Crazy Love (6 page)

“No wife.” No way in hell.
Good God
. Skeeter Jeanne Bang undercover as the wife of a State Department aide at a Washington, D.C., black-tie reception for the British ambassador; the underage street Goth princess with a flute of champagne in her hand and a lightning-bolt tattoo streaking up her leg, with the Chinese symbols for Honor, Duty, and Loyalty inked into her upper arm, and lo and behold, even more of the damn lightning bolt snaking up over her shoulder.

It made his head spin.

He sent the “street princess” a quick glance, the whole ball-capped, mirror-sunglassed wonder of her, expecting confirmation of the complete idiocy of Superman’s plan—and immediately realized his mistake.

She’d seen it all, every ounce of disbelief, panic, and denial that had swept over his face, and she’d taken every one of his knee-jerk reactions very, very personally.
Dammit.
He hadn’t known a mouth that soft could set itself into such a hard line.

Tough. He was the boss, and this was his call.

Wife.
Jesus.
The last thing he needed was an excuse to treat her like a wife. That was asking for trouble.

“Driving,” he said succinctly. “That was the deal we cut.”

She didn’t say a word, just sat there looking mutinous, her arms crossed over her breasts.

After a couple of long seconds, Hawkins broke the silence. “Okay, then. Let’s finish going over the setup at Whitfield’s, and the two of you can work out the details later.”

Details?

There weren’t going to be any details.

And there wasn’t going to be any “wife.” He didn’t care how much cover Superman thought he needed.

CHAPTER

6

F
ISH.

Net.

Combat.

Boots.

Lightning.

Bolt.

From where Dylan was sitting in the plane seat next to her, he could see Skeeter’s tattoo zipping up her leg and the zigzag just above the hip-hugging waistband of her skirt. The highly stylized line of ink appeared again higher up, zooming out from under her tank top with another zigzag on her shoulder blade, following the curve of a tiny pink bra strap down to the kind of curves that made it impossible for him to sleep at night.

All of it was mesmerizing, but he’d gotten stuck on one small spot less than two inches in width, a break in the bolt, a small spot on her upper thigh where there was no ink.

Black.

Ops.

Afghanistan.

Mission.

Skeeter.

Skinned.

He took another slow sip of coffee.

There it was, staring him in the face, the perfect example of everything he’d been trying to say last night, of every reason he’d had for not bringing her with him, which didn’t exactly explain why she was within touching distance at 30,000 feet, working on her laptop and smelling like the sugar she’d long since licked off her lips—sweet.

Very sweet.

Edible—and he knew right where he wanted to start, a little fantasy of his he probably wasn’t going to get a chance to indulge, not in a 747, not even in first-class. If he was down to his last few hours on earth, it might be nice to check out with one shred of integrity still intact.

Or not.

The tank top was stretchy white lace. Her shoulders were bare, the right one practically touching him—a silky soft, creamy smooth shoulder with that slinky little pink bra strap running over the top curve.

He was trying not to think about it.

He shifted in his seat to get an extra quarter inch of distance between them and looked at his watch. Thirty-six hours left before his week was up.

Thirty-six hours.

That really wasn’t much. Not in the broad scheme of things. He should probably make love to her. So what if he lost his last shred of integrity? He at least would have had her, and there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she was worth more than anything he had in his bag of tricks—including his last shred of integrity.

Also on the upside, making love with her was probably as close to heaven as he was ever going to get, and that bore some thinking about, given his current condition, and if he keeled over dead after ward, well, then he didn’t have to worry about breaking her heart.

Great. He’d convinced himself. It was a win/win situation.

So what was that odd sense of unease, that little sizzle of panic he felt?

He let out a heavy breath, ran his hand back through his hair, and tried not to think about it. That seemed to be his standard operating procedure this week—don’t think.

“Ms. Bang?” The flight attendant, an attractive brunette in her thirties, leaned down over Skeeter’s aisle seat with a notebook and pen in hand, a conspiratorial smile on her lips. “The man in 4B wondered if he could have your autograph. He told me his daughter is a huge fan.”

Fan? What the hell?
Dylan lifted himself up and looked over the back of his seat.
Since when did covert operators have fans?

Never. That was when.

