Camouflage Heart (13 page)

“If you shoot, it will echo enough in this staircase for everyone to hear. You'll never make it down without being caught,” she said, desperate to distract him enough for Brian to make some kind of a move.

Hamid kept the gun on him. “The people of this country would rise up to support me if I were caught. They want what I want, to be rid of the foreign dogs and their support for the false king.” He spat. “When I win, there'll be celebrations on the streets.”

She backed away, giving Brian room to maneuver. “If you do this, there'll be chaos and fear. Foreign in
vestors will pull out, jobs will be lost, your people will suffer,” she argued to keep his attention.

Hamid sneered at her. “Pain is necessary for growth.”

“There are Malaysians in this hotel, guests and employees, as many as foreigners.”

“They die as heroes.” He braced the gun with both hands.

This was it. She snapped her head around, looked up as if she'd heard someone coming down the stairs above them. By the time she looked back, Brian was flying through the air, lunging at the man. Her ploy had worked. She'd distracted him long enough.

She rushed after Brian, but by the time she reached them they were tangled together, growling with effort to gain control of the weapon. Help. She needed to get help. She turned to rush back to the suite. Hamid heaved against Brian and smacked his bad knee to the railing. His hand slipped on the gun.

No time to go anywhere. He needed help now. When he turned, she threw herself on Hamid's head, thinking to cut off his air, or at the least, obstruct his vision. He bit her stomach. The sharp pain distracted her for a moment.

“Get away from here.” Brian was pushing against her with his shoulder.

But she twisted finally and gained some leverage,
smashed her elbow into Hamid's face with all her strength. She heard his nose break and thought she might be sick. She drew a deep breath, struck again. “That's for my sister.”

And then she heard Brian laugh, and she turned to him just as he got up, holding the gun. Hamid wasn't moving.

“I love it when you talk tough,” he said, and pulled her to him. “I can't believe you beat him unconscious.”

She did? She glanced at Hamid, then back at Brian, horrified at first, then relieved. “I did. I'm not a violent person, but he just pushed me over the edge.”

“You don't have to explain it to me, honey.” He brushed his lips against hers. “Are you okay?” he asked even as he was stepping away from her to tie up Hamid with his belt and throw him over his shoulder.

“You came back.”

“I love you. I'm going to want to talk to you about that when this is over.” He started up the stairs, but when she followed, too stunned to respond, he shook his head. “I'm going to dump him out in the hallway so he doesn't block the stairs.”

“All the ambassadors are downstairs,” she blurted, as the thought cut through the rest of the confused jumble in her head.

“Where was he coming from?” Brian opened the door, took Hamid out, then came back in a split second.

“Upstairs.”

“I want you to start walking down. Go as fast as you can. When you reach the lobby, pull the fire alarm.” He handed her the pistol. “If you see anyone you recognize from our little vacation in the woods, shoot first, ask questions later.”

Her brain was still on
“I love you.”
Then he started up the stairs and it snapped her back to the here and now.

“Shouldn't we sound the alarm right away?”

He shook his head. “As soon as we do, people will flood the stairs. I need a couple of minutes to see if I can find the rest of the men, or at least one of them, and get a location on that bomb. If it's already set, there might not be enough time to get the hotel evacuated. Our best bet is to find the damn thing so I can disarm it.”

“You can do that?”

“Trust me,” he said.

And she did. “I should tell Trevor and Josh.”

“There's no time for explanations, Audrey. Would you rather try to save two or everyone?”

She nodded and opened her mouth to tell him she loved him, too, but he was already gone. She flew down the stairs, taking them two and three at a
time. They had a hotel full of people to save. And they were just the team to do it.

 

W
HERE WAS HE
? Audrey scanned the crowd behind the police line. She'd spotted Trevor and Josh on the other side of the square filled with hundreds of hotel guests, but she couldn't see Brian anywhere.

Josh was making his way over to her. Great.

“Thank God.” He put his arms around her when he reached her.

She pulled away.

“Look,” he said. “I didn't just come here as Trev's friend. I came because of you, too.”

“Josh, I—”

“I missed you,” he interrupted her. “I thought about this. You don't have to adopt. We can find an egg donor who'd be willing to be a surrogate mother. The baby would still be mine.”

“It's not going to work.”

“Why not? I'm willing to overlook—”

“I'm in love with another man.”

The look on his face was priceless. Clearly, this was not something he had ever considered.

She left him and pushed through the sea of people to the front, from where she could see the hotel's main door. They'd been out here for an hour. The bomb-sniffing dogs were inside, going from floor to
floor, the bomb squad robot waiting on the sidewalk for his turn once the bomb was found.

She had told everything she knew to the police at least four times, and they'd finally let her go. And now she had nothing else to do but obsess over the man she loved.

Then she saw him coming through the front doors, and yelled his name. He stopped, scanned the crowd, spotted her when she waved.

“Got a job?” She pointed to the security tag on his shirt when he came over.

He drew up an eyebrow. “I found it. This way I don't have to stop every five seconds, explaining to someone what I'm doing here.”

All right, so he wasn't a strictly go-by-the-rules type of person. She kind of liked that about him.

He pulled her through the police line and nobody questioned them. She threw herself into his arms, not caring about the horde of reporters and TV cameras trained on the building and at them.

“Come here.” He pulled her toward a side entrance, one that led to the restaurant. He flashed his badge to the officer at the door and they were let in without questions. He locked the door behind them.

“What happened?”

“We got the bombs. There were two of them—both disarmed now. They already took out Hamid
and his men through the back. They're taking the bombs next and then as soon as the staircase is cleaned they're going to let people back in.”

“Cleaned?”

He moved closer, his blue eyes reflecting her face. She had gotten lost in those eyes and she wanted to stay lost forever.

