.

And I hated that, hated that he’d reduced what was between us to that. Because he was right—there was something more, something that had the potential to be magical. Not soul-deep magical, perhaps, but still so very good. His actions might not have destroyed that, but I really didn’t know if I would ever be able to get past them.

I lifted my face to the cooling water, letting it wash away the sting from my eyes. After a while, I got out and re-dressed, then headed into the kitchen to make myself another drink.

And it was there, while I was nursing the steaming mug of coffee, that I finally let myself think about the way I’d attacked Quinn.

I’d never had that sort of power before. Yeah, I rated extremely high in all the Directorate telepathic tests, but I’d never gotten anywhere near reading Quinn’s surface thoughts before, let alone busting through any of his shields.

I had tonight, and with such power the force of it had blown him across the room.

Had anger allowed me to tap the reserves Jack kept insisting I had, but had never used? Or was this the first sign that the drug Talon had given me was finally beginning to affect my system?

I didn’t know.

But I had a bad feeling I was going to find out, and all too soon.

Chapter 3

H
ey, Riley, you’re supposed to be waiting out in front of the building.”

Rhoan’s cheerful voice rose out of the stillness, making me start. I glanced at the clock and realized that almost an hour had passed since Quinn had left.

“Sorry,” I called, rinsing the mug under the tap as I tried to gather my composure.

Why I bothered I have no idea. He wasn’t fooled any more than I would have been.

“What’s wrong?” He stopped in the kitchen doorway, his cheerful expression fading quickly to one of concern. “Are you okay?”

“Just dandy, bro.”

He frowned, then pulled me into his arms. For several minutes he didn’t say anything, just held me. Comforted me.

“Quinn raided my thoughts during sex,” I said eventually, my words muffled by his chest. “He knows we’re going after Starr.”

Tension slipped through his muscles, quick and sharp. “Bastard.”

“Exactly what I said. Several times.”

“I hope you made him pay.”

I sniffed. “Yeah, I did.” But who was going to be the real loser—him or me?

“Good.” He released me and stepped back. “Have you warned Jack?”

I shook my head. “There’s no need. Quinn’s going to the Directorate. He never got deep enough to discover we were going to Genoveve.”

“But once he discovers Jack’s not at the Directorate, Genoveve is the first place he’ll check.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll ring Jack. You ready to go?”

I nodded. There was nothing to pack, nothing to take, because from here on in, I was going to become someone else.

“Then let’s get out of here, just in case he decides to come back for a little more raiding.”

I nodded, then suddenly remembered Liander. “I just have to get one thing.”

I dashed into my bedroom to get Liander’s birthday present, then we left. Once we’d gotten into Liander’s van and had merged into the flow of Saturday-morning traffic, Rhoan called Jack. I leaned over the front passenger seat and plonked the present onto it.

“Hey, happy birthday, old man.”

“Forty-nine is hardly old for a werewolf. And kindly remember that you’re going out with someone more than twelve hundred years old.”

“Yeah well, that situation might have changed.” Though I’d forced a cheerful note into my voice, Liander didn’t appear any more fooled than my brother had been.

He gave me a concerned glance. “Are you okay?”

“Floating on happiness,” I said dryly. Then waved at the present. “You can open it when we get to Genoveve.”

“Or you could tell me now and save me the suspense.”

“I don’t think so.”

He studied it for a second, then said, “It almost looks like a book.”

It was—on the history of cinema effects. But I’d added a box of chocolates to fudge the shape a little. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Bitch.”

I grinned.

“Do a U-turn,” Rhoan said, his hand momentarily over his cell phone. “Head for Chapel Street.”

“Chapel Street?” I said, surprised. “What the hell is there, besides upmarket shops and trendy snobs?”

He waved a hand for me to shut up, so I returned my attention to Liander. In the sharp morning light, he was an almost icy silver. The only thing that lent him some warmth was the blue of his clothes and the matching streaks in his hair.

“Going for the winter look this week, are we?”

He gave me a smile that had all sorts of warning signals flashing. “Winter is very ‘in’ at the moment. But just wait until you see what I have planned for you.”

“I think I should be afraid.”

“Very. You are going to be extremely foxy.”

My eyebrows rose. “Meaning I’m not now?”

“Darling, you’re pretty but very underdone. A little time, care, and makeup certainly wouldn’t go astray.”

“That’s a very backhanded compliment.”

He grinned. “Sometimes the truth hurts.”

