Jaq’s Harp (2 page)

At the head table, Ochre frowned at the man next to him. The older businessman, dressed more conservatively and formally than any in attendance, smirked as he clicked closed a briefcase, rose and left the room. Ochre stared blankly around him and squeezed a piece of paper in his fist. It didn’t matter exactly what the letter held. It was another in a long line of notices of failed finances, failed products, and another harbinger of the fall of the Ochres.

Beside him, his wife, Vera, a concerned frown marring her beauty—a look she wore more and more each day—reached over to stroke his arm. They exchanged hushed words. A look of urgency slashed across Ochre’s features and he gripped Vera’s arm. She jerked into his lap and stroked his face, and then she gave the wave the singer had waited for.

He signaled the band and when the bars of music blended into the noise of the crowd, he sang. As it went every night of late, he’d be ignored but for the Ochres, who seemed to calm with the music filling the empty spaces in the crowded room.

Performing into the wee hours of the night, he waited until the Ochres left before he sought his own, empty bed. And waited.

The night passed slowly as she tossed and turned on her sofa. The two-room place wasn’t much, so with Merry in the bedroom, Jaq slept on the couch. Her eyes and back ached when her watch finally reached the appointed time. Within minutes, she dressed, ate and donned a courier bag—her planned cover as a medical delivery carrier. Unable to resist, she quietly opened the meticulously oiled door to the bedroom to see the shallow rise and fall of Merry’s chest. Without a sound she closed the door and walked the short hall lined with her commendations.

The nurse should be here before Merry woke, but as Jaq left the apartment, a pang shot through her and her hand tightened on the doorknob, refusing to let go. Merry shouldn’t need her in the early morning hours before the city woke. She’d only be alone for three hours. This was all for her, anyway.

Her boots scuffed the floor as she dragged herself away.

Outside, the sight in the courtyard brought her to a standstill. The beans she’d planted had combined into one incredibly tall vine that grew straight up in the air. The large green stalk, bigger around than a hovercar, took up nearly the entire garden. The bench had been pushed to the side, the bamboo uprooted and strewn about. Green. The air smelled fresh and verdant.

Along the sturdy, smooth trunk, thick stems shot out at regular intervals, spaced perfectly to use as a ladder.

Not much time left. She burst into action. Without a backward glance or any hesitation, she started climbing. And she climbed, and climbed, and climbed. Above, the top of the beanstalk disappeared into the haze.

Past the quiet tenement building that rose higher than the hovercar thoroughfares, the wind whipped at her clothing, jacket flapping in the wind. She ignored the prickles running over her skin from the cold as she gripped the vine rails.

Ahead, the lights of another island disappeared. She was in the right spot. She dared a peek at her watch as she clutched tightly to her green ladder. Still ten minutes left. Without a clue how long it would take her to climb, she’d pushed herself and now had to wait, dangling high above the ground. The city beneath was covered in high-rises, zipping cars, a thin blanket of smog, and glaringly bright vid-boards playing the latest garish advertisements. Early morning workers went about their business, never looking up. They’d never see her fall from the strange vine they’d never notice.

Her mouth ran dry. Eyes closed against the dizzying sway of the vine, she took deep breaths. She could do this. She had to.

Her hands started to sweat. She held on tighter as a chill worked under her jacket. Behind her, a low churning sound grew louder.

The island.

She blew out a breath and blinked the dizziness into submission.

Security systems on the floating island would alert the guards the moment a mechanical object touched its outer hull, but a plant was a different story. As a lander, she’d never been on any of the floating islands—homes to the rich, security sanctuaries for the wealthy corps, flying above the ground far enough to avoid the legal systems below. A moment’s doubt assailed her that the recon she’d done, the dossiers and schematics she’d pilfered, wouldn’t be enough. Or, that the report of Giant Corp’s arrogance—they considered themselves to be impervious so only staffed minimal guards—would turn out to be a gross error.

The lower platform of the island brushed against the vine, and a quiver echoed down the beanstalk. She gripped tighter and held her breath.

The engines rumbled closer. Not much longer. Leaves rustled as the bottom of the flying platform brushed past.

One, two…three.

With a push off the rung beneath her feet, she lunged up toward the trailing edge of the island and landed on the exhaust housing platform. So far, all had gone according to plan.

The maintenance tunnel was right where it should be. The smallest step would take her over the lip and down to the ground who-knew-how-many stories below. She looked back.

The vine still stretched into the sky out of sight. Below, clouds gathered and blocked the view of her building. A bit of vertigo assailed her, and she swayed. With a jerk, she faced forward again. Sweat slicked her grip and she clung fast.

