Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three (54 page)

Jack lifted her onto the desk, pushing her knees apart to settle between the valley of her tights, his adamant kisses turning hotter, deeper and rougher, acquiring their own erotic rhythm as he licked into her mouth. Samantha shifted around him, arching, seeking the hard, satisfying pressure of him as the pleasure thickened, her thoughts dissolving into an ache only he seemed to be able to soothe.

Jack shifted, sliding a hand between her thighs, fingers gliding past the waistline of her leggings, trapped decadently between the lace of her panties and the silk of her skin. Seeking, searching, finding. She groaned against his mouth, ardent, thrilled at the prospect of his invasion, but Jack teased her first, his fingers searching through the sleek, tender tissues, skating tantalizingly over her sex. Her breath caught, then came out in ragged gasps, her body filling with hot sparks from each caress and the demanding pressure of his exquisite exploration.

His knuckles maddened as he slipped his fingers inside, making her breath fracture when he brushed against exactly the right spot.

“Jack—” she gasped, heart stuttering.

“You’re mine. Mine to pleasure, mine to worship and enjoy,” he insisted, kissing her roughly, wedging himself between her thighs as he slid down, holding her open to him while his mouth took possession of her, tongue delving, a sound of pure animal pleasure rumbling from his throat. He slid a hand through her hair, yanking her head back so he could taste her deeply, and she caught the look in his silver eyes—passionate, on fire…
possessive
.

There, manacled in his grip, Samantha would have given him anything.
Yes. Yes, just ask
…
anything
—the silky flick of his tongue went on and on even as his fingers sought her silkiness, leaving her floundering, desperate and needy as she moaned, tilting her hips up for more, more…
please
—
just suck the sweetness from me. Take it—take
me
…

Jack lavished her mercilessly, his rhythm persistent until she was moving in tight circles against his hand, crying out like a wanton. She heard her own guttural sounds, felt his answering groans against the most sensitive parts of her as he licked deeper, stroked harder, his fingers curling and rubbing until the pleasure rippled through her in voluptuous kicks, unfurling sensations one after another, tidal.

“Oh, Christ—
Jack
…” she moaned on a soft keen, her body clenching and unclenching as he stared at her with complete absorption, her pleasure his own.

Jack stared down at her, his eyes incandescent with emotion, passion making his golden skin flush. He felt hard and hot against her, his hand cradling her head, forcing her to look at him. It was stunningly erotic, being finger fucked into bliss in her father’s old study, what was now her war-room, by this scorching hot man.

“Make love to me,” she told him, her voice a little slurred from the brain-demolishing climax.

“Not yet,” he murmured, kissing her forehead, even as he pulled her clothes back into place, smoothing back her hair.

“Why not?” she demanded, suddenly hot with frustration.

Jack held her head in his hands. She caught the scent of her salty essence of sex combined with his own scent like some kind of sublime perfume. “Because when I take you again, I’m not letting you go. Not ever. And you need to be ready for that.”

She pushed back, but he held her tighter to him, unwilling to relinquish her even as her cheeks heated with a mixture of resentment and embarrassment.

“Trust me,
tesoro
,” he told her, his heart in his eyes. “I’m asking you to trust me to do what’s right by you—on every level.”

She shook her head. “I can’t
do
that—it’s
too much
—”

Jack stopped her protest with another hard kiss, taking her gasp into his mouth like he could taste it. When he pulled back, their gazes locked and she saw the truth in them, searing in its intimacy.

He loved her.

He would do anything for her.

He would never leave her.

Perhaps it was a naive and dangerous thought—a post-apocalyptic orgasm sentiment, but there it was. Bright as day. And for the first time in as long as Samantha could remember, she wanted to have faith again. She wanted to believe in something bigger than herself…

April—Late Night

Somewhere over the Mediterranean Sea

R O X A N N E

R
ox sat at
the edge of her seat on the Lennox Chase corporate jet, noise-cancelling headphones on as she listened to the rustle and static of Lightner’s phone. He must have had it in his pocket, because she could only hear bits and pieces of muffled conversations in English and French with the same unidentified male voice he’d been giving directions and orders to earlier. She felt tense and angry, dissatisfaction at having been foiled by that sonofabitch who was once again riding her last nerve. She hated living in fear—fear that her long-held secret was unraveling faster than a loose copper coil. It had been a long and awful evening. The kind of rare night where a person feels like every fucking thing that could have gone wrong had.

Avi Oded, on his phone, paced the back of the jet, speaking urgently in Hebrew to his contacts within Mossad. He was trying to coordinate Lightner’s capture in Istanbul even as they flew away, heading back to the U.S. on Sam’s orders. Simon Michaelson sat on the jet’s sofa with Julien Henri, both still and silent, eyes closed, though Rox doubted they were sleeping. Talon and Rush stood near the galley, talking in low tones while Anand Mahto sat by himself, looking out the window at the disappearing lights of Tel Aviv’s coast. How these men could be so calm and collected when she felt like setting something on fire, she’d never understand.

She rubbed her red and raw knuckles, bruised from punching Frederica Haug’s confession out of her with her brass rings. Rox noticed belatedly that her hands were shaking from the residual adrenaline, and so she tightened them into hard fists, resisting the urge to completely lose what little cool she had left and pound the neat wooden table in front of her.

Talon distracted her from her bad-temper when he sat down across from her on the leather chair, plopping two glasses down and a crystal decanter of what looked like expensive whisky.

“You need a sedative,” he declared, pouring them both a couple fingers.

“I need a bazooka,” she replied dryly. “I can’t believe we’re flying in the opposite direction of where that asshole is landing in less than fifteen minutes.”

