Force of Fire (The Kane Legacy) (20 page)

He worked to stifle a moan. He
could feel himself getting hard.

'Nina,'
he begged,
fighting the pleasurable tingling in his groin.

But she persisted, drawing him
in with a warm sucking motion, teasing the tip of his penis with gentle nibbles
from her uneven teeth.

He groped for the zipper at the
back of her dress and she reached down to help him, drawing her
bare
arms out of ruffled sleeves that had concealed her bony
shoulders.

She twisted just barely, never
once breaking the seal of her lips, and eased the top half of her body out of
her dress.

He saw she wasn’t wearing a
bra. Her fleshy tan breasts drooped a little, sagging against the front of his
knees, his hair
there
exciting her dark purple
nipples.

He reached down and took her
breasts in his hands. They were weighty, malleable,
heavier
than they appeared.

He pulled out of her mouth,
moving his hands to the point on her rib cage just below her arms, and hoisted
her back onto the bed.
'Ay –
si
,
si
...'
she breathed heavily.

He pawed at the mounds of her
breasts, squeezing, gripping,
greedily
suckling the
ripe purple plums he forced into the air with his fingers.

She let out a scream. She was
writhing now, desperate for what he could give her. How desperate, he was
determined to find out.

He pushed the rough edge of his
tongue into the salty folds of her cleavage
.

She
was tugging at his hair, directing his head downward.
Joe continued to
drag of his tongue down the line of her stomach to her navel, working it in and
out of her belly button’s hollow as he slid his hands around her buttocks,
thrusting her hips into the air.

He crouched and brought the rim
of his mustache to the band of her panties.

'I’m going to make you feel
like no man’s ever made you feel,' he said in raspy Castilian, 'but first,
you’re going to tell me what I want to know.'

Mark awoke to the faint smell
of cigarette smoke lingering in the air. He sat up with a start and grabbed for
the Browning beside his bed.
The figure before him whipped
into rapid focus.

Salvador
Rebelles
perched comfortably on the edge of McFadden’s cot. He wore jeans, a maroon polo
shirt, and black leather loafers. He took another long drag on his cigarette
and tilted back his chin, releasing slow, thin coils of smoke.

'Good morning,' he said,
finally fixing his eyes on Mark. 'I trust you find our accommodations to your
liking?'

'Really shouldn’t do that,'
Mark said, slipping his legs out from under the covers and squaring his feet on
the floor. He laid his pistol on the bed, resting his hand on top of it.

'I realize it’s American custom
to call –'
Rebelles
began.

'Smoke, that is. Bad for your
health.'

Rebelles
raised his eyebrows and gave a short scoffing laugh. 'And I suppose your line
of work isn’t?'
He dropped his butt to the floor and crushed out its
dying ember with his heel
.


Mark looked at his watch,
then
scanned the room for signs of McFadden. He hadn’t been
back
.


'Not to worry
about your friend, Mr. Neal.
He’s in good hands.'


'McFadden’s a good man. He can
take care of himself.'

'Precisely my meaning,'
Rebelles
said, lacing his fingers and pushing his long arms
forward in a stretch. 'Mr. McFadden has done remarkably well–'

As if on cue, a startled
McFadden appeared in the doorway, clutching two steaming tumblers of cafe con
leche
. He glanced at Mark for a signal.

'Come on in, McFadden. There’s
someone here I’d like you to meet.'

McFadden cautiously walked into
the room and headed for the cot
Rebelles
vacated. He
rested his eyes on Mark’s bed, just long enough to see his weapon was in view,
then
carefully took his seat.

'Coffee, anyone?' he asked,
extending one of his hands.

Rebelles
declined with a shake of his head and walked to the small,
screenless
window.

'Where've you been?' Mark
asked, reaching for a coffee.

McFadden shot a glance at the
window. 'A gentleman doesn’t discuss such things.'

Mark laughed, and
Rebelles
turned his head. 'Yeah, well,' Mark said, 'a
gentleman's about the last thing I'd call you.'

