“Then I guess you’ll just have to protect me.” She moved against him, let her lower stomach cushion his denim-covered cock as her hands smoothed up his chest. “Wanna be my bodyguard?”
She hadn’t anticipated his reaction. Bailey had counted on his arousal, she knew it was there, but she had anticipated his anger rather than his lust taking control.
Before she could avoid his kiss, his lips were covering hers. Before she could pull back, his arms were surrounding her, lifting her to him as his tongue rubbed against hers.
Bailey felt the hand at the back of her head, holding her in place. His fingers rubbed at her scalp as his tongue licked at hers, his lips stroking against hers.
A second later his hand was at her hip, tightening, pulling her fully against him, his erection pressing fully against her now as she felt lust suddenly surging through her.
“You’re insane,” he growled, maneuvering her until her back was pressed against the wall and her senses were going haywire. “Damn you, Bailey, you’ll be the death of both of us.”
There was anger and lust surging between them, a fiery surge of intensity that poured through her system. Her fingers tunneled into his hair, gripped and held him closer. She fought to melt into his body, to consume his kiss as his hand gripped her hip and tried to drag her closer. They fought to get closer.
“John,” she moaned his name as he nipped at her lips before moving to her jaw, her neck.
He dragged the sleeve of her robe over her shoulder as his lips followed. With his other hand, he pushed beneath the material covering her thighs.
Bailey drew in a harsh, ragged breath as his fingers found the moist, slick flesh between her thighs. She stilled, her lashes flying open to stare back at him as he parted the folds of flesh and found the hardened nub of her clit.
“There, baby,” he crooned, his voice deep and dark. “Feel how fucking good it is. You want a bodyguard? Let me show you just how well I intend to guard it.”
His fingers moved lower. She felt the width of two of them suddenly pressing against the clenched, hot entrance before he surged inside.
Fire erupted through her senses, sizzled over her flesh. Tremors shook through her. Bailey heard her own strangled cry, felt the violent clench of her body around his fingers, and the orgasm threatening to tear through her.
“Feel it?” he growled as he rubbed inside her, stroked her. “Feel it, Bailey.”
She felt it. All of it. The hunger, the need, the racing sensations that threatened to tear her apart.
“John,” she gasped his name again, then cried out as he pulled slowly away from her.
“No.” Bailey tried to draw him back, fought to find the pleasure again as a chill of foreboding swept through her. “Why are you doing this?”
Why was he drawing away from her? He wanted her, she knew he did, wanted her with the same desperation she wanted him.
“You won’t work me like you’ve worked Warbucks,” he stated, his voice harsh now. “You made damned sure you’re a part of this game, but you’ll play by my rules, Bailey. And my rules include information. Now start talking.”
“Your rules?”
“My rules,” his voice hardened.
Bailey smiled. “Bodyguards don’t give the orders, lover. This isn’t your game this time. It’s mine. You can share it with me or you can get the fuck out.”
Evidently John’s rules meant he walked. She watched in shock as he turned and left the house.
CHAPTER 4
IT INCLUDED HIM WALKING away from her and leaving her aching. That evening Bailey was still irritated, more with herself than with her early-morning visitor. John was determined to turn her life upside down and turn her operation against her. She could feel it. Almost as though even before he made the first move, she knew what he was going to do.
He’d left the house that morning after stepping away from her. He’d walked out, locked the door behind him, and disappeared the way he had come as she stared at his back in surprise.
He wanted her, yet he’d turned his back on her.
So much for that hard-on he’d tried to claim was so serious. He was probably perpetually hard.
Pulling her BMW into the front of the hotel he was staying at, Bailey turned her keys over to the valet before entering the lobby and moving quickly to the elevator.
She wanted answers. He hadn’t returned to the house to provide those answers, so she was coming to him. It might not be one of her brightest moves. She was well aware of the fact that he had most likely maneuvered her into doing just what she was doing.
As the elevator slid to a smooth stop at his floor, she stepped out and came face-to-face with one of the men she had watched in Atlanta.
John had worked with five men on that mission against Orion. One of them was Micah Sloane. Middle Eastern, perhaps Israeli, six two, his black hair short and framing an imposing, arrogant face. If what she suspected was right, this was a dead man walking.
“Excuse me.” Aware of the other men standing behind him, Bailey pasted a polite smile on her face and moved to skirt around him.
“Ms. Serborne, yes?” He stopped her.
Bailey stepped back, staring up at him, her brow lifting as she detected a Palestinian accent.
“Yes?”
“Jerric Abbas.” He extended his hand.
Jerric Abbas, her ass.
She extended her hand. “I remember you, Mr. Abdul.” He did resemble Jerric, who had died in a messy little explosion several years before. If someone wanted to believe he was Jerric, it would work.
Come to think of it, there were a few slight differences in his appearance since she had seen him in Atlanta. It didn’t change the fact that she knew exactly who he was.
“I would hope that you would have no problems with my presence in your fair town.” His smile was shark-cold, rather like Azra’s had been. Of course, Azra had been a shark. Without conscience and without mercy.