“So can a smack in the head.”

His grin widened and he shook his head. “You are so like your brother sometimes, it’s scary.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Rhoan’s threatened to smack you?”

“Oh, many times.” He gave me a glance that was pure mischief. “Trouble is, I enjoy it.”

“I think that falls into the category of a little too much information at this hour of the morning.”

“Gentle pain can be quite a turn-on if it’s done right.”

“Give me normal sex anytime.” I pointed to the road ahead. “And if you don’t concentrate, you’re going to ram the back of that Ford.”

He slammed on the brakes, throwing me backward. “If you’d stop yakking about sex, I
could
concentrate.”

I shut up. After a few more ums and yeses, Rhoan hung up and glanced at me. “We’re going to Chapel Street because Jack lives above a restaurant—he owns the building and leases out the restaurant section.”

I frowned. “Is it safe going there?”

“Apparently only Director Hunter knows the address. A different address is used on files.”

And Quinn would never get the address off Director Hunter. Not only was she older in vampire years—and therefore more powerful—but because he was honor bound to obey her. Or so Quinn had said when he’d briefly mentioned the vampire hierarchy system a few months ago.

“We’re not going to get parking anywhere near that street at this hour,” Liander commented.

“There’s a multilevel parking lot behind the Jam Factory, which is just down the road from Jack’s.”

“Meaning we get to go shopping while we wait for Jack?” I glanced at my brother as I said it, but couldn’t resist adding the barb. “Oh, that’s right, you already have. That’s why we have no money left.”

“You got pretty sweaters, so don’t bitch.”

“I need to eat more than I need new sweaters.”

“We have tin food.”

“Spaghetti and baked beans just don’t cut it after a few days.”

He gave me an annoyed look. “You’re beginning to take all the fun out of shopping.”

Which was precisely the point of nagging. I grinned and looked away. We battled our way through the rush-hour traffic, getting there just after nine-thirty. Liander threw several large bags our way, then grabbed the remaining four himself. Jack was waiting in the shadows a few doors down from the Jam Factory complex, out of direct sunlight and well covered up. Age gave vampires a certain amount of immunity to the sun, so the older they were, the more they could walk in daylight. Quinn only had to avoid the hours between twelve and two. Jack, four hundred years younger, had tighter restrictions. He was probably pushing his limits right now.

We followed him to a small door to the right of an Italian restaurant, and up a set of stairs. His apartment was one long room—barring a doorway that led to what I presumed would be the bathroom and laundry—and surprisingly airy, with the front and back walls all windows. Though right now, awnings covered the back windows to stop direct sunlight. The color scheme and furnishings were very masculine, all blue colors, dark woods, and rich leather, and the walls were covered in what looked like prints from the old masters. Only they weren’t prints, but real paintings. Given how old Jack was, that was more likely than it seemed.

“So,” Jack said, as we dumped the bags on the floor near the table. “How did Quinn discover the mission timetable had been moved up?”

“Through me.” I pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. “Apparently the fact we’ve shared blood has given him greater access to my mind—shields or no shields.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “If that were the case, he’d be here, not heading to Genoveve.”

“You’ve got him under observation?” Rhoan asked.

Jack nodded. “We seconded several hawk-shifters from Overseas Operations recently to tail Gautier. One of them is currently on Quinn. He’d sense another vampire, even if we had a guardian who could go out in morning sunshine.”

Which was why Jack was so determined to set up a daytime division, with me, Rhoan, Kade, and Liander all as its chief operatives. Right now, the Directorate was very limited in its operational times, and not all the bad guys did the nasty stuff during the night.

“Quinn can only read my thoughts during times of stress or pleasure,” I explained. “So right now, no matter how much he tries, he hasn’t a hope of getting past my shield.”

Which wasn’t exactly the entire truth—he could actually touch my mind during sleep, as well. But I was pretty sure that was a connection that took both of us to form and went no deeper than a dream state.

And I have to say, the man gave amazing dream sex.

“We’d better hope he can’t,” Jack muttered. “Because I do not want him near this operation.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Why?”

“Because he is only interested in revenge. We want to bring down the cartel’s entire operation.” He sat down on the chair nearest the com-unit and interlaced his fingers. “We had our first breakthrough about six weeks ago. You remember the letter Misha left you on his death?”

It was hard to forget, given the circumstances under which he’d died. A tremor ran through me. God, I still had nightmares about those watery spiders, and Misha being eaten alive from the inside. I licked my lips, and said, “He gave us the name of the fifth clone—Claudia Jones. But he didn’t know the alias she worked under at the Directorate.”