McFadden took a sip from his
glass, the white froth sticking to his heavy mustache. He looked at Mark,
motioning toward
Rebelles
. 'Aren’t you going to
introduce me to your friend?'

'Seems I’ve forgotten my
manners,' Mark said, setting his glass down on the floor. 'Forgive me. Mr.
Rebelles
, Joe McFadden.'

'Let me guess,' McFadden said,
'he just happened in.'

'Is there something we can do
for you, Mr.
Rebelles
?' Mark asked.

'You already are,' he said, giving
McFadden an evaluating look. 'It seems Mr. McFadden has news.'

McFadden waited for visual
encouragement from Mark before speaking. '
Rebelles
is
right. It’s
all the
buzz in LPP camps throughout the
south.

'
Carnova’s
smuggling a big load along contraband routes up into Santiago. Word is, they’re
carrying an English-speaking hostage.'

Mark stood and walked to the
open door
.

Santiago de
Compostella
.
Thank God. She was alive.

Ana felt the cool blade
pressing the tender hollow beneath her chin. Again, she was
blindfolded,
again she had been drugged and had lost all sense of sequence and time. The
only thing she knew for certain was that she was Ana Kane, daughter of Albert
and Isabel, prisoner in her mother's homeland. She had figured by now that her
life was being offered as some kind of bartering chip to the Americans. She
wondered just how valuable her life was.

The blade of the knife pressed
deeper, pricking her delicate skin. It was a sharp, quick wound, no more than a
pinpoint. Still, it drew blood, a slight trickle making its way down her throat
like scattering rain.

'Now you will talk!' It was
Carnova
.

''I’ve told you a hundred
times, I know nothing of this
archivo
azul
, or the work you claim my father did! And if he’s
alive as you claim he is...' She struggled to remain calm, to endure, as she
imagined her mother would, but
Carnova
lost patience.

'Ah, take this mother of a
whore out of my face!' he exclaimed with a filthy passion.

Ana felt the crushing blow of a
forearm against her cheek. She sat trembling as a set of lighter footsteps
approached. She prayed to God it would be the woman. The touch at her elbow was
gentle, the voice almost soothing.

'
Ven
,
chica
,'
it coaxed, leading
Ana
out of her chair and through a door at the far side of the room, 'you rest
now.'

Ana lay sideways on the soft
pillow of the bed. Her hands and eyes were still bound. But at least her legs
were free. She could hear soft footfalls retreating from the room, then the
muffled sound of a key turning in a door.

My God, were things going to
end this way? With nothing settled, nothing resolved? Had her life really been
as worthless as these men made it seem? Twenty-nine years and what did she have
to show?
A couple of health projects, a field hospital or
two, housing for the Rwandans?
These were all good things, worthy
things. But Ana didn’t kid herself. Had she not been there, they would have
taken place without her. No one is irreplaceable, her old boss used to say.
Shortly afterwards, Ana had left and found another job. One where it was
assumed she was indispensable. But surely someone else was handling those
projects now.

And if her contribution hadn’t
been professional, had it been personal? Never telling the one man she truly
revered how special he was, how much she wanted to be like him? If, for most
people, the road to hell was paved with good intentions, for Ana, it was paved
with regret.

Regret now for the suffering
she’d leave behind. Her mother. How would she live with this?

And Scott… How would he feel so
soon after he’d sent that letter?

The letter. It wasn’t anything
she hadn’t known, didn’t expect; and yet, it had come as such an unexpected
relief. She’d tried with Scott, really tried. But in all those years, she still
hadn’t figured him out. He was inconsistent. She could see the commitment had
never been there. Ana had had enough turmoil in her life. What she needed was
stability, the kind of man who would swear to a lifetime,
then
be there.

It was like that with her
parents. No feast or famine. Only steady sustenance. They drank each other in.
Anyone could see it. They had the sort of endurance born of another age,
another time when your word was as important as your name.

