Travis Justice (14 page)

Somehow he knew she had never trusted a man with such total intimacy. He was further humbled and intrigued. In return, he ceded himself to her as he never had to any woman, letting her do what she would with his powerful body.

Smiling, her expression soft, she lowered herself a tiny bit at a time, relishing the long slide to unity. The immersion, slow inch by inch, was the most sexually humbling experience of his life, for Hana remained real to him, more than a feminine sheath designed to give him pleasure. She was his choice, he was hers, and the full intimacy of what they did would leave them both forever marked. Together they reached, so entwined they had no beginning and no end. Then he was finally master of her body, deep inside her, while she luxuriated in his power, cradling him inside to the tip of her pulsing womb. For a long moment, with him engulfed all the way, she stayed still. She rested her cheek against his chest, listening to the throb of his heart, feeling the same pulse in the throbbing muscle inside.

Again, she spoke, saying simply, “Look at me, Zach.”

Totally bewitched, he opened his eyes. Her little smile all the more sensual because she licked her lips, she held his eyes and tightened her inner muscles upon his length. Then he couldn't see her at all because his eyes fluttered closed at the powerful sensations. Once, twice, again, and then he could stand no more.

His instincts took over. He lifted her away, ignoring her protests, needing leverage, and bent her forward over the wide arm of the plush chair. Immediately, he buried himself in one fierce lunge. He heard her groan, but he knew it wasn't with pain. He withdrew slowly, letting her feel each inch, then immersed himself again in a famished lunge so hard the chair scraped against the floor.

He didn't even hear it. The next time, he caught her hips to tip her up slightly to better fit inside. The next thrust sent him as deep as he could go, but it still wasn't enough. He withdrew and pushed back, harder, again, again. At the same time, he reached around her to touch the turgid nubbin designed to welcome him. He heard her groans become pants. He thrust in one last time with all the power of his lower body, his feet planted to give him strength. He felt her body bow in his arms to take it. With joy, with celebration in his power, she pushed back, opening, opening. He felt her hips squirm to take more of him, her pants becoming a keening, primal need. With equal savage instinct, he knew he'd found his match, in bed and out of it. This time, exultation shattered the last of his control.

The floodgates crashed open, the tide rushing in with every surge, higher and higher. And then . . . cataclysm. He burst, and she screamed, her womanhood pulsing around his ejaculation. Man, woman, neither apart, but complete, a shared little death in the conquest of life.

Both of them shivering, the dying pulsations slowly leaving them weak, they fell into the chair. He lifted her onto his lap, cradling her into his arms. She listened to the beat of his heart; he held his hand over her breast, cupping the gift of her in his palm.

Like that, totally relaxed and entwined, they slept. As he drifted off, Zach clutched her close, knowing that no matter what happened, he'd find a way to protect her from the battle to come, and to win her for his own ever after.

* * *

The second time, in the bed, was longer and much more tender, but when Zach finally stirred himself to go, Hana had to restrain her urge to clutch at him. She saw the look on his face as he glanced at his watch. She knew it was almost time for the van to pick them up for the trip to find the compound. She'd known she was only delaying, not ending, the reckoning awaiting her in Kai's lair, but somehow the passion she'd just experienced made her stronger for the ordeal.

He gave her a quick kiss, promising he'd be back with the others in the van. Then he was gone, leaving her not bereft, but resolved. The pleasure he'd given her in his savage taking brought pink to her cheeks as she looked at herself in the mirror. A love bite on her neck was turning blue and she knew she'd have to wear her primmest turtleneck. Hana knew, no matter what his mother thought, that she could never be an appropriate love match for Zachary. But for now, knowing he'd chosen her because he both wanted and needed her desperately, was enough.

However, as she took a quick shower and dressed in her black spandex, she gained another certainty. Kai already hated all law enforcement, especially Texas Rangers. He'd taken a shot at Zach's father. If he saw her and Zach together, no matter how indifferent she tried to be, he'd know she'd fallen in love with the man who'd caught and arrested her.

