Protector (25 page)

Heavy silence settled in the room, interrupted only by the thumping of the engine next door. The thought of Chuck out there… Rex bit back the doubts. He had to trust his instincts, and his gut had told him Chuck was ready for this.

Berg cleared his throat. “Well, we’re not any closer to finding him since we don’t know which coordinates, if any of them, are correct.”

“The guy’s good.” Nuñez swung his feet to the limited floor space. “Hey, do you think with all that gear there, you could safely rig up an untraceable phone call home to my wife?”

Berg adjusted his headset. “I’ll see what I can do for you, my friend.”

Nuñez’s wedded bliss was no secret— and neither was David Berg’s messy divorce. All the same, Dave didn’t snap back with a jaded response like he would have a year ago. Maybe things were better for the guy?

He was certainly holding up his end here on the job.

In the last week, they’d gained physical access to the data cables streaming information from the four slot machines they’d tagged from Chuck’s insights on those repeated codes. When surveillance footage showed the repeat travelers Livia noted using those machines again, finally they knew where to narrow their search. Given cell phone chatter picked up from known terrorist cells about moving the plans for the dirty nuke through the Med, this felt like the time and the place.

The means.

Unless someone was yanking their chain with a diversionary tactic.

Biting back a curse, he decided to take his crummy mood outside. “I need to air out my brain. I’ll be back when I have something of worth to offer here.”

Rex slipped out the door and into the narrow corridor that echoed with the
thump, thump, thump
of the engine room. Pretty much the same sound as his raging headache. He rounded a corner and damn near plowed over a woman in red.

Livia
, leaning against the wall, obviously waiting for him.

His headache increased.

He kept his trips to check in with Berg to a minimum, not wanting to draw undue attention to the room. So how had she found him? “What the hell are you doing here?”

Livia arched away from the wall, scarlet sequined dress stretching over her breasts. “I watch you more than you would think, Colonel.” She tapped his chest, her little black silk bag dangling from her wrist. “We’re supposed to be an item, remember?”

“I’m not likely to forget.” Especially with her supple body an inch away from his fingers, which were just aching to snap open the halter top of her gown, a surefire cure for his
headache and anything else plaguing him. “But we’re not in front of an audience now.”

Although they were in a hall too damn public for what he wanted to do with her. They’d settled into a friendship of sorts again during their time together on the boat, but he couldn’t forget how badly things had ended between them before. She’d insisted she couldn’t be in a relationship with him because of his feelings for Heather, even years after she’d died. Just thinking about how damn unfair and random life could be made him edgy.

“What’s this about?”

Bravado seeped from her along with her smile as she dropped back. “I’m here looking for you because it’s been a depressing afternoon. I wanted to see you, which is selfish, I know. You have bigger worries.”

She started to turn away, reminding him he was being a selfish ass. No surprise there. But she deserved better, and he would damn well scavenge it up for her sake.

He caught her hand, turning her back to face him, her fingers impossibly soft and cool. “Upsetting because…”

She stroked her throat, her silk bag trailing between her breasts. “My contract singing for the
Fortuna
is up. I knew this was a short-term deal, even more so once I contacted you about…” She glanced around the hall, cutting herself short. The corridor was deserted but she seemed to realize it was still best to guard their words. “And after you’re through, it’s not like they will want to keep me on, even if I did sign another contract, which I won’t. My voice just won’t hold up to another round. Performing again was… magnificent… but it is over. A lot of things will be over once we dock.”

The grief in her eyes stabbed clean through him.

“A lot of things?” His hand still holding hers, he drew
her closer, her breasts a deep breath away from skimming him.

She pressed a hand to his chest, sketching a fingernail down the buttons on his simple white shirt. “While I was talking to Lucy about my contract, her wedding plans came up and it made me weepy, okay?” Her hand closed on a fistful of cotton in the center of his chest. “We’re playing this love game and sometimes it hurts because of the way I feel about you.”

The intensity of her words caught him off guard. “Livia, you may have forgotten a tiny detail here. You were the one who dumped me.”