She’d hoped for the longest
while that she could form that sort of bond with Scott. They’d had so many good
times that, on Tuesdays anyhow, it almost seemed possible. But then the
darkness would close in, his unreasonable demands and irascible behavior
drowning out the light. She’d started wondering after a while whether what they
had was still worth fighting for. For fighting, it seemed, was all they had
left.

And then along came Joe. He was
a strong man, a tough man. The roguish sort of man who knows what he wants and
isn’t afraid to take it. Though she’d been attracted to him from the beginning,
she’d never once considered being unfaithful to Scott. But Joe seemed to know
so clearly what he wanted, so clearly who he was. It was intoxicating,
appealing, in a way she’d found harder and harder to resist.

Scott’s accusations came regardless.
He’d been certain she was fooling around with Joe from the start. She’d only
felt like crossing that line when he’d raise his hand to strike her. He never
had. But each time he seemed to be getting a little bit closer to losing
control. Perversely, Scott had wanted to control her, select her clothes so
they weren’t too tight
;
insisted on a natural look
rather than make-up. She’d made her own choices anyway, and it had infuriated
him because he couldn’t know his mind. Decide whether to love or leave her.
Whether or not she was worth his time.

Joe was a decisive man.

After a while, she’d toyed with
the idea of an affair. He seemed to want her so badly. And Scott’s last word
before she’d left on that fateful October trip had been a four-letter expletive.
'Go ahead and do what you want then, Ana. You always do anyway. See if I give a
flying fuck!'

The night she’d finally given
in to Joe, she’d had too much gin and she knew it. But she’d grown sick of
Scott’s possessiveness. Playing by the rules had gotten her nowhere. She was
mired in the sands of a relationship she found suffocating. Joe McFadden might
just be the man to set her free. It was a bittersweet memory that torched an
aching nerve. The gash was still open, seething like the heat in that steaming
tropical jungle. If Joe had been her destiny, then the responsibility for
cutting both their futures short rested squarely on her shoulders. She shut her
eyes against the stinging truth, struggling to recapture their one perfect
moment.

The rush of chlorine water had
engulfed them as Joe swept her from the shelf of the seaside pool. His bristly
wet kisses nuzzled the nape of her neck as he reached for her legs and wrapped
them around him in the water. She thrilled at the suddenness of it.
Instinctively tightened her thighs, gripping the bulk of his torso
.

He teased her with wandering kisses – gentle
nibbles tasting her shoulders, working their way in little bites toward the
lobes of her tingling ears. He lingered at her neck, running the smooth line of
his tongue upward to her chin.

She wrapped her hands around
his back, feeling the power there. Oh God, she wanted him. She’d wanted him
ever since that first day in Ecuador when he’d given her that cocky lopsided
grin.

A sigh escaped her as he drew
close, finally pressing his mouth into hers, warmly and sweetly like
butterscotch candy on a Sunday afternoon.

No, wait! She had to stop
herself and think – but
all reason was clouded by the
drunken heat welling within her in the midst of the cool evening water
.

She found herself reaching to
release the clasp at the nape of her neck. What was she doing? Who was this
crazed woman staring out into the balmy night through Ana’s eyes? She shut them
tightly against her ambiguity and Joe pressed the reassurance of his lips
against her eyelids.

'It’s all right, beautiful,' he
whispered under the ocean’s roar, before melting into her mouth once again.

She was caught up in him,
caught up in his draining warmth. His kisses pulled her like shells lost to the
drag of the sea. She fought hopelessly to regain control as the satiny fabric
of her bra worked its way to the water between them.

He groaned his pleasure,
sliding his hairy chest against her erect nipples. There was no turning back.

She grabbed him by the hair as
he brought his head to her breast. He took one swollen nipple into his mouth
and suckled hard while reaching down through the water to remove the bottom
half of her bikini.

She kissed the crown of his
head, moaning into his mass of hair, as he removed his swim trunks while
suckling her other breast. She could feel his hands around her bare buttocks
– massaging, molding, his hard penis bobbing against her in the water.