Pushing the Limit (13 page)

She looked as vulnerable as she sounded. He got up slowly as if not to scare a stray animal, and sat next to her on the bed. “Let’s look at his research together. See what we can find. It might not be that at all.”

He took everything out of the bag and then peered inside to make sure it was truly empty. It seemed to be. As he laid the bag back on the floor, Harry was already leafing through pages, putting them in order and placing them in piles. He stepped away as she worked.

“I wish I’d checked Rapson’s room for a bug. I wonder…”

Harry’s head popped up from the documents. “Are you going to check? Won’t the room be locked? It’s a crime scene after all.”

“I’m not sure the police here are that geared up to solve crimes. But there’s only one way to find out. Lock the door behind me and don’t answer for anyone but me. Even if you know them, don’t answer the door, okay?”

“Sure. Do you need a flashlight?” she asked.

“You archaeologists seem better prepared than Boy Scouts.” He laughed, taking it from her.

She tipped her head. “Better prepared than you, anyway.”

He rolled his eyes at her and slipped out of the room.

Harry jumped up and locked the door. For all her protestations, she hadn’t wanted him to leave her. Damned if she was going to tell the overbearing man that, though. She shoved the desk chair under the door handle, although it was on a swivel base and, well, she knew it wouldn’t keep the boogeyman away, whoever he was.

She was scared. She hadn’t felt scared by anything in ages. But with Malcolm dying, and the airplane, money, and having Matt, Danny’s friend, here seemed to confuse the synapses in her brain. Nothing was normal. Her even, regular life had erupted into a tsunami of uncertainty and unease. Harry wasn’t even sure if she was equipped to deal with it anymore. After Danny, she closed down, deliberately creating a life that was hers and hers alone. Making sure she wasn’t too close to anyone, making sure her life was smooth and untroubling. She figured she’d deserved the even keel of her life, after the nightmare in the aftermath of her husband’s death.

She lay back on the bed, crinkling all of Malcolm’s papers. In fact, she didn’t want to read them. Didn’t want to know what he’d found out. She worried that if she found one extra thing to complicate this situation, she’d implode. Breathing was good, though. In, out, in, out. She took deep breaths to calm herself. To try to put out of mind what was happening around her.

A knock at the door startled her. “It’s Matt,” he said.

She ran to the door and let him in, trying to find a normality in herself to show him, worried that her eyes would give away her fear. She turned back to the bed as he entered.

“The bug was there. I left it. No sense in disrupting the evidence, should anyone come to look. But you know what that means, right?”

She nodded, not wanting to say the words out loud. It was about the money.

“Did you find anything in Rapson’s notes?” he asked, settling back on the bed.

“Not yet. Here, grab some and read.” She thrust a sheaf of papers that she hadn’t looked at yet.

She wanted to reach out and touch him, just to feel him. Solid. Present. But she continued reading, hoping she wouldn’t find anything that would rock her carefully constructed world more than it already had been.

Malcolm’s research was cryptic at best. Random notes and large passages circled with pen and annotated with nothing more than an exclamation mark or a question mark. All the Megellin papers had random letters underlined. Some kind of code? She put them all to one side. After about twenty minutes, she’d separated the academic notes from the “what the hell is going on” notes.

“Okay,” she said putting a pile of papers on the floor. “Those are human resources and other administrative papers. What we have left are those that related to this survey, and his research into Megellin.”

Matt picked up a marketing leaflet. “This is for MGL Security. David works for them. There’s a big question mark on it. Was he going to hire them for extra security on the site? Do you do that kind of thing when you’re overseas?”

“I guess, maybe? I’ve never had to, but if all this was happening without you here, maybe I would? I just don’t know.” More likely she would have ignored the problem and just carried on with her work. Head-in-the-sand-itis was what Molly called it.

Matt slid the leaflet into his pocket and picked up a different pile. “These seem to be trying to trace the ownership of Megellin. Who is the person who signed your contract?” he asked.

“Mr. Randolph. He’s also been calling Molly and me nonstop, asking for an interim report, which I am supposed to provide him with tonight.” She looked at her watch. Shit. She’d completely forgotten about that.

“Okay, let’s make a list. We have missing money from approximately 2005. We have some U.S. military aircraft debris and hundred-dollar bills at the site. We have a foundation run by an unknown entity which seems hell-bent on finding what’s here, and the added information that the foundation may be a cover for illegal excavations.”

