Driven by Fire (22 page)

“Why don’t you let me take the phone with me and I can work on it tonight?”

“What kind of idiot do you think I am? You would destroy this rather than let me get the information from it. Why do you think I refuse to let you put your hands on it? It will stay right here, and you will come up with the key to unlock it, or you will be very sorry indeed. Have you ever heard the sound it makes when you break a bone with a baseball bat, Miss Parker? It makes a very satisfying crunch before the person starts screaming. I might start with the knee—you’re stronger than I would like, and I want to be sure I get to smashing your pelvis. Unless you’ve found sudden inspiration.”

Jenny’s dry throat had closed up at Soledad’s dreamy words, and it was hard for her speak. “I’ll figure out the password. I promise.”

Soledad’s lovely mouth curled in a catlike smile. “I know you will,
chica
.”

She was half dragged, half pushed through the spacious house, her bare feet stumbling on the cold stone floor, until she was thrust into a vacant room. It had the same floor-to-ceiling windows as the living room, and in the gathering darkness she could see the steep ravine beyond the narrow deck. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can escape,” Soledad warned her. “The sliding door is chained shut from the outside, and if you were fool enough to try to break the window, my men are patrolling the grounds. And they are very, very hungry, Miss Parker. They have orders to help themselves if they find you someplace you should not be. Sleep well.”

She shoved her, and Jenny went sprawling, unable to help herself with her arms still bound. A moment later the door was closed and she was left in darkness.

It was a large room, devoid of furniture except for a mattress on the floor, covered with an old blanket. It probably had either fleas or bedbugs, but she couldn’t afford to be too picky. After all, chances were good that tomorrow she’d be dead—what difference would a few bug bites make?

She didn’t bother to get to her feet as she heard the door being locked behind her, plunging the room into dusk-tinged shadows, she simply crawled over to the mattress, ready to collapse.

It was covered with a filthy sheet, and there were blood smears on it. Who had spent the night here before? She didn’t bother to ask where they’d gone—she doubted they’d been rescued by a grateful family. She yanked off the sheet with her bound hands and then collapsed on the mattress, shivering in the air-conditioning. Tomorrow she’d have to come up with something, but one password led to the next layer of encryption, and she had no idea how long she could string Soledad along. She suspected that the woman was looking for an excuse to use that heavy wood baseball bat, and the thought of it cracking her knee filled her with terror. She was going to have to give up something, at least enough to keep Soledad at a distance.

For what? To wait until she heard the gunshots that signaled Ryder’s execution? The thought made her sick to her stomach.

She’d rather have a clean shot to the head than be turned over to
Soledad’s men. Death before dishonor—she laughed at the stupid idea.
She could survive anything, would survive anything. There was only one question. If Matthew Ryder was dead, did she want to survive?

She could still feel him inside her body. She could still feel his steady, solid heartbeat beneath her as she slept in his arms, safe in a world full of danger. She wanted to be back in bed with him, hiding her face against his shoulder as she came down from what his clever hands, his mouth, his body could do to her.

She brought her wrists up to her teeth, trying to tear at the cable ties, but they were too strong, and she dropped them back in her lap. The room had been stripped, and the small toilet and sink off to one side would provide nothing to cut through the tough plastic that was digging into her wrists. She could try to kick out the window, enough to get a piece of glass that could cut the bond, but then Soledad’s men would hear her, and she didn’t want to think what would happen next.

What had she meant—that Billy had told her about the phone? Why would Billy have anything to do with that monstrous woman now that he knew exactly what he’d gotten himself into?

Unless her stupidity and blind faith had been monumental, and Billy had lied to her. Was it possible? Had she been wrong all this time, shielding her brother when he was a worse criminal than her older brothers? She wanted to bang her head against the wall, scream and cry and rail at her misguided trust. How could she have been such an idiot?

Still, she only had Soledad’s word for it, and Soledad could have fooled Billy as she fooled her. Anything was possible, but for the first time she was going to look at things with clear eyes and no emotion. Whether she wanted to believe it or not, Billy could have played her. And it was up to her to right the wrong.