She thumped her fisted hand against him. “Because you didn’t love me enough.”

“That’s bullshit,” he said bluntly, but honestly.

This woman had torn him up inside, driven him to the edge of sanity, and still he wanted her. More every second as she stood there in her do-me dress, trying to coerce words from him he’d already done his damnedest to express.

She rolled her eyes and stomped her foot, every bit the diva who had blasted through his grief two years ago. “You are not very much of a romantic.”

Desire flamed through him as fiery as her fighting words. “You want romance? Lady, I’ll give you romance.”

He slid one arm around her shoulders and the other under her legs. He scooped her up before she could finish a yelp. His world was going to shit on this op, but with Livia in his arms, at least this day would end a whole lot better than it had started.

Her arms locked around his neck, her little purse swishing against his back. “What are you doing?”

Charging up the stairs, he angled sideways. “Carrying you to my cabin. Got a problem with that?”

Her fingers slid up into his hair. “Only that you’re not walking fast enough.”

He ignored the gasp of a prim buttoned-up couple as they reached his floor, a giggle from two women stepping from their suite. A waiter carrying a room service tray stepped out of their way with a discreet smile and finally— thank God— finally, Rex entered his room. He booted the door closed behind him.

Wriggling in his arms for the first time, Livia shimmied out of his grasp. Her dark eyes locked on him for two more gusty breaths before she pulled his face to hers. Her lips parted, and he drank in the familiarity of her. He knew her, with such a core-deep recognition it rocked the deck under his feet.

She kissed with a passion and innocence that had always surprised him, touching him somewhere deep inside that only one other woman had ever reached.

Then Livia turned into liquid fire against him. Her hands were all over him, tearing at his clothes. And he didn’t need any further encouragement. After holding back for so damned long when it came to Livia, the force of his desire for her slammed through him.

“The bed,” he growled. “Now.”

She raked her fingernails lightly down his back, cupping his ass. “The door. Right now.”

Yeah, no wonder he was crazy about this woman. The Italian-English barrier didn’t come into play when they spoke the same language. Here. Now. Against the door.

A possessive growl rumbling from deep inside him, he slid his hands up her body, over the curves of her high soft breasts. Farther still, he reached behind her neck and released the halter clasp free. The top of her dress rolled down and bared creamy flesh he’d only dreamed about.

The reality beat fantasies, hands down.

And speaking of hands down, hers freed his buttons and opened his pants before he even realized he was still staring at her. She smiled at him with a timeless feminine power as she stroked down the length of him. He throbbed in her fist, ached all the way to his teeth to be inside her.

Then he realized…“Condom. We need one and I’m not packing.”

“Then what good luck of the drawing that I am.” She dangled the little black bag in front of his face.

Staring at the bag and her audacious smile, he was so stunned he didn’t even bother correcting her “luck of the draw” phrasing. Because holy hell, he hadn’t seduced her. She’d seduced him. Which was a hundred percent all right with him right now.

Stroking along her hip and around, he reached behind her to tug the zipper down until her sequined dress slithered to the floor. Her signature scent drifted up like incense as he unveiled her. She wore a crimson red thong and simple strappy flats, a reminder that she couldn’t wear heels since her accident.

His chest clenched tight. She’d come so close to dying on his watch two years ago. He skimmed along the puckered skin where her leg had been set, stitched.

“Livia…” he groaned.

“Shhh…”
she whispered against his collarbone, kicking aside the last of his clothes, rolling the condom down his hard-on. “Forget about the past. This is all about celebrating how very alive you make me feel.”

Her words stirred him and made him wish he was more of a poetic guy, the kind who could give her all that romance his beautiful diva craved. But for some reason, she wanted him anyway.

He clasped her hands and stretched them over her head against the door, positioning himself between her legs, against her. She grazed her foot up his leg and he lifted her until she hooked her heels around his waist, the perfect angle for him to drive home inside her.

His head fell to rest against the door, his teeth clenched in restraint as the moist heat of her squeezed him like a silken glove. So damn perfect he almost came undone right now but he wanted more than that from her. He wanted more than a quickie against a door.

