Flashpoint (31 page)

“There are all these reasons up here”—he tapped his head again—“for staying apart. The head goes,
No no no, don’t do that because dot dot dot,
but the body goes,
Yeah, but I WANT to.
” He laughed. “It’s kind of crazy, actually. I’m out in the barn, and there’s Sophia, and I look at her, and up here”—he tapped his head again—“I’m thinking— Okay, look, it’s a man thing. Men just think this way, and I apologize for it in advance. But I’m thinking, Wow, there’s a woman who’s extremely attractive—she’s got everything in the right place, nicely proportioned, pretty hair, pretty face—wouldn’t
that
be a truly enjoyable fuck— No, don’t turn away, Tess, because down here . . . Look at me,” he commanded, and she saw he had his hand on his heart. “Down here, there’s nothing. Down here I’m thinking, Hey Blondie, move out of the way so I can look at Tess. I’m thinking, Where’s Tess, because even though I can’t make her come ten different ways the way I
want
to, at least I can look at her and imagine it.”

She had to sit down. She felt behind her for the bed and sank down onto it.

He moved toward her. “Tell me you don’t think about it 24/7. You and me.”

Dear God. Tess wasn’t sure she could speak, so she nodded. Yes. Yes, she thought about it. About him. All the time.

And there they were, in the candlelight, gazing at each other. Thinking about that afternoon, in the basement. The sound Jimmy had made as he’d entered her, first with his fingers and then . . .

At least that was what Tess was thinking about. She swallowed, and it seemed to echo in the quiet of the room.

Jimmy cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he said. “So, I pretty much knew you felt that way from the start, and that was, um, scary, because if you weren’t going to be sending out slow-down signals, that left it up to me, which basically meant we were going to spend this entire mission fucking like bunnies.” He laughed as he said it, but he looked at her sitting there on the bed, then lifted one eyebrow very slightly. “I don’t suppose you want to . . . ?”

Tess laughed, and she knew he’d done that on purpose. He’d made an effort to lighten up this conversation, to break the mood. Still, she stood up. Moved away from the bed.

“No. Because we’re not . . . We’re people, Jimmy.” God, he was right—it had been much easier when she thought he didn’t want her. “So what’s your deal? You just decided this afternoon that, hey, this not having sex with Tess really isn’t working. Why don’t I try
having
sex with her for a while?”

He actually thought about that for a few moments, then nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. I guess maybe because we both seemed to reach our limit—”

“Temporarily,” she interjected.

He thought about that, too. “Is that really what you think? Because I don’t. I admit that this isn’t the most comfortable place to be, because it means I’m going to have to have a conversation with Decker and that’s going to blow. But I think we’ve crossed the line too many times, and I for one am not interested in going back.”

Oh, God. “Then I guess I’m the one who’s going to have to give the mistake speech,” Tess said. “Because this afternoon
was
a mistake—”

“You want to have a relationship?” Jimmy interrupted her. “Because if you want, you could give me the hard relationship speech instead.”

Tess looked at him, hard. “Are you mocking me?”

“No,” he said, but then he smiled. “Well, maybe a little. Look, I’ll save you the trouble and get right to the bottom line. People aren’t bunnies, right? Right. People—particularly female people—have relationships. So . . . you want to have a relationship? Because I do. I want to have a relationship with you. I want it very much.”

It was so bizarre. It was as if Tess were living one of her wildest fantasies. Jimmy Nash standing in front of her, telling her that he wanted . . .

This was surreal. This man was a born liar. What did he
really
want? “What kind of relationship?” she asked.

He frowned slightly. “I don’t know. A regular one. What do you mean?”

“Exclusive?” she asked.

“Yeah, isn’t that what makes it a real relationship?” he asked. “Sure, I know some people have open ones, but that’s kind of like having a sky roof. Pointless. I mean, you can say it exists, but whenever you look up, nothing’s there.”

“Some people can make it work,” she argued. “A relationship can be anything you want it to be. It’s an individual thing—custom made. Everyone gets to set their own rules, define their own boundaries. What do
you
want this relationship to be? I mean, I have to know before I can even consider agreeing to it. And you have to know what I would want from you, too.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. “I guess I want this to be a relationship where I would always go along with you if you were going someplace dangerous, and, um, one where you could make me laugh and maybe, hopefully, I could make you laugh, too, and . . .” He shrugged. “The rest of the time we’d, you know.”

