Kill Shot (19 page)

Gabe’s erection looked painful. It stood
rigid against his stomach, the head engorged with blood and the tip
seeping precum. His sac was tight against his body, and the muscles
in his thighs quivered.

She stopped her teasing and moved closer to
him, the sway of her hips answering the call of his desire. She
kissed him gently, despite the need consuming her. She wanted to
devour her conquest, to take no prisoners. The storm raging outside
matched the one taking place in her body. But self-control was key,
and she had self-control in spades.

She ran her finger, still damp with her
juices, over his bottom lip, and he immediately took it into his
mouth, swirling his tongue around the tip and savoring her
taste.

“Don’t get greedy. I told you not to move.”
He released her finger and promised retribution with his eyes. She
couldn’t wait.

She kissed her way down his chest, lowering
herself to her knees in front of him. She breathed in the scent of
his arousal and nuzzled her cheek against his rigid length.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve done this.”

“It’s probably like riding a bike. You never
really forget how.”

Grace laughed against him and looked up into
his eyes. Sweat dampened his skin with the restraint he used to
hold himself still, but his gaze was steady as he stared back at
her. She didn’t look away as she took him in her hand and kissed
away the moisture at his tip. Her lips were salty as she ran her
tongue over them.

His taste and texture were familiar, as was
the growl he made in the back of his throat when her tongue hit the
sensitive spot on the underside of his cock. Her throat opened as
she took him farther and farther down, and she kept the pump of her
hand steady.

He spread his legs apart for better balance,
and she cupped his balls in her other hand, massaging the area just
behind with her fingers.

“Shit, Grace. I’m going to come. Stop.” He
lowered his hands and took hold of her head, and she immediately
stopped what she was doing.

“No one said you could move your hands. You
made a deal. If you break it now, the whole thing’s off. We can
play cards for the next few hours.”

“When this is over, I’m going to make you
beg for mercy.”

“I’m counting on it. Now get your hands back
where they belong.”

He did what he was told, and Grace took him
back in her mouth, redoubling her efforts to get him back where
he’d been. He strained against her, trying to hold back his
release, but she was relentless. She took him deep, swirling her
tongue around him while keeping the steady pump of her hand
going.

“Last chance, Grace. I’m going to come.”

She purred while her mouth was wrapped
around him, and the vibrations sent him over the edge. He shouted
out, and she drank every drop of him down like wine. She licked her
lips and slithered back up his body, her own need for release even
more potent since she’d experienced his.

His hands were still above him, but his head
hung down, and his breath rasped in and out of his lungs. Sweat
covered his skin. Grace kissed him deeply, her tongue sliding
sinuously against his, and she felt him stir against her. She ran
her hands over his shoulders and up his arms, unwrapping them from
the post and pulling them around her so he held her close.

“Mmm, I guess you fulfilled your part of the
deal after all.”

“A deal’s a deal. Now it’s my turn.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

Before she knew what was happening, he had
her wrists held captive behind her back and her torso bent over the
side of the bed. The texture of the bedspread was rough against her
sensitive nipples, and she could feel the moisture pooling between
her legs and running down her thighs.

He didn’t give her warning as he plunged
into her wet heat. He filled her completely, and the position made
him feel even larger. He leaned over her, her arms held prisoner
between them, and she screamed as the head of his cock hit the
furthest point inside her. Her inner walls clamped around him, and
her climax tore through her, wrecking her body and leaving her
nothing more than a shattered shell of a woman.

Too many sensations bombarded her system.
The coolness of the sheets beneath her. The heat of Gabe on top of
her. The candlelight flickered behind her closed eyelids, and the
smell of wax and sex permeated the air. He released her arms and
moved her so she lay fully on the bed. He grabbed the bed pillows
and wedged them beneath her, spreading her legs wider and changing
the angle of penetration again.

“I can’t, Gabe. No more.”

“Yes, you can.” He kissed his way up her
spine and nipped at the base of her neck. “Do you have any idea how
good you feel around me?”

