Dangerous Secrets (8 page)

This was a place he’d never been in before, a foreign country. Nick didn’t do urgent, pressing desire. He was the Iceman.

Whenever he fucked, a part of him—a big part—remained detached, observing. Sex made men drop their defenses. A lot of guys got offed while boffing. Not Nick. There was no way anyone could get the drop on him during sex because he was always aware of what was going on, always cool. Iceman.

Oh Jesus, he wasn’t Iceman now. He was burning up, breathing hard, focused like a laser beam on Charity.

He wasn’t even thinking about what he was doing. His body had taken over completely.

Moving fast, Nick hooked a chair with his foot and plonked down while reaching out to Charity. Hands a blur, he had her sweats and panties down in a second, positioned her over him, opened her with his fingers and thrust. Straight up into her soft little cunt.

Ahhh! Christ!

Sweat beaded on his face, a drop trickling down the side of his face and dropping onto her shoulder. He was holding her so tightly she was probably having trouble breathing but he couldn’t seem to let her go, or even relax his death grip. He was holding on to her like you held on to a lifeline, not to a beautiful woman.

He leaned his forehead against hers, eyes closed tight. “Sorry,” he whispered roughly.

Fuck. She was dry, not ready for penetration, wriggling a little to find a comfortable position, to adjust herself to him. Her toes barely reached the ground, so almost the full weight of her body anchored her to him. Shit, he hoped he wasn’t hurting her, but he wouldn’t take bets on it.

“No you’re not,” she whispered back. “You’re not sorry at all.”

His eyes opened. He’d kept his eyes screwed shut because what was happening inside him was overwhelming, but also because what he had left of his brains told him she’d be furious. You don’t jump a woman, strip her, and shove your cock in without even a second’s foreplay. He was half expecting her to tell him to fuck off.

But no—wow—against all the odds, she wasn’t angry. How did that happen? When his eyes opened, they were an inch from hers. He stared into those eyes, mesmerized. That clear, crystal gray, like an early morning sky. There were slight crinkles around her eyes as if she were smiling. Yes, thank you, God. Nick’s gaze dropped to her mouth, slightly uptilted. That was definitely a smile. Oh yeah.

He kissed her, a long, deep plunge into that smile. When his tongue stroked hers, she clenched around him, gasping into his mouth.

She wasn’t furious at being manhandled, at the suddenness with which he’d grabbed her, at being held ferociously tight.

“No, you’re right, I’m not,” he croaked back when he came up for air. Hell no, he wasn’t sorry. He’d kill to remain right where he was, naked on a wooden chair with his cock buried in the most delightful woman he’d ever met.

Nick smiled back. Or tried to. His mouth couldn’t make the right moves. How could he smile when every atom in his
body was concentrated on her, the feel of her against him and above all, the tight, warm feel of her cunt around his cock?

There was something about that thought that rang a warning bell somewhere far away in his head. Something about the feel of her…tight and just a little wetter now and warm…

Something about that didn’t feel right. Or rather, felt all too good. Better than anything had ever felt before…

Fuck.

He wasn’t wearing a rubber.

His head nearly exploded.

This was impossible. Nick never fucked without a rubber, never. Never ever,
ever
. He knew exactly what was out there and though he expected to die young, he wanted to go out like a man from a bullet or a knife to the heart and not hooked up to machines in a hospital.
Gah.
Better a bullet than disease. No question.

Suiting up was second nature, simply part of the sexual act. As natural as brushing his teeth. He never went anywhere without rubbers and had even brought them with him to Afghanistan, not that there’d been any chance of using them in that hellhole. They’d expired in his pocket and were probably dust now in his flak jacket in the basement of his condo.

But right now, in his pants pocket on the floor of her bedroom were several packets of brand-new top-of-the-line rubbers, just waiting for him.

They might as well have been on Mars for all the good they were doing him there. The normal way to go get them would be to withdraw from Charity, get up and walk over there,
but every cell in his body rejected the notion. He couldn’t pull out of her if they put a gun to his head.

