No Escape (31 page)

The chair creaked ominously beneath them as Luke readjusted her feet high around him, spreading them so they ran along the arms of the chair and opened her to him fully. Then he hooked the sturdy ottoman closer with his feet and used it to brace his own legs, groaning when the motion shifted her against his aching cock. Finally, he gently pushed her away from him so he could see her without restrictions. Before she knew it, Tessa was spread wide and reclining back against Luke’s hair-roughened thighs.

Really, the man seemed to delight in putting her in the most exposed of positions when they made love. He gave her a charming smile before she could think to protest.

But that thought flew from her head when Luke used one hand to slowly, possessively stroke her from neck to stomach, then back up again. Muscles trembling faintly with anticipation, he shifted and pulled the bottom half of his robe apart, so it no longer acted as a barrier between them. Tessa lay back against his legs and watched from under heavy lids as Luke’s erection thrust up between them, its pulsing heat mere inches from her body.

Saying her name softly, he brought a hand to her mouth and ran the sensitive pads of his first two fingers around her lips. Obeying the heated request in his hazel eyes, she opened her mouth to kiss and lick his fingers.

He groaned when she took his fingers into her mouth to lave and suck them. Hard. His cock twitched visibly in response, and Tessa’s eyes widened in anticipation. Then they closed in delight when Luke pulled his wet fingers from her mouth and slid them straight down to the entrance of her body.

Though her lids were closed, she knew he watched himself stroking her, dipping into her wet heat, then sliding up to circle her clitoris before dropping back down again. The
sensation of being consumed and explored at the same time was unbearably intimate. Tessa’s breath hitched in, then came out in a long, low cry when Luke finally slid his fingers deep inside her.

“So tell me about this famous G-spot,” Luke teasingly whispered as he stroked. “Where is that puppy?”

“God!” Tessa cried out in response to his touch. “No idea. Look for it. There,” she moaned brokenly, and arched against him.

“You sure?” He returned to circle the area again.

“Mmmmm,” she said, rocking against his hand and fingers, no longer capable of speaking.

The sweet, slippery teasing continued until she lay arched and panting in his lap, feeling her muscles pull taut in anticipation of the climax he’d carefully built up.

“Come, baby. I want to feel you come right now.” Luke’s teeth were clenched and his forehead was covered with sweat as he concentrated on the woman spread before him in complete abandon.

With a throaty sound of ecstasy, she let go and felt the waves of orgasm crash over her like a hot downpour of tropical rain, washing her away. Her body shuddered again and again, and the hidden warmth between her legs contracted around Luke’s fingers in a way that nearly undid him.

For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of rapid breathing and the hotel room’s heater kicking in. Then Tessa heard a door close and the murmured voices of MacBeth and Stone through the connecting door.

The door that was about five feet away from where she was performing sexual acrobatics in a chair with Luke.

In a heartbeat, he felt all of her muscles tense, and she looked at him with such an expression of horror that he chuckled out loud. She was so tightly wrapped sometimes—a trait which he delighted in loving her out of—that Luke knew she’d be hesitant about continuing in their current location.

“Don’t worry, they’ll probably just think we’re watching hotel room porn,” Luke whispered.

Tessa’s gave him the Look even as she bit her lips to keep from grinning. She knew when she was being teased, and he was letting her have it for being uptight. Okay, so maybe it did take her a while to unwind about having sex with him. But she did eventually get there, or else she wouldn’t be in her current position.

Actually, it was kind of fun letting loose with Luke now that she finally trusted him enough to do so. Too bad he didn’t realize what he’d unleashed when he’d coaxed her sexpot genie out of the bottle. He would, though.

She smiled and laughed in a way that told Luke he was in serious trouble. Suddenly, her fingers began to move down from his shoulders to stroke his stomach. Then she latched gently on to the jutting flesh that still pulsed between their bodies. Before he could say anything, she had wrapped both hands tenderly around him, careful to keep the edge of the cast away from his skin. She made several quick, pumping movements that wrung a loud groan of pleasure out of his throat before he remembered his employees next door.

