Out of the Shadows (Tangled Ivy #3) (17 page)

A sign declared the establishment upstairs to be “Adam & Eve,” and attire was optional. He headed right for the stairs.

“Really?” I asked.

“Not a lot of tourists come up here,” he tossed over his shoulder. “And if they do, they don’t stay long.”

Good lord, I bet not. Attire optional? That sounded vaguely nauseating. And germy. And I wasn’t wrong.

There was a four-man band playing covers of old seventies and eighties tunes, plus about two dozen customers who had taken the sign at its word. They were all as naked as the day they were born.

No wait, a few of the women wore pasties and thongs, though not the ones that should have.

“Oh my,” I breathed, my eyes wide as I took in the scene. I winced at the sight of bare bottoms on barstools and chairs.

“This way,” Beau said.

Devon took my hand, dragging me with them as I goggled like the naïve farm girl from Kansas that I was.

In the corner was a door, which Beau had to enter a code to get through. Once the door closed behind us, I realized it was no ordinary door, because it blocked the noise from the bar entirely. Beau flipped on the lights and the dimness was replaced with bright fluorescent illumination.

We followed Beau across the small space to another door, where he entered another code, then leaned down for it to scan his eye. Only then did it open. He held the door for us.

I’d never been in a secret CIA holding facility before, and I was watching avidly as he went through these security protocols. We were in a very narrow hallway that opened into a larger room than I’d expected. The only thing it held was a cell, and inside the cell was a woman.

She was sitting with her knees up on a bed that looked too comfortable to be inside a cell, and she looked too calm for a woman being held against her will, glancing up at us with an almost bored expression. But she perked up when she saw Devon, her body stiffening and her eyes narrowing.

“Well, I didn’t expect Vega’s lapdog to walk through that door,” she said dryly.

“Nice to see you, too, Alexa,” Devon replied. Beau stepped aside so Devon could approach the bars. I held back, too, watching.

“Are you here to kill me?” she asked. “The Americans don’t have the balls for it.” She sent Beau a scornful smile.

“That could be arranged,” Devon said.

“Except if you kill me, then you’ll never find out the truth about a lot of things I think you’ll care about very much.”

She looked quite smug and self-assured as she said this. I had trouble reconciling this petite blonde as a cold-blooded killer and spy. She was tiny and delicate, like a porcelain doll, but her eyes were cold and her tone bitter.

“The ‘don’t kill me, I know important things’ cliché,” Devon mocked. “Honestly, Alexa. I expected something better.”

Her smirk faded at this and I saw her swallow. The first betrayal of any kind of disquiet or fear I’d seen. Her eyes flashed quickly to Devon’s hands, as though expecting him to pull a weapon at any moment.

“Then try this,” she said. “Your parents didn’t die in that bombing because they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were sent there to be murdered.”

T
hose words landed with the force of a small bomb, and I didn’t know which of the three of us was more shocked.

For a moment, Devon didn’t move, as though he were processing Alexa’s statement. Then he was striding forward and grabbed the bars of the cell. It happened so fast, it startled me and I jumped. It must’ve had the same effect on Alexa because she flinched before she could stop herself.

“Tell me what you’re talking about,” Devon demanded, his voice like ice. “How could you possibly know anything about my parents?”

“I’ll be glad to, but not from in here.”

Devon glanced at Beau, who didn’t look happy.

“I’m not authorized to let her go, Devon,” he said. “She’ll disappear on us and we’ll never find her again.”

“The only reason you found me in the first place was because I
wanted
to be found,” Alexa interjected.

“Bullshit,” Beau retorted.

She shrugged, which just seemed to irritate him more.

“Perhaps we can trade,” Devon said. “You want Vega taken down. Alexa may be the one who can help me do it. But I need her.”

“He most certainly does.”

Devon didn’t reply to Alexa’s comment, his gaze on Beau. They stared at one another for a moment.

“I’m going to be in deep shit,” Beau said.

“Not if I hand you Vega on a silver platter.”

Beau glanced at Alexa, who was watching their interplay with interest. He let out a sigh.

“Fine. But if my ass ends up in a sling, you’d better come riding to my rescue.”

“Consider it done.”

Devon turned back to Alexa. “You are not free to leave. If you try, I will stop you. The agreement is you come with me, help me find Vega’s weakness, and destroy her and the Shadow. If you do this, you’ll have earned your freedom. If you flee and don’t honor your agreement, I will hunt you down. Only I won’t turn you over to the Americans, because the Russians want you, too.”

Alexa paled slightly.

Devon’s lips twisted. “Yes, I see you’re quite aware of what you may have done to upset the Russians. And exactly what they’ll do if you’re handed over to them.”

“I won’t run,” Alexa said. “I told you, I’m here of my own accord.”

