The Spy Who Left Me (32 page)

He thrust into her without mercy as the lapping waves they created licked her bottom and sand ground into her back. Rough waves of pleasure just this side of pain coursed through her. Building, building, building.

She couldn’t tell whether he meant to punish her or he’d simply lost control. As she had.

She pulled her mouth from his shoulder and stared into his eyes, looking for an answer. His eyes were dark. She lost herself in them, no longer caring what he meant. This was how souls joined.

She rocked and let the waves of passion roll over and over her. She leaned her forehead against his and rocked harder as the tension built.

She moaned.

He tensed and stiffened.

She arched and screamed in the ecstasy of climax as never before, letting the waves crash over her while the pounding thrum of the waterfall drowned out all else.

She didn’t hear Ty grunt, couldn’t hear him breathe. But she felt him. And that was more than enough.

As the crescendo subsided, she ran her hands through his hair, kissed his neck, and whispered, “I love you.”

She swallowed hard and held his head against her neck. He’d never hear. He’d never know. She let the words tumble out again. “I love you, Ty. You. Always.”

He squeezed her tight. His lips brushed her hair. His warm breath moved against her hair. He was saying something, but she couldn’t tell what.

Eventually, he rolled off her.

She lay looking at the moon, holding hands with him until she felt a chill.

She sat up and scooted back out of the water onto the beach, feeling around in the sand for her clothes.

Ty reached over, grabbed her hand, and brushed her wet hair back off her shoulder. She recognized the look in his eyes. The man wanted more. So did she.

When it’s been six months, it doesn’t take long to lock and reload. He pushed her onto her back on their pile of clothes and entered her again.

As she arched against him, she grasped for something to hang on to in the soft sand. She grabbed onto his shorts beneath her and … there it was, the thing she’d been looking for all along.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Tref loves me. Mission two accomplished,
Ty thought as he and Tref strolled back to camp hand in hand. He was ridiculously happy. He’d never wanted that damn divorce.

He wore his rumpled, sandy, sex-stained clothes and wasn’t the least bit embarrassed by his appearance. Let people look.

Greg was keeping watch as they entered the camp area. Ty gave him a nod. Greg gave him a quick thumbs-up. Tref didn’t appear to catch it.

Ty’s turn at watch would come at dawn. First he planned to get a few hours of much-deserved after-sex sleep. The sex had been so good, he’d sleep until noon if he wasn’t careful.

Most of the time, he operated sleep deprived. Four or five on-edge, sometimes nightmare-filled, hours every twenty-four wasn’t exactly what the doctor recommended for perfect health. It was something he’d never told Tref, but he slept better with her than he slept anywhere else. Particularly after lovemaking. Especially after it had been mind-blowing. He wouldn’t tell her for two reasons—it made him vulnerable, and he didn’t want her to think she was simply his sleeping pill.

There were other things he didn’t tell her, either. Like how he’d heard every little moan and whimper she’d made at the waterfall. True,
she
couldn’t hear a thing. Nor could anyone else. But he had his trusty white-noise-canceling spy ear, a minuscule earbud that fit unnoticeably into one ear. The ear, if she’d been paying attention, he hadn’t let her nibble. Just thinking about her ecstatic scream made him hard again. It was almost as good as her confession of undying love.

They stopped up short in front of his tent. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “Spend the night with me?”

She stood on her toes and brushed his lips with a light kiss that fueled the joy welling up inside him. “Yes.”

He kissed her again and held the tent door aside for her to pass through. “I have something for you.”

He waited for her to enter the tent before he pulled the jewelry box that held the pearls out from where he’d hidden them. Holding her hand, he led her to the mattress and sat down beside her before he presented the box to her.

She took it hesitantly. “What’s this?”

He grinned. He couldn’t help it. “Something I picked up for you months ago. I missed you, Tref. You don’t know how many times these last months I almost commented on the weather. I should have. I’ve never been a coward before. I’m sorry. For everything.”

She reached over and stroked his arm.

“I’d like to work things out,” he said, slowly. “Tref, I want you to know that what I do, I do for you and everyone I love. I want the world to be safe and beautiful for you.”

Her gaze flitted between the box and him. Her eyes sparkled with tears. He saw her gulp. The last thing he needed was for her to start crying.

He put his arms around her, held her tight. “Go ahead. Open it.” He felt like a kid at Christmas.

She opened the box slowly and gasped when she saw the contents. She opened her mouth but no sound came out. He’d actually made her speechless.

He stroked her hair and kissed her cheek.

The pearls caught the moonlight filtering in and shone white and bright, miniature moons on a string.

She stroked them softly. “They’re beautiful.” Her voice broke.

“Princess-length pearls for my princess.” He took the box from her hands. “Let me help you put them on.” He clasped them around her neck. “Beautiful.”

“I don’t know what to say.” She looked at him as if she were beseeching him to do something.

“Don’t say anything. Just let me look at you wearing them.” He pulled her bikini top off and stared at her naked breasts with the pearls above them. This was just what he’d imagined.

“Oh, Tref, I’ve missed you.” He kissed her and guided her down onto the mattress.

Then he made love to his wife. Again.

*   *   *

As far as air mattresses went, this one was pretty comfy. Maybe it was because Ty was there beside her. She was still digesting his revelation—he’d missed her. Missed her for real, as in not faking it for some espionage-type purpose. And he’d bought her pearls, a whole string of them. And apologized. And wanted, sincerely, to work things out. And most importantly, this time she
believed
him.

Treflee rolled up on one elbow and studied him as she fingered the pearls around her neck. He slept on his back with one arm over his head. Relaxed in slumber, he looked handsome and younger, even with the goatee, more like the guy she’d married than the hardened spy he’d grown into.

