Relentless (39 page)

“They can’t hold me here forever. Legally, they can’t do this.”

She laughed, because he was ridiculous lying there, arms behind his back, feet bound together, talking about his legal rights. “Do you know who all these men are?” Channeling the icky tones of a movie villain was very satisfying. Especially since, even in the poor lighting, she saw the sweat begin to trickle down his temples and shine slickly on his upper lip.

She waved her free hand around the warehouse. “British and Israeli intelligence operatives. And you know
why
they’re called intelligence? Because they’re not stupid enough to hand you over to the Egyptian authorities. You’ll be tried and convicted…” She waited several ominous seconds before finishing. “. . . elsewhere.”

“That’s illegal!”

Isis shrugged. “Or questioned and killed here,” she added sweetly. “I’m told they’re so good, they leave hardly a mark on your body—I have no idea
how
they do that. Special spy skills, I guess.” She let her voice trail off admiringly, and heard a snort nearby as one of the men
muffled his opinion of her interrogation techniques. Isis got to her feet. Dylan flinched as the movement brought her dangerously close to his private parts. “Goodbye, Dylan. You were a weak coward when I met you, and you’re a sniveling creep now. The world will be better off without you.” Turning to go, she said to the guy closest to her, “He’s all yours now.”

“Isis! Wait!
Isis!
”

“DID YOU ENJOY THAT?”
Thorne asked, exiting to find Isis leaning against the building, hands on her knees.

She straightened when she heard him. “I did while I was talking to him. Now I feel a little sick.”

“He’s feeling a lot sicker in anticipation of what’s to come, I imagine.” Thorne wrapped his arms around her, and she put her head on his chest, sliding her arms tightly around his waist.

Her shaky laugh was muffled against his shirt. “You know what’s funny? I was channeling some movie villain when I was talking to Dylan, and feeling quite proud of myself. I only just realized who I was channeling. Cruella de Vil.”

He bit back a smile as he stroked her back and buried his face in her fragrant hair. “They’re taking all of them to another location.”

“Are we going, too?”

His hands tightened around her at the “too.” “I’m going to take a later flight and meet them there.” He’d take her to her gate and kiss her goodbye. Make promises both knew would never be kept. They’d call her flight,
and after she turned to board, he’d stand there waiting until the last possible second to watch her go.

“They have Yermalof in custody, and they should be”—he angled his wrist to check the time, then remembered they’d taken his watch off him when they’d been kidnapped—“arresting the Earl at his London residence within the hour. I imagine it’ll be on the six o’clock news.”

Isis lifted her head. “How do you feel about him being involved in this?”

Plucking her glasses from her nose, he reconsidered and removed them by the earpiece. “He wasn’t merely ‘involved’—he started by hiring Yermalof a decade ago,” Thorne said coolly, cleaning the lenses on his shirt hem for the last time. He’d miss the silly little ritual. He’d developed a thing for cheeky girls wearing glasses. “Yermalof told him of your father’s obsession with Queen Cleopatra, and the Earl cultivated
that
relationship slowly and insidiously over the years. Yermalof put together the Earl and the minister for a trio that was a match made in hell. The minister found Brengard—it’ll take a while to get through all the layers. There are a dozen ministers who were involved in small ways, people bribed to look the other way. There’s a long food chain.”

“I mean do you care
emotionally
that your father will be imprisoned for his part in this? I just care about how it’ll impact
you
.”

He stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. Soft, warm skin, vibrant and alive. His chest ached. “Not at all.” His father meant nothing to him. Isis… Isis meant everything.

“Then can we go and watch his arrest on TV?” she suggested with relish.

Thorne laughed as he held up the key Heustis had given him on his way out. “Let’s. The Four Seasons is only a few minutes away.” Another couple of hours with her was a windfall, no, a
reprieve
he wasn’t going to pass up.

“DO YOU WANT TO
see this?” Isis asked. “They just announced
Scandalous Breaking News
!” She sat cross-legged at the head of a king-sized bed in the Palace Suite at the Four Seasons Hotel, a room service tray in front of her, a glass of soda in one hand and a strawberry in the other. She looked over to where he was standing, using the cell phone lent to him by Husani.

Thorne had booked them in, ordered room service, made arrangements with the boutique for clothing for both of them, hit the jewelry store for a watch, and was currently in contact with his associates to ensure Yermalof was locked and loaded on board a flight to Tel Aviv, and that the prisoners from the warehouse were en route to join him shortly. All in less than thirty minutes. Perhaps if the return to MI5 didn’t work out he could be a concierge, he mused, watching Isis nibble on a plump red strawberry.

“Do you want popcorn, too?” he asked, amused as she wiggled her behind to get more comfortable as he sat beside her. It had been
his
nefarious plan to place the tray on the bed. Exactly where he wanted her.

“Are you kid—” She slanted him a glance. “Yes, you are. There’s more food here than we can eat in a week.”