If she ever got out of there. In that dark, awful room everything seemed completely hopeless, and all she could do was curl in on herself. She needed to sleep—it was the only way she’d be able to face Soledad the next day, face the threats and the baseball bat. Whether she could face the possibility of Ryder’s death was unthinkable.

For now, though, she had every intention of crying herself to sleep.

Chapter Twenty

Matthew Ryder was in a thoroughly savage mood. There were seven men guarding the ridiculously upscale house perched above the ravine that served as temporary headquarters for La Luz, and he’d killed three of them, incapacitated another, and one more might or might not make it. He didn’t care. He had a job to do, and he’d learned long ago not to let things get to him, at least not until long afterward, when the nightmares would come. That left two men, and the ones he’d killed weren’t equipped with radios. It would be a close call whether the dead men were discovered before he made his way out of here, but he figured he had till daylight at the very least.

It was easy enough to tell which room held Parker—only one had chains looped around the handles on the sliding door. He wasn’t crazy about dangling over the ravine, but he’d always been good at picking locks, and he disposed of it in record time, dropping the chain silently onto the deck.

He could see her on the floor, huddled on a mattress, and he took a deep breath to keep rage from blinding him. He couldn’t tell whether she was hurt or not, but he slid the door open silently, slipping into the room and closing the door behind him.

Christ, it was freezing in there! This ridiculous palace of glass and steel came equipped with air-conditioning, unheard of in this part of Calliveria, and someone had turned it on high. Parker had a thin blanket around her, but she was shivering in her sleep. He was going to kill Soledad—Madsen had given him his orders, and even without official sanction he wanted to rip her throat out and actually enjoy doing it. She was deliberately freezing Parker, and he could see where the cable ties cut into her wrists, and his rage grew hotter. Pulling out his knife, he knelt down beside her sleeping body, ready to slice through the bonds.

She erupted like a crazy woman, and it took all his control to keep her from cutting herself on his knife. She fought him, all silent fury, but he subdued her quickly, grabbing her bound wrists and holding them above her head as he covered her body with his. “It’s me,” he hissed in her ear, barely a whisper of sound, but she’d already recognized the feel of him, and she collapsed beneath him, panting slightly, her eyes gleaming in the darkness as she stared up at him.

“Hold still,” he said unnecessarily, and reached up to cut her wrists free. He could see the pain wash over her as the blood began to flow back through her arms, and he rubbed them, slowly, carefully, kneading the painful stiffness out of them.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered.

“Saving your ass,” he mouthed back.

“It’s a trap. They know you’re coming. There are men out there looking for . . .”

“They’re dead,” he said flatly. “The ones who are still alive are patrolling the outer edges of the property—they won’t find the bodies till tomorrow.”

She tried to sit up. “Then let’s go . . .” But he pushed her back down again.

“We’re not going anywhere until I finish my mission.”

“The smartphone,” she said wearily.

He didn’t answer. “We’ll stay in here until they unlock you tomorrow morning. As soon as you’re out of the way, I’ll take out the guards. Where’s the fucking smartphone?”

“On a table in the living room. I tried to talk Soledad into letting me work on it during the night but she refused.” She swallowed. “You were right about Soledad.”

He didn’t bother replying to the obvious. “What was she having you do?”

“She wanted me to break the password, but none of the logical ones worked.”

He didn’t believe her. It had taken Jack less than forty-five minutes to hack into the phone once they’d found it beneath Parker’s mattress, and the password was the name of Billy’s pit bull. There was no way she wouldn’t have tried it during the time she had the phone, no way she could have missed the obvious. So she was lying to him as well as to Soledad.

It pissed him off, big-time. He caught her wrists in one hand and hauled them back over her head. “Feel like telling me the truth for once?”

She glared at him, and despite his annoyance he was glad she hadn’t lost her attitude. “If you’re not getting me out of here then go away,” she snapped, a little louder.

He slammed his other hand over her mouth. “For Christ’s sake, be quiet. We don’t want anyone coming in to check on you.”

“Why not? You can kill him, grab the phone, and we can get the hell out of here.”

