Flashpoint (16 page)

Okay.
Okay.
Apparently she wasn’t going to make a break for the door immediately.

Jesus.

Jesus.

He was vulnerable. There was no doubt about the fact that this was a position of intense vulnerability. If she wanted to, she could seriously damage him in so many different ways. But if that was her intention, she would have hurt him already.

And that was not pain he was experiencing.

She tugged him down onto the blankets with her, which gave her a better angle to . . .

Oh, yeah.

Decker knew that there was a list of reasons he shouldn’t be doing this, but the pro side of this particular page sure seemed to cancel out all the cons.

He kept his eyes open, kept track of where she had her hands, aware that although he’d taken a weapon from her back at the factory, he hadn’t searched this room.

But ho-kay. All-righty.
This
was not what he’d expected her to do. It was now exceedingly easy to keep track of her right hand as well as her mouth and . . .

Decker reached down and grabbed hold of her left wrist. Keeping his eyes from rolling back in his head was a more serious challenge. He must’ve made some kind of noise, because she glanced up at him, her own eyes bright.

She’d stayed alive for the past two months, possibly even longer if her story about Ghaffari and Bashir was just a sad tale she’d made up to win his sympathy, by doing this. It was a sobering thought, and yet she managed to distract him—she was that talented.

Skilled.

Practiced.

Jee-
zus
.

It should have been a turnoff—in theory, he would have expected it to be. But Decker had found in life that reality and theory frequently were quite different.

This was . . . surprisingly freeing.

There were no emotional strings attached. It was the first time in a long, long time that he’d had a sexual encounter that wasn’t layered with deep meaning, heavy with expectation.

This was . . . what it was.

And apparently she wanted absolutely nothing from him.

At all.

This was similar to what Nash did on an almost nightly basis. Sex with no emotional connection. Sex for the sake of sex. Because it felt good.

And good was one freaking understatement.

Decker knew that he probably should have been ashamed, and sure, if he tried hard enough, he could find part of him that was. Not only should he be back at Rivka’s by now, but he was taking advantage of a woman who was in desperate need of help. This poor, frightened, down on her luck woman who—

Holy shit, holy
shit
, whatever she was doing was—

Decker came in a rush that didn’t quite blind him enough to keep him from realizing that he’d just lost her right hand. He still held her left wrist, but her entire right arm was hidden . . .

He jerked back, away from her.

. . . with her hand buried beneath them, beneath the blankets . . .

Away from her teeth—fuck!—he rolled hard to his right.

. . . as if she was reaching for a knife or . . .

The sound of a gunshot at close proximity was deafening, as a bullet whizzed past his head.

“Shit!”

. . . a handgun.

Decker rolled back to the left, pinning her arm as well as whatever weapon she had hidden under those blankets.

She cried out—he was hurting her—but too fucking bad! She’d just tried to shoot him in the head.

While she was . . . While he was . . .
Shit
.

Somehow that made her murder attempt unforgivable. Assuming that a murder attempt was something that could be forgiven.

She cried out again as he forced her to let go of the weapon. If she’d been a man, he would have broken her nose because he would’ve elbowed her far harder in the face while he was at it.

Of course, if she’d been a man, this never would’ve happened.

Mad as hell—at himself as well as at her—heart still pounding, Deck pushed her back so that she slid on her ass along the tile floor and hit both the pipes and the wall beneath the row of sinks with enough force to knock her off balance.

By the time she scrambled onto her hands and knees, Decker had her weapon, a neat little WWII era Walther PPK, aimed at her forehead. He also had his pants zipped.

“Don’t do it,” he said.

She looked at the door, at the Walther, at his face, then sat back on her heels. She was crying a river of tears, but this time she didn’t make a sound. She just looked at him with eyes that were completely devoid of all hope.

She just sat there and waited—for him to kill her.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

Tess glanced up as the third-floor bedroom door opened and Jimmy Nash came into the room.

He looked wary and apologetic, and he actually cleared his throat. He didn’t even try to force a smile. He was just so damn serious, she had to turn away.