At her back, a small breeze rustled her clothes. To her front, stale air sat unmoving in the man-height pipe. She pivoted her hold on the metal handle, lunged to the side of the maintenance tunnel and dove inside its shadows.

The countdown began—six hours until they came back around to the beanstalk, her only way off this island. It wouldn’t be there after. New Castle would be awake and the Island reps below would have it cut down. Six hours.

And if the bureaucracy worked fast, the Island reps might have already had the stalk cut down. Now more than ever, she hoped the red tape was as sticky as time immemorial. Otherwise…Otherwise didn’t bear thinking on. She flipped her jacket closed against the chill.

The mesh flooring rang with each step. At evenly spaced intervals the lights shone down from above. She passed several hatches before she came to the one she’d targeted from the stolen maps.

“Damn ladders.” She huffed a breath and climbed to the hatch. Her muscles ached and burned in protest. “I hope this is the last ladder for a while.”

Balanced beneath the opening, careful to turn the handle quietly, she eased the door up. No movement broke the stillness enveloping the room. She waited until her breathing evened and her hand steadied before she pushed up into the quiet kitchen.

She ratcheted herself over the ledge, came to a crouch, and let the door settle noiselessly. She grinned into the darkness.

A movement flickered to her left. Too late, she couldn’t respond.

A hard shove sent her into the cabinets. Her breath forced from her lungs with a whoosh. Vision sparkling, she calmed her racing heart to save her energy for escape.

A large body pressed against her and bent her over the counter.

Her hand snuck halfway to her pocket for the stiletto dice before it was gripped in a tight vise. With a grunt, she bucked against her silent captor to no avail. She couldn’t move.

She was trapped.

“What’s the code?” Harp gripped the intruder’s arm and yanked it back to a painful angle. This perp had set off his surveillance monitors, and at the wrong time for his extraction. Had his cover been blown? Ice seeped into his veins.

No response. No password, no cry of alarm or pain.

“Code.” Harp yanked the arm a little harder and was rewarded with a low moan, a sound which struck him as oddly familiar as the scent that caught him for a fleeting second. Shaking his head, he forced his adrenaline-pumped mind under control. He whispered the pass phrase low, for the intruder’s ears alone. “What is steadfast?”

If he weren’t trained down to his boots in survival techniques, adaptation abilities and the keenest observation skills, he would’ve missed the slight catch in the intruder’s panting.

“The blood of an Englishman.” The operative’s response came in a questioning and strained voice that did nothing to relieve him.

He froze. The operative was a woman. And not just any woman. She struggled, the movement bringing the heady aroma back to him in a rush. He’d only met one person with this unique blend of clean and womanly scent that gripped him in the chest. And lower.

“Jaq.” He hissed out her name like a curse, because surely it was. He dropped her arm like it was poison and stepped back, away from the ass bent over the counter he now realized had cushioned his quickly rising hard-on.

“I recognize that dick.” She straightened slowly from the counter. Yes, the intruder was Jaq, short blond hair standing up in spikes, lithe form with a sinuous grace.

His chest ran cold. Her last word to him had been “dick,” but she hadn’t meant the one hard and aching inside his jeans. He practically growled at her. “Why would Mother send you?”

“I wasn’t sent.” She was still facing the cabinets and that twisted his gut as much as the response.

“You came through the agreed-upon hatch. You know the password. What the hell are you doing here, Jaq?”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head. I’ll be out of here in six hours. Until then, just pretend I’m not here. You’re good at that.”

He snorted. “What’s in six hours?”

“I have a way down. It’s one of Bovine’s contraptions. It’ll be back then.”

He wasn’t sure what exactly Bovine had come up with, but he trusted him, and Jaq. She might have a way down, but she shouldn’t be here at all. Now the shock had worn off, he realized what kind of hell she’d just dropped him into. Of all the people to be drawn into this mess, Jaq could put a wrench in the plans just by focusing her gorgeous blues his way.

A deep-cover agent couldn’t afford to be himself, ever, and Jaq made him want to be Harp again. But that had been a mistake the first time. It’d be death to them both now.

She shifted, frowned, and started detailing what Giant Corp had been up to. Things he all knew and had gotten the intel for to begin with, but nothing that explained what she was doing here. Giant Corp had been in financial ruin when Ochre had changed tactics. He’d reneged on deals. He’d siphoned money from joint ventures.

With enough evidence to topple Giant Corp out of the sky, Harp had signaled for and planned his extraction by altering a signal light on the bottom of the island to flash his code. All other communication was too risky, with all the security alarms Ochre employed around the outside of the island. Harp’s extraction was planned for next week. Mother’s team of agents would board the island through the tunnel and secure everyone here before arresting the Ochres and confiscating the entire med lab.