“I’m not fucking Rambo, Parker. I need the phone, I need to deal with Soledad, and I need to get you out. I can’t just go in with guns blazing.”

“I thought that’s what you did to get up here in the first place.”

“I used my bare hands,” he said, the words flat and unemotional, but something in his tone must have tipped her off. She was silent for a moment, and she’d stopped trying to free her arms.

“I’m sorry.”

The words shocked him. “For what? For being a pain in the ass? You can’t help it.”

“No,” she said evenly. “I’m sorry you had to kill.”

He shrugged, angry with himself that he’d given so much away. “It’s all in a day’s work.”

“No, it isn’t,” she said. “And you killed for me.”

He didn’t bother setting her straight. His job was to take out Soledad and any of her men he could, and to bring back the smartphone. Saving Parker was simply an added benefit, if you could call it that. He wasn’t even sure his boss, Peter Madsen, would approve.

She looked up at him in the air-cooled darkness. Her body had softened beneath his, accommodating his bigger one, welcoming it, and he knew he was getting hard. She’d know it too, soon enough. “Do you want to get off me?” she said after a moment. “I don’t think now is the time for a quickie.”

“We’re locked in here for the next four hours at least. I can’t think of anything better to do.”

“You’re out of your mind! If you think I’d let you . . .”

He covered her mouth with his, silencing her whispered protests, holding her by her wrists while he kissed her with slow, deliberate thoroughness, kissed her until she was breathless and panting and trembling beneath him, kissed her until she was pliant, and her wrists twisted in his hand until she held him and she arched up beneath him.

He lifted his head. He had to stop this, he had to get away from her. But he stayed where he was, cradled between her legs. “This is a very bad idea.”

“Yes,” she said, pulling her hands free from his grip and sliding them around his neck. “But we’re probably going to die tomorrow. Do it anyway.”

He was a man of considerable resolve and willpower, but not, apparently, where she was concerned. He groaned, setting his forehead against hers for a moment. And then he sat back, reaching for the hem of her T-shirt and pulling it over her head with one swift motion.

She had perfect breasts, full and high, and he stared down at them for a long moment as the moonlight filtered through the clouds, providing just enough illumination. He half expected her to try to cover herself, but instead she reached up for his shirt, tugging it free from his jeans, pulling at it, so he yanked it over his head and tossed it somewhere in the darkness.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he said in a low voice.

“I know,” she said.

Of course she did, and she wanted this anyway. By now his hormones had gone into overdrive, sharpened by the danger and death all around them, and he could think of no earthly, practical reason not to take what she was offering, what he wanted so badly.

He leaned down and caught one turgid nipple in his mouth, rolling it on his tongue, letting his teeth graze her, and he felt the start of desire shimmer across her body. He caught her other breast with his long fingers, pinching lightly, and she let out a silent gasp as her nipples grew even harder beneath his dual attentions.

Last time had been fast and hard in the darkness, and he hadn’t had time to fully appreciate her. Now they were lost in a place with no present, no past or future, and he could take his time giving her the attention she so richly deserved. She was lithe and luscious and utterly delectable, and he wanted to drown in her scent, her taste, her sweetness.

He licked his way down her stomach, tasting the sweat and fear and arousal, and he wanted nothing more than to give her what she’d suggested—a rough quickie, just to get the edge off so he could enjoy her in a more leisurely fashion. He wanted a fast release, for him if not for her, and leisure might be more than they could afford. He yanked her shorts down her long legs, bringing her underwear with them, and she was naked and vulnerable beneath him. He reached for his own belt buckle.

But her hands were already there, unfastening him, and his hard cock thrust through the straining zipper once her deft fingers had managed to unfasten it.

He knew he was big, intimidatingly so, and he half expected her to shy away, but her cool, long fingers encircled him, tugging slightly, and he uttered a soft groan in response.

“Keep that up and this will be the quickie you were so keen on,” he warned her, and she immediately stopped her light, squeezing touch, much to his regret.

He slid his hand down between her legs, wanting to ready her, but she was gloriously wet, and he felt his cock jerk in reaction. She reached up her hands, sliding them up his arms and then tugging at him.