“What-the-fuck-ever,” Beau mumbled under his breath.

“Good,” Devon spoke over him, ignoring how pissed off Beau was obviously getting at Alexa.

Beau unlocked the cell and Alexa rolled to her feet. She moved with a lithe grace, like a cat, and I could see then how dangerous she might be.

“So who’s she?” Alexa asked Devon, nodding toward me as though I couldn’t hear perfectly well what she was saying.

“This is Ivy,” Devon said. “And as of a few hours ago, my wife.”

Alex’s gaze swiveled from me to Devon and she grinned. “Seriously? You got married again? Good for you.” Her smile turned grim. “Better make sure Vega doesn’t find out. She’ll kill her like she did Kira.”

I was surprised she knew about that, as was Devon, because his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“I just found out she had Kira murdered,” Devon said. “How is it that you already know?”

“I made it my business to know exactly for whom I was working. Something you should have done a long time ago.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Beau interrupted. “Before the people watching the security cameras figure out exactly what I’m doing.”

He hustled us back out the way we’d come. I kept my eyes averted from the naked-as-jaybirds partiers in the bar, though I saw Alexa glancing curiously over at them as we passed by.

“I can have a transport to Gitmo waiting in the harbor by morning,” Beau said. “We’ll catch that, then a military flight to London from there.”

“We’ll go back to the hotel tonight,” Devon said. “Get some rest.”

“I’m coming with you,” Beau said. “We can’t afford to let her out of our sight.” He nodded toward Alexa. “And I have a feeling you’ll be otherwise occupied tonight.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Alexa said. “I don’t need you watching over me like a bloody babysitter.”

“He may trust you,” Beau retorted. “But I certainly don’t. So you can just cope and deal, or I can take you back inside and stick you in that cell again.”

Alexa looked pissed, but she stayed silent, her blue eyes shooting daggers at him.

“Let’s go,” Devon interrupted. “In case you’ve forgotten, it’s our wedding night.”

With that, he opened up the rear door and I climbed in, Alexa after me. Devon sat in front again with Beau.

“How old are you?” I asked Alexa. “You look really young.”

She glanced at me, then back toward the front. “Age is just a number.”

“If it’s just a number, then what is yours?”

She turned to me again, her expression one of irritation. “Why do you care? You’re barely into your twenties, no doubt as innocent and pure as the bloody snow. You don’t need to know anything about me.”

“Well excuse me if I was curious,” I retorted, getting angry now. “There’s no need to be a total bitch about it. It was just a question.”

“A rude question.”

We glared at each other. So much for us being friends. And here I’d been planning a sleepover.

“Ladies, please.” Devon’s tone was a little more patronizing than I would’ve liked and I sent him a glare.

“What?” My tone should’ve warned him.

“Let’s not get into a catfight, shall we?”

My anger at Alexa suddenly found a new outlet.

“Did you just compare us to felines?” I asked.

“Because we’re women, so our disagreement and dislike must be silly and belittled,” Alexa chimed in, and it seemed she no more appreciated Devon’s comments than I had. Well. At least we agreed on one thing.

“I meant no such thing,” Devon said, having the gall to sound affronted.

“Bollocks,” Alexa said. “That’s exactly what you meant.”

Devon turned back around, mumbling curses under his breath while Beau smothered a laugh.

It was slightly less uncomfortable in the backseat after that, though Alexa and I didn’t talk.

At the hotel, Beau let the valet take the car, and he and Alexa followed us in to the lobby. I could practically feel the tension radiating from them, but Devon seemed oblivious. Or else he just didn’t care, which was a very real possibility.

“Shall I see if they have an adjacent room?” Devon asked Beau.

“Just one?” Alexa cut in.

“Don’t worry,” Beau said to her. “Your virtue is safe with me.”

Even I winced at his sarcasm.

“Yes, but aren’t you afraid I might slit your throat in your sleep?” Alexa sneered.

“Oh, I’ll be fine. Don’t think for a minute that you won’t be tied up.”

“Like hell I will!”

“Enough!” Devon’s command shut them both up. “There will be one room and you will not kill each other. Am I understood?”

Beau and Alexa looked like a couple of recalcitrant children taken to task, but they shut up.

Devon booked the room next to ours, though they didn’t actually connect. We dropped them off and he gave them one last warning.

“We do not want to be disturbed tonight,” he warned them. “I will not be pleased if I have to come in here to play referee.”

I hid a grin at this.

“We’ll meet you downstairs at 0700,” Beau said. “The boat will be ready by 0730.”

I winced. That was really early. But I didn’t complain. At least I was getting to go along.

“Done. Now, good evening, to both of you.”

Devon took my elbow and led me into our room, closing and locking the door behind him.

I was inexplicably nervous, which made no sense. Devon and I had made love many times—this was no different.

