Crazy Wild (24 page)

C
HAPTER

24

W
ARM BRIE,
French bread, lobster bisque, fresh pears—Cody felt like she'd died and gone to heaven. The whole meal had been prepared and waiting in Creed's refrigerator, inside a white box tied with a gold ribbon with
Chez Paul
swirled across the top in gold ink. On the side of the box,
738 Steele Street
had been scrawled in black Magic Marker, along with the day's date and the instruction for “Lunch Delivery.” Another box, this one paper-bag brown with
Wolf Creek Café
printed on top and 738 Steele Street and the day's date written on the side, along with the word “Dinner,” had contained beef tenderloin cooked medium rare, with mashed potatoes, baby carrots, summer squash, and chocolate cake.

“Open your mouth,” he said, not for the first time, and when she did, he fed her a particularly tender piece of the steak, then leaned over and kissed her cheek.

God, he was so sweet, and she was drifting in the most ridiculous postcoital haze. She felt drugged with it, couldn't get a grip on herself, and every time he kissed her, the haze thickened, like fog on her brain, some kind of sex fog the likes of which she hadn't known existed.

People could fall in love like this, she thought, because of sex like they'd had in his jungle pool. He was close enough for her to smell him, and he smelled warm and safe, unbelievably erotic, and like he belonged to her. She could still feel where he'd been inside of her, still almost taste him.

She was trying not to fool herself. She knew he was a stranger and what they'd had was crazy wild sex on a desperately crazy night, but she'd melted into him, disappeared inside of him, and for a few moments had been more with him than she'd ever been with anyone else in her life. Right or wrong, the feelings were there, and they were real, and God, she just wanted to bury her face in the curve of his neck and start the whole thing all over again. She hadn't known she could be so shameless—and she was, utterly unashamed. All she wanted was more. Every time she looked at him, heat washed into her cheeks.

He'd given her a T-shirt and a pair of his sweatpants, and they were sitting in his kitchen at the counter on a pair of tall stools, the overgrown jungle of his living area encroaching on all sides, except where the tall bank of windows opened out onto the city night. He was facing her, very close, his legs on the outsides of hers, with the boxes of food spread out on the counter next to them.

He'd put on a pair of low-slung jeans and a softly worn cowboy shirt, but hadn't bothered to snap the shirt closed. In between the open sides of the faded blue plaid material was an erotic landscape of golden skin with a light dusting of dark brown hair that thickened and swirled around his navel. A silver crucifix and a saint's medal hung from a leather thong tied around his neck.

“Catholic?” she asked, lifting the cross and smoothing her thumb over its ornate surface.

“Very,” he said. “Not a very good Catholic, just very Catholic.”

“And is confession good for the soul?” she asked, looking up to meet his gaze.

“Sometimes. Most times,” he said, a small grin coming into play as he leaned closer. “Tonight, you're good for the soul.”

Good for the soul, good for love, good for kissing—she couldn't resist. She met him halfway, her hand sliding down his chest, her mouth opening under his.

This is what she'd wanted again.

Sliding off the stool, he lifted her into his arms, their dinner forgotten. The iron staircase leading up to his bedroom was only a few feet away, and as he carried her higher into the trees, she gave herself over to kissing him. She loved the texture of his skin, the softness of his lips, the warmth of his body. He'd pulled his hair back and bound it into a low ponytail, and now she slid the band off, letting his hair fall loose and silky over her hands.

The stairs ended at a wooden platform overhung with palms. Lush, green fronds brushed the wooden headboard of his bed and arced over the sides of the platform's surrounding iron rail. Vines twined themselves through the spindles. Light from the bathroom drifted through the trees, revealing low stacks of wooden Japanese boxes all along one edge. The only other piece of furniture was the bed. She would have expected something simple—and she would have been wrong.

His bed was decadent, antique, with massive wooden pillars and piles of pillows. He laid her in the middle of them and followed her down, winding his legs through hers, drawing her back into his kiss. Everything on the bed was soft and cotton—the sheets, the pillows, a comforter—the colors all in pale greenish blues and grays, like his eyes.