Not if they holed up in the room for several days, Thorne thought, bringing her hand to his mouth and biting her strawberry in half. She leaned sideways to press her lips to his. “Yum,” she murmured, straightening, her eyes glued to the television.

The kiss, so casual, so natural, was so Isis.

“Sound,” she directed, hands full. And so was her desire to be the boss.

The remote lay between them. With a small smile Thorne picked it up and turned on the volume as he swung his feet up on the mattress, then stuffed a pillow behind him.

The attractive blond news reader was replaced with live footage of his father standing at the top of the stairs outside the house, flanked by two plainclothes detectives. “. . . Earl of Kilgetty, seen here exiting his London residence moments ago, has just been arrested by police in connection with allegations of trafficking Egyptian antiquities.”

“He doesn’t seem particularly worried,” Isis observed, moving the tray and stretching out her legs beside his, then draping one leg over his good knee as she avidly watched the Earl being escorted down to the street where reporters clustered, shouting questions.

“It’s a British thing. Stiff upper lip. Never let them see you sweat.”

“He’s sweating. Who’s that, do you think? His lawyer? Bet he was on speed dial.”

Thorne turned around to comb his fingers through the hair at her temples, then took her mouth in a kiss
hot enough to melt the mattress. There was only so much a man could take. Instantly her lips softened and her tongue darted out to meet his. She tasted of cola and strawberries and, Thorne knew unequivocally, she tasted of
home
.

Somehow, without taking his hands—or lips—off Isis for a second, he found the control without looking, and turned the TV off.

After several breathless moments, he ripped his mouth from hers. Her lips were swollen and damp, her eyes hazed with desire. Her fingers tightened in his hair to bring his mouth back where she wanted it.

Tracing the sweet curve of her cheek with his finger, Thorne said thickly, “A woman like you should marry a nice guy who’s an accountant, or a lawyer. Some well-established, secure man with a comfortable income, who comes home every night. A guy sans bullet holes or debilitating knife wounds. You deserve to have a whole man, not a fucking torn-apart cripple with commitment issues.”

Her eyes glittered and she made a small moue as if to say,
I’m not saying anything
.

“You should have that pretty house on a quiet cul-de-sac in suburbia so you can watch your children playing on the front lawn.”

“I agree,” she whispered. “I should.”

Was it possible for a heart to wrench? She was here, but he felt her slipping away. “You deserve that man,” he said a little desperately. “You deserve him, but you need
me
.”

“What exactly would you do with the leather and baby oil?”

He paused at the non sequitur.

“You said ‘leather and baby oil and a kip.’ ”

“I don’t need to rub you in baby oil to make you hot, do I?”

“No. But I’d like to try it and find out. Order some from room—”

His smile felt a little less strained. “Done.”

“The leather, I presume, is to be used as restraints? I must admit, I
would
like to tie you up and have my wicked way with you.”

“Would you now? What about if I tied you up instead?”

“Okay.” She thought about it for a second. “We’ll take turns.”

“I love you, Isis Magee.”

“I know.”

“That’s it? You know?”

“I know that I’m absolutely the perfect woman for you. I was just waiting for you to cut to the chase.”

He laughed, rolling her on top of him. “You were, were you? And do you know that I love the way you touch me? Or the way you always seem to get fingerprints all over these?” He removed her glasses and placed them on the bedside table.

“Dirty glasses are quite endearing. It was my master plan to snare you.”

“It worked.

“We’ll balance each other out,” she told him softly. “We’ll love each other till we’re old and gray and sitting in our rocking chairs in the old-age home. You’ll do your best to keep your promise to me that you won’t get hurt again in your job for MI5, and I’ll pretend that your job doesn’t scare the crap out of me. We’ll buy a pretty house wherever we want to live, and I’ll get pregnant right away. This is forever love, Connor James Thorne. We’ll fight and make up, and love and laugh and raise our family, and grow old together…”

“You haven’t said you love me.”

“I say I love you every time I touch you, every time I look at you. You fill me up, Connor. You fill me up with love and light and unspeakable joy.” She tugged his T-shirt over his head. “Grab that oil,” she whispered thickly. “Make love with me. Let’s make our first baby right here.”

“Your every wish, my bossy darling, is my command.”

EPILOGUE

E
gypt Cleopatra Thorne was born in London nine months from the day she was conceived in the Four Seasons Hotel Cairo.

New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author
CHERRY ADAIR
is a closet adrenaline junkie. Unable to become a counterterrorist operative due to reality, she has instead garnered numerous awards for her innovative, action-packed romantic suspense novels. Most recently, she has earned raves from reviewers and fans alike with the novels
Riptide
and
Undertow
in the Cutter Cay series,
Hush
and
Afterglow
in her Lode-stone series from Pocket Books, and the paranormal novel
Black Magic.
When she isn’t jet-setting to exotic, far-flung locales, she lives in the Pacific Northwest and online on Facebook and
www.cherryadair.com
.