Relentless (13 page)

“My father was well-known here. At one point his reputation was unimpeachable. People know the name Magee. Many people in antiquities know me, or at least my name. Maybe they’ve been watching the airport to see if my father came back. You have to at least entertain the idea that we’re on to something, and those men may have tried to stop us from getting close to the tomb.”

“I’ll add the info to my list.” Thorne’s gaze was fixed on her mouth.

Was he actually listening to her, or just looking? The terry cloth abraded her nipples as she shifted. “You have a
list
?” He was sex on a stick, Isis thought, annoyed with herself. It was impossible to concentrate on what was important when her body was hyperaware of him all the time. She wished there was an off switch for a few hours so she could think straight. “What kind of list?”

His warm hand slid under her hair and his fingers closed around her nape without him seeming to have stepped closer. She certainly didn’t step back.

“I never rule anything out.”

Her vision blurred, her insides melting as his thumb lightly caressed the base of her skull. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Thorne to kiss her—God only knew she did, and badly. “About these men—”

“Don’t want to talk about them right now.”

“Then about my father—”

“Definitely don’t want to discuss him now, either.”

“But—”

He brushed his other thumb over her lower lip, effectively boxing her in. Her lips throbbed with anticipation. She sighed as he took her mouth in a deep, slow kiss that mated their tongues in a slick, hot dance.

Isis liked to have the upper hand, and he was taking that away with his persuasive, marauding lips. When she was in control, she could stop. Not easily, but she could. When he took that away from her, she was helpless to resist. He was taking the balance of power from her, and she shouldn’t like it. Shouldn’t want it—but God help her, she did.

She opened her eyes to see the darker outer ring of green around his irises.
Abandon hope all ye who enter here.
Isis broke the lip-lock and had to clear her throat before she managed to say, “This isn’t very professional.” It sounded a whole lot more breathless and inviting than she intended.

His hand slid down her back and around her waist and he drew her up on her toes with his palm on her back. “Not in any way, shape, or form,” he admitted with a breath from her lips. The penetrating green eyes saw right through her bravado, saw right down to the part of her that was naked, willing, and wanton. It would be foolish to claim she didn’t want him when her desire for him was evident in every atom of her body.

He brushed her lips with his and murmured, “You should lodge a complaint.”

“You don’t
listen
to complaints.” Isis slid her palms up his chest, feeling the tensile strength of solid muscle. She bracketed his face with both hands as he angled his head, pulled her in tighter, then parted her lips with his tongue. His jaw was rough, he hadn’t shaved, his skin was warm, his mouth decadently pliable. Stroking his cheeks with her thumbs, she hummed her pleasure as she ran her stiffened tongue over the roof of his mouth.

Thorne shuddered. She let her tongue soften, slinking over his to prowl along the hard edge of his teeth. His fingers tightened on her back.

He was a Master Kisser. And Lord help her, Isis was a woman who loved kissing. But he took it to a whole new level, to uncharted reaches. She loved the slip and slide of meshing tongues, and the firmness of smooth lips. She loved the heat, and the textures. She loved hurtling into the unknown. For her, a kiss wasn’t necessarily the endgame or a prelude to bigger and better things. A kiss was its own entity, to be savored and enjoyed while it lasted.

A hot, trembling need swept through her body, filling every cell with want. They’d fight for supremacy—later. For now she sank into the kiss and enjoyed every moment of it. He tasted of whisky, smoky and powerful, but more profoundly, he tasted achingly, wonderfully
familiar
.

By the time their lips parted, they were both breathless. Isis dropped her head to his chest as she waited out her crazy heartbeat and breathlessness. Her lips buzzed deliciously. “Wow. That was…”

“Yeah.” His breath blew hot on the crown of her head.

Isis stepped out of his arms and smiled up at him through a haze of lust. She had to clear her head. “I’ll get dressed. Thank you for bringing me—What did you bring me?” Her body hummed.

“Something to wear tomorrow.”

“Was the boutique open? What time is it?” Well after midnight.

“The hotel staff opened the shop for me briefly so you would have something to wear. You can choose what you like in the morning.”

Like any woman, Isis loved new clothes, but her thrifty side insisted they might get their luggage back, and if not, then she wasn’t willing to pay the exorbitant prices at the upscale hotel boutique. “Not at those prices I won’t.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll pay.”

“No, thank you. I’ll pay my own expenses. And would you please stop telling me not to worry?”

His chest rose and fell and her fingers ached to touch him. “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of ever seeing those suitcases again. Probably stolen before we came to a full stop after the accident. Fortunately I had our papers and passports on me.”

Isis stared at his lips as he spoke. She was mesmerized. How could a man so controlled kiss like a bohemian? It was great news, but it still wasn’t an answer. “And a gun, apparently.” She gave him an even look. “How did you manage to get
that
through customs?”

“I have a permit.”

Connections and money—a life much different from hers.

“I know some little shops in the souk. When we go to see Beniti, I’ll take a quick detour to find something suitable.” And cheap. “I can’t believe this.” Isis put her hand to her belly. “I think I’m actually hungry.”

“Get dressed.” He jerked his chin toward the bathroom. “The dining room is open for another half hour.” Hot green eyes held hers. “Unless you’d rather stay in and order room service?”

SIX

T
he Israelis were just as eager as Thorne and MI5 to capture and prosecute the Russian tomb raider who for more than a decade had been stealing priceless antiquities and spiriting them out of Egypt and Israel to sell on the black market.