There was a stunned silence through the connecting door, which was broken when Tessa bent down to wrap her lips around the head of his cock. He gasped out loud and locked his hands in her hair to pull her away. But she wouldn’t move, except for her tongue and lips an d…He groaned again, quietly this time. She laughed low in her throat, and the feel of that vibration against his painfully sensitive flesh undid him.

With a hissing sound, he shifted and scooped up a now-giggling Tessa. He flung her over his shoulder and secured her with a proprietary hand on her bare bottom, then headed to the far end of the suite—away from the connecting door. He paused to turn up the sound of the TV to cover her breathless laughs, then made his way to the oversized shower for the second time that evening. He barely remembered
to grab the box of condoms and a plastic bag to cover her wrist before he shut the bathroom door and locked it behind them.

He turned on the water, peeled off his socks, and muscled her inside the stall. Soon, Tessa was no longer laughing. In fact, she was the one clenching her teeth and biting Luke’s shoulder to stop the sounds of ecstasy from traveling any farther than the warm, foggy confines of the luxury bathroom.

Reno, Nevada

Thursday evening, March 18

T
he planning phase of Novak International’s extraction operation continued into the next day. They would be moving to rescue Kelly within a few hours, and yet Tessa wasn’t sure if she could stand another minute of the anticipation.

She sat alone in the suite, laying out the clothes she would wear that night. Four times. With a sigh, she went into the living room and turned on the TV. But she didn’t find anything to hold her attention and resumed pacing.

Since she couldn’t take her angst out on Luke at the moment—in ways that were both new and addictive as far as she was concerned—she decided to take a turn around the casino floor. She picked up her cell phone to call Luke and let him know what she was planning.

“We’re sorry, but your phone does not have roaming privileges in this service provider’s area. If you would like to place a call, please enter a credit card number now, then press pound.”

Tessa looked at her ultrathin, very expensive cell phone in disgust. Apparently, CalCell didn’t have an agreement with
the local wireless company to allow her automatic out-of-area rights in Reno. So what good did it do her to have this wafer-thin piece of electronics, if she couldn’t use it when she needed to?

Looking around, she decided there was no way she was going to pay bloated roaming rates when a local phone call was only a quarter from the room phone. Better yet, she could call Luke’s cell number for free if she used her long-distance calling card.

Muttering under her breath, Tessa picked up the hotel phone and dug around in her purse for her seldom-used telephone card.

“Hey, it’s me. I was thinking of going downstairs and buying some long underwear before we leave. If I have to sit in the car like the damn family dog, I want to be warm while I’m doing it,” Tessa said.

“I thought we were done arguing about this.” Luke sighed.

“Huh,” she said. She was still smarting about Luke’s decision to allow her only as far as a few miles from Ricky Hedges’s cabin. Tessa would be waiting in the weather-proofed Suburban they’d rented, like some kind of flunky getaway driver who couldn’t be trusted to carry off the heist. The rest of the team would go forward on foot to the cabin to effect Kelly’s rescue.

While it was only logical that she should be the one to stay behind, since she had no SWAT or hostage-rescue training, it still irked her. And she wasn’t above letting Luke know it, even if logic had led her to agree to the indignity of waiting in the car while everyone else did the real work.

After all, it was either that or wait in the hotel—as Luke had pointed out. As he pointed out one more time right then.

“Do you get carpet burns from dragging your knuckles on the ground all day long like the early hominid that you are? Mr. Cro-Magnon Man.”

Luke snickered, not offended in the slightest. Of course, he’d won the argument, so he could afford to laugh off her
insults. Just wait until she had him spread before her on a bed again. She’d show him a thing or two.

“Anyway, I just wanted to run the idea of shopping by you,” Tessa said after a long silence. “You said Ricky was checking out, so I figured I’d be safe.”

“Probably,” Luke agreed. “But do me a favor and keep on your ski cap and sunglasses. And wear a bulky sweater so no one recognizes that amazing ass of yours.”