He smiled at her when she pushed his shirt off his shoulders, then helped her by kicking out of his jeans. He'd gone commando after the pool, so there was nothing more before he was naked and stretched out by her side, six feet of beautiful male animal, all lean strength and hard angles.

She ran her hands over his hip bone and up to his shoulder, then paused, her wandering brought to a sudden halt when her fingers slid over three thick ridges, one brutal stripe next to the other, just like in the photographs from South America.

Every one of them cut her to the quick—but she said nothing, just remembered the fierce rage on his face and kissed his mouth, remembered the ungodly pain of his suffering and slid her hand lower, all the way down his chest and into the dark hair spreading out from his groin.

She took him in her palm, stroking him, loving him, and a soft groan sighed from his lips.

“Cody,” he whispered, resting his forehead on hers, moving into her hand, his own hand slipping under the waistband of the sweatpants and down between her legs.

This was love, she knew it, as close as she'd ever been, this melting sweetness, the bone-deep longing for more, the simplicity of the seduction—he touched, she yearned. It was so easy.

CREED
kissed her, letting himself sink into her, consume her. She was so sweet—so instantly wet when he touched her. So slick and hot, it made his brain buzz. He could hardly think for wanting to be inside her, but man, he wanted something else even more.

Slipping his fingers farther down and gently up into her, he moved down the front of her body and opened his mouth between her legs, putting his tongue on her before she had a chance to say no. She gasped, and he licked her—just once, so slowly, so gently. A small tremor went through her body, and desire slid down the length of his spine and settled deep in his balls.
Oh, yeah,
this was the place. There would be no resistance. He pushed the sweatpants completely off, while his tongue played her, teased her. With the pants gone, he moved between her legs, letting her thighs rest on his shoulders, on either side of his face, and he was surrounded by sex—her sex. Nothing tasted and smelled like a woman, nothing was as soft, and she was his.

Time drifted into another dimension, his whole world narrowing down to loving her and the hard ache between his legs. At some point between bliss and heaven, she came undone, a soft moan, the tightening of her thighs, a slow grind upward into his mouth, and then complete and utter surrender. God, he loved it.

He played her out before moving back up her body and thrusting inside. The latent ripples of her orgasm pulsed around him, winding him up, making him harder. Sealing his mouth over hers, he let her taste herself on his tongue, and he thrust again, loving all the hot softness of being inside her, and again, over and over, until he came, his hands in her hair, his mouth on hers, breathing her in as he poured himself inside her.

SKEETER
crossed the street in front of Denver Police Headquarters and made a beeline for the Humvee. Once locked safely inside, she breathed her first easy breath of the last half hour.

Cripes
. There was nothing like a little visit to the local precinct to get a girl's blood pumping. Lieutenant Loretta was okay, but all the other boys and girls in blue made the hackles rise on the back of her neck. She'd spent too many years outrunning and outsmarting Denver's finest to feel good offering herself up like a bit of nosh on a toothpick.

She had a reputation, and cops were like elephants. They never forgot. She'd seen a couple of them eyeballing her. They knew who she was. Hell, city crews were still scrubbing SB303 off the sides of buildings, and she hadn't tagged in over two years.

Nope, she'd been too busy tearing down engines and building computers. Way too busy organizing the SDF offices and having just a little bit too much fun learning about and building tracking devices.

She was the master.

And she had a little time on her hands.

And a foreign tracking device was languishing in a condemned building not more than a stone's throw away.

She pulled the wristwatch receiver out of the pocket on her coat. It took her all of five seconds to figure out how to turn it on, and less than a minute to decipher all its dials, turn it back off, and be on her way to South Morrison.

She was in business. All systems go.

CODY
lay propped up in his bed and was letting him feed her another baby carrot. Surrounded by pillows and the latent heat of his lovemaking, she never wanted to leave. Not ever.

“How much to sublet the platform in the tree next door?” she asked, reaching for a piece of French bread. She dipped the end of it in the lobster bisque and popped it in her mouth.

He looked up from where he was taking the lid off the chocolate cake. “You need to stay here, in my treehouse,” he said, his expression completely serious.

“Don't you want to be neighbors?” she teased.