Not to mention the biggie—he was on a hair trigger here. Yep. Nick Ireland, Mr. Cool, Iceman himself, who had fucked Consuelo for hours while calculating probabilities that her dick-wad brother was changing lieutenants, was about ready to blow.

He could feel it, a volcanic pressure rising from his loins, the little electric tingle along his spine, all telltales he was familiar with. Just Charity breathing caused a little rustle in his system, bringing him that much closer to shooting his wad. Any movement, any at all, would just push him over the edge.

Pulling out would mean friction, sliding out of those smooth, soft, warm walls…

Oh God. He had to tighten his groin to keep from coming at the thought. If he pulled out he’d embarrass himself by spurting into the air. Or worse—into her.

He stared into her eyes, shaking slightly from the effort of not coming.

“I’m not wearing a ru—a condom.” His voice was hoarse, as if he’d spent hours screaming. His throat was tight. Huge steel bands were gripping his chest. “I’m really sorry about that.”

If she wanted to haul off and hit him, she’d have every right. He couldn’t even flinch because any movement was a no-no. All he could do was stare in the eyes and take it like a man.

Charity was silent.

“Sorry,” he said again. It came out a wheeze. With every second that passed everything in him wound tighter. His
cock in her lengthened, thickened, and then—
whoa
—she clenched around him. His cock responded immediately with a strong ripple. He bit his back teeth together so hard it was a surprise he didn’t crack a tooth.

His head was going to explode. And right after that, his cock.

He was shaking, trying to rein himself in.
“God, Charity, I’m going to—”

“It’s all right.” Charity’s face was an inch from his. She was somber but her body was trembling. All on its own, her little cunt clenched again and they both moaned. “It’s not the right time of the month, so there shouldn’t be any prob—”

Whatever else she was going to say was lost in his mouth. He closed the little distance between them, holding on to her tightly, ravishing her mouth, thrusting hard up inside her while coming in long, almost violent spurts that shook him from his toes to his head. He ate at her mouth, as if his life depended on it. Maybe it did. He felt one long hot liquid pull through his body, from his mouth to his cock, drowning inside her.

He shook and groaned throughout the climax, grinding himself into her, totally out of control. He left her mouth because he was afraid he’d bite her in his excitement, and buried his face in her hair, hanging on to her as if he was drowning and she was his lifeline to shore.

His skin prickled, his chest felt tight, he was burning up. He felt especially hot in his groin, right where he was joined to her. Hot and wet. He’d spurted so much come into her, they were wet to their thighs. It should have been a turnoff, but actually it was a huge turn-on. Huge. Knowing his seed was inside her. And in particular, knowing she was now wet.

Not wet because he’d managed to get in a little foreplay, no, not that kind of wet. But still. Wet is wet. Wet meant he could move in her without hurting her.

First, though, some amends. “Sorry about that,” he whispered. His breath moved a lock of her shiny dark-blond hair.
Sorry
. Nick didn’t believe in a God, but if he did, he deserved to be struck down by lightning immediately because he wasn’t sorry. Not sorry at all.

Not only was he not sorry in any way that he was buried to the hilt in the warmest, tightest little cunt he could ever remember being in, but he was not sorry for anything about the situation. Her soft breasts were plastered against his chest, rubbing against him with every breath she took, his arms tight around her narrow rib cage.

“That’s okay.” Was that a wheeze he heard in her voice? Though it cost him, Nick gentled his hold slightly. She had to breathe.

Since his mouth was right there, he blew another perfumed lock of hair away from her neck and began kissing her, running his lips along the soft skin of her neck, kissing the even softer skin behind her ear. Her hair tumbled over his face and it was like being in a soft, perfumed dark-blond cloud.

His lips picked up the beat of her heart, fast and light. He could feel that beat against her left breast, too. Was it excitement?

Only one way to find out.

He eased back a little, wondering which hand to use. They were both extremely happy exactly where they were. If there were any justice in this world, he’d sprout a third hand so he could touch her where they were joined without letting go, but he’d learned long ago that there wasn’t.

