Who Do You Trust? (14 page)

He’d never have thought of that, either. “You’re an awesome actress, you know that? Just who is the agent operative in this couple?” he murmured, as soon as the bus lumbered off and he was sure no one had followed them onto it.

Lissa faced him, her eyes glittering, and he knew the games were over for now. “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me about it,
Skydancer?
Tell me who you are, who that man is and what this organization does and why?”

Crowding close, he murmured all she needed to know for now into her ear. About his reputation as a rebel in the Air Force—taking stupid chances with his life and his squadron to help people in need. How it resulted in a phone call two years ago from Anson, ex-CIA and head of an international group of operatives known as the Nighthawks, with head offices in Virginia, London and Canberra. What the Nighthawks did. How Anson offered him a place with the Nighthawks, doing what he did best—search and rescue in war zones, saving women and kids and political refugees. Offering Mitch an irresistible cover by having him appear to remain with the RAAF, and bona fide work with the Vincent Foundation—feeding kids and women in desperate need. The promise to find Matt and Luke, to get them back from Kerin. A guarantee he need only do backup, part-time work if he got the boys. The RAAF’s total cooperation with his cover, proving to him that the Nighthawks were definitely on the up and up. With the good guys.

Slowly she nodded. “Did you bring that little girl illegally into the country?” She pretended to nibble his earlobe, then she giggled as an old woman huffed about declining morality in Australia. “Now I’m a wanton woman! Oh, this is fun. I haven’t had this much fun since we played spy games as kids!”

Fun? He was going insane. “I don’t know about you, but I want the real thing,” he growled in her ear. “I love being this close to you, touching you, but I hate knowing it’s all fake. I want to get you naked again—totally naked—and not have to worry about listening devices or anything else but pleasing you. I want to make love to you so badly, and I want
you
to want me, to make love with me, too.” He looked in her eyes and found a compelling mix of heated desire and haunting uncertainty. “I want to see you—all of you—and touch you without games or doubts. I want to touch you all over—kiss your breasts, your face, your gorgeous bottom. I want my hands and mouth on every part of you until you scream my name again, scream for me to be inside you. I want to lie on you, to be inside your body, then have you take control of me. I want you to ride me until we both collapse. And then I want to start again, and then again. I—”

“Stop,” she whispered, sounding anguished.

Tell her. Let her know how much you want her.
It was time to take Tim’s advice; they’d already lost so many years through his own stupid dread of losing her. “You don’t want me anymore? You don’t want me as much as I want you? Because my fantasies and needs are at the point of no return. Yesterday and last night was incredible, fantastic—but I need to be inside you, Lissa. I want to feel it, to be with you all the way.”

A tiny gasp told him she wasn’t just listening but living and reliving his words in glorious Technicolor. “Tell me you want me like you used to, even if it’s just a little bit—please. Don’t punish me for the gutless wonder I used to be, for letting you down by not coming home. I always wanted you. I wanted to tell you so bad, baby. But you were everything to me.
Everything.
I’d have gone berserk if you didn’t want me. I couldn’t face thinking about you going to bed with him, wanting, aching for it to be me. I knew if I stayed around, you’d end up knowing how hard I get just from being in the same room as you. But I’m willing to risk it all this time, if you are. I’ll tell you how much I want you—I have to have you.” He tried to gauge her reaction but failed. “I need to know how you feel, too.”

Silence; she hid in his shoulder. He closed his eyes, waiting, hoping for the smallest sign from her—a sign of passion, of need…of trust. And that, he found, he wanted most of all. Her trust. But he was getting nothing, nothing at all….

n a shuddery breath filled his ear. “Yes. If it really matters—if this is the honest truth—I want you. I want you like crazy. I’ve never wanted any other man this way. Only you.” A sigh. “The man in the gray suit just got on the bus. Did you bring that child into the country illegally?” she asked again.

“Yes.” He didn’t turn around. “No more now.” He held her close, in a mixture of play-acting and dead-serious desire. “Let’s look out for a cop shop.”

“I want to look at mug shots,” she said venomously.