And yet, it was. Because we were married now.

The butterflies in my stomach increased tenfold.

Devon walked to the phone on the desk and dialed. “Yes, I’d like to order some champagne, please. For two.” He listened for a moment. “Excellent. Thank you.” Then he hung up.

He slid off his jacket, and his fingers began undoing the buttons of his shirt. I watched, mesmerized as his skin was revealed, inch by inch. It didn’t matter how many times I saw him—he never failed to take my breath away.

The breadth of his shoulders and circumference of his arms made me weak in the knees. The scars on his back and chest only made him more appealing. A scattering of light hair covered his chest, thickening slightly into the line that went from his navel downward, disappearing underneath the band of his pants.

The low light from the lamp danced across the muscles of his back as he moved to the closet to hang his shirt. I watched him unabashedly, wanting him, and still unable to believe he was mine.

“You’re looking at me as though you’ve never seen me before,” he said, his back still to me.

My face warmed. “Should I stop?”

“No,” he said, turning around. “I like it.”

“I’m sure you’ve had many women stare at you over the years,” I said. We’d rarely talked about the women he’d been with, but suddenly I was feeling insecure.

“I can’t help if they stared,” he said, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms over his chest. My eyes were immediately drawn to how that pumped up his biceps. “But it’s not often that I noticed, or wanted them to.”

I made my gaze return to his rather than drinking in the way he looked, so casually at ease in a body that was nothing less than perfection.

“You’re talking in the past tense,” I said. “Women still stare at you. Want you.”

“And men don’t stare at you?” he countered.

“It’s not the same.”

“Oh, it’s not,” he said with a small laugh. Now his hands were in his pockets. I may have made a slight sound at the view of his chest that afforded me. “Please explain that to me.”

“I do notice—
did
notice,” I said. “And I’ve never liked it. Never liked feeling conspicuous.”

“And you think I have?”

I frowned at him. “Haven’t you?”

“Darling, being conspicuous goes against my job description. Has it generally been a convenient thing that women find me attractive? Speaking generally as a bastard, absolutely. It’s not as though I’ve had to work hard at having female companionship. But you and I, together, are completely different than anything I’ve ever had before.”

That made me feel better. He was just so beautiful. My insecurities melted away at the look in his eyes as he stared at me. There was a little smile playing about his lips, and his eyes took a slow path down my body and back up to my face.

“How so?” I asked. Was it a shameless request for him to tell me how much he loved me and how special I was? Yes, indeed. But I didn’t think he’d mind.

Devon pushed off the wall and sauntered toward me, hands still in his pockets. I couldn’t take my eyes off his, so blue it was as though I was looking into the summer sky.

He stopped in front of me and I felt his hands settle on my hips, his fingers just brushing to touch my skin underneath the lace tank I wore.

“You are,” he began, “my beautiful bride. A woman I’ve been entranced with since the moment I laid eyes on you.” His fingers moved to my stomach and edged upward. I felt my knees begin to tremble. “You’re the only woman I see now. The only woman I want in my bed. The only woman I’ll allow in my heart.”

I couldn’t help the smile that seemed to come from deep inside me and spread across my face. Devon’s lips curved in turn as he bent toward me.

Our lips met in a sweet kiss that made my bones melt. His hands went to my arms, sliding down to my wrists and lifting my arms to wrap them around his neck. The touch of my skin against his sent a shiver through me.

Air hit my stomach as Devon lifted my shirt, dragging it over my head and tossing it aside. It broke our kiss for just a moment, but then we were devouring each other again. His kiss was familiar, the cadence and rhythm one that I knew and loved.

Devon could take off my bra faster than even I could, and sure enough, it was undone in the blink of an eye. I smiled as he kissed me and he paused, lifting his face a bit so he could talk to me.

“What’s so funny?” he murmured, his lips moving to my jaw.

“You’re like the Bra Whisperer,” I said. “You just have to look at them and they fall off me.”

He muffled a chuckle against my skin and my smile faded as his hands found my breasts. I became lost in a pool of sensation as he kissed my neck and his thumbs brushed my nipples.

“I love how your skin tastes,” he said. “Just like I love how you taste between your legs.”

His hands moved to the button on my shorts, undoing it and sliding down the zipper. I sucked in a breath as his fingers brushed my panties. He was teasing me, barely touching me. My fingers pushed into his hair as I kissed him. His hands slipped down inside my shorts to cup my ass, squeezing, and the garment fell to my ankles.

In one smooth motion, he picked me up and carried me to the bed, laying me down on the cool sheets. I went for his pants, wanting them off, but he stepped back and did it himself. The lights were still on and I drank in the sight of him, naked.

I didn’t get a whole lot of time to just look at him though, because he was already back on the bed, tugging down the sheets and bracing himself on his hands so he could kiss me.