Midnight Fire (19 page)

“You won’t what?” she asked.

His jaw clenched.

“You won’t what, Jack?”

He curled his fingers through hers, brought their conjoined hands to his mouth, kissed the back of hers. Then looked straight into her eyes.

“I told you and I meant every word. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I won’t leave your side. I won’t let you go.”

Summer just stared back, wide-eyed. She had no snappy answer, no facile answer, no answer at all. That wasn’t a player’s kind of comment. It wasn’t flirtation and it wasn’t an attempt at seduction, it was stated as bald fact, by a very serious man.

Searching his face, Summer saw no sign of the beautiful golden boy. All she saw was the tough, determined man, who had just made a hell of a declaration.

He’d turned into a warrior, so stating that he would protect her was part of who he was now. But that he wouldn’t leave her side? That he wouldn’t let her go?

“I don’t know how to answer that,” she said softly. Somehow their faces had become closer, noses an inch apart. She could feel his breath on her cheek. Feel his body heat, feel the strength in that tough callused hand holding hers.

“No answer needed,” Jack said. “I’m not looking for an answer. I’m just telling you how it is.” A slight bump of turbulence jolted them closer together. Jack didn’t move away and finally his mouth closed over hers and she sighed into it. The world faded. The horror, the danger, the threat—it was reduced to background noise, like the sound of the plane’s engines. Of no importance, certainly not compared to the infusion of white hot heat from Jack’s mouth.

The outside world was gone.

She remembered that. Kissing Jack, having sex with Jack—it had been like inhabiting some magical kingdom with waterfalls and frolicking animals and butterflies and unicorns. A land of eternal sunshine and incredible bliss.

Last night had been about overwhelming heat, and it too had made the entire outside world go away.

Jack moved closer, lifted her arms around his neck, moved over her, pressed her against the chair back. This kiss wasn’t fun and distracting, this kiss was like a nuclear explosion—pure heat and power.

The kiss was endless. He’d lift his mouth only to get a better position and every once in a while to breathe. She didn’t need to breathe—she breathed through him. He kissed with his lips and tongue and teeth. He kissed with his whole body pressing against her, a heavy hot weight holding her down.

How did that happen?

The seats were lie-flat and he’d turned both of them into beds and eliminated the arm rest. In between sharp biting kisses, he said, “Tell me no if you don’t want this.” A deep kiss, her mouth taken over by his. He was lying on top of her now. He lifted his head and stared down into her eyes, face drawn, a nerve ticking in one cheek. “If you don’t want it, I’ll stop. But I need you, Summer. I need to lose myself in you. I need your arms around me and I need to be deep inside you. I need to feel you coming around me. I need that like air.”

He didn’t even have to say the words. Desire,
need
, came off him in waves. It was in the steely penis against her belly, in the drawn, almost painful lines of his face. This wasn’t happy happy sex, a friendly roll in the hay. It felt important, serious, necessary.

No man had ever looked at her that way—like he needed her, like she was a vital part of him. Her few lovers had looked at sex the way she did. A nice ending to a day, fun but not as important as work.

This wasn’t like that at all.

Jack was waiting, poised above her, one hand cradling her head, the other over her left breast where no doubt he could feel her pounding heart.

Because this wasn’t like anything she’d ever felt before for anyone. She hadn’t even felt like this for the young Jack—as if she’d die if they didn’t make love. As if his body was necessary for her to breathe, for her heart to beat.

She didn’t answer him. It was almost too big for words, words wouldn’t do it. She lifted her head slightly and kissed him, holding his head still for her kiss with both hands, as if he’d run away from her

No, he wasn’t running away. He pressed down on her again, the entire weight of his big body like a heavy mantle over her. There was nothing besides this, besides Jack overwhelming her every sense. His taste, his smell, the feel of him—that was her entire world.

His hands moved slowly, giving her every possibility to resist. To say no.

God no. Why on earth would she say no when she had a whole universe of pleasure right there in her arms?

“Yes,” she whispered and it was like letting a racehorse out of the gate. It happened so fast. He slid her pants and panties down and off. As if he couldn’t wait for one second more, not even to undress, Jack unzipped and unbuttoned just enough for him to slide into her, with no foreplay.

Turned out she didn’t need foreplay. He seemed to have understood this with his Jack-radar. His thrust was hard but she was ready, could feel herself slick and warm, closing around him tightly. He groaned and started thrusting heavily, thudding into her so hard it would have hurt if she hadn’t been so turned on.

There was something exciting about being half dressed, having to keep quiet, some whiff of the forbidden. He was thrusting hard. He reached down, opened her up even further with his fingers so that his penis rubbed right...there.

