Authors: Linda Howard
Blindly she reached out and gripped the iron rail set atop the wall, her fingers locking around the metal as she stared at nothing. Central Park spread out beneath her, a cool green oasis in the middle of the vast thicket of steel and concrete that was
She felt him approach, felt him halt when he was close behind her. She hadn’t heard him, wasn’t aware of a single sound other than the rustle of the breeze and the faint noise of the city far below; nevertheless she knew he was there. Every nerve in her skin was shrieking an alarm, telling her that Death was about to reach out and touch her.
His hand settled on the bare curve of her shoulder.
Panic exploded in her skull, mental fireworks that obliterated both thought and action. She didn’t react; she couldn’t. She stood there, violently trembling, because she was incapable of doing more, or even less.
Slowly, as if he savored the texture of her skin, he stroked down the length of her arm. His hand was hard and warm, his fingertips and palm rough with callus, but his touch was controlled, even…gentle? She had expected brutality, been prepared for it, had so focused on simply surviving that she couldn’t process the reality of the caress. Her senses reeled just as if he’d punched her.
His sliding hand reached her fingers, which were still tightly knotted around the railing, and lightly stroked over them before reversing direction and moving up her arm as slowly as it had descended. When he reached her shoulder he didn’t stop, but continued on to her neck, where he moved the mass of her curls aside and slid his fingertips over her throat, the curve of her jaw, following the slender threads of muscle and tendon and sending chills chasing over her entire body. After a moment he moved his attention to the wide shoulder strap of her silk tank top, playing with it, sliding his fingers under it, tracing the line of fabric downward. If he hadn’t realized before that she wasn’t wearing a bra, he had to know it now.
“Breathe,” he said, the first word he’d ever spoken to her. His low, slightly rough voice made the word a command.
She did, gasping in air and only then realizing, by the acute relief in her lungs, that she’d been holding her breath for so long that she’d been in danger of passing out.
Slowly, still so slowly, he moved his hand down her side, the heat of his touch searing through the thin silk. He reached the bottom of the garment and his fingers dipped under it, exploring the elastic waistband of her flimsy, billowy pants, slipping beneath and around. Now he also knew that she wasn’t wearing panties, either. Drea swallowed the lump in her throat and squeezed her eyes shut.
Closing her eyes was an instinctive move to shut him out, to distance herself from the here and now, but instead her action seemed to make all her other senses even more acute. Leisurely he moved his hand up her stomach and, with nothing else to distract her, her focus latched on to the touch with almost painful intensity. Her muscles contracted, her entire body tightening as he moved up, up, while she waited, once again holding her breath.
His hand closed fully over her left breast, and the air rushed from her lungs. He held her breast, stroked it, cupped it in his palm as if weighing it. He swept his thumb over her tender nipple, the rough pad rasping, until her nipple engorged and stood out firm and plump; then he moved on to her other breast and repeated the process.
Once again her senses reeled. The sheer pleasure of the caress scattered her thoughts, leaving her gasping and grasping for an anchor, something to hold her grounded. Whatever she had expected of him, it hadn’t been…this.
He bent his head and the heat of his mouth, the softness of his lips, closed over the sensitive cord in the side of her neck as he moved forward and pressed his body against her back, from shoulder to knee. Oh, God, he was so hot. She had felt cold, but his heat burned her. She had been braced for brutality, but he slid beneath her defenses with a touch that brought only pleasure.
“I won’t hurt you,” he murmured, his lips moving over her skin as he slipped his other hand under her top. He played with her breasts, stroking them, plucking at her nipples, while his mouth on her neck made the bottom drop out of her stomach again as if she were on a roller coaster, rising and falling on a dizzying tide of sensation.
She had no idea how long they stood there, just that the disconcerting pleasure went on and on. She was lost, at sea without a compass. This was so far outside her experiences and expectations that she had no idea what to do. Pleasure? Her relationship with Rafael was all about pleasing him; her pleasure didn’t factor into it at all. She had accepted that, concentrated on doing everything she could to make him happy. When had a man last even tried to please her physically? The memory was hazy, lost in the years, so long ago that she had ceased expecting any personal enjoyment. To feel it now, at the hands—literally—of a stone-cold killer, was staggering.
He pulled her nipples, gently pinching, and the sensation was just sharp enough to send a bolt of sheer sexual excitement straight to her groin. She felt herself reaching up and back, her body arching instinctively into his hands as her fingers slid around the back of his neck, feeling the hardness, the thickness of muscle. She clung, hearing the soft sounds of invitation she was making, feeling the hard ridge in his pants as she rolled her bottom across it. Her stomach muscles contracted again, this time in blind anticipation, and she tried to turn toward him.