She had to avoid that at all costs, because Zach was inherently an honorable man. He had no idea how ruthless Kai could really be. If Zach confronted Kai in his lair, Kai would be as dangerous as a wounded grizzly. He'd not fight fair.

Therefore, both to protect Takeo and to avert a disastrous confrontation between Zach and Kai, she had to find a way to enter the compound before the raid.

Alone . . . perhaps then, using the sword as bait, she could find a way to at least partially neutralize Kai. If she knew Ernie, he'd been snooping from the day he arrived and would already know how to cut Kai's surveillance system.

When a couple of hours later, Zach came to fetch her for the ordeal of trying to find the compound, Hana had won back most of her composure. As much as she wanted it for protection, just in case, she secreted the sword in Ernie's hidden safe room. If they somehow got caught, she wouldn't dare risk Kai seizing the blade from her as an interloper. She only had leverage if she walked boldly to the front gate to complete their bargain. Then she typed a quick text.

A few minutes later, she had to hide a smile when she saw Zach's face, blackened in a way that somehow only accented his symmetrical bone structure. He, like the two DPS troopers across from him, wore camouflage. Hana knew they didn't intend to waste any time. If they successfully found the compound, job one was to reconnoiter and test the security points for any weakness—now, tonight. So they'd dressed accordingly.

As she shunned Zach's assistance to get into the back of the paneled van, she wondered if he knew his mother had vetted her as if she were a prize mare about to be presented to the stable's best stud. But the slight soreness between her legs was a badge of honor, proof of his interest in her as more than an informant.

If he knew her thoughts, his manner wasn't any different. Brisk, professional, he only touched her to put the hood over her head and bind her hands loosely in front.

They'd duplicated as closely as they could her prior trip: enclosed van, the same time of night, around midnight, hood and bindings, starting from the same place. And now as then, because she couldn't support herself and tell when the turns were coming, they were easier for her to read because of the way her body swayed as the van took corners.

Their point of origin, Hana's former day hotel, lay directly off Interstate 35, so the first leg of the trip was easy for Hana to re-create. “We made a left onto the entrance ramp; I could feel it in the turn of the vehicle,” Hana said. “So we went south down thirty-five.”

The driver turned as she indicated.

“Can you estimate how far before the next turn?” Zach asked softly, hoping not to interrupt her concentration.

She shook her hooded head and continued her counting out loud. When she reached 2007 she said, “There should be an exit in the next few seconds.”

They took the next exit. But here they had to pause because Hana was listening closely. “I heard some kind of loud music before, like a honky-tonk country bar. We turned past it, to the right, I think. The road was bumpy and full of potholes. It curved and it felt narrow, from the movement of the van.”

Past the access-road stop sign, they looked around and finally spotted a little dive bar, its lights off, the gravel parking lot empty. It was a Sunday night.

“OK,” Zach said, his voice a bit tense. “We see the bar. We made a right. Now what?”

Hana was counting again. When she reached 966 she said, “There's a sharp turn to the left off this road onto something rougher, like gravel or caliche. I heard and felt the stuff hitting our undercarriage and the surface crunched, so it definitely was not asphalt.”

They had to back up because they missed the turn at first in the dark. It was nothing more than an opening in a barbed-wire fence. The rough road led over a cattle guard. They shone the lights on it.

“Was there a cattle guard?” Zach asked.

“Yes. And another one further down a few minutes, if we're on the right road.”

They turned as she indicated.

Zach leaned toward the driver. “We'd better turn off the lights and go very slow. If this is the right road, we don't want them to hear us or see us, obviously.”

The driver did as Zach suggested. He paused a minute after the turn to put on a pair of night-vision goggles, and then he drove on with more surety.

This time, her count was only 201 before she said sharply, “Turn to the left.”

Again, they missed the turn and had to back up. After they crossed the second cattle guard, this caliche road was even more narrow and full of potholes, as if it were deliberately not maintained.

“Stop for a second, please, and let me get my bearings.”

The driver stopped immediately. Hana tilted her head, as if listening. “I heard cattle lowing that night. Do you see any?”