She tapped a pencil on her teeth. “Also Malcolm, and maybe a missing Jason. As well as a potential void under the surface of the site.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, the room phone rang with a hard, brittle clang. She grabbed for it. “Molly,” she mouthed to Matt.

“Jason’s back in the hotel. He was out with Katherine from Rapson’s team, the little bastard. I’ve briefed him about the professor, and frankly, he looked more scared than anyone we saw tonight. He’s packing and seems to be happy to be going home tomorrow,” Molly said.

Her voice betrayed her words. She was upset that Jason was out with another woman. “I’m so sorry, Mol. If it’s any consolation, you deserve better.”

There was a little silence. “I never even saw a female on Rapson’s team. Trust Jason to be able to home in on the only other woman on a dig.”

“Are you okay?” Harry said.

“Sure. You live and learn, right?”

“I always have,” she replied automatically, and then wondered what exactly she had learned since Danny died. To tuck her heart away from friends, colleagues, and lovers. To walk away. That’s what she’d been doing for seven years: walking away.

They said good night to each other, and Harry hung up.

“Jason was catting around. He’s back and packing, so we can scratch him off the list, thank God,” she said. At that second the battery on the solar lamp flickered and died. For a second neither of them moved.

Harry knelt up on the bed and reached for the thin curtain. She yanked it back and let the slight light from the moon illuminate the room.

Matt got up and closed it again. “Let’s not make ourselves targets. I’d rather we kept it dark in here than worry about passing the window.”

“You think someone might shoot us?” A shiver trickled down her spine, making her grab a blanket and wrap it around herself.

“I have no idea, but we don’t want to take the chance on the same night that Malcolm was killed, okay?”

“Okay? Not really. Not…” Her voice cracked. What was
wrong
with her?

In a second he was next to her, holding her, rubbing her back. “It’s a lot to take, I know. I’m sorry your friend died, and I’m sorry this is happening to you.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said, trying to pull away from him and at the same time wanting to lose herself in the strength of his arms.

“There’s nothing wrong with you. What are you talking about?”

She took a deep breath and scurried away from him, sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees and leaning against the headboard.

“The first time I came to Iraq, I wondered how it would be, you know. To visit the country where he’d died.” She heard him shift on the bed. Was he uncomfortable? “If you don’t want to hear this, it’s okay. I’ll stop.” She had no idea really why she’d started talking in the first place, but there was this ball of… something… in her stomach that was full of unanswered questions and unrealized feelings. She just wanted to tell someone, in the dark, with no one looking at her, examining her face for unspoken feelings like so many had done since Danny had died.

“No, I’m interested.” His low voice seemed to fill the room with a safe warmth. Dammit, girl. Get a grip.

“Our first time here was magical. It was spring in all senses of the word. Everyone was joyful the war was over and Saddam had gone. People who had been banned from praying for decades were able to pray openly for the first time. We met Mueen and Ain, who both seemed thrilled that visitors were coming back to their country. He traveled fifty miles each way every day to come protect us. That’s why I was so happy to be offered a job virtually on his doorstep this time.” She paused and sighed.

“I was so excited to come back, but from the minute we touched down, everything was different. The Iraqis seem more anxious than joyous. My own team feels discordant.

“The very first day, I found that piece of metal, and everything’s been on a steep downward trajectory since then. You—no disrespect—and all the fun and games that you brought, the hundred-dollar bills, then Malcolm. It’s like a perfect storm.

“My life is ordered, neat. And this is anything but that. Jason caused the first hiccup in the team by seemingly seducing and abandoning Molly. Then you came in with your surprising background and your subsequent recriminations…”

“I’m sorry about that. Really.”

“Then Malcolm and his suspicions about my work. My work. The one thing that’s kept me sane during all these years… I just don’t know what to think. It’s like the world is suddenly conspiring against me.”

There was a pause, and she swore there was stifled laughter. “That’s right. Everything that’s happened, everything that’s gone wrong here, it’s aaall about you.”

* * *

Matt heard her sharp intake of breath and wondered if he’d misjudged his attempt at lightening her mood.

There was a second in which he opened his mouth to explain, when there was a shifting in the air around him, and just as his lightning instinct had him reaching for his weapon, a soft projectile thwomped into his face, knocking him backward and off the bed.

“No one makes fun of my pain without incurring the wrath of the pillow ninja,” she hissed.

Relief and outrage vied for pole position as he immediately planned his revenge. He let out an agonized groan.