He spotted the guy, and just as he’d suspected, 4B was checking her out—checking out her hot pink bra and endlessly long, fishnet-covered legs.
Christ.
He was even checking out her combat boots. Somebody ought to tell 4B she could take his face off with one of those boots.

The man glanced at Dylan then and caught the cold, hard stare Dylan was giving him, and yeah, it took him a second, but he got the friggin’ message.

That’s right, dude. Your face.

Satisfied, Dylan dropped back down in his seat and looked over to see Skeeter scrawling the word “Pink” across the paper.

Pink. Hell. The rock star. “You’re prettier than Pink.”

A set of mirrored sunglasses shifted in his direction, but only for a heartbeat, before she was smiling at the flight attendant and handing back the notebook and pen.

Prettier than Pink?
He let out another breath and tried to remember the last time he’d said something that dumb to a woman.

Okay, nothing was coming to him, because he’d never said anything that dumb to a woman.

God, it was going to be a long flight.

“You need to stop staring at my leg,” she said.

A
really
long flight.

“I’m not staring at your leg.”

“You have been, ever since takeoff, right at the spot where I got hit in Afghanistan.”

Caught. Red-handed.

He cleared his throat.

“I was just thinking how perfectly the scar illustrates my point about you staying with the car at Whitfield’s.” It was the only detail they’d worked out after Hawkins had finished the briefing, and as far as Dylan was concerned, it was the only detail they’d needed to work out, except for a new one that had just come to him. He pulled a pen and a small notepad out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket and jotted down a number. “If there’s a problem—
any
kind of a problem—tonight, I expect you to leave the area and call this number as soon as you’re clear. Let it ring twice and hang up. You’ll get a call back in less than five minutes.”

He ripped off the page and handed it to her.

She just stared at it.

“Run away,” she finally said, “is not in my vocabulary. I have been trained to fight, not retreat.”

“You were shot.” And that was pretty much his bottom line.

“Skinned. Kid gets shot. He gets shot all the time, and you don’t tell him to run away.”

“Kid is—” He stopped abruptly, seeing “quagmire” written all over anything he said.

“A man?”

“No. Well, yes, but that wasn’t my point.”

“So what is your point?”

Good question.

“My point is that Kid is, uh…not you.”

Geezus.
Two stupid statements in less than three minutes. He was going for a record.

“You’re being unreasonable.”

Probably.

“And you’re too young to be involved in this or any other operation.” And that was the truth, and that was the end of it. He put the phone number in her hand, then reached for the
Wall Street Journal
stuck in the seatback in front of him and snapped it open.

“We send eighteen-year-olds into combat,” she said. “I’m twenty-one, and the nation’s capital is not a combat zone.”

“You’re not twenty-one.” How interesting, the DOW was up a few points.

“I will be tomorrow.”

And the NASDAQ was down. And twenty-one or not, he still wouldn’t want her anywhere near one of his missions.
Christ.
Look what had happened to him in Indonesia.

Or not.

It had all been a bit gruesome, even by his standards.

Letting the corner of the newspaper drop, he signaled the flight attendant.

“Scotch,” he said. “Two.” To start.

The sunglasses turned toward him again. “I’ve never seen you drink before a mission.”

She’d never seen him chained to a wall, either.

He turned the page and straightened the newspaper back out.

“I’ll be watching you tonight, to see how well you perform, how well you follow orders. Make no mistake, this is a test, a trial, and I
am
the one who will set the course of your career at SDF, or decide if you will even have a career on the team.” And that should have her eating out of the palm of his hand, snapping to attention every time he entered a room and asking “how high” every time he said “jump.” He knew how much SDF and Steele Street meant to her—the world and then some.

“You could watch me better if I was working next to you instead of sitting on my butt out in the car.”

The Standard & Poor’s Index was holding steady—like her capital A attitude and the pair of brass balls she had hidden under her skirt.

“Actually, I’ll work better if I know you’re sitting on your butt out in the car, watching the house.”

The Scotch arrived, and he wasted no time twisting the lid off the first bottle and pouring it over ice. Scotch on the rocks, that’s what he needed, not five feet eight inches of unadulterated insanity.

He had a brain. He needed to be using it, and by God, he was going to start right after he finished his drink.

