Unmasking the Mercenary (15 page)

He took the invitation and sank his finger as deep as he could reach. It drew a guttural sound from her. He kissed her through it, his tongue matching what his finger was doing. She came hard. He stilled his finger through the clenching release.

Coherency floated back to her in a fog. She opened her eyes. Rem lifted his head. His breaths puffed against her mouth. His eyes communicated a need that penetrated her. He needed her. Needed to be inside her.

Inside her.

More coherency returned.

He wanted to make love. Put his erection inside her. Images of Iraq assailed her. She tensed.

He immediately noticed. She saw it in his face. In the way the heat changed from unbridled desire to restraint born of pure willpower.

The muscles in his jaw flexed. He slid his finger out of her and she lowered her leg as he stepped back. He stood there a few seconds, breathing irregular, looking at her nipples and lower before returning to her face.

“I need to go down to the bar for a while,” he told her.

And a rush of warm affection for him swarmed her. He understood. She nodded.

He turned and left the room, closing the door with a hard thud.

Leaning her head back, she shut her eyes and immersed herself in the feelings he’d left her with. She rubbed her hands over her body, wishing they were Rem’s hands, wishing she hadn’t withdrawn. Collapsing on the bed, she rolled onto her back with her arms thrown above her head, looking at the ceiling. This was the closest she’d come to being with a man since Iraq. Would Rem be the man to cure her?

Maybe it would be best if she stayed focused on her purpose here.

Then she remembered he hadn’t told her what he’d found from the
hawaladar
.

“Another,” Rem said to the bartender when the man came over to check on his drink.

The bartender nodded and poured another scotch.

Someone slinked onto the barstool beside him.

He glanced over. Then looked again. Haley.

She’d dressed in the white shorts he’d packed for her, along with a low-cut black-and-white top that revealed more of her breasts than he could handle right now.

“You should not have come down here,” he said.

She met the meaningful look he sent her with a smile. “Relax, we’re in public.”

“For now.”

She looked down at that before recovering and meeting his gaze again. “What did you find out tonight?”

So she had a reason for daring to be near him. “The name of another
hawaladar
.”

“Another?”

“That’s how the they work. Someone contacts the first one with instructions on a financial transaction, and that
hawaladar
contacts another to carry it out. Different countries. Different couriers. Very little record keeping.”

“I’m aware of how the system works.”

“How could I have forgotten?” Maybe it was when he had his finger drenched in her wetness. Yeah, that explained it. “Rem…”

He noticed her reluctance but didn’t feel like helping her.

“About earlier…”

“No need to talk about it,” he said. God, please, don’t make her want to talk about that now.

“I—”

“Haley.”

“I wanted to—”

“It’s okay, really.”

“No. I wanted to…you know.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Make love,” she said anyway.

He started to get aroused. “I get it. No problem.”

“No. I mean…”

He sensed her need to talk and struggled with his physical reaction. Did she know how badly he wanted to get her naked?

“I—I…i-it’s just that it’s…”

Rem swiveled his bar stool and took her hands in his. She glanced down and then back up into his eyes, spearing him even more with emotion he couldn’t fight.

“Don’t talk about this, Haley. Please.” He was afraid he sounded desperate. Had he ever felt like this before? He didn’t think so. “I understand. There’s no need to explain it to me.”

“But—”

“If you keep talking about it, I’m not going to be able to stop myself from taking you back up to the room and spending the rest of the night wiping out every bad memory you have of Iraq.” He said it as gently as he could.

Her head jerked back a bit and her mouth formed an O.

“Can I get you anything?” the bartender asked.

Rem was glad for the interruption.

Haley turned an awkward gaze to the man. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

Chapter 9

A
fter landing in Prague, Haley wished they’d come for a vacation instead of locating another globe-trotting
hawaladar.
She hadn’t asked how Rem had gotten the information from the last one and she didn’t want to know.