“They have to get the bloodstains off the walls,” he said, and for a moment she had to think what he was talking about.

“Was it bad?” She looked him over for injury, but couldn't find anything obvious.

“A couple of guys. I had to stop them.” His voice was deep and breathless, as if he found it hard to talk.

Her gaze slid from his masculine lips to his wide shoulders.
Okay now, get a grip.
The man was coming from a fight. This was not the time to jump him.

She stepped back and bumped into a palm tree, glanced around. The restaurant had been transformed into a jungle theme for the ambassador's gala, complete with hundreds of potted palms, orchids blooming on every table and even an artificial stream.

For a moment she had a flashback to the days they'd spent together, what they'd gone through. She had a deeper connection to this man than any other
she had known before. And he loved her. The joy of his declaration slammed into her all over again. They'd made it, the danger was over, and he loved her.

“Audrey—” he started to say something, but seemed to change his mind, and instead he kissed her hard on the mouth.

The meeting of their lips was like a switch being thrown—from sanity to insanity in half a second flat. She felt carried away on a mad river that rushed forth wildly, uncontrollable. Reason slipped beyond their reach, and they rode the rolling waters, hanging on to each other.

There were no degrees to the kiss. No tentative brushing of the lips first, no playful nibbles, no slow opening. He took everything at once with a fevered meeting of the tongues.

His hands cupped her face as he drank her, then moved lower, running over her body as thoroughly as if he were taking inventory. And then he reached the bottom of her dress and pulled it above her waist, grounded his hardness into her, bringing moisture to the V of her legs.

Her breath caught at the sudden onslaught of sensations, and she let her head fall against the palm tree, her hands pressed against the solid muscles of his chest. But then she didn't want even that little distance between them and moved her hands to his back,
then to his tapered waist, to his firm buttocks. And she pulled him closer still.

He groaned into her mouth, and she felt a tug on her underwear, then it was gone, replaced by his warm hands that caressed her hips and went lower. Her eyes flew open, and as she stared at the crowd outside the restaurant window, she let out a squeal. “Brian!”

He turned his head to see what startled her, looked back, his eyes hooded with passion. “It's mirrored glass. They can't see in.”

But reason was gaining a toehold. “What if security comes?”

This was madness. How had they gotten here so fast? How had he cut through all her defenses? She was a mature, reasonable, conservative woman. What happened to making love behind closed doors in a bed?

He nibbled her earlobe as he slipped a finger inside her. “Everybody is on the twenty-third floor. They'll be there for at least another hour.”

Pleasure pinged through her and grew, rolling, gathering into an irresistible mass that made her quiver. She reached for his belt and despite her shaking fingers, made pretty quick work of it, pushed his pants and boxers down at the same time, gasped when he sprang free against her belly.

“Look who is happy to see me.” She caressed his
silky hardness, enjoying the way his eyes darkened, thrilled at the way her touch affected him.

He leaned into her, but the potted palm tree behind her wobbled, too unsteady to hold their combined weight. He lifted her up, her legs wrapped around him, her damp center pressed against his hardness.

Holding her with one hand, he cleared a table with the other and lay her down, holding her legs in place. Then he was inside her with one steady thrust, and took her over and over until she drowned in the pleasure of it and screamed his name.

But he wasn't done with her yet. He was a powerful man and put every bit of that power into use, pleasuring her body, marking every dazed cell of hers as his. It was too much. She couldn't.

Her body felt like a live wire. What he did to her seemed unreal, impossible. But she felt tension build deep inside her once again, and when he finally poured his hot seed into her, his body shuddering, a deep groan torn from his chest, she sank into yet another wave of pleasure.

He didn't pull out, but instead lifted her and moved back, sat on the floor with her still on his lap, leaning his back against a giant potted palm, resting his forehead against hers.

Then after a while, when their breathing evened, he looked up and smiled.

“What?”

“You have orchid blossoms in your hair.”

“I've gone native.” She smiled back at him.

He nodded. “You certainly have.”

Then his expression grew more serious. “Audrey, this is not why I came back….” He fell silent as if looking for the right words.

“I'm glad just the same that we got around to it.” She grinned.

“You know, when I got you away from Omar's camp, I thought I was rescuing you, but I think at the end, you ended up rescuing me.”

Her heart flipped over from the way he was looking at her. “We rescued each other.”

He brushed his lips against hers, then pulled back. “You take away my reason. I tried to fight it. I'm not a hundred percent convinced this is the right thing for you. But I love you like mad, there's no help for it. It's like malaria. Once it gets into the blood, there's no getting it out.” He glanced away, then back at her again. “I need to ask you a question.”

She nodded.

“Who is Josh to you?” His face was as serious as she'd ever seen it.

“My ex-husband,” she responded, unsure what that had to do with anything.

He put his hand over her heart. “Who is he here?”

It took less than a second to come up with a response. “Nobody.”

He hugged her so fiercely, she could scarcely breathe.

“You've been worrying about that?” He had to be kidding.

“I'm a man with no family, no job, no home—very little to recommend me, really. But I'm a hard worker and I'm scared of little. I would work like hell to make a good life for us if you agreed to share yours with me. I know there are a hundred men out there who'd be better for you, could offer you more, but nobody on this earth could love you more than I. Can you give me a chance?”

She blinked the tears back from her eyes. “Yes,” she said, and threw her arms around him. “If you can give
us
a chance. I have a daughter. We come as a package deal.”

His reply came slowly. “It's almost too good to believe. I would love nothing more. I never pictured—but I might never again be the man I once was.” He pulled back and searched her eyes. “My father, after the war he was different. He could never find his way back. I don't know if I can.”

She smoothed the furrow from his forehead. “I fell in love with the man you are now.”