All she could do was moan in response. He’d
stopped moving, and she wiggled against him in anticipation as the
heat started to build inside her once again. He moved his hand
beneath her and cupped her mound, holding in the pulsing heat that
quivered there. His hand skimmed down her back, leaving chills
along her skin, and his finger circled the puckered star of her
anus.

“Oh, God, Gabe.” Sensations spiraled through
her like lightning. “Please.”

“Please what?”

“Move inside me. Just fuck me. I’m
begging.”

He pulled out of her slowly until only the
very tip of his cock was still inside her. He dipped his finger
lower and gathered her juices before bringing it back up to her
rear passage. He sank his finger in slowly just as he pushed his
cock back inside of her to the hilt. His fingers kept busy in front
and behind, building the pressure and matching his thrusts in
intensity, and sensitive nerve endings she never knew existed had
her pushing back against him, eager for more. He was relentless in
his goal, giving her no choice but to feel the myriad of pleasures
he was providing.

It only took a few thrusts before the heat
gathered in her pussy and spiraled outward. She buried her face in
the covers and screamed as she flooded his cock with her come. He
thrust one last time and moaned into her hair before he collapsed
on top of her.

***

“We’ve got to learn to pace ourselves,” Gabe
said a while later. “I can’t feel my feet.”

Grace smiled and burrowed closer into his
side. “Tell me about Kimball while you’re recovering.”

Gabe stiffened slightly at the sound of
Kimball’s name—the hazy, postcoital bliss short-lived. Being with
Grace made it easy to forget the other things in his life. He took
a minute before he answered her, just enjoying having her pliant in
his arms.

“You saw the dossier on Kimball. He was
former CIA, but he’s connected to us. To me at least.” Gabe combed
her hair with his fingers. “His handler was a man named Derrick
Kyle, and Kyle worked undercover for Tussad.”

Grace froze in his arms at the mention of
Tussad’s name. “You’re kidding me?” She sat up beside him, the
sheet covering her lap but leaving her breasts bare to his
gaze.

“Oh, it gets better. Derrick Kyle’s direct
boss during the duration of his time in Tussad’s organization was
Frank Bennett. But someone leaked Kyle’s identity to Tussad, and he
was sent back to the US in a tiny box.”

“You think Shawn Kimball knew about Kyle’s
involvement in Tussad’s organization? You think he was the
leak?”

“It’s all pieces to the puzzle, Grace. I’ll
know for sure once I talk to Kimball.”

She pushed back the covers and got out of
bed, pacing around the room in agitation. She was a sight to see,
red hair flaming behind her, skin as pale as milk in the
candlelight. He shook his head in disbelief as his cock started to
show signs of life beneath the sheets.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” she
muttered under her breath. “Of course you do. You’ve already
assessed every possible scenario in that brain of yours.” She
crawled back into bed. “Kimball could know everything about
you.”

“I know. I’ll cross that bridge when I come
to it.”

“I want to see everything that you had Ethan
hide from me earlier.” She looked at the clock on the nightstand
and winced. “We’ve got to be up soon anyway.”

“I figured you might. I’ve got it all on my
laptop.”

“I’ll make some coffee. I’m going to need
the pick-me-up.”

“Christ, no. Let me do it.”

“You know, a less confident woman would take
offense to that,” she yelled at his back. He chuckled once and then
realized he hadn’t felt this content in a long time. Life was good.
He couldn’t help the sense of dread that curled up his spine.
Nothing good could last forever.

***

“I want to know who the hell these people
are,” William Sloane yelled at the man who sat across from him.
He’d finally found something, or in this case, someone, who could
shake his unflappable composure. He didn’t like the feeling at
all.

He’d been in Boston for two days trying to
clean up the mess that had been left for him. He needed a new
scientist badly. He also needed a new head of his control center
since he’d blown the man’s brains out and left them scattered
across the wall of surveillance monitors. There should have been no
reason for two operatives to be able to break into his lab and get
away scot-free. The next person in charge of seeing to the security
of his properties had best do a better job.

It had taken him hours to get through to
Kimball and order him to Boston. He wanted a report from him in
person. For the amount of money he’d been transferring into
Kimball’s account, it was the least the man could do for him.