She rode with Rem in a taxi along crowded streets lined with ancient buildings. She couldn’t absorb enough of the beauty that passed her window. The taxi came to a stop in front of the Prague Marriott Hotel. The
hawaladar
Rem had located ran a boutique in Wenceslas Square, a short ride from here.

Inside, the spacious lobby was beige with accents of maroon and black. Crystal fountains showcased an already grand staircase. Haley waited while Rem checked in, then rode the elevator with him. He hadn’t said when they’d meet the second
hawaladar
. It was early afternoon and she was hungry. They’d skipped lunch. The prospect of dinner with Rem gave her stomach a noticeable case of butterflies. She wondered if he’d want room service again. In Prague? Even as uneasy as she felt spending what could be construed as intimate moments if they stayed in the room, she couldn’t waste an opportunity to get out and explore an exotic city.

She’d read on the way here there were some good restaurants on Parizska Street. Along with some upscale shops. Cartier, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Hermès Paris, Christian Dior. They were all there. Not that she was interested in going into any of them. At her rising ambivalence Haley slowed her steps on her way into the room. Did she want to go shopping?

Wandering into the room, vaguely noticing the rich hues of maroon and cream, she sat on a cream-colored chair. She hadn’t wanted to do that since before Iraq. There were a lot of things she did before Iraq that didn’t have the same appeal now. Shopping made her feel feminine, which usually reminded her how vulnerable she was as a woman. And that always led to thoughts of her ordeal, threatening to unearth memories she needed to keep buried. It was a constant fear. That one day something would trigger a horrible memory that would unleash a blow-by-blow replay of what had happened to her. The best she could hope for was that she had gone unconscious before the worst of what the doctors had said her body had suffered.

Rem glanced at her as he put a duffel on the king-sized bed. Glanced again. Of course, he’d notice a change in her. She doubted if he ever missed anything.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

She could see his doubt.

She jumped to her feet. “Let’s go walk down Parizska Street.” Anything to get them out of this room and him from questioning her too much. She didn’t have to shop. Just take in the sights. What harm would there be in that?

She walked toward the door, swung it open and looked expectantly back at Rem. Without saying anything, he approached the door. She could barely meet his gaze, it was so astute right now. He knew something had gotten to her.

She hurried ahead of him to the elevator doors. He stopped beside her where she waited for them to open, feeling him take her in. She ignored him. The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside. He pressed the button for the lobby floor.

At the third floor the elevator stopped and a woman entered. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, tall and slender, she looked first at Rem, then Haley. But her attention returned to Rem and her eyes took on an unmistakable hint of interest. Haley tried to ignore Rem’s indifference to it.

The elevator doors opened and the woman left first. Haley left next, ahead of Rem. He put his hand on her lower back as they made their way through the elegant lobby.

Outside the hotel, Rem got a cab. He told the driver where to go and then leaned back against the seat beside her. She took in the sights of old architecture on the short ride to Parizska Street. The cab stopped and they got out.

Shops lined the street, pretty and inviting. A smile burst onto Haley’s face.

“Oh,” she breathed.

Rem smiled, just enough to let her know he liked her response. “Have you ever been here?”

“No.”

“Never? Not even to the Czech Republic?”

“No.” He reached his hand toward hers and she automatically gave it to him.

The heat and roughness of his skin stole her focus a moment as she started walking with him. She couldn’t keep thinking of that hand running over her bare skin and going between her legs. So she let the grandeur of some of the shops take her mind off of it.

Passing one amazing window display after another, she had to fight the urge to go into one. A boutique displaying a black dress in the window pushed her over the edge. She didn’t know why it caught her eyes. It was a dress. Very feminine, very something she would have worn pre-Iraq.

Haley entered the store and drifted between artfully arranged displays of clothes.

She chose a few tops she liked, but the black dress on a mannequin kept nudging her. Searching around the shop, trying to be nonchalant about it, she finally found the dresses. She checked on Rem. He’d found himself a chair near the dressing rooms. Great. Exactly where she didn’t want him. Plus, he’d been watching her the way he had when she’d left the hotel room. By now he’d probably put together what this was about. She had issues with her femininity and something was making her overcome it today.