He nuzzled her neck, feeling, oh, so happy. He hadn’t blown it. She still wanted him; she trusted him enough to stay on the plan, even after what he just told her about the little girl, Hana. “Oooh, baby, you turn me on when you’re vicious.”

She giggled before she could catch it. “Behave yourself, will you, McCluskey? That poor lady behind us looks like she’s about to have a coronary as it is.”

“Give our listener a sign,” he murmured. “Shake your head or whatever he’s waiting for.”

“I already did,” she said simply. No big deal. “I think he wants to talk to me.”

“I don’t care what he wants. The kids are safe, Lissa. His hold over you is gone. And you’re not going to be more than ten feet away from me until I’ve put him out of action.”

She put a hand on his thigh, caressing him. “Threat or promise, McCluskey? Because I think you’ll find I can look after myself. Stop underestimating me, Mitch. If I was an operative, wouldn’t you use me?”

He wouldn’t hesitate. “But they’re trained operatives.”

“Then train me.”

He shuddered, but the agent in him knew she’d be an operative to equal Songbird or Heidi too damn fast. Her capacity for acting, for enjoying danger, already equaled anything he’d ever done or felt. “But they know the game, they realize the risks.”

She laughed softly in his ear. “I think I’m getting the idea. I’ve been playing the game the past few weeks—and playing it well, so you tell me.”

Damn, I wish she’d stop making sense!
“They don’t have kids.”

“You have kids. You’ve had them the whole time, even if you didn’t know where they were. You took the risks, knowing Matt and Luke had no one to rely on but you.”

He opened his mouth and closed it. He had no answer for that one, and she knew it.

She lifted a brow. “Well? Got any more buts?”

The only ones he could think of he couldn’t say. Not now, not yet, not in a crowded bus—not until he found more courage than he had at this moment.
But I wouldn’t be frightened as hell to use the other female operatives. Though I’d risk my life to save them, they’d be calculated risks. I wouldn’t take damn stupid risks because my heart was involved.

I wouldn’tgive up and die if I lost them.

He thrust a hand through his hair, feeling beads of sweat trickling all over his scalp. “Not right now. Give me a minute.”

She chuckled, low and soft. “Oooh, baby, you turn me on when you’re frantically trying to protect me from myself.”

For the first time since joining the Nighthawks, agent and man were tangled beyond unraveling. He turned her face to his, and kissed her, long and hard. “You’re driving me crazy, Miller.”

That low, rippling laugh came again—the one that sent hot shivers down his spine, hard and wanting. “Good.” And she nuzzled his neck, then ran a slow tongue along his skin to his ear. “Now let’s get back to work. I’ll let him know I’ll meet him somehow. Any ideas? I can slip out when you’re making your statement to the cops. And don’t worry about me, I’m far from helpless. I didn’t come third in the last State Intermediate Championship in kickboxing for nothing.”

Uh-huh…and no doubt she can shoot a can off a fence at five hundred meters, throw knives at the heart and break a man’s neck in seconds.

He shook his head; he felt like someone had opened his brain and poured mud in it. And to think he’d been so surprised when she lost her temper the first day.

His every illusion of her seemed destined to shatter. His gentle, home-and-hearth Lissa, who’d barely left Breckerville for years, had wild and dangerous depths he’d never even dreamed existed—and he suspected he’d get more than a few shocks before this case was complete.

He just hoped he could keep her away from Anson from now on, because after a few minutes he’d see the incredible potential in her. The potential Mitch would give anything not to see right now, or to remember she’d always had, the potential he’d chosen to forget.

She had the guts, the fire and the intuition—not to mention the exceptional thirst for danger, and the level of self-defense skills she needed and twice the enthusiasm. Sheesh, give her six months and she’d outclass him on any op Anson sent them on. If she went with him, that was. And if any other Nighthawk met her, they’d love her—literally.

And then he’d lose everything he’d ever wanted.

“I
t’s time to talk with our friend,” Lissa murmured in his ear outside the police station. She’d given her statement and checked out mug shots without success, but they’d expected that, since Angelo was an operative in training. “He’s looking twitchy.”

“I still don’t like this,” Mitch muttered. He had a real bad feeling about this. About letting her out of his sight at all.

