Playing For Keeps (Montana Men) (37 page)

“I don’t care if we don’t either,” she said, smiling through
her tears.

“I’ve never in my life felt for another woman what I feel
for you.” His gaze was steady and searching. “I’m not playing games with you,
Flayme,” he said, his voice hoarse with need. “I’m playing for keeps. I never
want to lose you.”

The tears that had been threatening spilled over. “If that’s
a marriage proposal
—
”

“It is,” he said gruffly, kissing her mouth. “Not so
great, I know. I didn’t have time to rehearse, so my only excuse is it’s my
first.”

“And last,” she stated. “I’m not playing games either,
cowboy. The answer’s yes, I’ll marry you.” She splayed a hand across her flat
stomach. “I hope you aren’t planning on a long engagement.”

“Nope.” Duel lifted her into his arms, carrying her the
few steps to the rug. “What I’m planning is to take a few more risks, since you
agree. Besides, I don’t believe in long engagements. It’s not the cowboy way,
little lady. Sweep ‘em off their feet’s my motto. This time, I’m going to ride
you the way a cowboy oughta ride his lady.”

Flayme caught her breath at the heated look on his face.
“You are?” she whispered.

“Uh-huh.” Slowly, he lowered her to the rug and stepped
back. Duel fiddled with the row of metal buttons until the last one popped free
of its slot. His eyes, intensely green, burned with promise. He kicked off his
jeans and tossed them aside. “I’m going to ride you nice and easy, long and
slow and deep, until you beg for mercy, then I’ll start all over again.” A
flush stained his face. His mouth looked sensual. His lids heavy.

Flayme slid her gaze up and down the length of his thick
cock. “You look like you have the right equipment for the job, cowboy.”

“Oh, I do, ma’am, but it’s going to take me the rest of
the morning to explore every inch of your body.”

“Oh yeah? You better get started, cowboy.”

“I will, doll baby,” he drawled, his eyes hot with
promise. “I will.”

Chapter
Thirty-One

Assassins and presidents invite the same
basic question—Just who do you think you are?

~Sarah Vowell

Denver International Airport

Denver, Colorado

February 19, Thursday

Fifty-eight hours after the assassination…

Zaden,
assassin for hire, grabbed the expensive black leather suitcase off the
carousel and headed for the taxi line. He figured when people looked at him,
they saw a dapper man dressed neat and one who looked elegant in a pricey white
suit and a matching Panama hat.

Tall,
slender, and olive skinned, he maneuvered through the crowd wasting little
time. A ridge of thick dark brows hovered above his narrow eyes, eyes the color
of raisins, eyes he knew if one looked close enough saw nothing but the cold
deepest depths of the sea.

Zaden
sported a thin, dark moustache that hugged his upper lip. He had a habit of
embellishing his European accent. He called it hiding in plain sight. No one
would ever suspect a man who earned his living killing people would dress up to
be noticed, instead of dressing down.

First
on his
to do
list was locating a chic
hotel, a delicious meal, because airline food sucked worse than lemons, and a
contact to purchase a gun. He might be a mercenary, but he was a classy one. He
didn’t come cheap, and he was careful.

After
he settled in his room, he’d call Kane and clear up the arrangements for the
money transfer into his Swiss account. Zaden didn’t like flying to the States
to do a job. Kane knew it, so he figured if the other mercenary requested his
help, then he was in hot water, or more
profoundly
—
deep shit.

Kane
didn’t often require assistance to finish a job. In this case, with the two
hits split, and one very personal, Zaden understood the necessity. But it was
still going to cost Kane for pulling him from his comfort zone.

The targets were close. He knew it. Felt it. His palms
itched with excitement. His heart pumped like a piston, the rush of adrenaline,
the ultimate high before the kill. A man. A woman. Easy. He enjoyed taking out
women. There was something about their fragility that gave him a hard-on.

Maybe
it was because he wasn’t a merciful man and liked to play with his prey. Hell,
he didn’t know, didn’t care. He only knew from the moment Kane contacted him
and told him there were two women and one was Jayla Ross, his groin tightened
and his dick jerked to attention. When Kane promised him Jayla, the ache
settled in his balls like an old friend. It wouldn’t leave until he finished
her.

His
targets?

A
man? He’d get him out of the way first.

A
woman? Mmmm—
he felt a fucking coming
on—that is, if the woman wasn’t a dog. If she was, then he’d simply put a
bullet in her head and forget it.

“Brooks
Tower Hotel,” Zaden said to the driver and climbed into the taxi. Brooks Tower
—
a four stars plus, one he’d stayed at
once be
fore. The service and food were good and the beds nice and soft.

