Guilty Pleasures (33 page)

The pad of his thumb settled inside slick folds and moved in tight inflaming circles.

“Xavier!” She choked back a sob. “Oh, please.”

“Shush, sweetheart. This is good. It’s all good. Take it.” Polly took it with hips that wouldn’t remain on the bed. She took it, and took it—and gritted
her teeth with the pure, scald
ing ecstasy of it
.

The circles grew even smaller, even tighter—and broke the center of the white-hot tension that kept her hovering short of climax. Before she’d finished keening out her satisfaction, while wanton gratification still gathered in erogenous skin and tissue, Xavier thrust his penis so deep inside her she convulsed with shock at the invasion.

“Okay?” he asked quietly, waiting with more of that control no man could be expected to find, not now.

“Okay,” she murmured, and raised her hips toward him. “Love me, Xavier.”

He gave a single, keening cry and lost the battle with himself. Too few strokes, and he muttered something she couldn’t make out. He muttered, and emptied, and Polly couldn’t stop the fresh tears. She pushed her fingers into his thighs, guided his legs until they rested between hers.

“Too fast, damn it,” he said, breathless.

“That time,” she told him. “Stay right where you are for just a little while, and we’ll do it slower.”

“Oh, sweet Polly.”

Seconds passed, and minutes. He stroked her breasts—lazily at first. Then less lazily.

She felt him begin to tighten within her. “It’s magic. I told you this would work.”

“Geesh. Can we just stay like this forever?” His teeth came together audibly. “Can we do this again and again.”

“And again,” she said, squeezing her muscles around him.

“Mercy! Have a little mercy, my love. We’re going to take our time, remember.”

Polly squeezed some more. “I think it’s out of our
hands.
Don’t worry. We just need more practice. Sooner or
later we’ll
get it right. I think it’s the tennis shoes.”

“Huh?”

“The tennis shoes. There’s something about making love with your pants around your ankles. Very sexy. Makes it tough to be restrained.”

“Oh, yeah.” He gasped and fell into the rhythm she set “Sexy, sexy. So sexy.”

“Feels kind of forbidden.”

“Yeah.
Polly
—I’m coming apart.”

“Oh! Yes.
Yes.
Tennis shoes forever. You can’t take your jeans off with tennis shoes on.”

T
w
enty-four

H
e turned over and sat up.

Zero. Dead, cold zero sleep, to snapping awake. In less time than he knew how to measure.

He frowned and listened—illuminated his watch face to check the time. They couldn’t have fallen asleep more than half an hour earlier. Polly breathed softly and deeply beside him.

Nasty smiled and bent to kiss her bare shoulder.

A sound had awakened him. A sound and a presence. Not here, not in the house, but outside.

Careful not to disturb Polly, he got out of bed and crossed to the window—and heard rain on the glass. He grimaced. The sound of rain had been rare in recent weeks, so rare he hadn’t slept through it as he usually would.

It had rained that night in Bogota. Warm rain, steaming earth, leaves that shone in the darkness and dripped on him as he crawled beneath them.

Out of habit, he was careful to stand beside the window, flat to the wall, and to lift the drapes so no movement could be noted from the outside.

Floodlights sent out beams at intervals around the house, cut a swath of light that faded into a wall of blackness some yards away.

The floods went out.

Nasty rolled away from the window. The lights were one of Rose’s more recent innovations. She was proud of them. They
were left on all night, not for safety—which was why Dusty had persuaded her to have them—but because they made the house “look pretty.”

Damn, he should never have let his guard down, not for a second, while he knew there was danger. He did know there was danger. It hadn’t made any of the expected patterns, but it hovered. Without the incident with the divers, he’d have said the entire affair had an amateur stamp. But there had been the divers.

He saw Polly move just before she said, “What’s the matter?”

“Probably nothing.” This was the tough part. He wasn’t sure how someone like Polly would react to confronting an unseen force. She’d come through a near drowning without breaking— endured the attack at her condo without completely falling apart. “I need to get to Dusty’s location. I’d like you to dress—quickly—so I can leave you with Bobby.”

The bedding rustled. He saw her put on clothes as she found them. He grabbed his jeans and pulled them on, and his T-shirt. His knife and its sheath were with his black nylon jacket, close to the door. His Sauer was just under the bed.

“Is someone in the house?” Polly whispered. She sounded steady.

“I don’t think so. I do think we could have trouble.”

“I want to get to Bobby.”