Yes, it was a sign that she was healing from Iraq. But the part Rem played in it made her uneasy. She was afraid she wasn’t doing this for herself. That really she wanted to look feminine for
him.
And why? Because she wanted him. But how could she ever have him?

It didn’t have to be for the rest of her life. The thought came as she found her size in the black dress. She hesitated before heading for the dressing rooms. What if she just had sex with him? It was another step closer to healing. If he could help her do that, what was wrong with going after him? She went to an area of shoes and found a pair of black sandals before weaving her way to a dressing room.

Inside, she tried on the dress. Something told her it was going to look great. And it did. It flattered her curves without being overly suggestive. Sexy, but nice.

She wanted to wear it. Now. To dinner.

She froze in the act of admiring the drape of material that fell to her knees.

With Rem?

He was in jeans. The dress was pretty casual…

Yes. She wanted to be with him. Intimately. Dinner would be a good start.

Oh, hell. Was she really considering this?

Before the thinking part of her could rationalize it further, she pulled off the tags and slipped into the sandals. Opening the dressing room door, she saw Rem’s lifting eyes and quickly averted her gaze. She caught his sort of come-to-attention turn-of-the-head as she passed him on the way to the checkout counter with the clothes she had been wearing.

She handed the clerk the tags from the dress and the empty shoe box and realized she didn’t have any money. All her things were in Rem’s duffel bag. Rem appeared beside her, wallet already open. He dropped money and the clerk bagged her things, eyeing her and then Rem.

“What’s this all about, Haley?” he asked, as they left the shop.

“I might never get to Prague again. It’ll be nice to have something to take home with me.”

“You know that’s not why you’re wearing that dress.”

“I’m hungry. I want to go somewhere for dinner.”

“You could barely wear that sundress at Locke’s compound.”

“But I did wear it.”

Without arguing further, he reached for her hand again, the rougher skin of his sliding over hers as their fingers laced. However sweet and innocent the contact was, it sent a tingle of delight sparkling through her.

The sun had set, and the lights along Parizska Street cast the old architecture in spectacular detail.

Rem led her down the street a block and a half before coming to Pravda. Through the window she could see candlelit white tablecloths. People were dressed in everything from jeans to evening wear.

She felt the loss of Rem’s hand as he held the door open for her. Inside, the detail of the white moldings accented the contemporary decor. A hostess sat them at a row of tables with one long bench seat topped with beige and white pillows. Brown wicker chairs lined the opposite side of the tables. She chose the bench seat, and Rem sat across from her on a wicker chair.

He ordered wine, and she studied the menu of varied international fare. Chilean sea bass. Tiger prawn wok. Beef tenderloin. It all sounded good to her, so when Rem ordered the sea bass, she ordered the same and then settled back against the seat to look at him.

His gaze caught hers and lowered to the front of the dress before returning. His eyes slowly blinked in recognition of her direct look, and she witnessed his rare softening. She let herself fall into the energy that hummed between them and the way it made her feel to have him look at her like that.

She knew where this night was headed. And it gave her a flash of apprehension. He couldn’t be the right man for her. Not with her history. And yet, there was this pull between them.

“This restaurant reminds me of the one our neighbor owned growing up,” Haley said from across the table, anything to cool off their chemistry. She looked around the restaurant. “The decor. The smells.” She inhaled, closing her eyes and tipping her head back a little, savoring the sensory enjoyment it brought her.

He lifted his glass of wine and leaned back against the chair again. She watched him, unable to deny how much she liked doing that. Just staring at him. At his eyes. She loved his eyes. Especially when they lost their icy indifference, like right now.

“He had a daughter who was a couple of years older than me,” she continued, forcing herself to remain focused on their conversation. “We used to play all the time. We’d pretend there was a village in a vacant field behind our house. The field was full of tiny hills and valleys that would fill with water in the spring. We’d put on waders and walk through there, imagining buildings and houses on waterfront property.” She smiled and laughed softly. “God, I was so innocent then.”