“Yeah.” She
did
know. And was this his true goal here? “We’d fuck like bunnies.”

Jimmy smiled. For some reason, he always smiled like that when she used adult language. “Yeah,” he agreed. And then he stood there and watched her, and waited.

He’d left out an awful lot. Like a need for honesty and openness, a need for communication, for sharing secrets, for trust.

But those were her rules.

God, she’d be crazy to trust this man.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” she admitted. “I don’t know if I want to do this.”

“You do.” He was completely serious. “I don’t really know why, but you definitely do. I’m not a nice person. I’ve done things that would shock and offend you, and . . . you still like me. And it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m good in bed, probably because I haven’t managed to convince you of that yet.”

“How do I know,” Tess said, “that as soon as we get back to the States, you won’t run away to Mexico again?”

“Okay,” he said, starting to pace, but stopping himself mid-stride. “Good. Yeah. I prepared for this one.”

She laughed in disbelief. “Prepared . . . ?”

“Oh, yeah. You think I didn’t know I was going to have to work to talk you into this?” he asked her. “To be honest, I don’t know why I ran like that. I just . . . I had to book it out of town. I don’t . . . Bottom line, I have no real excuse.”

Tess waited, but he didn’t say anything more. “That’s your prepared answer?” she finally asked. “That you have no real excuse?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“You couldn’t come up with something better than that?”

“Well, yeah,” Jimmy said. “I could, but . . . it wouldn’t be the truth.”

Ding. If this conversation had had a scoreboard, Jimmy would’ve just made another point. But he didn’t need a tally to know that. He just had to look at her. Which he was doing from across the room.

Although, little by little, he just kept getting closer.

“So what happens now?” Tess asked. “I say okay, and you give me your class ring, and that means we’re . . . what? Going steady?”

“I don’t have a class ring to give you. Probably because I never went to class. Although if you really want a token of my affection, you could tell me who you want killed, and I could take care of it for you.” He smiled.

“That’s not funny,” she said.

“Yes, it is,” he said, and he was finally close enough, so he kissed her.

And it happened again. Tess closed her eyes and kissed him, too, but she couldn’t just kiss him without touching him. And she couldn’t touch him without wanting him closer, and suddenly she opened her eyes, and they were on the bed, bodies pressed together, legs entwined, hearts pounding.

“God
damn
,” Jimmy breathed as he lifted his head to look down at her. “Don’t you maybe want to take it slowly for a change?”

She didn’t take the time to answer. She just pulled his head down for another kiss. Slowly meant there’d be time to think, and right now she didn’t want to do anything but feel.

The first kiss had gotten them over to the bed, and this second went a long way toward getting them naked. Which, with all that skin against skin, felt almost unbearably good.

Jimmy—who had probably never gone anywhere without a supply of prophylactics in his pocket from the time he turned sixteen—seemed to pluck a condom from thin air and somehow covered himself. And by their third kiss, he was inside of her.

Which was just what she wanted. She wanted no-frills, missionary-position sex—full penetration, no imagination, hard and fast and deep.

But Jimmy not only stopped kissing her, he held himself still and kept her from moving, too. Well, at least he kept her from moving the way she wanted to be moving.

“Hey . . .” She opened her eyes.

“How do you do?” he said from his vantage point directly above her. “I’m the guy you’re having sex with. I was feeling just a little anonymous, so I thought I’d call a time-out.”

Anonymous? Was he kidding? “Jimmy,” she said, and she pulled his head down so she could kiss him.

But he pulled back. Somehow he caught her wrists with only one of his hands, and held them above her head. Of course, that made it more difficult for him to hold her hips still. But despite that, he managed to keep himself just too far away from her, which was driving her crazy.

“This also gives me the opportunity to not come within twenty-five seconds of the time we start having sex,” he told her. His eyes were half-closed now and it was getting harder for him to talk—he clearly liked the way she was moving beneath him. “Which could go a long way in my attempt to convince you to have sex with me again.”

Smart man, he’d noticed that she hadn’t actually said yes to any kind of a relationship.

Stupid man, he didn’t realize that they already had a relationship.

“Despite evidence to the contrary,” he continued, “I don’t always lose control.”

Didn’t he realize . . . ?