“You will. I’m going to put Rose and Nellie with you, too.”

“Should
I
have a gun? I expect you’ve got—”

“No. You don’t know how to use a gun. And you won’t need one.” He hoped to God he was right. “Ready?”

She touched his back, and said, “Yes. Just tell me what to do.”

As he opened the door, he saw the on/off flick of a flashlight. Dusty had arrived at the bottom of the stairs leading to the two third-floor rooms above a central gallery on the second floor.

Nasty put Polly behind him and slipped swiftly down beside Dusty.

“Could be nothing,” the older man said.

“You let me go past my watch.”

“I didn’t know wake-up calls were part of the deal these days.”

He deserved that.

“I heard something before the lights went out,” Dusty said.

“That makes two of us.”

“Someone threw the circuit. The box is in the laundry room. I left it.”

Nasty nodded. “Good move.”

“There’s no obvious evidence of entry, but someone came in. I’d lay odds they went straight back out.”

“To draw us outside,” Nasty said. “Go in with Bobby, Polly. Try not to wake him up. Easier that way. Dust, I’ll stay here while you get Rose and Nellie.”

Dusty was already on his way, keeping low to skirt the gallery that was open to the foyer below.

“The dog doesn’t bark?” Nasty asked.

“Usually. If a stranger comes.”

Nasty considered. “He’s not on home ground. I guess that could make a difference.”

“I think he’d bark if someone new was in the house.” She sounded relieved, and he hoped she’d stay that way.

“Good. Go in there now.” He turned the door handle silently and opened just enough space for her to slip through. He caught her arm and bent to kiss her mouth. “This is probably a false alarm.”

“I love you, Xavier.”

He smiled. “I know. The feeling’s mutual. Always will be.”

“Please don’t go outside.”

Another foreign experience. Someone worried about him for other than practical reasons. “Spike didn’t bark,” he said lightly. “Don’t worry. I’ll just check around to be sure.”

“Someone turned off the lights.”

“Maybe they were never on.”

“Damn it, Xavier, I’m not a k
id. You and Dusty just talked
about the lights going out, and the circuit being thrown.”

He would need to keep a few steps farther ahead with this woman. “Okay. Sorry. Where are they?” he asked Dusty, who returned without Rose or Nellie.

“Won’t budge,” he said irritably. “Fool women. You can’t reason with ’em. Rose says she and Nellie are staying put in her rooms. We’re to let them know when this
foolishness
is over.”

“Shit,” Nasty said with feeling. “You’ll have to stay central. I’ll be as quick as I can. Polly—in and close the door.”

“No.”
Panic
was
there
now. “You can’t go outside. How do
you know what’s there?”

“He doesn’t,” Dusty said for him. “This is just precaution. A check around doors and windows inside to make sure there’s been no entry. A—”

“No need to go into the minor
details,” Nasty said quickly,
afraid Polly would freak out.

“There certainly is a need. Dusty’s already established that someone came in, Xavier.”

Dusty made no attempt to stifle a snicker.

Nasty said, “We’re wasting time.”

“Then he’ll make a circle around the outside of the house. And when he comes back, no one will know he’s moved—inside or outside. Will they,
Xavier?”

“His ankle,” Polly said. “He doesn’t do this sort of thing anymore.”

Nasty swore under his breath. “That’s enough, Dust. Save the fun for later. Think of soft landings, Polly. And tennis shoes. I’m not a complete cripple yet.”

He left visualizing the expression on her face and drawing satisfaction from knowing he’d at least got the color right. He didn’t need to see the blush to be sure it was there.

The inside check was accomplished rapidly and without incident. Rather than a door, he chose a window in the pantry
as his route outside. The chance that he was dealing with professionals was better than fifty-fifty. Still, he had nothing to lose by hoping whoever was playing unpleasant games was too green to expect a man to crawl through a window rather than open a door and walk out.

He landed softly behind bushes in the bed that ran along the back of the house. The hood on his jacket unfurled to cover most of his face, as well as his head. With the collar closed tightly, he was virtually invisible. For once he blessed the rain that turned earth at his feet to mud. Bracing himself on the side of the house, he scuffed the slimy mix over his white tennis shoes.

No identifiable noise reached him, other than the steady drum of rain on the glass roof of a nearby greenhouse, and the shifting of leaves and branches—and small life—in trees and bushes.