God. Help.

Tess pretended to return her attention to her laptop computer, open in front of her on the bed.

“So.” She spoke first, before he did, eyes securely on the monitor. “I once saw this movie where this character—he’s supposed to be a Hollywood actor, completely self-absorbed. But he’s drunk and he gets into this car accident, like the car flips over but nobody’s hurt, and he climbs out and says, ‘So.
That
happened,’ and I always thought that was just the best line, you know?
So.
That
happened
.”

She glanced up to find him watching her.

“It was never my intention to—,” he started, but she cut him off.

“No kidding,” she said briskly. She may have been drowsy and confused about where she was and
when
she was, but she remembered, in extremely explicit detail, who had grabbed whom. “That was my handiwork—pardon the pun. I’m the one who owes
you
the apology.”

He crossed the room, toward her, toward the bed. “No, Tess, you—”

“Yes,” she said. “And it will help quite a bit if you would simply say ‘Apology accepted,’ and then never mention it again. And don’t you dare even
think
about sitting down on this bed.”

He stopped himself, straightening back up. He sighed. “Tess . . .”

“From now on, if I’m using the bed, you’re not. And vice versa,” she told him as matter-of-factly as she could. She even managed to look up at him and flash a polite smile before returning her attention to her computer. “We can work out a schedule for sleeping. Every other night I get the bed and you get the floor, and—”

“Tess—”

“ ‘Apology accepted,’ ” she repeated, eyes firmly on that screen. “That’s really all I want to hear right now, thanks
so
much.”

“What we did—”

“What
I
did,” she corrected him sharply.

“What
we
did,” he said again, sitting next to her on the bed despite her protests, and folding the computer closed so that she’d have to face him, “was enough to get you pregnant. It doesn’t take much, you know.”

Of all the things she’d expected Jimmy to say, that wasn’t one of them. She blinked at him for a few moments. Pregnant?

“You didn’t think about that, did you?” he asked. When he wanted to, he could make his eyes seem so warm, even tender.

Tess shook her head. Her focus had been so completely on the fact that Nash now knew she still wanted him—that he’d found out that if it were up to her subconscious self, they’d be having screaming wild monkey sex every time they had five minutes free. He now knew that her body was at serious odds with her brain when it came to her attraction for him.

He knew that what she wanted was different from what she
wanted
, and that when push came to shove, there was a damn good chance—if she were vulnerable enough—that she’d start pushing and shoving.

With great enthusiasm.

Oh, God.

“I’m not pregnant,” she said. “Really, James, the odds of that—”

“But it
is
possible,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but come on, that’s worst-case scenario thinking,” Tess said. “It’s also possible there’ll be another earthquake tonight that’ll bring the roof down on top of us.”

“Okay,” he said. “You’re right. But . . . I just wanted you to know that I intend to take responsibility if—”

“What?” She was incredulous. “For something you didn’t even do? Don’t be ridiculous—”

“Excuse me, I
was
there. I know exactly what I did. And I’m just saying—”

“Well,
don’t
. God! Nash! Give me a fricking break.” Tess pushed herself farther back on the bed, away from him, all but kicking at him with her feet. “I’ve told you what I want you to say.”

“Apology accepted?” Jimmy stood up.

“Thank you.” God.

“No, that was a question,” he said. “I didn’t say it.”

What? “Yes, you did. I heard you—”

He laughed. “No, no, see, I said it, but I didn’t
say
it—”

Oh. My. God. “Is this some kind of big hilarious joke to you? Because in case you haven’t noticed,” she told him through clenched teeth, “I’m not laughing!”

“Yeah.” He wasn’t laughing anymore either. “Right. I always think it’s funny as
shit
when I do something I’ve never done before—ever. Something that might completely screw up the life of someone I happen to care very much about.”

He was standing there, looking about as upset as she’d ever seen him. And if he hadn’t run away to Mexico for two months, if he’d bothered to call her to tell her he was okay—even just once, one fifteen-second phone call—she might’ve actually believed him.