“We’ve since discovered she doesn’t actually work for us—though she does visit several times a month.”

The glint in his green eyes suggested amusement, but for the life of me, I couldn’t see why. I mean, there were thousands of people who visited the Directorate every month, all of them for legitimate reasons.

“She’s not one of Alan Brown’s whores, is she?” Rhoan said, a note of incredulity in his voice.

“Yes.”

I glanced at my brother. “How the hell did you jump to that conclusion?”

He just grinned and tapped the side of his head. “Brains, dear girl. Brains.”

I snorted softly. “I wasn’t aware that’s where you kept your brains.”

“Enough.” Jack touched a button on the keyboard, and the com-screen sprang to life. On it was a picture of a white-haired, white-skinned woman. She was extremely pretty and yet oddly ethereal, and there was an unearthly sense of power in her luminous blue eyes. “This is Claudia Jones.”

“She looks like I did—well, except for the eyes.” I looked across at Liander. “When you made me up for the raid into Brown’s office.”

He nodded. “She seemed to be one of his regulars, so we thought it would be less suspicious if you looked like her.”

“Of course, we weren’t to know that she was Gautier’s contact.” Jack pressed another button, and the woman’s picture gave way to porno—Brown fucking Jones in his office. As far as lovers went, the man had no finesse whatsoever—just got it out, shoved it in, and pumped away. Which was probably why he had to rely on prostitutes to relieve his sexual needs.

Jack froze the picture at the point of Brown getting his rocks off, and pointed to the screen. The image shimmered slightly as he touched it, then settled. “If you look at this hand, you’ll notice her fingers have slipped under the desk. If I enhance the picture—” He did so, until the woman’s hand dominated the screen. “You’ll notice the silvery dot on the top of her index finger.”

“And that is?”

“A microdot,” Rhoan said. “Latest in storage media, and incredibly resilient.”

Jack nodded. “The desk has a small hole drilled into it. The disk was placed into a container fitted into the hole.”

“So Gautier just strolled in afterward and collected the container?” I asked, even as Jack dropped the closeup and sped up the film.

Brown did the dirty with the woman several more times, then both of them left. Nothing happened for a while, then Gautier wandered in, checking the office and walking past the desk in the process. He collected the container from the desk in a smooth, slick movement that would have been easy to miss, then left.

“So when Gautier sprung me and Quinn in Brown’s office, he was actually going to collect a drop-off?”

“We think so.”

“What made you suspect this was happening?” Liander asked. He was sitting on the arm of the sofa, behind Rhoan’s chair.

“The fact that we could find no moles in the Directorate other than Gautier.” He hesitated. “The only A.D. hiding secrets was Alan Brown, so we took the risk of reading him. You know he’s being blackmailed?”

I nodded. Rhoan had told me that much ages ago.

“Gautier’s behind it. Every Directorate decision is being relayed through Gautier to Deshon Starr. That madman knows what we’re going to do before we even implement it.”

“Which is why his cartel has managed to stay two steps ahead of the Directorate for so long.”

Jack nodded again. “Of course, we then had to find out how Gautier was passing the information, which meant watching his every move, not only within the Directorate, but on missions as well. Four nights after the incident we just watched, Gautier strolled into Brown’s office, this time before Brown arrived with Jones, and even though he wasn’t actually on watch that night. That’s when we finally realized what was going on.”

“And she retrieved the disk?”

“Yes. And undoubtedly passed on a detailed report of all the going-ons in the Directorate for the coming week.”

“So how is Brown getting the information to Gautier? He couldn’t risk being seen with him at the Directorate.”

“No. But Brown likes the greyhounds, and is severely in debt to the bookies. Gautier meets him there every Wednesday night.”

“Wednesday being the day the board generally meets,” I muttered. They were organized, no doubt about that. But then, this mob had been operating for well over fifty years—though Starr’s takeover had only been relatively recent.

“Have you pulled in the prostitute?” Rhoan asked, leaning back in his chair. “Questioned her?”

“No, though we did follow her. Brown drops her off in Fitzroy Street, St. Kilda. Five minutes after he’s left, a limousine picks the woman up and drives her to a large house in Toorak.”

“To another client?” Liander asked.

“No. She lives there.”

I raised my eyebrows. “She’s one hell of a prostitute if she can afford to live in Toorak.”