“You’re just saying that because MacBeth is standing right there, aren’t you?” Tessa asked. Luke was still trying to get back at her for teasing him within earshot of his employees. No doubt they’d given him hell for whatever they’d overheard through the connecting door last night.

“Can I help it if you find me irresistible?” Luke asked. “But yes, MacBeth is here. He and I are picking up some, ah, gear. And we’re running through the plans one final time, so everything goes smoothly. In about ten hours, Kelly will be safe and warm in our suite at the hotel.”

“Good,” Tessa said huskily. “I’m so glad you sent Stone out to reconnoiter this morning. It was a real relief to hear that he’d spotted Kelly in the cabin and that she seemed to be unhurt.”

“Which one of these do you want to bring, Luke?” MacBeth’s voice traveled clearly over the phone line, telling Tessa that she was needlessly monopolizing his time. He should be working out last-minute hitches in their plan, not holding her hand.

“Call me when you get back to the room, okay?” Luke asked.

“I’ll try. But my cell phone doesn’t have roaming privileges here, so it’s a real pain to make calls at all.”

“Then send me a text message,” Luke said. “Those often get through because they only require a fraction of a second of airtime.”

“Cool,” Tessa said. “I’ll remember that. I’ll see you guys later.”

She hung up and grabbed the winter clothing, dutifully wrapping herself in the warm layers in an effort to pad her figure and hide her blond hair. She went downstairs to the arcade shops that took up the entire subterranean lower levels of the hotel. In addition to several expensive clothing boutiques, salons, and jewelry stores, there was an outdoor outfitter that should carry the thermal underwear she wanted to buy.

After several minutes of browsing, she made a selection and went to the register. She added earmuffs and gloves to her purchases as she waited in the checkout line. It was sweltering inside the heated store with all her winter clothing on, so Tessa looked casually around before pulling off her brand-new parka and warm hat, items MacBeth had purchased for her earlier that day.

At least it seemed like the stuff would keep her warm while she was waiting in the car later that night.

She’d take her silver linings where she found them.

“You had enough gambling, boss?”

Ricky Hedges turned away from the craps table where he’d indulged in a little last-minute play after checking out of the Reno Casino’s hotel. He checked his watch and agreed that it was time to leave.

“Yeah, Bobby. Let’s get the truck and head out to the cabin. I don’t want to have to ride the snowmobiles in a blizzard if we can avoid it—the trip is already long and cold as it is.”

“You complain,” the other man replied as he grabbed Ricky’s rolling suitcase, “but you love that place.”

Ricky companionably cuffed his long-term assistant as they walked out of the casino. “I do. It’s where I do all my thinking. I’ve got a lot of business decisions to make, and some peace and quiet will be very welcome.”

“To say nothing of that hot little piece waiting for you,” Bobby said.

“She’s very pretty, yes. Even though she’s not my type. I’ve never gone for jailbait, but as a businessman I’ve learned to give the customer what he wants. Hopefully, she will be feeling more, ah, grateful now that she’s had an opportunity to think things over. I think she can make us a lot of money in the future if she gets with the program.”

“Hopefully,” Bobby chorused. “I’ve got everything packed in the truck, just waiting for your bag and stuff.”

Ricky nodded, then paused in the hallway that led to the underground parking garages as his cell phone rang. He answered, turning toward the glass fronts of the boutique shops to better hear what was being said to him.

“What do you mean you found tracks? Like a bear or something?” Ricky asked.

Bobby looked at a display holding a hundred-thousand-dollar diamond-and-sapphire necklace while his boss talked.

“Just keep an eye on things until I get there,” Ricky ordered. “Make sure the cellar is locked and the alarm is activated. And keep that girl out of sight.”

Bobby looked up as Ricky called his name. “Come on, we have to get to the cabin. It looks like there have been people trespassing on the property. It’s probably nothing, but I’ll feel better once I check it out.” Ricky headed down the hall toward the truck waiting in the parking garage, cursing at having to personally handle yet another potential crisis.