“But I love it when you do,” she told him breathlessly. “It’s amazing. It’s . . . It’s like when you kiss me.” She could see from his eyes that he was trying to understand, but he just didn’t get it. This wasn’t a particularly good time to attempt a complicated explanation but she gave it a try. She wanted him to know. “When you kiss me, the world disappears. I lose track of everything but you, and . . .” She knew what to do. “Kiss me.”

He did—a little ridiculous smack on her lips.

She looked at him.

He smiled. And kissed her properly.

Total meltdown. And it wasn’t just on her end. Suddenly her hands were free—Jimmy must’ve let her go. And he even forgot whatever game it was he was playing, because he pushed himself deeply inside of her.

It was enough, in turn, to push her right over the edge. Which was all it took—didn’t he know how thrilling that was?—to make him follow.

Nevertheless, Jimmy didn’t stop kissing her for a good long time.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE

“Got a minute?” Nash asked, his voice lowered.

Decker glanced up from the papers and maps spread out on the bale of hay. “What’s up?”

Nash looked over to where Sophia was curled up, sleeping on a blanket, right on the barn floor.

After the storm, the walk back from the Hotel Français had been uneventful. Upon their return, Decker had told Sophia that she’d be perfectly safe—and far more comfortable—sleeping in the pantry, in the house. But she’d told him she felt more secure in the barn.

With him.

“Not in here,” Nash said now. “Can we step outside?”

“One second,” Decker said. He had to cross the St. James Hospital off the list. That was kind of funny. St.
James
.

Tess had printed out a list of every hospital and health clinic in Kazabek and the immediate suburbs, and he was marking each of them on the map. If he, Dave, and Nash each visited two per day, checking to see if they’d made a delivery of the medical equipment Sayid had needed, they’d be here for at least another week and a half.

And that was only this list.

Across the room, Dave had a similar list of hospitals and clinics in all the outlying suburbs and villages within a few dozen miles.

Tess was now upstairs, on her computer, attempting to get a message out to Tom Paoletti. She and Nash had gone out early and replaced their sat-dish, but this new system wasn’t running as well as the old one had. Which was one of those incredible hindsight revelations. Deck hadn’t realized how well their communication system
had
been running—until it was gone.

Tess was trying to send an email request for additional autopsy information on Sayid. There had been no mention of a medical condition—a blood disorder or other chronic disease—in the original autopsy report. If the client still had access to Sayid’s body, she’d told Decker, perhaps they could run additional tests, find out exactly what ailment he’d had. With that info, they would then know if his need for medical care was constant or merely occasional—an important piece of the puzzle.

It would be nice to know if they were futilely searching for a delivery that had never been made.

Decker followed Nash out into the yard. “Is there a problem?” he asked.

“Make the word plural,” Nash said. He laughed at Decker’s eye roll. “Let’s start with the easiest first. Sophia.”

Uh-oh.

“She mentioned that you got the fifty K needed to get her out of the country.”

Decker nodded. “Yeah.” The morning was already hot, last night’s wind a thing of the past. Too bad—he could use a breeze right about now.

Nash crossed his arms. “I thought Paoletti said the client wouldn’t cough it up.”

“The money’s mine,” Deck said, telling him what he obviously already knew.

Nash was silent.

“What’s next?” Deck asked.

Nash finally spoke. “You don’t really think she’s going to pay you back, do you?”

“She says she will.”

“Oh, well, then, if she
says
so . . .”

“What’s the problem, Nash? It’s not your money.”

The muscle in the side of Nash’s jaw was jumping. “Are you prepared to lose it? Because you’re going to lose it all.”

“Yeah,” Decker told him. “Yes, I’m prepared to lose it all. Is that all right with you? What’s next?”

“Christ, Larry . . .”

“What’s next?”

“Are you screwing her?” Nash asked.

Deck just looked at him.

“I don’t particularly like her,” Nash told him—no big surprise. “I certainly don’t trust her. She’s spent at least two months using sex to stay alive, and suddenly you’re just giving her a huge amount of money? I’m sorry,
sir
, but it’s a legitimate question. As XO of this team— What the fuck am I doing as any team’s XO? But here I am, and hey, what do you know? I have the right to question any team member—any—who appears to have ‘fallen under the influence of an outsider with unknown allegiances.’ And fuck you for bringing me to a place in my life where I’m forced to quote regulations from a rule book.”

Poor Nash. He was actually right.

“No, I am not engaged in any inappropriate activity whatsoever with Sophia,” Decker answered. “What’s next?”