She went up in flames. She clenched heavily once, twice and came with a huge electric rush, wanting to cry out but Jack covered her mouth with his. She couldn’t move and couldn’t cry out and it was as if her body turned in on itself, exploding.

Blinding pleasure came in hot waves that couldn’t die down because Jack was still moving so deeply in her, on and on and on. Her hands were clinging to his shoulders, nails dug into the heavy muscles, feeling them moving as he worked her mercilessly.

His face was buried in her neck, panting breath hot against her skin. Summer was barely aware of the rest of her body, unable to control it. Her head fell back against the cushion, her hands opened, no longer strong enough to cling to him. Everything she was was concentrated between her thighs as another climax started building. As if his body felt it—and maybe it did—Jack increased the rhythm of his thrusts. They became deeper, harder, as he rode her through another climax.

Summer was done, she went lax. Her sex was soft and open to him, slick with her juices. Jack’s movements became less rhythmic, jerky, moving in short hard thrusts so fast she was surprised she didn’t burn up from the friction. He gasped, thrust hard one last time and started coming in hot spurts inside her that, impossibly, gave her another climax.

Her head tilted even further back, eyes closed, drinking in the moment. She could smell them—a hot salty smell, like the ocean. Amazing and elemental. They were sticky where Jack was still inside her, sticky with his semen, her juices, their sweat.

None of it was distasteful, it smelled and felt like life itself.

Jack sprawled on her, panting, face buried in her neck.

Summer slowly came back into herself, bit by bit. Arms, legs, her head. Jack was still inside her, softened from his climax but still hard enough to stay inside.

Completely without her control, her vagina contracted one last time, like a little aftershock from an earthquake, and he responded immediately, growing thicker and lengthening.

She laughed and he smiled against her neck. He kissed her right under the ear and whispered, “Welcome to the Mile High Club.”

Chapter Ten

Washington DC

Marcie Thompson was amazingly easy to track down. Her cell was on the masthead.

Sometimes Kearns thought people were too stupid to live.

Her cell showed she was in a bookstore. He checked it online, The Political Reader, on Connecticut Avenue. The internet kindly gave him a view of the façade—broad book-filled windows, purple awning with the name of the bookstore in white font—and a view of the shops nearby. A dry cleaner to the left, an organic produce shop to the right.

There was a talk going on about Freedom and Information. Or Information and Privacy. Some kind of nonsense with a talking head whose name he recognized, but knew to be a blowhard who made a very good living writing idiot books and appearing on TV as an expert on everything.

So she was attending a cultural event.

Well, he had ways.

And some docs and an accent, too. In an instant he became Liam Nelson—the name close enough to that of the actor to reassure people subconsciously—a Dublin-based writer for the Irish Times. Everyone loved the Irish and Kearns did a really good accent.

Marcie Thompson had given a TED talk—whatever that was—and he listened to about a quarter of an hour of it before he closed the screen. Political responsibility and freedom of the press and the right to privacy, yada yada.

Anyone who led a life online had no business talking about privacy. Kearns could know her menstrual cycle if he really studied the FB feed hard enough.

That wouldn’t be necessary. He didn’t want to fuck her, he wanted to kill her.

He put on his journalism duds. Thick, heavy fake beard shot with gray. Porkpie hat with IR lights along the brim. Linen collarless shirt with a photographer’s vest over it. Cargo pants and sockless loafers. He hesitated at that last touch because, Christ, what if he had to run? He was used to his combat boots and could run miles in them. The loafers would slip off in the first five hundred yards.

But onscreen Marcie Thompson was pretty, earnest, thin. No match for him. He wasn’t going to need to run. He needed to convince. But it stung because no warrior in the history of the world wore loafers on an op.

The bookstore was huge, larger than it seemed from the outside, stretching almost a block in depth. Kearns could hear a droning voice from another room, rounded a corner and saw about sixty people on folding chairs listening to the talking head. Some former something or other. Considered an expert on Africa.

You want expertise on Africa? Go fight in Sierra Leone, with two rebel armies and a rag tag government military force trying their best to kill each other and kill you, every minute of every day.

This weenie had probably never ventured outside the air conditioned confines of his hotels when visiting Africa. There were no chairs left so Kearns leaned his shoulder against the corner of a bookcase and listened to crap for about two minutes then tuned the guy out.

There she was, at the end of the third row, taking notes on a tablet connected to a tiny wireless keyboard. God knows what she was noting down, the speaker wasn’t saying one smart thing.