“What the hell,” she said, sitting up straighter in her seat and whipping off her sunglasses, an unusual enough occurrence to rivet his attention. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” God, her eyes were blue, a pale, silvery blue, and they were narrowed on him like a laser, honed in on his drink—but not quite on the drink.

“That,” she said, and suddenly he knew exactly what “that” she meant.

He shifted his attention back to his hand and noted how far up his arm he’d let his shirt cuff ride, far enough to reveal the bruised, raw skin around his wrist and the line of stitches just above the bruises. The shackle on his right side had been a snug fit to begin with, then Negara’s goons had added a razor component to help get his attention.

It had definitely worked, almost down to the bone.

“Well, yes.” That.

He’d been more careful with his clothing last night and this morning, but there was something about the whole “countdown” aspect of his run-in with Hamzah Negara that was starting to push him to the edge. He had no business trying to steal anything tonight, let alone from a U.S. senator. It was asking for trouble and a permanent address change to Leavenworth.

“That’s where I, uh, got tangled up in a small accident in Jakarta, a car accident.”

“Liar.”

Often, he could have told her, and usually damn good at it, or at least better than he’d just been.

“The report is on file with the Jakarta police—a Land Rover and a Mercedes at the corner of Ananta and Lubis, last Wednesday about five
P
.
M
. You’re pretty good with that thing”—he gestured at her laptop—“go ahead and check it out.”

He went back to his newspaper, giving it a small snap, and hopefully signaling to her that the conversation was over.

He should have known better.

“Those contusions are more than three days old.”

Yes, they were.

“The Wednesday before three days ago.
That
last Wednesday.”

“Except your stitches aren’t ten days old.”

Right again.

He was obviously not on his game, so he ignored her, not bothering to look up from his paper.

“And your wrist has a distinctly mangled look.”

Distinctly.

“Overall, you look like hell.”

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

“I think we should talk about Sumba.”

“I don’t.” The Fidelity Fund was up.

“Okay. Then let’s talk about the commendation.” She reached down and pulled a single sheet of paper out of her backpack.

He gave it a brief, wary glance.

Impossible.

“You didn’t lift that off Superman.”

Yet there it seemed to be, the fax transmission, with all its gory details.

She closed her laptop and smoothed the paper out over the top of it. “I could have. Don’t doubt it for a second,” she said. “But in this instance, it wasn’t necessary. Hawkins gave it to me when you went upstairs to pack. He wants some answers. I agreed to get them.”

Jesus H. Christ.

“Let’s start with the word ‘escape,’ which I believe will explain what I’m seeing on your wrist a little better than the car accident theory.”

Theory? God, she did have balls.

“Let’s
not
start with ‘escape,’” he said. Ever. Period.

“Okay,” she agreed after a long moment, her voice tight. “How about your capture?”

Clean, he could have told her. Professional. Off-limits.

He kept reading.

“Silence isn’t going to work here, sir. You have an obligation to me, as your partner tonight, to disclose any current circumstances that may affect our mission.”

The hell he did.

“If you’ve been hurt, and you obviously have, or are suffering from any mental or emotional trauma—”

“My current circumstances,” he said, cutting her off, “are strictly on a need-to-know basis.”

Letting out a heavy sigh, she crossed her legs and turned more fully toward him in her seat. “Look, sir, my butt is on the line here. Hawkins made that very clear to me before I left. Whatever ‘test’ you want to dish out tonight, I’m up for, one hundred percent, but if I don’t bring you back alive and in one piece, he’s going to fillet me with my own knife, the seven-inch one I carry on my tactical vest. In addition to the whole Lone Ranger act you’ve been playing since last winter, this”—she lifted the commendation—“has him on edge. So help me out here. Don’t make me have to get physical with you.”

He looked up, not believing what he’d heard.

Physical? What did she think she was going to do? Wrestle him down and torture the answers out of him? Not very damn likely.

“You’re out of line.”

“Mr. Hart…Dylan.” She leaned in closer, sliding her hand up the side of his neck and pretty much freezing him to his seat, one of those hot freezes, where the sensation of touch, no matter where it was initiated, somehow ended up galvanizing your balls.
Fuck.