She smiled up at him, confident, sure, sexy as hell in those snug jeans, her burnished hair loose, the golden tips glowing in the sunlight. “I’ll be fine, Mitch. Stop worrying. Wait here. I’ll be back in ten minutes

“Lissa—”

She touched his face. “Turn two of your favorite words round on yourself, McCluskey.
Trust me.
”

He watched with a slow-growing sense of dread as she slipped away across the small park to a quiet alley in the shadows of an old building where the man in gray waited for her. And while he couldn’t see clearly, Mitch would later swear the filthy jerk had a smug grin on his face.

His cell phone beeped as he sat at the park bench watching the shadowed alleyway, timing the minutes before he went in there to get Lissa to safety. “Yeah.”

“Where’s your lady, Skydancer?” Anson asked tersely.

Oh, help. He didn’t like that tone. “With our boy.”

“Get her out of there—now. Angelo took shots of our boy while he was following you, and while we don’t know who the hell he is yet, he sure ain’t ASIO, CIA, MI5 or any other respectable organization. I’ll send more news when I have it.”

The line went dead…and Mitch bolted at a dead run for the dark shadows where the stranger had Lissa.

“We have to hurry,” Lissa said, panting, as she reached the shadows where the man in gray waited for her. “McCluskey thinks I’m looking for a washroom. I’ve only got a couple of minutes.”

“What have you got for me?”

“Nothing but suspicions. If he has anything incriminating he’s hiding it too well for me to find it.”

“It’s been three weeks. The Feds pulled you out of bed this morning—a bed you’ve been sharing with him. You must know more than this by now.” A small, chilling silence. “You aren’t protecting him by any chance, are you?”

“The Feds just wasted two hours, asking me a pile of useless questions about conditions in Bosnia and Indonesia—places about which I know nothing. They also asked me about McCluskey’s living habits—again, I’m ignorant. So don’t waste my time on more stupid questions. I know nothing about McCluskey. Whatever he is, he’s good at hiding it.”

“Didn’t he give you any pillow talk? Come on, you’ve been sleeping with him,” the man said in cold impatience. “He must have told you something. On the plane last night—anything?”

Lissa stared into his expensive dark glasses, seeing only a mirror of her own face. She found no clue as to his emotions. “If he’s a spy, what would he tell me? You heard him yesterday. He knows I’ve been going through his things. He got suspicious when I wouldn’t sleep with him. So I did—just like you asked me to. Makes a nice change from celibacy, and he’s not bad in bed, but no, I’m not protecting him. He thinks I am, though. He thinks I
trust
him.” She used the word like an epithet. “I don’t trust any man.”

“What about me?” The gray man touched her hair in a lingering caress. “Do you trust me, Lissa?”

She jerked her hair out of his hold. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m doing this for my kids.”

He laughed. “Smart girl. I wouldn’t trust me, either.” A finger trailed down her face, making her wonder if he wanted her or just wanted to intimidate her.

She allowed the touch, willing her face to remain still and cold. To give nothing away. “So what now?”

If he was taken aback by her coolness, he didn’t show it. “Same. Stick with him. Do whatever it takes. Just get evidence of what he’s doing. These smuggling rackets are ruining Australia. Illegal migrants are taking jobs from decent Australians, draining taxpayers’ money with legal arguments to stay here, and using our hospitals. They form gangs in our cities and criminal rings. Conditions at our refugee facilities are unsanitary for the real, honest refugees of war or political turmoil. And people like McCluskey continue to bring them in for money. They don’t care what they’re doing to our country.”

It sounded so plausible, so passionately delivered. What was his real agenda? And how did he expect her to answer? “I don’t care. I just want my kids safe.”

“Spoken like a true mother.” The words were light, amused even, but she felt some gut-level attraction simmering beneath. He wanted her, and didn’t care if he showed it. He touched her face again, running lightly over her skin. “Pretty Lissa with the beautiful eyes and sensual mouth. When this is over—”

“You’ll go back to your world, and I’ll go back to mine. And we’ll never meet again. Goodbye.” She turned away.