Once
Zaden settled into his room, he plugged in his cell phone and let it charge for
an hour while he showered, ordered a meal, and contacted the gun dealer. That
all behind him, he placed one last call.

“Hello?”

“Kane?
Where are you?”

Kane grunted. Zaden grinned. Wherever Kane was, he didn’t
sound too happy, or maybe he wasn’t in a nice warm spot.

“Montana,
some little Podunk town called Rimrock, barely has a motel, and the diner’s
specialty is buffalo burgers. Lord God, I’m gaggin’ at the thought. I’ve never
seen so damn much friggin’ snow in all my life, thirteen feet in places. You in
the States, yet?”

“Denver
as we speak, and lucky to be here, the weather and all.”

“It
was fast though.”

“I
got lucky, caught a Red Eye out of London between blizzards, but had some
layovers along the way or I’d have been here sooner. What can you tell me?”

“The
first lady was assassinated by an as yet unidentified assailant.” He snickered.
“After this many hours, the trail’s bound to be cold as last night’s dinner.”

Zaden
paused in his pacing long enough to admire his profile in the mirror. When he
smiled, a gold crown flashed next to his eye tooth. Heavy gold rings of
assorted shapes and designs adorned each finger on his left hand. He kept his
right hand free of impediments, saved to pull the trigger or use whatever
weapon he deemed necessary during a kill and not risk losing a finger in the
process.

“The
woman’s name is Flayme Jansen, a real looker,” Kane continued, “nice ass, nicer
tits. The agent’s Duel Remington. I want them both dead.”

“Duel?”
Zaden felt his blood turn to
slush.

“Yeah.
You know him?”

“We
tangoed in Paris once…a long time ago. Best damn man with a knife I ever
crossed. Too bad we’ve always fought on opposite sides. He’s the one who gave
me this scar across my left cheek. I promise you, he’s a dead man. Hell, I’ll
do him for free.”

“Good.
Besides the Spanish Ambassador, I left a body behind in Annandale. I didn’t
have time to dispose it. Friggin’ agents crawled out of the woodworks as soon
as news broke about Molly’s death.”

Zaden stiffened. He didn’t like leaving a string of bodies
in his wake. There were too many risks, the more bodies, and the higher
possibility of leaving DNA. “Who did you kill?”

“Neil
Turner, a whiny, weak-livered agent who was into getting his rocks off by
touching women’s underwear. I went to the woman’s house to see if I could find
a lead on where Remington might have taken her and found Neil in her bedroom
stroking his meat.”

“I
see. You killed him in her bedroom?”

“Bathroom. Killed him in the bathtub and washed away the
evidence. Hell, I had time to wash and dry his clothes and plant him in a
different room. It’ll take ages for them to figure out where the kill took
place. There was blood in the kitchen and outside.”

“What?
Whose blood?”

“No
idea, but it’ll cloudy the waters for us. We’re in the clear.”

“Good.
Now tell me where this fucker’s hiding the bitch,” Zaden said. “I’m getting a
hard-on and I have plans for this…Flayme…is it?”

“Yeah.
Save a piece for me. As soon as I get rid of Jayla, I’ll join you in Denver, so
take things slow with the woman.”

“I
thought you said Jayla was mine?”

“You
can have her, my friend, as soon as I’m finished with her, so don’t rush with
Flayme. I intend to take my time with Jayla.”

Zaden
laughed. “I’ll try, but you know how I am when I get started.”

“Ah
well, if you just can’t control yourself fuck her once or twice for me.”

Laughing,
Zaden ended the call and rubbed his straining cock. He wasn’t kidding about the
hard-on.
Flayme.
A beautiful name for
a beautiful woman—
a real
looker,
Kane had said. Nice ass and nice
tits. She sounded mysterious and full of fire and just what he needed to help
him relax and enjoy his time in the States.

She
wouldn’t be so beautiful when he got done with her.

After
he finished with a woman, he preferred a long-bladed stiletto. He knew exactly
how to stick it between the ribs to do the most damage, and he knew how to make
the process of dying last a long, long time.

He’d have to speak to the gun dealer, add a fine blade to
the deal. Ahh. He felt better already.

* * * *

McLean, Virginia

CIA Headquarters

February 19, Thursday

Fifty-eight hours after the assassination…

Travis
entered Sam’s office and slammed the door behind him with enough force to jar
the hangings on the wall. Keeping her expression composed, Sam looked up from
the papers she was reading. “You’re late.”

“Yeah?” he bit out, obviously struggling to control his
temper. His eyes narrowed and his lips tightened with fury. “That’s what
happens when you leave without a word and I have to coax a taxi company to send
a cab to get me. Was our night together so bad you had to run away while I was
in the fucking shower?”

