His hands were flexing on her flesh, his fingers kneading her as
if he were barely able to restrain himself from doing more. His face was rock
hard as he stared down at her, his voice raw when he spoke. "I let you
back away in the kitchen. By God, I don't think I can do it again. Not
now."
Rachel's breath left her lungs at the look in his midnight eyes,
the hard, almost cruel look of savage arousal. The skin was pulled tight over
his high, prominent cheekbones, and his jaw and mouth were set.
Her heart gave a sudden leap as
she realized that he meant exactly what he'd said, and fear and excitement
rushed through her veins in a dizzying mixture.
Control was impossible for him now, and the primitive force of his
hunger was burning in his eyes.
Her hands trembled on his chest as her entire body began quivering
in reaction to the fiercely male intent that was plain on his face, the look of
a predator who had scented female. Heat. Heat was rising in her body, melting
her insides, turning them liquid. His hand at her back clenched the towel and
pulled it free from the tuck at her bosom. It dropped to the floor in a damp
heap. Naked, Rachel stood in his grasp, shaking and yearning and gasping for
breath that wouldn't seem to go deep enough.
He looked down at her, and a low rumbling sound started in his
chest, working up to the back of his throat. Rachel's thighs turned to water,
and she swayed, her throat tight, her heart pounding. Slowly he lifted his hand
and touched her breasts, high and round, soft, with small, tight brown nipples,
filling his palm with her to discover anew the warm, velvety texture of her
flesh. Then, just as slowly, his hand drifted downward, smoothing over the
sleek delta of her stomach and the slope of her lower abdomen, his fingers at
last sliding into the dark curls of her womanhood.
She hung
there, shaking wildly and unable to move, paralyzed by the hot river of
pleasure that followed his questing touch.
One finger made a bolder foray. Her body jerked wildly, and she
whimpered as he touched and teased and explored.
His gaze lifted from the gut-wrenching contrast of his hard,
sinewy hand cupping the soft, exquisitely female mound and drifted back up to
her pretty breasts, then to her face. Her eyes were half closed, glazed with
desire; her lips were moist and parted, her breath rushing in and out in gasps.
She was a woman on the verge of complete satisfaction, and her look of sweet
carnality exploded the slim hold he still had on himself. With a wild, deep
sound he bent and hoisted her over his right shoulder, the blood pounding so
wildly in his ears that he didn't hear her startled cry.
He made it to the bed in five long steps and dropped her across
it, following her down, spreading her thighs and kneeling between them before
she had recovered. Rachel reached for him, almost sobbing with need. He tore
off his shirt and tossed it to the floor, then jerked at his pants until they
were open, and he lowered himself onto her.
Her body arched in shock as he thrust into her, and she cried out
at both the moment of pinching discomfort and the jolt to her senses and flesh
as he filled her. He was… oh…
"Take it all," he groaned, demanded, pleaded. He hung
over her, his face shiny with sweat, his expression at once tortured and
ecstatic. "All of me. Please." His voice was hoarse with need.
"Let yourself relax – yes. Like that.
More.
Please. Rachel. Rachel!
You're mine you're mine you're mine…."
The rawly primitive chant washed over her, and she cried out again
as he moved in and out of her, powerfully, their bodies writhing together.
It had never been like this for
her,
so painfully
intense that it was unbearable.
She had never
loved like this, knowing that the breath would still in her lungs and her heart
stop beating in her chest if anything ever happened to him. If this was all he
wanted of her, then she would give herself to him freely and fervently,
branding him with the sweet burning of her own passion.
He rolled his hips against her with a heavy surge, and it was
abruptly too much for her to bear, making her senses crest and shatter. She
gasped and cried out, writhing beneath him in a shimmer of pure heat that went
on and on until it caught him, too. She couldn't see, couldn't breathe, could
only feel. She felt the heavy pounding of his thrusts as he drove himself into
her, then the convulsive heaving of his body in her arms. His hoarse wild cries
filled her ears, then became rough moans. Slowly he stilled, became silent. His
body relaxed, and his heavy weight bore down on her, but she cradled him
gladly, her hands still clutching his back.