She was a little less pretty than her photo on the masthead. Or maybe she’d had a tiring day. Well, it was a day that was going to end very badly for her. She seemed to be sitting alone, unconnected to the old lady sitting next to her.

Good. It was always hard having to cull out a victim from a crowd.

Without moving his head, Kearns studied the terrain. There had been a security cam at the door, right over the shoplifting detector, and a few in the front room but none in this meeting room, designed for author talks. None of the staff were paying them any attention at all. He debated going back outside and waiting for her on the street but if he approached her here, harmless Irish journalist, in a bookstore, she’d be lulled. Easy to fool.

Finally the writer stopped his interminable pitch for his new book and sat down with a pile of copies to sign. People shuffled toward the author and toward the door. Marcie Thompson walked past him and Kearns made sure she heard his intake of breath.

He let her get five yards, ten yards away, then walked up to her, tapped her on the shoulder. When she turned he smiled and stepped back, hands down. Very clearly not invading her personal space. The very picture of enlightened manhood.

He pretended to peer as if she were a mile away. “Ms.—Ms. Thompson? I’m sorry but are you Marcie Thompson of
Area 8
?”

She gave a tentative smile, body language closed, clutching her satchel as if it could defend her. “Ahm, yes. Yes I am.”

“Wow. This is a stroke of luck,” he said, a half smile on his face, Ireland in his voice.

He’d deliberately put on loose clothing to hide his soldier’s physique, and he rounded his shoulders and ducked his head—body language for a non-threatening male. He smiled shyly, held the smile for a couple of seconds too long.

“Oh!” Shaking his head ruefully. “Sorry.” He dug in his backpack, which he’d been holding by a strap. He handed her a laminated card with a fuzzy photograph of his bearded face and
IRISH TIMES
across the bottom. “Name’s Liam Nelson, I’m a journalist for the
Irish Times
. I’m over here for a series of articles on issues of privacy and the new media. And, well, you’re one of the top people on my list to contact. I would have called from Dublin, but my editor assigned this to me at the very last minute and I had to rush to make the flight. I was going to call you later today, but I saw this really interesting talk advertised, he’s a well-known expert and I read his book last week and thought I’d treat myself to his speech before starting to contact people—”

Kearns broke off, smiling sheepishly, showing her the sheet of paper with a list of digital media people, a thumbnail photo, contact info. Marcie Thompson’s name was top of the list.

“Sorry. I tend to babble when I’m nervous. Anyway, I was going to go back to my hotel and start making appointments for tomorrow and—here you are! One of the editors of
Area 8
. Everyone back home reads it, it’s brilliant. Do you think I could buy you a cup of tea—or coffee if that’s your tipple—and interview you?”

He cocked his head, eyebrows raised, looking at that thin neck and thinking—
I
could snap that with my left hand
.

She stood, staring, turning this over in her head.

I’m on a timeline here
,
darling
, Kearns thought.
Ideally you should have been dead two hours ago.
“Please?” he asked. “It won’t take long. I’m so jetlagged I’ll probably fall asleep halfway through. I’ll ask follow up questions via email, how does that sound?”

She sighed. “Okay, fine. There’s a quiet coffee shop on Nebraska, about a ten minute walk away.”

I
know
,
darling.

“Yeah? Excellent. I hope they have tea. I’m not much of a coffee drinker.”

She relaxed completely at the mention of tea. Clearly a tea drinker could never be a homicidal maniac.

“Shall we go?” He opened his hand and she turned and made for the door, Kearns keeping a step behind her, head down, shambling a little as he went through the front door with its video cam. Later, he’d wipe it out remotely, well before her body could ever be found. He watched with care but no one paid them the slightest bit of attention. Marcie Thompson wasn’t a rock star the way Summer Redding was. Redding would never go unnoticed.

Out on the street, the day was cloudy, cold, with gusty winds. There was no one on Connecticut Avenue on this block. Excellent. The next security camera was on the next block. It had to be done before crossing the intersection.

He’d parked right next to an alleyway, a dirty white Transit van with mud on the plates, front and back.

“So,” he said casually, “my editor is going to want to know
Area
8’s policy on the new NSA regulations. And I’ll want to know your personal opinion, because I know the webzine allows its contributors to have a personal opinion that doesn’t have to be in line with the editorial opinion.”

She smiled faintly. “That’s right. Summer is good that way, and—oh!” She looked at him in alarm as he jabbed her with the injector just as they were pulling up to the van. She rubbed her arm, frowning, but her eyes were already unfocused.

Kearns made it look quite natural. A couple reaching their vehicle, him opening the door for her, buckling her seat belt for her, getting into the driver’s seat. He pulled out slow and steady, following the speed limit exactly.