“Yes,”
she said, making her voice as frigid as his. “It was a mistake, Travis. You
know it. I know it. Place your resignation on my desk and I’ll sign it. I think
it’d be best for both of us if you moved on to another department as we
previously discussed.”

A
muscle ticked in his jaw. “You want the easy way out, just like before. If
that’s the way you feel, I guess
—
”

“It’s
exactly the way I feel,” she gritted. “I want you to go away and stay out of my
life, stay out of Hayley’s.”

Travis
nodded slowly and placed a balled fist on his hip. “I don’t think I want to
make it that easy for you again.”

“What?
You’re not transferring?” Sam’s hands shook. “You have to,” she said on a note
of hysteria. “We can’t work together anymore. What if I’m pregnant?”

“Like
I said, I guess we’ll have a problem.”

“I
think you should think about this.”

Travis
snorted. For a moment, he stood there looking down. When he looked back up, Sam
thought his eyes, always such a fierce blue, had lost every bit of spark in
them. In place of the fierceness, anger combined with emptiness as he stared
back at her.

“I
never thought you were such a coward,” he said quietly. “I was wrong.” He
shrugged. “Okay, Sam, you win. I’ll leave, but understand, if you let me walk
away, I won’t come back…ever.”

“I
know.” She shuffled the papers with unsteady hands.

Travis
drew a deep, shuddering breath and slowly released it. “I’ll have it on your
desk by four this evening.”

“Thank
you.”

He
turned and left, closing the door with controlled force. Sam burst into tears
and was thankful he didn’t look back through the windows to see her crying. It
was for the best, she told herself, it had to be, because if it wasn’t, then
she’d just made the worst mistake of her life.

* * * *

West of Denver

Duel’s Cabin

February 19, Thursday

Sixty hours after the assassination…

“My
battery needs charging,” Duel said on a long sigh.

Flayme
glanced at the soft length of his penis nestled over the spongy twin nuggets
and grinned. “I can work on it if you’d like?”

He
laughed, pulling her on top of him. His large hands cupped her breasts,
squeezing gently. “Did I tell you I love these ladies?”

She
giggled. “No, you didn’t tell me that.”

He
looked up from blowing on her tight nipples, his green eyes dancing and wicked.
“I will…later.”

“And
here I thought it was me you loved.”

“You
want me to prove it again?” His lips quirked with amusement, but his gaze was
steady. “Give me a little time here, sweetheart, and I’ll be up to the task again.”

“I’ll
give you all the time you need, as long as you make the wait worth my while,”
she teased.

“I
could get used to your demands to prove my love.”

“Could
you?” she asked half seriously.

“Yes,”
he said, his voice somber, and she knew then he understood she’d had very
little love in her life. He kissed the tip of her nose. “Right now, we’ve got
to get our asses moving.”

“Oh?”
she questioned sounding mischievous.

“Not
that way,” he grunted, pressing a quick kiss to her lips. “I wanna teach you
how to use the crossbow, then we need to take a little trip.”

“Where
to?
Ooh!”
Flayme moaned at the
teasing nudge where the head of his cock slid against her clit. “Uhh…I…” She
caught her breath on a sharp note. The feather light strokes of Duel’s thumb
tips rubbing her nipples sent a spasm of heat licking along her spine to settle
low in her womb. “Oh, God,” she whimpered. “Do that again.”

“What?
This?” He nudged her entrance, a partial penetration, then pulled back.

“Mmm, yes. That. Again.” She dug her fingers in his
shoulders. “Again,” she pleaded.

His cock stretched and stabbed impatiently at her feminine
sheath. “Maybe we can spare one more hour,” he drawled, entering her slowly,
inch-by-inch, pushing past the layers of sensitive tissue until he settled deep
within her.

“Only one?” she asked on a breathless note, groaning as he
set a slow rhythm meant to drive her crazy. Duel trailed a string of tender
kisses down her chin, licked a path between her breasts, and paused to tease
her nipples with his tongue. Flayme wiggled her hips, rising to take his penis
as deep as she could manage. “Only one?” she gasped, repeating her question.
She thrust her fingers through the sides of his dark hair and drew his mouth to
hers.

He rolled with her, settling her beneath him, sucking on
her lower lip, before moving to her breasts. Duel buried his hard shaft,
pushing deep. “Lock your legs around my waist,” he whispered.

Flayme lifted her hips, meeting his hard thrusts, kissing
the sides of his face, searching desperately for his mouth. God, his kisses had
a way of turning her inside out. Hadn’t she fallen desperately in love with him
from the very first kiss this cowboy gave her? Oh yes, his kisses were pure
magic. She thought they’d probably always have the power to melt her insides.

He cupped the back of her head and brought her mouth to
his. “Maybe two,” he whispered against her lips, moaning. “Maybe we can spare
two more hours.”