Concern began to nudge her as sanity returned, bringing
remembrance of the way he had lifted her onto his shoulder and the unrestrained
wildness of his lovemaking. His head lay on her shoulder, and she twined her
fingers into his coal-black hair, managing only a husky murmur as she said,
"Kell? Your shoulder…are you okay?"
He levered himself onto his right elbow and looked down at her.
Her clear gray eyes were dark with concern – for him, after he'd taken her with
all the care and finesse of a bull in rut! There were her soft, trembling lips,
but he hadn't kissed them, nor had he caressed her pretty breasts and sucked
them as he'd done in his dreams. Love was in those eyes, love so pure and
shining that it knotted his insides with pain and shattered a wall somewhere
deep in his mind and soul, leaving him vulnerable in a way he'd never been
before.
Now he knew what hell was. Hell was seeing heaven, bright and
tender, but being on the outside of the gates, unable to enter them without
risking the destruction of what you most treasured.
"Just who is this woman Ellis
has gone so mad over?"
Charles asked
calmly, his pale-blue eyes never wavering as he watched Lowell.
As always, Charles's manner was
detached, but
Lowell
knew that he missed nothing.
"She lives in a little house close to the beach. Deserted
area, nothing around for miles. We questioned her when we first started looking
for Sabin."
"And?" The voice was almost gentle.
Lowell shrugged. "And nothing. She hadn't seen
anything."
"She must be out of the ordinary to capture Ellis's
attention."
After considering it a minute Lowell shook his head. "She's
good-looking, but that's all. Nothing fancy. No makeup. Outdoorsy type. But
Ellis hasn't stopped talking about her."
"It seems our friend Ellis doesn't have his mind completely
on the job at hand." The comment was deceptively casual.
Again Lowell shrugged. "He thinks Sabin died when the boat
blew up, so he's not putting a lot of effort into hunting him."
"What do
you
think?"
"It's a possibility. We haven't found any trace of him. He
was wounded. Even if by a miracle he'd made it to shore, he'd have needed
help."
Charles nodded, his eyes thoughtful as he waved Lowell away. He
had worked with Lowell for many years now and knew him as a steady and
competent, if uninspired, agent. He had to be competent to have survived.
Lowell was no more convinced of Sabin's survival than Ellis was, and Charles
wondered if he had allowed Sabin's reputation to override his own common sense.
Common sense would certainly seem to indicate that Sabin had died in the
explosion or immediately thereafter, drowning in the warm turquoise waters to
become food for the denizens of the sea. No one should have survived that, but
Sabin… Sabin was one of a kind, except for that blond devil with the golden
eyes, who had disappeared and was rumored to be dead, despite the disquieting
talk that had floated out of Costa Rica the year before. Sabin was more shadow
than substance, instinctively cunning and damnably lucky. No, not lucky,
Charles corrected himself. Skilled.
To call Sabin "lucky" was to underestimate him, a fatal
mistake too many of his colleagues had made.
"Noelle, come here," he called, barely raising his
voice, but he didn't need to. Noelle was never far from him.
It gave him pleasure to look at
her, not because she was extraordinarily beautiful, though she was, but because
he enjoyed the incongruity of such lethal skill housed in such a lovely woman.
Her job was twofold: to protect Charles and to kill Sabin.
Noelle came into the room, walking with the grace of a model, her
eyes sleepy and soft. "Yes?"
He waved his thin, elegant hand to indicate a chair. "Sit,
please. I have been discussing Sabin with Lowell."
She sat, crossing her legs to best display them.
The gestures that attracted
unsuspecting males came naturally to her; she had studied and practiced too
long for them to be
anything else by now.
She smiled. "Ah, Agent Lowell. Sturdy, dependable, if a
little shortsighted."
"Like Ellis, he seems to think we're wasting our time in
searching for Sabin."
She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, then blew smoke through
her shapely lips. "It doesn't matter what they think, does it? Only what
you think."
"I wonder if I am bestowing superhuman powers on Sabin, if
I'm so wary of him that I can't accept his death," Charles mused.