“No,” he said, still so very serious, setting aside the cake. “I want to be lovers.” From where he was sitting on the bed, he moved to all fours and knelt across her body, then cupped her face in his hands and kissed her on the forehead, both cheeks, and the tip of her nose. “Sleep-together lovers. Wake-up-together lovers. One bed.”

Oh, God, she was going to fall in love. She could feel it happening, feel it in her heartbeat, feel it echoing through her pulse.

“In real life,” she whispered, her eyes closing as he continued to kiss her face, “in real life, I really am a librarian.”

“I like librarians,” he said, brushing his lips over her cheek and sliding down toward her mouth. “I like the way they
taste
.”

Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, she was drowning in him. Lost again.

IT
was official. She'd now had more orgasms since she'd entered Creed Rivera's jungle apartment than she'd had the whole last year with her fiancé, and she needed to get a grip.

Mind-blowing sex did not a permanent relationship make—at least, she didn't think so. Her experience in the mind-blowing sex department was fairly recent, and she had absolutely no business hanging out in the permanent relationship department. She'd be lucky if “permanent” lasted until dawn—a fact she was finding harder to ignore with every passing minute

They couldn't have sex all night long. It had to be humanly impossible. Wasn't there something called “recovery time”? But if there was, why didn't he seem to need it?

She did. She needed to get ahold of herself.

“Pass the cake, please.”

He did, while finishing off the soup, drinking the last of the bisque out of its paper to-go bowl. They'd just made incredible love again, with all the food on the bed with them, without spilling so much as a drop of anything, because what he'd done to her . . . what he'd done to her had been so
primal
.

A wave of heat went through her just thinking about it.

He'd rolled her over and pinned her against the bed, hardly letting her move. It had been bondage without the bonds, with his right hand encircling both her wrists and his left hand underneath her, between her legs. His mouth had been open on the nape of her neck, his teeth grazing her skin, and holding her like that, he'd had his way with her until she'd wanted to howl.

From the very, very satisfied look on his face, she probably had howled. She'd been in such an overheated state by then, she could have done anything.

His eyes met hers over the top of the bowl, and a wicked grin curved the corners of his mouth. Warmth flooded her cheeks. He knew things about her she didn't know herself, and that had to be dangerous.

He had no rules. That was the problem. No rules and no hang-ups, and there wasn't an inch left on her that he hadn't explored.

He'd marked her. She knew it. Marked her as his own, and God forbid if they ever left the loft, the rest of the world was going to know it, too.

And where that left them, she hadn't a clue.

C
HAPTER

25

S
OUTH MORRISON WAS
still rocking when Skeeter pulled up outside. Cars were parked everywhere, packing the streets and jumbled up in the courtyard. By sunrise, there'd be nothing left but tread marks, candy wrappers, and beer bottles—and one less pair of earrings.

She knew South Morrison inside and out. The party had been going on even when she was on the street. It had gotten bigger this last year, the bands better, with a few “entrepreneurs” trying to improve the venue, bring in premium kegs and hustle a few thousand dollars every Saturday night dealing dope at the back door. That the entrepreneurs were Duce Nine Lords was a real testament to their strength and their enduring victory in last summer's turf wars. They'd taken Platte Street south of Fifteenth and were holding it. Still, by long-standing tradition and necessity, South Morrison itself, and especially the party, was open real estate. Excluding anyone, or making it too tough for the specialty boys to do business, only cut into the crowds and everybody's profits. Saturday nights at South Morrison were all about free trade and capitalism in action.

For herself, Skeeter had no vendetta with the Lords, and more importantly, they didn't have one with her. She'd never crossed out their work or trespassed on West Twenty-ninth. So when she walked through the front door and the first thing she felt was a warning skitter up the back of her skull instead of the music pounding up through the floor, it gave her pause.

She had a blade on her hip, her piece resting in the small of her back, and a tool belt she'd picked up in the garage before she'd left Steele Street. The HK 9mm alone was enough to keep her out of somebody else's trouble and to keep them out of hers. She hadn't felt any warning when she and Dylan had showed up to help Creed.

