The Shaughnessey Accord (9 page)

Read The Shaughnessey Accord Online

Authors: Alison Kent

BOOK: The Shaughnessey Accord

11.67Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

"You told me you'd tell me what you thought was going on here. So I wouldn't go to my grave wondering."

"I should've let you cut me free."

"Change of heart?"

"Yeah."
He sighed heavily. "I'd really like to hold you."

"Oh, Tripp."
The sting of tears threatened to blind her. She pressed herself to him; he was the one solid thing in the room that gave her hope.

"I'm not going to let you go to your grave, Glory." He paused, she waited,
the
punch line came. "Not till I've gotten mine."

She shook her head. His chest beneath her cheek vibrated with his chuckle when she stuck out her tongue. "Blackmail works both ways, you know."

"That's what I was afraid of. Besides, I was lying. I'm not going to let you die whether I get in your pants again or not. I'm not going to let anything happen to either of us."

The segue
was perfect. "You sound pretty confident there for an engineering project consultant."

"Yeah, well, that's the thing. Besides the military background, I have a lot of other, uh, outside training."

Her ears perked up, as did her intuition, which told her this armed forces thing was something Tripp rarely talked about. That he hesitated telling her even now—and wouldn't have if not for this
anomalic
situation in which they found themselves.

"What sort of training?" she prodded when it became obvious he thought he was done. As if she was going to let him off that easily.

"You think we can sit?" he asked, distracting her again.

"Saving your strength along with the knife?"

"Something
like
that," he answered and slid down the wall to sit, knees bent and spread.

She settled between, leaning her shoulder into his chest and giving herself the visual advantage of being able to look into his eyes.

She wanted to make sure he didn't try to pull anything over on her. Like some big fat lie of a story to make her feel better, hoping she'd forget that in the next moment they both might die.

Eight

Figuring out how much to say about who he was and what he did had never come easy to Tripp. Keeping the existence of SG-5 off the public radar was essential. Keeping it off all military and law enforcement scopes was paramount.

The Smithson Group righted a lot of wrongs bound up in legal red tape along with others that went largely ignored for a variety of political reasons.

SG-5 wouldn't be able to guarantee many happy endings with Big Brother breathing down its back. But if this siege was indeed Glory's Last Stand, he owed her as much of the truth as he could reasonably share.

So when she prodded him with a softly uttered, "Tripp?" he shrugged, and said, "It's no big deal really."

And then she butted him with her shoulder. "You are so full of crap."

A firecracker.
A pistol.
She was one of a kind and made it really hard for him not to smile. "Now, what makes you say that? You have your own training to compare what's a big deal and what isn't?"

"No, but if you're relying on basic stuff, then Brighton's is a kosher deli."

She wasn't going to let him bullshit his way out of anything, was she, perceptive little wench.
"Hmm.
I do seem to recall a lot of ham being ordered up on sandwiches."

"Exactly."
She butted him again, but this time she settled close, rubbing her cheek against his chest when she was done. "You're thinking on your feet. You're making decisions on the fly, using familiar skills, not ones stored in your memory banks."

"Hmm," he mused again because humming was easier than burying the truth beneath a smooth bundle of lies—lies she'd never believe anyway.

He swore then and there that no other woman had ever seen him so clearly. And then he swore for being way too pleased that she did.

So when she said, "Tripp?" in a voice that was all sugar and spice, one he knew would be matched by a dreamy soft look in her doe-bright eyes, he couldn't help it. He gave in and looked down.

And she either wasn't as frightened as she'd been claiming to be or she really thought he could save her.

Tripp sighed. It was bloody damned hell having a woman look at you like that. Like you were the hero she'd been waiting for.

He pretended that he needed to clear his throat. "Thing is, Glory, I'm not exactly an engineering project consultant."

She nodded with way too much know-it-all enthusiasm— which made her
such
an easy target to tease.

"I leap tall buildings in single bounds. I spin webs in any size. You know," he added, struggling to keep a straight face.
"To catch thieves.
Like they were flies."

"
Dammit
,
Shaughnessey
.
I'm going to have to hurt you now."

He braced himself for the attack, nose scrunched, eyes screwed up. So he was totally unprepared for her to kiss him. And that was exactly what she did.

Her lips moved lightly over his, trembling as she murmured his name, and plea after plea to help her, to talk to her, to tell her that they'd both be okay.

He didn't have the use of his hands, goddamn it, and could only shift around until he was sitting sideways and could press her skull to the wall.

He silenced her murmurs with a bruising, punishing kiss. She had no idea what she was asking. How he had sworn never to make promises to anyone again.

But she tasted like fine spun cotton candy, like all the good things a man wanted in his life. And he knew that long-ago oath wasn't worth the air he'd written it on that first night spent on his belly crawling through Colombia's rain forest with cocaine on his fingertips and a bullet in his thigh.