She decided, as handsome as he was with the beard, she liked him better clean shaven. He looked more like her Ty.

Her Ty.

Earlier Ty had pulled her close with one arm and fallen asleep. As any good wife knows, a satisfied man will fall asleep after sex. As soundly as Ty was sleeping, she’d made him a very happy camper.

She’d put her bikini back on. He slept with his rumpled shorts on, the very shorts that held a certain little device in a secret inside pocket. This in itself was a dead giveaway to the importance of those shorts or something in them. Wouldn’t it have been more comfortable to sleep in his boxers? Or in the buff?

She tucked a strand of loose hair into the French braid she’d plaited her hair into. She stroked his bare chest lightly with her fingers, and ran her hand up his leg under the shorts. She kissed his cheek and ran her fingers through his hair. He loved it when she played with his hair. His breathing sped up.

She liked arousing him as he slept.

Her hand skimmed over the inside pocket of his shorts. She felt the tiny device inside and froze.
Welcome to temptation!

She felt a trill of excitement. This Hawaiian adventure and all Ty’s spy intrigue had somehow rubbed off on her. Could she do it? Could she lift it from his pocket as she’d planned before? Was she spy enough?

She had to see this top secret thing. This thing that would save the world. For once she wanted to hold her destiny in her hands and make her own decision from a position of power.

Still stroking Ty’s hair, she slowly removed the device from his pocket. Ty sighed.

She kissed his forehead.

He stretched. She froze.

He rolled over onto his side. She let out a sigh of relief and pulled the data card out from beneath the cotton blanket. She stared at it in the dark. It was tiny, no bigger than her thumbnail.

Her cover-up lay rumpled next to the bed. She reached over, grabbed it, very cautiously rolled onto the floor, and stood up. Ty didn’t stir.

She stared at the device in her hand again. She needed some fresh air and time to think and make up her mind. She slid on her cover-up and slipped out of the tent into the moonlight. The minuscule thing felt as heavy and radioactive as uranium in her hand.

Alone with her thoughts, she realized part of what had driven the wedge between her and Ty was her feeling of loneliness when he was gone. The idea that she thought about him all the time while she was out of his sight, out of his mind. That his work was more important than her, not something he did
for
her.

These last few days she’d gotten a peek at how scary the world was. She was more glad than ever there were people like Ty out there protecting everyone else. The world needed more of them. Which meant the people they loved, people like her, had to make sacrifices. They had to be understanding. And sometimes, they had to handle tragedies and difficult situations without their loved one right beside them. But that didn’t mean they had to be alone in their grief. That they couldn’t lean on each other.

She should have told Ty about the baby. Should have let him comfort her rather than been angry because he’d deserted her in her hour of need. She’d been keeping an awful secret. She’d have to tell him and hope he understood.

Holding the memory card, she felt like a traitor, a backstabber. Which told her all she wanted to know. Just this morning she’d thought this was what she wanted, that this thing would buy her freedom. But the waterfall, the pearls, Ty’s apology …

She couldn’t use this against him, not just because it was a despicable, traitorous thing to do, as she realized now, but because she didn’t want to.

She turned the thing over in her hand and looked up and studied the moon. It was so clear she could see the man in it, laughing at her folly. Laughing because she’d thought her life would be better without Ty. Happiness bubbled up. She wanted to laugh with the moon.

She closed her hand around the little data card and squeezed. She had to put this back before Ty noticed it was missing. You didn’t steal, or even borrow, secrets from a spy and expect to be forgiven. You became the enemy.

As she turned back toward the tent, a footstep crunched behind her. Her heart raced. “Kane?”

A hand shot out and clamped over her mouth. “Scream and you die, bitch. You have something we want.”

As she kicked and reached to pry the hand loose with one hand, she tucked the device into her braid with the other.

“Keep struggling and I open fire on your friends there asleep in their tents.” A gun gleamed in his hand, pointing directly at the big white wedding tent.

*   *   *

Ty woke with a start. Something was wrong. He lay still, surveying the surroundings. There was a cold spot next to him. He patted the bed. Tref?

All his senses sprang to high alert. He heard the unmistakable sounds of a nearly mute struggle going on just outside the tent.

He rolled to his feet and grabbed his gun. He felt for the SDXC card in his pocket—it was missing.

Tref!
He felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut.

He moved silently to the tent opening and peeked through a crack. A hooded assailant held Tref at gunpoint.

“I wouldn’t.” Zulu Fong spoke softly and pressed a gun against the back of Ty’s head. “Drop the gun.”

Zulu had him dead to rights. Ty slowly released the gun.

“Turn around.” Zulu pulled the pistol away from Ty’s head. “Slowly.”

Ty turned around and stared into the barrel of a gun aimed in his face.

Zulu stared at him with cold, calculating eyes. A second armed Fuk Ching lifted the back tent flap and slid in behind him.

Ty cursed beneath his breath. Once again Tref had distracted him from his duty.

Zulu’s eyes sparkled as if he were enjoying himself. He kicked the gun to his associate. “My man
Bang
”—Zulu emphasized the name for effect—“has your girlfriend outside with a gun to her head, too.”

“Yeah, I saw,” Ty said.

Zulu grinned. “She has something we want. Maybe you know where she stashed it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, dude.”

Zulu hit Ty with a left hook to the side of the face. Ty’s head snapped around so hard it felt like his brain had come loose in his skull. For a second Ty saw stars. When the astronomy show cleared, he tasted blood running from the side of his mouth. He took a deep breath and wiped at it with his bare shoulder.