So which hand to use? The one that was cupping the back
of her head or the one wrapped around her back, fitting precisely into the sharp indent of her waist? God, what a choice.

Finally, reluctantly, his right hand left her waist, trailed around her back, over the top of her thigh and rested on her mound.

Charity wiggled a little on him and he surged and lengthened inside her. She caught a little breath, the sound loud in the silence of the kitchen.

“You’re still, um—” she wiggled on him some more, the movements so exciting his stomach muscles jumped. “Still…hard,” she finished breathlessly.

Hard? Oh yeah.

He brought his mouth around to hers and kissed her deeply, like plunging into a sea of warm, scented flowers. He opened his mouth more widely, taking in a sharper taste of her.

Her arms curled around his neck, one hand toying with the hair at the nape of his neck.

Nick fisted his hand in her hair and pulled gently. Her head fell back and he admired the long line of her white throat. Wow, maybe vampires weren’t so dumb after all because right now, he felt like growing canines and feasting. Failing that, he nipped her, right where her neck met the smooth line of her shoulder.

Charity jolted. Inside and out. A sharp clenching of her cunt and he swelled inside her. She gasped and twined her legs around the legs of the chair, impaling herself more heavily on him.

It was all he needed. Wrapping his arms around that narrow back, Nick began moving inside her, sharp short thrusts, made easier by the gallons of come he’d flooded inside her.

It was as intense as hell and couldn’t possibly last. When
she gave a sharp cry and started climaxing, he shouted and thrust up into her in one last, hard jolt and exploded.

He had no idea how he had all that come in him, seeing as how he’d just climaxed. Maybe his spine melted and drained straight into his dick. Maybe he was using up all the liquid in his body and would dry up and blow away into dust.

Whatever.

“Wow,” Charity whispered. She lay with her cheek against his shoulder, arms looped around his neck, body completely relaxed against his.

Their groins were wet, stuck together by his juices and hers. He was still just hard enough to stay inside her. If she moved, he’d slip out but for now she wasn’t moving and he loved being inside her still.

It was…pleasant. More than pleasant. She was the softest thing he’d ever felt beneath his hands, soft and warm and fragrant. Nick felt like he could stay like this forever.

She flattened her palm against his back in a small caress, then stopped, puzzled. A swift pass over the spot as she rubbed her cheek against his shoulder.

He knew exactly what she was feeling. A circular puckered scar on the front with a matching circular scar on his back.

“That’s my most embarrassing scar,” he said easily, running his hand up and down her back. “I never tell anyone the story, but I’ll tell you, if you promise to feed me whatever it is you cooked in the oven.”

“Cinnamon buns. Deal.” He could feel her lips move as she smiled against his shoulder. “Unless they’re burnt. And if they are, it’s entirely your fault.”

“Fair enough.” He kissed her hair. “So this is the story. When I was eighteen, my aunt Milly moved in next door. She only stayed a year but in that year, she elected me her
own personal slave. I helped the moving guys bring her furniture in. She loaded me down with too much stuff, mostly for the upstairs bathroom. One of the moving guys had dropped a soap dish on the stairs. I tripped and fell. Straight onto a brand-new steel curtain rod. Skewered me but good.”

She shuddered. “
Ouch.
Talk about no good deed going unpunished.” Charity fingered the scar on his back, then bent to kiss the scar on his shoulder. “That must have hurt.”

Like a bitch.

And it hadn’t been a curtain rod; it had been a 9 mm round. The round that had nicked his lung and finished his army career.

He pulled back and smiled into her eyes. “Now how about those buns?”

Parker’s Ridge
November 19

Nick followed Charity back to her house, staring at the back of her car as if he could will her to stop, get out, and let him get behind the goddamned wheel.

He hated this. Why couldn’t she have just left the car where it was? He’d dropped hints aplenty, had even contemplated an order, but though she stated her wishes in the softest voice possible, Charity was like a rock. She just lifted that pointed little chin of hers and that was that. She wanted her car and she was going with him or without him to get it. In this weather, without him wasn’t an option, so with gritted teeth he’d driven her to her car near the library and was following her home.