She lifted her hands up, palms flat in a gesture of casual disinterest. “Stay out of my way, I’ll stay out of yours,” she promised before moving around him and walking quickly to John’s room.
She could feel the hairs at the back of her neck lifting in warning that “Jerric” and his friends were still watching her. She knew the other two men. They were a part of Samuel Waterstone’s security detail.
Interesting that good ol’ Sam, as patriotic as he purported to be, allowed his men to associate with suspected terrorists. Of course, Jerric Abbas had never been convicted. He was watched closely, until that explosion in which he was supposed to have been blown to bits.
Boy, there were a lot of men rising from the grave lately.
She stopped at John’s hotel room door and gave a quick knock, her back still to the men who watched from farther down the hall.
She was gaining a lot of interest these days.
Within seconds the door opened slowly. John stood in front of her, shirtless, the fine hairs on his chest glistening damply. He looked sexy as hell, mouthwatering and dangerous.
“You’re early,” he announced as he stepped back and welcomed her into the room. “Come on in.”
She stepped inside, feeling something shift inside her, some knowledge, a premonition that she had just entered something much more dangerous and deadly than simply a hotel room.
The door closed behind her, leaving her alone, defenseless, and suddenly feeling more determined and more confident than she ever had.
“So, lover.” She turned to him slowly. “What happened to my bodyguard?”
JOHN STARED AT THE VISION that entered his hotel room and wanted to growl like an animal in rut.
Son of a bitch, she was the most gorgeous woman he had ever laid his eyes on. Dressed in a snug sapphire evening gown slit up to her thigh, matching heels, and emerald-green eyes. Her shoulder-length dark chestnut hair was swept up on her head with sapphires and diamonds among the curls.
Full, firm breasts peeked above the loose material of t
he gown that draped over the mounds and drew instant attention to the tempting curves. Long legs made a man think of firm thighs gripping his hips and the treasures to be found beyond.
He knew the treasures between those legs. The soft, silky curls that covered her pussy, the sweet syrup that could dampen her flesh. The thought of it had his cock hardening further, his heart racing.
Damn, he was so fucking hungry for a taste of her that he wondered if he would survive the wait. She was hesitant, reluctant. He’d be madder than hell if she jumped straight into bed with him, but on the other hand, he was going to die of need if she didn’t.
He finally found enough of his senses to question her. “Weren’t you supposed to come across with information first?”
Her brow lifted as she glanced around the room, then turned back to him as though in question.
It took him a moment, but he finally got the hint. “Room’s clean,” he said quietly as he turned away from her and headed for the bar on the other side of the large sitting room. “Want a drink?”
He sure as hell needed one. He could feel the sweat popping out on his brow, his internal temperature rising in direct relation to the way that damned gown shifted and moved against her body.
At the rate he was going his self-control was going to be shot where she was concerned.
“I’m not in the drinking mood, John,” she informed him.
She followed him to the short bar across the room, though, and watched as he poured himself a drink. He could feel her behind him, the warmth of her body reaching out and stroking the bare flesh of his back.
Hell, he wanted to feel her touch so damned much that he could almost imagine what it had once been like.
“So are you ready to talk yet?” He turned to her as he leaned back against the bar nonchalantly.
Her brow arched. “I rather think you know what I want to talk about. In what way are you wanting to work together here and what assurances do I have that you and your team aren’t going to move in and take this away from me?”
He shook his head. “There’s no way to take this away from you, Bailey, and you know it. You’re the key to the operation, as you said. You have access to the code, Warbucks needs you, as do we. But I won’t work blind.”
She tapped her fingers against the small silk purse she carried in one hand.
“When did he acquire CROSSFIRE?” she finally asked. “My sources haven’t reported any attempts to steal it, now that it had been taken.”
“This doesn’t surprise me.” He shrugged. “A cap was placed on the information going out until the they could be found,” he stated. “That’s how we managed to finally track the traitor back here. It’s a very unique weapon. One Warbucks couldn’t resist once a weakness was inserted in the security surrounding it. We were hoping to catch the thieves before they actually got away with it. Unfortunately, they slipped by us. But we manage to track the lines of information to four families: Waterstone, Grace, Claymore, and Menton-Squire.”
They were names she knew, families she had grown up with and had suspected herself. “I’ve come up with the same names,” she said. “But I’ve also placed Raymond Greer high within Warbucks ranks. And only he would know that I have that code.”
“That leaves Waterstone, Grace, Claymore, and Menton-Squire.” he pointed out.
Bailey nodded at that. “Raymond Greer worked for Ford Grace before marrying Grace’s sister. I know he’s been involved in the brokerage of the sales in several instances. Myron Falks is Samuel Waterstone’s head of security. I’ve compiled quite a bit of circumstantial evidence against him as well. I know the two of them are involved, I just don’t know who’s giving the orders.”
That was more than the unit had. Much more. She’d obviously been working on this at a deeper level than they had imagined.
John tipped back his drink, finished it, and set the glass on the table.