So what was going on? she wondered, looking around. Nothing in the lobby had changed in the last two hours, including the two kids passed out just inside the door. This week's gate, the chain-link barrier guarding the entrance into the party, was still hanging half off the wall. Strobe lights still flashed up through the stairwell. Music was still making the floor hum.

Disobeying Dylan was probably worth a warning skitter or two, she decided, which was why she'd taken the precaution of turning off her cell phone and the onboard computer in the Humvee. Disobeying him was one thing, getting caught was another—and she had no intention of getting caught. He hadn't precisely told her not to go to South Morrison, but that would be a damn poor defense if he ever found out.

As far as the tangos they'd been up against earlier were concerned, well, she was the one who belonged on Platte Street on a Saturday night, not them. She looked like every other girl at the party, a little Goth, a little punk, and like more than a little bit of trouble. The tangos were the ones who would stick out like sore thumbs. If they were even still in the building, she'd see them long before they saw her. Besides, there was no reason for them to be looking for an ex–street rat prowling the halls. The bunch of wild Germans and miscellaneous terrorists Creed had been after all night didn't know Skeeter Bang even existed. She didn't show up on anybody's radar. Dylan and Hawkins had made sure of that. Up until Dylan had used the title of personal secretary to describe her, even Royce had figured she was just the kid who swept out the garage.

Now she was here to sweep out South Morrison and sweep up a pair of earrings.

Creed had said he'd dropped them down a steam pipe on the fifth floor, and all the steam pipes in South Morrison eventually ended up in the boiler room in the basement. She'd start there and work her way up.

Snapping the tracker around her wrist, she hit the “on” switch and headed for the stairs.

UP
on the fourth floor of North Morrison, in Cordelia Stark's apartment, one half of the group known as the Zurich 7, code name Hansel, glanced at the GPS tracking device on his wrist.

“Son of a bitch,” he said under his breath, looking over at his partner, Gretel.

“What?” The woman rose from where she'd taken a small jewelry box out of a cardboard box on the bedroom floor. It had the name Olena in gold script written across the top.

“Hashemi's tracker just came back on board.”

“Where?”

“Close,” he said. “Damn close. Like maybe back in the building we just got out of by the skin of our teeth.”

“Well, it sure as hell isn't Hashemi carrying it around. He's dead.” She opened the jewelry box, then closed it and dropped it back in the cardboard box with a short sigh. The jewelry box was empty, and they hadn't found a trace of
Tajikistan Discontent,
not even after tearing the dingy little apartment apart. Nothing had been overlooked or left untouched.

“Akbar said the guy who waxed Hashemi took his tracker.”

“The same guy who took down Edmund Braun and just led all of us on one big wild-goose chase?” Gretel asked, a small grin playing on her lips. “Now there's a bad boy I'd like to meet.”

“Rein in the hormones, babe. We're only assuming it's all the same guy, and the only thing we need to meet is a nuclear bomb.”

“You always did know how to show a girl a good time.” She smiled, then walked over toward the man standing by the front door. Two Denver policemen were lying on the floor near his feet. “Well, Reinhard. You've lost her.”

“We've all lost her,” Reinhard said, and Hansel watched the older man's gaze go over her from top to bottom. “She's either ditched the earrings, or they've stopped transmitting.”

“They wouldn't stop transmitting,” Gretel said. “The signal might have gotten too weak to read for some reason, but it's still there. I can guarantee it. Our best man made those earrings for Sergei to give her.”

“Your best man,” the German grouched. Reinhard Klein was made of money, and it showed. And as Sergei Patrushev's right-hand man, he held Hansel and Gretel's deal of a lifetime in his hands, but if the bastard hit on Gretel one more time, Hansel was going to clean his clock. He'd liked dealing with the guy over a secure Internet line a lot better than face-to-face—but once Dominika Starkova had flown the coop, the whole game had changed. Suddenly, he and Gretel had been forced out of their cozy Eastern European apartment, and sent front-and-center into the action.

Gretel, the wily, wonderful witch, just smiled. “We've just gotten a new lead. You're welcome to play it out with us . . . for the price of consideration.”