“Oh my God.” He heard her scrambling over the bed to the foot where he’d fallen from. “I’m so sorry, did you hurt—”

He reared up, wrapping his arms around her legs, and launched her back onto the bed. She bounced like a rag doll as he grabbed the cushion he’d taken from the lobby and swiped at her as she tried to right herself.

“Ooff,” was the only thing she managed to say.

Victory is mine.
“Truce?” he asked from a safe distance.

“My hand is caught in the headboard.” She giggled. “I swear it’s not a trap. I’m an honorable foe, unlike you. Look, or feel.”

Still keeping his distance, he put out his hand where he thought her shoulder should be. It was soft. Heat rose in his body.

“Okay, airman, it’s not my breast that’s trapped, it’s my hand,” she said with a totally audible grin.

“Sorry.” He thought he would run his hand up to her shoulder, then her arm to find her trapped hand, but it seemed all his appendages had minds of their own. He hesitated on her breast, feeling it swell beneath his palm.
Shit
. He stretched his hand out so just the center of it was touching her, and he circled it around her nipple. Its hardness tickled his palm. He meant to move it to her shoulder, but he swore he heard her groan. The sound sealed the deal.

His other hand found her flat stomach. He ran his fingers over her skin, making her shiver. “Does your hand hurt?”

“No,” she whispered. It was a tacit yes to everything else.

He lowered his lips to her stomach and kissed her, feeling it undulate beneath his lips. Kneeling on the bed now, he ran his hands up and down from her waist to her legs, legs to waist, and then with the same motion, he hooked her shorts around his fingers and yanked them down. She gasped. He grinned in the dark.

“You’re kind of at my mercy now, aren’t you?” he said.

In an instant she wrapped her legs around his waist and tipped him over onto his side. Before he could recover, she rolled him over and sat astride him.

“I’m sorry? What did you say?” In the shadowy darkness she whipped off her tank. He could barely see her in the dark. No way. Nakedness or death? He grabbed her waist and held her as he sat up and pushed her down toward the foot of the bed. He used the few seconds he was upright to flick open one side of the curtain covering the small window. A faint blue light lit the room. Just enough to see her in.

“I guess you weren’t really that trapped, then?”

“Not
that
trapped.” She smiled up at him, and he was gone. He ripped his shirt off over his head and was about to undo his jeans when Harry beat him to it.

Her delicate fingers played with his fly, flickering touches on his hard dick through the denim. Grazing her nails along his length until he was desperate to feel her friction. As if she read his mind, she flattened her hand and pressed hard against him, making him groan and push himself against her. She undid his fly, and when the heat of her fingers touched his flesh he closed his eyes and allowed his whole body to feel her.

Enough. He wanted her, right now. Stripping off his jeans, and managing to extract a condom from his wallet without fumbling, he retook the bed. He slid his whole body across hers touching every part of her with every part of him. She fit him perfectly. In every way.

“Fuck me,” she said in a gravelly voice. “Fuck me hard.”

No. Not this time. But he wasn’t going to argue the point. He slipped on the condom, worried he wouldn’t have the discipline to do it in about three minutes’ time. Matt was determined to make love to her. He had been harboring a strong suspicion that she was so open, and so forward to avoid a connection. To avoid feeling anything. And if he had to deal with his feelings, she was fucking going to have to deal with hers.

He knelt between her legs, moving her easily onto his lap. Stroking her clit oh so gently until her breathing became faster, he slid into her, almost exploding himself as her tight sheath hugged his dick so tightly. He rocked her slowly against him. She reached for his face, and angled her half-open mouth over his, as if waiting for permission. He took her mouth slowly, slipping his tongue between her lips, tasting the toothpaste she must have used before he arrived. Her hot tongue danced slow patterns around his mouth, sliding against his tongue with the same cadence as his dick inside her. Heat pulsed in time between them, his thumb lazily used her own wetness to run circles around her clit. It was as if everything was moving to the same beat. The same clock. The same detonation sequence. It felt like something more than fucking.

She dragged her mouth away from him as she grasped him to her, nails digging into his shoulder blades. She gasped sweet breaths of air as he felt her tipping slowly over the edge.

Her pussy pulsed around his dick, seemingly pulling him farther into her. He laid a little more pressure on her clit as she threw her head back, gasping his name. Heat tightened everything below his waist, his balls, the small of his back blazed in a flash of release as he came. She rocked against him, milking the last of his climax from him.