If someone was waiting for him to make a move, they’d be in close. He had no way of guessing what location they’d chosen—or even if they were still in the area. He did what he’d been trained to do in similar circumstances—crouched and moved swiftly, not thinking about percentage chances anymore, just moving and making repeated visual checks behind him.

The rain grew even heavier.

Distant lightning swelled in a brief silver haze and faded quickly. A faint crackle of summery
thunder was a long time coming.

He reached a back comer where trees came all the way to the house. The scent of soaked pines and mulch flooded the air.

Nasty stumbled, and stopped. His heart pumme
led his ribs. The ground was torn
up here. Using even his hooded flashlight wasn’t an option. He sank to a crouch and felt the soil. Practice allowed him to find what he’d expected: footprints. But not a single set. More than one man had tramped—recently—in the dirt beneath a window into a small storage room. He looked up. The window wasn’t open.

Whoever had been here had either made it inside and closed the window—or left. He had to know which, and the only way to find out was by using the light.

With the Sauer in his right hand, he took the flashlight down to ground level and switched it on. A brief swing of the beam along the side of the house and back told him the story.

One intruder had come, gone in through the window, and left. That would be the man throwing the circuit to get Nasty outside. That was a given now.

The guy had started away, but someone else had shown up, bringing him back. There’d been a scuffle, and the two had left, one man pulling the other.

Straightening, he slid the switch off almost immediately and stared out at the wall of trees.

“Yo, Nasty.”

He whipped around, gun braced before the whisper completely registered.

“Friend,” Roman Wilde murmured. “Easy.”

Nasty lowered the gun, and the man he’d trust with his life— and anyone else’s—arrived beside him. They stood silent, shoulder to shoulder.

Dusty would have some fast talking to do. Later. Nasty used the flashlight again, and turned it off again the instant he’d traced the marks in the earth for Roman to see.

Without a word, they put distance between them and struck out into the trees. Radio contact would be nice, but Nasty didn’t have to see his friend to feel his presence, and to know he did exactly what must be done.

Civilians didn’t do dark real well. Another point in favor of a pro. He narrowed his eyes. The smell was different, but he felt again the brush of other plants, vine-draped plants, on his skin. There had been no light that night either.

Another sizzling stroke of lightning struck—much closer. For an instant a suggestion of a glow penetrated the trees. It faded before thunder rushed in its wake.

Nasty crept onward, placing each foot, heel and toe, progr
e
ssing so slowly his nerves jumped with tension. They could use an entire damn unit.

The next ripple of lightning came. For several seconds white light painted a path between the trees, over fallen trunks and jagged snags. And it touched something that moved.

Then all was blackness again.

Thunder roared, so close the ground trembled.

Nasty pulled his left sleeve high enough to expose the handle of his knife and stroked the trigger of the Sauer. Someone was ahead of him, and it wasn’t Roman. Roman wouldn’t be upright and in motion when lightning hit.

As swiftly as he dared, Nasty went forward. The lightning had provided a rough mental map of the immediate terrain. He reached the first fallen tree he’d seen and touched rough, wet bark. He wouldn’t fire first. Neither would Roman. But if the mark gave one tiny excuse, the rules became the ones Nasty knew best. He unsheathed the knife and went forward with it in his left hand. On the night he’d lost his job, pain and shock had also cost him his gun. His knife had become a precious companion he had treated with utmost respect ever since.

He stumbled over something and flailed.

An arm surrounded his neck, clamped it in the crook of a steel-hard elbow, and jerked him backward. “No sound.” The man behind him whispered against Nasty’s hood. “Very quiet, very careful. No problems.”

The cold clarity he needed slid around his brain. No time for cursing whatever wrong step he’d taken getting to this point. He dropped his right hand to his side.

“No,” the voice said, at the same instant as unyielding metal slammed into the back of Nasty’s hand.

He kept his grip on the gun. The second blow knocked it free.

“Better,” he was told softly. “We will move backward a few steps, then turn to your left.”

There had to be a reason this joker wasn’t putting a bullet
through his head. He allowed himself to be guided back a step, another, another. Then he lifted a foot and brought the heel down on the toes of the man who held him.

A muffled cry escaped and the grip on his neck loosened a fraction.

Nasty twisted around and tossed his knife from his left to his right hand.

“No!”

Darkness collected and changed shape. A head and shoulders came at Nasty, connected with his belly. He grappled and cocked his arm, ready to strike with the knife.

The other man dropped. Nasty heard him roll and made a circle, knife singing through the air as he turned.