“How did you manage to tie Greer and Falks into it?” He crossed his arms over his bare chest and watched her gaze caress the naked flesh.
“Tying Greer to it wasn’t that hard.” She shrugged, and the full slope of a breast flashed within the folds of material draping over it. “He’s ex-CIA. He has the contacts to know about classified research-and-development projects. He still maintains friendships with very high-level individuals, and with his marriage to Mary Grace Altman, he has the power and financial backing to aid many of those individuals. Falks was easier, actually. His alias Mark Fulton was tagged several years ago during a sale of advanced electronics on the black market. We didn’t have enough evidence for an arrest or conviction, but we know he was there.”
“And each family has the power or resources for transportation and delivery,” he stated.
Bailey nodded at that.
He blew out a heavy breath before wiping his hand over his face and staring back at her silently for long moments. He had actually expected her to know what was stolen. She had her own sources, her own contacts and assets. The fact that rumor hadn’t made it back to her was in a way an indication that this operation was much more high-level that any of them had wanted to believe.
“When was CROSSFIRE?” she asked.
He nodded sharply. “It was stolen during transportation to a secret military base in DC several weeks ago. Word went out to terrorist organizations and nations days ago that CROSSFIRE was coming up on the auction block and that you would choose the broker. We have a major situation here with limited time to track the weapon, considering there’s a highly classified multinational meeting in the Middle East in three weeks to discuss a new peace initiative that has garnered surprising support.”
“So we have three weeks to ensure that Warbucks approves of my choice of John Vincent as the broker,” she stated.
John nodded. “Considering the item, the price that will be attached to it, and the level of trust that will be required in this trade, any broker will demand a face-to-face with Warbucks as well rather than his middlemen, whom they’ve met with before. This is our chance to identify him and to take him out.”
He watched her expression turn somber, her green eyes losing a bit of their brilliance as bleak bitterness filled them.
“Warbucks was one of Orion’s employers,” she said. “I suspect he was hired to kill Ford Grace’s wife and daughter fourteen years ago and I know he hired out the deaths of my parents. I want him, John. I won’t be pushed out of this one. Try to take me out of it, and you and your entire team will regret it.”
He shook his head slowly. “This can’t be just your operation any longer, Bailey. It has to be a shared venture between you and me.”
“And your Jerric Abbas look-alike?” The tight, sarcastic smile she gave him was telling. “I met him outside the elevators tonight—with several of Waterstone’s security team, by the way. He made a point of letting me know he was here, to have me verify his identity as Abbas.”
John grinned. The identity of Jerric Abbas was the best cover they could have come by. Jerric had only been rumored to have been killed in that explosion; there was no proof. Several times after that explosion Micah had made forays into the criminal underground as the terrorist. The unit had decided that morning that Micah would make certain Bailey verified his identity. She’d come across Jerric several times in the field and she was the best verification he could have had.
“There have been some questions,” he finally admitted. “He was fingerprinted, DNA’d. We managed to get our own results into each test easily enough, but we thought a verification by you would go farther.”
She nodded at that. “The people you’re dealing with aren’t the most trustworthy. And arranging a meeting with Warbucks isn’t going to be as easy as you think. I’ve been working for more than a year to prove my discontent with the agency and my country in general. He’s only now beginning to test me.”
Returning amid a scandal had done some damage to her social life, but not to the certainty that she would turn against the CIA if given the
chance. John knew for a fact that rumors were already circulating that Bailey Serborne was now a disenchanted agent and possibly available to the highest bidder.
It was information that the CIA couldn’t afford to act on, though, simply because of the power that backed her. They hadn’t even placed a watch on her, which was a testament to the financial and political clout that existed within the world she had been born into.
So how did a society princess, an heiress unlike any other he’d heard of, end up risking her life and fortune in a career that could end any day with her death?
What sense of honor, injustice, or vengeance had led her here?
There were so many secrets, so much of her that he was only now realizing that he didn’t know or understand. Parts of her that she hid, that she refused to share with anyone, man or woman. An intimacy she was determined to keep to herself.
“What proof do you have that Warbucks was involved in the death of your friend or your parents?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “I don’t have time to sit and tell you my life story.” She used a small flip of her hand to indicate the dress she was wearing. “We’re going to be fashionably late as it is. Get in your best evening suit and we’ll head out.”
“To where?” he asked curiously. She was obviously attempting to assert herself and her dominance in this. For the moment, he was allowing it.
“Samuel Waterstone’s get-together. He and his wife are celebrating their anniversary tonight. Forty-five years of marital bliss.”
There was a regret disguised in the bitterness of her voice that made something in his chest ache. Made him regret choices himself. Could he and Bailey have been celebrating an anniversary this year? he wondered. If he hadn’t “died.” If Trent Daylen hadn’t managed to get on the wrong side of Warbucks in Australia?
“The families we’re watching will be in attendance at this party?” he asked her.
“Every one of them plus several dozen more. Add to that list a few box-office stars, a couple of very dull television personalities and even some of Aspen’s finest political figures and you have a gallery of the rich and boring.”