“Please,” she whispered. “I’m tired of feeling sick and frightened. Make me forget that we could die tomorrow. Make me forget everything.”

He couldn’t have been gentle if he wanted to be, and he didn’t. Sliding his hands under her butt, he lifted her enough to bring her to the perfect angle for his sudden, deep thrust.

She didn’t make a sound. She didn’t need to—he could feel the resistance and then welcome inside her hot, wet cunt, pulling at him, and he wanted to slam into her, to rut his way to the mind-blowing climax that was starting in his balls and spiraling outward.

She’d already had a small orgasm—the contractions of her sex had stopped his forward progress, and he still had a good three inches to go. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he needed to get inside her, all the way in, to drown himself in pleasure and pain and forgetfulness, to wipe out the staring eyes of the dead men, to fill this woman with his seed, his life, to take back what he’d lost.

He braced himself over her, kissing the side of her mouth, letting
his tongue trace her lips, slip past her teeth to coax her tongue forward,
kissing her as he’d never kissed anyone before. He moved his mouth
to
her ear, biting into the lobe, and she made a muffled sound of pleasure. “I need more,” he whispered. “I need you to take more of me.”

He felt her hesitation, and he kissed her mouth again. “I’ll help you,” he murmured, licking the side of her neck, and he slid his hand down between their sweat-slick bodies to find the bud of her clitoris. She trembled in his arms as he slid his finger over that sensitive spot, and he pulled his cock out, then sank in again, a little bit deeper, but still so far from reaching home. He did it again, feeling the flutters along the walls of her sex, drawing him in deeper, and he couldn’t know whether that whimper was of pain or desire. He was almost home, and he knew he should hold back rather than risk making her uncomfortable, but need was raging through his body, and he needed his entire cock deep, deep inside her.

He pulled out, pushing in gently, then pulled out again, and she reached up and caught his arms in her tight grip. “No,” she said. “I want all of you. Give it to me.”

He couldn’t have stopped himself to save his life. He rubbed her clit, her vaginal walls grabbed at him, pulling him in deeper, and unable to help himself he shoved all the way in, slamming her hard into the mattress, drowning in her body.

She hadn’t made a sound, and he was sure he’d hurt her, and a good man would have pulled away, but he was a bad man, a man burning with need for the surcease only she could provide, and with each hard thrust she answered him, her knees cradling him. He reached back and pulled her legs around his hips, and he sank in deeper still. He drank in her gasp of pleasure and pain, reveled in the feel of her fingers digging into his butt, pushing him, and then he was there, shooting into her, an endless orgasm milked by the trembling, grasping walls of her sex as she threw back her head in a silent scream.

He didn’t have the wherewithal to cover her mouth, and he didn’t care. If they’d accidentally alerted Soledad’s two elite guards, then it would be as good a way to go as any. Sex couldn’t get any better than this, than the ridiculously innocent sweetness of her. He would die happy, but there were too many things they hadn’t done yet. He hadn’t taken her from the back, standing up, sitting down. She had barely touched his cock, and he needed her to put her mouth on him before he could die a happy man.

He pulled out of her, and she made an unhappy noise. He was unhappy as well—despite the power of his orgasm he was still mostly erect, and he knew he could keep on.

She, however, looked as if she’d been hit by a truck, and he wasn’t about to push her any further. Instead, he rolled over and pulled her into his arms, and she lay sprawled on top of him, naked, limp, totally satiated. He brought her closer, as she snuggled up against him, and he could feel her warm breath against his skin, the pounding of her heart as it began its slow return to normal, the dampness of her face against his skin. She was crying, and he didn’t want to know why. Maybe for what could never be.

It would be two thirty in the morning—he had an instinctive knowledge of the time of day burned into him. No one would come until at least six and with luck a lot later—he’d had enough time to watch the guards’ routine, and they wouldn’t bother to check in until later. He could afford to lie here with his woman in his arms, if only for a short while.

Even if she wasn’t really his woman. Right then it felt like she was, when he’d never felt that way about anyone before. Dangerous thoughts, and he wasn’t going to pay any attention to them. Except for the next couple of hours, when he could be at peace.

Until he had to rise and kill again.