Talon nudged the glass toward her. “Drink it.”

Rox complied, knocking back the whisky, feeling the silky, smoky burn singe its way down her throat as she swallowed. Talon sat back in his chair, watching her as he swallowed his own drink.

“You’re not military,” he remarked, pouring them both another measure.

She rolled her eyes. “What gave me away?”

“You’re taking this personally, for one,” Talon answered. “And you’re not accustomed to taking orders. We’re all a bunch of assholes when we want to be, but we know how to fall into line. It’s killing you to let this lie for now.”

“Where are you going with this?” she growled. “And how can I go the other way?”

Talon leaned forward and said in a low voice. “You’re Roxanne de Soto—Alejandro’s sister.”

Motherfuck
—did
everyone
know who she was? She only
just
managed to keep her face blank.

“Don’t worry,” Talon went on. “Rush and I know who you are because we were at the hospital in Germany when Alejandro came in to take over Sam’s security detail. He said you sent him. That’s the only reason Sam didn’t send him packing,” he added.

She sat back slowly, glancing around the cabin casually, wondering if anyone else had overheard. “Does anyone else know?”

Talon shook his head. “It’s your secret. Not my business why.”

As Rox sat across from Talon, considering him, it occurred to her how clearly this man saw everything. He had to in order to be as good a sharpshooter as he was. Could she trust him? She supposed she’d have to. Roxanne’s eyes trailed across the cabin to where Rush stood in the galley, chatting with the flight attendant while he scarfed down a sandwich. He caught her look and nodded to her in that casual, Southern boy way of his. Talon and Rush were Sam’s boys. If Sam trusted them, then Rox would too. That was loyalty.

She thought of the diamond she wore on the long chain around her neck. She remembered Sam giving it to her while she was still healing from all the surgeries—when she was in so much pain she wanted to die, because it would have been so much easier than surviving and healing.

She recalled Sam’s eyes, black as night as she told her, “
You’re a diamond, Roxy. Nothing breaks you
.
Never forget that.”

That was faith.

Rox returned to the man across from her, admitting something she hadn’t to anyone in years. “If you knew who I was, why didn’t you say anything?”

Talon shrugged. “You didn’t introduce yourself that way and honestly, I was trying to figure out why Sam put you in charge of finding the only man she wants to kill herself. Let’s say I was curious.”

“Curiosity killed the
gato
,
esé
,” she drawled, though she appreciated his honesty. Talon was calling her out, but he wasn’t doing it in a threatening way. “You saved my life back there. One more somersault off that rooftop and I was a goner. I owe you one.”

“Want to hug it out?” he teased.

Rox lifted a brow. “Want to be put into a sleeper hold?”

“By you? Anytime.”

She regarded this good-looking fiend over the rim of her glass. “I don’t know if I like you.”

“All women love me. They can’t help themselves,” Talon declared with the kind of unadulterated cockiness that was actually kind of charming.

“Or they don’t know any better,” she replied.

Talon laughed unashamedly before holding out his glass. “To those who’ve seen us at our best and seen us at our worst, and to those who can’t tell the difference.”

Rox clinked glasses, meeting his eyes. “Cheers to that. And to Cameron Kurt. May he have reached heaven’s doors before the devil even knew he was dead.”

A sudden call coming into Lightner’s phone caught her attention as they sipped their whisky. Rox pulled on her headphones. Talon leaned forward.

“Yes?” Lightner answered curtly.

“You thought you could set us up and get away with it?” a man with a heavy accent said into the phone. She couldn’t place it but she guessed Eastern European.

“I have no idea what you’re referring to Dmitri,” Lightner responded, sounding bored. “I’ve told you to cut back on your coke habit. It’s making you paranoid.”

“The airport is crawling with authorities,” the man called Dmitri retorted. “We saw them as soon as we landed. We’re already taxiing back toward the runway. The deal’s off.”

“You’re taking the piss,” Lightner snapped. “How can you be sure?”

“I just sent the video to your phone. See it for yourself.”

Rox snapped her fingers at Avi. He was still on his phone but he paced over, a look of question on his face. She yanked the headphones off, turning up the sound on her laptop so everyone could hear. The men immediately stood, crowding around her. Avi stopped talking into his cellphone, holding it to his shoulder as he leaned over her. Jaime had rigged the devices up so they could see Lightner’s screen on her laptop. Lightner was watching grainy footage of white and blue Turkish
Polis
vehicles beelining for the airport’s private jet terminals.

“Someone at the airport in Israel must have tipped them off, the fucking rotters,” Lightner muttered, putting the phone back to his ear. “Let’s reroute to Ankara. We can be there in another fifteen minutes.”

“No, the deal’s off,” Dmitri insisted, his voice heavy with ire. “Your picture is all over al Jazeera. You’ve been burned. We won’t be doing any business with you. In fact, I doubt anyone will touch you after this.”

And with that, he hung up. Lightner cursed, immediately checking the search engine on his phone for al Jazeera’s website. Sure enough, the headlines were blaring in English, Farsi, Arabic, French and Hebrew:
“Infamous London Bomber Lucien Lightner Resurfaces Under False Identities.”
The photograph of his old face sat right next to his new one with a scrolling ticker tape of all the aliases they knew about.

“Fucking shit!” Lightner shouted suddenly.

“Sir?”

“How far can we fly before we need to refuel?” Lightner demanded.

“About four thousand nautical miles, sir?”

“Tell the pilot to reroute. We’re not landing in Istanbul. Head west—
immediately
! Find a quiet place to refuel so we can make it to Houston on the last leg.”