Thorne’s arrival in London must’ve alerted Yermalof’s people to his return from the dead.

Thirteen months earlier, Thorne and fellow MI5 operatives Lynn Maciej and Troy Ayers had followed Boris Yermalof’s trail through Cairo into Israel. It was on Israeli soil that the kidnapping of Maciej had occurred. Seven members of the Mossad were killed in the resulting bloodbath that night.

With the aid of the Israelis, Thorne and Ayers tracked Yermalof to an oasis just outside Cairo where he was holding their female partner. What the sick fuck had done to her still turned Thorne’s iron stomach. He’d seen a lot in his job, but that…

The Russian had extracted his pound of flesh for their audacity in hunting him down like a dog. Not to
mention the sales he’d lost due to MI5’s months-long, relentless pursuit.

He’d committed atrocities on Maciej before Thorne and Ayers had arrived. The trap had slammed shut behind them. Gut shot, Thorne had been incapable of defending himself—although God only knows he’d tried. The bastard used his knife to slice him from knee to balls. Thorne’s stomach roiled. Experienced enough to know just how much pain to inflict and still keep a man alive, the Russian had kept them all in excruciating pain for hours. Yermalof enjoyed his work and had made it last. When he thought he’d ensured Thorne would die from blood loss, he’d turned to work on Ayers.

Bleeding like a sieve, Thorne had hung on to consciousness by a thread as he watched, through dazed, slitted eyes, the excruciating deaths of his partners. The memory of their screams, pleading with Yermalof to put an end to their agony, still fucked with his ability to sleep through the night. The Russian had laughed as he strolled out of the stifling warehouse, believing them all dead.

Three Mossad operatives had hauled Thorne’s arse out of there and carried him miles to medical help, then evaced him to a hospital in Tel Aviv before he was shipped back to London.

He’d put in a call to his field officer at Thames House in the early hours of this morning to read them in. MI5 was willing to step in
if
the connection to Yermalof was confirmed.

Suspected,
not confirmed.

Thorne considered Isis’s confession that the incidents the day before had something to do with her father. Maybe. But most likely not. As far as he knew, no one was aware that she was in Egypt.

No. Yermalof had clearly followed him from London. Now he knew he had to get Isis back to Seattle with a minimum of fuss.

He was reminded by MI5 that he still had months left on his medical leave of absence, and that Yermalof had last been seen with his mistress across the globe in Argentina. In other words, basically, “Fuck you for your years of service to Her Majesty the Queen.”

With a second call to friends in high places, Thorne had procured a car and some extra muscle. Accompanying the armor-plated, bulletproof-glassed, four-wheel-drive vehicle was a well-armed Mossad driver. Both waited outside the hotel for them that morning. Doug Heustis, a big guy with white hair who looked like someone’s kindly grandfather, didn’t warrant a second look. But Thorne knew his sharp eyes missed nothing. A good man to have at his back. Professional.

“What happened?” Thorne asked him after a firm handshake. “You get demoted?” Heustis had been one of the men who’d hauled Thorne to safety the last time he’d been here. The man was instrumental in saving his life. If there was anyone Thorne owed a debt of gratitude, it was this man.

Heustis opened the door for Isis, then shut it to walk around the front of the vehicle with Thorne. “Drew the
short straw for babysitting duty, Thorne. You can’t seem to keep your butt out of trouble.”

“It’s a skill,” Thorne said as he opened the back door. “Keep your eyes and ears open. We seem to have gained a fan club.”

“Will do.”

It was nine in the morning, and already heat shimmered on the streets and made the air thick enough to chew. Isis, wearing a new eye-popping orange T-shirt and loose-fitting white cotton pants, turned in her seat to look at him. Her glasses, as usual, were smudged.

“You owe me seventeen more answers,” she told him, as Heustis drove them to the souk without further comment. Oblivious to where Thorne’s thoughts were, she wanted to take responsibility for something that had nothing to do with her. But if he told her that neither she nor her father had anything to do with this, he’d have to tell her about the Russian.

She was scared enough as it was.

No. He’d make up some bullshit story, put her on a plane bound stateside, and hunt down Yermalof like the demented bastard that he was.

He used both hands to remove her glasses by the earpieces, then she waited, a smile curving her lips, for him to clean them on the hem of her shirt. Lifting the soft cotton exposed a smile of pale skin and her belly button. Thorne wanted to kiss her right there. Hell’s bells, he wanted to kiss her all over. He handed her back the clean glasses, drunk on cinnamon.

“If you stop
touching
them,” he admonished with more
annoyance than the act warranted, “you wouldn’t have fingerprints blurring your vision.”

“Thanks.” Sliding them back on, she managed to leave a thumbprint right in her field of vision. “I’ll make a note of that. Although
that
wasn’t an answer.”

Last night over a late-night dinner he’d answered the questions he wanted to and evaded the rest. Isis was determined.

He was motivated to keep the truth to himself. Isis’s concern gave him a convenient excuse to hire a driver/guard. While she was busy confessing to a nonexistent crime, he had to protect them both from Yermalof.

Thorne was good, damned good at what he did, but even he wouldn’t be able to fend off a half-dozen professional assassins if that’s who they decided to send next. Not with his leg, not with Isis with him. Taking on a gang of cutthroats worked in movies, but real life didn’t have a director to yell cut, or a stunt double to take the bullet. If the attack
had
been instigated by Yermalof, screw Thorne’s ego. He’d take all the backup required to protect Isis until he saw her safely on a plane.