Tessa came out of the outdoor outfitter’s shop, trying to juggle packages, her bulky parka, and the hat she’d taken off in order to keep from overheating in the warm store. She stopped in the hallway outside the shop’s entrance to adjust her things and put the hat and jacket back on, mindful of Luke’s warning to keep her hair covered.

She’d just slipped the dark fleecy fabric over her head and grabbed her sunglasses out of the neckline of her sweater when the ringing of a telephone caused her to look up.

She was sure that everyone around could hear the sound
of her heart rate doubling when she recognized Ricky Hedges standing not fifty feet away, talking on his cell phone. At least she thought the man looked just like the pictures of Ricky that Luke had put in the case file. After two horrified glances she was sure of it.

He was supposed to have checked out. What was he doing in the hallway chatting on the phone?

Ricky turned with the phone to his ear and seemed to look right at her.

With a gasp, Tessa turned to her right and started walking. Had Ricky seen her before she’d managed to get her hat and sunglasses on? More importantly, had he recognized her? Presumably if he’d had people tailing her—and if he’d tried to have her killed he must know what she looked like.

All she could do was hope that he wasn’t a suspicious kind of guy.

She continued walking down the extended hallway, trying unsuccessfully to catch a glimpse of what was happening behind her. Finally, she paused as if to look at a sweater displayed in one of the storefronts—an act that gave her the chance to peek down the hallway in the other direction.

All she saw was Ricky, looking angry and purposeful, striding quickly right toward her.

Tessa abandoned the shop front and all attempts at casualness, picking up her pace with the hope of escaping into the parking garage. She pushed open the heavy metal door and paused to pull it shut behind her, wincing at the scream of the hydraulic hinges.

Looking frantically around, she saw no one to help, no other exits, and very few places to hide. Since she was right by the entry to the building, all the parking spaces around her were reserved for handicapped use—and almost every one was empty. There was only an oversized gold Cadillac and a dark blue pickup truck to hide behind.

Tessa ran toward the pickup, figuring she could hide in the bed in back until Ricky and friend gave up and left. As she
rounded the vehicle, she found that the tailgate was open, and the whole back was covered by an all-weather tarp that was folded back at one corner to allow access to the storage area.

With seconds to spare, Tessa threw her stuff into the darkness underneath the tarp and dove in after it.

She heard the heavy metal door open, and footsteps echoed loudly in the parking garage. She listened, but didn’t think they sounded like running footsteps. There was no shouting or sounds of a search.

With a deep breath of relief, Tessa told herself that Ricky and his friend would soon give up looking for her—if indeed they’d seen her at all. Maybe she had overreacted completely.

That relief lasted about ten seconds, which was the amount of time it took for two sets of footsteps to approach the truck.

She held herself frozen as a pair of blue-jeans-clad legs appeared in the narrow gap of the open tailgate. An overnight-style bag was hefted into view, then shoved into a space not two feet from where she was huddled. Another followed seconds later. A thick jacket was then thrown over the baggage, and the tailgate was closed with a metallic
thunk
that echoed in the quiet garage.

She watched in real despair as the heavy-duty tarp was flipped closed and, from the sound of it, fastened securely so it wouldn’t flap in the wind.

“Don’t worry, Ricky. We’ll be there in an hour or so. Otis can hold things down at the cabin until then.”

Tessa held her breath, but there was no reply. Just the sensation of doors being opened and closed on the truck where she had sought refuge.

The truck was in a handicapped spot! They’re not disabled, the bastards.

Tessa could not believe what she’d done. Not only had she overreacted and run at the thought that Ricky might have
seen her, but she’d panicked and hidden in the one vehicle in the entire parking garage that belonged to him.

Jammed into the space between several boxes and the small suitcases, Tessa gingerly maneuvered around until she could reach the seams of the tarp. She pressed up against the canvas material, but it was securely fastened. There wasn’t even enough space for her to wedge her hand out and try to open the tailgate.

Hell.

She was trapped.