He knew where to take her where she wouldn’t be found for fifty years. An hour away on the I-495. Laurel, Maryland. Outside Laurel were the ruins of the Forest Haven Asylum, set in two-hundred acres that had been closed amid scandal in 1991. There were twenty-two buildings in the compound, all ruins. Ownership was contested and no one had claimed it in twenty-five years. Even better—there were plenty of bodies buried there. Some were of inmates who’d died under mysterious circumstances while it was a working asylum, some dumped by the mob.

No one went there, no one asked questions.

She’d be one more decaying stiff, identifiable only by DNA or her teeth, if they ever found the body.

She was slumped forward against the seat belt and he nudged her back with his forearm, checking the time. He’d be back in DC well before dusk.

All in all, a very good day.

En route to Portland
,
Oregon

Summer had fallen into a deep sleep that looked like a coma. Not even her eyes stirred as she lay on the comfortable seats. Joining the Mile High Club would do that to you.

Jack rose from his lie-flat seat and covered her with a blanket. It was a plane so the blanket was made of a non-flammable material, but it was soft and comfortable, gray and cream, the colors of the ASI logo.

He smoothed the blanket over her carefully but she was out for the count. It was a miracle he could stand up himself. That had been the most intense sex he could ever remember having. He had blacked out for a second there at the end. He had a feeling he’d fucked her too hard but he’d been completely unable to stop. It was one of the few times he’d ever been out of control during sex.

He stood and looked down at her, something weird going on in his chest. She was so pretty and he appreciated that. There hadn’t been much of anything pretty in his life these past years. But she was so much more than just pretty. She was smart and had a kind of resilience he recognized in himself. That ability to bend but not break. She’d been through a traumatic twenty-four hours—she’d lost her home, her business and knew that bad people were after her. He hadn’t heard a peep of a complaint out of her.

This was her new reality and she was facing it head on, without a whiff of self-pity, which she’d have been perfectly justified in feeling. She’d also have been justified if she wanted to blame him, because trouble followed him around and had rubbed off on her.

But no. She was holding it together and he admired the shit out of that.

He rubbed his chest where there was something warm, that hurt. Weird mix of feelings. Intermixed with the strange was something it took him a whole minute to identify, it was so rare. He was feeling...happiness. And hope. For the first time since the Massacre, he was looking forward to something.

He’d mourned his family for six months, heartsick and grief-stricken. Lying awake at night, tears seeping out of his eyes, feeling the oppressive weight of darkness inside and out on his chest.

Isabel had survived but he’d kept away from her.

But now he was reunited with Isabel. He’d connected with a great group of guys, even if they were squids. They’d worked instantly as a team when setting the trap for Hector and he and ASI and Nick were on the same wavelength. Not like those last years in the Clandestine Service where there was something rotten in the CIA and the only person he could trust was Hugh.

But above all, the reason he was feeling this absolutely strange and new happiness thing—if that’s what it was and not heartburn—was lying down on the comfortable jet seat, sleeping.

Jack was having sex again after a very long dry spell, so that was great and newfound hormones were part of why he felt so good. But mainly it was because the sex he was having was with
Summer
. Sex with anyone else wouldn’t be anything like it was with her.

There was this great flow to being with her, so smart and so alive. The future was dark—whatever these fuckers were planning it was going to be bad. Worse than 9/11. But Jack had an alternate view of the future that revved him up and Summer was front and center in that picture.

He had no idea how they could make it work, all he knew was that he was going to do his damnedest. Her life was back in Washington and even if they were able to unmask the conspirators and stop the disaster that was coming, Jack didn’t want to go back to Washington. It was a political city, full of poison.

He would never work at the CIA again. If what he and Nick and the Director of the FBI suspected was true, the CIA would be disbanded and there would be a century’s worth of Senate hearings. There was nothing left for him in DC.

Portland, on the other hand...

He’d been offered a job in an offhand way by John Huntington, one of the two partners. Then offered it again by Douglas Kowalski, the other partner. And man, was that tempting. The team was great, the work very interesting, the gear they had beyond cool. They had better gear than the government, that was for sure.

But Summer would be in DC. And now that he’d found her, he wasn’t letting her go.

It made his head hurt.

Time for a shower.

The plane had a tiny shower, but still certainly better than the rusty showerhead back in the safe house. Jack felt better after a shower and a clean tee, clean shirt and clean briefs, all of which he had in his go bag.

Food was next, then work.

He went back out into the cabin, expecting to have to wake Summer, but found her sitting up, reaching for the blouse he’d thrown to the cabin floor at the end.