Zach climbed out of the van and shone a powerful xenon flashlight through the trees. He saw numerous Black Angus lying in the grassy clearing. His light also hit something else in the broad meadow: windmills. At least a dozen of them, the tall kind with the single propeller.

Snapping off the light, he got back in the van. “This must be it. There's a ton of those windmills that produce power. They cost a fortune. Your typical rancher wouldn't need that much power. He's staying off the grid. That's why we never found him.”

“If this is the right turn,” Hana continued, “you'll come to a very long asphalt driveway. At the end is an electric gate. I heard it hum as it was opened. We went down that driveway for about fifty seconds before we stopped and they let me out, leading me up steps into a house. It had wooden floorboards and felt like a porch.”

Zach looked at his colleagues. “What do you think? On foot from here?”

The other two troopers nodded.

When Hana heard the van door swing wide again, she yanked off the hood. “I'm coming.”

Zach paused, half in, half out the door. “Like hell you are.”

Her mouth set in that mulish scowl, she only looked at him, holding her bound wrists out to be cut. They locked gazes, this battle of wills even fiercer than their former tussles.

“I know Kai's tactics,” Hana said calmly. “He'll have guards posted in the trees. I promise to only observe.”

When Zach shook his head, her voice turned soft and pleading. “Please. I might see Takeo. It worries me we haven't heard from Ernie. I have to know they're both okay.”

Sighing heavily, Zach unsheathed the Ka-Bar from the holster in the middle of his back and used it to cut her bonds. She bounded up and outside the van, looking around, her long black hair tied in a ponytail at her nape.

Zach was busy giving orders. He looked at the driver. “Take the van back up the road to the first turn. Try to pull it off and hide it in a clearing if you can. Drive back here to pick us up in thirty minutes.” Zach looked at his watch and said, “We all need to synchronize. If we get separated we meet back here at oh-one hundred. Sharp. That gives us thirty minutes.”

They all synchronized their watches. After they'd put on their night-vision goggles, Hana pulled on her hood with the inset lenses.

She warned them, “They'll be in camo too. Watch every possible hiding place, including trees and brush. They'll have night-vision also and they're very stealthy.”

Zach ordered, “Keep to cover as much as possible so they can't see your body heat.”

“What if we're spotted?” one of the troopers asked. “Do we engage?”

Zach hesitated.

Hana didn't. “I realize there are rules for this type of thing in law enforcement, but I can tell you this much: If Kai's men find us snooping around and successfully capture us, we're all dead.”

“Use your discretion,” Zach said finally. “Take them captive if you can so we can get intel, but if your life is at risk, defend yourself however necessary.”

They scattered, each in a different direction.

“You stay with me,” Zach said curtly to Hana.

Hana tossed him an irritated look that said he wasn't the boss of her, but she followed him nonetheless. Soon enough, her heart was beating hard at her ribs, and not from the short hike. She knew Takeo was probably in bed, but something in her felt she'd finally glimpse him herself. This close to him, she had to try. Maybe then she could sleep and quit having nightmares that something had happened to him.

* * *

Inside the compound, all was quiet. At this late hour, even Kai was in bed. However, guards both inside and outside were still vigilant.

Ernie tossed off his covers and pulled his baggy
gi
over his nakedness. There was no safe time to do this, so he had to think of a distraction. He knew no one slept on Kai's watch: Partly because of their incessant training, but mostly because of the severe punishment if anything went down on their guard duty. Kai had written his own manifesto of sorts. Every one of his converts had to memorize it, for it laid out both rewards and punishments. Ernie had been given his own copy.

The first offense of sleeping on the job was only a loss of the tip of one pinkie. A second infraction led to the loss of two fingers, and so on. Kai had embraced this barbaric part of the Yakuza tradition of cutting off appendages as a means of discipline. Only two of Kai's men in his entire complement of forty or so were partially missing a pinkie. After he read the manifesto, Ernie had started watching all the men who paraded in and out of his ring. He suspected he knew why only two of the gang members were missing pinkies—and none, so far as he could tell, were missing actual fingers.