“So is this guilt talking?” Nash wouldn’t let it drop. “Or was this just a fifty-thousand-dollar blow job? No wonder you have sex only once every decade.” He laughed—he had this bad habit of thinking that he was the funniest man alive. “Some men need Viagra to have sex more often. You need an economics class—a refresher course in supply and demand. You have a serious decimal point problem, my friend. You need to move it about three zeroes to the left. These days, fifty bucks and/or a nice dinner covers most kinds of fellatio-induced guilt.”

“What’s. Next.”

Nash didn’t notice that Decker was getting pissed. He was too busy laughing at his own pathetic joke.

“And on we move to problem number two,” Nash said. “Also a woman. What a coincidence.”

Decker knew what was coming and closed his eyes. Thank the Lord, Nash had finally given in.

Nash laughed softly. “Shit. This is harder than I thought it would be.”

“Look,” Decker said. “I know what you’re trying to tell me, and it’s all right—”

“No, it’s not.”

“It’s all right with me,” Decker specified.

“Well, shit,” Nash said again. “It shouldn’t be. You like this girl.”

“Tess is a woman,” Deck pointed out. “And yeah, I like her. She’s terrific. She’s smart and she’s funny and loyal and sweet . . . and sexy as hell. I’m genuinely happy for you.” And it was true, he really was.

So much so that he gave Nash a hug.

Nash stared at him as if he’d lost it. Maybe he had.

“Congratulations,” Deck said, a little embarrassed.

And still his partner just stood there.

“This is a woman you could spend your life with.” Decker hoped Nash was thinking long term.

“Who are you? Jesus?” Nash backed away from Deck. “You don’t freaking hug me and say
congratulations
! You punch me in the face and curse me out and . . . listen to what you’re saying! Listen to the way you talk about her—you’re in love with her!
This is a woman
you
could spend your life with!
Not me. I’m not looking for someone to spend my life with. Damn it, Deck, you should be mad at me for stealing her out from under you, not hugging me. And when the fuck did we start hugging, anyway?”

“You didn’t steal her,” Decker said.

“Yes, I did. I was with her, and I wanted her, so I took her. I’m a total asshole,” Nash said. “I knew how you felt about her, and I still couldn’t keep my hands to myself.”

What was it Nash had said before about guilt talking? “If you want,” Decker said, “you could give me fifty thousand dollars. It does wonders, you know, in relieving feelings of guilt.”

Nash stared at him. “You’re joking,” he said. “I’m standing here, trying to have a serious conversation about some extremely serious shit, and you’re joking.”

“We have work to do,” Decker reminded him. He started back inside. “Was there anything else?”

“Yeah, you got any extra condoms? I’m almost out. Three last night and one this morning—the woman sure loves to fuck.”

Deck stopped short and turned back to look at Nash. What the hell? It was as if Nash were trying to make him angry, as if he were disappointed in Decker’s reaction to his earth-shattering news.

Except Decker had seen the way Tess looked at Nash. The fact that they were involved not only was not a surprise, it was a relief. He’d been hoping it would happen, and his earth hadn’t come anywhere close to shattering when it had.

Nash, however, looked as if he were standing on shaky ground. He managed to look both defiant and embarrassed. And he glanced around them to make sure no one else had overheard that crude and very personal statement he’d made about Tess.

And
here
was an interesting thought. Did Nash actually
want
Decker to kick his ass?

Would it make him feel better, less terrified and out of control perhaps, if Decker rang his bell a few times and knocked him to the ground?

Maybe just the threat of violence would do the trick. Deck was tired—it had been one hell of a long night. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept. Was it yesterday or the day before?

“You better be treating this woman with the respect that she deserves,” Deck said, his voice as hard as the look he gave Nash.

Nash said nothing. He just stood there, working hard—from the look of him—on grinding his teeth into little stubs.

So Deck gave him some more of the same. “Not just when you’re with her, but all the time,” he continued. He’d always hated locker-room talk, and Nash knew it—which made this whole thing even weirder. “Or I’ll kick your ass.”

“How could she want me when she could have you?” Nash shook his head, his eyes haunted. “I can’t figure that out.”

This was . . . unique. Them talking like this. Decker had to wonder if Nash found it as strange and wonderful as he did.

Or just plain terrifying.

And was Nash really serious? Because from Deck’s point of view, Nash got it completely backwards. How could she want Deck when she could have Nash?

Either way . . .

“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Decker said to his friend. “You just . . . roll with it, and thank God for your good fortune.”