Instead she snorted, trying to push away those pathetic feelings of loss that surfaced every time he said or did something even remotely sweet.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice . . .
“Oh, you so just want to sleep with me again. Could you
be
any more transparent?”

He closed his eyes and swore softly. Sat down again, this time farther away from her. Sighed. Glanced at her, but then looked at the floor as he said, “The truth is, Tess, that I
don’t
want to sleep with you. I really,
really
don’t.”

Forget transparent. Could he be any more emphatic with that
really
?

“Well. Thanks for clearing that up.” Please, please, don’t let her start to cry. Dead children were one thing, and certainly worthy of tears, but harsh truths from the mouths of idiots she’d slept with were another thing entirely. “If you don’t mind, I have work I need to do . . . ?”

He swore again. Turned to look at her. She now was the one who wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Look, I’m sorry if I—”

“Yeah, I get it,” she cut him off. “You’re worried about your problematic tendency for premature ejaculation, and I’m—” Why, why,
why
did she say that? It was downright cruel and not even truthful. He was being honest and forthright when he’d said he didn’t want to sleep with her again, and she, in return, was being a flaming attack-bitch. “I’m such a jerk.”

Nash was staring at the floor again, the muscle jumping in the side of his jaw.

“I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean that,” she continued. And wasn’t
this
just perfect. Somehow she’d managed to orchestrate this humiliation-fest so that she was forced to apologize to him about that, too.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. He looked up at her. “And even if you did, it’s okay. Have at me, please, if it makes you feel any better.”

“It doesn’t.”

There was silence as they sat there, just looking at one other.

They both spoke, then, at once.

Tess said, “We can talk about this for hours and it’s not going to—” as Nash told her, “I just want you to know that—” They both stopped.

“What?” she said, wanting nothing more than for him to leave and knowing that he wasn’t going anywhere until they had this conversation. “If I’m pregnant, then what? Let’s talk about this. Let’s run the worst-case scenario. I’m pregnant. What happens then, James?”

He stared at her.

“Are you going to marry me?”

She’d asked it as a bad joke, but he answered as if she were serious. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. Yeah. If that’s what you want.”

What?
Tess laughed her disbelief. “Yeah, right. What I want is for us to get married and live happily ever after. Happily, except for the fact that you really,
really
don’t want to sleep with me. Yeah, that’s my idea of a dream relationship.
God.
”

He rubbed his forehead. No doubt she was giving him one hell of a headache. Well, join the club. She had a whopper of her own.

She sighed. “Look, I’m sorry—”

“Your apology isn’t necessary,” he said, adding when she opened her mouth, “but accepted.” He stood up. “Rivka and Guldana are intending to throw a wedding dinner for us. Probably Friday night.”

Oh, bloody terrific. Just what Tess wanted—a party to celebrate her relationship with Jimmy Nash. God help her . . . “Please try to talk them out of it.”

“I did,” he said. “Try, I mean. There’s no, um . . . Look, they need something to celebrate right now, and, well, sorry, but we’re it.”

Oh, joy. “Is Decker back yet?” she asked.

For the briefest of moments, Jimmy actually looked startled. “Oh, shit,” he said.

And Tess knew what he was thinking. Last night, he’d been trying to set Tess up with Decker. And this morning, he’d . . . They’d . . . “Look, it’s not like anything really happened,” she said.

He gave her a incredulous look. “Yeah, except for the part where we had
sex
.”

“We didn’t have sex!” she said scornfully, even though she knew that by most sane definitions, they had. “We accidentally bumped into each other,” she added, knowing how completely stupid she sounded. “Intimately.”

Nash laughed at that. “Yeah, it was a real ‘whoops’ moment.”

“It
was
. It didn’t mean anything,” she persisted. “It wasn’t real.”

“It was real enough so that you might be pregnant.”

Round and round and round they went. “Well, I’m not, so just, God, stop with that, will you?”

“Right. Great.” Nash shook his head as he walked out of the room, turning to look back at her from the doorway. “So.
That
happened.”