To his annoyance, Kimball looked unconcerned
at Sloane’s tirade, and an amused quirk sat on his lips.

“Something funny, Kimball?” Sloane
asked.

“Nope. But you have to expect an undertaking
of these proportions to have the occasional setback.”

“If you’d done your job and gotten hold of
Jack Donovan, then we might not be in this position.”

“Perhaps, but getting hold of someone like
Jack Donovan is like pissing in the wind. They’re trained to have
their guards up all the time. They’ve taken out all my men that I
had on them for surveillance. All except one, and he can barely
stutter out a coherent sentence without pissing his pants in fear
of Jack Donovan. They’re trying to make contact with me. I’m
thinking about letting them.”

“So they can kill you too?”

“Don’t underestimate me, Mr. Sloane. I’ve
played in the same game as they have. And I’ve got a few tricks up
my sleeve yet.”

“My patience is running thin, Kimball. And
I’ve got to be in Zurich in sixteen hours to speak to a new
scientist. Your job is to find out what Jack Donovan and these
others are up to. We captured another of them on the surveillance
camera from the laboratory before it was destroyed. Take a
look.”

Sloane hit a button on the remote and a
screen lowered from the ceiling. The lights went out with the touch
of another button, and surveillance video started playing.

“I’ll be damned,” Kimball whispered. “Pause
it.”

Sloane did as he was told and watched as
Kimball got up and moved closer to the screen.

“That looks a little like the same man from
the surveillance photo you brought me the other day, though there
are enough differences to make me wonder,” Sloane said. “You told
me you didn’t recognize him.”

“I didn’t. And I still don’t.”

“Then it’s the woman you recognize?”

“Yeah. Shit, I knew I should have killed her
too. A gamble on my part to leave her alive, but I enjoyed her
torment.”

“Who is she?”

“Her name’s Grace Meredith. She’s
inconsequential to you. Only a pawn in a complicated game. But if
she’s involved in this operation, then that means her husband is
too. Probably the man with her at the laboratory break in. I think
we found the owner of Worthington Financial.”

“Stop fucking with me and tell me who he
is!”

“His name is Gabriel Brennan, and this
agenda of yours just became a lot more complicated. My price is
going up, and you’d better hope to God he doesn’t find you before
we find him.”

Iran

Grace could never figure out what exactly
Gabe did to make himself unrecognizable to those who knew him. His
face was different, more square, his jaw packed with cotton to
change the line. His hairline receded slightly and came to a sharp
widow’s peak at the center of his forehead, but the color was still
as black as night, though strands of silver were interwoven. The
lifts in his shoes gave him an extra couple of inches, and padding
in his jacket gave bulk to his already muscular frame.

But the physical differences weren’t what
made the man. It was his mannerisms—his walk, the tilt of his head,
the slight twitch of his fingers against his thigh. Gabe was Luc
Piccoult, and even though the terrorist had been dead for close to
eight years, the rest of the world and Piccoult’s organization
thought he was still very much still alive, only in hiding for the
past few years. Gabe brought Piccoult back to life when
necessary.

And it was definitely necessary.

Gabe took her by the elbow and led her into
the lobby of the Azadi Grand Hotel, which happened to be a straight
shot down the road to the museum. It’s the reason he’d chosen to
use Luc Piccoult’s identity. Piccoult never stayed anywhere but the
penthouse suite of the Azadi, and it afforded them the privacy they
needed as well as putting them in a prime location.

Grace caught a glimpse of herself in the
floor-to-ceiling mirrors that walled the lobby, and she decided she
liked being Stella Gautier. She liked it a lot. Her flame-red hair
was covered by a sleek black wig that was cut so it curved just at
her jaw line. Her eyes were almost as black as her hair, and her
breasts were a good cup size bigger. She wore an expensive black
suit and sky-high heels. Her lips were red and full and her
expression mildly bored. But no one in the lobby could ignore the
size of the diamond nestled at the hollow of her throat. It was
just ostentatious enough to show everyone her station in life. It
wasn’t the kind of jewelry a man gave to his wife, but Stella
Gautier made out very well as the mistress to a very powerful
man.