“What if . . . ,” Nash started. He couldn’t seem to look Decker in the eye anymore. “What if I don’t want her?” he finally said. “You know, the same way she wants me? What if I just can’t resist the sex?”

Decker wanted to cry for his friend. He wanted to urge him not to run away from Tess just because he was scared of everything he was feeling. But to acknowledge both of those things—that Nash was scared, that he had feelings . . .

He couldn’t do it.

“Then you better tell her that now,” Deck said instead. “Right? Don’t make her think you’re on the same page and then ditch her after the assignment’s over.”

That muscle jumped in Nash’s jaw again. “It’s impossible to know what the future will bring.”

Decker got in his face. “It’ll bring some serious trouble if you string her along and then ditch her after this assignment is over. Do you hear me?”

Nash didn’t respond. Not to that, anyway. He just said, “Condoms?”

“There’s a small supply in the medical kit, in the kitchen,” Decker told him before going back into the barn. “You’re going to have to ration.”

Tess and Nash were late to the meeting.

Nash had gone up to get her, and it took them at least fifteen minutes to find their way downstairs and over to the barn.

Tess’s cheeks turned pink when she realized they were all there and waiting—Decker, Dave, and even Sophia.

“Sorry,” Tess said. “I was, um, researching kidney failure.”

Sure she was.

She looked directly at Sophia. “It suddenly occurred to me that what you might’ve seen in Sayid’s room was a dialyzer—a tall machine, kind of narrow, with tubes coming in and going out?”

Sophia glanced at Decker. She’d just had this exact conversation with him.

“Understandably, Sophia didn’t spend much time looking at it,” he answered for her.

“It was some kind of medical machine,” she told Tess, “and yes, it was tall, but other than that . . .” She shrugged.

Tess handed Deck a printout from her computer. “I’d bet the farm that three times a week Sayid needed something called—”

“Hemodialysis,” he finished for her. “You’d win that bet. I just spoke to Tom Paoletti, who, long story short, found out that the autopsy team was having a deadline crisis, so they rushed the report—including only information about the injuries that pertained to Sayid’s death. The fact that he had something called a”—he consulted a piece of paper upon which he’d handwritten some notes—“PTFE graft in his arm—access for hemodialysis. It was considered unimportant.” Deck laughed his disgust. “File that under information we could have used a week ago. Which reminds me,” he interrupted himself. “Paoletti let me know that Vinh Murphy’s doing well.”

“Thank God,” Tess breathed, the only one of them brave enough to give voice to her relief. She turned to look up at Nash, who was standing close enough to touch her—just a hand briefly on her back—without anyone but Sophia noticing.

“He’s been medevaced all the way to Germany,” Decker told them, “and he’s already had the first round of surgery on his leg. Commander Paoletti also gave me a heads-up—Murph’s name is going to be released on a list of Americans killed from that car bomb, so if you happen to catch the news and hear he’s dead, don’t get upset. It’s being done to protect the helo crew and the hospital staff who helped smuggle him out.”

“Angelina’s been told he’s all right, hasn’t she?” Tess asked.

“I’m sure Tom’s taken care of that,” Decker said. “But when I talk to him again, I’ll double-check.”

“Any news on who’s behind the car bomb?” Tess asked.

“GIK extremists,” Dave answered. “There’s lots of talk on the streets—rumors that there’ll be more attacks. We need to keep our eyes open when we’re out there, and stay away from potential targets.”

“Like hospitals?” Nash asked.

Decker handed a piece of paper to Nash and to Dave. Sophia leaned closer and saw that it was a list of names and addresses of hospitals. “Here’s what we need to look for,” he started, but Tess interrupted him.

“Where’s mine?” she asked.

Decker glanced at Nash. “We decided the risks of sending you out alone were too—”

“
We
decided?” she said.

“I decided,” he told her, taking the bullet for Nash, whose idea it clearly had been. “The police have been known to keep tabs on people who’ve been in custody. If you were seen going from hospital to hospital asking questions about dialysis equipment, you could put this entire mission in jeopardy.”

Tess backed down. What could she say to that? But it was clear from the look she gave Nash that he was going to hear more about this later.

“Let’s get to it,” Decker said.

It was well after four a.m. when Jimmy returned. Tess was still up, obviously waiting for him, and he was so overwhelmingly glad about that, he almost turned around and ran right back down the stairs.