That was a good way to put it, Hansel thought. For the consideration of making damn sure that Sergei Patrushev blew off all the other buyers and sold his friggin' nuclear bomb to the Zurich 7—Hansel and Gretel, who were most definitely
not
lost babes in the woods, not when the woods involved black-market arms deals. They were the masters of the trade, and this was the deal of the century.

“Consideration?” Reinhard repeated, one aristocratic eyebrow lifting. “That you've gotten this far proves both Sergei's and my consideration.”

“We want the warhead, Reinhard, a fact we believe we've proven with our offer,” Gretel said. “No one else can meet it. Certainly not Hamas or Jemaah Islamiah. Patrushev isn't going to sell it to the Chechens and have it blow up in his backyard—and the same goes for the Taliban. The only way they'll meet his price is by partnering with al-Qaeda—and he's not that big of a fool. The Iranians didn't get out of the library, which has to make you wonder if either one of them could even pull off this deal. The Zurich 7 are the only ones you can count on to make it to the closing table and to continue to protect both your and their best interest long after the deal is done.”

“You didn't kill the policemen,” the man standing behind Reinhard Klein said.

Hansel noticed that Gretel didn't blink an eye or shift her attention away from Reinhard. Bruno Walmann could suck eggs. It would take more than he had to throw Gretel off her stride.

“Anywhere in the world,” she said, “people who kill policemen suddenly exist. They're hunted. Zurich 7 survives by not existing. We are the hunters, Mr. Klein, always—never the hunted.”

“What's your new lead?” Reinhard asked, bypassing Walmann's dissent and Gretel's barb.

“The man who killed Hashemi,” Gretel said. “We believe he's still in the building next door.”

“And Dominika?” Reinhard asked.

“We don't know for sure, but he's still our best bet for finding her.”

That was for damn sure, and Hansel had only himself to thank for being the only one with the capability of tracking not only the earrings, but the other tracking devices. It didn't pay to play in the black market arms trade without a lot of connections. There wasn't an aspect of this deal that he and Gretel hadn't brainstormed and controlled to the limit of their ability. The only thing they didn't know, the only thing Hansel was afraid nobody knew, was the location of the missing warhead.

But if he could get his hands on Dominika Starkova, it wouldn't take him long to get his hands on the book Sergei was certain contained the warhead's location.

“If you can bring me Dominika, I'll reconsider your offer,” Reinhard said, which was as close to a commitment as they'd been able to get out of the bastard in three long months. But by anybody's estimation, the deal had reached a crisis point.

Hansel caught Gretel's eye; she was smart enough not to give anything away, but he saw the satisfaction in her gaze. They weren't going to lose this game, no way in hell.

“Let's go find our lost girl, then, gentlemen,” she said, lifting her hands and gesturing for the door.

Hansel fell in behind her, stopping only to retrieve the tranquilizer darts she'd used on the cops to clear their way into the apartment.

DEEP
in the bowels of South Morrison, the “lost girl” was following her nose and the tracking device through a maze of rusted out pipes and corroded machinery. The party was long behind her, but the pounding beat of the music resonated through all the metal, and she could still hear the crowd and a few people here and there above her on higher floors. South Morrison was fairly porous with all the holes in its infrastructure, walls that just weren't there anymore, big gashes in the floors and subfloors. The basement itself had turned out to be a whole helluva lot bigger than she'd thought—or at least it looked that way in the beam of her flashlight, like there were whole worlds lost in the shadows.

As a bonus, she was ankle-deep in rats. Beady eyes shined at her out of dark corners. The scrabbling patter of little feet rushed away in front of her, which she appreciated, but it also closed in behind her, which was definitely creeping her out. She was starting to feel a little herded.

Oh, great.
Now there was a thought to give a person the heebie-jeebies—being herded by a bunch of rats to God knew what end.

She took a breath and tried to let the idea go.

There was ice on the floor in some places and standing water in others, which kind of mystified her. She was freezing her ass off. It occurred to her that the entrance to Hell might be in South Morrison's basement, with a few hot spots leaking through.

Another comforting thought.

Geez.
She just needed to find the damn earrings and get out.