But his recon sensor had gone off early when Jaq entered the tunnel, sending him out of his bed and down to the kitchen as fast as his legs could carry him. If his cover was blown now, that med lab would be destroyed along with his proof—and their ability to put a stop to Ochre’s deadly scheme.

If his cover was blown, Jaq would be in as much danger as he. He reached for her, but pulled back as the sound of approaching steps made the morning take an even bigger nosedive. Jaq tensed, alert as he was.

“Get out of here. This woman will eat you alive.”

“I don’t think so.” Her reply might’ve been haughty, but she ducked into the large steel cabinet which was thankfully mostly bare. “I came to do a job, and I’m not leaving until I do it.”

He gritted his teeth to keep from yelling in frustration. The clack of high heels rounded the corner as he shut the door on the shadowy form of the woman he’d once shared passion and—dare he admit it?—love.

“Singer, I thought I saw you come this way. What are you doing in the pantry?” Madame Vera Ochre was, unfortunately, as early a riser as her husband and workers. On the floating islands, the sun blared hot, bright and too early for his tastes. One more reason he preferred living on the ground.

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans to disguise the bulge at his crotch. “Looking for breakfast.”

“We don’t stock this pantry, and you know that. Why would you come here?” In a pencil-straight business suit, Vera stood, arms akimbo, long red nails drumming on her cocked hip. She had the same height and slimness as Jaq, but she seemed skinny and waspish beside Jaq’s animalistic grace.

Fingering the ever-present dice in his pocket, he glanced around the state-of-the-art kitchen used only for overflow during banquets. It would’ve been more convenient to have gone undercover as the chef, but his singing was better than his cooking. “Just wondered if there were any sweets left from the last party.”

“Come along. Time to do your job.”

Right. He was a performer, a household servant, and as such, usually safe from Vera’s notice except when he sang at her every meal, but sporting an obvious bulge in his jeans would draw attention to himself. He didn’t look back at Jaq, and worry for her wilted his erection as soon as he stepped away from the pantry.

Boots dragging on the highly polished marble, he followed Vera to the door.

“Madame Ochre, I have something special planned for this morning, but I need to return to my room for the instrument.” He held his breath. Playing the obsequious servant John Singer had grated against his nerves for months on end, but he couldn’t tilt the hovercraft now.

“Very well. Don’t take too long. Monsieur Ochre is tense this morning.”

“Yes, of course.” Her heels clacked away.

With two bold strides, he was back to the pantry as Jaq opened the door. “You should’ve waited for my signal that the coast was clear.”

“Don’t have time to wait for you. Never have.” Jaq stood straight and tense.

He barely restrained himself from grabbing her and heading straight to the hacked hovercraft he had on standby in the parking bay. His emergency plans had to go into effect now and shouldn’t tip off the Ochres. They had no reason to suspect him, and if he disappeared, they might wonder, but wouldn’t close up shop and get rid of the evidence in the lab.

Right. They were out of here. Now. As soon as they recovered the last collection of evidence from his room.

The pinch in his chest only pissed him off. “You shouldn’t be here. And that woman will have no qualms about tossing you off the island, without a chute. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes.”

“I can take care of Fancy-pants Ochre. Doing her, are you?”

“You know I’m not.”

“How would I know that?” She crossed her arms and raised her brows.

He gripped her wrist and noted that, like he, she no longer wore her engagement band. But he didn’t because he was undercover. She had no excuse. Even if he’d walked away with the intent to never walk back.

Yeah, he knew that was an insane thought, but she made him nuts. He pulled her behind him, not stopping when she stumbled, and headed for the door, dragging her behind. He snarled in a harsh whisper. “You know because I believe in monogamy. Now keep quiet, we can’t let you be seen.”

“You ended it, Harp, and you’re in deep cover,” she whispered in his ear when he paused to edge around the hall corner and scan for witnesses. He shivered and a delicious heat stole down his spine. He turned his hand and laced his fingers in hers. The heat dissipated when she continued, “We’re trained to do
anything
while under.”

His gut burned. She better not have been with anyone for the job. She better not have touched, kissed, caressed. Even flirted, damn it.

Yes, he was irrational. No doubt about it.

“Shhht.” He hissed, low and guttural. Nobody pushed him to the edge like Jaq. He didn’t know if he wanted to pitch her off the floating island or sink his dick into her.

The way his dick pressed against his zipper gave him the answer.

“Months.” He adjusted his jeans.

They climbed the back, rarely used servant stairs.

“What do you mean, months?” Jaq kept up with him as he bounded up the first flight. Though he expected her to resist every move he made, she held his hand, her fingers wrapped in his. The small touch was more than he’d had in so long, the point of contact blazed heat up his arm.