That the weather had worsened—the roads were slick with ice and sleet—was a condition that Charity had totally ignored. Nick had to clutch the steering wheel hard to keep
from shooting out in front of Charity and forcing her to slow down.

Unexpectedly, his classy little librarian liked speed. That was fine, but not on a day like this and not when he suspected she couldn’t quite handle her car. It slid when she braked and took corners. His jaws clenched each time.

He longingly eyed the cell phone on the passenger seat. He could call her and tell her to slow down. Make it seem like he couldn’t keep up, which was ridiculous for anyone who knew him. There wasn’t a vehicle in the world he couldn’t drive, as fast as he wanted, in any kind of weather. He was a qualified combat driver instructor and was one of the best.

His cell phone buzzed. Not Charity. Nick smiled when he saw the display. Jacob Weiss, his best friend. He switched his cell phone to speakerphone mode.

“Hey, Jake. Howzit hangin’?” It was their usual greeting and was usually answered in unprintable ways.

“Hey big guy, guess what? I did it!” Jake was too excited to engage in their usual banter. Nick could hear it in his voice. “
Yee-hah!
Or
hoo-ah!
Or whatever it is you military types say. I did it!”

Nick rolled his eyes. At any given moment, Jake was accomplishing a bazillion different things, not least accumulating more money than a third world country. “It” could have been buying Microsoft, doubling the income of a Saudi prince or single-handedly raising the world price of gold. Jake was one of the prime financial geniuses of the world. That wasn’t Nick’s opinion, it was Bloomberg’s.

Whatever “it” was, though, it had Jake in a state.

“Great. Glad to hear it.” Jake couldn’t see Nick’s shrug but he could probably hear it in his voice. Nick just wasn’t that
into money, to Jake’s everlasting sorrow. “What did you do? Buy Corsica?”

“No, though I
did
purchase a resort…never mind. Listen, you remember those Russian bonds I told you about?” Jake waited while Nick processed. Should he lie and say of course he remembered? Jake was smart as a whip. He knew when Nick was lying. No, wait…Nick remembered something. Vaguely.

Jake didn’t let the thought gel. “If you had a decent cell phone instead of that crap POS you use, you’d see me rolling my eyes. I talked to you about investing in Russian bonds six months ago. I talked to you for
two hours,
Nick. Your head’s hard but it can’t be that hard.”

Oh yeah. Nick had taken an afternoon off from being a scumbag gopher for the Gonzalez clan and had gone to see Jake and his family. Being with Jake and Marja was like breathing in cool, clean air, except when Jake talked money, which is when Nick zoned out.

“I sort of remember. You thought it would be a good deal, right?”

“It turned out to be an excellent deal, thank you. Paid off four to one. I wasn’t expecting that until next spring, but by God, I’m looking at the e-mail right now.”

Nick, instead, was watching Charity’s back fender. Was that a
wobble
? Goddamn it, if she was having trouble holding the road, he was going to signal her to stop and have her come back to his car. They could leave hers there and he’d pick it up as soon as the weather cleared. He watched carefully as she rounded a corner, finally letting out a pent-up breath. Okay. She’d taken that one smoothly. But damn, her tires weren’t suited to this weather. He’d taken a good look
before she got into her car and had to bite his lips not to say anything.

“What? What was that?” Jake had said something, something he was excited about. Nick gave him half his attention, the other half focused like a laser beam on Charity in front of him.

Bonds were infinitely less important to him than making sure Charity didn’t crash.

“If you’d been
listening
,” Jake said, in an exaggeratedly patient tone, “you’d have heard me the first time. But I’ll repeat. Do you remember when I told you I’d make you a millionaire? And you gave me all your money?”

Nick smiled. Good old Jake. “Yeah.”

Him, a millionaire? He could sooner sprout wings and fly. He never worried about money management. He spent very little and the rest just sat in a bank, gathering dust.