He kissed her anyway, because it was better than thinking, than talking, and because she just plain knew how to kiss. So few women did, or even knew what a kiss did to a man. How nothing but the feel of soft lips and compliance could bring him to his knees.

Glory's kiss did it all, which was why he had to pull away, ease away, set her away and give her the truth. "I trained in Special Ops and spent more than a few years as a sniper."

"A sniper?" she
asked,
her voice low and awed. "Like with a gun?"

"No," he replied, wanting none of her awe.
"With my dick."

She glared deeply into his eyes. "You,
Shaughnessey
, are
cruisin
' for a
bruisin
'."

"Maybe so," he admitted, lightening up the mood. "But at least I'm
cruisin
' faster than a speeding bullet."

She silently studied his face for a moment before she asked, "Have you killed people?"

He nodded, added, "No one who didn't deserve it."

"You're comfortable making that call?"

He'd had to be. It was kill or be killed. Kill or watch innocent
victims
die of bullets, of abuse, needles in their veins or powder up their nose. "Are you going to judge me now? Change your mind about dessert?"

She rocked her head side to side. "I think all I'm doing is trying to figure you out."

"That could take a fairly long lifetime. I haven't yet managed it and I've been living with myself for, uh, quite a few years."

"How many?" she asked and nearly caught him off guard.

He leaned forward, rubbed his nose over hers.
"Now, sweetheart.
Numbers don't matter. You're only as old as you feel."

"Since my hands aren't free at the moment to do any feeling, I need you to tell me."

"You are a clever little thing, aren't
you.
"

"Actually, this faux cleverness is a weak attempt to keep my mind occupied." She sighed, deflated, closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and stared across the room. "Otherwise, I'm going to think too much about what's going to happen next and whether I'm going to walk out of here alive."

"You will. We both will."

"How do you know?"

"It's what I do, remember?
All that web-spinning and building-leaping?"
When she looked even less convinced, he sighed. "Glory, listen to me. Even if the SOS wasn't picked up, I'll get us out of here. This is what I do. I need you to trust me."

"I do. It's just. . ."

"Just what?"

"It's just that I had an argument with my mother this morning and we didn't exactly hang up the phone on the best of terms."

God, but she was going to break his heart. Yet he went on making promises anyway. "No worries. You two can kiss and make up as soon as we're out of here."

"Do you think she and my father know what's happening?"

"With the police out front?
I'm sure News Channel 4 is already on the scene. Plus, wanting to learn what they could about the shop . . ."

"The cops would've called my parents." She dropped her gaze, shifted so that she was leaning more against the wall than against him. "I don't want them to worry. I wish I could let them know I'm okay."

He hated that he couldn't offer her the cell phone he'd taken off the lookout.
But
Vuong
could return any second and Tripp wasn't about to give up any advantage.

"Right now it's a standoff. No shots have been fired and no demands made."

"That we know of, anyway."

He nodded. "True. But this
Danh
Vuong
didn't sound like a man with demands to make of anyone outside. What he wants is in here."

"That's what I don't get. I don't launder money or harbor political prisoners. What could he possibly want?"

Tripp blew out a long breath. If he told her the truth, he'd be jeopardizing his own case by exposing the Spectra agent. But he'd also have an intelligent and informed ally. And that never hurt in a pinch.

He bit the bullet. "The professor working on his memoir is not a professor. He's an agent of an international crime syndicate and he's using your shop as a drop point."

"A drop point," she echoed.

"A courier from Marian Diamonds is either being blackmailed into giving up details on illegal shipments out of Sierra Leone or is selling his soul to the devil."

"And you know this how? No, wait." She closed her eyes, shook her head. "I'm dizzy with these webs you're spinning, Tripp."

"Sorry, sweetheart. It's not a pretty life I lead. But I figure
it's
best you realize what you're dealing with here."

"What I'm dealing with? Are you kidding? I can't digest half of what you've said. Well, except for the part where you swore you wouldn't let anything happen to me."

"Did I say that?"

"I sure hope I didn't dream it. Though, actually, if I were dreaming all of this it would be a whole lot easier to deal with because morning would be on the way." She settled closer again. "You know, morning? Waking up? Stretching, yawning, getting a cup of coffee?"

"What about the smooching?"

One dark brow went up. "Smooching?"

"Smooching, cuddling. All those juicy early morning wake-up goodies."

"And here I thought you were above all that physical stuff."

"Are you kidding? That physical stuff is what guys are made off."

"What happened to frogs and snails and puppy dog tails?"

"Ah, those were the days."

"Right.
Now it's all about
spiderwebs
," she said and collapsed in on herself as if she'd exhausted her energy reserve.