Her sleepy eyes blinked. "Until we have proof of his death we
can't afford to assume otherwise. It's been eight days. If he somehow survived,
he would now be recovered enough to start moving around, which should increase
our chances of finding him. The most logical thing would be to intensify our
search, rather than slacken it."
Yes, that was indeed logical; on the other hand, if Sabin had
survived the explosion and somehow made it to shore, something that seemed
impossible, why hadn't he contacted his headquarters for aid? Ellis' s contact
in Washington was completely certain that Sabin hadn't attempted to get in
touch with anyone. That simple fact had convinced almost everyone that Sabin
was dead… yet Charles couldn't convince himself. It was sheer instinct that
prompted him to keep his men searching, waiting, poised to strike. He could not
believe that it had been so easy to kill Sabin, not after all these years when
attempt after attempt had failed. It was impossible to have too much respect
for his capabilities. Sabin was out there, somewhere. Charles could feel it.
He was abruptly brisk. "You're right, of course," he
told Noelle. "We will intensify the search, re-cover every inch of ground.
Somehow, somewhere, we have missed him."
Sabin prowled the house, his savage mood reflected on his face.
He'd done some hard things in his
life, but none
of them had been as difficult as having to
watch Rachel get ready to go out with Tod Ellis.
It went against every instinct he had, but nothing he'd said could
change her mind, and he was helpless, handcuffed by circumstance. He couldn't
afford to do anything that would focus attention on her; it would merely
increase the danger she was in. If he'd been ready to move he would have gone
that night rather than expose her to Ellis, but again he was stymied. He wasn't
ready to move, and to move before he was prepared could mean the difference
between success and failure, with his country's security at stake. He'd been
trained for half his lifetime to put his country first, even at the cost of his
own life. Sabin could have sacrificed himself without hesitation or even regret
if it had been necessary, but the simple, terrible truth was that he couldn't
sacrifice Rachel.
He had to do whatever he could to keep her safe, even if it meant
swallowing his pride and possessive instincts. She was safe enough with Ellis
as long as he had no reason to suspect her of anything. To jerk her out of the
house and take her away before Ellis arrived to pick her up, as Kell had badly
wanted to do,
would
arouse the man's suspicions. Kell knew the agent,
knew that he was damned good at his job…too good, or he'd never have been able
to hide his other activities for so long. He also had a good-sized ego; if
Rachel stood him up it would make him furious, and he wouldn't let it pass. He
would be back.
Patience, the ability to wait even in the face of great urgency,
was one of Sabin's greatest gifts. He knew how to wait, how to pick his moment
for optimum success, how to ignore danger and concentrate solely on timing.
He could literally disappear into
his surroundings, waiting, so much a part of the earth that the wild creatures
had ignored him and the Vietcong had at times passed within touching dis
tance of him without ever seeing
him.
His ability to wait was enhanced by
his instinctive knowledge of when patience was useless; then he exploded into
action. He explained it to himself as a well-developed sense of timing. Yes, he
knew how to wait… but waiting for Rachel to come home was driving him crazy. He
wanted her back safe in his arms, in bed. Damn, how he wanted her in bed!
He didn't turn on any lights in the house; he didn't think it
likely that the house was being watched, but he couldn't take the chance.
Rachel and Ellis might return early, and a lit house could trigger Ellis's
suspicions. Instead he moved silently through the darkness, unable to sit still
despite the ache in his shoulder and leg. His shoulder had been giving him hell
since the afternoon, and he absently massaged it A humorless smile quirked his
lips. He hadn't felt a thing while he'd been making love to Rachel; his senses
had been centered completely on her and the unbearable ecstasy of their bodies
linked together. But since then the shoulder had been painfully reminding him
that he was a long way from being healed; he'd been lucky he hadn't torn it
open again.
Abruptly he swore and limped through the kitchen to the back door,
so agitated that he couldn't remain inside the confines of the house any
longer. As soon as Kell opened the back door he sensed Joe leaving his stakeout
under the oleander bush, silently moving through the shadows, and he softly
called to the dog in reassurance.