In exasperation, Jake made him take everything out and give it to him. It wasn’t peanuts, not for Nick, anyway. Nick had banked his entire salary while in Afghanistan, where he whooped it up on stale water and field MREs, there being absolutely no place to spend it. And again, his salary had accumulated while he was with the Gonzalez clan, and he’d handed that over to Jake, too.

Yeah, Nick remembered. A hundred fifty thou. More or less everything he had in the world and probably what Jake made in a minute. “You lose that for me?”

“No, I just told you! Weren’t you listening? I put your money in Russian bonds and Hong Kong gold futures. The Russian bonds just quadrupled and Hong Kong gold went through the roof. You were highly leveraged there for a while, I’m not afraid to say….” Nick frowned. Charity was driving way too fast again. He zoned back in to what Jake
was saying. “…and I got you in and out of an Indian IPO fast, you came out smelling like a rose. In fact, as of right now…” Nick could hear a computer keyboard clacking, “your net worth is $1,003,000. Congratulations, Nick. You are now a millionaire. I just more than quintupled your investment, my man. Jesus, I’m good. I’m a god. Wait a second, while I do a little victory dance.”

Nick heard tapping sounds and smiled. Jake had undergone the last of eleven operations over the past ten years to straighten out his spine and being able to walk without pain and move quickly were both huge victories.

Wait a minute.

“Whoa.”
Nick finally focused on what Jake was saying. “Hit rewind, would you? What was that again? I thought I heard you say that—”

“That you’re a millionaire. Rich, big guy, you’re
rich
. Absolutely. Welcome to the club.” Jake laughed. Actually, Jake was a billionaire, many times over, but Nick appreciated the thought. The Millionaires’ Club.

“Jesus.” Nick took a deep breath, then another. “Jesus, I’m rich.” His mind whirled. “I’m rich.” He gave a breathless laugh.

“Yep. Don’t spend it all in one place. Tell me I’m good.”

“You’re a genius,” Nick said, meaning every word.

“Damn straight.” Jake laughed again.

Nick swallowed. He flashed on the first time he’d seen Jake.

He’d been eleven and looked sixteen and Jake had been nine and looked five. Jake had suddenly appeared in the orphanage, a shell-shocked, whey-faced odd-looking little boy with a crooked back and toothpick legs. His family had emigrated from Israel the year before and his parents had just
died in a freak accident. There were no other family members the state knew of, and they couldn’t immediately find a family willing to take on a cripple, so he’d been dumped in the orphanage, where he was immediate prey.

He barely spoke English, was badly underdeveloped, and scoliosis had turned his back into a huge crooked
S.
The death of his parents had traumatized him so much he couldn’t talk.

It had been like dumping a crippled guppy with a
BEAT ME UP
sign pinned to its fin into a tank of piranhas. Five minutes after arriving, Jake was bleeding.

Nick had been outside shooting hoops when he saw the biggest bullies in the orphanage kicking something small and white on the ground. A minute later, he was pulling the fuckers off, breaking an arm and a nose and was carrying an unconscious Jake to the dispensary. He’d weighed nothing.

The dispensary, necessary by law, was staffed by an indifferent nurse Nick suspected was dealing pain-killers. She had no desire to look Jake over and did so only when Nick got right up into her face.

She patched Jake up and Nick made sure he was around Jake most of the time and that everyone knew messing with Jake meant messing with
him
. Jake was prey but Nick wasn’t. Nobody fucked with him or with those he protected.

For the next few years, Nick had a pale, silent shadow. Jake never spoke, hardly ate, and could sleep only if Nick was in the same room.

They bounced from foster home to foster home. The first time Nick was dumped in a foster home, the social worker refused to place Jake in the same home. The social worker, an obese lady with a honeyed southern accent and mean
eyes, raked in 10 percent of the take from the foster homes she placed kids in.

She wanted to split them up. Jake was to go to a home that specialized in mentally and physically handicapped children. There was a 50 percent bonus for those kids. Nick had heard tales about that home that made his skin prickle. Two kids had died there over the past couple of years.