He closed the door behind him, finally leaving her in peace.

Or as close to peace as she was likely to get until they boarded that airplane back home to the States.

Sophia closed her eyes as the American crossed to the sinks. Her head was ringing and her side was on fire—she’d caught one of those pipes in the ribs.

She heard him turn on the water, heard him splashing, heard the water go off.

The pain was nothing compared to the fear.

She was dead, she was dead, she was dead.

She’d failed to kill him, and now he was going to kill her.

Thy will be done.

The words echoed in her head even though she hadn’t been to church since she was fifteen. Not since she’d decided enough was enough—that her parents’ so-called spiritual quest was little more than a combination of a traveling jones and an opium addiction.

Sophia wondered for the first time in years where Cleo and Paul were now, if they were even still alive. If they’d ever even noticed that they’d left her behind in Kathmandu.

She wondered if it would hurt—a bullet to the brain—or if there would suddenly just be nothing.

Nothing.

She tried to tell herself that the nothing would probably be better than this fear—but she feared the nothing.

Still, it didn’t come. Her heart still beat. She still breathed, drawing in one ragged, painful breath after another.

Something cold hit her leg, and she flinched. But when she opened her eyes, she saw that the American had wet a cloth and tossed it onto her lap.

He spoke, his voice as chilly as that rag. “Wipe your face.”

And, as Sophia did just that, she knew. If it was his intention to kill her here and now, he would have already done so.

No. She looked up at him, into eyes that were flat and empty of all compassion. She was living her worst nightmare. She was going to be dragged to Bashir’s palace and beheaded.

She wouldn’t go.

When he came closer, she would grab for the gun—her gun—that he’d tucked so casually into the top of his pants. She knew she had no prayer of getting it away from him. But in the struggle, he would shoot her.

She was not going back.

She was
not
going back.

As she watched, heart pounding, the American kept his distance as he dug something out of his pocket. A leather wallet. He opened it.

And he tossed a bill—U.S. currency—at her. It fluttered onto the floor and Abraham Lincoln stared up at her. Five dollars.

“You completely blew your chance for a tip,” he told her flatly. “Oh, and if you happen to see Dimitri or his partner, tell ’em I’m looking for ’em.”

And he walked out the door.

Khalid had just fallen asleep, curled in a ball on the floor near Murphy, when Decker strolled into the kitchen.

Jimmy grabbed the man and dragged him out into the yard, lowering his voice so it wouldn’t carry inside. “About time you got back here.”

Deck shook him off. “I’m not that late.”

“Yeah, but you
are
late. You’re never late. You should have called.” As he said it, Jimmy realized they’d had this exact conversation many times in the past, only the words that had just left his lips were usually Decker’s.

“We have phones?” Deck asked. Man, he looked exhausted. He was completely wrung out.

“In a limited area, yeah,” Jimmy told him. “If you’d checked your messages, you’d know that.”

Some life came back into Deck’s eyes. “Tess?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “She’s got the computer up and running, too.”

“Good for her.”

“Yeah, well, she’s probably going to complain to you because I wouldn’t let her plant a sat-dish at the top of the Grande Hotel.”

Decker nodded and Jimmy realized that he was more than exhausted. He was angry. And upset. Christ, when was the last time he’d seen Decker upset? Angry, yes, and grim, almost always, but . . .

“Everything all right?” Jimmy asked. There was no way Deck could know about what happened this morning, about Jimmy and Tess and . . .

Decker met his gaze only briefly. “Yes.” It was an obvious lie. But the real message was also clear.
Back off.
“What do you have for me?” he continued.

Jimmy normally would’ve gotten on Deck’s case, but he was clearly in no mood for anything but efficiently listed facts. So Jimmy gave him just that. “Murph got back a couple of hours ago. He said many of his contacts have gone missing, and the people he did speak to aren’t saying much of anything. Rumors are a dime a dozen, though. He was waiting for you to get back before going into details. He’s sleeping now. So is Tess. You should probably do the same.”