Holding her to him, staying inside her, he walked toward the bed. Every step, each roll of his hips against her, drew a moan of pleasure from her mouth. She bit her lip, her eyes closing and her head lolling as she rocked against him. He lowered her to his double bed, covering her with his body, plunging fully inside her. Her jet-black hair splashed back against the stark white pillow as she thrashed in obvious pleasure, mumbling gaspy phrases in Italian that he could swear would stay burned in his memory so he could translate them later.

But at this moment, the power, the rightness of being with her, of watching her face as she flew apart in his arms, swept him right over the edge of release with her.

He had been fighting his feelings for Livia Cicero for two years, certain he couldn’t let go of the past enough to step into the future.

Cradling Livia in his arms, he realized how very wrong he had been.

*  *  *

Jolynn lay sprawled on top of Chuck. His chest heaved with deep breaths under her breasts.

Her side ached, but she didn’t care. She wouldn’t wish
away the pain. When her ribs healed, Chuck would be long gone from her life.

Their skin melded, warm and moist from the exertion in summer heat. She blew light swirls of air between their bodies, bringing a smile to his face while he kept his eyes closed. “Sorry there’s no air conditioner here. The generator’s not powerful enough to sustain it.”

“It doesn’t matter.” The cottage was special to her because of what they’d shared. “The safe house was warmer and much less private.”

Jolynn flinched as the words fell from her mouth. She’d done it again, shoved the real world into the middle of the room like a flashing neon Venus de Milo. Since the incident with the flare, he’d distanced himself from her.

She wanted the sharing back, sharing more than their bodies. One minute he was everything she wanted in a man, the next he drifted away from her, leaving her heart colder than before.

“Hello? Chuck?” She bracketed his face with her hands until he opened his eyes and looked back at her. “Where are you?”

“Sorry.” He cupped her face. “I’m reorganizing some things in my head. Sifting through the past few days. Trying to make the picture fit so I can be sure you’re safe.”

But if they left, he would be in more danger protecting her. “Why would anyone want me dead?”

Chuck quirked a brow. “Why did they kill your uncle?”

She couldn’t suppress the shudder at his words. She tried to roll off him. He cupped her neck, pressing her head into his shoulder.

Chuck stayed silent, his fingers digging a rhythmic massage into her tensed shoulders. Everyone assumed she had it all, the pampered daughter of a rich man, no matter how hard she’d
tried to carve out an image for herself as a dedicated number cruncher. An uneasy thought settled over her as she realized she hadn’t let anyone close enough to listen until Chuck.

“They hurt him, Chuck— my uncle Simon, who tossed me in the air and pulled my pigtails. He let me pester him when he worked on cars.” Her eyes stung at the memory, the grief she hadn’t ever dared let past the horror. “They put a twenty-two behind his ear and murdered him.”

The metallic taste of fear and disillusionment burned her mouth. She trembled, waiting for the nausea to abate. “Sometimes I feel like my life ended that day as well. Does that make sense?”

“Yes, it does.” His chest rose and fell rapidly under her cheek.

“Now, they want to do to me what they did to my uncle. I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t have mysterious unpaid debts or seedy connections, so they just want to get to my father through me.” She tilted her head, forcing him to look at her. “Am I right?”

He stared at her without answering, his eyes glistening icy blue. “Probably.”

Jolynn sagged against him, resting her forehead on his. Chuck didn’t deserve to die for knowing her.

“Just because they want to hurt you doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.” He gripped her shoulders. “I won’t let them.”

Why didn’t he understand she feared his death even more than her own?

Chuck lifted her off him and sat up, the determined agent returning. “Damn it, listen to me. You don’t seem to realize how good I am at my job. You’ll be sunning by the pool in Dallas before the week’s out. No one will hurt you again.”

But if she were in Dallas, that would mean saying good-bye to Chuck. The thought chilled her quiet for so long she realized he’d fallen asleep, his breathing evening out to a low snore.