Nick pushed the social worker against a wall with a knife to her side and told her he’d cut out her kidney if Jake didn’t go with him. They were never separated after that.

When Nick was seventeen and Jake fifteen, some sociology students came to the foster home they were in at the time. The students were conducting a survey of children in foster homes who had spent time in an orphanage. The survey consisted of an IQ test, a Rorschach, and interviews. Jake refused to answer the questions and was silent when administered the Rorschach.

The IQ test was another story.

The survey team refused to believe the initial results and had Jake take the test again. And again. And again.

Each time, the survey group grew, until finally, a professor from MIT came and took Jake away.

Jake’s results were off the charts, particularly in math. Genius didn’t begin to describe it. From then on, foundations vied for the privilege of educating him. He had a masters in economics and in math by the time he was eighteen; a PhD in economics by twenty-one. By that time, too, he knew what he wanted. Money, and lots of it.

He had it, too, Nick thought in satisfaction. Piles of it. Tons. Boatloads of the stuff. Good for him. He’d earned every penny.

“You’re rich, now, buddy,” Jake said quietly. “So what are you going to do about it? No sense dying young when you’re rich, is there? Rich guys die of old age. In their beds. With a couple of hotties.”

Nick winced. Once, between missions, he’d gotten shit faced with Jake. Four men under his command had died and he saw their faces nightly in his dreams. Nightmares.

Jake had sat and listened quietly to him, nursing one drink to Nick’s ten until Nick had been rendered down to rock bottom. There had been nothing left in him, an exhausted, heartbroken mess of a man. And that was when he confessed to Jake that he was convinced he would die young.

After that, Jake refused to let it go, like a dog with a bone. He said he would make it his life’s work to get Nick out of the military. When Nick was wounded and resigned his commission, Jake bought a whole vineyard in Champagne to celebrate…and then got angry as hell when Nick joined the Unit and went undercover.

Suddenly, Jake’s voice roughened. “I’m not going to let you die young, Nick. I simply won’t allow it. You’re going die in your bed a rich old man and that’s that. Get used to it.”

He hung up.

Nick drove, concentrated on watching Charity in front of him and on what Jake had said.

Not dying young. Wow. Now there was a thought. Though come to think of it, he was thirty-two. Maybe he was too old to die young.

For the very first time in his life, Nick thought of the future. Not the immediate future, like making Delta or joining the Unit. No, the long term. Being forty and fifty and sixty. Christ, maybe seventy and eighty. The thought that he
was going to die young was so ingrained in him that he had never given a thought to becoming middle-aged and then old. Wasn’t going to happen.

But—just suppose it did? Just suppose he lived. And he had money, to boot. Well, that changed things.

Suppose, like Jake insisted, he quit doing dangerous jobs and got married and settled down with a family?

Of course, it was easy for Jake to talk. He had the most beautiful wife in the world and three great kids. Marja was a stunning beauty. A platinum blonde, a head taller than Jake, a great mother, and a fantastic wife. Everyone assumed that with his billions, Jake had bought himself a trophy wife, but the truth was he had met Marja, a Swedish exchange student, while still studying and trying to survive on a grant at MIT. He and Marja were a love match.

It never even occurred to Nick that he could have that. Good thing, too, because he’d never met anyone he could feel about the way Jake felt about Marja.

But just suppose…he eyed the car in front of him, which Charity was driving just a little too fast for her ability and her tires. It was just like her—flares of unexpected fire under a soft, unassuming exterior.

Suppose he settled down? And just suppose he settled down with Charity? Living with that beautiful woman in that beautiful house in a pretty, peaceful town.

Nick waited for the feeling of constriction, of claustrophobia that always took him when he thought of settling down. It wasn’t coming.

Charity zipped down her street and pulled too fast into her driveway. Nick gritted his teeth and parked right on her back fender. If she wanted to get out again, she was going to have to ask him. And as far as he was concerned, she wasn’t get
ting her hands on another steering wheel until the weather cleared.