“Months since I’ve had you.”

Her fingers clenched his. “You left. Voluntarily. You won’t have me again.”

“We’ll see.”

“Like hell.”

Despite her protest, she was still holding his hand when they reached the third flight. He cracked open the stairwell door he kept well oiled. The hallway was clear. His room, after some negotiating and trading with the Ochres’ accountant, was the first on the right. All the better to position himself for his nighttime recon. Like the professional she was, she followed him into his room with a silent tread. As he started to shut the door behind them, whispers in the hall brought him up straight. With a swift turn, he scanned the hall. A shadow disappeared at the end where the wide stairs went down to the main living areas.

Normally he would have light-footed it past the six closed doors to see who might have spotted them, but Jaq dropped his hand. All his attention went straight to her.

With a conviction that his cover hadn’t been blown, he let his attention stay on her. He shoved his now-cold fingers into his jeans pocket and nudged the door shut with his elbow. He then took the time to get a good look at Jacqueline Robinson—who’d nearly been Jacqueline English.

“You look even skinnier.” The black circles under her eyes made his anger disappear like clouds against the leading edge of the island.

“You still look as good as ever.” Jaq frowned at him and leaned against the edge of his desk. “Tell me how it is you claim to be faithful to your ex.”

Ex. She was right, he had broken it off because she could do this, make him crazy, and she’d never admitted the same depth of connection. He stalked toward her and her frown deepened. Beneath a carrier bag, her threadbare jacket, the wrinkled pullover shirt and the faded slacks made him feel as if a wedge dug itself between his ribs. Hadn’t she taken care of herself for the past year? The urge to bundle her in protective wrap and hide her in his bed assailed him.

“Because I said I would.” The familiar need to keep her safe pissed him off again. Close enough to touch, he didn’t. He put a hand on each side of her and leaned toward her until their exhales mixed, combined, caressed. Her scent, clean and rich, green, overwhelmed him and brought it all back, the feel of her in his arms, the wholeness of being with her.

She panted.

Good
.

She turned him upside down without trying. Just once, he needed to make her as derailed.

Jaq whispered against his lips, not quite touching. “Saying you’d be faithful doesn’t count anymore when you break off. You said you’d stay forever. Never take a deep cover.”

The familiar guilt twisted the wedge in his chest and drove it in hard. “I haven’t touched another woman. Trust me.”

“I did trust you. You said you were done with deep cover. Told me that for months, while you stayed in my bed. Then one morning, you just up and said I’m off to deep cover, and so sorry this didn’t work.” She ground her teeth and glared at him.

To resist her influence, he’d had to end their relationship. Resistance he only halfheartedly wanted, more proof he was no longer himself—the unattainable, invulnerable mercenary. He swallowed and, in the face of her anger, blurted out, “I had to. I was getting weak. Fucked up a simple recon because I wasn’t concentrating.”

His teeth clicked when he shut his mouth. Still too weak. He wanted Jaq more every achingly lonely day, and now he wanted to be inside her more than he wanted to reach the ground with the evidence against Giant Corp. He couldn’t think why he’d been so hellfire bent with the need to take the next difficult case, to get away from her just to prove he could. Not when she stood in front of him, a breath away.

Her blue eyes held accusation, but he couldn’t do anything less, nothing more, than to give in, take her away with him to the place that was theirs.

He touched his lips to hers in a brief flutter, and she shuddered. A low moan wrenched from his chest. For a stretched moment, the wind left him with a deep, hard pang rocking through him. Panting for air, he touched his forehead to hers and gulped in oxygen.

“I missed you.” With a bend of his neck and a tilting up of her chin, he kissed her.

Like waking after months of lethargy, his system sped into urgency. It felt like decades since he’d been at home, in peace, amidst the upheaval and splendor of Jaq. Turmoil he welcomed, this whirlwind in a slight frame. His fiancée. His woman. His.

Ravenous, he stroked his tongue inside her mouth to capture her taste, the same spiciness sending him into full-blown lust every time. Succulent and hot.

She gave back as good as he gave, her tongue sliding against his as her crossed arms loosened and she gripped the fabric of his shirt. She pulled him closer and slanted her head to allow him deeper access.

But she pulled back, breaking the contact he ached to press further. She let go of his shirt and smoothed it down his chest. “You make me forget why I’m here.”

He’d deluded himself for so long, pretending he didn’t need her. He’d forgotten how she scattered his intentions. “I’d nearly lost track of why I’m here, myself.”

Still, she was in his room. He couldn’t walk out the door without a taste of what he’d denied himself for a year. They had a few minutes, just a few moments before he shoved her into that hovercraft and got them the hell out of here.