He swung her round to face him. “Don’t turn your back on me.” His snarl was soft with menace; yet it struck her with a sense of wrongness. Like he was hiding laughter beneath the words. “Don’t ever turn your back on me.”

“I don’t know what sort of women inhabit your world, but I don’t put up with being mauled. I might have to get information for you to keep my sons, but that’s
all
you’ll get from me!” She pulled her arm free, her breast heaving. “I said goodbye.”

With a small, taunting grin, he covered her heaving breast with his hand, groping her. “But
I
didn’t. I didn’t dismiss you yet, sweet thing.” He ran his hand with deliberate insolence down her ribs toward her panties. “I can do better than him, Lissa. Twenty-nine minutes, seven and a half minutes. I can last much longer than that—and it wasn’t that good for you, I could tell. I can make you scream for me.”

He’d
timed
them? And he wanted the same thing from her. He’d been turned on by listening to them! Bile rose in hot burning chunks up her throat, and her temper flashed. She ducked, spun and lashed out, catching him in the inner hip with the full weight of her leg—and he staggered backward into the wall, a look of comical surprise on his face.

“Sorry,” she said, with just the same touch of insolence he’d used on her. “You see, I don’t do intimidation, and shows of power don’t turn me on. Don’t touch me again without permission.”

Like a flash he was standing again, white-faced and furious, holding a gun right against her forehead. “Don’t you dare walk away.” The gun touched her breast like a lover. “Get down on your knees and apologize for hurting me.”

“You don’t scare me.” Her heart was pumping hard, but still she forced her chin up, facing those frighteningly faceless glasses with all the defiance she could summon. “You won’t hurt me. You need me. McCluskey’s obsessed with me—you heard him. He’s wanted me for years. No one but me can get what you need from him. You know it and I know it.”

“I’ll find another way if I need to. I don’t need you—except maybe in bed.” The gun caressed her mouth now. “Pretty-mouthed Lissa. I want you to do things to me with that mouth—”

“Lissa, duck.”

Mitch stood at the end of the alley, holding a gun aimed right at the gray man’s head.

The man just smiled and pushed the gun inside Lissa’s mouth.

Mitch didn’t budge; his eyes and hands holding his gun remained rock steady, but Lissa could see the sweat beading his brow. “I don’t know who the hell you are or what you want, but so help me God, if you don’t get that gun off my woman I’ll kill you where you stand.”

He wasn’t joking.

The gray man appeared to consider Mitch’s ultimatum for a few moments. “No…you don’t know who I am, do you?” He smiled at Lissa then, and ran the cold barrel of the gun over her mouth once more, with a little smile. “Good girl, Lissa. I’ll see you soon.” He turned and walked around the corner, whistling softly.

Mitch grabbed her in his arms, pulling her away from the alley and into the safety of the sunshine at the front of the buildings. “Are you all right?”

She turned on him. “You almost blew our cover, you idiot! I was fine! I can look after myself. I had him convinced you know nothing and I don’t trust you, and you had to come charging over like some cheap Bruce Willis impersonator, ready to save me! Damn it, Mitch, I’m not helpless. Trust me for once. Let me help you bring this jerk down without treating me like some fragile porcelain doll!”

She stopped, panting, at the look in his eyes, suddenly cold with warning. It was only then she realized Mitch wasn’t holding her, he was frisking her; and when he withdrew his hand from her breast pocket, Mitch held another listening device.

So that was why the gray man groped her.

She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He threw the bug down and stamped on it. “Too late now for regrets. Let’s get out of here. Fast.”

He grabbed her hand and they bolted in a stumbling dead run across the park, waiting with every step for the hit; but they made it to the main road, unmolested. They melted into the rush of lunchtime workers, heading west to the main city street.

“What now?” she panted, rubbing her ribs to relieve the stitch in her side.

“Back to the plane,” he murmured. “We’re getting out of Canberra.” He used his cell phone, asking Anson to send Mabel with their clothes to meet them at the airstrip.

She checked herself over again. “Is there any more on me?”

“Did he touch you anywhere else?”

“He ran his hand down my shirt to my pants. He kept touching my mouth.” She shuddered.