Kell no longer feared being attacked; Joe had warily accepted his
residency, but Kell didn't trust him enough to refrain from identifying himself
before going down the back steps.
Automatically keeping himself in the shadows, Kell circled the
house and investigated the pines, assuring himself that the house wasn't under
surveillance.
Joe padded
along
about ten feet behind him, stopping when
Kell stopped and advancing when Kell moved on.
A new moon was just rising, a thin sickle of light on the horizon.
Sabin looked up at the clear sky, so clear, like Rachel's eyes, that infinity
seemed within his reach.
His heart twisted again, and his hand clenched into a fist. He
whispered a curse into the night. She was too gallant, too strong, for her own
good; why couldn't she play it safe and let him take all the risks? Didn't she
know what it would do to him if anything happened to her?
No, how could she know? He'd never told her, and he never would,
not at the expense of her safety. He'd protect her if it killed him. His mouth
twisted wryly; it probably
would
kill him, not physically, but deep
inside where he'd never let anyone touch him… until Rachel had slipped past all
his defenses and seared herself into his mind and soul.
Of course, there was always the possibility that he wouldn't get
out of this alive, anyway, but he didn't dwell on that. He had thought a lot in
the past few days, considering and discarding options. His plans were made. Now
he was waiting: waiting for his wounds to heal more completely; waiting until he
was physically ready; waiting for Ellis and his pals to make some little
mistake; waiting until he sensed the time was right… waiting. When the time
came he would call Sullivan, and the plan would be put into action. He would
rather have Sullivan with him than any ten other men. No one would ever be
expecting the two of them to be working together again.
No, his only uncertainty was because of Rachel. He knew what he
had to do to protect her, but for the first time in his life he dreaded it.
Letting her go was one thing; living without her was another.
He stood there in the night and
cursed whatever it was that made him different from other men: the
extraordinary
skill and cunning, the acute eyesight and
athletic body, the extreme coordination between mind and muscle that, all
combined, made him a hunter and a warrior.
When his emotional aloofness was added to that it had made him a
natural for the job he held, the perfect, emotionless soldier in the cold gray
shadows. He couldn't remember ever being any different. He hadn't been a noisy,
laughing child; he'd been silent and solitary, holding himself aloof even from
his parents. He'd always been alone deep inside himself and had never wanted it
any other way; perhaps he'd known, even as a child, how much it would hurt to
love. There. He'd let the words form in his thoughts, and even that was so
painful that he flinched. He was too intense ever to love casually, lightly, to
play the game of romance over and over. His emotional distance had been a
defense, but Rachel had shattered it, and it hurt. God, how it hurt.
Rachel sat across from Tod Ellis, smiling and chatting and forcing
herself to eat her seafood as if she enjoyed it, but it chilled her every time
he gave her that toothpaste-ad smile. She knew what that smile concealed. She
knew that he had tried to kill Kell; he was a liar, a murderer and a traitor.
It took all her strength to continue acting as if she were having a pleasant
time, but nothing could keep her thoughts from slipping back to Kell.
She had wanted nothing more than to continue lying in his arms that
afternoon, her body limp and throbbing from his rough, fast, but intensely
satisfying possession. She had forgotten what it was like… or perhaps it had
never been like that before. Being married to B.B. had been warm and fun and
loving. Being Sabin's woman would be like burning alive every time he touched
her, going soft, hot and moist at his glance, his lightest touch. He wasn't
easygoing and cheerful.
He was a hard, intense man, the force of his
personality radiating from him.
He wasn't
playful; she'd never heard him laugh, or even seen his rare smiles reach his
eyes. But he had reached for her with such desperate, driving need that
everything in her had responded immediately, and she had been ready for him,
wanting him.
No, Kell wasn't a comfortable man to be around, or an easy man to
love, but she didn't waste time railing against fate. She loved him, and
accepted him for what he was. She looked at Tod Ellis and her eyes narrowed a
little, because Kell was a lion surrounded by jackals, and this man was one of
the jackals.
She put down her fork and gave him a bright smile. "How much
longer will you be around here, do you think? Or are you permanently assigned
to this area?"