He stayed her, holding her facing the rail, the city spread out before and around them. She felt him tugging on the elastic waistband of her pants, felt the sudden coolness of air on her bare ass as he dragged the silk downward, felt the tension of the elastic around her thighs.
Panic surged again, once more mixed with disbelief and horror. Here? On the balcony, in the open, where anyone might see them? The street was too far below for anyone down there to see, but what about people in the neighboring buildings? Telescopes abounded in this city, thousands upon thousands of people spying on their neighbors, on the buildings across the street, and surely the FBI or the DEA or someone was watching Rafael, which meant they were also watching her—and this man had her half-naked on the balcony.
He moved closer again, murmuring something low and soothing. He pressed against her nakedness, and his hand moved between them. She heard the muted rasp of a zipper, his knuckles briefly pushing between her buttocks, startling her into a stifled shriek, then she was aware of nothing except her own excruciating exposure and the heavy pressure of his bared penis at the opening of her body.
“Bend over a little.”
His hand on the back of her neck made sure she obeyed. His feet were between hers, pushing them as far apart as possible given the restriction of her pants around her thighs. He bent his knees, lowering himself for a better angle, and with his other hand he worked the thick head back and forth against her opening, moistening both her and himself. Then he pushed up and in, the intrusion slow and difficult.
Drea writhed, caught like a worm on a hook. Her thigh muscles tensed and relaxed, trembling. He caught her, pulled her back to him, held her braced as he slowly withdrew and thrust forward again. His right arm held her locked to him, while with his left hand he reached down and delved between her soft vaginal lips. He scissored his fingers around her clitoris, holding it captive as he moved inside her, back and forth, back and forth, the thick, hard length of his penis touching something inside her—her G spot, maybe—God, she didn’t know, all she knew was that she was rocketing toward climax so fast she couldn’t think, then she was coming, hard, her inner muscles milking him, and raw animal sounds of completion were tearing from her throat.
She would have collapsed forward if not for his grip. He eased out of her and turned her around, holding her until she stopped gasping and shuddering, until she stopped crying. Why was she crying? She never cried, at least not for real. Yet now her cheeks were wet, her breathing hard and jerky. She fought for control and, when she could, she opened her eyes and looked up, met his gaze, and lost her breath all over again.
She’d thought his eyes were brown, but now she saw they were hazel, which was a completely inadequate word for the colors she saw there: not just brown and green and gold, but blue and gray and black added in, then shot with white striations. Up close the color reminded her of dark opals, full of surprising color. Nor was his gaze cold; she felt burned by the heat she saw there, the intensity of desire. He hadn’t cooled down any, which ran contrary to any experience she’d ever had. Once a man came, he lost interest in continuing to play. But this man was still hard, still ready, and—
“You didn’t come,” she blurted, struck by the abrupt realization.
He began walking her backward toward the open glass door, lifting her off her feet when her lowered pants threatened to trip her. “Just one time, remember?” he said, his gaze glittering with both heat and fierce intent. “Until I come, all of this counts as just once.”
IN A BUILDING ANGLED ACROSS FROM RAFAEL’S APARTMENT, a federal agent blinked at his monitor, then announced in a tone of astonishment: “Hey, the girlfriend has a boyfriend.”
“What?” The senior agent walked over to the monitor and stared at it, at the couple on the balcony. He whistled. “Talk about cutting it close;
“I don’t think so; not yet, anyway. He hasn’t given us a good angle.” Despite that, the first agent, Xavier Jackson, danced his fingers across the keyboard, trying to clean up the resolution. Salinas had chosen his penthouse well; the angle, the height, the distance, all worked to make visual surveillance, at best, somewhat difficult—and as bad as visual was, what they had there was still a damn sight better than any audio they’d managed to get. Not only was the apartment soundproofed, but
He froze a snapshot of the couple and sent it to the face recognition program, but he didn’t have much hope.
The senior agent was Rick Cotton; he’d been with the Bureau almost twenty-eight years, had gone gray in its service. He was a quiet man, competent in his work, but neither talented enough at what he did nor politically savvy enough to rise any higher than his present position. He would retire in another year or so, collect his pension, and his absence wouldn’t leave a gap, but at the same time the people who had worked with him would remember him as a solid agent.
In his own six years with the Bureau,
“This might be our break,” Cotton said as they waited to see if the computer program could put a name to the unknown man’s face. Until now, they hadn’t found a chink in
thought that he himself just might be that slick and savvy operator, because damned if he’d let someone else take all the credit after the insufferably long, boring hours he and Cotton had put in on this assignment. He wouldn’t leave Cotton behind, though; the man deserved better than that.
kept an eye on the split screen, looking for a better angle, but it was as if the bastard knew exactly where they were, because not once did he reveal more than a partial view of his face. His right ear, though—