He leaned over, checked her pants pockets and cuffs. “You’re clean now.” Then he smiled and brushed her mouth with his, in a kiss that had little to do with passion and everything to do with tenderness. “Totally clean, baby. Forget the filthy creep. He’ll never have his hands on you again.”

She nodded, upset by her own naiveté. She was so protected, the gray man made her feel soiled with a touch, a dirty smile and lewd suggestions. “How are we getting to the airstrip?”

He pointed to the row of taxicabs lining the front of the shopping mall ahead of them. “First stage.”

But he held her back when she headed for the front cab. “The third one. He hasn’t had time to pay more than one of them.”

He handed her into the cab. She hid a smile, wondering if she’d ever change his perceptions that she was delicate, fragile and feminine—if she’d ever conquer his need to protect her.

It wasn’t so bad, feeling cherished. Sometimes.

“The nearest Suzuki dealership.” Mitch added quietly to her, “I’ll buy a motorbike and we’ll ride from there to the airstrip.”

She blinked. Okay. This month appeared to be the time for crowding a whole world of new experiences into her narrow life. “Do we have to leave now? Maybe he doesn’t know about us. Maybe he hadn’t switched the bug on yet when I said all that—”

He took her hand, caressing the palm. “If he didn’t then, he does now, Lissa. I broke it. He’ll draw his own conclusions from the silence, for sure. Which puts you in danger.” He turned her face to his. “We’re not just leaving Canberra. We’re leaving Australia for a few days.”

She gasped. “Oh. I mean, you said something to Anson about Tumah-ra, but I never thought—”

“Don’t say his name in public, Lissa.” He smiled to soften the words. “I thought since you were worried about what happened to Hana—the girl I got out of Tumah-ra—you might like to see her reunited with her grandparents, aunt and uncle and cousins.”

“We’re flying to Tumah-ra?”

“After we pick up Hana in Darwin. The Australian government wasn’t too impressed with my methods of saving Hana. They don’t want any international wrangling over her or diplomatic incidents over my supposed kidnapping of a child. They don’t even want to get involved in the war until the UN says to go. It’s election year and they’re trying to look like white knights for the electorate. Anson found some extended family who are very happy to know she’s alive. I’m taking her back home.”

“That’s, um, good.”wed, she murmured, “Mitch? I don’t have a passport. I’ve never needed one.”

He grinned. “It’s all arranged already. Mabel’s bringing it to the plane now. I brought your birth certificate and a recent photo of you from home, and Anson pushed the paperwork through.”

So while she’d been going through his stuff, he’d been going through hers? Admiring, indignant and confused, she wanted to laugh, cry and tear his hair out. “The advantages of being a spy?” she murmured in his ear.

He tipped her face around to meet his. “I’ll do whatever I can, use whoever I have to, to keep you with me. I don’t care what consequences come after. I’m keeping you safe. He’ll never get to you again, Lissa, never touch you again. Ever.” He drew her against him, and she could feel the heavy thudding of his heart. “It scared the hell out of me when I saw that gun on you the first time. Then today, when I saw that jerk using it like a sexual toy on you, I knew there was no turning back. Anson agreed with me when he told me to tell you everything and take you with me. Welcome to the world of the Nighthawks, Lissa. Welcome to my world and the advantages it can bring.”

Her heart almost burst in the fierceness of her joy. Finally she was inside Mitch’s world, a full part of his life. He trusted her enough to bring her in from the outer fringes.

But would it ever have happened if I hadn’t been in danger?

Fifteen minutes later Melissa Carroll, single mother and up-till-now overlooked country mouse, was wearing a top-class helmet and thick leather jacket, sitting on the back of 1250cc’s of off-road power. Ready to do a runner out of Australia like a common—no, like a high-powered criminal, a drug dealer or child smuggler. A hit man’s woman. A failed media baron’s wife, she thought with a half-hysterical giggle.

Or a Nighthawk’s woman.

“Hold on tight,” Mitch said.

She wrapped her arms around him, snuggled in to his big, strong body and closed her eyes as he took off.

He rode like he drove: with total and superb confidence.

“Does Matt know you can ride like this?” she yelled over the rushing wind in her ears, trying her best to keep up with his balancing moves as they turned corners.